Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  Tadahito sighed, looking at the sky. Then, instead of answering Marcus he gestured to his men and said mildly, ‘Well, then, take them.’

  And the men stepped forward and pulled Una and Varius into their midst, gripping their arms and hauling them back, closing in front of them so that Marcus could no longer have reached them. As if they had had no warning at all, all three of them gasped with the shock of it. Varius felt his body jolt with reflex protest at being held still, his blood suddenly seeming to scrape against the inside of his veins, as if full of crystals of ice.

  Standing on the pavement below, Marcus sagged as if winded. He raised his voice to plead, ‘I have your promise you won’t let the Romans have them?’ The request sounded thin and helpless to him. He realised that somehow, despite being so conscious of the urgency, he had not expected it would be so abrupt. He had not even kissed Una, or held her, and now she was straining against the guards to keep her face turned towards him, and tears had finally been jarred from her eyes when the men touched her.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tadahito, flatly, turning away and entering the building once more.

  Una called to Marcus, ‘If you can’t come back – if I never see you again—’

  Marcus opened his mouth to assure her blindly, I will come back. But as he looked at her the words seemed to crumple, and he knew he would be cheating her if he spoke them, that it was cowardly to try and palm off a hope as a certainty. He met her eyes and told her instead, although he hardly knew what he was going to say until he heard it, ‘Then – I don’t know what you’ll do. But I know you won’t waste your life. You mustn’t. You matter too much, you are too much. And not only to me.’

  Una felt her lips move, but she seemed to have no air to get out a sound. ‘I …’ she breathed painfully, as they drew her back like a tide, too quietly for him to hear her, even if she’d managed, in time, to say ‘I love you’.

  At the top of the steps Varius braced himself for a second against the propelling mass, resisting long enough to look back and say, with willed calmness, ‘Goodbye, Marcus.’

  Marcus gazed up at him speechlessly and, in Varius’ last sight of him as the Roman soldiers advanced, before he himself was jostled inside, he looked utterly horrified.

  Marcus stared at the empty doorway and, dully hoping that from behind it would not be obvious what the gesture meant, drew the back of his hand across his eyes. He turned to the Roman officers and told them bluntly, ‘I’m all you’re getting. Let’s go.’

  But he had no more power left, of course, and they must know it too; he could not manage more than the shabbiest imitation of it now. He ducked his head when, finally, the soldiers accepted what had happened and began to march, as more appalled tears simmered blindingly in his eyes. He could not keep them in check; there were too many.

  The reasons for the decision remained, it was not really that he had changed his mind: surely it could not have been better to let them come with him back to Rome. And yet that did not save him now from being devastated at what he had done. He’d meant to protect them, and perhaps he had, but what did the intention matter if what he’d actually committed was utter betrayal? And he had taken the risk knowingly. If Kato’s assassin was indeed Roman, if the Nionians suspected Una and Varius knew and were withholding anything – oh, in the gods’ name what had he given them up to? Were the Nionians any gentler than the Romans?

  They came to the courtyard again. A cloak, or something, had been draped over Kato’s body, but it still lay there, with one of his men sitting cross-legged and straight-backed beside it, his head lowered. The memory of the Nionian princess floated past Marcus, like something unreal – was it really true that only minutes before he’d been hearing he was supposed to marry her? He couldn’t believe it.

  The chaos had subsided, but Marcus could not summon any curiosity about what had happened. It seemed the tiniest mercy that Drusus was nowhere in sight, his Praetorians, presumably, were not yet confident it was safe enough. So at least Drusus was not going to see him in this defeated state. When the shots had sounded and they had both been slammed down, Marcus was sure that under the defensive heap of the guards’ bodies, he’d seen his cousin looking back at him along the ground, fixed, elated, despite the violence around them, in the air.

  And so he’d decided what to do. Yet he was leaving Una in the same city as Drusus, as if the fact that he’d turned her over to Rome’s enemy were not enough.

