Retalio

by Alison Morton

  ‘Now tell me why you have come back here,’ he said.

  ‘To warn you all.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Caius Tellus’s intentions.’

  ‘Oh, really?’

  ‘Is that so difficult to believe?’ I said, almost despairing of the gap between us.

  ‘Yes. Coming from—’

  The door burst open and two figures in outdoor walking clothes marched in.

  ‘What in Hades is she doing in this building?’ the younger one shouted at Numerus. ‘And with that damned foreigner?’ She jabbed her index finger at Miklós.

  ‘Hello, Calavia,’ I said. ‘I’m glad to see you alive and in full force.’

  Two eyes burning with anger and hatred turned on me.

  ‘If I still had a sidearm, I’d shoot you like the treacherous bitch you are,’ she shrieked.

  Miklós leapt to his feet, stood in front of her and shoved her back.

  ‘Clean your mouth, woman. She’s no more a traitor than you are. She nearly died trying to escape that bastard Tellus,’ he said. ‘And after saving your ungrateful skin.’ He squared up to her, his features tight and his eyes raging. Calavia, still fuelled by anger, jerked her fist back to strike him, but her companion’s hand shot out and grabbed Calavia’s wrist.

  ‘No.’ The shorter but wiry figure of Colonel Volusenia, Praetorian Guard Special Forces commander, stepped forward into the light. Her fingers still gripped the younger woman’s wrist. ‘Stand down, Lieutenant.’ Volusenia released Calavia but kept her gaze on her junior’s face. Calavia took a pace back, her hands balled and face tight with anger and frustration.

  ‘Right,’ Volusenia said to me in a voice straight off the high Alps. ‘You can tell me why you have the temerity to come here. You have two minutes before we throw you out.’

  ‘To warn you.’

  ‘Against what?’

  ‘Read this.’ I placed the original letter from Quintus on Numerus’s desk. I knew she wouldn’t take it from what she thought was a proscriptee’s hand.

  A full minute went by as Volusenia studied the letter. She grunted when she flipped the envelope over and saw the sender’s address. She turned to Calavia, stretched out her hand and pressed Calavia’s shoulder as if to comfort her, then handed the younger woman Quintus’s letter and stepped back. Calavia’s furious expression dispelled as her eyes followed the lines of the letter. Her mouth drooped. Even sitting a couple of metres away, I saw the tears roll down her face. She half -turned her back to us and lifted her hand to wipe her face. When she turned back, her cheeks still glistened. Volusenia looked at her, but Calavia shook her head.

  ‘I would like to offer you my condolences, Pia Calavia,’ I said. ‘If you will accept them.’

  She said nothing, but gave me a tiny nod.

  ‘Very well,’ I stood up. Miklós put his hand out to support me and I smiled at him, my only friend in this room. ‘I have done my duty and warned you. You don’t need me to tell you what a vicious and manipulative man Caius Tellus is. He has done everything in his power to ruin me, physically and emotionally, and through his lies has severed me from all my friends and colleagues.’

  I looked at them one by one: Numerus, my old comrade who had helped me hunt Caius down for murder fourteen years ago; Calavia, with whom I’d shared mortal danger when we’d escaped from Roma Nova on the night of the rebellion, and whose life I’d saved from Caius’s executioners; Volusenia who had at my urging brought the young Imperatrix Silvia to safety here in New Austria when the rebellion broke out.

  ‘I will remove my unwelcome presence immediately,’ I continued. ‘I’m deeply saddened none of you believe I am innocent. I had more faith in you than you have in me.’ My chest ached with the effort of trying to convince them, but I made a final effort. ‘You must guard against seizure and at all costs keep Silvia Apulia safe. Try to persuade her to go to the north, to the United Kingdom or even America.’

  ‘You don’t need to tell the Praetorians their duty,’ Volusenia snapped.

  ‘Then make sure you do it,’ I retorted.

  * * *

  ‘What did you expect?’ Miklós said.

  I’d kept my gaze on the back of Sándor’s neck, too miserable to speak, as we’d ridden home in the car engulfed by driving sleet. As Sándor got out to close the black metal gates behind us, I slumped against the seat.

  ‘I don’t know. I thought they would at least talk to me when they saw me. We’ve shared so much.’

