The captain's face was hard to read but she thought she saw him begin to soften. Then his eyes shifted and widened as they caught on something behind her. She spun round to see that a defender had hacked a corpse's arm at the shoulder, only for the dismembered hand to catch around his ankle. He tripped and fell, tumbling out of the defensive wall, and the walking corpse was instantly on him, ripping out his throat with its decaying teeth.
When she looked back at the captain, he was pale and shaking. "Nothing can stop those things. Nothing."
But Boda remembered the little girl in the moment before she'd risen from the dead. She remembered the beetle, crawling into the girl's mouth. That was what had woken her. Without that, she would have stayed dead.
"It's in their heads!" she shouted, to the captain and the other defenders. She picked up a fallen sword and charged towards the armies of dead. "We can kill them."
Desperation gave her arm strength, and she took off the corpse's grey, rotting head in one swing. "Look!" she said. And a moment after it fell, the brown body of a scarab beetle crawled from the corpse's nose, its carapace smeared with the white meat of the brain.
"Look!" she said again and stamped down hard on the beetle. When she lifted her sandal there was only a brown mush left beneath it - and neither the beetle nor the body moved again.
"Help us!" she shouted to the guard captain. "Shoot them in the head!"
Petronius blinked at the brightness of the daylight when they emerged from the Palace. The streets of Rome were thronged with people, but the atmosphere had changed in the last few hours. There was fear in the faces around them, and sometimes hostility. The news from the walls must be spreading. And it looked like Caligula was being blamed.
The Praetorian Guard pushed through the crowds, clearing a path for their Emperor where once one would have opened spontaneously. Petronius was glad they'd managed to gather so many of the soldiers, more than two hundred picked up from around the palace or collected from various drinking dens as they passed. The mood of the people was ugly and there was an unhappy muttering as they passed. Caligula clearly sensed the anger. He kept his face down and mouth shut as he walked beside his sister.
Caligula had ordered Marcus to take them to the Temple of Saturn, though he hadn't bothered to explain why. Petronius guessed the Emperor thought that priests would be the least likely to turn against him. But the route led through some of Rome's poorest districts, and here the hostility was more overt. When they passed a stall selling elderly vegetables, some unseen hand liberated a few and threw them towards the Emperor's party.
An overripe tomato spattered against Petronius's tunic. He spat out the seeds and wiped juice from his eye, but it was impossible to see who'd thrown it. Caligula was hit with a mouldy peach, while a patter of grapes rained down on Drusilla's head.
Petronius expected the Emperor to react with rage, but instead he tucked his head tighter against his chest and quickened his pace. He seemed to have lost his pride - or maybe just his nerve - when Sopdet defied him and won. But Marcus drew his sword from its sheath and the other soldiers did the same and the crowd muttered, drawing back.
Part of their route took them close to the city walls. Here there were fewer people and those that were still around seemed intent on leaving. Petronius saw some families outside their homes, hurriedly packing the contents of their houses into waiting wagons.
"Where are you going, citizen?" Petronius asked the father of one family.
The man turned wide, frightened eyes on him. "Away from the walls. They say they'll be over them soon. We're seeking refuge in the Temple of Jupiter."
Petronius didn't imagine the temple would be safer than anywhere else in the city but he just nodded and moved on. No need to create more panic than there already was.
Closer to the walls, they heard screams and the clash of weapons.
Marcus turned to Caligula. "Caesar, it seems the messengers spoke the truth."
"So?" Caligula snarled. "You killed them for treason - not perjury."
Marcus nodded, face carefully blank. "But now the people need us. The walls are only lightly defended - my men could make the difference between victory and defeat."
"Your job is to defend me!" Caligula screamed. "Not the good-for-nothing inhabitants of this rat-infested city! Me, do you understand - me!"
