Marine 2: A Very Unusual Roman (The Agent of time)

by Tanya Allan

“Three.”

  “Four.”

  “I don’t know, I tell you!” he sounded desperate.

  Rowena leant on her shaft and he screamed before anything could happen.

  “What do you know?” I asked.

  “Nothing!”

  “I doubt that. Let’s start from the top; what’s your name?”

  Just like the man from Abingdon, this man knew very little. I gleaned his name and time of origin; he was Howard Marshall from Gloucester in the nineteen eighties. Having returned from South Africa as a child with his parents after the war, he’d dabbled in various jobs and ended up starting his bespoke archers’ workshop, making longbows to specific orders. He worked with a fletcher who made the arrows and found a niche market amongst the growing trend of old war reenactors.

  Recruited by Armes (although he knew him as Richard Carpenter) for a unique opportunity to train others to do what he could do, he found himself in a very strange place. It was only later he discovered he was in the middle-ages and they were recruiting archers to teach others how to be archers.

  He was wholly out of place, and knew nothing about who instigated this action or why.

  All the torture in the world would not glean any more intelligence from him; except, perhaps….

  “Who is or was Tariq Al-Sharma?”

  He looked worried now. His lips drew tight, as he clenched his buttocks.

  “One; two; three;…”

  “He was the overall commander of our venture.”

  “Over Carpenter?”

  “Yes. Carpenter reported to him.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  “He came in towards the end of the preparation period and assessed whether we were ready.”

  “When is he from?”

  “I don’t know, but he was unused to firearms. I think he was from earlier than us.”

  “Is there anyone else you remember but was not with you during the fighting?”

  He shook his head.

  “What will you do with me?”

  “Well, my best guess is you will end up in Rome in the Circus Maximus. If however, you remember anything important, that could change.”

  I walked off to let him think about that.

  Rowena called out. “What do I do with him?”

  “Tie him up and hide him for a while.”

  “Hide him; why?”

  “If they come to rescue him, I don’t want him found.”

  She grinned and started to untie him. The fight was gone from him, and he was weeping. I think the mental picture of the circus in Rome and the occasional lion was giving him a hard time.

  I was almost back to where Gaius was when I heard the first shot.

  Knowing instantly that someone had brought a gun to a knife fight, I was worried. Ducking low, I ran to where the wagons still stood with all the longbows stacked. I grabbed a bow and a handful of arrows in a quiver.

  I could hear Iona shouting for the girls to keep in cover and use their bows. Two more loud shots came from close by.

  I was in the darkness of some scrub and trees, inching forwards on my belly – marine fashion.

  The longbow is not a weapon to be fired from the prone position, and so I needed to be upright and in some form of cover.

  I glanced up. The conifer next to me was tall and had branches almost like a ladder. I slung the bow over my shoulder and made as rapid ascent as I could.

  I could see the area below. Armes/Carpenter was still strung up. Gaius was crouched down behind a barrel with his sword drawn and Fabius was lying on his front with blood pooling around him. Two unknown men were lying on their sides with arrows in their bodies and what appeared to be handguns lay useless on the ground next to them.

  The sentries had done their job.

  Armes was shouting to let his friends know where he was, so I made a decision and notched my first arrow. I was not as good at this as I thought, and hit him in the throat.

  My second hit him in the chest.

  He died never knowing that we knew who he was.

  I have no idea as to their retrieval system, but without the bracelets, I guess it was somewhat haphazard, but I suspect that I’ll see him again, sometime.

  Now I could concentrate on the intruders.

  They moved well, so unlike the others, these were trained. This time they did not wear silly cloaks, but plain black clothing. The weapons they carried were simple, locally-made black powder guns such as Armes had carried. One shot wonders, I called them.

  Someone moved to my left. I notched and followed him. He was on his belly, inching forward to see into where they held the now dead Armes.

  I shot him in the back. He slumped down, dropping his unfired gun onto the ground. A shot came, the bullet zinging past me, clipping the branches. They could see me, so I hightailed down the tree as rapidly as I ascended. Another shot slammed into the trunk by my hand. I was down. I rolled over the dead man, scooping up his gun.

  I arrived next to Gaius, who regarded me with some alarm.

  “What manner of weapon is this?”

  “Don’t ask; they’re cheating.”

  “You know of them?”

  “I’ve heard of them.”

  “Who are these men?”

  “I honestly don’t know, but once they see he’s dead, they will leave.”

  “What about the other man?”

  “He’s safely hidden.”

  “They will seek him out.”

  “That will be unwise. I’ve got all the girls in the woods with bows. I don’t care how many guns they have, they are at a distinct disadvantage.”

  Another shot came from the bushes to the left, followed by a very masculine scream of pain, or was it fear?

  Possibly both.

  I looked at Armes’ body. It was a pity, but I had no way of getting him back to my people. I wondered how he managed to escape from them after I had handed them to James in the eighteen hundreds.

  “Come on, we’re sitting ducks here, let’s get into the dark!”

