Empire of Time

by Daniel Godfrey

  Tear the place apart if you have to. We need to find what’s left of Arlen’s work…

  Calpurnia’s gift arrived a couple of hours ahead of you… Why had he been collecting NovusPart memorabilia before Harris arrived?

  Now then, Scaeva: what do you still own that could be worth two denarii?

  Pullus finally made out what Whelan was trying to say…

  Naso was being carried by the crowd, which was heading towards his garum pits…

  He claims it was an accident, but other slaves saw it happen…

  When were you going to tell us about the papers?

  A steady stream of votives…

  62

  New Pompeii

  THE CLAY DISCS dropping through the shop shutters were now being accompanied by whispered prayers. Pullus listened, both amused and uncomfortable. He wanted them to stop, and yet was grateful for the distraction. It helped pass the time inside his cell.

  The days had long since morphed into weeks. Neither Calpurnia nor Marcus had been back to see him, but at least he was being provided with saucers of water and a few thin slices of bread and meat. Often it was delivered at night, when the streets were empty. Just sufficient to keep him from dying. Just sufficient to keep him wondering if each serving would also be his last.

  Roman charity.

  At least Marcus hadn’t arranged any equivalent of Pero to visit him. He soon banished the thought, not wanting to consider what he would do if a wet nurse offered to keep him alive.

  Outside it was daylight, and he could hear a crowd gathering, the barking of the guards attempting to corral the worshippers outside. Pullus didn’t bother rising from the floor, let alone walk over to the shutters. He didn’t have the strength, the muscles in his limbs and back knotted into one interminable ache. Instead, he waited for the first votive. Sure enough, it soon dropped and bounced amongst all the others. Then the prayers started.

  He ignored them and rested his head against the wall. He felt a little dry plaster crumble and fall onto his neck.

  He’d come so close. After all, he’d rushed straight to Calpurnia, only to be put off by her continued talk of her husband and her empire – and then finally stymied by the appearance of Harris and his brother.

  He let out a growl. Tried to move his thoughts back to his current situation, but only found himself again thinking about the trail of breadcrumbs he’d been following in Naples: the fresco in the Gabinetto Segreto, the graffiti hidden at the back of the excavated bakery, the partial message from the Villa Maritima. Each had seemed a tiny piece of a puzzle, but what they’d been saying was still uncertain. None had provided him with enough information to understand the full message. Whoever had passed the words into the past, perhaps hadn’t understood one crucial aspect of their plan: as years pass, things rot and decay. It wasn’t as simple as hiding away a message inside a time capsule – as good a time capsule as Pompeii was – and waiting for a key piece of information to be uncovered. The meaning of the message had been lost.

  “Pullus?”

  One voice amongst many, but one he recognised. Pullus turned his head slowly, feeling his neck crack.

  “Pullus! Quickly!”

  He lolled forwards, struggling up off the floor. He went to the shutters and squinted through a gap. Taedia stood outside, buffeted by those waiting behind her in the queue.

  So she was still alive. Part of him was glad her life hadn’t been wasted. Another wished she had died like all the others.

  “We need you, Pullus.”

  He sighed in irritation. “I’m locked in a cell,” he said.

  “There are men in town,” Taedia continued. “Strange men. Some people are saying NovusPart has returned to punish us.”

  They’re all dead, Pullus thought. Whelan. McMahon. Arlen. “Calpurnia knows about Popidius’s convoys. She’s dealt with it.”

  Taedia grunted as she was shoved from behind. Her fingers pushed through the shutters. She held on tight. “But she’s not stopping them.”

  “Stopping them doing what?”

  “They’re taking the names of all the people in town,” Taedia said, just as her fingers slipped.

  “What?”

  “They’re making a list of everyone called Marcus and—”

  63

  BREADCRUMBS, THOUGHT PULLUS again. Little tiny breadcrumbs scattered in the past. The fresco and the graffiti in the bakery. Whoever had left them for him to find either hadn’t been transported, or had failed to make themselves known to him here in New Pompeii. If they had done, then he could have simply asked. Demanded to know the full message.

