Rome Burning (79 page)

Though he believed this, she had been so adamant in refusal all this time that he expected her to deny it. But she became, if possible, more still, her gaze clouded and turned inwards, and at last she said very quietly, ‘Yes. Perhaps I would.’ Her eyes cleared again, focusing on him. She whispered, ‘Or perhaps you’d never have come to this.’

Dama reached, left-handed, into his pocket, and drew out a knife. Una shivered faintly as she recognised it, a clumsy, heavy-handled thing he’d carried from Gaul to Rome. Dama had wanted her to take it once, and kill someone, a spy in the hills outside Holzarta. ‘I was there already,’ he said. He made his voice light, quite unconscious of the look of despair that caught at his face as he spoke. He cut the tape on her wrists.

Una glanced up quickly from the severed tape to his face, and then could not bear to look at him again. She muttered, ‘Goodbye,’ and slipped out of the car.

Dama looked back and watched her go. Tarquinia would have to be evacuated too; it did not seem to matter as it had. Una’s steps were unsteady and laborious, but she marched doggedly on, back up the road. She would keep going. Dama did not start the car until he could no longer see her.

Then he drove swiftly, heading north, soothed by the mindlessness of following a plan made before he’d come to Una’s door. But an hour later, between flat cornfields, he stopped the car as abruptly as before by the side of the road, and sat there in the dark, he did not know how long, with his face in his hands.

Una crept along the dark road, her eyes on her chilled feet as they inched forward. Once she toppled onto her hands and knees, and had to remain crouched there, panting, for almost a minute before she could drag herself up again, pulling clumsily at the thin branches of a bush to help, and stagger on.

The blurred lights of a car swam in the dark. Una had been expecting this a long time, so long that she had almost ceased to think about it, as she had long ceased to think about food. She stepped forward, raising her arms.

‘I’m Noviana Una,’ she said to the vigiles inside

Almost as soon as she had told her story and climbed into the car, she slid into either sleep or unconsciousness on the back seat. Some time later she woke, starting back from the two strange male faces staring down at her. The car had stopped and the officers were bending over her in concern. The urgent lights of other vigile cars were streaming past, towards the farmhouse.

‘They were starving you?’ asked the young sergeant, indignantly.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I did it myself.’

They looked confused, and she could not find the energy to explain further. One of them said briskly, ‘Well, it looks like about time you stopped, miss.’

They took her to a small vigile station in the nearest village. After some confused fuss in the background to which Una, sitting vacantly in an interview room, paid no attention, they gave her a bowl of wheat porridge. Una stared at it for a while. She’d spent most of her life fearing and hating
the vigiles. It was hard to make sense of their being so kind to her.

‘Go on,’ urged the sergeant, watching her. The spoon was lying loose in her hand, as if she didn’t know what to do with it.

Una smiled up at him heavily. ‘I was hungry for the first two days. After that it goes away.’ To her surprise, though, the first few mouthfuls tasted wonderful. Still, it took her a long time to get through the food, and for a while afterwards, instead of feeling stronger she felt even more tired and sick than before.

Another officer came into the grey little room. Una was blinking at a short summary of her evidence, her head pillowed on one arm. ‘Caesar has asked for you to come to the Palace.’

Una raised her head, hesitating. ‘I’ve already told you everything. He doesn’t need to hear it from me.’

‘Yes, but he would like to see you. Your brother and your friend are already with him.’

Una shut her eyes, feeling tears rise against the lids. She could not argue with anyone. Of course she wanted to go to them, she was not strong enough to withstand that, no resistance left for anything. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘But only if I can go home and change my clothes. And go to the baths. I don’t want to go to the Palace like this.’

