Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  Beside her Marcus was motionless, his eyes fixed sightlessly on the water. She put her arm round him and he looked at her, but he didn’t speak, all the short journey round the little coast.

  A twist of white steps led up from a small quay. Stepping into the coolness of the low house at the base of the vineyard and from the white-and-blue glare outside, Una and Marcus were, for a little while, almost blind. Una’s self-consciousness was slightly eased by the fact that Makaria, out on the hill somewhere, had not yet been retrieved, but the woman who let them in was a slave, and yes, it was true, she did not seem at all unhappy, and Una did not know how to look at her or what to say. Almost immediately she and Marcus were separated; the Praetorians hurried him into Makaria’s study and shut the door before Marcus could protest that this was not what he wanted, and once inside, he was fixed, staring at the longdictor, and could not bring himself to order them to let her in, or to do it himself.

  They were a few horrible minutes early.

  Outside, Una stood on the white tiles, as aware of him behind the door as if she could see him, and yet she felt she could not force herself through into the room, although she wanted to, although she knew he wanted her there.

  The house was so plain inside that she was surprised it could belong to an Emperor’s daughter. There were no frescoes, the small tiles formed no pattern or picture; the atrium was stark, handsome, and slightly dirty from the scuffing of boots. She was nagged by the fear that Makaria, still innocent of what was happening, would come back and find her lingering there, alone.

  She heard Marcus beginning to speak, and could not make out the words – but she felt the stroke of shock that fell on him. It happened to her too, at the same moment.

  Then he walked out of the room towards her, pale – the tan did not show how pale – and she asked at once, ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ said Marcus. ‘No, he’s not dead. But he can’t do anything. It was a stroke. He might never – I’ve got to go back and—’ There was a plain black-painted chair against the wall, he dropped onto it suddenly.

  He wanted to be Emperor, both for the sake of what he meant to do, and – inseparable from that – an amoral, secret and contained desire for the power itself, which frightened him a little. If the waiting had gone on for twenty years or more, as it might have done – and perhaps it still could – he must have come to prickly impatience in the end, as Leo had, however fond he was of Faustus. But so soon as this—

  He was trying so hard, as he sat there, not even to admit the risk that one way or another this was going to cost him Una. He was afraid to look at her and see her fearing this, suspecting that he feared it, or knowing that he did.

  He was afraid to let himself moan, even once, ‘I can’t do this.’

  Una, still immobile, suggested, ‘They should get Sulien.’

  ‘It’s all right, they have,’ he said blankly. He stared downward. ‘I just – I thought we’d have more time.’ And he looked up at her and began fervently, ‘I mean, more time in Greece, time before anything like this, not—’

  ‘I know,’ she interrupted quickly. But she wished he would not look at her like that, as if she were relentlessly receding from him. She went and enclosed his head in her arms.

  ‘There could be a war,’ he said. ‘The Wall’s been broken through. It happened today. I’m going to have to decide what to do. Or let Salvius decide. Of course he knows more than I do. But I can’t do that – he’d kill so many people.’

  ‘Well,’ murmured Una sternly into his hair, ‘of course I’m not glad for you, or for your uncle, but I am glad for everyone else that you’ll be the one accountable; because you’re good.’

  Marcus blinked and embraced her in a kind of spasm, pressing a hard imprecise kiss onto her face, then clutched her thinking, no. No. No.

  At that moment Makaria trudged in, sunburnt and gawky and far shabbier than Una, and yet over her unkempt clothes she wore an unconscious garment of Novian confidence, and so still looked like the aristocrat she was. She saw Una and Marcus locked in each other’s arms, felt a moment’s faint and unpleasant surprise that Una was there, and then said, ‘It’s Daddy,’ and rushed into the room Marcus had left.

  *

  It was as if an invisible mechanism that had been held forcibly still was suddenly released and began to move with merciless speed. Makaria wept, and ran upstairs to pack clothes, and came down, looking half-tamed in a city dress. There was no need, and no time, for Marcus to pack or change the Palace had already dispatched a squad of Praetorians to empty the Athens flat, the trunks they filled would be in Rome within days, and there was nothing in the meantime Marcus could need that the Palace could not instantly acquire for him. Una and Marcus thought of the flat ransacked, and felt at once invaded and guilty, as though the rooms were full of secrets and evidence of crimes. Una offered to go and see to it, but Marcus said, ‘No, they’re only things. Don’t go.’

