Wake up, Caesar

Wake up, Caesar

Una Krone

Welcome to my dark side

It’s gonna be a long night

Bishop Briggs – Dark Side

© Una Krone, 2025

ISBN 978-5-0067-3096-0

Created with Ridero smart publishing system

– 1 —

At seven o’clock on a cold autumn evening, the door to the women’s dorm room of King’s College opened with a desperate howl of Silvan, disappointed in his abilities for the Latin language.

“I don’t get it! A thousand, no, a thousand and three times I flipped through this fucking textbook, but I didn’t find erant1. It just doesn’t exist! As well as my belief that I’ll pass Latin in winter.”

Overshadowed by this terrible failure, Silvan fell into a soft chair and dropped his freckled face into his hands like a theatre actor. But the performance ended when an open bottle of red wine and The Gallic Wars by Gaius Julius Caesar caught his attention. The most typical decor in the most popular room on the floor.

“Hey! You’re sitting right on my blazer, you idiot,” Diana got up from the chair where she had been posing for about an hour like an antique statue, while Mars was painting her portrait with bright paints. He peeked out from behind the easel with a frown, which put the dark-haired model into doubts about her absolute beauty.

Silvan didn’t need any problems, so he pulled out a black blazer from under his ass and wiped his nonexistent tears with it. When he looked at Diana with a barely noticeable smile, he realized that she was wearing only dark brown trousers and a black lace bra that emphasized her attractive breasts in a very effective way.

The girl snatched the blazer from the drama king’s hands to prevent him from blowing his nose into it and threw it on Mars’ kneels.

“Let it stay with you, dulcis2,” on the last word she smoothed Mars’ black curls, and her burning eyes screamed how much she wanted to kiss her boyfriend. But Silvan, who burst into the dark room with its velvet curtains and several candles, ruined all the romance of the evening. It is always easier to destroy than to create.

“If you’re still interested—” silent Mars suddenly spoke up.

His attention was absorbed by the portrait he gave every feeling to. Mars’ plans included giving himself to his beloved as soon as possible because Diana was driving him crazy and it was getting harder to hold on. Brown hair down to the middle of her back, so straight, styled and sparkling, as if she had sold her soul to the Devil for it, eye shadow as golden as the midday sun on her eyelids, slightly parted and always ready to touch lips, and long sharp nails, so good at scratching his strong back during their private shows. A work of ancient art, she couldn’t be called anything else. She was on a par with The Iliad, or perhaps a bit ahead of Homer’s poem, and even Julius Caesar’s speeches couldn’t compare with the excitement which the charming fairy plunged Mars into.

“What am I interested in?” Silvan shook his head so that the red strands wouldn’t interfere with his gaze at Mars, cold, reasonable, strong and the most intelligent man he had ever met.

“Erant is the third person, plural, imperfect, active, indicative,” the best one in their special tiny group of classics students reported with a serious look on his face.

Only six lovers of antiquity studied in third year, and together with the professors they formed a truly close-knit family.

Silvan immediately perked up. He knew that Mars would never leave in trouble and would always help out, especially when it came to studying. They could ask him any questions because that damn fanatic idolized Ancient Rome from the beginning of its history to the very last speck of dust.

“Live forever, my friend!” Silvan made a clumsy low bow and glanced at the bottle on the floor. “Anything stronger?”

Diana got back to posing and answered without moving.

“What about cherry liqueur?”

“Tu rides?3”

“I saw brandy on the shelf behind the books,” Mars was putting the finishing touches. He was going to hide Diana’s marvelous portrait from prying eyes on his own shelf full of classical works in Latin and dictionaries.

“How do you know what is hidden among my books?” Diana narrowed her eyes to show that she wouldn’t tolerate any lies. She decided to take the blazer to the laundry after Silvan’s hands and pulled out a black shirt from the closet instead.

“I hid that brandy some days ago. For the future, you know,” Mars put the art supplies aside. The weekend was coming, and they needed to get rid of all the gained stress after a cruel week.

“I guess someone named my favorite drink,” the door swung open again because no one considered it their duty to knock politely and enter cautiously. It was common among them to disturb each other’s peace.

