‘Please,’ begged Drusus – and suddenly he remembered a story about his family that he’d never wanted to hear, of revenge for a crucified child, and a witch, stalking into the room of one of his ancestors, the Novian curse.
Then he forgot it. The arena hounds swept in, louder, closer, until they must be in the room already. And then he saw that they were – the noise was coming from under the skin, from behind the faces of the furious slaves, and in another second those claws and booming red mouths would be upon him.
In the end, it was simpler than they had expected it to be. Sulien mumbled, ‘Let him go,’ and stepped away.
‘Wait,’ said Una. There was one more thing to do. She reached out, wincing, and slid the ring of office from Drusus’ finger.
Whimpering, Drusus scrambled back from them into the corner behind the chair and curled there, shaking and struggling and shouting.
They left him there and went out into the corridor, where Evadne stood smoothing Maralah’s hair. There was no need even to lock the door.
‘That was what it was always for—?’ said Sulien, his voice roughened and thick, ‘That’s what we were for, to do that to him?’
Una had dropped with a shudder into Varius’ arms, resting there with her eyes shut, as if she’d just crawled out of freezing water. She reached for Sulien’s shoulder, and whispered, ‘It’s over now.’
‘I could have killed him and not even hesitated,’ Sulien said. ‘This is worse.’
‘No,’ cried Maralah bitterly, ‘no, it’s far better than he deserves.’
‘It was already there,’ said Una, slowly. ‘You could see that, couldn’t you? He was doing it to himself. All we did was . . . finish it.’
‘Rome will be safe,’ said Makaria, though her face looked pinched and pale. ‘The war will end. Remember that, if it’s difficult to bear.’
Sulien nodded and muttered unevenly, ‘Let’s get away from him.’
They climbed up into the Palace, and up the marble stairs where Salvius’ body had fallen. They met only a very few officials on the way to the Imperial Office, not simply because it was late, but because most of the Palace’s administrative staff had moved out after the bombs had struck the tower and Septizonium. They looked startled to see Makaria, but she smiled reassuringly, and they subsided.
Inside the painted garden, Makaria stood for a moment, looking around at the walls, the heavy desk. She trailed a hand across its surface as she walked to the chair behind it and sat down.
She’d never had this view of the room before. She looked at Una, Sulien and Varius across it. Varius was smiling – a slight, sad sideways tug of the mouth – to see her there. ‘Of course, you and everyone who has been part of this will have freedom, and full citizenship, and every charge against you will be stricken,’ she said. ‘What else can I do to reward you now?’
‘I think you know what we want you to do,’ said Una, her expression as hard as it had been outside the Palace gates. But then it softened into a half-smile with sheer fatigue. ‘But you can’t do it tonight. We will have to talk later.’
Makaria shifted a little in her seat, uneasily. ‘I was thinking about your futures – in terms of money, for example.’
‘There are more than two thousand of us,’ said Sulien. ‘A lot of them need money, I’m sure. But I just want my pay from the army. And my men – the thirty-third Anasasian, ninth cohort, fourth centuria, all that’s left of it – they’re in Nionian custody, I want them home. And I want my real name to be in the records.’ He smiled bleakly, remembering. ‘I’m not even sure why I want that, but I do. And I’d like to use a longdictor, if you don’t mind. But I don’t want anything more from the Palace, not this time.’
‘It’s late,’ said Varius. ‘Turnus will be arriving soon. We’ll be going.’
‘Already?’ Makaria felt rather panicked.
Una nodded. ‘It’s up to you now.’ She was still carrying the Imperial ring. She leant across the desk and dropped it into Makaria’s palm.
But in the doorway Varius turned back, hesitating.
‘Can I ask you something?’ he asked, quietly. ‘You were with Marcus when—?’
The ache of it washed through Makaria, hurting, but somehow flooding out the anxiety of being here, in this seat, in this room. She settled more deeply into the chair and nodded.
Varius’ voice dropped still further. ‘Did he suffer?’
