Rogue Emperor (The Chronoplane Wars Book 3) Read online

  Pierce nodded to the Praetorian Guards and left the terrace. At least the Agency was doing something. He considered simply vanishing, and waiting for the helicopter to move in and pick him up. For the time being, however, he was probably safer right where he was, and in a position to do the Militants some harm.

  Maria’s room was lighted by a single small battery lamp beside her bed. The glow made the murals seem more deeply colored than in candlelight. She welcomed Pierce with an embrace and a kiss that was both hard and yielding.

  “You’ve just come from the emperor?”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “No — now, when we’re alone together, I am only Maria.”

  “Yes — Maria. I told him I had failed to meet the Christians. He told me to keep on, and sent me here.”

  “Of course. This is where you should be.” She put her arms around his waist and nuzzled his throat. “We must be up early. Come to bed.”

  “The guards will expect to see me in the doorway.”

  “So they shall — in a while.”

  In darkness she opened to him, held him, and shuddered wildly in his arms. Then they lay together while her fingertips caressed him.

  “Do you think we have done wrong, Alaricus?”

  “No. Many Christians show their love for one another this way.”

  She giggled. “You don’t know how right you are. But where I come from, some of us feel ashamed of it.”

  “Christmanna — the man who converted us — said nothing of that. God made us to lie together and give one another pleasure.”

  “Amen. If only some of my people believed it. You must tell no one about this, Alaricus. Or Dear Michael will punish us terribly.”

  “Why should the emperor care if we comfort each other?”

  “The emperor believes this is a sin. And sometimes it is, when the people don’t care about each other and when they give each other sickness this way. But you and I care, and we won’t make each other sick.”

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “Hold me until I fall asleep, and then go out to your place in the doorway. And wake me a little earlier than you need to.”

  She was soon asleep. Moonlight fell through the screened window, giving Pierce plenty of illumination as he gently rose and dressed and stepped silently into the adjacent toilet. On a little shelf he found Maria’s Pentasyns and took two. That left four more; if she suffered no more migraines she would not notice the loss of two capsules, and he might well be able to replace them in the next day or two.

  Soon he was settled on his thin mattress in the doorway, his cloak around him. The Praetorian who had told him about Comutus passed by, waved silently, and walked on. Pierce dozed off.

  *

  The sky was just lightening as they rode from the palace next morning. The day would be fair: A few clouds blurred the stars, but they would soon burn away under the sun.

  Pierce was grateful that the Romans had quickly adopted the Hesperian invention of the stirrup, but the saddle was uncomfortably small and his tunic rode up. The horses were sturdy, short-legged beasts whose iron shoes rang loudly on the paving stones.

  Pierce and Maria rode down the Nova Via to the Amphitheater plaza, not far from the Colossus. Just to the south was the Vicus Patricius, which led to the Porta Ostiensis — the gate to Ostia and the sea. They rode down the street, under the aqueduct of Nero, and around the eastern end of the Circus Maximus. The street was crowded with wagons rolling into the city, but the horses had no trouble finding room along the sidewalks. The third horse trotted peacefully behind Pierce, roped to his saddle. Maria rode close behind, one hand on her holstered Ruger .357. She still wore uptime combat clothing, but had at least put on a Roman cloak that made her look like an ordinary horseman.

  Traffic around the Porta Ostiensis was heavy: Through this gate came all the goods from the port of Ostia, including the grain shipments that kept a third of the city eating. The guards were urban cohorts, too concerned to keep traffic moving to look closely at two riders whose horses wore imperial insignia on their bridles. Pierce breathed easier when they were outside the walls and trotting past the huge pyramidal tomb of Cestius.

  Maria brought her horse up alongside and smiled at him in the brightening dawn. “This is what I wanted,” she said, reaching out to touch his arm. “We’re doing something, just the two of us, for the glory of God.”

