by Alex Scarrow
‘You once served under him?’
Cato nodded. ‘Oh yes… and he was just as bad then.’
The cart closed the final few yards and crashed into the iron gates, knocking the left gate so hard its hinges exploded from the stone pillar in a shower of dust. The gate collapsed inwards and they heard a roar from the Praetorian cavalrymen outside.
A moment later, the cart lurched as men behind it began to work it back, clear of the tangle of bent and crimped iron bars. The other gate, hanging from just one twisted hinge, clattered over on to the ground and, caught up on the cart’s axle, was dragged away as the cart was pulled clear of the gateway.
‘Advance!’ ordered Fronto.
The front rank, sixteen men wide, advanced behind their presented shield wall. One step at a time they approached until they finally filled the gap between the stone pillars.
Cato spotted the decurion now joined by a cluster of several others still mounted. He saw the plume of another ranking officer trotting through the kicked-up dust and haze outside. The praefectus alae… commanding officer of the Guard’s entire cavalry wing.
He cursed. The last thing he needed was that officer talking round Fronto’s men. Better that the talking was all done and the fighting had begun. He decided to hasten things along.
‘Fronto… let’s give them an opening volley.’
The centurion nodded, and barked an order for his men to ready-and-release on his command. The men, two ranks of sixteen, all took a step backwards, javelins drawn back in their right hands.
‘RELEASE!’
The modest volley arced through the air across thirty yards and picked out no more than a dozen victims. Not enough to make any sort of a difference, but enough to ensure the time for parlaying was over. The equites, many of them foreigners from across the empire — Batavians, Sarmatians, expert horsemen, but certainly no match for legionaries on foot — began to advance on the gateway in a ragged, loosely formed line, short spears protruding between their shields, a line of light oval shields designed for dextrous horseback melee, not closed formations. Spears instead of their swords… another cavalry habit. They were used to wielding a weapon with reach.
Cato pointed that out and Fronto nodded. ‘Idiots haven’t got a clue how to fight on foot.’
A moment later, the gap between them was closed and the clatter and ring of blades on shields and spear tips on armour began to fill the ominous stillness that had descended over the smoke-shrouded city.
CHAPTER 72
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
‘We have to get out of Rome!’ said Maddy. ‘I mean, like, now!’
Bob nodded. ‘That must be our mission priority.’
She joined Sal and Liam beside the doorway and hunkered down beside them. ‘How is he?’
‘It stings like hell,’ Liam winced. ‘Burns.’
‘He’s not bleeding any more.’ Sal pointed at the bandage wrapped round Liam’s waist. ‘I don’t think any veins or whatever were cut.’
‘What about internal bleeding?’
Sal shrugged. ‘I don’t know what to look for.’
Nor did Maddy; it was just a phrase she’d heard often enough on hospital dramas. ‘Right, well, when we get him back home, we’ll get him looked at by someone.’
‘Get back home?’ Liam laughed sarcastically. ‘Good luck with that.’
‘We’re going to find a way out of Rome. There is a way home. A window… a return window, and we’re going to try and use it. OK?’
The other two nodded.
Bob brought Rashim out, supporting an emaciated elbow in one large hand. He blinked and grimaced at the modest light of several flickering oil lamps.
Maddy had a thought. ‘Rashim? Could we use that hover-vehicle thing back in there?’
He shook his head, shading his eyes and wincing. ‘Uh-uh… a big d-dead dragon now. Yes, it is.’
She shook her head. She didn’t have time for his wittering madness. ‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘Information,’ said Bob. ‘The vehicle is hydrogen cell powered. The cells will have needed maintenance. They will not be any good to us now.’
‘Rashim?’ He was muttering to himself again. She grabbed his arm. ‘Rashim! Where this portal is… is it close enough that we can get there in time on foot?’
He hunched his narrow shoulders. ‘Time flies… time flies… tick tock, tick tock…’
‘We’re wasting our time with him,’ said Sal.
‘He knows where to go, Sal. We need him.’ Maddy pushed a loose tangle of hair out of her blinking eyes. ‘And we’ve got to escape this palace, the city somehow.’