  Clearly, the rescuers were determined to either take their own home, or ensure they didn’t talk by despatching them. I had done their job for them with Armes, albeit I’m sure they have preferred him to have been wearing the bracelet.

  Now they sought the other man. An occasional shot rang out, signifying they were still trying.

  “Iona, sweep forward in line abreast, shoot anything that moves!” I shouted in Brigante.

  “Aye!”

  “What?” asked Gaius.

  “We wait here, they will drive the rest towards us.”

  “You will kill them with that?” he asked, nodding toward the gun.

  I looked down at it. It was a flintlock with a protective cover to the flash-pan. The cover was open and whatever powder that had been in the pan was now either gone or damp. This was useless without spare powder.

  I smashed it against a convenient rock.

  “Why do that?”

  “Believe me; you guys aren’t ready for this stuff yet. Besides, you are efficient enough with what you have.”

  We then heard the shrillness of a whistle being blown and one word being shouted – the word ‘Emperor’ in Arabic.

  “What?” asked Gaius.

  “The emperor, where is he?”

  “In the town, not far from here.”

  “They mean to kill him, we must stop them.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  How desperate must they be to flagrantly breach the laws of time? They must know the serious repercussions that such an act would initiate.

  My people would know that their attempt to defeat Trajan’s army had failed, but would they know about this act of temporal terrorism? I had no way of knowing, so had to treat this as if I was on my own.

  Giving Iona the task of rounding up and catching those who might be trapped in the forest, I made sure that she knew to check for devices and remove any bracelets.

  “Collect any of their weapons and loc
k them safely away. They have to be destroyed – all of them!” I said, slinging the bow around my shoulders. I added several arrows to my quiver. I still had my sword, but I earnestly wished for a Colt .45.

  To give her due credit, Iona simply nodded and did not ask me why. I felt she was becoming increasingly convinced that I was on a divine mission and was indeed a goddess.

  I had, as far as she was concerned, correctly foretold the future on so many occasions that she had only one logical explanation open to her, and I did not have the time to argue.

  Gaius and I rode like the wind. He had informed a centurion as to what we were doing, so relied on him to gather some cavalry to follow as soon as they could. It was pointless, for they would all be defenceless against firearms.

  Trajan was now somewhere in the fallen city. Scores of captives were being led away, while other captives were digging mass graves for those who were less fortunate. Women and children were not spared the wrath of Rome, and many were now being marched into slavery.

  The bodies of several women, who had obviously been raped, lay where they had been abused, and I felt an anger burn inside me. I did not have time to quibble or judge. War is war and atrocities had always been committed and always would, regardless which epoch we happened to be in. The problem with war is that the history is traditionally recorded by those who win, so they conveniently forget to record the atrocities committed by the winners.

  Take WW2; the war crimes committed by the Nazis were publically paraded before the world at Nuremberg. However, the allies, in particularly the Russians, were spared such exposure. However, it became clear quite shortly after hostilities ceased that their excesses were as bad, if not worse than those committed by the Germans.

  The Romans always made an example of those who they defeated as a policy to deter others from resisting or threatening the rule of Rome.

  Such was the confusion that we had to leave our horses and continue on foot.

  A centurion we asked informed us that the Emperor was in the building that had been Decebalus’ last headquarters. He pointed at the largest building around, so we headed that way.

  “What can we do?” Gaius asked.

  “What we can.”

  “If these weapons penetrate armour what can we do against them?”

  “Look, these weapons are not infallible. They are restricted more than they are not. The holder must be within twenty paces or less to be sure of a possible kill shot, and a moving target is harder to hit than a static one. They need good light and a dry environment otherwise they might as well throw the damn thing in the general direction.

  There were a couple of dead sentries at the entrance to the building. Their cloaks denoted them as members of the Praetorians, and the small bullet wounds denoted their manner of killing.

  “They’re already here!” I said, kneeling by the first man. The body was still warm.

  I took my bow and notched an arrow. We entered the building, to find that lit torches were on stands at frequent intervals. The poor light was to our advantage.

  “Grab the thickest shield you can find. The chances are the calibre is large and the velocity is low.”

  “And that means what, exactly?”

  “Okay, the missile will be quite big, but the power behind it won’t be that much. It means that a shield might not stop it, but it will slow it down to reduce it from being a potential kill shot to a mere wound.”

  Why don’t I feel relieved to hear that?”

  I grinned.

  Another Roman guard was down in the corridor. He was not dead, but bleeding from a nasty wound in the abdomen.

  “How many of them?” I asked.

  He groaned in pain, frowning as he tried to think through his discomfort.

  “Six, I think. They came out of nowhere. They were not soldiers, for they had no weapons, but one pointed something at me and it spat flame and made a loud noise. What was it?”

  “Something that shouldn’t be here. Did they each have one or two weapons?”

  He shook his head to denote he didn’t know.

  I heard a shot coming from somewhere to our left. We left the wounded man and headed towards the noise. Three Praetorian legionaries came running towards us from another corridor to the right; they looked confused.

