Coalescent

by Stephen Baxter

  She said, "Carta, I hear what you say." She took more steps around the room. "But I'm only dancing."

  Carta forced a smile. "And maybe I don't dance enough. Dance, then. Dance for all you're worth! But—"

  "Oh, Carta, always a but!"

  "Be careful who you dance with."

  "You mean Amator?" Her translucent mood turned to irritation. "You never did approve of him, did you?"

  "He was too old, you too young, to be flirting the way you used to."

  "But that's years ago. He's different, Carta." And so am I, she thought, in a dark warm secret core of herself, which contemplated possibilities she didn't dare broach even in her own mind. "Carta, Amator is your cousin. You should trust him."

  "I know I should." Carta eyed her. "Just be careful, Regina."

  "Carta—"

  "Promise me."

  "Yes. All right, I promise..."

  Carta surprised Regina by hugging her, briefly. They stepped apart, both a little embarrassed.

  "What was that for?"

  "I'm sorry, child. It's just, made up like that, you look so beautiful. That fire in your eyes when you argue with me — you have spirit, and I can't blame you for that. And — well, sometimes you look so like your mother."

  She couldn't have said anything that would have moved Regina more. Regina touched her cheek. "Dear Carta. You mustn't worry so. Now help me fix my hair; this bone pin just won't stay in place..."

  But Carta's face, already lined though she was only in her mid-twenties herself, remained creased with concern.

  • • •

  Amator and Athaulf met her at the old bathhouse, not long after sunset. Amator was carrying a great flagon of wine.

  The bathhouse, like the Basilica, had long lost its roof. Domes, broken open like eggshells, gaped in the dark. Somebody had dug down through the fine mosaic floor of the main chamber, smashing the design and scattering the tesserae: perhaps it had been a Christian fanatic who had objected to some pagan image. Nobody knew; nobody cared.

  With Amator and Athaulf was a girl called Curatia. Regina didn't know her, but she knew about her. About Regina's age, Curatia routinely went about dripping with as fine a collection of hairpins, jewelry, and cosmetics as you could find in Verulamium. But, so went the gossip, she lived alone, and had no obvious means to pay for such things — none save her popularity with a variety of men, some old enough to be her father... Regina felt faintly disturbed to find such a girl here; immediately the evening seemed soiled.

  But Curatia had brought a lyre. When she played, with her black hair cascading over the strings, Regina had to admit her music was quite beautiful. And once she had begun to sip Amator's wine, Regina began to feel much more relaxed about the girl's presence. It was a balmy autumn evening, the fragments of mosaic and the wall paintings that had survived the weather were poignant and beautiful, and even the weeds and saplings that grew waist-high looked fresh and pretty. And when Amator and Athaulf had set out the candles they had brought, on the floor, on the walls and in the gaping windows, the shadows became deep, flickering, and complex.

  Amator and Regina sat together on a stretch of broken wall. Amator sifted rubble with his hand and dug out a collection of oyster shells. "Once people ate well here," he said. He shrugged and let the shells drop.

  "I've never eaten oysters," Regina said wistfully.

  "Oh, I have."

  Athaulf crawled around the half-ruined building, poking into crevices and cracks and feeling under the floor. "Did they really light fires under the floor?..."

  "It's called a hypocaust, you pig chaser!" Amator shouted out in Latin, waving his wine. He said to Regina, "You must forgive Athaulf. He's still a ragged-arse barbarian at heart."

  Regina leaned against Amator's legs. "I never heard a name like that. Athaulf."

  "Well, he's a Visigoth. And like all his kind his name sounds like you're hawking to bring up phlegm..."

  Visigoth he might be, but Athaulf's family wielded power in Gaul. After the disastrous night on which the frozen Rhine had been crossed by the barbarians from Germany, Roman military commanders had managed to stabilize the province by giving the barbarians land inside the old border. Thus a Visigoth federation had been established in southwestern France, centered on Burdigala. Athaulf was a rich man, and a solid business partner for Amator.

