Lost Republic Read online

  Titus took this in stride. He had his men share canteens with the captives. They weren’t insulated plastic, but leather bags of liquid the legionnaires wore around their necks.

  The children drank and promptly complained about the weird taste. Chief Bernardi took a swig. He grimaced. The skins held a mixture of vinegar and water.

  “Yuck,” said Julie. She drank it anyway. So did Emile, while he remembered from the Your/World series Imperator that Roman troops often drank vinegar and water on the march. It was less likely to spoil than plain water.

  No food was offered. The canteens were torn from thirsty hands, and the march resumed.

  Hans spent a long time trying to form the words of a question. Declining Latin verbs while surrounded by men armed with swords wasn’t easy, but at last he struggled to say, “Tribus! Quare es nos ligatio? Qua es nos iens?”

  “Captus, non ligatio.”

  He was correcting Hans’s Latin! “‘Prisoners,’ not ‘imprisoned’!”

  Hans repeated his questions properly. Titus said, “You arrived from the sea. We were told to collect you.”

  Another long interval and Hans managed to figure how to ask, “Who wanted us collected?”

  “The First Citizen of the Republic.” With that enigmatic reply, Titus spurred his horse out of range of Hans’s questions.

  The empty, featureless landscape above the beach slowly gave way to new vistas. Early landmarks—a plain dirt path, a simple stone wall—gave way to signs of regular life. Rusty brown cows lounged under the shade of an ancient oak tree. On distant hilltops, the Carleton people saw little earth-colored cottages with pale thatched roofs. Children herded squawking geese with willow switches. At the sight of the strange column of legionnaires and prisoners, they stopped and stared. Boy or girl, their clothing was the same, simple bags of cloth pulled over their heads and tied at the waist with a thong.

  What was missing was any sign of the modern world. As they trudged along, Eleanor saw no PDDs, motor vehicles, antennas, or signs of electricity being used. The farms they passed smelled of cow manure. Most of the people they saw in the fields and lanes, young or old, were barefoot.

  “I think we’ve gone back in time,” Emile said.

  “Ridiculous,” Eleanor replied. She cradled her burned arm. When it didn’t itch, it throbbed. The pain meds had worn off long ago.

  “Where are we, then?”

  She said, “I don’t know. Why don’t you quiz someone who cares?” She walked faster to get away from him.

  A lot of people from the ship were talking time travel now. They’d all grown up watching science fiction on Your/World—Deadly Moon, The Harriers, Things to Come 2200—so the idea they had gone back in time to the Roman Empire was easy to embrace. Gilligan even used the words time warp to describe the strange demise of the Carleton. They had sailed into a time warp. All they had to do now was find out where in the Roman Empire they’d landed—where and when.

  France was not convinced. Time warps and time travel were fiction, and bad fiction at that. If they were back in Roman times, where did the medieval, French-speaking knights come from? No, they had run into some kind of weird reenactors colony, where everyone took their parts far too seriously . . .

  “Bermuda Triangle,” said Ms. Martinez, a member of the Carleton crew. “We’re lost in the Bermuda Triangle, and so are these poor fellows.” She meant the legionnaires and Tribune Titus. “It’s a kind of limbo where time stands still.”

  Utter crap, Leigh Morrison thought. All these theories were bogus and unnecessary. None of it would matter when they finally found someone in authority. Once they could explain themselves, they were bound to be set free.

  Far back in the line, Emile shed his jacket. It was warm and balmy, more so than anyplace in the North Atlantic had a right to be. It was more like southern Italy here, or springtime in Greece. Weighed down by the impossibility of it all, his tired hands dropped, trailing his expensive designer jacket in the dust. Another mile and it slipped his fingers for good.

  The sun was sinking. Jenny wondered if they’d be forced to walk all night. She was surprisingly tired. They’d only come three miles inland (she kept track of her steps; it was habit), so the distance was not so great, but the stress of the shipwreck and the unfamiliar strain of rowing so much had taken its toll. Her legs felt like lead. A lot of the others were feeling that way, too. Talk had died as the Carleton party dragged itself along. Any attempt to sit down or rest attracted soldiers with swords drawn.

