Out of Time: A story of archaeology... sort of

by David LaVigne

  “Not to sound ungrateful for the invite,” Lunicus said, popping another grape into his mouth, “but what do you want with me?”

  “You are aware, Lunicus, that the Senate has spies everywhere,” Flavius said plainly.

  Lunicus stopped mid-chew. “And?” he said.

  “Well that was kind of a let down,” Campbell said.

  “I thought was quite good,” Mary responded.

  They were following the crowd pouring out of the theater. The play had turned out not to be a comedy, but instead it was tragedy set on an ancient Grecian battlefield. Campbell was a fan of the theater, and the play actually was pretty good. It was certainly better than the typical crap the college theater department would put on every year. But he had his hopes set on a comedy.

  “What do you want to do now?” Campbell asked.

  “Dinner,” Mary said. “It’s time to meet the others.”

  “We really need to find a new meeting place,” Campbell said as they headed off towards The Phoenician. “The Phoenician’s great, but I’m getting tired of the same thing every night.”

  “So order something different,” she said. “Or maybe I’ll just mix things up a little when we get we get home.” She winked and gave him that flirty, lip-biting smile.

  “Maybe we can get a hotel,” he said.

  Campbell, Mary, Marcus and Lunicus had all been staying at Marcus’s apartment above the bakery. Lunicus had lost whatever housing arrangement he had shortly before running to the others in the Phoenician that first night so, reluctantly, Marcus let him move in as well. Things were feeling rather crowded.

  “How about we just go have dinner at the Phoenician, and figure out how we can get this whole plan over with,” she said softly, taking his hand in hers and leaning her head gently against his shoulder as they walked.

  Campbell, Mary and Lunicus would spend most days at the gladiator school when Marcus was working. At least on days that Apollo wasn’t too busy to let them use a ring. They had to be quiet about their plans in public, and at the apartment, so they kept most of their thoughts to themselves. They avoided telling Lunicus the reason behind their plot.

  Lunicus would teach Campbell how to use a sword or a shield or a spear, and the instructor would let him practice on one of the novice gladiators with wooden equivalents. On days that the school was closed because of holiday, or Apollo had his hands full and wouldn’t let them use a ring, Campbell would show Mary around the city and Lunicus would run off, presumably to some whorehouse or bar or gambling hall, until it was time to meet Marcus after work.

  They kept up their cover story: Campbell was Caius from Britannia and Mary was a friend visiting from his homeland. Lunicus didn’t buy it, but he didn’t ask questions either and as long as the whole time travel thing never came up everyone was happy.

  Mary had continuously nagged Campbell to take her to the games since her first sight of the Coliseum and one day he caved. That was their first sight of Richter in this time. It was weird seeing him like that. He had aged a bit and he looked a little strange but it was definitely him. He sat on the edge of his seat the entire time, staring intently as the blood flew. It wasn’t long before the effect of seeing her ex-fiancé drunk, licking his lips at the sight of blood-drenched men beating and stabbing each other to death combined with the fact that she herself was watching blood-drenched men beat and stab each other to death got to her and she urged Campbell to take her away. A thousand thoughts had run through his head about how they could approach Richter, but the logical part of his brain told him it was terrible idea. They left after one match.

  When Marcus got home from work every night they would all meet up at The Phoenician. Campbell was amazed at how accurately the others could tell time without a clock. Marcus would tell them what news he could gather from his time with the senator that day and they would adjust their plot if there was something useful, but there rarely was.

  When Campbell and Mary arrived Marcus had already been there for twenty minutes and Lunicus was extremely late, as usual. Campbell and Mary were usually the first ones there and Marcus looked slightly anxious. They guessed he had some actual news this time.

  “What have you two been up to?” Marcus asked when they walked in the door. He gave Campbell a little wink when he said it. They did their best to not act affectionate around the house or when they were with the others, though Marcus had his suspicions.

