Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 75

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

‘NO!’ shouted Rashim. He pointed to the ground. Dropped down to his knees and spread his fingers on the floor, caressing the stone almost tenderly. ‘Below… I hear it whisper… every night! My ocean… in my world!’

Cato looked at Maddy. ‘What is that mad fool saying now?’

She shook her head. He was talking in English. Gibberish. Might as well have been in Mongolian.

Rashim rolled his eyes with frustration. ‘Water, you fools! Dripping water!’ And again in Latin for Cato and Macro’s benefit.

‘Of course!’ Cato dropped down to his knees. ‘Running water!’ He looked up. ‘A network of sewers beneath the palace! Somewhere beneath this floor… we just need to dig — ’

‘Dig?’ Macro shrugged. ‘With what?’

The oak doors boomed and rattled again, more insistently this time. ‘They are using a battering ram,’ said Bob. ‘These doors will not last for long.’

Cato pulled his gladius from its sheath and dug the tip of the blade into the hairline seam between the stone tiles. With a soft crack, the clay cementing the tile gave up its hold and the tile dislodged with a puff of dust and grit. ‘Come on, Macro! Help me!’

Macro produced his sword, knelt down and did likewise, both of them gouging at the floor frantically.

‘Help them!’ said Rashim, pointing. ‘Dig… dig us a hole!’

Both Stone Men chorused an ‘affirmative’, produced their own blades and joined in hacking into the tiles.

The doors boomed again, accompanied by the sound of cracking wood. Bob braced his back against the doors, supporting the locking bar with his own substantial weight. ‘We will not have long,’ he cautioned.

Maddy looked at Liam. ‘How are you doing?’

He grinned. ‘Not so bad. Getting used to the sting now.’

‘That’s good,’ she whispered and smiled. ‘We’re getting out of here, you know.’

Cato dug frantically at the dried clay floor beneath the dislodged tiles, his sword gouging out fist-sized chunks, rust-red and crumbly. The four of them quickly had a crater three foot across and several uneven inches deep. He cursed under his breath. ‘How deep do we have to dig?’

‘Water… down there!’ hissed Rashim. ‘Beneath our feet, yes? I hear it every night!’

Sal picked up a candle and headed towards the piles of dusty equipment.

‘Where you going, Sal?’ called out Maddy.

She pointed at the piles of artefacts on the floor. ‘Maybe there’s something we can use from over there?’

‘Sure, uh… OK, go look.’

The chamber filled again with the sound of a deep boom and the crack of surrendering oak; hairline fissures of light stretched up and down each door.

‘You must dig faster,’ suggested Bob.

Cato peered down at the rust-coloured clay. His sword tip was hitting and sparking on stone again. Another layer. By the flickering candle nearby he could see little. Desperately he scrabbled with his fingers, feeling for another seam to wedge the tip of his blade into.

Sal squatted down next to the pile of things. Her hands pulled at the threads and edges of half-seen things: clothes, shoes, glasses, boots… a child’s toy, the dark and cracked touch-screen of a long-dead holo-data pad. But nothing remotely useful.

Come on… come on!

The cavernous chamber boomed again.

She thrust her hand deeper into the piles of things, fumbling, patting, pulling, feeling for something that might help them. Her index finger caught in something and wrenched painfully as she struggled to twist her finger free.

It scraped out of something. A hole. She pulled clothes and boots aside until she found herself staring at a small iron grille in the floor. She could hear it, coming up through the grille, the unmistakable soft trickle of water.

That’s what Rashim had heard. That’s where the noise had been coming from!

‘Over here!’ she cried. ‘Over here! There’s a grille!’

The men looked up from their digging, a moment’s hesitation — no more. Not a clue between them as to what she was saying. She wished she had one of those buds. ‘Shadd-yah, Maddy! Tell them! There’s like a sewage grating or something! Right here!’

Maddy did, and both Romans were out of their shallow crater and beside her moments later.

Once again Cato used the tip of his sword and levered the iron grille out of the floor. Macro helped him, grunting as, between them, they slid it to one side.

‘That’s it,’ said Cato, leaning over the small hole and peering down into the darkness. The faintest reflection of candlelight glinted back at him. The foul smell of rancid effluent was overpowering.

‘Oh, that’s it all right,’ said Macro, curling his lips in disgust.

The doors boomed again and this time a strip of oak from the left-hand door clattered on to the tiled floor.

Cato picked out the shape of Maddy near the doors, a comforting arm around Liam. ‘You! You two, come here!’

Maddy helped Liam to his feet and they both came over.

