Ides of March (Time Patrol) (21 page)

Washington held up the Badge of Military Merit which Edith Frobish had given Eagle. “You will have to explain this to me. How you have this. How you learned to read. How you know the things you do. There is not time now, though. You will do this on the ‘morrow.”

That would be a hell of a conversation, Eagle thought.

But it was never going to happen.

“Your officers are waiting, sir.”

Washington stuffed both Badges of Merit into his pocket. “We
will
speak later.”

Ravenna, Capitol of the Remains of the Western Roman Empire, 493 A.D.

THE WORD EXCRUCIATING
comes from crucifixion.

Eagle probably knew that without a download, but it was news to Roland. He was allowing the download to supply him with information as he stared up at the man nailed to the wood. He’d always wondered why churches would take a symbol of torture and make it central to their belief system, but that was pretty low on his list of things to ponder.

It wasn’t a very long list anyway.

Roland allowed the download space in his brain, interested in this. The Romans didn’t invent crucifixion. That popped up next. Poor Edith; she’d been forced to input that no one really knew who was the first to get the sick idea to nail someone to an artificial tree. It must have bugged the heck out of her to input the data:
that no one really knew
.

Roland figured that it had happened after someone had been nailing people to real trees for a while and wanted to do the same thing in a place where there weren’t trees? But where’d they get the wood then? Import it? Why? To make a show, that was obvious, since these crosses had been placed here to send a message. And it had to have been devised some time after nails were invented, right? Which begat which? Who was sitting around one day looking at a hammer and some long nails and a tree and some person they didn’t like and went: Hey!

Roland crossed his arms across his chest, feeling the hardness of the armor. This cross wasn’t like the one in churches and Mac had on his belt for his mission. It was shaped like a time-out was called in football. A ‘
Tau cross
’ according to the download. Where the crossbeam rested on top of the vertical pole, forming a capital T.

Roland inspected the victim. The nails didn’t go through the hands or wrists, but the forearms. Between the radius and ulna bones. A part of Roland wanted to hold on to those two words so he could toss them at Doc one day.

Roland wondered how long it took before it was figured out that a nail through the hand or wrist didn’t hold very long before small bones and soft flesh gave way? But the two larger bones in the forearm? Much better.

Those first two nails were pounded in while the victim was prostrate on the ground. Easier leverage. A good team could get them both done in less than thirty seconds. Then the
patibulum
(bar) was lifted and fit into place at the top of the
stipes
(vertical pole)
.

While the condemned was being lifted, the shoulders and elbows usually dislocated, but what was a little extra helping of pain when the purpose was pain and eventual death?

Roland looked at the man’s legs. They were twisted to one side. A single nail went through the heels, right foot fixed above left. Further up, a piece of wood, a
sedecula
, was in a notch just below the buttocks, helping to support the victim’s weight. Which seemed contrary to the purpose of execution but fit right in with the concept of a slow, lingering death.

Regardless, death was inevitable.

Roland snatched a piece of the download that Edith hadn’t apparently considered overly important; a footnote. The executioners were required to remain on duty until all the condemned they’d nailed to wood had died. He looked about, but didn’t see any soldiers hanging around. The good old days of Duty, Honor and Empire, were over.

Roland drew his sword and tapped the crucified man on the side of his leg. “Hey.”

“What do you want?” The man gasped after getting those four words out.

“What is the plan?” Roland asked.

The man was fighting for air. Despite the
sedecula
, and the nail through the heels, most of his weight was on his upward extended arms, compressing his chest and making his diaphragm struggle. This made breathing most difficult.

“The guards are gone,” Roland said. “There’s no one anxious to get off duty and get a drink or visit a whore, who will break your legs so you die faster. Or put a spear in your side.” He shrugged. “The cross will do all the work. Eventually. You look pretty healthy. Well, you looked pretty healthy. Before this. You might last a few days.” The download didn’t give a world’s record for lasting on the cross; seems Edith’s interest didn’t swing toward the morbid.

“What do—” the man couldn’t finish the sentence.