‘Cato… he can help us,’ she replied. ‘He knows this palace.’
‘Where did he go? Did you see which way?’
‘I think he’s outside, at the front of the palace with all the other soldiers.’ It was then that they heard it, the faint sound of metallic ringing and raised voices. Maddy and Sal looked at each other. ‘Is that someone fighting?’ said Sal.
Maddy cocked her head to listen for a moment. ‘I think it is.’
‘Then we’re too late, aren’t we? We’re trapped!’ She looked up at Maddy. ‘Jahulla! We are, aren’t we?’
Liam winced. Opened his eyes. ‘No way I’m getting stuck in here!’
‘We’ll have to find a way out,’ said Maddy. ‘Can you move, Liam?’
‘I’m sure as eggs not bleedin’ staying!’ He tried to sit up, groaning as he held his side. ‘Ahhh! Ow! Ouch!!! It bleedin’ well stings!’
‘Bob, you carry Liam. Me and Sal, we’ll help the old guy,’ she said, nodding at Rashim.
‘Which way are we going?’ asked Sal.
‘Let’s try and find Cato. Maybe he can help us.’
A moment later, they pushed the hanging drape aside and emerged from the concealed passage and stepped into the main hallway, Liam groaning, carried piggyback, his arms wrapped round Bob’s neck. Rashim shuffled between Maddy and Sal, giggling and warbling gibberish to himself.
‘That way,’ said Maddy, nodding to the left, towards the increasing sounds of battle.
They made their way down towards the entrance portico.
Closer, Maddy caught the flickering of glinting armour bathed in the blood-red light of sunset. ‘What’s going on up there?’
They arrived inside the high-ceilinged portico to find it swamped with wounded men bleeding out on the marble floor. Through the archway, down the steps, she could see the Palace Guard were drawn up in three lines along the bottom of the steps.
The courtyard was filling with other soldiers.
She caught a glimpse of Cato’s horse-hair crest among the men, organizing the defensive lines across the steps. She pushed her way through the mass of men and finally stood beside him.
‘What’s going on? Who are they?’
‘Caligula’s Praetorian cavalry. All the damned alae. Five hundred of them.’ He looked at her. ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’
She nodded. ‘Look, Cato… we need to talk.’
‘Well, as you can see, I’m a bit busy right now.’
‘There’s a way we can fix all this… make it not happen! Please… we need to talk. I’ll explain.’
Cato looked out at the equites. They were flooding into the gardens. They’d managed to push his men back from the gateway through sheer weight of numbers. This was their next best bottleneck to try and hold — the portico. But it was all but over for them now anyway. They were into the palace compound now. There were other entrances to the palace buildings. Soon enough they were going to be overwhelmed.
The portico was going to be a last stand for them. Plain and simple.
Cato grabbed Macro’s arm. ‘Macro!’
‘Yes?’
‘Give me a few moments. I need to talk to our friends. Quickly!’
Macro’s brow cocked. ‘Can they weave some kind of magic for us?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s what I’m hoping.’ He
nodded at the remnants of Fronto’s century. The centurion had gone down five minutes earlier. The thrust of a cavalry spear to his throat. He’d gone down thrashing angrily with his sword, managing to at least catch and give a life-long scar to the man who’d killed him.
‘They’re all yours, Macro.’
He nodded. ‘Right you are.’ The men exchanged a salute then Macro turned and started bellowing a barrage of coarse language over the heads of the few dozen men drawn up on the steps.
Maddy led Cato back inside, into the portico where Liam, Sal, Bob and Rashim were standing. They stepped through a carpet of the writhing wounded to join them.
She pointed at Rashim. ‘OK… he knows a place where a time window will open.’
‘A time window?’ Cato’s eyes narrowed. ‘That’s a device that lets you travel through — ?’
‘Through time, yes. Exactly. And this window opens in three days.’
He shook his head. ‘We’re not going to last three more hours… let alone — ’
‘It’s somewhere outside Rome.’
‘You wish to find a way out? Escape?’