  Gaius immediately told them what was happening.

  “Assassins are after the emperor, follow us!”

  In the absence of another senior officer, they fell in line behind us. They had pila and shields.

  “If you see them and they are carrying small black devices in their hands, get behind the nearest stone wall or pillar. Also, get down low, on the ground if you can. They can kill you from twenty paces away!” he said. I smiled at him; he was learning quickly.

  “Where is the bastard?” was shouted in Arabic somewhere ahead of us.

  “They can’t find him, so we’re in time!” I explained.

  We entered an inner courtyard, to see two dead Romans on the floor, and three men in robes kicking a locked door. They were not dressed in Roman uniform. Two were kicking at the door, and the third was facing us, obviously covering his colleagues.

  I killed the man as he started to raise his gun towards us. My arrow took him in the chest, causing him to fall back, dropping his gun. It went off as it hit the floor, chipping the pillar to the left and making his friends aware of us.

  “Spread out, don’t offer them any targets!” I shouted, diving behind an overturned table.

  Another shot came, and I heard something thump into the table.

  There was a balcony above us, and I saw two more men dressed in flowing robes running along it, checking the rooms that led off the landing.

  Notching another arrow, the men above were not aware of us, or ignored us in their quest to find Trajan. I waited and loosed an arrow as one of the men stopped to check another door.

  He squealed as the arrow penetrated deep into his left shoulder. He spun round, caring a gun in his good hand. He sought me in the gloom, but in my position he couldn’t see me in the shadows. My second arrow hit him in the neck and he slid down making a gurgling noise. His colleague picked up his gun and swore, still in Arabic.

  I risked a peek around the table to see the men were almost through the door. I loosed another arrow and hit one of the men in the back.

  “Pila! Throw your pila!” I shouted at the legionaries.

  Without looking to see how successful they were, I leaped onto the large chest and clambered up to the balcony. The man I had shot lay where he had fallen. There was no sign of the other man.

  If six had come in, then two were unaccounted for. I still had no idea where Trajan was. I ran along the balcony, glancing down briefly to see that the last man was impaled by two pila and Gaius was looking up at me.

  “Where is he?” I yelled.

  One of the legionaries said something.

  Gaius pointed to the end of the balcony.

  “That way; we will come up the stairs and meet you!”

  I found another man down- a Praetorian. His sword was drawn and it had blood on it, but he had been shot in the chest. The breastplate had taken the brunt of the blow, but he was injured.

  He regarded me, grimacing in pain.

  “Who are they?” he asked.

  “Nasty men. How many?”

  “Three. I think I got one.”

  Okay, that meant the original report of six was not right. So we had no idea of actually how many there really were.

  “Where is the emperor?”

  He nodded down the landing towards the last door.

  “What is there?”

  “Stairs down to the baths.”

  “Baths?”

  “The emperor was having a bath.”

  “How many guards?”

  “No more, just with his secretary.”

  My smutty mind immediately thought of the sexual context. However, that meant he would not be wearing armour, so would be doubly vulnerable.


  Cursing I ran on, and through the door. Stairs led downwards, so with an arrow notched, I carefully and silently descended.

  The double door at the bottom was open. I could see only darkness beyond. That was not an advantage for a man with a gun.

  Praising the technology of the Time Patrol, I knew my enhanced senses gave me not night vision exactly, but something that was vastly improved over normal eyesight.

  I slipped through the door, keeping low in case there was anyone guarding the doorway. No one was, so I tried to hear some clue as to where they might be.

  I rounded a corner, again low with the bow ready. A shot echoed alarmingly loud in the confined space and plaster chipped off the wall inches from my head. A man sat on the floor pointing his now empty gun at me.

  I did not hesitate and shot him in the chest. When I reached him, I saw that he had a nasty sword slack across his chest. The praetorian had got one good strike in!

  He was still alive, so I raised his wrist and tore off his bracelet.

  “Who are you?” he asked, frothy blood came from his mouth, so I knew his had a lung wound.

  “Emperor Trajan’s secret weapon,” I said, and drew my sword. He was dead before I could finish him. Two to go.

  Curious, I picked up his empty gun. Like the others, it was a flintlock. I quickly searched him and found powder and shot in a small pouch. I did not have time to load the damn thing, so I stuck the gun in my belt and popped the pouch strap over my shoulder.

  I heard running from behind me. Notching another arrow, I was ready when Gaius and two more men came round the corner.

  “What took you so long?” I asked.

  “How many more?”

  “Two I think.”

  A shot rang out from the chamber at the end.

  We burst through the door into inky darkness. I could hear the noise of water, so imagined that here was the bath house. I had no idea as to the size, shape or depth of the pool, nor of what the layout was. Someone had extinguished whatever lights that had been in here.

  I could hear movement to my left.

  “Stay here and guard the door,” I said to Gaius. “Don’t let anyone leave.”

  I inched forward, trying to see anything. Gradually, my enhanced sight picked up the vague luminescence of the water, and as I progressed, my foot came into contact with something on the floor.