Successio

by Alison Morton

  XXVIII

  I gave him an outline, but my mouth became too swollen to say much. The medics interrupted and wheeled me away on a gurney and I knew nothing else until the recovery room.

  Apart from the broken shinbone and a fractured rib, my face throbbed and my stomach was purple and sore. Despite the pressure-relieving foam under the sheet, I couldn’t find a comfortable way to lie in the bed. They changed the ice-pack round my head twice in the night. I passed the next day in a haze of drugs and exhaustion, but on day three, I woke up to see a face with freckles topped with wavy dark blond hair.

  ‘Michael,’ I croaked and mustered a half-smile through cracked lips.

  He didn’t smile back.

  ‘When you said you’d take ‘other measures’ to hunt Nicola Sandbrook, I thought you were sabre-rattling. Now it turns out you’re not even official. Give us a good reason not to hand you over to the police as a terrorist.’

  ‘S’great to see you, too, Michael.’

  I should have expected Andrew Brudgland’s ball carrier, but he could have lightened up.

  ‘What?’ I said, ‘I go hiking in a public open space and your government’s security forces beat up on me.’ I took a painful breath. ‘My lawyers will be in touch.’

  ‘You knew we were keeping a watching brief. Why didn’t you contact me?’

  ‘I have a tight deadline.’ I struggled up to half-sitting. Pain stabbed through my middle up into my skull. I nearly blacked out. ‘Date. What’s the date?’

  I’d been away for a week. Conrad’s trial started in two days. And I didn’t have Nicola to take back.

  *

  After he’d stopped me trying to get out of bed and we’d both calmed down, Michael took a full statement from me. At first, he refused to tell me about anything, but I coaxed it out of him. Wilson was in custody being questioned about Nicola by military police detectives. Michael said his career was over. A forensic team was going over Nicola’s camp and would take the case from here on.

  ‘But they’ll send you their report?’ I said.

  ‘No, you can’t have a copy,’ he replied. ‘It’s confidential.’

  I stared at him through swollen eyes.

  ‘Oh, very well, I’ll see what I can do. No promises.’

  *

  An air ambulance flew me home, and I was helicoptered straight to the Central Valetudinarium where Faenia tutted at me as I lay on the scanner bed.

  ‘You’re getting too old for this sort of beating, Carina Mitela. Get a team of twenty-year-olds in next time. Your tooth we can fix. The broken bones and bruising will self-heal. And we’ll use electric therapy to accelerate it. The plastic surgery on your face will leave a few faint scars, but your internal organs are not as immortal as you seem to think they are.’

  ‘Just patch me up so I can attend the trial,’ I grumped.

  ‘Out of the question,’ and she pulled the switch to insert me past the blinking lights into the gaping maw.

  *

  Only when I promised to have a medic with me at all times and return immediately to the hospital after my part in the proceedings was finished did Faenia release me two days later, on Monday morning. My pride was dented by having to use a wheelchair, but no way could I walk with a leg strapped from knee to toe and hurting like a minor Hades.

  Allegra collected me. She’d burst into tears the evening I arrived when she’d pushed into the hospital and insisted on seeing me. I’d held her hand and waited until she stopped trembling. This morning she wore a neutral, serious face along with a neutral, serious suit. She bent and kissed my forehead.

  ‘Are you ready, Mama?’

  I ached from head to foot, my ribs were strapped tight, my stomach stiff and sore, my broken shinbone aching with pain and my face a mess of cuts, bruising and dressings.

  ‘Sure, I’m fine. Let’s do it.’

  *

  As Allegra guided my chair between the seating, people stopped talking. The silence expanded throughout the courtroom and every face seemed to be angled towards us. Some looked as if their eyes were going to fall out with the strain. We reached our ringside seat right behind the bench where the defendants and their lawyers sat. Sertorius turned, rose to his feet and bent over us, his hand extended.

  ‘My dear Countess, how are you?’ he said in an overloud voice. ‘Are you sure you’re well enough to attend today?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Sertorius. I have a sick-note.’

