The ice crackled beneath my feet as I crossed the courtyard. No lights in the porter’s lodge where Numerus’s guard team should have been. I put my shivering down to the cold. It was minus five and dropping and I was only wearing a light jacket over a shirt with slacks and soft boots. Somehow the shallow flight of steps seemed twice as high today as I trudged up them.
The front door was unlocked.
I heard nothing; no hum of machinery, no murmur of voices, no footsteps. No Milo to greet me. I walked carefully through the vestibule, drawing imaginary strength from the imagines of the ancestors staring blindly at me as I passed them. Behind them hung a tapestry woven after the Battle of Vienna in 1683 when a Mitela had led legions to support Sobieski defeating the invaders. The gods give me the same courage she’d had.
The atrium double doors were half open. The last of the winter light falling at an angle through the oculus, the glazed bull’s eye in the roof, settled on the wall opposite the row of floor-to-ceiling windows. In the centre, ten metres away and directly underneath the oculus, and in my mother’s favourite carved oak chair, sat Caius Tellus. My blood boiled to see him in the fake PGSF uniform he hadn’t earned, and having invaded my home. But worse, so much worse, he held Marina on his lap.
I closed my eyes for an instant. A cold wave of despair coursed through me. Not again. Marina cried ‘Mama’ and struggled to climb down, her arms flailing against Caius’s tight grip around her waist. He grabbed her wrist, pinioned it with the hand around her waist and slapped her face. I hurtled towards her, but he had his hand around her throat before I could get near them and was squeezing. Her sobs diminished into gurgles.
I froze.
‘Let her go, you bastard.’
‘I don’t think so,’ he said and held her throat tighter. She closed her eyes and became still.
I fell on my knees. ‘Please.’
‘Dear me, always the dramatic turn.’
He released Marina who slid on to the floor. She looked as if she was sleeping. She couldn’t be dead. He rested his foot on her neck.
‘You may stand, but one false move, Aurelia, and I’ll stamp on her neck and break it. Understand?’
I nodded. My throat was parched with terror, but I refused to let him see how frightened I was. I stared at the slumped form of Marina. Pale skin, her eyelashes resting on her cheeks, immobile, a recumbent marble statue. Then I saw a slight rise of her shoulder. Then another. She was breathing. I looked up at my nemesis.
‘What do you want, Caius?’
‘You. You’ve always denied me. Since you were sixteen.’
‘What! Because I refused to have sex with you at Aquileia’s party?’
‘You refused me again when your mother was alive. She wanted our families to be allied.’
‘Well, you should have married her, then.’
‘I knew you’d need me when she was gone, but you still said no.’
‘Why would I need you?’
‘All women need somebody.’
I stared at him. ‘What century are you living in, Caius? This is Roma Nova. People are independent. That includes men as well as women.’
‘What are you afraid of, Aurelia?’
‘Afraid?’ I snorted. ‘You don’t get it, Caius, do you? I said no because I didn’t like you, I wasn’t attracted to you. I despised the way you lived your life. And I haven’t changed my mind since. Is that enough for you?’
‘You will consent, for your daughter’s sake.’
‘You can only kill her once.’ Gravel ground in my stomach at the thought, but I had to stand up to him.
‘Oh, I wouldn’t kill her. I’d change her, corrupt her and put such a distance between you, you’d never bridge it. And you’ll be watching day by day, powerless to do anything about it.’
A sharp stab of pain ran through my chest.
‘You won’t be able to – you’ll be locked up in a Prussian prison while she’s growing up. She’ll be safe.’
He laughed. ‘Please credit me with some intelligence. I have no more intention of rotting in the northern wastes of Germania than of becoming that old bag Justina’s lover.’
‘How dare you speak of her like that!’
‘Touched a nerve, eh? On second thoughts, maybe I’ll cosy up to her daughter Severina. She’ll do as I say and give me a full pardon for anything I do. I might even contract marriage with her if she asks nicely.’
Juno, he could do it as well. He had the good looks and film star charm that Severina would fall for. He’d keep her pregnant and compliant while he pursued power for himself. And the country would go to the wolves.