  She was afraid that they would be whisked apart again, and after what had happened before, Marcus was staying stubbornly close to her to prevent it; but in fact the rush was, just in this, kind to them: it was too fast for anyone to try to decide she should be somewhere else. Makaria, hurrying out into the vineyard and back, instructing her staff, ignored her without malice or intention – having genuinely forgotten about her. Only when they went outside did she become aware of Una again, and looked at her with wet-eyed bewilderment and a polite, reflexive smile.

  The little island was helpless under an attacking sky full of aircraft, large and shining and inexorable. On the flanks of each, the image of an eagle spread triumphant metallic wings, blinding in this sharp light, above the letters S.P.Q.R: The Senate and the People of Rome. They roared down, like huge locusts, churning the hot air, so that birds panicked up from the trees and the seagulls fled crying, over the sea.

  Una and Marcus both felt their breath catch.

  The machines hung, roaring. There was no room for more than one to land, so men plunged out of them on ropes, surrounding the place – surrounding Marcus. It might have been an invasion, the lightning assassination of some foreign potentate or rebel warlord.

  Una murmured, trying to joke, ‘We could still run.’

  Marcus laughed, but said grimly, ‘No.’ He set his shoulders, as the central volucer lowered, and their hair rose and streamed.

  The volucer’s harsh grandeur diminished slightly as it settled, a little awkwardly, on the dusty yard behind Makaria’s house. Although Makaria could have had a landing bay on the island, she hadn’t wanted one. She too winced at the sight of this military influx, but because of the damage she feared the blast from the wings had done to her plants. She muttered sourly, ‘Stupid thugs. No one thinks.’

  Glycon was standing in the hatchway, strained and ruffled by the journey, his limp fair hair fluttering. ‘Glycon,’ said Marcus, while he was still climbing the steps, Una following him in the continuing torrent of lashed air. ‘Are there decisions I have to make at once?’

  Inside, the volucer was lined with fat, cream-coloured seats, and there were gold crests embossed on the internal doors; yet the attempt to translate the magnificence of a Palace room to a narrow and airborne space had not been perfectly successful. The large furniture looked cramped, and almost cheap, although of course it was not.

  To Marcus’ surprise, Salvius was also there, at the far end of the chamber. Marcus assumed he must be going to tell him more about what had happened on the Wall. But Glycon was looking at Marcus with anxious pity, handing him a sheet of paper. ‘There is something that has to be done, even before that.’

  Marcus stopped with the page in his hand and, for a moment, could not seem to take in what it was: the text was hastily printed in plain, smudgy black, although the edges of the paper were rimmed with gold. It was a short script. He realised now what Salvius was stiffly holding: a polished wooden box and, on top of it, a bundle of rods around an axe, or rather the bronze replica of such a thing: the rods insepara
ble, the curved axehead small and ornamented and useless. And yet it looked dangerous – because it could have looked slightly absurd, because it was a symbol rather than a tool. Marcus knew why Salvius was here now – what he could say about Nionia was incidental: he was representing the army.

  A quiet vertigo touched Marcus, as the volucer lifted.

  ‘Sit down,’ said Salvius.

  Marcus obeyed, warily: Salvius affected the same defensive instinct in him as in Faustus, it was only that it urged Marcus to look older, not younger. He could guess how Salvius would regret giving up what he held.

  Una watched Salvius, also feeling a prickle of threat, as the green island dropped away from beneath her. As they entered the volucer Salvius had stared at Marcus with mixed feelings that resolved into near-disgust when he saw that Marcus had his little girlfriend along with him. He had noticed her retreating into one of the seats at the rear, with what he thought of as a kind of demure shiftiness. She was looking at him.

  Una sat by the window, masked her face with guarded blankness and, mechanically, worked a quick, cold-blooded calculation. Glycon had met her before, and did not mind her presence; Marcus, of course, wanted her here; Makaria might have sided with Salvius but was, for now at least, subdued with anxiety about Faustus. So you are outnumbered, thought Una to Salvius, and relaxed a little.

