Rome Burning (24 page)

He had another reason to be here now: he was supposed to go to a meeting about the peace talks, about who was going to Bianjing, who was staying. While Drusus did not really feel like going after what had just happened, he knew he must not let himself get downhearted too easily. He needed to speak to the one other person, beside himself, that the picture had made him think of. So he calculated which way Salvius was likely to come, and waited, and as the senators began to gather, fell in with him on the way to the banqueting hall in the room full of mirrors. Salvius was striding along with his head lowered, his body visibly tense with a forboding that looked close to despair.

‘I’ve just been in the gallery,’ Drusus announced.

Salvius, transparently uninterested, uttered a preoccupied sound.

‘I was wondering what Oppius would have made of all this,’ said Drusus, allowing a little fatalistic humour into his voice. Salvius looked at him sharply and Drusus concluded sadly, ‘About what you do, I should think.’ And because he needed to for this conversation, Drusus felt what he knew Salvius felt: stark terror for Rome at how recklessly Marcus was gambling with it. But he remained half-aware that, despite everything, he still had faith that everything would come out as it should. The peace talks were a nonsense, a sideshow, but at least they would get Marcus away from Rome.

Salvius laughed dejectedly, which Drusus could see was a relief to him, and said, ‘He’d feel able to do something.’

‘Then perhaps that’s a lesson,’ remarked Drusus.

These words caused a small shock of mingled excitement and alarm in Salvius, before he even had a chance to decide what Drusus meant. It touched the edges of what he’d felt before, on the volucer, holding the axe and rods in his hands, the confused and painful thoughts about what constituted treachery. But Drusus didn’t go on and his expression stayed casual. With relief, and yet reluctantly too, Salvius decided that it had probably meant nothing.

Drusus had left a second for this to happen. His instincts had told him not to look at Salvius after he spoke, not to make what he’d said seem too significant, so he could only hope that Salvius had reacted as he wanted. He said companionably, ‘Well, you should know what’s going on, even if I don’t. Are they saying who’s going to take the reins while he’s in Sina?’

‘I think it’ll be Eudoxius. Almost certainly.’

‘Oh, yes?’

‘It’s a good choice, in the circumstances,’ said Salvius unhappily.

‘You could have done it,’ suggested Drusus.

‘I would have been very surprised by
that
.’

‘So would I, to be honest, the way things are going now. But you might have expected it, if the situation were different.’ Drusus walked beside Salvius silently, aware that there was no need for him to say anything more, that his presence was enough. Eudoxius was a senator from Armenia. Drusus could see perfectly well why Marcus had picked him, and it was true, he was a good choice. He was patient and intelligent, but he had risen to the Senate through slow, unassuming effort, and was now about Faustus’ age; he was unlikely to succumb to a sudden bout of ambition. He would manage, without being a threat.

‘Of course,’ said Salvius after a moment, becoming uncomfortable. ‘You – you have the best claim of all, really. The Emperor would have wanted—’

‘Wants,’ corrected Drusus, very mildly, very softly.

‘He’s said so?’

‘My uncle? Do you really think he’s given a chance to say anything?’

‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Salvius, sounding urgent and concerned.

Drusus sighed and shook his head. ‘Oh, what does it matter? I thought his intentions were clear from the start. But I don’t know, perhaps it’s for the best – I can’t compete in terms of experience – with you, any more than with Eudoxius. I’m not so much older than my cousin, I know that. I might have listened to wiser people, though. And I think I’d have been slower to believe all these claims of wounded innocence from Nionia than he has.’

He did look at Salvius now; they smiled at each other.

