AURELIA (Roma Nova Book 4)

by Alison Morton

  ‘If you don’t get it, Mama, I don’t know where to start. Can’t you see how manipulative Caius is? He’s flashed his teeth at you, said a few smarmy phrases to lure you on to his side. Now he has you trying to finesse Marina.’ I snorted. ‘Look at his eyes sometime when he’s not trying to charm you. He’s mean and cruel. Ask his brother Quintus.’ I glanced at my watch. ‘I have to go now.’

  ‘Won’t you even talk to him?’

  ‘No. My mind’s made up. There is no more discussion.’

  ‘Well, have a think about it while you’re away.’

  She made it sound like a holiday. We’d be freezing our arses off on a snow-covered mountain, grabbing three to four hours’ sleep, either bored out of our minds or targeted by tough criminals and snipers.

  ‘We’ll talk properly when I’m back, if you insist. But I don’t want Caius Tellus within fifty metres of Marina while I’m away. A hundred, preferably. Promise me that.’

  Her eyes dropped under my intense stare.

  ‘Do you promise?’

  ‘Don’t be so angry, Aurelia. I’ll do as you ask. But try to calm down and think logically. You need more heirs.’

  For a clever woman, my mother was sometimes so simple. I tamped down the heat of anger rushing through my body.

  ‘Let me assure you, Mama, that even if Caius was the last man on earth, I’d rather kill myself than let him touch me.’

  II

  ‘One more run should do it,’ I said. ‘Get the troops formed up, Senior Centurion Numerus, if you please.’ I squeezed my gloved hands together hard and released them in the hope of stimulating some warmth in my fingers. The first touches of sleet picked at my face as I looked round the grey walls of the mountain valley. At least we’d been warm overnight in the winter hut and had stomachs full of hot field rations. But despite our mountain gear with fur-lined hoods and dark goggles protecting against the high-altitude sunlight, the icy wind found exposed skin, freezing it numb.

  Thank the gods this was our only permeable frontier, but curse them it was this high and cold. We were nominally at peace with all other nations around us, although the Reds in the East continually attempted to infiltrate. As a tiny country wedged in between the Italian Federation to the south-west and New Austria to the north, we were vulnerable. Our vigilance and electronic barriers were our joint protection. For my money, I would have kept a watchful eye on the Prussians to the north, but I was a mere soldier.

  Numerus saluted and beckoned his NCOs over to receive their orders and assemble the patrol groups. Gamma Troop had set off straight after breakfast back to base with a truckload of prisoners, mainly smugglers, but also a couple of Balkanites looking for a better life. Minutes later, thirty-six soldiers stood in three groups of four by three deep in the lee of the hut. None of them showed any reaction to the cruel weather. Numerus’s runner, Mercuria, a petite young woman lost in the folds of her winter uniform parka, handed me the deployment list.

  We moved out at 09.00 with full backpacks, forty-eight more hours on the mountainside in front of us. Beta and Delta were west and east respectively of my Alpha Troop. An hour later, with snow falling lightly, we were creeping along behind the ridge overlooking the track we’d patrolled five days ago when I heard a thud below.

  ‘Scheiß Schnee!’

  ‘Halt’s Maul,’ hissed another voice.

  Germanic, standard, a faint Prussian twang. I hadn’t heard it for years.

  I brought my hand across in an abrupt cut-off gesture. We stopped dead. What in Hades were they were doing up here on one of the highest, and most treacherous passes?

  I signalled Numerus to take four troops to head them off. The senior optio I signalled to take her group up to the high point above the mountain pass the two were heading for. I would spring the trap from behind. Silent as statues, we listened to their heavy footsteps, smashing down on the crisp snow as they approached. When we saw the plumes from their breath, we pounced.

  In the end, it was ridiculously easy. At my challenge, they ran straight into a grim-faced Numerus. Dropping instantly into crouches, the two men drew black combat knives. The snowlight reflected the thread of silver along the cutting edges. The taller one, his arm bent back ready to force his blade into Numerus, ran towards the Roma Novan at full tilt. Numerus launched his fist like a battering ram into the Prussian’s face before his opponent could make the thrust.