  ‘You know how hard they all are,’ he said. ‘You should know – you’re very much one of them.’

  ‘Apparently not.’

  Inside, he made us tea and heated up some pogača. ‘Here, for energy,’ he said, and pushed the oval pastry into my hand. It burst in my mouth at the first bite, releasing the full flavour of herbs and cheese. He’d made pogača for me after the first time we’d made love over fifteen years ago. We’d eaten them in bed, his strong brown finger searching every crumb that had dropped on my bare body…

  ‘Tomorrow, we take the first step to protecting you,’ he said. ‘I’ll book tickets on the Trans-European Express and you go to the United Kingdom then fly to America. Your daughter’s husband is a strong man and he will make sure you are safe.’

  ‘I’m not leaving Roma Nova.’

  ‘It’s left you, drágám.’

  ‘No. The exiles are hurt and frightened. I must help them. We can’t leave Caius to rampage and destroy everything.’

  ‘But if what Quintus writes is true, he’ll extradite or snatch you.’

  ‘I have you, and now Sándor to protect me physically and once I’m fit again, I won’t be such an easy target. I just need to put myself beyond Caius legally.’ I shuddered at the prospect of being dragged back to Caius and handed over to his sadistic assistant for ‘punishment’. And it would all be perfectly legal, from the New Austrian police arrest to deportation, handover like a package at the Roma Novan border and into the cells of the Transulium prison to await Caius’s pleasure. My heart pounded at the terrifying thought of facing Caius’s vengeance.

  Miklós’s eyes gleamed. ‘I have an idea, but I don’t know if you’ll accept it.’

  ‘What?’

  He pulled me to him, his arm circling my waist, and kissed me lightly on my lips. The black curls brushed my cheek as he leaned forward to whisper in my ear. ‘Marry me.’

  I couldn’t move. Not because his arm held me firmly, nor from reluctance to leave the comfort of his warm body, but from shock. I’d never considered marriage, not with my daughter Marina’s father, nor anybody. Many Roma Novan women didn’t. Unlike other Western societies, inheritance and names descended from mother to daughter; contracted or ‘married’ fathers were optional.

  I gazed up at his face. He looked back steadily. Juno, he was serious. My heart thudded. I loved this man, his body, his mind, his laughter. It pained me when we were apart. But entering into a formal contract with him?

  ‘Speak, Aurelia, or I really will think I’ve struck you dumb.’ His wide smile reassured me I hadn’t wandered into an alien universe.

  ‘I – I don’t know the words to say.’

  He stroked my cheek with his finger. ‘It’s usual to reply with “Yes”.’ Now he was grinning. ‘If you want a logical reason, it means you will take my nationality. If you’re a Hungarian citizen, the Roma Novan authorities can’t touch you.’

  3

  ‘A feleségem.’ Miklós ignored the registrar and kissed me passionately. His wife, indeed.

  Two weeks of form-filling, appointments and a nail-biting week’s wait had followed Miklós’s proposal before the Oberlandesgericht gave its approval to the dossier of pre-marriage paperwork we’d assembled. That and constant watchfulness for any attempt by Caius to extradite me had convinced me we would never be standing here before the registrar this morning before the office closed for the winter holidays. Perhaps entering the names of the New Austrian foreign minister and David Soane, my cousin an
d eminent Viennese banker, on the form as witnesses had hurried the process along.

  Miklós released me and I thanked the two witnesses. The New Austrian minister kissed my cheek, glanced at his watch and hurried off with his security assistant.

  David Soane pressed my hand. ‘Come and see me soon, Aurelia,’ he murmured. ‘I have your document in my safe.’

  Miklós fixed him with a steady look. That had been an awkward afternoon a week ago when David and his lawyer had drawn up a formal marriage contract that kept our property separate.

  ‘You are marrying under New Austrian law, Aurelia,’ David had said. ‘You don’t have all the automatic rights you do, or did, in Roma Nova. You must be practical about this. I’m sure Mr Farkas understands.’

