Praise for the Romanitas series
‘A fast moving, compelling story, brilliantly imagined’
Conn Iggulden
‘A thoroughly good read … vividly imagined … elegant, lively writing’
Sunday Telegraph
‘Epic in undertaking, Romanitas creates a fascinating world that is both contemporary in tone, and yet about as far removed from the world we live in as it is possible to imagine. McDougall’s writing style is fresh and light and the involving story ensures you’ll gobble up the 400 pages in no time, staying eager to find out how the remainder of the trilogy unfolds’
Dreamwatch
‘An intriguing debut novel … the plot of Romanitas gripped me and kept the pages turning. McDougall’s setting is original … her alternate history feels well researched and believable’
Starburst
Also by Sophia McDougall
from Gollancz:
Romanitas
Rome Burning
Savage City
ROME BURNING
SOPHIA MCDOUGALL
For Maisie
This is the second of three books set in a Roman Empire which never fell but spread to take in half the world.
Contents
Praise for the Romanitas series
Also by Sophia McDougall from Gollancz:
THE MAP OF THE WORLD
CHARACTER LIST
THE NOVIAN DYNASTY
I YELLOW FIRE
II TOKOGANE
III AXE AND RODS
IV DELPHI
V POSSIBLE DEATHS
VI FURNACE
VII THE GHOST
VIII DUEL
IX ENDURANCE
X NORIKO
XI IN NOMINE MEI
XII CONQUERED GROUND
XIII THE LEVELLED FOREST
XIV MOON GATE
XV LADY WITHOUT SORROWS
XVI SALVAGE
XVII WORMWOOD
XVIII INEVITABILITY
XIX SANDSTORM
XX FLAMMEUM
XXI OMNES VIAE
XXII INNOCENCE
XXIII WARFARE
XXIV BEACONS
XXV THE KNIFE
XXVI FIRELIGHT
XXVII HOLZARTA
XXVIII ISLAND
XXIX COLOSSEUM
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ROMAN
EMPIRE 933 AUC TO THE PRESENT FROM 933 AUC TO THE PRESENT
Copyright
THE MAP OF THE WORLD
CHARACTER LIST
(All characters named in the text. All dates are in A.U.C – e.g, 2757 = 2004 AD.)
A
ACCHAN A slave in the palace longdictor exchange.
‘AMARYLLIS’ A name for a slave-girl owned by DRUSUS.
ANANIAS A slave.
ANNA A slave.
AOI A senior concubine at the Nionian court.
ATRONIUS A slave supervisor at Veii Imperial Arms factory, formerly a vigile officer.
AULUS A doctor working at the slave clinic in Transtiberina.
B
BARO A slave.
BUPE A slave from Veii Imperial Arms factory.
C
CLEOMENES A vigile commander.
CLODIA AURELIA Mother of MARCUS, wife of LEO, supporter of the abolition of slavery. Murdered in 2757 along with her husband.
COSMAS A slave.
D
DAMA A slave, crucified for murder in 2753, but taken down from the cross alive by DELIR. Instrumental in establishing the slave-refuge in the Pyrenees. Involved in the rescue of MARCUS from the Galenian Sanctuary in 2757. Unaccounted for since.
DELIR A former merchant from Persia, subsequently a fugitive. Established a slave refuge camp in the Holzarta gorge in the Pyrenees, after rescuing the slave DAMA from crucifixion. Roman citizenship revoked.
DRUSILLA TERENTIA Divorced wife of LUCIUS, mother of DRUSUS.
DRUSUS see NOVII.
E
EDDA A slave owned by EPIMACHUS.
EPIMACHUS Divorced husband of TANCORIX, living in Novomagius, Germany.
ERASTUS A slave.
EUDOXIUS A Senator.
F
FALX A Roman intelligence specialist on Nionia.
FAUSTUS See NOVII.
FENIUS A member of the Praetorian Guard.
FLORENS See SING-JI
G
GABINIUS A construction magnate, involved in the pro-slavery conspiracy that killed LEO, CLODIA and GEMELLA. Illegally detained VARIUS at his house for some weeks after the disappearance of MARCUS. Killed attempting to flee by boat in 2757.
GALLA A gladiatrix in the same troop as ZIYE.
GEMELLA Wife of VARIUS, poisoned in mistake for MARCUS by TULLIOLA in 2757.
GENG A peasant farmer in the Jiangsu region of Sina. Son of MRS SU.
GLYCON Faustus’ cubicularius, or private secretary.
GO-NATOKU Regnal name of the current Nionian Emperor.
H
HELENA A fugitive slave, formerly resident at the Holzarta refuge camp
HUANG A trader exporting Sinoan slaves into the Roman Empire.
HYPATIA A friend of MAKARIA living on Siphnos.
J
JUN SHEN also (to the Romans) JUNOSENA Dowager Empress of Sina.
K
KATO-NO-MASARU also (to the Romans) MASARUS CATO Lord of Tokogane.
KIYOWARA-NO-SANETOMO Lord of Goshu.
