Empire of Time

by Daniel Godfrey

  “Hey!”

  Achillia glanced up. The owner of the bakery – a fat man who wore most of the ingredients for his shitty loaves down the front of his tunic – had stopped clearing another table and was now glaring at her. She raised her eyebrows at him, took another bite of her food, and then realised what he was going on about.

  Without thinking, she’d scratched something into his wall. She’d been absentmindedly eating with one hand, and using her knife to carve a message with the other. Achillia looked at her handiwork for a second, and then shrugged at the baker. So much for not attracting attention. “Sorry,” she said. It wasn’t the first time she’d found herself doing such a thing. At first it had terrified her. Now it was just another thing to bear, like the Sibyl’s voice.

  The baker went on his way, muttering, his words lost amongst the noise of the ovens and the sound of mules slowly turning their stones. His shape was immediately replaced by her contact, the noticeably thinner Habitus. He sat in the booth and shook his head.

  “This town is a shithole,” he said.

  Achillia laughed. “I told you.”

  “I’d pictured somewhere nicer. Given the sorts of people who come here.”

  “They mean their villas out in the hills, not the town itself.”

  “Huh.”

  “And have you been to Baiae?”

  Habitus narrowed his eyes. “The bathing resort?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then no, I haven’t.” He lowered his voice, not that there was anyone to hear. “Don’t tell me you’ve killed someone there too?”

  “Bathhouse prostitute,” she said. “My cover, I mean.”

  Habitus laughed. “Never trust a woman,” he said, leaning back. The fat baker was heading in their direction, carrying more base bread and, with it, a block of cheese. He set the food in front of Habitus, and then made a show of looking at his damn wall. “And what does that say?”

  Achillia looked at her carving. She peered closer and moved her lips as if she were reading. Then she turned slowly back to the baker. “I think it says ‘fuck off, cocksucker’.”

  The baker took a step forward, seemingly ready to hit her. Then he glanced at Habitus and clearly decided to leave them to it. That irritated her. She was much more likely to use her knife than her current handler.

  Habitus smiled at her. “I guess this is where I let you know I’ve rented a couple of mattresses upstairs?”

  Achillia didn’t say anything. He better not have fucking done.

  “So, have you found the house?” he asked.

  “It wasn’t hard,” she replied.

  “How are you going to do it?”

  “I haven’t decided,” she said. This was close to the truth. Although nearly seventeen years had passed, there was a good chance Barbatus would recognise her. And if he did, then even if he didn’t know why she was there, he’d suspect trouble. That pretty much ruled out doing the job at the house. Ideally, she’d have hung around outside one of the shops by the front door and knifed Denter as he stepped inside, then pulled the door closed behind him and let him die in the corridor leading to the atrium. With a bit of luck, it sometimes took porters some time to realise their masters had been murdered. With a bit of luck.

  “You’re worried about Barbatus?”

  Habitus had misunderstood her. She hadn’t decided. After all, the Sibyl had told her she’d rescue this Denter, not kill him. Could she really outrun that voice? She shuddered. A voice that seemed like it could kill her?

  Habitus didn’t seem to notice her doubt. He reached into his tunic and took out a coin. He rolled it across the table, and it landed imperial side up. The profile was of the Emperor Titus, freshly minted. “I don’t really care how you do it,” he said. “But leave this by the body, ideally in his mouth. Somewhere Barbatus will find it.”

  Achillia took the coin and rotated it between her fingers. “He’s just a provincial thug…”

  “True,” Habitus replied. “But now he’s a rich one. And he’s a clever bastard. So leave the coin; he’ll get the message.”

  67

  ACHILLIA FOUND THE trail the following afternoon when Marcus Villius Denter headed past where she’d been waiting on the via, walking south towards the forum. She started to follow slowly, letting one leg drag slowly behind her, restricted by the sword tied to her thigh and hidden under her stola. It didn’t matter though. This Denter walked quickly, but he frequently stopped to talk to shopkeepers and their patrons, as well as seemingly random people in the street.

  Maybe he was thinking about a political career. Achillia didn’t particularly care. She kept her pace steady and herself hidden amongst the other pedestrians. The crowd thickened as they got closer to the forum, which meant it was too busy. She was either going to have to kill him in a crowd, or wait for another time.

  She decided to wait, slowing her pace still further. What if Barbatus saw her at the house and recognised her? Perhaps even realised why she was there?

  Fuck.

  Denter had stopped again, and now she found herself a bit too close. She continued past him, and then moved to the side of the street to get a better view. He was talking to a rough-looking man. At first their conversation seemed friendly, but when Denter tried to continue on his way, the other man took hold of his wrist to stop him from leaving. The two men began to argue, getting louder by the second, but only insults were exchanged. She could hear nothing that told her what they were arguing about, or how they knew each other.

  A slight pressure started to build in her head. The ground swayed slightly, but she knew this was no tremor. The voice was coming back to her again. The Sibyl. “I know,” she whispered. “I fucking know.”

  She shook her head. Across the street, the argument was over. Denter and the other man headed away together, off the main via and down a side street. Achillia waited a moment and then followed, her senses prickling. The side street was much quieter. Far fewer witnesses.