  He leaned closer and whispered, ‘Speaking tactically, you couldn’t have made a better entrance. I’ll call you early.’

  He was a cynical bastard, but the best there was. I just smiled back, trying to look heroic. He hurried back to his front bench as the judges and the examining magistrate filed on to the dark oak-carved podium which hovered above the rest of the mortals.

  When Conrad came in, he looked pale but composed. Until he saw me. He stared, eyes wide, travelling from my wrecked face down to my lower legs showing below my tunic hemline. He stopped and put his hand out to steady himself. When he didn’t move, Sertorius took his arm and guided him to the defendant’s bench. Conrad bowed his head, shoulders hunched forward for a few moments, then twisted around. The skin bunched around his eyes which shone with anger, or was it anguish? Despite the jagging pain when I moved, I attempted a smile. He just stared back.

  A treason trial involving two prominent families was rare; with the added spice of a lost and renegade daughter, I thought we’d be in for a circus, but after some shuffling about the audience settled down to quiet. Hungry to hear every one of the details, I guessed.

  Sertorius had filed all the statements including my abortive trips to Britain. He called me early as promised, and Allegra wheeled me over to a spot in front of the dark wood carved witness stand. As Sertorius declaimed about duty and sacrifice and blah, blah, I studied the audience. Amongst the sensation-seekers, smug politicos and the plain curious, I found familiar faces: my former Active Response Team, Paula sending me a smile; Lucius, frowning through new eyeglasses, Lurio, leaning back, his arms folded across his chest, Pelonia by his side, plus half my household, Dalina Mitela and her Tellus family opposite number. There had to be around a hundred PGSF. I wondered who was left minding the store.

  My written deposition and IS reports had been filed before I’d left to hunt Nicola. Sertorius praised the generosity of the British government for their cooperation and asked me to describe Nicola’s attack in detail. He read out Faenia’s report which shocked even me. I didn’t know I had half of what she listed.

  ‘And this, magister and learned colleagues, is what this daughter of Hades did to a special forces officer at the height of her powers and experience.’

  The imperial accusatrix stood up, cleared her throat, raised her papers, looked over her spectacles and was about to open her thin little mouth to aim a question at me, when the main court doors were thrust open.

  Two Praetorians in formal dress marched in and took up position one each side of the entrance. From between them stepped a tall young woman, red-brown hair and light brown eyes. She walked slowly, but with great self-assuredness, to the front of the court and bowed to the magistrate.

  ‘I apologise for interrupting the proceedings, magister, but I have come to court to support my father.’

  A collective gasp went up from the audience and everybody started talking at once. Thank Juno, there were no photographers allowed in.

  Hallienia Apulia might only have been a bit over sixteen, but she stood there with the full dignity of sixty generations of rulers behind her. She seemed to ignore the babble and excitement around her. When the magistrate had recovered herself, she called for silence and gestured to a court officer to bring a chair.

  ‘If you do not object, I will sit with my sister.’ And made her way to Allegra’s side. And Sertorius thought I’d made an entrance.

  The imperial accusatrix gathered herself again, emphasising I was no longer a member of the PGSF and that my illicit operation ha
d endangered the good relations with the British. Sertorius objected quoting Michael’s report which the magistrate upheld and the fact I’d honourably surrendered my imperial warrant. The accusatrix tried her best, but Sertorius was on firm ground. The morning ended with him in the lead.

  *

  In the prisoner room, we sat round eating a takeout lunch, surrounded by Hallie’s bodyguards, Conrad’s escorts and court officers, all watching for some false step. Hallie and Allegra looked like two teenagers again, shucking off the dignified act, reverting to normal girls. Except they weren’t.

  Conrad had hugged Hallie as soon as we’d reached the shelter of the room and turned to pull Allegra in. His face was tight with emotion and I saw his hand wipe across his eyes.

  As we finished our surreal picnic, Sertorius went off to prepare for the afternoon session, mainly technical stuff with shrinks and profilers, leaving us to work out what to say next to each other as a family.

