Perfiditas (26 page)

‘You’re not going to kill me?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous – you’re not worth the paperwork.’

He grabbed my hand, bleating gratitude. Tears, dirt and sweat ran down his face. Just to complete a perfect session, the smell of faeces spread from him through the room.

After he’d finished writing, Conrad read the statement aloud to Superbus as the law demanded. Conrad’s voice was even, but terse and full of repressed energy. He thrust the document across the table at Superbus and told him to sign. Superbus flinched. After glancing at Conrad’s face, he signed it with a hand that trembled like a Parkinson’s case.

I countersigned, Lucy witnessed, and Conrad completed the document, adding the wax seal. He picked up the ivory staff, writing kit, took Lucy by the arm and stalked out.

Superbus was pitiful – a petty thief as well as a bully and a coward. He didn’t have a scrap of dignity. It was embarrassing to think he shared blood with me.

‘You were a total dumbass, Superbus, getting mixed up with those people.’

‘You don’t understand a thing, you and the old lady. Even that Cassia woman—’ He sucked his lips in and shrank back.

Juno! Cassia?

‘What about her?’ I asked in the most casual tone I could muster.

He bent his head down and muttered, ‘Nothing, nothing.’

‘C’mon, Superbus, you can’t tease me like that. What about this Cassia? How is she involved?’

He shook his head. He wouldn’t look at me.

I waited for some minutes, but he stayed slumped in his chair, terrified and silent.

Somna and her team stood back as I exited. I thanked her formally and apologised for the mess my family had left. I asked if she would kindly have Superbus cleaned up and checked over by a doctor. The Mitela Family Recorder would appreciate a copy of the medical report and photographs. She bowed once more and we were done.

I leaned against the grey plaster wall for a few moments breathing in the clean air. Upstairs in the IS office, Longina said nothing as we appeared, just thrust a cup of coffee into my hand.

‘That went well,’ Conrad said, and perched on the edge of desk. He looked calmer, but not completely relaxed. ‘Your first legal act as head of family. How do you feel about it?’

‘A lot better than I thought I would. Superbus is a miserable piece. It was almost too easy.’

‘I’d be in dangerous waters if I said you were so like Aurelia that it was uncanny.’

I glared at him to make the point, but secretly I was flattered.

Aurelia had executed legal acts, made Families’ Codes judgements and been a true family head since she was in her late twenties when her mother had been unwell. To me she was a natural: she had presence, decisiveness, authority. I was definitely the junior partner, always afraid I’d be found out and be dismissed as a light-hearted insignificance. But maybe, today, I’d convinced myself I
could
do it.

‘No, I’m wrong,’ he said, and smiled. ‘You’ve found your own authority. I realised it when you forbade me to attack him. It felt like a strong wave about to flatten me.’

‘It would have ruined it all.’

‘I know.’

He’d had such a lousy time in the Transulium that I felt bad about cheating him of retribution. It was a shock to realise that I’d put the interests of family and state before those of my love. He understood why, he’d been raised here in Roma Nova, but to me it was a revelation one of those moments when you scared yourself.

Conrad kept his gaze on me, oblivious to the interested stares of others. I tried a smile and received one back. A huge weight seemed to fall off my back. He left the edge of the table and came to sit in a chair beside me, his leg not quite touching mine. He said nothing.

‘Where’s Lucy?’ I asked to break the silence.

‘She says she has to fix her mascara. It ran down her face,’ Longina said from across the room.

Oh gods, had she had hysterics and was now traumatised? I remembered I’d heard a strange noise in the background. I’d never be able to look Dalina in the face if I handed her back a shocked and damaged daughter.

‘She’s fine – really,’ Conrad added. ‘She says she’s never laughed so much as watching Superbus. She held it in, as promised, until we finished, then couldn’t stop.’

I frowned at him. I’d involved her because I thought she was mature enough to keep a level head, but young enough to keep clear of the serious part. Instead, I’d released Lucrezia Borgia on the world. ‘You didn’t help, egging her on.’

He attempted an innocent face, but I wasn’t fooled.

‘My respects, Countess,’ interrupted Somna. I jumped, almost spilling the last of my coffee. Her lizard eyes had a strange shine, almost animated. Crap, I realised she’d seen it all.

‘I hope, Colonel, you haven’t made a recording.’

‘No, but we watched.’ She must have seen the black look on my face. ‘For training purposes.’

Yeah, and I’m a dancing monkey.

Lucy reappeared, face repaired. Longina took her out of my reach and handed her a bottle of water and a frown. Lucy threw a baby face back at her. I’d talk to Lucy later. She’d crossed the line, but helped us significantly in producing an excellent outcome.

But who was the woman Cassia whose name Superbus let slip? It was a common enough name, but I didn’t believe in coincidences.

XXXIII

Released from my temporary posting to Colonel Somna’s IS team, I was back in my strategy office. Conrad had prioritised the training programmes. I delegated the strategy one to Drusus and Fausta. They were perfectly capable of producing the first draft and we’d refine it together.

