The Ides of Hades

The air is hot inside the chamber, a glorious sun blazing through the high windows, and the knife hilt feels slippery in my hand. I am vividly aware of the grit between my toes, kicked up by my sandals as I’d hurried here this morning, and the weight of my toga as I try to stand in a normal pose. Never before have I felt so aware of my own limbs, so conscious of how they sit and how much it looks like I am hiding something.

At any moment I expect the lictors to arrest me. Or just stab me. It’s what should happened. By any sense of justice, they should protect him. But they don’t. They wait at the door, eyes barely passing over those of us who file past. Those of us who are carrying knives into the senate. Those of us who have murder planned in our hearts.

It’s not in my heart, but the knife is in my hand anyway. I know, for the good of the republic, what I must do. I am of the blood of the Kingslayer. It is my destiny to be here today, to do this horrific task.

Friendship will always be damned when destiny comes calling.

There’s the usual milling around, shaking hands, sealing deals, asking favours. Basic political manoeuvres, but today I see the extra manoeuvring happening. All those faces who had been there last night, men I know so well, men I hate, men I barely register, all of them are starting to circle round. Sharks round a bleeding corpse, only the corpse doesn’t know it yet.

And they are all looking to me. The Kingslayer. I should be first to act.

I feel sick to my soul. May the gods have mercy on me.

I don’t see who strikes first. A yell goes up, a frustrated cry for the Republic. I hear the attack though. The soft, wet thuck as the dagger finds flesh. I hear his pained shout. And then the feeding frenzy starts, and they all pour in. More shouts of victory or satisfaction, but the cries of anguish cut through all of it for me. Each one is as a knife to my own heart.

Someone calls my name. My absence has been noted. History will record that my knife was clean, unless I act fast.

I step forward, having to push my way through the crowd, having to fight to do something I don’t want to do. But soon I come to the epicentre, to the abominable act that will shake our world.

He is almost on the floor by now. Two knives have stayed in him, caught in his bones. His toga is red, as is his face, a fallen Mars as he struggles to stay on his feet. He sees me approach and there’s a flicker of hope in his eyes that breaks my heart.

I stepped forward and stab him in the stomach.

‘And you…?’

His last words barely escape his lips. He falls to the ground, and my tears fall with him.

Sunlight blares through the high windows of the chamber. I blink. Everything has been undone, back before… it happened. Was it all a terrible dream?

If so, then it changes nothing. It will only happen again. I can see the others already starting to move. My stomach is still rolling from last time; must I do it all again?

If so, I can do it differently. Be bolder about it. I grip my knife tighter and step forward, squeezing my way through the throng to find him.

I’m nearer this time, when the first blow hits. I don’t look as though I’m running away or having second thoughts. Half a dozen people get to him before I do. It’s harder to stab him like this, while he’s still moving so much. Whilst he’s still fighting.

Somehow he still manages to catch my eye. To notice me, of all the people attacking. Maybe he can feel my guilt radiating off me. I don’t know how anyone else can’t. He looks at me again, asks the same question. I open my mouth to answer, but another dagger sinks home before I work out what to say and he’s away and screaming again.

I stand and watch. It makes me feel sick but it’s my punishment. The gods seem to have decreed that I am must live this moment again, so maybe I can escape this fate if I own up and accept my crimes. My betrayal. My weakness. I am neither all for this or all against. A grey, murky halfway land, where I tried to maintain my righteousness while minimising the blood on my hands.

As the blood pools on the chamber floor, I know I have no right to such peaceful thinking.

I’m in the chamber again. Before it all. The heat, the sweat, the grit, all of it. I see the sharks circling once more, but this time I feel judgment in their eyes. They know- somehow- that in the times before I did not do my part properly. They know I showed weakness.

We are doing the dance again, and if I must live through this Hades I will do it right. It can feel no worse than being weak about it.

As the sharks still patrol I push my way through the crowd of senators, trying to find him. I can hear him, and the voice brings a sad smile to my lips even as my blood runs cold. I have known that voice so long, my whole life I feel. I will know it no more after this day.

