Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  ‘You’re a very reassuring person to be locked up with,’ Varius said, and they looked at each other and found themselves helpless with febrile laughter. Una had barely seen Varius even smile before now, and yet the more unfitting and bizarre it seemed to be laughing in these circumstances, the more they couldn’t stop.

  When they could speak again, Varius explained, ‘They know I’m Marcus’ advisor, but I’m not a general, am I? Anything I know would probably only hold for the first few weeks of the war. And the Prince has spent all this time working with us. After that I don’t think he would willingly allow – torture.’ He did think this was true, but he also thought he would raise the likelihood by saying it, if Tadahito were indeed listening to this conversation.

  Una was quiet for a little while. Finally she asked, ‘Would they kill us?’

  Even if he had been sure he could do so successfully, he wouldn’t have lied to her now. ‘If they were losing, maybe, in the last stages.’

  Una sighed and dropped her head onto her arms, thinking how long it seemed since she had seen her brother. There was a small catch of nausea in the back of her throat. Sulien too was not safe from Drusus. At least, she could not be sure he was safe, and no one who came into these few rooms would be able to tell her. She wondered if he had any way of knowing where she was.

  ‘I’m not saying that’s what will happen,’ said Varius. ‘Don’t tell anyone I said this if we make it back to Rome, but it’s not as if a Roman victory is guaranteed. Maybe we can help Marcus run a puppet government. Might be all right.’

  She smiled again, despite herself. But she said, ‘However it ends, it’s going to start now. It will happen before Marcus even reaches Rome. Drusus will threaten them. I can’t believe it’ll take him longer than another two days. It could be in the next hour. And the Nionians will attack first. There will be nothing for Marcus to come back to, even if he could. We can’t just sit in here and wait. And it seems like there’s nothing we can do, but there must be something, we’ve got to make there be something.’

  ‘I told the Prince he should stall Drusus as much as he can,’ said Varius. ‘Ignore him, even. I told him everything Drusus has done. I said he should carry on talking to us – to me, try and come up with something. He said that Drusus is the one with the power to direct Rome’s actions, which is reasonable.’

  ‘We’ve got to do something about that, then,’ said Una. But she struck a fist against the seat beside her in frustration. ‘Oh, I wish I hadn’t been a slave. I wish I knew more.’

  ‘What do you wish you knew?’ interjected Varius, calmly.

  Una looked first at him, and then into space, thinking. At last she answered, ‘About the Sinoan Empress.’

  *

  Fine rain dashed against Noriko’s face, under the broad silk umbrellas her servants carried as they crossed the courtyard. The screenbearers either side of them hid Noriko’s finery from no one in particular. She wore her best, most pointedly Nionian clothes: long, layered, multi-coloured sleeves hanging to the ground, loose ribbons of gold silk restraining her hair. She turned her face anxiously to one of the maids to have the droplets blotted carefully from her make-up, a strand of moistened hair smoothed down. Heavier than usual, the sensation of the cosmetics on her skin comforted her. Beneath it her features seemed controlled gently into an expression of serene composure, like a face painted on a vase. As far as possible, she wanted to look unrecognisable as the girl in dark cotton caught prowling around the pavilions with a telescope in her hand.

  She’d received a folded note in Latin the evening before, asking her to come to Una’s quarters that night, after the hostages had been separated. Curiosity had made her go, even though no one could have forced her. She understood that much about her own actions; she was less sure why she felt so driven now to carry out what Una had asked her, told her to do.

  She had begun, instinctively, by saying she could not, that it was impossible.

  And Una had said, putting a decisive hand over hers, ‘So far, nothing that you’ve told me you couldn’t do has really been beyond you.’

  Many times since, waking repeatedly during the night, Noriko had gone over this, and the effect it had had on her. Did it really amount to any more than self-congratulation on how well she had managed to manipulate Noriko already? And did any of the small prevarications, the small trades and concessions of information Noriko had made so far, compare with this? It was probably profoundly incorrect to have anything further to do with Una, much less allow herself to be influenced by her. Una was significantly younger than she was, too, even if it were acceptable to disregard the matter of her class.

