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L. Calpurnio Pisone et A. Gabinio consulibus
[In the year of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus and Aulus Gabinius as consuls...]
In the territory of the Helvetii, it is much colder than Rome could ever dream of being, and these nights are not even winter. At his desk, Gaius Julius Caesar squints at his cipher stick in the flickering light of a guttering candle, the flame blown this way and that by the wind that has somehow managed its way into the tent. He wishes he could trust a scribe for this, but some messages are too secret, and so he carves his plans into wax himself.
Caesar has already been consul once in Rome, last year, but this is not enough. He must take all of Gaul, for the money if nothing else. Then they will see, then they will all see, how he can govern a province, what he can do to rule the state. The Gauls will be nothing; they are like poor Bibulus, spending the last year in his house gibbering powerlessly about ill omens. He will crush them.
As though the gods are offering him the very opportunity of his thoughts, the tent flaps are pulled roughly open. Two sentries step in, holding an untamed, dirt-covered man between them. A Gaul. Well, now...
One of the guards is holding a long, darkened bundle in addition to the Gaul; the other sentry essays a salute with his free hand.
"Hail, General."
Caesar nods curtly, pushing his tablets to the side of the desk. It is unlike his men to bring him any of the Gaulish spies; they can kill them on sight well enough. And surely they know this. He raises his eyebrows. "Is this one not a spy, then?"
"Oh, he is a spy," the soldier tells him. "A good one. Got closer than he should have." The man's eyes flick downward, no doubt ashamed of this lapse, but he continues soon enough. "We wouldn't have seen him at all, but there was a lightning bolt, sir, right where he was, and that's how we saw him."
Lightning? There have been no storms, and so every good Roman knows what this means. An omen, the more credulous people would say, but he has never believed in these things as much as others do. It is a coincidence, empty of meaning. He has had the falling sickness all his life, and so he knows that his fits are not punishments from the gods, no matter what anyone else says; the illness does not come upon him when he might have offended them, but rather strikes at random. And so too do these signs; afterwards people invent tales, dream up reasons why these things might happen. Perhaps the gods walked among men once, but Caesar does not think they now do.
But he must act as though he believes. He stands up and nods, gesturing that the soldier should continue.
"And, we thought, well, if it was a sign from Jupiter himself, sir," the other sentry offers, "that you should have a look at him first before we did him in. And he had this."
The man releases his hold on the prisoner's arm -- the other soldier takes it, and so pins the Gaul's arms behind his back -- to hold forth the wrapped bundle. Caesar pulls the fabric away, and within it is a sword. It is not one of the cheap, primitive swords of the Helvetii. It is not the short, utilitarian gladius carried by his men. It is a long sword of exquisite, unknown craftsmanship, well-worn, and by the look of it, very deadly. Swords such as this do not come from here, or indeed, from anywhere Caesar knows.
It is a puzzle. Caesar has never enjoyed puzzles. He moves around his desk, to get a better look at the man, who is still pinned, bent over -- from the degree of contortion, he is far taller than the soldier holding him -- but for all that, unresisting. It is hard to tell much about him. He wears the usual assortment of disgusting barbarian furs, caked with dried blood, and his face is so smeared with dirt that there is no making out his features.
The man lifts his head and stares at him evenly, his gaze as piercing as if it were a blow from a sword, run through him, taking breath and sense with it. This regard is... discomfiting. Men do not stare at men so. Men do not stare at him so. It cannot stand.
"Why have you come?" Caesar asks. Two words, simple enough, and he says them slowly in case the spy's Latin is poor. But he is sure that the man understands him; he would not have come so close to the camp were he observing only actions and not words.
For a long time the man says nothing, and the only sound is the soft noise of the wind outside. Caesar begins to wonder if perhaps he was wrong about the man's command of language -- but then, suddenly, the man smiles.
"I wanted to see you, Gaius Julius," the spy says. His Latin is very good, much better than any of the Helvetii have a right to, and it is tinged with a strange Eastern accent, almost reminiscent of the speech of the Bithynians. A pause. "I do have the right man? Gaius Julius Caesar, the proconsul?"
He will not give this... enigma... the satisfaction of knowing anything about him. Caesar considers his words carefully and replies, "That is irrelevant. My men have found you spying upon us. Do you deny that you are a spy? An enemy of Rome?" For this is, after all, the heart of the matter.
The stranger's lips part wide in a feral grin, teeth startlingly white in the shadows of his face. "I deny everything and nothing. I wanted to see you, to meet you face-to-face, and now I have."
He has no patience for games. Even the best augurs, he is certain, could glean nothing from this man's presence. This is not a sign, though his appearance was heralded by lightning. The man is mad. It means nothing.
Caesar steps back and motions to the soldier, his voice taut with command. "Kill him."
He expects to see a show of fear from the spy on the occasion of his death. Even the bravest man might breathe sharply at the news, might open his eyes wider, to say nothing of the ones who would struggle and cry out. But this man does absolutely nothing. His face does not change. He only keeps smiling. Truly he is an idiot of a spy. Perhaps the Helvetii have sent him as a decoy.
