‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Putting aside the threat to my family, I recommend he should not be allowed near the imperatrix or her family. Not just her children but also her cousins to at least the first degree. Nor must he attend any of the Twelve Families events.’
‘Do you have the ability to stop him? Since old Countess Tella’s sister died, he’s the next heir after Constantia Tella.’
‘I wouldn’t be worried if it was Quintus,’ I said.
Caius’s younger brother, now a senator and deputy city prefect at only thirty-seven, was his complete opposite. How they were children of the same mother baffled me. After serving in one of the better legions, Quintus had rocketed up the administrative and political career path – the cursus honorum.
‘Well, having a murderous half-brother in a Prussian prison doesn’t seem to have put a brake on his progress so far.’ Plico shrugged. ‘Quintus Tellus is reckoned to be a possible for chief secretary one day.’
‘Perhaps, but he’s running in the election for one of the deputy praetorships next year. Ambitious, surely, but he told me he’d be home and dry before Caius got out.’
‘He’s stuffed, then.’
‘Juno, that’s so unfair.’
Plico shrugged. ‘You need to judge how much you take to your minister, if anything. After all, monitoring Caius is really the interior minister’s problem. But if you want my two solidi’s worth, it would be fortunate if Caius Tellus suffered a fatal accident before he got back here.’
II
‘I’ll do it.’ Miklós shrugged. ‘That way, none of you Roma Novans will have the moral dilemma and Caius Tellus will no longer exist as a problem.’ It was nearly midnight as we sat in the easy chairs in the atrium. He put his glass, empty of brandy, back on the low table and glanced up at me. ‘And you’ll be able to sleep at night. You were tossing and turning in bed last night as if witches were chasing round in your head.’
‘I can’t let you do it, Miklós. It’s murder. We’d be as bad as him.’
‘Let me?’ He raised an eyebrow and his eyes glinted.
‘You know I didn’t mean it like that.’ I put my hand out and rested it on his shoulder, my fingers just touching the black curls at his shirt collar. He still wore his hair long like an unruly teenager’s even though he was thirty-seven, but now fashion had caught up with him. He took my hand and pressed it to his lips. A warm flow passed down my arm. His eyes lost the sharp look and brightened as he kept hold of my hand.
‘I know, drágám.’
‘Let’s forget Caius,’ I said. ‘We have better things to do tonight than wasting our time worrying about him. And I’ve been away for three days.’
He laughed – a rich, sexy sound that I’d first heard on a freezing mountain top when I’d been chasing smugglers on our border. It had stayed imprinted in my memory ever since. I stood, holding my hand out, inviting him. But he didn’t follow.
He leant forward on the sofa, his whole frame tense. He became completely still, uncannily so. His eyes narrowed, almost closed, and the skin stretched over his face as he stuck his chin out. It reminded me of a rapacious hunting bird, reflecting something stretching back to his Hun ancestors.
‘I will be watching him,’ he said, looking straight ahead. ‘The first step he takes towards you or Marina, whatever you say, he will be a dead man.’
*
I waited airside behind the smoked glass of the service vehicle as the Prussian aircraft landed at Portus Airport. Two green-uniformed Royal Prussian Police officers escorted Caius Tellus down the steps. He ambled across the tarmac with his escorts as if he were on a Sunday afternoon stroll. Two of our vigiles were waiting for him. He held out his handcuffed hands and raised one eyebrow, obviously expecting them to remove the restraints, but they ignored him. One vigilis grabbed him by the upper arm and pulled him to the waiting truck. They shoved him in the back and slammed the doors.
They held him for the statutory twenty-eight days. I sat in the court hearing when the public accusatrix led the state’s case against Caius for silver smuggling. An old law giving automatic protection against double-jeopardy stood in the way of a conviction. Without glancing at Caius, I gave my evidence and repelled questions from his shifty lawyer. But even Galba’s detailed report citing every possible precedent and circumstance didn’t secure our case. As Plico predicted, Caius was acquitted. As I listened to the judgement, a wave of anger rolled through me. The law, the damned outmoded law.
