Rome Burning

by Sophia McDougall

  Una discovered and sifted through a pile of messages on a low table, surprised to find a new one for her. She read it and turned round to Marcus, shocked. ‘Where’s Sinchan?’

  ‘It’s across the river,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty much what you said – do you remember? The city where they put all the dirt they don’t want in this one.’

  ‘Lal’s there. I promised I’d get her to Rome. And it says she’s ill.’

  ‘What?’ He looked up.

  ‘Delir and Ziye are under arrest, I don’t know where. The Sinoan police have been rounding up people like them ever since Lord Kato was murdered, she’s been lost out in the countryside all this time. She had a friend who helped her get in touch with me, maybe he got her here somehow. I have to go to her.’

  Marcus stated, his voice oddly mild, ‘Drusus murdered Lord Kato.’

  ‘What are you going to do about him?’ Una asked softly.

  ‘Keep him quiet,’ said Marcus, and didn’t elaborate. His face, with some small display of effort, brightened. ‘Well, if there’s anything you need. And I’ll do what I can for Delir and Ziye and anyone else caught up in this.’

  But Una stood with the message in her hand, looking at him with softened, mournful helplessness, until he got up and went to her, kissing her and saying gently, ‘You don’t have to look like that. Don’t worry about me. Don’t worry about anything. We’ll be out of here soon.’

  *

  Dama had grown more restless as they approached Xinjian, the shafts of influence he emitted became more fitful and less blinding, not to the point where Liuyin seriously lost confidence in him or questioned anything they’d done, but enough for him to observe the other man more clearly. Once they had reached the ugly, centreless town and had installed Lal in a cupboard of a bedroom in a grubby guest house, and by the time Liuyin had contacted the minor official he knew in Bianjing with the message for Una, Dama could barely keep still. He prowled around Lal’s bed and out into the dingy street, looking south, as if he could somehow see Bianjing through the city’s brownish sprawl, across the river. At first Liuyin had assumed he was anxious about Lal, who was worryingly quiet now, but Dama continued to insist with wide-eyed, categorical certainty that she would be well; Sulien – the name irritated some residual prickle of jealousy in Liuyin – Sulien would cure her. And indeed his unsettled mood did not seem precisely like anxiety, he never showed any fear of being arrested, or that anything would go wrong. It was more like a desire to be elsewhere.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Liuyin asked, after discovering that Dama had discarded nearly all of his share of the gristly food Liuyin had been sent out to buy. As with the pills, Dama did not seem to like to be seen eating.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Dama, in a distant voice. He sighed, and then smiled at Liuyin. ‘She’ll be here soon. Her or some servant.’ His lip curled in the beginning of a sneer that melted with surprising speed into a smile of perfect faith, and he murmured, ‘But I think it’ll be her. As soon as you see her, you don’t need to worry any more. Just make sure she’s going to the right door, don’t hang around – don’t talk to her, don’t mention me. Just stay with Lal until Una comes, then go. You can trust her.’

  ‘You won’t be there? You’re going?’ said Liuyin, flushing with an embarrassing sensation of abandonment.

  ‘I must,’ said Dama, rather dejectedly. ‘Don’t worry. You’re not going to need me here. Look.’ He produced a crumpled roll of money. ‘This’ll get you home.’

  ‘Oh, no, no,’ said Liuyin, backing away from the cash, startled and shamed. He was almost surprised that Dama should have or need money.

  ‘Don’t be a fool. This isn’t anything like enough to pay you for helping me, or helping her. You gave that. This is just a way back home from this dump, which you haven’t got and you need, so take it.’

  ‘How can I go home?’ asked Liuyin bleakly. ‘My parents … I just left.’

  Dama scrutinised him shrewdly for a second and then placed his better arm on his shoulder. ‘You’re their only son, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. And I left them. It’s terrible.’

  ‘They’re going to be thrilled to see you back, then. You can tell them you couldn’t rest until you were sure Lal wasn’t in danger. You don’t regret it. You know that. Even if they’re angry with you, you’re not going to mind. What’s a little row with your parents after all this? They can’t frighten you any more. Them or anyone else.’

