PRINKEPS AMERIKAE
A science fiction novel by
Jeff Provine
Romans
Chapter III
Jason stepped off the villager’s boat where it had been beached in the rocky sand. The tunic-clad fishermen stayed in the wooden ship, watching wide-eyed as armored soldiers surrounded them. Their swords were sheathed, but the soldiers held their shields high, creating a wall of iron and muscle.
Jason did his best not to shiver. There was a cool breeze blowing from the east, charging toward the still-warm sea in an effort to balance air pressures. His t-shirt was not thick enough to keep out all the chill. At least he had grabbed tennis shoes before leaving his boat. He also had the revolver stuck in his pocket, which gave him a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature.
The Latin note had been an invitation, he knew that much at least. What exactly it had said was still a mystery to him, but the prodding of the fishermen and collecting of the soldiers on the beach made him move. Jason hated acting in ignorance.
He glanced over his shoulder to where the yacht still rested as a shadow in the setting sun. The tide was coming up, but it would not be high enough to free the boat for a few hours. If he tried to escape the land, he would be trapped at the sea.
Not that escaping physically would do anything. He was two thousand years in the past. With nothing else to do, Jason set his shoulders and took a step forward.
The soldiers did not react. They were looking at him, some with wide and curious eyes, but they were not unhinged as the villagers had been. Jason did his best to mimic their military cool.
The armored semicircle around him divided in the middle, and a man in a white toga appeared. He was tall with sinewy muscles, waving his arms in dramatic gestures as he walked. His hair was cut short and slightly curled, making him look like a living classical statue in a museum.
Behind him, a short man walked, carrying an armload of scrolls. He wore a simple tunic and a little wooden sign on a cord around his neck. He squinted his eyes at Jason.
The well dressed man spoke. His voice was loud and musical. “Salve, veneratio advena!”
Jason swallowed. He raised a hand in a friendly wave and said, “Um, hello… Sal-way?”
The tall man stopped suddenly, one foot still up in the air. He settled back and made a long, slow blink at Jason.
Behind him, the short man spoke softly. “Lingua latina non dicet.”
Jason inhaled a gasp. “Lingua latina” made sense. The Latin language, right? Jason did his best to make a diplomatic bow. “Lingua latina non dicet.”
The short man snorted a laugh.
The tall man whipped his head around and glared at the short one. He snarled a comment, then raised his hand as if to hit him.
The short man flinched and hugged his scrolls.
Lowering his hand slowly, the tall man took the short one by the shoulder and shoved him forward. He snarled a short phrase that Jason couldn’t make out.
The short man took a long look at Jason, squinting and widening his eyes over and over again.
Jason shifted his weight from one foot to the other, not sure what to expect.
Finally the short man set down his scrolls. Placing his hand on his chest, he pointed to himself and said, “Xander.”
Jason nodded. He patted himself on the chest in return. “Jason.”
“Jason,” the man repeated, but he made the “J” sound too much like a “ch”. He squinted for a moment, then asked, “Graecus?”
Jason shook his head and made as negative of an expression as he could. “No, no. American.”
“Am-er-ican?” the man asked.
Jason sighed and nodded. Of course they would not know what an American was. The country wouldn’t be founded for two millennia, give or take. He didn’t even know what century this was.
A thought sparked in Jason’s mind, and he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket. He dug through the folds till he found his passport, then he handed it to the shorter man.
Xander took the passport, ran his finger over the engraving, then opened it to the first page. His jaw went slack, and his eyes seemed to grow too large for their sockets. He stared silently for a moment, then touched the photograph.
“Perfectus,” he whispered.
The tall man behind him cleared his throat. Xander glanced over his shoulder, then set back to looking through the pages at the various stamps.
The man grabbed Xander by the shoulder and shook him. The smaller man shrieked and dropped, landing on top of his scrolls. He covered his head with one arm and held up his hand with the passport.
A rumble of laughter echoed from the soldiers standing around them. Jason wanted to step forward and defend the short man, but he did not move.
The tall man took the passport and flipped through it. He raised an eyebrow, looked up at Jason, then looked back at the document.
