Rome Burning (44 page)

Marcus looked down at him. ‘What happened to you last night?’

‘I had things to do,’ said Varius mildly.

Marcus laughed, and headed down. ‘Parties
are
the best time to get serious work done.’

Varius smiled, but didn’t speak, and he let out a short sigh as if something were difficult, and turned away, motioning for Marcus to follow.

In Varius’ rooms, two uneven heaps of paper lay on a table, looking isolated and out of place. Otherwise, although the apartment was as luxurious as any, Varius seemed to have had no impact whatever on it in the weeks he’d been living there. It looked still uninhabited, blank for a guest that had not yet arrived.

‘What is it?’ asked Marcus.

‘Marcus, do you know why Princess Noriko is here?’

Already Marcus was growing uneasy, and the wary gentleness with which Varius asked this made the feeling worse. He sat down, saying nothing.

Varius seemed to subject his answer to some final check before he let it pass. ‘If Go-natoku could see his grandchildren as Roman Emperors it would be some compensation for whatever power he’s losing in Tokogane,’ he said. ‘And even now they’re not certain all of this isn’t some kind of trick to weaken them before a war. A marriage would be a declaration of good faith from us – from you.’

Marcus sat immobile and speechless for a moment, and then slumped back in his seat feeling only, at first, so very stupid. ‘How do you know?’ he asked at last, dully. Much as he would have liked to, he didn’t doubt that Varius was right.

‘I convinced one of the Sinoan interpreters to stay close to the Princess’ group last night. He passed himself off as a waiter.’

Marcus gave a snort of mingled incredulity and despair.

‘He was pretty happy to help. The Sinoans generally sympathise with us more than Nionia. He heard Lord Kato telling the princess he’d get her out of Rome if and when the war starts. The interpreter doesn’t speak much Latin, though, only Nionian, so it had to go through someone else before I could tell you. I thought you’d rather have certainty.’

‘Why – why did you …?’

‘I could have used some kind of listening device, but they’d have found it. I could probably even have asked, but the longer they can’t be sure we know, the more freedom we have. Besides, it was faster this way.’

‘No,’ murmured Marcus. ‘You already knew. You were just … proving it. You knew as soon as you saw her; it was the way they introduced us, wasn’t it? I should have worked that out – stupid—’

Varius gave a dry, self-conscious laugh. ‘No. Wait until this happens to you another couple of times, you’ll get to know the signs too.’

Marcus looked at him, startled by the implication, and laughed bleakly, as it occurred to him how little Varius usually told about his personal life, how little, perhaps, there was to tell.

‘There are only so many ways of dropping that particular hint,’ continued Varius, glancing away.

Marcus pressed his face into his hands.

‘Look,’ said Varius, leaning forward. ‘They can’t offer her openly, it would degrade her and the whole Empire if they even appeared to run the risk of your turning her down. They want you to ask for her. So hinting is all they
can
do. It has to be like this – everything indirect and nothing
acknowledged, so no one looks bad if it falls through. So they are well aware it might not happen.’

‘Of
course
it’s not going to happen!’ answered Marcus, almost shouting, launching onto his feet. Varius watched him in silence. Marcus paced around for a second or two in an aggressive, desperate ring. More quietly he said, pleading, ‘Surely, they wouldn’t stake everything else on this?’

‘No. If the treaty is too perfect to be thrown away, if they’re sure enough we really mean to hold by it.’

Marcus asked, feeling that never since he’d taken the Imperial ring had he been so in need of help, ‘What am I going to do?’

‘Nothing. Or nothing except work even harder. They can’t expect a response to something they haven’t said.’

‘They’ll … drop more hints.’

‘We’ll be very obtuse,’ said Varius.

‘But they won’t let us ignore it for ever. They can’t offer her, you said, but they can make sure someone lets it slip by accident.’

‘Yes,’ said Varius. ‘And they will. But it’s a test. By the time it comes to that, we’ll have to be sure you’ve already passed it.’

