INSURRECTIO

by Alison Morton

  They were near, within metres, with a portable tracker.

  I could see no one. Fear stabbed my stomach. And I began to shake. They couldn’t take me back. I’d rather die. And those who had helped me would suffer as well. I crouched where I was and buried my wrist under my armpit, praying it was a fault in the unit.

  Nothing, I could hear nothing; no vehicle, no footsteps, but no wildlife either. Where in Hades were they? If I ran for the trees, that would confuse them. If I stayed here, they’d be sure to pinpoint me. I stood, took a last look round. I drew a long breath and sprinted full pelt for the treeline, zigzagging across the empty space. The dark space of the pine trees engulfed me and, sure I was invisible from the edge, I stopped. I rested against the rough trunk of a pine, the flat of my hands on the broken bark bracing my weight. I gasped at the freezing air as my lungs dragged it in and bent over, coughing it out. My heart hammered against my ribcage. After a few moments, I stood upright.

  A chorus of clicks as weapons were cocked. Numb with shock as black figures surrounded me, rifles aimed at my head.

  ‘Stay completely still.’

  I knew that voice. It couldn’t be. He stepped forward from the mass of the figures. Callixtus, my former security chief who had betrayed me at the Castra Lucilla farm, whom I’d thrown out, who was a Roman Nationalist. He took a step forward, but stayed out of reach of my hands.

  ‘Our orders are to take you alive, but we’re authorised to terminate you if necessary. I know what you are and what you can do, so I’m fully prepared to do that.’ His voice was hard, but his face harder, more lined than before, ridged almost in the harsh light of the torches. He stood rock still. The only sounds were an owl call and feet shuffling. I stared at him, pleading with my eyes. For just a few moments, his face softened and I saw that grave, gentle face that I’d known for years. Then he blinked and the hard lines returned. He stretched out his hands, clicked his fingers and one of his group handed him a set of handcuffs. Oh gods, not again. I brought my hands to my sides, and flexed my feet ready to make a run. Two of the group lurched toward me. Gods, they were keyed up, over nervous. Not regular troops.

  ‘Stop,’ he shouted. We all froze. ‘You two, back.’ They snapped back into their circle immediately. ‘You,’ he stabbed his finger at me, ‘I won’t tell you again. Now hold out your wrists.’

  I swallowed hard. Surely I couldn’t give in this meekly? There were five of them plus Callixtus. Three I might manage, but the other three would shoot me before I got five metres. But better dead than back at Caius’s mercy.

  The pine trees behind them were black, dense. Perhaps there were reinforcements. I took a slow breath in through my teeth, keeping my shoulders relaxed. I shrugged and rotated my arms backwards as if readying myself for the inevitable. As Callixtus relaxed slightly, I spun round the back of the tree and launched myself into the darkness.

  Shouts followed me, whistle shrieks and curses. My rucksack thumped into my back with every step. I couldn’t abandon it – I’d never make it through the mountains without it. I wove in and out of the trees, leaping over roots, dodging shrubs. No sounds of pursuit. Then the tag buzzed and glinted. Hades. With that bloody thing, I was sunk. I pushed myself harder. Panting short breaths as I pounded along. Cold searing my throat as I dragged air in. The tag light flickered and went out. Mercury, my friend. On, on up to the scree bank, into the gap to the pass to the border.

  My legs started wobbling, sweat ran down my neck and between my breasts, but I had to keep going. I reached the edge of the treeline, just below the track through the scree. I glanced up. It was a hell of a climb. Any false step and I could rick or break my ankle. And I’d be exposed to Callixtus’s thugs, even on this dark night. I took a deep breath and, almost reluctantly, took the first step out of the shelter of the upper treeline.

  *

  I cried out as the bolt of white heat seared my face. Stumbled and crumpled onto the rocks. Tears ran down my face from the shock and I gasped for breath. I pinched my lips together and fumbled for my handkerchief to press on my face. I shook it open after a moment and tied it round my jaw like a field bandage. Within moments it started throbbing. Pain was too simple a word. But I had to get up. I rolled onto my hands and knees, panned around, but I couldn’t see anybody. Those bastards were hiding in the trees, but I had no option.

