Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  There was a pause in which Dama seemed to be wearily contemplating the energy necessary to haul a breath into his lungs and speak. He muttered dully, ‘I will never be any good to anyone, staying here.’

  ‘There’s me,’ said Delir. ‘You can help me to live here. As you are doing every day. That’s enough for now.’

  ‘But you shouldn’t be here at all. I’m keeping you here and it’s wrong. It’s bad for you.’

  ‘I chose to do this. You didn’t force me to it. And maybe some good will come of being here that we can’t see yet.’

  Dama nodded, with another dutiful effort.

  ‘Try to ask only simple things from yourself,’ urged Delir.

  They did without news-sheets, without a radio. Better not to know, Delir felt. Dama acquiesced to this, as to everything. He tried, he genuinely tried to do as Delir encouraged and not let himself think beyond the close of each day, through the tasks that would keep them both alive. In a way it worked. In a way his problem was the reverse: that he could not think even that far. His thoughts could not get off the ground, and so could not attempt to escape the island, but nor could they live here, even if his body could. It was not boredom, there was plenty to do. He waded in the shallows, scraping limpets and mussels off the rocks. Spring had scarcely warmed this sea, the cold gripped like two garrottes around his calves. He could work, he could concentrate as necessary, but even the shells he touched, the knife in his hand were laminated away from him. The world was one endless glass surface, into which nothing could put down roots.

  He carried his harvest onto the beach and sat down near the waterline, once again letting his gaze lie like driftwood, inert on the waves. He leant forward and scored a curve in wet sand with his knife: a letter U. Then he scowled in dull scorn at himself, and scrubbed it out with his foot, unable to wait even for the next wave to come and smooth it away.

  A wooden packing crate still lay on the stones further up the beach. The fishermen had been, three days before. Dama had never seen them, and he wondered how many of them there were, how old or young they might be – and knew he was making himself think about it; he was not really curious. He’d seen the crate before, but had not been able to stir himself even to move it. Listlessly, he got up to do it now, and as he moved it he saw that under the straw that had padded a couple of cartons was a lining of old news-sheets.

  Dama picked them out, his hands slow with the habitual lethargy and with a kind of tired reverence for anything from the world outside. The news-sheets were not international. They seemed to cover only the inner islands and a corner of the mainland. There was nothing of what he knew Delir wished to avoid: Nionia, or the hunt for himself. All the bulletins, more than a month old now, concerned lambs to be sold at market, a wedding, a few natural deaths.

  On the reverse of one, far down the page, there was an alert about a slave, a young man, who had gone missing from a villa by the sea. There was a small picture of him.

  It was a while before this seemed to have any impact on him, there was such a distance for the short sentences to travel in order to reach him. Even when it did, it was faint at first. Dama glanced guiltily up the beach, towards the cliffs. He had left Delir mending nets near the house, though he would probably appear soon. He did not like to let Dama out of his sight for long. And Dama did not know why he was behaving furtively; he was doing nothing wrong. Then he turned the news-sheet over to look at the date. Yes, it was one of the older ones. He flicked through the others with the dim beginnings of tension, arranging them into order.

  The slave was still missing a week after the first news sheet was printed. Dama grew hesitantly, painfully excited for him. Go on, he urged him silently, through the print. Don’t be afraid, keep going, you can do it.

  But a later sheet announced he had been caught, only a few miles from where he had begun. There was little indication of what had happened to him. Probably no more than a whipping, from the sound of it. Probably he was not dead, however weakened and in pain he might be; he was back at work for his master again, right at this moment.

  Dama screwed the paper into a tight ball and buried it under the stones.

  He carried on as before, of course. But he was not the same. He was angry. At first the feeling was negligible: a small restlessness that nagged at him from time to time. Delir saw only that he was now sometimes able to plough little spasms of energy into tasks where he had invariably been mechanical and lifeless before. And Dama would not tell Delir what he was thinking. He did not want it to seem that he was bearing his confinement with anything but patience.

