TimeRiders 05 - Gates of Rome (36 page)

Life doesn’t actually work that way, does it, Mads?
Not for them at any rate.

Closer, she could see it looked less like a packing crate and more like the kind of travel cage you’d transport a wild animal in. She’d once watched a show on cable TV, a ‘day-in-the-life-of’ kind of show based on LaGuardia Airport. There’d been an episode with a sedated Indian tiger in a crate in the back of an aeroplane. Last of its kind or something. Anyway, the crate had looked not unlike this one. She stepped warily closer to it … expecting at any moment to hear the enraged snarl of a roused tiger or a lion coming from inside. She noticed a sliding trapdoor on one side of the crate.

Lion, tiger … or time machine. This crate, reinforced with iron brackets on the corners, had to contain
something
important. Gently she eased the trapdoor to the side, revealing a hatchway eighteen inches wide and six high. A viewing slot? A feeding slot?

She wrinkled her nose. There was an awful stench spilling out of it. Like sewage. Slurry. No, even worse. Decay.

A feeding slot, then. It had to be there was some kind of animal being kept in there. Or one that had died and was quietly decomposing. Slowly she raised her candle, its flickering glow beginning to pick out a few slats of wood on the inside.

‘Hello?’ she uttered softly. ‘Anything in there?’

She heard a sudden scratching sound, the scramble of movement inside the box. Then a pair of eyes suddenly lurched into view.

Oh my God!

Eyes. Wide and milky. Almost human. Or perhaps human, but entirely insane, animal-crazy. Completely feral. The eyes were accompanied by a shrill, frantic, gurgling, whinnying cry. Its face – yes, a human face, she could see that now – was hidden from the bridge of the nose down to the chin by some sort of leather and iron mask strapped round the head and caked in scum and dirt.

‘Oh God! Over here!’ she cried. ‘There’s someone alive in here!’

Bob worked the reinforcing brackets off then pulled away the thick bars of wood that made the cage.

‘Jeeez!’ whispered Maddy as she caught her first glimpse of the rest of the pitiful creature cowering inside. ‘Is that really a man in there?’

The frail, skeletal body inside looked like that of an old man, edges and bulges where bone pushed out against paper-thin skin. His skin was darker than Mediterranean skin; Middle Eastern, Asian perhaps. And hair. Lots of it, cascading down his narrow shoulders, once upon a time dark, but now grey threaded with white in places.

The man cowered in the corner at the sight of Bob pulling the cage open, bar by bar.

‘Shhh! It’s OK,’ Maddy cooed softly. ‘We’re not going to hurt you!’

Cato stepped closer to get a better look at him. ‘Is … is this one of the Visitors?’

The man in the mask glanced at him quickly. He nodded vigorously, manic, darting eyes growing even wider. He whimpered, mewed and gurgled, bony hands gesturing frantically at the mask over his mouth.

Maddy stepped forward. ‘Let me take that off you. Is that what you want?’

The man scrambled unsteadily forward; his bare feet padded off a soft bed of trampled faecal matter – years’ worth of human waste compacted into an almost compost-like bed – on to the cool, hard tiles with a gentle patter. He turned his back to Maddy and frantically lifted his long, matted hair to reveal a crusted iron band with a padlock on it.

‘It’s a lock. I’m … I’m sorry … I don’t …’

‘Let me,’ said Cato. He pulled his sword out and carefully dug the tip of his blade into the lock’s rusted clasp. With a sharp twist, it snapped and showered flakes of rust to the floor. Maddy eased the band away from his head, grimacing at the skin worn bald at the back of the man’s head, the fresh scabs, the fading scars.

The old man untangled his matted hair, the long wisps of his beard and moustache, from the mask’s locking band. He eased the mask itself away from lips crusted with scab and dried mucus. The feed tube, the outside of it coated in the slime of rotting food lodged in the front of the mouth, emerged from a largely toothless face; gums almost completely black with the ruined stumps of dead teeth.

‘
Oh Jesus
,’ Maddy whispered, controlling the urge to retch.

The mask clunked to the floor, the echo filling the cavernous, dark room.

‘Are you one of the Visitors?’ Cato asked.

The man seemed to be in a state of shock, hyperventilating. Gasping. His tongue, snaking out and tasting the air, relishing its release from captivity.

‘Did you come from the future?’ tried Maddy in English.