There is a hollow scrape, metal on leather, as the other sentry -- the one not holding the spy -- unsheathes his own sword. In one quick motion he plunges it into the man's heart. The man arcs up into the strike, then stiffens, and that is the end of it. There is not so much blood, Caesar finds himself noting, dispassionately. His disgusting furs must have absorbed it. That is fortunate; he does not want the man staining his tent.
The sentry slides his sword easily out of the body. "General? Shall we dispose of the corpse for you?"
He is on the verge of saying yes when the thought occurs to him that the man might yield more information in death than in life. Perhaps he has effects that may tell him which tribe has come to spy on him.
"No," Caesar says, waving a hand to dismiss them. "I will have it done shortly. In the meantime you may return to your post." If this man got so close, there could be others behind him.
The sentries leave, and he is alone with the body. The first thing he does is pass his hand over those glassy eyes, so that they might no longer stare at him. The impulse is instant and irrational, and he chides himself as he gives into it.
Disappointingly, a search reveals that the man was carrying nothing of interest except for that mysterious sword; he has a bag containing a few pouches of herbs and scraps of dried meat, but very little other than that. This is hardly indicative of anything. Caesar's next act is to reach for the ewer of water he keeps, and he moistens a cloth and sets to cleaning up the man's skin, as though he himself were no better than a slave in the baths with a strigil and an oil-pot. If the spy is tattooed, as many of the Gauls are, he may be able to tell the man's tribe. The marks are often revealing in that way. He ought to write this down somewhere, for the sake of campaign intelligence.
But this also yields nothing. Under the dirt the dead man's skin is indeed Celt-pale, but bare of adornment. The only distinctive thing Caesar can note is that the man must have been in life quite astonishingly beautiful, a sculpture in yet-unpainted marble. He feels oddly disloyal thinking this about an enemy and a touch depraved for thinking it about a dead one.
Well, it has been a strange diversion in an otherwise dull evening of correspondence. This he thinks to himself as he stands, wipes his own hands clean, and steps forward with the intent of heading outside to summon someone to take the now-useless corpse away. And this is when he first notices.
It is not a thing that he notices, precisely; rather, it is the lack of a thing. The weather is cold, but it is not so cold that a body would freeze instantly. Caesar smells nothing of the stench of death, and now that he thinks about it, he has been examining the corpse for quite a long time.
Feeling himself to be most stupid as he does this, he turns back to check the body again. At least no one else is in the tent to see him.
"I shall just make sure, hmm?"
Caesar murmurs these words to himself as he kneels beside the body. He passes his hand over the mouth. No breath. He holds out the arm, presses his fingers into the wrist. No pulse. And, since he's come this far anyway, he leans even closer and puts his ear against the corpse's chest. No heartbeat. That, certainly, is final. Now he must have the lightning taken care of, as well as the body; the haruspex must go to the site of the lightning strike and make the usual expiatory prayers. He supposes he could do it himself; he has been, after all, pontifex maximus.
And so he stands up.
The dead man gasps and opens his eyes.
###
Caesar can only watch, stunned into immobility, as the god -- for there is no question now that this being is something other than human -- rises to his feet, slowly unfolding himself. He is tall, at least a full head taller than Caesar himself. Kalos kai megas, just as all the songs say the gods are. Tall and beautiful, and almost so pale as to gleam, and so matching the descriptions of the immortal ones in every respect.
Caesar does not kneel, does not weep, does not throw himself at the god's feet and pray for clemency. If he will die, he will not die on his knees.
The god smirks, suddenly, and the tone of his words is half-curious and half-cruel. "You're not going to beg me for your life, mortal?" He steps backwards, in the direction of the desk where his sword lies.
He has had a good life, even though he hoped he would have more of it, and so Caesar summons up every scrap of strength to nod his head for no. "I have killed you," he says, his throat dry, "and it would be just for you to do the same. And if you have decided to kill me-- I am not so arrogant as to think I can change a god's mind."
The god's eyes are narrowed, burnished gold in the candlelight, and a smile plays across his perfectly-molded lips. "You are brave, aren't you? I like that. I thought you might be."
"I would like to know one thing, if I may," Caesar says, as the god's hand reaches his sword. "It would please me if I could know who is to kill me. So that I might know to whom I should have made more sacrifices." You should have believed as you did it, his mind whispers to him. But now, it seems, it is too late for that.
The god laughs again. But the sword is not drawn; he instead straps the scabbard across his body, and Caesar breathes out. He is not to die.
"Relax, Gaius," the god says, languidly, sounding not as if he means it to be calming, but rather that these matters of mortality are no concern of his. "I won't kill you. May I call you Gaius?"
"You may call me anything you like," Caesar says instantly, dizzy with relief. "And I will honor you as you wish it. Only tell me who you are, and I will do the appropriate things."
"Excellent. I have a proposal, in fact, about that. But first, the matter of names." The god pauses, laces his fingers together, and seems to think about this a while, as if he is considering and discarding identities. "Long before Ilium fell, I had the name Methos. I haven't used that one in a while. I quite miss it. It was amusing." He smiles. "Yes, that's a good name. Call me Methos."
Methos. Caesar thinks about it. It is an old, old Greek word, and a very strange one for a name. Drunkard, or something akin to it. Whoever would name himself so--?
Oh. He is numb with the realization, his mind nearly refusing to process any more news since the first of these shocks. "I do not drink overmuch," he hears his own voice saying. "I hardly drink at all."
