Gates of Rome

by Alex Scarrow

  ‘Just a few words spoken by me,’ Rashim had promised him, ‘and they will follow your orders.’

  ‘They will do anything I ask?’

  ‘Yes, of course. It’s a standby mode, a diagnostic mode.’

  ‘And they will forever follow my commands?’

  Rashim had nodded. ‘Unless they hear the reset code sequence. Then they’ll reboot and return to their last mission parameter set.’

  ‘Then, Rashim,’ Caligula had smiled warmly, ‘you and I shall rule side by side.’

  ‘I don’t want the others hurt in any way.’

  Caligula’s assurance had been enough for the gullible young man.

  It was a night of killing nine months after the Visitors had arrived. The palace’s smooth marble walls had echoed with the screams of slaughter into the early hours of the morning as the Stone Men hunted them down one by one. Their leader, that arrogant fool Stilson … Caligula had made sure they captured him alive. His torment had lasted several days.

  And Rashim?

  Caligula giggled at the young man’s naivety. The night of the bloodletting, as all the other Visitors had been enjoying his lavish hospitality, in a quiet room away from the main atrium, away from the noise of raised voices and laughter the twelve Stone Men had assembled as requested in obedient silence.

  Rashim spoke his special sequence of words that unlocked these automatons. The Stone Men had all seemed to momentarily fall into a trance only to stir moments later, a seemingly very different look in their cool grey eyes. Caligula’s first order had been for the one called ‘Lieutenant Stern’ to silence Rashim before he could speak again.

  And so … the night of bloodletting began. Eight hours later, dawn had shone into the palace, shards of sunlight across these very marble floors spattered with drying pools of blood. His Stone Men were already stacking the bodies in the courtyard and preparing a funeral pyre. And the young man, Rashim, was waking up in his cage, muzzled. Waking up to the realization that the rest of his life was going to be lived in that cage.

  Caligula stopped stroking the cool, smooth metal of the weapons spread out like museum exhibits across the purple satin. He looked out at the panorama of Rome getting ready to bed down for the evening. A rich, warm dusk bathed the labyrinth of clay-brick and whitewashed walls and terracotta roof slates. Thin threads of smoke rose into the sky from every district, many of them from bonfires of the daily dead. Disease, spoiled water … the normal attrition of such a big city. He shrugged. Things would be better for his people soon.

  When he returned.

  He listened to the distant echo of horns across the city, summoning the people out of their homes to pay homage to him. He could see the dark outline of his marvellous stairway up to Heaven; a stairway he was going to descend to visit this world once he had stepped into the white mists of Heaven and finally become what he’d always been destined to become.

  God.

  His reverie was broken by the sound of bare feet whispering on the smooth floor. He looked up to see Stern step forward to intercept a slave and in a hushed voice ask him what message he had for the emperor. The slave prostrated himself immediately as soon as he noticed Caligula looking at him.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘The tribune of the Guard wishes to see you,’ replied Stern. ‘Says it is important.’

  Caligula sighed. He was tired. He rather fancied curling up on the satin alongside the weapons and resting his pounding head against that cool metal. Soothing. But this tribune of the Palace Cohort … yes, he quite liked this new one. Quite an intelligent and engaging man, for an army officer.

  What was his name? He struggled to remember.

  ‘Yes … all right, send him in.’

  CHAPTER 52

  AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

  Cato entered Caligula’s atrium. He’d been in here on only half a dozen occasions since being appointed to command the Palace Guard. The room was cavernous and every noise seemed to echo endlessly. He had only ever seen Caligula alone. The emperor it seemed preferred his royal family as far away as possible. Preferred his own company.

  He was alone except for one of his Stone Men, the one called Stern, and, of course, half a dozen slaves waiting patiently by the walls for his bidding; almost unnoticeable, still like frescos, murals. Not really humans in Caligula’s eyes.

  Cato stopped a respectful distance from Caligula and saluted. ‘Caesar.’

  The emperor smiled a greeting. ‘Ahh, yes, I remember now … it’s Cato, isn’t it?’

