‘Liam must realize it,’ said Sal. ‘Surely he can see it? When are you going to tell him?’
‘I don’t know. When the time’s right.’
‘But it’s obvious now! You have to tell him soon!’
Maddy wondered if Liam was already aware that this was killing him and just putting on a front of not caring. He couldn’t be so thick-skinned not to have noticed anything. ‘Look, I know. I know. It’s just…’ She sighed. ‘I’m just worried that when I tell him he’ll run off and leave us.’
‘But Foster didn’t.’
True. Sal was right. Once upon a time he was younger, he was Liam, and at some point he learned he was dying. But he stayed at his post, didn’t he? Did his duty.
‘I’ll tell him,’ Maddy said. ‘I’ll tell him soon.’
They sat in silence for a while, both lost in their own thoughts, their own worlds.
‘This doesn’t end well for us, does it?’ said Sal presently. ‘All three of us are going to die, aren’t we?’
‘Everyone dies, Sal.’
‘But we’re going to die soon.’
‘Why say that?’
‘Maddy? Come on. What if we are — were — the other team? Are we going to get ripped to pieces by a seeker one day? Does this all happen again and again, going round and round like circles?’
‘Crud, I wish I knew. I wish I could get my head round all of this. Look! Don’t go there. Who knows? Right?’ She took a breath.
‘Anyway, strictly speaking we’re already dead. Or should be.’ Sal looked morose. Maddy could see tears glistening in her eyes, waiting to tumble. She reached across the table for her. She could’ve said something kinder just then.
‘Look. You, me and Liam, we got given an extra helping of life. That’s more than anybody else ever gets. We’ve been so lucky. And think what we’ve already done with that time. What we’ve already seen! And what more stuff we’ll get to see. We can’t waste what we’ve been given… and worry about stuff we can’t possibly predict, you know?’
Maddy realized she needed to take a piece of her own advice. How often had she pined to escape this and be normal again?
‘I know. I just… I think I thought, I hoped we would go on forever maybe. The three of us and Bob and Becks. Sort of like a family. Like a gang of superheroes or something.’ That first tear rolled down Sal’s cheek and hung from her chin.
‘Nothing lasts forever, Sal.’ Maddy squeezed her hand gently. ‘And superheroes? We certainly aren’t that.’
CHAPTER 18
AD 37, Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri, Rome
The man was useless, absolutely useless. There was no denying that. The lion was clearly dying, the fur on its rear flanks matted and dark with blood from a dozen gaping wounds, a gash along its belly from which a loop of entrails was dangling, and still this stupid man had somehow managed to wind up with his head wedged firmly in the lion’s jaws, almost dead now.
No. Not quite dead yet. His pale arms thrashed pitifully once again.
The crowd jeered and laughed at that. Not even a good-natured laugh. It was disgust at how little the old ex-senator had been prepared to fight for his life, to put on a good show for them.
He looked down from the imperial box at the crowd either side of him, at faces contorted with mockery and anger at the still twitching man down on the blood-spattered sand.
Mind you, how well would you fools fight, hmmm? Would you struggle heroically till your last breath? He imagined the vast majority of them would have done what this weak old man just had: dropped his sword, fallen to his knees and pleaded for mercy until the lion casually swiped at him and knocked the fool on to his back.
He shook his head with disgust at the crowd.
So easy to be brave, isn’t it? When you’re sitting up there, safe, comfortable and entertained.
‘Caesar?’
He watched as the lion lazily crunched on the man’s skull, gnawing at it like a dog on a butcher’s scrap.
‘Emperor Gaius?’
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus turned to his freedman.
So few of the people around him used his name. Instead, to his face, it was usually a deferential term. However, when they thought they were beyond his hearing, it was the name that everyone used for him; the nickname that had followed him all his life from being a small boy.
‘Yes?’ replied Caligula.
‘Might I suggest we ought to proceed with the next entertainment?’
Caligula looked out at the crowd. Some of them were impatiently throwing stones down at the surviving lion and the headless body of the last of today’s ad bestia victims.
‘Yes, yes… of course; you can clear this lot away for the gladitorii meridiani.’
The man dipped his head and left the imperial box quickly.
Caligula settled back in his seat, alone again today. His mischievous, plotting sister Drusilla and her son, and old Uncle Claudius — family — he preferred them all to be kept well away from Rome. They were trouble he could do without.
He watched the midday sun beating down beyond the shade of his purple awning, the heat of it making the dirt in the arena shimmer.
On sweltering days like today, he missed the cool, crisp winter mornings of his childhood in Germania. Dark forests of evergreens, trees laden with heavy snow. The sound of an army camp all around him, his father Germanicus’s voice barking orders to the men. And those men
… those soldiers; stern-faced veterans who grinned down at him in his miniature replica of a legionary’s armour, at his small wooden sword, his little army boots — they regarded their general’s little boy as the legion’s mascot.
His nickname, Caligula — ‘little boot’ — that’s what the men around the camp affectionately called him. He sorely missed those times. The feeling of family. The sense of belonging.
To be an emperor was to be entirely alone.
Part of nothing.
Above everything.
Sometimes he actually longed for one of his dutiful subordinates to dare call him Caligula to his face. He wouldn’t be outraged by such a gesture. He wouldn’t discipline such a person. He’d welcome it, welcome that feeling… of being a little boy again, surrounded by giants of men who would squat down and politely ruffle his hair, regard him with genuine fondness.
CHAPTER 19
AD 37, Rome
The MCV ahead of them glided through the archway over the Via Praenestina, the road heading into the centre of Rome. The thoroughfare in front of them was empty of people, but littered with abandoned carts, rickshaws, dropped bales of goods. As Rashim’s MCV glided beneath the archway into the market square beyond, he had to admit that Stilson’s idea to pump out hundreds of decibels of awful rock music was a pretty good scare tactic. Personally he would have chosen something a little more melodic and sophisticated to announce their arrival, but whatever. It was certainly working.
Stilson’s voice came over the comms-channel. ‘Which way is it to the Colosseum?’
Rashim ducked down through the hatchway looking for Dreyfuss. He beckoned him to join him up in the hatchway. Dreyfuss clambered through the press of swaying bodies below, found the ladder and pulled himself up beside Rashim.
He pointed to the MCV ahead of them bobbing softly on its electro-magnetic field in the middle of the now-deserted market square. ‘Stilson wants directions to the Colosseum!’
Dreyfuss shook his head and shouted something back. It was lost amid the din of the pounding music. Rashim picked up a headset hanging on a hook beside him and passed it to the his-torian, gesturing for him to put it on his head.
‘My God!’ Dreyfuss’s tinny voice crackled over the comms-channel a few seconds later. Behind round-framed glasses his eyes widened. ‘My God! This is actually it! This is really Ancient Rome. This is incredible! Look at those wall decals! That graffiti over there! The — ’
‘Jeez, who’s that squawking on the channel? That you, Anwar?’
‘No, Mr Stilson,’ answered Rashim. ‘I’ve got Dr Dreyfuss up here with me now.’