  It was at this point that Marcus noticed that he had been promising himself, quite unthinkingly, that if he did regain power after this, and if he found that the Nionians had laid a finger on her or on Varius, he would have Salvius stamp Cynoto out of existence, bomb it into mud. He recoiled from himself with a start of alarmed amazement. How was this unfamiliar self qualified to judge what was safe for anyone?

  He let the soldiers lead him to a car. His overloaded brain spared him any images of Una and Varius and the worst happening to them. But the facts banged there like a concussion, or a splinter of fractured bone lodged in tissue – something that should, at the least, have caused unconsciousness, for which, as Drusus was not there to see it, Marcus would almost have been grateful.

  LADY WITHOUT SORROWS

  ‘Her Imperial Majesty says, “Who knows why the Nionians do anything?”’ the interpreter informed Drusus gravely, after the loathsome old woman finished speaking. Drusus tried not to scowl in frustration. Junosena sat perched on her broad, yellow throne, encased in a sarcophagus of jewelled clothes like a horrible mummified doll. A fine gauze curtain hung between them, which – although it scarcely obscured her at all, along with the fact that the conversation had to be further sieved through the interpreter – kept giving Drusus the dangerous illusion that she was not really there, that he was talking invisibly into a longdictor, and that she was somehow unable to see him.

  He said, ‘They are Roman citizens. Well, the man is a citizen. In any case they are both Romans, they belong to Rome and Rome requires them. The Nionians must give them over.’

  Junosena launched into a headlong, impassioned diatribe under which the interpreter flinched and stammered out hurriedly, ‘The Empress says you seem to be under a misapprehension that Sina is somehow a province of the Nionian Empire. You have mistaken the Grand Empress for a Nionian servant. She – she says, “Not in my lifetime.”’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Drusus impatiently. ‘I intended no such insult, as I am sure you are aware. If the Nionians would respond reasonably I wouldn’t have to trouble you. But the two … suspects are still in Bianjing, in your palace. They cannot be more than a few hundred yards away at this moment. The Nionians are your guests and their custody of these people is completely illegitimate. They must be compelled to hand them back.’

  The residue of his earlier exhilaration still remained in him, brushing against the inside of his skin, still gently electrifying, but he was growing badly worried, too. The Nionians had retreated into austere, sad intransigence, shut up in their quarters apparently mourning Lord Kato, and in their sparse answers to his demands would only express bleak incredulity that the Romans could freely offer two hostages one moment and call for their return the next.

  Jun Shen kicked her little feet irritably against her throne. ‘I am not in any mood for this,’ she commented crossly. ‘I thought I was receiving another Roman prince and his escort, now instead I have a small army rioting in my palace, the bodies of some of my guests are defiling my courtyard, and others have been – disappeared.’

  ‘The term “prince” is not really appropriate, to Romans,’ remarked Drusus, but Weigi, the interpreter, left this diplomatically untranslated. Jun Shen waited, listening and watching and thinking how dissonant and uncouth a language Latin was, as the young man continued talking.

  ‘He sympathises, Your Majesty,’ Weigi told her, finally. ‘But he points out that he has just been the victim of an attempt on his life. That this is not a situation either you or he would have expected or wished for.’
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br />   Jun Shen raised her eyebrows and leant forward a little. ‘You think the Nionian lord was killed by mistake?’

  Drusus listened to the translation and replied, ‘Of course.’

  ‘What a very bad shot the murderer must have been, in that case.’

  ‘One of our soldiers was wounded,’ Drusus reminded her, unperturbed. ‘I have been very fortunate.’

  Jun Shen sat and contemplated him for a while through the gauze that separated the private female province to which she still theoretically belonged, from the open, masculine world. ‘Yes,’ she agreed at last, musingly. ‘You seem to have assumed all Novius Leo’s power, you survive an assassination attempt unscathed, while one of Nionia’s principal warlords is killed. You have been very fortunate. Although some might consider it a misfortune that your good luck in other things should provoke a war. But perhaps others would not.’

  Drusus let his eyes rest lightly on the surface of the curtain that separated them as he considered how to respond. ‘Either war or peace will be an opportunity to serve my country,’ he said evenly.