  Amator drank deeply of his wine. "Thus the Visigoths, who are barbarians, are employed on the Emperor's payroll to keep down the troublesome bacaudae, many of whom are Roman citizens. Makes you think."

  "But I don't want to think," she said, and held up her cup for more wine.

  "Quite right, too."

  Athaulf stood up in the rubble of the hypocaust. "Look! I found an iron hook!"

  "It's a strigil, you savage. It's supposed to keep your skin clean. Oh, throw it away. Cura! Enough of that funeral music. We want to dance!"

  With a whoop, Curatia abandoned her gentle dirge and launched into a lively rhythmic tune, an ancient British piece.

  Amator yelled, dragged Regina to her feet, and took her in his arms. They started with formal steps, but soon, as Athaulf joined in, they clambered in and out of the old hypocaust and ran laughingly along the sections of broken walls.

  As she danced in the ruins, and the cool autumn air mixed with the heady wine and the scent of the candles — and as Amator's legs brushed hers, and his arm circled her waist — Regina could feel her intoxication growing, as if her blood were burning. This multileveled place, full of complicated light and Curatia's shimmering, oddly wistful music, came to seem as unreal and enchanted as if they had been transported to a cloud.

  Later, she found herself lying on a thick woolen blanket, cast over the stones of the broken wall. She was panting hard, the blood in her head singing from the whirling dance. Amator was lying beside her, propped up on his elbow, looking down at her. She could sense his old intensity in the way he looked at her. But that frisson of fear she had once felt had gone now, leaving only warmth.

  "I wish this night would last forever," she said, flushed and breathless. "This moment."

  "Yes," he murmured. "So do I." He lay beside her, his arm over her stomach, and she felt his tongue flicker at her ear.

  She stared up at the silent stars. "She had such parties," she whispered.

  "Who?"

  "My mother... Why did it all go wrong, do you think? The town. The way people lived. There are no barbarians here."

  "None save capering oafs like Athaulf."

  "But there aren't. The ocean didn't freeze over, like the Rhine, so the barbarians could walk in. And there was no plague, no great fire that burned everything up. It all just — stopped. And now Cartumandua can't buy a new vase, because nobody makes them anymore, and money is useless anyhow..."

  "It was all a dream," he said softly. "A dream that lasted a thousand years. The money, the towns, everything. And when people stopped believing in the dream, it disappeared. Just like that."

  "But they will believe again."

  He snorted, and she could feel his hot breath on her neck. "Not here they won't. Here they are pursuing a different dream, of a man on a cross, a martyr's grave at the top of the hill."

  "No, you're wrong. When things get back to normal—"

  He leaned over her; his eyes were black pits, unreadable, deep, and welcoming. "Elsewhere the dream goes on."

  "Where?"

  "In the south and the east. Around the coasts of the central sea, in Barcino and Ravenna and Constantinople, even Rome itself... There are still towns and villas. There are still parties, and wine, and perfumes, and people dancing. That's where I'm going." He leaned closer. "Come with me, Regina." His hand moved beneath her tunic, and caressed her thigh.

  Her blood was surging; his every touch was like fire. "I thought you didn't like me," she whispered. "I knew how you looked at me when I first arrived. But you never touched me. And then you went away."

  "Ah, Regina — would I pluck an apple before it is rip
e? But—"

  "What is it?"

  "There has been nobody else?"

  "No," she said, averting her face. "Nobody else, dear Amator."

  He took her chin and made her face him. "Come with me, then, little Regina, little chicken. Come to Rome. There we will dance for another thousand years..." His face descended toward hers, and she felt his tongue probe at her lips. She opened her mouth, and he flowed into her, like hot metal.

  At first there was pain, sharp and deep, but that soon transmuted to pleasure.

  Amator rolled away from her, turning his head. She felt oddly cold, and reached for him. He came back, and filled her cup with wine.

