Lost Republic (9 page)

A mounted officer in a gilded helmet appeared among the Romans. He rode out front of his men, ignoring the cowering
Carleton
survivors.

He boomed,
“Abscede! Vos es in Res publica tractus!”

“Don't ask me—that's not French!” Emile said to all inquiring eyes.

Hans said, “It's Latin, I think. He's telling the French to go away.”

“I could have told you that,” said Gilligan.

One of the knights replied in an insolent tone. At that, the Romans advanced. Their archers showered the French with arrows. They stood up under the fire until a second knight was felled. With that, the last rider ordered his men away. He trotted off, peering nervously over his shoulder. His men paused long enough to pick up the bodies of the chevalier de Sagesse and the other knight and backed away in a tight mass, leaving several of their comrades sprawled on the beach.

Like a many-legged machine, the legionnaires churned past the amazed
Carleton
castaways. At a stately pace, they chased the retreating medieval soldiers until they were out of sight. The officer and a squad of twenty men and twenty archers remained.

He rode up quite close to the
Carleton
survivors. When he removed his helmet, they saw he was a rather rugged, handsome man of forty, clean-shaven, with short, curly gray hair.

Clearing his throat, he said,
“Vos es iam captus of Latium Res publica. Ego sum Titus Macrinus, tribus of XVII Legio. Vos mos pareo mihi, quod totus ero puteus.”

Hans struggled to understand. One of the Irish team members, Shannon, knew some Latin, too. Together, they pieced together what the officer said.

“We're prisoners,” Hans said unsteadily.

“Of the Latium Republic—whatever that is,” Shannon added.

“His name is Titus Macrinus. We won't be harmed if we do as he says.”

“Damned if we will!” said one of the Navy men. “Bunch of geeks running around playing Roman! Who do they think they are?”

Just then, two legionnaires dragged a fallen French soldier past by his heels. His face was dead white save for a bright red welt in the center of his forehead where the arrow struck. It didn't penetrate his skull but killed him by touch alone.

“I think they've made their point,” said Kiran Trevedi. “We'd better do as they say.”

Everyone got up. Mrs. Ellis, whose lifter chair was not working, had to be carried. Mr. Chen and one of the Navy men carried her in their arms, fireman-style.

They formed a long double line, flanked on either side by stern legionnaires. Titus Macrinus sat on his horse, watching the
Carleton
people file past with an appraising eye. Linh Prudhomme, like everyone, wondered why they were being held prisoner. As she passed the mounted officer, their eyes met.

Who was he, this mature man in the garb of an ancient Roman tribune? An actor? Some kind of cultist, or a crazy survivalist? Linh had read about people who secluded themselves in some remote part of the world in order to live according to the deranged rules of a cult. She'd never heard of anyone choosing to live like Romans—or medieval Frenchmen, either.

He had a cool, measured glance. She wanted to speak up, to say, “Stop this, people have gotten hurt. What kind of game are you playing?” But she didn't. Looking into those exacting gray eyes, Linh realized something surprising and really terrifying.

Titus Macrinus was not a cultist or an actor. He believed he was just as he appeared to be—an officer in the army of ancient Rome.

Not far away, Julie Morrison was flat on the sand, keeping her head down. One of her captors shoved her there roughly, and then he ran to join his comrades when the other party of armed men turned up. Leigh was beside her, still loopy from the blow he'd received. Poor guy, first he got a black eye when the ship ran aground, then he got whacked with the biggest baseball bat Julie had ever seen. He was not having a good couple of days.

There was a lot of noise, shouting and the clatter of metal, then the sound—and smell—of the armored men faded. Julie dared to lift her face from the sand. To her relief, the dirty soldiers were gone. Her joy was short-lived. Her companions from the wrecked ship were marching away, guarded by a bunch of guys in short skirts with more funny helmets on their heads.

“Hey,” she said, shaking Leigh. “Hey, get up!” He just grunted.

Julie grabbed handfuls of his shirt in both hands and hauled him to a sitting position.

“Get up, quarterback! The team needs you!”

“Give it a rest, will ya?” he groaned.

“We're leaving! You want to spend the rest of your life on this ugly beach? Get up!”

“Leave me 'lone . . .”

Julie shook Leigh as hard as she could. She was not very big or strong, but she was mad. Her big brother was not giving up.

She kicked him as hard as she could, right in the butt. Julie was wearing nylon Snappers, trendy deck shoes, so the blow hurt her toes as much as it hurt Leigh.

He yelled. Some of the Roman types heard him and pointed the pair out to Titus Macrinus. At his command, two archers trotted over, pointing drawn bows at them and jabbering in some language Julie didn't understand.

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, warding off the two bowmen with swats of her hands. “Don't stick those things in my face!”

Leigh's head cleared enough to see the danger they were in. He staggered to his feet.

“Don't shoot!” he said. “We'll come.” To his angry sister he hissed, “Shut up, dingy, before they put holes in us!”

“Dingy” was a childish insult at their house. Julie slapped Leigh smartly across the face. The archers grinned and prodded them toward the others.

