Empire of Time Read online

  Habitus turned away, back in the direction of the main body of the house. Pullus hadn’t noticed anything, but the frumentarius always seemed to sense things before they happened. Sure enough, a household slave appeared.

  “I carry a message from the aediles for Appius Hostilius Habitus.”

  “Yes?”

  “The latest convoy of supplies arrived at the Marine Gate this morning…”

  “And?”

  “…one of the men with the convoy has gone missing from quarantine.”

  3

  Ancient Rome, temporary amphitheatre, AD 62

  THE CROWD WAS thin. Achillia took a moment to scan the faces but all she really saw were the empty seats. Most of the men who’d come to the amphitheatre for the early show had pushed themselves right up to the edge of the perimeter wall, and it didn’t look like anyone was interested in moving them back into the right sections.

  She heard her name being called by a group of men hovering close to a drinks stand. It rang out alongside the usual boasting about what they wanted to do with her. Achillia ignored them. She tried to focus on the trap doors set into the arena, to sense when they were about to shift. Tried to work out when the first of the beasts would be released and the slaughter would commence.

  The other fighters circling around her would be trying to do the same. Six of them, each armed with just a gladius short-sword, and no shield. Achillia looked towards the nearest fighter, checking she was still standing where she’d been told to wait. The animals wouldn’t give them much time, and they’d need to move quickly as soon as the traps opened. Although they hadn’t been paired, working together would reduce the risk of injury. The fighter closest grinned back at her, indicating she too understood.

  They were ready.

  But the traps didn’t shift.

  “We going to fight each other?”

  Achillia didn’t move. No, she thought. We’re not going to fight each other. That was stupid: they’d all been given the same weapon. There were no nets, pikes, tridents, or shields. There was, in short, no variety. So they’d be fighting animals, but not the big cats she’d once seen being brought into the ludus. No, something cheap like a warthog. Something small and nasty – and probably starved.

  “We going to fight each other?”

  Achillia suppressed her irritation. It was one of the new girls, only on her second or third appearance. Decent against a palus training post, but probably not in front of a crowd, no matter how small.

  The traps still didn’t move.

  Achillia squinted. Covered in a fine raking of sand and stone, they were hard to see. But she’d made a point of reminding herself of their positions when they’d been brought in through the lower gates: there’d be no surprises. Except the lack of animals.

  The crowd was starting to turn. Soon the editor wouldn’t have any choice but to start proceedings, whatever was holding things up down in the vaults. Achillia tightened her grip on her sword.

  Suddenly she heard panicked shouts heading towards them, people screaming in terror. Achillia closed her eyes. They weren’t going to fight each other. And there’d be no animals. Just unfortunate creatures of a different kind.

  She turned towards the gate in the perimeter wall. A group of women were being forced through it by armed guards. They wore expensive tunics, their hair not cut short to their heads as Achillia’s was, but instead arranged in intricate curls.

  These were women who didn’t belong in the arena.

  No doubt they were here at the command of the Emperor. Probably because their husbands hadn’t bowed low enough, or had failed to laugh at a bad joke. Or had been betrayed by someone looking to take their place. Maybe some of the women were here on account of their own actions, but Achillia doubted it. And it didn’t matter anyway. Today she wasn’t to be a fighter. She was to be an executioner.

  The noblewomen were dispersed around the arena at spear-point, the guards throwing swords at their feet. The crowd immediately understood and murmured their approval. Most would no doubt be thanking Jupiter they’d decided to take a chance on the early show. They were going to see their betters brought down to size.

  “Pick up the sword!” Achillia yelled at the noblewoman closest to her.

  The woman ignored the weapon by her feet and shook her head, as if trying to deny what was happening. Denying the fact she was about to die, when in fact her only hope rested on taking the decision out of the Emperor’s hands, and placing it into the crowd’s. She needed to be brave. She needed to fight.

  “Pick up the fucking sword!”