  Later, alone, sitting by Lal’s bedside, watching for Una from the blackened doorstep of the guest house, Liuyin wondered resignedly why Dama had really left. He had not said where he was going, but he had said ‘I must’, with none of the sense of willing mission which had been so manifest in him until then. It occurred to Liuyin that perhaps Dama had not wanted to leave at all. He had wanted to be exactly where he was, and for some reason had compelled himself to resist the temptation.

  *

  The meeting had been sombre. They had traced their way along the thread broken by Drusus’ arrival and Kato’s death, spun it on through with the provisional work done in Marcus’ absence by Varius and Una. But there had been a tension in the air, a chilly sense that someone was failing to say something crucial.

  ‘What is Drusus Novius’ position now you have returned?’ Tadahito had asked quietly.

  ‘He will not participate any further in our negotiations. I have no doubt that he will be leaving the country very shortly,’ answered Marcus.

  ‘But I understand he is to retain a share of Emperor Faustus’ power. If so, and if he is outside this process, the treaty we have been trying to create with you, Caesar, will be written in the dark.’

  Marcus clenched his fists under the table and said, ‘Any role he has from now on will be strictly domestic.’

  Afterwards, answering Tadahito’s look at him, Marcus hung back to join the Prince as they left the hall. He said, ‘I must thank you again for protecting Una and Varius.’

  ‘They acquitted themselves very well,’ said Tadahito. ‘Lady Una is formidable. I am not sure if the world is more fortunate or unfortunate that she was born a woman.’

  ‘Well, it was fortunate for me,’ answered Marcus.

  Tadahito smiled, but remained subtly grave, tense. ‘It is a good thing you did leave them with us. I doubt you and I would have met again otherwise. But still we have barely managed to delay the outbreak of war by ten days. We can’t call it more than a delay; we cannot pretend things are as they were before Lord Kato was assassinated. I do trust you now when you say you were not responsible; you would hardly have returned otherwise. But your cousin is not you, is he? He threatened to attack Nionia when we would not hand Lady Una and Lord Varius over to him. He does not want the same things. Could he have been involved?’

  Marcus felt his throat close, balking at the unexpected pressure to lie for Drusus. He muttered, ‘I’ve had no chance to see any of the evidence about Lord Kato’s death.’

  A look of cynical understanding flickered quickly across Tadahito’s troubled face. He nodded. ‘Well, you can see why my father feels something decisive must be done. Rome and Nionia must build a distinct alliance, and there must be some assurance it will be honoured in the future.’ He lowered his voice. ‘You have only met my sister once, I know; perhaps you did not have time to consider why she was here. Our hope was always that we might see the Nionian and Roman thrones united by a marriage. I am sorry it has come to this, of course I would rather not have urged it so openly. But I think there is no time to be reticent.’

  Marcus made an effort not to freeze, to show a proper surprise on his face while disguising the abrupt panic of a creature in a trap. He could feel an aghast stammer building against his teeth and fought not to let it out, not to allow himself the sharp intake of breath he wanted. Yet he had to say something. ‘You – you are very generous,’ he managed. ‘You would still – want that, even with these concerns?’

  ‘I think it is more necessary than ever now,’ replied
Tadahito.

  ‘Of course, I am honoured,’ said Marcus. He thought his voice sounded parodic and absurd, as if he were stiffly reciting lines in a comedy. The conversation must not go on, he could not sustain it. He would make some catastrophic mistake. He smiled as best he could. ‘May I – may I discuss this with you tomorrow?’

  ‘Certainly,’ said Tadahito. To Marcus he sounded mutedly displeased, though it might only have been a paranoid trick of his mind – surely the Prince could not have expected an immediate answer.

  He came to a halt on the peak of a round, silver-pale bridge over one of the landscaped streams, not seeing, trying to think and unable to do so, one hand on the balustrade, gripping. He did not notice Makaria following him, and coming to stand at his side.

  ‘Salvius will be here in an hour. What if he wants to see Drusus?’

  ‘What?’ said Marcus. He turned and looked blankly at her. He could see a faint thrilled expression in her face that in his current frame of mind irritated him.