“Told you. The plan. Your first group of assassins didn’t get me. And the woman with the first four? Your friend? She hopped out of here back through a gate. And the ones you paid to attack me in case the first group failed? Those three idiots? Dead. So. I get it. Take me out before you were supposed to do whatever it was this evening. But doesn’t look like you’re going to get to do it. Are there any more of you?”

Roland realized he was asking too many questions of someone who could only get a few words strung together. “Tell you what. I’ll get you down if you promise to tell me the truth.”

The man was nodding vigorously which wasn’t a surprise.

“Not so fast,” Roland said. “If I get you down and you lie to me or don’t tell me what I want, I’ll put you back up, but with better support for your ass so you last even longer.”

The man lifted up on the nail through his heels, gasping in pain, but allowing his diaphragm to work better. “You’ll let me go?”

“What? Of course not. You’re going to die here. In this pigsty. But it will be quick. See,” Roland said in a perfectly reasonable tone, “I’m being honest with you. I expect the same in return.”

The man, dressed in a brown tunic, black trousers and with a smoothly cut beard, stared at Roland, but it didn’t take long for reality to make the decision for him. He nodded.

Roland walked behind the crucifix and studied the mechanics. He took his helmet off and placed it on the ground. Cracked his neck. Walked back to the front. “This is going to hurt a little.”

Using his dagger, he got leverage on the nail through the heels. He ignored the screams, and rocked the nail back and forth until he was able to grip it and pull it out. Then he had to work fast as the man was suffocating.

As he went back around the cross, Roland realized no one passing by was paying any particular attention to what he was doing. They probably hadn’t paid too much attention when the crosses were put up either. The average person, Roland knew, had a tremendous capacity to ignore really bad things, as long as it didn’t affect them.

Roland jumped and missed the short piece of rope dangling down the back. He could hear the man gurgling, choking. Roland jumped again, grabbed it, his weight pulling it down. The beam, the
patibulum
, lifted out of its notch and it, with the man still nailed to it, fell to the ground.

The man was trying to scream, except he didn’t have the oxygen to do it.

Roland knelt next to him. “That wasn’t too bad, was it?”

The man was a newly landed fish, gasping for air, arms stretched above his head, still nailed to the
patibulum
.

“Anyone else here from your timeline?” Roland asked.

The guy was transitioning from fish to mammal. “How did you know?”

Roland pointed to the man’s left arm. “Sun was just right as we rode by. Doubt anyone else in this era has a steel rod in his forearm; must have ripped open when they hoisted you up. But I imagine you didn’t plan on getting crucified. Wasn’t very visible, but there was a glint. Sort of like the tiny reflection from a sniper’s scope. I’m sort of trained to spot things like that.”

The man’s eyes were closed in pain.

Roland doubled-down on that by wiggling the nail in the arm he’d indicated. What the man emitted couldn’t quite be called a scream. More a whimper.

Roland realized this was a unique situation. Scout had run into the Shadow’s agents, but killed them, pretty impressively, if he had to say so. But also quickly. No chance for questions.

“What’s with you guys?” Roland asked. “Scout saw the contact lens in one of your agents. You’ve got a steel rod. Not very smart.”

The man kept his eyes closed and didn’t respond.

“Why are you messing with us?” Roland asked.

The man coughed. A trickle of blood leaked out of the corner of his mouth and Roland realized he was in worse shape than the bad shape he’d suspected.

“I don’t know,” he finally said.

“What?”

The man opened his eyes. He looked up at Roland, eyes locking. “I’m a soldier. I just follow orders.”

“Oldest excuse in the book,” Roland said. “And I get it. I follow orders too. But your people give the orders. You must have a clue why.”

“Not my people giving the orders,” he said.

“What?”

“We’re soldiers. That’s all we have in our timeline. Soldiers. That’s all we can pay the Shadow with. To let us live. Survive. Not be destroyed. Our soldiers are our currency.”

Roland sat back on his haunches as the implications sank in. “That’s messed up.”

“Better than being obliterated as if we never existed. We tried fighting and were almost extinguished. Can’t fight the Shadow with just weapons. Takes something more.”

“What’s the something more?”