Marcus sighed. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered. ‘Thank you for finding out.’

He hated the idea of telling Una, and he knew he must do it immediately. There would be no chance of keeping it from her.

*

Una was not in the quarters she shared with Marcus. She had begun, as she had in the Golden House, to insert herself subtly into the meetings, listening. And yet it was harder. Now she was watching Nionian and Roman delegates argue about slavery through their interpreter, and the urge to speak pressed her; the modest shroud of decorum she used to hide herself was growing stifling, heavier.

In their long robes, the eunuchs glided about, as unobtrusively as herself, tall, with smooth deceptive faces, unctuous and fawning, and all so consumed with familiar rage that it startled her when other people did not flinch at
their approach or look, that anyone could think they were not conscious of how they were irreparably mutilated as well as enslaved. Una remembered the refugees in Holzarta. With Delir’s money, with Lal’s forged travel papers, Sina had meant freedom for some of them. But really what she’d most feared when she’d first climbed out of a London window, bruised and raging and hating Romans, was true: there was no place outside that offered more than a private escape, nowhere that was simply free and safe and good.

The forceful, handsome Nionian lord from Tokogane moved swiftly through the room without seeing her. He placed a hand on the arm of an agitated official and spoke to him briefly before leaving again, but to Una he seemed like a walking firework, scattering generous sparks of satisfaction and excitement as he passed. And when she looked at him, she saw – almost with her actual eyes, like the floating auras of a migraine, a moment dwelled on with eager, meditative gladness, and repeated over and over again:

There was the lower slope of a cone-shaped mountain, a green volcano, rising above a blue bay. And no sound of an explosion, no change in the glittering light; but the long creaking screech of the shattering trees, and the leaves puffing into the air like dust at a breath, as something like a dry, pulsing flood pounded over the ground and up the mountainside, stripping it bare. Sitting there in the Sinoan hall, Una seemed almost to feel a faint impact in her own flesh, such as a ghost might feel.

She shivered, and looked at the ground, a little more willing to be silent and unnoticed. She was uncertain when or where what she had seen had happened, or what had made Kato think of it with such keen attention; sharp as it had been, so much else remained hidden in the unknown language. And as she watched Kato leave, a eunuch came up and handed her a crumpled letter. Una was surprised at receiving a letter from anyone, but when she took it it fell unrolled in her hand.

‘It’s been opened,’ she said indignantly, holding it up and jabbing her finger at the broken seal.

The eunuch’s face performed a perfunctory expression of smiling apology. Una looked at him with a chill, and could
not protest any further. She smoothed out the letter and read, feeling a dart of disbelief, ‘
Lal to her Una
…’

But the eunuch tapped gently at her shoulder again before she could read on. ‘Please you come. Your Caesar,’ he urged.

Confused, Una glimpsed another line: ‘…
I’ve never known for certain where you are, and it hasn’t been easy …
’ before, with a conflicted sigh, she rolled the paper up again to follow.

Marcus was waiting in a small, empty meeting chamber nearby, tense and agitated.

‘What’s wrong? Why didn’t you just come in and get me?’

He moved to her quickly, his hands on her shoulders, spilling the words out in a hurried mess, racing the truth across the little distance between them. He could see her face changing and hardening, the reaction just perceptibly ahead of what he said to her.

When he had finished, she did not move or speak, and though her eyes had not left his face she no longer seemed to be looking at him. She was not aware of the grim, sour smile that had appeared on her face. She said nothing because it was not his fault that she felt like doing something brutal, hooligan-like, the kind of thing a thuggish lowlife off the streets should be relied on to do. She wanted to steal something without understanding its value, she wanted to vandalise something. Within the long expensive dress she felt rough-edged and snide and grimy.

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’

‘For fuck’s sake, what have
you
got to be sorry about?’ Una snarled irritably, so that Marcus realised with a jolt just how deceptively innocent and delicate money and freedom had made her look, how a jagged surface in her voice must after all have been softened and worn smooth, for both the word and the sudden abrasive rasp with which it was spoken sounded unreasonably shocking coming from her lips. Una felt the incongruity herself, saw it in him, reflected back at her, and it gave her a small tingle of bitter comfort. She withdrew again into hard, staring silence.