  Pierce smiled and nodded, saying nothing. He felt an urge to tell her about Saint Mark and his lost grandchildren, not out of cruelty but because the interview in the library had disturbed him and he needed to share it. No: Describing the old man’s tears would only rattle her, perhaps force her into a defensive shell. He would lose his influence over her, to no advantage. The story of Mark would have to wait until the deBriefing.

  The horses moved at a steady pace, enjoying the cool spring morning. The road was lined with pines and cypresses; beyond were cow pastures and small farms. Clusters of houses, temples, and shops were almost continuous: This was a densely populated region. At a mansio at the sixth milestone, they stopped for a moment while Pierce bought bread and a small pot of honey. They ate in the saddle; Maria was too noticeable to be allowed to enter a shop, and Pierce did not want some enthusiastic mailman to hurry into Rome with reports of a blond Amazon riding toward Ostia.

  Before the sun was very high they reached the eleventh milestone and turned southwest down a narrow road. The soil was sandy, but the horses were not much slowed. On either side the woods closed in.

  “How do you know where to go, Alaricus?”

  “Everyone knows where the consul’s villa is, my lady.” Especially, he thought, if they had Plinius’s collected letters Briefed into memory; the consul had described both the route and the estate.

  “No more ‘my lady,’ if you please, my lord. I am Maria and you are Alaricus.”

  “Yes — Maria.”

  She smiled and leaned over, grabbing Pierce by the neck and pulling him close for a kiss.

  *

  As Plinius had described, the road sometimes widened into sheep pasture or meadows full of horses or cattle. Herders, mostly teenage boys, waved as Pierce and Maria passed. This was more peaceful country than around Vallis Viridis, country where shepherds had no fear of brigands. Pierce suspected that the reason was the power and ruthlessness of the local landowners; they were the seeds of the feudalism that would eventually supplant the empire.

  Well before noon they came in sight of the sea, deep blue and dotted with the sails of ships. The road descended in switchbacks out of the wooded hills to a coastal plain dotted with villas and hamlets. The air smelled of salt, and at times Pierce and Maria could hear the thump of surf against low cliffs. The peasants working in the fields gaped at Maria — she had discarded her cloak by now — but answered courteously when Pierce asked directions to Plinius’s villa.

  When they reached it, Maria said, “Oh, my goodness,” in English. The villa’s red-tiled roofs rose above a brick wall and beautifully trimmed box hedges that might have come from an English country garden. Servants in blue-and-gold tunics sat dicing at the gateway; their spears and daggers were as elegantly serviceable as their uniforms.

  “Hail,” said Pierce. “We come from Rome to speak with the consul on a serious matter. Will you announce us?”

  The guards’ leader, who was doubtless a retired legionary, shook his head. “The consul’s not in residence. We don’t know where he is.”

  “Please don’t waste our time,” Pierce said calmly. “We come from the emperor Martellus.”

  “You may come from Iuppiter Maximus et Optimus, but the consul is not in residence.”

  Maria looked impatiently at Pierce and put her hand on the Ruger. He shook his head at her.

  “In that case, my friend,” he told the veteran, “be so good as to tell the consul’s steward we wish to leave a message.”

  “You can leave it with me,” the veteran grunted.

  “And I could leave my head
with you, too” — Pierce laughed — “for the emperor would soon enough relieve me of it. It must be the steward; the message is highly confidential and urgent.”

  The veteran squinted up at the riders for a moment, then pursed his lips and nodded to the youngest of his men, who slipped through a side gate into the grounds of the villa.

  Ten minutes passed in casual conversation with guards, then the boy returned. “They’re to meet Lucius in the garden. We’re to keep their horses here.”

  “Very well,” snapped the veteran, glad the decision was out of his hands. “In you go, then, you and your giantess with the huge tits.”

  “Watch how you speak, fellow!” Maria said as she dismounted. In boots she was head and shoulders taller than the tallest of the guards. They looked startled and a little amused by her outburst. Pierce saw them winking and smirking at one another as they opened the gate.

  “The Romans are very frank of speech,” he murmured as they passed through the gate. “Any person who looks different, or behaves strangely, they criticize outright. It took me a long time to become deaf to their fescenninity. Quarrels are useless, least of all with insolent servants.”

