Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1)

by Rob Steiner

  Lucia smirked. “Uh-oh.”

  Kaeso tapped his collar com. “Calm down, Galeo, I'll be down in a second.”

  “You damn well better explain,” Galeo yelled, “because you may have just killed us all!”

  Kaeso unstrapped himself from his couch and went to the ladder behind the command deck. Nestor said, “Do you want me to go with you?”

  Kaeso scowled. “I'm Centuriae. It’s my duty to take care of unruly passengers.”

  Nestor smiled, then turned to his tabulari displays.

  When Kaeso entered the engine room, Galeo was out of his delta couch and frantically working the interface on the main tabulari. From what Kaeso could see, Galeo was scanning for ships in the Jupiter system. Roman Eagles didn’t worry Kaeso since there was no alpha way line near Jupiter. Foreign threats only came from the alpha way line orbiting Terra, so there was no reason for Roman patrols out here other than policing the system’s gas and mining guilds. And those guilds had their own security, so Caduceus would likely be ignored unless they got in a mining ship’s way.

  Daryush stood behind Galeo. The Persian eyed Kaeso, and shrugged.

  “Go check on Dariya,” Kaeso said. Daryush frowned, then left the engine room.

  Galeo spun around. Not even the Umbra cloak could hide his anger and fear. His normally pale cheeks and forehead were tinged red. If the Umbra cloak showed Galeo's anger, then Kaeso knew his plan had struck home.

  “Why did you bring us here?” Galeo yelled. “Just what are you trying to prove?”

  “I want answers,” Kaeso said. “I don't like being lied to and I don't like going into a mission without all the facts. You're holding out on me, Galeo, and I want to know why.”

  “You're talking nonsense, Kaeso!”

  “Then why are you so scared? Aren't Vessels always in control?”

  Galeo snapped his mouth closed and put greater effort into calming his Umbra cloak features. The redness on his face subsided, the snarl around his mouth relaxed, and he took on the look of someone mildly put out by a flight delay.

  But the calm demeanor did not hide the rage in Galeo's voice. “You can’t land on Terra with me, you fool! Why do you think we wanted you to go? No Vessel can go to Terra because of what your old lover did.”

  “No Vessel has ever gone to Terra,” Kaeso said. “I want to know why. There is a Vessel on almost every human world except Terra. Only Ancilia are placed there. Terra is the capital of the Roman Republic, humanity’s birthplace. Seems the Muses would be interested in seeing it.”

  Galeo closed his eyes and shook his head, his control slipping again. “You don't know what you're doing...”

  “Then tell me. Once you do, I'll take you to Pandisa. But your explanation better make sense.”

  Galeo considered Kaeso, fear and doubt warring on his face. “I...I can't...”

  Kaeso grabbed Galeo's shoulders and looked into his red-rimmed eyes. “Does a Roman Muse strain exist?”

  Galeo stared at Kaeso, trembling in Kaeso’s grip. “Kaeso…I…they…”

  Galeo jerked violently, and then his eyes rolled up into his head. Kaeso tapped his collar com. “Nestor, engine room, now!”

  Kaeso laid Galeo on his back, and tried to keep him still, but the seizure made Galeo bang his head repeatedly against the floor. Kaeso put all his weight into holding Galeo’s shoulders. Nestor came from behind and said, “Hold his head!”

  Kaeso jumped toward Galeo’s head and held it tight while the rest of Galeo’s body spasmed and flailed. Galeo suddenly arched his back high, then a gurgle escaped his throat and bloody spittle seeped from the corner of his mouth.

  “He can’t die!” Kaeso said.

  “We have to let the seizure pass. There’s nothing we can do.”

  Kaeso clenched his teeth in impotent fury. Eventually the spasms slowed and Galeo grew still. His pupils rolled back down, but with a dead man’s glassy stare. Nestor put his fingers on Galeo's neck, then put his ear to Galeo's mouth. He knelt beside Galeo and started chest compressions.