  The other one slashed Mercuria’s arm, but was overpowered by a charge from the other two Praetorians. Metallic clicks from above as the optio’s detail readied their rifles and aimed down at the Prussians’ heads finished off any idea of escape.

  We stood motionless for a few moments, legs braced, eyes darting around checking for others. The only sound breaking the silence was our breath. Then came a whoosh, a rustle, a half-sound so faint it could only have been a wild animal scampering away. But there wasn’t any wildlife up here in the falling snow. I signalled silence. One of Numerus’s troops stuffed his gloved fist in the conscious Prussian’s mouth to stop him shouting a warning.

  Shouldering my rifle, I beckoned two troops to follow me. Crouching down, and walking like ruptured crabs, we eased along the back of the ridge. I heard it again. A soft crushing sound on the snow, then another. I peeped over the edge, holding my breath so it wouldn’t show. My pocket scope showed nothing, but as I went to withdraw below the edge of the ridge, I spotted a figure slinking away. I signalled my two troops to spread out ready to make a pincer movement.

  ‘On my mark,’ I whispered into my radio, hoping our quarry couldn’t hear through the snow. I unslung my rifle, counted to three and stood up.

  ‘Halt!’ I shouted in Germanic. ‘Stay exactly where you are. You have precisely three seconds to show yourself and surrender. Or we’ll shoot.’

  The only answer I got was a laugh, a full-throated, rich, masculine laugh. I couldn’t believe it. What idiot laughed surrounded by an armed patrol authorised to terminate? Then I heard gunfire and a muffled curse in Latin. Mars, he’d shot one of my troops. I climbed over the ridge and advanced at full speed towards the point of origin of the laugh. Bastard. I’d laugh at him when we caught him.

  A shot and a burst of pain in my ear. Hades, that stung. But I grabbed my breath along with my rifle and ran on, zigzagging to break his aim. Then I saw his figure outlined against the snow, legs pumping as he sprinted toward the next ridge. I pushed myself to my limit, freezing air dragging in and out of my lungs, but he was gaining space between us. I was going to lose him. I stopped, steadied my breath, aimed at his upper body and fired. I saw him fall, then nothing. The snow was in full blizzard now. I trotted in the direction of the ridge, searched for the body, but found nothing. I looked down the slope in front of me and through the thickening curtain of snow saw a figure moving impossibly fast and swaying.

  Skiing.

  Merda.

  *

  Numerus had searched and cuffed the prisoners, as I held a pad to my ear to staunch the blood. I’d waved the medic off to see to the other soldier first, the one who’d been shot by the fugitive. He’d taken a round in his upper arm but luckily, it hadn’t hit the bone or artery. The other shot had only winged my earlobe. The sound of my ripping flesh was still echoing in my head, though. Despite the cold and the shot of morphine, my ear was throbbing as if Neptune was jabbing his trident at it with no trace of pity.

  The prisoners wouldn’t say a word, even after I spoke to them in Germanic. They stood there cool and collected. The one that hadn’t tasted Numerus’s iron fist even had the nerve to smirk. Their kit was standard survival equipment plus a metal-cased radio set and a bunched-up length of antenna wire. Clandestine obviously, spies probably. They had no papers, their outer clothes no labels. Whatever they were, it was political, which would give our interrogation service people something interesting to do. And if we could persuade the vigiles’ forensic scientists to get off their backsides for once, they would be able to investigate in excruciating detail until they co
uld tell what factory everything had been made in. It wouldn’t surprise me if they could tell which sheep the wool came from.

  I detailed Delta Troop to take the prisoners and our wounded people back, but to radio me through to confirm their arrival. Nothing further occurred and we made camp on the side of a cirque, protected at least from the wind. I wrote up my notes slowly with my numb fingers, cursing that we hadn’t caught the last one. That would be an embarrassing note in my file. Only another thirty-six hours in these gods-forsaken mountains, thank Mars.

  *

  ‘Wake up, ma’am.’

  My shoulder was being roughly jostled, relentlessly even. Then pain pinched my ear. That woke me up.

