Coalescent

by Stephen Baxter

  But the roof of the great basilica showed signs of fire damage, and the marble floor of the piazza was crowded with shabby market stalls. Many of the shoppers wore the bold jewelry, skin cloaks, and brightly patterned tunics and trousers of barbarians, of Germans and Vandals, Huns and Goths. Few of them noticed the carved figures of defeated barbarians who peered down from the tops of the columns that ringed the piazza, images of the ancestors of these confident shoppers, symbols of an arrogant past.

  To either side of the piazza were exedrae, huge semicircular courtyards, and Regina led Brica into one of these. They entered a warren of brick-faced concrete built into the terraced slopes of a hill. Regina felt her own nervousness increase. There were offices, shops, and courts here on many levels, all linked by stairs and streets and vaulted corridors. It was bewildering. But again there were signs that this place had seen better days, for there were comparatively few people here, and many boarded-up and even burned-out shops.

  Amator seemed to be doing better than the average, though. His home, set in an upper level of the complex, turned out to be a grand apartment fronted by a bakery. The shop was a busy place, and enticing smells issued from its big stone ovens.

  A retainer came through the shop and led them into the house behind. The retainer was a boy of sixteen or seventeen, with plump, effeminate features. When he walked ahead of them there was a faint whiff of perfume.

  At the heart of the home, a series of rooms crowded around a small tiled atrium, illuminated by a light well cut into the roof above. At the far side of the atrium a narrow passageway led them between larger rooms — an office, and a large, sumptuous-looking dining room — and out to a garden, surrounded on three sides by slender columns, and with a view to the south overlooking the city. The house itself was not large by the standards of Regina's villa — but then this was Rome, and she understood how much more expensive space was here.

  The garden, called a peristylium, despite a small fountain with a statue of some aquatic goddess, was not terribly impressive in itself. But what made it remarkable was that it had been entirely built on the roof of the apartment below. Brica poked at the grass with one sandaled toe, trying to find the concrete base beneath.

  Amator met them in the little garden. "Welcome, Regina..." His voice was as deep and rich as she remembered, and she felt a deep and unwelcome flush work through her belly, as if her body kept its own memories. But she was shocked at the sight of him.

  A few years older than her, he was now in his middle fifties. His thin frame was swathed in a purple-edged toga, no doubt worn to impress her, she thought. But he had grown gaunt. His face had lost its fullness, and his cheeks and chin showed sharp bones. And his head was now completely bald — in fact, she saw with surprise, his eyebrows were gone, too, though two lines of livid flesh showed where they had been.

  His retainer, the perfumed boy, hovered at his elbow, looking uncertain and nervous.

  Regina gave Amator her hand, and he buffed his lips against it. "I am glad to see you are prospering," she said. "But you have changed."

  He pursed his lips, and she saw that his eyes were as black and deep as ever. "You're talking about my hair? I can tell you've only just arrived," he said dryly. "You sound so provincial! Whole-body depilation is quite the fashion now. Of course you can't find a barber to do the job well these days. But Sulla here is an expert with his poultices of wax, if a little heavy-handed with the tweezers."

  "And perhaps you enjoy the little pains, do you?"

  He arched his head, and a smile tugged at the corners of his small mouth. "You've lost none of your sharpness, little chicken."

  The retainer's reaction to this exchange was complex. He had flushed when Amator referred to him personally, but now he was watching Regina with alarmed calculation.

  They are lovers, Regina realized suddenly. And this wretched boy of Amator's is trying to work out if I am any threat to his position. She eyed the boy without pity. The boy wore a gold bulla around his neck. Like a little pouch, this was a symbol of his free birth, and would normally be worn from infancy to manhood. He looked too old to be wearing such a childish token, and she wondered if Amator preferred to keep his companion young.

  If Amator had chosen men over women, something of his old hunger showed in his eyes as he turned his intense gaze on Brica. Regina felt proud as Brica returned his lascivious stare with contempt.

