INCEPTIO (Roma Nova) (13 page)

Part II: Transition

XXXII

How surreal could it be?

We boarded a Dassault private jet in the general aviation area of Sterling Dulles and were welcomed on board by a flight attendant with movie-star looks and matching charm. Conrad told me that an old friend of Aurelia’s, some French business magnate, had lent her his personal plane. Did he realise how like a television mini-series that sounded?

It had everything: a sleeping area, where Conrad could lie and rest his leg on the bed, a tiny bathroom and luxurious sitting/dining area. You could do all the usual office things and probably conquer the universe in the afternoon with all the equipment on board. I spoke to my grandmother briefly; the flying palace had satellite communications, of course.

I gaped like a tourist out of the window several hours later when land came into sight: my first view of Europe. We landed early afternoon local time and, thirsty for a view of my new home, I glued my face to the window. Mountains stretched up into the sky in the background, conifers clinging to them under the snow line, fields and isolated houses below them. As the tyres touched the runway, I was disappointed to see it looked like any other airport, until I saw the terminal building with the sign
PORTUS – ROMA NOVA
. It was true, then.

We taxied past the main glass-fronted building to a smaller single-storey one with three wide shallow steps and glass doors. A gold eagle crested the arch above the doorway. Two men in suits and a woman in a blue uniform stood waiting for our plane to stop. Fresh air flooded in as the door opened.

‘Ready?’ Conrad smiled at me and held out his hand. He stood awkwardly, leaning on a cane. His leg must have been so sore.

Nervous didn’t describe it; I was extremely reluctant to leave the comfort of my leather seat.

‘Yes, of course.’ I was wearing a new cream designer pants suit. I checked my hair and face for the hundredth time. I thanked the French crew as I stood hesitating in the doorway. I swallowed and placed my foot on the first step.

Outside, it was warm, but not as oppressively hot as Washington had been. Above the sour smells of fuel and tyre rubber, I caught a fresh, sharp tang of pine resin. On the ground, the VIP suite manager and his assistant welcomed me with smiles and energetic handshakes. I didn’t catch the blue-uniformed woman’s role, but she and Conrad nodded to each other.

In the glass-walled lounge, a tall, older woman in a chic forest-green suit rose to meet me. Assured and elegant, with an indefinable air of power, her direct look intimidated me. The heavy gold antique ring on her manicured right hand was curiously out of place. I
did
look like her, especially the eyes. I didn’t think I had such a defined jawline. She had the same slender build but, instead of my red-gold, her hair was all over different shades of grey.

Conrad gave me a light push in the small of my back toward her and retreated. I took one step and stopped. My mouth dried up. She smiled and closed the gap between us in two paces.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said and held her hands out.

‘Nonna.’

I gave a nervous laugh as she embraced me. Honey and cinnamon. It was the cookie smell from when I visited as a little girl. I took a couple of breaths to steady myself. I didn’t know what to say.

She scrutinised my face. I was unsure what she was looking for but, after a flicker, a tightening of anxiety in her eyes, I only saw warmth. She looked away for a moment or two, her face confused by sadness, by longing. But, almost instantly, the smile and warmth were reinstated, her eyes liquid.

‘I don’t know what you like,’ she said, ‘what your favourite colour or food is; what you enjoy doing.’ She coughed. ‘Never mind, we’ll get the hang of it as we go along.’

She was as nervous as I was. But I think she understood almost by instinct how awkward, how disrupted I felt. I loved her from that moment.

‘You’ll find things are different here; some better, some worse, some unexpected,’ she said as we left the airport. ‘You seem resourceful and bright, Carina, but you must ask if you don’t understand something. If you’re unhappy, you must tell me, however trivial. It’s the small things that cause most misery.’

‘Thank you, Nonna. I’m determined to do my best and learn quickly. I don’t want to let anybody down.’