  Cato nodded. ‘Yes, sire. Tribune Quintus Licinius Cato.’

  ‘Come on now, don’t be rude, Stern … say hello to our visitor.’

  The support unit looked at Cato, blank-eyed. ‘Hello.’

  Cato regarded him in silence for a moment. He had seen these things up close many times over the last few months. They unsettled his men. To be entirely honest, they unsettled him too. While he didn’t believe in supernatural explanations, he’d always been certain there was something not entirely human about them. Now he knew what they were – man-made: constructions made from flesh and bone instead of wood and metal.

  ‘What is it, Tribune?’ Caligula settled back on a seat. He beckoned Cato closer. ‘Come over so we’re not barking at each other.’

  Cato took a dozen steps closer. As he neared Caligula, he noticed the Stone Man watching him closely.

  ‘Apparently it’s something important?’

  ‘It is, sire. I … I have come across evidence of a plot against you, Caesar.’

  Caligula sat up. ‘A plot, you say?’

  ‘Plans to try and … well, to kill you, sire.’

  The emperor’s face reddened slightly and he offered a tired sigh. ‘They never stop, do they?’ He pulled himself to his feet and approached Cato. ‘Kill me, you say?’

  Cato nodded.

  ‘All these conniving old fools. All they care about are their own petty agendas. Advancing themselves, the careers of their sons and nephews, marrying money to status or the other way round. Cutting each other’s throats for profit. Awful people.’

  He smiled sadly at Cato. ‘It’s the poor common man I feel so sorry for. Ruled by these inbred cretins for far too long.’ He noted the scrolls clasped in Cato’s hands. ‘So then, which meddling fools want me dead now?’

  Cato silently held out several scrolls. ‘Correspondence, sire.’

  Caligula snatched them from his hand, unrolled one and scanned it quickly. ‘Crassus! That dried-up old fig? Why am I not surprised by that?’ He looked up at Cato as if this was an old conversation they’d had many times over. ‘You know, I should have had every last one of those gossiping old relics done away with. I’m too much of a soft touch, that’s my problem.’ He looked back down at the correspondence and read on in silence.

  ‘Lepidus.’ Caligula looked genuinely surprised. ‘Lepidus?’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  Caligula opened the scroll and read further, his face turning a deeper red as his lips silently moved. ‘The ungrateful, fat wretch. I’ve given him and his men everything! They take pay three times what they would have normally! They … he … Lepidus pledged his allegiance!’

  He swiped his hand at a bowl of fruit on a stand. The bowl clattered noisily on to the floor and rolled across it like a cart wheel, finally coming to rest, spinning and rattling with a noise that echoed round the atrium’s walls and off down the passage. Caligula spat a curse.

  ‘Lepidus … that slug actually got on his knees and prayed directly to me. Prayed to me! Said he always knew I was more than a mere man …’

  ‘The general tells you what he thinks you want to hear,’ said Cato.

  Caligula balled his hand into a shaking fist. ‘The deceitful … He stood before me not so long ago … got on his knees before me and told me he believed in me! That he …!’

  He turned on Cato. ‘You believe in me, don’t you, Tribune? You believe I will ascend to Heaven soon and take my place, don’t you? Because
you know it isn’t long now! Not long at all!’

  Cato hesitated. And realized in the space of several heartbeats that his hesitation was foolish. He should have anticipated this sort of question. Been ready and practised with an answer.

  Caligula swung his hand up and placed a finger roughly against Cato’s lips. ‘No! Don’t answer me.’ His eyes were wide and glassy with tears of anger. ‘Tell me! Why … why is it so very hard to believe? Why is it so difficult to imagine that I could be something more than human? Hmmm? I have wisdom. An infinite capacity for love. I know things no other man does. The Visitors came for me, you know, not anyone else! They came … and they told me everything!’

  He leaned closer, lowering his voice to little more than a hoarse whisper. ‘More than that, I have ambition. When I am taken up … when I step into the heavens and receive my powers, we won’t need legions any more to pacify those barbarians in Germany, in Britain … we’ll do it with my love, my compassion! I’ll bless their crops, their water. I’ll make the sun shine warmth and light on those cold, dark places and they will love me for it.’

