Retalio

by Alison Morton

  ‘I’m immensely relieved my aunt is representing our family on the council. Thank Mars I’m needed more as a soldier.’

  ‘Your turn will come, Countess Calavia. You can’t shirk it forever.’

  She made a face at me and I grinned back. Then her expression became more formal. ‘I have some news for you and a request. First, we found Lentilius’s body in a cell. It… It wasn’t in the best condition. Apart from being covered with burn marks and deep bruises from intensive beating, some of his fingertips were missing.’

  ‘Oh gods!’

  ‘He’d smeared a message in blood on the wall, “Me paenitet”.’ She looked down at the chipped marble floor for a second. ‘But what did he mean? What exactly was he sorry for?’ she continued. ‘Did he come back to Roma Nova voluntarily and then regret it?’

  ‘It could also mean he’d tried to resist but couldn’t hold out.’

  She didn’t look convinced.

  ‘Well, we’ll never know,’ I said. ‘We couldn’t get hold of his bank account details – damned Viennese confidentiality – but he seemed to have had a large amount of money in it. A suspicious person could use the word “bribery”.’

  ‘Do you suppose that bastard Burrus got to him?’

  ‘I do wonder. They were quite friendly. If Burrus was Caius’s agent – and I think there’s no doubt he was – suborning somebody so close to the imperatrix would have been a gold strike.’

  ‘Gods, what a tragedy.’

  ‘All round. Well, we can’t send him back to his family like that,’ I said. ‘Burn him in the public ground and send his family a message afterwards with the urn. What else is there?’

  ‘We still haven’t been able to get that Air Roma Nova plane away from the Vienna Airport authority, but the colonel has let the pilot and her crew go back to Vienna and lobby for it. The pilot’s tough and grumpy, as you know. I expect to see it land at Portus Airport any day now. Next, Lieutenant Junia Sestina. She’s in the Central Valetudinarium under the care of some prima donna called Doctor Faenia. Apparently, Faenia’s some kind of neurosurgeon superstar. Even the nats let her stay on at the hospital. Junia was badly wounded in the assault on the palace and they thought she’d never walk again, but this Faenia has fixed her up. She needs a billet, though, where she’ll be looked after properly and given something to do. Would you—’

  ‘You don’t even need to ask, Pia. Tell Faenia to discharge her here. As soon as it’s medically possible.’

  She fiddled with her uniform sleeve cuff.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We’re not a hundred per cent sure but we think we’ve found Miklós Farkas.’

  My hand flew up to my chest. Gods, that was quick!

  ‘The colonel said you’d be torn between wanting to be off looking for him and reconstructing the government here. She said you’d do your duty but you’d fret. And that wouldn’t be any use to anybody. So we’ve been watching out for any mention of him.’

  ‘Where is he? Is he well? How can we get him out?’

  ‘Lente!’ She held her hand up. ‘We think he’s in a holding facility south of Washington, in the EUS. It’s where people who are arrested but not charged are detained. One of the monitoring telegraphists found his name by pure fluke on a list for presentation at their first level court. Incredible. As White’s role was covert, I’d have thought the EUS would hold a secret trial and we wouldn’t get a sniff of it.’ She glanced at my face, then hurried on. ‘He’s listed as Nicholas Farkas and accused of sabotaging valuable EUS property; his hearing is postponed for a month. I’ve sent a message to the Praetorian commander in the Washington legation to see if she can use her contacts to find out his state of health. I thought you might like to speak to the nuncia yourself to dig out a lawyer. As he’s a Hungarian national she can’t demand to see him herself, but I’m sure she can have a word with her Hungarian opposite number.’

  * * *

  That evening I waited for the call from the international operator. Calavia assured me the battery rooms in the central city telephone exchanges were all back to full strength but for the moment international calls had to be put through by hand. Gods, it was like being back in the 1950s. I had the encoding unit that Calavia had raided from the foreign ministry on the table ready to plug in. I was dozing off when the phone eventually rang at half eleven.

  ‘Your call to Washington DC. Please go ahead.’

  ‘Salve, nuncia,’ I began.

