Savage City

by Sophia McDougall

  He’d knocked aside a spray of laurel. He put it back, carefully. Now he could see the clean, bloodless gashes. Drusus raised a hand to his own face and touched the stitched cuts, then ran a fingertip along the cold outline of a wound on Marcus’ cheek.

  ‘Marcus,’ he whispered finally, breathless, ‘Marcus, I’m sorry. Because the Sibyl told me this would happen, and if I’d understood I could have been patient, I could have let you be. I didn’t know.’ Still he didn’t stir, crouching low over Marcus, eyes fixed on his impassive face, knowing there was something else that needed saying. He flexed the hand Marcus had smashed, months ago. His bones cracked and ringing once again, it was easy to remember lying powerless at his cousin’s feet. At last he added, ‘And I forgive you.’

  He lifted the wreath very slowly in both hands, and in a strange way he was glad his arm was broken, because it seemed right that this should hurt him, as he raised it to his own head. His eyes closed against the pain, and stayed shut as he felt the unfamiliar weight settle over his hair, the metal cool against his forehead. He released a long breath, almost a moan, as if something clenched in his lungs all his life could be expelled at last into the air. Then he took Marcus’ hand, finding the fingers chilly but not yet rigid, and the ring slid off easily. It was loose on his own finger too.

  He laid Marcus’ hands back, one over the other, and clasped them both as a kind of farewell, because of how it had looked when Noriko had done it. As he did so he noticed something that didn’t belong: under the folds of the robe, where it closed at Marcus’ breast, there was something made of cheap-looking dark blue wool lying against his skin. It had been hidden by the wreath. It looked strange and unfitting to Drusus, but it must have been placed there with some meaning that did not concern him and he did not touch it.

  He gritted his teeth, wincing as he got to his feet, but it was easier to rise than it had been to bend down.

  Hesitantly, Sulien turned on the longvision. Of all things, they were showing a pink-and-white legion of girls performing some traditional dance in Fennia before smiling officials: a celebration in honour of Faustus’ recovery that was, apparently, still going on. Meanwhile a rolling subtitle across the bottom of the screen admitted that there had been an incident at the Colosseum, and that General Salvius had called a session of the Senate for early tomorrow, after which there would be a further announcement. Citizens in Rome should listen for instructions from the Praetorians or vigiles. Una lifted her head a little from the table-top and stared; the music jigged briskly and Sulien turned it off.

  Una pressed her cheek back against the surface of the table. She was gripping the edge of it with both hands, as if she thought she could drive her fingers right through if she kept at it long enough. Her lips were pulled back a little, showing the teeth, her eyes wide and red, like a dead fox’s. The bloodstains all over her glared darker as the rainwater dried and Sulien suggested cautiously, ‘Do you want . . . Do you want to change your clothes?’

  Una shrank back slightly in the chair and looked up, her expression changing slowly from uncomprehending to almost pleading. She whispered, ‘Later.’

  Of course the feeling of Marcus’ blood against her skin was unbearable, of course she knew she would have to wash it away like so much dirt, put on clean clothes, equip herself to meet the advance of the next day, the next minute even— but oh, she could not begin yet. The time that had passed was so short that she could hardly believe it was not possible to smash a way back through to the moment she’d seen Dama in the street, to try again.

  And now she couldn’t tear her attention from the blood, as horrifying as if she’d only just realised it was there. She stood up, the chair skidding back across the floor, and she could hardly tell if she was trying to breathe, or trying not to breathe. Either way she felt it might have been easier if she could have hurt something, and Sulien loomed there mournfully, his anxious face sweet and oppressive, he seemed to sway like a mast in front of her, as the whole room rolled indistinctly, as if at sea.

  ‘Don’t,’ she gasped pre-emptively, lurching away from him, out of the room.