Marcus urged, ‘Say something.’

Una gave a harassed sigh, gathered herself competently and said, ‘I think Lord Kato is building some kind of new weapon. I think he used it on a forest on some island somewhere – I don’t know. I can’t understand, but, well, I’ve told you now.’

‘Una,’ said Marcus, though storing the information away for later.

She looked at him properly at last and said flatly, sadly, ‘We knew something like this would happen in the end.’

Marcus gave a little cry of exasperated misery. ‘No.
No
. Why do you have to say that? I won’t do it. Under any circumstances. You
know
I won’t.’

‘That’s very sweet,’ said Una, the involuntary jeering note returning to her voice. ‘Shame it doesn’t sound like it’s up to you.’

‘It
is
up to me, I can do anything I want,’ retorted Marcus dangerously. Somehow this silenced Una more effectively than he had meant or expected; she looked down with a kind of flinch that irritated him and he added unnecessarily, ‘I wish I didn’t have to tell you every little thing, because this isn’t even going to
matter
.’

‘I’m sorry I’m so much to put up with,’ taunted Una, wanly. She sank into one of the chairs against the table, stiffly, and laid her cheek on its surface.

‘Oh, you are! I just love you, I don’t know why.’

But the hard, scathing expression had gone and she looked simply beaten and wretched. She muttered, ‘No, nor do I.’

Marcus breathed out, and went and enfolded her silently, hanging over her shoulders like a heavy garment. ‘You must,’ he told her softly at last. ‘You must know better than to believe that.’

She whispered desolately, ‘I’m just not very nice. I love you. I’m – horrible to you, half the time.’ She’d put up her hands to hold his arms in place where they crossed around her.

‘No. When?’ He didn’t move. ‘Listen now. It doesn’t matter what they want from me. They can’t have it. No one will make me marry anyone else.’

‘No, please don’t. You’re not to,’ Una said, hiding her face against him.

Later, when they were both a little calmer, she remembered the letter, which was crushed to a shred in her fist. She did her best to uncrease it and showed it to him. ‘Look at this, can you believe it?’

Lal to her Una,

I always start by writing the same thing – by counting the letters I’ve sent to you since we came here, and telling you that I wanted you to know that we are safe. Well, this is the sixth letter, and it’s very likely you’ll never get this one either. I’ve never known for certain where you are, and it hasn’t been easy to send anything safely. Even if the Sinoan authorities aren’t interested in our presence here, there has always been the possibility that the Romans would have demanded our extradition if they knew where to find us. But now Marcus is in Sina. Perhaps there’s a chance this one will reach you.

I don’t know that you’re with him. It’s been three years. You said you were interested only in what he could do, as Emperor. But I remember how horrified you were when he left Holzarta. And we know that you must have found him, for of course we heard the news that Marcus had been named as Caesar. And later we heard rumours about something that happened in a sanctuary for lunatics, and about two slaves.

Only two, though.

But Marcus must at least know where you’re living now. He would make sure you get this. I can’t believe that he is practically Emperor, so young, and I used to know him! Of course that was good news for us. We’ve begun talking about coming back to the Empire. My father thinks he should start up another refuge, somewhere like Holzarta. But it would take a few years to build a network of people we could trust, and Marcus must be so close to shutting down the slave trade anyway – I almost think it’s not worth it. We could settle in Rome, maybe.

You probably know we had to evacuate the camp. There were meeting points in the mountains, mostly on the Spanish side, but we couldn’t risk gathering into a single group again, so there are many people from that time that
I’ve never seen since. Of those we travelled with, some decided that with the identity papers I’d made, they’d be safe enough staying in the Empire. Helena and Marinus and their children didn’t go any further than Spain – to Caesaraugusta, I think. The last I heard, Tiro was in Lepcis Magna. But some of us continued to Jiangning, where we’ve been ever since.