  ‘Consiliaria. Delighted to hear you again. Congratulations on a successful operation. We’ve all been talking on the confidential channel.’ The heads of Roma Nova’s legations across the world would have had plenty to say to each other. ‘I understand from Pia Calavia that you wish to speak to me on a personal matter?’

  She called me again the next evening to say she’d engaged a top New York criminal lawyer on my behalf and had been to see the Hungarian ambassador.

  ‘The lawyer we’ve engaged, Thaddeus Smith, won’t commit himself absolutely, but he thinks the charges are overstated, especially as the equipment Miklós Farkas destroyed was in Roma Nova illegally. He went on about export documentation and other technical infringements of EUS commercial law. Anyway, he’s served the EUS government with a counter-claim for kidnapping, illegal detainment and cross-border rendition. He’s asking for a million dollars in damages.’

  ‘We don’t want the money, nuncia. I just want him out of there and back with me.’

  ‘Never underestimate the threat of money with the Americans, consiliaria. I’m sure the imperial treasury will take it off your hands if you don’t want it. I mentioned to Thaddeus Smith that the imperial government had full documentary evidence of the EUS intelligence agency interfering in Roma Novan affairs and supporting Caius Tellus’s coup.’

  Yes, I thought as I listened to the crackle on the line. I’d provided that evidence with my clandestine photographs.

  ‘I expect there’ll be some posturing and negotiating,’ she continued. ‘However, we’re reasonably confident that Miklós Farkas will be released fairly soon and be free to return to Roma Nova.’

  I thanked her, leant back in my chair and closed my eyes. Thank the gods. Oh, thank the gods. The tears came at last, trickling down my face. After a few minutes I roused myself and poured a good measure of cognac and swallowed it down. Only one bottle had survived the rebellion and the resistance group’s presence by being hidden behind books in my study.

  The day we’d arrived in the city everything was broken, people desperate and fearful. There was little food, the hospitals were empty, the power stations were offline, no fuel, looters were rampant. The old police service, the vigiles, was enforcing its own kind of law. But thank the gods, we had the loyal Praetorians to reimpose order.

  Now, a week later, we’d cleared the roads, brought in food, although limited, but enough grain to provide to the bakeries to make bread, and dried legumes for soups. Tinned meat and fish was doled out against ID cards. Gavinus, my loyal estate manager, was at the agricultural ministry with the logistics manager, Regulus, organising more supplies and getting the food chain up and running.

  Atrius had found Prisca Monticola, my silver mining and processing friend, in the work camp north of the city. She looked terrible. Always slim, she was like a matchstick doll. Her eyes were huge in a face with cheekbones pushing her skin from inside. And her hair was white now.

  ‘They hardly fed us,’ she croaked. ‘I was sent there on a charge of economic sabotage. I presume I was meant to die. I ate grass, dirt, sucked my tunic. We boiled up wood and nails from the huts to make a sort of soup. Some of the other prisoners hoarded stuff, but most used their brains and shared.’

  After a very diluted tinned broth I hugged her slight frame to me then put her to bed in the room next to mine.

  * * *

  Quintus Tellus, who had done nothing wrong in my opinion, was treated harshly. He’d even supplied us with information from time to time when we were in exile. But he was
tainted by association. He was tried, as were many in the weeks after the take-back, and stripped of all property and status. All Tella property was confiscated to the state. After I’d pleaded before the tribunal, he was permitted to keep the old Tella farm in the east. It was a ramshackle place, but quiet, somewhere that might help Conradus to recover. Quirinia managed to fix Quintus a part-time petty magistrate’s job that would give them some income.

  ‘Thank you, Aurelia,’ Quintus said gravely on the morning they drove into their internal exile. ‘We will manage.’ The former urbane state servant looked out of place in farmer’s sturdy clothes and boots. Conradus by his side looked at me, his face composed, but solemn. Another child that would have to grow up too quickly. I waved them off on that frosty morning, and vowed to help them whatever the tribunal had said.

