Savage City

by Sophia McDougall

  She remembered herself, at fifteen, striding across London, gusts of chilly rage whistling through her. She could still feel the same cold, sharp air now. And she thought of the name she’d given in the courtroom in Rome, Noviana, the unchosen, double-edged addition that still tied her to Marcus. She wouldn’t give up either of them now, the rage or the name.

  ‘Nevertheless, what you’re talking about would take years,’ said Delir.

  ‘But years of work have already been done,’ said Una. ‘It’s been nine years since you began building a refuge for slaves. And it was years before that that Leo and Clodia started planning to abolish slavery. But it can’t have started with them either.’

  Something reared up unexpectedly in her memory: the lawyer who was supposed to put on a show of defending her saying, perhaps we could never find any one person with whom it began. A small snag of laughter, defiant and bitter, caught in her throat. ‘And we couldn’t stop the war from happening, and Holzarta is gone. And Marcus is gone. And Leo and Clodia.’ Very briefly she hesitated. ‘And Gemella,’ she finished. Varius’ gaze, which had been on her, veered away towards the distance in sudden pain, and Una felt a pang of guilt, but then he looked back at her and she knew he was glad she hadn’t left out her name.

  Una went on in a stronger voice, ‘But not all of the work is gone. Not all the slaves who escaped. Not all the connections between people who might never even have talked. We can build on what’s been done, whether we finish it now, or whether it’s someone else, further on.’

  ‘Your network of contacts,’ began Varius to Delir.

  ‘I think most of them just want to be left alone.’

  ‘Well, probably, but we can ask them,’ said Varius. ‘If they can even give us a few sesterces to do this, it will help.’

  Ziye stood up and began pacing slowly and uneasily. ‘We will have to spend some of this money on weapons,’ she said. She sounded perfectly calm and pragmatic, but her lips were tight. ‘Or we will have to steal them, or be given them. You can talk of firing fewer shots, fine, but there will have to be guns in these people’s hands. There are always ways, of course.’

  ‘Like Dama,’ said Delir, a crack in his voice.

  Ziye gave him a troubled, complex look. ‘Yes.’

  Una opened her mouth to counter this and was taken aback when she could not speak. Dama ran ahead of her down the street outside the Colosseum, burning in the rainy air. It would always be almost within her reach to change it; he would always still be running; Marcus would always be right there, waiting for her; her hand would always be sweeping over his still face.

  If she could cram all her memory of Dama into that one day, that would be simpler, and easier to bear than if she had to remember talking together, walking through the mountains towards Athabia – or worse, in Rome, when they were older, how he had stood at her door the night of Marcus’ wedding to Noriko, scores – hundreds of deaths already on his hands, and she’d thrown her arms round him.

  She had to recede from the conversation for a while, could only sit there, biting her lip, waiting the memory out.

  Ziye muttered, ‘I said I would never fight again.’

  ‘But you can keep to that if you want to,’ said Lal. ‘No one has to fight – I mean’ – she glanced around – ‘do they? There’s enough else to do.’

  ‘It’s not that simple. This is a promise I have already broken, at the Colosseum. Very well, I had skills and knowledge that were needed. Una and Sulien are alive because of it; it was worth it. But it is not honest to break it once because two lives are at stake and then not, when we’re talking of ending a war, removing a tyrant . . . But then, what kind of promise was it in the first place, to keep unless it became inconvenient? And even suppose I make my promises all over again, it makes no difference; whatever I do now with my own hands, I will be up to my neck in what you do. And that’s right; that’s as it must be. But we must be very sure of what we do.’ She stopped and smiled tautly. ‘No, I don’t think certainty is any measure. I imagine Dama must have been sure.’

  ‘We’re not Dama,’ said Sulien, distantly. ‘He wanted to start a war. We’re trying to stop one. I say we win.’

  Una grew aware of Delir’s gentle, self-accusing attention. She raised her head to look at him and he reached across the table for her hand. ‘My dear, I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.’

  ‘I wish I could forget I ever knew him,’ said Una in a whisper.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Delir, bleakly. ‘I wish that too.’