In a small but cozy room, where charming music from an old vinyl record player was bewitching on the background, the space shrunk when loud blue-haired Nox came in.

“Since when did you stop worshipping beer?” Silvan snorted and turned away.

He didn’t want to see his ex-boyfriend’s middle finger. Nox annoyed him more than anyone else in the world, especially because he quickly moved away from their stormy romance and seemed to remember nothing about it. The playboy was a professional at going on countless dates with (aka sleeping with) college students, and he never kept in secret his admiration for the Roman emperor Nero who ascended the throne at the age of sixteen and became infamous for being a mentally ill sadist and arsonist, which seemed inspiring to Nox.

“Did you come to complain about Latin endings, too?” Diana took a sip of wine from the bottle and started dancing with her eyes closed, too lazy to button up her shirt. Or maybe she just wanted everyone to see her body.

“Deus4, I’m not as dumb as some here. I just wanted to share my favorite lines from Plato’s Symposium. Listen!” Nox opened the book where he had left the red rose as a bookmark and cleared his throat. “‘People who are split from a male are male-oriented. While they are boys, because they are chips off the male block, they love men and enjoy lying with men and being embraced by men; those are the best of boys and lads, because they are the most manly in their nature.’ Brilliant, isn’t it?”

A moment of silence.

Then Mars spoke out, “Do you know that you’ve read this quote to us ten times already?”

“Eleven, to be exact,” Silvan corrected. “You know, I memorize numbers perfectly, so I give one hundred percent guarantee that…”

“Shut up!” Nox snapped and threw his book on the table littered with Diana’s thick textbooks, scribbled notebooks, unfinished essays and empty bottles. Then he sat down right on the maroon carpet and hugged his sharp knees.

“One day you’ll stop talking about male sex, but I’m afraid we won’t live to see it,” Diana handed Nox a full glass. “Sorry, there is no snack.”

Everyone laughed. They never needed a snack.

“Have you finished your project on those ceramic fragments? Bates won’t be happy with another excuse,” Nox turned his eyes to the couple whose love wasn’t allowed to reveal itself because of the growing audience.

“Yesterday. And I’m glad it’s over. Dishes aren’t as interesting as bones.”

“I agree,” Mars held out his hand to Diana, inviting her to dance. He looked like a real gentleman in his gray tweed suit, and no one could resist his charm. Fortis et liber, that’s what Diana called him to herself. Strong and free.

The lovers spun around the room, and Silvan decided to turn up the volume on the record player to create the illusion of real dancing. Diana and Mars nodded their thanks to him and, with the bottles and each other, flew off into the world of an alcohol-toned waltz. Nox moved to the vacant chair, and Silvan swam to the dresser to look for some weed among the underwear. It’s Friday after all. On Friday, everything is allowed.

“Do you know if Vesper translated the Greek text?” The blue-haired guy asked the redhead. Their hair alone let them stand out from the crowd of boring college students.

Silvan slowly rolled a cute joint and only after that answered in a lazy voice, “Aurora translated. She came back from class and dove into it immediately. I will always be amazed by her efficiency.”

Nox just waved it off and said, “I’m interested in Vesper.”

“If you want to copy, it’s better to ask Aurora. She doesn’t make any mistakes. It’s like she was born with Greek on her lips.”

“You don’t seem to understand. I’m interested in Vesper.”

Silvan sat frozen in the chair with a joint at his mouth.

“You know he likes Diana, right?” He whispered because the dancing couple shouldn’t have heard it. “And even if he didn’t like her, he prefers women anyway.”

Nox finished his brandy and exhaled with pleasure. A sly smile appeared on his pale face.

He moved the chair closer to his friend and whispered, too, “Of the fifteen Roman emperors, only Claudius preferred women, which means I’ll definitely convince Vesper. Just once. It’s not a secret he sleeps less now, and bags under his eyes are so big that you can put your endless problems with Latin endings in them. Did you notice he stopped combing? Damn, his gorgeous hair is so fucking messed up, I actually want to cry and wank when I see it.”

Silvan swallowed. He didn’t like the way Nox talked to him about guys. No deep feelings, but anyway, listening to the ex talking about sex with your mutual friend brought very little pleasure. Thanks to all the Roman gods and Diana, Silvan had weed to cope with frustrating conversations.