  I tucked my feet under and sprang up and to the left in one movement. Another shot, right of me. Every twenty steps I seized a small rock and lobbed it in a different direction from the previous one. I strained to go faster, but I couldn’t make my legs work any harder. Sour fumes rose from my throat and I felt dizzy. I bent my head and forced myself on.

  When I looked up five minutes later, Callixtus stood there alone, breathing hard, but blocking the path.

  ‘Give up. You are never going to make it through those mountains losing blood like that.’

  ‘I’ll take my chances. I’d rather die than go back.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You need medical help now. I have to arrest you and you’ll be imprisoned for a while, but if you submit, you’ll be allowed to live.’

  I laughed. Was it hysteria or laughing at him for his naivety? My head and neck were aching now and I swayed, then staggered to one side. I just held my balance.

  ‘Callixtus, for pity’s sake,’ I gasped, ‘please don’t give me up to him.’ My voice was scarcely a croak. This man who had assured my family’s security for many years, yet betrayed me, was about to hand me over to my enemy who never forgave.

  ‘I must,’ he said. ‘It’s a different world now and you have become a terrorist threatening it. You have to be stopped.’

  He strode towards me, the handcuffs in his left hand, and grabbed my right wrist. I had no energy left to pull away. My sleeve fell back. The steel bracelet and mesh tag band reflected moonlight.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘What do you mean? It’s your bloody tag. You know, the thing that’s trapped me here barely two kilometres from my freedom.’

  ‘I know perfectly well what a tag looks like. No, that steel bracelet.’ He frowned at me, and looked puzzled.

  ‘You really don’t know? That’s my slave ring that marks me as Caius Tellus’s property.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘Look inside the ring. You’ll find his name. Didn’t you know your wonderful first consul is forcibly contracting free citizens?’ I looked at him, willing him to look directly at me, but he couldn’t meet my eyes. ‘His thugs are abusing and flogging our people.’

  ‘Now you are lying.’

  ‘Did you ever know me do that when you worked for me?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘And don’t think being a fellow patrician is any protection,’ I said. ‘He raped me, Callixtus.’ I choked at the memory. My heart thudded while Callixtus hesitated. After five seconds, I began to hope I’d won. After ten, that hope grew. I straightened up, ready to take a first step away from him.

  A whistle blast tore the air.

  ‘You’re a criminal and my job is to detain you,’ he said in a mechanical voice.

  Cold despair washed through me. I struggled in his grip, but I was too exhausted to break away. He snapped the handcuffs on. He pushed me in front of him back through the trees. My cheek was so painful, my eye watered and I couldn’t see properly, so I stumbled several times. In the end, he grasped my arm and half dragged me back to the lower edge of the treeline.

  His men were there, grouped in a circle, talking and smoking. They stopped one by one as they saw us. Callixtus dumped me on my bottom by the base of a tree and ordered one of them to tie me to it. He crouched down and removed my makeshift bandage none too gently and I felt warm blood dribble down my cheek. He pressed a freezing cold pad against my skin, which made me gasp, but it numbed the pain.

  As he stood up, I heard the sound of a helic
opter. Were they so anxious to transport me back to the city that quickly? The throbbing mechanical roar intensified and then cut. I presumed it had landed. Five minutes later, Caius strode into the clearing.

  XXXV

  Dressed in black belted jacket and trousers, polished riding boots, revolver at his waist and a red armband on his left upper arm with the Nationalists’ symbolic fasces and a mailed fist, he looked every inch the dark power he was. Flanked by two assistants dressed in the same way, he strolled over to Callixtus.

  ‘My congratulations, Section Leader, for a job well done. You must feel satisfaction in reversing the fortune of one who treated you so badly.’

  ‘Sir. I was happy to carry out my duty.’

  Caius patted him on his shoulder and gave him one of his dazzling smiles. ‘A very proper answer.’ Then he looked down at me. ‘Get her up.’

