by Chuck Dixon
The prefect stumbled naked about his house, aware that he should be alarmed but feeling untroubled by his discovery. A physician was summoned, but found no symptom of poisoning in evidence but for the wild aspect of Gratus’s eyes. The boy, the physician surmised, died as a result of ill favor from the gods.
Gratus thought no more about it beyond regret over not being able to recall what had occurred between himself and the gifted boy. Ravilla, his ever-present lictor, insisted that it was an attempted poisoning and that the strange visitor of the day before be brought before them to answer for his actions. Gratus acceded to this only to remove the annoying lictor from his presence.
No evidence was found of the visitor, but soldiers located the Arabs who served in his caravan and brought them back to the palace, where they were scourged and finally strangled with ropes. They knew nothing of the stranger except that he hired them in Seythopolis to carry him and his goods west to Caesarea. He paid them generously in silver and released them from his service. Beyond that, they knew nothing, and each went to their death protesting the same.
That was the end of the matter, or so Gratus believed.
Two nights later he made for his bed with a pair of his most treasured slaves to find a bottle much like the one given him by the stranger resting on a table. It was decorated as before in blue relief depicting jungle cats this time. And this bottle was smaller by half than the one before. He called the servants together and questioned each one. Not a one had any idea how the bottle had come to be in the prefect’s rooms. He dismissed them all, even the pair he’d intended to bed.
Gratus’s thirst and the memories of the delicious rapture the wine created in him overcame his trepidation. He poured a few sips into a cup and tasted it cautiously. It was thick and sweet as he remembered. He could feel the warmth of it creeping into his limbs and poured himself a more generous serving, draining the smaller bottle, and surrendered to the enveloping effect of the draught.
He awoke the following morning feeling the same jocund drowsiness as the time before and spent the day idly lying upon a chaise watching the shadows grow longer along the walls of the courtyard. The lictor tried to engage him in the business of the day, but Gratus only waved him away and returned to his study of the clouds scudding overhead like his own personal parade.
That evening he went to his bedchamber alone to find a new bottle upon the table. This one was even smaller than the night before and encrusted with images of braying donkeys. Gratus snickered at the jest though it held no significance to him. He drained the bottle in three long swallows and fell back upon the bed to plummet into Elysium.
This went on for several days. Each night a new, increasingly diminutive bottle was found on his bed table. And each day he felt the effect of the draught less and less as the volume of the bottles shrank.
The seventh day passed in distracted ennui and all the prefect could think of was the coming of night and his new bottle of the healing tonic. But that night he entered to find the table bare of a bottle of any size. On hands and knees, he crawled about the floor looking for a vessel of any kind and found none. Exhausted, he dropped into a fretful sleep and was awake before the light of dawn tinged the mountains to the east. His mood was in stark contrast to the prior days. He was short with the slaves and even cuffed a body servant hard enough to draw blood from the boy’s mouth. Gratus felt uneasy, as though stalked by a nameless dread. He was physically uncomfortable as well, alternately flushed and chilled, and had the disturbing sensation that his skin was growing tighter.
The following days and nights were hell made real as the prefect was racked with intense pains in his limbs and a crippling agony in his gut. He would not eat, as all tasted like ashes, no matter how sweet or seasoned the servants prepared it. He could not sleep or even sit or lie down for prolonged periods. His hands shook and his head pounded, and no amount of wine would relieve his torment. Gratus’s mind shrank to the solitary focus of those tiny bottles and his overpowering desire to feel their effect once more or die.
He lay on his couch, writhing in a lake of sweat when Ravilla entered to inform him that the mysterious stranger had returned to seek a second audience.
The prefect staggered into his office with hands clawing for the stranger who was standing cool and immaculate before him. Gratus fell to his knees before the man and begged for the gift of another bottle of the elixir.
“Honorable Prefect! Remember your station!” Ravilla cried in alarm, but Gratus groveled and snuffled and kissed the hem of the stranger’s robe.
“He does not wish your counsel,” the stranger said boldly to Ravilla.
“Then perhaps the legate in Antioch will listen to me,” Ravilla said, taken aback by this dark bastard’s effrontery to an official and citizen of Rome.
“He will never hear you,” the stranger said and withdrew his hand from within his robe to reveal a strange object in his fist. It gleamed darkly, a stubby rectangle of unknown design or purpose. Ravilla smirked as he looked into the circular hole in the device held out at him in the stranger’s upheld grasp.
Ravilla began to ask how the stranger meant to prevent him when a sudden crack of thunder filled the room. The lictor felt something tap him in the chest and looked down to see a crimson blot spreading across the front of his white tunic. He raised his head to ask a second question, but this was cut short by a second clap of thunder that went unheard by Ravilla as his skull flew apart.
Prefect Valerius Gratus took no note when the lifeless form of the lictor dropped to the tiles behind him. He was aware only of the agony twisting his innards and the man standing before him who could bring a cessation to his suffering. He felt the man’s fingers grip his hair and pull his face from the cloth of the man’s robe. Even Gratus’s deadened senses could smell the stink of sulfur in the air.