  “We saw a play,” Mary answered as she took a seat across from Marcus. They were at their usual table by the front door.

  “Lunicus is fashionably late I see,” Campbell said, taking his seat. Amunet almost immediately walked over and Campbell ordered some food and wine. Marcus had held off eating until they arrived so he ordered for all of them. All meals in Rome were served family style anyway.

  “He’s past fashionable at this point,” Marcus said, he was on his third cup of wine.

  “I don’t think Lunicus has ever been fashionable,” Mary said.

  The moment Mary finished her sentence Lunicus walked through the door. He caught Amunet by the arm as she was serving another table and whispered something in her ear before coming over to their table and taking a seat. Amunet smiled as she walked away, but it wasn’t exactly a smile of happiness.

  “What was that about,” Campbell and Marcus said simultaneously as Lunicus sat down.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I was trying to arrange to buy her, but the master wouldn’t allow it.”

  “With what money?” the three of them said.

  “That’s why he wouldn’t allow it,” Lunicus said with his typical smile, which he thought came off as boyish charm. The others just stared at him with blank faces. “I owe her money,” he confessed. “I was able to scrape up a few coins this morning and I bet on Verus to kill Priscus in final match tonight. It was a shoe in and I was just telling her that I’ll collect the money to pay her back tomorrow.”

  They had no problem believing that he had been gambling at the games, and even he had a win once and a while. They let him change the subject.

  “Any news today?” Lunicus asked.

  “As a matter of fact, something did come up,” Marcus said. “Two days after the last day of the games Titus marches north.”

  Amunet walked over just then and set their dinner on the table. She asked if they needed any more drinks and Marcus was about to wave her away, but Lunicus pointed to the empty amphora on the table and she scurried off to refill it.

  Dinner was a giant plate that barely fit the table piled high with stuffed mushrooms, grape leaf wrapped cheese and some sort of overly spiced, very soft meat product cut into very thin slices which Campbell couldn’t identify, but knew was delicious. Everyone immediately dug into the food, taking what they wanted at will. There were no utensils and no separate plates, everyone just grabbed from the platter. Marcus stuffed his mouth and waited for the wine to return, and the waitress to run off again, before continuing with his news.

  “As Lunicus predicted he’ll be marching with the army, two full legions,” he said through a mouthful of bread, “but his itinerary splits from their path in the evenings. On the second night he’ll be stopping at an inn in Cisalpine Gaul. He plans to spend two days there. I think it’s the best place to hit him.”

  “What’s the layout?” Lunicus asked right after washing a stuffed mushroom down with an entire cup of wine.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  “Do you have a name?” Campbell asked.

  “I have the location,” Marcus said with a full mouth. Then after taking a second to swallow an abundant helping of the spiced meat he finished, “and the date. That’s all I know so far, except the place is a resort.”

  “Caesar Inn,” Lunicus said instantly.

  “How do you know that?” Mary asked, picking a small bite off of one of the stuffed mushrooms with her fingers.

  “Makes sense,” Lunicus answered. “Titus likes luxury. He wants a bath and five women and a cask of wine
that cost him so much he could have paid a legion’s wages instead. The Caesar is the closest you’ll get to Napoli in Cisalpine Gaul. If you have money to blow, that’s where you go.”

  Napoli was the Las Vegas of ancient Rome. It was were everyone went to escape for a week and lay on the beach while being hand-fed delicacies by beautiful women and blow all their money in week. The emperor had his own private villa there.

  “Well,” Marcus said, “I trust you to know something like that. We’ll have to go and have a look.”

  A month before the end of the games the four conspirators packed up clothes and food and took a trip. They filled canvas bags with bread and cheese and wine and changes of clothes. Marcus had his gladius and a couple of large daggers, which they hid in with their clothes as best they could since civilians weren’t supposed to travel with weapons within Roman borders.

