I pushed that thought aside as we drove up the plane-tree-lined drive into the palace forecourt. I paid off the driver and trotted up the steps to the entrance. Two young Praetorians, shiny and efficient, whom I didn’t know, barred my way.
‘At ease,’ I said and flashed my gold eagle badge at them. They stood to immediately and saluted. A warm glow of familiarity settled on me. I had slotted back into my world.
Upstairs, I opened the nursery door carefully. Two heads looked up from the rug and pile of toys. Julian gurgled, but Marina leapt up and ran into my arms. As I crushed her to me, tiny bubbles of tears sprang from my eyes. I sniffed and released her from my body grip, but held her hands and searched her face.
‘Hello, Mama,’ she said in a formal, almost quaint way. Then she hugged me again. She took my hand and showed me round the nursery; their day room with a low table and children-sized benches, a drawing wall, easels, bookshelves and a huge pile of cushions plus the obligatory scattering of bricks and toys over the floors. She solemnly lifted and replaced pans and spoons from the play kitchen, and plastic work tools from the miniaturised workbench. There were even a couple of wooden play gladii and grey plastic sectional armour in the corner.
After we’d inspected her bedroom, she took my hand. ‘Come and help me with the jigsaw?’ She pointed to another table.
‘Of course, darling.’
We sat companionably, finding and assembling wooden pieces in a dismembered picture of medieval Romans at the castle on the cliff above us. I watched my self-possessed daughter, calm and composed and intent on her game. She’d been here under two weeks and had already slipped into the routine. Marina had a compliant nature; perhaps she would be happy and safe here after all.
VI
Four days later, I was on a plane to Berlin. We banked as we approached the city, turning from the south to an east–west axis to approach Tempelhof Airport. The original building had opened only two years before the outbreak of the Great War in 1925 but had been completely destroyed in the fighting. The modernist terminal perched at one arc of the almost circular airfield had been built with League of Nations’ support in 1937, over thirty years ago, as part of their aid programme. Planes looked crammed in at the north-east end. My brief mentioned the Prussian government had authorised a large extension. Not before time, I thought, as our plane squashed in between two others to park; the wing tips were barely a few metres apart.
I sailed through immigration on a diplomatic passport under the stern eyes of the black-helmeted Royal Prussian Police. Their eyes roved over my luggage, but however much they longed to, they couldn’t touch it. I murmured a ‘Vielen Dank’ and made my way to the arrivals concourse. I spotted the driver because he was flanked by a woman, calm, dark purple-suited, carefully scanning everybody and everything. Praetorian, of course.
At the legation in the old part of the city, they processed me with perfect politeness, giving me a ground floor room on the outside wall with a convenient separate entrance along the corridor into the city.
‘We always put the temp spies here,’ the steward said.
‘I’m not a spy,’ I protested.
‘If you say so, Special Delegate.’
*
The administration clerk bobbed about nervously as I sat in his office completing my diplomatic card application.
‘I’ll take it over to the Prussian foreign ministry this afternoon, domina.’
‘Major, please, or Delegate. Here, I’m another servant of the state.’ I gave him a stern look. Plico warned me that people would react to my civil rank, either subservient or sceptical that I could actually do the job. To most I was a high-profile presence demonstrating how important the visiting trade delegation was. My civil title had never been a problem for me in the military; there you had the rank granted you on merit alone and you were only as good as your last operation. Hopefully, the staff here would get used to me and adopt the same attitude.
*
Berlin-Brandenburg, to give it its proper title, was a gracious city, even if over-regulated. People actually obeyed the red man/green man pedestrian traffic signals. I awarded myself a couple of hours to stretch my legs and get a feel of the city that must have changed since I was here as a student.
I walked around the charming old streets with medieval gates and admired the few Renaissance houses within the old city walls that had survived. Berlin had escaped relatively lightly in the Great War; it had been declared an open city at the end as the Allies closed in. It was the religious wars in the 1600s that had devastated the city, but a Baroque building boom had exploded afterwards and the extravagant curlicues on practically every building looked fairy tale in the soft evening light.
In a bar overlooking the Spree, Am Goldenen Ufer, I found a table near the window away from the smoke. Eventually, the barman shuffled over and took my order; few single respectable women frequented bars in ultra conservative Prussia. Apparently satisfied I wasn’t a streetwalker, he deposited a glass of Berliner Weisse in front of me. Gods, I’d forgotten how tart it was. I ordered a raspberry syrup to soften it. Maybe I could take a bottle of the syrup back and force-feed it to Plico to see if it worked with him.
His orders had been succinct; eyes and ears open and mouth shut. Apart from contacting my cousins, who had connections throughout the country, my cover was accompanying a visiting delegation from our silver industry. I was to investigate and report on any whiff of rogue trading or smuggling. High-grade silver was one of our core products and had been since earliest times. Now we had a whole complex industrial sector based on it, especially for scientific and electrical appliances, photovoltaics, and medical uses. We worked on joint projects with other countries, sometimes providing the unrefined metal, if required, sometimes importing lower grade ores for less precise applications. It was a horribly complex sector, but a very carefully regulated one. Apparently, there’d been one or two rumours about the levels of Prussia’s output which could impact on the balance of our trade with them.