I filed a private action for his assault on me here in Roma Nova thirteen years earlier. He’d stolen a small boat from the main river and rowed up the tributary that ran along the far edge of the home park behind my house. I’d been jogging in the park, safe on my own land, I’d thought, but he’d attacked and badly injured me. He’d beaten me so badly I’d miscarried my child and finished any hopes I had of carrying another. I sat on the hard bench in the draughty civil court with iron in my heart listening to his lawyer pleading it out.
My lawyer argued that audiatur et altera pars, that the other side had to be heard on an equal basis, couldn’t apply in this case. Caius had been incarcerated in Prussia so I hadn’t been able to summon him into open court to face the charge. Fluent and experienced, my lawyer used every drop of his oratorical talent to push the extenuating circumstances argument, but I knew it was hopeless; there was no such thing as a court hearing in absentia in Roma Novan law. The magistrate looked down at me with a sympathetic expression, but ruled in a dry voice that it was outside the ten-year statute of limitations for assault; I was out of time by three years. Despite the statements by my retired steward, Milo, and my ex-comrade-in-arms, Numerus, who had been instrumental in sending Caius back to Prussia to face trial, the case was dismissed.
Nor could it be linked to the public case against Caius that had failed. As I listened to the judge cite an eighteenth-century law dismissing my right to private redress of a public case, I resolved to bring a proposal to the imperial council to cut the automatic tie between public and private actions – it was ridiculous in the twentieth century. And when Caius stopped by my bench, tilted his head and smirked at me, I swore to start drafting it that very evening.
*
The Praetorians tracked Caius for a couple of months, I was sure as a favour to me as a former comrade, and then the vigiles took over. At Domus Mitelarum, we doubled the security. Marina was accompanied everywhere overtly by the assistant steward’s daughter, a sensible girl a year older than Marina in age, but many years advanced in maturity, and covertly by one of our security team. And the steward’s daughter carried an emergency transmitter. I was taking no chances.
But the monthly reports forwarded from the vigiles’ prefect’s office contained nothing. Caius lived quietly at Domus Tellarum, visited the family villa outside the city for a few days at a time, drank and ate in city restaurants and went to a few dubious parties and the games.
I’d seen him there once when I’d stood in for Severina. As imperatrix she should have opened the big games, but she shirked it. It wasn’t as if they were still the old killing-fests; now it was a mix of sports with weapons demonstrations plus, of course, the touristy chariot race at the end. Caius had looked up at the imperial box and bowed to me in an exaggerated way; to mock me, I was sure.
Otherwise, he kept below the vigiles’ radar; he didn’t even get a parking fine. Miklós followed him sometimes through the less attractive parts of the city nightlife and asked his trading contacts in the city to report any news of Caius.
One morning, I found Miklós dozing on the sofa in the atrium, still wearing the casual suit and shirt he’d gone out in the evening before. His upturned loafers had been deposited at the side. His face was tight, his lips straight, slightly turned down at each end; he was almost frowning. My heart clenched. I’d seen that look many times before in the past twelve years. I couldn’t bear to wake him and hear him confirm it.
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I was sipping my coffee when he appeared in the dining room an hour later dressed in his leathers. His black curls were still damp which made him look like a cherub who’d been river-bathing. But his expression was far from heavenly as he plonked himself down opposite me and helped himself to bread and cheese. He said nothing until he’d munched his way through two slices and drunk a whole mug of coffee.
‘Aurelia, I—’
‘Yes?’ I interrupted.
‘I have to go.’
‘I know.’ I couldn’t stop the tears squeezing out from the corners of my eyes.
