To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II)

by Crichton, Edward

  “So, what are you going to do? Kill him when he’s four and can’t fight back?”

  “Who said anything about killing?” I asked, mostly sure he was kidding. “No, I’m going to kidnap him, hold him ransom and stage a coup that will put a proper ruler on the throne. It’s the least I can do for Caligula since there’s no one to blame for his premature death than me.”

  Just as Bordeaux opened his mouth to respond, a wailing woman burst through the door and made a bee line towards Helena and Julia. The older Helena still had her arms around the young girl’s shoulders in a consoling manner, but was quickly abandoned when mother and daughter rushed into each other’s arms. Both were crying tears of happiness as the mother clutched Julia by the head and kissed her forehead and cheeks over and over.

  It was a tender moment and I noticed Helena with a happy but somewhat sad smile on her face, a few tears running down her cheeks. She looked over at me and her smile faltered just slightly, but she composed herself quickly and looked back at the reunited family.

  But their reunion only lasted a few minutes. The mother moved to where Helena sat and planted a few kisses on her cheeks, and made her way over to Bordeaux and me, offering us similar thanks as well. When she reached her hand out to offer me some money, I pushed it away and told her payment was not necessary. The mother hugged me again and gave me another series of kisses before Julia came over to stand beside her mother. She kept her distance from us, but there was a small smile tugging at her lips I had yet to see from her. It was more than I expected from a young woman who must have gone through so much.

  With a last few goodbyes, the two women took their leave of the tavern and were on their way, hopefully back to the relative safety of the Italian peninsula.

  “I see why you do this,” Bordeaux commented as he watched them leave. “Is it always this happy?”

  “Sometimes,” I answered honestly. “Other times, we aren’t doing things nearly so heartwarming and usually our business transactions end with us getting paid. We’ve actually accumulated a good amount of wealth over the years. Need a lone?”

  “No, I’m fine.” He laughed. “Do you deny payment often?”

  “Rarely. Maybe I’m getting soft in my old age.”

  Bordeaux snorted. “Wait till you hit fifty, then you can complain. I’ll be there in a few years,” he informed with a humorous shudder.

  I laughed politely and waited to continue our conversation when Helena sat down between us and scratched her long, unkempt hair.

  “How have you been, Jeanne?” She asked. “Are you a daddy yet?”

  So Bordeaux went through the process of showing her the pictures of his family where she commented about their size just like I had. Her gaze lingered on the picture of his family.

  “You have a beautiful family, Jeanne,” she said. “You should consider yourself lucky.”

  Bordeaux glanced side long at me as he heard the same strain in Helena’s voice I used earlier. “Merci. I already miss them horribly even though I have only been gone a few days.”

  “We’re sorry we had to borrow you,” she told him, “but Jacob thinks this is important. We won’t take up much more of your time.” She looked over at me sternly. “Will we?”

  “No,” I said, giving her a look of my own. “I’ll try to be quick.” I looked Bordeaux square in the eye. “I need you to get the band back together.”

  “What?” He asked, not understanding the Blues Brothers reference.

  “I mean, I need you to find Wang and Vincent and get them to join us in our mission. God knows we could use their help.”

  “You have yet to tell me what this plan of yours even is. Who do you have in mind to replace Agrippina?”

  “Vespasian,” I said immediately. “He was a fine emperor after Nero, and he’s our best candidate now. He’s young, only in his thirties, and word is that he’s just finished up a campaign in Britain and is returning to Germany to campaign there.” I paused. “You should know that in our timeline, Vespasian should still be in Britain for another few years and there never was a campaign of this scale planned for Germany. Probably ever. Things are already changing thanks to the few years of respite we gave Rome after saving them from crazy Caligula, but delivering to them bellicose Agrippina.”

  “So, how do you plan to do all this?”

  I chuckled. “Well, I haven’t actually thought that far ahead yet. I like to let things unravel as they happen. I think it was MacGyver who once said something about how well thought out plans hinders the ability to be flexible and adapt to possible snags.”

