I threw my hands in the air, anger brewing deep inside my chest, and started walking in a small circle. “You can’t be fucking serious! What about the church? Christianity? The Pope, for God’s sakes?! What about our Goddamned timeline?! Didn’t you think about Charlemagne, Muhammad, Genghis Khan, King Henry VIII, Admiral Yamamoto… I dunno… Marilyn Fucking Monroe!?! Didn’t you for one second think you might change all that?”
“Think about it, Jacob,” he replied calmly, glancing around at the suspicious looks legionnaires had turned after my outburst. “Jesus has already died and risen. Most of our institution’s background is just starting to establish itself as we speak, but in the East. No matter what we do here, things won’t slow down over there. And think about Caligula. Does he seem like the kind of man who would persecute and destroy a population based on their faith like Nero?”
I thought about that. Caligula seemed far from that kind of man. He had the confidence and arrogance of any Caesar, but he was compassionate, caring, intelligent, and furthermore, a leader. He would have no problem with Christians.
I still couldn’t believe what I was hearing. How could one so willingly try to change the past? The ramifications were unfathomable. Just because we thought we were doing the right thing didn’t mean things would turn out for the better. Things could turn out worse. We had no idea which.
I turned my back on Vincent, put my hands on my hips, and looked at the ground. This was stupid. We were messing with shit no man had the right to mess with. We had no right to screw with the lives of all those who lived between 37 and 2021 A.D. I looked up at the rampart to see Helena leaning over the rail, her eyebrows furrowed in concern.
I turned back to Vincent. “I can’t believe this. I really can’t. So what do you suggest we do now?”
“Now? We continue what we’re doing. We help Caligula retain his throne, and protect him as long as we can. Maybe help push him in the right direction. I understand Claudius was a far better emperor than Caligula had been in our original time, but it’s obvious something has gone wrong with him, so we need to preserve Caligula. Here’s another question I want you to think about. What else did Praetorians do besides protect their emperor, at least after Augustus?”
What else did they do? Was that a trick question? The only other thing I could think of was that they actually assassinated their emperors when they weren’t protecting them. What did that have to do with -
Ah.
“They had a very influential say in who became the next emperor,” I answered.
“Right. Damage to their loyalty has already been done during Tiberius’ reign, but we know that the Praetorians were completely loyal to Augustus. What if they became the stalwart protectors they were designed to be once again? We may be dealing with a Praetorian rebellion here, but if Caligula is able to reestablish control, I have to assume there will be a cleansing of the guard.”
“So, your plan is to stop the precedent of Praetorians controlling the ascendancy of the emperors? Make them into a dedicated bodyguard unit who merely complied, did their duty, and followed orders?”
“I think that would have an interesting effect on history. We’re already seeing evidence that it could be possible with Caligula’s Sacred Band. Three hundred loyal men can go a long way for an emperor.”
That they could. The historian inside me was screaming right now. One side told me to preserve our history, and that if we interfered with it, we’d be no better than those men who tweaked what they recorded just because no one could stop them. That voice was too little too late, though, because the other voice was enthusiastically interested in how things could now turn out. Maybe I’d even have great epics written, devoted to my life’s endeavors. They might even make me a god. It worked for Julius Caesar after all.
“So?” Vincent asked, interrupting my thoughts. “What do you think we should do now?”
What would I do?
I knew we couldn’t change what we’ve already done. As far as I knew, there wasn’t any way I could change the past, as stupidly ironic as that sounds, so I might as well make the best of it.
I sighed. “I really wish you would have come to me earlier. We need to work on setting things straight, not change things for what we perceive may be for the better.”
Vincent stood up, and placed both hands on my shoulders, a gesture a father would offer his son. “You’re a good officer, Hunter. Like McDougal said, you are quite the Renaissance man, intelligent, moral, and not unable to step back and make rational decisions, not unlike our friend, Caligula. I’m proud to have had this opportunity to serve with you.”
He held out his hand, which I very slowly grasped.
“Thanks, I guess. I still can’t believe this and I’m sure as shit not happy about it, but it is what it is.” A cluster fuck, basically. “So, what should I tell the others?”
“Tell them what you will, if you feel they truly want to know. I leave it in your hands now. I know you’ll make the right decision.
Later that night, after my watch was up, I slipped into the tent I shared with Helena, who was already in her sleeping bag. She was fast asleep, so I made every effort not to wake her, but when my head hit the pillow, her eyes fluttered open.
“I saw you talking with Vincent today,” she said, her head facing away from me. “Seemed pretty intense. Did you find the answers you were looking for?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Anything I should know about?”
I thought about that for a second. She deserved to know, as do the rest of the guys, but would their knowing really change anything? They’d just have the same problem I did, with the worst case scenario being it would undermine Vincent’s authority. Even though I hardly felt it would come to that, we needed to stick together, no matter what.
“If I told you, would it change how you felt about anything?”
“No,” she whispered, half asleep. “Like I said when we first arrived here, we have to worry about the here and the now. There’s no way to change what was done, and even if there was the chance things might have turned out differently, there’s no point dwelling on it. We just have to make the best of it.”
“You’re a woman after my own heart,” I joked, but I wasn’t sure if she cracked a smile or not. “I’ll tell you one thing though: you are right. There is no way to change what happened, but I don’t think making the best of it is what we need to do.”
“Then what?”
I turned away from her and closed my eyes. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
***
Having spoken with Vincent, there was nothing else to look towards but the upcoming months, which just about brought me up to the here and now: freezing my ass off on yet another morning watch.
Only for a short while did Helena and my watch schedules sync up so we could share the night together, but not since that night after my talk with Vincent did we manage it. These days, by the time my shift was finished, it was time to go to sleep, and when I woke up, she was just finishing her shift, and was ready for bed herself. It got pretty lonely at times, but at least as I sat here on the porta decumana rampart, freezing my ass off at three in the morning, I had Santino to keep me company.
“Come on, Jacob. Don’t lie to me. I know what’s going on in that tent of yours.”
“Santino, you of all people should know I’d never tell you anything even if we were doing what say we’re doing.”
“That’s not an answer, my friend.”
“What makes you think you deserve one?”
“Come on!” He said insistently. “I’m freezing my balls off here. Give me something. Anything.”