Retalio

by Alison Morton

  This edition published in 2018 by Pulcheria Press

  Copyright © 2017 by Alison Morton

  Propriété littéraire d’Alison Morton

  The right of Alison Morton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Acts 1988 Sections 77 and 78.

  All rights reserved. Tous droits réservés

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of the copyright holder, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  * * *

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 9791097310011

  Contents

  Dramatis Personae

  I. EXILE

  II. EXPLORATION

  III. INVASION

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  Historical note

  Also by Alison Morton

  About the Author

  Praise for the Roma Nova series

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  * * *

  Mitela family and household

  Aurelia Mitela, Roma Nova government minister and imperial councillor

  Marina Mitela, Aurelia’s daughter

  William Brown, Marina’s husband, an Eastern United States defence electronics contractor

  Miklós Farkas, Aurelia’s long-time companion

  Milo, Former steward of Domus Mitelarum

  Gavinus, Former Castra Lucilla farm manager

  Tella family

  Caius Tellus, First consul of Roma Nova

  Quintus Tellus, Caius’s brother

  Conradus Tellus, Caius and Quintus’s young cousin/nephew

  Military

  Volusenia, Colonel, Praetorian Guard Special Forces (PGSF)

  Numerus, Retired Senior Centurion, PGSF

  Pia Calavia, Lieutenant, PGSF

  Atrius, Guard, PGSF

  Aquilia, Lieutenant, Roma Nova legions

  Junia, Centurion, Roma Nova legions/PGSF

  Styrax, Ex-legionary, Roma Nova legions

  Former imperial government

  Maia Quirinia, Budget minister and Aurelia’s friend

  Claudia Cornelia, Aurelia’s former assistant at the foreign ministry

  Silvia Apulia, The late Imperatrix Severina’s daughter

  In Vienna

  David Soane, Viennese head of Soanes Bank, Aurelia’s cousin

  Edward Soane, David’s son

  Sándor, Miklós’s friend, Aurelia’s bodyguard

  Herr Goss, Assistant to New Austrian foreign minister

  Commissar Joachim Huber (aka Joachim von und zu der Havel), Vienna Gendarmerie, Aurelia’s cousin

  Tante Sabine, Joachim’s mother

  Other Roma Novan exiles in Vienna,

  Burrus, Refugee

  Turturus, Former military cadet

  Lentilius, Soldier turned councillor

  Regulus, Logistics manager

  Roma Novan diplomats

  Livilla Vara, Nuncia (ambassador), Vienna legation

  Cornelia, Nuncia, Paris legation, cousin of Claudia Cornelia

  Vibianus, Administrator, Paris legation

  Grania, Administrator, Paris legation

  Gracilis, Nuncio, London legation

  Resistance members inside Roma Nova

  Marcia

  Sextus, Marcia’s brother

  Gaius, Marcia’s cousin

  Drusilla, Palace housekeeper

  Lucia

  Frontius

  Anna, Miklós’s business colleague

  Janós, Anna’s husband

  Foreign governments

  Sir Henry Carter, UK foreign secretary

  Gerald Hill, UK external security services director

  Charles Fitz-Glynn, Assistant to Sir Henry Carter

  Mr White, EUS government advisor to Caius Tellus

  Part I

  EXILE

  1

  ‘Betrayal and collaboration used to lead automatically to a death sentence. You should be grateful this is the 1980s.’ She refused to look at me and instead jabbed her spoon into the coffee cup, almost scraping the glaze off as she rattled it round the tiny amount of liquid at the bottom.

  ‘Is that what you really think I’ve done, Maia Quirinia?’

  ‘I’m an accountant, Aurelia, used to looking at facts and figures. And the evidence against you adds up, if you’ll forgive the pun.’

  This was my childhood friend, my fellow minister, one of the inner circle I had trusted with my secrets, my failures as well as my successes. The person who’d comforted me when I was nearly raped as a fifteen-year-old, whose common sense gave me balance and whose life I’d saved on the dreadful night of fires.

  She looked tired; her hair was neat, but she obviously hadn’t had it cut and shaped for weeks. She’d draped her coat – pressed wool from a chain store – over the back of the chair and kept the acrylic scarf round her neck. That and the knitted gloves she would once have been embarrassed to give to a charity shop told me how hard things were for her. And it was probably the same for the rest of them.

  She glanced at the wall clock. Ten past eight on a freezing December morning in a Vienna backstreet. She wriggled on the hard wooden chair. The workman’s café, warm from the fug of cigarette smoke, wasn’t the most comfortable place to start the day. It was full of people arguing about the previous evening’s football and how much everything cost, and the whirr and clatter of the coffee machines and the snappy retorts of the server trying to get to all twelve tables at once; crowded enough to drown our words.

  ‘I have a job interview in twenty minutes.’ She stood up. ‘I’m sorry, more than you can imagine, but this is goodbye. If any of the others find out I’ve been meeting you, I’ll be proscribed as well.’

  She’d said it. That terrible word. Not that it meant much coming from a group of exiles stripped of authority and living on the edge of financial ruin, but it stung all the same.

