Alex Scarrow - Gates of Rome

‘Yes?’

The decurion seemed hesitant.

‘Come on, what is it?’

‘Your tribune… Tribune Cato.’

‘What about him?’

‘I have orders for his immediate arrest, sir.’

‘What?’

‘You are to arrest him immediately. The prefect… the emperor himself… wants him taken alive, sir!’

Fronto stroked his chin. His mind racing. ‘My tribune? My commanding officer? He’s… you’re telling me he’s a traitor?’

‘Just have those orders, sir.’

‘Right.’ He nodded. ‘Right, I… I’ll have to…’

‘He’s to be taken alive.’

‘Yes… yes, I understand. I’ll have to…’ He turned hesitantly to look at his men, watching from inside the open gate. All of this was out of their earshot. He could see an expectant look on their faces, eager to hear whatever news the messenger had just brought.

‘Wait here, Decurion. I’ll see to his arrest personally.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Fronto turned on his heel and strode smartly back to his men. He picked out his optio and spoke in a lowered voice. ‘Close the gates!’

‘Sir?’

‘Those men outside?’ Fronto thumbed over his shoulder. ‘They’re traitors. They’ve turned against the emperor.’

The optio ’s eyes widened. So did those of the other men close enough to hear.

‘They’re a part of General Lepidus’s plot. They are not to be admitted into the imperial compound under any circumstances! Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir!’

Further down the avenue he could see another couple of turmae of cavalry arriving. A single squad — a turma — accompanying a messenger was quite normal. But others arriving? He wondered if Praefectus Quintus had despatched the entire cavalry wing.

‘Close the gates!’ the optio barked to his men. Several men dropped their shields and worked the iron gates closed.

The decurion called out something. Confused.

‘TAKE ANOTHER STEP FORWARD AND YOU’LL GET A JAVELIN!’ roared Fronto through the bars.

The decurion stopped in his tracks. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Septimus!’

‘Sir?’

‘Send someone into the palace to find the tribune. Tell him we’ve got company out here.’

‘Yes, sir!’ The optio turned sharply and picked one of his men to take the message.

Fronto watched the decurion standing outside in the avenue, shrugging with bewilderment at the gate being closed on him. Fronto wondered how long he was going to maintain this confusion among his own men. Sooner or later they were going to question his orders.

‘Lads!’ he barked so that they could all hear. ‘Those men outside have turned against our emperor! They are traitors! The emperor was victorious this morning… and our boys are already on the road back to Rome! We must protect the palace until then!’

His men eyed him uncertainly.

‘No one is to enter!’ roared Fronto. ‘Not a single man… until our emperor returns! Until our emperor approaches up that avenue! Is this clear!’

His men chorused a ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Good!’

He looked through the bars at the decurion. The young man had caught most of what he’d just bellowed. His eyes met Fronto’s and he shook his head gravely; he was perfectly clear on what the situation was now. That it wasn’t just Tribune Cato who was to be taken alive. The decurion shook his head again. It said more than a mouthful of words could convey, a warning from one officer to another.

You are a stupid fool… sir.

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

Maddy and the others listened to the poor old wretch gabble. His cracked lips opened sores as they moved frantically; a trickle of blood and spittle rolled from his lips and into his thick, mucus-encrusted beard.

‘… I hacked them… I… you see I… they were… reset to take his orders…’

‘Slow down,’ said Maddy. ‘Please. Slow down. You’re not making sense.’

‘… chief technical officer… me… m-me! See?… I was in charge! Exodus! Exodus! ’

‘Exodus?’

‘P-project… the project. Exodus… I was chief t-technical officer.’ The old man squatted down on the cool floor, his painfully malnourished body already exhausted from the rush of excitement.

Cato crouched down beside them. ‘Ask him if he was one of the Visitors.’

‘Oh, I think he must be,’ replied Maddy.

‘R-Rashim… m-my name… it… it’s Rashim!’ he replied in broken Latin. ‘Yes! I… I was one of them! I w-was there! I was THERE!’

Sal came over to join them. ‘I’ve bound Liam up and… Jahulla!’ Her eyes took in the ruined facsimile of a human being, tucked into a foetal huddle on the floor. She stifled a gasp. ‘Who is that?’

‘We think he’s one of the Visitors,’ Maddy whispered in reply. She turned back to the man. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked. ‘What happened to the others?’

Rashim’s wild eyes danced from Cato to her. ‘B-betrayed! My fault

… oh my G-God it… it w-was all my fault I… I j-just wanted to… I never thought that… I… Oh God! OhGodOhGodOhGod — ’

Maddy touched his hand, held it to calm him down. ‘Shhh. It’s OK, it’s OK. You’re safe now. We’re going to get you out of here.’

‘No… m-must listen. Y-you must listen to m-me now!’ He snatched his hand from her. ‘Time! Not m-much time! It… it… it h-happens soon!’

‘What does?’

‘Tell me… tell m-me the day! What is… the day? WHATISTHEDAY? ’

‘Date? Is that what you want? You want the precise date?’

Rashim’s head nodded vigorously. ‘ TELL M-ME! ’ His thin voice was almost a childlike scream.

Maddy looked at Bob.

‘Information: today’s date in the Roman calendar is twenty-nine Sextilis, in the Twentieth Year of Gaius. In the contemporary calendar that would be twenty-ninth August AD 54.’

Rashim’s eyes rolled, showing the whites, and his eyelids drooped down, almost closing. His cracked and bloody lips fluttered silently, counting, calculating.

‘What is it?’ asked Maddy. ‘Rashim? Rashim — is that your name? What are you doing?’

He raised a bony finger tipped with a long claw-like nail to shush her, his lips still silently twitching and leaking bloody spittle into his beard.

‘Rashim? What’s up? What’re you doing? Are you counting? Is that it?’

‘ NO-O-O-O! ’ Rashim bellowed suddenly. ‘No-no-no-no… too soon, too soon, toosoon. TOO SOON! ’

Cato grasped Maddy’s arm roughly. ‘Tell me! What is he saying?’

Too many things, too much hitting her at once. Maddy was ready to scream along with this crazy scarecrow of a man on the floor beside her.

‘Rashim! What? Tell me, what is too soon?’

His eyes locked on her. ‘I am c-coming!! I will be here!!!’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘B-beacons… BEACONS! L-light, to show the way!.. I… I came… I came years b-before! I w-was here! To show the way!!’

She shook her head. That meant nothing to her. It was complete gibberish.

‘R… r-receivers…’ Rashim continued. ‘I p-placed th-them. T-t-tachyon b-beacons — ’

Maddy looked up quickly at Bob; his inert face flickered with a reaction.

‘Rashim, did you just say tachyon?’ asked Maddy. He was burbling nonsense again, the half-whisper of a deranged mind. She grabbed his shoulders firmly. ‘Rashim! You said the word tachyon! You’re talking about time travel! Yes?’

He nodded frantically. ‘Yes… yes! M-markers! S-signals.’

‘Madelaine.’ Bob hunkered down beside her. ‘This could be an alternate time-displacement method. Marking out a locked location, a time-stamp.’

Rashim’s face lit up hearing that, his deranged whispering brushed aside in an instant. ‘Yes… y-yes! Understand?’ He grinned manically, looking at Bob then Maddy. ‘T-time travel! Exactly! We came through… all those, all those years… but I came through before the others. See? Yes. It was me. I had to set it up, you understand?’