Retalio

by Alison Morton

  * * *

  Miklós poured a slug of brandy into the large cup of tea I was warming my hands on. Our temporary home, the government apartment, was warm, almost stifling, but I was cold with exhaustion.

  ‘You should rest for a day or two, drágám.’

  ‘You know I can’t. There is so much to do.’

  He folded me into his arms as if wishing to hold me forever.

  ‘When are you moving in there?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’ I wriggled round to face him. ‘But you’re coming with me, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, you need to reintegrate with them and heal rifts.’ He stroked my face with the back of his finger. ‘I don’t think I’d be very welcome anyway.’

  ‘But—’

  The finger touched my lips. ‘I will be close by. I’ll stay at the house to tidy up after the police release it, then I have some business to attend to.’ He reached into his shirt pocket. ‘This came for you from the police.’

  I handed him my empty cup and opened the envelope stamped Landespolizeidirektion Wien. I scanned the sparse ten lines. They were ‘pursuing several leads’, but we were released from the enquiry, subject to advising them of our forwarding address.

  * * *

  Styrax collected me from the government apartment building at seven the next morning. In the lobby, Miklós kissed the back of my hand, then lightly on the lips while the young policeman on guard tried not to watch.

  ‘Go with your gods,’ he said. He smiled that little lopsided, almost rueful smile that I always wanted to kiss.

  ‘Miklós—’

  ‘Go now, or you won’t do it.’

  I pulled him to me once more, savouring the warm masculine scent of his skin, the faint tang of pine. I looked up and his dark eyes shone. He kissed my forehead, then turned me round and gave me a light push out of the door.

  Once in the dark street my breath plumed in the freezing air. I turned and looked back into the cheerful lights just before I stepped into the warm fug of the taxi. Miklós smiled through the glazed door, raised his hand, gave a little wave and then just stared at me. I swallowed hard. This wasn’t goodbye, just a temporary separation, I told myself. I sniffed hard, dragging in the cold that filtered through my body. I wiped tears from the skin below my eye as the taxi pulled out into the early morning traffic. Oh, gods, how lonely it would be without him.

  At the safe house, only fifteen minutes away, I looked up at the tall rectangular windows. A few were lit, glowing in the dark of the cold Viennese morning. The yellow street lamps scattered light onto the frozen cobbles without much effect. The door guard nodded, then promptly opened the door. Volusenia was waiting for me in the hallway.

  ‘Morning, consiliaria,’ she said in her gruff voice and held out her hand. I took it; there was bound to be some awkwardness, but we couldn’t afford to be precious in our current circumstances. Still, there were some curious looks from the two clerks pretending to shuffle paper at the side table. ‘Please come with me.’

  Volusenia led me across the dusty tile floor of the front hall, up the ornate staircase onto a wide landing. She nodded to the guard outside the second door along and opened the door slowly. She held her finger to her lips. I dropped my bags in the corridor, careful not to make any noise, and we crept in. The room smelled of old dust and new mattress. Pinned up at the window, a rough-woven blanket didn’t quite exclude the artificial light from outside. A rickety dining chair draped with clothes was the only furniture apart from a modern shiny kit bed and mattress complete with white quilt and pillow.

  The figure in the bed stirred as we crossed the bare boards, but she didn’t wake. The quilt was drawn up tight behind her neck and under her chin and from the curves of her shape under the quilt I could see her knees were drawn up. Her mouth was slightly open. She looked twelve, not sixteen. We crept back out and in the corridor Volusenia leant back against the wall and faced me.

  ‘We need you, consiliaria. More, Imperatrix Silvia in there needs you. She’s only a kid. Full of grit, though. By the time we’d crawled through the Geminae pass and down the other side, she was exhausted. She didn’t bleat once. It was only when I noticed blood seeping through her woollen gloves that I realised her hands were badly cut from climbing the gravel banks and slopes.

  ‘When we had definite confirmation that Imperatrix Severina and Julianus Apulius were dead, you can imagine how hard that news fell on her. Mother and brother gone. And her father – we’ve heard nothing of him either. Poor child. She curled up in the chair and shook for minutes before she started sobbing. That night the medic gave her a sedative and we put her to bed. She still cries out in her sleep now and again.’