  • • •

  After that, her thoughts became fragmentary.

  There were only bits of clarity, scattered like the tesserae of the smashed mosaic. The sharpness of the pain of the rubble that dug in her back when he lay on her. The sense of bruising in her legs and belly as he thrust. A glimpse of Athaulf standing on the broken walls with his tunic raised, pissing noisily on the ground beyond, while the girl Curatia massaged his legs and bare buttocks.

  And then the last time, a different weight, a different scent, a different sensation between her slippery thighs. When he pulled away, belching, not looking at her, this time it was not Amator but Athaulf. But she felt too broken, too disconnected to grasp at that thought.

  The last memory of all was of a painful stagger through the streets of Verulamium, where with every pace she seemed to trip over some bit of rubble, her arm draped over Curatia, for Amator and Athaulf had gone.

  After that it seemed just a moment before she woke in her bed — and was immediately assailed by the stink of vomit — but Marina was here, wiping at her brow, while Cartumandua's face hovered beyond like a concerned, disapproving moon. Her head throbbed, her throat was sore with vomiting, her belly was filled with an empty ache, and between her legs was what felt like a single great bruise that spanned from one thigh to the other.

  • • •

  That first day she stayed in the dark, sipping the soup and water Marina brought her. Amator didn't call for her, to take her to Rome.

  The second day she got up and dressed. She felt a lot better, save for a lingering sickness at the base of her stomach — and a sharp pain between her legs, a pain she clung to, trying to keep her memories of Amator strong, despite that disturbing final image of Athaulf.

  She emerged into bright daylight, and, somewhat sheepishly, sought out Cartumandua. To her relief Carta didn't scold her, or remind her of her previous warnings, or of her promises. Carta gave her chores, cleaning tasks in the kitchen and the bedrooms. But she wouldn't meet Regina's eyes.

  Regina tried to make a fuss of Marina. She made a special effort to clean out the room they shared, after the mess she had made of it. Oddly, though, she felt uncomfortable in the room in those first few days, and had trouble working out why — until she saw that the matres were still in the corner of their shelf, where she had so carelessly shoved them aside to make room for her jewelry. She restored the goddesses to their position. But they felt cold and heavy in her hands, and their small faces seemed to watch her.

  She was not the same person as she was last time she had touched them, and never would be again. Somehow the matres knew it. And beyond their blank stone faces she saw Julia and Aetius and Marcus and everybody she had known staring at her in dismay.

  She nursed the secret of Amator's promise to take her away to the southern cities, a secret promise that made everything she had gone through worthwhile. But still Amator didn't call. Still the pain in her belly lingered.

  And as the days wore on, the bleeding didn't come. She knew what that must mean. Her anxiety and sense of dread deepened.

  It all came to a head on the night of the fire.

  • • •

  It had been a difficult night from the beginning.

  After dinner Carausias had made a terrible discovery. He had wailed and wept. Then he had given way to anger. He stormed around the house, smashing furniture and crockery and even some of Carta's irreplaceable pottery, despite the efforts of Carta and Severus to restrain him.

  Regina had no idea what was troubling him. He had always seemed so strong, so solid. Frightened, she had retreated to her room where she lay on her bed.

  She had dark troubles of her own. Her bleeding hadn't returned. She longed to talk to Carta, to throw herself in her arms and ask for her forgiveness and help. But she could not. Then there was another secret, the secret that was lodged deep in her mind, as the growing child must be lodged in her belly, a secret truth she had tried to keep even from herself: that Amator would not come back for her, that he would never come back, that he had already taken all he wanted from her.

  As she lay brooding, at first she imagined that the stink of smoke, the sound of screaming, was part of her own fevered imagination. But when red light began to flicker beyond her window, she realized that something serious was happening. She got out of bed, pulled on her tunic quickly, and ran to the door.