  It had felt as if all the ordinary corrupted world were as distant as another sun. It was not, it was obscenely close, and alive, only a barrier like a breaking eggshell held it out. Had he not said to Una that there was nowhere to go to escape from it? Why should that have ceased to be true, even for a penitent recluse, or whatever he was now? No one could get out of the world except by death; it was cowardice and feebleness to try.

  Three weeks later, the night after the lobster-fishers had been again, he had a dream.

  He dreamt he was exactly where he was, curled up asleep, close to the remains of the fire, on the little bed opposite Delir’s. But Delir was awake, sitting rigidly on the edge of his bed, glaring at Dama with bright, furious eyes.

  ‘Wake up!’ he insisted, in a voice like rushing wind or flames, only far louder. ‘Wake up now!’

  Dama thought he woke reluctantly, frightened.

  And it was not really Delir; Dama understood that almost at once. He looked as normal: a small, rather fragile-looking middle-aged man, but this being was as incandescent and dangerous as melted steel, on fire underneath his skin. He was full of hot, terrible light, but this was hidden, miraculously contained by the body that should have been scorched away in an instant. Dama understood that his eyes were not made to perceive this brightness, which was revealed to him in an awful, fitful smouldering, melting away some intangible barriers of consciousness that flinched and shrivelled like membranes of flesh.

  Dama whispered to him, terrified, ‘I’m sorry.’

  And the terrible voice said, as he had known it would. ‘That is not enough.’ Dama twisted away, burying his face, and heard: ‘There is no hiding from me, or what you have to do.’

  Then he was no longer in the cottage, or on the island. He was in Rome, which was also Bianjing, and Cynoto, where he had never been. The cities were heaped on top of each other, in layers that fused and floated apart, and drifted through one another. People waded and fled through the multiple streets, and tried to hide themselves, but they were also burning, not in the contained and perpetual way of the figure ahead of him, but simply blazing and staggering. So they shone, and were discovered, or curled themselves up in the crevices in things, and burned away into ash.

  ‘You have not finished here,’ said the bright, punishing authority, who was with him.

  Dama tried to say something, either a confession that it was true, or a protest, or a plea, or all of these. But he could not speak in this place, he found; he could not even move. He choked, and strove, appalled.

  ‘If you stop,’ said the spirit, ‘then you murdered them. Unless you go on, they died for nothing.’

  Dama wanted to say that there was no more in him, that every attempt had failed, and there was nothing now he could do. Of course, he did not need to speak, his thoughts were instantly known.

  The voice was low and dreadful as an earthquake now. ‘Do not dare abandon them,’ it warned him.

  And then he was alone, and somewhere among pine trees where he was able to think normally, clearly. And he thought that he had come very close to tugging the future down to earth, many times, and it was Marcus Novius, each time, who had prevented him.

  Then a kind of turbulent roar, like the noise of aircraft, surged through everything, and then he really did wake.

  At first he could not move. In the first half-stunned seconds of awareness, he began to cry, shuddering
and stifled, so as not to wake Delir. His body felt weak and defenceless, and he wanted to pull the covers more tightly round himself and allow the sobs to come more freely, to comfort himself. But instead, he slid out of bed, and reached for his clothes, gathering them into a bundle under his arm.

  Before turning for the door, he looked down at Delir. Asleep on his side, he seemed even more small and vulnerable than Dama had remembered, older. Very carefully, Dama bent over him and, as lightly as possible, kissed his cheek.

  Then he crept out of the little house, and down the slope towards the beach. The wind scraped the remaining warmth of his bed from his skin. Dama lowered his head and lunged along into it, shivering, struggling into his clothes as he went; he pulled a waterproof jacket over everything else, drew up the hood, and tightened it. He slid down the stones onto the sand, walked straight towards the sea.

  He could see a dot of light, far out in the dark. The fishermen were still working, close to the opposite island, or camped upon it.

  Dama stepped into the black water. It was so cold that he could feel his blood shrinking away from the skin in protest, the dry flesh above begging to be spared. He forced each inch under the surface, gasping, until he was heart-deep in the cold, then made himself drop forward, lifting his feet from the bottom, and begin to swim.

