Gates of Rome

CHAPTER 52

AD 54, Imperial Palace, Rome

Cato entered Caligula’s atrium. He’d been in here on only half a dozen occasions since being appointed to command the Palace Guard. The room was cavernous and every noise seemed to echo endlessly. He had only ever seen Caligula alone. The emperor it seemed preferred his royal family as far away as possible. Preferred his own company.

He was alone except for one of his Stone Men, the one called Stern, and, of course, half a dozen slaves waiting patiently by the walls for his bidding; almost unnoticeable, still like frescos, murals. Not really humans in Caligula’s eyes.

Cato stopped a respectful distance from Caligula and saluted. ‘Caesar.’

The emperor smiled a greeting. ‘Ahh, yes, I remember now… it’s Cato, isn’t it?’

Cato nodded. ‘Yes, sire. Tribune Quintus Licinius Cato.’

‘Come on now, don’t be rude, Stern… say hello to our visitor.’

The support unit looked at Cato, blank-eyed. ‘Hello.’

Cato regarded him in silence for a moment. He had seen these things up close many times over the last few months. They unsettled his men. To be entirely honest, they unsettled him too. While he didn’t believe in supernatural explanations, he’d always been certain there was something not entirely human about them. Now he knew what they were — man-made: constructions made from flesh and bone instead of wood and metal.

‘What is it, Tribune?’ Caligula settled back on a seat. He beckoned Cato closer. ‘Come over so we’re not barking at each other.’

Cato took a dozen steps closer. As he neared Caligula, he noticed the Stone Man watching him closely.

‘Apparently it’s something important?’

‘It is, sire. I… I have come across evidence of a plot against you, Caesar.’

Caligula sat up. ‘A plot, you say?’

‘Plans to try and… well, to kill you, sire.’

The emperor’s face reddened slightly and he offered a tired sigh. ‘They never stop, do they?’ He pulled himself to his feet and approached Cato. ‘Kill me, you say?’

Cato nodded.

‘All these conniving old fools. All they care about are their own petty agendas. Advancing themselves, the careers of their sons and nephews, marrying money to status or the other way round. Cutting each other’s throats for profit. Awful people.’

He smiled sadly at Cato. ‘It’s the poor common man I feel so sorry for. Ruled by these inbred cretins for far too long.’ He noted the scrolls clasped in Cato’s hands. ‘So then, which meddling fools want me dead now?’

Cato silently held out several scrolls. ‘Correspondence, sire.’

Caligula snatched them from his hand, unrolled one and scanned it quickly. ‘Crassus! That dried-up old fig? Why am I not surprised by that?’ He looked up at Cato as if this was an old conversation they’d had many times over. ‘You know, I should have had every last one of those gossiping old relics done away with. I’m too much of a soft touch, that’s my problem.’ He looked back down at the correspondence and read on in silence.

‘Lepidus.’ Caligula looked genuinely surprised. ‘Lepidus?’

‘Yes, sire.’

Caligula opened the scroll and read further, his face turning a deeper red as his lips silently moved. ‘The ungrateful, fat wretch. I’ve given him and his men everything! They take pay three times what they would have normally! They… he… Lepidus pledged his allegiance!’

He swiped his hand at a bowl of fruit on a stand. The bowl clattered noisily on to the floor and rolled across it like a cart wheel, finally coming to rest, spinning and rattling with a noise that echoed round the atrium’s walls and off down the passage. Caligula spat a curse.

‘Lepidus… that slug actually got on his knees and prayed directly to me. Prayed to me! Said he always knew I was more than a mere man…’

‘The general tells you what he thinks you want to hear,’ said Cato.

Caligula balled his hand into a shaking fist. ‘The deceitful… He stood before me not so long ago… got on his knees before me and told me he believed in me! That he…!’

He turned on Cato. ‘You believe in me, don’t you, Tribune? You believe I will ascend to Heaven soon and take my place, don’t you? Because you know it isn’t long now! Not long at all!’

Cato hesitated. And realized in the space of several heartbeats that his hesitation was foolish. He should have anticipated this sort of question. Been ready and practised with an answer.

Caligula swung his hand up and placed a finger roughly against Cato’s lips. ‘No! Don’t answer me.’ His eyes were wide and glassy with tears of anger. ‘Tell me! Why… why is it so very hard to believe? Why is it so difficult to imagine that I could be something more than human? Hmmm? I have wisdom. An infinite capacity for love. I know things no other man does. The Visitors came for me, you know, not anyone else! They came… and they told me everything!’

He leaned closer, lowering his voice to little more than a hoarse whisper. ‘More than that, I have ambition. When I am taken up… when I step into the heavens and receive my powers, we won’t need legions any more to pacify those barbarians in Germany, in Britain… we’ll do it with my love, my compassion! I’ll bless their crops, their water. I’ll make the sun shine warmth and light on those cold, dark places and they will love me for it.’

Caligula’s finger remained on Cato’s lips. ‘And, if that doesn’t work, then I can just as easily send plagues on them. Turn the skies black with storms. Make them fear me.’ He smiled. ‘Love and fear… they are, after all, halves of the same circle. At some point on the arc, one becomes the other.’

Caligula was standing so close to him, Cato could feel the emperor’s hot breath on his face. Cato’s hands flexed by his side; his left wrist brushed against the iron pommel of his gladius.

I could kill him now. Reach for my sword and kill him right now.

Only he wouldn’t get a chance. Stern was no more than a yard away and could move frighteningly fast. Cool, dispassionate grey eyes were regarding him closely right now, warily analysing the ticks of muscle in his face, noting the subtle flexing of his fingers near his sword. He could try and reach for it, but Cato doubted he’d even manage to get the blade out of its scabbard before the Stone Man had run him through.

‘I… I am just a soldier, sire,’ said Cato, his lips moving against the light touch of Caligula’s finger. ‘My only concern is your safety. That is all.’

The anger in Caligula’s face, the faraway look in his eyes, vanished in an instant. An ugly mask of rage whipped away and replaced with something that looked genuine: a warm, welcoming smile. He stroked Cato’s cheek affectionately. ‘I love the simplicity in that answer. No judgement… no doublespeak, no lies. The simplicity of a good soldier’s mind. A task, a duty… and how best to perform it.’

Caligula stepped back from him. ‘I will, of course, have both of their heads on spikes for this. Have Crassus arrested immediately.’

Cato nodded. ‘And what about General Lepidus, Caesar?’

Caligula pursed his lips thoughtfully. ‘It might be prudent if I were to summon him with no reasons given, rather than openly have him arrested. He may be a fat, spineless slug… but if he suspects he’s shortly due to lose his head, he may try and do something rash.’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Tell him…’ Caligula rested a finger thoughtfully on his chin. ‘Just tell him I wish to speak to him. Nothing alarming, do you understand? I merely wish to speak to him.’

Cato nodded. ‘I will see to it immediately.’

‘Good,’ replied Caligula distractedly. ‘Good… and let me know when you have got Crassus. I would like to have a little talk with him as well.’

‘Yes, sire.’

Caligula turned away from Cato and strolled towards the window and balcony that looked out on the darkening city skyline.

‘Ahh, now look. How annoying. I’ve just missed my sunset,’ he uttered wistfully.