His darting eyes stopped on her immediately.

‘English? You can understand me?’

His jaw flexed – trying to speak. Trying to form words with his ruined mouth.

Just then Bob stirred. ‘Information.’

Maddy held a hand up to shush him. ‘He’s trying to say something.’ The old man was gurgling something. Trying to produce a word.

‘Caution!’ said Bob more insistently. ‘I am detecting two more idents! Approaching from the east quickly!’

‘Two of them? We don’t stand a chance against
two
of them!’

‘What is your Stone Man saying?’ asked Cato.

Maddy turned to look at the doorway. ‘The others are coming!’ she hissed in Latin to Cato. ‘Sal!’ She started towards the doors. ‘SAL! Get Liam inside! HURRY!’

A moment later, she saw Macro and Sal with Liam dangling between them, shuffling inside.

‘We’ve got to close the doors!’ screamed Maddy. ‘Help me!’ She jogged across the floor and began to wrestle with one of the oak doors. Macro grabbed the other, the doors creaking on solid iron hinges. Bob was beside her a moment later and with a heavy, rattling thud, the wan light from the oil lamps in the small passage outside was gone.

By the light of her candle she could see there was no way to secure the doors, no locking bar on this side, no padlocks, nothing.

‘They are twenty yards away,’ said Bob.

‘Everyone! We’ve got to hold the doors!’ she barked, wedging her shoulder against one of them.

Cato was beside her now. ‘No! They’ll lock us inside and we’ll be trapped in here!’

Macro nodded. ‘Cato’s right. We’ll be dead men if we’re stuck in here when Caligula returns.’

Cato drew his sword. ‘We should fight them now. We have a chance against them.’

‘They’ll kill us all!’ Maddy cried.

‘Better that,’ said Macro, ‘than Caligula finding us in his palace.’

‘They are now directly outside,’ said Bob.

The doors suddenly boomed and rattled under the impact of something. A shaft of light spilled in as the doors momentarily parted. Bob threw his weight against them both and they clattered shut again.

‘There’s no knowing how long we have,’ said Cato. ‘Fronto’s lads are loyal to the emperor and their prefect, Quintus. They’re following my orders for now because they think I’m loyal too. But they catch a glimpse of what’s gone on here … Do you understand? They’re our men until they realize they’re being fooled.’ Cato shook his head. ‘We have to find whatever contraption it is you need to put things right and we have to leave this place quickly.’

Bob’s voice rumbled out of the gloom. ‘He is correct, Maddy. We are trapped in here. This is not tactically advisable.’

‘All right …’ Maddy panted in the dark. ‘All right … OK … we’ll – ahh Jeeesus, this is freakin’ crazy! So, I guess, what? We’re gonna fight them?!’

‘Your Stone Man, Macro and I … I say we have a chance.’

‘Wait!’

The voice came from out of the dark. She heard the slap of bare feet approaching. ‘Wait! I … know … this …’ His voice was weak and brittle, the words slurred and almost incomprehensible.

‘The word!’ he croaked. ‘The word! There’s a word … I know it! There’s a word!’

They didn’t have time for this. ‘Does everyone have a w-weapon?’ Maddy whimpered nervously. ‘Oh God, I can’t believe we’re doing this. We’re going to die!’

‘The word!!’ cried the old man. ‘I … I have the wo-o-o-o-ord!’

‘Stand back, old man,’ barked Macro, readying the sword in his hands.

‘On three,’ said Cato to Bob. ‘You open those doors on three. Is that clear?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Get back, Sal,’ whispered Maddy, holding the hilt of a knife in trembling hands.

‘Shadd-yah! Maddy? What? We’re
letting them in
?’

‘One … two … and …
three
!’

Bob pulled both doors inwards, stepping backwards into the room as the dancing light of oil lamps outside spilled in to meet them. He pulled the sword from his belt. The two Stone Men charged into the room, side by side – not a single microsecond wasted in offering a challenge.

‘
S-s-s-s-SPONGEBUBBA!
’ screamed the old man, an insane, wild, banshee scream that peeled round the darkness like the cry of some nocturnal forest creature.

The units instantly froze.

They dropped their swords and shields at their feet; a deafening clatter and rasp of metal on ceramic. Their heads dipped in unison, their eyes slowly closed as they straightened their posture, arms dropped to their sides, and they planted their feet heel by heel: soldiers standing to attention.