  ‘Well,’ Una murmured, ‘we can’t, ever, and I can’t— I can’t talk about him. So what do we do? I forgive you, if that’s worth anything . . .’

  Lal got up from her place on the steps. ‘Look,’ she said impatiently, ‘we’ve got most of a plan – one that might not work – to make things better. It makes sense. Dama didn’t have anything like that; he just hoped that if he dragged everything down and raised enough chaos, something good would grow out of it by itself. At least, I suppose that’s what he hoped. And maybe it will, in the end – but it’s already costing far too much, and it’s slower and harder than it should ever have had to be. Nothing good that happens will be any thanks to him, so we don’t have to be afraid of being part of it, or being like him. There was peace, back then. Marcus would have been Emperor; he would have abolished slavery. And now, between Dama and Drusus, I don’t see that things can get much worse, whatever we do.’

  There was quiet again for a while. ‘And Drusus?’ said Ziye.

  Sulien took a breath, and somehow again drew attention to himself even before he began to speak. ‘Something happened, when I was on my own in Sarmatia,’ he said, softly. ‘When I was trying to get home. I needed a car, and—

  ‘I think I did something. I don’t know what it meant.’

  Roman air squadrons swept daily over the city towards the Red Sea, and yet the Nionian ships continued to advance northwards; Mariaba, the capital of Arabia itself, was under heavy fire. The longvision reports admitted that much, but they had grown sparse and even more blustering than before, and the rumour began to circulate that Mariaba was already fallen, and that a phalanx of Ethiopian and Nionian troops had extended up the Nubian coast as far as Ptolemais Theron.

  Yet for another fortnight, Alexandria seemed to drift in a strange, serene trance. People believed the worst about Mariaba, and yet batted around jokes about the same happening to Alexandria. A few shops closed, and sometimes they saw anxious families cramming their possessions into overloaded cars and heading east or to the docks. At the Library Una spent her mornings carrying the most valuable books down to the underground stacks. These occasional symptoms of danger seemed at once frightening and foolish, unnecessary – like a quaint superstition, and even though the six of them discussed leaving and made the decision against it in the knowledge that some kind of attack was probably inevitable, still they were not immune to the general disbelief that anything bad would really happen. The weather was clear as glass; there were free concerts at the Museion. The city felt not merely normal, but distilled, more timelessly itself with every day the ships drew nearer.

  Then, still early in February, Lal woke one night, because the building was trembling, to a vast trampling, rushing sound, as if the sea were rising to engulf the city. The air began to scream and tear, and the whole street churned with noise and pressure. The Nionian warships and aircraft carriers had reached the Heroopolite Gulf, and bombs and shells were hurling down onto Alexandria.

  ‘I want to take Ptolemais back. No, I don’t want it back, I want it burnt to the ground. Those people are worse than the Nionians, they’re worse than— than— they’re ingrates, backstabbers – they didn’t even try to hold out, they just went over to the other side, just like the Ethiopians. They were waiting for the opportunity— ‘I’ll see that no one else dares. I’ll gas the place, I’ll make what happened at Okura look like a birthday party.’

  Around Drusus, the generals stood in flinching silence until he a
t last noticed their expressions.

  ‘Never mind!’ he almost shouted, abruptly forcing a smile. ‘Never mind. That’s in the past. Now, let’s get these bastards away from Alexandria.’

  General Turnus began to say something with that unbearable patient air and Drusus put up a hand to cut him off. ‘Not this feeble complaint about too few men again; surely even a thousand loyal Romans should be able to— I’ve already said I want conscription. Why is it taking so long?’

  And yet he wasn’t certain, as he said it, exactly how long it had been. It was all happening so fast, weeks’ worth of events passing in days.