  There was little light coming through the shutters, and those outside had long since returned to their homes. The solitary shuffle of feet indicated his only company was a guard. He didn’t really care. They’d provided him with the day’s meagre supply of food and water and were now probably just waiting for the new day to break just like him.

  His mind wandered back to the graffiti, and the person who might have written it. Of course, the answer was that they hadn’t been transported. The fragment left at the Villa Maritima indicated they’d left before the eruption; assuming the last breadcrumb had been dropped by the same person who’d left the first two. Or maybe it was all just a hoax. A fake. Just like Naso’s phoney artworks.

  His brow furrowed. Naso. There was a small anomaly he hadn’t registered before. He started to scrabble about on the floor, searching through the fragments of broken amphorae. Naso had been pulling a scam: selling fake Roman copies of lost Greek masterpieces. But not Oscan.

  There was no demand for fake Oscan art.

  So why the fuck was there a piece of broken Oscan pottery in his cell?

  He found it moments later. Cradling it in his hand, he took it to the shutters and let what little light they offered shine on its surface. It wasn’t a fake. It was a real piece of Oscan pottery. So highly decorated, it was probably a prized ornament before its demise. And it had probably been at least a couple of hundred years old prior to Pompeii’s destruction.

  In the darkness, he smiled and turned the fragment between his fingers. Pompeii. The Roman town swallowed by a volcano. And yet in some ways, it wasn’t Roman at all. Sure, the Empire had stamped its authority on it, given it a forum and an amphitheatre. Integrated men from the army into the population, and bolstered the colony with their wives and children. But at its heart this was a town of many peoples: Oscans, Etruscans, Samnites, Greeks.

  Wave after wave of people, with the Romans just being the last of many.

  And what he held in his hand proved something. NovusPart hadn’t just transported people, they’d also taken objects. Some of the statues missing from the forum perhaps, the gold that had never been found in the temples during the excavations. Pottery and furniture. McMahon and Whelan had probably thought the thefts would be attributed to the post-eruption tunnelling by the Romans themselves. Yet it also provided the possibility of an unintended consequence. After all, how do you get a message sent from the future deep into the past, and back into the present?

  Pullus suddenly knew the answer. You don’t wait, and hope against the ravages of time. You don’t take the slow path, not when you know your message could be zapped into the future along with the people. Somewhere in town there was written his answer. All he had to do was find it.

  64

  Ancient Pompeii, AD 79

  “HEY! OLD WOMAN! Are you going to pay for that?”

  Achillia glared at the owner of the taberna, then flicked a couple of coins in his direction. He caught the first, but the second bounced out of his palm and rolled onto the floor. As soon as he ducked down to retrieve it, she put another bread roll into her stola. A small price for rudeness, she thought, waiting for the trader to lift the coin to acknowledge payment. As soon as he’d done so, she continued down the street.

  Pompeii was just as much of a shithole as she remembered. How long had it been since she was last here? Fifteen years? Maybe longer. An
d they were still making repairs. When she’d left, half the town had been little more than rubble. Not just the tenements or the townhouses, either. Temples had fallen, even Jupiter’s had been damaged. Work was clearly still needed to clean up the mess, even after all this time.

  Achillia stopped near a street shrine, trying to find her bearings. She tried to remember what she could of her few days here, protecting some silly bitch whose name she couldn’t even remember. Hadn’t there been some offer of freedom?

  “Hey! Old woman!”

  “The next person who says that to me,” Achillia said, “is going to end up holding their own stomach.”

  She turned to see a man of average height, lithe, if not muscular. He smiled at her, which was as close to a greeting as she was going to get. Achillia reached into her stola and tossed the second roll to him. He started eating without any word of thanks.

  “I’m not exactly thrilled to be back here,” she said.

  “I hadn’t realised you’d been before.”

  “When the earth shook.”