They fell into line with Eleanor and Emile.

“What is this, Mardi Gras?” asked Julie. Taking turns, Eleanor and Emile tried to explain the confrontation on the beach and how the “Romans” had driven off the “French.”

“This is like one of those geeky Your/World games you used to play five or six years ago,” Julie said. Wincing from his hurts, Leigh only nodded.

They trudged through the pines closely watched by their captors. France studied them as they went. The soldiers were all mature men, ranging he guessed from their late twenties to their mid thirties. He recognized the centurion, who was sort of like a sergeant, by the fact the plume on his helmet ran crosswise, while Titus Macrinus's crest ran front to back. France was pleased he remembered so much about Roman soldiers. It all came from watching that series on the BBC ten years ago.

The soldiers wore breastplates, helmets, and metal plates on their shins. Their kilts came down halfway on their thighs, with strips of thick brown leather covering what looked like white cotton underneath. Each man carried a sword, knife, and shield. The archers wore less armor and were generally more lightly clothed. They didn't speak among themselves. Only Titus and the centurion spoke when they gave their troops orders.

Though the woods broke up the soldiers' line, there was not enough cover for the
Carleton
party to break and run. There were too many children and elderly people to worry about. Any attempt to escape might result in a bloodbath.

Before long they reached the same road France and Hans had found. Titus guided his horse to the side of the path and pointed east. The centurion snapped an order, and everyone filed off to the left.

It was late afternoon. None of the
Carleton
people had eaten or had any water since first arriving in this crazy place. Kids began to whine they were hungry and thirsty. The complaints became general. The column of prisoners slowed and stopped.

Titus rode up. What is this delay? Hans understood him to ask.

“Nos es ieiunium,”
he stammered, trying desperately to remember his vocabulary from Latin Level VII. “We are hungry. How did you say ‘thirsty'?
Nos es . . . es . . .
”

“Siccus?”
Shannon suggested.

“Nos es siccus!”
Hans declared.

Titus took this in stride. He had his men share canteens with the captives. They weren't insulated plastic, but leather bags of liquid the legionnaires wore around their necks.

The children drank and promptly complained about the weird taste. Chief Bernardi took a swig. He grimaced. The skins held a mixture of vinegar and water.

“Yuck,” said Julie. She drank it anyway. So did Emile, while he remembered from the Your/World series
Imperator
that Roman troops often drank vinegar and water on the march. It was less likely to spoil than plain water.

No food was offered. The canteens were torn from thirsty hands, and the march resumed.

Hans spent a long time trying to form the words of a question. Declining Latin verbs while surrounded by men armed with swords wasn't easy, but at last he struggled to say,
“Tribus! Quare es nos ligatio? Qua es nos iens?”

“Captus, non ligatio.”

He was correcting Hans's Latin! “‘Prisoners,' not ‘imprisoned'!”

Hans repeated his questions properly. Titus said, “You arrived from the sea. We were told to collect you.”

Another long interval and Hans managed to figure how to ask, “Who wanted us collected?”

“The First Citizen of the Republic.” With that enigmatic reply, Titus spurred his horse out of range of Hans's questions.

The empty, featureless landscape above the beach slowly gave way to new vistas. Early landmarks—a plain dirt path, a simple stone wall—gave way to signs of regular life. Rusty brown cows lounged under the shade of an ancient oak tree. On distant hilltops, the
Carleton
people saw little earth-colored cottages with pale thatched roofs. Children herded squawking geese with willow switches. At the sight of the strange column of legionnaires and prisoners, they stopped and stared. Boy or girl, their clothing was the same, simple bags of cloth pulled over their heads and tied at the waist with a thong.

What was missing was any sign of the modern world. As they trudged along, Eleanor saw no PDDs, motor vehicles, antennas, or signs of electricity being used. The farms they passed smelled of cow manure. Most of the people they saw in the fields and lanes, young or old, were barefoot.

“I think we've gone back in time,” Emile said.

“Ridiculous,” Eleanor replied. She cradled her burned arm. When it didn't itch, it throbbed. The pain meds had worn off long ago.

“Where are we, then?”

She said, “I don't know. Why don't you quiz someone who cares?” She walked faster to get away from him.

A lot of people from the ship were talking time travel now. They'd all grown up watching science fiction on Your/World—
Deadly Moon, The Harriers, Things to Come 2200
—so the idea they had gone back in time to the Roman Empire was easy to embrace. Gilligan even used the words time warp to describe the strange demise of the
Carleton
. They had sailed into a time warp. All they had to do now was find out where in the Roman Empire they'd landed—where and when.

France was not convinced. Time warps and time travel were fiction, and bad fiction at that. If they were back in Roman times, where did the medieval, French-speaking knights come from? No, they had run into some kind of weird reenactors colony, where everyone took their parts far too seriously . . .

“Bermuda Triangle,” said Ms. Martinez, a member of the
Carleton
crew. “We're lost in the Bermuda Triangle, and so are these poor fellows.” She meant the legionnaires and Tribune Titus. “It's a kind of limbo where time stands still.”