  At least the sea was calm. He’d learned to swim haphazardly as a child in Rome. Before it had been discovered he could sing, when he had still been with his mother, she had sometimes accompanied her mistress to the baths, to be on hand with scented oils, strigils, towels. Sometimes she’d been able to take him along and teach him for a little while. As a slow wave lifted him to its crest, he remembered her, more clearly than he had for years. He never normally thought of her. And it was almost as long since he had been in the water. His body should have been strong, sturdy, but of course he was no athlete; he didn’t even have the full use of both arms. It was easiest to float on his back and kick along that way, but then the cold licked hungrily through the hood of the jacket, against his head. He knew little about the sea, nothing of where the currents would pull him, but he had known before he touched the water that he was probably killing himself. He doubted the chances could be above one in ten that this was escape, rather than suicide. There was no getting used to this cold, it fed mercilessly on him. Soon the fingers even on his better hand were blunted and foreign to him, his feet two vague and unwieldy blocks. Though his mind was still clear enough under the ongoing shock of the cold, that would go numb too, in the end. And when he pulled himself upright in the water, and tried to look back, he found the island he’d come from was lost in the dark. Even if he had chosen to, he could never find his way back now. Everything was utterly formless, featureless: he could see nothing except the surface of the water, black as oil, and the lights in the distance.

  In the morning Delir woke to find himself alone in the little house. At first, of course, he assumed Dama was somewhere nearby, outside. But when his first call went unanswered, panic suddenly hooked at him, and he ran to the cliffs, scanning the rocks below in desperation, shouting Dama’s name. He searched on, praying that in a moment Dama’s voice behind him would release him. But soon the silence confirmed to him that he would find either a body or nothing. Finally, he sagged onto the stones on the beach, staring with tear-blurred eyes at the steel sea into which Dama had vanished.

  He was free; when the fishermen came back he could go home. But he would have to take this failure with him. Imprisoned on the island until then, alone, all the slow patterns of survival became terrible to him: it was torture now to try and capture the patience necessary for starting fires or preparing food, while struggling with a rage of frustration and loneliness. It was two days before it even occurred to him that Dama might possibly be alive.

  A sudden jolt of dread, worse than grief, impelled Delir down to the beach. He lit a fire on the stones, signalled to the empty sea with a mirror. But he knew there was no one to see it, and it would be eighteen days before he could even tell anyone.

  [ XXIX ]

  COLOSSEUM

  Drusus regarded himself disconsolately, half-naked before the mirror while the slaves stood around him quietly, proffering choices of clothes. He supposed he had to believe that the web of scars across his left cheek, and the ones under his chin and at the corner of his mouth were invisible to other people, as everyone told him, but to him they still seemed disfiguring and vulgar. There was no sign his nose had ever been broken; it had been set, and had healed as straight as before. The grid of hard white scars on his hand was certainly visible, left not by the attack itself, but from the surgeries to repair the damage. The hand was sound enough now, but he had a weakened grip, and the beginnings of arthritis. There was sometimes a ringing in his left ear; he was convinced he was slightly deaf there. His consciousness of all these things was never far from the surface, but it was redoubled now that at last he was in Rome again.

  He selected a dark blue tunic, motioned to the slave to drape over it a blue pallium bordered with green.

  ‘It’s a pity you have to go to the Colosseum,’ said Lucius fretfully, behind him.

  Drusus rolled his eyes as the slave knotted and pinned a white fascalia around his neck.

  ‘I think it’s dangerous,’ complained Lucius.

  ‘Well, I assure you, I don’t feel remotely like going, and except for Uncle Titus, nobody wants me there. But it would be ridiculous for there not to be Games and it would be ridiculous for me not to be there. The only reason you can get out of it is because you’re an embarrassment.’

  Lucius looked at Drusus’ reflection with wide-eyed, anxious hurt, forcing from Drusus the familiar, irritable twinge of pity for him. His father was too easy and exposed a target for the load of bitterness within him.

