She hesitated.
‘Now.’
She grumbled all the way down to the old kitchens, but followed. I held Silvia around the waist to steady her; she traipsed alongside me like an automaton. As I opened the tunnel door, she stopped and pulled away from me. ‘I can’t. I can’t leave her.’
I grabbed her by the arm. I was going to hate myself for my next words.
‘Silvia, you have to accept your mother’s cause is lost. We cannot allow Caius to get hold of you. I understand your instincts are to stay with her. But Severina herself told you to go and me to help you. If you hesitate now, those left behind fighting to delay Caius will have given their lives in vain. And you don’t want to live with that on your conscience.’
She threw me a look of pure anguish, but said nothing. I pulled her into the tunnel. As we hurried along in the semi-dark, I heard sobbing and when I turned to glance at her, saw tears running down her face. After a kilometre, we turned into a side tunnel and stopped in a recess with a small table, two chairs and a large cupboard.
‘There are rations, water, torches, batteries, field clothes and supplies. Take everything. You’ll need it.’
I thrust a combat jacket, scarf, gloves and wool hat at Silvia. She had trousers and strong shoes on at least.
‘You have funds – there’s enough in gold in that pouch, Colonel, to bribe or buy your way through. If not, you’ll have to use your initiative. Nothing, or nobody, must stop you. Assume you are now in enemy territory.’
Volusenia said nothing, merely set about packing the supplies. Silvia looked completely bewildered.
‘Aunt Aurelia, why are we running away? Surely nobody will support Caius Tellus? He wouldn’t dare hurt my mother.’
I glanced at Volusenia who shook her head.
‘Silvia, we don’t know what’s going to happen. Our duty is to protect and keep you safe at all costs. Your duty is to stay alive. You are your mother’s heir as well as her beloved daughter.’
‘Gods, no. You don’t mean—’ She covered her mouth with her hand.
I pulled her to me and hugged her. After a few seconds, I held her away and looked into her eyes, her mother’s soft brown eyes, now full of anxiety.
‘I don’t know. As soon as I do, I will let you know.’
‘What do you mean? You’re coming with us.’
‘No, I have to go back and try to stop Caius.’
Volusenia stepped forward, her face projecting an angry vulture look. ‘Consiliaria, you can’t go back. He’ll kill you.’
‘Maybe, but I’m not the easiest target. And my heir, my darling Marina, is safe in the EUS.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘You have about another five minutes’ bought time. I don’t know if Caius knows the tunnels, but let’s assume he does. Carry on for another five hundred metres and you’ll come to a half-height door. It’s awkward but it comes out in a house in the Vicus Fabricensium outside the old city wall. It belongs to one of the former imperial armourers, but she keeps it available for, er, operations.’
Volusenia snorted at that. It was one of Plico’s safe houses.
‘She should hand over supplies and keys for the van in the adjoining garage. Use it as far as you can, then dump it. You’ll probably have to walk the mountain route into New Austria – he’ll close the road and railway crossings. You won’t be the only refugees.’
I kissed Silvia’s cheek, clasped forearms with Volusenia and headed back into the chaos.
XVIII
Back at the palace end of the tunnel, I opened the door a couple of centimetres. I waited, Fabia’s semi-automatic in my hand. A tap running, people moving, but quietly. I caught a gasp, sobbing, cursing. Then the smell of blood hit me. I opened the door only wide enough to slip out, but casting round all the time. Nobody was in this storeroom. I locked the tunnel door, drew the wood panel back across to hide it. Thank the gods, the only noise was made by the panel catches as they clicked into place.
I crept to the outer door and slid into the old kitchen. A servant was tipping the contents of a yellow plastic bucket into the back drain. Another bucket stood on the floor by him. It was the colour of diluted blood.
As I walked along the stone passageways of the older palace into the newer seventeenth-century ones, the smell grew along with the noise of people moving: footsteps on the marble floors, clothes rustling, things being picked up and put down. But worst of all, groaning and the odd shriek. As I approached the council anteroom, I heard arguing and shouting, and a woman sobbing. Severina.