‘Tellus and Apulius have been allied since the founding,’ he continued.
‘Tella and Apulia,’ I snapped back.
‘Don’t give me that feminist crap.’ He pressed his foot down on Marina’s thin neck. I swallowed my retort.
We stayed like that for several minutes, he lounging in my mother’s chair, me standing, petrified to make a move.
‘You forget who I am, Aurelia. You might technically be senior, but once you and your pathetic little daughter are gone, Tellus will take over as senior of the Twelve Families.’
He was going to kill us.
‘No, it won’t happen,’ I replied. ‘You’re a convicted criminal, and a murderer. You killed Grosschenk and you’ll get sent down for that as well as the smuggling. Whatever happens to us, you’ll be sent back to the Prussians.’
I’d had enough of this. I drew myself up. ‘You’ve got it completely wrong, Caius. We are the servants of the state and the imperatrix, not their exploiters. There are plenty of Mitelae to take over and serve Roma Nova. One of them is married to Severina, if you remember. You’re finished, Caius.’
He sighed. ‘You are so remarkably stubborn, Aurelia. If you’d contracted with me, I would have made sure you wouldn’t run around causing me such trouble. You’ve sabotaged my business career—’
‘Your smuggling career and attempt to wreck the Roma Novan economy!’
‘How you exaggerate. Merely a demonstration of my indispensable talents. You’re blocking my social and political prospects and you won’t even acknowledge how attracted you are to me. What a little hypocrite you are.’
If I opened my mouth I’d be sick. I swallowed the sourness down and took a deep breath. He sat back and smiled. A smug smile.
‘What happens now?’ I said.
‘You watch me leave with your little girl. If you try to stop me, I’ll snap her neck in front of you.’
‘Don’t do this, Caius. She’s a fragile child. Leave her. Your quarrel’s with me. I’ll be your hostage.’
‘Certainly not. You’ll be far more compliant if you think I’ll hurt your little princess.’
The gods knew that was true. And he was going to walk out with her, right in front of me.
XXXVI
I had to delay him, so my brain could think what to do next. ‘What have you done with my people and Marina’s nursemaid?’ I babbled.
‘They’re all cosy in the basement. The two Praetorians, too. They’re unconscious, of course. That old retainer of yours is a tough nut, I’ll grant you.’ He stood, stepped back and grabbed the top of the carved chair. In the changed light, I saw a large bruise blooming on his face, and also the revolver at his waist. ‘But a gun usually makes even people like that see reason.’
Gods, he’d held Marina on his lap with a loaded revolver inches from her.
‘Please don’t try any heroics, Aurelia. You’d never forgive yourself if you caused your only child’s death.’
‘I can’t let you walk out of here.’ I took a step forward. He planted his foot on Marina’s neck, pushing her head back with the toe of his boot so her mouth fell open. She stirred, but didn’t wake. As he raised his foot, he didn’t flex it, but the raised trouser hem exposed strapping round his ankle. And his boot was tied at its widest.
I dropped my head and let my shoulders slump as if submitting in defeat. But I
watched him through my eyelashes. He was standing straight and confident but his skin was pale with a sheen of sweat covering his forehead, nose and upper lip. If I approached him in a curved run, I might just be able to push him away from Marina. If his reflexes were dulled by the pain in his foot and the awkward bandage, I’d gain another second. But if I misjudged it, either his foot, or mine, could break Marina’s jaw or kick her head in.
Caius drew the revolver out of his waistband with his right hand and pointed it in my direction.
Hades.
Watching me, he bent down to scoop Marina up with his other hand. He faltered, unable to balance properly with his injured foot, and the barrel tilted upwards. In that second, I launched myself at him. My legs pumping, I covered the ten-metre arc in three seconds. I dipped, then jabbed my right elbow upward into his stomach, following through, slamming my whole body weight behind the movement. His feet left the ground clear of Marina’s body as he flipped backwards and landed on his back. The gun skittered across the floor. Before he could recover his wind, I kicked his injured foot. He screamed, but I felt no remorse as I watched him writhing in agony. I heaved him over on to his front, face down and dropped hard on to his lower spine. While he was still catching his breath, I seized his left forearm, grabbed the handcuffs from the back of my belt and snapped them round his wrists. He grunted, and strained to lift his foot off the floor. I knelt back, allowing him to turn over. He struggled up to a sitting position. His eyes boiled like molten onyx.