  The man shrugged and continued to eat. “The earth is always moving here. You get used to it. Keeps the fresco painters in business, anyway.”

  They started walking side by side in the direction of the forum. Achillia wasn’t heading anywhere in particular, but walking made it harder for anyone to overhear them. That was useful in their line of work. “So are you going to let me in on the secret then?”

  “What do you know?” asked the man.

  “Virtually nothing. When your summons came, I was in Africa.”

  “Huh.”

  “And now I’m in Pompeii,” Achillia continued. “And you know how much I hate sailing, so…?”

  “You’re here for the same reason you were over there,” said the man.

  “Really?”

  “We have a new emperor, Achillia. Not long on the throne. He’s nervous. Our job is what it’s always been: to gently slip knives between the ribs of those who aren’t cheering loudly enough.” He grinned at her expression. “I thought you’d be happy. We’re still just about in games season, and there’s at least one session left.”

  “The games were banned the last time I was here.”

  “Well, they’re not anymore. So it won’t all be work.”

  Achillia raised an eyebrow. She was about to ask for more details of her target when a screeching from overhead made her look up. Birds were flocking, making a hellish noise as they did so. Something ran over her foot. She looked down, and kicked away a rat.

  Then the earth shook.

  Not for long. And nowhere near as strongly as when she’d last been in Pompeii. Just enough to knock some vegetables from a nearby stall, and topple a ladder propped against the front of a taberna.

  The man with her grinned. “As I said, you get used to it.”

  “They come a lot worse than that,” replied Achillia, taking a deep breath. Her heart was racing. Despite everything she’d done, and was trained to do, the shaking of the ground disturbed her. “So my target, where does he live?”

  “With his father-in-law. Some man on the local Ordo who used to be close to Vespasian.”

  “Odd then, that his son…?”

  “Who knows with these provincial families? Anyway, Barbatus is waiting for another turn as duumvir here. So, for the moment, he’s out of the picture.”

  “Wait? Barbatus?”

  “Sure. You know him?”

  “Manius Calpurnius Barbatus?”

  “That’s him. Titus doesn’t want the old man harmed though. Remember that. Our new emperor thinks it’s useful to have someone here who can put a bit of stick about. As long as he’s reminded who he’s waving the stick for, of course.”

  65

  New Pompeii

  FROM THE OTHER side of the shutters came a cough, then the clink of another votive. Pullus tried to peer through the slats; the street outside was only slightly more lit than his cell. Outside, the guard was staring back at him. A man placed by Habitus, but not one he recognised.

  Pullus tried to decipher the man’s expression. The old saying about actions and words prompted him. The votive. “You worship at the Fortuna Augusta?”

  “It isn’t called that anymore.”

  No, thought Pullus. No, it isn’t. And yet he couldn’t quite shake that label from his head. He thought about the water and the small offerings of food. Always brought at night, but not every day. Perhaps not given under instruction by Calpurnia then, but for other reasons entirely. “You want my help?”

  Outside, the guard slowly nodded. “Wife has the shivers.”

  Pullus felt like a hypocrite. But maybe his reluctance to accept his position here had blinded him to what he was meant to know. Maybe he’d not seen what had been put in plain view. “Will you pray with me?” asked Pullus, his throat tightening. “At my temple?”

  “They’d kill me.”

  “We have time. You can still bring me back before dawn.”

  There was no answer. Then the scrape of boots as the guard checked the street.

  The door opened. Pullus felt enormous relief, but as he stepped out into the dark street he stumbled and almost fell. The guard caught him and pulled him close. “Don’t try and run.”

  Pullus almost laughed. There was no risk of him fleeing; his legs were too weak and it didn’t seem like he could remember how to control them. They headed towards the forum, the guard at his side, a firm hand gripping his shoulder.

  The streets were nearly empty. They passed only two sign-writers who were applying fresh paint to their notices. Neither turned from their work to acknowledge them. Both seemed to be erasing electoral slogans supporting Popidius.