  And yet, every time she reminded herself that she need do nothing but wait in her quarters, forget that either conversation had ever taken place, and never see Una again, that voice and that phrase repeated firmly in her mind.

  A party of Sinoan councillors came out from the eastern audience hall to meet her, and they acknowledged each other coolly. The chamber they led her to was smaller and more modern than the grand throne room in which Drusus had met the Empress; much of the furniture – small ebony tables, and scrolled marble couches where no one ever sat – was plainly Roman, although every inch of satin padding the seats, hanging from the walls, was the Imperial primrose yellow.

  Her attendants stepped aside, and Noriko bowed impassively with conscious, queenly grace. She straightened again as the Empress, who seemed to fill the room with her crimson and peach-coloured clothes and her presence, looked down at her with precisely the smile of sardonic glee that Noriko had anticipated.

  ‘So, you turn up again,’ she said.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ said Noriko gravely, as if she had no idea what the Empress was talking about. She was aware of confusion flickering across the faces of the silent eunuchs and ladies standing attendance around the room. Worse, others smiled with what looked like discreet amusement, as if they understood.

  ‘You look very elegant, Princess. Are you always such an ornament to your country and your station?’

  Noriko lowered her eyelids carefully and concentrated on not writhing with embarrassment. ‘My brother the Prince has given me permission to come and thank you for your hospitality. Today the elder Roman prince set us an ultimatum we cannot tolerate. So, it will all come to an end, and I will have to return home. I would like to present you with a few gifts in farewell.’

  Sinoan came much more easily to her than Latin, although it was a strain holding two foreign languages at such close proximity in her head. A twitch, that might have been a smirk at her pronunciation or some other mistake, pulled at Jun Shen’s mouth; however Noriko saw how gloom gathered over the whited face.

  ‘These are nothing, really, but please accept them,’ said Noriko, gesturing for her maids to came forward and spread the gifts before the Empress. Fans, robes, carved combs, all to gather dust somewhere, as both of them knew.

  ‘Charming,’ the Empress murmured flatly, managing to smile and nod listlessly at the things. Her gaze had turned sad and introspective, and as the will to torment Noriko faded, she visibly lost awareness of her even being there.

  ‘My brother does not know why I am really here,’ said Noriko quietly.

  A greedy flash of interest brightened the Empress’ face: her eyebrows skipped up, her head cocked to one side. She looked so lively with expectation that for a moment Noriko felt almost fond of her.

  ‘I think you should talk with the two Roman hostages,’ she said.

  They had brought a longvision into the room. Una sat close to it with the sound turned low, managing to keep part of her mind fascinated by the swooning Sinoan melodrama on the screen, sometimes even convincing herself she could understand what the characters were saying.

  Behind her, lying stretched on the window seat, Varius sighed and shifted. ‘I was asleep,’ he murmured, to himself rather than to her, sounding faintly incredulous.

  ‘Not for very long,’ Una said. She was sure this was more or
less the first time he’d slept since this began. Even now she could usually force at least a few hours’ unconsciousness out of each night before she woke in the dark, with her brain clicking along terribly like an automatic loom, manufacturing thoughts she couldn’t bear. There was still no news of Marcus. There could not be any news of Sulien.

  Varius’ eyes closed again, inexorably, as though dark fingers were holding the eyelids down. He felt distantly surprised at how the straining pressure suspended in the walls of the room had faded; he supposed he was just too tired to feel it any more. It was as if the lid of a box had been lifted an inch or two, letting in the air. He said, ‘Una. There’s something we haven’t talked about.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What you’re doing …’ He paused. ‘What we are doing. It’s treason. It could be seen as treason.’

  Had she considered this herself, had she known he was thinking it? Apparently not, for she jolted round to look at him, and she laughed, a bleak, startled sound. ‘Well, who will see it as treason? Marcus wouldn’t. And if Drusus gets hold of us, we’re in the frame for that anyway, or something like it, aren’t we? They can only kill us once.’

  ‘The consequences for us aren’t the only reason to think about it,’ said Varius.