*

The wound under Sulien’s ribs had healed, and he’d made the broken edges of bone knit together far quicker than they could have done alone, but, he explained to Una, it was like paint or glue, dry to a light touch after a few hours, but not perfectly solid. But there was little he couldn’t do with the arm, and the minor caution with which he had to treat it would last only a few more days. And he seemed in good spirits, considering what had happened. He had always been so supplely resilient, like water. Now the flat kept filling with his friends, who dragged him out to plays and races, trailing his embarrassing little retinue of guards with them, or brought wine and got him drunk where he was. Tancorix came almost at once with little Xanthe, who charged around the room trying noisily to entertain Sulien – successfully, it seemed, to Una’s surprise. Still, Una kept thinking of what he’d said about half-set glue: often he would be animated and then, suddenly, lapse away for a few seconds, the muscles of his face sagging, the blood vessels emptying, while his eyes became slow and distant, shadowed as if by smoke.

It wasn’t only the thought of the slaves from the factory – there were more dead. The glow of the fire had raged like a long dawn over Rome all that night; it had been late morning before the vigiles could control it, and three of them had died. But the missiles that had ploughed into the surrounding streets had killed more; the number had
just reached sixty, the latest a father of two children, his lungs scalded. Sulien thought that if he’d known in time perhaps he could have got to the man and saved his life. He spent a day furious that no one had told him. Una couldn’t remember seeing him so angry. He’d been frustratingly slow to blame anybody even for trying to have him crucified.

And he didn’t know how many others were injured. Sulien kept thinking about pain: about broken spines, lost limbs, scars.

He started going back to work, but erratically, for specific things he wanted to do: repair Varius’ burns, do what he could to mend Bupe’s disfigured face, although once he was at the clinic, it was difficult to leave; there was always somebody that needed him. He didn’t understand why this tired him so much more than he was used to, when there was virtually nothing wrong with his body. One day he went in to find that Bupe had gone, she’d climbed out of a window overnight, even with her one curtailed hand. It sometimes happened. But this time Sulien felt personally unhappy, as if it were his fault. He’d felt a confused fellow feeling with Bupe and kept being surprised to remember that she’d arrived at the clinic before the disaster at the factory. He couldn’t shake the false memory that that was when she’d been hurt, that she’d been there with Varius and himself.

He kept trying to remember more – just for its own sake, for the sake of all those dead, not because he really thought there was anything significant he might have missed. Una longed for him to stop, because he was normally so bafflingly good at paring his memory down to the minimum he needed.

Marcus came to the flat as soon as he could, trying to be anonymous in the simplest of the possible cars, and informal dress, but the memory of him in the purple robe made him look slightly bizarre to Sulien now, sitting on the floor with a chipped wine glass in his hand. His guards along with Sulien’s clogged up the stairs outside the small flat and stood, stern and awkward, by the windows.

Sulien walked into his bedroom where the one guard
actually inside the flat stood watching the street. ‘Why don’t you just come and talk to us?’

‘I can’t,’ the man mumbled, embarrassed at being spoken to.

Sulien shrugged and went back to Una and Marcus muttering, ‘This is ridiculous, how can you live like this?’

‘Longer than I would without them, supposedly. But history shows that doesn’t always work,’ said Marcus.

Sulien didn’t smile. ‘I wish something
would
happen, so they’d have some kind of point.’

Una flinched slightly and ordered him, ‘Don’t say that.’

‘Oh, come on,’ said Sulien, finding the annoyance he wanted. ‘I mean I don’t
need
them. What happened – it was probably just …’ But he couldn’t find a conclusion.

‘What if they leave and someone kills you? You don’t have any choice,’ Marcus told him, a trace too much authority in his voice for Sulien.

‘You can’t say that to me,’ he said. He laughed, but there was a soft leather case for papers lying messily on the sofa beside him and he scooped it up and pitched it at Marcus, with a sharp incredulous smile on his face, striking Marcus’ head harder than he meant to. ‘I don’t care if you’re Emperor, you can’t tell me what to do.’

Marcus threw the case back, almost as aggressively, saying, in the same grim half-joking voice, ‘I
am
telling you what to do,’ and they began clumsily grappling. They crashed about a little, their faces both bright with amusement and frustration until the guard from the next room came in at the sounds of violence.

