Savage City (68 page)

There was a strangled silence. ‘Unless what?’ asked Tadahito.

Takanari was leaning forward. ‘But this man is acting on his own?’

‘Not that we should necessarily allow ourselves to be held to ransom in this way, but he is demanding to speak to you, Your Highness,’ said Morokata. ‘And apparently he is adamant that you be told his name: it is Novianus Sulien.’

‘
Novianus Sulien?
’ repeated Tadahito, and blinked. For a moment he almost wondered if he were truly awake. He said, ‘He’s not a general.’

Kaneharu’s mouth was slightly open, ‘Lady Noviana’s brother,’ he said. ‘How would he be able to do this?’

‘If you have one of these weapons, you don’t need an army to fire it,’ murmured Tadahito. ‘Clearly I have no choice but to talk to him. Arrange for the signal to be relayed here. And tell them not to attack until I have finished with him.’

He found Noriko outside his rooms, wrapped in her parachute silk, her face still a little crumpled with sleep.

‘It’s all right,’ he said to her, ‘go back to bed.’ He didn’t mean to lie to her; he wanted to keep all this from touching her. He wanted her to be resting peacefully before a morning when the war was almost won.

‘I will not be able to sleep now,’ said Noriko. ‘Una’s brother is alive?’

‘Don’t run and tell her until we establish how long he’s going to stay that way,’ said Tadahito sourly.

Morokata appeared in the doorway. ‘The line is prepared, Your Highness.’

Noriko pulled up a chair and sat down with an air of quiet obstinacy
while Tadahito paced around the longdictor table, trying to work off the tension. He did not bother telling her again to go away. At last he lunged into the chair and seized the circlet. ‘Novianus Sulien,’ he said, ‘I thought I knew something about you by reputation. I must have been mistaken.’

‘That city—’ Sulien’s voice, bouncing across nine thousand miles, was faint and scratchy. ‘—Tamohara – did the avalanche hit it? Or was there an earthquake or – or anything?’

‘I don’t understand why you are asking me this,’ said Tadahito, in an icy tone that lent a certain stateliness and menace to the fact that he was, indeed, very confused.

‘I could have destroyed it – Tamohara. The weapon you used in Mohavia, you call it Surijin? Ours is called the Onager.’

‘I do not think it matters what names we use,’ said Tadahito. ‘You say you will destroy Tamohara unless what?’ He considered and added, ‘Perhaps you should be aware I have your sister here.’

Noriko shook her head in distress. Tadahito looked away from her.

In the Kosen bunker Sulien rocked back in his chair with shock, ‘What?’ he stammered, ‘Una – is she—?’ Tadahito’s implied threat barely touched him; he was too amazed at the thought that Una was so close to the thin, stern voice in his ear, too overwhelmed by everything that had happened today. ‘Then you know—?’

‘Explain to me what you mean by threatening Tamohara,’ insisted Tadahito.

With difficulty Sulien dragged himself back to the question. ‘No, no, your Highness, the city’s safe – there’s no one out there. I had to make sure they’d actually pass the message on to you. Your people know where we are; they could have killed us all and you’d never have even known I was trying to talk to you.’

Tadahito closed his eyes, almost resenting the jolt of relief that resounded through him; he felt it knock away what little grasp he had on what was happening. He asked, ‘And what did you wish to tell me?’

‘That you don’t want to fight this kind of war,’ Sulien said. ‘You can’t. You killed almost all of us in Mohavia today, and I know why. But if you don’t stop, now, then it won’t end with Rome, not with both sides holding these weapons. I know Rome has at least one more, somewhere on the Promethean Sea. And that’s all I know about it; when your soldiers get here they can do whatever you want to me, but that’s the truth. And there could be others out there.

‘Your Highness, even if you destroy Rome itself, even if you split the Empire into pieces, you won’t be safe.’

Tadahito said nothing.

‘My sister has a plan to end the war,’ said Sulien. ‘All this year we have been working for that – my sister and Varius and— All of us.’

‘I know she has a plan,’ said Tadahito, carefully expressionless.

