Rule of God (Book Three of the Dominium Dei Trilogy) (5 page)

Athanasius, sinking down on his knees beside the old man, said, “I want to know everything.”

“The first thing you must know is that the Dei is only thirty years old, but the powers behind it are much, much older,” Cerberus told him. “I come from a family of stargazers and assassins, cousins to the Dovilins. We have been assassins for hire, run out of Cappadocia, since the days of the Hittite kings, and before that Egypt. My side of the family took a different turn when my great-grandfather followed the stars to Bethlehem to assassinate Jesus at his birth on orders from King Herod. But three stargazers from the East convinced him otherwise, and my family ever since has served the Lord.”

Athanasius nodded. “But not the Dei.”

“No. As I told you, the spirit of the Dei goes back centuries, to before the pharaohs of Egypt and the fall of Atlantis, all the way to the creation of the universe. They follow the stars in everything they do, from the founding of Rome to great military campaigns to the planting of crops.”

Athanasius looked at Gabrielle. “Forecasting. You chart the stars to grow grapes.”

“We use the seasons and cycles of recorded history to make better guesses for farming,” Cerberus said. “Not to chart our lives. A man reaps what he sows, regardless of what the stars may say. Which is more than I can say for the Romans, who conscripted my services during the Judean War thirty years ago.”

“Vespasian,” Athanasius said. “The first head.”

“You were right, Gabrielle,” Cerberus said. “He is quick to connect the dots.” Cerberus took a breath. “Yes, Vespasian, and then his son Titus. They wanted to know their enemy’s intricate Jewish calendars and Sabbaths and use the stars against them. Then, after destroying Jerusalem, they brought the treasures of the temple to Rome and erected a vast coliseum, the Flavian Amphitheater. All this you know now. But what you don’t know is that the Dei was forged in the ashes of the Judean War between three men: Vespasian, Dovilin and Mucianus.”

Mucianus! Athanasius thought. Surely it was no coincidence that the last apostle John directed him to the memoirs of the former Syrian governor in the library at Ephesus.

“Mucianus was the mastermind who put the Flavians and Dovilins together,” Cerberus said. “Domitian’s father Vespasian had been given a special command in Judea by Nero with orders to put down the Great Jewish Revolt almost thirty years ago, and Mucianus supported him with arms and troops and passage across the Anatolian plains. After Nero died and there was civil war for control of Rome, Mucianus marched on Rome on behalf of Vespasian with an army drawn from the Judean and Syrian legions—and Dovilin mercenaries and assassins. Meanwhile, Mucianus had Vespasian travel to Alexandria, where he was proclaimed emperor, and secure control of the vital grain supplies from Egypt. Vespasian’s son Titus remained in Judea to deal with the Jewish rebellion.”

“Where was Domitian in all of this?” Athanasius asked. “He had to have been 17 or so during the Year of Four Emperors.”

“Under Mucianus’s protection in Rome while Vespasian was in Egypt,” Cerberus said. “Domitian was the nominal head of Rome in the months before his father finally arrived to claim the throne. But for all practical purposes Mucianus was the de facto emperor of Rome.”

“What happened to Mucianus later on? He seems to have disappeared from Roman life entirely, leaving only his travelogue of Asia Minor.”

“That is a very good question, Athanasius, and you must find the answer, because the Dei has evolved considerably from Mucianus’s original three-fold purpose,” Cerberus explained. “The first purpose of the Dei was to establish a secret Praetorian to ensure the continuity of the Flavian dynasty. Until Vespasian, the Praetorian had been known to select rather than protect their Caesars, and dispose of them at will.

“The second purpose was to reverse the supply lines that Vespasian and Mucianus had established for the military during the Judean War and bring the spoils of the provinces back to Rome. Commerce, as you may have detected, is the heart of the organization, and the Dovilins were given a free hand with land in Cappadocia so long as they could also provide bodies.