  But Salvius was teeming painfully with frustration and smothered power, the little devious-looking girl was the smallest part of the problem. Marcus’ face made him remember Leo with affection and sorrow, and smart at the thought of what a disaster Leo would have been as Emperor. He knew that he could, almost certainly, stop this from happening – and he must not, he was not a traitor. Or was he? What if it were treachery not to act, to hand Rome over to a boy at such a moment? Would they, afterwards, say, ‘If Salvius had moved, then …’? Or would the ruin be so comprehensive that he would be drowned in it, and barely remembered at all?

  He and Marcus sat facing each other across a polished shelf of table and Salvius demanded, as if he were interrogating Marcus, ‘Do you promise to govern Rome and her Empire, on behalf of the People and the Senate?’

  ‘I promise this,’ replied Marcus, as the script said he should.

  Salvius picked up the bronze fasces, weighed it unhappily, and put it into Marcus’ hands.

  ‘Do you promise to uphold the rights and privileges of the Roman people established in custom and law?’

  ‘I will uphold them.’

  After glancing across it, Marcus didn’t really need the script any longer; his part was simple enough and he felt safer and stronger when he was able to look Salvius in the eyes. Laying it down, he looked up and saw that for the first time the expression of distress or of distrustful blankness had left Una’s face and she was staring – at Salvius, at himself, at the items that passed between them – with a curiosity so disconcertingly avid that she looked almost ecstatic.

  Salvius nodded and removed from the box a smaller, more ornate ebony chest which he opened, swivelled to face Marcus, and pushed to him across the table.

  Inside were packed rows of wooden tubes or cylinders, some plainly labelled, some darkly painted with gods, or hunting scenes, or with an enthroned Emperor. They were cases of rolled documents. Most were probably defunct and meaningless, only there because their presence had become traditional – the texts of religious rites, old prophecies – but some of the newer ones must be real and important secrets: the military codes to be used if, for example, an Emperor ever needed to order an attack on part of the Empire itself.

  Marcus touched them lightly, as if they might give off electric shocks.

  ‘Do you promise, as far as lies within you, to execute the law with justice, compassion and truth?’ said Salvius, quietly appealing now, for it was far too late to go back.

  ‘I promise to do this,’ repeated Marcus.

  From the box, Salvius lifted a square of gold-fringed cloth. He undid the folding carefully, a layer at a time, until the Imperial seal-ring was visible, resting on his palm.

  Somehow, despite the script, despite the fact that he could have predicted all of this, Marcus was genuinely startled by every new phase of the ritual, as though he were watching a developing magic trick done with knives. The appearance of the ring almost made him jump. ‘I will perform what I have promised, in the name of the gods,’ he said, calmly enough.

  He took the ring. The gold was dark, sullen-coloured. It seemed huge and unwieldy: both the drum-shaped boss, with the stern Eagle and laurel impressed upon it, and the band itself, widened for a heavy man’s finger, so that putting it on he felt shamefully slight, almost childlike. He curled his right hand into a fist; only so, or by holding his hand out flat and balancing it, could he keep the ring from swinging upside down, or sliding off altogether. This way it was almost like a small piece of armour for the hand, or a weapon, to reinforce a punch.

  ‘The Roman army acclaims you as Caesar and Regent, and implores the gods to grant you health and victory,’ said Salvius tersely. He bowed; an uncomfortable forward jerk of the shoulders, and sat back.

  Glycon also bowed, and there was silence. Marcus sat, trying not to submit to the threatening dazed feeling, wondering what he was supposed to do with the box of scrolls and the fasces. Except where Salvius had said ‘Regent’ and not ‘Emperor’, the words were exactly those of a coronation, although that would never have happened in such furtive, pared-down haste. The gold laurel wreath was not there.

  ‘It will be altered later this evening,’ said Glycon, of the ring. ‘It’s important that you do a broadcast quickly; you’ll need it to fit for that.’

  ‘Is it necessary that he wear it?’ asked Salvius, discontentedly. ‘He’s not taking the wreath. This is supposed to be temporary, isn’t it? Nominally at least.’