‘Then please, at least listen to her.
Please
. I know you’ve seen battle, your Highness, but you haven’t seen what these weapons do. You can’t have seen as many bodies as I have today. Please, don’t do it to Rome – just
please
—’ He stumbled to a halt. He had no more to say. He waited in silence, aware of the weight of the fourth centuria’s gaze.

Then Tadahito broke the connection.

‘You don’t know what you should do,’ said Noriko. She was standing looking down at him while Tadahito leant over the desk and put his head into his hands.

‘I must talk to Father,’ he said, in an exhausted moan, and was relieved only his sister was there to hear him sound like that.

‘
I
will tell you what to do. Cancel the attack. Let Una do what she says she can. Give them a little time to try. And bring her brother here. You already promised her you would look after him.’

‘How can I give up our plans now?’ asked Tadahito. ‘Isn’t it already too late? If they have a weapon like that – if we don’t strike again, they will respond to what we did in Enkono.’

‘Then we must bring the war to a peaceful end as soon as possible.’ Noriko laid a hand on his back and bent down so that their faces were almost level. ‘Look up,’ she said, and he did, and met her eyes. ‘If I can come here from Rome and make you listen to me, if you do this when I tell you it is right, then Marcus and I did not marry for nothing. And it was something more than a waste that I have been so far from home for so long.’

Varius’ room was dark except for the chilly glow from the machines beside him. Una was still in the chair by the bed, with her head pillowed on her folded arms, resting on the mattress.

Tadahito touched her shoulder. ‘Una,’ he said quietly, because that was what his sister called her now.

Una woke with a blurred little cry of shock and looked at once to Varius’ face before blinking up at Tadahito.

He said, ‘I’ve just been talking to your brother.’

‘You’ve sold us out, haven’t you? That’s what this is – you’re not who you said you were; you’ve been working with them the whole time. And we’re going to rot in some prisoner-of-war camp while you swan
off with them and—’ Asper’s power of speculation failed and he finished, ‘You’re not even fucking Roman!’

Sulien sagged, too tired to brace himself against how much this hurt.

‘You just fucking dare say that again—!’ said Pas, furious.

‘He’s a convicted
traitor
! Didn’t you ever watch longvision back home?’

‘We’d all be dead if it wasn’t for him,’ said Caerellius. ‘Whatever his real name is.’

‘Oh yeah, that’s what he says,’ Asper muttered.

Six or seven of them rose to their feet, anger washing dangerously between them. Sulien tried, impossibly, to look them all in the eyes at once. He said, ‘The war’s going to end. You’re all going to live. Everyone’s coming home.’

‘Throw down your weapons!’ shouted a voice outside. A battalion of Nionian soldiers had reached the base.

‘Do as they say,’ said Sulien, dropping his own. ‘Line up in your octets. File out.’

Slowly he led them outside into the dark, his hands raised. The flanks of the valley were lined with soldiers pointing guns.

‘Where is Novianus Sulien?’ someone called.

‘I’m here,’ Sulien answered, and behind him, Dorion whispered, with mock-cheeriness, ‘So, you’ll be on your way, then.’

Sulien turned his head. ‘It’s not for long. I swear it’s not for long now. And the Prince promised me everyone would be treated well.’

‘Oh, well,’ said Dorion, ‘if he
promised
—’ The sarcasm wasn’t as scathing as it might have been, Dorion was handling it lightly, just cuffing at Sulien with it. But still Sulien hated the abandoned, let-down look on his face.

‘I don’t want to leave any of you behind. Listen,’ he said urgently, watching a Nionian captain making his way down towards him, ‘you can come with me.’ He looked past Dorion to Pas. ‘The three of us—’

Dorion glanced from Sulien to the others and back and a little shudder went through him, but he said curtly, ‘No, I’m staying with them.’ His chin was raised, his shoulders squared.

‘All right,’ Sulien said, ‘look after everyone, then.’

Pas asked slowly, ‘You really reckon you can stop all this?’

‘If you can, you’d better get on with it,’ said Dorion, shaking again, though now he was managing to smile. ‘You go with him, Pas, if they’ll let you.’