The god of wine gives him a lazy half-smile. "That's going to be a problem, isn't it?"
###
Somehow he finds the presence of mind to give this Methos a chair, which he pulls up next to his desk. Methos casts a disdainful eye over the pile of maps, the hasty figures representing his troops, as if he wants to comment on Caesar's strategies, then decides not to. They sit down, and he dares to look the god in the eye, then finds that all words have deserted him. Methos just grins at him again, as if he finds the incoherent state he has placed him in to be a humorous one.
"So." He is suddenly conscious of the utter silence in his tent. What do you say to a god? "May I offer you anything? Food, or water, or--" something half-mad starts cackling in his head as he thinks it-- "perhaps wine?"
Methos shakes his head. "Later. After you have considered my offer. Then, I think, there will be wine." He laughs, and the sound is like the wild things of the forest. "There must be, in fact, if you agree. It would be... traditional."
He will certainly not cross a god, and least of all this one. "Very well," Caesar says, carefully neutral. "Tell me, then, of what are we speaking?"
"What would you say," Methos asks, sounding more as though it is an idle thought than a true question, "if I told you I could give you everything you wanted? Fame, power, riches... anything you desired?"
He thinks of all the tales about the gods and the bargains that one makes with them. "I suppose I would wonder what price I must pay for it. And I would ask why I have been chosen."
Methos, infuriatingly, answers the second rather than the first. "I have watched you for a long time now, Gaius, Gaii filius, and I've seen the sort of man you are. I've known a rare few like you, cut from the same cloth as Alexander. You hold out your hand and the people flock to you. They love you. Only a man of very great power could accomplish the things I want. And the price will not be beyond your means, I assure you."
He is not immune to flattery, and it must be an enormous undertaking indeed if the god is complimenting him to such a degree. Caesar raises an eyebrow, trying as he does it to seem casual, half-interested, and not as if he desperately hungers for it. He remembers his visit years ago to Gades, in Hispania, and the statue of Magnus Alexander at a temple, and how he swore that someday he would accomplish just as much. And here is his chance, handed him by a god...
"What is it that you want me to do?"
Methos leans forward, locking eyes with him, the same intense, knowing stare he turned on him as a barbarian, and it takes every bit of Caesar's will not to flinch from the god.
"Worship me."
The words do not even make any kind of sense to him at first, sliding off his mind like arrows against a shield-wall. "What?"
"Worship," Methos repeats, and his face, so quick to change, starts to warp with hot, wild anger. "It's what all gods want. I want temples. I want sacrifices. And I want my rites. I want men and women to gather in the dark to drink my wine and call on my name and do all the sacred things of my Mysteries. I want Rome to think well of me again."
The rites have been illegal by decree of the senate for over a hundred years. Caesar knows this. Everyone knows this. Let no one possess a place where the revelries of Bacchus are celebrated. Let no man be a priest of Bacchus. Let no one celebrate the Bacchanalia. The punishment is death.
He smiles, and the smile is not at all a pleasant one; he is a leopard baring his teeth. "I have been kind to your people in the past, Caesar. Know that. I have given your people this time, I have been patient, I have waited for you to come back. But I am not kind now, and I have ridden down upon thousands in the East and laughed as they died before me. They called me Death, and I am giving you one last chance not to."
Either the god will likely kill him now for not doing this or the senate will kill him later for having done it. It is not at all the best of choices.
"I am poor," Caesar manages to say, all the while wondering at the words that pass his own lips. "I may be a senator, I may even be proconsul, but a rich man I am not. I am here fighting for the spoils, for gold to clear my debts. Animals, yes, those sacrifices I can make, but if it is temples you want I am hardly in a position--"
Methos slices his hand through the air, quick as a blade. "You will not be poor forever. Trust me."
At these words, Caesar's blood runs cold. To hear such an opinion from a god... could it be his true future? What else could he tell him about what is to come? Caesar opens his mouth, and finds that for once he has nothing to say. "Is this-- are you...?"
"Do I look like the Sibyl to you?" Methos laughs again and leans forward. "Call it a very good guess. The temples, then, can wait until you have sufficient coin. I am more interested in my rites."
"Your rites are illegal." Caesar valiantly tries to point this out, but his voice rings hollow in his own ears. Methos will hardly take "no" for an answer.
As he expects, Methos shrugs. "And that does not stop some from doing it anyway. It is only a law because people have made it so. If you make a case to your senate, to your people, they will be moved. They will listen. You are a man men respect." He smiles, again the leopard, half-enticing for all that. "I will ensure that you have the power to do this. The republic... will be yours."
It seems ridiculous, entirely unbelievable. All he has to do is agree to further the god's interest and he will command the state. He licks suddenly-dry lips and is unsurprised to see Methos' eyes fixed upon the motion. All right.
He will do this. How could he not?
"What must I do to show my agreement? I assume--" and he almost wants to laugh again as the familiar formula falls into place-- "that saying I call the gods to witness is not precisely the thing needed here."
Methos grins widely, perhaps at the turn of phrase and perhaps at his acquiescence. "Excellent. And, yes, I would ask more of an oath from you, if you are willing to give it."
Caesar has the awful, terrifying feeling he knows what Methos will ask from him. "You want me to worship you myself. To become a priest of your Mysteries."
