Savage City

by Sophia McDougall

  CORONATION

  It might have been falling rather than running. Una didn’t feel the ground under her feet, her body was loose and tumbling, as if some force other than her own will hurled it forward through the rain, past oncoming cars she didn’t see. The gash on the back of her head seeped blood, warm under her cold hair.

  Then the sound came: the grey sky rattled like a metal door slammed shut. The glass roof of the Colosseum cracked open like a shell, hatching fire and smoke into the wet air. For a second the belt of screens above the arches showed what was inside – flame, and debris falling – then they went dark. Una lurched forward on the wet paving, putting down one hand to keep from falling, and ran on, as if there were still time to stop it.

  The noise collapsed into voices screaming, and the mass of people jostling around the Colosseum began to hurtle apart, skidding across the ground like drops of water on heated metal. At first Una, running the wrong way, towards the scattering glass and the flag of smoke overhead, scarcely noticed them. Then the shouts of horror began to hit her like flung stones and she realised she was charging against an oncoming riot, the front line of a panicked army sixty thousand strong.

  Head down, she threaded and dodged, then collided hard and fought to keep her balance as she was carried backwards a few paces. She heard her own cry of shock loud and strange, as if it came from somewhere else, beside or behind her.

  Closer to the arena, the crowd was thicker still; the narrow, wavering ways forward closing up ahead of her as more people spilled from the eighty gates. So many, each one of them too solid and real, stamping themselves on her in jarring, colourful focus: plump lips stretched wide in horror; two brown moles on a flushed wet cheek; a long-haired little boy, wailing, astride a man’s shoulders. Gritting her teeth, Una tried to tack sideways across the flow, battering herself against straining ribs and elbows, until she was able to stretch out and grasp the counter of a deserted souvenir stall. No way of getting any further yet.

  Other people’s fright and shock roared through her brain like a landslide, until something gave way beneath it and left her in throbbing silence as if her eardrums had ruptured.

  She clutched the stand, anchoring herself against the current, feeling the frame of the stall buffeted by the weight of people behind. She looked down at the fallen plaster figurines around her feet, promising Dama in her head: I’ll kill you.

  No. Dama had not survived this, or would not by long. She’d known that as soon as she’d seen him in the street. And what did she care what happened to him now? What did anything matter, as long as she could force her way inside to find that Marcus was not dead in there, under that dark wing of smoke.

  Inside the Colosseum, something else broke away and fell. There was another gush of screaming. Una’s vision blurred again as faintness flooded her injured head and the hand she tried to lift to the wound on her scalp sank limply to her side. She doubled over the counter, staring at an ink mark on its surface, mouthing, ‘Marcus—’

  Cold rain, scattering over his face, falling for a long time. He shivered, but it didn’t occur to him to move, or that there was anything to do but wait – no, not wait, for he had no sense of any end to this – remain, then, on the edge of the cold and weight, and something else—

  ‘Marcus.’

  The fact that he badly wanted that to be Una’s voice, and knew it was not, caused panic to shrill somewhere in him. Why was it so important that she should be here? He turned his head, facing the sky. Raindrops slid into his hair as noise swept over him, cars crashing, lightning splitting old trees.

  His voice came out careful, shallow, saving the breath: ‘Makaria.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’ll be all right.’

  Some of the weight on him was lifted away and streaks of pain came rolling up from waist to throat – not too bad yet, slow and secondhand, like echoes. They had been in an accident, then. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I— I don’t know— There was an explosion on the roof.’

  It was strange, because he had the impression that he was looking up the blank sides of steep cliffs from the dry base of a ravine, but he realised his eyes were still shut. He opened them with a long, sleepy effort and saw the smoke-stained sky, wavering above a jagged rim of blackened glass.

  ‘I remember now,’ he said.

  He was lying on the wet stone at the base of the marble seat, near the front of the Imperial box; the silk carpet had been scraped back by his fall. The enclosure had been smashed into a caved-in heap; several of the columns around the box were down, the bullet-proof screens between them crushed inwards. Stained glass dust and lumps of charred metal and masonry were strewn all round him.