Ten, twenty seconds passed, the silence filled with a chorus of panting breath.

‘What are they doing?’ gasped Maddy.

Presently both units raised their heads and opened their eyes, gazed quite neutrally, almost benignly, at them.

‘Diagnostic mode reinitialized,’ they both calmly announced. ‘Please state your username and password.’

Centurion Fronto heard the impatient clatter of hooves; nonetheless his
optio
called out the obvious. ‘Horses, sir!’

‘I can hear them.’ He stepped towards the iron gate and looked out on to the Vicus Patricius. An hour earlier there had been several hundred citizens gathered out there, pleading to be let in, begging for food and water. No rough-talking plebeians these, but the better-off citizens, well-to-do merchants, friends and hangers-on of the court.

They’d been there grasping the iron bars and rocking the gate menacingly. He’d had to muster several sections of his century to form up inside the palace compound, open the gates and present an advancing shield wall to flush them away. They’d dispersed eventually, but not before a few of them had felt the probing tip of a gladius between their ribs.

Since then, it had been relatively quiet outside. Little but the occasional shout and scream echoed from back streets and across rooftops, the faint rasp and clang of blades here and there as
collegia
and neighbourhood militias fought each other.

He looked through the iron bars and saw a column of cavalry making their way hastily up the Vicus Patricius towards them. For a moment he wasn’t sure if it was an advance party of scouts from Lepidus’s legions or their own Praetorian cavalry squadron.

‘Septimus? Can you make them out?’

The
optio
squinted. The sun was approaching the skyline of roofs and terraces; the men on horseback were a jiggling, silhouetted mass of helmet plumes, oval shields and the bucking heads of horses.

‘Not sure, sir.’

But as they drew closer, Fronto caught a flash of purple tunic. His heart sank. Imperial purple.
They’re ours.
That didn’t bode well. If those had been red tunics, they’d be horsemen from the Tenth and Eleventh. It would mean Lepidus had won and Caligula was finished.

The column of horsemen drew up outside the gates and a decurion dismounted quickly, striding towards the gates. Fronto ordered the gates open and went outside to meet him. The young officer stopped and saluted him.

Fronto acknowledged the junior officer. ‘Make your report. What’s happened?’

‘Sir!’ The young man gasped for breath. Clearly he and his men had ridden hard. ‘General Lepidus … has been beaten, sir!’

Fronto nodded, forced a grin on to his face. ‘That
is
good news. And the general?’

‘He’s dead, sir.’

Fronto struggled to contain a sigh of relief. Dead, at least Lepidus wasn’t going to be able to tell Caligula anything. Name any names. Hopefully he’d done the honourable thing and taken his own life before he could be captured alive.

‘Sir! I have orders from the prefect.’

‘Yes?’

The decurion seemed hesitant.

‘Come on, what is it?’

‘Your tribune … Tribune Cato.’

‘What about him?’

‘I have orders for his immediate arrest, sir.’

‘What?’

‘You are to arrest him immediately. The prefect … the
emperor himself
… wants him taken alive, sir!’

Fronto stroked his chin. His mind racing. ‘My tribune? My commanding officer? He’s … you’re telling me he’s
a traitor
?’

‘Just have those orders, sir.’

‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Right, I … I’ll have to …’

‘He’s to be taken
alive
.’

‘Yes … yes, I understand. I’ll have to …’ He turned hesitantly to look at his men, watching from inside the open gate. All of this was out of their earshot. He could see an expectant look on their faces, eager to hear whatever news the messenger had just brought.

‘Wait here, Decurion. I’ll see to his arrest personally.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Fronto turned on his heel and strode smartly back to his men. He picked out his
optio
and spoke in a lowered voice. ‘Close the gates!’

‘Sir?’

‘Those men outside?’ Fronto thumbed over his shoulder. ‘They’re traitors. They’ve turned against the emperor.’

The
optio
’s eyes widened. So did those of the other men close enough to hear.

‘They’re a part of General Lepidus’s plot. They are
not
to be admitted into the imperial compound under any circumstances! Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’

Further down the avenue he could see another couple of
turmae
of cavalry arriving. A single squad – a
turma
– accompanying a messenger was quite normal. But others arriving? He wondered if Praefectus Quintus had despatched the
entire
cavalry wing.