The Last Roman (Praetorian Series - Book One) (30 page)

Upon arrival, I noticed the front door was still
open where Gaius stood guard, and the rest of the team just started
to file into the room. Helena was standing near the door and gave
me a smile. Santino seemed to notice her joyful expression and
arched an eyebrow in my direction. I gave him a shrug, and left it
at that. Let him figure it out for himself.

Vincent was last out of his room, clipping his belt
together as he rounded the corner. Not one to waste time on endless
speeches, he moved towards the door. “Here we go. Remember, we
don’t know what’s going on out there, so don’t get trigger happy.
We don’t need to be the cause of an uprising that would never have
happened had we not gotten involved.”

I had to laugh at the hypocrisy of that statement.
We’d already caused more than our share of problems that wouldn’t
have happened had we not been here. The riot most probably
included.

Following Vincent, we made our way to the Palatine,
with Gaius in the lead. Night had fallen, and we immediately
noticed the glow of numerous fires popping up near the outskirts of
the city. It looked as though Quintilius couldn’t do much to stop
the rioters after all.

With the riot in mind, I was having trouble
understanding why this was happening now. Caligula had ruled for a
number of years before he was finally deposed by his own
Praetorians, and that was well after he had gone insane. So, why
was this happening now? The only theory I could come up with is
that our presence sped up someone’s timetables, and instead of
letting Caligula’s insanity do the hard work of turning his own
people against him, they were going to force the issue.

It didn’t matter. We were on our way to the
Domus
Augusti
, and I didn’t have time to think about it. We double
timed it and made the trip in less than fifteen minutes. Greeting
us was a small unit of Caligula’s bodyguards, fifty strong,
guarding the front door. Seeing Gaius, they waved us through.

The home was sparsely furnished but majestic,
inherited from Tiberius, and before him, Augustus. Moving through
the atrium and main foyer, complete with a simple, but elegant
fountain, we made our way into Caligula’s bedroom, which, like the
rest of the house, was nearly empty. His bed dominated the room,
taking up almost half of the space, but leaving enough room to hold
a hundred men. Moving inside, we immediately took up defensive
positions. Bordeaux posted up on the main doorway we had just
entered, and Helena moved to a balcony opposite his position,
overlooking the city, pulling out her DSR-1. Santino and I moved to
cover an adjacent hallway, the only other way into the room. Each
of us pulled off our assault bags and tossed them in a corner.

Vincent and Wang moved towards Caligula with
Gaius.

The
could be
great emperor of Rome lay in the
center of his bed, with a light sheet covering his body. He was
sweating profusely and his skin was gray and clammy. His closed
eyes were fluttering rapidly.

Vincent stepped to the left side of the bed while
Wang went to the right, both looking down at the seemingly dying
man. Wang placed his hand on Caligula’s forehead, as a mother would
do her sick toddler. Shaking his head, he pulled out a stethoscope
and a thermometer, while simultaneously checking his pulse. After
using both tools and consulting his watch, his expression only
seemed bleaker.

“What’s the diagnosis?” Vincent asked.

Wang shook his head again. “People don’t go from
perfectly healthy to a bedridden fever in a matter of a few hours.
If I had to guess, I would have to agree that poison is the primary
suspect.”

Vincent nodded, understanding the Romans’ penchant
for poison. “What can you do for him?”

“Well, I don’t have the equipment to perform a full
spectrum analysis of his blood, so there is no way to determine
exactly what’s wrong with him. However, I suspect that the poison
isn’t what’s killing him.”

“Then what is?”

“The fever,” he said instantly. “A high grade one.
I’m not the history buff you or Hunter are, but I know enough about
medicine to know that poor sanitation is, and always has been, the
leading cause of disease. As we’ve experienced, clean water is
scarce here and people aren’t aware of proper dietary habits
either. I suspect the poison is very simple, because it doesn’t
need to work itself around the wonders of modern medicine. Instead,
it attacks the immune system, shutting it down to the point where
you easily contract the first disease you come across. It’s like
cancer. It doesn’t kill you, but something as benign as a bloody
cold that you contract and can’t fight because your immune system
is destroyed does.”