Petronius winced as the Emperor's voice echoed down the narrow street. Windows opened above them and someone flung a pitcher of liquid out of one. It missed Caligula and struck two of his guards, stinking of piss. The soldiers roared with anger, but Marcus called them back when they made to enter the house and Caligula smiled his satisfaction.
Only Claudius walked unheeding through it all, mouth and face closed. Petronius dropped back to walk beside him.
It took several minutes for the older man to notice him. When he did he attempted a smile, but it looked ghastly, a mere stretching of lips over teeth.
"I should thank you," Claudius said, "for t-t-trying to save N-n-narcissus."
Petronius shook his head. "You don't need to thank me. What Caligula did to him was wrong."
For the first time, some life came into Claudius's eyes. He darted an anxious look behind him. "Don't speak so loudly. And d-d-don't be fooled by his cowardice. The most dangerous animal is a c-c-cornered one."
Petronius lowered his voice. "But he's not just a danger to those around him. Rome will fall if he doesn't act. Or if someone else doesn't act in his place..."
As suddenly as they'd filled with life, Claudius's eyes drained of it again. "Rome is not my concern," he said, and moved closer to his nephew to forestall any further conversation.
Petronius bit his lip in frustration. It wasn't just about preserving his own life, though it certainly was about that. But if Caligula continued this selfish, suicidal course, too many people would die.
He sneaked a look at the surrounding guards and found that Marcus was looking right back at him. Something about his expression told Petronius he'd overheard the exchange with Claudius. His heart thumped almost painfully hard against his ribs, but after a moment the guard captain looked away, the expression on his square face inscrutable.
At the tall, golden gates of the Temple of Saturn, the priests bowed and scraped and let them in. But they watched the Emperor from lowered eyes, and some of them whispered in corners, and Petronius would have bet good money that they knew about the trouble outside Rome, and the Emperor's refusal to do anything about it.
A statue of the god sat enthroned at one end of the main chamber. His face was bearded and kindly and his marble hands held marble stalks of corn. Beneath his feet and spread across half the floor of the temple, piles of fruit and vegetables teetered, some stretching almost to the ceiling.
"Excellent," Caligula said, rubbing his hands together. Now that he'd reached safety, he seemed to have regained both his confidence and his arrogance. "The god of the harvest has admirably lived up to his name. There should be food enough here to last us weeks or months, if we need it."
It was true - at this time of Saturn's great harvest festival, the Temple was better supplied with food than anywhere else in Rome. The smell of it all was overpowering, rich and sweet and just a little rotten.
"Bar the gates," Caligula ordered the nearest priest, a shabby young man in a dirty toga.
"But Caesar," the priest protested, "today is the lord Saturn's feast day. The poor must partake of the bounty provided by his grace."
"Listen to me, you jumped-up eunuch. That was an order, not the starting point for a debate. Now bar the gates!" Caligula's face reddened as he spoke, and this time the priest leapt to obey.
At the doorway, Claudius blocked him. "No," he said. "Y-y-your city needs you, nephew. Answer its call."
"Get out of his way, fool!" Caligula snapped, but Drusilla laughed and clapped her hands.
"Look, brother!" she said. "The dribbler's finally found some backbone. In fact -" she ran a teasing finger down Caligula's nose "- rat
her more backbone than you. I do believe you were actually shaking in front of that ghastly priestess."
"I was not shaking!" Caligula snapped. Petronius saw him struggle to master himself, and continue in a softer voice. "I was afraid for you, my love. As I am now. So stand aside, uncle - those doors will be barred whatever you say. Your only choice is whether you live to appreciate the safety they offer."
Petronius didn't quite know what possessed him. They would be safe inside the Temple. But he found himself stepping forward to take up position beside Claudius, blocking the doorway. "No. We can't cower in here while Rome burns. It isn't right."
"Oh," Drusilla purred, slinking up to him. "Handsome and brave. This one's a real find."
When she leaned in to Petronius, he had to restrain himself from leaning back. In the heat of the walk from the Palace, her flesh had begun to decay. He could smell its fetid odour, and he saw that the skin of her face was beginning to soften and sag, her lips drooping away from her gums.
