Praetorian Series [3] A Hunter and His Legion (57 page)

“Let me see that!”  I yelled, reaching for it but he backed away.

“That’s protected information, Jacob.  You wouldn’t want the State Department knocking on your door, would you?  Oh!  And finally, there’s even enough room for a ham sandwich.  Everything a wizard on the go could possible need.”

I shook my head.  “It’s becoming harder and harder to take you seriously, Merlin.”

He shrugged.  “You’ll try anything to look and feel young when you reach my age, believe me.”

“Which is?”

“Nice try, Mr. Hunter.”

I sighed
.  “Why couldn’t it have been Santino who activated the orb?  The two of you would have been perfect for each other.”

“Why indeed?
” Merlin lamented.  “But better you than your sister.  She seems a little… boring.”

I
ignored him, wondering if the last few hours of my life wasn’t just further proof of my steady slip into insanity, but I pushed the thought away and tried to get a better sense of what we were walking into.  If Merlin wasn’t exaggerating, and that we really were about to witness the “founding of Rome,” then I was about to witness the actual events lost to history that were later replaced with bed time stories and mythology.

The way I remembered
it – and there are, of course, varying accounts – Romulus and Remus each had opposing views as to which hill was best to found their city upon.  Romulus preferred the Palatine Hill, while Remus preferred another.  I only remembered the Palatine Hill as Romulus’ choice because he was in fact the eventual victor, which subsequently led to Remus’ later murder.

“It was the Aventine Hill that Remus preferred,” Merlin supplied.

I nodded appreciatively.  “You see, that’s the right way to read my mind.  Telling me things I can’t remember.  Hot damn, I really could have used you back in college, Merlin.”

His
smile remained in place but he didn’t respond, which seemed odd since he seemed to take great joy in always getting in the last word.  I wondered if it had something to do with what we were about to observe in the coming minutes, that is, if mythology had it right.  After everything I’d seen and all the history historians had either gotten wrong, or were purposefully misled to interpret as wrong, I was ready to see just about anything…

Except for what I
actually
saw the moment we entered the small encampment.

Merlin and I squeezed
between a pair of tents, and found ourselves at the perimeter of a large central area.  Within was a raised platform at the very center, surrounded by a large crowd of screaming, shouting, fist pumping…

Muppets?

I tore my glasses off and squinted at the anthropomorphized crowd of puppets that looked so much like the Muppets from the beloved children’s show that the scene before me was borderline copyright infringement.  There wasn’t any string dangling from their forms, nor did I see any hands shoved up their asses, but still, the puppets before me leapt and shouted and were very obviously alive and worked up over something going on at their center.  Not believing my own eyes, I was half tempted to look up and search for Statler and Waldorf yelling insults from their viewing box, but I refrained.  Instead, I looked to the center stage to see two large puppets wrestling each other.

I turned to glare at Merlin, who
did little more than watch them as he spoke.  “Do not blame me, Jacob,” he said casually.  “You know as well as I that
The Muppet Christmas Carol
is your favorite version of the story.”

I looked up at the sky in annoyance.  “Change it…”

“But it really is a wonderful metaphor for the childlike…”

“Change it!!”

“Spoil sport…”

And in the blink of an eye
, the chaotic mess of puppet on puppet action vanished, replaced with normal looking humans acting in very human ways.  I sighed in relief, almost worried that the people of this time period actually had been puppets.

“Come,” Merlin ordered.  “We’ll have a better view over here.”

I nodded and followed as he wove his way around the mob of sweaty, shirtless, men who cheered for one of the two individuals atop the platform.  As we crept around back, I took notice of the wrestling duo, an odd sense of déjà vu setting in as I recalled the moment when I’d first met Wang and Bordeaux when they’d been boxing in our secret subterranean hideout beneath the Vatican back in 2021.

However, while Wang and Bordeaux were polar opposites in terms of their physicality
and fighting style, it was clearly evident, even from this distance, that these two wrestlers were nearly identical in size and build.  Additionally, while I couldn’t yet make out their facial features, both had mops of long, thick, black hair atop their heads that flung beads of sweat in all directions as they grappled with one another.

It didn’t take a genius to deduce that these two young lads
had to be none other than Romulus and Remus, but instead of feeling excited or elated at the fact that I was actually witnessing the mythological founders of Rome fighting each other, I simply felt sad that this was really only just a dream, and that I’d never be able to get their autographs.

B
ut I wasn’t about to let something so trivial bring me down completely.  Reality or fantasy, if this vision really was accurate, then I was seeing the actual events played out by Romulus and Remus.

Romulus and Remus!

Remus and fucking Romulus!

I couldn’t wait to get back to Helena and explain all of this in as much detail as I
could remember.  I had no doubt that she’d absolutely love every single second of it, but I would be doing her a disservice if I didn’t make an effort to discover as many details as I could. 

F
eeling that giddy excitement the historian in me always felt when discovering new parts of history, I turned to Merlin.  “How about a little background information?  At what point in their lives is this?”

“There’s no point offering you today’s date, but what’s important is that Romulus and Remus have just thrown off the shackles of their great uncle,
Amulius, and have restored their grandfather, Numitor, to the throne of Alba Longa.”

“Which they could have taken for themselves had they wanted, right?”

“You know your mythology well, but they never would have.  They were far too industrious and ambitious to simply settle for inheriting someone else’s kingdom.  They wanted to forge their own destinies.”

“
Yeah…” I said, the fact that he was speaking of them as though he knew them not really registering in my mind.  “We are actually talking about
the
Romulus and Remus here, right?  Romulus
and
Remus?”