  Achillia checked that the nearest trap doors were still shut, but knew it was now unlikely that any animals were going to make an appearance. The editor’s logic was clear. She and the other fighters all had the same type of weapon, but they hadn’t been given any leather pads to protect their arms and legs. She’d assumed this was to increase the chance of blood for the crowd; the frantic kicking of an animal was sometimes hard to control with a sword. But in fact it was because the editor didn’t expect to see any of his fighters injured.

  He’d been paid for slaughter, and had decided to maximise the flesh on show. Simple loincloths were more than enough for his fighting girls. No need for pads or armour or shields to stop the crowd seeing jiggling tits as their swords started to swing.

  Achillia grunted. The noblewoman in front of her still hadn’t picked up the sword, and she was shaking, her hands clasped, head slightly bowed. The other fighters were not being so patient with their opponents. To Achillia’s left one methodically cut past a noblewoman’s pathetic swordplay, and buried her gladius in the woman’s chest, before withdrawing it and hacking at her throat. The crowd roared as blood spattered across the sand, first a torrent, then a fine spray.

  Taking two steps towards her opponent, Achillia shoved the woman hard, knocking her off her feet. She collapsed onto her backside and started to scream. Achillia kicked sand into the woman’s face, and the scream soon turned into coughing.

  “Die like a Roman,” Achillia shouted. “Die like a fucking Roman!”

  Around them the slaughter was already coming to an end. One noblewoman was dragging herself across the sand, intestines trailing behind her, the novice fighter who’d been so eager before stalking after her, ready to strike the killing blow. But after the initial excitement, the crowd sounded restless. The fights had been too swift. Where was the competition? Where was the fun?

  Achillia dropped to her haunches, lifted her blade so that it touched the woman’s face and drew it slowly down across her cheek. She hoped the spilled blood would run into her mouth so this noble bitch could taste it. “Do you have children?”

  The noblewoman nodded.

  “Do you want to see them again?”

  There was no answer. Achillia pushed back onto her feet, then used her right foot to flick the sword into the woman’s lap. “Don’t end your life being a man’s plaything!”

  The noblewoman slowly got to her feet. She held the sword out loosely, and started to swing. Too far to the right, then too far to the left, leaving her body exposed. The victory would be easy. But it didn’t need to be fast. From the crowd came a small cheer.

  Achillia smiled and lunged forward with her own weapon, catching the oncoming blade halfway through its arc and knocking it aside. She shoved the woman away with her free hand, not letting this rich whore get too close. She met the oncoming blade as it swung again but didn’t knock it from the woman’s grip – even though it would have been easy – slapping her own blade against the noblewoman’s shoulder.

  The crowd seemed to get the joke and began to chant. The other fighters joined in, their opponents finished. Achillia let the swordplay continue until she sensed the crowd growing bored. Then she hit the woman hard in the face, dropping her to the ground, and stepped behind her and held her sword to her opponent’s exposed throat.

  It was time to give the crowd the decision. Live or die.

  4

&
nbsp; New Pompeii

  PULLUS HEARD THE name clearly, but part of his brain was still trying to dismiss it. Too much time had passed for it to make any sense. And yet his steward stood waiting for his answer, his message dutifully delivered.

  “You’re sure?”

  Galbo nodded, his weight resting on his staff. He didn’t repeat the name. Although they’d been granted a few minutes’ privacy in the atrium of Calpurnia’s villa, there was always the chance someone would be listening. And it wouldn’t be long before Marcus came to find his teacher to return him to their lesson, especially if he suspected an interesting message had arrived from town.

  “Where did you get this from?”

  Galbo raised an eyebrow. His stoop was slightly more pronounced than normal but, then again, the old man had travelled all the way out to Calpurnia’s villa from central Pompeii. He hadn’t sent a younger member of the household staff, knowing the message was important. But despite his fatigue, Galbo retained enough sense not to blurt his answer so that it could be overheard. Instead, he beckoned his master forward and whispered directly into Pullus’s ear. “He came with the convoy, then escaped from the quarantine. The duumvir now has him.”