He does not know what the rites of the Bacchanalia are, of course; that is why they are Mysteries. None know but the initiates themselves. But he knows what people say they are, how cloaked and hooded strangers come together at the banks of the Tiber, there to greet each other with secret signs, drink the god's wine, and indulge in frenzied, unnatural couplings, with the god's madness upon them. It is a threat to the state, and more, it is a threat to men of good character, men who know that there is virtue in keeping one's passions in check. Men like Caesar himself. Oh, he has slipped, he is far from perfect -- he remembers that Curio had a few things to say about that, once -- and it is a hard task. But this? This is an invitation to give up all he has worked to control, that he might become a raving, mindless animal.
If this is the price, he cannot pay it. He must not.
He does not know what horrified expression his own face wears, but Methos' features shift into a thoughtful sort of tenderness in response, a smile that only makes the god more beautiful.
"O mi Gai," Methos murmurs, and his eyes are terribly sad. "You did not fear death at my hands, but you fear this? I would bring you ecstasy."
Methos reaches out a hand to Caesar's face and slowly, slowly draws a warm path from his temple to his jaw. He cannot breathe. He cannot speak. And even where the god has not touched him, the feeling continues, a line of fire curling down through his body, the burn of unreasoning lust, half-familiar and awful in its wildness. This is what Methos wants from him after all.
"I would not ask of you something you were truly unable to do," Methos continues, and the corners of his mouth twitch. "And don't think of telling me that you're not the sort of man who rises for other men. I've heard the stories your troops tell about you."
Caesar summons enough anger to respond to this slight. "And you think their obscene marching-songs are all truth?"
"That one, yes." A pause. "I have traveled far. And I saw you in Bithynia."
Panic surrounds Caesar and begins to pull him down; he is unhorsed in battle. Methos knows. "I was so young," he says, frantic, knowing that his words now are no better than lies, womanish babblings. "I was but a youth, and I was far from home, and I could not refuse the king--"
"No. That is not true." The quiet words stop him. "You loved him. Passionately. I know my madness when I see it. And then you came home, and Rome taught you that to be a man you must be always in control of yourself, and so you did. You are quite good at control, General. I would expect nothing less of you."
He has played the catamite to a king to gain a treaty. It was for a treaty, it was only for a treaty, and Methos is wrong-- He can be catamite to a god to gain much more. It is simple, then, and passion need not enter into the matter. With this decided, the dangerous lust within him recedes. "You are proposing, then, that I... submit to your control?"
"How very military!" Methos laughs, as if the idea is somehow a grand joke he is playing. "I'm afraid you've misunderstood me. That is not at all the bargain."
Now Caesar is just confused. "It... it isn't?"
Methos leans forward and takes Caesar's hand in his, and with this simple touch the tide of feeling returns, rushing against him, threatening to overwhelm him. If this is the reaction to such an inconsequential touch-- he refuses to contemplate how it would feel with Methos' hands on him, Methos' body against his. The thought makes him shake. He cannot withstand this for much longer.
Methos drops his hand and smiles at him as though he knows every thought that has passed through Caesar's mind. Perhaps he does. "The Greeks call me Dionysos Eleutherios, you know. The liberator. I don't want to bend you to my will. I want to free you from yourself. No control. From anyone."
"I--"
Caesar opens his mouth with the intent to complain, to protest, but instead watches as the smile on Methos' face changes yet again, fiercer and hotter and somehow knowing. His eyes, wide and dark with desire, fill with the suggestion that the only thing stopping them from doing anything and everything to each other is that they are not yet touching. He can't remember the last time anyone has ever looked at him like this. Perhaps no one ever has.
The last vestiges of his self-control stretch, fray, and quietly, quickly snap, and then somehow he is leaning forward and Methos's head is between his hands, pulled close, and they are kissing, and the god's mouth opens against his, and in his ears he can hear his own frenzied heartbeat, pounding like drums--
Hands against his chest push them roughly apart, and he blinks a few times and looks at Methos in lust-fogged confusion. "Why--?" he starts, and then is appalled at how he was going to finish the question. Why did you make me stop? Truly, his reason is gone already.
Another smile. "You've the right idea at last, but this is not the place for it."
Methos stands and Caesar continues to stare numbly, only able to manage broken questions. "What--?"
"Did you think," Methos asks, while picking up his sword and other belongings, "that I would just have you here, over the desk, as you might amuse yourself with a slave? These things must be done properly. Follow me and bring wine."
Finally Caesar picks himself up at these words and moves to the corner where a full wineskin lies -- after all, he has drunk none of it himself -- while cursing inwardly at the poor vintage. "My soldiers will notice us," he says, wrapping a heavy cloak around himself and picking up a pair of drinking-cups to accompany the skin. "We cannot very well walk out of camp to find you a wild place."
Methos snorts. "They'll see what I want them to see. They did not catch me; I let myself be found."
Knowing that the evening's madness has already begun, Caesar pushes the tent-flap open for Methos and steps out before him into the night.
###
Methos is true to his word; they are not seen. Caesar cannot imagine how no one takes any notice of their general leaving the camp with an armed Gaul at his side, but they do not. He follows Methos as he picks a path out far beyond the view of the last sentries; the god leaps nimbly over branches and leads him unerringly through pitch-dark forest, down a valley, up a sloping hill, until at last they come to a break in the trees, where a stream trickles down from higher ground next to a yawning cave opening. He cannot tell how deeply the cave enters into the hillside.
