The hairy fourth to enslave the State
Shall be son, non son, of this hairy last.
A hairy man that is scant of hair.
He shall give Rome poisons and blasphemies
And die from the kick of an aged horse
That carried him as a child.
18:25 28 May 2002
The Hyperion Hotel, Los Angeles
Fred woke and sat, bolt upright. "Oh! Oh God!"
Then she felt a strong pair of arms close round her, and pull her back into an embrace.
"That was stupid."
Fred sniffed. "She came for the ring. I couldn't think of any other way to get it out of her reach."
"Except throwing yourself through another portal. Some people would call that extreme."
As Fred's senses returned rapidly to normal, she found she was sitting across Angel's lap, with her head resting on his shoulder. They were in his big leather chair in the office. He was running a hand slowly through her hair.
"She's gone?"
"Yes. We had a frank exchange of views. Promise me you won't do it again."
She snuggled against him and took in another gulp of his glorious smell. "Not promising anything of the kind. Not if this is what I get for unauthorised portal travel."
She felt him kiss the top of her head, and then his fingers cupped her chin and brought her face up to his. He touched the end of her nose with his own and whispered, "I don't want to lose you, Fred. Promise me you'll be careful."
Footsteps. Wesley. She sprang away from him like a scalded cat.
"Fred! You're awake! How are you feeling?"
"Fine. Normal, actually. No side effects."
"That's interesting." Wesley peered into her eyes, "Angel's still a bit groggy. I wonder why you weren't affected so much. Anyway.. did you get a result?"
Fred nodded. "I was lucky. I disguised myself a bit too well. They mistook me for a servant and got me carrying things in and out of the sickroom. So I waited until no-one was looking and hid behind a curtain. It was, horrible. He was an old, old man. Smothered, with a pillow, by the younger one. He took such a long time to die."
"The younger one? Noble? Good looking fella? Popular with the crowds?"
"Yes."
Wesley nodded. "Caligula. It had to be."
Angel frowned. "I thought they hated him."
Wesley shook his head. "Only at the end, after he went mad and declared himself a god, murdered most of the nobility, stole their money, wives and land, opened a brothel at the imperial palace with his sisters and brothers as the workers, and generally made a right pest of himself. At the beginning, he was greeted as a saviour. After all, who could be worse than Tiberius?"
"So, I do Caligula next?"
"No."
Fred and Angel looked at Wesley in surprise. "Why not?" Angel asked, "He's one of the more likely candidates, isn't he?"
"I'm going to go."
"Wesley..."
"Angel, you aren't fit. Fred went last time. I've finished researching and now I'd just be sitting here like a lemon. This job doesn't require any strength, it just requires being able to hide, and possibly, kill a vampire before they wake up." He took a stake from his pocket. "Both of which I can do."
Death of Caligula, AD 41
The Coliseum, Rome
Wesley was lying on a stone surface. Ahead stretched a curved corridor. The solid walls and ceiling were made of the same material, and at intervals sunlight flooded in from left and right, through glassless openings.
He sat up. All around there were the sounds of people, shouting, laughing, generally having a good time. Though the general hubbub, he could make out several languages. Latin, Greek, some African and Asian tongues, a heady and cosmopolitan mixture.
When he stood and peeped through one of the openings, he saw a magnificent theatre. Steps descended below him, curving away to right and left, forming a series of concentric hoops around a sun-soaked dais. A play was in full swing, actors were gambolling around on the dais, and hundreds of people lounged on the stone steps, eating, drinking, and offering helpful hints loudly to the acting company.
Six long spokes radiated out from the stage; along these spokes the steps were narrower and more frequent. Along one of the spokes, a large party was making its way out of the auditorium. At the centre was a richly dressed young man, surrounded by bodyguards. His hair, a mop of curls, still glinted gold in the sunlight, and the crowd shrank away from him as he passed.
The party left the theatre, and walked along the curving corridor above it on their way out. Wesley realised they were coming his way, and hurried away from them, looking for a place to hide. Eventually, close to the exit, he found a recess in the stone, just big enough to allow him in, if he held his breath.
The party came closer. He could make out fragments of conversation.
"I'm going to bathe, then eat. Then we'll look over the new slaves. Cassius, you shall have the pick of them, my old friend, as a recognition of your long and devoted service to me. Why, how long is it since you carried me on your shoulders as a boy?"
"A lifetime, my Lord. Guard! Show yourself there!"
As the footsteps echoed around the corridor, a guard stepped in from the brightness outside. He saluted. "The watchword, Caesar?"
The Emperor's party had reached the door. He was surrounded by them.
The man referred to as Cassius stepped forward. "The watchword is LIBERTY!" He turned and drew his sword. The golden haired man backed away, but was prevented from escaping by a ring of guards around him. Several members of the party turned on their sandal-clad heels and fled. No-one stepped forward to protect the Emperor.
The first blow came from Cassius, and cut deep into Caligula's neck. Then several guards hacked at him in their turn: one strike severed his jaw, another was mistimed and the flat of the sword struck his head. He fell to his knees and blows rained down from all sides, until his body lay still on the stone, with weapons protruding at all angles from the abdomen.
Most of the killers backed away, but one stepped forward and dipped his hand into a wound in the dead man's neck. He raised his reddened fingers to the company, then put them to his mouth and licked. He smiled and shouted, "I swore to drink his blood!"
A resounding cheer went up among the guards, and the people in the theatre, realising something was amiss, started to move and shout. A stampede broke out in the auditorium, and the guards, realising they would be overrun in moments, melted away from the body.
Wesley slipped from his hiding place and looked around. The guards were gone, and no-one else was yet in sight. He wrenched one of the swords from the body and swung it above his head, then brought it down in an arc that severed the neck and threw up chips from the stone.