  “And you know this how?”

  Galbo didn’t answer, just smiled knowingly. After all, his steward knew most of the key slaves owned by the important households of New Pompeii, and Romans had an unfortunate habit of assuming their human tools wouldn’t pass on information.

  Turning away, Pullus felt a moment’s alarm as he saw Barbatus watching them from the side of the atrium. But whilst the likeness of the bust sitting on its plinth was remarkable, the old duumvir was long since dead. After all, fifteen years had passed, and old age was the one thing no man could defeat.

  Fifteen years.

  Surely that was enough time to allow him to forget?

  “And this man – this Harris – he asked for me, personally?”

  “He asked to speak with ‘Nick Houghton’.”

  Pullus winced. Nick Houghton. He looked back at his steward. Galbo’s expression remained neutral. Was that how everyone still knew him here? When he wasn’t around to hear their whispers?

  Nick Houghton? Not “Decimus Horatius Pullus”?

  Galbo coughed, gently. “The horses are waiting outside, sir.”

  * * *

  Pullus caught the stench of rotten fish long before he arrived at the Marine Gate. Or rather, he caught the stink of their guts left to putrefy in the late afternoon sun. Despite New Pompeii having no sea port, garum remained an important part of its economy, and a large section of the convoys had been given over to supplying fish for the trade. Even after all this time, demand for genuine Pompeian garum – especially in the east – was enough to make a stomach-turning profit.

  Pullus tried to ignore the smell, focusing instead on who he was going to meet. The duumvir, certainly, and perhaps the man known as Harris. He grimaced, and felt the tang of garum at the back of his throat. At least the town’s chief magistrate was a known quantity. Harris was another matter entirely.

  He had to remind himself they’d only met once. And yet, on the slow journey to Pompeii from Calpurnia’s villa, passing the tombs that had sprung up along the roads leading toward it, Pullus suddenly realised he’d always been waiting for someone to mention Harris. Even if he’d expected it during one of his trips to Naples, rather than at the centre of the new Pax Romana.

  “Decimus Horatius Pullus?”

  A woman was blocking his path, holding something out towards him. He took the offering – a small clay disc – and let her say a few words before he thanked her and went on his way. The disc had been pressed with the image of a womb. Although they were sold in their dozens outside the forum baths, Pullus was in no doubt he’d been offered it out of personal motives. The lady wanted help conceiving. He slipped it into the pouch hanging from his tunic. He would add to the shingle in his garden, just like all the others he’d be given before the day was over.

  Yes, the streets were busy. He wove between groups of Pompeians, the deep recesses of his brain still trying to pick out bits of urban conversation even if they were no longer being stored away for future transcription. No longer a source of academic interest. He felt a pang of regret, and quickly squashed it. That wasn’t his task here now.

  As he turned the final corner, he found a long queue outside the duumvir’s house. Pullus never felt comfortable cutting ahead of people who may have been waiting for hours to bring their concerns to the magistrate’s attention, but the Pompeians always waved him through.

  “Pullus!”

  Lucius Salonius Naso appeared at the ornate wooden screen separating the small atrium from his main room of business. “I didn’t realise you were in town,” the duumvir continued in his nasal tone.

  “I’ve just arrived.”

  “Huh.” Naso didn’t hide his annoyance. His network of informants clearly hadn’t alerted him that the House of McMahon had its master back in residence. “Good trip?”

  “It will be easier when I finally learn to ride a horse.”

  “I meant the other one. To see her.” Naso gave a signal to his porter before sliding the tablinum’s screen back into position. The duumvir’s room of business was dark; instead of leading out onto a garden, as was usual in a Roman townhouse, a solitary stone staircase led downwards. The duumvir’s mansion was built into the town’s south-western wall, meaning that instead of sprawling like the House of McMahon, the floors were stacked on top of each other like a wedding cake. Atrium and tablinum at the top, the more private rooms below until they joined the marina baths – and the tanks filled with fish intestines that made Naso rich. All of which meant it was easy to hide someone to eavesdrop.