Maddy nodded.
‘And what? We’re to stay here and die?’
She had no answer to that. She spread her hands. ‘Look, it’s very hard to explain… but if we can travel home, we can change history back to how it should be. So this never happens.’
Bob stepped forward. He’d been listening to their hasty exchange. ‘Information: Emperor Caligula’s reign lasts only four years. He is assassinated in AD 41 by officers of the Praetorian Guard, and his uncle, Tiberius Claudius Caesar, is made emperor in his place.’
Cato made a face. ‘Claudius? That stuttering cretin couldn’t lead a beggar to coins.’
‘He will be a very successful ruler. During his reign, Britain is successfully conquered and added as a province to the empire. So are Thrace, Lycia and Judaea. He is known for ruling fairly and — ’
‘Not now, Bob.’ She placed a hand over his mouth. ‘Point is the last seventeen years should have been very different. Everything that’s happened since the Visitors arrived… it’s all wrong. Them arriving here is what made it go wrong. It changed history from what it should have been.’
Cato studied them both silently for a moment. ‘You can make all of this happen?’
‘Yes!’ replied Maddy. ‘But only if we can get back home.’
Cato pinched his nose thoughtfully.
‘Can you get us out… somehow?’
‘I’m thinking.’
CHAPTER 73
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
Macro finished threading the loops of leather through the fastenings and tightened up the lorica segmentata round his thick torso. It was snug, but he nodded with satisfaction that his portly gut could still be contained by the one-size-fits-all segmented armour.
‘All right, lads!’ he barked as he put on a helmet. ‘Those girls across the garden are probably more frightened of you than you are of them!’
A grim cackle of laughter rippled among the men.
‘Without their horses, they’re just a rabble of rank amateurs. So let’s not worry about ’em too much, eh?’
The red stain of twilight bathed the gardens with their stone pathways and small bushes, young olive trees and the decorative scattering of bodies. The evening was strangely quiet and still. After the last fifteen minutes of fighting, the clash of arms and the roar of raised voices, the silence seemed almost complete.
But Macro heard a low murmur of voices, from men still outside the imperial compound. A low murmur rolling forwards and spreading across the men inside like a wave riding up a shingle beach.
What’s going on out there?
Then he saw movement, over between the stone columns of the gateway, several men on horseback picking their way through the men filing in. All of them roaring support as they suddenly recognized the men on horseback.
Macro cursed as he realized who they were.
Caligula and the Praetorians’ prefect, Quintus.
‘Cato!’ He turned round and looked up the steps. ‘What are you up to?’ he muttered under his breath.
The equites on the far side of the gardens roared with glee at the sight of their emperor and praefectus. Macro watched as they dismounted and disappeared among the mass of men, only to appear a few moments later as the front rank of soldiers parted respectfully to let them through.
Caligula walked slowly towards them, flanked by two of his Stone Men. Quintus had dropped back a dutiful three steps behind.
A dozen yards away he stopped, raised his hands to quieten the equites behind him. An obedient hush swiftly settled across the gardens.
‘I wonder now… what are you lot doing in my home?’ He looked around at the grounds, littered with bodies, the shafts of javelins poking out of the dirt. Divots of displaced soil and trampled flowerbeds.
‘What an awful mess you’ve made!’ He sighed. ‘On any other day, I’d be quite annoyed. But today… today has been a very good day. Soon — very soon now — something truly wonderful is going to happen. I will transform from a man to a god! And Rome will be showered with riches once more. Today… I defeated the last few men who doubted me. Two legions of fools, commanded by their foolish general… wiped out.’
‘Praetorians!’ He took a step closer. ‘My good men,’ he said with hands spread. ‘I hear you have done your duty well, defended my home against those you thought had come to ransack it. For that I thank you all… and I forgive you.’
Macro took a step back from his line of men, climbed the half-dozen steps up to the portico entrance. He saw Cato deep in conversation with the others.