“The third purpose, and most sinister, was to create a vast counter-insurgency to pacify the Church.”

Athanasius wasn’t sure he understood. “Pacify the Church?”

“The horrors of the Judean War and the fanaticism of the Jews at Masada frightened Vespasian,” Cerberus said. “He knew that wars fought with ideas are different than wars fought with spears. He worried that the Christian faith had become a virus after the destruction of the temple, leaping from Jews to Gentiles like some plague that could engulf the empire now that it was no longer ethno-centric. So he wanted to encourage a civil war within the Church between Jew and Gentile to further isolate Jews in Asia Minor. Then he wanted to use the Dei within the Praetorian in Rome to infiltrate the disciples of the apostle Paul who had taken root under Nero.”

Athanasius nodded. “So for thirty years the Dei was an imperial network to spy out and pacify the Church from within,” he said. “Until Domitian changed the game by using the Dei to assassinate Roman officials—his enemies—and publicly blame the Christians, pitting the Church against the State. Why?”

“The stars, of course,” Cerberus said. “Domitian’s birth chart proclaimed the date of his death. His father, brother and the rest of the Dei believe the stars are destiny, and therefore Domitian had none. I suspect he killed his father and then killed his brother, and has been killing anybody else who believes the prophecies.”

Back in Rome, Domitian was listening to his replacement for Caelus drone on about this moon and that sign. His name was Ascletario, and Ludlumus had dug him up from somewhere in Germania. He was fairly well-known around Rome and had moved up in prominence after Caelus’s demise. His specialty was interpreting signs and dreams, and already Domitian didn’t like what he was hearing inside the basilica at the Palace of the Flavians.

“I must stand by my previous assessments,” Ascletario concluded.

Domitian had summoned the astrologer after yet another spate of lightning strikes across Rome and the rest of the empire. So much so that he awakened from his sleep just the other night and cried out for all to hear, “Let him now strike whom he will!” That very night the capitol was struck by lightning, as was the temple of the Flavian family, and even the palace itself. Come morning the Praetorian had discovered that the tablet inscribed upon the base of his triumphal statue had been carried away by the violence of the storm.

As if that were not enough, the next night he dreamt that Minerva whom he worshipped above all else had declared to him that she could no longer protect him, because Jupiter had disarmed her, and that now he would have no sanctuary from the wrath of heaven.

Thus Domitian had hastily convened this audience with Ascletario to interpret these events and his own subsequent fate, especially in light of the impending date of September 18, which was little more than a month away.

“Tell me again what you think it all means, Ascletario,” Domitian demanded. “And where this all ends.”

“What it means is a change of government is coming soon to Rome,” Ascletario said. “Where it ends with you, Your Excellency, is in the beginning.”

The astrologer then produced Domitian’s own natal chart, as if Domitian hadn’t had it burned into his nighmares since childhood.

“As everyone, including your father Vespasian, has known, the moon and sun are in dangerous positions relative to Saturn and Mars. This has been fixed forever and cannot be changed.”

“Even by Caesar of Rome, the Lord and God of the universe?” Domitian demanded.

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

“Tell me, then, you who claims to know the future,” Domitian said. “To what end do you think you should come yourself?”

Ascletario calmly replied, “I shall in a short time be torn to pieces by dogs.”

Domitian laughed. “No, Ascletario, you won’t be torn to pieces by dogs, because I will prevent that. But you will die today.” He nodded, and his Praetorian took position on either side of the astrologer. “Kill him, and then burn his corpse.”

•    •    •

Athanasius listened intently to everything Cerberus told him about the Dei, its origins with Vespasian, Dovilin and Mucianus, and its changing nature under Domitian. All of which made him consider the scions of Dovilin and Mucianus.

“Dovilin’s son, Vibius, is dead,” Athanasius told him, waiting for a reaction from Cerberus but seeing none. “So I don’t know where Dovilin goes from here.”