  “We’re not alone.”

  At first Pullus thought they were being followed. He soon realised though that the guard had probably been selected because he had eyes for night work: he had spotted what Pullus could not. Ahead of them, just coming into view in front of the Arch of Tiberius, stood the Temple of Fortuna Augusta.

  Pullus remembered how it had looked when he’d first arrived in New Pompeii. A temple that had been immaculately restored and refined as part of the cover story that the town had been saved by the God Emperor Augustus. And yet back then it had always been empty, shunned by the Roman population who never quite believed NovusPart’s smoke and mirrors. Now it had become a centre of religious activity. A multitude stood vigil at the foot of the steps, holding small oil lamps. More stood between the columns.

  “You don’t come here, do you?” asked the guard.

  “No.”

  The guard let his restraining hand fall away. Pullus reached the foot of the steps leading up to the temple’s portico. The waiting crowd stared at him. Were they expecting a miracle? The expression of hope on their faces caused a tug of doubt in his stomach. Pullus ignored it. It was too late now. He headed up the steps, past the colonnade, and into the depths of the temple.

  He found the spot he’d first met Calpurnia. She’d been pregnant with Marcus then. He paused for a second, thinking about their conversation, all those years ago. Their secret meeting. Her whispered suspicions. Despite almost seeing through NovusPart’s lies, she’d still been transfixed by one thing: the statue of Augustus.

  The statue remained in place, although it now wore a different face. His face. Another little Roman tradition. After all, what was the point in wasting a statue when one could simply carve the latest god on top of the last?

  He stared into its eyes. His eyes.

  Looking into the past, whilst staring into the future.

  “What is it I’m meant to see?”

  No one answered him. He was quite alone. There was no pregnant girl to help him. He walked closer, peered at his own face. Then he saw it, transcribed onto the wall behind the statue. It was all there: the fragment from the Gabinetto Segreto. The graffiti from the real Pompeii. The short inscription from the Villa Maritima.

  All in English. Combined and joined together with large parts
of the message that hadn’t survived the two-thousand-year slow road from the past.

  Pullus read the words several times. Felt the implications and regret. He collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

  All he’d heard about was the statue. He’d not come to the temple before in order to avoid having to stare into his own face. But it was all here waiting for him, in a language his worshippers didn’t even understand. Giving the inscription a final glance, he returned to the portico. The guard was waiting for him. “They found it written on the side of a pot,” he said, “left in one of the NovusPart townhouses. They thought it was important so they wrote it here.”

  Pullus nodded, unable to speak. A pot. A genuine Roman pot, transported out of ancient Pompeii along with its people.

  “You’re going to have to go back,” the guard continued. “They’ll kill me if you go missing.”

  “Fine,” said Pullus, his throat tight and suddenly raw. “But I want you to take a message to Calpurnia. Tell her I’m still alive. And that I’m ready to save her husband.”

  66

  Ancient Pompeii, AD 79

  ACHILLIA TRIED HARD to push the Sibyl’s voice away, but she could still hear it. Still feel the pressure in her ears like her skull might crack and hear its shouted instructions as she had in that fucking cave.

  Sometimes it came to her during the day; other times, it disturbed her at night. And it was becoming more frequent, the initial instruction being supplemented with more information. More things she didn’t really understand.

  Was it because she was back in Pompeii? So close to the Sibyl’s cave?

  Achillia sat alone in a booth at the back of a small bakery. She was eating the cheapest bread on the menu, taken from loaves that were probably sent to feed rich households’ slaves. It tasted fine once toasted and covered in beans and sauce.

  She thought about Marcus Villius Denter. Her target. The same as always, the skill wasn’t so much in the killing, but the escape. In her youth, she might have just walked up to someone in the street and slipped a dagger through his chest. But now her legs didn’t carry her away quite as quickly, and she’d had to become more subtle. She grunted. Wasn’t that what Barbatus had said to her, back in the day? Not just to flip the coin but to also consider where it might land?