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

by Crichton, Edward

  “You came…?” I started, but she cut me off.

  “Yes. I came here for you. I want to help you. I want you to help me. To use the orb together and make Rome everything it was meant to be and more. We can do great things, you and I.”

  I felt a distinct soreness in my eyes, a burning sensation that meant I hadn’t blinked in quite some time. I squeezed them shut and wondered what had brought on such a trance, knowing It wasn’t Agrippina. There was nothing sexual about her current demeanor at all, despite obvious contradictions to the contrary. I looked at my hand pressed firmly against her shapely thigh and felt nothing at the sensation. I had touched Helena in that manner hundreds of times, each as exciting as the last, but I felt nothing now. I looked into Agrippina’s eyes, and failed to feel the slightest urge to lean in and kiss her. I suspected in that moment that Agrippina felt the same.

  There was something oddly off about the whole scenario. It almost felt like she was right, like we did share some kind of bond. I glanced at the orb and glared at it. There sat a perfectly good rationale in of itself. I pulled my hand away from Agrippina’s leg and pressed it against my temple, trying to think as I squeezed my eyes even tighter.

  After a moment, I rose to my feet, pulling away from Agrippina, her hand still lazily attached to my own. She wasted no effort keeping me close, but clung to me until I was too far away for her to hold on. I felt disoriented and nauseous, so much so that I almost fell down the steps but a sudden adrenaline surge steadied me. My mind started to clear and Agrippina’s spell, or whatever it was, faded away.

  The orb’s blue glow dimmed.

  I sheathed my boot knife and retrieved my rifle from behind my back. I held it out in front of me and straightened my posture as well as I could. I felt drained, and my head was still swimming in confusion, misunderstanding and sudden fatigue. It took everything I had left to even look at Agrippina.

  “I said no more games,” I said breathlessly. “Stay where you are and I won’t hurt you, but that orb is coming with me.”

  Agrippina frowned and reached around to caress her burned behind. “So you’ve chosen that path then.” She sighed and looked away. “Unexpected, but if that is your choice, there is something else I wish you to know.”

  I looked down at her warily. “What?”

  She met my gaze, her deep blue eyes sparkling in malice and a type of cruel enjoyment.

  “I want you to know that just prior to the battle outside of Rome four years ago, I issued a bounty for your Amazon.”

  “What?” I asked, not completely understanding.

  She blinked innocently. “I offered five thousand sestertii to whoever brought me her head. At the time, I didn’t even know why, really. Silly decisions like that come to you when you are young, I suppose.”

  “You… you…” but no words came to me. My head swam again and, this time, I succeeded in stumbling down the stairs. I managed to keep my footing but a sharp pain in my chest doubled me over in pain as realization of her words hit me. I held myself up with my hands on my knees and fought off the anger building inside me, demanding my body cooperate and allow me to breathe again.

  I failed, and a mental image of Helena’s severed head popped into my mind. Her mouth hung lifelessly ajar and her green eyes were aimed at the sky, without color and dripping with blood. I smacked my temple with the palm of my hand, trying to forget the image ever existed, and yelled out like a man possessed – completely failing to maintain my demeanor.

  She had all but killed Helena herself. On that already bloody day, not a single enemy Praetorian would have passed up the opportunity to cash in on Agrippina’s lucrative reward. Helena’s death had been a guaranteed thing, and only through the grace of God, had she survived. She had been no more than a mere pawn in Agrippina’s sick and twisted game of life, a game with no moral boundaries, common sense or consequences. A game where people died on a whim. Her whim.

  Nothing prepared me for the hatred, the pure evil vehemence that course through my veins like the mightiest of rivers in that moment. Not the death of my mother, the bloodshed that sparked World War III, the sense of frustration over marooning us in Rome, or the feelings of guilt over failing to protect the woman I love all those years ago.