  I wiped my fingers across my forehead and shivered as I remembered the hard trek over the mountains I’d had to force Marina to make last year when we were escaping Caius’s thugs. These poor girls; they should have been dancing at parties, staying up half the night in the student bar tipsily airing political ideas or gossiping with their friends after a shopping expedition, not fleeing scared out of their wits from murder and tyranny. Volusenia showed me to a room opposite where I dropped my bags. She led me back downstairs in silence. Just before the hallway, she stopped, pulled a hip flask out of her pocket, unscrewed the top and thrust it in my direction.

  ‘A good gulp. No less.’

  I complied and felt steadier.

  ‘Numerus has convened a general meeting for 08.00,’ Volusenia said. She fixed me with her stare. ‘Will you be able to work again with Consiliaria Quirinia, given her attitude at your hearing?’

  ‘You don’t take prisoners, do you, Volusenia?’ I gave her a brief smile, hoping I’d hidden my bitterness at Quirinia’s betrayal. She’d been such a good friend since we were girls, then had turned from me so easily. I knew the escape from Roma Nova had deeply upset her. Spending hours enclosed in a rubber body bag with three tiny air holes, being jolted along in a funeral van and terrified of being discovered would have been traumatic for anybody. But for her to change so fundamentally was unnerving. ‘Quirinia and I will need to consider our personal differences when we have time,’ I said. ‘For the moment, we can’t afford such luxuries.’

  Volusenia led me to the kitchen where about twenty people were eating at a bench table. The smell of bread and strong tea surrounded us. Nobody spoke much as we joined them in eating rolls spread with margarine and sugary jam.

  * * *

  An hour later we made our way to the cavernous but shabby ballroom. Our miserly group of barely fifty souls was lost in it. Volusenia and Silvia sat behind a trestle table facing the rest of us. I gave Quirinia a brief nod when she took her place in the front row with Calavia and me. Scanning the audience, I recognised and beckoned forward one of the younger Cornelius brothers and an Aquilia and Sella, both members of Volusenia’s troops. Of the Twelve Families, it was a poor showing, but if we did nothing else, we were going to formally pledge our support for Silvia as imperatrix even though she wasn’t in her powers.

  Pale but composed, Silvia listened to Volusenia outlining the current position: our assets were the house and those funds the fleeing Roma Novans had managed to bring with them. One or two had an account abroad, but none here in Vienna.

  ‘The PGSF guards pooled their emergency field reserves,’ she began, ‘but the four thousand gold solidi are nearly exhausted. Some of you have found local employment and contribute a generous proportion of earnings. Unfortunately, but I suppose understandably, some people who have secured jobs have left the community and set up separate households.’ She paused. ‘We are economising and attempting to be self-sufficient, but the financial burden of keeping us all fed and warm is difficult. Consiliaria Quirinia tried to access her accounts here, but they’ve been frozen. We have no fall-back resources nor any even to prepare a plan to retake Roma Nova.’

  I stood up. ‘How have the finances been administered so far?’

  ‘We’ve kept a cash book like a regimental account.’

 
‘I see,’ I said. ‘Well, I intend to put all the Mitela assets abroad that I can access at the disposal of Imperatrix Silvia. This may involve significant sums, some cash, some investments, some in financial instruments. May I suggest that to ensure the most efficient use of current resources and my contribution, we ask Consiliaria Quirinia, Imperatrix Severina’s budget minister, to manage them?’

  Quirinia’s mouth opened and she stared at me.

  ‘Families?’ I turned and asked, using the traditional system for obtaining consent.

  ‘Aio!’ No dissenters.

  ‘People?’

  ‘No disrespect, consiliaria, but I have a question,’ a voice piped up in the middle. ‘Wasn’t Consiliaria Quirinia part of the weak government that led to the collapse? As were you?’

  ‘Please identify yourself,’ I said.

  A young man, late twenties, was pushed to his feet by his companions. He brushed their hands away, then squared his shoulders.

  ‘Marcus Lentilius, optio PGSF from Aquae Caesaris. Well, until ten days ago.’ His face sagged as he said the second part.