  Helena rolled her eyes and held out a hand in my direction. “You see what I’ve had to put up with? All this time he’s been going on about his grand plan to save the universe, but he doesn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Actually,” I said as I gave her another look, annoyed at her interruption and tone, “I do know where to begin. Step one is to contact Galba and come clean.”

  “Galba?” Bordeaux said loudly. “Are you serious? He hates us. What good is that going to do?”

  “We think it’s necessary to get him involved.”

  Helena scoffed, but Bordeaux ignored her.

  “Why?”

  I glanced over at Helena who looked at me expectantly. “Well, some of us buy more stock in this than others, but it may mean less trouble later if we get him involved now.”

  Bordeaux’s expression indicated he was confused.

  “This is all just theory,” I said, trying to clarify things, “but it makes some sense. It goes with the line of reasoning that surrounds Agrippina’s ascension to the throne. In the original timeline, when Caligula was killed, Claudius took over, but in the timeline we now find ourselves in now, Claudius is dead, so when Caligula was killed, who would be the next candidate for the throne?”

  “Agrippina, I guess,” Bordeaux answered. “Especially since Caligula named Nero his direct successor.”

  “Right,” I confirmed. “I believe, however, that it was just Agrippina using her wits to manipulate the situation, while others,” I gestured to Helena with a hand, who looked frustrated, just as she did any time I gave Agrippina any credit, “as well as Santino, believe that some kind of fate is at work here. Our involvement hasn’t changed anything. Agrippina ended up running things because she more or less had a hand in it during our original timeline.”

  “So what does that have to do with Galba?”

  “Between 69 and 70 A.D. there was a civil war after Nero’s suicide. Four men vied for the position and Galba was one of them, as was Vespasian. Otho and Vittelius are the other two, but they were small potatoes. The idea is that if we were to place Vespasian on the throne without dealing with these other people, fate dictates that sooner or later the other three men will step forward and try and take control themselves. What the outcome would be, I have no idea, but there’s no guarantee it would be a better result.” I held out my hands so that my palms faced one another, inches apart, and wiggled them left and right, never touching. “Fate will… I don’t know, realign the timeline back on its original course or something.”

  “So, you think getting Galba on your side now, and having him support Vespasian, will help stop any future conflict between the two?”

  I rolled my eyes. “It’s a theory. We’ll probably have to do something about Otho and Vittelius sooner or later, but I don’t know much about them. They were pretty insignificant in the whole affair anyway. For that matter, so was Galba, but at least we have a relationship with him, even if he doesn’t trust us.”

  Bordeaux leaned back in his chair again and ran a hand across his face. “I think I understand, but what did you mean by ‘come clean?’”

  I looked at Helena, who held out a hand. A ‘this was your idea’ gesture.

  I cleared my throat before continuing. “I intend to tell Galba everything. Where we’re from, why we’re here, how we’re here, Agrippina, Nero, and about his role in the ‘Year of Four Emperors’. I’m s
till working out how I’m going to tell him he ends up losing but I’m hopeful we can get him to realize that by helping Vespasian now, he will be helping Rome in the end.”

  Bordeaux’s jaw hung ajar and he looked to Helena, probably wondering if I had gone crazy. She tossed her hands above her shoulders, breathed an exasperated lungful of air and looked around the room distractedly. I hadn’t even convinced her yet. Perhaps Santino was on to something. Was I creating a problem where there wasn’t one and pushing it on everyone around me?

  “Doesn’t that go against everything you’ve always said we shouldn’t be doing?” Bordeaux asked calmly. “It’s obvious you’re not against interacting with the timeline anymore, but telling Galba, someone who belongs in this part of history about his own future… wouldn’t that have serious repercussions?”