  The Empress pursed clotted scarlet lips. ‘Some opportunities become less attractive when you get to my age,’ she grunted, rather morosely, although she maintained her narrow-eyed watch on Drusus. ‘There is a great deal most of us cannot attain without time and experience – for example, rank unpopularity. Yet here you are, so new to public life, and you say your own people already follow you halfway across the world to try and shoot you. A sad thing, for someone so young. Although I would still rather be you than the Nionian gentleman who bumbles into the way.’

  ‘It depends what you mean by our people,’ said Drusus, doing his best not to be provoked by any of this. ‘Are you aware of how many Roman outlaws and slaves have settled illegally in the East over the last decade, most of them in your country? They obviously consider it a soft touch.’

  ‘Of course I am aware of it!’ Jun Shen bounced a little on her seat, needled. The fringe of gold and coral flowers on her swan-shaped coiffure jingled, and a rich gust of perfume welled from her. ‘Nothing happens in Sina that I am not aware of!’

  ‘Yet you tolerate them.’

  ‘If Rome cannot be bothered to keep track of its own, it cannot expect me to do the job for it. As for the immigrants, they’ve always seemed harmless, and some of them are useful. Well. There they are. What have they got against you?’

  ‘Plainly they are not harmless. And this is not a pleasant matter to discuss with an outsider, but you know already that it is not due to concern for the safety of either Varius or the freedwoman Una that I cannot tolerate the Nionians’ detention of them. These people have been a dangerous and corrupting influence on my cousin Novius Leo, and they have sought, shall we say, to have me removed in the past. This is why we did not wish them to know of my arrival in advance. However, they had agents and allies in the Palace, and it would seem we have not been successful in uncovering all of them.’

  This was almost true. Sulien had vanished too thoroughly not to have been alerted by someone, and he knew now who it must have been. He and Salvius had constructed a morass of restrictions on communications at the Palace, to prevent anyone from warning Marcus. Finally, but too late, Makaria had managed to dodge through them: in Marcus’ rooms, Drusus’ men had just found the frantic longscript message she had succeeded in transmitting, an hour after Drusus’ arrival in Bianjing. Drusus was not yet certain how to act on this. As long as Faustus lived, there would be a limit to what he could do about her.

  ‘The girl, at least, must have been warned and taken steps to protect herself. And she and Varius have longstanding criminal connections, which she must have made use of. A gang of fanatics and murderers who used to be based in the Pyrenees, who are, it seems, now among the illegal Roman presence in Sina.’ He gestured and an attendant slave came forward to hand Lal’s crumpled letter to one of the silent eunuchs. ‘A letter to her from one of them.’

  ‘Oh, I have seen it,’ said the Empress, dismissively, waving it away. ‘I had it translated last night. I was interested to know that Novius Leo’s concubine was from such a humble background, otherwise there didn’t seem much to it. Doesn’t the Persian girl specifically mention that she has not been in contact with the other young woman?’

  ‘Yes she does, and all the more reason to believe the reverse is true. And it may contain any number of hidden messages we don’t know how to read,’ said Drusus, steadily.

  Jun Shen kicked her feet and huffed again, but less violently than before, thinking. Then her bloody little mouth twisted into a smile. Drusus thought it looked horrific. She said, in unprecedentedly sweet tones, ‘If you are telling me that either this man or this young woman was involved in Lord Kato’s death, you can hardly be surprised that the Nionians are unwilling to give them up.’

  Drusus glanced away, reminding himself of how much, against what odds, he had achieved already, to prevent his face convulsing with anger. He looked directly at the timorous interpreter for the first time and said curtly, ‘This is important. Shouldn’t Emperor Florens be dealing with this?’

  There was a scandalised pause. A few of the eunuchs standing mutely about the room evidently knew enough Latin for this to make them catch their breath in alarm. ‘The Grand Empress has spared the Son of Heaven … the distractions of worldly government ever since he was a child,’ the interpreter hissed in pained, weak horror. ‘She allows him to dedicate his energy to … spiritual exertion. To tending the higher welfare of the country.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Drusus irritably. Power-grabbing old hag, he thought, eyeing Junosena. After a moment’s speculation he had guessed, accurately, that ‘spiritual exertion’ meant play among the wives and concubines, who were apparently practically infinite in number. The word ‘decadence’ sounded clearly in Drusus’ mind.