  Caligula’s finger remained on Cato’s lips. ‘And, if that doesn’t work, then I can just as easily send plagues on them. Turn the skies black with storms. Make them fear me.’ He smiled. ‘Love and fear … they are, after all, halves of the same circle. At some point on the arc, one becomes the other.’

  Caligula was standing so close to him, Cato could feel the emperor’s hot breath on his face. Cato’s hands flexed by his side; his left wrist brushed against the iron pommel of his gladius.

  I could kill him now. Reach for my sword and kill him right now.

  Only he wouldn’t get a chance. Stern was no more than a yard away and could move frighteningly fast. Cool, dispassionate grey eyes were regarding him closely right now, warily analysing the ticks of muscle in his face, noting the subtle flexing of his fingers near his sword. He could try and reach for it, but Cato doubted he’d even manage to get the blade out of its scabbard before the Stone Man had run him through.

  ‘I … I am just a soldier, sire,’ said Cato, his lips moving against the light touch of Caligula’s finger. ‘My only concern is your safety. That is all.’

  The anger in Caligula’s face, the faraway look in his eyes, vanished in an instant. An ugly mask of rage whipped away and replaced with something that looked genuine: a warm, welcoming smile. He stroked Cato’s cheek affectionately. ‘I love the simplicity in that answer. No judgement … no doublespeak, no lies. The simplicity of a good soldier’s mind. A task, a duty … and how best to perform it.’

  Caligula stepped back from him. ‘I will, of course, have both of their heads on spikes for this. Have Crassus arrested immediately.’

  Cato nodded. ‘And what about General Lepidus, Caesar?’

  Caligula pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘It might be prudent if I were to summon him with no reasons given, rather than openly have him arrested. He may be a fat, spineless slug … but if he suspects he’s shortly due to lose his head, he may try and do something rash.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  ‘Tell him …’ Caligula rested a finger thoughtfully on his chin. ‘Just tell him I wish to speak to him. Nothing alarming, do you understand? I merely wish to speak to him.’

  Cato nodded. ‘I will see to it immediately.’

  ‘Good,’ replied Caligula distractedly. ‘Good … and let me know when you have got Crassus. I would like to have a little talk with him as well.’

  ‘Yes, sire.’

  Caligula turned away from Cato and strolled towards the window and balcony that looked out on the darkening city skyline.

  ‘Ahh, now look. How annoying. I’ve just missed my sunset,’ he uttered wistfully.

  CHAPTER 53

  AD 54, 18 miles north of Rome

  ‘What?’ General Lepidus sputtered wine across his desk.

  ‘It’s what I’ve heard, sir. This very afternoon.’

  Lepidus stood up and the chair legs barked across the wooden floor. ‘Arrests?’

  The young tribune shuffled uncomfortably, his helmet respectfully under one arm. He was still puffing from his exhausting five-hour ride from the city.

  ‘Come on, Atellus! What are you prattling on about?’ Lepidus’s voice sounded shrill and sharp, almost effeminate; he hated it when nerves, anxiety, made him sound that way.

  ‘Arrests … Crassus was one of them.’

  Lepidus’s wide face instantly paled. ‘Crassus!’

  Atellus nodded. Lepidus slumped back down in his chair; it creaked under his heavy frame. He looked shaken. ‘Crassus! Gods help me, he’ll talk at the first sign of pain!’ He looked at his subordinate. ‘And names will be mentioned, Atellus. You and I …’

  The tribune nodded.

  Lepidus wiped his mouth, his skin already damp and tacky with anxiety. ‘I curse that withered old prune for roping me into his bloody politics!’

  A couple of visits, that’s all. Him and Atellus. That had been enough for him to realize the old man was going to get them all killed if he wasn’t a great deal more careful. Lepidus had backed away quickly from the fool’s small gathering of conspirators. Deliberately ignored his repeated invitations to rejoin them. He should never have gone in the first place … but ambition, vanity, had piqued his curiosity. Crassus had suggested Rome might need a Protector in the aftermath, should something happen to Caligula. Someone with power, popular with his soldiers, near to hand … and no great fan of the emperor.