  Maria nodded angrily.

  Through the gate, they entered an estate that reminded Pierce painfully of the Hesperian embassy. On their left was a pillared portico leading to the interior of a sprawling mansion, much of it two stories high, its walls painted in white with blue and gold trim. To the right a gravel drive, lined in close-trimmed box and rosemary, extended to unseen stables. The thump of surf was just audible beyond the mansion.

  A slave led them down the drive and through an archway into an ornamental garden. A vine pergola extended across it, giving shade to paths and benches. On either side stood mulberry and fig trees, flourishing in rich and well-tended soil. Directly ahead, to the west, ran a long arcade; beyond it was a terrace overlooking the sea and linking the mansion with a smaller building.

  “It’s beautiful,” Maria whispered in English. Pierce said nothing. He looked at his left at a chest-high wall; beyond it, he knew, was the villa’s kitchen garden. If they were to walk to the terrace and turn left, they would find themselves at the door to an indoor heated swimming pool. The various courtyards, dining rooms, bedrooms, the gymnasium and kitchen and slaves’ quarters — all were as their owner had described them in a letter to a friend named Gallus. And to support this casual splendor, Pierce reminded himself, Juvenal and thousands of other tenants lived in wretchedness.

  Standing under the pergola was a wiry little man in a blue toga, holding an accounts book of wood-and-wax tablets under one arm. He frowned at Pierce and Maria as they approached.

  “I am Lucius, the consul’s steward. This is most unusual,” the man fumed, giving them no time to introduce themselves. “If you have some message for the consul, please give it to me and waste no more time. If the consul should favor us with his presence, I will make the message known to him.”

  “We have it on good authority that Plinius is here,” Maria said. “Please do not try to deceive us; you will only make matters worse.”

  “I cannot make my master appear out of thin air.”

  Pierce touched Maria’s arm. “We will give him the message ourselves,” he said, leading her toward the arcade and the terrace beyond. Lucius looked terrified.

  “I shall call the guards! Making yourselves free on the master’s property! We’ll soon see about that! Guards! Guards!”

  “What are you doing, Alaricus?” Maria demanded as they stepped through the red-painted wooden pillars of the shaded arcade onto the sunlit terrace. Down a steep, rocky slope was a narrow beach and the sea. Pierce looked out at the horizon and wondered what was happening uptime on Sardinia.

  “I saw him glance toward the little building,” Pierce lied. “Let us look inside it.”

  With Lucius sputtering and shouting at their heels, they reached what Pierce knew was Plinius’s private suite. Its curving west wall, behind a pillared overhang, was mostly windows made of leaded glass panes the size of a man’s hand. This was the sun parlor, and in it, seated in a backless chair of bronze and leather, was a heavyset man in early middle age. He was reading out loud from a scroll and looked up only when Pierce pushed open the door.

  “Ave, Plinius Caecilius,” Pierce said with a smile. “May we intrude on your studies?”

  Plinius stood up. He was dressed in a simple white tunic, and his black hair was tousled. He was rather round-faced, with a small mouth and a large nose. His eyes held a poised intelligence, and despite his bulk he carried himself with the same aristocratic grace that Aquilius had. “You are welcome to Laurentum, friends. Ah, Lucius, there you are. Please bring our guests some refreshments.”

  “My lord, these persons intruded on your privacy without invitation or permission. They claim they have some message from Martellus.”

  The gate guards had arrived by now, daggers and spears ready; Plinius looked at them and made a brushing gesture. “Thank you, boys, but you’re not needed. Go back to your post. Lucius?”

  The steward bowed, looking anxious. “The refreshments will be here in a moment, my lord.”

  Plinius turned to Pierce and Maria and gestured to a bench by the windows. “Please seat yourselves. If you come from Martellus, you must have had an early start from Rome.”

  “Indeed, sir,” Pierce agreed. He introduced himself and Maria. “We learned that you were here, and decided we must urgently invite you to return to Rome. Your presence is needed.”