  ‘I’ll stay this afternoon, Dad,’ Hallie said, ‘and I’ll ask Mama if I can come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Darling, just this morning was wonderful.’ Conrad ran his finger down the side of her face. ‘I’m sorry I’ve let you down, you, Allegra, all of you.’ He glanced at me.

  She took his hand. ‘Don’t worry, we know you were off your head – it wasn’t really you.’

  He looked at her, astounded at the teenage brutality, then broke into laughter. ‘Thanks.’

  I glanced at my watch. ‘Five minutes to go. You two girls go back up. I need to say something in private to Dad.’

  They shot a worried look at him, but he smiled back, I thought, to reassure them.

  ‘Before you say anything, Faenia’s said I’m fine, just a bit bruised, so don’t worry. Okay?’

  He gave me a measured look. ‘Don’t bullshit me, Carina. I was tri-aging wounds when you were still designing adverts in New York. And I wasn’t afflicted with sudden deafness when Sertorius read that injuries list out.’

  *

  Despite Sertorius’s attempts to have me excused, the imperial accusatrix was allowed another thirty minutes to grill me. I guessed it was her job to try discredit my testimony. I was disconcerted by being opposite her after years of working with her team, but I was damned if I was going to let her even glimpse that. But I was almost passing out with fatigue by the time I flopped against the back of my wheelchair.

  *

  I woke later, feeling like a lump of Aquae Caesaris granite was lying on my chest. I was hot, burning. I felt a tiny rectangular alarm sensor in my palm and pressed it.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  The young doctor in a white coat too big for her had such a wide and friendly smile, I didn’t have the heart to tell her. I tracked her movements as she ran her scanner over me, felt my middle and studied the digital panel behind me.

  ‘What time is it?’

  She carried on as if she hadn’t heard me and played with a switch on the drip.

  ‘Professor Faenia instructed you were to be kept quiet and calm. I think you have visitors shortly, but they can only stay for ten minutes.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘You don’t need to worry about the time at the moment.’ She tapped on her el-pad, not looking at me. She came back to the bed, standing close.

  I grabbed her wrist. ‘What’s the time?’ She looked down. ‘Wait a minute, what day is it?’

  The door swung open. Allegra.

  She nodded at the doctor, who easily freed her wrist from my feeble grip and retreated.

  ‘Relax, Mama. Calm down.’

  ‘Don’t you tell me what to do!’ I tried to turn away, but I was too stiff.

  ‘Mama, please don’t.’

  Around her eyes the flesh was puffed, her cheeks sagged. She was trying too hard to smile. She pulled up a chair, sat down and looked at me gravely. I could see she was struggling to find some years to add on so she could deal with all the shit being thrown at her.

  ‘It’s Wednesday. Yes, you’ve missed a day, but you needed the rest. It’s almost finished. They’ve recessed for two days to consider the evidence.’

  ‘Juno, that’s unusual. So final defence and prosecution speeches the day after tomorrow. And the verdict. Nobody else to be questioned?’

  ‘Sertorius said he wasn’t calling anybody else after the psychs as everything was in the depositions. The magistrate just nodded at him. Perhaps she doesn’t like long trials. I don’t know how these things go.’ She shrugged and looked a little lost. ‘Uncle Quintus gave his testimony this morning. But he came across like Dad.’

  She studied the stiff white sheets I was enclosed in. ‘I—’

  ‘Say it, Allegra.’

  ‘They looked – weak.’ She lifted her head. ‘The former imperial chancellor and the PGSF senior legate. How could that be?’

  XXIX

  Imperatrix Silvia’s circus was next. I was obviously so dangerous, her Praetorians stayed in the room with her. She didn’t order them out. While she was perfectly friendly, asking how I was, her eyes didn’t meet mine. She kept behind her neutral persona.

  ‘How’s Stella?’ I asked.

  ‘Progressing well, the governor says. She’s been on field trips under supervision to a rehab centre and a social aid hub. Apparently, she took a real interest and wanted to know more.’ She shrugged. ‘Perhaps she’s not as hopeless as we all think.’

  Juno, that was a change. Silvia always defended her daughter, even to herself. She looked tired, almost brittle. Ignoring the pins and needles, I stretched out and touched her forearm.