  ‘No,’ she admitted. The complicated amusement on her face died away. She said, ‘But I have, I do. And I think it would be treason not to do the one thing we can think of. There must be such a thing as treason to the whole world, mustn’t there? I’ve never really thought of myself as Roman.’

  ‘I have,’ Varius said, his voice a little remote.

  ‘You aren’t disagreeing.’

  ‘No. I only think people should know the possible names of the things they do.’

  Una nodded. After a while she smiled again, drily, and said, ‘Treason. That’s good, we can use that.’

  Varius’ questioning look at her faded as his eyelids weighed helplessly down again. But it was only a few minutes later that she woke him again, regretfully shaking his shoulder, her face sharp and alarmed.

  ‘I thought it would be hours yet – they’re coming.’

  Noriko was near, swept along like a leaf, by someone like a weather front storming forward, a few seconds from the room.

  Outside, on the landing, Noriko hurried on behind the Empress feeling unpleasantly as if she had been co-opted into the Sinoan Imperial retinue. ‘Tell them I can go where I want in my own Palace,’ the Empress called to her interpreter, as the Nionian guards outside Varius’ rooms startled into confused action, reaching for their radios, alarmed eyes moving from Noriko to Jun Shen and back.

  Inside the room, Varius dragged himself up, kneading his face with his hands and perfunctorily brushing down his clothes. Una pushed back her hair. They had nothing of their own beyond what they had been wearing when Marcus had foisted them into the Nionian compound. Since then they had been lent clothes clearly chosen to be as Roman, as appropriate to them, as was possible. Still, clean and unfamiliar against their skin, the borrowed fabric was a physical reminder of how dispossessed they were here. The dress Una wore belonged to one of Noriko’s ladies-in-waiting. It felt strange.

  The door was opened and the Empress advanced, overwhelmingly, into the room and looked at them. Promptly, Una stepped forward and executed a neat, efficient bow to the floor. Varius lingered for a resentful second and then stiffly did the same. Una was aware of him hating it, and felt mildly exasperated. What did it matter what the body had to do, what convention had to be acted out? They didn’t have to mean it.

  As they got to their feet, Noriko realised that she had been bracing herself for Jun Shen to mock or belittle the prisoners in some way, and was surprised when it did not happen. In fact, the Empress’ whole demeanour was, from the first instant of entering the room, different from what it had been outside and from what Noriko had expected. The capricious, fractious manner might never have been more than a kind of disguise. She was looking both Romans over, sharply and carefully, black-painted eyes puckered and shrewd. ‘I should like to speak with you both,’ she said, with sober grandeur, as if she were the one to have initiated this. She sat down ceremoniously, forcing Weigi to push a chair into place for her without breaking his translation of what she was saying. ‘Drusus Novius has been bothering me about you,’ she went on. ‘I have the impression neither one of you will have anything good to say about him. He accuses you of various crimes – having Lord Kato killed in mistake for him, among others.’

  ‘If I was going to kill him, he’d be dead,’ muttered Una darkly.

  Varius said, ‘We had a chance to have him killed once before. We shouldn’t have missed it. But it was Caesar’s decision, I accepted it. There was no reason for that to change. We both have strong reasons to hate Drusus Novius, reasons that are involved in why we’re here, but we don’t need them at this point. He’s about to provoke a war we’ve been working to prevent. I know you’re aware how damaging such a war could be to your country. He can’t be allowed to do this unchecked. It has to be made impossible for him.’

  ‘I don’t hate him,’ said Una dully. Varius looked at her in disbelief and she said, ‘I don’t. I don’t know why not. I’ve hated people who’ve done a lot less. Him, though … I just want him … stopped. I thought he was.’ She looked up at the Empress, waiting as Weigi’s translation caught up with her. ‘Your Majesty, if he can’t cross Sinoan space it’ll slow him down at least before he attacks Nionia. You should close your borders to Rome. Air, magnetways, everything.’