“The wine is laced with a substance gifted to me by the god Morpheus,” the stranger said in a soothing voice.
“You have more?” Gratus quavered.
“Much more. All you could want.”
“What must I do to get it?” Gratus was weeping openly, his hunger was so great.
“Anything I ask,” the stranger said and smiled, revealing such teeth as must only be seen on Olympus.
6
Our Lunch With Samuel
“We have a lot of questions,” Dwayne said.
“I don’t have a lot of answers for you,” Samuel said.
“And why don’t I believe that?” Dwayne said.
“Can we start with why you’re here?” Caroline said.
The restaurant remained empty except for waitstaff preparing tables for the early dinner crowd. A carafe of chilled wine had been brought to their table along with a plate of finger food as ordered. Neither had been touched.
“I need a favor,” Samuel said.
“It’s the least we can do after you saved our asses,” Dwayne said.
“In the future,” Caroline said.
Samuel said nothing. Caroline studied him. He was older than she first thought in their encounter somewhere in the days to come. The way he moved with the easy vitality of an athlete made her think he was perhaps in his twenties. But she could see now that he was older by ten years or more than that. Perhaps he was one of those lucky people who never quite looked their age.
“I wish you’d forget that,” he said after a while.
“Kind of hard, buddy. Any tips on the Super Bowl? The Derby? Google?” Dwayne said.
“I couldn’t help you with any of that, even if I knew what you were talking about.”
That gave Caroline a chill for some reason.
“So, this favor. It involves our special little machine, right?” Dwayne asked.
“It does. I need your team to make a trip. And soon.”
“When and where?” Caroline said.
“The year 16 AD on your calendar. September. The location is Syria. Your device is located at this time in the eastern Mediterranean, am I correct?”
<
br /> “On the money,” Dwayne affirmed though he had a strong suspicion that Samuel already knew that or he wouldn’t be here. He too studied this strange man with the pond-green eyes. He reminded Dwayne of someone—someone Dwayne knew well. It was in the simple mannerisms and the way he held his head. Dwayne couldn’t put his finger on it.
“You are perfectly situated for a manifestation on the coast of what is now Lebanon, but in the year to which you will be traveling, it is the Syrian province of Rome,” Samuel said.
“You say that like it’s a trip to Atlantic City,” Dwayne said.
“I would not ask, but there is little choice and no time for an alternative strategy. You are in the unique position of being able to make a change for the better and thwart the plans of our mutual enemy.”
“Sir Neal Harnesh,” Caroline said.
“You seem to be able to pop up where and when you want, Sam. Why can’t you handle this?” Dwayne said.
“I am alone. This requires a team effort to make happen. I would go along with you, but that is not possible under the prevailing conditions.”
“What’s Harnesh up to in Roman history?” Caroline asked. She let the “prevailing conditions” remark pass.
“You must trust me on this. Sir Neal is something far more than you realize, far more than I told you the last time we met. He is, in effect, building a new future from the past. His grand scheme is to alter the history that you know in an attempt to create a world that he alone controls.”
“Hold on. I thought this whole Butterfly Effect thing was bullshit,” Dwayne said.
“There is a lot you do not understand. Effects in time are mostly local, confined spatially as well as temporally. They are like ripples on the surface of a defined body of water. The cause remains below the surface even though the ripples are gone. But the effect is only felt about the original causal event.”
“You’re right, Sam. I don’t understand it.” Dwayne shrugged.
“I get it. I’ll explain it to you later, honey,” Caroline said.
“With crayons and colored paper?” Dwayne said and reached for the carafe to fill a glass.
“So, paradoxes aren’t created by altering the established timeline,” Caroline said to Samuel. “You’re saying that the continuum repairs itself in some way?”
Dwayne took a long slug of red.
“Yes,” Samuel said. “Otherwise, each tiny occurrence that disturbed the past would have massive, catastrophic effects going forward and each excursion would cause more compounding alterations creating a chaotic environment for the traveler to return to, eventually resulting in a ‘present’ in which the traveler either no longer existed or could not return to either because the means of his conveyance was never created or he was simply never born.”
Dwayne drained his glass and poured another.
“Then how the heck is Harnesh going to alter the past to his own advantage if none of the events impact his version of the future?” Caroline asked.
“Because there are key moments of shift in the past, personalities or events that, if changed in any permanent way, would change the course of the time stream causing a split, an alternate reality branching away from the original to create a new timeline significantly different for the set pattern. Sir Neal has chosen such a moment that, if changed, will be a step toward creating that parallel existence that will be in his control.”
“That’s all just theory,” Caroline said.
“Is it?” Samuel said and regarded her with those tarnished green eyes.
The chill returned only deeper and more intense. She shivered involuntarily. She took the glass from Dwayne’s hand and drained it to the dregs.
“The baby. I thought—” Dwayne started.
“Trust me, daddy. The baby needs a drink too,” Caroline said and poured a fresh glass while Dwayne spoke.
“Okay, so Harnesh has picked a big moment to go back to and fuck with the past. I get that. But what’s his pick? When are we going back to?”