  Makaria was still overcome by the unfamiliar beauty of the city, still dazed from visiting the Empress Jun Shen for the first time earlier in the day. Though she had tried to display a properly Roman aloof pride, it had been shocking – thrilling – to see a little old lady, dripping with jewels, perched on a throne and exuding as much authority as any Emperor of Rome.

  Marcus irritably performed the adjustment of mind necessary to focus on what she’d asked him. ‘Let him. Let him, but be there with them. Behave as if the whole thing were just a family misunderstanding – I don’t think Drusus will dare challenge that, and Salvius can’t do much if he doesn’t speak out.’

  Makaria nodded. In a softer voice she asked, ‘What were you talking about with the Prince?’ with a look that said she thought she knew.

  ‘The weather in Edo,’ snapped Marcus, hurrying away from her. It was Varius he wanted to go to first. But after today – after all of this – the only person he could and must tell was Una.

  It was late when Una came back. She found Marcus sitting alone in near darkness, his chair pushed close into the corner, slightly hunched, very still in the shadows. It was as if he were hiding, but only as a formality; as if something terrible had hunted him down over so many miles that he had given up on getting away from it. The knitted hat lay loosely in one hand. He asked, in a numb murmur, ‘How is she?’

  No, thought Una again, drawing in inside her head. She was very tired, it had been distressing to see Lal so ill, and if he didn’t want to face what was about to happen, nor did she. Here they were together, that was all they wanted. They were both free, no one could make them do anything.

  She replied, ‘She woke up for a little while, but she thought Delir was there – she was talking to him. And to – her mother. She didn’t know me.’

  As soon as Una had stepped out of the car, a young man had jumped up from a doorstep and lunged at her across the dirty street. He had looked panicky and breathless, but then, as he reached her, he changed and became suddenly polite, ushering her to the door, smiling, showing her towards a room – and then changed again and pushed desperately ahead of her, to Lal’s bedside. Lal, who had always been so softly pretty, so fastidious, was wasted, filthy, slave-like. The youth had stroked Lal’s damp hair, and then dashed furtively away, almost without having spoken.

  Una went on telling Marcus, in as businesslike a manner as possible, ‘But I found a doctor and he said he’d seen worse, at least, I think that’s what he said. And I got the doctor’s daughter to stay with her. There’s medicine that he said would cool her down. But I want to get Sulien to her, or her to Sulien; I didn’t think she should be moved until then. I should go back. But I thought you would want to know.’ But really she hadn’t come to tell him anything, she had only wanted to be with him after these horrible weeks apart.

  ‘Poor Lal,’ whispered Marcus, lifelessly.

  ‘Yes.’

  Marcus straightened in the chair, as if about to rise and walk over to her, but he did not. He remained powerlessly seated as if getting to her required some skill, like swimming, or driving a car, and he couldn’t do it. He told her, ‘The Prince told me he wanted me to marry Noriko.’ He gave an ironic little smile, lasting only a second. ‘So, I can’t pretend I don’t know any more.’

  ‘Oh,’ Una said, very mildly and neutrally, standing still in the centre of the room.

  Marcus drew in a breath and held it, strenuously, like a weightlifter.

  He said, ‘If I did …’

  Una turned her head to one side, a small, sharp movement. Her hands closed slowly at her sides, the nails biting bracing little notches of pain into the palms. Well then, now that had been said, he would have to go on and say the rest.

  But Marcus couldn’t get any further, he looked up at her as if he could hardly bear either to do that or to look away from her, with a wretched expression that seemed on the point of disintegrating; a smile that was not a smile but a knot holding the straining muscles of his face together. He confessed, pleading, ‘I don’t want to ask you this.’

  Una was wrenched with pity for him, but she found she was not kind enough to tell him, ‘You don’t have to say it.’ She could not help him do this; she could only stand there and wait.

  ‘If I did,’ said Marcus, laboriously again, one resisted word at a time. ‘Would you stay with me?’

  It seemed that since he’d begun trying to say this, she too had been holding her breath. She sighed now, releasing it, and felt her body become oddly still, relaxed, empty. She said, ‘No.’

