Retalio

by Alison Morton

  ‘No, we don’t have anything like a handy empty ex-barracks.’ He snorted. ‘If you remember, they were all demolished after the Great War as part of the Allied powers’ retribution. The old imperial ones were turned into housing. Can’t you rent somewhere?’

  ‘With what? We don’t have finite resources. I’ve sold almost half my overseas assets, the others have liquidated what they can. Some have taken jobs to bring money in.’ A good number of the PGSF were working as taxi drivers or security until the refugee influx. Now we needed them here to keep order. ‘We’ll try and get the refugees into employment, but a lot of them are old or disabled. It won’t be quick.’ I looked away. ‘If there was a time we needed Fortuna with a large farm or a rambling estate to spare in her horn of plenty, this is it.’

  ‘I’ll talk to a few people, but don’t expect any sudden results.’ As he stood up to go, he fished in his inside jacket pocket and brought out a visiting card. ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I almost forgot. My mother asked if you would drop by tomorrow afternoon for tea.’

  His mother? Tante Sabine? I hadn’t seen her for a while. I hadn’t even thought about her in all my busyness. Although I called her ‘Aunt’ and she’d been very kind to me when I’d been a student in Berlin, she wasn’t strictly a relative. One of my now dead cousins had married her late husband’s father. All my generation called her Tante Sabine. She’d moved back to Vienna after Achim’s father had died. I was really too busy to make time for private socialising. But then again, Tante Sabine had connections…

  * * *

  The shallow flight of steps and the wide old-fashioned porch belonged to the 1800s; the security cameras did not. Upstairs, Sabine welcomed me into a modern oasis of daylight, beige sofas and herringbone wood floors.

  ‘Soulless, isn’t it?’ she said and chuckled. ‘But the designer was so sweet I couldn’t find it in my heart to say anything that would crush him.’ She took my hand. ‘Sit, sit down, Aurelia, and let me look at you.’

  Her elegant hair was swept in a soft curve from front to back and moved like the gentle swaying of July wheat. Her smooth skin, perfect make-up and designer clothes along with that confidence of a high-cultured sophisticate made me feel dowdy and provincial. She looked my age, but I knew she’d married late and had to be in her mid-seventies by now. She waved a manicured hand at nobody I could see and a sober-suited man appeared with a silver tray covered in the type of china and exquisite cakes I hadn’t seen in months.

  ‘You look tired, darling,’ she said. ‘Probably overdoing it, like Felicia used to.’ She shook her head. ‘You Roman women!’ Then she laughed. ‘Don’t look at me so seriously, Aurelia.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tante Sabine, it’s just a difficult time at the moment.’

  ‘So I understand from Joachim. And you’re all crushed together in that scrubby little merchant’s house.’

  ‘It’s not so bad,’ I fired back. She lived a comfortable, safe life, free to go to concerts, travel, shop at the smartest stores, to see and be seen at Vienna’s most exclusive parties. I wouldn’t have called her flighty to her face, but she’d never lacked for anything, nor had she ever had to make any sacrifices.

  ‘Why don’t you move in here with me? You’d be so much more comfortable in the guest flat. I’ll take you to all the parties and we’ll have such fun!’

  ‘Sabine, I can’t. We’re living on a knife-edge and we have to stay together. I’m deeply grateful for your offer, but I can’t desert my people.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous – you have to have some sort of life.’

  ‘Why don’t you come and see us for yourself. We’re not quite as uncivilised as you might think.’ I smiled at her.

  To my surprise, after we’d finished our tea and talked family trivialities, she called for her coat and car. She looked up at our merchant’s house, sniffed and pulled her shoulders back. Inside, she was gracious and polite, but I felt her withdraw when there were too many people around her. She bobbed a curtsey to Silvia and murmured ‘Majestät’, which surprised everybody.

  Afterwards, as we stood in the chill dark of the late April evening only relieved by the weak street lighting, she laid her hand on my arm, stretched up and kissed my cheek.

  ‘I may have something for you in the next few days. Bis später.’