  Someone. Someone like himself.

  Lepidus had brought along an officer he trusted, Atellus, expecting a lunch at the old politician’s expense and a carefully worded conversation, a gentle probing of his thoughts on what direction Rome should take … should something, regrettably, happen to their emperor.

  What he hadn’t expected was an assembly of strangers … and such open, reckless, dangerous talk. And such a pitiful assembly of conspirators! Three senators, a tribune of the Guard and one or two others.

  What he should have done, was leave the meeting immediately and report them all to the emperor just as soon as he could. But he hadn’t. He and Atellus had returned and said nothing about the matter to anyone.

  Enough right there to be deemed as guilty as Crassus and his conspirators in Caligula’s eyes. And to make matters worse, Crassus had been badgering him to come back. Sending presents even.

  ‘Dammit!’ He reached for the cup on the desk in front of him, nearly knocking it over and spilling wine across the nest of scrolls in front of him, the routine and endless paperwork of a legion encamped. He emptied the cup quickly and wiped his mouth. ‘That treacherous old snake has been playing games with me!’

  ‘Sir?’

  Lepidus winced, cursed under his breath. ‘He sent me several gifts over the last year. Those Parthian horses? That attractive slave?’

  Atellus nodded. He knew full well about them. Most of the camp did. The slave had been particularly well received by the general. ‘Sir, surely those gifts have nothing to do with this –’

  ‘Don’t you see, you idiot? Crassus has been trying to make it look like I’m part of his mischief! He’s trying to …’ Lepidus stopped. His eyes widened. ‘Gods help me!’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I wrote a letter to him … I … thanked him!’ Before he’d attended that meeting he’d been almost seduced by Crassus’s persuasive flattery. His eyes darted left and right as he tried to remember the precise wording of his correspondence. Crassus had sent his gifts with letters punctuated with carefully phrased criticisms of Caligula; subtly worded inducements for Lepidus to expand on that criticism a little more.

  Sounding me out. That’s what he was doing.

  Lepidus remembered carefully avoiding any references to Crassus’s less than flattering thoughts about the emperor and his appalling neglect of the affairs of the city in his reply. The general quite clearly remembered writing a polite and very neutral ‘thank you’ to the old man for his lovely gif
ts. But most importantly … ignoring those dangerously obvious phrases; phrases clumsily probing him for where his allegiance lay.

  ‘Oh, help me!’ he whispered.

  ‘Sir?’

  What he hadn’t done … was immediately forward that correspondence to his emperor. What he hadn’t done was warn Caligula of Crassus’s treacherous mutterings.

  Oh, the gods!

  The general’s thinking in recent years had been that sitting tight and keeping his head down – waiting this madness out – was the clever strategic game to play. With his two legions permanently encamped a mere day’s march away from Rome, he was perfectly placed to sweep in and replace that insane fool the moment something happened to him.

  And something inevitably would. Caligula was mentally unstable. Increasingly so. Believing himself to be a god, immortal … the crazy fool would end up either killing himself in some reckless chariot race to impress his people, or believing he could actually fly and stepping off a high wall. That or some desperate, starving citizen was going to get lucky with a slingshot or an arrow. Caligula’s insanity seemed to be approaching some sort of a feverish crescendo. As if he expected something truly world-changing to happen to him very soon.

  But this news? These rumours …?

  Gods help him if that exchange of correspondence between him and Crassus should fall into the emperor’s hands. Not participating in any conspiracy the old senator had been quietly organizing was not going to be enough to save him.

  ‘Sir?’

  Lepidus looked up at his tribune.

  ‘We have to do something, sir. We could be next …?’

  Caligula was going to have new heads on spikes all over the city by the first light of morning. And two of them might just be mine and his.

  ‘Atellus?’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘I want every officer from both legions assembled in my quarters in half an hour!’

  ‘Yes, sir. What …?’

  ‘What do I plan to do?’