  Sulien went after her as far as the short flight of stairs up to the two bedrooms, moving carefully, placing his feet as quietly as he could. He sat there, a few steps down from the landing, his forehead pressed into his hands, hoping he wasn’t waiting for anything. He could hear her moving about restlessly. He flinched at the noises – the thud of something hitting the wall or floor, and at the dreadful sobbing, like a long, hitching attempt at a scream without enough breath for it – but forced himself to remain still, letting it go on and on. After some minutes he closed his eyes and made his thoughts diffuse, monitoring Una’s cries on the edge of his attention, falling into the forgiving blankness at the centre.

  There was a shriek, and the sound of glass breaking. Sulien sprang up the remaining steps, through the door and into the middle of the dark bedroom in a few strides, overcharged with fear and readiness.

  A cool gust of fresh, damp air flowed across the room. Una, silent now, was standing by the window and surveying the damage with a taken-aback, interested look on her face. Her arms were gloved to the elbow in blood, fins of glass standing out of the flesh. Her scarlet fists were still clenched. She turned a look of slightly embarrassed surprise at Sulien and raised one shoulder in a tiny, nonplussed shrug.

  ‘Oh . . . Fuck, Una,’ breathed Sulien, running his hands over his face.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Una knowledgeably, calmly, stuttering a little. And yet again when Sulien approached, she drew back.

  ‘Are you going to walk around with glass in your arms for the rest of your life?’ asked Sulien, hearing a shrill tremor of hysteria in his own voice.

  Una found it remarkable that she could have acted so violently without any awareness of what she was doing until it was over. The pain was far more intense than she would have expected, and fascinating, a glittering red lattice she could almost see in the air around her.

  She backed a few unsteady steps away from Sulien and explained reasonably, ‘Let me have some water and towels and I can do it myself.’ She looked down and plucked curiously at a quill of glass lodged in her wrist. It snagged on the underside of the skin.

  ‘Stop it! Gods, stop it!’ shouted Sulien, terrified, hideously aware of how close the sharp edge was to the artery, and rushed forward, closing the gap between them whether she liked it or not. He grabbed her hands and forced them to her sides.

  Una’s detachment winked out in an instant; she let out a cry of rage and struggled savagely, weeping, elbowing him and twisting until he felt her blood running over his hands and let go, afraid of doing worse harm by holding on.

  Released, Una’s hands flew up and struck at him wildly before she limped away to huddle against the wall, panting.

  ‘What are you doing, Una?’ said Sulien helplessly. He felt tears starting again, and pleaded, ‘I got there as fast as I could – you know that, don’t you? If there was anything I could have done, I— You can’t blame me; it’s not fair.’

  Una gave a scoffing, worn-out laugh, her face still curtained off within her blood-tipped hair. ‘I know. I don’t. For God’s sake.’

  It was strange that somewhere far off he could feel so much relief at that, while he was still so unnerved and frantic. Voicing the idea of his own guilt, even to deny it, had somehow given it form and weight. ‘Then come on, come here—’

  But she didn’t move except to turn her head against the wall and moan, ‘Can’t you let me have a second by myself?’

  ‘Like this? Of course I can’t,’ said Sulien. ‘What have I done? Why are you so angry with me?’

  Una looked up sharply, the motion like the snarl of something baited and attacked. ‘Because I can’t leave you here, can I?’

  For a second Sulien stared at her blankly, but when comprehension did come, and too quickly, it was strangely neutral and businesslike, even when, the next moment, Una staggered forward to sit crumpled on th
e bed, and cried, ‘But I can’t do it, Sulien, I’m sorry, I can’t—Marcus— I can’t—’

  ‘All right,’ said Sulien harshly, crossing to her again and this time crouching in front of her, ‘you sit there, and you don’t move, you hear me? You don’t touch anything. I’m going to call the clinic, see if someone can bring round some bandages, suture needles . . . You just sit there.’

