Savage City (8 page)

He had met her for the first time just that morning, and had been struck at how Roman she had looked with her dark hair heaped up in curls, almost like Tulliola. And now she looked absolutely foreign, folded into that odd, composed posture on the floor, her loose hair combed out straight and falling over the long square sleeves of the pale Nionian gown she wore to spread and pool behind her.

She said quietly, ‘I hope I have done right for him.’

‘Yes,’ said Drusus in a whisper from the doorway. He could not move into the room and disturb the depth of the hush, not yet, could not intrude the evidence of violence he carried in his own damaged body. ‘Everything is right.’

She looked up quickly and stared at him for a few seconds, her expression stiffening a little. Drusus watched her face, interested by the change, though unconcerned with what it meant.

‘You are hurt too.’

Drusus shook his head. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

Noriko accepted this without reply. She slumped very slightly, her hair trailing forward over Marcus’ wrist.

Drusus realised vaguely that the construction of this quiet, clean beauty must have been prolonged and difficult, and could only just have been finished. He asked, gently, ‘May I have a moment alone with him?’

Noriko tensed again, crouching forward over Marcus’ body, but she said, ‘Of course.’ Looking down at Marcus’ face she laid one hand over his and gripped, quickly, biting her lip.

Then she rose, and as she passed Drusus he said lightly, ‘You weren’t there, were you?’

Noriko answered only with a polite bow of the head. But her sleeve brushed against him. She was trembling.

Drusus did not move for a moment, letting the stillness flow back into the room. There was no one there to see him, but he had never been so conscious of what looked right. He advanced slowly, barely breathing, because it would have looked wrong to rush, to grab; he tried to suppress his limp, because it would have looked wrong to be
awkward; he was solemn, because it would have looked wrong to be anything else. He was anxiously aware that he too would have to kneel down, and he was afraid he might not be able to do it without falling; certainly it would hurt.

At Marcus’ side, after staring down in fascination for a moment, he braced himself and tried to lower himself to the floor. Pain lashed up his body like a snake and for a moment he lost all awareness of anything but the blind effort of forcing himself through it. He would not relinquish control to it. And, as he’d feared, he couldn’t hold himself up; he stumbled and instinctively put down his left hand so the broken bones took his weight and he crumpled sideways, barely saving himself from falling onto Marcus’ body. He hissed in frustration and shame and pulled himself up awkwardly onto his knees. Curled protectively over his arm, he let his breathing steady and the echoes of the cry he hadn’t been able to suppress die away.

He’d knocked aside a spray of laurel. He put it back, carefully. Now he could see the clean, bloodless gashes. Drusus raised a hand to his own face and touched the stitched cuts, then ran a fingertip along the cold outline of a wound on Marcus’ cheek.

‘Marcus,’ he whispered finally, breathless, ‘Marcus, I’m sorry. Because the Sibyl told me this would happen, and if I’d understood I could have been patient, I could have let you be. I didn’t know.’ Still he didn’t stir, crouching low over Marcus, eyes fixed on his impassive face, knowing there was something else that needed saying. He flexed the hand Marcus had smashed, months ago. His bones cracked and ringing once again, it was easy to remember lying powerless at his cousin’s feet. At last he added, ‘And I forgive you.’

He lifted the wreath very slowly in both hands, and in a strange way he was glad his arm was broken, because it seemed right that this should hurt him, as he raised it to his own head. His eyes closed against the pain, and stayed shut as he felt the unfamiliar weight settle over his hair, the metal cool against his forehead. He released a long breath, almost a moan, as if something clenched in his lungs all his life could be expelled at last into the air. Then he took Marcus’ hand, finding the fingers chilly but not yet rigid, and the ring slid off easily. It was loose on his own finger too.

He laid Marcus’ hands back, one over the other, and clasped them both as a kind of farewell, because of how it had looked when Noriko had done it. As he did so he noticed something that didn’t belong: under the folds of the robe, where it closed at Marcus’ breast, there was something made of cheap-looking dark blue wool lying against his skin. It had been hidden by the wreath. It looked strange and unfitting
to Drusus, but it must have been placed there with some meaning that did not concern him and he did not touch it.

