Retalio

by Alison Morton

  * * *

  Junia Sestina had brought nearly a hundred troops with her. ‘The women were all dismissed the day after Caius Tellus announced he’d accepted the duties of first consul.’ She snorted. ‘We were all told to return to our father’s, husband’s or brother’s household and sit at our looms. What a load of bullshit.’ She glanced at me, but I waved her to continue.

  ‘Most of the women officers were imprisoned. Some have been released, dismissed with a warning to stay at home, but I heard some of the senior ones were sent to the work colonies.’ She stared down at the floor. ‘Bloody grim, apparently.’ She sipped from her mug. ‘Anyway, the rest of us kept in touch, using the resistance cell structure. Then we heard the nats were hauling in former women military from optio upwards for ‘questioning’, whatever that meant. We weren’t going to hang around to find out so two days ago, we all walked out of our homes and made for the emergency assembly points.

  ‘The men who’d stayed in their units when Tellus took over joined us. They didn’t like the way things were developing – they were being used for political jobs. Anyway, they pinched transports from their depots six hours after the women had started on foot from their homes. We met up and travelled on almost to the frontier. The worst bit was dodging the vigiles patrols. Women are forbidden to be out after curfew,’ she explained.

  ‘All the old rendezvous points worked. We came over the mountains. I told my brother I was sorry if he got into trouble on my account, but I had to do my duty. He nodded, clasped arms and wished me luck.’

  She said that all so simply, but I knew what a hard journey that must have been. In every way.

  * * *

  I radioed Atrius that it was safe to bring Silvia back. From the moment she stepped through the hall, she moved slowly, stiffly, disbelief all over her face. At the site of the first dead body, she clasped her hand to her mouth, but held on to her dignity. Quirinia came down from the upper floor and reported that everybody was safe, but nervous. We posted guards on the stairs. Lentilius, his face scratched but otherwise intact, pushed his way through to Silvia. He grinned, possibly in reply to the smile that lit up her face when she spotted him, but mainly from relief, I thought. A pity he hadn’t been able to contain Burrus considering he’d been on friendly terms with him.

  Half the rest of our original troops had some kind of injury, but Volusenia was worst with a broken collarbone. Luckily, it hadn’t broken through her skin. She sat uncharacteristically still, while a medic immobilised her bulging shoulder. While we waited for the ambulance to take her to the accident hospital, she rapped out orders in between gasps to Calavia who tried to absorb her new responsibilities.

  ‘You’re promoted captain, immediate effect. You’ll have to rely on young Aquilia as best as you can. After this disaster, I strongly recommend we impose martial law for a week at least to deal with these idiots and until things clarify.’ She glanced up at me. ‘Agreed, consiliaria?’

  ‘I think it would be a wise step in the circumstances, with the imperatrix’s consent of course.’ I frowned at Volusenia. Silvia might be young, but she was still our ruler. And the military would still be subordinate to her. But Silvia nodded without saying anything. ‘We have to process the rioters in a fair and proper way,’ I said. ‘We also need order and instant, known structure. The council agrees on the understanding we revert to civilian authority as soon as practicable.’ I glanced at Quirinia, then Lentilius who both nodded. With Volusenia, Silvia and me, we were just quorate. ‘Agreed, Colonel?’

  ‘Yes!’ She winced.

  ‘Very well, authority is formally transferred to the military for fourteen days as an emergency measure.’

  ‘And I formally accept as officer commanding, but Calavia can’t handle all this alone, so as senior rank I’m recalling you, Major.’

  ‘But—’ I protested.

  ‘I’m going to be laid up for a week or two with this damned shoulder, even after I get out of the hospital you insist on sending me to. There’s no other option. You’ve never formally resigned your commission and the troops will respect you.’

  Hades, she had boxed me into a corner as cleverly as any politician.

  She almost smiled. ‘I’m sure the imperatrix agrees with me.’

  Pale and grasping the back of a broken chair, Silvia almost smiled back.