  ‘Excellent question, optio,’ I replied, to a few gasps. Volusenia gave him a stern look and opened her mouth, probably to tell him to hold his tongue. ‘No, it is, and something that we must consider. While there are so few of us, we must be transparent and agree amongst ourselves. If we aren’t united, we’ll never succeed in regaining our homeland.’

  I walked to the side and turned so I could see everybody.

  ‘I’ll be honest with you, even if it is hurtful to anybody present.’ I took a deep breath praying that Silvia would forgive me. ‘Severina Apulia was not especially blessed with an ability to see things realistically. Quirinia and I disagreed on many things with her and often had to argue her out of unwise decisions.’

  After I said that, the silence was so complete you could almost hear people’s hearts beating. ‘It is chiefly due to Quirinia’s stewardship that Roma Nova wasn’t bankrupt. Other government departments were not so fortunate in their ministers, notably Interior. I lay a great deal of the blame at that department’s door.’

  I held up my hand at the murmurs of anger. ‘However, there were many other reforms that should have been implemented years ago, such as abolishing decimation of the armed forces if they rebelled. Of course, no commander in her right mind would condemn her troops to that. But that law still being in the codex supporting the Twelve Tables meant that the military were paralysed on the night of the fires.’

  ‘Well, then, it applied to us Praetorians as well, but we knew we still had to act, whatever the consequences,’ replied Lentilius. ‘Why couldn’t the other forces?’

  ‘Well, Lentilius, the PGSF are exceptional.’ I grinned at him. ‘One of their outstanding characteristics is pig-headedness, after all.’

  He laughed, shrugged and sat down.

  ‘Any other questions, or do we agree on Quirinia’s appointment?’

  ‘I have something to say.’ A light, but firm young woman’s voice. Silvia.

  I bowed in her direction. ‘Domina.’

  She looked startled as I addressed her so formally, but she took a breath and stood up. Her light frame was bundled in a thick roll-neck jumper and cord trousers, but she held her head high.

  ‘Some of you know me, but for most of you I’m just a name. Like everybody else, I’m trying to make sense of what’s happened. I’ve never been so scared, ever. Aurelia Mitela and Colonel Volusenia saved my life.’ She paused for a second or two, blinked, then looked first at Volusenia, then me. She returned to the audience. ‘Like you, I didn’t want to leave my home or my family or Roma Nova. Leaving my mother on the night of the fires was the worst.’

  People were still as statues as they listened to her young but steady voice, so unlike her mother’s hesitant one. ‘I’ve lost my mother and my brother, Julian. And probably my father.’ She looked down for a second. ‘But I’ve lost people I don’t know and people whose only crime was to support my mother.’ She looked straight at me. ‘Aurelia Mitela said some harsh things about my mother—’

  Juno save me.

  ‘—but she’s right. When we get back to Roma Nova, it will be different. I don’t know how we’ll do it, but it will be different.’ She looked over at Lentilius, an even more solemn expression on her face, and waited. His face reddened, he pinched his lips together, but clambered to his feet. ‘Optio Lentilius, you were right to ask about Consiliaria Quirinia. Everything is so confused. But we do have to try to make some sort of decisions.’ She glanced at me and I nodded. ‘If you could agree in this case, it would be really helpful.’ And then she aimed a full-beam smile at him.

  He blushed even redder, bowed to her, apparently incapable of saying anything further. He kept his eyes on her, then thrust his arm in the air and shouted ‘Ave, Imperatrix’. The room echoed his shout. Silvia blushed, her eyes liquid. Her hand trembled, but she kept the smile on her face and her back straight. I was so proud of her; that slight teenager was showing signs of growing up fast.

  8

  A council of eight was formed including Lentilius, who looked a little dazed to be included. Silvia insisted, saying she wanted somebody unafraid to speak up. Volusenia and I exchanged glances. Silvia was too inexperienced to realise that what she’d done had been to make him her slave for life, but neither of us commented.

  The most important things we needed were information, security and money, but money was key, so Quirinia and I set off for the Argentaria Prima Vienna office the next morning. As it was only twenty minutes away we walked, followed overtly by Styrax and covertly by Balia, her comrade-in-arms from the rescue mission to find Silvia.

  ‘Aurelia…?’ Quirinia began hesitantly.

