Rome Burning (4 page)

Faustus exhaled heavily; he hadn’t realised so many of the deaths were civilian. He understood Salvius’ indignation better now, but he still couldn’t share it, not really; he felt more depressed than anything.

‘But they were driven back or killed after that? They’re not still there?’

‘No. The back-up from the next fort arrived; it doesn’t seem there’s been any more gunfire.’

‘And the breach itself?’

‘They’ve got it contained for the moment.’

‘But how big is it? What does the town look like now?’ ‘Well, it’s – the damage must be – I’m not there.’

‘Then go there. But first find me someone who’s there already. And decent pictures. And some idea of where these numbers are coming from.’

‘Very well,’ said Yanisen, his voice strained. Then, seemingly trying in vain to stop himself, he continued through his teeth. ‘The town is still vulnerable, of course, and will
continue to be. I am sorry, Your Majesty, I feel I
have
to say, this could have been prevented—’

‘Yes,
you
could have prevented it,’ exclaimed Probus savagely. ‘Don’t you try and lay the blame here because we weren’t prepared to throw good money after bad.’

‘Stop,’ barked Faustus, acting fury easily enough; after all these years he could produce the right voice and expression on demand. ‘You can continue this in person. Probus, you should be out there too.’ Probus nodded shakily, but Faustus added, ‘
Now
, go now,’ and felt – vague as his desire for the girl in the bath-suite – a pang of pleasure at being able to flick Probus across the globe. Infantile, really. Probus left, still swallowing dryly; Faustus thought, with mingled scorn and pity, that he might even burst into tears.

He gestured at the screen and a slave turned it off. An aide had entered and whispered something to Glycon.

‘What are we hearing from Cynoto?’ Faustus asked.

Glycon looked disconsolate. He was training a quietly tormented, imploring expression on a cherry tree painted on the wall, and he had to lower his hand from his mouth to speak; unconsciously, he’d been biting the flesh of his index finger. ‘It’s taking time,’ he replied.

‘They’re not refusing to speak to us?’

‘No. Possibly keeping us waiting to make a point.’ He slipped out of the room.

Faustus and Salvius exchanged a silent look now, not quite of guilt, but both were aware that for years they had considered quietly, why lavish money on the Wall when a war with Nionia might be coming, after which the Wall would be pointless? Yanisen must have known as much.

‘All right, now you can talk.’

‘We have almost the numbers on the Wall to head north already; we can reinforce them within weeks. I don’t believe it would take more than four months to take control of the territory.’

Faustus nodded. Glycon re-entered to interject. ‘Falx is here.’

‘In a minute. But could we keep the war contained in Terranova?’

‘Obviously we would attack Cynoto from the air at the same time,’ said Salvius.

‘And their bases in Edo?’

‘It goes without saying.’

Faustus nodded again, but he looked at Quentin. ‘Are you sure this looks like being in control? Because you could equally well say the opposite.’

‘Well,’ said Quentin, ‘people will want to feel
something
is being done.’

‘But – not to belittle what’s happened today – we don’t need to overstress it to the public, do we? People are used to hearing about skirmishes.’

Quentin looked thoughtful. ‘It’s true that it’s a long way away for most people. But it’s not as easy to keep things quiet these days; and even if we were successful, they might then find it harder to accept if you did decide war was necessary.’

Salvius by this time was looking overtly disgusted. ‘
What?
’ demanded Faustus loudly, finding with some surprise that he was contemplating Salvius almost with hatred. Oh, you think you’d do so much better, he thought sourly.

Salvius hesitated, bristling warily. ‘I suppose it seems like a question of right or wrong to me. A question of the interests of Rome, at the least. I’m a little surprised it’s being considered in these terms.’

‘We’re considering everything, I hope,’ Faustus snarled.

‘Of course,’ said Salvius, trying to sound dispassionate.

Faustus wanted Salvius out of the room so he could release his body from the straight posture he’d hauled it into, knead his face with hands. He said, ‘
You
talk with Falx. Come back and tell me what we can expect from the Nionians, and what we need to do to be ready.’

