Synchronic: 13 Tales of Time Travel

by Michael Bunker

  My thoughts were such a blur that I barely noticed when someone else sat down at my table, facing me and resting her long fingers on the tabletop. It wasn’t until she cleared her throat that I looked up—and stared. She was timeless, her face both stern and beautiful. Her hair fell around her face like a halo, distracting me from her smile. She was so beautiful that I found it hard to look at her directly.

  “I read your paper,” she said. There was something faintly Italian about her accent, something that sent shivers down my spine. “Do you really believe Pompey could have made a difference?”

  I don’t normally defend my research papers to anyone, apart from my supervisors, much less a complete stranger, but her faintly mocking tone goaded me to respond. I never even questioned who gave her my paper, I just launched into full-on defense mode, going point by point through my entire thesis, claiming that Pompey was the man with the right vision at the right time to save the Roman Republic from Caesar and Augustus. It felt like I went on for hours. And then I told her that if I had been there, I could have steered Pompey toward saving the Republic.

  “Really?” she said, musingly. “Could you have even talked to him?”

  I nodded. “I speak Latin.”

  “Not the right sort of Latin,” she said. “But you will. Never let it be said that I didn’t give you a fair chance. Or that you didn’t ask for it.”

  I opened my mouth to ask what she meant, but it was too late. She jabbed a finger at me—and the world went away in a flash of blinding light. And then there was commotion all around me. Men were staring, rooted to the floor in shock…

  “Well,” a thick voice demanded. “Who are you?”

  I looked up… and found myself staring into the face of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, otherwise known as Pompey the Great.

  He wasn’t quite what I’d expected, certainly nothing like anyone from my time. He was clearly old, yet there was a youthful determination in his posture that reminded me that he’d definitely struggled hard to keep in shape and share the privations of his legionnaires. His famous blond hair was going gray, but the quiff he wore in an attempt to imitate Alexander was firmly in place. Did Rome have hair dye? I honestly couldn’t recall.

  “I’m… I’m Julia,” I said. Too late, I remembered that Julia had been the name of his late wife. His face darkened for a long moment, then faded back into inscrutability. “I was sent to aid you.”

  Pompey’s gaze swept the room. “Out,” he said. Two of his guards made to protest, but he silenced them with a look. “Leave us.”

  He waited until everyone was gone, then turned his gaze on me.

  “Explain,” he ordered.

  And so I did.

  * * *

  Pompey was very far from stupid. He might not have understood all I tried to tell him about the modern world, but he understood the opportunity I was offering him. And, as I’d arrived in a flash of light, he seemed quite willing to believe that I was a gift from the goddess Venus herself. But it wasn’t going to be easy. Caesar had crossed the Rubicon a day or two earlier.

  I’d honestly never quite grasped just how long it took for news to flow from one part of the Roman Empire to another. The Roman Empire seemed so small by the standards of the British Empire, but because the Romans didn’t have any form of fast travel or communication a Roman commander might be out of touch with the Senate for years, and an army might arrive hard on the heels of the messengers warning of its arrival. By the time I’d convinced Pompey to listen to me, Caesar’s army of veterans was already heading toward Rome.

  But Pompey had known that, of course. His plan to leave Italy and retreat to the east was still good—after all, it had come very close to success. My sanction—and that of the Goddess—was all he needed to overcome a handful of lingering doubts. It helped that he wasn’t fool enough to believe untrained men a match for Caesar’s legionaries.

  It would have gone perfectly, I thought, if it hadn’t been for the interference from the Senate. I wasn’t allowed to meet with them, but I heard enough muttering from Pompey to understand that the Senate was torn in two. The whole idea of abandoning Italy was horrifying to them, and some of the idiots wanted to make a stand. Cato, in particular, was stubbornly refusing to budge. It took all of Pompey’s powers of persuasion—and a threat to resign—to get the Senate moving southward to a point where they could take ship. By then, Caesar was hot on our heels.

