To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (9 page)
Read To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) Online
Authors: Edward Crichton
At one point
, I thought I would have to shoot him when I saw his head snap around in our direction, but it turned out he was merely swatting at an insect. He turned towards the center of the wall to meet up with his buddy a few moments later, and I let out a slow breath through my balaclava. I glanced at Helena, only my eyes revealing my relief. She returned my look with a flick of her own green eyes and a gentle nudge to urge me forward.
When the guard was out of sight, I pulled Helena’s grappling hook and rope from her MOLLE vest once again
. I placed the hook on the rampart’s wooden floor near the corner and tossed the rope out over the inner wall. The corner was pitch black so we had no insecurities about standing out against the lightly colored stone wall. I maneuvered myself out over the wall and fast roped to the bottom, taking stock of our surroundings after touching the ground, waiting for Helena to join me. Our corner of the camp seemed deserted at the moment, but that could change at any moment. When Helena’s boots hit the grass behind me, I turned to see her jerk the rope to dislodge the hook, stepping aside to ensure it didn’t fall on her. After it landed, I picked it up and secured it to her rig for the last time, and we moved off into the small city.
There might have been a thousand rows of tents
before us, each containing eight sleeping men, and I had no idea how many tents there were per row. To find our way through, we simply picked a narrow avenue in one of the denser areas of the camp and slowly made our way towards the center, looking for a potential legionnaire to interrogate.
We didn’t have to wait long before o
ur first candidate appeared.
A man stumbled out of his tent nearly on top of us, muttering about how he really had to use the bathroom. Helena moved first and tackled him to the ground, covering his mouth in one quick motion. I knelt beside him and pushed my small boot knife against his throat.
“Galba,” I whispered into his ear. “Where’s his tent?”
The man’s eyes were filled with shock, wide open and unbelieving, as though he were witnessing an apparition before him. He trembled and I heard the sound of running water beneath me. I glanced down to see that the man had urinated himself. Helena looked down as well, just in time to shift her knee out of the way. She looked back up at me
and rolled her eyes.
“
Galba?
” I whispered with some force this time, driving my knife deep enough to draw a droplet of blood.
The legionnaire shook his head vigorously, his eyes wide with terror. Helena moved her hand just slightly. “Two tents behind the
praetorium
, three in the direction of the
porta
decumana
.”
I nodded. “Thanks. Your helpfulness won’t go unrewarded.”
Helena covered his mouth again and I shot him with a tranq dart before he could do something stupid. She looked at me with wide, annoyed eyes, not finding my parting words nearly as humorous as I did. We waited a few seconds for the affects to take hold and I removed the dart. I rolled him near the entrance to his tent with the shove of my boot. A random passerby wouldn’t suspect any foul play, just another drunk passed out on the ground, and he’d probably be too out of it when he woke up to even remember us.
I flicked my fingers towards the
praetorium
and we carefully stalked our way through the camp. It took us about fifteen minutes, but we were eventually in position to cross the
via principalis
.
Luckily, tr
affic wasn’t heavy, but there were guards posted sporadically. If not for a few parlor tricks Santino had taught us about creating diversions and dividing and conquering, this operation would have been over almost before it began.
But we were lucky, and our insertion seemed complete when we found ourselves in front of the tent the
legionnaire had indicated was Galba’s. I glanced at my watch. 0330. We had a few hours before the army started its daily hustle and bustle. I followed Helena as she reached the tent’s entrance and gave the camp one last look. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary so I patted her on the shoulder and followed her inside.
I stepped into a large open space, littered with mobile furniture and storage containers scattered throughout in a haphazard manner. After a second to take in my surroundings, I went directly to the bed. Looking down, I saw the fat face of the ugly man I knew to be Galba. I never
did figure out how his head always looked so fat while his body stayed in the tip top shape of any legionnaire.
Helena and I exchanged nods, and
I bent over to clasp a gloved hand over his thick lips.
His eyes shot open, but he didn’t flinch, try to esca
pe or utter a noise. In his eyes I saw immediate recognition, even with our concealing facemasks. He was one of the few people who knew who we were. I held a finger vertically over my covered mouth and waited for him to nod in understanding. When he did, I slowly removed my hand.
“You,” he growled. “I should have you arrested and crucified. I’ve
recently received word from the empress that you have officially been charged with the murder of Caligula.” He narrowed his eyes at me angrily.
I cocked my head to the side and looked at Helena. Her indecipherable figure shrugged. That was news to us. I’d always wondered why she hadn’t pegged
his murder on us years ago, but I guess it was better late than never for her.
Interesting timing, though.
I pulled off my mask, revealing a face I knew was familiar to him and stood up straight.
“Servius. I need you to listen to me.”
“Listen to you?! Why should I do that, you traitorous murderer?”
I leaned down and whispered, “Servius, do you really think we killed Caligula?”
Galba looked at the foot of his bed before looking back at us, shifting positions so that he was sitting up and crossed his arms over his chest. It gave him the appearance of a chubby, stubborn two year old.
“No,” he said.
“I don’t. You are many things, but I always considered you loyal, and since you didn’t try to usurp power for yourself after his death, I see no motive.”
Helena
removed her own mask and pulled her very long hair from beneath the back of her vest.
“Listen to him, Galba,” she said. “You may not want believe what he has to tell you, but you need to trust us.”
