‘Exile me?’ The worst fate for any Roman; a living death abroad, cut off from every connection, family and friends and forbidden to communicate with or see them. Even Marina, my own daughter. And proscription; stripped of my citizenship, all protection under the law lost. Anybody informing on me could be paid a reward plus a portion of my assets; the state would take the rest. All the Mitelae would be blighted. I swallowed hard.
‘Only the imperatrix can do that.’
‘She wouldn’t be the one to make the decision.’
‘What in Hades is that supposed to mean? It’s an imperial prerogative.’ Then the meaning of his words hit me. ‘What have you got mixed up in, Callixtus? Who are these people?’
‘We want a better way, a return to proper manly Roman values. We’ve had enough of weak government—’
‘Are you a member of the Roman National Movement?’
‘Yes, and proud to serve it.’
‘So your assignment was to infiltrate my household, and allow a vulnerable young girl to be brutalised during a dangerous riot, and my staff murdered?’
‘No, of course not. I mean, about Marina. That was collateral damage. Although—’
‘Collateral damage?’ I hissed at him. I grabbed his hair, yanked his head up and struck him in the face. ‘You coward. You want to be one of these nationalist bastards, but you’re not even a true man. No honourable Roman would let a child be harmed, let alone collude in killing her servants. You’re a waste of the ink on your birth record in the Censor’s register.’
He glared up at me, hurt and fury shining out of his eyes. He tensed, ready to spring up.
‘Try it,’ I said, my pistol already in his face. His shoulders slumped and he bowed his head. A soft knock at the door broke my stasis, but I kept looking down at Callixtus’s bowed head.
‘Enter.’
One of the farmworkers, the older ex-soldier, now carrying the unconscious guard’s rifle over her shoulder, came around the door.
‘All secure, domina,’ she murmured, then looked down at Callixtus’s drooped figure.
‘One more for you,’ I replied.
*
I slipped back out to the dormitory, a lead weight in my stomach. Callixtus had been my staunch supporter, now even he had been subverted. I couldn’t think about that now. Although we’d taken just over seven minutes, the longer we delayed, the bigger the likelihood of discovery.
‘Manager?’ I whispered as loudly as I could. I couldn’t see her.
‘Here, domina.’ The manager’s daughter, a young girl about fourteen or fifteen, standing at the end of a bed halfway down the big room, pointed to a figure lying still on the mattress. I hurried to the side of the bed.
‘Gods, Priscilla, what have they done to you?’
My brisk, efficient farm manager looked like a hunted animal at bay. Her head was bandaged, her face and neck bruised and red weals splitting the skin across her arm and shoulder. The other arm was fastened in a crude sling.
‘They used a leather whip on her and on some of the men,’ her daughter said, her tone flat and eyes staring ahead. ‘Then they raped her and made us all watch.’
Marina moved over to the girl and took her in her arms, but the child remained stiff. Nobody said a word. My hands hurt, I realised I had balled them so tight, my nails had almost punctured the skin in my palms. I stretched my fingers, took hold of Priscilla’s uninjured hand and pressed it.
‘I will find them and bring them to trial. They will be severely punished. You’ll have the best care possible, Priscilla, but first we need to take the farm back.’
She closed her eyes, then opened them again. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered and closed her eyes once more.
I beckoned the two younger ex-military to join me by the dormitory door.
‘We have to take the men’s dormitory,’ I said under my breath. ‘Are you fit enough?’
‘Albina, ex-II Apulia, same as Sentia here. We’re fit.’
I nodded. At least I had two from a good infantry unit with me.
‘You two in the far door. Neutralise the guard and secure his weapon.’
As we crouched in the corridor, Sentia and Albina each side of the far door, I listened. Nothing. Either they were completely unaware of our presence or they were waiting for us.