  Everything that they had heard about Emperor Titus made him out to be a drunk, and a bit of a womanizer. That seemed nothing like the Richter that Campbell and Mary knew, but then he had had plenty of time to change. Campbell certainly wasn’t the same man now as he was before he found the time machine.

  Whether he had become an alcoholic and found a taste for the ladies or it was just an act to appear more appealing to the decadent people of Rome, either way he would keep it up on his travels. That meant there needed to be ladies and drink aplenty wherever he stopped, and though Campbell and Marcus both looked up other possibilities, the Caesar Inn was their best shot. So they spent a few days traveling into the mountains, staying in stables and camping on the side of the road. They needed to save as much of their money as possible to try not to attract too much attention when they had reached their destination. When they arrived and took a look at the place it wasn’t quite what they had expected.

  Though obviously named for Julius, whose province Cisalpine Gaul used to be, it was certainly not a place the man would have visited. To Campbell’s eye it looked a lot less like a Roman day spa and a lot more like an ancient Las Vegas.

  There were largish buildings around a central square that housed a towering statue of Julius Caesar. The buildings were tall but all one story, with towering columns holding up ornate roofs. The whole place took up the space of about four city blocks and there were signs posted throughout that pointed towards the baths or the massage parlors or the feast halls.

  The place obviously had money, and most of the patrons were clearly rich. There were men in fancy white togas and women in nothing everywhere you looked. The house slaves were all female and wore nothing, showing off their perfect bodies. Well, perfect for the time. Not many of the patrons seemed to be women and Campbell guessed that a lot of the men were coming here to get away from their wives. There were no children.

  Campbell, Mary, Marcus and Lunicus walked through the large iron gates in the marble wall and looked in at the central courtyard where naked, dark skinned women were carrying golden platters of grapes and wine to overweight men sitting beside a crystal clear pool.

  Immediately a woman in a flowing gown walked up and asked if they had a reservation. They answered no, but they only wanted to stay for a night and Marcus produced a heavy coin purse. They had exchanged almost all of Campbell’s leftover gold and it came out to more than Campbell was expecting. It would have been more than enough to support Marcus and Lunicus’ whore and booze habit for a year.

  The woman listed a few prices, eyed Mary suspiciously, and offered to show them some of the rooms. They said they’d like to stay together and she said that was no problem. They followed her around the courtyard to a set of marble buildings arranged around a garden, off to one end of the compound.

  “I trust this is to your liking?” the woman asked, waving a hand around the room.

  It was a large lounge with high ceilings and a window and door that looked out on the pool. There were big couches around a stone fire pit in the center of the room and a door on either side that led into separate bedrooms. Heavy tapestries hung on the ornate stone walls to help regulate the temperature, and the receptionist explained that cold water could be pumped through pipes hidden inside the walls to cool down the room if it became too warm for their liking.

  “Love it,” Marcus and Lunicus said at once.

  The hostess gave them a moment to explore the bedrooms and told them that the suite for two nights would cost about half of the traveling money they had brought and drinks were included. Entertainment, in the form of girls or boys, would be extra. She offered to send a selection to choose from, but before Lunicus or Marcus could say anything Campbell told her that they would prefer to explore a bit first.

  After she had gone, Marcus told Lunicus that the two of them would share one of the bedrooms and trade watches, Mary and Campbell could have the other. Once that was settled it was time to explore the rest of the place.

  They split up, arranging to meet back at their rooms at nightfall. Campbell and Mary headed out to the pool, they were the cover and their job was to look like normal tourists. It took a minute, but barely longer, for Campbell to convince Mary that everybody back then bathed nude and the pair took towels from the room and headed out.

  Marcus and Lunicus would scout the place and try to find out where the emperor would stay and what kind of defenses they would set up. They thought it was best to walk the perimeter first and headed for the walls.