Caesar judges the water's depth to be perhaps two-thirds the height of a man. The clear water flows so slowly as to be almost still, and there are large flat rocks on the banks, huge enough for a man to lie upon, smooth as though a craftsman had shaped them.
"Here." The gleam of eyes and teeth in the dark is all he can see of Methos at first. "It's not your Tiber, but it will serve nicely."
Caesar glances around the area. "Is this all that we will need, truly? I had thought the rites would involve drums and dancing and perhaps sacred objects--"
Methos gives an eloquent shrug as he sits down on one of the rocks, on the very edge of the water. "They often do, but we have none of those things. And I am here, and that is more than enough. The trappings have been fashioned by mortals to represent me."
"Ah." It was a silly question, now that he thinks about it.
Methos smiles at him. "Come. Sit; pour the wine. We will only need the one cup."
He settles awkwardly next to Methos and places the cup on the rock before him, then opens the wineskin, feeling like a slave humbled before his master. He is as careful as he can be in the dark to pour the wine slowly, properly, not to let any of it spill. When the cup is the usual third full -- and it is already a large vessel -- he stops and picks up the other cup, reaching toward the stream. The wine must after all be watered.
"Have you forgotten who I am?" Methos' hand closes tightly about his wrist, and he remembers now that this is the god of unmixed wine before him. It is scandalous and improper to drink neat wine; Caesar prides himself on never having done it. But nothing about this god is proper, and so shall nothing about this night be. "No water. Do not mix the wine. And more of it."
So he picks up the skin again and fills the cup to the very top, until the wine within sparkles dark in the night, far darker than its pale mixed cousins.
"Like this?"
"Exactly," Methos confirms. He then does a curious thing: he picks up his belongings and pulls from them one of the small bags of herbs Caesar had found on his person. It does not smell like any plant known to him. Caesar watches as he extracts a generous pinch of the stuff and places it in the wine, sloshing the cup to mix it.
"I suppose if I asked you what--?"
Methos looks up and grins. "Not poison, General. But I feel that you might benefit from additional... help... in achieving bakkheia. Not to malign the quality of your wine."
He will surely lose himself tonight. The god is making certain of that. But the prospect no longer frightens him; instead Caesar can feel himself beginning to yearn for it. Maybe this is how the madness begins.
"Malign it all you wish," Caesar says, and he can feel himself smiling. "It is not a vintage I would have chosen to serve to a god, but it is all I have on hand."
Methos shrugs again, still swirling the cup. "All wine is good wine. And this will be better than you think. I have my tricks."
"I thought you might." He watches as Methos sets the cup down finally and sits back. Now it begins. "What do I do?"
Methos meets his gaze and says, as though it is the simplest thing ever, "You drink the wine."
He looks at Methos. He looks at the wine-cup. He looks at Methos again. And another thought of manners occurs to him. They are all sounding mad to him now, these ideas of how things should be done, but this one is important enough to ask anyway, for even he knows of customs before drinking. "Shall I-- would you like me to pour out a libation to you? To anyone?" For ordinarily he would make the proper libations, but now the god is here to drink it himself, and Caesar is not quite certain what custom dictates in this regard.
"You're so polite." The smile the god turns upon him is almost fond. "We'll have that out of you soon enough. And, yes, I will have my libation myself."
With that said, Methos picks up the cup and takes the smallest of sips, the sort one takes for propriety's sake alone. Caesar watches the muscles in the god's throat work as he swallows, just like that of a man's, and cannot stop staring in wanton fascination as Methos's tongue licks up the last of the droplets. He would not have thought this act could arouse him so. Already nothing about this is what he would have thought.
"Ah." Methos makes a satisfied sigh. "That's good. I'll have more later, but for now--" he meets Caesar's eyes, presses the wine-cup into Caesar's startled hands and abruptly switches into Greek, and old, old words at that-- "drink my wine, O mortal, and hear my tale."
He does not speak immediately, but looks at Caesar, waiting, and so Caesar lifts the cup to his lips. He is almost surprised at the taste -- not the poor dregs he was expecting, but a good honeyed wine, like the best of the sweet Falernian vintages. It has a strange flavor he cannot identify, but then, he is notorious among his fellow senators for his lack of palatal refinement. Perhaps it is the herbs. It is heady, too, far stronger than even lightly-watered wine -- and he knows that that is Methos' doing.
So he drinks, and he keeps drinking, staring only at the cup, until hands pull it away from him. He has hardly come close to finishing the thing; perhaps two-thirds remain.
Methos sets the cup on the rock next to him and smiles. He is a cat toying with prey. "Close your eyes, my dear Gaius," he says, softly, in the same old language. He speaks like a brother, like a lover, and everything in Caesar's guarded, armored heart reaches out to trust in this being whom he has known for hardly more than a single watch of this night.
He closes his eyes and listens.
And Methos begins a tale. It is a story everyone knows about Bacchus, or rather, the Greek version of him; it is the tale of Dionysos and one of his journeys to the underworld. He goes thither to rescue his mortal mother, Semele. Caesar has dim memories of reading old poetry on these themes, but he has never heard a tale quite like this. It does not begin with an invocation to the Muses or any sort of explanation by the storyteller; Methos merely begins it as though he was there.