‘But I’m afraid you have been misled… tricked,’ continued Caligula. ‘Tricked by officers who were in league with General Lepidus. Conspirators, fellow disbelievers, traitor-’
Macro put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Cato looked up. Caligula paused and an expression of irritation at the rude interruption flashed across his face. The three ranks of sweating, grim-faced and blood-spattered soldiers on the steps swivelled their heads to look up at Macro.
An entire battlefield frozen in a moment, silent, and every pair of eyes on him.
Macro shrugged then grinned. ‘Load of bollocks!’ he roared loudly.
It sounded like a breeze rustling through the small orchard of baby olive trees. But in fact, it was a ripple of gasps spreading among the men on both sides.
‘You’re not going to be a god. You’re just an idiot!’
That rustling breeze again. Followed by a silence. He could see the ‘o’s of mouths open, aghast, in every direction.
Stuff this.
He spotted an unused javelin on the floor nearby. And in one swift movement bent down, picked it up and hurled it towards Caligula. It arced lazily through the air, every pair of eyes on the seemingly endless trajectory of the wobbling wooden shaft and glinting iron tip until it dug into the dirt between Caligula’s planted feet with a dull thud.
Caligula stared wide-eyed at the shaft as it wobbled in front of him. He reached out for the wooden shaft, pulled it free of the ground and then tossed the javelin to one side. His face split with a grin as he laughed with delight.
‘Do you see now? No one can kill a god.’
Fronto’s men began to stir and fidget unhappily.
Macro backed up across the entrance portico towards the others, nearly tripping over and losing his footing on the legs of one of the dying.
‘A full pardon for all you men!’ cried out Caligula. ‘And a thousand sestertii for the one who brings me that man’s head!’
‘I think we’d better run!’ rasped Macro.
Cato nodded. ‘I think you’re right.’
Together they turned and headed back into the dimly lit halls of the palace as some of the quicker-witted Praetorian Guards began to climb the steps in hungry pursuit of their bounty.
CHAPTER 74
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
Cato led them all back down the palace’s main hallway. They passed by the secret passageway they’d emerged from five minutes earlier.
‘Where are we going?’ called out Maddy.
‘There’s a slaves and merchants’ entrance on the far side of the palace. If we’re lucky, that idiot, Quintus, won’t have thought to block it off yet.’
‘He’s not exactly the sharpest arrow in the quiver,’ said Macro, puffing as they jogged.
‘Which is the main reason Caligula appointed him,’ Cato added. ‘If we’re quick, the section of Fronto’s men I posted there won’t yet know there’s a bounty on our heads.’
The hallway ended at the grand atrium and, as they emerged into it, they saw on the far side a dozen soldiers emerging from the hallway opposite. Not men of Fronto’s century but equites.
‘On the emperor’s orders, you there!.. Stay where you are!’ echoed a voice.
Cato hissed a curse. ‘Too late!’
‘We’re going back!’ cried Rashim. ‘Back to my cage!’
‘Be quiet!’ grunted Macro as they reversed into the flickering, lamp-lit gloom of the main passageway again.
‘This isn’t good,’ said Maddy. ‘We’re going to be trapped!’
‘My cage!’ trilled Rashim. ‘Going back! Yes! My cage! My Stone — ’
‘I said be quiet,’ Macro snapped, raising a threatening fist.
‘The Stone Men!’ said Maddy. ‘He’s right! Rashim… he could reboot them!’
The word didn’t translate well for her and Macro offered her a puzzled glare. ‘Put some boots on them? What the — ?’
She tried again. ‘Reactivate them! Awaken them!’
Cato nodded. ‘Yes…’ He turned to Rashim. ‘Can you do this? Make them take your orders?’
‘Oh yes, yes… I can make magic work!’
Cato pointed his sword back the way they’d come. ‘Then back! Back there quickly!’
They turned. Cato grasped Rashim’s painfully thin wrist and dragged him along as he jogged ahead with Macro. Bob bounded after them, Liam bouncing and groaning on his huge back. The girls kept pace either side, looking anxiously back over their shoulders at the clatter and jangle of armour and harnesses and the slap of pursuing nailed army sandals on the stone floor.