  I glanced at my watch. Three hours since I’d rolled myself up in my sleeping bag and survival pod.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Flash message via company securenet. With an imperial code.’

  I stared up at him, but saw no clue. I shook myself and sat up still cocooned in my sleeping bag. My face burned in the cold let in through the pod flap. It had to be several degrees below freezing. My stiff fingers tapped the code into the radio handset to release the message.

  PERSONAL AURELIA MITELA. RETURN IMMEDIATELY. REPORT TO JUSTINA APULIA IMP.

  *

  At first light, even before the sun had crept over the horizon, we tabbed down to the vehicle park. As our personnel carrier bumped down the tracks through conifers, then alpine pastures and eventually on to the tarmacked valley road back to the city, I scoured my mind to try to find a reason for such an imperative and imperial command.

  Justina was traditional, and to be honest, more than a little frightening. She wore her authority naturally and intimidated her daughter Severina, frowning whenever the girl tried to express a different opinion but more so when she gave way. Severina had been my childhood friend and I’d thought she would grow out of her timidity, but she didn’t. I was sure the imperatrix would have been happier if Severina had shown a touch of truculence or rebellion on occasion.

  Still, Justina had approved of Severina’s choice of partner, one of my second cousins, Fabianus Mitelus. They’d produced a son, a sweet child named Julian after the fourth century Julian the Philosopher, the so-called ‘apostate’ emperor.

  I’d always kept it very formal if Justina was present, even when I was visiting Severina at the palace as a friend. Like the imperatrix, my mother was old school and had dinned respect into me for the imperial Apulians as soon as I could walk and talk. As a Praetorian officer, I could hide behind that formality even more.

  But this emergency message was marked personal. If I was being called in to discuss my family situation, or lack of it, it wouldn’t have been urgent. If it were anything else, surely my mother would deal with it; she was the head of the Mitelae.

  On the edge of the city two hours later, we skirted the hill rising steeply to the old castle ruin perched at the top of a cliff; it commanded the whole river valley. Halfway up was the Golden Palace, a beautiful stone house built in the late seventeenth century around a much older villa and which served as the imperial home as well as housing government offices. With long single-storey wings running out from each side, it looked as if it were a bird poised for take-off.

  The transport dropped me off at the palace staff entrance, where I hurried through the security post, waving my gold-crowned eagle ID at the guard. Praetorians had twenty-four hour access, thank the gods. It was too cold for me to sweat, but I was nervous. The steward took me through the atrium of the palace and instead of one of the drawing rooms, we went on to the old wing to the private family rooms.

  As I was announced, I removed my field cap, bowed and waited. The imperatrix stood up from her bureau immediately and came over to me. A slightly stocky figure, her wavy hair was already streaked with grey, but contained in an elegant, swept-back style. She wore a dark wool dress with an enormous silver and diamond brooch which dug into my chest as she embraced me. She was rarely so demonstrative; I was too stunned to say anything. She led me to a chair then sat on its twin opposite me and looked straight at me.

  ‘What on earth happened to your ear?’

  ‘A smuggler took a shot at me, domina.’

  ‘I presume he’s in custody?’

  ‘Unfortunately not, but I think I at least wounded him.’

  ‘Gods, they’re such a nuisance.’

  She looked at the far wall for a few moments, then drew her gaze back and focused on my face.

  ‘Aurelia, my dear, I’ve called you back for some bad news.’

  Not Marina. Please, not my child. No, my mother would have told me. Where was she? As head of family, she would normally have been present at such a meeting.

  ‘It’s Felicia, your mother. She’s had an accident. A bad one.’

  I suppressed a guilty wave of relief it wasn’t Marina.

  ‘What do you mean, domina? What’s happened to her?’

  ‘She was injured in a road accident. A direct hit from the side. Nobody saw who the other driver was.’ She looked away for a second. ‘Of course the vigiles are investigating. I spoke to their prefect myself.’

  ‘Is she— Is she alive? Where is she?’

  ‘She’s alive, in the Central Valetudinarium, but her injuries are very serious.’