  The sandy beach road came to an end at a nicely cobbled road that led off in three directions: east, north, and northwest. Filling the land between the east and north lanes was an extensive farm—two-story house, lots of stone and rail fences, barns, and other out buildings. Titus Macrinus crossed the paved road and summoned his centurion. They conferred. The legionnaire put a ram’s horn to his lips and blew a long, steady note.

  Scattering squawking chickens as he went, the farmer appeared to greet the tribune. They exchanged words, with the farmer waving his hands and bowing a lot. Titus barked an order, and two hard-muscled soldiers found Hans and dragged him to their commander.

  “You understand me?” Titus asked.

  “If the tribune speak careful,” Hans struggled to say.

  “Tell your people we will pass the night here. Men and women will be separated. Children will stay with their mothers.”

  “What is they going to happen?” asked Hans. His Latin was not up to this.

  “We rest here tonight. In two days we will reach Eternus Urbs, capital of the Republic.”

  “What to us happened there?”

  Titus ignored the question and dismissed Hans with a wave. He went back to the others and told them what the tribune said.

  “Eternus Urbs, eh? Even I know what that means,” Chief Bernardi said. “‘Eternal City.’ We’re going to Rome!”

  France just didn’t believe it. He’d been to Italy with his parents before their divorce, and even allowing for the difference in time, this place was not at all like Italy. The climate and terrain were wrong, and there were no French knights or men-at-arms in ancient Italy. He kept his thoughts to himself. Most of the Carleton crowd had come to terms with the situation by swallowing the time travel idea, and he didn’t want to stir things up—yet.

  All the adult men and boys above age thirteen or so were herded into a smelly cattle pen. It wasn’t enough of a prison to keep anyone in who wanted to get out, but it did confine the men and make it easier for the Romans to post guards around them. The women and children were taken away to the largest barn, and the doors were barred. Leigh hated seeing Julie go. He watched her right up to the moment she vanished into the shadowed barn. She did not look back once.

  The farmer, paid by Titus Macrinus, fed the prisoners with help from his four children. Half a short loaf of bread per man, a gourd dipper of water apiece, and that was all.

  Emile made the cut to go with the men, even though he was small for his age. He found a spot by a fence post above the omnipresent cow dung and wedged himself there. The sun was setting among some low western hills. The sky was beautifully bronzed by the failing rays. From his perch he could see a white statue on a pedestal out behind the farmer’s big, tumbledown house. From the shape it was female, about a quarter the size of an adult woman. He tried to dredge up images from his academy art class. Was it the goddess Venus? Minerva? On a farm it ought to be the harvest goddess, what was her name? Per-Pers-Persephone?

  As he watched, chin on a rail worn smooth by years of cows rubbing against it, a girl about his age came out of the house. She balanced a tall urn on one hip and a small basket on the other. To the statue she went. A meter away, she stopped, curtsied, and placed the basket on the pedestal before the statue. Emile smiled. He was seeing a Roman country girl making an offering to a pagan goddess. It looked genuine. She wasn’t performing
for any audience. As far as Emile could tell, the girl didn’t know she was being watched.

  Curtsying again, the girl poured liquid from the urn on the base of the pedestal. It was shiny and thick, probably olive oil. The girl bobbed her head and went back inside. Emile could see red and brown fruit (or was it bread?) in the basket. His stomach churned. Too bad they didn’t feed their prisoners as well as they did their idols.

  One of the more pompous male passengers slipped and sat down hard in a pile of manure. The guards laughed and pointed. Some of the Carleton men helped the fallen man stand. When Emile was finished taking in the scene, he looked again at the white statue.

  The food was gone.

  The basket was still there. It hadn’t moved. The oil stain shone in the failing sunlight. There was no one around who could have taken the offering and escaped from Emile’s view. That was odd enough, but as Emile studied this puzzle, a strange mystery drove the frown from his face.

  The statue’s pose had changed. Instead of its former languid posture, hands down, gazing with cold marble eyes at the ground, it was now holding its head up. The stone hands were palm up in front of its face, and it was looking directly at Emile.