  “It was okay,” Pullus said, not wanting to admit he hadn’t been granted an audience. He noted absently that since his last visit Naso had redecorated: the walls were covered in expensive black paint, and a new mosaic floor had been laid out to represent the inky depths of the ocean. The only flashes of colour came from the squid, fish and crabs that swam on the tiles beneath their feet.

  “Well, at least you occasionally put in an appearance… unlike her highness.”

  Pullus didn’t respond. Naso probably felt safe in his own house, but he certainly wouldn’t let so careless a remark slip out on the streets. After a moment’s silence, the duumvir perhaps realised he’d overstepped the mark. He nodded in the direction of a panel painting, which had been left propped against the wall leading back into the atrium.

  “Theseus and the Minotaur,” Naso said. “Again.” Despite the stink of fish guts, it hadn’t taken the duumvir long to sniff out more imaginative ways of earning cash from exporting goods to the outside world. Academics had long suspected the frescos lining the walls of Pompeii might be copies of much older Greek works. So Naso had “found” some painters who’d seen these lost Hellenistic masterpieces. But could a Renaissance artist construct the Mona Lisa having seen her only once? Probably not. That little detail hadn’t stopped the orders rolling in to create replicas in New Pompeii though.

  “If it isn’t minotaurs, it’s Medusa,” Naso complained, waving at the panel. “Or that whore Phryne stripping at her trial. That’s all your people seem to care about: tits and monsters. Monsters and tits.”

  “The myths aren’t ours,” Pullus replied.

  “True, but that’s Greeks for you.” The duumvir eyed Pullus suspiciously. “So what can I do for you, Pullus?”

  “You’re holding one of the men from the convoys.”

  “I am?”

  “Word reached me.”

  “Did it now?” The duumvir smiled. “Because I thought he was trying to contact a dead man. Someone called ‘Nick Houghton’?”

  Pullus didn’t rise to the bait. “You have him then?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to see him.”

  “And he wants to see you.”

  Pullus waited, but the duumvir didn’t move.


  “He arrived with the convoy,” Naso said. His meaning was clear. Harris had smuggled himself in with the town’s supplies, not used the normal diplomatic channels. And the duumvir was very protective of his convoys.

  “I didn’t arrange it.”

  “I want to know what’s going on.”

  There was little Pullus could tell him. But he knew the sensitivity. Outsiders sometimes tried to sneak into New Pompeii. Things didn’t end well for those that were caught, or for those that Habitus suspected of helping them.

  “You didn’t meet up on one of your little trips away?” asked Naso.

  “No. I barely know him.”

  “Well he knows you.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Safe.” Naso swallowed. The action didn’t appear to free up his nasal passages. “The convoys are my responsibility.”

  “I know.”

  “Good. Because if Calpurnia found out un-vetted men were simply—”

  “Okay, okay.” Pullus paused. “At least tell me he went through all the normal procedures?”

  “Yes.”

  “The quarantine and the dips?”

  “I just told you: yes.”

  Pullus considered for a moment. The convoys employed only about two dozen non-Romans, and they’d spent a lot of time together in quarantine. If one disappeared, they’d all know about it. But he also knew Naso would have assigned some of his men to act as chaperones. He’d know where they all were. “And the others?”

  Naso laughed. “Soaking in the baths downstairs.”

  “And they know you’re holding one of their own?”

  “They couldn’t give a fuck. They don’t know him, do they? He’s not one of the regulars.”

  “I need to speak with him. To find out what he wants.”

  The duumvir lowered his voice. “No one uses my convoys to get a free pass into town,” he said. “And that includes your friends, Pullus. So maybe you should think on that for a few hours, and come back tomorrow.”

  5

  “What do you want me to do?”