Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

‘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.

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.’

He could see Stilson’s head and shoulders ahead of them, turning round to look back at them.

‘Ah, good job. Dreyfuss, tell me which way do we go for the Colosseum?’

‘Uh, Mr Stilson, see… if this is in fact AD 37, it won’t have been built yet.’

‘No Colosseum? OK, Dreyfuss, give me somewhere else we can go. Where’s the most public place we can gatecrash?’

‘Well.’ He scratched at his beard like a dog scratching for fleas. He looked at Rashim for inspiration. Rashim shrugged a you’re-the-expert at him.

‘Well now, the best place I can suggest… would probably be the Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri.’

‘Yeah? So where’s that?’

‘It’s in the Campus Martius District.’

They both heard Stilson curse impatiently. ‘Just give me a goddam left, a right or a straight on, OK?’

Dreyfuss pointed towards a broad cobbled thoroughfare branching off from the small square. ‘That road ahead of us, I think. It should take us in a generally south-westerly direction. Which is towards the centre of the city.’

‘Right.’

The MCV in front of them began to slide towards the broad avenue. It was flanked on either side by rows of low shops — tabernae — their stone walls painted with a riotous variety of colours and murals, and fronted with awnings and stalls selling all manner of crafted goods.

Rashim watched pale faces looking out at them from the dark tabernae interiors. Wide-eyed expressions of terror. He wondered whether that was at the sight of the two large hovering vehicles, or the horrendous, wailing, banshee-like noise they were pumping out.

They proceeded slowly, steadily down the thoroughfare, the buildings on either side becoming brightly painted, two-storey structures of clay brick with uncertain-looking balconies of wood and wicker. He saw heads peeking from behind beaded fabric panels and wooden shutters, abandoned animals braying in the street, a baby left on its back in a doorway, pink fists clenching and unclenching above its squawking face.

They entered a second, larger market square. Rashim watched hundreds of people scatter, clay amphoras of olive oil and wine dropped, shattering and spilling their contents on the ground, chickens skittering nervously between the wooden legs of market stalls and packs of dogs barking a challenge as they back-stepped nervously into open-guttered alleyways.

Dreyfuss was grinning at their surroundings, grinning like a fox in a chicken coop. He instructed Stilson to bear left. ‘That avenue’s the Vicus Patricius, taking us past the Forum Traiani… the Palatinus on the left… the — ’

‘We don’t need a history lesson, Dreyfuss,’ Stilson’s voice crackled. ‘Just the directions.’

Dreyfuss nodded. ‘Sorry… just keep on this road until we see the River Tiber, then we take a right and follow the river up into the Campus Martius District.’

AD 37, Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri, Rome

The workers had cleared away most of the bloody remains from the ad bestia. The last wretched lion had been put out of its misery and fresh dirt sprinkled over the largest coagulating puddles of blood. The crowd were clearly restless for the next round — gladitorii meridiani — to begin, a fight between several sparring partners of convicted criminals. Man versus beast was one thing, but it was quite another to see two pairs of men fighting desperately for their lives. Particularly when it was well known that one of the convicts about to emerge into the arena was Vibius, the notorious child-strangler from the Esquilinus District.

Caligula rather fancied that if the man managed to survive his sparring partner, he would put on some armour, come down to the pit and face the murderer himself. The crowd would love that. He smiled.

The plebs are so easily pleased, aren’t they?

A roar of excitement began to roll round the amphitheatre as wooden gates opened revealing a dark tunnel down to the underground bowels of the arena and a pair of Praetorian Guards leading out two rows of terrified-looking men; a wretched collection of specimens.