I flattened myself against the wall and crept towards the door frame. The door was ajar and I peeped through the gap between door and jamb. Severina, still on her chair, streaked face. Fabia, bandaged sleeve, hair escaping from her severe bun, blood caking on her forehead, rifle slung across her shoulder, shaking her head, and two other Praetorians. Quirinia and two other councillors on their knees by bodies on the floor. And Plico, talking sternly to Severina. His face consisted of bruising with two eyes staring out.
I edged around the door. Two rifles were pointed at my chest and safety clicked off before I’d taken the next step.
‘Stand down,’ I ordered. They lowered their weapons a few centimetres.
Plico swung round, then all eyes were on me. But for only a second.
Gunshots rang out. A volley of return fire. Fabia signalled three guards to follow her and disappeared towards the fire. I never saw her again. The two remaining guards stood by Severina.
‘Plico,’ I hissed at him and beckoned him over to me.
‘Did you get her away?’ he whispered back. He was searching my face, a mix of doubt and worry on his own.
I frowned at him. ‘Of course. I said I would.’
The sound of marching feet and doors banging.
‘Here they come,’ he said grimly. ‘Run. I’ll cover you.’
‘Only if you do,’ I shot back.
I knew he wouldn’t.
‘If they take you, Plico, they’ll bleed you of everything.’
He smiled.
Oh gods! He wasn’t one of them after all, was he?
‘You should watch your face, you know, consiliaria. I can read every thought you make.’ Unbelievably, he smirked at me. ‘No, my capsule is in my mouth already. I just want to watch that bastard’s face when I die on him.’
‘Plico—’
‘I know what I’m doing.’ He held his arm out and grasped mine in the Roman salute. ‘An honour to have known and served with you, Aurelia Mitela. Now bugger off out of here as soon as you get the chance. Your duty is to go and look after Silvia Apulia who will soon be imperatrix.’
I swallowed hard and couldn’t find a word to say. I shook my head.
He shrugged.
A few groans, whispered reassurances, cloths being squeezed free of water, were the only sounds as we waited in silence. Apart from Severina, who still looked down, we faced the door – guards, councillors, Plico and I.
First through was a man in his forties, slim, dark, wielding an old-fashioned revolver, and flanked by six other men carrying machine guns. All seven wore hunting clothes with a blood red armband with a symbolic fasces and a mailed fist on their left upper arms.
The slim man looked first at the imperatrix, then scanned the room.
‘I’m Phobius and I represent First Consul Caius Tellus. You’re all detained under the emergency order. Any disobedience will be dealt with summarily.’ He looked at each of us in turn. He sounded straight out of the Septarium, that perfectly named cross-river district where runnels of indeterminate humanity oozed furtively around, filling up the fissures between the shabby buildings.
Quirinia, kneeling on the floor by a shot guard, gulped. The other two councillors just stared.
Phobius snorted in their direction. ‘The council is disbanded with immediate effect.’ He jerked his head at the
Praetorians. ‘The military are ordered to return immediately to barracks, including you two.’ They didn’t move.
‘Immediately, I said,’ Phobius repeated.
‘We do not leave the imperatrix,’ the woman optio said.
‘Well, darling, there isn’t an imperatrix any longer, so move it.’
She blinked, but stood her ground.
‘You was warned,’ he said. He brought up his revolver and shot her in the head. Blood spurted over her face, she swayed, then dropped to the floor. The other Praetorian had his semi-automatic out, flung himself forward. Plico and I threw ourselves in front of Severina. I fell back onto her, knocking us both to the floor as the machine guns cut down the last Praetorian.
The rat-tat was deafening. Severina screamed and screamed. I brought my hands up to her shoulders to try to calm her, to get her to stop. She carried on shrieking. I slapped her face. She stopped immediately, her eyes rolled back and she fainted. As I knelt back up, I noticed my coat sleeve was scorched by a bullet trail and red liquid dribbled down onto my white shirt cuff. I stared at it unbelieving. Then my arm started throbbing. More, I saw Fabia’s pistol had slid from my coat pocket when I’d fallen. But Phobius couldn’t see it from where he was standing.