Makaria inhaled a long breath, bracing against the memory, and against the fear of the answer she saw on Varius’ face. She wished she need not tell the truth, but she answered slowly, ‘At first, yes. Yes, he did. But I think he looked . . . peaceful when it was ending.’
Pain dragged across Varius’ face, pulling his eyelids closed for a second, but he nodded. ‘I’m glad you were with him,’ he said.
Alone, Makaria twisted the ring on her finger, feeling the gold warm on her skin, and tried to make the room soften and accept her in the same way. She breathed deeply, and remembered Sina, and an old woman seated on a throne.
In the outer office, Sulien requisitioned a longdictor.
‘It’s done,’ he told Lal. She was still in the flat on the Via Nomentana. Maralah and Evadne were on their way there now.
Her voice still sounded thin and frail, but she said, ‘Then we’re safe. All of us. And you’re home.’
Sulien considered the words with surprise, tried to sound them in his mind as something more than the name of a wish. And he could not quite succeed; it had been too long. But he did smile, naturally and without bitterness, for the first time since he’d entered the Palace.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to leave Una and Varius and go back to her. He needed to stay with the people who had been there with him under the Palace.
They knew, of course, that Makaria could have arranged a car to take them across the city, but all the others dispersing from the Palace gates into the dark were on foot, and none of them wanted to step into a Praetorian car anyway. So they walked, tired as they were, across the Aventine, each of them feeling the Palace and the frantic man in its cells recede, like the heat of a fire behind them.
Una placed her arm across Sulien’s back.
There was no reaction at first when Varius knocked on the door of the small house. It was after midnight, and if the sleeping couple above woke it was probably to hope the drunks banging at the door would go away. At last, and with slight awkwardness, Varius called up at the windows, ‘Mother, it’s me.’
Lights erupted from the house. Even from outside they could hear the stairs rumble with sprinting footsteps. Two shattered, delighted people hurtled through the door and engulfed Varius in their arms.
General Turnus stared at the gold ring on Makaria’s finger. It looked as if it fit there – and he did not know it was only because her right hand lay in a fist on the desk, the thumb curled close against the band, propping it in place.
‘I’m sure you know that, very rarely, this unfortunate illness does occur in my family,’ Makaria said. ‘The last case was decades ago. Obviously my poor cousin cannot continue to govern in that condition, but treatments are so much better now. We may hope he will soon make a full recovery. Tomorrow I will be calling a session of the Senate to explain that, in the meantime, and in the interests of stability, I will be acting as his Regent. I will need to deliver an address on longvision, too.’
Turnus tapped his fingers on his side of the desk. ‘Madam,’ he said with wary courtesy, ‘it’s very surprising to see you here. Could you tell me how you got here?’
Makaria sat very straight and still in the chair, ‘Well,’ she said, ‘clearly I could not have done so without help.’
There was a long silence. ‘The army may not stand for this,’ Turnus told her. ‘The people may not stand for it.’
Makaria smiled. ‘The army is a long way from home,’ she said, ‘Our soldiers are tired. I think you will agree with me, General – too much has been asked of them. The people want them home. And I am
going to bring them back.’
[ XXI ]
PANTHEON
Even in November, Rome still had these warm, burnished days when its colonnades and bomb craters were wrapped in gold light, only a faint chill underneath it, and a blue depth to the shadows. Drusus was sitting on a marble bench in the garden of Lucius’ house on the Caelian Hill, a set of watercolours on a table beside him and a heavy block of paper in his lap. He was painting the two umbrella pines that spread above the lawn.
‘How are you, cousin?’ Makaria asked politely.
‘I’m well enough,’ answered Drusus, in a level, mildly ironic voice.
There was still that red blur of roughened, angry skin over his cheekbones, spreading down onto his neck, fingernail scratches over non-existent insect bites. But otherwise he looked the same as he always had, perhaps even a little healthier – the hollow places under his eyes had smoothed away and the scratches aside, his skin looked fresh. He was dressed immaculately, though not in his military uniform now, his hair was glossy, and his expression seemed clear and alert. Makaria found she’d been preparing herself for something different, something like the dull-eyed twitchiness under which Lucius had taken cover for so long. She remembered his speech outside the Colosseum on the day he’d taken the throne, and his wounded face. He looked quite ready to do it again. She shivered.