  She twisted her fingers around each other and looked uncertain. She lifted her right hand and brushed the skin under her eye.

  I sat on the blue velvet chair and didn’t move. People like my mother and the imperatrix were indestructible. They never suffered illness, never complained, worked impossible hours. Driven by duty themselves, neither gave any quarter to anybody else. Perhaps this resilience was forced into them by the stress of the Great War when they were younger women, or bred into them by the values held for the last fifteen hundred years. Whatever it was, it was terrifying.

  It was equally terrifying to see the imperatrix visibly upset for another person outside her immediate family. She normally kept a tight rein on displaying her emotions to the point of coldness.

  I was working out a way to escape and go to my mother when a steward brought Justina her hat and coat.

  ‘Now you’re back, let’s go and see her.’

  I rode by her side in the armoured saloon, armed guard at the front, motorcycle outriders in front and behind. At the hospital, the director hovered nervously on the steps. After she greeted Justina, she glanced at me, then away and didn’t look me in the face again. At the end of the corridor, a nurse frowned at the fraying field bandage on my ear and fussed around, covering my combats with a gown. I could see her point.

  My mother lay in a nest of tubes and white sheets, green beeping machines framing her bed, all encased in a large plastic bubble. Her mouth was held open by a plastic support and several teeth were missing. The rest of her face was crushed and her head swathed in bandages. She lay as still as if she were on her bier.

  A hand touched my arm. I looked up at a stranger in a white coat. After a few seconds, I refocused my mind. The doctor.

  ‘Please,’ he said and indicated one of the easy chairs on the other side of the room. I glanced at the imperatrix, but she was sitting by the bed, her back to me, her hand holding my mother’s through a glove tube in the plastic bubble.

  ‘Your mother has suffered multiple injuries and we think there is considerable brain damage. She’s in a coma at the moment.’

  ‘Will she recover?’ I heard myself say.

  ‘I don’t really know. She has a strong heart and her medical history is excellent, but—’ He opened his hands in a little gesture. ‘I’m sorry, it’s very likely she’ll lose a significant proportion of her mental faculties.’

  I covered my mouth with my hand and turned away, cold creeping through me, but not from the weather.

  *

  ‘Will Nonna come home soon?’ Marina asked. She sat in my mother’s favourite chair in the atrium as if guarding it for her.

  ‘She has to stay in hospital where they’ll look af
ter her properly.’

  ‘Shall we go and see her tomorrow?’

  I took her hand between mine. ‘She’s too poorly to have visitors at the moment, so we’ll have to wait, but you could send her a drawing, or write her a card.’ Not that my mother would be able to read it.

  She nodded. ‘If she’s not here, does that mean Uncle Caius won’t be coming here as usual?’

  I stopped rubbing her hand. A sour taste filled my mouth, but I fought to remain calm.

  ‘What do you mean, Marina?’

  ‘He comes and sees us nearly every day. And he brings me honey cakes and toys. Sometimes he sits on the sofa with me and plays games with me. I don’t mind now.’ I let her babble on about ‘Uncle Caius’, not believing what she was saying. I felt a deep anger against my mother, followed by an immense wave of guilt.

  ‘Ow, Mama! You’re squashing me.’ She looked puzzled and hurt. I looked down. My fingers had made red marks on the sides of her fragile hand. I pulled her gently to me, folding the little body into the protection of my arms.

  Pacing up and down in my study after I’d put Marina to bed, I eventually settled at my desk. The thought of writing direct to Caius to express my feelings and ban him made my hands tremble so violently I couldn’t hold a pen firmly enough. Half an hour later, after creating a pile of torn-up drafts, I wrote Countess Tella a formal letter, informing her of my mother’s illness and cancelling all visits from her household. It would have to do.

  III

  Within a week, Justina issued an imperial edict naming me de facto head of the Mitela family until further notice. She and my mother had been close friends since childhood, in some ways as bonded as sisters could be. I’d seen how upset she had been at my mother’s bedside. I suppose it was the pragmatic thing to do; she must have taken the view that my mother wouldn’t recover in the foreseeable future.