‘Trust me,’ smiled Caligula. ‘They really can’t hear you.’
Nonetheless, he tried again. This time his croaking voice had a shrill and desperate power behind it: the asylum scream of some unhinged wretch. And it was the same meaningless word over and over again. Gibberish to Caligula.
‘SpongeBubba! SpongeBubba!! SPONGE … BUBBA!!!’
CHAPTER 49
AD 54, Rome
‘So … Maddy, that thing about Caligula joining the gods? You remember? The information you got off your computer?’
Maddy nodded. She’d not forgotten. She looked ahead of them, at Sal and Bob. They were walking along a narrow avenue outside Crassus’s walled garden. Traders set up temporary stalls along the base of the pink-painted wall early every morning. Stalls that could trade for a few hours before the mid-morning call to prayer sounded across the rooftops of Rome and Caligula’s acolytes started patrolling the streets to be sure every citizen was obediently on their knees in homage to their emperor and god. The unlicensed traders and their illegal stalls were packed up and long gone before then.
Charcoal graffiti covered the flaking pink paint. Latin tags of one collegium or another, slogans, crude jokes and vulgar stick-man drawings. One clearly depicted the emperor: a stick man with an oak-leaf halo above his head and exaggerated booted feet. Maddy squinted at what it seemed to be waving around in its hand – without her glasses on, the entire street was in soft focus. It seemed to be a …
‘Oh, per-lease …’ She tutted in disgust.
‘Joining with the gods?’ prompted Liam. ‘That’s supposed to be soon, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’ There wasn’t a date. But the data they’d pulled up did say something about it being in the summer.
‘Should we not tell the others about that, though? I mean … it’s important.’
‘I … I’m not sure we should.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, look … think about it. If they learn from us that actually Caligula might not be around for much longer, they’ll abandon their plans. Right? I mean … why risk your life if you just need to be patient and wait a few more weeks, months?’
They watched Sal cajoling Bob into bartering with a trader. Maddy very much doubted any haggling was going to last particularly long with something as big and as intimidating as Bob on one side of the transaction.
‘Liam, this “ascending to the gods” thing. It could mean anything. It’s far too ambiguous for us to assume it means anything. It could mean he just got sick of a disease and died, and his priests decided to make up something that sounded suitably exciting and godlike.’
‘Aye. True.’
‘On the other hand,’ she added, ‘it could be a portal.’
He looked at her and grinned. ‘Well, I was thinking the very same thing, so I –’
‘It might be that there’s some time-travel tech somewhere in his palace that’s been in a dormant state and it starts to activate. Maybe something on a timer … a bit like one of our six-month windows, but much longer?’
She looked at him. ‘See … that’s why we’ve got to get in there. Before whatever happens to Caligula … happens. And Cato, and the others, they’re our only way in.’
‘We’re using them,’ said Liam. He didn’t look entirely happy about that. She knew he’d warmed to those two, Cato and Macro.
‘Yes.’ She sighed. ‘Yes, technically, we are sort of using them.’
‘Doesn’t seem right.’
‘Oh sheesh,’ she cursed under her breath. ‘Why do I always have to be the freakin’ bad guy? Huh?’ Truth was, Maddy had learned to think of an alternate timeline as something not entirely real, almost cartoon-like. A virtual world even. These were lives that were not meant to have been lived. In some cases, perhaps they were better lives than they should have been; more often – at least so far – they’d been horrible lives lived through horrible timelines. Yes … perhaps she should have told Cato that something in this timeline was due to happen to Caligula very soon. But if whatever happened, happened in the palace on the Palatine with them sitting around out here and, God help them, they missed it … then that really might be their one and only chance to get back home wasted.
‘We have to get in there, Liam … and we have to get in there before anything activates? Do you get it? This might just be our only way back home!’
He stroked the tuft of bristles perched on his chin thoughtfully. ‘Aye … well, I suppose.’