Suddenly the music stopped.

Diana and Mars returned from the palace of their thoughts.

“Guys, we’ve come up with something,” crazy sparks flashed in the girl’s eyes.

Actually, madness was typical of both Diana and Mars, which completed the list of reasons why they had been dating for two years. Impeccable style, brilliance, interest in archaeology, and weird ideas that everyone in their almost friendly group absolutely adored. Even their performance with the painting. No one could imagine they would bring an easel and a canvas with paints from nowhere and start creating art for no motives. Apparently, they both had a chance to end up in an asylum in the future, but so far the group had been managing to control the impulses of their freaky couple.

Nox and Silvan nodded. They wanted to know the details.

“Call Aurora and Vesper, we are going to summon spirits.”

That was exactly the kind of Friday night everyone needed.

– 2 —

No one should have felt left out, so the six of them settled down on the crumbs-strewn parquet floor and put a marble bust of Cleopatra next to the circle. Diana would allow to steal, burn and drown all her sacred notes with rules, facts and theories highlighted with different markers, but she would never say goodbye to her treasure found in the attic of the dormitory. The queen ruled Egypt during the period of the Roman Empire, was beautiful, ruthless and strong, which seemed to Diana ideal qualities for a woman. Beyond that, Cleopatra’s world-famous affairs with Julius Caesar and Mark Antony added spice to her image and made the queen truly iconic.

“Fine, the majority voted for Caesar. But do you really want this, or are you just scared to offend Mars? He’s ready to do anything to get in touch with the soul of his idol,” Vesper was never afraid to speak out, keeping silent only about his feelings for Diana. His sincerity, or nerdiness, could sometimes be admired, but only sometimes.

Impregnable Mars succumbed to the provocation and said, “Caesar is the best option because he does know about Roman burials in Britain. He organized two invasions, remember?”

“Like many others, and yet you cling to this dictator,” said Nox.

He was against summoning Caesar’s spirit for two decent reasons. Firstly, Caesar was never merciful, and if they managed to pull off this trick, the Roman emperor wouldn’t be happy to find out that a bunch of drunk and stoned Cambridge students wanted to ask him a couple of suspicious questions. And secondly, Nox began to implement his plan to capture Vesper, and sharing the same point of view on some things was on the list.

“They’re just kindred spirits, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Aurora shrugged and then yawned.

All evening she sat with her dictionaries to identify the semantic field of success in Latin and English. Vesper had already done his part of the work and gently but regularly reminded Aurora about the task of Professor Tolman. The girl loved linguistics but sometimes regretted that she chose it as her specialization, because tasks for her and Vesper were usually pointless, and Professor Tolman knew it himself. Every evening she had to delay her bedtime in favor of working with dictionaries, and bags under her eyes were not the only problem. Aurora felt her blonde curls fading and thinning due to the unbearable workload, and no vitamins, which she had been swallowing for the second month, helped stop the catastrophe.

“Okay, if I drink another glass of this cheapish wine, it will probably make it easier for me to accept what’s going on,” Vesper gave up.

He had his reasons, too. He didn’t want Diana to think he was afraid of her Ouija board or, even worse, wasn’t crazy about Caesar. The tyrant seemed their full-fledged classmate because they devoted a nasty number of conversations to him.

“Are you sure we can do it?” asked Silvan with a hint of doubt and lay down on his back. He didn’t think straight after everything he had managed to pour into himself, but the instinct for self-preservation still lived inside.

“Audentes fortuna iuvat5,” Mars shared his philosophy and got up from the floor to take matches and a few more sage candles from the closet.

He and Diana lied. The idea to arrange a seance to find out about the graves of ancient Romans near Cambridge didn’t come to their dark heads during the dance. No, they had been cherishing this idea since the beginning of September after another class of translating texts from Latin into English and reading the results out loud. They did it every time and got really bored with the college’s approach to learning the language.

Everyone knows Latin is dead and taught only to understand medicine and the basis of European culture. No conversations, no exchange of thoughts, no loud and confident speech. And it seemed unfair to Diana and Mars. They wanted to communicate in Latin, maybe not as fluently as in their native language but at least as in French they learned at school. Adding little Latin phrases to their silly conversations reminded Mars of kindergarten behavior, and he always felt ashamed of it.