The captain approached, already glaring at Sulien in obvious distrust. He beckoned him tersely out of the line. Sulien dragged Pas with him and said, ‘I need him to come with me.’

The captain scowled and shouted something into his radio without answering Sulien. He gestured impatiently to his men and with commands and shoves, the Nionian soldiers began ushering Sulien’s centuria away up the hillside. Dorion looked back over his shoulder. Sulien’s throat tightened.

Pas lurked at Sulien’s side, apprehensive.

‘These are all your men?’ the captain asked as a squad of Nionians pushed into the base behind them.

‘Forty-three of us,’ said Sulien, ‘and four of your men.’

‘Forty-three,’ repeated the captain, shaking his head in disbelief.

One of the Nionian soldiers called out from the doorway of the base.

‘Come back inside,’ said the captain. ‘They are calling again from Axum.’

Sulien beckoned to Pas, afraid he’d be swept off with the rest if he were left alone, and they followed the captain back inside the command centre. Tadahito would hardly be calling back to announce that he had changed his mind and was going to have the whole centuria shot, or that he would destroy Rome today after all; nevertheless, those were Sulien’s first thoughts, and his pulse continued to bang painfully even after he’d dismissed them. Gingerly, he lifted the headset.

‘Sulien!’ Una almost screamed into the longdictor.

And Sulien dropped into the seat, with a long, worn-out laugh. He heard it sound less than sane, and couldn’t immediately stop. ‘There you are,’ he said, as if he’d been looking for her all this time and her absence had been surprising and unreasonable. ‘There you are.’

‘I didn’t know—’

Now he could hear that she could barely speak, something was choking her.

‘The weapon,’ she managed, ‘I didn’t know you were there.’

‘I’m glad you didn’t know,’ he said. ‘Are you all right? Is everyone safe? Is Lal with you?’ And he pushed back the chilly awareness of how long it had been since he had thought of Lal.

Una said, ‘Varius—’ and her voice twisted away, agonised.

Sulien leant his head against the back of the chair and shut his eyes. He asked, slowly, ‘Has he been arrested?’ and because she was trying to answer and still failing, he supplied, even more softly, ‘Is Varius dead?’

‘No,’ said Una, ‘no, he’s here, but he—’

‘Listen,’ interrupted Sulien fiercely, ‘he’s going be fine. Whatever’s happened, he just has to hold out another couple of days. Tell him he has to. Tell him I’m coming.’

‘There’s my sister,’ said Sulien, leaning close to the volucer window as it descended.

Pas was sitting opposite him. He’d been quiet through the fifty hours of this long, sudden journey; Sulien, on the other hand, had scarcely stopped talking – he couldn’t stop himself. Pas had listened, solemnly, and Sulien was grateful for that, and glad Pas had guessed who he was. All these months he’d been in the army he had been content to get by without a past, but now, as they flew back towards it, from the Kosen Mountains to the coast of Hyouden, the relief and the fear of what he’d find kept boiling over out of him into words. He chattered feverishly about Varius, and the three times he’d saved Sulien’s life, and how typical it would be of him if he wouldn’t give someone else a chance, wouldn’t wait long enough for Sulien to help him now.

Then they’d stopped again, for hours, at a Sinoan military base on the edge of the Arctic Sea, where no one spoke enough Latin to tell them why, and Sulien, distraught at the delay, paced and ground his teeth and explained to Pas how he hadn’t been in time to save Marcus, and how he couldn’t stand it if he were too late now, not after everything, it just couldn’t happen. And he rushed through a jumbled account of how he and Una had met Marcus in the flea-market in Gaul, five years before. And how neither of them had liked him much until what had happened in Wolf Step on the way to Holzarta, and then . . .

But when Marcus died, he and Sulien had been half-estranged, only part of the way back towards friendship, and it was
his
fault, and now there was nothing he could ever do to put it right.

Sometimes, though, something he said – about Drusus, or Marcus, or how he’d never said a proper goodbye to Lal, who was so sweet – would lead him back towards the war, and then he stopped, and he and Pas would look at each other in silence. The war crumpled language,
and yet Sulien felt a faint, scared flicker of regret that they were leaving it.