  The metal blade at her thigh started to bite. She upped her pace and closed the gap. Both men had their backs to her; she could kill them both. The only issue was that they were now approaching a brothel where a pimp and a girl waited outside. The whore had already started to call towards Denter and his friend. She would be no problem. But the pimp? Anyone left to guard the entrance to a brothel would probably be the sort of man who could take care of himself. Sure enough, the pimp eyed Denter and his friend and crossed his arms to show that, yes, the two men could have a good time, but they were going to have to behave themselves. And they were going to have to pay.

  Denter and his friend headed inside. Achillia was surprised. Denter would have his own slaves to mount. Why the hell did he want to risk his prick in a brothel? She shook her head and carried on along the street, searching for a new spot to wait and observe. It wasn’t easy. A scarcity of people made an assassination easier, but it made surveillance more obvious. She’d soon be noticed, if she hadn’t been already.

  “Hey,” shouted the pimp after her. “You don’t need to struggle with that leg in here! Come work for me!”

  Achillia ignored him. She’d need to double round the block and head back to the main via to take up a new position. Somewhere close to the side street so she could watch for Denter once he’d finished his rutting. Then she’d most likely follow him home and give up for the day. Report back to Habitus and maybe come up with a new plan. Something that might involve the frumentarius himself.

  “Hey, old woman! No one will mind your wrinkles!”

  Achillia stopped and slowly turned. The pimp was laughing at her, but his girl had gone inside. He held his arms loose by his side, his stance relaxed. Which meant he’d also lost his physical advantage. Old woman.

  She turned and started walking towards him. Feeling the metal first bite then loosen as she flipped the sword into her hand and rammed it into the man just above his waist. She wrenched it to the side, pulled it out, watched him fall. Then she reached down and tore some
thing wet and hot and quivering from his belly. He probably caught sight of it just before his eyes fluttered closed. “Here it is,” she whispered.

  It was too late to stop now. She stepped over the body and into the brothel. There were two booths on the left and three on the right. Curtains had been pulled across all five of them, although they drowned out none of the noises. Achillia lifted the first curtain and quickly dropped it. The old man and whore inside didn’t notice her intrusion. She moved to the next curtain. A woman was riding a man who didn’t look like he was really enjoying it. The girl was made up to look Egyptian, and kept speaking what sounded Greek, even if she was probably neither.

  Behind the next curtain was Denter’s friend. The girl who’d been outside with the pimp lay on the bed, the man standing by her, naked, with a stiff cock that was bent and curled at an angle that seemed to have the whore’s full attention, as if she didn’t know what she was going to do with it.

  Achillia moved to the next curtain but found the space beyond empty. She tensed, her sword up, as she swept inside the final cubicle. But Denter wasn’t there. Instead she saw an old man on top of a woman who looked dead behind the eyes.

  “Shit,” she whispered. Turning back into the corridor, Achillia found Denter’s friend had already stumbled from his booth. Still naked, but this time with a knife in his hand. It was only now that he seemed to notice her sword – and the pimp’s blood that was still running down its blade.

  “Wait,” he shouted, dropping the knife and holding up his hands, his dick drooping. “For fuck’s sake, wait!”

  “Marcus Villius Denter,” Achillia said.

  The ground started to shake. The building jolted. From behind the curtains came cries of surprise and fright, the sound of men and women scrabbling for their clothes. Plaster fell from the ceiling. Achillia looked up, and wondered about the structure. How much could it endure?

  “Upstairs! Fucking hell, he’s upstairs!”

  The building lurched and rolled. Achillia heard footsteps from above, then hammering downwards. She went further down the corridor and felt a breath of air to her left. There was a second exit, back onto the street. Beyond that, another whore sat on a toilet behind a privacy screen.

  Achillia ignored her and headed up the stairs just as two men tried to get down past her. They were moving so quickly they didn’t notice her sword. Neither of them were Marcus Villius Denter, and he wasn’t in the dank upstairs apartment either.

  The second exit. He’d already fled. Maybe ran as soon as the earth had started shaking. Achillia scurried back downstairs. All the curtains had been tossed aside and the cubicles were empty. She looked to the entrance of the brothel. A cluster of people were standing outside, still trying to pull on their clothes. Some were screaming and pointing at the dead pimp.

  Fuck.

  Habitus would not be pleased.

  68

  New Pompeii

  “IHEARD YOU WERE here…”

  It had been another day before they’d come for him. The door to his cell had been flung open in the early morning and they’d hauled him onto the back of a wagon. Pullus now stood inside another small, square room. But at least this one had a clear and definite use. Right down to the small collection of toys by his feet, intended to entertain the children NovusPart had pulled through time. Wiped clean of the blood left behind by Harris’s brother.

  “Paradox,” said the voice behind him. Pullus turned to face Calpurnia. “We keep it set out just as NovusPart had it.”

  Pullus kicked away a small, wheeled car and walked out of the paradox chamber and back into a corridor of Calpurnia’s villa. “Though I take it you haven’t had any unexpected arrivals?”

  “Not yet. Just you, at the amphitheatre.”