As they drove into Rome she began to feel the food doing her some good. Her brain cleared, the exhaustion lifted. In a large bathhouse on the Field of Mars, she bathed intensively and at length, steaming, scrubbing and oiling her skin, washing her hair, lying in the caldarium until she felt the heat begin to thaw the empty cold in her blood. It was some time before she went near a mirror. Finally, when she had done all that was possible, she surveyed herself sternly, sighed, and looked away. Well, it was bad, but not to the point of being shocking, and not irreparable. Some of the women in the baths had noticed her gauntness with curious pity or distaste, but not all of them. There were plenty of slaves who looked worse.

She did not know what had happened to the key to her flat; the sergeant broke the lock for her. She looked around
the blank clean surfaces she had left, feeling as if she had broken into a stranger’s home. As if she were stealing, she found a long, elegant blue wool dress she had not worn since leaving Marcus, and put it on, belting a loose tunic over it. It was heavy wear for spring, but the layers would soften the sharp contours of her attenuated body, and a quiver of grateful pleasure at the warmth ran over her skin. She approached her reflection again to pluck her eyebrows, put on make-up, and tie back her clean hair. It was not that she was trying to look attractive, or even trying to hide the evidence of her fast, which would not be possible. But she wanted to look self-possessed – not weak, not a refugee.

It had begun to rain. The vigile car carried her across the Tiber, past the Colosseum, through the Palace gates. Una looked up at the round stained-glass images of the gods, who all looked like Novii, like Marcus. Someone came down the steps to meet the car. It was Acchan. He did not bow this time, but he smiled at her, and said, ‘I’m glad to see you again.’

She followed Acchan through the Palace towards Marcus’ apartments, to the room painted with the orchard of the Hesperides and Atlas bearing up the sky, where she and Sulien had watched Marcus’ first broadcast as Regent.

Una was crushed against Sulien as soon as the door opened. His body hid the room beyond, she saw no one else. Then he stepped back, hands still on her shoulders, taking in the state of her, and until he was finished Una stared rigidly at a loose ruck in the cloth of the borrowed tunic where her face had been pressed, unable to raise her eyes to his, or speak.
Please. Don’t ask me.
It was more than she had any right to expect from Sulien, after this.

He let go of her softly, and said nothing.

Then she went into Lal’s arms, and over Lal’s shoulder she glanced warily into Marcus’ face. He was hanging back, almost guiltily, and behind him were a man and a woman that for a tired second she did not recognise, before seeing that they were Delir and Ziye. For the moment their presence, too, seemed too baffling to cope with.

Lal let her go, and Una finally met Marcus’ eyes. She wondered if she had thought marriage would somehow
mark him visibly, like a dye. Certain tiny changes did strike her sharply: the length of his hair, the fact that she had not seen these clothes on him before. There was a second of raw indecision on how to greet each other; then, looking away again, Una held out her hand. Marcus pressed it loosely, briefly, but as he let go his fingers skimmed over hers, in a kind of restrained caress.

‘What happened?’ cried Lal.

There was a wide, bright fire at the far end of the room. The evening was cool enough to make it comforting, if not really necessary. Una moved quietly to it, sinking huddled onto a footstool and spreading her thin hands over the flames. Crouched there she felt a little safer from any exclamation at her appearance; she continued trying to ward it off with the set of her body and the expression on her face. And Sulien had followed her, his stance close beside her masked her a little from the others, without his even realising it.

She said, ‘He let me go.’

Delir looked up at her quickly. ‘Did he?’

A painful eagerness brightened his face for an instant. He had given Una a jaunty, encouraging smile of welcome as she came into the room, but he had not got up, or spoken until now. He sat on the couch near the fire as if he had been thrown there, and was too badly hurt to move. The smile burnt itself out immediately.

Ziye said, ‘It’s been a long time, Una.’ She seemed little changed, either by time or incarceration. But though she nodded politely at Una, and had her back turned slightly to Delir, all her attention was really on him. She was alert, standing guard over him, ready to handle Una or anything else that came through the door for his sake.

‘When did you get here?’ asked Una.

‘Two days ago,’ said Ziye. ‘Marcus has been wonderful. But then, of course, we couldn’t find Lal …’

Lal had wedged herself between Delir and Ziye, nestled thankfully against her father. Delir put his arm round her, fondly chafing her shoulder. But his face remained blank, desolate.

