‘But to consider killing Hadrian,’ Flaminius said, still edging towards the lever. ‘Of all emperors, except maybe Nero, Hadrian has always been a friend to the Greeks, a lover of Greek culture. He was taunted for it as a boy. I hear that he intends to travel to Athens to become an initiate into the mysteries of Eleusis. Staunch, old fashioned Romans like Arctos hate him for his philhellenic ways.’ He shook his head. ‘You’ve been played for a fool, Greek, for all your wisdom and learning. Arctos has wrapped your round his little Roman finger.’ He lunged for the lever.
But Hero was there before him. Despite his scrawny physique, the Greek was strong; all those calisthenics at the gymnasium had their benefits, Flaminius thought wildly as they wrestled in the midst of the cold firepit. Hero tripped him, and he fell face down into a pile of stinking ashes. The Greek pinned him. Flaminius struggled to move, craning his neck around. From here he had a view of the sea, and the emperor’s galley. Were those wisps of smoke he could see trailing up from the sails of the hexareme?
Ozymandias was dashing round and round the observation deck, running away from the remorseless automaton. Nitocris shouted encouragement from where she clung onto a statue of Triton, out of the automaton’s iron grasp. Ozymandias turned a corner and as he did so he saw armoured figures rushing out of the door that led to the downwards staircase.
He halted. The civic guard swarmed out. At their head was Gabinius Camillus, Marcus Atilius at his side. Gabinius Camillus pointed an exquisitely manicured finger.
‘There’s the Egyptian! Seize him, he’s one of them. Where’s Flaminius?’
Two civic guards rushed forward, spears levelled, to surround Ozymandias. The Egyptian raised his hands in token of surrender. As he did, the clang of metal feet rang out from behind him.
‘What’s that?’ asked a puzzled civic guard.
‘Look!’ shouted his mate, pointing.
Ozymandias glanced over his shoulder. Around the corner appeared the automaton, torso and limbs glittering in the light of the sun. Nitocris shrieked a warning from Triton’s plinth.
The automaton attacked the first civic guard, smashing him to the ground with a single blow. Ozymandias ran, the other civic guard with him.
Gabinius Camillus’ face was ashen. ‘What is that thing?’ he breathed. ‘A metal statue come to life?’
Ozymandias nodded. ‘An automaton,’ he said. ‘A living man of metal.’
Marcus Atilius swore as the automaton stomped towards them. ‘What Egyptian sorcery is this?’ he cried. ‘What unnatural horror have those devils summoned up from Tartarus…?’
The automaton seized him by the neck. He struggled, and the guards rushed forwards to jab their spears futilely at the creature’s metal hide. But the automaton increased the pressure of its bronze fingers, Marcus Atilius’ face purpled; he lolled in the machine’s grasp, a lifeless doll in the grip of a living man. The automaton cast his corpse aside. It landed with a thump on the stone paves.
The civic guards retreated towards the arch, Gabinius Camillus leading the rout. Ozymandias was left behind. The automaton turned to face him.
There was a cry from the tower above.
Flaminius lay on his back, his occipital bone resting on the very edge of the tower, a strong hand gripping him by the face, forcing him down. Hero sat atop him, beard and hair awry, eyes filled with an unholy passion, more a barbarian than a civilised Greek. Out at sea, the galley must be ablaze, but Flaminius could see nothing of it where he lay. Right now, only his own survival mattered to him. The entire empire could go to Hades. He’d probably meet it there.
‘You’ve not spent all your life bent over scrolls, I see,’ he choked out, clutching at Hero’s hand. ‘As tough as any Roman.’
‘I fought for my city against the Judaean rebels,’ Hero said. ‘Every citizen should fight for his city. Since which time I have worked with machines and engines. Not the trade of a weakling. Some of those Greek philosophers spend their days in contemplation, but not me.’
‘Very impressive,’ Flaminius mumbled round the Greek’s sweaty palm. ‘Very well, I submit. Some god has turned down their thumb for me. Are you going to kill me now?’
‘I’ll keep you for Arctos to deal with,’ said Hero triumphantly. ‘He should be coming up here any moment now, to see the destruction of the emperor’s galley.’
‘I don’t want to disappoint you in your moment of triumph,’ said Flaminius, ‘but Arctos has abandoned you.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘No lie,’ said Flaminius. ‘That’s how I got up here. He sailed away when he saw me and the civic guard coming.’ He omitted to mention that the guards had been pursuing him, not Arctos. ‘Leaving you here with only an automaton to guard you.’