*
We burst in. Complete surprise, thank the gods, but my opponent didn’t go down easily. Tall, solid and grinning as if he relished the fight as I attacked him, he grabbed both my upper arms and squeezed, right on the radial nerves. The pain shot up into my shoulders but I managed to swing my leg and kick him in the groin. As he fell back, I searched for anything to use as a weapon against him. Nothing.
I readied myself for a disabling chop to his neck. Then I heard a cracking sound splitting the air and felt the whoosh of leather flying past my cheek. Half a second later, the big man’s face was sliced open, red flesh gaping each side of the long cut. The tail of the whip, dropped after the cut, glanced off me. I jumped back and whirled round.
‘That, you bastard, is for Priscilla.’ Gavinus, the farm technician, was grasping a bullwhip with his bony fingers. His breath heaving, the whole of his slight frame trembled. He raised the whip again, his eyes fixed on the man on the floor.
I put my hand up in front of him, palm outward. ‘No.’
Gavinus, fired up with adrenalin and hate, pulled his arm back, ready to strike again. I lunged forward, grabbed his wrist and yanked it down. ‘No, Gavinus. Leave it.’
He stared at me, as if he didn’t recognise me. His eyes bulged, his face set in a snarl. Then the fire subsided and his face relaxed.
‘Domina, I—’
‘I know.’
*
Sentia and Albina had secured two other guards and locked them in the men’s laundry room. They tied the big man up and bandaged his face. I reckoned he’d lose an eye, but didn’t really care at this moment. I cared even less when I found many of my men had been beaten. Two were dead.
Gavinus was one of the few uninjured apart from a few bruises. He trembled now in post-action fatigue and I told him to sit down. He was no warrior. His slender fingers were trained to delicate tools, engines and electronics, not weapons.
‘Are there any other of these scum around?’ I asked him.
‘Not now. About twenty of them arrived yesterday morning in two lorries.’ His shoulders drooped. ‘Mercury, we were pathetic. They had us herded like stock within twenty minutes. Then they started hitting us, calling us—’ He looked up at me.
‘I get it, Gavinus. Don’t upset yourself. I know it’s not true.’
But I let him talk it out. The opposition had driven up to the farm manager’s office, walked into her office, told her at gunpoint to summon all the personnel. While most were coming in from the fields, they rounded up all the home staff, herded them into the courtyard, picked out one of the younger men and shot him point blank ‘as an example’, they said. When the doctor tried to rally them, they shot him next. After that the rest of the staff were cowed and the intruders started beating the men, calling them pussy-whipped. Priscilla was their next victim.
‘They were so cold and mechanical, domina,’ Albina said. ‘More would have suffered if we’d reacted.’ She looked down at the ground. ‘There just weren’t enough of us.’
‘I understand, Albina. Truly.’ I put my hand on her shoulder and gave her a little shake. She looked up and searched my face. ‘Believe me, I’m going to make damned sure nothing like this ever happens again. Whatever it takes.’
XIII
All the telephone cabling had been cut, and the radio smashed, so first thing next morning I dispatched a party of six, two armed with the intruders’ weapons, to the vigiles station at Castra Lucilla. Their captain looked shocked as I walked him through the scene an hour later. In a peaceful country district
most of the dead were rabbits or the odd stranded bovine.
‘I’ve tried to question these men, but not a word. You will obviously submit them to more formal interrogation. I will sign the accusations this afternoon if you will prepare charges for murder, attempted murder, rape, aggravated trespass.’
‘I don’t know if I have the staff for all this paperwork, Countess,’ he protested.
‘Then call in your auxiliaries,’ I said, trying not to let my impatience leak into my voice. I’d been up most of the night patrolling with Sentia and some of the men. ‘This is a severe incident.’
When he seemed frozen by indecision, I played the weasel card. ‘Obviously, it goes a lot farther than a brutal attack on a rural community. As foreign minister, I shall be reporting it direct to the imperatrix, who will naturally want to know that her cousin had every assistance from the police authorities.’
