To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (46 page)

She opened her mout
h to speak, but stopped to look out towards the open room.

I tracked her look, noticing
immediately how everyone else had seated themselves around us and were staring at us intently.  I felt my cheeks burn, but Helena shrugged off the embarrassment with a heartwarming smile.  She shifted in my arms so that we had some distance between us, but with my arm still around her.  She noticed Santino’s look in particular.

“What?”  She asked him.

He sniffled mockingly.  “You two are just so darn cute.”

She laughed.  “Get a life.”

She punctuated her insult by retrieving an apple from our shelf and hurling it at him, which he managed to snag out of the air easily.  He let out an exaggerated sigh as he bit into the piece of fruit, perhaps thinking about how little action he’d gotten in the past few weeks.  A besieged city was hardly the place to find a Friday night hookup.

“So,” I said.  “Gaius.  Marcus.  What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

They looked at each other.

“We are practically in the desert, Hunter,” Marcus pointed out.

“Never mind.”  I took a deep breath and thought of home, and all the mindless ne’er-do-wells who at least understood a simple euphemism.  I looked back up.  “I meant what are you doing here?”

“As we were explaining to Santino and Wang,” Gaius
said, “things have changed dramatically in Germany.”

“We finally have our supply trains established,” Marcus continued, “but the Germans are fighting harder than ever, and the empress has been too stubborn to reconsider her strategy.”

“Right,” Gaius annoyingly confirmed.  Sometimes I wondered if these two had been separated at birth.  “Making matters worse is this uprising in Judea.”

“Any information on how that’s going?”  I asked.  “We don’t get much news around here.”

Gaius sighed in discontent.  “These Jews are running amok all over Judea and into Syria.  After the supposed death of their king, cities everywhere rose up against Rome.  Most uprisings have already been put down, except for two.  Here and in Jerusalem, with a number of Jews moving towards Masada.  Do we have you to thank for their success here?”

“More than you know,” I intoned.

“What do you mean?”  Gaius asked.

So, I told them how
we had instigated the rebellion and set off the chain reaction that pitted Roman against Jew.  He didn’t seem impressed.

“I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said, crossing his arms.  “You people have always been very good at causing trouble.”

“We did it to draw Agrippina away from Germany, find the last orb, and find a way to get her to abdicate.  Speaking of which, did she buy you’re explanation as to why all your comrades ended up dead?”

The two Romans glanced at each other.

“We believe so,” Marcus answered.  “We
are
still alive.”

“That is true,” Gaius picked up, “but when we told her we had been following another lead, therefore avoiding certain death, I immediately felt she didn’t believe us.”

“Did you tell her about the orb?”  I asked.

“We did,” Gaius responded.  “She was not happy.  Especially when we told her we suspected your involvement.  No one saw her for two days, but as Marcus said, we are still alive, even though reassigned.”

“Reassigned where?”  I asked, it finally dawning on me that I had no idea why these two were actually here.

“I’ll get to that,” he answered, “but there’s more about Germany.  Despite the empress’ blunderings and lack of strategic acumen, her legions are not amateurs.  In fact,
while many of our brothers lie dead who shouldn’t, the legions are killing far more Germans than they’re losing, and they have already pushed north of the Danube.”

I whistled.  If that were true, they were carving out more land for the empire than even Trajan did a hundred years from now.

“In fact, there is talk of peace amongst the Germans.  They’re breaking, but it could be another three years before they break completely.  There are even non-aggression talks amongst many Sarmatian tribes, who have been rallying to stall our progress should we subjugate Germany.”

“So,
why the problem?”  Vincent asked, just as curious as I was about all this.  “If the legions are in fact doing so well, why have things changed so much?”

Gaius looked ba
ck at me.  “Because you got what you wanted.  Agrippina is coming.  She hopes to quell any future recalcitrant behavior here through diplomatic efforts.  She’s left Galba in charge of the campaign in Germany.”

“Galba?”  Bordeaux asked, still untrusting of our old ally.  “What about Vespasian?”

“As I told you,” Gaius replied, “we were reassigned.  Our current role is to protect Vespasian.  Agrippina has sent him here to put down the rebellion along with two of the German campaign’s legions, including the
XV Primigenia
.”

I looked at Vincent.  He was shaking his head when he glanced at me,
and when our eyes met, we started laughing together.

“What is so funny?”  Marcus asked.

“Nothing,” I answered, shaking off the last laugh.  “Absolutely nothing.”

Twenty five years from now, it was none other than Vespasian himself whom the emperor Nero sent to put down this rebellion.  It was frustratingly hilarious how the timeline was
constantly repositioning itself, screwing with my sense of humor in the process.  Were we changing things or not?  It was impossible to tell anymore, but if things kept falling into line like this, maybe we had nothing to worry about after all.  Maybe the timeline would be just fine – just like that.

“So why are you two here?”  Helen
a asked, always tackling the most important questions.

“Vespasian wishes to speak with
you,” Gaius answered,” but we do not know what about.  All we know is that he is aware of our friendship and has asked us to assure you that you will not be harmed.  He also asks that only two of you go.”

“Great,” Santino said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together.  “When do we leave?”

“You’re not going,” I said offhandedly.  I was about to ask Gaius for clarification when Santino interrupted.

“What?”  He asked, his
face obviously upset.  “Why not?”

“Because I’m going,” Helena answered for me.

Santino looked at me, his eyes searching passionately for clarification.

