by Alex Scarrow
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 most 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 a
nd 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.
‘Just a few words spoken by me,’ Rashim had promised him, ‘and they will follow your orders.’
‘They will do anything I ask?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s a standby mode, a diagnostic mode.’
‘And they will forever follow my commands?’
Rashim had nodded. ‘Unless they hear the reset code sequence. Then they’ll reboot and return to their last mission parameter set.’
‘Then, Rashim,’ Caligula had smiled warmly, ‘you and I shall rule side by side.’
‘I don’t want the others hurt in any way.’
Caligula’s assurance had been enough for the gullible young man.
It was a night of killing nine months after the Visitors had arrived. The palace’s smooth marble walls had echoed with the screams of slaughter into the early hours of the morning as the Stone Men hunted them down one by one. Their leader, that arrogant fool Stilson
… Caligula had made sure they captured him alive. His torment had lasted several days.
And Rashim?
Caligula giggled at the young man’s naivety. The night of the bloodletting, as all the other Visitors had been enjoying his lavish hospitality, in a quiet room away from the main atrium, away from the noise of raised voices and laughter the twelve Stone Men had assembled as requested in obedient silence.
Rashim spoke his special sequence of words that unlocked these automatons. The Stone Men had all seemed to momentarily fall into a trance only to stir moments later, a seemingly very different look in their cool grey eyes. Caligula’s first order had been for the one called ‘Lieutenant Stern’ to silence Rashim before he could speak again.
And so… the night of bloodletting began. Eight hours later, dawn had shone into the palace, shards of sunlight across these very marble floors spattered with drying pools of blood. His Stone Men were already stacking the bodies in the courtyard and preparing a funeral pyre. And the young man, Rashim, was waking up in his cage, muzzled. Waking up to the realization that the rest of his life was going to be lived in that cage.
Caligula stopped stroking the cool, smooth metal of the weapons spread out like museum exhibits across the purple satin. He looked out at the panorama of Rome getting ready to bed down for the evening. A rich, warm dusk bathed the labyrinth of clay-brick and whitewashed walls and terracotta roof slates. Thin threads of smoke rose into the sky from every district, many of them from bonfires of the daily dead. Disease, spoiled water… the normal attrition of such a big city. He shrugged. Things would be better for his people soon.
When he returned.
He listened to the distant echo of horns across the city, summoning the people out of their homes to pay homage to him. He could see the dark outline of his marvellous stairway up to Heaven; a stairway he was going to descend to visit this world once he had stepped into the white mists of Heaven and finally become what he’d always been destined to become.
God.
His reverie was broken by the sound of bare feet whispering on the smooth floor. He looked up to see Stern step forward to intercept a slave and in a hushed voice ask him what message he had for the emperor. The slave prostrated himself immediately as soon as he noticed Caligula looking at him.
‘What is it?’
‘The tribune of the Guard wishes to see you,’ replied Stern. ‘Says it is important.’
Caligula sighed. He was tired. He rather fancied curling up on the satin alongside the weapons and resting his pounding head against that cool metal. Soothing. But this tribune of the Palace Cohort… yes, he quite liked this new one. Quite an intelligent and engaging man, for an army officer.
What was his name? He struggled to remember.
‘Yes… all right, send him in.’
CHAPTER 52
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
Cato entered Caligula’s atrium. He’d been in here on only half a dozen occasions since being appointed to command the Palace Guard. The room was cavernous and every noise seemed to echo endlessly. He had only ever seen Caligula alone. The emperor it seemed preferred his royal family as far away as possible. Preferred his own company.
He was alone except for one of his Stone Men, the one called Stern, and, of course, half a dozen slaves waiting patiently by the walls for his bidding; almost unnoticeable, still like frescos, murals. Not really humans in Caligula’s eyes.
Cato stopped a respectful distance from Caligula and saluted. ‘Caesar.’
The emperor smiled a greeting. ‘Ahh, yes, I remember now… it’s Cato, isn’t it?’
Cato nodded. ‘Yes, sire. Tribune Quintus Licinius Cato.’