  Agrippina’s naked form gazed down at me calmly. I stared at her with tear stricken eyes as I shouldered my rifle with a shaky hand, chambered a round, flicked off the safety, and shifted my aim towards her stomach. In that moment, if I was going to kill her, I would ensure it was long and painful. I paused, allowing the fact she was going to die seep into every synapse in her brain, but she didn’t even seem to care. She just sat there, exposed for all to see; convinced she sat in control of everything.

  “Every game has an ending,” I choked, looking into sultry blue eyes I could barely see. “And yours is over.”

  I pulled the trigger.

  Three rounds of deadly vengeance seemed to crawl towards Agrippina as they cut through the air. The concept of time no longer held sway over reality as it once did and I could almost see the distortion of air around each bullet as they sliced through the air at a leisurely pace.

  That’s when I noticed that the bullets would miss.

  My mind was overclocked, racing so furiously that I didn’t even notice how my aim had faltered. Somehow, a previously unknown assailant had pushed my rifle to the side milliseconds before I had fired, angling my shots to hit Agrippina’s bed sheets a few inches from her thigh. My attacker then came at me in a dive from a location I had previously thought empty, his momentum and mass hitting me with such force that we tumbled deep into the room. Time began to progress normally again and I rose to my feet, slinging Penelope around to my back and got a good look at my attacker.

  He was wearing a tight, black, body suit and a mask that covered everything but his eyes. His outfit was so completely un-Roman that at first I thought it was Helena, but I knew it couldn’t be. The person before me was clearly a man, a head shorter than I, and very skinny, but judging from the force of his tackle, made of solid muscle. The man had to be a Roman, one whose fashion sense conflicted with everything I knew about his culture. The man looked like a ninja as he adopted a fighting stance with his knees bent and his arms out in front of him protectively.

  Who was this guy?

  Agrippina had brought her feet up underneath her and was kneeling on the bed now, her eyes analyzing every move we made as she wiped blood from her neck and wiped it on her bare thighs. She smiled at me and spread her arms wide. “You didn’t expect all your questions to be answered so quickly, did you, Jacob? That, as you would say, would spoil the story.”

  I narrowed my eyes and tilted my head at her odd word choice but was distracted by my attacker trying to circle around me. I dropped into a combat stance of my own, knees bent and my left leg behind my right, fists up. We circled each other as I stared into the man’s eyes, eyes that were as calm and calculating as Agrippina’s.

  He made the first move.

  He ran straight for me, leaping into the air and kicking out with the tip of his foot. I easily blocked the kick to the left and hoped to land a quick jab to the side of his neck when he landed. But instead, the man used my poor judgment to fall immediately into a crouch and roll beneath my jab. He ended up behind me and swept my legs out from under me, dropping me onto my back. I fell for the maneuver like a pathetic rookie., the punch I had intended to land meeting nothing but air. I hadn’t expected anything like that from my opponent. The man was fighting like a martial artist, knowledgeable in any number of forms and disciplines.

  Taking the initiative once again, the man leapt from his crouched position, hoping to grapple with me on the ground, but I was prepared for him this time. I rolled onto my toes, and pivoted so that when he landed, I planted a kneeling side kick into his rib cage, knocking him two feet away from me and onto his back. I stood up and looked for Santino. I found him dealing with his own attacker. They seemed deadlocked, but then Santino managed to draw
his scimitar, and I knew that fight was already over.

  But my own attacker didn’t waste time wondering about his partner, and used my distraction to jump to his feet and rush me with a superman punch to my chest, knocking the wind from my lungs. I doubled over and he sent a knee flying into my nose. I stumbled backwards as I felt it break upon impact. My head spun as blood sprayed from my nostrils.

  My opponent was relentless, following up with a side kick into my chin, sending me flying through the air again. I fell a few inches away from Santino’s sculpture this time, a foot closer and I would have been skewered by Venus’ sword. I looked up, the world still spinning, and I saw my attacker loom over me. His eyes didn’t suggest he was taking any pleasure from the fight, or that he was predicting a premature victory. He just stared at me coldly, revealing nothing, and I felt a knot grow in my stomach. I looked to his left hand and saw three blades gripped there, my vision evidently playing a cruel trick on me.