  Pullus curled his lip. So she now knew about that too. No doubt her network of informers had been poring over recent days to try and work out how he’d been able to deceive her. “I don’t know what happened,” he said.

  “You were transported.”

  “But not thirty years into the future.”

  “No. Just a day or so.” Pullus thought about their still inactive NovusPart device. “And not by us.”

  “By who then?”

  Someone in the future, thought Pullus. Someone who had a NovusPart device, and who had simply picked him up from their past, and dropped him again. Closer to their present but not a full transportation. Not the full thirty years. Again, something that he hadn’t considered possible: just like the messages that had been hidden in Pompeii. “By whoever finally gets our device working,” Pullus said. “And by the looks of it, they find a way to improve it.”

  They were quite alone. This part of her villa still had the smell of NovusPart. Their equipment meant it couldn’t be Romanised, so the walls remained covered in a drab terracotta gloss, and the only additions to the bare concrete floor were a few small piles of goose shit.

  The NovusPart device sat only a few rooms distant, close to the paradox chamber. Pullus realised he’d never seen it. Not once in fifteen years of living in New Pompeii. He opened his mouth to say something, but found his jaw suddenly locked. It cracked free seconds later, causing him to grimace in pain.

  Calpurnia seemed concerned. “Are you alright?”

  Pullus didn’t know. “Yes… I think so.”

  Calpurnia looked at him sympathetically. “It can be difficult to decipher what the gods – those in the future – want from us,” she said. “You once told me that it sometimes only takes a thought, an off-hand remark, to trigger the solution. And more often than not, it happens inside your head.”

  Pullus looked about him. The only other person in this part of the building would be the Greek. He was likely with the device now, along with Arlen’s research papers, trying to entice its secrets. “I didn’t hide Arlen’s research to stop you from saving your husband,” he said, trying to explain. “I just don’t trust anyone with the timeline. I thought that if I could somehow stop it, somehow keep the device from becoming active, whilst maintaining the illusion to the outside world that you had the power to use it, then—”

  “But we know it does become active.”

  Fate. Maybe it was just as Harris had told him; that events propagate backwards and not forwards. So the device would become active.

  But that was the future. Now it was time to change tack, to show Calpurnia one thing about who really did rule the future. “You must know about the men in the town taking names?”

  Calpurnia nodded. “Habitus is dealing with it,” she said.

  “Why do you think they have a specific interest in finding people called Marcus? The name of your husband and your son?”

  “Habitus is dealing with it,” Calpurnia said again. “And next time you go to Naples, you can tell them they failed again.”

  “We heard a voice from the future,” continued Pullus, feeling at his jaw. “A man calling himself Marcus. And now we have men making a list of names of men with that name.”

  “This isn’t why you’re here.”

  “But why? Surely we know who Marcus is? It’s your son, isn’t it? That’s what everyone thinks. That’s certainly what he thinks.”

  “This isn’t why I brought you here,” Calpurnia said again. “You told the guard you knew how to transport my husband.”

  “I told the guard what you needed to hear. But I need you to consider something…”

  “I don’t have time for your games, Pullus!”

  “Your husband and your son both share the same name. And now there’s men in town making lists.”

  Calpurnia shook her head. “I have the cellphone, Pullus. The phone that called us from the future. You said so yourself.”

  “But you never get to use it,” Pullus replied. “It’s not your name or your voice. Which means that at some point someone takes the NovusPart device from you, or you die of natural causes before it is made to work.”

  For a long time, Calpurnia didn’t say anything. Then she sighed.
“Women just aren’t allowed to rule, are we?”

  Pullus shook his head.

  “My son. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “All we really know is that whoever has been playing with the timeline does so several years from now… and they go by the name of Marcus.”

  “Marcus is a very common name.”

  “Your son certainly thinks it should be him. But what if it’s not?”

  Calpurnia looked like she was going to cry. At first, Pullus assumed she was thinking about her husband. Then it struck him. She’d had Arlen’s research for days and the Greek must have had the opportunity to scan Herculaneum multiple times. But it couldn’t have worked, because Calpurnia’s husband still wasn’t here. And then they would have tried another plan.

  Another option.

  “I think I’ve made a mistake,” she said, her voice shaking. “But Whelan was whispering it. Always whispering it.”

  Pullus felt his throat tighten. Whelan’s face came to mind, his slack jaw, the blackness of his eye sockets. And the single name he’d been whispering over and over. Arlen. “What have you done?”

  “He wouldn’t stop. It’s why we kept him alive for all these years.”

  “Calpurnia…”

  “You only told us gradually, Pullus. About NovusPart. About how Whelan and McMahon eliminated their business partner…” She let out a small sob. “But how could they have done so, Pullus? How could Whelan and McMahon have transported him into the future when they’re both already dead?”

  “Please tell me you haven’t…?”

  “It made sense, Pullus. Safeguards upon safeguards, you said so yourself. And it made me think: what if the inventor became the target of his own device? Why would he risk an incorrect setting ripping him apart like Harris’s brother? The answer is simple: he made sure it wouldn’t. He designed the device so that if he became the target, he would be transported safely.”