  The Romans weren’t quite sure what to make of me, particularly the ones who hadn’t seen my arrival. I’d forgotten—or, rather, I’d overlooked—just how misogynist the Romans were, particularly the stubborn old traditionalists. Famous Roman men are famous for the right reasons; famous Roman women are famous for being… well, sluts and whores, and for daring to put themselves on the same level as men. It was maddening to discover that I wasn’t allowed to attend war councils, even though my knowledge of what had happened in my past was effectively foreknowledge of the future. I spent far too much of my time in a cart or a restricted handful of houses as we made our way southward. If it hadn’t been for Pompey’s wife, who was a good-natured woman, I suspect I would have gone insane. And Pompey, for all his faults, genuinely loved her. For some reason, the Romans snickered about this behind his back.

  But we made it to the ships and escaped before Caesar could lower the boom. I didn’t blame Pompey for running, even though some historians alleged that Pompey could have won if he’d turned and fought. I watched from my cabin as we left Italy behind and headed east, leaving Caesar with an empty treasury—I’d convinced Pompey to take the treasure with us—and a countryside stripped of everything it needed to feed itself. Pompey’s ruthlessness, alas, had not echoed down through history as much as it should have.

  The sea voyage was absolutely terrifying. There was nothing like it in the modern world, certainly not in my experience. No GPS, no outboard motors, nothing but sails or rowers powering us through the water. I looked in at the slaves and shuddered in horror when I saw them chained to the benches, providing the power to keep us moving. They were utterly broken, following orders and little else. And the stench was appalling. I tried to explain to Pompey that slavery was wrong, but he just looked at me blankly. He didn’t even comprehend what I was trying to tell him.

  It was easy to say, I realized grimly, that the Romans had a more progressive view of slavery than the Confederated States of America. They did; it wasn’t uncommon for a slave to be freed, then start rising in the ranks of Rome. But for every slave who made it, there were a hundred who lived and died as slaves—either taken as captives by the Romans, or simply born into slavery. Nor were there any laws governing the treatment or mistreatment of slaves. A slave had no rights, no freedoms. Being worked to death—or raped—was also far from uncommon.

  By the time we reached our destination, I was almost a nervous wreck. Pompey, of course, was disgustingly enthusiastic as he strode ashore and started issuing orders, rallying the troops and his loyal clients from Asia to his banner. His wife took me with the other wives; half of them were boring, while the other half spent most of their time calculating ways to advance their husbands’ careers. But it wasn’t easy for a woman to wield any overt influence in Rome. A man who paid too much attention to his wife would become a laughingstock.

  But Pompey listened to me, enough that we could start planning a trap for Caesar. When the rogue general crossed the waters in pursuit, we were waiting. A sea battle in the ancient world was a chaotic affair, and Caesar himself managed to slip out of our grasp, but we sank a number of his ships and killed a vast number of his men. Naturally, he landed anyway, as we’d blocked his line of retreat. And then we started to advance toward his base camp.

  At first, the battle didn’t go our way. Caesar’s men were far more experienced than ours, even though we had far more men to use in combat. The battle might have been lost, if Caesar and his men weren’t so badly drained. But we hung on, and two weeks later, we launched a second offensive, forcing Caesar to r
etreat. This time, there was no food for him to take from the land, and the local cities all closed their doors to him. He was in the middle of trying to storm one city when Pompey’s armies finally caught up with him. It was a savage battle, but—pinned against a sealed city—the outcome was never in doubt.

  I’d long lost any hope of the Senate being graceful in victory, yet they managed to shock even Pompey by their attitude toward Caesar and his men. Caesar’s body was dragged out from where it had fallen, and was then dismembered, while his men were summarily executed or sold into slavery. There was no honorable treatment of the defeated. Even the Romans who had fought beside Caesar received the same brutal treatment. Afterward, when the killing was finally done, Pompey cried in his tent. Caesar and he had been bound together by ties of friendship and love—he’d married Caesar’s daughter—and part of him would always regret the outcome.