He turns to me and smiles, puts his hands out to greet me. I take the embrace one handed, my other still hiding the knife in the folds of my toga.

‘For the Republic,’ I say in his ear as we hug. He starts to pull away, a question on his lips but before it comes out my knife is there. In, under his ribs, trying to get straight to his heart. I can save him the suffering he endured the other times at least.

Except I miss. I was not a soldier for long, no longer than necessary, and not very good at it. Rank kept me out of most of the fighting.

I have saved him nothing. But I have saved the Republic.

Blood is spilt now and the vultures descend. Everyone wants to be on the list of those that did the deed, those that saved democracy. Tyrant slayers. I hope that is how we are remembered. I pray that is how we’re remembered.

I stand and watch as it goes on. Now my feet are warm and wet, soaked in his blood as it pools at my feet. Only one tear falls this time. Respectful, but strong. I hope no one marks how much my hands shake though.

The chamber is hot, and so am I. Rage fills me.

How can it have come to this, to this day and these actions? Why has no one seen sense, realised there must be a compromise? Everyone is so full of their own ambition and self worth, and now that means that blood must be spilt.

But not by me.

I have seen this too often, done this too often. I want no part in it. There are no heroes here, only fools and bigger fools. And history may judge me as the biggest fool of all, but at least I can meet the gods with a clear conscience.

I drop my knife on the floor. It clangs loudly against the marble, but only a few jumpy conspirators notice. They watch me as I turn to leave. Maybe they think it’s off. If they follow, if enough of them loose their nerve-

No. I can hear it starting. The cries for justice, for the republic, for liberty. The cries for life, for air, for peace.

The sun burns my face as I manage to leave the building, just briefly, before I am pulled back into this vicious cycle.

The chamber is hot and echoey, dust drifting lazily across the sunbeams. The air is as muggy as my thoughts. Why am I trapped in this hell? It wasn’t even my idea to start this. I don’t think so, at least. All the details are vague now, it has been building so long I can no longer see where it truly started. I guess the second he first sat in the chamber, it was all leading to this. It’s just the sort of man he is.

And what sort of man am I? Do I have to be the sort of man who sits back and lets history happen around me, without a say in it at all?

I have tried standing against him. Maybe this endless cycling is the gods telling me what my heart keeps saying, that I should stand with him.

I slip my knife back under my toga and race from the chamber. Outside his lictors are waiting, and I scream at them to save him. But I’m too panicky, too guilty, and it takes them far, far too long to realise what I’m saying and what is happening.

By they time they reach the chamber the floor is already red. Once again I’ve failed to bring any sort of peace.

The chamber is hot and filled with the mutterings of rats. Not a one of them in here knows what true loyalty is. Not even me, given all my previous actions. Well, this is the time to prove what a man should be. A man should stand up for what is right, and loyalty is right. Not loyalty to a word, or a vision or a concept. Loyalty to something solid, something real.

Someone real.

All people disagree. That shouldn’t put us on the opposite end of a knife to our closest and oldest allies.

I push through the senators ahead of me, craning to see him, to make sure no one else will reach him first. They don’t, and as I approach he senses the agitation in me. Before he can ask me what is wrong I swing.

Not at him though. At the man who sat next to me at last nights meeting. Of course he doesn’t expect it, and my haphazard swipe slices his knife arm and disarms him. I kick the knife to my friend, warn him, and seconds later we are back to back, blades out, facing a circle of wary would-be tyrant killers. I am no solider, but he is. Catching him unawares was a easy kill; having to fight him is a death sentence.

But we are still outnumbered. The pair of us fight, slashing and stabbing at anyone who comes into range, but we can not last forever. A blade catches my arm, his leg, my side, his face. We falter and they leap.

The pain is more than I could ever have imagined. I can feel the parts of my body failing, can feel the blood coursing out from all the slashes, all the punctures. I cry, and this time the tears are all for me. My blood mingles with his as we lie, side by side, in death and in history.

Maybe this act of friendship will release me from my hell. Maybe now the gods will me let go, and not make me relive this horrific scene.

I have done the honourable thing now. Only the gods can decide if it was the right one.

The chamber is hot and dusty, and I scream.