He gritted his teeth, wincing as he got to his feet, but it was easier to rise than it had been to bend down.

Hesitantly, Sulien turned on the longvision. Of all things, they were showing a pink-and-white legion of girls performing some traditional dance in Fennia before smiling officials: a celebration in honour of Faustus’ recovery that was, apparently, still going on. Meanwhile a rolling subtitle across the bottom of the screen admitted that there had been an incident at the Colosseum, and that General Salvius had called a session of the Senate for early tomorrow, after which there would be a further announcement. Citizens in Rome should listen for instructions from the Praetorians or vigiles. Una lifted her head a little from the table-top and stared; the music jigged briskly and Sulien turned it off.

Una pressed her cheek back against the surface of the table. She was gripping the edge of it with both hands, as if she thought she could drive her fingers right through if she kept at it long enough. Her lips were pulled back a little, showing the teeth, her eyes wide and red, like a dead fox’s. The bloodstains all over her glared darker as the rainwater dried and Sulien suggested cautiously, ‘Do you want . . . Do you want to change your clothes?’

Una shrank back slightly in the chair and looked up, her expression changing slowly from uncomprehending to almost pleading. She whispered, ‘Later.’

Of course the feeling of Marcus’ blood against her skin was unbearable, of course she knew she would have to wash it away like so much dirt, put on clean clothes, equip herself to meet the advance of the next day, the next minute even— but oh, she could not begin yet. The time that had passed was so short that she could hardly believe it was not possible to smash a way back through to the moment she’d seen Dama in the street, to try again.

And now she couldn’t tear her attention from the blood, as horrifying as if she’d only just realised it was there. She stood up, the chair skidding back across the floor, and she could hardly tell if she was trying to breathe, or trying not to breathe. Either way she felt it might have been easier if she could have hurt something, and Sulien loomed there mournfully, his anxious face sweet and oppressive, he seemed to sway like a mast in front of her, as the whole room rolled indistinctly, as if at sea.

‘Don’t,’ she gasped pre-emptively, lurching away from him, out of the room.

Sulien went after her as far as the short flight of stairs up to the two bedrooms, moving carefully, placing his feet as quietly as he could. He sat there, a few steps down from the landing, his forehead pressed into his hands, hoping he wasn’t waiting for anything. He could hear her moving about restlessly. He flinched at the noises – the thud of something hitting the wall or floor, and at the dreadful sobbing, like a long, hitching attempt at a scream without enough breath for it – but forced himself to remain still, letting it go on and on. After some minutes he closed his eyes and made his thoughts diffuse, monitoring Una’s cries on the edge of his attention, falling into the forgiving blankness at the centre.

There was a shriek, and the sound of glass breaking. Sulien sprang up the remaining steps, through the door and into the middle of the dark bedroom in a few strides, overcharged with fear and readiness.

A cool gust of fresh, damp air flowed across the room. Una, silent now, was standing by the window and surveying the damage with a taken-aback, interested look on her face. Her arms were gloved to the elbow in blood, fins of glass standing out of the flesh. Her scarlet fists were still clenched. She turned a look of slightly embarrassed surprise at Sulien and raised one shoulder in a tiny, nonplussed shrug.

‘Oh . . .
Fuck
, Una,’ breathed Sulien, running his hands over his face.

‘It’s all right,’ said Una knowledgeably, calmly, stuttering a little. And yet again when Sulien approached, she drew back.

‘Are you going to walk around with glass in your arms for the rest of your life?’ asked Sulien, hearing a shrill tremor of hysteria in his own voice.

Una found it remarkable that she could have acted so violently without any awareness of what she was doing until it was over. The pain was far more intense than she would have expected, and fascinating, a glittering red lattice she could almost see in the air around her.