"Get your hands off him!" Caligula yelled.
Drusilla turned to him, raising an ironic eyebrow. "Don't be silly, darling, I haven't touched him."
"And you're not going to," Caligula hissed. "I didn't bring you back for anybody else. I brought you back for me!"
"Really?" Drusilla's tone was icy now. "You expect complete fidelity, undying gratitude? I've only been gone two years, brother - can you have so quickly forgotten what kind of woman I am?"
"It seems I have," Caligula said. His voice was high and breathy and Petronius saw that he was shaking with rage. He wanted to step away from the pair of them, but he was terrified of drawing any more attention to himself. If Caligula's anger moved away from his sister, it would almost certainly be turned on Petronius.
"I'd forgotten everything about you," Caligula said. "I'd forgotten how self-centred you are. How selfish. I'd forgotten that you treat me like dirt, when all I've ever done is love you. And I'd forgotten that you have the morals of a two-denarii whore!"
Drusilla slapped him, the blow ringing through the suddenly silent temple. "How dare you! Love me? The only person you love is yourself! And that's just as well - because who else would love a scrawny, under-endowed, worthless little bastard like you? Even father despised you!"
Caligula let out a roar of mingled rage and pain that made Petronius flinch. He lurched to the side, towards one of the soldiers, and before the man could react, snatched his sword from his hand.
The Emperor wasn't much of a swordsman. His swing was wild but Drusilla was unprepared and unprotected. The blade sliced through her neck in one clean sweep. For a moment, only the line of red along her throat betrayed what had happened. Then her body toppled one way and her head tilted and fell the other. Her eyes stared accusingly at Caligula, still bright with rage. Then something behind them died, and a moment later a small brown beetle crawled from her mouth and scuttled across the temple floor. Caligula crushed it beneath the heel of his sandal.
There was a very long silence, finally broken when Caligula dropped his sword to the floor. He fell to his knees beside it, cradling his head in his hands. "Sweet Aphrodite, what have I done?"
It was Marcus who answered, stepping forward to scoop the fallen sword from the floor. "You've killed her, Caesar. Again. You risked everything - your whole Empire - to bring her back. And for what? For this?"
Caligula looked up, eyes streaked with tears. "You can't... you can't talk to your Emperor that way."
"That's true," Marcus said.
Unlike Caligula's, his sword-stroke was quick and efficient. It pierced Caligula through his heart and ripped downwards, opening his belly to spill his guts on the ground.
The Emperor looked down at the wreckage of his chest with disbelieving eyes. "What?" he said. "How?"
Marcus wiped his sword clean on Caligula's purple toga, then sheathed it. "Refusing the Emperor's command is treason. Luckily," he said, "we've just had a change in leadership." He turned to Claudius and saluted. "What are your orders, Caesar?"
With the gates barred against them and the living inside, the dead had retreated from the walls of Rome. The defenders took the opportunity to rest and eat inside the watchtowers; to regroup for a new offensive which everyone was sure would come.
Vali stared at the plate of bread and cheese in front of him, but his stomach rebelled at the thought of putting anything inside it.
"You should eat," Boda said.
She still had the little boy with her, clinging to her hand. Vali could hardly bear to look at him, but she wouldn't let him look away.
"He told me his name's Nero," she said. "He claims he's the Emperor's nephew, so we're keeping him here until Caligula can be found. I need you to look after him while I take my turn on watch."
Vali turned his face away. "You might want to leave him with someone safer."
She hauled him up by the front of his tunic, pushing him so hard against the wall that all the air was forced out of him. "Enough of this," she said. "Enough. You did what you could and the gods willed that you failed. Terrible things happen in battle - haven't you lived long enough to know that?"