  15

  I didn’t think any more about Sabine that next week. Perhaps she meant she would have one of her charity fundraising events for us. But seeing her had been a temporary escape into a more pleasant world for an afternoon.

  I made myself a mug of tea in the kitchen, ironically a quieter place than most of the house; people were always too busy in there now to stand around gossiping. And they were trying to make something special for the Floralia meal tonight. We had no circus to stage the usual competitive games or public spectacles but we could start the evening with a sacrifice to Flora and follow it with theatricals and indoor games.

  After the playlets would come comic speeches and story-telling. The most original would be awarded a garland and a prize. Floralia was an occasion to dress up in gaudy clothes and let our hair down. Even in our exile bubble, we were determined to keep up traditions if we could; it reminded people what we were struggling for.

  Several of the younger ones had been out looking for wild flowers and picking up cheap leftovers from florists and supermarkets. It was spring, after all, with all that implied. Flora might be the goddess of pretty things like flowers but she also represented fertility. We’d have several babies in nine months’ time, no doubt.

  Silvia would lead the public observances at the beginning and place flowers and grasses on a temporary altar. People had chosen Burrus as master of ceremonies – not my first choice if I was honest. Floralia at home in Roma Nova was often raucous and wild and the wise didn’t go into the street on the last night of the festivities. However, Lentilius, Silvia’s pet follower, was by Burrus’s side and would keep him in check.

  I had to admit that Burrus had settled into the community, acting as a people’s representative and settling minor squabbles. Even Vibianus who’d sniffed at Burrus’s intervention at first conceded he was surprised at his effectiveness at managing the new exiles.

  ‘An unrefined piece of silver ore, consiliaria, but he’s been useful.’

  On the surface, Burrus was meticulously polite and deferential but I’d caught a few glances from him when I thought he was unaware I was watching. Whether it was speculation or dislike for authority, I couldn’t tell. When I attempted to pin him down about who exactly had told him we would give him money, he’d merely replied he couldn’t remember. Well, Lentilius had befriended him, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps some of Lentilius’s integrity would rub off on Burrus.

  With scarcely forty Praetorians as a guard force, keeping order wouldn’t be easy. Six manned the monitoring stations and we couldn’t abandon them even for a single night. Although contained theoretically by their family groups, squabbles had inevitably broken out amongst the people struggling to manage when they were confined in a building designed for a tenth of their number. Atrius had stopped one knife fight before it got out of hand and Quirinia had noticed petty theft from supplies. The office area was cleared each night now and, despite the frequent open meetings, people still grumbled. With the prospect of everybody drinking themselves stupid tonight, I shuddered. The gods knew we all needed a break, but I was uneasy.

  A light touch on my arm. Silvia. I stepped back and bowed.

  ‘Domina.’

  Dressed in a white tunic she had made herself, hair drawn back and held in a simple ribbon, she looked twelve years old. Her face wore a stricken expression and she looked as if she was going to burst into tears.

  ‘Aunt Aurelia, please,’ she whispered. ‘I’ve been so stupid.’

  I said nothing, but waited.

  She twisted the fingers of one hand round a thin silver bracelet on her other arm. After staring at the wall for a second or two, she raised her eyes to m
y face.

  ‘I was very rude to you when that policeman called. I apologise. He and his officers made me nervous. Sorry.’ Her cheeks started to turn pink.

  ‘It’s all right, darling,’ I said and clasped her shoulders. ‘You’re growing up very fast and doing so well, it’s a bit of a surprise when you go back to being a normal girl.’

  ‘I realised what I’d done, but I was too embarrassed to say so,’ she said. ‘When you were so quiet and correct at the council, I knew I’d stabbed myself in the foot and didn’t know how to get out of it.’ She heaved a huge sigh. ‘It’s so hard always being on my best behaviour.’

  I chuckled. ‘I know. I’ll be honest with you, Silvia. I used to have to bite my tongue most of the time with your mother. I’ve had practice.’

  ‘Yes, I expect you did. I loved her very much and I miss her, but she was silly sometimes. I want my sensible, clever cousin back as my friend.’ She glanced again at my face.

