by Alex Scarrow
He rested an affectionate hand on Stern’s firm neck. ‘If only all men were like you. Dutiful, loyal.’
Stern’s grey eyes rested on him. He said nothing.
‘But then you aren’t really normal men, are you?’
‘Correct.’ Stern had explained on several occasions precisely what he and his colleagues were, again using a host of words that Caligula couldn’t begin to understand, but was certain he would one day soon. The language of angels — so cryptic.
‘You’re just like me,’ said Caligula. ‘Not of this world… this ordinary, tedious world. But somewhere far greater, somewhere magnificent. Somewhere beyond.’
‘Affirmative. We are not from this time.’
He squeezed Stern’s neck gently, feeling the cords of muscle there. Stern and the others were incredibly powerful for their size. And remarkably agile. They made superb gladiators.
In fact, perfect gladiators. None of the gladiators in the various commercial ludi based around Rome had ever managed to beat any of Stern’s men. Once, just once, one of the finest fighters from the ludus at Capua — a myrmillo — had managed to slice through the lower arm of one of Stern’s men. But, with just his remaining hand, he had been able to finish the gladiator off. Crushing the man’s neck, despite the man stabbing and stabbing him over and over with his gladius. One of the public displays he put on for the people from time to time: a free fight. Free entertainment. And a reminder to those with ideas in their heads that his guards — his Viri Lapidei, his Stone Men — were utterly invincible.
That particular myrmillo had died, of course.
Stern’s one-armed man had recovered within a couple of days.
They were paused midway down a long passage, lit by the guttering flames of several oil torches. To their left a heavy velvet drape shifted subtly. Caligula pulled the drape aside to reveal a short passage and, at the far end, a pair of thick oak doors, a locking bar across them. Two more of his Stone Men stood to attention either side of them.
‘I think I shall go and take a look at the oracle.’
Stern nodded.
Caligula’s bare feet tapped lightly along the smooth floor. Ahead of him the two guards watched his approach with impassive grey eyes. They slid the locking bolt to one side and pushed the heavy doors slowly open. Beyond, a dark room, completely dark. Caligula reached for a tallow candle and lit it from one of the torches.
He didn’t need to instruct either of the guards not to follow him inside. They knew the dark space beyond was for Caligula alone. They were forbidden to enter, Stern and his men. They also knew to close the heavy doors behind Caligula as he stepped inside and not to open them again until he rapped his knuckles on them to be let out once more.
Thick hinges creaked under the weight of old oak and Caligula found himself standing alone in the darkness. The candlelight formed a small pool of brightness on the tiled mosaic of the floor.
‘Are you awake?’ His voice echoed across the large chamber.
He took a step into the darkness. It was there, just ahead of him. The candle would pick it out soon.
‘I cannot sleep again.’ Caligula’s voice reverberated in the empty chamber. ‘What about you? Hmmm?’
His candle picked out the front of the wooden box in the middle of the chamber. A box, like the doors, made of thick oak and reinforced with metal brackets. He could smell it from here. An awful smell. Not dissimilar to the reek of those overcrowded streets in the Subura.
‘Are you awake in there?’
He heard a shuffling sound inside the box. A restless stirring like that of a caged tiger.
CHAPTER 44
AD 54, Rome
It took several days, in fact, for Crassus and Cato to coordinate a meeting of their fellow conspirators. Crassus carefully arranged for two other ex-senators to discreetly join them; Cicero and Paulus, two more elders like Crassus, were alive because they too were wily politicians, and at the right moment had stepped away from the aborted attempt on Caligula’s life.
Cato brought with him a centurion he trusted from his cohort — the Palace Guard. Fronto. A muscular man in his early thirties with a scar running down the left-hand side of his face, and all his teeth missing on that side. One other conspirator, Atellus, was a tribune like Cato, but from another legion, the Tenth. Like Cato in his late thirties, muscular but lean, a career officer with a face that gave nothing away.