‘I haven’t found out a single thing about Caius. I’ve followed him nearly every night this last month. It’d be rash to say he’s given up, but I think you’re safe.’ He glanced at me. ‘I know you don’t need me to protect you with all your Praetorians and security. My scouts will tell me if anything looks out of the ordinary.’ He stood up. ‘It’s so stifling here.’ He looked past me at the wall. ‘It’s not the city and you know it’s not you. I need to stretch myself, somewhere I can ride for days, weeks, not hours. And I have some business to conduct.’
I knew the almost deserted high alp in the west of Roma Nova wasn’t wide enough for somebody born on the Magyar Plains. Nor was the regulated city a place he could thrive indefinitely. But I felt sick and empty.
In the courtyard, he grabbed me around the waist and almost crushed me. He nuzzled my neck. His curls brushed the skin on my face. I gasped at the tingle that raced through me. He whispered in my ear. ‘You know I will never stop loving you, my heart and soul.’
‘Don’t go. Please,’ I whispered back.
‘It’s only for a few weeks.’
I shook my head.
He stared at me, bent and kissed my lips almost chastely, then turned and climbed on his new Bayerischer motorbike. He revved the engine and roared out of the gate. I watched the blue and silver vanish to a speck before I went back inside and threw myself on the bed. He’d be back, but I kept him by letting him go.
*
Miklós returned one afternoon five weeks later; laughing, his skin tanned and eyes full of love. His ‘business’ had turned out well, he said. He never explained exactly what he did and I never asked. But he had connections in informal trading throughout Europe. The following morning, his hand stroking mine, he said none of his people had seen or heard anything suspicious about Caius. It was only when Marina and I went for a social visit to Imperatrix Severina three weeks later that I heard news of him.
Strange, but in my head the word ‘imperatrix’ always conjured up her mother, Justina Apulia, a strong ruler who had passed into the shades not long after I became an assistant minister. Her daughter, Severina, was hesitant rather than decisive, often taking the last person’s advice instead of the best. I tried to make sure I was that last person. Justina had grasped my hand as she lay dying and commanded, then begged, me to guide Severina to do the right thing for Roma Nova. Her chief secretary had handed me the appointment of consiliaria in perpetuum signed with a shaky hand by Justina shortly before she took her last breath. It was a duty I accepted, and dreaded.
Severina Apulia had a habit of looking to anybody else but me; she resented, firstly, that Justina had foisted me on her and secondly, that I sometimes called on the privilege of being the head of the senior of the Twelve Families to sway her decision. Gritting my teeth, I stood back when the issue wasn’t important, but sometimes I had to intervene to stop Severina making a serious error of judgement. The gods knew I hated doing that, but once she nearly repealed the land redistribution law in an imperial council meeting after the head of the agricultural chamber had lobbied her hard. I almost broke into a sweat thinking of it again. That memory retreated as her husband approached us. Severina had married one of my cousins in the junior branch, Fabianus Mitelus, now Apulius, and it was he who greeted Marina and me.
‘Aurelia, come in and hear the latest gossip.’
I admired him for his patient and steadfast loyalty to Severina. She would have driven me spare within a week. They had two delightful children in Silvia, just fourteen, and eighteen-year-old Julian, about to join the legion. Personally, I thought it was because of Fabianus’s steady nature and devotion to them that the children were as balanced and well-educated as they were.
Severina gave me a brief nod and Marina a full smile. Silvia, a little solemn, exchanged kisses with Marina. I clasped arms with Julian in the military way. He flushed, but smiled in a proud way as he drew himself up straight. Being the imperatrix’s son in the military would be an advantage in one way, but not in so many others; the least little failure would be thrown in his face. But he was fit, intelligent and willing to learn. I was confident he would weather it. And if he were inclined, I would welcome him as a son-in-law. I pushed that away. He and Marina were far too young. But still…
‘Tea, or something stronger, Aurelia?’
Fabianus’s voice penetrated my daydreaming. He held a tumbler lined with ice, rivulets of amber liquid percolating through to the thick base, and smiled at me, understanding.
‘A glass of white wine would be perfect, thanks.’