  Kaeso stood and slammed his hands against the bulkhead. This wasn't supposed to happen. He only wanted to scare Galeo into admitting what he knew about the Muses and Roma. He thought potential capture would frighten Galeo so much that he’d tell Kaeso everything. And Kaeso believed Galeo was going to talk, but he had no idea the Muses would try to kill Galeo before he could. He'd never heard of a case where the Muses killed their Vessel, for that would mean the Muses in the Vessel would also die.

  Perhaps that was the point. Rather than suffer capture by another strain, or admit another strain existed, the Muses in Galeo chose death.

  After several minutes of chest compressions, Nestor sat back and sighed. Galeo's eyes stared at the ceiling, and his chest was still.

  “I'm sorry, Centuriae,” Nestor said, standing up. “There was nothing—”

  Nestor's eyes widened as he looked down at Galeo. Where once there was a man with blond hair and pale skin, now lay a human form whose skin and head was covered in a fine silvery mesh. The mesh disintegrated into an ashy substance that sloughed off Galeo’s naked body. It floated away in the engine room’s mild air currents. Within minutes, not even the ash would exist.

  Kaeso saw his former mentor's face for the first time. He appeared a few years older than Kaeso, with black hair and olive skin. Two scars ran down his left cheek, as if from a wild animal. Galeo never mentioned such an attack. Kaeso tried to ignore the accusing brown eyes that stared at him.

  “What happened to his cloak?” Nestor asked, bending down next to Kaeso.

  “The implant powers it,” Kaeso said thickly. “If the wearer dies, then the cloak and implants deactivate. Turn to ash.” The implant in Galeo’s brain, along with the Muses, had likely dissolved already into his cooling blood.

  Nestor put a hand on Kaeso's shoulder. “He was your friend. I am sorry.”

  “They killed him,” Kaeso said. “He was about to tell me everything, but they killed him. They killed themselves.”

  “Makes you wonder what they didn't want us to know.”

  Kaeso didn’t respond. Where did you get those scars? It was a strange thing to wonder right now, but the scars reminded Kaeso that he really knew nothing about a man he called friend for almost ten years.

  Reminded him that Umbra had no room for friendships.

  Nestor asked, “What of the mission, Centuriae?”

  Kaeso stood. “The mission is still on. The boy scares them. Both strains. That's why we need to get him before they do.”

  Kaeso and Nestor carried Galeo's body into Cargo Two and placed him in the same freezer where they had wrapped up Flamma’s body. Kaeso gave both friends a long look before shutting the freezer door.

  He also checked on Dariya, where she slept blissfully unaware of what happened the past few days. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and it was not a function of the sleeper crib.

  The Cariosus Muses were devouring Dariya cell by cell. The Roman Muses killed Flamma during their attack on Libertus. Now the Liberti Muses murdered Galeo. They were taking his friends, one by one.

  It was time Kaeso Aemilius took things from them.

  32

  From his disguised taxi, Lepidus watched the woman and boy leave the Aeneas Cafe. They were both cloaked with their hoods up. The tracker Appius placed on the woman still functioned, but had had winked out for a moment and then came back. It concerned Lepidus, for he did not like surprises or events he could not explain. Everything had a reason. Even winks.

  “I cannot believe Gaia Julius would help them,” Appius said from the seat next to Lepidus.

  “You didn't believe Scaurus would help them either, yet here we are.”

  “Scaurus was a washed up old man without friends,” Appius said. “Gaia Julius is one of the wealthiest patricians in the city. Her family’s only now gaining the respect it lost because of Octavian. Why would she throw it away?”

  “Perhaps because it's taken her family a thousa
nd years to regain that respect,” Lepidus said. “Never underestimate human pride.”

  “Or perhaps the woman and boy simply wanted something to eat?”

  “Dressed like they were? Doubtful. They’d attract too much attention among the bathed patrons. Ocella would find another Temple of Empanda first. No, Gaia Julius is a traitor. It feels right.” He looked at Appius. “I've succeeded more when I act on my feelings rather than facts. Trust that. It's the gods communicating with you.”

  Appius frowned. “I thought the gods only talked to the Consul and the Collegia.”

  “Talk, yes,” Lepidus said, “but there are more ways to communicate than words. Be mindful of the augurs around you, Appius. Be mindful of your feelings. Unlike the Consul and the Collegia, you and I are mortals. We cannot hear the gods directly. But they still show us the proper path if we see and listen.”