‘So, we don’t tell them. We need them to act on their plans. The sooner the better.’
‘So, then … our friend here is quite correct.’ Crassus acknowledged Maddy with a nod. ‘There is no need to delay a moment longer. With our conceit to lure away some of these Stone Men and with the help of yours, we have a chance for you to get to Caligula, Cato.
‘The longer we delay, the more chance there is that one of Caligula’s spies will notice our gatherings.’ Crassus looked round at the others; the two senators, Cicero and Paulus, had attended. Atellus had made a trip over from the Tenth Legion’s permanent camp; Fronto the senior centurion of the Palace Guard cohort was there and, of course, Cato and Macro. ‘I know Caligula already suspects me of whispers behind his back.’
Cato nodded. ‘Agreed. We have a workable plan now. I say we proceed immediately.’
Although the gathered men stirred uneasily, there were no objections to that.
‘Right.’ Crassus reached into the folds of his toga and produced some scrolls. ‘This is the evidence you can present to Caligula, Cato.’ He handed Cato the scrolls. Cato unravelled them and scanned them quickly.
‘This is correspondence between Lepidus … and you!’
The old man nodded.
‘If I hand this over to Caligula, he’ll have men outside your front door within the hour!’
‘It has to be convincing.’ Crassus smiled. ‘My name on these letters will be enough to ensure Caligula sends for Lepidus as well. The moment he hears both he and I have been summoned, he’ll know his involvement with us, albeit a fleeting one, has been exposed.’
‘Crassus, if I do this, you should leave Rome. If –’
‘No! If I run before they come for me, it will suggest I have foreknowledge. I must be caught red-handed by Caligula for this to fool him. More importantly … for him to fully trust you, Cato. He may already know you have visited me, met with me. You have to betray me, Cato … you have to hand me to Caligula as a traitor.’
He hunched his shoulders. ‘I will comply … I will play the innocent old man and then, when he threatens me with torture, I will implicate Lepidus.’
Cato shook his head. ‘We need you alive and well, Crassus! When Caligula is dead, we will need all of you!’ He looked at Cicero and Paulus. ‘We’ll need every last one of you to rebuild the Senate –’
‘The Senate needs men far younger than I.’ Crassus smiled. ‘Anyway, I don’t plan to die. Caligula will want to keep me alive to execute alongside Lepidus in some elaborate public display.’
Cato looked at Atellus. ‘Then we must be sure General Lepidus will make his move quickly.’
‘He will,’ smiled Atellus. ‘He’s already nervous about his meetings with you last year, Crassus. He has no wish to be made a martyr.’
‘And his legions?’
‘There’s no love lost between the Tenth, Eleventh and the Guard.’
Cato nodded. ‘Then it looks like this is our time.’
‘When will you present this evidence to Caligula?’ asked Cicero.
‘On my return to the palace.’ He looked at Crassus. ‘They will come for you tonight. Are you ready for that?’
‘My affairs are all in order.’
‘Atellus, you should leave immediately then, and carry the news back to General Lepidus that arrests of suspected traitors are being made in Rome this very evening. That’ll put the wind up him.’
‘It certainly will.’
Cato held the scrolls of correspondence in his hand.
‘As soon as Caligula sees these letters, he’ll issue an order for Lepidus’s immediate arrest. I suspect the arrest order and a party of Praetorians will arrive not very long after you.’
Atellus grinned. ‘There’ll be no sleep for him tonight.’
‘Let’s just hope he decides to go on the offensive, and not turn and run.’ He addressed the senators. ‘You two should go into hiding. As soon as Crassus is revealed as a conspirator, Caligula may decide to round up the rest of the surviving Senate. Pick friends you can trust and stay out of sight until you hear that Caligula is dead.’
‘What about me?’ asked Macro.
‘I want you to look after our new friends. Keep them safe. As soon as I have convinced Caligula to move the Guard out to confront Lepidus, I’ll send for you.’
