god?’
Atellus snorted with laughter.
‘That’s not such a stupid question,’ replied Cato. ‘Soldiers are a superstitious lot. Something we should be mindful of. A bad omen… a rumour, something as trivial as that can swing the allegiance of them at a time like this.’
‘Most of ’em are semi-literate, wine-swilling knuckle-draggers,’ grunted Macro, wiping his nose on the back of his hand. Cato looked at him, shook his head and smiled.
Macro scowled back. ‘And what’s that look supposed to mean?’
CHAPTER 50
AD 54, Rome
Late afternoon sunlight painted the clay-brick walls of every building a warm peach and cast violet shadows into every narrow alley and rat run. The streets were busy with vendors packing up their shop fronts and pulling shutter doors to for the approaching evening.
Liam and Bob flanked Macro; Maddy and Sal a few steps behind.
‘What was it like in the legions?’ asked Liam. Macro repeated the question.
Liam nodded. ‘I’ve seen some…’ He was going to say ‘films’, but stopped himself. Only Cato knew where and when they’d come from. That might change at some point, but for now, the fact that they’d come from some place beyond the known Roman world was enough to share.
‘Well,’ Macro shrugged. ‘I’ll be honest, I probably moaned all the way through my twenty-five years in the Second. It was either hard work or damned boring. And plenty of years spent shivering in cold, damp places I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘But I’d have those days back if I could.’
They stepped aside for a pair of Caligula’s acolytes wearing long green robes. It was approaching evening prayers and the calling horns would be sounding across the roof tiles soon.
‘Why?’
‘I miss the… I don’t know. I suppose I miss the sense of brotherhood. They really are an ugly, stupid, foul- smelling lot of lowlifes… the lads in any legion. Not the sort you’d want to bring home to meet the family, if you get my meaning. But…’ He shook his head, looking for a way to make his point. ‘But together… you and those men, you’re something more. Part of something greater. Do you understand?’
Liam nodded. He thought he probably did. He and the girls, Bob and Becks, even computer-Bob, they were their very own ‘unit’… sort of. With someone else by your side, someone you know would throw down their life to save yours, somehow it made staring into a hopeless abyss possible.
Macro echoed his thoughts. ‘Back then… I would have died for any one of my lads. And I know they’d have done the same, followed me into Hell itself if I’d ordered it. But now…?’ He shrugged sadly. ‘I see faces I recognize every so often. Lads retired from the legions, or even deserters. Just thugs and crooks some of them now. A lot of them hired men in the various collegia. I’d kill them without a second thought if I needed to.’
‘How long did you and Cato serve together?’
‘Oh now, I suppose it must have been about twelve years.’ He laughed. ‘Good times then. Most of it. Well… some of it. He came as a freshly freed slave from the imperial household of the Julii. As thin as a strip of willow and soft as a peach. And completely clueless about army life. I thought the lad wouldn’t last a week.’ He looked at Liam. ‘I’ve told you that already, haven’t I?’
Liam nodded.
‘I suppose I took pity on him at first. Took him under my wing, taught him how to become a soldier. And in return he taught me how to read.’ He laughed. ‘Made this dumb old centurion appreciate some of the finer things in life.’
CHAPTER 51
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
Caligula stood in the main atrium admiring the construction of these weapons. Every now and then he brought them out of the darkness and studied their smooth, well-honed lines and curves. There were no scrapes, scratches or the hammer marks of a craftsman. It was as if these things had been born, not made.
He gazed at them, spread out on a satin sheet. Beautiful, mysterious weapons.
His caged guest had once told him these things were called ‘T1-38 pulse carbines’; weapons that spat death at the mere squeeze of a finger. Caligula had once, long ago, asked to have a go at using one. But the Visitor called ‘Stilson’, a man he found to be rather annoying and loudly spoken, had refused him, saying he was from a time too primitive to understand such things.
Caligula smiled at the man’s breathtaking arrogance, at his assumption that their intellect was far greater than these Romans they’d come back in time to rule ‘more wisely’.
Yes. Caligula had fully understood what they were. Certainly not gods — he’d known that almost from the first moment in fact. They were just men, men from a far future. His frequent private discussions with that dark- skinned young man had helped him to understand that, the Parthian-looking one who was called Rashim.
The one who had the most knowledge of such incredible things. The one who could be promised the role of co-emperor of all and be foolish enough to believe it was genuine. The one who could be flattered so easily… young enough, naive enough to believe all the empty assurances and promises Caligula had given him.
Rashim.
They’d come here — the young man had told him all those years ago — because their world was no good any more; it was poisoned and dying. More than that, a pestilence had suddenly arrived that killed everything in its path. They’d had no choice.
Rashim had told him that they had knowledge of a science that allowed them to open a door on to an impossible dimension, to step through it and appear back in the real world at a time of their choosing. It was clear from the young man’s description that he knew little of this dimension — it was knowledge beyond even his science. But Caligula thought he understood what it was they had passed through.
From Rashim’s words: ‘ White like snow… infinite… endless… beautiful… terrifying,’ it could only be one place.
Heaven itself.
These short-sighted fools had passed directly through Heaven to come here and make themselves kings and emperors. If they’d had an ounce of wisdom between them, they would have realized Heaven was the true goal. To step through it… and actually leave it behind them? Now that, surely, was the very definition of madness.
It was only six months after the Visitors had arrived, made themselves at home in his imperial compound that Caligula learned his guests weren’t quite as invincible as they believed they were. Their protectors, the Stone Men, were in a way — just like their other devices — merely tools that could be used for a purpose.
Used.
Switched on. Switched off.
One just needed to know how to do such things. The young man, Rashim, knew. He had an understanding of them, an understanding of how to give them instructions that made them behave very differently.
‘Just a few words spoken by me,’ Rashim had promised him, ‘and they will follow your orders.’
‘They will do anything I ask?’
‘Yes, of course. It’s a standby mode, a diagnostic mode.’
‘And they will forever follow my commands?’
Rashim had nodded. ‘Unless they hear the reset code sequence. Then they’ll reboot and return to their last mission parameter set.’
‘Then, Rashim,’ Caligula had smiled warmly, ‘you and I shall rule side by side.’
‘I don’t want the others hurt in any way.’