‘Get away from her,’ Phobius shouted. A gun barrel tapped against my head. I stood up slowly. I didn’t have to pretend to be dizzy but I stumbled back as if it was worse that it was and nudged the gun under the armchair with my foot. I held my arm with my other hand.
‘Let me at least put a cushion under her head.’
‘No. Who are you anyway?’
He didn’t have a clue I was the foreign minister. I decided to bluff it out. ‘I’m her servant, sir, her secretary,’ I said, which wasn’t technically untrue. I waved at Quirinia with my uninjured arm. ‘Her too.’ Then I looked away, and caught the eye of the male councillors. One of them gave me the tiniest nod and stepped on the foot of his colleague. I blessed him for his presence of mind.
‘What’s your name, fatty?’ Phobius pointed his revolver at Plico.
I wondered what persona Plico was going to assume. When he drew himself up, I knew with horror that he wasn’t going to pretend. He was going into the arena.
‘I am Tertullius Plico, the urban praetor’s executive officer.’ He looked down his nose at Phobius, even though he was shorter.
‘Well, well, the chief spy. Consul Tellus will be pleased.’ And he struck Plico across the face with his revolver. I winced at the crack of bone breaking but Plico kept his balance. Phobius signalled to two of his heavies and they dragged Plico away.
‘Take the men,’ he ordered his guards. ‘Leave these women here. The consul will be along soon to see her.’ He pointed at Severina. ‘She’ll wake up quick enough then.’
Quirinia looked at me, but I shook my head. We would just be shot if we attempted anything. But she lifted a cushion from the imperatrix’s chair, knelt down and placed it under Severina’s head.
‘Get up, you stupid cow,’ Phobius snarled at Quirinia and grabbed her arm. ‘Sit on the floor over there, hands in front of you, with the other typist.’
He turned abruptly, nodded at the guard left to watch us, and left.
We huddled next to the wounded staffer Quirinia had been tending. He was lying unconscious, mouth open, breathing noisily.
Quirinia shut her eyes and shook her head, opened them again and stared around. ‘Gods, is this it, then?’ she whispered.
‘No talking,’ the guard shouted at her, striding over to her and lifting his weapon ready to strike.
‘Please, please don’t hurt us,’ I begged. I could hardly keep the fury out of my voice, but we had to defuse this man’s anger.
‘Well, shut your mouth.’
‘Of course, sir.’ I left it a moment or two. ‘What’s going to happen to us? We just work here. Our families will be worried.’
‘The first consul will know. Him or Phobius’ll tell you.’
Merda. The last person we needed to see was Caius.
The guard’s radio crackled. He frowned as he listened. I looked over at the carpet under the armchair where I could see the metal of Fabia’s semi-automatic. I could lunge at it, kill the guard, but what then? My arm was stinging like Hades. I wriggled my fingers and flexed my arm. Only a flesh wound, but it was still dribbling blood.
‘Nobody said nothing about medics, but I s’pose it’s okay,’ he spoke into the radio and glanced at us. Intense crackling, then a terse voice from the radio. ‘All right, all right, don’t burst your tunic. Over and out.’ He said the last three words in a very exaggerated manner, and looked at the radio as if it were rotting fish. ‘Uptight arse-ache.’
A knock at the door. He strode over and opened it. Two women, one pushing an empty wheelchair, entered. The older one, her grey hair falling out of a bun, clips half out, was dressed in a faded tunic covered by an apron with bloodstains. She trudged in, head bowed, and carried a cloth bag in her hand and a satchel over her shoulder, both printed with a red twisted-snake staff of Asclepius.
No. This tired old woman couldn’t possibly be the person I thought I’d recognised. My mind was playing tricks. Perhaps I’d lost more blood than I thought. The younger one, taller, in a crumpled nurse’s tunic and trousers, seemed more confident.
