I snorted. “Yeah, right.”
My poor sleeping habits continued that night, but not because of my own musings. Our new hotel was no cleaner than the last, but poor sanitation didn’t stop Santino from acting on my helpful advice. Agrippina offered us some wine, which I indulged in lightly, but both of them had more than enough. As a result, Santino stayed behind while I went back to my lonely, cold room, and had to try and sleep through hours of sexual outbursts on more occasions than I cared to remember. They all started to blur together after the first one. They gave me nightmares. They were fueled by weird outbursts from Santino, interestingly arousing cries of pleasure from Agrippina, and the insistent pounding of someone repeatedly smacking the wall that separated our two rooms.
As soon as the first wisps of dawn struck my face, I hauled myself out of bed as soon as I could, nearly delirious from exhaustion. With a quick knock to wake up my travel companions, I rushed outside to ready my horse. As I pulled a strap to tighten my gear along his flank, a sudden shriek from the hotel drew my attention in its direction before I realized how horribly familiar the sound was. I sighed, and looked at a few other early risers who were outside and heard the noise as well. They laughed, knowing full well what was happening, and when Santino came waltzing out twenty minutes later with a radiant Agrippina on his arm, they whooped and hollered at him. He gripped his hands together and shook them alongside both sides of his head in a celebratory gesture in response. Whether the ne’er-do-wells outside understood what he was doing or not didn’t matter. They loved it.
I looked over at him. “Quite the show of stamina last night you bastard.”
He returned the look. “Yeah, it’s my Italian blood.”
“How appropriate. Feel any better?”
“Definitely, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that again. You were right. She’s a freak.”
I had to laugh and roll my eyes at the same time before mounting my horse and giving him a quick kick. “Don’t worry. She has two sisters. Maybe one of them will be more to your liking.”
He smiled at the idea, while I paused to let him think about it.
“However,” I continued. “I hope you realize you may have just sired the next emperor of Rome.”
“Yeah, I…” He paused after mounting his own horse. “Wait, what?”
“Seriously,” I confirmed. “If something happens to Nero, and Agrippina has a child from your endless fornicating last night, he may become a Caesar. We can name him Julius Agrippa Augustus Germanicus Santino Caesar. I like that. Has a ring to it.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“No, actually, I’m not. Plus, you may have just created your own great times a thousand grandfather since you’ve had relations with a woman from a time period you don’t belong in.”
“Wait. That can’t really happen.” He thought about it. “Can it?”
I let him stew for a few seconds before I started laughing. “No, from what I think I know, it can’t. Just kidding.”
“Oh, good,” he said, looking laughably relieved.
Edward Crichton
The Last Roman
***
A day and a thankfully quiet night later, the walls of Rome sprang into sight. Still a few miles out, I could see just how expansive the city really was, but its walls weren’t what intimidated me right now, it was the two tiny little dots I saw flanking the small gateway. If we couldn’t get through those guards, this mission would be scrubbed before it even began.
Santino and I had opted out of our HK416 rifles, which were long, somewhat cumbersome, and very hard to conceal. Instead, Santino had borrowed Wang’s UMP, and I’d taken Helena’s P90. These were easily concealed beneath our baggy togas, and billowing travel cloaks, securely tied down to our backs with their slings. Additionally, we packed night vision goggles, plenty of Bordeaux’s C-4, a small but extensive medical kit put together by Wang, and enough ammo to take on a very small army. Most of this we kept hidden in locally made bags, which did well to conceal our gear, but weren’t designed like our own to make what we needed easily accessible.
Hopefully, we wouldn’t let things get confusing, but as Santino and I well knew, shit happens, and very quickly in our line of work. We’d stage the rescue while Agrippina distracted Claudius, grabbing the kid, and moving towards the walls of Rome to lay down our demo. Then we’d get the hell out of dodge.
Easy.
By the time we reached the gate, I was only slightly nervous. I figured if everything went according to plan, this should technically be the hardest part.
I wasn’t really expecting everything to go as planned.
Things never went as planned.
Luckily, the Praetorians we’d interacted with during our time in Rome were few, and all in the Primigenia’s camp, so there would be very few people who could easily recognize us. Santino could probably pass for a Roman, due to his height and dark features, and while I’d be a bit more suspicious, my physical characteristics weren’t completely foreign in the Roman world. I’d also spent the past few weeks growing out my facial hair, so hopefully even the ladies who made time to watch me run wouldn’t immediately recognize me.
The movement of traffic into the city was crowded and slow moving. The constant flow of traders, visitors, farmers, and other types of people made the road busy and hustled. My spirits were lifted when I observed that the guards seemed lackadaisical in their duty, and were just waving people through. When our turn came up, Agrippina flashed the guards a fantastic smile, and they wasted no time waving us through, unable to take their eyes off our female companion.
Through the gates, we made our way to the Palatine at a leisurely, and hopefully, inconspicuous pace. At the base of the hill, I noticed Claudius had not sat idle during the winter, and had spent the time rebuilding the home Bordeaux had destroyed with just a few pounds of plastic explosive. We abandoned our horses in a nearby stable owned by Agrippina, just outside the pomerium, and backtracked a bit to finish the trip on foot. Once inside the gated complex, Agrippina issued some last minute advice.
“My son is kept in a room near the back of the house, but you won’t be familiar with the layout. Follow the main hallway. His room will be the first on the right once the hall meets a cross hallway. There will be guards. Now, there is an exit near my son’s room. If you face his chamber, take the hallway to your left. The third door on your right leads to a small storage area. There is a doorway hidden behind a cabinet at the far end of the room. Claudius has installed many of these hidden exits in his home. His paranoia runs deep.”
“Where will you be?” Santino asked.
“Claudius’ room, where he may or may not be right now. I will head there to make sure he is not home. If he is, I will distract him while you retrieve my son. If he is not, I will join you as soon as I can.”
As she spoke, I saw genuine pain and fear in her face, or at least as good as any impression I’d seen yet.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “This will be a walk in the park.”
“What does walking in parks have to do with anything?”
I sighed. “Never mind.” These Romans needed to learn a few cliches.
“We’ll get him,” Santino comforted.
She nodded, before breaking away from us as we passed the threshold of the house.
As opposed to the sparse elegance the house exuded the last time I was here, Claudius’ new decor screamed crazed and opulent exuberance. The home was littered with statues, paintings and plants. It looked like an art museum had set up shop in a rain forest. The displays were random, and many were so obscene I had to look away.
Santino and I quietly made our way down the hall, our boots echoing softly. While our togas were an important part of the plan, we wore much of our combat gear beneath, save our vests. If we had to fight, we could ditch the togas, and be at near optimal fighting readiness in seconds.
Following Agrippina’s directions, we made our way down the long, wide, main hallway. Along the way, we