  Noriko sat staring dully out at the gardens. She had asked for the longvision to be removed before Una and her brother were killed, and she didn’t want it back now. Sakura and Tomoe picked up news from the servants, and occasionally Noriko spoke to wandering court officials from the first floor. She knew of the Nionian victories in Africa, and she wondered if her brothers were there, leading the advance. But this new phase of the war only reminded her how useless her marriage had been, and it made the memory of Marcus ache within her. She did not believe it brought any prospect of release for herself or her ladies-in-waiting. No, the more the war began to tilt against the Romans, the more vulnerable they would be.

  Three days before, she had turned a corner in the passages near her apartments to find Sakura pressed up against the wall by two Praetorians. One had a hand clamped over her mouth and his other hand under her skirts, which the second man seemed to be gathering higher. They were laughing together – a casual, boyish sniggering.

  Noriko, to her subsequent shame, had been able to do nothing but gasp loudly and stand there gaping in paralysed horror.

  By the time she was able to move again the two men had seen her. They were still chuckling when they let Sakura go and walked off.

  Sakura had stumbled forward into Noriko’s arms, shaking.

  She had done nothing. Her arrival had been enough, on that occasion at least, but she sensed her own flimsy privileges as Marcus’ widow, Drusus’ intended wife, were wearing thin. She could not protect Sakura and Tomoe any more than she had been able to protect Una. She would not be able to protect herself.

  Despite this, when Drusus charged into her rooms, the first words out of his mouth were, ‘Are you happy? I know you’re thinking they’ll fly in and kill me and you’ll get to go back home. Well, I told you, this is your home, this is where you stay, with me, whatever happens.’

  He stopped and examined her with dissatisfaction. Noriko was sitting blanketed within her own hair, which felt heavy and tangled; she was listlessly aware of a faintly sour scent rising from it, from her skin and clothes. She had not felt like bathing today. She wore no make-up. It didn’t seem worth asking the others to comb out her hair.

  ‘You’re letting yourself go,’ complained Drusus, anxiously. ‘You need to take more care of yourself. What would your people think if they saw you like this?’

  And apparently prompted by that idea, he lunged at her and started kissing her. At first Noriko merely screwed up her face and tried to twist her head away, but he went on, gathering her tight against him, leaning his weight onto her until her arms were awkwardly trapped between their bodies. There was no point in even trying, she thought drearily, and then was startled at the piercing, siren-like volume of the first scream she let out. She began to writhe and flail.

  Struggling with her, Drusus panted impatiently, ‘It’s all right!’

  He didn’t have enough room; he dragged her down from the couch to the floor and pinned her hands down while he manoeuvred his hips between her thighs, then let them go to try and pull her dress open over her breasts.

  Noriko clawed and twisted like a cat; the silk carpet beneath them was rucked up under her thrashing heels. She forgot Latin. She snarled and accused him and demanded help at the top of her lungs in furious Nionian. Drusus’ teeth were clenched; his face above her looked at once desperate and puzzled, as if there were some misunderstanding.

  Sakura and Tomoe erupted into the room and at once began to shriek and bat and kick at Drusus. Tomoe seized at his hair; they dragged him back.

  Noriko scrambled out from underneath him and staggered to her feet, continuing to shout. For a moment, she detached from her own outrage and terror to see the havoc as ridiculous: Drusus trying to swipe clumsily at all three of them like a beleaguered bear, the women dancing around still battering at him, all howling in a language he couldn’t understand.

  Inevitably, a small crowd of Praetorians and servants ran in. Drusus straightened, but didn’t let go of Noriko; he gestured the guards towards Sakura and Tomoe and gasped, ‘This is private – get them out of here.’

  Sakura and Tomoe burst into renewed screams and struggled as the guards took hold of them. Noriko broke away from Drusus and hurled herself unthinkingly into the brawl, pummelling with her fists, dragging at Tomoe. For a wild second there was a kind of scouring relief in fighting and screaming, in not having to pretend to be calm. But then they bundled Tomoe out of the door, and despair caught up with her again; tears filled her eyes for the first time. Regardless she elbowed blindly at Drusus’ stomach as he, too easily, pulled her back.

  Someone else peeped into the room: Lucius, a small, shuffling, white-headed figure, who cringed diffidently in the doorway and wrung his hands. Nevertheless, he was in the guards’ way, and with Sakura still struggling between them, they stopped.