“Yes, Jacob.  We are.”

I threw out a finger and pointed it toward the young wrestlers.  “Those guys??”

He chuckled.  “Those guys.”

“Amazing,” I said in complete disbelief.  “I honestly can’t believe it.”

“I could always send you back through the door, Jacob,” Merlin suggested.  “I’m sure if you really want
ed I could conjure up Helena and Agrippina again as well.”

“Oh, don’t
you play games with me, Merlin,” I joked.  “Don’t you put something as tempting as that between a man and his need to learn himself some history.”

“I’d never think of it.  Believe
me.”

I smiled at the jovial
tone of our latest interchange, and while I was certain I didn’t trust Merlin even a little, I was beginning to realize that I certainly liked the guy.

“So how do you even know so much about them?”  I asked.

“Let’s find out,” Merlin said, raising a hand toward the platform.  “Observe.”

By now the two of us were standing just beside the raised platform, which only came up to
about my midsection.  I was able to see the two young men very clearly now, and I was rather impressed at what I saw.  Both men, and I use that term lightly, stood as tall as I and were broad shouldered and very well-muscled.  The maturity in their physical form was offset, however, by their very youthful faces, which barely seemed able to grow peach fuzz.  But despite this limitation, there was something strangely alluring about the two of them, something charismatic and otherworldly.  Even now, as I watched them rise to their feet after one had successfully pinned the other, I felt drawn to them, like I would do anything for them, even if that meant stepping in front a thrown spear for them.

I wondered if such an aura came from simple genetic luck, or if there really was something to the story concerning their patronage, sin
ce supposedly the god of war himself, Mars, had been their father.

I turned to Merl
in.  “There isn’t really anything to that part of the story, is there?  It’s just a coincidence, right?”

“
Shh
,” Merlin hushed.  “The best part’s coming up.”

I bobbed my head in a silent apology and
turned back to the stage.  The twins were on their feet now, the victor consoling the loser while at the same time rubbing it in, just the way I always thought a pair of brothers would treat each other.  There didn’t seem any animosity between them or anything that suggested one was capable of murdering the other, even though that’s the way the story continued.

The losing brother looked downtrodden as the victorious one clapped him on the back, sending a wave of sweat to fly out into the crowd, who cheered and roared as th
e little droplets struck them like it was actual mana of the gods.

The two were shaking hands when a third figure ascended
a small flight of stairs to join them atop the platform.  He was robed from head to toe, and his face was concealed from view, but when he took center stage, the crowd of manly warriors grew quiet and still.  Not a soul stirred or even breathed as the stranger stood above them all, waiting.

I was the only person who dared move, simply shifting
my weight off of my left leg to my right, but was quite surprised when the hooded figure seemed to shift his attention directly at me.

I leaned in closer to Merlin and whispered, “I thought they couldn’t…”

“
Shhhh
!”

I gave him a sour look but did as I was told.  The robed man slowly rotated away from me and I let out a thankful breath.  As I did,
he threw his arms up into the air on either side of his head, causing his loose sleeves to fall past his elbows, showing skinny white arms.  A moment passed, but then he lowered them ever so slowly to clasp the hood over his head, and in one quick motion threw it back.

I was almost surprised at who the action revealed.

Almost.

“Hey,” I whispered.
“It’s you!  I honestly didn’t see that one coming.”

“Shush, Jacob,” Merlin scolded and I wondered what his deal suddenly was.

“Well, at least you aged well,” I remarked, but then closed my mouth.  In fact, judging from the other Merlin’s appearance, he hadn’t seemed to age at all.  “Or were you just born this old?”

“I will not tell you
again to be quiet,” Merlin snapped, so I took the hint.  Something stank about this, but now seemed like a good time to behave, so I stayed quiet and observed the show.

“A fine match!”  The Merlin on stage shouted so that all before him could easily hear.  “But as it is with any show of dominance, there must always be a victor and there must always be a loser.  In this showing, your victor…”
He paused so that he could reach out and grip the arm of one of the twins.  He raised it up like a referee would the winner of a boxing bout.  “…Remus!!”

A cheer went out from the crowd, but it wasn’t hard to see that only half
of those gathered seemed particularly joyous, although unlike a very typical and usually divisive U.S. Congress, it wasn’t like the crowd was distinctively separated in half.  And unlike the polite but obviously forced applause that would emanate from the congressmen not actually agreeing with the sentiment announced, even those who were clearly not in Remus’ camp seemed genuinely happy, clapping their brothers-in-arms on the back in congratulation, passing coin money around, and wore proud and happy smiles.

I nodded appreciatively.  If these men represented the shepherds turned soldiers that Romulus and Remus had led into battle against their great uncle, then legend had it that half would have been loyal to one brother, and the rest to the other.  Yet, there seemed nothing to suggest animosity between the two factions, which reflected the
attitude shared between the two brothers themselves, and I was impressed that such a feat was even possible.

Remus raised his other arm and clenched his hands into fists
, and punched them in the air victoriously.  Romulus, meanwhile, clapped happily and led his men through example by actually being happy for his brother.

Now that I knew the twins apart and had a better look at their faces, details began to emerge.

They were obviously identical, with the same broad forehead, high cheekbones, strong jaw, and prominent noses.  They were handsome young men with faces that would grow hard in ensuing years, but in a way that would only make them more endearing to those who followed them.  However, there were subtle differences in the set of their eyes and the way in which they composed themselves that distinguished one from the other.