‘Something’s happened already.’
Across the tiled rooftops they could see the walls of other narrow streets faintly illuminated from below by torches carried outside; the glow coming from dozens of window shutters opened, spilling light over the top of hunched shoulders and curious, craning necks.
‘It’s like Chinese whispers,’ said Maddy. ‘Something’s going round.’ Rumours in this city seemed to spread even faster than they used to back in her time. She laughed. No need for the Internet or Facebook or Twitter here in Rome, it seemed, when you could apparently just as easily shout through paper-thin walls or gossip across cramped courtyards.
‘Maybe they’ve gone and killed Caligula already.’
‘I don’t know. It can’t have been that easy… surely.’
Maddy looked down, past a shutter banging open directly beneath them and several more curious heads poking out. She could see the entrance to the rat run that led into their apartment block’s inner courtyard. Down there, the unmistakable bulk of Bob moving around.
‘Macro’s right, though… whatever happens over the next few days, it’s going to be complete chaos.’
‘Altogether, lads,’ grunted Macro. Liam and Bob and several other men from the apartment block hefted the cart up on one side. ‘One… two… three… now!’ barked Macro.
The cart clattered over on to its side, forming a rudimentary barricade blocking up most of the entrance to the rat run. There were gaps either side that needed filling and Macro started to bully his tenants into a human chain, ferrying bric-a-brac lying around the courtyard to stack either side of the overturned cart.
Liam stepped on a box and looked over the top, Bob standing beside him watching the gathering people.
‘Can you make out what they’re saying out there, Bob?’
‘I will try.’ He frowned, concentrating for a moment on the growing babble of voices out in the alleyway. ‘They are discussing the news that the Praetorian Guard are leaving the city.’ He cocked his head, listening more intently. ‘There seems to be another rumour that Caligula has been killed by the Praetorians.’
Bob smiled. ‘And there’s another rumour that demons from the underworld have arisen from the sewers and are rampaging through the city.’
Liam watched as a cluster of young men emerged from a doorway further up the alley, all of them clutching knives, hatchets, clubs.
Macro joined Liam and Bob. Shorter even than Liam, he stood on tiptoes on a crate to peek over the top. ‘It’s begun already, then,’ he said.
‘What has?’ asked Liam.
‘Troublemakers…’ Macro sighed. ‘First sign of a riot and out comes the scum of the earth looking for easy pickings.’ He cursed and spat over the top of the cart. ‘I tell you, if they even think about touching my property…’ He pulled out his butcher’s hatchet from a pouch on the leather apron tied round his waist. ‘I’ll give ’em what for. I’m tellin’ you.’
Liam looked at the glint of light playing across the thick, rusty blade. ‘So you, uh… you saw quite a lot of action when you were a soldier in the legions, Macro?’
Macro grinned a gap-toothed smile. ‘You are joking with me, aren’t you, lad?’
Liam’s bud quickly translated that. But the incredulous look on Macro’s face was more than answer enough.
CHAPTER 56
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
Cato unrolled a map of the city across a table in the palace gardens, and weighted the corners down with several stones.
‘Gather round, gentlemen,’ he said to the assembled officers, the centurions and optiones of the first cohort. His men. Some of them roused from their cots only minutes ago were still bleary-eyed as they fiddled with the straps and buckles of their armour.
They pressed forward around the table as their tribune began to brief them quickly.
‘I’m sure you’ve all heard by now that the rest of the Guard will be mustering outside the Castra Praetoria at first light.’
‘What’s happened, sir?’
Cato looked up at a bull-necked centurion with a flattened boxer’s nose and a fuzz of blond hair clipped short almost to the scalp.
‘It seems the general in charge of the Tenth and Eleventh has decided he’s had enough of our emperor, Rufus. The Guard will be marching out to meet them.’
‘Bit sudden, isn’t it, sir? I thought Lepidus was the emperor’s man.’
Cato shrugged. ‘You know what it’s like with these equites… they all think they’re entitled to the job one way or the other. Anyway, to the point. Our cohort is being left behind to guard the city. When everyone wakes up tomorrow morning and hears of this… and they discover the majority of the Guard have packed up and gone, we’re going to have riots in every district. A complete breakdown of order. So, it’s going to be down to us to protect the city’s infrastructure where we can.’
Cato leaned across the map. ‘Starting with you, Rufus, I want your second century deployed over here in Campus Martius to protect the temple buildings. You as well, Lectus, your century over here guarding the Stratum. Sulla, Marcellus, I want your men protecting the aqueduct here and here. The rest of you, I’ll be assigning perimeter positions in the Palatinus District to protect the government buildings.’ He turned to Fronto. ‘And your men, Fronto, will provide security for the palace itself.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Rufus cocked his head. ‘Just one century to protect the emperor?’
Cato looked at him. Rufus was like most of the men in the Guard: tough, but certainly not stupid. ‘The emperor has his personal bodyguards.’
‘The Stone Men,’ uttered one of the optiones.
Cato disliked the term. It implied a supernatural quality about them. Now he knew they were just muscle- and-bone devices made by men from a more advanced time, the name smacked of superstition.
‘He will be quite safe as long as he stays in the palace,’ Cato assured them. He nodded at Fronto. ‘Won’t he?’
‘Yes, sir. Perfectly safe, sir.’
Just then they heard a raised voice booming out across the flame-lit palace gardens. ‘What the hell is going on here?!’
The officers all turned to see their praefectus, Quintus, striding towards them. He easily identified Cato’s tall outline among the knot of men. ‘Tribune! Who in the name of Jupiter took my authority and ordered the Guard to — ’
‘The emperor himself, sir!’
‘What?’ Quintus stopped in his tracks. ‘ Caligula? But… only I have the authority… to…’
‘Quintus!’ Caligula’s voice cut across the darkness. He emerged into the night, flanked by two of his Stone Men. The prefect’s face paled. Nobody but a stupid fool bellowed the emperor’s nickname across the palace grounds.
‘Caesar, I…’
Caligula waved at him to be silent. ‘I exercised my prerogative as emperor to mobilize them, since you were nowhere to be found!’
‘But, sire.’ Quintus swallowed nervously. ‘There… there is a protocol that should — ’
‘More precisely, my prerogative as God-in-waiting,’ added Caligula. He smiled. ‘Say another word, Quintus, and I’ll have your tongue removed from your mouth.’
His cool glare left Quintus staring down at the ground like a chastened schoolboy.
‘Now then, where’s that Tribune Cato? Ahhh, there you are!’
‘Caesar?’