  “May I ask why?”

  “The city is restless. Serious riots could break out. The emperor is maintaining order, but the senate has not yet conferred the imperium upon him. His position is most awkward.”

  Plinius nodded gravely, but a faint smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “I understand my colleague the consul Comutus denounced Martellus in the Amphitheater, in a voice like thunder.”

  “Your understanding is correct.” Pierce was impressed with Plinius’s intelligence service. “In that, he was following your reported advice to the senate. But now it is essential that you return and lend your support to the emperor before Rome plunges into civil war.”

  “This Martellus is not even a Roman citizen,” Plinius said. “And neither are you two, I suspect, though your Latin is excellent. Nothing in law or tradition permits such a usurpation. We face not civil war but a legitimate attempt to repel a foreign invader. Martellus commands many magical powers, but I do not think he can stand against the whole empire. Ah, thank you, Lucius.”

  The steward, accompanied by two worried-looking slave women, entered the sun parlor bearing a silver tray with a silver pitcher of wine and three exquisite cups. The women set up a collapsible table for the wine and small bowls of olives, onions, and flat round loaves of bread like pita. Conversation ceased while the servants passed food around and then departed.

  “So you see I cannot oblige you.” Plinius spat an olive pit onto the tiled floor. “My duty is to Rome, not to your master. I have advised the senate of my opinion and withdrawn here to await events.”

  “You’re coming back to Rome with us,” Maria said. “Freely or not, as you wish.”

  Plinius smiled, showing yellow teeth. “You tell me I am free to choose slavery. I suppose you will threaten me with that odd weapon on your hip.”

  “No, sir,” Pierce said. “If we must we will drug you and carry you slung over a horse’s back. You will be unharmed, but it will not be a triumphal entry into Rome.” He paused. “And we cannot guarantee the safety of your wife and household.”

  Plinius looked grim. “So I am to be the utensil by which your master legitimizes his usurpation.”

  “You are a man of wisdom, Plinius Caecilius,” Pierce said. “The transfer of power is always difficult when an emperor leaves no successor. Rome rules the world because it understands power. You are among the greatest men of your age because you, too, understand power. You gain nothing, and Rome gains nothing, if you do no
t recognize the new reality.”

  The consul laughed and crunched on a pickled onion. “My friend, you sound like every opportunist who ever hoped to wear a toga with a senator’s purple stripe.” He clapped his hands. “Very well! I recognize when I am beaten. We shall leave at once.”

  Lucius was hovering just outside; Plinius called him in and rattled off a series of orders. Then, rising, he led them down the arcade to the main house. His wife, Calpurnia, a plump woman with an ornately curled coiffure, stood with her maids in a long, pillared inner room. Plinius embraced her, murmured in her ear for a long moment, and then turned back to Pierce and Maria. He did not introduce them: A nicely calculated insult, Pierce felt.

  At the gate, Lucius was waiting with a donkey cart laden with wicker boxes: The consul did not travel light. Plinius was delighted with the horse Pierce and Maria had brought, and climbed eagerly into the saddle.

  “My lord, surely you need a proper armed escort,” the head of the gate guards said.

  “I have it.” Plinius nodded to Pierce and Maria. “Now let’s be off.”

  The afternoon was warm. It was pleasant to let the horses amble at a pace the donkey cart could match, and to enjoy the woods and meadows. Plinius chatted about the progress of the crops and the history of the region, but said nothing about politics. In exchange Pierce talked about conditions in Germany. Maria listened for a while, but then grew bored and kicked her horse into a trot.

  “Germany sounds exactly as my friend Cornelius Tacitus has described it,” Plinius remarked. “The finest historian of our age, the greatest since Thucydides. My uncle and I are fortunate to be mentioned in his works; it is a guarantee of immortal fame.”

  “Your own letters assure you of immortality,” Pierce said.

  “You know my letters? I am twice fortunate.”

  “They are read and discussed in Transalpine Gaul as well as here.”