He gabbled into his radio. I turned with relief to Gavinus, who had started organising clean-up parties. I told him to leave the main house until the working parts of the farm and the dormitories had been cleared. He was astute to have asked Marina to look after Priscilla. I took him into the farm office later that afternoon and shut the door. After he gave me his report in detached tones, he looked up, questions and hurt in his eyes.
‘Very satisfactory progress, Gavinus. I’m appointing you farm manager until Priscilla recovers. If she wishes to resign, then you’ll take over, but I think it would be wise for the two of you to work in tandem if she wants to continue.’
He nodded.
‘Next, security. Obviously, you need more armed guards. Albina seems a likely candidate for detail head – she has experience. Sentia can be her deputy. Check if any of the other personnel has experience and is fit enough. Two of the men on last night’s patrol were reservists. If you decide to take on anybody locally, double-, quadruple-check their background. They must be prepared to work on the farm as well. I won’t have an idle armed force eating their heads off and making the farm hands’ lives a misery.’ I paused. ‘I would have asked Callixtus to help with selection and training, but—’ His betrayal made my saliva sour in my mouth.
‘I understand, domina,’ he said and gave me a tight smile. ‘I think we’ll train everybody, though, as a precaution.’
‘Very well. I don’t like militarising the farm, but people must feel protected. We can introduce regular contact and security protocols, but obviously we’ll have to find alternative transport and communications. See if you can procure some heavy-duty vehicles. Enough to evacuate everybody. Keep them in full readiness at all times with food and water supplies. And run some drills. It’s a pain, I know, but you must have an escape route prepared. There’s an alternative for absolute emergency, but I’ll explain that later.’ Somehow, I didn’t want to talk about the tunnel yet. ‘Leave the communications to me,’ I continued. ‘The expert I have in mind will solve our problems.’
I used the vigiles radio to call Fabia in. All I had to do was speak one of the old PGSF codewords and “CL” and she was there within two hours with two helicopters and twenty troops. Unfortunately, she brought Tertullius Plico with her.
‘He insisted,’ she said, and made a face as she ran out under the dying swish of the blades.
I made a sympathetic face back, but returned my features to neutral as the short figure trudging along beside his young military escort stopped in front of me.
‘I’m working my last three months, looking forward to a quiet retirement and a bit of fishing, then I hear you need rescuing again.’ He spat on the ground. It was dusty. ‘Women!’
I sent him a sharp look. No, not Plico, surely?
He grinned. ‘Joke. Got you, though.’
‘Don’t be a pig’s arse, Plico. Come inside and leave those filthy cigarettes in your pocket.’
‘Spoilsport.’
*
He was shocked when he saw the inside of the villa itself. Almost all the furniture was damaged, including the doors wrenched off the eighteenth-century solid mahogany dresser my mother had loved. Slashes across paintings and hangings on the stone walls ripped, porcelain shards scattered at the foot of stands. Bullets had nearly destroyed what had been a poker-faced portrait of the dead Imperatrix Justina. No great loss; my mother had thought her friend looked lifeless in it. And from the smell, the invaders had left the usual vandals’ signature behind them.
I dismissed it. ‘It’s only furniture, and it’s mostly old stuff from the city house. Come into the kitchens.’ I preceded him along the corridor and down the steps into the older part at the back of the house. Even when they rebuilt this house in the 1100s they’d followed the traditional villa rustica pattern. The old stone range was built into the wall. Only Tartarus falling would have dislodged it. I picked up pans and cutlery from the floor, grabbed a brush and swept glass into a corner of the tiled floor.
‘Bit old-fashioned, isn’t it?’ Plico said.
‘It’s called traditional.’
‘From which century?’
I turned the regulator on the gas bottle and boiled a kettle of water. As I set the mugs of black tea down on the long kitchen table, I looked him direct in the eye.
‘Now, Plico, suppose you tell me what in Hades is going on?’