And, of course, Cato’s trusted old friend, retired Chief Centurion Macro. Just seven men prepared to discuss the assassination of a leader that was rapidly driving Rome — the only beacon of civilization in a dark world of savagery — towards a cliff edge.
‘Do you know how dangerous it is for us to even be in the same room together?’ said Cicero. He was referring to himself, Paulus and Crassus. Caligula’s spies kept an eye out for any huddled meetings of the few politicians left alive. ‘And you have us standing here… with these complete strangers! They could be — ’
‘They’re not spies, Cicero. I’m quite certain of that,’ replied Crassus. ‘They stand out far too much for that.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s why they’ve been my guests here, out of sight. Beyond the reach of spying eyes and wagging tongues.’
Rumours had a habit of travelling quickly through the narrow streets and tenement blocks of the poorer districts of Rome, rumours that could quickly reach the ears of an emperor. Macro had worked quickly to crush the stories being told by his tenants of the ‘invincible superhuman who had wiped out an entire collegium ’ in mere seconds. They’d all seen Bob take that mortal wound and walk away from it as if it was just a scratch. He’d spread the word among his tenants that the large man had unfortunately died of his wounds during the night. Sadly he was not an invincible champion of the poor and frightened, just a good fighter who, for a few moments, had provided onlookers a rare glimpse of hope and cheer.
Cicero looked at them all and finally nodded in agreement. ‘They do indeed look very strange.’
‘What did he say?’ asked Sal quietly. Maddy waved that away. ‘We’re not from Rome.’ She was getting used to the technique of muttering to herself what she wanted to say and then repeating aloud the Latin whispered to her. ‘We’re from another place, very far away.’
‘Britain, I believe you told us.’
Maddy shrugged. ‘America actually.’
The conspirators looked at each other. Sal recognized the word amid the Latin. ‘Are you telling them about — ’
‘ America? I’ve not heard of that place,’ said Cato. ‘Is that a region of Britain?’
Liam shot her a cheeky grin.
‘Not exactly.’ She smiled. No one’s going to hear of it for another fourteen hundred years!
Atellus was studying Bob intently. ‘Cato, you say this man is… is like Caligula’s Stone Men?’
Cato nodded. ‘Not one of them… but he is the same kind.’
‘The Stone Men are of particular interest to us,’ said Maddy.
‘Some of the men from the Palace Cohort think they’re evil spirits,’ muttered Fronto. ‘Don’t like being around them.’
Cato glanced at Maddy. ‘What is your interest in them?’
She looked at Liam. How much to say? How much to tell them?
‘We believe they come from the same place as us. We believe they are the remnants of a larger group of people who arrived here.’
‘You’re talking about the Visitors?’ said Paulus.
Maddy nodded. ‘We’ve heard so many different stories about what happened, about that day.’
‘I was also there,’ said Paulus. ‘I was a witness to it.’
‘Can you tell us what you saw?’
‘It was a long time ago. I saw things I couldn’t understand.’ Paulus shrugged. His old rheumy eyes closed. ‘Since that day I have wondered what we saw. Sometimes I almost believe it was a shared moment of madness.’ He laughed. ‘Bad wine even.’
‘Tell me,’ pressed Maddy. ‘What did you see?’
�
�There were perhaps a hundred of them. To my eye, as I remember them, they looked like ordinary people, men and women. The Stone Men appeared to be their soldiers. Their protectors.’
‘Support units,’ Liam uttered in English. Maddy nodded.
‘One of them spoke to the crowd in the arena. He spoke in a voice inhumanly loud.’
‘Do you remember what he said?’
Paulus shook his head. ‘I recall small portions, but then I wonder how much of what I remember is a fiction my old mind has conjured up.’
‘Please… try and tell us what you remember.’
Paulus’s eyes twinkled with moisture as he reached back to try and relive the memory. ‘He spoke of bringing news… that our Roman gods were a cruel trick, a lie. I remember that. He said that there was only one God. This… for sure is part of what he said, because I remember thinking that peculiar notion reminded me of… of that odd, that very strange cult that was coming out of Judaea.’