  16

  So the next day I found myself dispensing summary justice at the head of a military field court martial on a collection of bruised, battered and hungover scraps of humanity. Seven bodies were wrapped in blankets for disposal, including Burrus. The doctor, one of Cornelia’s Paris legation staff, pronounced him dead from a blow to the head. I’d really wanted Burrus alive. What had been his motivation? Was he a spy or agent provocateur for Caius?

  Two of the others had died from heart attacks, one from suffocation and the other three from trauma of some kind; all tragic victims.

  I sat at the table with Calavia at my right and the newly arrived Junia Sestina on my left recording everything. As a centurion, she had years of hard experience of dealing with stroppy squaddies. This would be an easy run for her. We had no copy of the Lex Militum but the Paris legation had brought its civil one, the Codex Civilis, all twelve volumes of it.

  Most cases were clear. We had no sanction apart from extra work hours and fines; with only one secure room, detention was impossible for so many. Some instinct kept us from involving the New Austrian authorities unless absolutely necessary. Thank Juno, Atrius hadn’t been forced to resort to taking Silvia to Joachim Huber. I shuddered to think of the publicity and the pleasure Caius would feel reading about our disunity.

  Almost overwhelmingly, the guilty were ashamed. We required them to attend civil and social education. Many had left school too early and as well as poor job skills had a low sense of community. Something else to look at when we were back in Roma Nova. But we could at least start now.

  By late afternoon, we were finished. But the overcrowding had gone beyond critical. The room I’d shared with Quirinia now slept ten. Silvia volunteered to house the same number in her room, but I had Numerus assign Calavia and a couple more Praetorians in there and none of the recent refugees. We started a twenty-four-hour shift system with the additional troops which meant only a third of them were occupying beds at any one time. And they were supervising the punishment work details.

  Next day, Numerus set off just after daybreak with a three-vehicle detail and half a dozen Praetorians and was absent most of the day. All I knew was that he drove to the south-west of Vienna with the bodies. They returned exhausted and smelling of smoke as the sun collapsed below the horizon.

  Despite the cool evening, I dragged the council members and senior military outside into the garden. Silvia’s eyes peeped out from between her scarf and woolly hat like a schoolchild, and she wrapped her arms around her slight body to keep warm. Quirinia and Lentilius looked like barrels of wool in their swathes of scarves and shawls although I noticed he had a smart leather jacket underneath. The military ignored the temperature, but we all wore the black fleeces and walking trousers that were becoming a sort of uniform for us.

  ‘I apologise for bringing you out here but there’s nowhere to meet inside in private,’ I started. ‘We desperately need to find some additional accommodation. We can only just about sleep everybody but we can’t administer them, let alone work on the take-back plan. I’d be tempted to rent warehouses and convert them, but the New Austrians would bleat about it infringing their housing regulations. Quirinia, what reserves do we have?’

  ‘We were breaking even financially when people had outside jobs, but now we’re eating into our reserves.’ She took a deep breath, then coughed at the chill of it. She recovered and cleared her throat. ‘Even being very careful, the reserves will be drained to nothing within five months.’

  ‘We have to get people back into work, then, bringing some money in,’ said Lentilius.

  ‘Yes, good suggestion, but it takes time. I�
�ve tasked Vibianus from the Paris legation staff and his team to work on this. They have all the information about people’s skills from when they processed the refugees after they arrived. But we must find more space, and now.’

  * * *

  I woke at half four the next morning after a short night’s sleep. We’d ground to a halt, stuffed with liabilities and few resources. I dressed quickly and made my way over sleeping, some snoring, bodies in the corridors to the kitchen. Four staff were already working making bread, grimly kneading and rolling dough like automata. The whole place was piled to the ceiling with dried goods and eight tall refrigerators hummed out of unison.

  I made a cup of instant coffee and left them to it. Back in the office area which had been restored at one end of the ballroom after the disastrous Floralia party, I pulled out the telephone directory for Vienna and started making a list of commercial estate agents.

