Agrippina hadn’t slept much more that night, but I’d snoozed like a baby, and hadn’t awakened until late in the morning the following day, rested and rejuvenated.
Today’s attack had occurred in broad day light, something I hadn’t expected.
After that first incident just south of current day Milan, I had taken us east toward the Adriatic coast, so as to throw off any pursuers who immediately assumed we were heading to Rome – as most people were in this part of the world. Now, we were just south of the city of Ravenna, a nice little town with very interesting historical significance that was quite apropos considering our current situation.
But I didn’t care much about history anymore.
The five men had come at us on horseback, swords waving and shields clanking, shouting wildly as they’d galloped headlong at my companion and me. I remember turning to Agrippina and asking, “I thought Italy was a civilized area where this kind of thing didn’t happen anymore.”
She’d shrugged. “Bandits and highway men are as ubiquitous here as they are anywhere, Jacob. Perhaps more so here, as there are individuals of great wealth who travel these roads quite often.
I’d nodded, acknowledging her point, and had lifted my hand in their direction. “Care to do the honors?”
She’d smiled and hefted the pistol I’d given her, the bad guys still barreling toward us. “I believe I can hit all but one of them before they are on us.”
I’d unsheathed my Sig P220 from its thigh holster and waved my hand in a go-ahead gesture, ready to mop up whatever scraps she left me. She took careful aim, holding her pistol in both hands exactly as I’d taught her, with the fingers of her left hand carefully wrapped over the fingers of her right, her thumbs pressed together, and fired one round after another, nine in total.
She’d hit three targets multiple times before I’d felt the need to step in and clean things up, which I’d done with cold efficiency, firing only two rounds. Her wimpy 9mm pistol was fine for delicate hands, target shooting, and was perfectly suitable for police work, but often times didn’t have the required stopping power needed to drop a man surging with adrenaline without multiple strikes. My sidearm was a forty-five caliber pistol, however, so when I hit something, I hit something, and it went down, hard. It wasn’t exactly Dirty Harry’s infamous Smith & Wesson revolver, but it would do a similar job.
Two rounds were all I’d needed, and the remaining pair of bandits had hit the ground hard with nasty chest wounds.
Now that we were almost finished cleaning up our latest mess, I started wondering if being attacked twice in less than a week in Cisalpine Gaul was something worth noting or not. Agrippina had certainly had a point that such shady personalities must have been quite common, even in Italy, but that didn’t quell my suspicion that we were being tracked and hunted, although I hadn’t a clue by who.
With the fifth body piled with his buddies’ – a suitable grave for such scum as far as I was concerned – I looked up when a noise off in the distance activated my internal defense mechanisms. It sounded like a branch breaking, one broken by artificial interference, not through the course of nature itself. It had occurred about a dozen meters off to my right, in the tree line that followed the road we travelled upon. The foliage wasn’t dense this time of year, but leaves were returning from their wintry slumber, so visually piercing the trees well beyond the tree line itself wasn’t difficult. I scanned left and right and back again, searching for the disturbance’s source, but came up as empty as most of the trees were bare.
I glanced away, not bothering to look back. If something or someone was out there that I couldn’t immediately see, then there was probably little chance I’d ever find whatever it was without abandoning the safety of the road. Instead, I wiped my hands on my pants and turned around, finding Agrippina standing only a step away, her gun low but at the ready. She stared at me with wide eyes that still seemed frenzied after the rush of what had happened only minutes ago.
“Calm down,” I said, shaking my head as I returned to Felix. “You’re going to give yourself an aneurism.”
She skipped her way to catch up, and bounded to a stop on the other side of Felix like an excited kid. Standing on her tiptoes, she looked at me gleefully over his back. “It was so exhilarating, Jacob! I understand now why war is so appealing!”
Busy cinching a strap for a bag that rested on Felix’s rump, I stopped mid-motion and looked at her without emotion. “War isn’t appealing. War is stupid. I don’t deny there’s a rush to it, but don’t get used to it. I’ve seen what happens to people who embrace it.”
“What happens?” Agrippina asked earnestly.
I shrugged and went back to work while I answered, hiding my true reason for being by Felix’s side, which was to be close to the blue orb contained within his satchel. It was times like these when I really craved its proximity. “Guys who fall deep into the ‘war is fun’ mindset do very dumb things, abandoning everything they once cared for. They go rogue.”
“I am not familiar with that term.”
I couldn’t help but stop as I tried to tie off another strap, thinking back to the world I’d lost and yet another of its vile eccentricities. “War was a big deal where I come from. It was bleak and dire for a lot of people, but for some, it was lucrative and enjoyable. There were guys I knew who just snapped, their brains functioning so insanely that they literally grew addicted to war and violence. They’d take their services anywhere they could as long as it paid them more than the last guy, meanwhile leaving their sanity behind. Mercenaries or contractors were one thing, but these guys were literally insane, with zero principles and far more entitlement, thinking themselves gods among mortal warriors, the granddaddies of war. It was… embarrassing.”
“I see,” she said, her voice suddenly morbid, but then she grew chipper an instant later. “Do not concern yourself, Jacob. I am quite ready to do what must be done to see our quest completed, whatever that entails. I will not… go rogue.”
