Ides of March (Time Patrol) Page 14

  Roland pushed his blood-covered hand into the man’s shoulder wound as he shoved the bloody rag into the mouth to muffle the scream. “Who sent you? Do not make a noise other than to answer my question. Do you understand?”

  The man nodded.

  Roland pulled the rag out.

  “I don’t know.”

  Roland moved toward the wound, but the man was crying. “No! He had coin. Paid us well.”

  “Dark hair? Smoothly cut beard? Sideburns to here?” Roland pointed at his own face. “Dressed in a brown tunic and black trousers?”

  The man nodded vigorously. “Yes. Do you know him?”

  “No.”

  “Was a woman with him?”

  “Yes.”

  Roland could hear someone shouting orders from inside the tavern. The clatter of armor and weapons. The rear door opened, a soldier stuck his head out, saw Roland, and popped his head back in.

  “Killing for money.” Roland shook his head as he slid his dagger underneath man’s rib cage, into his heart, twisted. He was dead before Roland pulled the blade out.

  Roland stood up as three soldiers burst out of the door, weapons at the ready. A fourth, the red crest on his helmet similar to Roland’s followed them, his weapon undrawn. He glanced from the body to Roland who was wiping the blade clean.

  “Did he kill the Protector inside?” the man asked.

  Roland nodded.

  “King Odoacer sent us for the two of you. Be at Ad Laurentum Palace. An hour before sunset. He meets Theodoric.

  The Missions Phase III

  Rome, Roman Empire, 44 B.C.

  DEPARTING CAESAR’S HOME VIA THE REAR entrance, Spurinna was met by a half dozen men and women, all slaves, who approached one by one and whispered in her ear before scurrying away.

  “No one has seen Caesar,” Spurinna summarized to Moms when the last one was gone. “It is possible he has gone to Cleopatra. He does on occasion.”

  “How far is it to the villa?”

  “Not far from here,” Spurinna said. “I know the quick way. It is just outside the walls. Caesar has her as close as he can. A foreign leader is not allowed inside the walls of Rome without the Senate’s approval and Cleopatra—” she left the rest unsaid. “Come.” Spurinna strode off at a surprising pace, the urgency of the task pushing the pain back.

  “Does he disappear often?” Moms asked.

  “On occasion.”

  “For any reason besides seeing Cleopatra?”

  Spurinna glanced at Moms as they negotiated back alleys of Rome. “There are secrets that are not secrets. There are secrets that can be uncovered with some digging. And then there are fatal secrets. The ones if a person, regardless of station, is found in possession of, death is immediate. Caesar’s disappearances are one of those.”

  “And, of course, you are in possession of that secret.”

  They reached a narrow gate in the wall surrounding Rome.

  “I am. And if I tell you, then you will have that burden.”

  “I am not here long,” Moms said.

  “I suspected you won’t be. When Caesar disappears, he goes to see a healer.”

  A rush from the download gave Moms the information. Modern scholars still couldn’t agree on what had been wrong with Caesar, but all agreed he’d been an ill man later in life. Most accepted the diagnosis of Caesar’s contemporaries who wrote that he had epilepsy.

  “People know of Caesar’s seizures,” Moms said.

  “They do. Epilepsy. And that works to Caesar’s advantage.” They were approaching a spacious villa on a small hill.

  “I don’t understand,” Moms said.

  “Epilepsy is viewed as being visited by spirits. A holy affliction.” Spurinna nodded toward a path that went to the left of the house. “This way. Always the slave’s entrance for me. Never the front.” She paused before the entrance. “It is not epilepsy. The best healer’s know the sure signs and he has seen the best healer’s and they also bear this fatal secret.”

  “What is it?” Moms asked, but the download already provided an answer.

  “Caesar’s father died without any warning signs while putting on his sandals,” Spurinna said. “It is in Caesar’s bloodline that he has the sickness of the head-heart.”

  “Strokes,” Moms said. “A series of mini-strokes.”

  “If that is what you call it,” Spurinna said. An old slave-woman appeared and gestured for them to follow. “If the word was in the street that Caesar could die at any moment, that would change things. Lead to uncertainty. Upheaval.”