Salvius was even a little appeased by this. When he and Quentin were gone, Faustus let himself sag, as he’d wanted to. He rubbed at the back of his neck and head, trying to mimic what the girl had been doing, but holding his arm aloft like that only seemed to make the muscles stiffen even more painfully and he let it drop.

He noticed Glycon, who had retreated diffidently into a chair at the edge of the room. As the conversation had gone
on, he had wound himself by subtle degrees into a position that looked agonising: his legs twisted round each other, his shoulders skewed, his hands up to his face with the interlaced and steepled fingers spikily protecting the lower half of his nose, his thumbs under his chin, jutting into his neck. He might be unaware he was doing it, but Faustus was sure Glycon wanted him to say, as he did now, ‘You’re looking very gloomy.’

Glycon separated his hands to hold them splayed in midair. ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘The situation …’

‘No, don’t give me that,’ said Faustus, tersely gentle. He dragged a chair into place to sit opposite Glycon.

Glycon unknotted himself fully, sighing. ‘I think the general reaches decisions so fast,’ he confessed. ‘I think it … it’s possible he underestimates the cost – financially, apart from anything else. And in – destruction.’

This was an unusually strong word for Glycon: having said it he blinked and made a mute gesture, as if to rub it out of the air.

‘Of course, he may very well be right,’ he added quickly, which almost made Faustus want to laugh, but Glycon went on again gravely, his eyes distant. ‘But if Nionia is stronger than he thinks, then this would be something we’ve never seen before. A world conflict. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

‘
I
haven’t decided anything yet,’ Faustus said quietly.

As the afternoon wore on, however, he became increasingly angry with Nionia, for still all they heard through Sina were imprecise promises that the Nionian Emperor would be ready to speak with them soon. Faustus found himself roaring at Glycon, as if it were his fault: ‘Make sure they know they’re taking a damn stupid risk playing this game! Blind gods! He should be glad I’m willing to talk to him at all!’

Glycon only nodded, unflinching. At last he came into the private office again to tell Faustus, ‘The Nionian Prince will speak with you, if you want.’

‘Which one?’ asked Faustus. He found the workings of the Nionian court confusing; he knew the Emperor had a lot of children. Faustus felt envious. It was curious and
regrettable that he and his two brothers had only managed to produce one child each. He thought again of his daughter Makaria, and of Marcus. If Makaria had been a son – if she had married and had children like a normal woman … how much easier everything would have been. Of course, it was still not impossible, though she was thirty-six now. But he no longer seriously expected it to happen.

If he had had a son with Tulliola – a child of six, at the oldest, now …? Briefly, he imagined such a boy, with black hair and a crooked Novian mouth. But the idea of Tulliola jabbed at his head again, and in honesty, did he remember what you were supposed to do with a child that young? A grandchild would have been different. Very occasionally he heard rumours that Makaria had a lover out on Siphnos; if so, he wished she would produce him, Faustus would really not care who it was.

‘Tadasius, the Crown Prince,’ answered Glycon. But of course the Prince did not call himself Tadasius, that was only the Latin rendering of it. His name was Tadahito.

Faustus exhaled at length again, trying to puff the anger out of himself so that he could think clearly. ‘Suppose that’ll do,’ he muttered.

The aides adjusted the longdictor and Faustus took it. ‘Your Majesty,’ said a voice.

For a moment Faustus thought this must be some Roman intermediary, for the Prince’s Latin was disconcertingly flawless. Faustus was thrown, not only by this, but by the Prince’s age, older than Marcus, true, but what – twenty-two, twenty-four? ‘Your Highness,’ Faustus said, ‘can I not speak to your father?’ and realised too late that this sounded, absurdly and offensively, like something one might say to a child – ‘Is your daddy there?’

In response he heard a quiet, sharp intake of breath. ‘My father trusts me to represent him accurately; I hope and believe he is right to do so. May I pass on to him your condolences for the murders of our people today? Shall I say Rome feels at last some degree of remorse for her actions?’