They needed real practice. A person who doesn’t understand another language and leaves no choice. Then they would have to cross the border and speak Latin. Then getting a higher education would make at least some sense. And drunk friends couldn’t deny it.

Fortunately, Mars and Diana were well versed in the earth, its values, and especially in how to get people out of it. That’s the beauty of archaeologists’ work. They are magicians with the legal right to show the dead, buried under meters of soil, the blue sky and bright stars. However, the students wanted to go beyond the limits, they needed not to look but to hear. Nobody yet knew how to make bones talk, but there was something harder than weed hidden in the top drawer of the dresser.

“Are we doing it right here? On the floor? Naked?” Nox sat down next to Vesper but opposite Silvan, and it spoiled the situation.

“Corruptus in extremis6,” Vesper rolled his eyes.

“A capite ad calcem7,” Diana agreed.

They looked at each other and laughed.

After a second, Diana forgot about it. Vesper remembered it forever.

“Did you say something about dirty feet?” Silvan was still lying on the floor, passing his hands over it and collecting dust like a vacuum cleaner. His mustard-colored jumper belonged to the laundry after such an adventure, but he couldn’t care less about his clothes.

Nox’s sudden confession didn’t want to leave his mind, and the more Silvan thought about it, the more he realized how offended he felt. At some point, he came up with a great idea to switch his attention to another person to dull the revived pain. His gaze stopped at Aurora’s black tights. Silvan took that as a sign.

“That’s the main reason for the upcoming event,” Diana smiled and ran her finger through the candle flame. With her other hand, she patted Cleopatra’s stone hair. “To give you, Silvan, the opportunity to improve your oral speech.”

“Where did you get the board?” asked Aurora. Diana always managed to surprise them with unexpected finds. She definitely hadn’t had a Ouija board before.

“The main thing is that we have it. I found the rules on the Internet, and I think we need to read them,” Diana’s eyes skimmed through the text.

Suddenly the phone fell out of her hands, and she burst out laughing.

“What’s there?” Nox picked up the phone. He didn’t like when something funny passed by him. “I hope I was right and we’ll have to undress.”

But a minute later he was laughing with Diana.

The rest of the students became curious and started asking each other what was so remarkable about the rules. It turned out that before and during the seance you mustn’t take alcoholic beverages, drugs or nicotine, because it is life-threatening, and everything can end in obsession or even schizophrenia.

Each of them got into the risk zone. Before the whole company sat in a circle on the floor, everyone had taken part in destroying Diana’s alcohol reserves, but even then they weren’t completely satisfied and brought more bottles to continue the feast.

“Can we call it off?” suggested Aurora, although she knew the answer.

“No way,” Mars snapped after two sips. “Our hearts are already set on it.”

“Well, maybe yours is set, but mine is quite open to another kind of experience…” Nox turned to Vesper, who paid no attention to it, and wanted to add something, but Mars didn’t let him.

“Hit on boys later, we have plans for today, asshole,” Mars was losing his temper. He wasn’t as drunk as his friends, so he couldn’t just lie on the floor, talk nonsense and laugh at the top of his voice. A little fun is fine, but that’s enough. The Internet likes to scare, so the last thing you need to worry about is some stupid online warnings.

Diana put her hand on Mars’ thigh to distract him and give the others some time to pull themselves together or at least to pretend.

At the next stage of preparation, it was necessary to take off all jewelry, let hair down, relax belts and ties. Diana had to cover Nox’s mouth so that he wouldn’t start sharing his filthy hopes again.

“Oh, this one is interesting,” it was Aurora’s turn to wade through the blurring letters. “If there is someone in the company who constantly jokes, laughs and asks stupid questions, they need to be kicked out of the room.”

“Well, let’s go,” Silvan took a sitting position. “Mr. Raven is the only one who can stay here.”