The man shook his head. “Don’t know. We gave up a long time ago. Just trying to survive. Give our kids, those who aren’t soldiers, a way to survive.”

“What’s your name?”

“Teleclus.”

“Russian?”

The man mustered some pride. “I am Spartan. All soldiers from our world who are the tribute to the Shadow are Spartans. It is the price we pay for having been the most powerful nation when the Shadow attacked and we lost.”

Roland sat back on his haunches. “Spartan? That’s weird. Scout went—” he halted, realizing he was about to violate a rule. The first rule of Time Patrol:
You do not talk about the Time Patrol.

Then again, the guy was dying.

Second rule of Time Patrol:
You do not talk about the Time Patrol
.

Roland believed in rules.

Back on task. “Who was the woman?”

“Our handler. Diana.
She
is from the Shadow. I think; we don’t know much. She brought me here as her security. She paid those four and told them where to wait. Then had me recruit more as back up. Redundancy.”

Yeah, they sent at least two for Scout, Roland thought.

“How’d you end up on this thing?”

“When I reported back to her. Told her I’d hired more killers. She had some of Theodoric’s soldiers with her. Betrayed me. Turned me over.” He took a deep breath. “I knew there was little chance of coming back. Few of our people come back when they get sent on a mission for the Shadow.”

“But she’ll be back right?” Roland asked. “Or she left someone else here to do what needs to be done?”

The man looked at Roland, confused. “What?”

“Who else is here to finish the mission?”

“’The mission’?” The man closed his eyes. “I’m very tired.”

“The mission,” Roland said. “Keep Odoacer from getting killed. Kill Theodoric. Whatever. Change our timeline.”

The man shook his head. “Told you. No one else came with us. But she probably paid off other to do her bidding. Always the easiest way. Pay others to do the dirty work. But you don’t understand.”

Roland sighed. He got told that a lot. “What don’t I understand?”

“The mission Diana gave me.” The man looked to the left at the nail in his arm, then to the right. “I got that rod in my arm—” his voice faltered, his eyes growing unfocused. Shock was setting in. “On another op. Can’t remember. Why can’t I remember? I came back from that one. I was lucky.”

“What don’t I understand?” Roland asked, his voice gentle. “What was your mission?”

“You.”

Rome, Roman Empire, 44 B.C.

“FRIENDS, ROMANS, COUNTRYMEN,
give me your ears. I come—”

“No!” A woman’s voice cut through Marc Antony’s drunken words. “Do you want them to rip their ears off and toss them to you?
Lend
me your ears.
Lend
me your ears.”

Antony stood on a wide bed, stark naked, swaying as if at sea. He laughed at the interruption. “I’ll rip their ears off if need be to get them to listen.”

Moms and Spurinna had been let in a back entry to Antony’s house. Led by one of the Seer’s slave contacts to this inner sanctum of Caesar’s co-counsel. They stood behind a gauzy curtain, listening and watching. The woman who’d spoken wasn’t in their field of vision.

“Friends, Romans, countrymen,
lend
me your ears.” Antony burped. “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. I promise to return your ears when I am done speaking.” He flopped back onto the bed, nearly falling on one of the four nude women sprawled around him. They immediately reached out, caressing, cooing.

Moms and Spurinna startled when at low voice right behind them. “He’s an utter idiot, but idiots can be useful if correctly coached.”

The same voice who’d corrected him. They both turned.

A slender woman, as tall as Moms, with pale skin and bright red hair flowing over her shoulders, smiled at them. “Do either of you recognize the words the great Antony speaks?”

Moms had the dagger she’d taken from Spurinna’s chamber pressed into the soft spot, just under the woman’s ribcage, pointed at her heart just scant inches away. “I do. And that’s why you die.”

“Hasty, hasty, hasty,” the woman said. “We haven’t even been properly introduced. I know of you,” she nodded at Spurinna. “Who calls herself a Seer but is just a spy-master. And you are?” She nodded at Moms.

Moms knew Nada would not be happy she hadn’t already killed the woman, but the damn vagaries of the variables as Dane liked to say, stilled her hand.