‘You cow,’ he gasped. ‘I’ll have you and when I do, you’ll wish I killed you and your feeble child tonight.’
He spat in my face.
I wiped it deliberately with my sleeve then smacked him hard in the mouth. The caestus ripped his lips open and broke at least two teeth.
‘That’s the last time you spit at me or mine, Caius Tellus,’ I shouted in his face and raised my fist to smash him again, but it was caught in a vice-like grip in mid-air.
‘We’ll take over now, Major.’
Numerus.
As they led Caius away, I watched, but felt absolutely nothing inside. Then I gathered my child up in my arms and held her to me and bent down and kissed her hair.
*
‘She’ll sleep for a good twelve hours,’ the doctor said, and tucked Marina’s hand back under the sheet. She was in her soft bed, in her lemon yellow room, her stuffed toy wolf cub peeping out of the sheet fold beside her. Aemilia, now freed from the basement and sitting by Marina’s bed, glanced up at me. I smiled at her, but she didn’t look reassured.
‘I’m sorry you’ve had a rough time, Aemilia,’ I said, ‘but everything should be a lot calmer now. I hope you’ll stay with us – Marina is very fond of you.’
‘Oh, yes, domina, I want to stay with her. Thank you. She needs me.’
Having been put firmly in my place by the young servant, I bent over and kissed Marina’s forehead, then left.
I let the doctor check me for any further damage, and was relieved he found nothing more than bruising on my right shoulder from the impact with Caius. I peeled off the rest of my clothes, showered and took the painkillers he’d prescribed. Lying in my bed seemed so normal but my mind was numb while my body trembled with delayed reaction. After five minutes, I drifted off, but felt the dribble of tears running from the corners of my eyes down the sides of my face.
*
‘He’s on his way back to Berlin, manacled and under guard,’ Plico said two days later. We were sitting in his scruffy office. ‘The cheeky bastard’s filed a complaint of brutality against you. I suppose you had to kick him to pacify him.’ He glanced up from the file.
‘No, I did it because I wanted him to experience intense pain.’
‘Are you being sarcastic?’
‘Take it as you want.’
‘Well, Caius Tellus won’t be bothering us for quite a while.’ He closed the dark red file and tied the binder string. ‘Do you have any thoughts about what job you want next? I think a nice restful posting might suit you.’
‘Restful like Berlin or Vienna?’
‘Very funny. Speaking of Vienna, that banker woman, Festa, has been chucked out of the Argentaria Prima, but she’s been sentenced to community work with a charity as a financial manager. Waste not, want not, and all that.’
‘Ha! She’ll have it in profit within months.’
‘Now, how would London as political officer suit you? It would start in May. Good schools there as well for Marina.’
*
Marina and I returned from the farm in the third week of February, rested and healed. I hadn’t done anything special for my birthday earlier in the month; I was content to be in the quiet countryside with my daughter. Milo greeted us and early spring sunshine flooded the atrium through the tall windows. The roses I’d planted last year in the atrium garden were starting to break leaf.
At the end of the nine days of the Parentalia, the week of honouring the dead, we drove out to the Mitela family tombs and took offerings of flower garlands, wheat, salt, wine-soaked bread and violets to honour our ancestors. I smiled at and greeted cousins and hangers-on, all of whom would be keen to come back to the house for the free Caristia banquet.
I’d laid my formal flowers for my mother, then a tiny bunch of violets and primulae for my lost baby. Holding Marina’s hand, and watching the priest go about her ceremonies, I bent down and whispered, ‘Do you remember Nonna Felicia, how she was poorly after her accident?’