‘Christians?’
Paulus frowned. Eventually nodded. ‘Yes… yes, I believe they called themselves something like that.’ He resumed his story. ‘The Visitor said that they were here to guide us all… to… to steer us to a better way of life.’ The old man shook his head, frustrated with his foggy recall. ‘He used words that made little sense to us all. Words… I am trying to remember, but…’ Paulus looked down at the hands in his lap. ‘Strange words… like…’ He looked up at Maddy. ‘That word you spoke a minute ago?’
‘Which word?’
‘The name of the place you said you came from.’
‘ America? ’
Paulus played with the word on his lips. Whispered it slowly to himself several times then finally nodded. ‘That is the word, I believe. The voice… he told us they had come to show us the Ameri-can-way.’
Sal, listening without the benefit of buds, picked that phrase out of the exchange in Latin. ‘Did he just say the “American way”?’
Maddy looked at Liam and Sal. ‘Some Americans came here? My God!’
‘Americans?’ Sal’s mouth hung open. ‘Shadd-yah! Remember that man? Cartwright?’
Cartwright. Maddy remembered him all too well; the classic X-Files type: dark suit and a bad smoking habit. He’d turned up out of the blue, knocking on their roller-shutter door. He and his top-secret agency, an agency apparently so secret even presidents had no knowledge of it. An agency spawned into existence by the discovery of a mere fragment of flint. She shook her head. A mere ‘breadcrumb’ left in time by Liam… and it had brought men in suits and dark glasses to their door, filled the sky above them with circling helicopters.
‘It’s possible, Sal. Thing is, we’ve got no idea who else in the future has got their hands on a time machine. It’s — ’
‘What are you two saying?’ asked Crassus.
Maddy listened to the Latin in her ear. ‘I’m sorry. We were discussing what your friend just said. The Visitor’s message.’
She turned to Paulus. ‘So, what happened next?’
‘Caligula descended into the arena. He approached them. We were all in fear of our lives. There was panic. But Caligula, I remember this so well… he was calm, almost as if he’d always expected something like this would happen. He spoke to them. Then he stepped aboard their giant chariot. The chariot ascended into the sky — ’
Crassus huffed. ‘There are so many different accounts. That a host of white horses suddenly appeared from beneath the chariot and carried it up. That the ghosts of all those who’d ever died in the arena emerged from the dirt and — ’
‘I heard it was a flood of water sprites that carried it up,’ said Fronto. ‘Beautiful sea-maidens with long silver hair and the most perfect — ’
Cato rolled his eyes at the soldier’s vulgar fancy. ‘Quiet.’
‘Anti-grav thrusters,’ rumbled Bob quietly.
Maddy nodded. Clouds of dust and debris kicked up by some craft taking off. She smiled encouragingly at the old senator. ‘Please… carry on.’
‘The emperor was carried back to his palace on the Palatine,’ continued Paulus. ‘And the next day he announced in the forum that he was to become God. That the Visitors had come to tell him this and that he must now spend every moment of his time in preparation for that role. That one day he was going to ascend to Heaven and rule Rome
… and the whole world from there.’
‘Caligula’s madness became worse. It had a purpose,’ said Cicero. ‘The purges. The mass crucifixions. His twisted new religion. From that day it all began.’
‘What about them Visitors, those chariots?’ asked Liam. ‘What happened to that lot?’
‘There are stories from some who say they saw them a few times after that,’ said Crassus. ‘The Visitors, that is. Caligula showing them some of the city.’
‘The chariots?’
Crassus shrugged.
‘They were never seen again,’ said Paulus. ‘I have sometimes wondered whether I actually saw some sort of trick arranged by Caligula. A chariot lowered into the arena by some concealed device.’
There was silence for a moment. The atrium of Crassus’s home echoed with the sound of his household slaves preparing food out in his courtyard.