Methos' voice rises and falls in the familiar rhythms of a proper poem. His Greek is that odd, old dialect he had used before, and occasionally there are words even Caesar does not catch. His singing-voice is uncommonly fair, as one expects of a god. They are alone in the forest with no music to accompany them, but Caesar begins to think he hears, not the cithara, but drumming.
The story of course does not begin with Semele's death, struck down by the glory of Zeus, for Dionysos himself was only born once then and could hardly be thought to remember it himself. No, it begins after his second birth from Zeus himself. Methos' voice shakes and quavers as he speaks of wanting to find his mother, someone he has never known, to bring her to live among the gods.
But how will he enter the underworld to find her? Ah, but there is a passage! There always is. The Alcyonian Lake, in Argolis, Methos tells him, is said to be bottomless, or near enough that it makes no difference to mortals. They could not swim deeply enough. But he is a god, and so he can.
Somewhere in the waters lies the path to Hades. He does not know where, but Prosymnus, a shepherd living nearby, will tell him for a price. Caesar does not open his eyes, but he knows Methos is smiling as he tells him this, tells him of how the man eyed him wantonly and asked to lie with him in return. And Methos agreed, of course. Caesar grows hot at this, imagining the pleasures to come, and is beyond thinking of the shame of it.
As Prosymnus rows him to the center of the lake, Caesar begins to realize that the story is not only a story, that he is here in the middle of it. Methos dives and Caesar feels his hands placed in water, then his body, and then his head goes under the water. Ice-cold, it shocks him, and he can hardly hold his breath, but he must reach Hades, and this is the way. Behind his eyes his vision grows dark, then pale, but he swims until finally he forces his head above water, and he knows he is here.
The smallest part of him knows there was a small cave on the hillside, he saw it as they walked in, but this is quickly swamped with the certainty that here is the underworld, as it was in the god's journey. If Methos is telling him this story, he has no hearing of it, no understanding of it as a story. He is Dionysos, and this is happening to him just as it once happened. The words are real.
Caesar opens his eyes and sees the shades of the dead. Their voices echo down the long, long darkness; he leans against the clammy, solid wall for support. But Methos' hand is behind him, on his back, and he keeps walking, each step harder than the last. The sound of his own steps pounds in his mind.
He bears no arms, not that they would do him any good here; nor does he have the silver tongue of a poet, to make clever speeches and songs to trick Hades out of one of his subjects. He is not Orpheus. He will only go, and he will take, and his mother will rightfully be a goddess.
He ignores the laughing dead, and brushes off the piteous, wailing dead clutching at him; he is not here to give them life again. He has no need to cross any of the five rivers. He is not here as a shade, and has no coin; besides, he knows the woman he seeks is somewhere lower. Hera will have made sure of it.
He descends deeply, even past the realm of Hades, to Tartarus, where dwell those who are threats to the gods. But he is a god himself now, and so he fords the fiery river Phlegethon unharmed. The hydra does not attack him and Tisiphone raises the gate. Behind the three walls are many souls -- ones even he recognizes, like poor Sisyphus and his boulder -- and many even he does not. He edges nervously around the pit of the Titans.
An eternity later, he spies her, and Caesar at once knows she is Semele but at the same time looks like his own mother. He grabs her by the wrist, substantial now, and they run. His heart pounds.
They will have to come back through water again -- he knows not whether it is the same lake -- and Caesar laughs for the joy of it, knowing he must swim this impossible distance again, knowing he can -- and he leaps into the water. They head down toward the cave exit, then out to open water.
His mother rises faster in the water than does he; he can see her form outlined dimly above. Then the current pushes him, and his hand slips, and he lets go. It is no matter; she will rise without him. He kicks toward the surface, or where he thinks the surface is. The water is dark everywhere, pressing heavily, and his lungs scream for air. He cannot breathe. If he cannot breathe, he will die. He does not fear, however; he has done this task. He will have saved his mother. He cannot breathe, he cannot--
His body betrays him, his mouth opens, he breathes in the cold, cold water, and he will die--
There is light above him--
His head breaks the surface of the water--
And he is floating, and staring up at the night sky, and he sees the stars, all of them, shining down, and his mother is there with them in the heavens, a true goddess, and he has done it--
The story stops. Strong hands grab Caesar by the shoulders and pull him backward and out of the water, onto the shore, holding him as he coughs out water, wrapping a cloak around him. Caesar is himself again, and yet not; he is back to his body, but his mind is entirely changed.
"You are mine now," Methos says, smiling down at him. The tone is triumphant and strangely possessive; it is in equal measures the sound of a lover in the throes of passion and a leader declaring permanent, unbreakable alliance.
Caesar does not have to think about his reply. He could not think about it, even if he wanted to; the thoughts do not stay strung together long enough and float off in a dizzying haze of wine. He says what he feels.
"I am," he agrees. "I am yours, I worship you--"
"You have journeyed with me." Methos passes him the cup. "Now share wine with me."
He drinks. The wine burns on his raw, abraded throat on the way down, but he hardly cares. It does not feel like pain. Nothing feels like it otherwise would, and he hands the cup back and laughs and laughs and it is all pleasure.
