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

by Crichton, Edward

  Venus had never really been portrayed as a war-like goddess. That was more Minerva or Diana’s territory, but according to Homer, she had fought in the Trojan War, and was even wounded by the Greek king Diomedes after he was divinely influenced by Minerva’s powerful touch.

  That said, despite her nakedness and warrior-like demeanor in the sculpture, I think the reason Santino really wanted that particular piece for his imaginary bathroom was because she was squatting and her face appeared as though trapped in a very tense moment.

  This time, I couldn’t help but smile at my friend’s crude sense of humor.

  I surveyed the rest of the room. It was large, almost the size of a tennis court, and at the far end of the room, set flush against the farthest rear wall of the ship, was a gargantuan bed. It was bigger than any I had ever seen and sat atop an elevated platform above the deck, complete with three steps leading up to it. Along the rear wall was a large open window as long as the room was wide, cut in a way that produced a number of long, wooden bars that ran horizontally along the window, a security measure that would keep both animal and interloper from entering.

  Such windows dotted the exterior of the ship at various locations and elevations.

  Draped with a fine lace netting that served as both decoration and bug control, the window allowed a large bright swath of moonlight to fall on the bed’s lone sleeping figure.

  In the time it took me to process the imagery, and hold my small conversation with Santino, the two of us had walked about half way through the room. Reaching that point, I was able to identify the sleeping form as Agrippina. A very naked Agrippina. Lying on her back, her arms were sprawled out alongside her head in a sensual manner and her legs were spread just slightly.

  I couldn’t believe how much corruptible sexual energy permeated throughout the room. The place was sexier than the most high end strip club on the planet. The level of sensuality was so intense that I found staying focused difficult.

  “Watch the door,” I told Santino, taking another step towards Agrippina.

  “What? Not this time, buddy. Agrippina’s legal.”

  “Just do it.”

  He looked at me sourly. “Just don’t do anything stupid,” he mumbled.

  I pulled up short, pausing for a moment to reflect on his comment. Usually, that was something I would say to him, not the other way around. Did he really believe I was going to do something I’d later regret or was he just being himself? Santino wasn’t one to provide deep insights or clever observations during adult conversations, but he had been known to offer insightful commentary in very specific moments in the past. Often, such comments would call for considerable reflection later on.

  I shook my head and made my way to the raised platform that held Agrippina’s large bed. It was situated four steps higher than the rest of the room and turned her sleeping area into a type of throne to receive dignitaries from. It seemed appropriate for her, but I wasn’t about to remain at the foot of the steps and allow her to pass judgment on me.

  I crept into the room slowly, each step I took landing first on the outside of my foot before rolling flat. Even in a wetsuit, the practice of walking on your outsole was still the best practice for silent movement, and after another twenty paces, I reached Agrippina’s platform. I could see her nude form in front and above me, but I could not yet see her face, as it was turned towards the bulkhead behind her. I glanced one last time at Santino, who had dutifully taken up position by the door, crouching, and waiting for trouble.

  I climbed each step carefully, hoping to avoid a creak in the wooden floorboards beneath my feet. With one last step, my silent climb was complete, and I inwardly thanked all those tireless Roman engineers and carpenters who managed to build a set of stairs that didn’t make a sound.

  Agrippina was now fully visible, the movement of her chest and abdomen smoothly dancing to the rhythm of her soft breathes. Her eyes fluttered deep in sleep and I wondered what a woman like her dreamt about. I stared at her, a great many ideas drifting into my mind, but I dismissed them and reached out a hand to smother her mouth. I didn’t want her screaming before I questioned…

  Something was wrong. Light shimmered and rippled across her prone form, a blue hue that made her skin appear like the serene flow of an ocean. I’d assumed the illusion was perpetrated by the light of the moon rebounding off the river and washing against her through the window, but now I realized that wasn’t possible. Her bed was below the window, resulting in the light from outside passing over her to hit the floor just behind me. The shadow left by her nose was also off, as though the light source was coming from within the room, just off to my right.

  I turned and saw the source, hiding behind one of the many sculptures that cluttered the room and blocked the light source from view from anywhere but Agrippina’s raised dais. Situated upon a pedestal, Corinthian in form, was the blue orb that had brought us through time and space to this Godforsaken realm of shit. I almost laughed as my first thought was of poor Varus, slumped unconscious within the same room that held the orb, it being so close all along, but yet so far at the same time. I couldn’t imagine Agrippina allowed many visitors into her room, and certainly not Varus.

  It wasn’t far away, only a few steps out of reach, and like the first time I encountered it, a light shone forth from it in all directions. Just smaller than a volleyball, its surface did not seem solid. Like a planet, what seemed like clouds swirled around the orb, giving it its shape and definition but simultaneously giving me the impression that were I to pick it up, my hands would sink right through the clouds before touching the true physical object beneath.