“So what can you do for him?”

Wang sighed. “Well, treating a fever is not hard.
Hunter said that when this happened the last time, or this time,
or…” he looked confused, “…or whatever, when he recovered he went
crazy. That’s because they had no way to treat it, and the fever
lasted long enough to cause brain damage. It can even cause you to
go blind, or lose your hearing, or both.”

“That means you can treat him?”

“I can, but it’s going to take some time.” Wang
faltered for half a second.

He had just spoken more words in the past five
minutes than he had over the past two months. Interestingly, combat
medics go through some of the most intense training the military
can throw at them. They sometimes end up more combat qualified than
even some of the most elite operators. It was with that training,
and every medics’ ingrained primary instincts as a healer, that
Wang was hopefully able to finally find something worth focusing
on.

“Even in our own time,” he continued, “kids who have
a fever have to stay home from school for a few days depending on
how tough they are. I can give him an IV drip of liquids, provide
him with painkillers, give him some of our water to drink, keep him
cool with ice packs, and place a damp, cool cloth over his
forehead. Very basic stuff. We probably shouldn’t move him until I
have everything set up and give him at least a few hours to react
to the treatment but after that, we can load him in my mobile
stretcher platform and take him wherever we need to go.”

“Good. Get to work. Hopefully, we’ll just stay here
and leave when he’s better, but make preparations for immediate
evac.”

“Aye, sir.”

Pulling off his bag, he extracted his stretcher,
which he expertly unfolded next to Caligula’s inert form. Attached
to it was a pole, so that IV drips could be used during transport.
Just as Wang pulled an IV pouch from his bag, I heard the clacking
sound of hobnailed Roman boots running along the marble
flooring.

It was the centurion, Quintilius.

Sweating only slightly, the man was breathing
easily. He had his legion training to thank for that, as long
marches and years of training transformed those men into
triathletes. Stopping short near Vincent, he laid out the situation
in an overly melodramatic fashion.

“We are undone. The mob is on the move, and will be
here within the hour. They’re marching with most of the Senate’s
approval.”

“Damn it, Quintilius,” Vincent growled. “How did
this happen?”

“I am not certain” he said, shock evident on his
face. “Even before your arrival, there had been grumblings in the
Senate about Caligula’s ascension, but never to the point where
open rebellion would result. Many favored Claudius over Caligula,
and while he has stirred up trouble during Senatorial sessions, I
cannot believe he is involved.”

“Excuse me,” I said, approaching the two commanders,
“but did you say many wanted Claudius as Tiberius’ successor, and
because he didn’t get the job, he’s been causing trouble?”

“Basically, yes.”

“What are you thinking, Hunter,” Vincent asked, no
longer skeptical about my reasoning abilities.

“Two things.” I said, holding up two fingers.
“First, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we not only went back in
time, but also jumped into a parallel universe. The theory of…”

“Hunter!” Vincent put some force behind the
name.

“Sir?”

“Do
not
start!”

“Sorry, sir. Anyway, number two. What if Claudius
was behind this, or was even the mastermind? I got nothing but a
bad vibe from him earlier, and if what Quintilius says is true,
he’s got the means and the motives to do perform a coup.”

“Maybe,” Vincent agreed reluctantly, “but even
though things have changed slightly, that theory really isn’t in
sync with our own knowledge of history.”

“Right. But like you said, things have changed.
Maybe Claudius really ordered the assassination of Caligula in our
history, and made up the story of hiding in the curtains to throw
off historians. Hell, from what I’ve seen, he’s done a fantastic
job of rewriting history already. Nothing seems right. I think that
when Caligula originally got sick, Claudius was behind the
poisoning, just as he is this time. Except this time, since we’re
here, Caligula is here too. Not out of the city. Also, since we’re
here, we can stop him from getting so sick he never fully
recovers.”

“Doesn’t that go against your policy of
interference?”