Hero sat back, confusion on his face. ‘Automaton?’ He didn’t seem to know what Flaminius was talking about. But the imperial agent didn’t waste time. The moment the Greek released his hand, he writhed round and threw his assailant. Hero clutched at the air, as if demonstrating some abstruse engineering theorem. Then with a cry he vanished from view, plummeting into the windy abyss.
Gasping Flaminius scrambled to his knees. From where he knelt, on the far side of the tower, he could not see the emperor’s galley. But he could see the great lever a few cubits away. He ran over to it and seized hold, straining his muscles as he tried to haul it back up. He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t move it. That Greek really had been stronger than he looked.
Flaminius sobbed with frustration. He had spent more than a week running and fighting and getting very little sleep. It was beginning to tell on him. When all this was over, he fancied a nice spell of leave down at the decadent resort of Canopus. But that would hardly be possible if the Roman empire collapsed into anarchy on the death of the emperor.
He turned and pushed desperately, but still the lever would not shift. He looked around. Was there some kind of grease he could use to oil the machine? He certainly couldn’t see an amphora that might contain it. He froze, clinging to the lever, as he heard the pound of hobnailed boots on the steps below.
Suddenly the windswept top of the tower was crowded with armoured figures.
The familiar tones of Gabinius Camillus were audible. ‘Some of you, help this loyal citizen move that lever. Hasten! The emperor’s life is at stake!’ Flaminius found himself surrounded by civic guards, all putting their sizeable shoulders to the lever. With a grinding noise, it shifted, gathering speed, and with it moved the bronze mirror, directing its beam harmlessly upwards, away from the sea and into the noon sky.
Flaminius turned to see Gabinius Camillus, accompanied by Ozymandias and Nitocris. ‘Well done, old man,’ said the commander, shaking him by the hand. ‘Made a few mistakes along the way, but it’s all been cleared up now. All in the past, I’m sure.’
With them were two civic guards holding a prisoner. Although still clad for the most part in the armour that had seemingly him into an apparent automaton, Crassus Piso no longer wore the helmet and was immediately recognisable. He refused to meet Flaminius’ gaze.
Breathing in the salt air of the sea, Flaminius looked down to see the emperor’s galley sailing triumphantly into the Great Harbour. The sails were blackened and smoking, but someone had doused the flames and now the hexareme passed unimpeded.
There was no sign of Arctos’ ships, which had been moored some way into the sea beyond the pier, although some small dots on the horizon might represent his fugitive forces. A red stain on the rocks far below must be all that remained of Hero…
Flaminius gazed around him in wonder. Surely this was how Jupiter felt, up on Mount Olympus, with the whole world at his feet. He could see the sea to his left, to his right the city of Alexandria with its temples and palaces, its Museum and Library and its mighty walls…but what was that? Beyond the walls, in the far distant haze of the Delta… the winking of lights as if the sun flashed on many spears.
He clung to a pillar for support. Ozymandias saw his discomfort. ‘What is
it?’
Flaminius gasped. ‘The Bucolic army… marching on Alexandria!’
Epilogue
‘…and today,’ the prefect droned, ‘Rome has seen that its citizens are loyal and devoted, devoted to the cause of justice. In lieu of his imperial majesty, who is unavoidably absent, it falls upon the unworthy shoulders of Titus Haterius Nepos to enforce Roman justice in full view of the public…’
Down in the arena, a gladiator was fighting for his life against three wild bull elephants. It was an unequal struggle, and some loyal citizens in the crowd were booing. But it was not meant so much as entertainment as instruction. Education. A lesson would be learnt today, demonstrated by death on the sands.
Flaminius looked round the crowded imperial box, seeing familiar faces and faces unknown. Faces half remembered and faces that were new to him, but who knew? Perhaps one day he could count on them all as friends and allies. Or enemies.
‘So Hadrian decided not to visit Egypt after all.’ He broke ruthlessly through Haterius Nepos’ oratory. ‘Makes everything seem a bit pointless, really.’
‘Cheer up, young fellow,’ said Avidius Pollio, lounging by the balustrade. ‘The rebellion is crushed, at least some of its perpetrators are meeting justice—or nemesis, or whoever. By all the gods, you’ve done good work here! His imperial majesty will be very pleased when he hears the news.’
Hadrian had changed his plans at the last moment. Not because rumours of assassination attempts or native uprisings, simply because the sea between Rhodes and Egypt had been the scene of a sudden late summer squall, and his naval prefect had advised him to sail directly to Athens for the Eleusinian Mysteries. The imperial galley that received a scorching at the hands of Hero and his Archimedean death ray had been escorting Praetorians bearing his imperial apologies. Their commanding centurion sat in the imperial box even now, watching the fight in the arena with the appropriate expression of gravitas on his wholesome Italian features.