“I do,” said Cerberus, and removed a letter from beneath one of the blankets upon which he lay and handed it to him. He almost knocked his small oil lamp over in the process, which seemed to be an accident waiting to happen.

The letter was an elaborate invitation, the kind Athanasius used to receive back in Rome, hand-delivered by messengers in crisp white tunics and metal-studded belts.

You are invited to the Harvest Banquet at the Dovilin Vineyards on August 18 to celebrate the Harvest of wines and the work of the Lord’s Vineyard. You will not want to miss it.

Of the hundreds of Christian leaders the Lord’s Vineyard has discovered in its first 30 years, only a few are receiving this invitation. The most successful, experienced and highly placed believers in trade, military and government are invited to attend the tenth annual Harvest Banquet.

This invitation-only event is one of the most significant of its kind. Your life will change forever. So please mark your calendar and clear your itinerary for August 18.

The Dovilin Family Vineyard is one of the most beautiful locales in all of Asia. Outstanding musicians will lift your spirits to the stars. You will experience unforgettable fellowship in safe, secure surroundings with committed Christians.

You will meet God as never before.

The invitation listed what it called famous Christians who had attended previous Harvests, but Athanasius didn’t recognize any names and was unimpressed. Where was the name of strapping Narcissus on the list? Indeed, elitist nonsense of this sort was rare even in Rome.

“Domitian’s rule is more a meritocracy than the Church’s,” he told Cerberus, handing the invitation back.

But Cerberus refused it. “You’ll need it to get into the banquet.”

“I can’t go back there. She can’t go back there. We’re going to Rome, where the Dei will least expect us, and where Domitian is.”

“But you don’t know who the Dei is today,” Cerberus said. “Dovilin is the only one of the three still around, but he now takes orders from Vespasian’s son Domitian, and Domitian may still be taking orders from Mucianus’s son or successor the way he did when he was nominal Caesar in Rome thirty years ago. You must find out what has happened to the third line in the Dei trinity. That is key, Athanasius.”

Cerberus pressed his arm for emphasis.

“If you find the successor to Mucianus in the Dei or his heir, Athanasius, you will find the man who truly rules the Dei today—or will tomorrow. The true Chiron. The linchpin of the Dei. If he is removed, the Dei falls apart. If he is not removed, you can remove Domitian but the Dei will continue, perhaps stronger than ever.”

“And you really think I might find him at this Harvest party Dovilin is throwing?”

“I think you might recognize a face from Rome that neither I nor Gabrielle nor anybody in the churches of Asia Minor would,” Cerberus said.

Athanasius immediately thought of Senator Celsus, who was his strongest link to this Mucianus successor. He could have been the one who gave the order to kill Caelus, although Athanasius could not reason why.

Cerberus said, “Getting into this banquet will be a lot easier than circumventing the Praetorian at the Palace of the Flavians.”

“It’s getting out I’m worried about,” Athanasius said. “I still don’t know how.”

Cerberus said nothing as Athanasius watched Gabrielle walk around the far perimeter of the cavern, listening.

“Who is Gabrielle, Cerberus?” Athanasius said in a low voice, leaning toward the old man. “What is she to you?”

“Gabrielle’s grandmother was a maidservant spoil of war for Vespasian during the Judean War. When she became pregnant, she hid her condition for as long as possible but was found out and killed. But the baby, Gabrielle’s mother, was delivered. I took care of her until she married. Her husband died, however, and then she died giving birth to Gabrielle. I have watched her ever since, but lost her for a year when the Minotaur men took her and sent her off to work the temples and pleasure barges. She jumped a ship and came back to help me and those who would stand firm in the spirit of the Lord and not by might or power.”

Athanasius felt the hair on the back of his neck rise at this revelation, and a chill ran down his spine. Then he remembered Cleo’s story aboard the Sea Nymph: Gabrielle was the girl who got away.

“She’s a Flavian!” he told Cerberus, who nodded. “And she doesn’t even know it, does she?”

“No.”