  But past experience told me this phenomenon wouldn’t occur, and that by grabbing it, my hand would encounter a solid surface. That is, until it swallowed your hand and sucked your entire life inside out, shitting you out into the most undesirable hellhole in all of history, completely ruining your life and the lives of…

  The sight of it filled me with anger and I realized I’d brought my rifle into my hands from its slung position along my back and had it pointing in its general direction. I looked at Penelope dumbly, wondering how it had gotten there. I shook my head and repositioned it so that it sat against my back again. I reached out towards the orb and took a step closer to its glowing effervescence at the same time. It was within reach now, but I didn’t touch it. Instead, I guided my hand around it, feeling the warmth it let off sooth my sudden surge of rage.

  I could no longer contain my curiosity. Here it was. The thing I had been hoping to find for years, but hadn’t planned on even searching for until we’d first fixed the timeline. I bent over to peer into its magnificence, inspecting it on a level I never had before, but saw…

  “I had hoped you would come searching for it, Jacob Hunter,” a high pitched but soft spoken voice said from behind me. The orb seemed to dim at the interruption and I twirled on instinct the instant I heard the first word. Agrippina was awake and had turned her eyes to look in my direction. With her arms still resting beside her head, she was as seductive and alluring as the orb had just been, but I ignored her beauty and went straight for her mouth with my hand. I expected her to scream, but she was calm as I rushed at her, as if waiting for me to just get on with it and kill her, not even caring.

  I held my hand against her mouth, pressing so hard that her head sunk deeper into the pillow beneath it. Again, she didn’t react, merely moving her arms from beside her head to rest them against her thighs. She twisted her body so that she lay on her side and closed her legs, using her right hand to draw a sheet across her lower half. She didn’t bother to cover her breasts.

  She gazed at me casually as I held her there, and I continued to wait for her to struggle, but she did nothing, and I just stood there. A bead of sweat dripped from my nose to land against her chest but still she did nothing. Slowly, carefully, I removed my hand from her mouth and placed it on her shoulder, pointing at her with the other hand.

  “I don’t hav
e time for games, Agrippina. I need answers, and I want them now.”

  “A pity,” she said, looking away from me and towards the window once again. “Games are so much fun in these dull times. Without them, men grow bored and fail to realize how fun this world can be.”

  “I told you I don’t have time for this,” I growled, my hand moving on its own towards her throat. “This is life, where there are no rules and no one gives a damn what game you’re playing. All I want is to do what’s right, and to do that I need information.”

  She chirped out a quick laugh and my hand involuntarily tightened. I glanced at it, deciding to loosen it.

  “By whom, exactly, are you doing right by, Jacob Hunter?” She asked. “Certainly not by me or else you wouldn’t be here trying to usurp my rule and disrupt all the fine plans I have put into motion.”

  I forced the surprise from my face and tried to suppress my frustration. She was only baiting me. There was no way she knew what I was trying to do.

  “Perhaps this is for your Amazon?” She continued. “Is all this an attempt to do the right thing for her? No, I do not think so, for she was always so angry and I assume still is. You would have brought her so that she could exact some measure of revenge if you were truly trying to appease her feelings.” She blinked up at my slowly. “Perhaps you really should have sent her, so that I could service her in ways you are so obviously incapable of.”

  “No more games,” I growled, my hand tightening once again as my head inched closer to hers. She moaned under the pressure of my grip. I couldn’t tell if she was recoiling from the pain or enjoying it. “Now tell me, where Nero is?”

  “My Nero?” She blinked innocently. “He’s back in Rome, of course. Why? Did someone tell you something to the contrary?”

  I blinked. “You knew we were coming.”

  “Of course.” Her voice was a silky purr. “I was not jesting when I said that it was good that you have come in search of the orb.”

  She was fishing again. After everything she’s done, she knew we’d cause trouble for her one day. I had no doubt that over the past few years, much of her time had been spent imagining ways that we would strike at her. Taking Nero from her was an obvious one. All she had to do was make an offhand remark to her generals the other day that he was onboard, just in case we were around to hear about it. She’s probably done it a hundred times before.

  She had always seemed a patient woman.

  And she was very good at her games.

  I was growing more and more frustrated with every passing second. Questioning her directly wasn’t going to get me anywhere, so I let my anger expedite the process. I reached out and flipped her over so that she rested on her stomach. I stepped on the bed and placed my right knee between her shoulder blades.

  “My, my,” she said softly. “I had hoped you would get rough with me.”

  I ignored her as I retrieved my boot knife and pulled a lighter from my pouch as well, making sure she could see what I was doing as I held the flame against the blade. Before the knife could cool down, I tore away the sheet that hid Agrippina’s legs and backside and pressed it against her right butt cheek.

  Jack Bauer had taught America the finer parts of home torture for the better part of a decade on TV, but the CIA had given me far more substantial knowledge on the subject of human intelligence gathering much later in my life. It had amazed me how many clever household items could be used to inflict pain on someone, and there had been a few I swore I’d never utilize. In fact, I never thought I’d ever have the gumption to use any of it, but I suppose I’d make an exception in Agrippina’s case.

  And the exception was well worth it. I took a certain amount of pleasure from her moans as her supple backside burned. Her breathing grew more labored and her body perspired as she writhed against my knee. I removed the knife and saw a neat little crease on her otherwise flawless behind, a superficial wound, one that would heal easily.