  Marcus, again, suppressed a small jolt of shock.

  ‘It can be altered back again,’ said Glycon mildly.

  Marcus did not want them to continue discussing him like another item of the insignia. He said, ‘Tell me about Nionia.’

  *

  Later, during a lull for food and wine, he slid into the seat beside Una, and they linked fingertips, covertly. But the captivated way she’d watched the ceremony had unsettled him a little. She said, ‘I couldn’t help it.’ Then, stealthily, afraid that she might be forbidden to touch it, she made a quick move to the table and seized upon the script of the oath with the same predatory fascination with which she’d listened to it. ‘I was thinking about agreement,’ she told him.

  ‘Agreement?’ echoed Marcus. He felt tired.

  ‘What changed when you said that? What do those words do? That man, Salvius, it’s as if he expected it to be a spell. But …’ She tapped the paper. ‘Nothing’s any different. Anyone could say this. We aren’t even in Rome. There’s hardly anyone here to hear you.’ Very softly, so that Salvius, Glycon and Makaria would not hear her, she recited: ‘I promise to govern Rome and her Empire.’ And she raised her face, faintly sardonic, as if waiting for something to happen. ‘It doesn’t mean anything when I say it. Why does it when you do? Only because it’s agreed to mean something. But who agreed to it, then? On one hand, very few people. But if consent is having the power to prevent it but allowing it to happen, then everyone …’

  ‘Oh,’ said Marcus. ‘I hope they give me a week before they start the revolution, this is enough for today.’ He too had wondered, what is this doing to me, what am I doing to myself?

  ‘And then there’s the army,’ added Una, looking at Salvius.

  ‘Don’t put ideas in his head,’ protested Marcus, with a forced laugh.

  ‘It will be all right. It will,’ she said. If she kissed him, she knew that Salvius would think him weak. She closed her hand over the finger that wore the loose gold ring, as if smoothing a small burn.

  *

  For a long time Marcus listened to Salvius neutrally, almost without speaking. But after only a few seconds of this quiet, Salvius was sure
that if Marcus had any instinctive feeling of what was necessary, then there must have been some sign of it by now. He overheard Glycon giving Marcus the gist of Faustus’ conversation with Tadahito – as it were behind Salvius’ back – and felt conspired against. He found he was trying to pound agreement out of Marcus, or at least provoke him into declaring his own folly. His voice rose helplessly louder. It was like shouting into a ravine for a non-existent echo.

  And the girl kept eavesdropping. Aside from his disapproval of her presence, he found the sense of a second, unacknowledged audience simply disconcerting. She and Marcus had separated strategically again, but they were still palpably in silent league and Salvius could not keep his eyes both on her and on Marcus at once. If, as of course he must, he ignored the girl and focused on Marcus, he could not conquer the feeling that he was exposed on the other flank. He almost felt that if he looked around at her quickly he would catch her with a pen in her hand, taking down critical notes, like some kind of inspector.

  Marcus waited until the hard spots of light on the Golden House and the Colosseum became visible, and the patterns of Rome spread beneath them, in intricate grids like fanning columns of Sinoan characters. Then he said, ‘Salvius, I know what you want done. And I can see you’ve already guessed that I don’t agree with you; so that might as well be said. I’m not going to order any attack. I want to meet the Nionians. I think it could happen in Sina.’

  He had spent a minute or two constructing this speech. He was fairly sure his voice balanced the warning that Salvius must not hector him any more with enough sorrow that they could not agree, but he hoped it did not sound absurd to use such a tone on someone so much older than him – and taller also, and not dressed, as Marcus still was, in loose informal clothes meant for hanging around by the sea.

  Salvius swivelled his head, jaw-first, from side to side, stretching the neck muscles, as if preparing to shoulder his way through a hostile crowd or break down a door. He explained, carefully, heavily, ‘Of course you’re reluctant to take such a step – but so am I, I promise you. No one with any experience of war would ever want to start one without reason. But we have let them go too far already. If we don’t stop them now they are certain to go further. It’s unfortunate that we weren’t more decisive about this in the past, then perhaps you wouldn’t be in this position now. But you are.’ But he felt a kind of release that Marcus had spoken at last.