  It was a large compound and very easily defended. The walls were high and covered the entire perimeter. The tops of the walls were flat and appeared to be about four feet thick, with large stone blocks every few feet for archers to hide behind. The only openings in the wall were the front gate, through which they had entered, and a smaller gate in the back where slaves would take a path through the woods and down the hillside to gather firewood and wild berries. Burly men in light armor and carrying spears guarded each of the gates, and they had seen more walking throughout the compound. Marcus estimated twenty or so guards and probably with two or three shifts there could be as many as sixty. And that would be in addition to the Praetorian that Titus would bring with him.

  Inside the compound there were about two dozen buildings. They were all arranged so that each four buildings faced a small courtyard and a system of aqueducts carried fresh water down from the mountains and fed every building. Everything was arranged around one very large building in the center that stood a few yards taller than the rest. The street signs pointed it out as the imperial suite, which was obviously a name intended to bring in the wealthiest men from the cities, but Marcus and Lunicus figured it would soon actually house an emperor.

  From the outside it appeared to contain about ten rooms and probably had everything the rest of the compound offered all in one stop, and classier. Marcus and Lunicus walked its circumference and found only two entrances. There were about a dozen tall windows, all very high off the ground, and they were filled the vibrant bluish green glass called vitrum.

  “Yep,” Marcus said, staring up at the flat roof with its archer posts.

  “Yep,” Lunicus replied.

  “Can I help you gentlemen?” asked a young dark-skinned girl in a pale green, almost completely translucent skirt and nothing else. She had black hair that flowed halfway down her back and large eyes the color of the glass in the windows. Both men’s mouths dropped open a little.

  “I could use a drink,” Marcus managed to stutter. Lunicus just nodded.

  “Our finest wine then,” she said. “And I assume you’ll want to take it in the massage room?”

  Without another word she turned and started to walk away. The two old soldiers hurried to follow her, each subtly trying to nudge the other out of the way.

  Campbell sat at the edge of the pool, watching Mary as she took a breath and ducked her head. Her naked body glided under the water halfway across the large pool before she started to move her arms, flapping them like great wings to push herself along to the other side.

  “I didn’t think many people could swim in the eighteenth cen
tury,” he said in English when she popped her head up on the other side of the pool. Fifteen people were around them and all of them speaking different languages so he didn’t think anyone would take notice.

  “My father insisted that I learn when I was little,” she answered in Latin, doing the breast stroke to pull herself back to Campbell.

  “You’re accent is definitely getting better,” he said, looking down at her when she pulled her head above the water between his legs.

  “I have an excellent language teacher,” she said. “Now join me.”

  She grabbed Campbell’s arms and pulled him off the edge of the pool and down under the water. They played around for a few minutes until they noticed people were looking at them. Everyone else in the water was just standing there, or gliding around casually and they realized they were making asses of themselves. They both stood up straight in the chest deep water and walked casually over to the edge of the pool.

  They were in the pool they had seen when they first walked in. It was in the courtyard of the first group of large marble buildings, the statue of Caesar stuck up from the water in the center of the pool. There were nearly two dozen people around or in the pool and young ladies carried big trays of wine glasses and grapes and figs around, offering them to patrons.

  The second that Campbell had pulled himself out of the water a young nude woman was standing there holding a tray full of mugs and Campbell took one for each of them. He had to stop himself from offering her a tip. The girl gave a little bow and walked over to two men sitting on long chairs a few yards away. They finished their wine by the poolside, and then decided to check out the dining hall.

  They walked in through a large foyer, which Campbell explained to Mary was called a vomitorium, the purpose of which was often misunderstood. Inside the main hall was a huge open space with ornate marble pillars lined up in two rows down the center. There was a huge buffet that was constantly being replenished at one end of the hall. The rest of the large room was filled with couches where men reclined and puffed on long hookah hoses while beautiful young girls hand fed-them fruits and wine. Campbell couldn’t help but be surprised at how similar it felt to Hollywood’s idea of ancient Rome. He almost asked a servant girl when the orgy was going to start.