‘How will you get us into the palace?’ asked Maddy.
Cato gave it a moment’s thought. ‘You’ll be my property. And Macro’ll be bringing you into the palace grounds for safekeeping. A perfectly sensible thing for me to ask permission to arrange. There will be riots and unrest in the city when the people witness the majority of Caligula’s Praetorians marching out.’
He took a deep breath. ‘Tonight and for the next few days, few weeks, this city will be in a state of anarchy. Even after Caligula is dead, it will be a dangerous time. General Lepidus’s men, the Praetorians and every other legion near Italy will be mobilizing to put their candidate on the throne. We need the Senate re-established quickly … and order restored fast if we’re to avoid a civil war.’
‘Rome’s sickly enough without the prospect of that,’ said Paulus.
‘Quite. All of you should use tonight to prepare for this. Macro … you should make sure you have extra food in and be ready to fortify your apartments. This city will descend into Hell. The collegia will almost certainly make use of the chaos to raid and loot and settle old scores.’
‘Right you are.’
‘If we’re very lucky,’ said Cato, ‘the majority of the bloodshed will be outside Rome. The Tenth, Eleventh and the Guard will incapacitate each other. The Palace Cohort will be right here in the city under my command, Caligula will be dead and we will have a small window of time to restore a Republic.’
Cicero looked at him. ‘For a few days, Cato, you understand … you will in effect be the Protector of Rome. Quite possibly the only cohesive military force within a hundred miles of Rome.
‘It takes a strong will to voluntarily surrender that kind of power back to the people.’
‘Now’s not the best time to start doubting me, Cicero.’
The politician looked taken aback. ‘I was just say–’
Macro spat a curse. ‘I’d trust Cato with my life!’
Cato glanced at Maddy, at Liam. A momentary meeting of eyes, a fleeting understanding.
‘This was not meant to be. Caligula has to go before it’s too late for Rome.’
‘What if …’ Fronto began.
‘Go on, Fronto.’
‘Thank you, sir … I just thought it might be worth saying. What if Caligula … really is, well, you know … a god?’
Atellus snorted with laughter.
‘That’s not such a stupid question,’ replied Cato. ‘Soldiers are a superstitious lot. Something we should be mindful of. A bad omen … a rumour, something as trivial as that can swing the allegiance of them at a time like this.’
‘Most of ’em are semi-literate, wine-swilling knuckle-draggers,’ grunted Macro, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. Cato looked at him, shook his head and smiled.
Macro scowled back. ‘And what’s that look supposed to mean?’
CHAPTER 50
AD 54, Rome
Late afternoon sunlight painted the clay-brick walls of every building a warm peach and cast violet shadows into every narrow alley and rat run. The streets were busy with vendors packing up their shop fronts and pulling shutter doors to for the approaching evening.
Liam and Bob flanked Macro; Maddy and Sal a few steps behind.
‘What was it like in the legions?’ asked Liam. Macro repeated the question.
Liam nodded. ‘I’ve seen some …’ He was going to say ‘films’, but stopped himself. Only Cato knew where and when they’d come from. That might change at some point, but for now, the fact that they’d come from some place beyond the known Roman world was enough to share.
‘Well,’ Macro shrugged. ‘I’ll be honest, I probably moaned all the way through my twenty-five years in the Second. It was either hard work or damned boring. And plenty of years spent shivering in cold, damp places I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘But I’d have those days back if I could.’
They stepped aside for a pair of Caligula’s acolytes wearing long green robes. It was approaching evening prayers and the calling horns would be sounding across the roof tiles soon.
‘Why?’
‘I miss the … I don’t know. I suppose I miss the sense of brotherhood. They really are an ugly, stupid, foul-smelling lot of lowlifes … the lads in any legion. Not the sort you’d want to bring home to meet the family, if you get my meaning. But …’ He shook his head, looking for a way to make his point. ‘But together … you and those men, you’re something more. Part of something greater. Do you understand?’