  Appius nodded. Lepidus told the boy things he should have already known, if not through the Pantheon flamens then through his own intuition. Appius just began his training, though. In time his intuition would attune to the will of the gods. It took Lepidus many years to open his mind to the gods, to accept the order of things. He was bound by honor and faith to obey the Consul and the Collegia, for they were infallible. Once he truly accepted that, he found the gods favored him with clear signs to guide his path. He served the gods and their Voices faithfully since the day he was punished for the Battle of Caan. Since that day, the gods showed him mercy by giving his family prosperity and granting him talents to protect and expand the glory and light that was the Republic.

  Yes, if Appius followed Lepidus's instructions, he would know that joy and prosperity as well.

  “If you’re correct, sir,” Appius said, “then Gaia Julius is the high-level traitor we've sought. Should we not arrest Ocella and the boy now? Not to mention Gaia Julius?”

  Lepidus considered the same idea ever since they tracked the woman to the Aeneas Cafe. The wealth of the Julii could get Ocella and boy off-world. And while it was possible there were higher placed traitors, Lepidus didn’t think he had time to root them all out before Ocella escaped. Besides, Gaia Julius’s interrogation would reveal any other traitors she knew or suspected. Not to mention interrogations of the woman and the boy.

  “Very well,” Lepidus said. “Have the Praetorians secure the Aeneas Cafe and the house of Gaia Julius. If they find her there, they will keep her under guard until we arrive. You and I shall take the woman and boy.”

  Appius nodded and then gave orders into his com. The Praetorian centurions on the other side acknowledged the orders. Lepidus started the taxi and merged into the street traffic.

  According to the tracker, the woman headed east on the Via Rumina. Lepidus drove the taxi to a parking lot a block ahead of where Ocella fled. Lepidus told Appius the plan, and the young man nodded his understanding.

  Appius stepped out of the taxi and stood next to the door of a small bookshop. He pretended to browse the books and scrolls displayed in the window, but his eyes searched the reflection to his right, watching for the cloaked woman and boy.

  Lepidus walked several dozen paces up the sidewalk in the direction where Ocella would approach. When he saw their hooded heads bobbing toward him on the crowded street, he stopped before a butcher's shop and examined the live eels swimming in a cloudy glass tank. The female attendant asked if she could help him. Lepidus asked her about the freshness of the eels, where they were caught, and whether they were free of the diseases that plagued the farmed eels last year. As the attendant answered his questions, Lepidus watched the reflection in the fish tank of two hooded figures passing behind him and toward Appius. Lepidus thanked the attendant for her time and fell in behind his prey, maintaining a comfortable distance of ten paces.

  Ahead of the two, Appius’s large frame turned away from the bookshop window and stood in the center of the tight alley. People flowed around him with annoyed glances, but he kept his eyes on the woman and boy approaching him.

  When Ocella and the boy came within six paces of Appius, Lepidus called out, “Marcia Licinius Ocella.”

  The woman and boy continued on as if they didn’t hear him. When Appius stood in front of them with a jolt gun in hand, they finally stopped. “Answer the man,” he growled.

  Her head swiveled from Appius to the boy and then to the street around them. Lepidus chose this spot because of its close confines. They could not retreat, they could not go forward, and the alley walls kept them from going left or right. They were trapped.

  “Marcia Licinius Ocella,” Lepidus said again, this time two paces from them. “We have questions for—”

  The woman turned, lowered her hood, and said, “I'm sorry, dominar, are you talking to me?”

  She was not Marcia Licinius. She was much older, her graying brown hair wrapped in a single braid. She was pale, with the complexion of a Norseman. The boy was probably her grandson. The same pale skin and light brown hair shown from beneath his hood.

  “Who are you?” Lepidus asked, regaining his voice.

  “I am Hestia Gruen and this is my grandson, Kel,” the woman said, her eyes lowered but fearful. “We are slaves of Gaia Julius. We're delivering her post.”

  “Give it to me,” Lepidus said.