  I couldn’t focus enough to even stand. I was defeated and I knew it. I moved my hand to my radio, hoping to send Helena one last message when my attacker made his first real mistake.

  He forgot about Santino.

  My friend also knew better than to waste time in a fight, and I watched as my opponent was amongst the living one second and then had a knife sticking through his throat the next. Santino pulled it back and the man collapsed. He reached down and hauled me to my feet by my recon vest and yanked me towards the door.

  “What about… about… Agrippina?” I asked, choking on my own blood which streamed like a fire hose from my nose.

  “Jacob, just shut the fuck up,” he said. “We need to get the hell out of here.” He clicked his radio with his free hand, his other arm busy holding me up. “3-2, 3-3, we’re extracting hot. Prepare to offer cover fire.”

  “Roger, 3-3. Where’s 3-1?” I heard fear in her voice through my earpiece. I was usually the away team’s radio man.

  “He’s fine,” Santino answered, glancing at me, “but, well, you better get a Band-Aid ready. 3-3, out.” He pulled his hand from the PTT button and gripped his rifle with it. Our fight had been noisy, and we had probably awoken half the ship. Men and women were already peeking out from behind their doors, trying to get a glimpse at what was causing all the commotion.

  A trio of Praetorians rounded a corner just as Santino and I were about to begin our ascension to the deck. Santino raised his rifle in their direction and fired with one hand, putting ten rounds in the wall next to their heads. They jerked back and took cover around the corner.

  “Can you walk yet?” He demanded. “I’m tired of hauling around your fat ass every time the fight gets interesting.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I slapped my cheeks a few times. Feeling my head clear, I reached into one of my pouches and extracted the demo detonator. I’m fine.”

  “Good,” Santino said as I depressed the button, setting off the explosives I’d placed last night. They went off in violent succession, pitching the ship forward at the initial explosion. Santino and I carefully bounded our way up the stairs three at a time as the ship shook around us. My head was still foggy, but I kept up. We reached the deck and made our way to the bow of the ship, encountering the two man Praetorian patrol immediately. They were in the process of picking themselves off the deck after the explosion, but I dissuaded them by pulling out my air pistol and firing my last few darts at them in rapid succession. Santino and I took off in the opposite direction, where we were met by even more Praetorians streaming onto the deck from below. Santino turned and sprayed the wooden planks in front of them with half a magazine’s worth of bullets as he ran, forcing them to back off.

  “Get your goggles and oxygen tank ready,” I instructed as we passed the temple, still trying to shake the last bit of grogginess from my head. “Dive deep, put your flippers on, and make a break under the ship and back towards Helena.”

  Santino didn’t bother answering, but grabbed his oxygen tank from his lower leg as he leapt over the rail all the same. I followed suit with a slightly more graceful dive than Santino’s cannonball form, vaulting over the railing like a track and field high jumper, pulling on my goggles as I fell. The particular dive kept my back to the ship so that when I arched my body, the natural curve of my spine automatically sent me torpedoing through the water and underneath the ship. Santino, on the other hand, had to reorient himself and move beneath the ship under his own power. I put my flippers on and waited for Santino before I swam as fast as I could towards Helena’s position. With luck, the Romans would think we fled in the opposite direction.

  The swim only lasted a few quick minutes, my anger still fueling my body. All I felt was rage, but was surprised to find it wasn’t directed at Agrippina, but at me. We beached ourselves and found Helena, where she reported there was no activity that made her think they were coming in our direction. We watched for a few minutes while those aboard scurried around the deck, trying to ascertain the damage. Realizing those onboard had enough to deal with, we abandoned the scene and walked a few minutes inland. We retrieved our tied up horses, along with our gear, and headed southwest into the Alps.