Lucius was standing watching from the terrace now. Makaria could see his anxious, watchful bearing from here.
‘And are you—? Are you keeping busy?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes,’ said Drusus, ‘I have to keep busy.’
‘But not too busy, Drusus – you do need to rest.’
‘Yes,’ Drusus agreed, the slight edge of mockery in his voice dropping away. ‘I’ve been so tired. It has been so hard . . .’ He looked at her quickly, a dubious, wary look. In a furtive whisper, as if afraid of being overheard, he asked, ‘Am I still Emperor?’
‘Of course you are,’ Makaria said. ‘You always will be.’
‘Yes,’ said Drusus, and his voice sounded soothed, but his eyes swung to the shadows among the laurels, widening as if he’d seen something move, and he stiffened. He went on, ‘Yes, always, until I die; and that won’t be until I’m old, the Sibyl promised me that . . .’ But then he started to his feet, shuddering, raising his hands as if to protect himself, and turned to her and begged in a shrill, rising voice: ‘Talk to me about something else – talk to me about anything else!’
Makaria also rose to her feet, unnerved. ‘What is it?’
Drusus panted; his eyes were screwed shut, as if in a terror of seeing. ‘When I think about – about that— That’s when they come back. I have to rest – I have to try not to think about it, but I can’t always help it. I can’t help it! Help me—!’
Makaria tried to answer, but Lucius was already hurrying across the garden towards his son. ‘It’s all right, Drusus,’ he said, ‘they’re going away again, aren’t they? There, look at the trees instead.’
‘I shouldn’t be like this,’ Drusus gasped, frustrated tears leaking helplessly from his eyes.
‘Your picture, Drusus,’ urged Lucius gently, ‘you’ve almost finished it. It’s beautiful.’
Warily, Drusus looked at the paper. It was true, Makaria noticed suddenly – it was a conventional enough little view of the pines, but far more proficient than she would have expected of him, and with a dark clarity about it that kept her eyes on it.
‘I didn’t know you were so good at this,’ she said.
‘I’ve been having lessons,’ said Drusus hollowly, but sounding a little calmer.
There were strange shapes in the painted canopies of the trees, and streaks of white, threads of red, that matched nothing she could see in the garden.
‘He hears things, of course,’ Lucius told her later. ‘Dogs barking, he says. And people too, talking behind his back. Salvius. Tullia. But somehow it’s worse when he starts reminding himself he’s the Emperor, and wanting to be back in the Golden House, or on the longvision. Any time he starts thinking about power – that’s what does it. I never did know why anybody should want it so much. I don’t know how you bear it, Makaria. As long as one can keep his mind off that, he’s better, he’s almost . . .’ He sighed.
Lucius was obviously tired, and for a moment Makaria thought he looked older too, but then thought she could just as well have said he looked the opposite. He was standing straighter than usual, and the scared, self-pitying haze across his expression had gone. His lined face had a sad, resolute set she’d never seen on it before. ‘I’ll look after him,’ he said.
Civilian clothes still felt strange, sometimes constricting, sometimes alarmingly soft and unstructured around him. And the choice—! Lal thought the variety available woefully depleted, but it bewildered Sulien; he’d come back to Rome with nothing but his uniform, and now he couldn’t remember the basis for deciding between one tunic and another, either in the shops or when he got up for work in the morning. But he liked the feel of his hair growing out, warm and reassuring on the nape of his neck and over the tops of his ears.
He had the day off from the clinic so he’d been round at the Demobilisation Office again, nagging them about the fourth centuria. Yes, they were still at the Roman base on the coast of Tupia; no, there were no reports that any of them was sick or hurt. Sulien remained amazed it could all take so long, even though, as he was disapprovingly reminded, the fourth centuria was receiving preferential treatment and most servicemen would not be home for months yet. Pas was back in Alexandria now, but they talked on the longdictor, arguing over where the reunion should be.