‘You’ve got some wounded?’ The guard jerked his head towards us. She knelt down by the three dead Praetorians first, felt each neck for a pulse, then shook her head. She stepped over to the wounded staffer lying next to us, and with her back to the guard, looked straight at me. Her eyes widened as if she was trying to convey a message. She mouthed ‘Diversion, now.’
Juno. She was military.
I groaned loudly, grasping my arm and started sobbing, rocking as if the pain was unbearable.
The younger woman turned around to the older and thrust her hand out. ‘Marcella, pads, quick.’
The older one fumbled and muttered, ‘I can’t find them. Here, take the whole bag.’ She pulled the satchel off her shoulder and thrust it at the younger woman. Within seconds, the younger one caught the satchel, opened it and pulled out a semi-automatic which she thrust in the astonished guard’s face.
The older one brought a torch out of her cloth bag and hit the guard at the base of his skull. He fell where he stood, poleaxed.
‘Up, we have only max ten minutes before the radio check, if they keep to their pattern,’ said the younger woman. Quirinia and I struggled up to see the older woman now standing erect and smiling at us. I’d been right first time. It was Senator Calavia, my mother’s friend.
‘Calavia. What in Hades are you doing here?’
‘Coming to get you out, my girl. Felicia would never have forgiven me. This is my granddaughter, Pia. She’ll see you through.’
‘I’m not leaving Severina to Caius.’
‘I’m staying with her.’
‘No, you can’t. He’ll—’ He’d kill Calavia on the spot, ninety years or not, if he thought she’d helped me escape.
‘Now listen to me. I’m nearly ninety-one. I don’t have much time to go. Let me use the rest of my life doing something good. You’re not the only one who can make glorious gestures, Aurelia. My granddaughter has risked her life to get you two out. The least you can do is appreciate it. Now sit in that wheelchair and do as you’re bid.’
Pia had eased my injured arm out of my coat sleeve, ripped my shirt and bandaged the forearm. It was only a flesh wound. I glared at Calavia, but she just made shooing gestures to the wheelchair, then turned to Quirinia and started bandaging her face and neck. She pulled her hair down to hide the rest of her face.
‘We have to take Severina’s staffer with us,’ I said. ‘He can’t stay here.’
‘No, it’ll complicate things,’ said Calavia. ‘Look, Aurelia, it’s a hard decision, but it’s more important for Silvia and Roma Nova
that you two don’t fall into Caius’s hands. Go!’
As I hesitated, Pia pushed me down into the wheelchair, flung a blanket round me and twisted a bandage around my head and eyes. I could just see out from the lower edge of the bandage. I flinched as she shoved a blood-soaked pad up in front of my left eye.
‘Has to look genuine,’ was all she said. I heard her say, ‘Limp hard and grab the wheelchair handle as if for support.’ That must have been for Quirinia.
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘Under the armchair. The pistol Major Fabia gave me.’
Pia crouched down and retrieved the weapon, checked it and handed it to me. I stuffed it under the blanket. Calavia senior opened the door and we left. I squirmed round in the chair, lifted the edge of the bandage. The last sight I had of my mother’s friend was her kneeling at Severina’s side and holding the imperatrix’s hand up to her chest.
*
The terrifying, blind passage from the council room full of death to the palace door seemed to take forever. Every time I heard marching feet or doors slamming, my heart thudded. I knew I was dead the moment I was discovered – there was no chance of reprieve. Quirinia also, but Pia Calavia was putting herself in the firing line for us.
A door creak, cool air. We were outside, thank the gods. I heard shouting, men, cars and trucks revving engines. I lurched forward as Pia bounced the wheelchair down an uneven slope. A few seconds later, up a steep ramp into the quiet. I was in a van. No, it had to be an ambulance. Two pairs of hands lifted me out of the wheelchair and somebody pinched my wounded arm, hard. By instinct, I cried out.
‘Careful, she’s probably got internal bleeding.’
Gods. I hoped not.
I didn’t know if Quirinia was with me or not. I touched the bandage over my eyes with my good hand to lift it, but somebody pushed my hand away.
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