  For the next week, I visited more estate agents than I knew existed in Vienna. The only relief was a call to Marina in the EUS. My daughter, after a polite enquiry about my health, prattled on about choosing prams, blankets and soft toys and recounting how many times a day the baby inside her kicked. If a voice could glow with love, hers did. Even as a little girl in the palace nursery, she’d acted the mother with baby Julian. Perhaps this was her strength, her calling, nurturing the next generation.

  * * *

  Fed up with the unexpected summer rain – it was June, for Mercury’s sake – I traipsed back late one afternoon accompanied by Atrius and one of Quirinia’s finance team. Nothing was big enough or within our budget. Beautifully mannered agents had been very understanding, but… And they were itching to get away for lunch or for the evening. Achim’s promise to contact the Red Cross had produced a nil result. We had endured nearly six weeks’ overcrowding and it was getting on people’s nerves. We’d had outbreaks of stomach upsets due to some people’s sloppy hygiene and several fights had broken out. Tonight we were doomed to yet another night stuffed together, worse than in Septarium tenements.

  I dumped my umbrella in the stand by the door and was fantasising about sitting down to the luxury of a rich hot chocolate drink with my feet up in a bedroom to myself, when Grania, the French legation staffer who seemed to have turned into our head receptionist complete with desk in the front hall and her own clerk, greeted me.

  ‘Consil—, I mean, Major, there’s a visitor for you. She’s in the drawing room talking to the imperatrix.’

  Damn.

  They were sitting at the table in the middle of the room. Silvia was staring at the visitor’s face and listening intently. I walked between the bedrolls towards the table, bowed to Silvia and bent down and kissed the visitor’s face.

  ‘Tante Sabine. A pleasure to see you. What brings you here?’

  ‘Dear me, Aurelia, do I need a reason?’

  I felt the warmth rise around my neck. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be abrupt. It’s been a hard day.’

  ‘Well, I think I have good news for you. Do you remember my late father-in-law, the one that married your mother’s cousin? He had a Jagdschloss, a hunting lodge, not far from here. It’s gone downhill – it’s been shut for twenty years – but there’s been a caretaker whom I allow to keep his horses there.’ She waved her hand towards the bedrolls occupying every centimetre of the floor. ‘If it will help, you’re welcome to it.’

  * * *

  I wasn’t optimistic about what we’d find, probably a small manor with a large garden that we could use to house thirty or so people. Junia and I drove up the winding tree-lined drive; clumps of grass and moss invaded the stony, broken surface. It seemed to take forever. I glimpsed a square tower between the overgrown trees; no doubt a folly built by some eccentric ancestor centuries ago. The driveway end, almost obscured by tall evergreen shrubs, opened out into an area the size of a parade ground in front of the biggest hunting lodge I’d ever seen. A full-blown five-storey baroque palace stood in front of us.

  ‘Jupiter, it’s bloody enormous,’ Junia said. She glanced at me. ‘Sorry, ma’am, but I’ve never seen anything like it.’

  ‘Agreed, the Golden Palace in Roma Nova would fit into a quarter of this.’

  Square stone columns ran up the central part of the clinically symmetrical building that jutted out from the dull yellow facade. One lonely statue decorated the parapet running each side of a pediment soiled by bird droppings. Peeling and patchy it might have been, but the building must have contained over a hundred rooms, plus a ballroom and a suite of large reception rooms.

  We climbed out of our hire van and walked under an imposing gallery across the front facade, through the archway with a door jammed open, and into the interior court as large as the area in front of the house. Before us rose a set of wide, shallow steps leading up to tall double doors festooned with iron and studwork with peels of faded green paint falling away from the wood. A lighter metal hasp and staple were fastened with a padlock that looked as if it weighed a kilogram. The ground floor windows were too dirty for us to see through even though we rubbed hard with our hands.

  ‘Let’s find a way round the back,’ I said and was turning when I heard the double click of a weapon being cocked.