  Well, now I was Mrs Farkas – Farkas asszony – and I still wasn’t sure that Miklós understood. I shivered. None of his beloved Magyar Plains horses would have dragged it out of me, but I didn’t want to be formally married. Many Roma Novans didn’t encumber themselves with such contracts. I loved Miklós with my heart and soul and he knew it. It was only because of Caius that I was going through this administrative fuss. Now I would be seen as an attachment to somebody else. But Miklós seemed happy so I smiled at him as he handed me my copy of the marriage certificate that the registrar had prepared for us.

  After the chilly and short ceremony, we returned to the house and ate beef goulash and raised a glass of Bull’s Blood wine to our future. Very traditional, Miklós said, in a cheerful voice, but I heard a wistful tone underneath it. Perhaps he was contrasting this expedient marriage with the exuberant weddings that were traditional among his people, but he didn’t say anything.

  We took a breath of fresh air, dogged as always by the charmless but armed Sándor a few paces behind us. The light-festooned Christmas tree squatting on the green in front of the cluster of local shops where people were drinking glühwein and talking and laughing together seemed so alien to me. This was the first year in my entire life I’d missed Saturnalia at home in Roma Nova.

  Ceding my place at the head of the Mitela tribe for a day to the princeps Saturnalicius was traditional. For several hours, Domus Mitelarum would normally be overrun with noise, people, stupid but fun dares, overeating, games, theatricals and stand-up of dubious taste, arguments, falling in lust, laughter and progressive drunkenness. The under-steward would make sure the children were safe out of the way when the horseplay became too raunchy.

  The atrium would blaze with light. Everywhere would be covered in ferns, spruce and pine. In the centre, there would be a large square table covered with linen, silverware, glasses, candles and the best china. Smells of roast pork, lemons and spices, everybody wearing over-colourful clothes, Miklós and I toasting each other and the assembled company with champagne from the Castra Lucilla estate, celebrating life.

  Instead, I was stuck here in New Austria shivering, thrown out of my home and exiled.

  * * *

  Four days later, we stood in the queue in the cold, tile-floored public office of the Hungarian consulate, clutching our documents and translations, and registered our marriage.

  ‘Don’t look so depressed,’ Miklós bent down and whispered in my ear.

  ‘It seems such a lot of effort for a piece of paper,’ I grumbled. Accepting it, I would lose a small part of my identity.

  ‘But that piece of paper will save you from that man,’ Miklós replied.

  ‘I know,’ I said and pressed his hand. ‘I’m really very grateful.’

  ‘I didn’t do it for your gratitude, woman. I did it because I love you. Sometimes you need protecting from yourself.’

  The clerk, unsmiling, probably from having to work the shift between Christmas and New Year, raised an eyebrow when Miklós thrust my passport application at him at the same time as the marriage registration. The only sticking point for the passport had been the jus sanguinis; I had no Hungarian ancestor that I could recall let alone prove. Luckily, the rules were relaxed for marriages based on long-term relationships; we could prove ours had existed for fifteen years.

  As he picked through the sheaf of papers Miklós had given him, the clerk looked almost disappointed everything was in order. Perhaps he hadn’t had enough coffee that morning.

  ‘You’ll only be granted an “overseas citizen” passport until you take up permanent residence,’ the clerk frowned. ‘However, you’ll have all the same rights as any other citizen.’ I smiled the most saccharine smile I could muster. I felt a ripple of guilt as I signed the application in front of him; I hadn’t the heart to admit I didn’t have the least wish to live anywhere but Roma Nova. He stamped and tossed it with the bundle of supporting documentation into his out tray, nodded dismissal and shouted ‘Next’.

  * * *

  Three weeks later, Sándor pointed to a bulky envelope on the hall table. He collected the post every day from the outside box by the gate, but never usually informed either of us of its arrival. I was hot and sweaty, a towel draped round my neck, desperate for a shower after a murderous session on the exercise machines in the basement. Rehabilitation from my wounds was arduous.

  ‘For you, from consulate,’ Sándor grunted.

  I tore open the envelope and stared at the blue pasteboard booklet with the gold lettering and state symbol. Thank Juno. Oh, thank Juno. I had my passport, my legal protection. I sank onto the telephone seat in the hallway and held the treasured document in my trembling hands as if it was the original Twelve Tables of Roma Nova. Moments later, the gate bell rang again. Had the postman forgotten something? Still clutching the precious passport, I went to open the door, but Sándor stepped in front of me and seized the handle. He jerked his head back at me. Of course. Security.