Jason smiled. The photograph must have seemed like the best painting they had ever seen.
The tall man barked an order in Latin, and Xander jumped to his feet. He took several short steps away from the tall man and nodded.
Holding both hands out dramatically pointing at the taller man, Xander said, “Marcus Augustus Brimus. Proconsul Lusitaniae.”
The man stood a little taller. “Salve, Chason.”
Jason bowed. He would have to work on getting people to pronounce his name correctly later.
“Nunc, cenamus!” Brimus called, turning and waving a hand.
Jason blinked.
The smaller man smirked and made the motion of shoveling food into his mouth from a bowl-shaped hand.
“Ah,” Jason said. He smiled. “Dinner.”
The meal was set in a large tent at the center of the military camp. As Jason walked, led by the proconsul and surrounded by soldiers, he saw still more soldiers working without their armor. They were erecting tents, digging trenches, tethering horses, and assembling a virtual small town where before there had been only rocky sand. As the soldiers worked, centurions in armor walked among them, barking orders in Latin.
Jason could not help but smirk. All of the movies he had seen about Romans generally had them speaking with British accents. These men sounded like Italians, but without the fluidity of the modern language. It seemed too efficient and staccato to be a direct ancestor to the laidback poetry of Italian.
A sudden scream made Jason’s smirk disappear. He looked over his shoulder in its direction, finding a shirtless man tied by the wrists to a post. A centurion was standing over him, the high-plumed helmet blocking out any humanity from the commander’s face. He brought a multi-tailed whip down, raking it across the soldier’s back with a wet crack.
Jason felt his mouth drop open, and he clamped it shut quickly. Turning to face forward again, he found the proconsul watching him. Jason tried to look at ease with the barbarism, but another crack of the whip made his face twitch. The short man behind the proconsul hung his head, but the proconsul himself seemed proud. With a flourish, he motioned Jason toward the most ornate tent in the camp.
The proconsul’s tent was made of lavish tapestries hung over a wooden frame. It was warm inside, out of the wind and lit by burning braziers. A low table dominated the middle of the tent and was surrounded by three long couches.
Brimus looked at Jason and waved at one of the couches. He said something that sounded very ornate, but all Jason could interpret was the invitation to sit down.
Jason plopped down onto one of the couches. It was comfortable, not soft, but had pillows that must have been stuffed with feathers. He ran his fingers over the fabric, trying to decide what it was. It wasn’t velvet, but it felt similar.
Brimus lay on another couch and stretched out his sandaled feet. With a faint sigh, Xander knelt beside him and undid the long leather straps that held the sandal in place. They went all the way up to the knee, wrapping, tucking, and finally tying.
Jason suddenly wondered where his Velcro sneakers were.
When Xander had finished with the sandals, he took a bowl of water and a towel and washed the proconsul’s hands and feet. Brimus brushed him away and yelled, gesticulating toward Jason. Xander turned to Jason, his face expressionless. Jason slowly stuck his hands out to be washed, but kept his tennis shoes to himself. Foot-washing had no appeal to him.
Brimus clapped his hands twice and shattered Jason’s thoughts. Almost immediately, servants dressed in simple tunics similar to Xander appeared with trays of food. There were eggs, vegetables, various roasted meats, and huge, round loaves of bread with bowls of what looked like spiced olive oil. Tall earthenware jugs and two golden cups held dark red wine. It looked like an Italian meal, or at least what one would have been without pasta and tomatoes.
As the servants spread the food over the table, a sense of nervousness came over Jason. Travelers were always warned against eating the local food in third world countries. Here, the third world hadn’t even been invented yet. The food looked reasonable enough, but Jason could only imagine the foreign bacteria scampering around inside.
The food settled, and the servants settled against the far wall of the tent, hands holding extra trays ready to refill anything that emptied. The proconsul, still lounging, grabbed bits of food at random and waved for Jason to do the same.
Jason swallowed. He was hungry, but not enough to delve into mysterious ancient foods. Doing his best to make a polite bow with his head, Jason said, “Um, no, thank you.”