‘Carina.’ She took hold of my hand and looked straight at me. ‘Don’t do it for me, or for anybody else. Don’t try to please everybody or you’ll drive yourself insane.’

Travelling from the airport to the house, I was fascinated by the buildings – cream stone with terracotta roof tiles mixed in with tall, much grander blocks. Modern stood alongside older, but somehow it all fit together. I couldn’t tell what most roads signs meant; how could they be so different? Cars looked more stylish and compact than in New York, and surrounded by clouds of bicycles. Shops with wide sidewalks in front, colourful awnings stretching over chairs and tables outside restaurants. People strolled along; some stood in groups talking animatedly; some were buying papers and small stuff from kiosks. They looked pretty much like people anywhere, but darker, neater, more self-contained.

In the centre of the city, we drove past one side of a huge open square, surrounded on the other three sides by a forest of stone columns and grand buildings. My grandmother told me this was the forum, the buildings containing various public offices, including the Senate. The smaller ones were mostly temples. My sense of unreality grew – it was like a movie set from
Gladiator
with extras going up and down the steps, but in normal twenty-first century clothes.

I shut my eyes for a few moments to attempt processing this. When I opened them, we were skirting a hill rising steeply to an old ruin perched at the top of a cliff commanding the whole river valley. Halfway up was a beautiful golden stone house, a mansion as large as any antebellum estate. With long, single-storey wings running out from each side, it looked like a bird poised for take-off.

We rode on along a tree-lined street about five minutes from the centre, but quieter, with individual entrances spread out. As we approached a tall gateway, the arch carved with woven branches and small leaf motifs, the car slowed and the driver put his hand out against a screen set in the side post. The gates swung open.

A square-built four-storey house with tall arched windows rose on one side of a wide gravelled courtyard. Single-storey buildings spread along two other sides, the whole framed by tall plane trees. I wanted to touch the gold and cream stone that reflected the soft light of late afternoon; it looked like blocks of honey.

A solemn woman, around fifty, came down the steps of the house and opened my grandmother’s door, bowing as she did.

‘
Domina
,’ she said.

Nonna turned to me as I followed her out, took my hand and said, ‘Junia, this is my granddaughter.’

She bowed to me. ‘Welcome, lady.’ Her expression was deadpan, betrayed by eyes full of curiosity.

‘Junia runs the household along with Galienus, the housekeeper and under-steward,’ Nonna continued. ‘If you need anything, mention it to one or the other. Junia will take you round tomorrow so that you know where everything is.’

Junia’s serious face relaxed a few millimetres to produce a half-smile. She exchanged nods with Conrad who had ridden in the front. The vestibule (as I later learned it was called) led to a long, high-ceilinged hallway lined with statues and portraits called
imagines
. It was like walking through a museum. At the end was a marble bust of a young woman, hair tied high. The sculptor had caught an air of wistfulness: tendrils escaping from the thin ribbons around her head and curling down around the hollows of her neck, a hesitant expression, an other-worldliness. Marina Mitela, the inscription said. My mother. I stopped and stared. The tears welled, but I didn’t let them escape.

As Junia pulled open the double doors into the next room, I gasped. A huge hall, open on one side with plate glass doors slid back, marble floors and a glass roof arching overhead, was golden in the sunlight. This was the atrium, the heart of the house, the enormous room I’d seen when I was four years old.

Nonna and Conrad talked, their voices contained, sometimes rising, never loud, almost a background murmur as I detached myself and stared around. Lush green planting at the centre made it like a shopping mall but the light wood tables and easy chairs came from anybody’s living room. We were interrupted by the steward murmuring that a car had arrived to take Conrad home to Domus Tellarum. He looked exhausted. As I kissed his cheek at the entrance door, I whispered he should get some rest. He just smiled and left.

Nonna led me back to the hallway and stopped in front of a wide door. She grasped the chased brass handle and beckoned me to follow her in.