‘It’s all right,’ gasped Marcus, as Sulien let him go and threw himself back disconsolately in his chair.

‘I could have a gun and let them go home,’ he said. ‘Then, even if something did happen …’ A small chill afflicted him, making him remember the feeling when, years before, he had actually held a gun.

‘I have seen no evidence you could hit anything,’ said Marcus sonorously, a deliberate parody of Imperial arrogance this time weighting his voice so that he sounded inadvertently like Drusus.

Sulien lashed out at him loosely again, in uncomplicated affection this time.

Una said, ‘Sulien, it’s only until we know what happened.’

Sulien sighed again and asked Marcus, ‘Do you know anything now?’

‘Nothing clear. Though you’re right about Veii. It could have been an accident.’

Sulien blinked, slightly alarmed to realise that he had, indeed, said that. Watching him, Una saw the dull look cross his face again. ‘I don’t think it was an accident,’ he said flatly. ‘I don’t know why I said that. Don’t tell me you think that.’

‘I don’t,’ answered Marcus carefully. ‘But I don’t know if that’s because it really is unlikely, or just because what happened was so
bad
. Of course a lot of people are telling me it must have been the Nionians. But I do believe Tadahito, unless it could have happened without his knowledge – but I think not. I …’ He broke off, holding his breath against a new pang of anxious self-doubt. At least it did not come so often now, this feeling. He went on. ‘It could have been one of the African border countries. They’re not exactly comfortable with how close we are. They’d probably like to see us weaker, and concentrating on Nionia. But I think it’s more likely it wasn’t from outside the Empire at all. It could have been Terranova, or Ethiopia. India, even.’

‘Separatists. But wouldn’t they claim responsibility?’

Marcus looked almost shifty, and to Sulien’s surprise answered, ‘They have. We’re getting claims and threats a hundred Veiis are on the way all the time, from all across the Empire. But that … happens. It happened when I was missing, for example. These things are opportunities. There is one thing, though. There was a man called Atronius, he started work at Veii about a fortnight before it happened. He was a slave manager.’

‘And?’

‘He was from Maia,’ said Marcus.

‘Is that all? Where he came from? This
is
Rome.’

‘He was supposed to be connected to some faction there. Though whether he really was … it doesn’t seem to add up
to much. It could be just that he went to school with someone or was friends with someone’s cousin or something. That’s about as clear as it’s got, so far.’

‘Isn’t he dead, anyway?’

‘He hasn’t been seen. Perhaps he is. Or he could have set it up and gone underground. If there was someone on the inside, he looks the most likely. That’s all there is, really, I’m sorry.’

‘But why would you need to be on the inside for a fortnight? You’d just get in and do it, wouldn’t you, if you knew how? And why,’ the words became stiff and reluctant, ‘when I was there. I mean – why just after those people in the Subura …?’

‘Perhaps they thought they could achieve something, either by holding you hostage or – killing you,’ said Marcus. ‘They might have thought it would mean more, on the same day.’ He was leaning against the couch where Una sat, and her hand hung down and rested on his chest. He took hold of it, looking up at her urgently. ‘You must be careful too. You must.’

‘I am,’ she said, with unsatisfying calm.

Sulien retrieved the case he’d thrown at Marcus, felt for a pen inside it and began searching the room for a fresh sheet of paper on which to write Atronius’ name.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Marcus, as Sulien found what he was looking for.

‘I don’t know. Nothing.’ It was true that when he re-read the firmly printed name, he didn’t know what he intended to do with it. He exhaled wearily and looked at Una and Marcus. Marcus had let go of her hand and Una was combing her fingers meditatively through his hair, while looking straight ahead of her and thinking about something, her expression absorbed and stern.

‘Una, why don’t you go back with him?’ Sulien demanded suddenly.

She looked up. ‘Because I don’t think I should.’

‘You want to. And you want to go to Sina. And you need all the help you can get, don’t you, Marcus?’