We came because we knew that over the years, many of the slaves we’d sent from the camps had made homes here. Some of them still teach Latin – there’s always a demand for that – others have set up shops selling Roman clothes and food – that kind of thing. They import some of their goods illegally from Rome, which is how we get most of our news of the Empire. So, the people here were already used to Romans, or whatever we should rightly call ourselves, having no real citizenship and belonging nowhere. They even call these streets around Black Clothes Lane ‘Rome’ now. So, there, I live in Rome, I have my wish, in an annoying way. I do like Jiangning. When we came through the north we couldn’t move without being stared at. Here it’s easier.

But my father isn’t happy here. Part of it is the language. He can get by, but he can’t really have a conversation with anyone from outside these few lanes. He works in the shop of one of our friends, and he hates it. He and Ziye call themselves husband and wife now, although they have never actually married, and even if in general the Sinoans in Jiangning aren’t surprised to see us around, they still stare at the two of them. Of course Ziye would draw attention anywhere, and she doesn’t look like other Sinoan women. She hasn’t grown her hair; she doesn’t hide the scars from the arena on her face, any more now than back in the Pyrenees when you knew her. People find her shocking. And the fact that she lives with a Persian man only makes it worse. She seems indifferent to all this, most of the time, but my father certainly isn’t. And even Ziye says sometimes, ‘I always knew I’d never really be able to go home.’

I told you how I was giving a few Latin lessons in the last letter. I’m not a good teacher, to be honest, I don’t
think Liuyin learned very much from me. He failed his Imperial Examination, but that was always kind of a foregone conclusion. He didn’t want to be an official anyway. I told you about Liuyin – the official’s son, the artist, he said he was in love with me. Why am I reminding you as if you already know? I wish you did already know, that’s all. Well, it was fine for a while, but his parents found out and of course I am the wrong class and the wrong … everything. Liuyin made a great tragedy out of obeying them and giving me up. But we still meet sometimes, near the Lady Without Sorrows lake, and he expects us both to be as starcrossed and heartbroken as lovers in an opera, and I find that I can’t be bothered. And you would think, from the way he’s growing to resent this, that I was the one to have finished with him.

If you do live in Rome now, I wonder what you think of it? You used to feel, I think, rather as Dama did, that it was wicked. Yet you wouldn’t want to go back to London. That’s part of the reason I’m writing to you now, why I wish so much I could talk to you; I think you must feel as I have in every place I can remember, only as if I’m staying here, not as if I live here, not that this is my home. I should miss Aspadana, and Persia, but it’s been eight years now, and my mother died there. So instead I still fix Rome as the place I want to be, even though I’ve never seen it, because, at least as I imagine it, it contains … everything. Nothing about me could possibly be strange or out of place if I were there.

As for Dama. Of course I’ve been asking you the same question for three years and each time we had to give up hoping for an answer. Do you know where he is? Nothing we heard about what happened in Rome sounded as if it included him. We don’t talk about him any more. My father and I used to pray that he was safe. After about a year we stopped, at least, I did. Lately one of our friends out here died, a woman called Servilia – you never met her. The evening after the funeral, I heard my father saying a prayer – for her, and then he added Dama’s name, as if Dama were dead too.

And Ziye told me afterwards that it wasn’t the first
time. I would never have thought of doing that – how can the dead need our help? But I realised that I had come to think the same thing. I remember Dama when he left – so fierce, as if this was the last thing he’d ever do. But then, he never did anything without giving himself over to it, like that, so maybe that memory doesn’t mean as much as it seems to me now. I hope I’m wrong. I wish my father knew, because Dama was almost like his son. At least, he always felt, and always will feel, responsible for him. I’m sorry if this is painful to read.

I nearly went with you. If I had, my father would never have left the camp, no matter how bad the danger. So I can’t regret that I stayed behind. But I wish I really knew what had happened to all of you, and that so much time hadn’t passed without my seeing you.

I think of you often.