She backed a few unsteady steps away from Sulien and explained reasonably, ‘Let me have some water and towels and I can do it myself.’ She looked down and plucked curiously at a quill of glass lodged in her wrist. It snagged on the underside of the skin.

‘Stop it! Gods, stop it!’ shouted Sulien, terrified, hideously aware of how close the sharp edge was to the artery, and rushed forward, closing the gap between them whether she liked it or not. He grabbed her hands and forced them to her sides.

Una’s detachment winked out in an instant; she let out a cry of rage and struggled savagely, weeping, elbowing him and twisting until he felt her blood running over his hands and let go, afraid of doing worse harm by holding on.

Released, Una’s hands flew up and struck at him wildly before she limped away to huddle against the wall, panting.

‘What are you doing, Una?’ said Sulien helplessly. He felt tears starting again, and pleaded, ‘I got there as fast as I could – you know that, don’t you? If there was anything I could have done, I— You
can’t
blame me; it’s not fair.’

Una gave a scoffing, worn-out laugh, her face still curtained off within her blood-tipped hair. ‘I know. I don’t. For God’s sake.’

It was strange that somewhere far off he could feel so much relief at that, while he was still so unnerved and frantic. Voicing the idea of his own guilt, even to deny it, had somehow given it form and weight. ‘Then come on, come here—’

But she didn’t move except to turn her head against the wall and moan, ‘Can’t you let me have a second by myself?’

‘Like this? Of course I can’t,’ said Sulien. ‘What have I done? Why are you so angry with me?’

Una looked up sharply, the motion like the snarl of something baited and attacked. ‘Because I can’t
leave
you here, can I?’

For a second Sulien stared at her blankly, but when comprehension did come, and too quickly, it was strangely neutral and businesslike, even when, the next moment, Una staggered forward to sit crumpled on the bed, and cried, ‘But I can’t do it, Sulien, I’m sorry, I can’t—
Marcus
— I can’t—’

‘All right,’ said Sulien harshly, crossing to her again and this time crouching in front of her, ‘you sit there, and you don’t move, you hear me? You don’t touch anything. I’m going to call the clinic, see if someone can bring round some bandages, suture needles . . . You just sit there.’

Una went on crying, almost but not quite oblivious to him, a little quieter now. More gently he said, ‘You can do it, but not by yourself, all right? We’ll do it together. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, I promise.’

She met his eyes briefly, as close to assent as he was likely to get, and so he retreated, hesitantly, dreading the moment of actually turning his back on her. Once outside the room he vaulted down the stairs into the living room, ran to the longdictor and punched in the clinic’s code with shaking fingers.

It had occurred to him that she had shown no sign of knowing
anything he was thinking for a while. Surely she could not, not in this state.

The conversation took longer than he liked because they wanted him to come in and help with the influx of wounded from the Colosseum. Sulien was quickly reduced to panicked begging under his breath for what he wanted as he dragged the longdictor across the room, fearfully listening for any sound from upstairs.

But she was still sitting on the bed when he came back into the room, with her arms resting passively on her knees, eyeing the blades of glass and the slashed flesh with a more settled despair. She was shuddering even more noticeably now.

Sulien lowered himself cautiously to the floor in front of her again, murmuring, ‘Should be a few minutes.’ In the meantime, all he could think to do was try and fold himself up as small as possible on the floor, to be somehow less conspicuous and provocative.

Una stayed where she was for now, but the lull felt temporary. The cuts were plainly hurting more now the first shock had faded; he could see her muscles tensing as she shifted on the bed, and her breath was growing louder and less steady.
Oh hurry
, Sulien silently begged the assistant from the clinic. Una was looking at him now from time to time, a furtive, kidnapped look: half wretchedness at being trapped and half stealthy assessment of the prospects of escape.

And then he had to leave her again to answer the door at last and gabble hasty thanks to the tired girl who’d brought the supplies: only a minute or two, hardly enough for what needed doing, but plenty of time for some further terrible thing to happen.