Sometimes he still had dreams. Sometimes he still found himself murmuring aloud, in his new flat on the Field of Mars, ‘I want to go home.’
There was a fresh wind blowing up on the Janiculum Hill, stirring Lal’s hair and chafing fresh blood into her cheeks. And as usual she was underdressed for the chill, so Sulien folded his new coat around her as they walked, fastening her to him.
The warmth of her felt so familiar and right against his side, but for a moment when she turned her bright face up towards his, he felt that instead of meeting their gazes slid past or through each other, towards different distances. And he couldn’t think of anything to say to her.
Then it passed, as it always did, and she looked so beautiful today, he thought, her eyes greener than anything could be.
He asked, ‘Did Docilina knock her paintwater over herself again today?’ A family out in Tivoli had engaged Lal to teach their young daughter to paint and draw.
Lal grimaced pityingly. ‘That poor little girl. I do need the money, or I’d refuse to keep coming in to torture her. That would be the kindest thing. I’d tell her parents drawing never really made a woman more marriageable.’
‘Oh, it might,’ said Sulien, and grinned at her. ‘Would you marry me?’
He’d wondered if she was expecting it, but from the expression, apparently not. Her lips parted and trembled; she breathed, ‘Sulien—’ and clung to him, her face pressed so hard against his chest that for a little while the ache between them disappeared.
Then she wrenched herself back, and panted, ‘No, I can’t— We can’t.’
Sulien felt dully disappointed. The loneliness that was always whistling through the city came gusting over the brow of the Janiculum Hill with the wind, yet the feeling seemed older, staler than it should have. He thought with glum dread of having to go back to his empty flat, and said, ‘Oh.’
Lal wiped at her eyes. ‘I know why you asked me. You want it all back – everything you would have had. And you would have loved me, I think, if there hadn’t been the Colosseum, and the war—’
‘I do love you,’ he interrupted, startled, ‘how could I not love you, after everything?’
‘You think you should.’ Lal managed, briefly, to laugh. ‘And quite right too.’ She reached up to stroke his face. ‘I wish it was as easy as that.’
Sulien dawdled on the way home, afraid of
the silence there, but, to his relief, Una was waiting for him, come from the Palatine Library, where she was working. She and Varius were trying to get a flat close to him, perhaps even in the same building, but it had taken them longer to find the money. Varius was working with Delir now, who had started importing confectionery from Persia and Cappadocia. Sweet things were scarce in Rome.
‘She said no,’ Sulien told her.
Una’s face dropped, but there was a trace of something other than dismay in it – lack of surprise, even almost relief, maybe. She shook her head at the question he hadn’t spoken. ‘I hoped I was wrong,’ she murmured, ‘but I was afraid if you did marry you might both regret it. I’m sorry.’
Sulien thought of what Lal had said, and then remembered his old, ransacked flat, just across the river – his scrambling effort to salvage something from it that last day. Suddenly the feeling choked him that there must have been some way he could have kept more. He began, ‘I should have—’
‘No, no,’ interrupted Una, softly, ‘don’t.’
Sulien sighed. ‘What about you and Varius?’
‘Delir has him interviewing people. He says he knows in another few months he’ll be sick of the sight of sweets, but it’s peaceful for now. And then, if we can save a little money—’
‘I mean,’ said Sulien, ‘are you going to marry him?’
Una made a face. ‘Not you too. His parents never stop asking us that.’ But she smiled, and lowered her eyes, briefly shy. She confessed, ‘I think so.’
They poured wine, and sat by the window.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ said Sulien, ‘I have to wait here until my men are back, but then I think I might go home – I mean, back to London. I thought . . . I could try and find our mother.’ His voice jolted awkwardly over the last word, because it felt unnatural when he spoke it.
Una stiffened. She became very still in the chair.
‘You still don’t want to see her?’ asked Sulien.
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