  Almost too shocked to absorb the full impact of what she’d said, I grasped her hand. ‘I’ll lend you some money. Don’t waste yourself on some stupid office job.’

  She looked down at my hand as if it carried the plague. I released hers.

  ‘I don’t have the luxury. I have to earn a living and bring money in for the others.’ She gave a bitter little half-smile. ‘I’m too old to do it on my back, so it’s a return to counting beans as I did when I was an apprentice.’

  She picked up her coat and handbag and glanced at me, then at the door. She snapped open her bag and took out an envelope. After a moment’s hesitation she laid it on the table by my plate. It had a Roma Novan stamp and was addressed to me, care of the safe house.

  ‘It came for you last week. I rescued it from the rubbish bin.’

  She shrugged her coat on, nodded and made her way to the entrance. At the door she turned round once, then looked away, but not quickly enough for me to miss the tears on her cheek.

  * * *

  ‘If they don’t want you, then more fool them.’

  Miklós, my companion, and I sat in front of a roaring fire, cosy and warm after a good lunch and clutching glasses of seasonal glühwein in our hands. I pulled off the blanket he’d tucked round me as I was in danger of baking. I’d only been out of the convalescent hospital a week but after my morning trip he was fussing round me as if I was his grandmother instead of his lover.

  ‘Quirinia looked so haunted,’ I said. ‘What in Hades has been happening there?’


  ‘God knows, but you’re safe. That’s all I care about.’ He gave me one of his lazy, warm smiles which was reflected in his brown eyes. I reached up to touch his curly hair and he gently took my hand and kissed the palm. After a few minutes he asked, ‘What was in your letter?’

  ‘Juno, I forgot to look.’ I reached down for my handbag and brought out the crumpled envelope. I glanced at the return address. Q. Tellus, Praetor Urbanus, Roma Nova. On the front it was stamped LICITA – authorised. Was the post in Roma Nova now censored? I ripped it open along the edge.

  * * *

  My dear Aurelia,

  I can only hope this letter reaches you; I suspect it won’t but one must try. You may be surprised that I know you are still alive after Caius shot you. He told me when he summoned me to the palace yesterday and bellowed at me for a good half hour. I have never seen my brother in such a rage.

  If you truly have survived, I congratulate you. But I must warn you. He intends to apply for your extradition or, failing that, a snatch squad. He’ll try extradition first as Roma Nova has a treaty with New Austria. I strongly advise you to remove yourself immediately. Go to the EUS to your daughter and her husband, or to the United Kingdom in the north, anywhere that doesn’t have a judicial treaty with Roma Nova.

  You should warn the others like Quirinia and Calavia. Caius is intent on destroying the old order and particularly the heads of the Twelve Families. Please convey my condolences to Calavia. Her grandmother was executed by Caius’s people three days ago, so even though in exile with you, Pia Calavia is now the legal head of her family. Since he seized power as first consul, Caius has become ever more brutal. There is some kind of ferocity which is driving him which hasn’t been there before.

  If you need to contact me send anything to the Swiss legation. They will inform me of any letters.

  Take care of yourself, Aurelia.

  My deepest respects and love,

  Quintus

  * * *

  Miklós held me tight while I wept silently for my country, for my mother’s dead friend, Senator Calavia, for her granddaughter, for my isolation and despair. He carried me up to bed and held me still until I fell asleep.

  * * *

  I trudged downstairs the next morning like a seventy-year-old, instead of a woman in her mid forties. The gunshot wounds in my chest and leg had healed, and bruising from rough handling by Caius Tellus’s political troops sent to capture me had faded. Even the deep graze from one of the Roman Nationalists’ bullets on my face had healed although it left a white line across my cheek. I thought I was recovering my fitness but my little outing to meet Quirinia yesterday morning had floored me. Well, perhaps it was that damned letter. I clung to the oak newel post and caught my breath for a couple of seconds. The smells of coffee and fresh croissants and bacon drew me into the dining room.

  ‘You’re not fit enough to get out of bed,’ Miklós said, ‘let alone confront a crowd of stroppy Romans. They won’t be grateful.’ He sat down at the table opposite me.

  ‘I must warn Calavia and Quirinia.’

  ‘No, you must look after yourself.’

  I read through the crumpled letter again. ‘Quintus hasn’t mentioned Silvia. I would have thought she’d have been Caius’s first target for a snatch. Perhaps he still doesn’t know where she is.’

  ‘Unlikely. As you’ve said before, Caius Tellus isn’t stupid. If he knows about you, he knows about Silvia.’

  ‘Then it’s even more important that I warn them. I cannot let that bastard Caius get his hands on the rightful imperatrix of Roma Nova.’

  ‘Aurelia—’

  ‘Order me a taxi, please.’

  * * *

  Miklós insisted on coming with me and made me take my walking stick. I didn’t argue; the muscles in my leg were still weak from the gunshot wound and yesterday’s jaunt had left me with an aching thigh.

  When the taxi drew up at our front gate it looked like a private car – no light on top, no permit plate. I glanced at Miklós, but he was frowning at the vehicle. A thickset man, dressed in dark slacks, a polo neck jumper and black leather jacket, pulled himself out of the driving seat quickly, but not fast enough to conceal the bump under his jacket near his armpit.