‘This sewage aqueduct, you have to follow the direction of the flow!’ said Cato. ‘It leads to the river.’

She nodded. ‘OK.’

‘You should go now.’ He glanced at the doors. ‘They’ll be through soon enough.’

Maddy nodded. She turned to Sal. ‘Can you help Rashim down?’

‘Right.’

Sal lowered herself down through the hole in the floor. ‘I can’t feel the bottom. I think it’s a drop.’

Maddy peered through a gap to the side of her, until she caught the flicker of reflected candlelight. ‘I don’t think it’s far.’

‘Here goes, then.’ Sal lowered herself down until her arms were fully extended then let go. Maddy heard the echo of a viscous, muddy splut.

‘It’s OK, not far.’ Her voice reverberated as if it was at the far end of an underpass. ‘Ughh! But it’s total chuddah!’

Maddy grabbed Rashim’s hand. ‘You next.’

Another deafening boom and more fragments of splintered wood clattered to the floor. Thick shafts of light speared into the darkness, and she could see the glint of helmets through the fractured doors.

Liam pulled himself painfully up to a seated position.

‘Liam? You OK to…?’

‘I’m fine, Mads… I’m OK. I can get myself down.’

‘Your friend… then you, Maddy and your Stone Man,’ said Cato. ‘But hurry!’

‘What about you?’

Cato glanced at Macro. Macro returned a subtle nod. An unspoken understanding between the pair of them. ‘We need to cover over the sewage trap. And perhaps we can buy you some time.’

She looked from one to the other. ‘They’ll kill you!’

‘Of course they will,’ Cato smiled. ‘But then, as you said, you can make it so this never happened? Am I correct?’

She nodded. ‘Yes, but…’

‘Then you should go. Now. Give us both a better end than this one.’

Rashim was down. Liam eased himself into the hole, groaning with pain as his arms worked and his torso flexed.

Boom. The cavernous room echoed with Bob’s deep, angry roar as he thrust his sword through the jagged hole in the left-hand door and there was a yelp of agony from outside.

They heard the echo of a muddy splat and Liam’s voice groaning at the impact.

‘Bob!’ cried Maddy. ‘We’re leaving! Get here now!’

‘I must remain by these doors!’

Cato stood up and approached the Stone Men. ‘Will you two take my orders?’

‘Affirmative,’ they both replied. ‘You are to be protected.’

‘Then kill anyone who comes through.’

Both clones drew swords from their sheaths and crossed the floor to stand in front of the shuddering, flexing oak doors.

Bob nodded at them as he passed by. ‘Good luck,’ he offered. They paused to look at each other briefly, both clones bemused by such an oddly human gesture of compassion from another support unit. Then they took up their positions before the fragmenting remains of the oak doors, legs apart, a two-handed grip on their swords, braced to kill.

‘Go!’ said Maddy, slapping Bob on the shoulder as he squatted down beside her.

‘You first, Madelaine. I will guard the rear.’

Cato seemed to understand Bob’s intent. ‘He is right. Let him be the rearguard.’

She was about to drop down through the hole, but hesitated. She leaned over and kissed Cato on the cheek. ‘I’ll make things right… I promise you that!’ Then she grasped Macro’s forearm. ‘I’ll make it right.’

‘Go!’ said Macro. He grinned. ‘Go on… don’t worry, we’ve been in tighter spots than this.’

She lowered herself down into the sewer and landed with a splat. Bob quickly followed her down, squeezing, barely, through the hole in the floor.

Both Cato and Macro reached for the iron grating and eased it back into place as a final crash against the doors sent them juddering open. The clones stepped forward together into the light of flickering torches and braziers and engaged the Praetorians stepping across the splinters of wood and twisted iron bracing.

Cato picked up his sword as Macro pulled the rotting and dusty artefacts across to cover the manhole.

‘Is that the truth, Cato? They can change this?’

He bent down and picked up a shield from the floor. ‘Perhaps.’

Macro pursed his lips as he gave that a moment’s consideration and finally nodded. ‘Good enough for me.’

‘That’s what I’ve always liked about you, Macro.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You never overthink things.’

Macro laughed. The two clones were doing a lethal job so far, holding the doorway and filling it with a growing pile of squirming bodies.

‘I hope our other fate sees us both as old men,’ Cato grinned. ‘Old and rich. How does that sound?’

Macro flexed his arms, sword in one, shield in the other. ‘I always figured we’d go out like this, you and me.’

Cato smiled at his old friend. ‘Ever the optimist. Shall we?’

He shrugged. ‘No point standing here gossiping like a pair of old fishwives.’