  * * *

  Caius’s trial was, of course, a sensation, albeit a short one. Silvia had insisted on seeing him the day before. She was composed in a black suit, hair bound up and her grandmother Justina’s favourite silver and diamond brooch on her lapel which Caius couldn’t fail to recognise. We’d found it in his personal safe still in its velvet-lined box; perhaps even he felt he couldn’t touch such a strong symbol.

  ‘I have to face him, Aunt Aurelia,’ Silvia said as we waited. ‘I was a frightened child when I saw him last. Now I’m the imperatrix of Roma Nova.’

  I took my place to Silvia’s right, Quirinia to her left.

  Caius was marched in, manacled, between two guards with Silvia’s Praetorian bodyguard closing up behind him.

  He stood there arrogant and indifferent.

  ‘Caius Tellus,’ Silvia began. He raised an eyebrow as if he’d only just noticed she was there. Damned impudence. ‘You will face your trial tomorrow before the people of Roma Nova. I wanted to see you first. I am curious about why you thought you could murder and brutalise the people of your own country and bleed it dry purely to satisfy your own ego.’

  ‘Big words for a spotty teenager.’

  Silvia blinked but didn’t make any other movement.

  We waited. After a few minutes, he shrugged.

  ‘I have done nothing different from Romans in ancient times when you women knew your place.’

  ‘Do you have no remorse?’ Silvia asked.

  ‘Change is sometimes hard. Remorse is a sentimental luxury along with all the other emotional nonsense you women wallow in.’

  ‘You killed my mother.’

  ‘A casualty of change.’

  ‘And my father?’

  ‘Fabianus Mitelus died well, stubborn to the end like all the Mitelae.’ He glanced at me with his hard as stone eyes.

  Silvia’s shoulders rose as she took a deep breath.

  ‘And my brother, Julian, whom your nationalists shot.’

  Caius shrugged again. ‘He was a soldier. They die.’

  Silvia’s throat spasmed, but she kept her composure. She jerked her hand to the guards and they marched him towards the door. He turned and looked at me.

  ‘Oh, Aurelia. One thing. Your idiot mother shouldn’t have parked in that street. You never know when traffic accidents might happen.’

  I clenched my fists. I wanted to smash the bastard’s face, to beat him to death. He’d killed my mother, raped me and my daughter and tortured my cousin, Silvia’s father, to death. Only Silvia’s outstretched arm stopped me. I could have batted it aside in an instant, but I couldn’t undermine her authority in front of a piece of shit like Caius.

  Even at his trial, he managed to convince one of the judges he’d been misunderstood; he had been acting in the best interests of Roma Nova, he claimed. But the other two judges convicted him without hesitation.

  A week later on the evening after his execution, I gave Silvia a hug, then a small brandy.

  ‘It’s over now, darling, completely over.’

  ‘He was a traitor, Aunt Aurelia, but more than that, he killed my mother. He deserved to die.’

  * * *

  Two days later I drove Silvia in my now refuelled staff car to the reconstituted Senate. Her Praetorians followed in one of our battered vans from Vienna. On the steps of the patched up Senate House we were greeted by the president, Publia Cornelia. Her grandmother had been executed in the forum by Caius after his power grab; Publia spent the following eighteen months in hiding, working on farms and as a servant. I wondered how the stiff Cornelia pride had suffered under those circumstances.

  She led us through to the main chamber where we were greeted in silence. The circular benches were occupied by women and men, some in correct formal dress, most in everyday clothes. Silvia and I had neither palla nor stola to wear; everything, including most of our clothes, had been reused or looted during the past eighteen months.

  I looked round. No hostile faces, some friendly, most neutral. The Senate president nodded at me.

  ‘Senators,’ I began the formal words. ‘As head of the Twelve Families of Roma Nova, I present to you Silvia Apulia. She is the sixty-fifth descendant of Julia Bacausa and Lucius Apulius, founder of Roma Nova. Is it your wish that she now take on the duties as imperatrix?’

  Nobody said anything. I held my breath. Juno help us, they couldn’t refuse, could they? I caught Publia Cornelia’s eye. She nodded her head.