  I smiled at her. ‘Friends?’

  ‘Yes, oh, yes,’ she said, and hugged me hard.

  * * *

  It began well; decorous but relaxed. By midnight, it was all going to hell. At home in Roma Nova, the most cautious citizens would lock and bar their doors after about ten and let the more rowdy elements get on with it. The vigiles would have a busy time and the next day would be a day of sore heads and magistrates’ hearings. Unfortunately, the wise, the rowdy and the ordinary were all trapped in here together.

  I sent Silvia upstairs with two guards to sleep in her room and we got most of the children into the far rooms with some of the more sensible parents. Some of the Praetorians were mixing in with the party to try and keep the atmosphere calm. But as people got steadily drunker, it was no use. There were just too many of them. Most of the flower garlands decorating the room had been torn down. Burrus, surrounded by a group of giggling young women, was shouting out more and more extreme forfeits to his little group. When they started pulling plainly terrified young girls into the centre where he and his cronies were sitting, I sent Calavia and her four in to grab him. She was swamped and failed to extract Burrus, but they brought the girls back. Pluto, they were only about fifteen or sixteen.

  ‘Get them upstairs,’ I shouted at her. We barred access to the upper floor and I sent some of the other Praetorians to extinguish as many of the open flame torches as possible without openly antagonising the partygoers. Apart from preventing the house being set on fire, perhaps it would give the hint the evening was coming to a close. Instead, things became louder, the torches were flickering solidly round Burrus and his group and the music was thumping through the air. Then Burrus started chanting and punching his fists in the air in rhythm. First his cronies joined in, then those closest. It rippled out until the whole room was alive with drunken shouting faces distorted with emotion.

  Burrus looked straight at me through the howling and flames and smirked. My blood ran cold. Just like the Roman Nationalist Movement. Oh, gods, Burrus was a plant. Caius’s agent.

  Merda.

  I cast about for a trusted face.

  ‘Atrius.’ I tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Take somebody else you trust completely, join up with the other two in the imperatrix’s room and stay with her. If this lot get past us and you hear them coming upstairs, get her out via the roof windows in the loft. Go straight to the Gendarmie HQ and ask for Colonel Huber.’

  He stared at me for a few seconds, then nodded and disappeared. I shouted in the ear of young Aquilia. ‘Lieutenant, get that bloody music turned off.’ She nodded and made for the side wall.

  ‘Where in Hades are they getting all this drink from?’ Quirinia, breathing heavily, eyes darting everywhere. ‘We didn’t order a quarter of this.’

  ‘Pilfering or something like it. Never mind that now,’ I shouted at her. The noise was deafening and starting to make my head throb. ‘Get upstairs with the others.’

  ‘Consiliaria, look out,’ Volusenia growled beside me. ‘They’re coming towards us.’ She stepped forward to meet the chanting surge of people, just as she had done in the forum several months ago. We had no firearms, just staves and short wooden nightsticks.

  She roared at them to back off and disperse and raked them with her eyes. A number of them stopped, cowed by her fierce look, but Burrus egged them on. I went to stand by her side, the other Praetorians fanning in a two-deep half-circle behind us. If nothing else, we had to delay him so that Silvia could escape. Burrus stopped three metres from us, his henchmen and women clustered around him. They swayed, but he stood stock still, feet planted apart. The music cut abruptly, thank the gods, and Aquilia.

  We waited. Eventually, the noise subsided to murmuring, then silence. I stared straight into his eyes, daring him to advance. He stared back. I heard coughing, a glass break, somebody crying, but we stayed there, not moving.

  Eventually, he broke, thrust his hand and a home-made cudgel in the air and shouted, ‘Take them apart!’

  The first wave of bodies was pushed towards us by others behind them. We crossed staves and fended them off, landing punches on a few noses, or striking their legs with the nightsticks. Cries went up as they fell and started to retreat. Poor souls, they were fuelled by drink and high on Burrus’s agitprop.

  Volusenia and I took a step back to let people clear their injured, but I went forward again.

  ‘STOP!’ I shouted as loud as I could. ‘This will get us nowhere. Go back to the tables and sit. We can talk.’