Utter crap, Leigh Morrison thought. All these theories were bogus and unnecessary. None of it would matter when they finally found someone in authority. Once they could explain themselves, they were bound to be set free.

Far back in the line, Emile shed his jacket. It was warm and balmy, more so than anyplace in the North Atlantic had a right to be. It was more like southern Italy here, or springtime in Greece. Weighed down by the impossibility of it all, his tired hands dropped, trailing his expensive designer jacket in the dust. Another mile and it slipped his fingers for good.

The sun was sinking. Jenny wondered if they'd be forced to walk all night. She was surprisingly tired. They'd only come three miles inland (she kept track of her steps; it was habit), so the distance was not so great, but the stress of the shipwreck and the unfamiliar strain of rowing so much had taken its toll. Her legs felt like lead. A lot of the others were feeling that way, too. Talk had died as the
Carleton
party dragged itself along. Any attempt to sit down or rest attracted soldiers with swords drawn.

The sandy beach road came to an end at a nicely cobbled road that led off in three directions: east, north, and northwest. Filling the land between the east and north lanes was an extensive farm—two-story house, lots of stone and rail fences, barns, and other out buildings. Titus Macrinus crossed the paved road and summoned his centurion. They conferred. The legionnaire put a ram's horn to his lips and blew a long, steady note.

Scattering squawking chickens as he went, the farmer appeared to greet the tribune. They exchanged words, with the farmer waving his hands and bowing a lot. Titus barked an order, and two hard-muscled soldiers found Hans and dragged him to their commander.

“You understand me?” Titus asked.

“If the tribune speak careful,” Hans struggled to say.

“Tell your people we will pass the night here. Men and women will be separated. Children will stay with their mothers.”

“What is they going to happen?” asked Hans. His Latin was not up to this.

“We rest here tonight. In two days we will reach Eternus Urbs, capital of the Republic.”

“What to us happened there?”

Titus ignored the question and dismissed Hans with a wave. He went back to the others and told them what the tribune said.

“Eternus Urbs, eh? Even I know what that means,” Chief Bernardi said. “‘Eternal City.' We're going to Rome!”

France just didn't believe it. He'd been to Italy with his parents before their divorce, and even allowing for the difference in time, this place was not at all like Italy. The climate and terrain were wrong, and there were no French knights or men-at-arms in ancient Italy. He kept his thoughts to himself. Most of the
Carleton
crowd had come to terms with the situation by swallowing the time travel idea, and he didn't want to stir things up—yet.

All the adult men and boys above age thirteen or so were herded into a smelly cattle pen. It wasn't enough of a prison to keep anyone in who wanted to get out, but it did confine the men and make it easier for the Romans to post guards around them. The women and children were taken away to the largest barn, and the doors were barred. Leigh hated seeing Julie go. He watched her right up to the moment she vanished into the shadowed barn. She did not look back once.

The farmer, paid by Titus Macrinus, fed the prisoners with help from his four children. Half a short loaf of bread per man, a gourd dipper of water apiece, and that was all.

Emile made the cut to go with the men, even though he was small for his age. He found a spot by a fence post above the omnipresent cow dung and wedged himself there. The sun was setting among some low western hills. The sky was beautifully bronzed by the failing rays. From his perch he could see a white statue on a pedestal out behind the farmer's big, tumbledown house. From the shape it was female, about a quarter the size of an adult woman. He tried to dredge up images from his academy art class. Was it the goddess Venus? Minerva? On a farm it ought to be the harvest goddess, what was her name? Per-Pers-Persephone?

As he watched, chin on a rail worn smooth by years of cows rubbing against it, a girl about his age came out of the house. She balanced a tall urn on one hip and a small basket on the other. To the statue she went. A meter away, she stopped, curtsied, and placed the basket on the pedestal before the statue. Emile smiled. He was seeing a Roman country girl making an offering to a pagan goddess. It looked genuine. She wasn't performing for any audience. As far as Emile could tell, the girl didn't know she was being watched.

Curtsying again, the girl poured liquid from the urn on the base of the pedestal. It was shiny and thick, probably olive oil. The girl bobbed her head and went back inside. Emile could see red and brown fruit (or was it bread?) in the basket. His stomach churned. Too bad they didn't feed their prisoners as well as they did their idols.

One of the more pompous male passengers slipped and sat down hard in a pile of manure. The guards laughed and pointed. Some of the
Carleton
men helped the fallen man stand. When Emile was finished taking in the scene, he looked again at the white statue.

The food was gone.

The basket was still there. It hadn't moved. The oil stain shone in the failing sunlight. There was no one around who could have taken the offering and escaped from Emile's view. That was odd enough, but as Emile studied this puzzle, a strange mystery drove the frown from his face.

The statue's pose had changed. Instead of its former languid posture, hands down, gazing with cold marble eyes at the ground, it was now holding its head up. The stone hands were palm up in front of its face, and it was looking directly at Emile.