To the point that it almost made me do things I would later regret.
Then again, I did do things that night that I regretted anyway. Things I don’t want to discuss nor feel the need to record here I’ve suffered through enough self-inflicted pain over the episode already, and the only reason I had been able to deal with it all was because we egressed the fuck away from Agrippina that night, and have been on the run ever since.
Like I said, we went east.
We knew Vincent was somewhere in the Middle East, probably around Jerusalem, so we decided to follow Bordeaux’s trail. We hoped to meet up with them a lot sooner than originally planned, but when we arrived in Athens, he’d already left with Wang.
Having already missed them, we’d decided to spend a few days there, where we learned firsthand how much of an influence Wang had been on local doctors and the Greek medical profession in general. Greece had always been on the cutting edge of science and medicine, even after the Romans conquered them, but their knowledge palled before Wang’s — a simple combat medic from the 21st century.
We’d asked around concerning his whereabouts, and many of his former partners told us his story:
Wang had arrived early one morning a few months after he’d left Rome, claiming he had walked all the way from the Orient and that he possessed knowledge far beyond their own. They were skeptical, of course, but with his help, Greek doctors had been able to synthesize all kinds of new drugs, the most popular being more effective pain killers. Others, such as diuretics and cough drops, were popular as well.
They’d given us a few test samples, and I remember smiling at the small objects that mimicked those in gross demand two thousand years from now. Obviously, Wang didn’t have the material or equipment needed to make the kind of pills you take every day, but he had done his best. From what I observed, the pills, which were more like wafers, consisted of mashed together herbs and plants that had been dried, crushed and formed into little consumables, held together by God knows what.
It had worked though, and the headache I’d been suffering from that day had been gone in minutes.
Unfortunately, the doctors also informed us Wang had left two weeks before our arrival in the company of a very large Gaul and his, likewise, very large family. They had seemed comically sad that Wang had left them and had indicated no one knew where he was going, just that they had gone east.
So, after a quick tourist stop at the Acropolis and Parthenon for some pictures, we moved on to Byzantium, the ancient city later known as Constantinople, which would even later be named Istanbul. What name you know the city by is any man’s guess, but I do know its Greek name — Byzantium — should still exist in your timeline if you dig down deep enough through your history books.
It was a good place to lay low for a while.
I needed to get my head together after the incident with Agrippina, and I knew Helena and Santino could use rest as well. After four years on the run, constantly taking risks and making enemies, we needed a break. Byzantium would be a good place to blend in and keep ourselves off Agrippina’s radar for a few months.
East was the last place she would think to look for us.
There was nothing of value for her here.
Byzantium was also the best place to wait for Bordeaux as he made his way back with Wang and Vincent. They’d have to cross through Anatolia, you may know it as Turkey, but I doubt it, and the best place to cross from east to west was over the Bosporus, the narrow straight that separated the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara (or simply Propontis as its known these days — the “before sea“).
It’s been a little more than two months since Santino’s last journal entry, which I feel the need to comment on as elegant in its crude simplicity, and it may be a while again before the next one. I was too hasty and arrogant when I first decided to act on my plan a few months ago. Santino, Bordeaux… Helena… they were all right. They were always right. I don’t know why I even listen to myself anymore.
I need perspective.
I need time to regroup and think.
I sat back and thought, leaving my journal to rest upon the table where it lay.
Taking time to regroup and think was a hell of an idea, but even after a few days here in Byzantium and months on the run, I’d done little in the way of thinking. It had taken me the entire time we were here just to convince myself it was time for another journal entry, and I now realized it had in fact been long overdue.
What had happened aboard Agrippina’s barge and later with Helena in our tent ate away at me at times, but never so much as it did that night. I had let my guard down with Helena and allowed myself to succumb to the one emotion I couldn’t afford to feeclass="underline" fear. We weren’t going to accomplish anything that way, but there were times when I couldn’t help but dwell on that night. The orb and its power had been disturbing, yes, but it was an obvious problem. What was truly unsettling were the things Agrippina had said.
The image of her kneeling on her bed as blood dripped from her neck and was smeared all over her thighs was burrowed into my mind, but her words were all I could focus on — You didn’t expect all your questions to be answered so quickly, did you, Jacob? That, as you would say, would spoil the story, she had said. And she was right. It was exactly something I would say, but how would she know that? And before even that, she had said something about choosing a particular path. What path? Were there more than one?
Her words had a distinctly predictive nature to them, as though she knew more than she let on. As if she knew the course of events that night before they even began. The thought shouldn’t have been a surprise considering her possession of a glowing, time traveling ball, but I was convinced she couldn’t use it. I had seen Claudius hold the orb in his own hand without any indication he could use it like I could and Caligula had had ownership of it for months after the reclamation of Rome. In neither instance had there been any sign they had any idea how it worked, let alone been able to operate it. As far as I knew, Marcus Varus and I were the only two people in the entire universe that could use it.
My only conclusion was that I didn’t know what to think, but that I’d damn well better figure it out soon. Not only that, but that we now had two immediate objectives, neither new, and neither overtly specific. First, we had to destroy the orb; both of them, actually, since technically there are two. The second had yet to surface, but we had to find and destroy it just as soundly as the one in Agrippina’s possession. Secondly, we had to continue our goal of usurping Agrippina from the throne. The more I thought about her the more convinced I was that she had to be removed for the sake of everything. She knew too much about the orb, and that was bad enough. At worst, she was displaying signs of corruption from its presence, although it was taking far longer with her than it had with either Caligula or Claudius.
Helena was probably the last piece of redemption I had to work on. The last, yes, but that didn’t mean I had to wait to work on it. We’d been so close to bridging the gap that had formed between us over the past year, but little progress had been made since Agrippina. I’ve been distracted, introspective, much the same as I had been prior to my time on the barge, only this time I had cause and wasn’t unaware of it. I thought Helena understood this time, hence her own distance, but I couldn’t be sure.