  “I’m honestly not sure. We’re still here though, and we’ve changed a lot of history. If even one of our many ancestors failed to get together, we should have winked out of existence by now. At least if we consider the grandfather paradox a viable time travel thesis. Granted, we may have yet to directly affect our pasts yet, but we’re all descended from Europeans, so there’s no way we haven’t interfered with one ancestor or another by now. That said, I don’t know what will happen if we tell Galba, but I think it’s better we tell him rather than Vespasian.”

  Bordeaux leaned forward, propping himself up on his massive forearms which now rested on the table and once again looked to Helena for support.

  “He makes a good point,” she relented. “As much as I don’t like it, it is our fault things have turned out the way they have. And I don’t like the fact Agrippina is even still alive, let alone an empress.”

  I frowned at her use of the empress’ name. Normally, she always referred to Agrippina as “the slut”, “the whore” or some other negative slur. Helena hated her for more reasons than I could count but especially for how she treated me. If she was no longer angry at Agrippina for that has her opinion of me changed as well?

  We were going to have to talk sooner than I thought.

  “I think I understand,” Bordeaux said. “If Nero is the terror you say he is, it would be in the empire’s best interest, and, yes, I guess we owe it to Caligula.”

  I nodded whole heartedly. “So, do you need anything from us before you go? We still have quite a bit of our supplies left.”

  Bordeaux sat back up in his chair. “I received word from Wang a few years ago. He actually sent me a conventional letter. I’m not sure how it made it to me, but it did.”

  I nodded. The Roman postal service was at least as good as any modern equivalent, just slower.

  “He wrote that he was living in Greece,” Bordeaux continued, “and that he was doing his best to remain inconspicuous, not easy for him as you could imagine. He’s been using his medical background to improve medicinal knowledge in Athens for years now, and he’s excited about his new treatments.

  “I’ll look for him first, and then move east to find Vincent. I’ve had no word from him at all, but he said he’d be making his way to Jerusalem. He should be there by now. I’ll need Santino’s UAV to help in my search. You should know that it could take quite a long time to find them, but I can try and meet you back here in four, maybe five months.”

  I stood. “I appreciate it Jeanne, I really do. With everyone back together, things should go much more smoothly.” I offered him my hand, which he grasped. “We’ll find Galba and work on Nero. By the time you get back here, we should be in position to contact Vespasian and make a deal with Agrippina.”

  “No problem, Jacob. I’ve been meaning to take my family on a vacation.”

  “Just be careful, and work as quickly as you can. We may need to alter the plan at some point.”

  He gave me a smile and tightened his grip on my hand. “Like there was any doubt of that.”

  Pulling on his bag and traveler’s cloak, he leaned over and gave Helena a kiss on the cheek before he left, leaving the two of us alone. We watched him go but Helena quickly spoke up.

  “Do you really think this is going to work?”

  “Why not? If Agrippina can stage a coup, so can I.”

  “What if it’s not necessary?”

  I sighed. “If we don’t…”

  Helena reached out and snatched my hands, the first sign of attention she’d shown me in months. “Damn it, Jacob! You don’t know what to do! You just don’t! You’re doing exactly what you said Vincent did four years ago. You’re messing with people’s lives. You’re changing the past, not fixing it. We don’t need to do anything because it will work itself out on its own.” She leaned in closer. “We can just leave it be. Retire. Let history play itself out without our interference. We can go anywhere, find someplace quiet and live out our lives. We can even bring Sant…”

  I couldn’t take it anymore. I yanked my hands away from hers. “When did you stop trusting me?”

  She leaned back and folded her arms across her chest, her expression still upset.

  “It’s not a matter of trust, Jacob. I simply don’t want us throwing away our lives for nothing.”

  “Open your eyes, Helena! We screwed up. We altered the timeline and we need to fix it. There’s no mystical force out there that’s going to set it straight for us. You think God’s going to help out? You know as well as I, that’s not how He works. The only way to fix anything is to do it ourselves. If things turn out for the better, so be it. At least my conscience will be appeased.”