“Think about it, dumbass,” Caroline said, setting the again-empty glass down. “The year Sixteen. Anno Domini. The Middle East. Romans.”
Samuel said nothing. Dwayne said, “Jesus Christ.”
“Bingo,” Caroline said and handed him a freshly filled glass and waved the waiter over for more.
7
Nazareth, AD 16
The march from the sea was the most arduous portion of the military action. Even though it was more leisurely than the soldiers were accustomed to, since the prefect insisted on accompanying the legion. His litter and baggage train slowed them to a crawl, and there were frequent rests. Even so, it was cruelly hot, and they sweltered under their armor.
At the end of their march the Twenty-third Legion Judaea reached the town of Nazareth under their own banner, a rearing bronze stallion even though they were strictly a foot unit. They marched down a hill road through a sadly parched fig orchard and into the bowl in which the miserable collection of hovels sat. Orders were relayed, and they formed up in a square within sight of the crumbling wall that enclosed the village.
As was their custom, they immediately set about with mattock and spade to erect an earthwork square to fortify their camp. It was hard work after the dusty march, but they were accustomed to it, and each man dug and lifted to clear his own area of sand as long and wide as he was tall. Some of the old horses made the tired joke that they were digging a grave for two—one for the man they were and one for the man they would never be.
Decimus Munatius Purpurio, tribune of the Twenty-third, saw personally to the construction of the prefect’s tent. He stood with his cloak about him to keep dust from his polished goatskin armor as he directed the men to speed. The armor was his finest dress outfit, kid leather lightened with lye and trimmed in silver. It was magnificent but showed every spot of dust like blood on a virgin’s gown. The prefect’s tent was an expansive contraption of colorfully striped cloth in comparison to the rough canvas tents the soldiers billeted in when, that is, they did not sleep in the open beneath groundsheets. Valerius Gratus himself remained within the draped interior of his litter to escape the sun and the dust.
The prefect was appearing and behaving differently from when Purpurio last saw him. The man was ever an odious pervert, but now he took on the aspect of a dying man. He was lean to the point of emaciation with sallow skin and eyes that twitched like a rabbit’s at bay. And Gratus’s mental disposition was troubling as well. The tribune had questioned the need and purpose for this current campaign and was shouted to silence by an angry Gratus. Purpurio considered sending a letter to the legate in Antioch detailing his doubts about the prefect’s fitness for the post. He decided against what could turn out to be a rash move that might jeopardize his career. If these mad plans of the prefect’s went to shit, Purpurio would remain unsullied. He was only following the orders of his superior as any good soldier was supposed to, was he not?
The town was not much to see. It was one of the purely Jewish towns, simply packed to the guard walls with the foul creatures. The houses were close to one another and all in need of a fresh coat of wash. The place stank as well. The smell of rancid piss reached the Roman camp from the tanneries at the far end of the place. There was either carpentry work or fresh construction going on within the walls as the sounds of saws and hammers could be heard even before they were within sight of Nazareth.
One of the temples dominated the center of the town and was the only well-kept structure in sight. The burnished bronze dome atop its roof gleamed red in the setting sun. They’d enter the town tomorrow, and Purpurio only wished he’d brought a horse so he would not have to soil his boots by trudging through their filthy streets. He considered for a moment being carried within the gate on a litter of his own but rejected that idea. In his current state, Prefect Gratus might react poorly to such a display of hubris.
The tent was erected and the stumbling prefect helped within by a gaggle of his pretty boys. Purpurio walked the
earthworks to make certain they were up to form. It was night before the camp was complete and a heavily salted soup served to the hungry men. The tribune satisfied himself with cold lamb strips, dried apples, and a cup of wine before retiring to his own tent.
Tomorrow promised to be a long and tedious day.
The town smelt even worse within the walls. Tribune Purpurio kept a cloth soaked in vinegar handy to hold before his nose to take the stink from his nostrils and taste from his tongue. A greasy clinging smoke from cook fires created a fog in the narrow lane leading from the main gate. The odor of feces and urine, from goats and Jews, rose out of every alley and all was overhung by the dense stench from the tanneries.
With an aquilifer holding the legion banner aloft, he led the bulk of the Twenty-third to the dusty open square that lay before the temple. A token force was left behind to protect the encampment and as a personal guard for the prefect who remained asleep in his tent despite the late morning hour.
Such precautions were mere gestures in Purpurio’s opinion. There would be no trouble from these peasants who lined the streets watching the passage of the soldiers with the idle interest of sheep. The tribune wondered how these could be the same people who millennia before came screaming out of the hills to the north to build an empire of their own in these lands. They were crushed into submission after years of occupation by the Syrians, then the Greeks, and now the might of Rome. They were not sheep, he decided upon fresh appraisal, they were whipped dogs.
The soldiers, urged on by shouts from their centurions and echoed by optios, entered the area before the temple and formed in ranks four deep and twenty across in a hollow square of men and steel filling the center of the rutted square. Children followed along after the Romans until they were shooed away, urged to speed with taps from spear butts.