  The dust had powdered Makaria’s hair grey, aging her. There was a scattering of little cuts on her dirt-streaked face, and she was pressing a hand to her shoulder, grimacing; otherwise she didn’t seem seriously hurt. Marcus could hear cries, sense heaving motion outside the box, but he couldn’t see anyone else.

  He thought, Dama must have done this, and tried to pull himself up.

  Makaria said hurriedly, ‘No, don’t move,’ but it was too late: he’d barely lifted his head, barely glimpsed more than the flood of red he was lying in, when the pain sprang, astonishingly, crouched on him like an animal and held him pinned down and rigid so that not even a cry could get free. His head dropped back, but the pain hung onto him, obliterating so much that he could not even have said where he was hurt – he scarcely remembered who it was lying here in its grip, helplessly imploring it to stop. Broken edges of glass or bone, cutting in— Stop, oh please, stop . . .

  Makaria was holding his hand, and even that, to be touched at all, lent the pain its small weight. Everything roiled, and a chilly flush of sweat filmed over his skin; his body couldn’t bear any more feeling. He couldn’t speak to tell her to let go.

  It retreated grudgingly, and not far enough. Struggling against the need to gasp down air, he rationed himself to small, inadequate wisps of breath, stolen from the top of his lungs, trying to stir whatever was piercing him as little as possible. Makaria went on thumbing the back of his hand and that was better, too. The roaring in his head had subsided, and he became aware that she was shouting for help, and he thought dizzily: Is anyone else alive in here?

  Yes, there was a groan from somewhere to his right, and someone else was pushing his way through the wreckage behind him. It occurred to Marcus that he couldn’t hear Drusus, or his uncle, or his wife.

  He whispered Noriko’s name, and Makaria soothed him, ‘No, no, she went out just before, do you remember?’

  He didn’t, not really, but he couldn’t think about that any further, for now he realised what he had seen. A great broken strut from the roof had fallen into the box and was lying precariously propped against the low wall at the base of the ruined screens, pointing away into space. And the twisted end of it was resting on his legs, his knees and shins must be crushed under the weight. Sickness kneaded into him just at the thought of it. But below the waist, the pain blurred into a dull electric tingling, and he couldn’t feel it.

  He thought that perhaps he should be grateful for that, but his heart sped unsteadily, and he shivered again.

  He heard the short buzz of a radio, and someone muttering a low stream of instructions into it. The Praetorian drew closer slowly and, with a grunt of pain, lowered himself awkwardly to kneel beside Makaria.

  ‘Help is coming, my Lady.’

  ‘No, you must do something to help him now,’ ordered Makaria, and Marcus could hear the shrill quiver in her voice that she hadn’t allowed herself when talking to him. He had closed his eyes against the wheeling air; he heaved them open again now in slow, irritable protest. They should remember he was still conscious, still there.

  The Praetorian’s face swung over Marcus, large and blurred and, when it shifted into abrupt focus, briefly frightened. Then the hesitation passed and he placed dispassionate, courteous fingers over the pulse in Marcus’ throat, sh
owing no reaction to whatever it told him, and began carefully sweeping the shale of glass and metal off his body.

  Marcus spent a little while collecting his strength to make the words clear, and to bear the pain in his chest, then he announced, ‘I think my back’s broken.’ He felt distantly pleased at how calmly he had said it, but Makaria’s face twisted in anguish, and his mind began a horrified, uncontrolled babbling: if I can’t walk, if I can’t . . .

  Better that than dying, he thought, as another flux of cold pulsed through him and into the shadowed air. The man was slicing open his tunic, the wet cloth snagging on points of glass lodged in wounds he couldn’t see. Sparks of pain shot through the dark and the chill, and he remembered thinking, in that first onslaught, not only please stop, but please let me die. A detached wonder at the memory came over him: did it take so little, was it so easy to come to that?

  The fear changed, oddly. It was like the numb half of his body, still there, pressing evidence of how hurt he was, yet somehow separated from him.

  Now he could feel the bloodied rain trickling over his exposed skin. He looked away from Makaria and murmured, ‘Maybe Sulien—?’

  Makaria seized on this with too much eagerness. ‘Yes! Tell them to find Novianus Sulien.’