L
LAL Daughter of DELIR, also a fugitive. Roman citizenship revoked.
LAUREUS A young Roman aristocrat.
LEO See NOVII.
LIUYIN Son of an official, living in Jiangning.
LUCIUS See NOVII.
M
MAECILII, THE A Senatorial family.
MAKARIA See NOVII.
MARCUS See NOVII.
MARINUS A fugitive slave, formerly resident at the Holzarta refuge camp.
MATHO A fugitive Roman slave, working as a shopkeeper in Jiangning.
MAZATL?
MEI Purchased as a child along with ZIYE by HUANG.
MIMANA-NO-FUSAHIRA Lord of Corea.
MIZUKI A lady-in-waiting at the Nionian court.
MOULI A contact of DELIR living in a village near Wuhu, has assisted fugitive Roman slaves travelling through Sina in the past.
N
NORIKO?
NOVII, THE The Roman Imperial family.
NOVIA FAUSTINA, nicknamed MAKARIA – only child of FAUSTUS.
DRUSUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS Son of LUCIUS and DRUSILLA TERENTIA, cousin of MAKARIA and MARCUS.
LUCIUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS Brother of FAUSTUS and LEO, father of DRUSUS, uncle of MARCUS and MAKARIA. Suffers from the ‘Novian curse’ – excluded from succession.
MARCUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS LEO Son of LEO and CLODIA, nephew of FAUSTUS and LUCIUS, cousin of MAKARIA and DRUSUS. Heir apparent to the Roman throne.
OPPIUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS The first member of the NOVII to become Emperor in 2509.
TERTIUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS LEO Youngest brother of FAUSTUS and LUCIUS, father of MARCUS. Heir presumptive to the Roman throne, supporter of the abolition of slavery, murdered along with his wife CLODIA AURELIA in 2757.
TITUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS AUGUSTUS Emperor of Rome.
O
OCTAVIA A divorcée living in the same block of flats as VARIUS.
OPPIUS See NOVII.
P
PACCIA A slave.
PROBUS A Senator acting as minister for Terranova.
PROCULUS Manager of Veii Imperial Arms Factory.
Q
QUENTIN, MEMMIUS, an advisor to Faustus.
R
RONG Purchased as a child along with ZIYE by HUANG.
S
SAKURA A lady-in-waiting at the Nionian court.
SALVIUS General of the Legions of
the Roman Empire.
SIBYL, THE The Pythia at Delphi.
SING-JI The Sinoan Emperor, son of the Dowager Empress JUN SHEN. Also (to the Romans) FLORENS. [, in Pinyin: Xing Zhi?
SOHAKU A retainer to KATO-NO-MASARU.
SU, MRS. A peasant farmer, mother of GENG.
SULIEN Brother of UNA. A former slave with strange abilities born in London. Sentenced to crucifixion for rape in 2757, but rescued by Una and later exonerated by the testimony of TANCORIX.
T
TADAHITO also (to the Romans) TADASIUS The Nionian Crown Prince, eldest son of the GO-NATOKU EMPEROR.
TAIRA A Nionian Lord.
TANCORIX The daughter of the London family that owned SULIEN. Formerly married to EPIMACHUS, disgraced by admission of an affair with a slave. Now living as a singer in Rome.
TIRO A fugitive slave, formerly resident at the Holzarta refuge camp.
TOMOE A lady-in-waiting at the Nionian court.
TULLIOLA (TULLIA MARCIANA) Former wife of FAUSTUS. Arrested for involvement in the pro-slavery conspiracy that killed LEO, CLODIA and GEMELLA. Died in custody, apparently by suicide, in 2757.
U
ULPIA Nurse to LUCIUS.
UNA Sister of SULIEN. A former slave with strange abilities born in London.
V
VARIUS, CAIUS Director of a free clinic for slaves in Transtiberine Rome. Former private secretary to LEO, widower of GEMELLA. Charged with murder and treason in 2757, but later exonerated.
W
WEIGI An interpreter at the Sinoan court.
X
XANTHE Daughter of TANCORIX.
Y
YANISEN, MARCUS VESNIUS Head Governor of Terranova.
Z
ZIYE A former gladiatrix of Sinoan origin. Escaped to the Holzarta refuge camp in 2754, now a fugitive.
THE NOVIAN DYNASTY
How is it that a mortal can wish for another mortal the annihilation of his body, or of his soul, or death for his children or for his cattle, if he has sense enough to know that he himself is mortal?
For he is pitiless to himself, and none of the others shall pity him.
AVESTA, FRAGMENTS 48–49
TR. JAMES DARMESTETER
YELLOW FIRE
She had barely slept. The single damp sheet that lay over her was smothering, a heavy pelt, but when she pushed it off she felt exposed, a little panting grey animal, curled up in the heat. The windows were all open, but when the air moved it made no difference, it was like moist wool brushing over her. Summers had not always been like this, had they? She thought she could feel the bricks of the house, the trees outside and the miles of dry ground, hurt with heat, straining and creaking.