  She looked me full in the face at last. She waved her hand backwards and the two guards left.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said.

  *

  As she left, trailing the hospital director and a load of fussing in her wake, I thought about the difficult place she was in. Her eldest child aimless and in rehabilitation, her former partner, father of her three children, on trial for treason, her cousin and friend incapacitated. All brought about by a new version of the man who had murdered her mother and destroyed her early world. And no wise Aurelia around to guide any of us. But over the fear and the heartache, she had to bolt on a detached, even-handed persona.

  *

  No way was I going to miss the verdict in less than thirty-six hours. I dragged my legs across so I could sit on the edge of the bed. Ten minutes later, after falling over only once, I reached the bathroom, and a mirror.

  My body was a mass of black and yellow blooms, some still red and violet, the skin on my abdomen red and blotched in patches. But my face. Black eyes above parallel deep weals where she’d drawn a metal comb, heated in a blow torch flame, across my right cheek. My swollen lips healing into crooked taut lines revealed the gap in my teeth. Faenia said it could all be repaired once the bruising had receded. Right now I looked like some Gorgon.

  I steadied myself by grabbing onto the basin and glanced at the shower. Another thing where I needed to accept help. I passed my hand over the emergency sensor panel and waited.

  *

  Sertorius was outperforming himself summing up the defence case; he wove together the IS reports, our depositions and testimonies, Nicola’s brutality, her attempts to destroy her sisters, the attack on Quintus. His voice carried without booming, his vowels were oil-smooth as they wrapped themselves around his tongue, his pauses for effect not quite tipping over into pathos. But there was one big fat thing missing – Nicola’s testimony – and the imperial accusatrix leapt on it. She trashed Sertorius’ hard work in two minutes and sat down on her bench with a smug smile.

  When the judges went into a huddle, I stretched my hand out and met Conrad’s halfway as he twisted around.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,‘ he whispered, ‘you need the rest.’ But he smiled at me.

  ‘I have to know where to come and visit you,’ I said and smiled back.

  ‘That bad, you think?’

  ‘I’m so sorry I couldn’t bring her back. You have
no idea how sorry.’

  ‘Don’t.’ He glanced at the judges still conferring. ‘Whatever happens, I will owe you for the rest of my life.’

  I pressed his hand. It was scary to see just how diminished he was. More white had appeared in his hair. Not passing through grey, just straight to white. I wanted to pull him in and hold him.

  The judges separated and the buzz melted. Conrad was called forward, flanked by Sertorius.

  ‘Conradus Mitelus, you are accused of crimen lasae majestatis. Treason is a grave charge with an appropriately severe punishment. We have taken time to consider all the circumstances. It is regrettable that Nicola Sandbrook, previously known as Tella, is not here to be questioned.’ She glanced over at me. ‘The court absolves you of crimen lasae majestatis—’

  Yes.

  Sertorius’ hand patted Conrad’s back. My mouth hurt as I tried to grin. I seized Allegra’s hand and she fell into my hug. Tears rolled down both our faces; mine mostly from pain from the ferocity of Allegra’s hug, but it didn’t matter. Shouts from the audience, a buzz blooming into a deafening roar.

  ‘Silence!’

  The magistrate’s gaze panned around, fierce and commanding, willing the audience to quiet down. What more had she to say? Allegra looked at me, her face frowning. I shook my head at her.

  The magistrate brought her gaze back to Conrad.

  ‘However, we find a probable case of indiligentia majestatis against you. You will be held in custody for a later hearing. This session is closed.’ She stood, nodded at the other judges and disappeared with them through the door at the back.

  *

  ‘What the hell was that about? What does it mean?’ I demanded.

  Conrad had flopped back on to the bench. We clustered around Sertorius, blocking the guards.

  ‘It means,’ Sertorius said, ‘we’re not clear yet. I’ll file an application to transfer to house arrest immediately. Fortuna only knows when they’ll schedule the hearing.’ He laid a hand on Conrad’s shoulder. ‘We’ve cleared the worst. At least you won’t end up in Truscium.’