  We rode at full gallop for an hour before the peaks of jagged mountain ranges dominated the landscape in front us. Another hour at a slower pace and we were safely surrounded by an endless jigsaw puzzle of mountains, hills, and trees. We found a nice rocky outcropping, just as we had before, and set up our camp. We camouflaged it perfectly and with an hour or two of darkness left, I went inside while Helena and Santino debriefed each other. I was too frazzled to think about what had just happened.

  Entering the tent, I threw off my recon rig, rolled out my bed roll, and knelt on it, my back to the tent’s entrance. I sat on my heels, and rested my forearms against my legs, my palms facing up. I tried and failed to rationalize everything that had just happened.

  People always looked at modern military personnel as passive, stoic, unemotional killing machines. Men and women capable of killing on nothing more than the orders of another. All they saw were the apathetic victors, the heroes in the photographs or the caskets of the fallen, brave and daring volunteers each, who risked their lives for the sake of others.

  What they didn’t see were the times those emotional barriers came down. In many instances, these public barriers were little more than façades meant to assure those we were protecting that we would never fail them. The news media may offer the public a glimpse into the lives of a handful of vets dealing with PTSD or, in many a sad case, failing to deal with it, but what they rarely ever see is raw emotion, the eventual byproduct of trying to rationalize every despicable action perpetrated on another human being.

  Everyone dealt with it differently. Some cry alone, others suffer panic attacks, while others talk to no one but themselves before passing out from exhaustion. It always happened behind closed doors, usually when they were alone. Alone with no one but their conscience. Others never react, managing their emotions by disconnecting with reality and moving on like I always had. I’d always been able to push those feelings into some dark recess of my mind, never thinking they’d come back to haunt me someday. Somehow, I’d always been in that latter group, able to distance myself from emotion, but tonight, I just felt empty.

  Helena came in a few minutes later.

  She zipped up the tent and moved to kneel opposite me.

  “Santino told me what happened,” she said consolingly.

  “I was going to kill her, Helena. No remorse. No more questions. Just… murder her.”

  “The orb was there. It…”

  “It had nothing to do with it,” I snapped. “I could tell when it was influencing me, and it wasn’t then. It was just that the things she said, the things she implied… Agrippina wasn’t lying to me, Helena. There’s something about her and the orb that can control me and I don’t know what to think anymore. I don’t know what to do to protect myself from it.”

  “Jacob, you won’t always have all the right answ
ers,” she said carefully, “no one does. We talked about that. That isn’t some indelible personal deficiency you alone possess, but what separates you from everyone else is that you know how to survive. Adapt. What’s more is that you have me. And Santino. We can help you so that you’ll know what to do next time.”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. Besides, I’m not nearly as perfect as you think. Look at how I treated you and Santino only a few months ago. The orb can take advantage of emotions like that – pride, arrogance and anger, and warp your will with them. What if… what if I turn out like Caligula or Claudius if I keep exposing myself to it?”

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Jacob,” she said, her voice filled with emotion. “You’re your own man, and as good a one as I’ve ever known. Don’t lose yourself over something you can’t control or even understand yet. Stick to your gut and stay focused. You don’t have to be perfect because everyone makes mistakes! Everyone! You just have to learn from them.”

  I felt anguish tear my heart to pieces as feelings of rage and dread continued to overwhelmed. “I can’t control it, Helena. If I go near the orb again, I don’t know what I’ll do. It may affect my judgment beyond my ability to handle. What if it gets someone killed? What if it gets you killed. I can’t watch that happen again. I … I can’t… I…”

  Helena shot to her feet and moved in to surround me in an engulfing hug. She sat off to my side and threw her arms around my chest and back, digging her head into the side of my neck as I sat there in denial. I tried to fight down my fear but only felt anger rise up again instead. I started to shake, irrepressible convulsions that threatened to throw Helena off of me, but she held firm, refusing to let me go in my moment of pain and panic.

  “Please don’t do this, Jacob,” she whispered. “You’re not the only one who can’t stand the idea of losing the one you love.”