But after all she must have been more than half-asleep, for she was very late noticing the sound, or the scent.
She thought that perhaps something had moved in the corner of the room, near the door: an animal, or a person. She blinked heavily and pressed her cheek to the pillow, not afraid; it did not really occur to her to believe there was anything there. She lay, possibly asleep, eyes open or shut, she could not tell. The heat puffed and crept.
Then again she had the impression of motion, in the air above her this time – a dark ripple – and she smelt it now.
She sat up, and the gasp she made brought the bitterness in the air far more sharply into her throat. She had seen smoke moving, and there were flames like small creatures skittering on the floor.
She ran shuffling across the room. The door led into her sitting room, the stairs down into the rest of the house were beyond it. The little flames by the door were not, in themselves, terrifying, but when she pushed the door open, the room was bright with yellow fire, and a thick hovering flood of hot gas and dust struck her face.
She choked and cried out, backing away into the bedroom. She groped towards the window, at first only for the air that now seemed clean and cool. Then she looked down and saw the thick red flames, gushing like a liquid, like blood, upwards out of the lower windows. Her brother and sister-in-law, and their children – they were out, weren’t they? She could see dim figures in the garden, but there was no light except that of the fire.
She could not climb down or jump. Her rooms were on the third floor, out of the family’s way. She had not meant to end up surviving on goodwill like this, but she’d always lived in this house, and now, even as she leant out, calling for help, she wanted to weep with grief for it, for the things, furniture her parents had bought, pictures—
A rich fountain of black smoke, fast and bloated, rolled up to her window from below and forced her back into her bedroom.
The vigiles, surely, must be nearly here.
She stood for a moment, coughing, clasping her hands near her face, and then plunged through the burning doorway into the other room. Down near the floor there was still some air, though her palms and knees were seared at once. She crawled into the cavern of heat, whimpering with pain and horror, and at the sight of her possessions blazing – hidden in the drawers of the burning writing-desk – her bundles of letters. Some of them thirty years old, some of them she could almost never bear to read over, but they were terribly important, necessary.
She could not understand how the familiarity of the room’s shape could be burning away with everything else, how hard it was even to remember the way to the door, but she saw in despair that even if she reached it, it would be no good; of course the stairs would be impassable with flame. And she could not breathe; the fire encroached towards her from all sides, it steered her, so that she had to scramble backwards again, and could barely make it into the bedroom once more, in pain, her hair already singed and eaten to rags by the fire.
But this room too was soaking with heat and poison; she could not even try to get near the window again: the curtains were moving murderously and dropping away in flakes as they burned. Flame was beginning to pool on the ceiling.
‘If there is ever a fire, don’t hide, children die in fires because they hide from them.’ Her parents had told her this. She crept under her bed. It was decades since she had been a child, and there was nowhere else to go. She lay there on her stomach and saw the carpet steam or smoke. She could feel that she would probably lose consciousness soon, and was afraid that even if the vigiles came in now they wouldn’t find her; they wouldn’t know she was there.
But nothing was ever found of her. She was dead before the orange flame burst from the floor, from the bed, before the roof fell through, crushing the shell of her body into black crumbs of bone that later could not be told from those of the slaves, or even, at first, from the scorched chips of plaster and wood.
TOKOGANE
The heat exhausted Faustus, heaped viscously over his body, gripped his head, a bottling, fermenting feeling. It was hard to think clearly, but the month’s meetings kept multiplying, swelling: there were forest fires, more this year and worse than any he could remember, huge red flotillas, crescent-shaped on Terranova, advancing on tall sails of smoke towards the cities on the west coast. And also in Gaul, and even in Italy itself, to the north. And Nionia – how serious the threat was, how fast it was growing – just for an hour he should be allowed to forget it all. But he could not, and at nights he could not sleep.
His eyes pulsed redly against his shut lids.
The woman trying to rub the ache out of his shoulders was young, with long dark hair which sometimes he felt whisk against his skin. Not really like Tulliola, except in that. A slight pleasure glowed in his scalp as her fingers moved up into his hair, but the tiredness had only retreated from her a little, she could not do more than touch the surface of it.
He felt a very faint, very perfunctory excitement, mingled with a stronger boredom at the knowledge that, if he wanted, he could turn over, reach for her. He was the Emperor, she would have to …
But he did not want to. Because of Tulliola, and because he was so tired.
There was a slight noise, a tap, a warning, recognisable clearing of the throat at the
door to which Faustus uttered a vague grunt of mingled assent and protest, knowing at once that it was Glycon, his cubicularius or private secretary. The girl draped a towel over him, and he raised himself, embarrassed, not by his nakedness, but by the slowness with which he did it, the little groan that escaped him, a creaking ‘mmm …’ His eyes were still shut.
‘Sir.’
Faustus opened his eyes, knowing the tone of voice. He had of course heard it several times, but worst of all and most repeatedly during the terrible summer and autumn of three years before, beginning with the news that his youngest brother was dead. Then everything with his nephew Marcus, and finally that they had found Tulliola, dead under house arrest.
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