  “More than you already have with an assassination plot in place?” Moms asked, but didn’t expect an answer.

  That Egyptian slut was sitting in a high-backed chair set on a wood dais built six inches above the marble floor, a Nubian guard on either side. The guards were splendid looking warriors, each over six feet, well-muscled. But Moms knew the moment she saw them that they were not mere ornamentation. They held spears in one hand, the other hand gripping the top of tall shields resting on the floor and angled forward. Each had a sword on one hip, a dagger on the other. The way the two glanced at Spurinna, dismissed her as a threat, then checked Moms, and kept their gaze on her, indicated they were experienced warriors.

  Cleopatra had a small table on the right arm of the chair. Next to it was a holder, much like a quiver, containing scrolls instead of arrows. There was a similar one on the other side. Both had numerous documents poking up.

  Cleopatra was aware of their entry, but held a hand up, indicating they wait, as she scanned a document. She snapped her fingers and a nearby slave scurried forward with a quill, tip freshly dipped in ink. Cleopatra scrawled, then handed the parchment and quill back to the slave. Who blew on the fresh ink, drying it, then rolled it shut. Produced a seal and hot wax from another table and affixed a seal, once more blowing it cool.

  She handed it back to Cleopatra who inspected the seal, then slid it in the quiver on the left side of the throne. Cleopatra reached down for another document from the right when Spurinna cleared her throat loudly. “Your Majesty—”

  Cleopatra shifted her gaze to the old woman. “Is this about Caesar once more? Is it not the Ides already?”

  “Your Majesty,” Spurinna began again, but Cleopatra pointed a single finger at Moms, the simple movement enough to silence the Seer.

  Cleopatra was what would be considered in Moms’ era, Rubenesque, but in this era was considered perfectly proportioned. Her hands were unique. Long, with very slender fingers. They commanded, whether in signing or signaling. “I have not seen you before.”

  It wasn’t a question so Moms said nothing.

  Cleopatra pulled the hand back and the finger tapped on her lower lip. “Do you bring me word of Caesar?”

  “No, Majesty,” Spurinna said. “I was wondering if you had a chance to speak with him after our last conversation and—”

  “To warn him, you mean.”

  “Yes, your Majesty.”

  “One does not warn Caesar. That is why he is Caesar. He is Dictator in Perpetuity; isn’t that what your Senate proclaimed him? In fact, the Senate also proclaimed that, in case of death, he would be a God of Rome.” A slight smile curled Cleopatra’s painted lips.

  The room surrounding her chair, more a throne, was the opposite of Calpurnia’s atrium. The walls were hung with tapestries depicting Egyptian scenes: battles, buildings, Pharaohs, Gods. Incense floated up from several pots, tinting the air with something pleasant. Other than Spurinna there was not a Roman in sight.

  Cleopatra had made the summer villa her court, an enclave of Egyptian royalty next to the Roman capitol.

  “That is true, your Majesty,” Spurinna said. “I was just—”

  “Seeing if I did your bidding?” Cleopatra leaned forward on the chair. “Does a Queen do the bidding of others?” She didn’t wait for an answer, as she glanced left and right, at her two guards, assessing. “You.” She pointed at Moms. “You bother my men. Why is that Kasht
a?”

  The Nubian on the right answered. “She is not a priestess, Majesty. She is a killer.”

  “An Amazon perhaps?” Cleopatra said. “We have legends of those in my country. Why then, Seer Spurinna, do you bring a warrior into my court, cloaked as a priestess? Do you have designs on my life?”

  “Of course not, your Majesty. We are merely—”

  “Checking on Caesar. What he knows. What he doesn’t know. Why not ask him?”

  “We can not find him, your Majesty,” Spurinna said.

  “Does it speak?” Cleopatra had extended an elegant finger toward Moms.

  “I speak, your Majesty. I have nothing to say.”

  That same half-smile, almost seductive. “A rarity in a woman.”

  Moms could see why people still spoke of this Queen millennia after her death. Edith Frobish dismissed her too easily. Cleopatra’s power was her own. Exercised through men only when it fit her desires. Even to the end, fourteen years from now, if history held true, surrounded in her palace by Augustus and his forces in Alexandria, she fooled Antony by having word sent to him that she’d killed herself. Leading to him falling on his sword. A ploy so she could present the body to Augustus and try her wiles on him in order to escape his net.