  She didn’t interrupt me as she sat there, her arms still folded, her expression unchanged, so I pressed on. “Put everything aside except Caligula. What about him? He’s proof everything we do here can change history. Without a competent emperor doing competent things for the next fifteen years, things will go from bad to worse.”

  She almost laughed. “Anything can happen in fifteen years. Even if you are right, that’s a long time for someone to avoid an accident, fail to make enemies, do something stupid, or have a change of heart.”

  “And you’re willing to just let…” I cringed at the word I had to use, “fate right all our wrongs for us?”

  “Call it faith, Jacob. One man can’t change the fate of the entire world on his own.”

  I came up short with my next reply. It was a profound sentiment, one that made almost too much sense, but as much as I wanted to believe her, I couldn’t.

  Just as I opened my mouth to answer, Santino meandered into the tavern with his young barmaid on his arm. She left him with a kiss and made her way back to her duties while he moved over to our table.

  “Can you try to trust me just a little bit longer, Helena?”

  She didn’t answer.

  Santino sat down and put his booted feet up on the table. “So? What’d I miss?”

  “Bordeaux decided to help us,” I reported while Helena looked away. “He’s going to find Wang and Vincent and meet us back here in a few months.”

  “Let me guess. He bought into your whole, ‘save the universe’ plan, eh?”

  “Actually, he did. I’ve always liked him.”

  “You like anybody who agrees with you.”

  I glanced at Helena. “Yeah, I guess I do. But who wouldn’t?”

  “So, what’s the plan?”

  “Screw things up even more,” Helena mumbled under her breath, and I couldn’t help but wonder, somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind, if she was right.

  ***

  On the second morning after our meeting with Bordeaux, we headed north, following the Rhone River before turning east, looking for the Rhine. The past few nights with Helena had been awkward, but so had the past few months. No further attempts to discuss our issues had arisen, but our bed had been shared like two boyhood friends forced to sleep in the same bed by an overbearing mother. Once on the road, the three of us traveled in silence, the distance between us greater than ever, but we were professionals. We spent the time analyzing all the available intelligence we had on Rome’s militar
y situation.

  Word on the street was that Vespasian had been appointed to the rank of legate, and sent to serve under another Roman during the campaign in Britannia with the Legio II Augusta. The rumors indicated that he had performed well in Britannia, more so than expected, and it hadn’t been long before he was granted another commission, and an army of his own to command in Germany.

  Everything was going according to my knowledge of Roman history, except pretty much nothing.

  Most of what I knew about Vespasian was based on Suetonius, a risky source at best, but I was pretty sure he was supposed to retire and disappear from public life for a number of years after campaigning in Britannia, an operation orchestrated by Claudius in the original timeline, only to be recalled into the military to deal with the Jewish revolt in the east in 66 A.D. Agrippina, apparently, had other plans for him. It was a shrewd strategy. There hadn’t been progress in Germany since Julius Caesar had crossed the Rhine, only to coming back across just as quickly without venturing very far. The only noteworthy news in the area after Caesar was the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where three legions were annihilated under the command of Quinctilius Varus. If Agrippina had plans to expand the empire, going there was the logical, if not dangerous, choice and appointing Vespasian was another.

  We’d also heard from passing Romans, whose tongues were quite lucid after a few drinks and a scantily clad Helena, that Galba had been assigned to Vespasian’s command team. After The Battle for Rome four years ago, Galba had gone back to Germany to retrain the nearly destroyed Legio XV Primigenia after it had helped Caligula reclaim his imperial power. Later, he had been made governor of the Iberian Peninsula, another historical consistency.

  I wasn’t sure why he had chosen to serve under a relative upstart like Vespasian, but I had a bad feeling it had something to do with our involvement. As far as I knew, until 69 A.D., Galba’s life was fairly mundane, but since our arrival forced him into a civil war, and a bloody battle outside the gates of Rome, maybe we had piqued his interest in war a bit and now he was itching for a fight.