Brimus made an understanding nod and clapped his hands again, and musicians appeared at the tent door. They were two young men, one playing a flute, and the other a little drum. After a moment of bowing and prancing, they moved to a corner of the tent and made simple dinner music.
The proconsul waved his hands politely at Jason and made a broad-lipped smile.
Jason returned a smile by force.
Brimus raised his golden cup and made a toasting gesture. “Mulsum?”
A lump began forming in Jason’s throat, and he tried swallowing against it. Not drinking was an insult to the proconsul, and the last thing to do right now was insult someone with several hundred soldiers at his command.
Jason took the cup in his hand. It was heavy, meaning it really was gold instead of merely plated like he had seen in fancy restaurants. The metalwork was good, not machine-accurate, but well hammered and shaped by hand.
Brimus took a long sip from his cup, watching Jason with cool eyes.
Jason gritted his teeth and slowly moved the cup toward his mouth. Maybe the alcohol content would be high enough to clear out infectious bacteria. Making a final dry swallow, Jason made as shallow of a sip of the wine as he could.
The red was slid over his tongue and seemed to burst into life. It was sweet like honey, but there were spices mixed with it. Jason tried to place them, but the drink blended so well he could not. It was like no wine he had ever even imagined.
Jason’s hand lowered the cup automatically. He swallowed, tasted the inside of his mouth, then said, “That’s delicious!”
Brimus looked at Jason with wide eyes. Behind him, Xander squinted.
Jason made a breathy laugh. English had half its roots in Latin, borrowed from French. There had to be some link. He fumbled for words, then tried, “Good-o? Good-is?”
“Dulcis?” Xander offered.
Jason rolled his eyes and grinned. “Sure, dulcis.”
Feeling warmed, Jason took another, larger sip. He was no wine connoisseur, especially since the tour he had made of Napa Valley with friends had ended midway through with all of the so-called friends realizing how much they hated each other.
Brimus turned to the food again, making motions of offering to Jason with every finger-full. Every time Jason waved something away, Brimus ate it himself and turned to another dish. As Jason refused it, the proconsul’s brow furrowed deeper.
Jason clenched his lips. The proconsul was upset, but he didn’t know whether it was from insult or confusion. Maybe he should try something.
“Besides,” Jason though to himself, “what if you’re stuck here? You’re going to have to eat it eventually.”
Jason released his lips. He scanned the table carefully, looking for something that at least seemed similar to modern food. The pieces of meat might have passed for smoked barbeque, but Jason imagined the vegetables would carry less germs. He settled on cabbage and picked it up with his fingers. Vinegar dripped off it.
He looked at Brimus, who was watching with cool eyes. His furrowed brown had rescinded.
The vinegar would kill most bacteria. Whatever was left, he could drown in wine. Jason grabbed the cup in his other hand and took a sip. Without waiting for his mouth to empty, he popped the cabbage inside and followed it with another drink.
From the little he had tasted, the cabbage was good. Spicy, but good. The Romans seemed to do rather well even without potatoes, corn, or tomatoes.
Gradually, as the musicians played on, Jason worked his way through the vegetables, washing it all in his mouth with a bath of wine. He stayed away from the meat, still not trusting animal matter.
When he had taken a piece of all the vegetables, Jason looked at his host, who was still munching quietly. The servants stood at their places, none of them moving other than replace whatever had been eaten or drunk. Xander stood nearby, looking through scrolls and making marks with what looked like a piece of coal.
Jason stitched his eyebrows. They had been eating for perhaps an hour, and there did not seem to be any end in sight. The food just kept reappearing, as if dinner were to go on all night. Jason wasn’t particularly full, but all the wine was beginning to blur his vision. He had to get out of there.
Just as he began working on a gesture-based way to excuse himself and return to his boat, his stomach made a gurgling noise. His abdominal muscles squeezed and ached, trying to purge itself of foreign food. Something had triggered his immune system.
Jason grimaced, then coughed. The cough shook him to his core, rattling his stomach. He was in for a rough night.