  Una went on crying, almost but not quite oblivious to him, a little quieter now. More gently he said, ‘You can do it, but not by yourself, all right? We’ll do it together. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, I promise.’

  She met his eyes briefly, as close to assent as he was likely to get, and so he retreated, hesitantly, dreading the moment of actually turning his back on her. Once outside the room he vaulted down the stairs into the living room, ran to the longdictor and punched in the clinic’s code with shaking fingers.

  It had occurred to him that she had shown no sign of knowing anything he was thinking for a while. Surely she could not, not in this state.

  The conversation took longer than he liked because they wanted him to come in and help with the influx of wounded from the Colosseum. Sulien was quickly reduced to panicked begging under his breath for what he wanted as he dragged the longdictor across the room, fearfully listening for any sound from upstairs.

  But she was still sitting on the bed when he came back into the room, with her arms resting passively on her knees, eyeing the blades of glass and the slashed flesh with a more settled despair. She was shuddering even more noticeably now.

  Sulien lowered himself cautiously to the floor in front of her again, murmuring, ‘Should be a few minutes.’ In the meantime, all he could think to do was try and fold himself up as small as possible on the floor, to be somehow less conspicuous and provocative.

  Una stayed where she was for now, but the lull felt temporary. The cuts were plainly hurting more now the first shock had faded; he could see her muscles tensing as she shifted on the bed, and her breath was growing louder and less steady. Oh hurry, Sulien silently begged the assistant from the clinic. Una was looking at him now from time to time, a furtive, kidnapped look: half wretchedness at being trapped and half stealthy assessment of the prospects of escape.

  And then he had to leave her again to answer the door at last and gabble hasty thanks to the tired girl who’d brought the supplies: only a minute or two, hardly enough for what needed doing, but plenty of time for some further terrible thing to happen.

  Una was on the floor when he came back this time, clenched in an agonised knot. She jolted up warily as he drew near. Sulien knelt beside her and started laying things out – tweezers, dressings, a bowl of boiled water. He brought a lamp over from beside the bed. He began, unable to help a slightly too jaunty, slightly exaggerated professional manner: ‘Let’s start with your hands, then. At least you didn’t break any bones.’ He pushed the wet, tattered sleeve further up her arm to get it out of the way and put a wad of wet gauze into her left hand. ‘You clean it up so we can see what we’re doing.’

  Una’s taut shoulders relaxed slightly and she said, ‘Thank you.’

  Sulien sighed, and stabbed the syringe he’d hidden from her into her arm, pushed her over onto her side and held her down without too much difficulty as he finished pressing the fluid in.

  She scrambled up as soon as he let go, gasping, outraged.

  Sulien slumped back against the foot of the bed and just watched her, waiting.

  ‘What—? What have you done?’ she demanded, incredulous.

  Sulien didn’t even bother to answer immediately; he felt boundlessly exhausted, and he couldn’t see much point in a conversation now. ‘You know what I’ve done,’ he said. ‘You need it.’

  Una knocked the bowl over as she headed for the door, casting about clumsily for some kind of impossible escape from the encroaching softness that was already pulling the ground away, dragging at her eyelids, weighting her limbs. ‘You lying bastard,’ she said thickly.

  Sulien looked up at her with weary patience that made her nerves ring with betrayal, and then rose slowly to his feet, in obvious preparation to catch her when the drug had completed its work, on the correct assumption that she wasn’t going to lie down of her own accord. She had a furious impulse to see if she couldn’t reach the top of the stairs before he could get to her, and was even more maddened by the thin tether of self-control that kept her from trying. ‘You and Dama,’ she gasped, ‘knocking me out—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ whispered Sulien.

  Una glared at him, and muttered bitterly and accurately, ‘No you’re not,’ and toppled forward.