I looked over at Helena, who had cleaned up since our time in the tavern, and was back to the ravishing green eyed beauty I’d always known her to be.
“So you brought your woman,” Galba commented as he looked around. “Of course you did. Where is the funny one? I actually liked him.”
I’m sure Santino will be ecstatic.
“Servius,” I pressed, “what I’m about to tell you will sound ridiculous, outlandish, and frankly impossible, but I need you to keep an open mind.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” He asked nervously. “My name is Lucius, not Servius.”
“No, it’s not,” I said sternly. “Your
real name is Servius Sulpicius Galba. You only took the name Lucius Livius Ocella Sulpicius Galba from your step mother and her family, who loved you dearly and raised you as one of their own.” I saw his eyes widen in surprise. “Now, let me tell you another story. One about you, me, Rome, its future, and how I need your help to ensure its very survival.”
III
Mission
Entry #3
Helena Van Strauss
Vindonissa, Germania Superior - April, 42 A.D.
My turn.
It seems only fair that someone other than Jacob have the opportunity to tell our story. He’s al
ways been too secretive for his own good. Stubborn and arrogant too. But while that stubbornness was one of the many reasons I fell in love with him all those years ago, it’s also what brought us here today.
In a place I don’t
want to be.
I sit here writing this
entry from within Galba’s tent, at the very center of a fortress filled with tens of thousands of armed and dangerous men, all of whom wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to cash in on the Whore’s reward for our heads. To someone like me or you, this may seem crazy, but to someone like Jacob, it’s completely normal.
The man I love is on a mission, and when he’s on one, it’s best to stay out of his way.
The man I love.
I’ve found it harder and harder to regard him in that way
for maybe six months now, ever since his plan became less theoretical and more like an obsession. I don’t feel wrong in questioning my feelings for him when his fixation suddenly became more of a priority to him than I was. And I don’t mean that in a jealous way. What I mean is that he no longer seems to care about anything I have to say, if he even bothers to ask.
He doesn’t seem to care about anything.
If only he hadn’t been like this before, I wouldn’t worry about him. At the very onset of our arrival here in ancient Rome, Jacob had placed all responsibility for bringing us here on himself, refusing to admit otherwise and pulled away from the only people he could trust. I was already in the process of loving him by then, but I couldn’t bring myself to act on it until I knew for certain he wasn’t a self-obsessed megalomaniac. I hadn’t known him for more than a few months then, knowing that even the most gentle of people can have a dark side.
But I was lucky. Jacob
changed and committed himself to working through his issues, but now he’s doing it again. I feel like I’m losing him to inner demons that have always persisted in his mind and always will… but even though I know I have to be there for him… I’m not sure I can.
As for Galba, well, he hasn’t
taken the news we came here to tell him very well. Not well at all. When Jacob first began his story, Galba seemed fine, pacing around the room distractedly stopping only occasionally to glare at me as if all this is
my
fault…
Which
irritated me.
Men have always underestimated me, beginning with my father, and I’ve never understood why. Why is it that
I always had to prove myself just to gain an inkling of respect? Even Caligula and Galba, and every other legionnaire I’d met, all shorter than me, had underestimated me. They thought I was weak but they learned. I broke a man’s nose and almost killed another, all to prove I was just as special as they were.
Like I said, they learned
.
During the
Battle for Rome, I was just another one of the guys. They even made me a set of legionary armor for me that actually fit. It was sweet. Galba spoke to me directly once, and after my near death experience, Caligula himself even came to sit with me. It was cute, and I really appreciated it. His acceptance was honestly the first time I’ve ever felt truly appreciated.
Galba
just slumped across his desk.
Jac
ob hadn’t been kidding when he said he was going to tell Galba everything.
He started with Galba’s backstory. It was the only thing he knew he cou
ld say that would prove he knew more than he should, or could. Then he told Galba how everything should have played out, with Caligula going crazy and Claudius taking over. Jacob continued with Nero and the atrocities he would let happen – how he would let Rome burn, blame it on the Christians and build a giant palace on the spot where homes were destroyed. Then, he told him about his own attempt to take control upon Nero’s death and how he had failed and died, the first of three, before Vespasian took control. Jacob finished by telling the tale of Rome’s fall, followed by as much European, Muslim, Asian, and American history as he could in the last hour. He mentioned the Dark Ages, the medieval period, the Renaissance, the discovery of America, the unification of European territories into their own sovereign nations, and more history than I ever knew existed.
I had to give him credit. He was a good teacher. He was as patient with Galba as I could see him being with his young students trying to grasp a
new concept. It was adorable actually.
I’m trying to catch up here, but I think I heard him mention the third world war that was going on in 2021. He made sure to mention the technical advancements and the terror they brought. Chemical, biological, nuclear warfare. He mentioned Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and the utter destruction that was unleashed on
God knows how many Japanese...
It just occurred to me that if Jacob is right, you may have no idea what I’m talking a
bout.
Sorry.
I made sure to watch Galba’s posture during the presentation. As I said, he paced at first, but by the time Jacob got to the fall of Rome, he’d stopped to stand near his desk. With William the Conqueror, he was still standing, but had his fists on his desk as he leaned heavily on them. When Jacob got to steam power, airplanes, electricity, the moon landing, and the internet, Galba was seated at his chair, his hands clutching his ears as he hung his head, trying to wrap his mind around everything Jacob had just unleashed upon him.