  ‘You know it would only be an agreement between Nionia and Rome, it would never change how—’ began Marcus, guiltily.

  Una interrupted fiercely, angry with him after all for making her argue the point. ‘You’d have to sleep with her. Have children with her.’

  Marcus blanched a little at this; it was something he hadn’t let himself think about yet, looking for a moment young and unprepared.

  ‘And you like her,’ Una went on, more subdued. She smiled regretfully. ‘I like her. If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t think this was so bad.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for you?’ echoed Marcus incredulously, springing up at last and gripping her shoulders. ‘How could it be if not for you? I’m not whoever I would have been if I hadn’t met you, I never can be now. I love you, I only want you. We should have married long before this.’

  There was a fractional pause. ‘It’s against the law,’ Una observed, dully.

  ‘Then I should have changed the law. I will change it.’

  ‘Then you’d have been expected to divorce me.’ A bleak version of her withering tone hovered in Una’s voice and vanished. ‘So you would still have asked me this. And I would still have said no.’

  Marcus looked exhausted. But then he moved away from her and began talking again, a little too fast. ‘All right. Good. Then that’s clear. I’m sorry I had to ask. I’ll tell the Prince it can’t happen – I’ll say the people won’t accept it or something. We’ll just have to keep working. And then – when this is all over – you and I …’

  Una found this agonising to listen to, but it was her turn to pull together the strength for what she had to say. At length she whispered, ‘No.’

  He fell silent at once. He turned to her with an anguished, almost disbelieving look, begging not to have understood.

  She said, ‘It’s happened. You’ve asked me. Now I can’t … stay.’

  Marcus shook his head. He said in a low, reasonable voice, ‘No. Please.’

  Glancing away from him, because it was so difficult to look him in the face and stick to this, Una found she was looking at a trunk on the floor which had not been there before, when she’d left to find Lal. She felt a sob of a laugh trapped somewhere in her throat as she guessed it held her missing clothes. So she didn’t even have to pack. It was like a joke. She said quietly, ‘I’ll take Lal with me, to Sulien. I’ll find a room near her for tonight, and I’ll go tomorrow morning.’


  ‘But I won’t do it, I won’t marry her. I promise,’ insisted Marcus, his voice rising desperately.

  ‘But you have to, don’t you?’ answered Una, harshly. And for a second she was furious with him for driving her to say that. She muttered, ‘At least, I can’t be the reason you decide.’

  Quite suddenly Marcus seemed to fold up, he collapsed back onto the chair, as if winded, he looked helplessly around the room, then back at her, with tears on his face. He said brokenly, ‘I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to ask you – I’m sorry —’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ cried Una remorsefully, unable to bear it, going and closing him in her arms, shielding him protectively as she had done after he’d first heard the news of Faustus’ illness, and the massacre. She kissed his hair, his cheek, trying with a kind of superstition to avoid his mouth, until from being in a kind of stupor he seemed to come to life and pressed her closer, turning his face to find her lips, winding a hand into her hair, caressing, holding on. Tears spilled out of her eyes at last as she tried at once to comfort him and to pull back, stroking his arms as she tried to slide out of them, his face as she pushed it away from hers. ‘No,’ she managed to say, but he only echoed the same word, whispering, ‘No. No,’ and didn’t let her go. His hold on her was nothing but gentle, but still it was so difficult to disengage herself that for a moment Una relaxed hopelessly into the embrace, warm, dazed, and Marcus stood up, turning so that they were twisted even more closely together and drawing her further from the door. But then she forced herself alert again, and pushed his hands back, kissing him once more as she held them down, and broke away.

  And then she was outside, alone, under the foreign night sky.

  There was a firm, rapid beat on the door. Varius was back in his rooms after walking through the city until after darkness fell, letting some of the unease and strain beat out of himself into the clean white pavements under his feet. He opened the door and found Una standing there, hugging her arms and shivering so that for a moment he had the bizarre impression that the weather outside had changed and frozen, and that she was soaked to the skin with icy rain. Then he saw her pale, hardened face, and that she had been crying, and would cry later – but not now, not while talking to him.