  The relief was so strong as to make everything, even Una’s fall, look slow and languid. Sulien caught her awkwardly but easily enough and brought her down onto the bed so that they were sitting side by side, Una propped against him, her head limp on his shoulder. He sat there, his arm around her, staring at a knot in the wood of a wardrobe standing against the opposite wall, and could not move. He didn’t want to look at Una; he wished there were a way of getting out of the room without having to do that again.

  ‘Marcus,’ he said aloud, into the quiet room, ‘please.’

  He eased Una around and down onto the bed. Her eyelids strained half-open and she made a cramped, angry motion, as if to raise herself, before her hands fell helplessly still and her face smoothed again. Sulien watched in bewilderment, almost a kind of admiration. She couldn’t possibly want to be awake, so what was this effort for? Could anyone be as vengefully perverse as that, even Una?

  He went out and refilled the bowl with water, picked up the rest of the things from the clinic and got to work on her arms. It was good to have the tweezers and scalpel to slide out the glass slivers, though he didn’t need the suture kit to close the skin. But it took a long, messy time, longer because he was dizzy with tiredness now. And there was still the injury to her head.

  She looked as if she’d been murdered. He hated to think of her sleeping in the blood, waking up to this tomorrow, but the idea of undressing his sister, having already drugged her unconscious, made him squeamish. Maybe if another girl did it? He tried to think through all the girls and women he knew nearby. Lal was the right person, really – Una might not mind so much if it was Lal. She had looked after Lal when she was ill; there would be a kind of reciprocity. But of course he couldn’t ask Lal; he could not call her back to the very same flat in which he had been trying to coax her to give up her virginity only a few hours ago, and where now there was blood everywhere. And Lal would have her own family to deal with when they heard this. He wondered if they knew yet that Marcus was dead, whether they’d guessed it from what was on the longvision; if you could, if you hadn’t been there.

  To his own surprise, for it was years since even the idea of her had occurred to him, he found himself thinking angrily that their mother was probably still somewhere in London; there was no reason to think she was dead. Perhaps she had been watching the Games on longvision and had seen the explosion. She would not know it had anything to do with her children. She was doing something right at this moment and it wasn’t looking after her daughter, or helping him. He tried, more aggressively than wistfully, to pull up a single solid memory of her, and could not find anything there. What was wrong with him? How was it that he had always forgotten so much? In what little he could remember from that time, Una was always the only other person there. He had accidentally knocked her down the stairs – he had been so horrified; her hair had been full of blood then, too.

  He rubbed away the new tears that came at that thought. He had to decide what to do about Una’s clothes. Una wouldn’t want them to be taken off, however Sulien went about it. It would be a second intrusion after what he’d already done with the needle. There was no vital reason to force anything more on her.

  So he cleaned the last traces of blood off her arms and her face, and tried to get as much as he could out of her hair, then dragged a blanket up to her chin
, as much to cover up the mess as to keep her warm.

  Of course, there was a lot of blood on his own clothes – Una’s and Marcus’ and any number of strangers’, all mixed and all over him.

  There was a communal bathing block under his building. Sulien skipped most of the stages of a good bath and headed straight for the warm fountain in the centre of the caldarium. He tried not to look at the reddened water as it ran off him. Scrubbing his hair, he set to working out in his mind how to be organised and systematic now: how to clear up the smear on the wall where Una had leant, and the crescent of blood drops between the window and the bed, collect the broken glass; in what order he would do these things. It was how Una would have acted in his position. But the plan unravelled into unexpectedly strong irritation that she’d broken the window, which was his, after all, and now he’d have to get it fixed. Back in the flat, he got only as far as sweeping the bloody glass into a little heap by the wall before wandering back into the kitchen and forgetting about it.

  He poured a drink and let the longvision play, not watching it. He found himself wondering again who would know what had happened, who else would be beginning to grieve for somebody. He thought of Varius then, with a sting of sympathetic pain, and decided that someone from the Palace would have told him by now, surely.

  And suddenly it occurred to him that it might not be a question of telling Varius; he might have been there himself, might have been hurt, or killed.