  The Praetorian relayed this into his radio. He had stripped off his uniform jacket and began hacking out the lining. Marcus felt him holding the bunched fabric against a gash under his ribs, trying not to press something sharp fixed there, but pain gripped again. Marcus bucked involuntarily against it, and this time as the muscles tightened and edges shifted again, it rushed him away into the dark, almost before he had time to feel the shock of it.

  Come on. Wake up. Don’t be so lazy. You know what’ll happen if you don’t. Come on, do it.

  ‘Marcus!’ Makaria’s stern, raw-edged voice was just short of a shout. ‘Come on, Marcus. You’ve got to talk to us, wake up.’

  It was only what he was already telling himself. Sleep lapped at him with such soft insistence that he was really not sure he had any choice in the matter, while his mind screamed incredulously at him: Aren’t you even going to try? Are you going to give in as easily as that? He thought of Una again with another stirring of desperation, and now it began to sound like her voice in his head, loud and furious. Wake up, wake up.

  He struggled to find a way of responding and thought at last, she wouldn’t do this. Una would open her eyes.

  He prised up his eyelids, stiff as rusted hinges. It took another effort to see anything, to search for Makaria’s face, even with them open. He was surprised by the soft weight of damp fabric lying over him now, carefully wadded in around him. A different Praetorian, this one with blood in his hair and a glassy look in his eyes, was crouched over him, holding his jacket over his head as a rough awning to keep the rain off Marcus’ face. He couldn’t see the first man. He was so grateful not to be so cold.

  He could feel Makaria was still holding the bundle of cloth against the wound below his ribs. He grimaced up at the dark tent of the Praetorian’s jacket. He didn’t think the improvised dressing could be making much difference, and it felt strange, his cousin’s hand on his wet, bloody skin – too intimate, wrong.

  ‘Marcus. Marcus,’ repeated Makaria.

  His mouth was dry; he parted his lips as a string of water drops slipped onto them from the small canopy above. He moved them, realised he hadn’t produced any sound, and tried again: ‘I’m here.’

  Makaria sighed and grinned at him, her mouth tight. ‘They’re coming. They can’t . . . they can’t get through yet. The stairs down to the passage are blocked. But they’re coming. And they’re looking for Sulien; they’ll bring him here. It won’t be long, don’t worry.’

  ‘I’m not,’ he said.

  It crossed his mind that he didn’t want Sulien to see him like this, so weak, and needing his help so badly. They did not know each other as well as they once had, but Sulien would forget that when he saw him. He would be too fervently sorry to do anything else, Marcus knew that. It wasn’t the way it should be.

  He heard the first Praetorian saying, ‘Madam, even if we could move this by ourselves—’

  He must be kneeling by the beam that was lying on his legs. ‘Talk to me,’ said Marcus, breathless, trying to get a little more strength into his voice.

  There was a pause and the Praetorian shuffled slowly closer. ‘I’m sorry, Sir,’ he began.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ corrected Makaria, in an odd, blunt voice.

  Marcus blinked through a suspended second of incomprehension. Then, instinctively, he tried to tip his head back to see where Faustus was. Dizziness swayed his vision again, but he managed, ‘He’s dead?’

  Makaria’s free hand found his again and gripped, and her eyes flicked down to his face, then back to the Praetorian. ‘Your Majesty,’ she repeated. ‘You are addressing the Emperor.’

  Sulien sprawled peevishly for a little while after Lal had gone, then pulled himself up with a sigh. ‘We’re not married,’ she’d said. ‘It’s wrong.’ Closing the door on the rumpled bedroom, it occurred to him sourly that if this had only struck her while already in his arms and in his bed, her sudden principles shouldn’t be impossible to undermine. But that thought discomfited him somehow, and all at once he wanted to stop thinking about her at all. He went into the living room and tried to see his belongings as if she had never been here, as if he didn’t even know her.

  It was summer, and a holiday, and it was depressing to be suddenly alone in a silent flat with the rain beating against the windows. Sulien tried to remember what each of his friends was doing, working out how long it would take him to get to somewhere better. He felt a brief, defiant desire to go in immediate search of a more accommodating girl— But no, he didn’t want to think about that yet either.