  It hadn’t worked. Wouldn’t work, Moms knew.

  “You smile,” Cleopatra said, catching Moms off-guard. “A pleasant thought, perhaps?”

  “Not particularly, your Majesty.”

  Cleopatra stared at her for several seconds. “You disturb me.”

  Kashta took half a step forward, lifting the shield off the floor, but Cleopatra’s slight hand gesture stopped him.

  “You are more than a warrior,” Cleopatra said. She stood up and walked forward, the two Nubians flanking her, spears and shields at the ready. She stopped in front of Moms. An odor masked the incense. Moms nostrils flared, taking it in. It stirred her, but before she could try to decipher what it was, Cleopatra put her hands on either side of Moms’ head, incredibly long fingers cradling it.

  The tableau was frozen for several moments.

  “We share something,” Cleopatra whispered, her voice seductive.

  Moms met Cleopatra’s gaze.

  “Tell me,” Cleopatra said. “What is my future?”

  “I am not a Seer,” Moms said.

  Cleopatra pulled her hands back. “You want an answer from me about Caesar. You must tell me something I don’t know.”

  Moms considered that. “I see three obelisks, Queen. Monuments to you. They will survive through the ages. Each will end up in the center of the three most glorious cities in the world. They will be called Cleopatra’s Needles.”

  The download was an irritating buzz, Edith’s influence trying to poke through to point out that none of the three obelisks had anything to actually do with Cleopatra. In fact, at this moment, all three existed, were already over a millennia old, and still in Egypt.

  Now wasn’t the time to mention that, Moms decided.

  Cleopatra abruptly turned and went back to her throne. “That is not my future. That is the future of three pieces of rock. Still, it is a form of immortality. Don’t we all desire that? To survive in one form or another past life itself?”

  She pointed at Spurinna. “I did not speak to Caesar as you requested. One does not speak like that to Caesar. And,” a coy smile, “Caesar has his own reasons for what he does. It is still the Ides. Perhaps you can find him before your prophecy comes true? If it comes true.”

  Cleopatra flicked her hand. “Go.” She reached down and retrieved a scroll from the right quiver.

  As Moms and Spurinna reached the threshold, Cleopatra’s voice carried after them. “I am not the one you should have come to. It is Marc Antony who holds sway this day. Caesar’s fate is in his hands.”

  Petrograd, Russia, 1917.

  THE HEAT FROM THE FURNACE blasted Doc. He used a shovel to flip open the door. Doc reached inside his coat and pulled out Anastasia’s diary.

  As he moved to toss it in the blaze, Doc felt cold steel across his throat.

  “I am here in peace,” he said, trying to turn his head, but a hand gripped his hair, knocking his hat off.

  “There is no peace in Russia any more,” the man holding the saber said.

  “I have—” Doc began, but the man cut him off.

  “Why do you have the Little One’s book?” Before Doc could answer, a second question: “Why were you in the Tsarina’s bedchamber? The Duchess’s rooms?”

  “I have the Tsarina’s blessing,” Doc said.

  “Step back.” The man punctuated his order with pressure from the blade. They moved several steps away from the furnace.

  “Drop the book.”

  Doc let it drop to the floor.

  “I saw you leave the Tsarina’s bedchamber. How does she fare?”

  “It would be easier to tell you without the sword at my throat,” Doc said.

  The blade was withdrawn, his head was released and Doc finally got to see a Cossack. He was dressed in black and had the special insignia of the Tsarina’s personal guard emblazoned on his chest. He had a cavalry saber in his hand, pointed in Doc’s direction. He was covered in coal dust, which explained both the blaze in the furnace and the warmth in the Tsarina’s private wing of the palace.

  “Where are the rest of the guards?” Doc picked up his hat.

  The Cossack spit in disgust. “Like rats. They’ve run. Abandoned their duty. We are now prisoners. But the Bolsheviks do not know I am here. Working the cellar. Keeping the family warm. I walk the servants’ secret passages. What was your business with the Tsarina?” He still had the saber half at the ready. Apparently he didn’t consider Doc much of a threat, which echoed Doc’s own thoughts about himself.