  ‘You took your time,’ Miklós growled at him in Germanic, but then lapsed into his native Hungarian. The driver gave him back as good as he got, then shrugged and leant against the car.

  Miklós answered him back, then turned to me. ‘This is Sándor. He works for me. From now on he will accompany us everywhere we go.’

  I went to protest, but Miklós’s stern expression stopped me. Glancing at the heavy, then meeting the steady gaze from his deep-set eyes, I gave him a brief nod and eased myself into the back of the car.

  We stopped at a secretarial bureau to have the envelope and letter photocopied, then made our way to the house the exiled Roma Novans were using as their headquarters. Sándor drew up in front of the two-storey eighteenth-century Biedermeier townhouse, its arms at ninety degrees to each other and occupying the whole of a block in a quiet suburb. One of the arms housed a small bar and bijou restaurant on the ground floor, but entirely separate from the rest of the building. Opposite were a delicatessen, a coffee shop and patisserie, bright lights shining and striped canopies overhead to shelter customers as they assessed the delicacies within. But the dirty upper windows and dull stone exterior of the exiles’ house exuded an air of sullenness. Was I imagining things? Perhaps the tablets I was still taking were playing with my mind. But nothing took away the quiet air of menace of the two tall figures standing, legs braced, arms crossed, in front of the faded green double doors at the corner entrance.

  Miklós helped me out, gave me my walking stick and took my other arm. The two guards, one woman, one man, tracked us as we crossed the road towards them. I recognised her immediately: Styrax, the ex-legionary from the XX Victis legion. She’d been part of the extraction group I’d led on our mission to find Silvia Apulia, the last surviving child of the murdered Imperatrix Severina.

  ‘Private house – no admittance,’ she said in heavily accented Germanic, looking straight through me.

  ‘Styrax, you know who I am,’ I replied in Latin. ‘Now open the door. Please.’

  She hesitated, then replied in a flat voice. ‘I do not know you. I may not admit strangers.’

  ‘Oh, for Pluto’s sake, let me in,’ I snapped back. ‘I’ve only left hospital this week and my leg is aching from the hole Caius Tellus’s bullet made in it.’

  She looked down at the cobbled pavement in front of her. ‘My orders are to ignore you. You are proscribed.’

  I flinched inwardly at that word again.

  ‘Well, it isn’t as straightforward as that,’ I said.

  She jerked her head up. ‘Truly?’ She looked like a puppy who had been given a favourite treat.

  ‘Fetch Numerus.’

  Styrax flicked her hand at the younger male guard who disappeared into the house. She said nothing more, but kept glancing at me, then away, then once at Miklós. She shifted her weight from foot to foot as we waited in silence. Although it was sunny and bright that December morning, I shivered.

  The door opened slowly, as if reluctant. A stocky figure, medium height, grey hair two centimetres in length, stepped out. Numerus, former Senior Centurion Numerus, my comrade-in-arms. But was he still my friend?

  2

  Numerus glanced at Miklós towering over him and then at me. He kept a good two paces back and neither smiled nor frowned. We’d shared hardship, danger, triumph and many a glass of beer in our younger days. Our bond had been tight despite the difference in our ranks. I’d been reassured after I’d first escaped from Roma Nova to find Numerus running this Vienna safe house. He was sound, steady as a rock. He was the only Roma Novan who’d visited me in hospital six weeks ago when I’d been recovering from death’s edge after Caius shot me.

  ‘We cannot receive you,’ he said at last. ‘You are proscribed, dead to Roma N
ova. We cannot speak to you or associate with you,’ he added.

  ‘Well, at the moment, Numerus, you’re doing just that, so you’re tainted by association.’

  He grunted. I thought I saw a tiny lift of his lips in the ghost of a smile. I stepped forward, intending to touch his forearm, but stumbled. Miklós caught me, but my stick clattered onto the cobbles.

  Numerus bent and picked it up. As he handed me the stick, he searched my face. I looked back at him, willing him to believe in me.

  He jerked his head towards the door and then stood back, allowing me and Miklós to enter.

  The large hallway was lit by a single bulb poking through a dirt-coated chandelier that was new a hundred years ago. But there was enough light to see a utility table with two figures sitting at it, working on a pile of papers. Two others were arguing loudly at the other side of the hall. All four fell silent the instant they spotted me and stared. I’d been the late Imperatrix Severina’s chief counsellor and Roma Nova’s foreign minister; it was inevitable they’d recognise me.

  Numerus gave them a stern look which set them back to work. He hurried us to the left and along a corridor with a parquet floor and doors at irregular intervals. He stopped at the second one and ushered us into a small room set up as a makeshift office. A battered grey filing cabinet stood in one corner, an upturned wooden crate and two cardboard boxes loitered by the wall. He retrieved two folded chairs leaning against the opposite wall under the sash window, handed one to Miklós and unfolded one for me. He retreated to the other side of his trestle table and flopped down in a steel frame office chair.