*
Terrifying as the attack on our farm had been, it was minor compared with the trouble in the city. By the time he’d flown out to see me, Plico had compiled the full picture. A parade of thousands of men from the Roman National Movement marching in full toga order from the forum had ended as a rally in front of the amphitheatre with twice the number they’d started with. There’d been declamatory speeches which some of Plico’s operatives had listened to while mingling with the toga toughs.
‘The speakers called themselves Gracchus, Sulla, Clodius and so on.’ He snorted. ‘Pseudonyms, obviously, but they got the crowd fired up. My people said they pushed emotional words at the crowd, repeating over and over again stuff about land, virtue, tradition, strength, order, manliness, grabbing every popular reference they could from history. They called for stability, jobs, respect – all the usual stuff – without any explanation about how they were going to deliver them, of course. The cheers and shouts back from the crowd became louder and louder and rippled through the crowd. And when drumming started at the back, the crowd started chanting and stamping on the ground. After a good twenty minutes of this, there were thousands of them all lathered up.’ He shrugged. ‘Clever, very clever. There’s some smart bastard behind this. I don’t know whether I want to wrap my hands around his throat or clasp forearms in admiration.’ He must have seen my face. ‘No, I do know really.’
‘And then the rioting started in earnest,’ he continued. ‘Oh, not anybody in Roman Nationalist get-up, just ordinary clothes. They’re too bloody clever for that. They ran back through the city, tearing everything down in front of them. The nationalists just stood to the side, not even attempting to stop any of it. Thank the gods, the troops had been stood to and slowed them down. The Praetorians under Volusenia were waiting for them in the forum. Jupiter, she’s a bloody terrifying woman, but she stopped them.’
He scratched his head.
‘The Praetorians can’t keep turning out like this. Their prime duty is to protect the imperatrix. I just hope it’s a summer flare-up and it’ll calm down in a few days. The regular forces are controlling transport movements and the public radio and television are broadcasting “keep calm” messages. Can’t do anything about the commercial media, more’s the pity, but we’ve asked them to cooperate.’ He curled and stretched a piece of string between his fingers. ‘But after an inquiry, we’re going to have to crack down on these thugs. And the imperatrix will have to sign a controlling order, volens nolens.’ He glanced over at me. ‘Your bruised face at the council might help.’
‘I doubt it. Nothing happened when Marina was attacked.’
‘She’s had a crap time.’
‘Yes. I’m going to do my damnedest to make sure it doesn’t become any worse.’
*
Fabia was called back with Plico the next day, but gave us another day’s grace, leaving the second helicopter and half the troops. At least the journey by air would be faster as well as safer. She also assigned four Praetorians to stay for a week to assist Gavinus in training the farm staff. The hands looked terrified of the confident, self-contained troops but they’d settled down by the next evening when we left.
The rhythmic thud of the helicopter engine drowned out any possibility of talking normally, but I had plenty to think about as we rode back.
There was no charge I could bring against Callixtus; dereliction of duty and negligence were civil torts, private matters. He’d been hired to protect a family and home, not an official person. I brought him back to Domus Mitelarum under guard to dismiss him formally. I was repelled at sharing transport with him, but I refused to let him see my bitterness at his betrayal.
‘I’m not going to waste my time and effort chasing you through the civil courts – there are more important things for me to do at the moment. You broke my trust. That’s worse than anything.’
He had the grace to look away.
‘You’ll be escorted to your quarters to collect your personal effects. You have an hour. You will not speak to anybody else. After you exit through the house gate, if I ever hear of you anywhere near me, any member of my family and household, any of my friends, colleagues or businesses, I will take permanent measures. Do you understand?’
He nodded.
After I’d turned him out of the door and cancelled all his access codes, I told Plico to have Callixtus’s weapons licences, both personal and professional, revoked with immediate effect and to put him on the watch list as a member of the Roman National Movement. I made an international call during that night. Eighteen hours later William Brown arrived in Roma Nova.
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