  "Your companion is lovely," said Amator smoothly. "Her paleness gives her an exotic look in these warmer climes—"

  "Her name is Brica," said Regina. "She is my daughter. And yours, Amator." She heard a gasp from Brica; Regina had not warned her about this. "Although truthfully I cannot be sure if it was you or Athaulf whose restless cock impregnated me that night."

  Amator's gaze clouded. But he smiled again at Brica, though with more levels of complexity than before. "Wine, Sulla," he murmured.

  The boy now stared with open hostility at Regina and Brica, these relics of his master's complicated past. But he went to get the wine.

  Amator waved his guests to the low couches set out around the fountain. Sulla returned with jugs of wine and water, three fine blue glasses, and plates of figs, olives, and apples. Despite her hunger Regina only sipped a little wine. But Brica, without inhibition and despite the news she had just received, wolfed down the apples; Amator seemed startled by her animal directness.

  Wary, calculating, clearly wondering what she wanted from him, Amator told Regina a little about himself. He had come to Rome in partnership with Athaulf. The German had long since vanished from his life; Regina wondered if their relationship had been deeper than she had suspected on that night when they had used her. Still, they had stayed together long enough to found a successful grain-shipping business.

  "Rome is a relentlessly hungry city, Regina," he said. "It has been unable to feed itself since the days of Julius Caesar, and it was Augustus who introduced the annona." This was a dole of free grain, distributed to poorer citizens.

  "We saw the port — the grain fleet."

  "Yes. And with such mighty flows of goods, there are plenty of opportunities for a man of intelligence and charm to make a living for himself, even in these complicated times."

  "And you always had those attributes in plenty."

  "I've done well for the son of a servant from the provinces — don't you think? I've come a long way from there, to this."

  Brica leaned forward, and spoke around a mouthful of fruit. "Why do you have a purple stripe on your cloak? It looks ridiculous." It was the first thing she had said to him.

  "I belong to the equestrian order," he said smoothly. He displayed a big, gaudy gold ring. "It is an ancient order, dating from the times before the wars with Carthage, when the richest citizens were required to fund the cavalry in defense of the Republic. Today it is open to all adult citizens — provided you have enough money, of course — do you know, the Emperor provides me with a horse! But I don't ride; I keep the beast in a stable in my house in the country. I have various civic responsibilities, and—"

  "You are also a member of three guilds," said Regina. "You have several patrons, including a senator called Titus Nerva."

  "You seem to know a great deal about me," Amator cut in, eyeing her.

  "Before he died, your father Carausias was very informative. Even though you rarely wrote to him unless you needed money or some other favor, he told me enough to follow your career."

  Amator leaned forward. "So you know me, as one old lover knows another."

  "Or as a hunter knows her quarry."

  "Well, you have me at a disadvantage," he said. "You know my biography, but I have heard nothing of you since that long-ago night of exuberance and foolishness, which I had all but forgotten."

  "I haven't forgotten. After that 'night of exuberance,' you left me pregnant. You or your German boyfriend. Verulamium fell. Because of the money you stole from your father we couldn't escape to Armorica. I was forced to trek, pregnant, across the
country. I gave birth in an abandoned roundhouse of the Celtae. I was seventeen years old.

  "I spent twenty years trying to make a farmstead work, scraping my food from the ground. But I raised your daughter, as you can see. Later we were overrun by the forces of a warlord called Artorius. Perhaps you have heard of him; he is ambitious. I saved my life and your daughter's by sleeping with him. Again I survived."

  He glared at her. "Yes, you survived, little chicken," he said coldly. "And here you are with your demanding eyes and nagging voice. Why have you abandoned your barbarian warlord to come to Rome?"

  "I want to find my mother."

  He nodded. "I remember the stories you used to tell of her. She must be old — probably dead by now. Why do you want to find the woman who abandoned you?"

  "Because she is my family. Because she owes me a debt. As you also owe me, Amator."

  He smirked. "And what is it you want from me?"