  He opened the door enough for me to see over his shoulder without being visible. A uniformed New Austrian policeman with a white envelope in his hand. Sándor took the letter from the young man and thrust it into my hand as he kicked the house door shut with his foot.

  The return address was from the Neuösterreiches Ministerium für Justiz. Oh gods, what now?

  * * *

  ‘Yes, on the surface it looks like a compelling case for extradition, but no, we’re sure it can’t succeed.’

  David Soane’s lawyer laid his pen down on his legal pad and removed his glasses. ‘You’ve claimed and been granted political asylum by the New Austrian government and, provided you don’t break any laws, you will continue to enjoy that status. You’ve also acquired Hungarian overseas citizenship by marriage, so if our government deported you for any reason, it would be to Hungary.’

  I closed my eyes in relief for a second.

  ‘However—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I will ask a colleague specialising in extradition law to make a formal rebuttal of the application, if you wish. He will charge a fee, of course.’

  Didn’t all lawyers? David was being kind and paying for this one, though, but I didn’t know if I had sufficient funds to hand, whatever I’d said to Quirinia all those weeks ago.

  ‘Do it,’ I said. ‘I don’t want any loose ends.’

  * * *

  I wrote again to Numerus, but didn’t get a reply, nor to my letters to Silvia, Quirinia and Volusenia. The only letters I received apart from legal ones were from my daughter, Marina, and her husband, William, in the Eastern United States. She sounded happy and he content. They invited me again to go and live with them, but I couldn’t detach myself mentally and emotionally from here. I kept giving my physical health as the reason but that would run out of steam soon.

  Now I was better in myself and the hospital had discharged me formally, I wanted to stretch my legs, go for a run, but Miklós and Sándor had both vetoed it.

  I filled my days writing a full account of what had happened to me from the night of fires when Caius Tellus had made his power grab last year, the abortive mission to rescue Silvia Apulia, my captivity and escape. So much had happened and I wanted it documented. No, I needed to get it out of my
system. When I allowed my mind to go back to the night Caius raped me, shame and anger still flooded through me. Each day I would scribble out my anger, then type up a fair copy on the word processor Miklós had brought home for me. As I loaded each day’s work onto the diskette I was comforted by the thought that at least posterity would know the true story.

  ‘What were you doing up at four this morning, Aurelia? Again?’

  Miklós stood in the doorway of the dining room, the towelling coat open at the neckline showing his smooth skin covered in fine black down. The belt was cinched tight around his waist and water glistened in the black curls. Warm desire rocketed through me. I wanted nothing but to surrender to and at the same time consume this man. I dropped my pen on the table and covered the two steps to him. I reached up, slid my hand down the side of his neck and kissed him long and hard.

  ‘You didn’t have any plans this morning, did you?’ I whispered when I pulled away for a moment.

  His eyes narrowed, then he shook his head and took my hand in his.

  ‘Don’t try to distract me.’ He flicked my nose with his finger. ‘You’re like a horse straining to gallop across the plains. I do understand, really I do, but while we stay this close to the Roma Nova border, you must stay in the barn.’ He pulled me to him, circled my waist with his arm and whispered, ‘But we could burn a few calories together in the straw in the meantime.’

  * * *

  Miklós had gone into town early the next morning on some mysterious errand. Sándor sat in the kitchen with his black tea and magazine of dubious taste and I stared out of the window, bored out of my mind and intensely frustrated. Writing my account had made me realise I couldn’t sit on my backside doing nothing while Caius was destroying everything in Roma Nova. But what could I do alone? I dissected the Acta Diurna international edition, such as it was reduced to – mere propaganda. I scoured the international press, but most of them had moved on to other stories. My former colleagues in European foreign ministries only replied to my letters with sympathy and meandering about not interfering with other countries’ internal problems. Probably written by one of their assistants and signed in a pile of letters. Only Sir Henry Carter in the United Kingdom bothered to write his own letter; practical advice about enduring, building resources in conjunction with others and wishing me luck. His footnote, ‘if the New Austrians chuck you out, we would be more than happy to give you immediate and permanent asylum,’ seemed like a tiny lamp in the general gloom.