  “They forced him into fighting or dying,” he told me afterward. “They wanted him dead—and they got their wish.”

  I knew he was right. Caesar had been confronted with a choice between fighting or going to his execution like a lamb to the slaughter. How could anyone blame him for fighting?

  * * *

  Our return to Rome was more like a victory parade than anything else. Mark Antony, who had remained behind in Rome as Caesar’s deputy, didn’t have the forces to put up a fight, particularly with the whole country turning against him. Instead of trying to hold Rome, he took his loyalists and headed northward, back to Gaul. Pompey and the Senate marched back into the city, took control of the fortifications, and returned to their homes without a fight. And then the killing began.

  I’d only heard whispers from the other women—and grumbles from Pompey—about how the senators had carefully planned their return, divvying up positions of power and the estates of those they considered rebels. Now blood washed the streets of Rome as the victors wreaked their revenge on the vanquished. Cato, stern and unyielding, pressed for the sternest of measures against the defeated, removing hundreds of men from the senatorial rolls for not having been enthusiastic enough about the war. Others were killed simply because they had land and property the victors wanted. Rome hadn’t seen anything like it since the days of Sulla. And Sulla had reshaped the world.

  I bore some of the guilt, I knew. I had named many who would serve Caesar in future—and many who would serve Augustus after he became the first true emperor of Rome. Augustus himself—Octavius, as he was at the time—was brutally murdered, even though he was just a sickly youth. I tried to convince Pompey to spare some of the men I knew would have talent, but he was remorseless. And so was the Senate. The warnings from the goddess would be heeded.

  It was harder for me to follow the politics, once the war was won and we were back in Rome. I no longer had any foresight, now that history had changed. Pompey seemed… well, not entirely unwilling to listen to me, but not quite willing to take everything I said on faith either. I was, after all, a woman. No matter how much I tried to talk him into making changes Rome desperately needed, he refused to listen, or was unable to make the changes. I couldn’t help thinking that the defeat of Caesar had changed nothing.

  And we had enemies. Pompey, as was his wont, had disbanded most of his armies once we had returned to Rome, keeping only a handful of legions in being to hunt down Mark Antony and secure control over Gaul. His enemies had seen this as a display of weakness, a sign the great and old man could be brought down. Cato and Cicero, unlikely allies, had combined their forces to cripple Pompey. They feared powerful citizens, I knew, but they feared powerful women much more.

  “I hate the Queen,” Cicero said, bluntly. No one doubted that he meant me.

  But what else was I supposed to do? Be a good little Roman woman: seen but not heard? I hated the restrictions on my life imposed on me by my gender; they might have thought I was a gift from a goddess, but I was still a woman. Pompey wanted to keep me close—and the Roman Senate sniggered about that too—and yet he didn’t quite seem to know what to make of me. I tried to teach him ideas that might help Rome—everything from the English alphabet to primitive steam engines—but he never listened. And he found the whole idea of democracy laughable.

  I didn’t understand until after his wife died. Pompey wasn’t interested in raw power, unlike either Caesar or Sulla. He wanted acceptance. He wanted the confirmation that he was part of the Senate and the people of Rome. And the Senate, torn between jealousy of his achievements and fear of his power, was unwilling to clasp him to its bosom. By the time Pompey gave up the thought of marrying a senator’s daughter and offered to marry me instead, I understood just how thoroughly they hated him.

  The Romans had no real concept of political parties, certainly not in the modern sense. Political life in Rome was an endless struggle between individuals: everyone wanted to rise to the top, while everyone else wanted to drag them down. Rome had a long history of fearing men with power; every time a Roman General was no longer needed, his enemies would turn on him and unseat him from power. No wonder Scorpio wanted to be buried in Greece. His ungrateful country had turned on him after Carthage was safely destroyed.