They drink, passing the cup back and forth, until it is empty and there is fire in Methos' eyes.
"There is one more thing," Methos says, still smiling. "The final part, the act of becoming one. Do you know the end of my story?"
"The end?" Surely that was the end; he has descended and returned--
"About Prosymnus. When I found my way back to him, he had died," Methos says, and from the way he says it Caesar knows this part of the tale must be a secret one. "But I had promised him my body, yes?"
Caesar nods. "It is as you said."
"So," Methos continues, and his eyes sparkle with remembered cleverness, "I fashioned a dildo out of wood, went to his grave and fucked myself on it."
He cannot help but laugh; hours ago he would have thought it scandalous, obscene, but now, with the wine in him, it is perfectly fitting. "You keep your promises."
"I do. And now to enact this in the ceremony, usually--" Methos grins as if to suggest that nothing about this one is usual-- "the men become me and the women embrace me."
Caesar tilts his head and considers the choice, if indeed it is a choice. "And me?"
"For you, dear Gaius--" his beautiful smile is wide and bright in the dark-- "I offer you both."
"I accept," Caesar replies, with the remains of the formality he can bring his mind to conceive of, clinging to the edge of sanity for one last minute.
Caesar holds out his hand, and Methos pulls him into his arms.
###
He remembers a chariot race he once saw with quadrigas. The Whites were in the lead, but suddenly, at the turning-point, one of the four horses grabbed the bit and pulled. He remembers watching the reins slip through the charioteer's hands like water until finally the man fell, fumbling with his own knife, dropping it from his belt onto the ground. With the man too slow to cut the reins from around his waist, the horses dragged him and ran and ran, ahead of the Reds by far even while pulling a corpse. He would have won if he'd been alive for it.
Caesar knows now what the charioteer must have felt like.
Methos kisses him and he is dying; he is dying and he is more alive than he has ever been. Methos is touching him, perhaps, or he is touching Methos; he can feel everything as though it is all happening to him. Distantly he is aware of a kind of cold, clothing sliding off of his body. Their bodies.
Their hands on each other are quick and rough. There are no long, languid kisses here, no slow caresses. He bites Methos' lip and tastes blood; Methos pulls him to him with a grip hard enough to bruise. In his head drums pound, and it is if there is chanting. He hears it.
He is close himself, and Methos has hardly touched him. It seems that Methos senses this, because he rolls him over, onto his stomach. He does not feel vulnerable; he knows what is coming, and it's what he wants. It's all he wants. He pushes his hips back insistently, a wild rut.
"Yes," Methos hisses in his ear.
There is the heavy pressure of hands on his hipbones, pulling him backwards, a quick shock of pain, faster than he was expecting, and--
He is not himself anymore. He is Methos, and Dionysos, and Bacchus, and Liber, and all the other gods of that aspect, Roman and Greek and others besides whom men do not know. He is so far beyond human than he can only look at his old self and wonder, with fondness, what he thought bakkheia would be like for it is like nothing he could have conceived of. He understands. He understands everything, and it is beautiful, so beautiful. There are no words, or none he has for it, and he could cry with joy.
Methos has his hands on him, and he is coming, and Methos is biting his shoulder and coming as well--
And then suddenly, rudely, he is himself again, or mostly himself. Methos pulls back out and settles next to him, and Caesar is glad he doesn't have to see the expression on his own face, because it makes Methos laugh.
"Welcome to the Mysteries," Methos says and kisses him on the forehead, formally.
He still feels as though he could cry. "Thank you."
Methos presses against him and he is surprised to note that the god is erect again. Or perhaps still. "A second time, then?"
Is he serious? He can't be. Even when he was fifteen Caesar wouldn't have been able to manage that. "I fear I must dec--"
He doesn't get to finish his sentence, as Methos passes his hand down his body and Caesar finds that he is suddenly, achingly hard. What magic is this?
"My dear Gaius," Methos says, and the smile on his face is an interesting combination, half-amused, half-lustful. "There are ten thousand stories about the powers of my cock. Did you think I'd only be good for one round?"
Caesar can feel himself smiling interestedly in return. "How many of the stories are true?"
"Oh, all of them," Methos says, offhandedly, and this time Caesar kisses him first.
###
He wakes barely past dawn to find that he has miraculously not frozen solid during the night; he is lying with both cloaks he brought wrapped around his body. Possibly Methos contributed to his good fortune. Also a wonder is the distinct lack of any hangover. Another one of Methos' doings, he suspects.
Caesar opens his eyes, and everything is somehow different than it was before last night. The air is more crisp, colors more vivid, and his heart pounds in his chest with exhilarating intensity. He is alive, and Methos, up before the dawn, looks over and catches him smiling.
"Good morning," Methos says, as he arranges the items in his pack and stands.
Caesar rises, surprisingly steadily, to his feet. "Indeed it is. And I... thank you... for the night."
Methos' grin is positively lecherous. "The pleasure, my dear Gaius, was mine as well."
He smiles easily enough in return, but inwardly is not as calm as all that: surely now he is missed, at camp. What will he say? How will he explain bringing back Methos? Methos will have to come back, if he is indeed to fulfill his side of the bargain. And if he does not... well, Caesar did enjoy the night itself, and perhaps that will be enough. A memory to warm him as an old man. But, no, Methos must come.