  He turned on the longvision, to make a bit of noise, and remembered as he did it that there would be nothing on but the Games. His hand hovered over the button, caught between aversion and fascination: Marcus would be there, of course.

  Nothing appeared on the screen but the Imperial Eagle and motto against a background of dark blue. A vapidly solemn piece of horn music sounded, and after a moment a slow male voice, sonorous and faintly sing-song, promised more information as soon as it was available; meanwhile the people of Rome were to remain calm and keep inside and away from the windows.

  For a minute or two, Sulien stood where he was, staring obediently at the longvision and waiting for an explanation. The music came to an end and was replaced by another dully martial tune, and the message was replayed, exactly as before. After a little while, five-year-old footage of a rally in celebration of Faustus’ sixtieth birthday began to roll under the continuing music. Sulien had already strayed in frustration to the prohibited windows. He dug his fingers into the skin of his left wrist as he looked for smoke in the sky.

  Finally he turned back to the longvision, scoffing aloud, ‘Why don’t you just tell us?’

  His stupid keys slowed him down – they’d fallen under a backpack. He was halfway down the stairs when he realised that he didn’t need anyone to tell him what had happened, not really . . . it was only a question of where, and how bad it was, and whether anyone he knew—

  He began to think: Where’s Una—? But he snapped off the thought as soon as it sprouted: No. Out of all the millions of people in Rome, why should anything have happened to her?

  He remembered smoke, dry and velvety in his lungs, and a column of noise burning in the air, and then he couldn’t get it out of his head – Dama. He closed his eyes, unable to think anything beyond, Oh no.

  There was a man with a dog going past the steps of his building, but he couldn’t tell Sulien anything – didn’t even know something had happened. ‘There’s a warning on the longvision,’ explained Sulien hurriedly, running downhill towards the little forum around the Temple of Minerva.

  The order to stay inside carried enough weight to make him feel exposed now, and unpleasantly consc
ious of noticing places to take cover, glancing from time to time at the windows overhead and at the empty clouds. He shook his head at himself in annoyance – this was Transtiberina, just creepers and lame dogs and graffiti – what was there to attack?

  There was a small, speechless crowd of twenty or so in the forum, sheltering under awnings and staring, appalled, at the public longvision over the temple. Sulien looked up to see if anything had changed, but no, the same dreary music was playing and the message, a little distorted here, began again.

  He asked, ‘What’s happened?’ He was vaguely aware of having directed the question towards a girl he liked the look of: a shawl draped over her heaped, curly hair, full breasts, and arms showing brown and rounded where her sleeves fell away. Her small hands were cupped around her mouth in shock.

  She turned to him. ‘They’ve bombed the Colosseum!’ she said, her voice sounding loud and outraged in the shared silence.

  The way she phrased it made him ask automatically, ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know— The Nionians!’

  No, he knew, not them. ‘When?’

  ‘You shouldn’t be out here, love,’ someone said to the girl, ‘that’s what it says.’

  She shook her head, almost crossly. ‘We haven’t got a longvision at home.’ Her eyes had already returned to the impassive screen. No one else had looked away.

  Sulien’s shoulders moved in a kind of tense, angry shrug as impatience and fear hummed through him, beginning to warm his chilled blood. ‘Were you watching the Games? When was this?’

  ‘Only about ten minutes ago,’ said the man who’d warned the girl, quietly. ‘Something blew up – we saw that. Then it went black. Then this started.’

  Involuntarily, Sulien looked at the marching people on the screen for some kind of assistance, and then the opposite way, towards the Colosseum. ‘My friend’s there,’ he said to the little crowd, not knowing why he needed to tell them that; it wasn’t as if they could help him. He turned and sprinted back towards his building, coming up with almost as many reasons why this might not be that bad as it took him strides to reach it. He was composing the announcements on longvision and in the newssheets while driving his long body as fast as it could go. A miracle, he thought, grimly; it looked bad, but in the end no one was seriously hurt. Marcus Novius Faustus Leo said . . . No, that felt like bad luck; he wouldn’t go as far as imagining that part.