Plico suggested that if I came across any documents or records concerning silver extraction or trading, especially marked ‘confidential’, I could photograph them with the tiny camera I’d been issued. Not if it compromised my diplomatic status or my personal safety, of course, he’d added a little too suavely. I’d crossed my arms and given him a look that I’d seen Justina use in council when demolishing a pointless remark. Plico should have been a pile of dust after that, but he’d just smiled down at his desk blotter.
I’d been chosen for my connections and language ability, but this clean, proper country was still a mystery to me. It swung from genius to savagery, high culture to crude vulgarity and from duty to reckless abandon. Romans knew a thing or two about these, but never hid them behind a prim facade.
Berlin had reverted to Prussia when the Allies split Greater Germany back into its provinces after the peace treaty in 1935. Some even had their monarchs restored. The plan had worked; despite a loose federation for certain strictly defined functions, the little dukedoms, princedoms and mini-republics argued about everything between themselves and didn’t have time or motivation to threaten the rest of Europe again.
Fed up with the clouds of smoke and the continual tinny sound of English pop songs, I finished my beer, left a mark and some groschen by my empty glass and stood up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a man, brown hair, medium height, hurriedly finish his drink, stub out his cigarette and pull his jacket on. I smiled to myself. He’d been following me from at least the Nikolaiviertel, probably from the moment I’d stepped out of the front gate of the legation. I’d expected no less, but he wasn’t very good. I nodded to the barman, left and wandered around for another half an hour before making my way back to the legation, followed by my incompetent shadow.
*
The silver trade delegation members arrived two days later at Tempelhof, a dozen of them. My driver and I were waiting in the business arrivals lounge to meet them but a fussy boots called Gri
ndel from the Prussian Commerce Ministry hovered with two assistants clucking around him. They were the official welcoming committee, he said, there to help process entry visas and customs formalities. He nodded vaguely as I introduced myself as the third trade delegate, and then ignored me.
Seated by a window looking out on to airside, I watched the group disembark from the Air Roma Nova plane; seven women and five men, most clutching briefcases, and all smartly dressed. When they entered the lounge, Grindel gushed up to them. I stood back and let him get on with it. Once he’d finished flapping pieces of paper and card around and supervised stamping passports, I moved forward to greet the visitors. Grindel looked down his nose at me.
‘The Commerce Ministry will look after our visitors’ needs. You may run along and make sure the taxis are there,’ he said, dismissing me as if I were one of his junior clerks.
The chairman of the Silver Guild gasped, the whole delegation fell silent and my driver, a Praetorian, moved half a step nearer me. I looked directly into Grindel’s eyes, but said nothing. A good half-minute passed in awkward silence. The Prussian stared around, harrumphed and looked at the Silver Guild chairman for help, but the latter said nothing, merely looked at me. I nodded and gestured for him to speak.
‘You mistake the situation, Herr Grindel,’ the chairman said, his voice cold as if straight off the top of the Geminae peaks in northern Roma Nova. ‘Countess Mitela is the head of one of our leading families and has graciously consented to introduce us to vital contacts. We will not need your help any further.’ He turned to his colleagues, nodded to them, picked up his bag and smiled at me.
In the legation minibus, he couldn’t stop apologising. His tough mine owner’s exterior evidently hid a sensitive core.
‘Please don’t worry,’ I shouted above the engine and traffic noise, ‘such attitudes are endemic here. And we will need to deal with the ministry, you know.’
‘Well, I’m not having that pompous jerk anywhere near us. I’ll request a female liaison officer.’
Privately, I wished him the best of luck with that.
At the legation, I handed the group over to the first trade delegate. Portly and on the far side of fifty, she came from one of Roma Nova’s leading merchant families and definitely spoke their language. Sitting at the back while she outlined their programme, I learnt a lot more about the practical side of business networking and the subtle channels that interconnected that world than I did in all the time I’d struggled with my mother’s business interests.
The full day trip to the Rammelsberg mine in Goslar, south-west of Berlin, was exciting for the miners and traders, but not so much for me. But I got to know individual members of the group better and it passed agreeably. The mine had been an incredibly important resource for nearly a thousand years and was a ‘prize of war’ that Prussia had somehow held on to in 1935. Plico had heard rumours the silver lodes were running out. Somehow he expected me to investigate this extremely confidential situation without getting caught. I broached it with Prisca Monticola, one of our leading silver mining and processing plant owners.
‘Well, the price of silver has risen steadily here over the past three years – that’s not abnormal – but you’d expect to see some fluctuation during that time. Silver often tracks gold and that’s been all over the place on the Frankfurt Metal Exchange recently. They ran a huge feasibility study here four years ago.’ She glanced towards the Commerce Ministry representative at the front of the bus, a female one, complete with formal suit and lacquered beehive hairdo. Goodness knows where they’d found her, but I was sure from her reserved manner and youth she was newly promoted purely for this job.
‘We’re not supposed to know about the study,’ Prisca whispered, ‘but these things leak out. Putting that together with the price rise which seems very controlled, and the eager way they invited this trade delegation all expenses paid, I’d say it was a good bet it’s true.’