  A bottle flew through the air at me. I jumped back and it glanced off my shoulder. Only when it crashed on the floor and shattered did I see it was full of nails. A mass of bodies flung themselves on us again. Our Praetorian line curved inward, the back line stepping forward to relieve the front. We had two injured now. The problem was that while they only wanted to attack, we only wanted to defend. We tightened the three-quarter circle guarding access to the stairs.

  When the crowd pulled back after their third rush, we re-formed, in two lines of twelve. There were five metres between Burrus’s rabble and us.

  ‘We need to snatch that bastard,’ Volusenia said in my ear. She beckoned Calavia and three others to come forward. Calavia’s face was scratched, with a cut leaking blood down her cheek and chin. She looked a little dazed.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I said. I nodded at the other three. ‘Still use the triangle tactic?’ They nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’ And I charged straight for Burrus. One guard was right behind me, the other two a little to each side. We barrelled through, arms flailing at anybody in our path. I grabbed Burrus’s arm and yanked it. The guard immediately behind me swung forward, grabbed Burrus’s other arm and we turned a hundred and eighty degrees to frogmarch him out. Then a human wall roared and collapsed on us.

  I pushed and pushed at the weight of people piled on top of me, but I had no strength. Hot alcoholic breath and sweat made it five times worse. I coughed and gasped trying to catch some air. My pulse seemed to beat in my ears. I saw one of the other guards near me, eyes shut and unmoving. I still had my hand around Burrus’s wrist, but I couldn’t see his face in the tumble of arms, legs, stomachs and chins.

  I felt movement within the heap of bodies above me and Volusenia’s voice muffled. Reluctantly, I let go of Burrus so I could lever myself up. When I stood up, I saw Volusenia’s back to me. She was in the front curve of an extended sparse circle. They’d advanced, holding the staves between them to make a flimsy barrier which was working for the moment as the opposition was equally dazed. One of the other guards and I grabbed the unconscious guard and pulled him away from the heap of bodies. Volusenia’s curve concertinaed back as we moved towards the stairs.

  There was no sign of Burrus.

  ‘Jupiter’s balls, here they come again.’

  We were down to seventeen. Then the rhythmic thudding started. Gods, what was coming next? Somebody or something was pounding at the fabric of the building. Was it all going to collapse on us?

  I raised my nightstick in front of my
face to counter a woman, red-faced, eyes glittering, rushing at me with a broken bottle. She was almost hysterical with drunken rage. She fell, sobbing with frustration, but the next figure rushed at me and the next. Burrus had reappeared, his face bruised, hair sticking to his forehead glistening with sweat. The pounding became louder but we were preoccupied defending ourselves.

  My arm was aching, my thigh was sore as Hades where somebody had kicked me when I’d fallen. Volusenia’s face was set and tight, the other troops struggling against wave after wave of people.

  Then an almighty crash from the front of the building. Everybody stopped, mesmerised by the noise. But only for a few seconds. I heard Burrus screeching encouragement at his rabble. Another rush of bodies flinging itself on us. My chest heaved, grabbing breath. I prayed my end would be quick.

  We were engulfed, but the newcomers filtered through our ranks and to the side and hurled themselves on the rabble. Within a few minutes the rioters were contained and a voice roared at them to lie face down on the floor or be silenced permanently.

  We stood there like statues in the forum for a few seconds, trembling and too tired to move, but watching the newcomers. They were all in walking clothes but every one of them wore land forces standard issue boots. I let my breath out, wiped my forehead with my sleeve and glanced in Volusenia’s direction. She was sitting on the stairs nursing her arm and looked deathly pale. Before I could say anything, a tall woman detached herself from the group, and strode over to Volusenia.

  ‘Centurion Junia Sestina, reporting for duty, ma’am.’

  Volusenia stared up at her. ‘Well, your timing’s perfect, centurion.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ Sestina replied. Volusenia looked out into the ballroom full of bodies and wrecked furniture. But I saw the half-smile on the younger woman’s lips. A sense of gallows humour, then.