Mars rolled his eyes and smoothed his black hair. He didn’t notice how Vesper looked at him, but the envy in the glance was obvious. Vesper believed that Diana wouldn’t break up with her handsome boyfriend as long as he had black curls. Diana adored black, no one even knew the reasons for her love, but they suspected that she worshiped Satan in solitude and always chose black to show respect to the Dark Lord. Vesper once thought of dyeing his brown hair, but then he realized this kind of makeover would rather amuse Diana than make her fall in love. You need to change yourself, but poor Vesper didn’t even know what he was like in order to figure out how to change himself.

Diana took out from a pencil-case a piece of chalk stolen from the ancient Greek’s classroom and drew a circle around her friends on the floor.

“Listen, what if the spirit settles here?” Aurora was actually worried about the future of the place. Besides, if the spirit started messing up, not only Diana would suffer, it would definitely affect them all.

Silvan chuckled, “Then Mars will settle here, too. Oh, wait! He doesn’t come out of the room anyway.”

“Family life,” Aurora sighed and threw a glance at the red-haired guy because she felt his sudden attention. Maybe alcohol clouded her mind, but there was something new, curious and even unacceptable in the gaze of her friend. She fixed the collar of her snow-white blouse and turned away with great emphasis.

“Keep your envy under control, losers,” said Mars.

The others were hardly aware of loyalty, long-term relationships and real passion, so they constantly tried to solve their validation issues with the help of jokes. Mars usually didn’t pay attention to pranks, but this time he got really mad. The upcoming seance could change the future, and he didn’t understand why his friends preferred to discuss personal lives.

“Enough, let’s get started,” Diana had been waiting for it for a long time, she had great expectations and wanted to fulfill her plans as soon as possible.

The girl asked everyone to hold hands and say together, “May there be no evil forces or demons.”

Then a frightening silence fell in the room.

The fingertips touched the tablet.

Six voices said in unison, “The spirit of Gaius Julius Caesar, come.”

And at that moment one of the candles went out.

– 3—

Even in the almost complete darkness, everyone saw each other’s huge and round eyes. They did their best not to cry out because scream could frighten, offend or anger a potential spirit. Apart from the sudden and unreasonable candle fading, nothing else happened, yet no one knew for certain what had to happen. The fingers were still pressing on the triangle in the center of the board, and all the participants had the feeling that a little more – and they would move the slider because of unbearable tension.

Aurora couldn’t keep her emotions and squeaked, “Is Caesar here? Does anyone know what’s going on?”

There was no reply, but Silvan gripped her free hand tightly. Aurora didn’t comment on this intimacy because she knew that Silvan was just wasted as usual and all his weird moves were nothing but the consequence of several drinks.

“Spiritus, hic es?8” asked Mars. He sounded so calm and confident that even if someone suspected how absurd the situation was, they changed their mind. Mars believed they would succeed, and others had to believe it too.

However, the silence lasted too long and turned into confusion.

“Try English then. It’s the main world language after all. He will definitely understand you”, suggested Silvan and felt their leader’s rising anger.

“We are to practise Latin.”

“We are not if the spirit doesn’t respond to you. Greet him in English. Just try,” said Nox, and to his surprise, Mars obeyed.

“Are you here?” he repeated in a louder voice and got in the mood to resent, but suddenly the second candle went out, and an unknown force carried six fingers to the field with the word yes. The students looked at the board with genuine horror. No one asked whose joke it was. They wanted to believe in the power of Ouija.

“We greet you, spirit, and thank you for coming,” Mars continued with the same absolutely stolid face. “What’s your name?” It was necessary to make sure their party was visited by the one they were waiting for.

“It will be funny if—” Nox wanted to make a joke, but Mars looked at him with such a murderous sideways glance that Nox fell silent and stared at the board to avoid those sick eyes.

The slider didn’t move. Either the spirit forgot his name, or decided to remain anonymous, in any case, there was no choice, because Mars wouldn’t let the séance end, even though they were going to talk to a stranger.

“We would like to know about the graves of ancient Romans, your brothers, near Cambridge. We are very interested in antiquity, we admire the greatness of Rome and dream of seeing just one grave with our own eyes. We are ready to decorate it and honor the memory of the warrior who died here. If you agree to tell us, it will really make us happy,” Mars mixed truth and lies, and everybody could only hope that the spirit didn’t see their actual thoughts.