‘Flawless’ was almost an inadequate word for the Prince’s fluency. And yet Faustus no longer thought he would have mistaken him for a native speaker: though the accent was
exhaustively correct, it was somehow clearly not intended as a pretence or disguise of being Roman. The structure of each sentence, the resonance of the voice were all deliberately, even insultingly perfect. Faustus felt uncomfortably aware of the very few, very faltering words of Nionian that had survived in his memory through the fifty or fifty-five years since his schooldays.

‘Oh, come on,’ he said, irked. ‘Your troops attacked the Wall. Did you authorise that or not?’

‘Our soldiers are authorised at all times to respond to Rome’s persistent incursions into Tokogane,’ replied the Prince. To Faustus’ ears the sudden, soft foreign syllables, spoken so naturally, sounded bizarre, resting incongruously on the familiar frame of his own language. There was no established Latin interpretation or taming of the Nionian name for the land north of the Wall. Romans would only speak, grudgingly, of ‘Nionian Terranova’, But he still remembered – Tokogane, the Land of Gold. That was what the Nionian name meant.

‘Yes, and you’ve sent in more. Even aside from what happened today, they are in violation of Mixigana simply by being there.’

‘We see Rome violate the treaty daily. We see infringement on Nionian territory, kidnappings, murders, rapes committed by your soldiers, or by your citizens with their protection.’

‘All that’s rubbish.’

‘It is possible,’ suggested the Prince, with pointed, forbearing courtesy, ‘that your subordinates prefer to keep these things from you, in which case your reaction is understandable. But I can give you specific instances.’

‘If I’m not supposed to believe my people, why should I believe yours? Look, the point is that explosives were used on the Wall, I assume you don’t dispute that much? Did this happen spontaneously, in which case we will expect the men concerned to be punished, or was this an intentional act of war?’

‘They were repelling your army’s assault. They were responding to the destruction of a village. The murders of children. Did
you
authorise
that
?’

Faustus hesitated. His head beat. He began, ‘Deaths in a battle provoked by your troops—’

‘A village
ten miles
away,’ cried the Prince.

Faustus was silent, blinking, thinking first, ‘I don’t have to believe that.’ Then: ‘but
he
believes it, that much is obvious.’ He pulled at his neck-cloth, which had begun to feel smothering, finally unpinned it and took it off altogether. He said quietly, ‘Tell me what your intentions are.’

‘The Emperor’s intentions have always been to protect and uphold Nionia’s side of the Mixigana treaty, despite Rome’s evident contempt for it; after today, of course, he may be forced to reconsider,’ said the Prince, performing the sentence with a restrained, hostile flourish, and so beautifully that he was almost singing.

‘This isn’t helping anyone,’ snapped Faustus. ‘My generals are fully prepared to respond. I thought you would appreciate the chance to give me your side of it.’ He glowered, angry with himself, and with the Prince for goading him into this. He had not meant to sound so schoolmasterly. It would not have come out so if the Prince had been older.

There was a silence, which he thought he could hear ringing with both rage and satisfaction. The Prince said finally, politely, ‘Thank you. I
have
appreciated it. Goodbye.’

‘Sir, are you all right?’ asked Glycon, watching him.

‘Yes,’ said Faustus thickly. Shouldn’t have drunk so much, he thought. But what was that supposed to mean? He hadn’t had a drink since the night before – he shouldn’t still be feeling that, should he? How much had it been? He couldn’t remember. ‘Get Salvius in here again.’

Salvius listened impassively while Faustus told him what the Prince had said. ‘I think it’s a good sign he felt the need to justify it. It shows they know they’re in the weaker position.’ Talking with Falx had made him calmer, more confident that the right thing would be done.

‘You don’t think there’s any truth in the story about the village?’

‘Well,’ Salvius did lower his eyes briefly, ‘I might not go as far as that, but you can’t trust his account of it.’