Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 67

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

Bob worked the reinforcing brackets off then pulled away the thick bars of wood that made the cage.

‘Jeeez!’ whispered Maddy as she caught her first glimpse of the rest of the pitiful creature cowering inside. ‘Is that really a man in there?’

The frail, skeletal body inside looked like that of an old man, edges and bulges where bone pushed out against paper-thin skin. His skin was darker than Mediterranean skin; Middle Eastern, Asian perhaps. And hair. Lots of it, cascading down his narrow shoulders, once upon a time dark, but now grey threaded with white in places.

The man cowered in the corner at the sight of Bob pulling the cage open, bar by bar.

‘Shhh! It’s OK,’ Maddy cooed softly. ‘We’re not going to hurt you!’

Cato stepped closer to get a better look at him. ‘Is… is this one of the Visitors?’

The man in the mask glanced at him quickly. He nodded vigorously, manic, darting eyes growing even wider. He whimpered, mewed and gurgled, bony hands gesturing frantically at the mask over his mouth.

Maddy stepped forward. ‘Let me take that off you. Is that what you want?’

The man scrambled unsteadily forward; his bare feet padded off a soft bed of trampled faecal matter — years’ worth of human waste compacted into an almost compost-like bed — on to the cool, hard tiles with a gentle patter. He turned his back to Maddy and frantically lifted his long, matted hair to reveal a crusted iron band with a padlock on it.

‘It’s a lock. I’m… I’m sorry… I don’t…’

‘Let me,’ said Cato. He pulled his sword out and carefully dug the tip of his blade into the lock’s rusted clasp. With a sharp twist, it snapped and showered flakes of rust to the floor. Maddy eased the band away from his head, grimacing at the skin worn bald at the back of the man’s head, the fresh scabs, the fading scars.

The old man untangled his matted hair, the long wisps of his beard and moustache, from the mask’s locking band. He eased the mask itself away from lips crusted with scab and dried mucus. The feed tube, the outside of it coated in the slime of rotting food lodged in the front of the mouth, emerged from a largely toothless face; gums almost completely black with the ruined stumps of dead teeth.

‘ Oh Jesus,’ Maddy whispered, controlling the urge to retch.

The mask clunked to the floor, the echo filling the cavernous, dark room.

‘Are you one of the Visitors?’ Cato asked.

The man seemed to be in a state of shock, hyperventilating. Gasping. His tongue, snaking out and tasting the air, relishing its release from captivity.

‘Did you come from the future?’ tried Maddy in English.

His darting eyes stopped on her immediately.

‘English? You can understand me?’

His jaw flexed — trying to speak. Trying to form words with his ruined mouth.

Just then Bob stirred. ‘Information.’

Maddy held a hand up to shush him. ‘He’s trying to say something.’ The old man was gurgling something. Trying to produce a word.

‘Caution!’ said Bob more insistently. ‘I am detecting two more idents! Approaching from the east quickly!’

‘Two of them? We don’t stand a chance against two of them!’

‘What is your Stone Man saying?’ asked Cato.

Maddy turned to look at the doorway. ‘The others are coming!’ she hissed in Latin to Cato. ‘Sal!’ She started towards the doors. ‘SAL! Get Liam inside! HURRY!’

A moment later, she saw Macro and Sal with Liam dangling between them, shuffling inside.

‘We’ve got to close the doors!’ screamed Maddy. ‘Help me!’ She jogged across the floor and began to wrestle with one of the oak doors. Macro grabbed the other, the doors creaking on solid iron hinges. Bob was beside her a moment later and with a heavy, rattling thud, the wan light from the oil lamps in the small passage outside was gone.

By the light of her candle she could see there was no way to secure the doors, no locking bar on this side, no padlocks, nothing.

‘They are twenty yards away,’ said Bob.

‘Everyone! We’ve got to hold the doors!’ she barked, wedging her shoulder against one of them.

Cato was beside her now. ‘No! They’ll lock us inside and we’ll be trapped in here!’

Macro nodded. ‘Cato’s right. We’ll be dead men if we’re stuck in here when Caligula returns.’

Cato drew his sword. ‘We should fight them now. We have a chance against them.’

‘They’ll kill us all!’ Maddy cried.

‘Better that,’ said Macro, ‘than Caligula finding us in his palace.’

‘They are now directly outside,’ said Bob.

The doors suddenly boomed and rattled under the impact of something. A shaft of light spilled in as the doors momentarily parted. Bob threw his weight against them both and they clattered shut again.

‘There’s no knowing how long we have,’ said Cato. ‘Fronto’s lads are loyal to the emperor and their prefect, Quintus. They’re following my orders for now because they think I’m loyal too. But they catch a glimpse of what’s gone on here… Do you understand? They’re our men until they realize they’re being fooled.’ Cato shook his head. ‘We have to find whatever contraption it is you need to put things right and we have to leave this place quickly.’

Bob’s voice rumbled out of the gloom. ‘He is correct, Maddy. We are trapped in here. This is not tactically advisable.’

‘All right…’ Maddy panted in the dark. ‘All right… OK… we’ll — ahh Jeeesus, this is freakin’ crazy! So, I guess, what? We’re gonna fight them?!’

‘Your Stone Man, Macro and I… I say we have a chance.’

‘Wait!’

The voice came from out of the dark. She heard the slap of bare feet approaching. ‘Wait! I… know… this…’ His voice was weak and brittle, the words slurred and almost incomprehensible.

‘The word!’ he croaked. ‘The word! There’s a word… I know it! There’s a word!’

They didn’t have time for this. ‘Does everyone have a w-weapon?’ Maddy whimpered nervously. ‘Oh God, I can’t believe we’re doing this. We’re going to die!’

‘The word!!’ cried the old man. ‘I… I have the wo-o-o-o-ord!’

‘Stand back, old man,’ barked Macro, readying the sword in his hands.

‘On three,’ said Cato to Bob. ‘You open those doors on three. Is that clear?’

‘Affirmative.’

‘Get back, Sal,’ whispered Maddy, holding the hilt of a knife in trembling hands.

‘Shadd-yah! Maddy? What? We’re letting them in?’

‘One… two… and… three!’

Bob pulled both doors inwards, stepping backwards into the room as the dancing light of oil lamps outside spilled in to meet them. He pulled the sword from his belt. The two Stone Men charged into the room, side by side — not a single microsecond wasted in offering a challenge.

‘ S-s-s-s-SPONGEBUBBA! ’ screamed the old man, an insane, wild, banshee scream that peeled round the darkness like the cry of some nocturnal forest creature.

The units instantly froze.

They dropped their swords and shields at their feet; a deafening clatter and rasp of metal on ceramic. Their heads dipped in unison, their eyes slowly closed as they straightened their posture, arms dropped to their sides, and they planted their feet heel by heel: soldiers standing to attention.

Ten, twenty seconds passed, the silence filled with a chorus of panting breath.

‘What are they doing?’ gasped Maddy.

Presently both units raised their heads and opened their eyes, gazed quite neutrally, almost benignly, at them.

‘Diagnostic mode reinitialized,’ they both calmly announced. ‘Please state your username and password.’