  Carta, Carausias, and the others were standing in the courtyard. Their faces shone red, as if they faced a sunset. But the sun was long gone, and the light came from a great bank of flames, visible over the silhouetted rooftops. There was a great crash, more screams, and sparks rose up like a flock of tiny, glowing birds.

  Regina ran to Carta and took her hand. "What is it?"

  "I think that was the Basilica," Carta said.

  "It may have started there," Carausias growled. "But it's spreading fast. All those stalls in the Forum. The thatched roofs..."

  "I think it's coming this way," said Carta.

  Carausias's voice was bitter. "Once there were volunteers to put out such fires. We'd have run with our bowls of water and our soaked blankets, and everything would be saved — or if not saved, rebuilt until it was better than before—"

  Carta snapped, "Uncle!"

  He turned and looked at her, eyes wide. "Yes. Yes. The past doesn't matter anymore. We must leave. Even if the fire spares the house, the town is done after this. All of you, now, quickly..." He turned and ran into the house, followed by Severus and Marina.

  Carta held Regina's shoulders. "Get your things. Nothing but what you can carry, nothing but what you need."

  "Carta—"

  "Are you listening, Regina?"

  "Where will we go? Will we go to Londinium, and book the ship to Armorica? Perhaps we will meet Amator there—"

  Carta shook her, sharply. "You must listen. Amator is gone. I don't know where. And he took Carausias's money."

  It was hard for Regina to take this in. "All of it—"

  "All of it. All the savings."

  "The ship—"

  "There will be no ship. Can you not listen, child? When the house is destroyed, we will have nothing."

  There will be no dancing, Regina thought stupidly, no more dancing. And when she thought of the growing mass in her belly she felt panic rise. "How will we live, Carta?"

  "I don't know!" Carta yelled, and Regina saw her own fear.

  There was a fresh roar as another great section of building collapsed. From the streets outside the courtyard there came yells, screams, and a strange, twisted laughter.

  "Time is running out. Go, child!"

  Regina ran to her room. She dragged out the largest bag she thought she could carry, and scooped into it clothes, her perfumes, her pins, her jewelry, everything she could grab in those few frantic heartbeats.

  It was only at the very last moment that she thought of the matres. She unfolded a tunic, carefully wrapped the little stone goddesses, and tucked them into the bag. They were small, but they made the bag unaccountably heavier. She hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and ran out into the courtyard.

  Soon all of them had gathered, Carausias, Carta, Marina, and Severus, all laden with bags and bundles of blanket. By now the glow of the fire was bright as day, and the billowing smoke made it hard to breathe.

  Regina thou
ght she saw moisture in Carausias's rheumy eyes. But he turned away from his house. "Enough. Let's go."

  Half running, stumbling over the debris in the road, the four of them joined a ragged line of refugees who streamed out of the burning town through the northern gate and into the cold country beyond. Away from the town there were no lights, and the night was overcast. Soon they were fleeing into pitch darkness.

  Chapter 12

  Despite all the tension with Gina, I wanted to trace Uncle Lou. I stayed on in Florida a few more days, through the weekend.

  A day after that unsatisfactory conversation with my sister I got an unexpected call. It was Michael, asking me if I wanted to come over to watch the space shuttle launch.

  "Sure. I mean, if that's okay with your mom. You'd better put her on..."

  "Whatever," said Gina.

  So I drove over. The launch was scheduled for eight P.M.

  • • •

  "I didn't know a launch was due," I said. "Do they show it on TV?"

  Michael said, "On NASA TV, yes. But you can see it from the porch."

  I felt a foolish prickle of wonder. "You can see a spaceship take off from your back door?..." I'd been to Florida many times, but that had never occurred to me.

  The boy grinned. "Sure. Come on, I'll show you."

  Gina said, "Don't go sitting in the damp. And don't stay out too long if it's delayed, and you get cold—"

  "We won't," I said. "Come on, kid." I stood up and let Michael lead me by the hand, out through the darkened hall to the back door.