  An older man in full toga order stepped forward. Brancus. ‘Old-fashioned’ was too modern a description for him. And he had a strong following in the Senate. Despite my thorough briefing for Silvia, I knew we were in trouble.

  ‘Silvia Apulia, you are young, perhaps too young.’ He paused, looked down, then removed his spectacles. ‘We suffered from your mother’s weak rule. She allowed Caius Tellus in to wreck the country. What can you offer us? How can we trust you?’

  ‘Senator Brancus, I salute you.’ She bowed her head, then looked him in the eye. ‘You knew my grandmother, Justina, well. And her mother before her. Is your memory of Apulians not a good one overall? I may only be just eighteen, but I have been fired in the forge of death. My mother was murdered, my brother died performing his duty in defending us, my father was tortured to death. I was hunted like an animal, I lived in exile cut off from my home, something no Roman should suffer. With my loyal servants, I have liberated my country and rid it of its tyrant.’ Her voice was high but strong. She swept the assembly with a fiery gaze. ‘And still you ask me what I can offer?’ Then she gave Brancus a look that was so like Justina’s I nearly gasped out loud. She’d wandered from the speech we’d prepared, but she delivered her words with passion.

  ‘If you want an easy road from here, if you wish everything done for you, if you want me to fall in with your every wish, then you will be disappointed. If you do not want me to lead our people then I will have to accept it. We have so much work to do to put our country back on its feet and reinstil purpose, confidence and prosperity. This will be my personal task for the rest of my life, whatever your decision.’

  She clasped her hands together and stood still as a statue.

  Brancus looked puzzled, shrugged, then sat down in his place on the front bench. A woman raised her hand, then stood. She wore an old jacket and crumpled skirt, but looked determined. Was that young Sergia? Gods, she looked twice her age.

  ‘I wish to propose accepting Silvia Apulia as imperatrix and granting her full powers as under her grandmother Justina Apulia. I for one am thankful for her determination and courage in consigning Caius Tellus and all his people to the darkest depths of Tartarus.’

  Cries of ‘Well said’ and ‘Ave Apulia’ echoed round the chamber. The vote was taken and, barring three against and five abstentions, it was unanimous. I let out a long breath in relief. Silvia grabbed my hand and gave me a quick smile. I saw tears in her eyes but they didn’t escape. After the tumult died down, the Senate president addressed Silvia with the formal words.

  ‘The Senate wishes you well, Silvia Apulia, and asks that you assume the duties of imperatrix. Are you content?’

  ‘I am. From this moment we go forward.�
� Then she added the old Roman greeting. ‘If you and your children are in health, it is well. I and the legions are in good health.’

  45

  Three weeks after Silvia had gained imperium from the Senate, I slipped away for a weekend to Castra Lucilla. Gavinus was still managing the food supply chain for the agricultural ministry, but he was confident his colleague Priscilla was perfectly capable of taking back the post of farm manager for my estate.

  I stamped my feet on the cold ground as she showed me round. The returned estate workers were doing their best to repair the shattered and neglected farm buildings. All the farm vehicles had disappeared and the tool stores badly pilfered. I was surprised that the pars dominica – the house and family gardens – had been spared apart from the cellars and food stores.

  ‘We’ve even managed to find some of the stock, out in the woods. A bit thin and only half the number – this is the second winter they’ve survived – but there are even one or two calves. But the rest – the pigs, the poultry, even the ducks – all dead and left to rot.’ She was on the verge of tears as we toured the rear farmyard and watched the pyre of burning animal bodies.

  I gave her the envelope containing a letter of credit to buy what she needed to restock and repair, if she could find anything suitable at present. Gods! It was going to take years.

  That evening, I sat bundled up in a rug with a small fire of scavenged branches the only respite. Maybe it was the creeping cold of an old stone house unoccupied for so long, the freezing March temperature or pure tiredness, but I was overwhelmed by sadness.

  More than the damage to the farm I was concerned by the trauma my people had suffered. Only half had survived when they’d fled months ago. Now back in their homes, they would see the missing dead everywhere. We had to organise a commemoratio for them as soon as possible and settle their spirits definitively during the Lemuria in May.