Marina screwed her face up. ‘Sort of. She had a funny smile, all crooked, but she liked the drawings I did for her.’
‘Would you like to put your snowdrops in the niche in front of her plaque?’
She nodded, and ignoring all the cousins, she trotted over to the carving of my mother and laid her flowers on the tiny shelf. She looked at the portrait with its sad eyes, wiped her own eyes once and ran back to my arms.
*
I’d finished my English refresher course and briefing for my new post and was enjoying a quiet round of social visits and tying up household details with Milo. I emphasised a lighter touch with the household during this absence. I wasn’t entirely sure he’d comply, though.
One afternoon a week before I was due to depart, I was surprised he brought me my afternoon tea himself. When he placed the tray on the low table, I saw there was an envelope with a Foreign Ministry logo and Plico’s personal seal, plus a long, slim cardboard box.
I opened the envelope first. A visiting order for Berlin. The Prussian judiciary had expedited Caius’s trial and he’d been convicted as expected. Disappointingly, his sentences for smuggling, Grosschenk’s murder and his attempted murder of me in Berlin would run concurrently. I didn’t particularly want to gloat, but I hadn’t seen them take Caius back to prison. I wanted to see him there, contained, securely locked up, unable to touch us.
Then I picked up the box. It was overprinted with Blumenversand and stamped with a Prussian postmark. Inside was a single red rose and a small envelope. The card inside read: ‘I’m back in Berlin. Please come to me. M.’
I stared at the rose. Did I want to see him? Wasn’t that part of my life closed? Warmth crept up my throat into my face at the memory of his long, tanned fingers on my body, at his warm eyes and—.
The card fluttered from my fingers.
*
Galba, the lawyer, met me at Berlin-Tempelhof the next evening. Efficient and elegant as usual, she nevertheless gave me a broad smile of genuine pleasure to see me.
‘When Secretary Plico advised me you were coming, I dropped everything else. The appointment is made. We go first thing tomorrow morning. It should only last about thirty minutes.’ She glanced at me, her eyes betraying deep curiosity. ‘As per your instructions,’ she continued, ‘your flight back to Roma Nova has been booked for three days’ time.’
I said nothing in reply, just smiled.
In the morning, Galba had a legation car and driver take us to the stark nineteenth-century building.
Originally built as a military barracks, it now housed the men’s maximum security prison and work camp. Galba fiddled in her leather briefcase.
‘I have to deliver the extradition order to the prison governor. He’ll hold it until the day Caius Tellus finishes his sentence.’
I shivered as the heavy door slammed behind us. The guards’ faces were stripped of any expression, but they tracked our every movement as we went through security. They searched our bags and coats as well as patting us both down.
We entered a small room with a grille that straddled a long continuous table running the whole width of the room and reached up to the ceiling. A guard stood by the door on our side. Galba and I sat down on the two orange moulded plastic chairs and waited.
Caius, supported by a guard, entered through a door on the other side of the grille. He limped and his lips were puckered and chin scarred from when I’d hit him with the caestus.
He took one look at me and spat on the floor. The guard shoved him down on the plastic chair opposite us. Caius stared at me with an intensity stemming only from hatred. He didn’t blink once.
Neither did I.
Galba squirmed in her seat. She outlined details of the annual consular visit and read out the extradition order. She asked Caius if he’d heard and understood everything she’d said. He ignored her.
He and I stared each other out for a few more minutes. As far as both of us were concerned, we were the only ones in that dismal room.
Galba coughed, then rose, scraping her chair. I stood up slowly, still holding Caius’s gaze. When the lawyer coughed again, I turned my back to Caius, nodded to the guard and moved towards the door.
‘You know I’ll come after you, Aurelia,’ Caius called out. ‘You’ve dumped me here, but I’m going to spend the next fifteen years working out exactly how I’m going to tear you apart. No, I think I’ll start with Marina. You can watch.’
It took every gram of my strength to hold myself together. I turned around and marched back to the grille. He stood and grasped the grille with both hands so his fingers poked through.
AURELIA (Roma Nova Book 4) Page 28