‘But the important thing is that you’re all safe now,’ finished Ziye firmly.

Una nodded, and turned her face toward the fire. She whispered, ‘Have they caught him?’

‘No.’ Marcus, apparently being careful not to trespass too close to her, or Sulien, was isolated in the centre of the room.

Even more quietly, she asked, ‘What has he done?’

It was Sulien who answered. ‘He destroyed four trains in Nionian Terranova. One thousand, seven hundred and sixteen people, all together.’

He laid a hand on her hot hair, as she let her head droop forward. She found enough voice to mutter, ‘But we are not at war.’

‘It was close, as you can imagine,’ said Marcus.

She was not surprised. But she was numb and hushed with guilt. And for Delir it was the same, but worse. He burst out, ostensibly informing Una but really helpless, protesting, ‘The Nionians want him.’

‘He killed a great many of their people. Lord Kato, for one,’ Marcus said.

‘I know. I know,’ said Delir, anguished. ‘But what will they do to him?’

‘They’ll execute him,’ responded Marcus, quietly.

‘
How?
’ Delir breathed the question like a sob, and when Marcus said nothing, he supplied, ‘They will crucify him. Or something even worse.’

‘If the Nionians can be persuaded to let him be dealt with here, given the change in the law, he would most likely be shot.’

By the fire, Una shuddered slightly. She did not know why she should shrink at the thought of Dama’s death. She remembered the smooth point of the gun, sliding over her face. But intimacy survived, against her will.

‘And if not, you will let them do what they want with him,’ said Delir. But it was not an accusation, more like a groan of pain.

Marcus looked at him soberly. ‘It may not be in my hands. My uncle’s health is much improved. If I am responsible,
then I will do what is necessary. I think it’s – premature to torment yourself. He has not been arrested yet.’

Delir rocked forward, a cramped, trapped movement. ‘Of course he must not escape. I don’t hope for that. But how can I wish him dead?’

Ziye said with sudden fierceness, ‘You don’t have to think about it at all. Forget about him. He has nothing to do with you any more. You’re not responsible for him, or whatever he has become.’

Delir shook his head blindly. ‘We can’t be sure what made him into this. Surely it could have been prevented. Surely something could have been done.’

‘He’s not a child. And he’s not your son. He did these things by himself. It’s been almost four years since we even saw him. You did more for him than could be asked of anyone, and what does he do? He abducted your daughter.’

Delir clasped Lal tighter, and moaned, ‘Please, for God’s sake, don’t repeat what he has done.’

Ziye subsided with a sigh of concerned impatience. Marcus came closer to him, compassionate but subtly reserved, cold. ‘She’s right, Delir. He’s in your debt, not you in his. He can’t repay it now. But you’ve helped more people than him. All of us here.’

Delir murmured dully, ‘It began with him.’

‘It’s late,’ said Marcus, gently, after a pause. ‘Stay here tonight. At least you have Lal back, whatever else has happened.’

Delir’s eyes shone, wetly. He blinked and smiled, trying to make a joke. ‘Just a few days ago ago we were in prison, and my little girl was locked in a cellar; now here we are staying the night in the Palace. How fast we are going up in the world.’

More tentatively, Marcus turned to Una and Sulien. ‘You both must be so tired. It would be easier for you to stay than go home now …’

Sulien looked Marcus over: this calm, professional politician whose cautious gaze at them was loaded with silent, subdued appeal. An exasperated awareness that he had missed Marcus tugged at him, and he muttered, ‘All right. Thanks.’

Marcus smiled so openly and gladly that Sulien was more touched than he wanted to be.

Una had not responded to Marcus’ offer, but she rose passively to follow Sulien and the rest, when the servants came to show them to the guest rooms. But suddenly Marcus reached for her, catching her wrist and saying in a low voice, ‘
Una
—’