  One of Callixtus’s men untied me from the tree and another one pulled me to my feet. Caius stared at me with hard eyes. I looked straight back at him. He flicked his fingers backwards and his henchmen, Callixtus and his men melted into the background.

  ‘What is this?’ He ran his fingertip just under the bandaged wound on my cheek. I winced.

  ‘One of your men took a shot at me.’

  ‘And missed? How careless of him.’

  I shrugged. My stomach was turning into knots, but I’d be damned to Tartarus if I showed how frightened I was. Then he struck my wounded cheek hard with the flat of his hand. An instant of numbness. I couldn’t breathe, then I choked against the pain flooding my face. I bent over and staggered with the shock. But I kept my balance. I brought my manacled hands up to wipe away the tears, blood and snot. When I looked at him, his face was impassive.

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘A tiny taste of what is coming. You’ve disappointed me, Aurelia. I know you are wayward, rebellious even, but I mistakenly thought you were learning to adapt.’ He sighed. ‘I should have thrown you in Truscium at the beginning.’

  Gods, the maximum security prison in the mountains for the most vicious hardened criminals. If you survived the prison system, working in the silver mines behind it would kill you.

  ‘I gave in to my weakness for you,’ he said. ‘Even the exceptional privileges I granted you couldn’t soften your stubbornness. Evidently, I was expecting too much.’

  ‘Privileges? Running around as your menial, humiliated before my peers and forced to sleep with you?’ I looked down, full of shame. ‘You kept me as your slave.’

  ‘I gave you my protection and the chance to find a life in the new Roma Nova. I would have loved you, you know.’

  His face softened and his eyes shone. He actually believed that.

  ‘But you wanted to dominate me – that’s not love.’

  ‘You needed to be controlled first.’

  ‘No, love is given freely, and unreservedly.’

  ‘Sentimental nonsense.’ He glanced away, then back, fire in his eyes. ‘You’ve thrown everything I offered back in my face.’

  ‘Can’t you see that living like that would be a sham? I would be a collaborator in my own and everybody else’s eyes.’

  ‘You exaggerate. You are supposed to be intelligent, but like all women, you allow emotion to cloud your judgement.’

  ‘Caius, I—’

  ‘Enough.’ The neutral expression returned. ‘You are not worthy of any further effort on my part. I don’t wish to hear any excuses or explanations. You’ve rejected me for the last time. You are outside now, Aurelia. You will disappear into one of the new work colonies for recalcitrants. The regime is strict, but at least you will contribute in some way before you die.’

  ‘I would rather you killed me now and got it over with.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, but that’s a privilege I’m not inclined to grant you.’

  Work colonies – slave camps, he meant. I’d read the reports from the Russian gulags eons ago when I’d been foreign minister. Had he brought such monstrous things to Roma Nova? People condemned to a desperate, feral life with exhaustion and a starving death?

  I had to break his shell and enrage him so he’d kill me quickly.

  ‘You know I’ll stir up rebellion there. There’ll be plenty of people prepared to join me. I’ll fight you with every cell in my body.’

  ‘You may think differently when you are whipped back into your hut every night or one of your tentmates is taken out and hanged every time you blink in an insubordinate way.’

  I shivered inside.

  ‘Oh, I forgot,’ I countered, ‘you use the coward’s way, bullying people by attacking the weak. How pathetic.’

  His face tightened, his mouth becoming a straight, grim line.

  ‘You raped me but you never touched me, not the real me. You never possessed me, nor will you in any way you like to think of.’

  He took a step forward, his hand raised.

  ‘Yes, go on, hit me again. I can’t defend myself. Hitting women is one of your new regime’s rules, is it?’

  ‘You really are a first-class bitch.’

  ‘No, I’m a strong woman, Caius, and you can’t stand that, can you?’

  His eyes narrowed and his face tensed in anger. I thought he was going to explode. A crackle from one of his sidekicks’ radios broke the silence. The assistant murmured into the handset, then advanced to Caius and whispered something into his ear. Caius frowned, then nodded.

  ‘Section Leader,’ Caius called and Callixtus emerged from the shadows and stood to attention at Caius’s side. ‘You and a driver are seconded for special duty. Dismiss your other men and bring your vehicle here.’