  Jun Shen had watched this exchange and scowled and clucked and sighed. ‘I suppose he dislikes dealing with a woman?’ she inquired jadedly, swinging her head cynically towards Weigi and lolling a little as she sat.

  ‘No, no, Your Majesty—’

  But the Empress had uttered a bored, loud groan, and was already ignoring Weigi again, talking fast, straight at the foreigner as if he could understand. ‘Now listen to me,’ she said. ‘Rome and Sina may not be enemies. And absence of hostility may be as close to friendship as can exist between two Empires. We can both see that if your cousin had handed these people over to me, and if you told me that did not represent Rome’s wishes, I suppose I would have had to give them up. He must have known that when he made his choice. An enemy does not have such obligations. But my obligations only go a certain way. You are not in the Roman Empire here, any more than the Nionian. The Nionians are my guests, as you say. So are you. And while they are here, so long as they break none of my laws, I will not interfere with theirs. What becomes of these two people is a matter for you and them. This much concerns me: a man has been murdered, in my country, in my palace. I do not sit and ignore such things. The killer appears to be Roman, whatever we consider that term to mean. You wish me to believe he was nothing to do with you, I am sure your cousin Novius Leo would say the same thing. Well then. My police will investigate him. If immigrants were involved, we will deal with it. You may be right in this much, we may have been too lenient to them. But they are my business now.’ She gestured at Lal’s letter, still held by a nervous eunuch. ‘As the girl says, they are not Roman citizens, are they?’

  She had anticipated Drusus’ next demand, which was that the fugitives, particularly the girl and her father and the Sinoan woman Ziye, must be delivered into Roman hands. From the moment of reading the letter he had seen what use he might, in a pinch, make of them, that they could almost take the place of Una and Varius, should he really be unable to retrieve them. It was true – they were not citizens, they had no rights. Anything could be done to them, quite openly. No bending or dodging of the law would even be necessary, in order to force the kind of statement he needed out of them.<
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  Yet he sensed the uselessness, for the moment at least, of pushing the old bitch to do anything she was set against. So he said only, courteously, ‘Well, I am sure we will discuss individual cases, when it comes to that.’

  Drusus left the audience hall, and from the steps outside, he looked out at Bianjing. He had never been out of the Roman Empire before, and every second he stood on Sinoan ground an unclear sense of something jarring and wrong seemed to palpitate in the warm air. Of course, it was primarily the profound difference of this small, low-lying, enamelled city, with its dragons on the glassy roofs and its slightly built, uniformly black-haired inhabitants. And yet, in a strange way, it was also that it was not alien enough; that despite the green bambu woods, despite the huge, brown, sky-brimming flood of the Yellow River outside the city, some of the countryside he’d travelled through had not looked so different from wet flat European fields, or stark moorlands. It was that the sunlight made no acknowledging change when it touched this subtly unacceptable place. It was a bone-deep incredulity that all this vast land could be, and not be Roman.

  He ordered the slave to fetch his car, and sat leaning back against the seat’s smooth back, across which the eagle spread its gold wings. He looked out at the square, satiny lake scrolling past, as the car crossed the flat white bridge. Through the Roman glass of his window, the city was more palatable, more meekly interesting: Drusus could watch it with touristic curiosity, remote and yet faintly proprietary.

  In front and behind, of course, defensive Praetorian cars enclosed his own. But inside, sitting uneasily opposite him in response to his summons, was the centurion who’d apprehended Marcus and the others.

  At length he said, ‘May I ask where we’re going, Your Highness?’

  ‘Nowhere. We are seeing the sights,’ said Drusus companionably. He had wanted to get out of the Palace, and also it had seemed to him that the instructions he needed to give would be safer in the privacy of a moving car, away from any listening devices or human spies.