Jason did not remember falling asleep. He awoke feeling like his body had been passed through a meat grinder. Every muscle ached, his head gave a constant smoldering of pain, and his stomach burned with its own acid. He tried to open his eyes, but bright light flooded into his skull. Squeezing his eyes shut, Jason let out a soft moan. Even moaning hurt.
Nothing was broken, but everything was sore. Jason tried to breathe deeply, letting in extra oxygen to kill off the duller aches. Something smelled terrible, tart and cutting, and he had to stop. The pain wasn’t going away, but he could ignore it for now.
When he could feel something other than pain, he realized he was moving. At first he imagined his head was swimming, but the rocking was too inconsistent. Sounds, thudding, grinding sounds, rang out in beat with the movement. He was in a cart of some kind.
Taking a deep breath, Jason pulled his eyes open again. The light burned, but he forced himself to look through it. Tears began to well up, and he blinked them out of the way.
Jason looked around, taking in as much as he could with blurred vision. He was in a wooden cart, maybe something like a primitive carriage. He was lying on a straw mat with a low bowl next to him. After he saw it, the horrendous stench woke again. It was vomit, most likely his own judging from the trail from his bedside.
His stomach surged, but there was nothing to spew out. Jason settled for some deep, dry coughs and fell back onto the mat.
He mumbled to himself, “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
“Vigilasque?” a voice asked.
Jason closed one eye and peered toward the sound. It was Xander, still in a pale tunic, sitting on a stool surrounded by books. They were paperback books, most of them with English titles. They were Jason’s books.
A flood of shock ran through Jason’s system. They had been in his boat. The Romans had stolen them off the deck. If they had gotten past the lock on the hatch, all his futuristic possessions would be gone. Jason threw himself into a sitting position.
His vision went dark and a new twinge of aching ran through his body. He swallowed dryly against it and panted. “What are you doing with my books? What happened? Where am I?”
Xander squinted at him and said nothing.
Jason grunted and looked away. “Fine, right, the Latin thing. You have no idea what I’m saying.”
Moving slowly, Jason patted his pockets. His revolver was gone, along with his wallet and all the bullets. Even his tennis shoes were gone. They must have ransacked him as well as his boat.
The short man slowly crossed his arms and leaned to put his elbows on his knees. “Non deo es.”
“What?” Jason asked.
“Dei ebrii vina mortalis non decent,” Xander replied.
Confusion began to give way to rage inside Jason. “I don’t know what you’re saying!”
The short man looked at him, squinted, then spoke again. “Dei telis mortalis non sanguinem fundent.”
“What?” Jason demanded. “What are you saying?”
Xander pointed toward Jason’s arm.
Jason blinked and slowly looked down. There was a nick in his arm with dried blood around it like a dark red stain. They had cut him.
Jason pulled his arm away, putting it behind himself. He looked up in horror at the short man. “You cut me? You cut me! Why? Why are you doing this?”
Xander only squinted at him.
Jason scooted backward on the mat till he hit the wooden wall of the carriage. There were only a few windows, and they were mere slits at the edge of the ceiling. There was no escape from the inside.
“They kidnapped me,” Jason told himself. He began panting and tried to think of any way to fight his way out.
Xander raised a hand.
Jason slowed his breathing and looked at the short man. “Where’s my boat?”
Xander squinted again.
Jason returned the squint. He knew this one. The fishermen had said it. Slowly, he pronounced each sound, “Navicula mea.”
Xander’s squint spread into a wider impressed look. “Navicula mea… waresmai boot.”
Jason raised his eyebrows, but did not stop squinting. The man was repeating everything he said, picking it up. “You’re trying to learn my language.”
“My langu-edge,” Xander repeated. He made a motion of words coming out of his mouth with his fingers. “Lingua?”
Jason nodded. “Language, lingua, yeah.” He paused, then pointed to his mouth and said, “English.”
“Ing-lesh,” Xander repeated. He pointed to his own mouth. “Lingua romae. Latina.”
Jason felt a crusted smile form on his dry lips. “Now we’re getting somewhere.