“We’ve already fucked things up as it is. If we
don’t do something, who knows what will happen. We need to work on
putting things right,” I paused, another thought growing in the
back of my head. “By the way, we’re going to have a conversation
about this when we get out of here, because I’m starting to
formulate another theory, and it has nothing to do with Roman
politicking.”

Vincent stared at me.

He was hiding something from me. I knew it and he
knew it. Something that had been nagging me from the very
beginning, ever since we were told about an equipment cache.
Vincent looked was almost daring me to confront him, to create some
kind of altercation, but this wasn’t the place. I would have to
deal with it later. Our other legion friend, Marcus, appeared out
of nowhere and approached the three of us hastily.

“Sir,” he said, likewise glistening but not
breathing heavily. “We couldn’t hold them back. The mob will be
here in minutes.

“Gods…” Quintilius muttered.

“There’s more, sir,” Marcus continued. “Claudius is
at the head of the formation, and he’s somehow enlisted the aid of
Praetorians.”

“How is that possible?” Quintilius asked sharply.
“There has been no talk of dissension. Our loyalty has been
unquestionable.”

I snorted. Yeah right.

Praetorians were notorious for their direct
involvement in the ascension of nearly every emperor, save Augustus
and a few later ones, but Augustus was the only emperor to maintain
complete control over his bodyguards. Even Tiberius had to pay a
tribute to them just to keep their loyalty, which later became a
tradition for all newly appointed emperors. They would soon become
political juggernauts with immense power over who might become
emperor. They were known to have done away with numerous emperors
they didn’t agree with. That said, from what I knew at this point
in history, they should have been devoutly loyal to Caligula. Their
current prefect, Macro, had been essential to Caligula upon his
rise to power, and even though Caligula should soon have him
executed while spending time in the East, for now, he was
loyal.

If the Senate and Praetorians did have plans to
overthrow Caligula, they’d need a considerable amount of firepower
just to get past us, so what better to use than an entire city? I
suppose it made sense. Armor, training, and Roman stubbornness
wouldn’t to be enough for Praetorians to stop us. Twenty Roman
Praetorians would be no more effective against us than twenty
civilians, unless they got close, and then things would even up
very quickly, but there would be a lot of bodies on the ground
before they got that close.

Marcus didn’t respond to Quintilius’ question right
away. Instead he tried looking around, maybe in the vain hope that
Quintilius would find someone else to question. But Quintilius was
not in the mood for tentative subordinates.

“Marcus!? How has this happened? Where is
Macro?”

Marcus’ head snapped around and he looked at his
centurion squarely. “He’s dead. He was stabbed in his sleep in the
Castra Praetoria
.”

Vincent and I shared knowing nods once again. Macro
had played an essential role in the ascension of Caligula to the
position of Imperator. But years later, as the emperor’s obsession
and paranoia grew, he’d had Macro banished, where he and his wife
took their own lives. But now, he was a staunch ally of Caligula.
He was an important puzzle piece to remove if any potential coup
was to succeed.

Quintilius didn’t appear saddened by the loss of his
boss, but he knew the implications involved in his death. He shook
his head in disbelief.

“Just how many of your Praetorians have gone rogue,”
I asked.

Marcus paused, not even trying to hide his fear. “Of
the two cohorts in the city, only the three centuries here are
still loyal. We’re outnumbered seven to one.”

VIII

Betrayal

Rome, Italy

November, 37 A.D.

“Three hundred men!? Against two thousand?!” I
shouted. “Have you people no sense of loyalty? There’s no way we
can hold out against that many, especially when they’re aided by a
mob of…”

Vincent motioned for me to calm down. “Settle down,
Hunter. You’re not helping. Centurion, give me your strategic
appraisal of the situation. Where are the remaining cohorts?”

“Two are on a training detail in the south, three
are occupied on courier missions, and the remaining two are split
up protecting various imperial family members, scattered throughout
Italy.”

“Shouldn’t there be three cohorts in Rome?” Vincent
asked.