I listened to my light-minded daughter chatter with our light-minded ruler about fashion, films and gossip. I had never been interested and when they laughed at some in-joke, I felt awkward and excluded. They would have been a better mother and daughter combination. In contrast, Severina’s daughter, Silvia, stood quietly with her brother and me, and watched the two of them. I gave her a sympathetic look, which she returned.
‘Did you hear the latest, Aurelia?’ Severina raised her head as she spoke and half twisted round in her seat to face me. ‘About Caius Tellus?’ Her eyes gleamed.
I tensed, my glass halfway to my lips. Julian had been telling me about how the legion had worked him hard during his cadet assessment week. I was commiserating, but laughing, with him until I heard that name. Severina had all my attention now.
‘He’s only gone and married Constantia Tella. Quite the whirlwind romance, I gather.’ She almost, but not quite, smirked.
‘What?’ I stared at Severina.
‘Oh, didn’t you know? How unlike you, dear Aurelia. I thought you knew everything.’
Constantia Tella was a bright woman, a professor at the Central University and the fearsome Domitia Tella’s granddaughter and heir. She’d met Richard Berger halfway up a mountain in New Austria when she was on a walking holiday. Three weeks later, they were installed in a charming house off the Cardo Max and a baby boy appeared nine months afterwards. They hadn’t married; they didn’t need to. Under Roma Novan law all the children belonged to their mother whether or not the parents contracted formally. Perhaps Richard Berger wanted to maintain his independence.
‘What in Hades is Constantia doing dumping her handsome Austrian for a piece of shit like Caius?’ The words were out of my mouth before my brain could stop them.
Severina winced.
‘Richard Berger is all very well but he’s a foreigner,’ she said. ‘Caius might have had problems in the past, but at least he’s a Roman.’
I couldn’t believe she’d said something so xenophobic. I hoped my mouth wasn’t gaping. Most Roma Novans had overseas relatives or ancestors, including her. Everybody else stopped speaking and stared at her. A pink flush crept up her neck into her face.
‘But they’re inseparable,’ I said. People had joked behind Constantia and Richard’s backs about how they couldn’t keep their hands off each other even after more than six years together.
‘Evidently not,’ Severina retorted.
‘But they have little Conradus,’ I said. ‘Richard dotes on him.’ I’d seen them at a Families’ children’s day, two bleach blond heads together, Richard chuckling as he made the boy giggle, and chasing each other; other times the man carrying the child on his shoulders, both laughing and singing.
Now
Constantia had married another man in the traditional way, she would keep the child in her household and Richard would be condemned to occasional access visits. And Caius would ensure they were as difficult as possible.
‘Well, it’s up to them,’ Severina said, huffily.
‘Did you know they were going to marry?’ I shot at her.
‘No.’ She looked down and picked at her skirt. ‘And don’t glare at me like that, Aurelia. As they were contracting within their own family, they didn’t need to tell me,’ she added in a resentful tone. ‘But I think it’s a bit much, not inviting me. I shall be quite cross when I see either of them next. But it all sounds so romantic. And little Conradus will have a proper Roman father. Maybe Caius can persuade Constantia to change the boy’s name to a proper Roman name as well.’
I closed my eyes for a second. I opened them and glanced at Fabianus who shook his head. That poor child, having Caius Tellus as stepfather. Worse, much worse, was that by marrying Constantia, Caius had taken a significant step nearer heading the richest family in Roma Nova. Old Countess Tella was still with us but if Constantia and Caius had a daughter, he’d be the father of the next Tella family heir.
III
Richard Berger spent the following few months trying to make Constantia see reason. The Tella family lawyer served him an eviction notice from the couple’s former house – at Caius’s instruction, I’d bet – so I invited him to stay with us. He was distraught, poor man; he’d lost his love, his child and his home. As head of the Twelve Families, I intervened twice on his behalf but the third time, Caius threw me out of Domus Tellarum. Constantia had stood at his side, smiling and supporting her new husband. Without a complaint from her, I could do nothing.
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