  Once again, Noriko expected some kind of affronted outburst from Jun Shen, and it didn’t come. There could be no doubt that the Empress was incredulous – she did not attempt to conceal that, letting out a low grunt of frank surprise. But for a long time she said nothing, and only continued to scrutinise Una as if she were determined to commit her face to memory. Una looked back, only a small, shifty contraction of the mouth betraying any discomfort at this.

  ‘You’re very young for this,’ Jun Shen remarked at last.

  Una looked blank for a second, before giving a small, unconvinced nod. She said, ‘I don’t feel that young.’

  The Empress smiled regretfully. ‘One never does at the time.’

  Something occurred to Noriko: a little knot of snobbery that she had either forgotten or never known she harboured toward Jun Shen came loose, and with it her surprise at the Empress’ apparent readiness to take Una seriously. She thought – of course, she is not really royal, any more than Una. How old would she have been when she became a concubine? Where does she even come from? She was not born to do any of this. But she does it.

  ‘For such a decree to have any meaning, we would have to be willing to shoot down any Roman force that tried to cross our frontiers,’ said Jun Shen, a politician again, the minor softness gone. ‘A few shots fired and that amounts to entering the war on Nionia’s side.’ She gave a mechanical little scoffing laugh.

  Neither Una nor Varius spoke yet.

  ‘Do you know anything of the history between our countries?’ the Empress went on, with a glance in Noriko’s direction.

  ‘I know some,’ said Una diffidently, thinking of the books she’d read back in Athens, and the questions Varius had answered for her the day before.

  The Empress smiled, mirthlessly. Noriko looked at the ground. ‘Then you know it is not a very happy one.’

  ‘If Drusus remains in power, war will follow,’ said Una. ‘And you will find yourself against him soon. He will not respect alliances, and he will want total Roman control. So, finally you will enter the war, either on Nionia’s side, or alone.’

  ‘But even he will think twice about taking on two empires at once on a moment’s notice. Or even if he were mad enough to consider it, Salvius isn’t,’ continued Varius. Because he had to. He’d got the crushing weariness controlled, and he now understood what Una had said to him earlier when he’d been on the point of sleep. He said, ‘We’ve discussed how we may be judged in Rome for ad
vising you to do this. It will keep Drusus contained for now. It could be long enough for Marcus to put right whatever damage Drusus has done to his standing in Rome. If he returns the war can be averted. This is important enough to justify treason.’

  Jun Shen played with one of the jewelled pendants hanging from her throat. ‘If Drusus Novius is all that you say, what will he do with his cousin now he has the opportunity?’ She glowered at them astutely. ‘You don’t know, do you? You can’t be sure.’

  ‘I am very sorry to interrupt,’ said Noriko, ‘but isn’t the point that as long as we do not know, there is still some hope? And so it is still worth trying everything?’

  The Empress sucked her lip thoughtfully, slightly smearing the red paint. ‘For how long are you asking me to do this?’

  ‘How long could you do it?’ asked Varius.

  ‘There would be people left stranded, it would play havoc with trade,’ grumbled the Empress. ‘And tension with Rome growing all the time …? I can give you a few days at the most.’

  ‘A fortnight,’ Varius pressed.

  ‘Nonsense. Perhaps I could stretch to a week, but the costs would be immense – a fortnight is out of the question.’

  ‘That gives us too little scope to be worth the damage. Ten days, or until we hear Marcus has given up his power. Or that he’s dead. Whatever comes first,’ said Varius, deliberately brutal, but with a barely discernible glance of apology and pain at Una.

  Jun Shen pursed her lips again. ‘Fine. Ten days, then,’ she said shortly, getting crossly to her feet. Standing with hurried respect, Una, Varius and Noriko felt after all the shock of what they’d done, a strange hybrid of relief and anxious dread. Una and Varius turned to each other, almost disbelieving, and Noriko thought of Rome, and the marriage, and wondered how far the work she’d done today had raised the chances of its happening.

  Jun Shen gave Una another hard look. ‘And I have something for you,’ she announced. She took a small card from a little pouch of embroidered silk. ‘The message came yesterday. You can have it as far as I’m concerned. So your next job will be to try and persuade your keepers to let you use a yuan hua. I dare say you will manage it.’