‘You’d make a good intelligence officer, Prisca Monticola.’
She shrugged, but gave a little smile. ‘It’s called keeping at least one step ahead of the competition.’
‘So are they vulnerable?’
‘A technological country like Prussia needs constant and assured supplies of minerals, both rare and common. Let’s say if I was the head of their minerals mining industry or the minister, I’d be making procurement plans and regulating the futures market better.’
*
As the silver group had a free morning the next day, I arranged to meet up with my cousin several times removed, Joachim Freiherr von und zu der Havel, at Am Goldenen Ufer, the bar where I’d enjoyed a beer a few evenings ago. I arrived early, and sipped my coffee, watching flower-covered green, red and blue barges chugging along the much engineered Spree past the sightseeing boats still moored. It looked pretty and peaceful enough.
The figure approached with an efficient but graceful stride along the cobbled pavement towards the tables shaded with maroon umbrellas where I waited. Although he had inherited his father’s cumbersome name, he had his mother Sabine’s tall, slim build and Viennese elegance. He still wore the same friendly smile and curly dark blond hair from our university days. Now, if I could have persuaded him to come back to Roma Nova, I would have been a happy woman, but he sought different company.
‘Hallo, Aurelia! Wie geht’s Dir?’ He bent and kissed my cheek.
‘Hello, Achim.’
He gestured to a waiter for a coffee and soon we were reminiscing and laughing about ourselves, our fellow students, but mainly about a freer time.
‘I’m sorry you left when you did, Aurelia. Our group was never the same.’
‘I had itchy feet and although I loved my time here, I wanted to get back to Roma Nova and get on with my career.’
‘You went straight into the military? Nothing else first?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just curiosity.’
‘What did you do?’ I asked. ‘Your mother sent mine a card each December saying you were doing well although she didn’t understand why you had to choose law.’
He laughed. ‘A legal career usually follows a law degree.’ He waved his hand vaguely. ‘We still have the estates, but like you, I wanted something different from my inherited role.’
After we’d run through the remainder of our more congenial friends, I asked about the class joke. ‘Whatever happened to Grosschenk?’
A flicker in Achim’s eyes. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘No special reason. I expect he went off to be a pompous little mayor in a chocolate box town,’ I replied and laughed. ‘Or did he end up in jail?’
‘He set up one small business after another which turned into larger ones. He’s done very well. Lives in some bourgeois merchant’s house out in the Grunewald and dines regularly with the Oberbürgermeister.’ He snorted.
‘What’s that for?’
‘He’s still a slimy little toad.’
I laughed, remembering Grosschenk’s over-conciliatory manner with lecturers coupled with his bullying way with younger students. Achim had given Grosschenk a thrashing once when he’d attacked a new kid. Grosschenk had been wary after that, but never lost any opportunity to knock Achim in front of others if he could, but in an underhand, faux-innocent way.
‘Come across him at all these days?’
Achim didn’t answer, and kept his gaze on the green-grey surface of the river. He brought his gaze back and shifted in his seat.
‘What are you doing here, Aurelia? Really?’
I made a moue of surprise at his serious face. ‘As I said, I’m on a trade mission of prominent business people with important silver industry interests. They don’t know Berlin and none of them speaks Germanic. And my presence is supposed to show everybody how important the Roma Nova government thinks the mission is.’ I shrugged. ‘I’m not so sure of that, but that’s what they tell me.’
‘Trade mission? Not some other kind of mission?’
‘What’
s that supposed to mean?’
‘When one of the highest ranking women in Roma Nova with special forces training claims she’s babysitting a load of silver traders, I worry.’
‘They’re mining company and processing plant owners, not only traders. And why should it worry you? You’re nothing more than a farmer with a law degree.’ That was cruel. He was a significant landowner, but he was starting to annoy me. ‘Anyway, my life in the military is behind me now, since my mother’s death. Now I have a new career with the Foreign Ministry. And I have to start somewhere.’
He murmured some standard words about my loss, then glanced across at me. He said nothing for a few seconds and looked into the distance.
‘Where are you taking them?’ he asked.
‘To meet business people, see factories and mines and so on.’
‘Which ones?’
‘The exact itinerary is commercially confidential, as I’m sure you can understand. Why do you want to know?’
‘No particular reason.’
I didn’t believe him. ‘I thought we were having a friendly drink,’ I said, ‘catching up and so on. Why are you asking me all these questions?’
He didn’t reply.
I glanced at my watch. ‘I’d better be getting along. There are a series of meetings this afternoon, then a reception this evening with the Oberbürgermeister. I’ll let you know if I have any other free time while I’m here, but I doubt it. Give my best to Aunt Sabine.’
He put his hand out, but I ignored it and walked off down the street.
I fumed my way back to the legation. Not a good start to my career. Why had Achim closed up like that? And those questions. Had I missed something in my research? Grosschenk was one of my possible leads and I’d only dropped him into the conversation on the off-chance. But Achim had reacted as if I’d mentioned a bucket of poisonous serpents.
AURELIA (Roma Nova Book 4) Page 5