  "Only a little," she said evenly. "I will need time to find Julia. You will give us that time. Provide us somewhere to live — not here; the stink of your boy is too strong. And a little money."

  "I am not as rich as you may think I am, Regina."

  "And no doubt your tastes are expensive. Then give us work. Brica can serve in your shop, perhaps." She ignored Brica's bemused reaction; she would deal with her later. "My demands will be reasonable — only what I need. I'm sure we can work something out."

  "So that's why you've trekked across Europe, with your doe-eyed daughter in tow. Extortion! How delicious. And if I refuse?"

  She shrugged. "I am persistent and dogged. I will explore all facets of your character and your past with your patrons, and other equites, and your business contacts in your guilds. Oh, and your boy — was his name Sulla?"

  "I have nothing to be ashamed of," he flared. "This is not Britain. This is Rome. Things are done differently here."

  "Then," she said mildly, "no one will be disturbed when I tell them how you groomed me for your pleasure from the time of my menarche, and the way you used me on that night in Verulamium. I wonder now if that had something to do with your preference for boys. Perhaps on some level women disgust you, Amator? Perhaps you set out deliberately to hurt me? Oh, and of course I will tell them how you abandoned your obligations to your child all those years ago, and how you destroyed your father's life with your theft—"

  He leaned toward her, his depilated eyebrows flaring red. "You can't harm me, little chicken."

  "Perhaps not. But it will be interesting to try."

  He held her gaze for long heartbeats. She kept still, refusing to show how her heart was hammering — for if he called her bluff she had no alternative plan.

  But then he laughed. "I always did like you, Regina. You had a spark. It wasn't just your boyish little body, you know." He clapped his hands and ordered his perfumed boy to bring more wine.

  Chapter 25

  Pina was no support.

  "You got what you wanted, didn't you? You wanted your contadino. You wanted something nobody else has."

  "No, I—"

  "Now you're different. Congratulations."

  Lucia thought she saw something in Pina's face as she said this, just a flicker of remorse or pity. But Pina turned her back, just like the rest.

  • • •

  Nobody would speak to her. No, it was worse than that. Nobody would even look at her. It was as if waves of disapproval spread out from Rosa and Pina, eventually engulfing everybody Lucia knew.

  She was never physically isolated — that was impossible in the Crypt — but everywhere she went she was alone in a crowd. At work in the scrinium, her work assignments were left on her desk or as impersonal email messages. They were instructions that might have been sent to a robot, she thought, a thing without identity. In the dormitory, little knots of conversation would unravel as she approached. In the refectories people would turn away and talk as if she weren't there. Cut out of the endless babble of gossip, it was as if a great story were moving on without her.

  Listen to your sisters. That was another of the three great slogans of the Order's short catechism, incised on every nursery wall, repeated endlessly. But how were you supposed to listen when nobody would speak to you?

  Now she was excluded, it had never been so apparent how closely everybody in the Order lived. People walked together, talking endlessly, arms linked, hips bumping together, heads bowed closely, lips brushing in platonic kisses. Sometimes, in the refectories, you would see groups of ten or fifteen or even twenty girls, joined one to the next by linked arms or hands on shoulders, or bodies pressed together. At intense moments people would grab each other's arms and shoulders, even kiss. At night, too, it wasn't uncommon for two, three, or four to cluster together in a few pushed-together beds, whispering, kissing, at last sleeping in each other's arms. There was nothing sexual in any of this, for there was nothing sexual about the sisters. As slim as seven-year-olds, they huddled together innocently for companionship and warmth.

  But not Lucia, not anymore. Nobody came near Lucia, no nearer than a yard or two, never near enough to touch. It was as if she were trapped inside a big bubble of glass, around which people walked without even noticing what they were doing.

  Or it was as if she smelled bad. And perhaps she did, she came to wonder. Sometimes, when she walked into a crowded room, she would detect a subtle scent, a kind of milky sweetness, gentle and welcoming. It was the smell of the sisters. By comparison her smell must be of blood and sweat, of a rutting animal, as if she was a beast in the field, not a human being like the others at all.