  ‘There, never mind,’ he said roughly.

  ‘I suppose at least you like the Games,’ suggested Lucius timidly.

  Drusus sighed. ‘Not in this company,’ he muttered.

  A car came for him from the Palace. Drusus, feeling stripped and raw to any slight, thought it insultingly old and plain. There was a reception to get through, before they went to the Colosseum to celebrate Faustus’ resumption of duties. Drusus steeled himself for it.

  He was aware of the driver watching him. He knew he was being watched wherever he went. Even in his father’s house on the Caelian, there were guards and supposed slaves who had not been there before, and who were never far away from him.

  The party was centred in the gallery where the painting of Oppius Novius subduing the Nionians had once hung. Drusus looked for it, but was disgusted to see it had been removed, doubtless out of tact towards the sensibilities of Marcus’ new wife. Not only that, but it was the new portrait of Noriko, commissioned for the wedding, that hung there now. Faustus stood below it and beamed benignly at his guests. The ring of State was on his finger.

  Drusus wondered where the original painting was, and if there was any chance he could have it. He sighed, wandered further into the room and, looking for a drink, encountered Varius. They were both unpleasantly startled; Drusus recoiled a little and Varius reacted with a restrained twitch of aversion, but looked at him squarely. Drusus felt a humiliating desire to flee mingled with a quiver of masochistic power. He hated the knowledge that his life had hung on Varius’ action, but it occurred to him that Varius would be no happier at having saved him, or having to see him.

  ‘Varius!’ he said, forcing a defiant friendliness into his voice. ‘Are you coming to the Games?’

  ‘No,’ said Varius, shortly.

  ‘What a shame. Marcus looks well, doesn’t he? It must be a weight off his shoulders.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  Marcus was in the centre of the room with Noriko, self-possessed and professionally good-humoured, surrounded by people, and noticing everything. He caught Drusus’ eye for a fraction of a second, smiled, and thereafter continued to observe him quietly without seeming to do so. Stupid old fool,
Drusus thought, looking back at Faustus, who gave him a wave and a confused smile. Why bother with this? Can’t you see you’ll be an irrelevance? Marcus will be running everything.

  ‘No progress catching that fanatic?’ he asked. Varius looked past Drusus impatiently, his teeth gritted. Drusus felt a little glow of perverse triumph. He took a drink from a waiter and continued pleasantly, ‘Well, I suppose sometimes there’s nothing you can do.’

  ‘Drusus,’ said Varius calmly. ‘You seem to think that because of what happened in Sina, or because you’re not in prison or dead as you deserve, I must pretend I don’t know what you’ve done, and what you are. You can go and sit in the Colosseum with people for whom that’s true – for now. But I have nothing to say to you, and you are nothing to me.’

  He turned away. Drusus gulped resentfully at his wine. Marcus moved into the space Varius had left and asked, politely and inevitably, ‘How are you getting on in Canaria?’

  ‘Fine,’ muttered Drusus. He felt a film of sweat coating his skin at being this close to his cousin. Marcus stood there looking so polished and civilised, and his presence made Drusus’ nerves replay treacherously the sensation of his bones cracking under those fists. His mended hand clenched painfully.

  ‘You haven’t met my wife.’

  Noriko inclined her head, decorously gave Drusus her hand, and said nothing. She was dressed in the freshest of Roman fashions, her hair gathered up into a lovely mound of loops and braids, hanging in long ringlets down her back. With her dark hair and creamy skin she reminded Drusus just a little of Tulliola. He smiled at her wistfully, suddenly moved. Startled, Noriko smiled back.

  *

  ‘Are you sure I can’t get you to come?’ said Marcus to Varius, later.

  ‘I don’t like the Games. And I don’t like your cousin. I’m not Imperial, I can get out of it.’

  ‘Then how are you going to celebrate the Emperor’s return to power?’ asked Marcus, with veiled irony. ‘Are you seeing your family?’