  Callixtus returned within a minute, just as the helicopter engine started. I could hear the whump-whump of the blades turning.

  ‘I don’t have time to deal with this, Aurelia, so I’ve changed my plans for you. I’m going to grant your dearest wish. This man,’ he waved his fingers at Callixtus, ‘is going to take you across the border and drop you there. But you’ll be dead. Goodbye.’

  He raised his revolver. His hand seemed to tremble, but perhaps it was the poor light. I blinked ready for the blow. He fired three shots at point-blank range. The bullets slammed into my chest and leg. I dropped like a stone.

  No breath.

  Black.

  *

  Pain. Tight. Water on my lips. Give me more.

  ‘Domina.’ A hiss in my ear.

  Fire in my chest and leg. Sore face. Tightness.

  ‘Don’t speak or make any noise.’

  Cold cloth on my face.

  ‘Don’t move,’ the voice hissed. ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’

  Jolting. We were travelling in a vehicle.

  ‘I’m covering you with a blanket. Play dead.’

  We stopped.

  ‘Delivery for a colleague in Vienna,’ a voice in the front of the vehicle said. ‘For the legation.’

  ‘Are you carrying any weapons?’ A New Austrian-accented voice.

  ‘Of course not, Officer.’

  ‘We’ll have to look in the back.’

  ‘No, sorry, sealed diplomatic baggage. Here’s my authorisation.’

  ‘Humph, I’ll have to check with my captain.’

  Footsteps. Come back. Save me. I tried to move, but pain shot through my chest and rippled through my body. Something, somebody pushed me back and I passed out.

  *

  I was jolted awake. I nearly screamed with the pain, but my mouth was taped shut. Pitch black, hot, something covering my face.

  ‘Lie still,’ the same voice whispered. ‘I hope you can hear me. You were shot. The first consul said to leave you to bleed to death or finish you off if you were still alive by the time we got here. We’re supposed to dump you in the public park in Vienna. I’ve stopped the bleeding, but I can’t do any more or my driver w
ill get suspicious.’

  Callixtus.

  ‘He was wrong to treat you like that. I…I didn’t know about the slave thing. I’ll get you to safety. Hang on, if you can.’ He pressed my hand. I heard clambering noises, then his voice came from the front.

  ‘Stop at this garage, Sergius. I want some ciggies.’

  ‘Cheaper, eh?’

  ‘This near the border, they should still take solidi. In Vienna, no chance. Better get petrolled up as well.’

  I closed my eyes and tried to breathe slowly and quietly; not easy through a blocked nose. But without the engine noise masking my snuffling, it would be lethal if Callixtus’s man heard me. He opened the vehicle passenger door and I heard the clatter of a petrol pump nozzle against the side of the van. I breathed out heavily against the hum of the pump filling the tank.

  ‘Here,’ Callixtus’s voice at the front, ‘I got us some drinks as well and some tabs for my headache.’

  ‘Headache?’

  ‘Chasing that silly bitch at full speed after a few beers with the lads. Not recommended.’

  The driver laughed.

  ‘Think I’ll lie down in the back for a kip,’ Callixtus said. ‘Wake me up when we get near.’

  *

  He peeled back the tape across my mouth and gave me water. I couldn’t drink enough, but he only let me take small sips at a time. He pressed something on my tongue. Ugh. Bitter.

  ‘Painkillers.’ He tilted my head up, and slopped more water into my mouth. I had to swallow or drown. But I tensed against the pain that would follow such a muscle movement. Callixtus grabbed my jaw and pulled my chin up as if I were a reluctant cat. I swallowed, and he let out a loud yawn to cover my sob as pain spasmed through my diaphragm. My reward was more water.

  *

  Next time we stopped, I was awake. The van doors opened with a crash. I took a deep breath just in time before the blanket was pulled off me. Faint daylight seeped in through my eyelids, so it was early morning. Hands on my ankles. Then they heaved my body. Juno knows how I stayed quiet against the agony that shot through me.