Liam nodded. He thought he probably did. He and the girls, Bob and Becks, even computer-Bob, they were their very own ‘unit’ … sort of. With someone else by your side, someone you know would throw down their life to save yours, somehow it made staring into a hopeless abyss possible.
Macro echoed his thoughts. ‘Back then … I would have died for any one of my lads. And I know they’d have done the same, followed me into Hell itself if I’d ordered it. But now …?’ He shrugged sadly. ‘I see faces I recognize every so often. Lads retired from the legions, or even deserters. Just thugs and crooks some of them now. A lot of them hired men in the various collegia. I’d kill them without a second thought if I needed to.’
‘How long did you and Cato serve together?’
‘Oh now, I suppose it must have been about twelve years.’ He laughed. ‘Good times then. Most of it. Well … some of it. He came as a freshly freed slave from the imperial household of the Julii. As thin as a strip of willow and soft as a peach. And completely clueless about army life. I thought the lad wouldn’t last a week.’ He looked at Liam. ‘I’ve told you that already, haven’t I?’
Liam nodded.
‘I suppose I took pity on him at first. Took him under my wing, taught him how to become a soldier. And in return he taught me how to read.’ He laughed. ‘Made this dumb old centurion appreciate some of the finer things in life.’
CHAPTER 51
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
Caligula stood in the main atrium admiring the construction of these weapons. Every now and then he brought them out of the darkness and studied their smooth, well-honed lines and curves. There were no scrapes, scratches or the hammer marks of a craftsman. It was as if these things had been born, not made.
He gazed at them, spread out on a satin sheet. Beautiful, mysterious weapons.
His caged guest had once told him these things were called ‘T1-38 pulse carbines’; weapons that spat death at the mere squeeze of a finger. Caligula had once, long ago, asked to have a go at using one. But the Visitor called ‘Stilson’, a man he found to be rather annoying and loudly spoken, had refused him, saying he was from a time too primitive to understand such things.
Caligula smiled at the man’s breathtaking arrogance, at his assumption that their intellect was far greater than these Romans they’d come back in time to rule ‘more wisely’.
Yes. Caligula had fully understood what they were. Certainly not gods – he’d known that almost from the first moment in fact. They were just men, men from a far future. His frequent private discussions with that dark-skinned young man had helped him to understand that, the Parthian-looking one who was called Rashim.
The one who had the mo
st knowledge of such incredible things. The one who could be promised the role of co-emperor of all and be foolish enough to believe it was genuine. The one who could be flattered so easily … young enough, naive enough to believe all the empty assurances and promises Caligula had given him.
Rashim.
They’d come here – the young man had told him all those years ago – because their world was no good any more; it was poisoned and dying. More than that, a pestilence had suddenly arrived that killed everything in its path. They’d had no choice.
Rashim had told him that they had knowledge of a science that allowed them to open a door on to an impossible dimension, to step through it and appear back in the real world at a time of their choosing. It was clear from the young man’s description that he knew little of this dimension – it was knowledge beyond even his science. But Caligula thought he understood what it was they had passed through.
From Rashim’s words: ‘White like snow … infinite … endless … beautiful … terrifying,’ it could only be one place.
Heaven itself.
These short-sighted fools had passed directly through Heaven to come here and make themselves kings and emperors. If they’d had an ounce of wisdom between them, they would have realized Heaven was the true goal. To step through it … and actually leave it behind them? Now that, surely, was the very definition of madness.
It was only six months after the Visitors had arrived, made themselves at home in his imperial compound that Caligula learned his guests weren’t quite as invincible as they believed they were. Their protectors, the Stone Men, were in a way – just like their other devices – merely tools that could be used for a purpose.
Used.
Switched on. Switched off.
One just needed to know how to do such things. The young man, Rashim, knew. He had an understanding of them, an understanding of how to give them instructions that made them behave very differently.