Finally, I looked her in the eye, and frowned. “I think you’re ready. If only all of us were so capable.” I gave Felix’s ear a scratch and used my other hand to tilt his head around to face me. “Ready to go?”
He nodded excitedly. “Of course! Let’s go, Jacob!”
The other horses neighed and stamped their feet in agreement, but I caught one saying, “I wish Mr. Jacob would ride me for a change…”
***
Conveniently, traveling to Rome in antiquity was about as easy as following a blue line on a smart phone back home – although I was sure plenty of technology-reliant dipshits still wouldn’t have been able to figure it out. The phrase, “all roads lead to Rome,” was less of an idiom and more an actuality here, as every single one of the well-built Roman roadways, in fact, led to Rome. We’d been following the Via Amelia since entering Italy, but would soon break south along the Via Flamenia which should take us directly to Rome.
But first we had to cross a river.
It wasn’t particularly large, or deep, but it was surrounded by pretty country that found the perfect balance between comfort and isolation. Low hills dotted the surrounding area and our well paved Roman road had just emerged from a forest of trees into a wide open field that looked beautiful in the midafternoon sunlight.
I pulled Felix to a stop on the northern bank of the river, which was only a few meters wide and probably shallow enough to ford if not for the handy bridge constructed along our route. Closing my eyes to listen to the gentle flow of the river’s current, I waited for Agrippina to catch up. When she finally did, pulling her horse up beside me, I paid her no mind as I kicked Felix forward again and gave a tug on the pair of ropes behind me to urge my twin pack horses forward as well. Agrippina, once again, had to take a moment to catch up.
When she did, she looked at me in confusion.
“Jacob, don’t you know where we are? The significance of crossing this river?”
I didn’t even bother glancing at her. “O
f course I do. But what the hell do you want me to do? Say something like, ‘the die is cast,’ and lead an army on Rome? What’s the point?”
She frowned. “I simply thought you might want to take some time to appreciate the moment.”
I still didn’t look at her. “Like I give a shit about sentimentality anymore. Let’s just get to Rome.”
***
And two days later, I had returned to Rome.
There was no fanfare, no jubilation, no triumph for me as a conquering general who had done so much for an ignorant populace. No one came to greet us as Agrippina and I stood atop a hill, still quite far from Rome itself, looking upon the picturesque “eternal city” that seemed to glisten in the morning light.
I found myself experiencing an odd sense of déjà vu as we stood there, like I’d been in this very spot before, viewing the same scene before me although changed somewhat. Remembering my time with Merlin, and the story he’d played out for me concerning Romulus and Remus, it too had started with the two of us on a hill overlooking the spot that would one day become Rome.
A vile taste filled my mouth at the memory, and I spat out what saliva I’d gathered there to dispel the wretched tang. For all his talk of righting wrongs and returning life to the status quo, Merlin had in fact done the opposite, destroying my life and my humanity in the process. It hadn’t been the orb that had torn my soul to pieces and left me adrift without any purpose in the world, it had been Merlin. The orb had in fact saved me, giving me the power and the will to do what I had to do, both of which I would have been sorely lacking after what had happened to me in Britain.
Merlin had said he could see his own future – he’d told me that specifically – so how had he not foreseen what would happen once I’d left him? How had he simply ignored all the facts that would have led him to the conclusion that keeping me in his make believe fantasy world was dooming me completely? He should have known how weak the old me was, how ineffectual in times of torment he was, and how useless under pressure he could be.
No, he’d done it all on purpose because he was jealous. Jealous of my ability to harness both orbs’ potential power for myself, a power he couldn’t even touch anymore. I’d taken his precious blue orb into his very presence, and he hadn’t even tried to take it from me. Whether he’d had two hours or thirty seven days, he hadn’t attempted to reclaim it for himself.
Because he couldn’t.
He had no more power in this world anymore. Whether it was the magic the ancient Druids had once been thought to possess or the technological resources of some advanced precursor civilization that had prowled the Earth before recorded history, he had nothing anymore. He was the sole survivor of some lost, dead culture, who needed some poor sap like me to do his dirty work for him. He had no interest in me finding my way back home; he simply wanted me to reclaim both orbs so that he could take them for himself.
But I was on to him and his deceptive little scheme to rule the world as a god. I was ready for him and his plans to attack me once I had what I’d come for. I was prepared to kill him when the time came so that I could preserve what was rightfully mine. I was the heir to Romulus and Remus’ power. Even if it was only some odd happenstance or trick of fate that granted me that ownership, I did not care. I would be the god, not him.
Because it was my destiny, and mine alone.
No one would take it from me.
No one.
I turned to Agrippina. “Ready?”
She met my eye and smiled sweetly. “Of course, Jacob. And you?”
I kicked Felix into a trot and aimed him toward Rome.
“I was born for this.”
***
Unlike the last time I had travelled to Rome on a clandestine mission of great importance, we’d yet to encounter any additional security along the roadways or when entering the city. When I had entered Rome six years ago with Agrippina, Claudius had been in power. He had locked the city down for fear that Caligula’s agents had been sent to reconnoiter and sabotage the city.