‘But the Stone Men are very real,’ said Cato. ‘And dangerous. Caligula has made sure to demonstrate that very publicly. The question we have to ask is do you think your Stone Man could best Caligula’s guards?’
Maddy shrugged. ‘Possibly.’
‘Even to distract them for a moment,’ said Cato. ‘That’s all. A moment when I am close enough to him. Enough time to strike him down. That’s all I need.’
‘That’s possible,’ she replied. ‘But in exchange we need some help.’
Crassus leaned forward. ‘Go on.’
‘Those chariots… we need to find them. Are they somewhere in Rome still?’
Crassus shook his head. ‘Nothing from that day apart from the Stone Men has ever been seen again.’
‘But,’ cut in Cato, ‘there are places in the palace that Caligula will allow absolutely no one to go.’ The others looked at him. Maddy suspected that was information new to them. ‘He’s given very specific instructions to me on the deployment of the Palace Guard. There are places only he can go.’
‘Big enough to hide these chariots?’
‘The imperial compound is vast. But in the palace itself… yes. I’ve seen a reinforced doorway guarded by Stone Men. Perhaps in there you might find something.’
Maddy stroked her chin thoughtfully for a moment. ‘All right, then. Perhaps we can help each other out.’
Cato turned to look at Crassus and the others. Silent nods from them all.
Sal tapped her arm gently. ‘Any chance you’re going to tell me what we’ve just agreed to?’
CHAPTER 45
AD 54, Rome
The two senators left for their townhouses in the Greek district. Atellus returned to his legion stationed outside the city.
Maddy and Liam sat with Cato in the shade of a portico watching Macro and Fronto sparring with Bob in the courtyard with wooden training swords. Crassus chortled and Sal hooted with delight at the centurion and ex-centurion’s failed attempts to score a touch on Bob’s torso.
‘Your Stone Man is so fast,’ said Cato.
‘Very,’ said Maddy.
‘He’s saved my life many times over,’ added Liam. ‘One-man army, he is.’
‘Tell me.’ Cato sat forward. ‘What language is that you use, when you speak quietly?’
‘You mean when we whisper to ourselves?’
‘Yes.’
She laughed. ‘You must think we’re totally mad, talking to ourselves.’
Cato splayed his hands apologetically. ‘It’s a very odd thing you do.’
Liam reached up to his ear. ‘Shall we show him?’
Maddy nodded. ‘Might as well.’
He pulled out his babel-bud and handed it to Cato. ‘You’d better explain how it works,’ he said to her.
Cato turned the small flesh-coloured bud over in his fingers. ‘It actually speaks words to you?’
‘Yes. In our ear. It hears what we say quietly in English and gives us the correct Latin phrase to say.’
He frowned as he looked at it. ‘Do you mean to say it is… this device can understand the meaning of what is said to it?’
‘Yes. There’s a thing called a computer in there. A bit like a mind, I suppose. An artificial one. It’s an engineered thing.’
Cato’s eyes widened. ‘This province of yours with such advanced devices… how is it possible that no one has ever come across it before? How is it possible no Roman has ever heard of America before?’
Cato passed the bud back to Liam and he carefully placed it back in his ear.
‘Because it’s too far away for anyone — even any Roman — to find.’
Liam’s bud was whispering again in his ear. ‘You telling him about time travel, Mads?’
‘I wouldn’t know where to start,’ she replied.
Cato frowned. ‘What did you just say to each other?’
‘It was nothing.’
‘I suspect you’re patronizing me,’ he said with a smile. ‘The simple-minded Roman soldier, eh?’
She made an apologetic face. ‘Where we come from is very difficult to explain, Cato.’
‘Why not try?’
She realized how easy and how stupidly incorrect it was to assume that a person from an earlier time was somehow less intelligent. Just because they might not understand the concept of something as commonplace as a cellular phone, or a computer, or a light switch, it didn’t make their minds any less agile.