How could he tell her he'd lived far longer than she knew, and understood the reality of the world far better than she could imagine? That he didn't know why he held himself responsible for one insignificant little girl's death, when he'd done far worse before and never felt a moment's guilt? That every time he shut his eyes he saw the girl's face, and he thought he probably always would, not because of what had happened but because of what she represented - the moment he became something both less and more than what he'd always been. He laughed, because he couldn't tell her any of that.
She looked puzzled, but she released her grasp on his tunic, letting him slide back down to his feet. She was still very close to him, her breath hot on his face. He felt a stirring of desire, but something else - more complicated and more troubling.
"You're right," he told her. "I've been here too long. This place is starting to change me."
She frowned, misunderstanding. "I thought you were newly arrived in Rome."
He nodded, because that was true, though not what he'd meant.
"I think I understand," she said. "I came to Rome as a captive, yet it seems I'm about to give my life to defend it. Maybe it's changed me too."
He looked away from the walls, towards the great city spread below him. He'd visited before, of course, many times, as he'd visited every city on earth. But that had been different - he'd been different, his full and wonderful self, not this cut-down version he'd been forced to adopt when he fled the punishment that awaited him.
The streets near the walls were empty, but he could see people deeper inside, milling in confusion and panic.
"The trouble is," Boda said. "Rome isn't just one thing, as I'd always imagined. Every nation of the world has a place here, and for all its cruelty there's something in it worth saving."
He turned back to study her face. Her blue eyes were wide and serious but the lines around her mouth came from laughter, not anger. She was a contradiction, as all these people were. And she was right. It was easy to see them as simple, but embroiled in the centre of life rather than observing from its edges, the complications were inescapable.
She rested her hand against his arm, and his heart beat a little faster - a man's reaction to a woman. He struggled to see her through other eyes, the ones that had first chosen her. Had he made the right decision then? He didn't know. He'd lost all clarity.
A second later she abruptly released him. He saw her horrified expression before he saw what had caused it, and felt an icy flush of fear.
"Take Nero," she said. "They'll need me on the battlements."
Outside the walls, the dead had returned. There were far more of them than he'd seen before. The beetles must have flown far, finding every corpse they could animate within reach of the city. Their ragged legions were no match for the iron discipline of the soldiers defending Rome, but they outnumbered th
em a hundred to one. And there were soldiers among the dead - some in the scraps of uniform that had survived the grave, others in full armour, their faces intact.
Vali heard some names called in horror by those manning the walls and guessed that they recognised comrades among the dead. And then there were shouts of fear from everyone as the defenders saw what the dead had brought with them.
A grey wall of flesh marched behind the human corpses. Their trunks swung in time with their footsteps, so heavy they seemed to shake the earth. Smaller animals crowded around them, but the elephants didn't seem to care where they trod, crushing the bodies of wolves and tigers beneath them as they advanced.
As they came closer, Vali realised that they were drawing something behind them. Nearer still, almost within bowshot, and he saw that they were wooden towers topped with spikes - as tall as the walls of Rome and designed for scaling them.
All around him, men fell to their knees and prayed as the dead prepared to besiege the city.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When the dead attacked, discipline disintegrated. The word had been passed down the line and repeated by every centurion to his men. The dead could only be killed by a shot to the head. The men knew this, but in the fear and panic that accompanied the appearance of the elephants and their siege engines, they fired wildly. Hails of arrows flew into the rotting bodies below, most striking harmlessly at arms and legs and torsos. The dead didn't even bother to pluck them out.
Boda wasn't used to the Roman recurve bow she'd been given - she'd have preferred something longer and straighter - but an arrow was an arrow and at least she was aiming in the right place. Her first few shots went wide, but after that she hit her mark, time after time. It wasn't difficult. The walking corpses made little effort to defend themselves. Bodies must be like mules to them, she supposed, mounts that could be flogged to death and then replaced.
Vali was fighting by her side. He'd proved to be an able archer, too valuable to waste as a child-minder. Nero was being cared for by some of the refugees from outside the city while they fought.
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