  Chapter 11

  Night came with whispers. Jenny was in the front corner of the barn, leaning against the rough wall. It was made of plaster or mud, mashed into a lattice of woven sticks. Warm from the day’s sunshine, it smelled, like everything else on this antique Roman farm, of cow dung.

  Jenny had given up a place in the far end of the barn to some of the older women and mothers with children. There was a lot of hay scattered back there, so it was more comfortable than her spot near the door. When they saw her take a less comfortable spot for herself, some of the other girls, the American, Julie, and French Vietnamese girl, Linh, joined Jenny. Eleanor Quarrel was in the opposite corner, cradling her burned arm.

  Jenny couldn’t sleep. She was tired, exhausted even, as if she’d run a major race. All that climbing, rowing, and walking miles proved more demanding than she expected. That made her think she would have to vary her training in the future, to do more than running. She should take up vertical climbing, maybe weights. Her father used to run with wrist and ankle weights, but Jenny’s mother would not allow her to use them. It was too easy for weights to damage a still-growing girl’s joints, she said. They argued about it, but her mother won.

  Running through options for future training, she slipped into half-sleep. Then she heard the whispers. They were nearby. The voices were low. Masculine. She couldn’t quite make out what they were saying—

  A hand clamped hard over her mouth. At the same time, she felt heavy pressure on her chest. Surprised, Jenny opened her eyes and saw an unfamiliar face up close. It was one of the soldiers. His breath smelled of olive oil and wine. Besides a hand over her mouth, he had his knee jammed hard against her so she couldn’t move.

  “Quietis!” he hissed. Jenny got that.

  There were two other shadowy figures behind the man. One had Linh Prudhomme in a similar grip. The third bent down and grabbed Julie. She instantly flailed about in panic. Jenny saw the man’s hand rise and fall. She heard the blow, and Julie stopped fighting.

  Without another word, Jenny was dragged to her feet. The man never uncovered her mouth, but seized her right arm and twisted it hard behind her back. For a second, she considered resisting, but the hand left her face and returned to her throat holding a very sharp knife. Linh was likewise held silent by a blade. The third man picked up a limp Julie by the waist. They sidled out quietly. Jenny thought she saw Eleanor stir. She wanted to shout, to yell for help and warn Eleanor in case there were more attackers about, but the iron edge at her throat dug in and she knew she wouldn’t live to make anything more than a gasp.

  The girls were forced outside, around the barn toward another, smaller shed. By now Jenny had recognized their abductors as three of the legionnaires who had captured them. She also knew what was going to happen. Time warp, Bermuda Triangle, or weird island of cultists didn’t matter. She and the girls were about to be raped.

  Eleanor did waken when Julie was struck. She saw the outlines of three soldiers standing over her companions and saw them dragged out. She froze when the man holding Julie stared at her. Eleanor understood what was happening, too. She waited a few seconds, then got up on her hands and knees. She crept to the open barn door and watched the legionnaires disappear around the corner with their captives.

  Eleanor thought of screaming there and then. She decided against it. There were knives at Linh and Jenny’s throats, and screaming might only get the girls killed. Besides, who in the barn could help her? Old Mrs. Ellis? The lady with two kids?

  She remembered Julie’s brother. He would do anything to save his sister. Eleanor dashed out of the barn, bent low. She was able to make it to the cow pen without being stopped by guards. That made sense; the men abducting the girls were the guards on watch between the barn and the pen.

  “Leigh! Leigh Morrison!” she gasped. Someone sat up within the dark corral. It was the French guy.

  “Help! The girls! They’ve been taken!”

  Another head popped up. This time it was Hans Bachmann.

  “Where’s Leigh Morrison? His sister’s in danger!” Eleanor all but cried.

  Hans moved over two sleeping figures and roused Leigh. He, Hans, and France Martin ducked between the rails. Eleanor pointed to the low shed beyond the barn.

  “They went that way!”

  Crouching, the boys followed her. At the last minute, a fourth figure joined them—Emile Becquerel.

  “Go back!” Eleanor said. “You’re too young for this!”

