Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 58

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

The palace was a quiet place normally. Caligula’s notorious orgies, his peculiar excesses tittle-tattled about by Roman tongues all over the empire, were a feature of his younger years. Some of the older veterans in the Guard had shared with Cato tales of the emperor’s extravagant behaviour after he’d first come to power. But they’d all agree that the Day of the Visitors was the day Caligula left that all behind him.

Since then the emperor’s halls had become a place where conversations were spoken gently, and the guards that patrolled anywhere near where they thought the emperor might be, stepped lightly and muffled as best they could the clank and clatter of their equipment.

The palace was a quiet place normally, Cato noted, but today it was as silent as a tomb. The palace personnel, slaves and freedmen were confined to quarters for their own safety. The only people within the imperial compound were Cato, Centurion Fronto and his century… and the three Stone Men Caligula had chosen to leave behind.

And where exactly have they got to? He didn’t like the idea of not knowing where those things were quietly lurking.

Cato did his best to look like an officer with duty on his mind, scouring the hushed, marble-floored hallways and private courtyards for any signs of intruders or looters. Out in the palace’s herb garden he squatted down over a sewer grating and checked the grating itself was secure. Not that he particularly cared. But appearances were everything.

His mind was elsewhere.

A messenger from Prefect Quintus had arrived only several hours after the Guard had set off in a long column of purple cloaks. His message was that cavalry squadrons scouting ahead of the column had already clashed in several light skirmishes with scouts from the Tenth and Eleventh Legions. And that they’d caught a brief glimpse of Lepidus’s column on the horizon. It seemed Atellus had successfully goaded the general into making his move.

Both forces would probably draw within a couple of miles of each other by noon, and then spend the remains of the day building temporary marching camps. Their men suitably rested overnight, the fighting would happen tomorrow.

What concerned Cato was the possibility of a parlay between Caligula and Lepidus. Perhaps the general might be able to convince the emperor that he’d been set up by Crassus and his fellow conspirators. How long into that conversation before Cato’s name cropped up? And how long after that before a messenger and an escort of Praetorian cavalry arrived at the palace with orders for his arrest?

He could have lunged for Caligula. He should have tried while the emperor was distracted watching Crassus dying. He’d had a ghost of a chance then, hadn’t he?

His mind turned to those young strangers: the two girls, the young man and their giant. Perhaps the only chance they had now was to get that creature Bob — a curious name — into the imperial grounds while it was mostly deserted. Then, on Caligula’s return, he might somehow manage to pick the right moment, emerge and fight his way through to the emperor.

It wasn’t much of a plan, but right now it seemed to be all Cato had left, other than wait for that inevitable messenger and arrest order to eventually arrive.

He returned to the main atrium and headed west, down along the main approach hallway to the front entrance of the palace. Fronto and several sections of his men were stationed there. Cato needed to speak to him. Halfway down the hall as he paced quickly, filling the echoing hallway with the noise of his own heavy footsteps, he stopped and looked at the drape to his left.

The temple was beyond that.

He took several steps towards it.

The temple that only Caligula entered. He wondered if the girl, Maddy, was right, whether hidden inside the room were those mysterious chariots, perhaps even the remains of the Visitors. He reached for the drape and pulled it slowly to one side.

‘You do not have authority to be here.’

Cato jerked at the harsh voice. So this was where all three of them had been lurking.

‘Please leave immediately,’ said another, taking a threatening step towards him and reaching for the pommel of a sword strapped to its side.