And if that wasn’t enough, there were rival empires watching proceedings from the periphery of the Roman world like vultures. The Parthians to the east, for example. A civil war would surely be the final straw. Once Rome’s many legions had broken themselves fighting each other, barbarian hordes from all over would descend on them to pick the Roman carcass clean.
If these strangers from another time were to be believed, that correcting history would return the fate of Rome to a more stable footing, how it had been when he’d been a young boy, then that was worth surrendering this life for, wasn’t it?
‘Another version of Rome would be worth dying for,’ he admitted.
‘Oh, but you don’t die,’ said Liam. ‘Not really. There’ll be another you… another Macro, another Crassus.’
‘Living the lives you should have lived,’ added Maddy.
‘And how do you intend to correct this history?’
‘We believe… we’re hoping really, that there may be technology — devices — left behind somewhere in Caligula’s palace by the Visitors that we might be able to use to get back to our time. From there we can correct this more easily.’
The others looked like they were getting ready to come over and join them in the cool shade. ‘It might be better if we keep this notion of travelling time like a road to ourselves,’ said Cato.
Maddy nodded as they stepped into the shade beneath the portico.
‘Does this brute of yours ever get tired?’ grunted Macro as he slumped on to a bench and reached for a cup of watered wine.
Crassus took a seat beside Cato. ‘It is time, I think, that we discuss matters in detail.’ He reached for the jug, poured himself a cup of wine and lifted it. ‘Something our new friends should know. This Roman officer to my left… Tribune Quintus Licinius Cato.’ He was addressing Maddy and Liam in particular. ‘This man is the one who has put our gathering of conspirators together. He is the one who has risked everything by whispering in dark corners to find the few of us willing to commit to treason.’ He patted Cato on the shoulder affectionately. ‘I would give my arm to have a small fraction of this man’s courage.’
‘Hear, hear!’ barked Macro, filling his cup again and raising it. ‘To Cato.’
Cato picked up his cup. ‘To success.’ He turned to Liam and Maddy. ‘And to the return of better times, eh?’
‘Aye, I’ll drink to that,’ said Liam.
CHAPTER 46
AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome
An eternity of darkness. In here. This space. This world of his measured in mere feet. If he flexed his legs, his toes, his arms, his hands, he could brush the edge of his minute universe. He could feel the surface of it, worn smooth now, having been touched so many times.
But he didn’t touch the edges of his universe any more. Not intentionally. He preferred to imagine the walls weren’t there. He preferred to live within the endless corridors of his mind now. Dwelling on memories that were beginning to fade like old photographs pulled out into the daylight too often. He could wander through a few special childhood memories, could almost be there. Feel the sand beneath his bare feet, the warmth of the sun on his face. Smell his mother, hear his father and brother.
Only when he heard the doors creak open, and the ghosts of real daylight stole through the slits between the oak planks of his universe, was he pulled away from his memory-world. Once every day — the grim return to reality as someone, presumably one of the slaves, brought a bowl of water and that bitter-tasting barley gruel. Pulled open the feeding slot to his small cubed universe and pushed it through for him.
As the slot closed, the heavy doors outside creaked shut and his universe became a uniform, blank darkness once again; he would feel with his hands for his bowl of water and his bowl of gruel. If he could have talked… that once daily ritual might be his chance to communicate with someone, even if it was just to say a thank-you.
But he couldn’t talk. He could grunt. He could whimper. He could howl. Oh yes… he could slobber and whine. But he couldn’t talk.
He called the mask Mr Muzzy.
His muzzle. The only other permanent occupant inside this wooden box.
Me and Mr Muzzy.
The iron brace around his jaw with a protuberance, a tube of iron, that kept his teeth prised apart, mouth open, and pressed his tongue back preventing him from forming anything that sounded remotely like words; that was Mr Muzzy.
The gruel could be spooned down into Mr Muzzy’s hollow tube; it slid down inside it and into his mouth where often he gagged on it several times before being able to swallow it. It took a long time to spoon his daily gruel into that. He imagined it probably took hours, but then in complete darkness, in almost complete sensory isolation… how does one measure time?
Mr Muzzy was his tormentor. The always-there taste of iron in his mouth. The sores where the brace rubbed his skin raw. Sores that constantly wept and crusted up, wept and crusted up.
Once — a million years ago, it seemed — Mr Muzzy broke. The brace had weakened: his constantly weeping pus had corroded the thin band of iron around his head enough that waggling it to and fro it had finally buckled and fallen away from his face. And then… oh God then. He’d screamed, hadn’t he? His ragged voice had startled him. Terrified him. The sound of words instead of gurgling sounded alien, strange.
He’d screamed for hours, terrified by the babble of insanity that was coming out of him. Then the creak of the doors. The faint hairlines of light entering his box. And the feeding slot opening.
Later the same day there was a brand-new Mr Muzzy. A much thicker, stronger iron band cinched tight round his head. And back in complete darkness once again he’d wept and wept and wept.
Ever since that time — however long ago it was — he’d learned that the best thing he could do was to try and live as far away as possible from this place. Wander the corridors of his mind and open doors into rooms full of gradually fading memories… and frolic and play in the twilight sunshine that existed in there.
One day those memories would fade completely… every room of his mind would be as empty and featureless and as dark as this place. And when that finally happened, he guessed he was truly going to be insane.
CHAPTER 47
AD 54, Rome
‘An ingenious plot,’ said Crassus. He looked at Cato. ‘Devious even. Admirably devious.’
Macro nodded at that. ‘Even as a snotty-nosed young optio, Cato was a smart-arse.’
‘I had to be,’ replied Cato. ‘A young, soft strip of a boy in the legions? It was either be tough or be clever. And I wasn’t much of a fighter back then.’
Macro grinned. ‘Turned out all right in the end, though, didn’t you, lad?’
Cato shrugged that away. ‘The legions have a way of finding out what’s in you.’
Liam smiled at the interplay between Cato and Macro. Clearly both men were fond of each other — brothers in arms. Over the last few days Macro had frequently come by, a visitor to Crassus’s home of no particular interest to any of Caligula’s spies that might be watching. He had plenty of tales to tell them of his time in the Second Legion, serving alongside Cato. Firstly as Cato’s commanding officer and in the latter years, watching this young man mature and become a first-class officer who would eventually outrank him.
Liam saw a vague reflection of himself and Bob in these two. One of them the brains of the partnership, the other the brawn.
‘Your plot?’ said Maddy.
‘Caligula may be insane, but he isn’t stupid. He knows full well that the power of an emperor isn’t in what the people, the citizens of Rome think: it’s in the support of her legions. Treat the legions well and they’ll do their best to keep you in power.’
Cato sat forward in his seat. ‘When he first became emperor, he had a lot of money to make use of. Bought the support where he needed it. Now there’s so little money left, he’s stripped the assets from almost every wealthy family in the city and most of that money is going towards paying the Praetorian Guard and the only other two legions in Italy, the Tenth and the Eleventh. And paying them very well. All the other legions of the empire he’s made sure to station as far away from Rome as possible, guarding our failing frontiers.’