‘Indeed,’ the prefect said in agreement with Avidius Pollio, though he had been scowling at Flaminius since the imperial agent interrupted him, ‘your Commissary officer must take some of the credit. Unfortunately he was hampered by some of Haterius Nepos’ own men, who received misleading reports. It was a cunning ploy of this fellow, what is his pseudonym, Arctos? Yes, it was a cunning ploy for him to send his own men in the guise of Praetorians…’
‘And accusing the tribune here of conspiracy almost worked,’ said Avidius Pollio. ‘It would have done, too, if it hadn’t been for Flaminius himself, and his assiduous efforts to break up the conspiracy—with no help from your civic guards, might I add!’
Haterius Nepos’ face went dark, but he kept silent.
Avidius Pollio turned to grin craggily at Flaminius. ‘But all that would have been useless, had you not sent your agent to the camp to signal me. We defeated the Bucolic horde in the marshes shortly before you confronted this crazy Greek philosopher up on the Pharos. We’d been marching north, a forced march, ever since we received your message. Just in the nick of time we caught up with that motley army. Bucolics and gladiators, but they put up quite a fight.’
Most of the cohorts were now back in barracks, apart from those privileged few who had earned the right to watch the final show in the Games of Hadrian; these were in the mob below.
‘No match for the iron might of Rome,’ the prefect said, complacent. ‘Roman law and Roman justice will prevail. As we see on the sands before us.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the Praetorian suddenly, ‘how you could have thought a couple of vulgar gladiators were members of the Guard.’ He laughed as if the whole business was absurd.
Of course, he hadn’t been there at the time. The whole business must seem like nothing more than provincial hysteria to him. Flaminius remembered his spell in the Guard. It had been another world…
The prefect sat up, furious. ‘They brought documentation with them,’ he protested, ‘Documentation sealed with the imperial seal! How was Haterius Nepos supposed to know they were imposters? This is intolerable. The imperial seal is unmistakable.’
‘But not unforgeable,’ said Flaminius, producing the fake imperial signet ring he had found in Arctos’ villa. ‘You’ll see it’s an exact copy.’ He allowed the prefect to inspect it. ‘Which begs the question…’
Avidius Pollio grunted. ‘How could a backwaters bandit who surrounds himself with Bucolics and renegade gladiators have been able to get his hands on so convincing a copy?’
‘A mystery as impenetrable as those of Eleusis,’ said Flaminius, who thought this sounded rather clever. ‘Since Arctos and the rest of his cronies—the sorcerer Skimbix included—made a hasty getaway when Hero fell from grace.’
‘But gladiators…!’ The Praetorian ruffled the feathers of the helmet he carried under his arm and laughed again. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Which brings us back to Haterius Nepos’ original point,’ said the prefect. ‘Roman law and Roman justice will prevail in this province as long as it is shown to be enforced. Let us watch the show, gentlemen.’
He turned to look at the arena. Flaminius and the others followed his gaze, and silence fell over the imperial box as they watched Crassus Piso fight his final fight beneath the westering Egyptian sun.
Battling three wild elephants, it was a poor contest. And thus was the justice of Rome served.
Everyone seemed to be very satisfied. But as far as Flaminius was concerned, he had failed. Crassus Nepos had been caught, and executed spectacularly. The Mechanist had been identified and had fallen to his doom. But they had both been little more than dupes—Hero of Alexandria in particular. In all the confusion and self-congratulation, the big fish had escaped the hook.
Somewhere in this empire, rebellion was still brewing. Somewhere, a member of the Roman Senate was still conspiring against his imperial majesty. Somewhere, not so very far away, Arctos was still at large.
The story continues in The Kingdom that Rome Forgot (Autumn 2018)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Gavin Chappell has been involved in writing and editing for over a decade. He has written numerous short stories, translations, poetry, novels, and non-fiction.
Also a qualified teacher of further education, Gavin taught English and Creative Writing for many years. He has been published by various publishers including Penguin, and is a member of the Society of Authors.
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[1] See The Games of Hadrian: The Gladiator Gambit
[2] Ancient Greek festival round the time of the January or February full moon, including elements of a festival of the dead.
[3] Flaminius is describing the rites of the equivalent Roman festival, the Lemuria.
[4] See The Games of Hadrian: The Gladiator Gambit.
[5] See Murder in Hadrian’s Villa.
[6] See The Hadrian Legacy.
[7] See The Gladiator Gambit.
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