‘Come on now, don’t be rude, Stern… say hello to our visitor.’
The support unit looked at Cato, blank-eyed. ‘Hello.’
Cato regarded him in silence for a moment. He had seen these things up close many times over the last few months. They unsettled his men. To be entirely honest, they unsettled him too. While he didn’t believe in supernatural explanations, he’d always been certain there was something not entirely human about them. Now he knew what they were — man-made: constructions made from flesh and bone instead of wood and metal.
‘What is it, Tribune?’ Caligula settled back on a seat. He beckoned Cato closer. ‘Come over so we’re not barking at each other.’
Cato took a dozen steps closer. As he neared Caligula, he noticed the Stone Man watching him closely.
‘Apparently it’s something important?’
‘It is, sire. I… I have come across evidence of a plot against you, Caesar.’
Caligula sat up. ‘A plot, you say?’
‘Plans to try and… well, to kill you, sire.’
The emperor’s face reddened slightly and he offered a tired sigh. ‘They never stop, do they?’ He pulled himself to his feet and approached Cato. ‘Kill me, you say?’
Cato nodded.
‘All these conniving old fools. All they care about are their own petty agendas. Advancing themselves, the careers of their sons and nephews, marrying money to status or the other way round. Cutting each other’s throats for profit. Awful people.’
He smiled sadly at Cato. ‘It’s the poor common man I feel so sorry for. Ruled by these inbred cretins for far too long.’ He noted the scrolls clasped in Cato’s hands. ‘So then, which meddling fools want me dead now?’
Cato silently held out several scrolls. ‘Correspondence, sire.’
Caligula snatched them from his hand, unrolled one and scanned it quickly. ‘Crassus! That dried-up old fig? Why am I not surprised by that?’ He looked up at Cato as if this was an old conversation they’d had many times over. ‘You know, I should have had every last one of those gossiping old relics done away with. I’m too much of a soft touch, that’s my problem.’ He looked back down at the correspondence and read on in silence.
‘Lepidus.’ Caligula looked genuinely surprised. ‘Lepidus?’
‘Yes, sire.’
Caligula opened the scroll and read further, his face turning a deeper red as his lips silently moved. ‘The ungrateful, fat wretch. I’ve given him and his men everything! They take pay three times what they would have normally! They… he… Lepidus pledged his allegiance!’
He swiped his hand at a bowl of
fruit on a stand. The bowl clattered noisily on to the floor and rolled across it like a cart wheel, finally coming to rest, spinning and rattling with a noise that echoed round the atrium’s walls and off down the passage. Caligula spat a curse.
‘Lepidus… that slug actually got on his knees and prayed directly to me. Prayed to me! Said he always knew I was more than a mere man…’
‘The general tells you what he thinks you want to hear,’ said Cato.
Caligula balled his hand into a shaking fist. ‘The deceitful… He stood before me not so long ago… got on his knees before me and told me he believed in me! That he…!’
He turned on Cato. ‘You believe in me, don’t you, Tribune? You believe I will ascend to Heaven soon and take my place, don’t you? Because you know it isn’t long now! Not long at all!’
Cato hesitated. And realized in the space of several heartbeats that his hesitation was foolish. He should have anticipated this sort of question. Been ready and practised with an answer.
Caligula swung his hand up and placed a finger roughly against Cato’s lips. ‘No! Don’t answer me.’ His eyes were wide and glassy with tears of anger. ‘Tell me! Why… why is it so very hard to believe? Why is it so difficult to imagine that I could be something more than human? Hmmm? I have wisdom. An infinite capacity for love. I know things no other man does. The Visitors came for me, you know, not anyone else! They came… and they told me everything!’
He leaned closer, lowering his voice to little more than a hoarse whisper. ‘More than that, I have ambition. When I am taken up… when I step into the heavens and receive my powers, we won’t need legions any more to pacify those barbarians in Germany, in Britain… we’ll do it with my love, my compassion! I’ll bless their crops, their water. I’ll make the sun shine warmth and light on those cold, dark places and they will love me for it.’