‘I’ll leave you here to settle in,’ she said. ‘A lot to absorb all at once, isn’t it?’ The empathy in her voice was unmistakable, but I’d already started doubting if I could cope with the strangeness of it all.

Next morning, Nonna took me to the censor’s office to register my presence. The censor herself came out to kiss cheeks and smile with Nonna while her assistant fitted me with a personal tracker – a tiny chip inserted into my shoulder that gave me ID, access and protection, apparently. Better than a wallet full of plastic cards, I supposed. At least I couldn’t lose it.

Conrad had been put on medical leave. I visited him several times; Domus Tellarum was the other side of the city but only twenty minutes by car. On my fourth visit, I met his Uncle Quintus who in the flesh was a darker, shorter version of Conrad, hair more silver than brown. Although my Latin was pretty fluent by now, I wasn’t entirely sure about some of his jokes. We left Quintus answering the imperious ring on his cell, talking with authority and clicking fingers.

Conrad grasped my hand and led me across the wide marble terrace down into the garden, to the outdoor triclinium – a summer kitchen and dining room combined. Willows and birches shielded teak couches on the patio in front. I slipped off my sandals; the warmth radiating from the stone trickled up through the soles of my feet.

Conrad bent down and kissed me on the forehead and the palm of my hand before sitting down beside me. What a pleasure it was when such an attractive man smiled at you, intent only on you. We sat close and he put his arm around me. He looked into the distance toward the tall oak trees at the far end of the garden. The skin around his eyes was drawn tight.

‘I have something important to say to you.’ He cleared his throat, but his voice wavered nonetheless. ‘When I came to find you in New York, it was for Aurelia. I was curious to see whether her granddaughter would be a typical American spoiled brat.’

I rolled my eyes at him and tapped his chest with the back of my hand. He captured it and smiled back. I could see the pulse in his neck working.

‘The minute I walked into your office with Sextilius, I knew I’d found the most precious thing in my life,’ he said, cradling my hand in his. ‘I fell in love with you. Of course, I didn’t realise I had until Renschman kidnapped you.’ His throat constricted as he swallowed hard. ‘I’m desperately hoping it’s not a cruel trick of the Fates.’

His thumbs massaged my palm, gently at first, but becoming firmer as he spoke.

‘Now you’re here in Roma Nova, you’ll find a lot of people will want to be your friend or lover, perhaps your contracted spouse. You’ve only met me so far, a choice of one. I guarantee you’ll be courted for your wealth, your looks, your position.’ His eyes narrowed, the outside corners appearing to slant upwards. ‘Perhaps even for yourself.’

‘Then I’ll need you with me at all times to keep the predators away.’ I tried to keep it light, but my voice cracked. I didn’t care how many others wanted me – I wanted only him. I raised my face, and he pulled me to him and kissed me deep and hard. Recovering my breath, I looked up and searched his eyes and traced his lower lip with my finger. Desire so intense that I didn’t recognise it as desire rocketed through my body. Neither of us said a word. He pulled me up, led me indoors to a bedroom and slammed the door behind us.

An arm came up and wound itself around my waist. I gazed at this amazing, gorgeous man who had made love with me so passionately. He left me breathless and exhausted. His head lay in the damp hollow of my shoulder, his eyelids closed, eyelashes resting on his cheeks.

‘Conrad,’ I murmured.

‘Mm?’ He opened his eyes and smiled like an idiot. He pushed up, supporting himself on his forearms. As he leaned over me, he winced, but kissed my eyelids, my mouth, the small hollow at the base of my neck. I was horrified as I remembered his wound.

He laughed. ‘That’s not going to stop me making you writhe and moan again for the next half-hour while we both die from pleasure.’

I gasped as his hand came up and he set out to prove it.

After dinner, we sat on a couch together in an alcove in the atrium at Domus Tellarum, and talked about small, intimate things that new lovers do. He caressed my cheek with his fingers and played with my hair. I stroked his hand as he did. We couldn’t bear not to touch each other in some way. I had come home.