  Once she was aware of it the scent of rut seemed to fill her head, day and night. She took to showering, two, three, four times a day, scrubbing at her skin until it was raw, and changing her clothes all the time. But still that stink gushed out of her body, a foulness that she couldn't escape — for it was the essence of her.

  It went on and on. Food seemed to lose its flavor; it was like trying to eat cardboard or grass. It got to the point where she couldn't sleep. She would lie there alone in her bed, listening to the whispers and giggles and gentle snores that drifted around her. The lack of sleep and her poor diet soon wore her out. She dragged herself to work. But the work seemed as pointless as the rest of her weary days. In her spare time she would simply sit alone, silently loathing herself, aware of every pore in her skin oozing blood and dirt.

  After a month of ostracism, she suffered violent stomach cramps. She staggered to a bathroom and endured half an hour of dry retching, bringing up nothing but acidic bile that burned her throat.

  • • •

  Rosa came to sit opposite her in the refectory. "I saw you in the bathroom." Her tone was analytical, not sympathetic.

  Lucia had been sitting alone, without touching the cooling plate of food before her. She tucked her hands between her thighs, head down. Over her head an elaborate mosaic design showed the Order's kissing-fish logo.

  "You know why you're ill, don't you? You've hardly eaten for a month. Or slept, by the look of you. The weight is falling off you."

  "I don't care." Lucia's voice was scratchy. She couldn't remember the last time she had spoken to anybody, exchanged a single word. It must have been days, she thought.

  "You feel like you don't exist. As if you're not really here. As if this is a dream."

  "A nightmare."

  "We aren't meant to be alone, Lucia. We're social creatures. Our minds evolved in the first place so we could figure out what is going on inside other people's heads — so we could get to know them, help them, even manipulate them. Did you know that? We need other people to make us fully conscious. So if you're alone, if nobody is looking at you or talking to you, it really is as if you don't exist."

  "Everybody hates me."

  Rosa leaned forward. "Can you blame them? You let us down, Lucia. The Crypt is a calm pond. You threw a great big rock into that pond, making a huge splash, sending ripples back and forth. You upset everybody."

&n
bsp; Lucia dropped her head.

  Rosa asked, "Do you remember what happened to Francesca?"

  Lucia frowned. She had forgotten about Francesca.

  Francesca had been a sister from Lucia's dormitory, neither more or less popular than anybody else, never standing out from the crowd — but then nobody did. Then, one day, suddenly Francesca hadn't been part of the group anymore. Everybody else, including Lucia, had simply stopped talking to her.

  It was just as was happening to Lucia herself.

  "Francesca was a thief," Rosa said sternly. "She had an obsession for jewelry and accessories — sparkly, glittery things. She would steal from her sisters. She built up a cache under her bed. Of course she kept it all secret. When it was discovered — well, naturally, nobody wanted to talk to her again."

  Lucia had never known about the thefts, about why Francesca's exclusion had come about. But then, you never asked questions like why. It had been easy, she thought wonderingly, easy just to ignore Francesca, to behave as if she didn't exist — for in a way she didn't anymore. As for Lucia, she had just gone along with what everybody else had been doing, as she always did, as she had been encouraged to do since she was a toddler, never questioning. She had scarcely noticed when Francesca had literally disappeared, when the pale solitary ghost in the refectory or the dorm had evaporated, never to return.

  "What happened to her?"

  "She's dead," Rosa said. "She killed herself."

  Despite her own turmoil, Lucia was shocked. Dead, for a handful of cheap jewelry? How could that be right?... She should not think such thoughts. Yet she couldn't help it.

  And she became afraid.

  "I can't change," she said desolately. "Look at me. I'm a big stupid animal. My head is full of rocks. I stink. I know you can smell it. I can't help it, I wash and wash..." Though her eyes prickled, no tears came. "Maybe it's better if I die, too."