The only real difference this time was that traffic going into the city wasn’t nearly as heavy as it had been then. Rome was a placid city, even in this time of war and upheaval. Nestled safely in the middle of Italy, far away from most of its client states and conquered territory, it would be impossible to tell just from looking at the city that wars were being fought all over its great empire and in its name. From as far as Spain in the west to Judea in the east, brush fires, rebellions, skirmishes, and outright wars were being fought, all because the leading men, and one powerful woman, of this particular city demanded it.
As we finally entered into the city proper, I was greeted with familiar sensations that tickled my nose and attracted my eyes, but I felt neither melancholic nor nostalgic over my return to the city that had once held such a special place in my heart. All around me, Romans of various social strata milled around, going about their meaningless daily business that meant so little in a world that passed them by, almost unnoticed, and had me clearly at its center. Even after so many years, this whole city seemed familiar to me, even if something was missing. My mind kept going back to the days when I would run through the city’s streets, but my memories were incomplete, as they often seemed to be. I remembered some form of black streak waving in the air beside me, like some kind of flag, as though it belonged to someone running beside me, but that was all I could recollect, so I ignored it.
Markets sold exotic clothing, spices, and jewelry imported from all over the empire, storefronts with homes built into them hocked locally made household wares or other items of interest, and food stands enticed patrons with freshly baked breads, spiced meats, vegetables and fruits of questionable freshness, or seafood that was more often than not smothered in the deeply pungent fermented fish sauce known as garum – the modern world’s less nuanced predecessor to Worcestershire sauce – prepared with fish guts. It had a pervasive and disgusting aroma, and was a condiment I had never once tried in all my time in antiquity, having learned of its ingredients when I was in college.
In fact, I was so put off by it that now that I had returned to Rome, where the stuff seemed to flow through the streets like an extension of the Tiber River, I found myself gagging and suppressing the urge to disgorge my breakfast. I lifted my fist to my mouth and did everything I could to re-acclimate myself not just to the smell of garum, but to all Rome’s otherwise dirty, shitty garbage as well. Certain parts of Rome, like any city, were just as clean and beautiful as one would think when looking at a piece of art depicting the city, but the rest of the metropolitan area was not much cleaner than a dingy alleyway in New York City or Chicago. Only within the more coveted downtown districts could one venture without the risk of stepping into something one would rather avoid.
But the streets in Rome’s outskirts were mostly clean, and the citizens friendly enough. Nothing stood in our way as Agrippina and I led our small procession of horses through the streets of Ancient Rome, along the Via Tiburtina, which entered the city from the east. Like General Douglas MacArthur in the Philippines during World War II, I, myself, had returned to Rome, and even though such an occasion seemed like it should have been celebrated and momentous, it apparently wasn’t.
Beside me, Agrippina rode her white horse proudly, but with her face still covered by a veil. She may have been Empress Agrippina the Younger of Rome, the beautiful and once-loved ruler of the Roman Empire, but her living legacy was an infamous one, and Romans weren’t exactly lenient with despots who overstepped themselves. Most ended up in an early grave. Agrippina was too shrewd, though, to let something like that happen to her, so we’d agreed that she would conceal the fact that she had returned until she could contact whatever Praetorian force remained in the Castra Praetoria – their base of operation. If one thing had changed about the Praetorian Guard thanks to my meddling, it was that they were a fanatically loyal bunch these days, and wouldn’t immediately turn on Agrippina as the bodyguard organization had often done
to emperors like Caligula and Nero in my timeline.
Urbanization was heavy in our current location, with plenty of sharp-angled and cubed buildings erected along straight roadways with right-angled cross roads, but navigating Rome’s main thoroughfares was as easy as following a straight line. The city’s famous seven hills made directions slightly more complicated, and the city was certainly far more complex in modern times, but as Agrippina and I approached the Porta Esquilina, a gate that still existed in my own time, I did not need my innate sense of good direction to know that we were approaching Rome’s epicenter.
The Servian Wall wasn’t particularly impressive, only ten meters or so in height, maybe more in certain places, but it had performed its job of protecting the inner part of the city quite well over the centuries. By this point in history, it had not yet been breached by a foreign power, although Hannibal had certainly knocked at it. He’d never attempted to storm the city, though. Only during Rome’s tumultuous civil wars about a century ago had the walls been tested and found lacking, but it was hardly the wall’s fault, since most of the time the city gates were deliberately left unlocked and open by one traitor or another.
Even so, there was something intimidating about our approach to the Porta Esquilina. I’d spent months within the Servian Wall during my first year in Ancient Rome, but it was different this time because I’d also been to what I considered Pre-Ancient Rome as well. Merlin had taken me to Rome’s seven hills before there’d even been a single brick laid upon them, when all the eye could see was wide open country with seven hills that sloped at varying degrees, creating a rolling vista of shallow valleys. Everything had moved too fast for me to imagine either ancient or modern Rome superimposed on what I had seen with Merlin, but now that I was back, I was beginning to see everything in my world in a completely different way.
Praetorian Series [4] All Roads Lead to Rome Page 12