  ‘Yes?’

  She shook her head, but didn’t say anything more. We walked on along the icy pavement for a few moments in silence, then she stopped. ‘Why did you nominate me to look after our funds?’

  I turned round and, squinting in the white morning sun, I said, ‘Because you were the obvious choice. Whatever personal issues lie between you and me, we as a group need to make use of the capabilities we have. You can manage a complex budget. And I believe that your actions, however misjudged, were made out of sincere loyalty to Roma Nova. The rest is irrelevant.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ She grabbed my forearm with such a strong grip I had to stop. ‘You might want to leave it there and retreat behind your superior attitude, but I can’t, no, I won’t take it from you.’ Her eyes were blazing now.

  ‘Excuse me for being dense, Quirinia, but you’re not in any position to snipe at me.’ I prised her hand off. I didn’t want her to touch me.

  ‘Yes, you’re always so right, aren’t you, Aurelia? The tough warrior and perfect Roman. Well, we can’t all live up to the superwoman standard. Some of us are mere human beings.’ She sniffed, dragging in cold air that made her nose drip. ‘I often wondered why you wanted to have me as your friend when you had all those close soldier comrades, and mixed with the palace people. Even at school you outshone me.’

  ‘Finished?’

  She looked up and down the street for a moment or two, then gave a tiny nod.

  ‘Firstly, I have made some monumental foul-ups in my life, so where you get the idea of me being perfect, I haven’t a clue. Secondly, was I supposed to pretend to be stupid at school? Oh, sorry!’ I bit back what I really wanted to say, but she flinched at my sarcastic tone. ‘Thirdly, I never analysed our friendship. We just were friends. That’s the whole point. We celebrated and commiserated with each other, laughed at the same things, felt the same way about other people. And we were naturally there for each other. There is no element of tit for tat, seeking advantage or doing favours between friends. Friends are just friends through thick and thin.’ I stamped my feet to warm them up. ‘That’s the theory and that’s how I experienced it. Obviously, it doesn’t work in practice when shit comes to bust.’

  I looked back at Styrax and nodded.

&nb
sp; ‘Come along, Quirinia. We’ll be late,’ and I strode off down the street, desperate for physical activity to dispel my hurt. How dare bloody Quirinia throw those things in my face?

  I heard footsteps behind me and presumed Styrax was bringing her.

  * * *

  ‘I’m very sorry, Countess Mitela,’ the Argentaria Prima manager explained. ‘Your accounts have been frozen. Just as Maia Quirinia’s were.’ He gave a hesitant half-smile. ‘We’ve had a specific instruction from the new finance minister.’

  ‘No doubt, but it’s illegal. And as you know, you should disregard illegal instructions.’ I held out Silvia’s letter. ‘Here is the authority from Imperatrix Silvia confirming our status and requesting free access to our accounts. That should satisfy the auditors.’

  ‘I... I apologise, but the situation is unclear. I must seek further instructions.’

  He squirmed, glancing at Styrax, who stood by the door with crossed arms and a grim face. His gaze darted at his wall paintings, his bookcase, the carpet, anywhere but at us. After a long five minutes of silence, I got to my feet along with Quirinia.

  ‘Very well. I will report back to the imperatrix. Be assured that once she is restored, she will take a personal interest in your future career prospects.’

  I turned and stalked out through the grey and white banking hall, Quirinia and Styrax in my wake.

  ‘Hades take him,’ I said as we marched down the Schottengasse.

  ‘Technically, he’s right, Aurelia,’ she ventured. ‘He’s just being very careful. And so will most people be.’ She sighed.

  ‘Perhaps they haven’t forgiven me for exposing their wonder child as a rogue silver trader all those years ago,’ I said. The Argentaria Prima manager in Vienna, and those in many other cities around the world where they had branches, acted as the Roma Nova government’s representative for certain transactions, including silver trading. Valeria Festa, the manager in the late 1960s, had been caught not only making illegal trades personally, but also actively assisting Caius Tellus when he was attacking Roma Nova’s economy and enriching himself by manipulating the silver market. I’d been the investigating and arresting officer, exercising my Praetorian warrant. That had been fifteen years ago, but perhaps it still rankled.