  “Too young for what?”

  She couldn’t say it. “You’re too small, okay?”

  “Why, are you starting a basketball game?” he shot back.

  There was no more time to argue. Eleanor and the four guys dashed through the darkness.

  Only twenty yards away, Julie was lost. She had felt someone touch her, so she kicked out, only to get floored with a blow that knocked her eyes back into her head. When the veil slowly cleared, she felt herself being carried, quite rudely. She started to protest and received another smack on the back of her head. This hurt again, but it also made her mad. She bent over the meaty arm around her waist and sank her teeth into it. Her captor hissed loudly and let her fall to the ground. The breath went out of Julie. She lay there, dazed.

  “Miserabilis creatura!”

  Iron scraped as the soldier drew a dagger from its scabbard. Driven along behind Julie and her abductor, Linh saw the man drop her and take out his knife. He stood over her, ready to plunge the blade into Julie’s back.

  Linh screamed, blade at her throat or no. Farther back, Leigh and the others heard the cry and broke into a full run. The light was poor. There was no starlight or moon, and no artificial light anywhere, but it was clear enough for Leigh to tackle the nearest soldier from behind. He made a perfect illegal clip and cut the man’s legs out from under him. This happened to be Jenny’s captor. He went down. She sprang free, and with Hans running up beside her, they fell on the second man, struggling with Linh Prudhomme.

  The ruckus distracted the first soldier from killing Julie. He turned, knife in hand, to face France and Eleanor. He cut sideways at France, who barely threw himself out of the way in time. Eleanor skidded to a stop. She cast about for a weapon and found nothing but a wooden hayfork leaning against the shed. Eleanor grabbed this and jabbed at the soldier standing over Julie. He laughed shortly and snatched the tool from her grasp.

  Emile quickly regretted joining the rescue. Leigh was down, wrestling a man cursing in Latin. Jenny pulled Linh free of her abductor while Hans desperately kept him busy. Eleanor and France looked certain to die, so Emile flattened himself against the shed, trying to go unseen. His foot nudged something heavy. He picked it up. It was half a brick
.

  Leigh’s opponent was tough. He wasn’t as big as Leigh, but wiry and very strong. The soldier knew how to fight, while Leigh only had football and some high school wrestling experience to draw on. The soldier got a hand on Leigh’s throat and tightened his grip. Blood bellowed in the American’s ears until he drove a fist twice into the man’s gut as hard as he could punch.

  Jenny flung the slender Linh away and leaped at the man who had held her. Hans had him on one side, now Jenny grappled on the other. The legionnaire’s eyes were wide with surprise. She stamped on his foot. Powered by Olympic-hopeful legs, she broke the man’s ankle. Howling, he went down.

  Julie was up on her hands and knees. So far, the night had been a series of nasty blows and confusion. When she saw France and Eleanor dancing out of reach of the soldier’s blade, she yelled a few choice words of English and kicked him in the rump. He promptly backhanded Julie in the nose. She reeled away.

  Feinting with his knife, the legionnaire wedged a leg between France’s ankles and tripped him. Down he went. Next thing he knew, a burning hot sensation flooded his back. He’d been stabbed. France tried to rise, but all strength fled his limbs.

  Disappointed to see the boy still moving, the soldier raised his knife again. At that moment, he was hit in the face by half a brick. Eleanor turned to see Emile recovering from his first and only throw.

  Many footfalls thudded in the lane between the barn and shed. The rest of the guards were coming, with swords drawn. Linh saw their blades gleam in the dark and knew their lives were over.

  “Sto qua vos es! Operor non permoveo!”

  Only Hans knew this meant “Stand where you are! Don’t move!” but the intent of the command was clear. The soldiers quickly filled the lane, disarming and separating everyone.

  Then there was light.

  Overhead, there was a tremendous flash, as if a gigantic camera had gone off a hundred yards up in the sky. Everyone froze—everyone. Lying in the muck, bleeding, France saw every thing highlighted in bright glare and sharp shadows. The terrible pain in his back lessened as a gentle wave of heat flowed through him.