Methos smiles at him as if he knows Caesar's very thoughts. "You may tell your men the truth. Or not." He straightens up, slinging that sword of his across his back. It is a strange way to carry a sword, but Caesar supposes it is too long to wear at his belt like a proper sword. "They will not be overly concerned with your absence."
Another working of divine powers, then. Caesar finds himself wondering if Methos could not instead use them to place him in greater power. "And your presence?"
"I won't be joining you just yet," Methos replies, picking up his pack, and it is then that Caesar realizes what Methos is doing: leaving him.
"Y-you--" he stammers in shock, and curses himself for the stammering-- "you're not staying to help? There will be a battle--we must overpower the Helvetii--and you had said you would--"
Methos looks at him disdainfully. "You hardly need my aid in war, General. I said I would help you, and I will. I did not say when. You don't need me now. I'll come back when you really need it. This I promise."
Caesar nods. It is sensible, when he thinks about it. The Helvetii are no threat, or at least not one he cannot handle. "And you keep your promises, as I believe you told me--"
"I did, I do, and I will. I will return while you're alive, even. And you, I trust, will say something about my Mysteries to your people." It is not a question.
"Indeed I will." He finds himself wishing, though, that Methos could help him just a little more, now, a taste of the power--
The god must have seen his state. "Is there something you wish before we part ways?" Methos grins. "Much as I enjoyed your company, if we engaged in any more... strenuous... activities, I think you would then be missed at your camp."
Caesar's blood stirs at that, but he manages a respectable answer. Eventually.
"Before you go," he asks, "is there any advice you could give me?" Not as dangerous, perhaps, as inquiring about his own future; he is not sure he wants to hear that from the mouth of a god. But advice is safe enough.
Methos is silent a long time, his brow furrowed in thought. "Heed auguries," he says, finally, and Caesar has to suppress a chuckle at that.
If he only knew how much I ignore them. The thought, an instant reply, forms in his head, and then he realizes Methos probably does know exactly how much that is.
"They're not all lies," Methos says, quietly. "And--a warning, as well. If you see a man, let's say, rather like myself, with a scar down his face and the name of a Titan... you'll want to avoid him." His expression grows cold and remote.
A Titan walking the earth? One god of Olympus here is already quite enough for him. Caesar does not want to entangle himself in what should properly be only celestial affairs, these doings of immortals; it would most likely end poorly for him. "And if I cannot avoid him?"
"I would appreciate if he did not know of me." Methos looks almost afraid of what he might say. "It would probably be better for you as well."
He can do that. "All right," Caesar says. "And thank you for the warning. And the bargain."
Methos inclines his head. "I'll be on my way now," he says, shifting his belongings onto his back. "But first--"
He steps forward and kisses Caesar, one last time, and the powerful, intoxicating rush of pure lust makes Caesar stagger. He could become accustomed to this, oh so quickly--
"I'll see you soon," Methos says, grinning, as he steps back, heading somewhere deeper into the forest. Caesar does not know where he is going, and he does not think Methos would tell him. It does not matter. He knows Methos will come back.
He raises a hand in salute.
"Fare well, Twice-Born."
The god snorts at him. "I told you, it's Methos."
And with that, Caesar is alone.
He turns back the way they have come. He has only to cross this stream and head back to the camp, and then... he can do everything.
###
He makes quiet inquiries, whispers in ears at dinner parties, and slowly, slowly, Rome begins to celebrate the Bacchanalia again, though none ever connect it to him.
Nine years later, he stands in front of a very different river, and Methos comes for him.
FIN
Consecutusque cohortis ad Rubiconem flumen, qui provinciae eius finis erat, paulum constitit, ac reputans quantum moliretur, conversus ad proximos: "Etiam nunc," inquit, "regredi possumus; quod si ponticulum transierimus, omnia armis agenda erunt."
Cunctanti ostentum tale factum est. Quidam eximia magnitudine et forma in proximo sedens repente apparuit harundine canens; ad quem audiendum cum praeter pastores plurimi etiam ex stationibus milites concurrissent interque eos et aeneatores, rapta ab uno tuba prosilivit ad flumen et ingenti spiritu classicum exorsus pertendit ad alteram ripam. Tunc Caesar: "Eatur," inquit, "quo deorum ostenta et inimicorum iniquitas vocat. Iacta alea est," inquit.
[And having followed his cohorts to the Rubicon river, which was the border of his province, [Caesar] stopped for a little while, and reflecting upon how much he was setting in motion, having turned to the nearest men, he said, "Even now, we can go back; but if we cross this little bridge, all things will have to be done with weapons."
To the delayer such a sign was made. Suddenly a certain being with extraordinary stature and beauty appeared, sitting and playing a reed-flute; and when, besides the shepherds, even very many soldiers had run from their posts to listen to him, and among them also the trumpeters, with a war-trumpet having been taken from one of them, [the being] leapt forward to the river and having begun the trumpet-call with an enormous breath, continued to the other bank. Then Caesar said: "Let us go whither the signs of the gods and the injustice of our enemies call. The die has been cast."]
--C. Suetonius Tranquillus, Divus Julius, 31-32.