  ‘Stillstehen!’

  We froze.

  ‘This is private property. What do you want?’ The voice was deep with a lilt. I turned very slowly, nodding to Junia to do the same.

  A tall, dark-skinned young man in his early twenties with black hair, in an open shirt, leather jacket, riding breeches and boots, was pointing a double-barrelled shotgun at us, and frowning.

  ‘We have the owner’s permission to inspect the property,’ I said. ‘In fact—’

  He snorted. ‘Unlikely. Now get on your way. Out.’ And he jerked his head in the direction of the archway.

  ‘No. I have a letter from the owner, the Frau Gräfin von und zu der Havel.’ His eyes flickered, but he kept the barrel pointing at us. ‘She said you didn’t like being disturbed.’

  He stared at me for a second and I had the strangest feeling I had seen him before.

  ‘Show me.’

  I unzipped my jacket, reached very slowly into the inside pocket and held the letter out to him.

  ‘Put it on the step.’

  I complied and, keeping us covered, he bent down in one graceful movement and swooped it up. He ripped it open; the cream lined envelope floated down to the ground. After he’d scanned the letter and reread it, he lowered his shotgun.

  ‘I am to show you round and open up any parts of the building you wish to see.’

  He stalked off in direction of the opposite arch. Junia and I exchanged glances and followed our ungracious host.

  * * *

  ‘There are bedrooms on three floors, enough so we only have to share in twos, a ballroom that can be converted to more if we put in a false floor and there are more than enough rooms for offices, dining hall and meeting rooms. There’s even a library and a games room. The kitchens are old-fashioned but all the services work. We could move in tomorrow.’ The nearly five hundred faces stared at me as they stood listening at the last plenary we would hold at the Biedermeier house.

  ‘Consiliaria Quirinia will head the task force supervising the move with Vibianus and Grania as her deputies. They will designate an advance party under Senior Centurion Numerus which will move out at 08.00 tomorrow morning. They will ensure the building is safe and has the basic requirements in place. The rest of us will move in over the next week or two.’

  The murmuring held a tone of excitement and the noise level rose as people speculated on what the move would mean for them personally.

  Before they broke up I called for silence.

  ‘One last thing. Everybody will need to work to put the building into a fully habitable state. Family heads will be assigned tasks for their families, but skilled artisans in anything connected with building, carpentry, horticulture and agriculture should report to Vibianus now. Although we will keep the name of
Jagdschloss Havel, this will become the headquarters for Roma Novan exiles, but more than that, it will be the spearhead for our work to take back our country from the usurpers and their brutal regime.’

  * * *

  By the last week in July, we had a clean, plainly furnished, functioning building. Somehow during the frenzy of the long work schedule, Vibianus had started sending people out to job interviews, the taxi drivers were back at work in Vienna and my former estate manager Gavinus organised a task force to clear the garden and grounds for late planting. I thought he was optimistic, but I left him to it. School started for the refugee children which wasn’t completely popular with them, but their parents were grateful. The military under Calavia opted to take over a ground-floor wing and the rooms above as a mini-barracks; she said they felt more comfortable in a separated unit.

  Silvia hadn’t celebrated her seventeenth birthday at the end of January; we’d been too intent on surviving. The shock of the disruption and flight from Roma Nova had made people turn in on themselves and hardly notice external things like birthdays. Now, after the Floralia disaster, the idea of another party made us all shudder. As a very late celebration and a gesture of thanks, Silvia invited Sabine over for a quiet supper.

  ‘Any problems with the caretaker?’ Sabine asked me as I walked her to her car afterwards through the first-floor gallery, now the main office, by day full of clerks tapping on keyboards and shuffling paper.

  ‘No, none,’ I said. ‘We hardly see him. Gavinus, who heads the outdoor team, talks to him now and again about practicalities, but your man keeps to the stables, the keeper’s cottage or goes off on his horses. I don’t even know if he has any family. I haven’t seen one.’