  The woman handed Lepidus a wrapped package, and Lepidus grabbed it. He waved his hand-held tracker over it, but the package was clean. He ran the tracker over Hestia Gruen's cloak as the woman tried to shrink away. Appius growled, “Don't move.”

  Lepidus found the tracking strip near the cloak’s left sleeve. “Give me the cloak.”

  “Dominar, it's cold.”

  “Now, slave!”

  The woman took off the cloak and handed it to Lepidus. He reached into the sleeve and found the sticky tracking strip. He held it up to his tracker, and the device gave off the telltale blips. He clenched his teeth and then tossed the cloak at the woman, which she quickly put back on. He studied the slaves. The woman kept her eyes lowered, while the boy alternated his wide gaze between the woman and his feet.

  “Did you see a woman with short brown hair and a twelve-year-old boy with the same colored hair in your domina's cafe? She would be of Indian descent.”

  The woman nodded. “Yes, they gave us these cloaks. They were much nicer than the old cloaks we had. Not that the domina isn't generous to us. Gods be praised, she treats my family better than my old master, but sometimes she overlooks simple things, like cloaks that are fraying at the edges—”

  “The woman and the boy,” Lepidus interrupted, fighting the urge to shoot the slave. “Do you know where they went?”

  The woman cast her gaze to the ground again. “I'm sorry, dominar, I did not see where they went after they gave us the cloaks. They were still drinking tea when the domina gave me the post and told me to deliver it.”

  “Did they talk with your domina?”

  The woman shrugged slightly. “I didn't see them speak to each other, but I wasn’t in the cafe the whole time.” She gave Lepidus a furtive glance. “Can me and my grandson go now?”

  Lepidus waved his hand absently, and the two Norse slaves hurried down the alley and around the corner. Lepidus stared at the tracking strip on his finger.

  “So maybe it was a coincidence,” Appius said. “Perhaps Marcia Licinius found the tracker, went into the cafe, and gave the slaves her cloak.”

  Lepidus shook his head. “It is not a coincidence. Any cafe on Via Rumina would’ve thrown them out looking and smelling the way they did. And it’s unlikely that slaves of Gaia Julius would accept dirty cloaks from street beggars. The slave lied.”

  “How could you tell?”

  Lepidus looked at Appius. “Feelings. Now that we've shown ourselves, we'd better question the Julii before they have time to coordinate a story.”

  Hestia Gruen pulled out her com pad and called Gaia Julius. When the domina answered, Hestia said, “They stopped us, domina.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “W
hat you told me to tell them.”

  “Did they believe it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Hestia said. “They’ll come for you soon, if they haven't already.”

  “I know. Thank you, Hestia.”

  “Yes, domina.” Hestia put the com pad in her cloak pocket, then smiled down at her grandson. The boy stared at her expectantly.

  “Fine,” she said, “we'll go to the bakery. You earned it.”

  Kel smiled. “Can I have two cinnamon rolls?”

  “The deal was one roll,” she said. “And let’s take off these rags.”

  She bunched the cloaks into a ball, including the com pad, and tossed them into the lap of a sleeping beggar.

  33

  Roma.

  Kaeso watched the city grow larger through the window of the commercial dropship he and Nestor rode. It was almost ten years since Kaeso last saw the Eternal City. No building could exceed the height of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline, so instead of building up, Roma built out. Its sprawling suburbas covered most of central Italia, making the peninsula's center one large city when viewed from the dropship. Gleaming white temples dotted the entire city and the suburbas. The familiar ovals of coliseums almost matched the quantity of temples. Cars zipped along roadways streaming into and out of the city. While the roads outside the city lay in straight lines, the roads in Roma itself twisted and curved to follow the ancient streets and alleys that grew up before Roma dominated the world.

  Despite fighting the Republic during his days in Umbra, Kaeso had always loved the city. How could any human not feel some grudging nostalgia for Roma? For good or bad, it was the center of human culture, the cradle of modern civilization. Roma had created a worldwide commercial commonwealth before way line travel gave humanity the stars. Though never conquered outright, even the Zhonguo of eastern Asia took on aspects of Roman culture. Today humanity was fractured into dozens of nations and independent worlds, but human culture still rotated around Roma like stars around the black hole of a galactic core.