  “Do you want to tell me where Nero is now?” I asked.

  “He’s not here,” she said, her voice only slightly belabored.

  My anger got the better of me again as I relit the lighter, holding it beneath the knife until it was all but glowing. I waited so that Agrippina could see what was to come, but with her silence came my knife and the sizzling sound of her skin burning. Light wisps of smoke floated from the new wound, and I smelled the slight odor of charred flesh. Her moans were intense this time. Raw. She’d reached the limit of her masochistic nature.

  Good.

  I removed the knife and saw her second wound was at least at the second degree burn stage. It had to hurt like hell. She’d have trouble sitting for at least a few weeks, and I only wish I could be there to see her suffer.

  I leaned close to her ear. “Where is he?”

  “I told you!” She gasped through the pain. “He is not here.”

  I decided to pull back. There was something in her voice that told me she was telling the truth. I flipped her back over, and leaned my knee into her stomach this time as I pressed my boot knife against her throat and leaned in close once again, my nose inches from her own.

  “He’s not here?”

  She shook her head, even the small motion causing my knife to nick her throat. I left it where it was.

  “He’s back in Rome?”

  She nodded this time and tears began to fall lazily down her cheeks. “Yes.”

  There were ways to determine if someone was lying or not. The CIA had taught us those as well, and everything about her tone, infliction and eye contact told me she was telling the truth this time. She was still human after all, even with all she’d done, and therefore vulnerable to the pitfalls of human psychology.

  I paused before deciding to shift tactics again, realizing that I didn’t need Nero anymore. Agrippina was right here. Maybe I could coerce her on my own, but I tried to settle down first. I removed my knee from her stomach and climbed off the bed, leaving my knife where it was. I looked down at her and decided I had a few questions that needed answering first.

  “What are you doing here? Really?”

  There was still fear in her eyes, but her sobs slowed as my voice softened.

  “I was looking for you,” she mumbled, her tears evaporating.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I wanted to see what you would do when you saw the orb.”

  I looked at her curiously. “Testing a theory?”

  “I was,” she said easily, “and you didn’t disappoint me.”

  I watched without action as Agrippina placed her elbows on the bed beside her and scooted herself back so that she came out from underneath my knife. I barely even twitched, let alone try to stop her. She sat up and tossed her hair away from her face and reached out to grab my forearm. Again, I didn’t react as she pulled me down beside her like a grumpy child in need of a good scolding. She sat so close that her breasts were pressed up against my arm.

  “There are so many things we must discuss, Jacob Hunter,” she said softly, her expression as innocent as they come. She was a completely different person now; all her sexual promiscuity, confusing mannerisms and air of superiority gone completely, replaced by a rational human being. Suddenly, I doubted everything I had heard from her earlier tonight, no longer certain I shouldn’t trust her now. All I could do was sit patiently, stupidly, and wait for her to continue.

  She angled her face away from mine and smiled at no one but herself. “Gaius was always the family favorite, destined for great things and bestowed with many opportunities, but I was raised by the same parents who bore and nurtured my brother – the same family who insisted all their children be well schooled and educated. But unlike my doting sisters, my schooling did not end when it was time for us to take on our more womanly responsibilities.

  “Knowledge is power, Jacob Hunter. I believe you know this to be true. Uncle Claudius was always so insistent that we girls harness our minds as well as our bodies, advice I followed and they ignored, and
the study of language became a passion of mine. Claudius often said that understanding those who others cannot gave you power over both. ‘Keep it secret,’ he used to tell me, ‘never let on that you are already two steps ahead of them’.”

  Agrippina sighed and turned her head back to gaze at me.

  “He was such a complex man. Always letting on like he was less capable than he really was, I never understood why. Regardless, the important thing to understand is that of all the languages I understand, Etruscan is the one he personally taught me. Few men can speak it, you know, but I believe you know another. Marcus Varus. He’s the one unconscious on the floor there by the door.”

  My heart skipped a beat. How could she know it was Varus who lay crumpled at Santino’s feet? It was too dark and she had been facing away from us when we had come in. I opened my mouth to speak, but she pressed a long, slender finger against my lips. Her fingernails were well groomed, and her skin smelled of fresh flowers.

  “Not yet, Jacob Hunter. You may speak soon, but first you must understand that I know a great many things about both you and the orb. The past four years have opened my eyes to a great many wonders, most beyond description. I have learned how glorious a tool the orb can be, but also how dangerous it is. It can have a powerful effect on the mind. Some are strengthened by its power while others are corrupted by it. Only time will tell which.”

  She looked down longingly and took my hand in her own. “You are drawn by it. It calls to you, beckoning you to use it. I know this because I feel it too. I have experienced its longing for the past four years, and when I imagine your separation from it, I feel a great sadness. You see, we share a bond, you and I. The orb speaks to us. It is something not even you and your Amazon can share.” She paused a moment and drew my hand to her knee, gliding it smoothly along her thigh so that it rested against her hip. She scooted closer, if that was even possible. “I came here to see if you still had a connection with the orb and… with me. It fills me with such joy to learn that you still do.”