  He inquired timidly, ‘Is everything all right, Drusus?’

  ‘No,’ panted Noriko, grasping for the Latin, feeling she might as well say anything now. ‘Your son is a monster. A rapist, a murderer—’

  Drusus slapped her, affecting an air of careless authority, but he was flushing. He answered Lucius: ‘It’s perfectly all right, Father.’ Unconsciously he ran a hand over his head to smooth his hair. ‘Leave us alone, would you?’

  Lucius cowered and grimaced piteously, but he looked at Noriko and murmured to Drusus, ‘You’ve got slaves for that.’

  Drusus made a scoffing sound, but his jaw was tight with discomfort. He glanced around uneasily at the large audience that was now gathered in the room and said, ‘She’s engaged to me. I’m the Emperor. I consider us already married. This is a personal matter between man and wife.’

  ‘I was Marcus’ wife,’ Noriko wailed, ashamed and angry with herself for the tears that kept falling. ‘I’ll never be yours.’

  ‘I think it’s probably best if you leave her alone,’ suggested Lucius softly, and Drusus stared at him with a strange helpless expression, embarrassed, resentful, desolate.

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ he muttered at last, and stalked away, summoning the guards and servants out of the room with another gesture.

  Tomoe fled back into the room, dragging the doors shut behind her. The three women collapsed into a breathless, keening heap. Sakura and Noriko clutched each other; Sakura kept lapsing into odd frantic giggles, almost as if she didn’t hear herself.

  ‘We can escape,’ said Tomoe, in a low taut voice.

  It’s impossible, Noriko thought, and had not the heart to say it out loud. She wondered, not for the first time, whether they were already past the point where the only correct, honourable course was suicide. She could not bring herself to say that either.

  ‘We can. Lady Noviana and her brother did. Everyone says they are alive.’

  Noriko lifted her face from Sakura’s hair, feeling a jolt within her as if she was starting out of sleep. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘Who says this?’

  ‘The servants. They were slaves once. They know. They say Lord Varius saved them. They say they are raising an army.’

  [ XIII ]

  RECRUITMENT

  The bombers were busy over the port again, and what remained of the colonnades that lined Alexandria’s great boulevards would have been no shelter if a stray shell had hit. Still, Una and Varius kept underneath them when they could, though sometimes they had to venture into the open to skirt r
ound a spill of rubble. The day was warm and blue and smeared with smoke, the noise of the bombers shredded the air like tissue paper. Far ahead they saw a handful of human figures racing across the empty width of the street, slightly stooped over, their shoulders raised as if it were only rain or hail falling from the sky. They might simply have been caught without shelter, or perhaps they too were part of the tiny, secret overground population of these raids: looters or fugitives exploiting the strange, dangerous freedom of the city that the bombs conferred upon them.

  The little group reached the cover of the far colonnade and vanished, leaving Varius and Una completely alone on the huge thoroughfare. Even now, after almost two months of this, it was eerie that such a human, artificial place could be as bare of people as a ravine in a desert. It was as if the city had been abandoned completely to the machines striking overhead.

  A drift of sparks came floating over the rooftops and something collapsed near enough to make the ground lurch. Una and Varius flattened themselves against a wall in an automatic embrace, then ran on without speaking.

  By now people talked of being used to it, and it was partly true. They no longer bothered to flinch, or cover their ears. The shops would open as soon as the Nionian spiras ran out of bombs and the power came back on. But the noise got inside them, always drumming and banging in their bloodstreams, even when the sky was clear, so that they remained always half in shock. The noise seeded itself into their nerves, and kept up a rhythm of sudden pounds and shivers and skips in their bloodstreams, even when the sky was clear, so that they were in continual practice.

  There was no light at the harbour any more: the tower of the Pharos was, inevitably, fallen; the causeway broken into the sea. Already the memory of it whole seemed distant and otherworldly, as if it had been decades rather than months, like a sketch of something from a time before photographs.