  “May I?” Doc asked, indicating a pocket.

  “Yes.”

  Doc pulled out the icon and showed it.

  The Cossack flicked the point of the saber up, the tip on Doc’s jugular. “Where did you get that? How did you know that whore-mongerer? That charlatan?”

  Good question, Doc thought. Good old Edith never missed a beat, except this answer wasn’t going to fly with a Cossack: she’d discovered it in a secret FBS vault in Lubyanka. The infamous headquarters for the KGB for so many decades during the Cold War.

  “From his body,” Doc managed.

  The Cossack did not pull the tip of the blade back. “I have heard his body was burned. The ashes spread so that no part of him would ever be found again.”

  “I have shown this to the Tsarina,” Doc said. “She verifies it is what she gave Rasputin. I am in her favor, so remove your weapon from my throat.”

  “Rasputin was in her favor and they killed him.”

  “I am not Rasputin,” Doc said.

  “But you bear his icon and you have been in the Empress’s bedchamber.”

  “The Duchesses were there. The Prince.”

  “I know.” The Cossack lowered the saber once more. He seemed more tired than guarded. “If she had been alone, you’d already be dead. I have secretly watched as much as I can. I saw you come out. I heard their voices, so I know they were there. I cannot watch all. And now—” his voice drifted into silence. He leaned over and picked up Anastasia’s’ diary. “Did the Tsarina give you permission to go into the Duchesses’ room? Take her book?”

  “Yes,” Doc lied.

  “Why?”

  “I do not question the commands of her most Excellency,” Doc said. “Do you?”

  The Cossack frowned. “I follow orders, but now it seems no one else does. I do not understand why she would want the Little One’s book burned.”

  Because no one ever found it, Doc thought. The download had confirmed that of the four girls, only Anastasia’s diary had never been uncovered. Which had contributed to the myth that she had escaped her family’s fate and was alive. But most importantly, it had to be destroyed because of what it said of Rasputin. “She wants the Little One’s secrets to remain her own secrets.
”

  That seemed to make sense to the Cossack. “The Tsarina and Tsar have been burning many papers.” He snorted. “They should give them to me. We don’t have that much more coal. I could burn the books and papers faster. And with better use.” He handed the diary to Doc.

  “If I discover you have lied to me,” the Cossack said, “I will kill you.”

  He said it the way Roland, or Neeley or any of the killers Doc served with, would. Matter-of-fact. Just the reality. Nothing personal. The worst kind of way to hear that specific threat because it made it a guarantee.

  “Do you have a name?” Doc asked.

  “Krylo. And you are?”

  “Doc.”

  “Are you English? You speak with a strange accent.”

  “American.”

  “I have never met an American,” Krylo said.

  “May I finish my task?” Doc asked.

  Krylo nodded.

  Doc tossed the diary into the flames. He watched the fire consume Anastasia’s dreams and her prescience.

  “The Tsarina and her children will be fine,” Doc lied. “All will turn out well.”

  Krylo wiped the coal dust off the steel and sheathed his saber. “That is what the others also say.”

  “The ‘others’?”

  “The Count and his guards. He says they are here to save her and the children. They have come on orders from her cousin, King George, to take the Tsarina and Duchesses and the little Tsar to her family in England. They arrived an hour ago.”

  There was no count in the download. No rescue by King George.

  It ain’t over until it’s over, Doc thought. And knew that when he was using Yogi Berra quotes, he was pretty far down in the barrel.

  “Take me to this Count.”

  Palos de la Frontera, Spain, 1493 A.D.

  “THAT IS COLUMBUS,” Geert said, pointing at the small boat being rowed toward the quay.

  Mac and Geert were peering around the corner of a building, near the southern edge of town.

  Mac wasn’t impressed. The famed explorer was hunched over, a heavy cloak over his shoulders. He had something wrapped in a scarlet cloak in his arms. It was obvious the sudden appearance of the Pinta, on schedule according to history, surprising to everyone else here, had finally spurred action.