  Marriage to Pompey was odd. He doted on me, just as much as he had doted on his other wives, but he still didn’t listen. And it was frustrating as hell to watch while Rome slowly turned against the man who’d saved it more than once.

  The next political catfight started after Mark Antony smashed two legions in quick succession and started threatening to advance—once again—on Rome. I didn’t understand why they didn’t simply give the command to Pompey. He might have been old, even by modern standards, but he was still as sharp as ever. Besides, nothing I’d seen or read had given me much regard for Antony’s abilities as a general. Unless the Romans of old had been right, I conceded, and Cleopatra had indeed sapped his strength. But, whatever the truth, it hardly mattered. All that mattered was parrying Antony before he could threaten Rome. In the end, they gave the command to an up-and-coming senator, someone who wanted a military command to burnish his chances of future glory. For the Romans, that was quite understandable. They had no concept of separating the military from the civilian sphere.

  I didn’t know him. It struck me, from time to time, just how many Romans I didn’t know, but this one should have been recognizable. My best guess was that he had been a very junior aristocrat who’d died during the war against Caesar, back in the original timeline. But it didn’t really matter. Pompey and I watched as he led his troops out of the city and headed north—and then we went back to our home. For the first time, it struck me just how old Pompey truly was. He was reaching the end of a long and very eventful life.

  But the Senate gave him no peace. They hounded him relentlessly. For the first time, there were suggestions of inquires into the source of Pompey’s staggering wealth, the exact terms of the settlement in Asia, even the truth behind my appearance. I watched as Pompey grew older and grayer with every new attack, as if he’d lost the spark that had kept him going.

  And then word came from the north. Antony had won yet another battle, and Rome herself was threatened once again.

  And what did the Senate do? They called for Pompey.

  Pompey was tired, but not unwilling to serve. He amassed a new army, placed his oldest son in a high position (his youngest had gone into the navy, on my recommendation), and gathered a hundred other young aristocrats to help him lead. One of them was Brutus, which should have worried me more than it did. But Brutus was loyal to the Republic, and so, in his way, was Pompey. He worked hard, harder than anyone else, to build up a colossal army, one capable of beating Antony by weight of numbers. Pompey might not have been a great general, lacking the flair Caesar had brought to the battlefield, but he was an organizational genius, all the more impressive for lacking computers, radios, or anything else a modern general would take for granted. By the time he led his army out of Rome, it was the most powerful and capable army Rome had sent into the field since the end of th
e Civil War.

  I stayed behind. The battlefield, Pompey said, was no place for a woman. And, besides, I was in no danger if I remained in Rome. Women might be considered second-class citizens at best, but they were rarely harmed, no matter who their husbands were or what they had done. But still, I wanted to be there.

  News filtered back slowly—very slowly. There had been a battle and Pompey had won. Mark Antony had been killed. The last traces of Caesar’s faction had been stamped out. And then the shit really hit the fan.

  It was nearly a week before all of the pieces fell into place. The Senate had seen a chance to get rid of two birds with one stone. As soon as Pompey had won the battle, Brutus and his allies had surrounded him and stabbed my husband to death. They hadn’t known, of course, that that was how they would kill Caesar in the original timeline. Instead, in the world I had created, they killed Pompey instead. But they’d reckoned without his son. Pompey the Younger had killed the assassins, rallied the army, and was now marching on Rome. And the Senate had nothing to put in his path.

  They came for me, of course. I didn’t try to fight as they bound my hands and led me through the streets to Rome’s very first prison, built right next to the Senate House. Instead, I just waited as they put me into a cell and left me there, perhaps intending to try to use me as a hostage. Somehow, I found it hard to care.

  And then, when the doors opened, I saw her standing there.

  But I was beyond shock at that point. An odd detachment had fallen over my mind. If they’d dragged me out for execution, I wouldn’t have resisted. Instead, I just waited to see what would happen.

  “Come with me,” she said.