“She’s right,” I said, switching to English.  “First of all, she’s my swim buddy, and yours is laid up right now…“

“Actually, Hunter,” Wang said, rotating his ankle easily, “I’m good to go now.  I should be one hundred percent by…”

I shot him a look and he clammed up, taking the hint.

“If anything is going to happen out there,” Helena said from the crook of my arm, “whether Vespasian is setting us up or not, it’s going to happen to the both of us.  I’m not going sit around wondering if he’s all right or not.”

“Besides,” I picked up, “we don’t need you obfuscating things.”

“No problem there,” Santino whined childishly, “because I don’t even fucking know what ‘obfuscating’ means.”

“It means to make something more complicated than it already is, Mr. Linguist,” Helena chided.

“Easy for you to say, Mr. Oxford,” he grumbled like a moping teenager, with his arms crossed against his chest, head down.

Poor guy
.  He probably just wanted to get out of the city for a few hours.  Although, I wasn’t sure what kind of tail he was expecting to find in a legion camp.

“When
is Vespasian expecting us?”  I asked, ignoring his tantrum.

“Tomorrow
after midnight,” Gaius answered

“Great,” I replied, rising to my feet and offering a hand to help Helena up
.  “We’ll be ready.”

***

Twenty hours later, Helena and I made our way through the dying city with our two Roman friends.

Oddly, we didn’t have much trouble. 
Only a few days ago, the hours between sunset and sunrise were exceedingly treacherous for both the city’s defenders and attackers.  The besieging legion, whoever it was, probably the
II Traiana Fortis
if memory served correct, would use the cover of darkness to probe their way into the city, and its defenders would do everything it could to defend themselves.

Every night was filled
with pitched skirmishes throughout the city, only to end by day break, followed by more shelling of the city by Roman artillery throughout the day.  Those of us from the future faired rather well, only needing our swords once or twice, but the method was wearing heavily on the Jewish population.  If not for our presence, this siege may have lifted weeks ago.  We weren’t in Masada.  This wasn’t a fortress.  It was a city.  A lush and beautiful one. 

At least it had been.

As for the ease of our escape, I knew it must have had something to do with Vespasian. If Gaius and Marcus were to bring us to see him unharmed, the most prudent thing to do for the man commanding the besieging legions was to cease hostilities.

And it was a welcome respite.

After all our years cut off from our home I’d recently found myself caring less and less about humanity in general.  I’ve killed without remorse, ending the lives of those who may have lived long lives without my intervention, and with each life I take, I simply lost interest.  I tried to pretend it wasn’t my fault, having witnessed so much death that it was no longer so easy to appreciate the importance of human life.  Here in Caesarea, when I’d pass a fallen Jew or legionnaire both, I felt nothing, even if it had been by my hand.

I guess all that mattered to me
was
the timeline, not the lives that helped make it what it was, and even then I wondered if I really cared or not anymore.

It’
s why this break felt so good.

Helena was another story. 
Starting a few years ago, with every life she took, her emotional struggle to rationalize her guilt became more and more evident in her.  The woman hadn’t been bred to kill on this kind of scale.  She’d joined the military for that age old adage of, “meet new people and see the world” bullshit.  She’d needed something, anything, to separate herself from the life she had been living, and joining the military had been the best option at the time

She may have been an Olympic medaling sharpshooter, but she’d hoped to leave her old life behind, e
specially that of a trained marksmen.  She could have spent her entire military career having never fired a weapon.  But what was she going to tell her instructors once they learned of her background?  No?  Had she not accepted any of the choices forced on her, she could have been drummed out of the military and sent back to her restrictive life and oppressive father.

I sighed as I thought about her.  It was amazing how horribly ironic her story was.  Here she was joining the military to escape the rule and dominion of her father, only
to have the military force her to use her natural abilities in a way she never wanted.  It had been a testament to her integrity and fortitude that when she’d been forced to deliver by protecting her teammates’ lives, she actually had delivered.

But it shouldn’t matter.

Every death since was my fault, not hers, and the fact that she couldn’t accept that made it all the worse, and the first few years had been the worst of all.  After many an operation, she would sometimes find some lonely patch of solitude where she could just sit and cry softly to no one but herself, even as far back as our time in the
Primigenia’s
winter camp.  For the longest time, I’d let her do it alone.  I’d thought it was what she needed, but ever since that time she caught me checking up on her, when she’d ran into my arms and sobbed like I’d never seen before, that I always tried to be there for her.

Every time I took note of her grief, my heart ached, but the fact that she was now hardened to that pain made it only worse.  Now, she acted without remorse when it came to killing in the line of duty.  She was still an emotional woman, but after all her time here, she’d become a s
tone cold killer.  That’s why whenever I saw her face after she put someone in their grave, I died a little inside.

As it did whenever I was reminded of her near death experience.  Her pain attacks.  Vincent’s lost arm.  Claudius.  Caligula.  Agrippina. 
My life in Ancient Rome.  Thousands of lives lost.  All my fault.  It’s why I had to set things straight.  I had no idea if Vespasian could fix everything.  Not completely.  Logic and history says he can, and should Rome come out even a smidge better, and perhaps the rest of history, who’s going to fucking blame me for it?  Not me.  And mine is the only opinion I needed to appease.  All I wanted was some peace, something I wasn’t sure I could find anymore.

I almost laughed
.  I often wondered why my mind tended to wander during the times it should be focused most; the times when my life and others’ were at stake.  I hadn’t a clue.  Maybe it made me sharper.  We’d made it this far, after all, which incidentally was the entrance to the legion camp.