First, I needed to find Daniel. Herding cats would have been so much easier but I eventually tracked him down in the field equipment room.

‘Daniel.’

‘Major Stern to you, Captain.’

‘Don’t be like this, please.’ I could see the hurt in his eyes.

‘I don’t know what game you’re playing now,’ he said, ‘but then I don’t seem to have known anything, do I?’

‘It was a long-term legend, built up layer upon layer.’ I sounded like I was making excuses. ‘Your antipathy to Pulcheria was essential and couldn’t be simulated.’

‘Oh, great, now I’m a patsy!’

‘You know how it works.’

‘How can I believe anything you say to me now? I’ve always told you everything. Now I find out the little tart I’d most like to take down is the other half of my best friend.’

Rage spiralled off him, hitting anything it touched, mostly me.

‘Let it go. Please.’

He said nothing, shoved past me and stomped out.

I was due at the courthouse at 11.00 the next day. Dressed in my number one uniform – grey skirt, black jacket with silver buttons and insignia – I grabbed my side cap and made for the mess hall and some breakfast. As I chewed and swallowed, I couldn’t stop the bitterness of losing Daniel’s friendship rising to defeat my appetite. I pushed the rest away and drank my equally bitter coffee.

Flavius and I gave our testimonies before the examining magistrate. It took all day. She warned us that the defence would no doubt submit a long list of questions, so we should be prepared to come back to make further depositions. If they were being especially picky then we’d have to be prepared for a live cross-examination in closed chambers. That was something to look forward to.

We collected our bodyguards afterwards and drove back through the evening gloom and rain. I was mentally exhausted and not a little depressed, and went for an early night. Propped up in bed, not watching the newscast, my mind returned to Superbus and how he’d clammed up when he mentioned a woman called Cassia. How could a woman have been part of their patriarchalist conspiracy?

A knock at the door jolted me. Conrad.

He smiled his crinkly smile. ‘I didn’t know if you were asleep yet. How did it go?’

I waved him in and closed the door. ‘Long and boring,’ I said. ‘And it’s going to be another one tomorrow.’ I grimaced. Family Day. Juno!

He helped himself to a beer from the tiny fridge and sat opposite me. ‘You don’t need to worry. Aurelia and Junia had it all organised before they went to the country. All we have to do is turn up and smile. You were scary yesterday with Superbus.’ He raised his bottle to salute me. ‘I can’t think you’ll have a problem with anybody else.’

I wasn’t so sure.

He looked down and spent a few moments studying the bottle. The laugh had fled from his face.

‘Carina, I—’ He swallowed, but not the drink. ‘Don’t stay away from me.’ He set the bottle on the desk and stretched out his hand. Mine was already there to meet it. He pulled me up to him and his mouth crushed hard on mine.

A little later than planned, we set off next morning to go home, complete with my bodyguard. I asked Conrad why he couldn’t count as my guard over the weekend.

‘I know we have Superbus in custody, but can we guarantee he hasn’t corrupted any of the other Mitelae?’

I guessed he didn’t want to trust anybody at the moment.

‘Surely not?’ I said. ‘Superbus was an anomaly, wasn’t he?’

‘You tell me.’

So Trebatia, the chatterbox in open country fatigues, trotted along behind us.

In the car, I activated the new smartplex privacy screen. Conrad tilted his head to one side, smiled and raised an eyebrow.

I shook my head. ‘It’s Superbus,’ I said. ‘I’m not sure it’s anything, but after you and Lucy left he said something weird. When I told him he was stupid to have gotten involved with Petronax, he said none of us understood, “even that Cassia woman”. Then he just dummied up. He was too scared to say another word.’

‘Ah.’

‘Oh, please,’ I said, ‘it’s a common name. It can’t possibly be
his
Cassia. Wrong side, remember?’

He didn’t reply. We rode the rest of the way home in uncomfortable silence.

The hairdresser came in to do artistic things and tutted at the condition of my abused hair. But when he’d finished, a completely different person stared out of the mirror: formal, elegant and unreal. He’d inserted a gold filigree band across my head with diamonds and sapphires caught in gold webs. It matched my blue gown and gold palla. My nails and face were next. I usually resented all this pawing, but this time I submitted passively.

Helena, looking like some model out of Vogue, brought Allegra to see me. She was so lovely in her first formal outfit, I almost burst into tears.

‘Hello, Mama,’ she said looking up at me. ‘You look beautiful.’

‘Hey, you’re pretty wonderful yourself!’

‘Some are arriving already,’ Helena informed me, ‘but you don’t have to go down quite yet. It’s only just eleven.’

‘Where’s Aurelia?’

‘In her sitting room, fortifying herself with French brandy.’

I took Allegra’s hand, and we went up the back stairs to the level above our wing and along a narrow service corridor. I knocked on the door at the end and surprised Aurelia’s assistant.

‘Sorry to startle you, Marcella,’ and we barged in.

My grandmother, dressed in her finery, was downing a generous glass of Remy Martin.

‘Hey, Nonna, going to share?’

She chuckled and poured me a glass. Allegra took up position on one of Aurelia’s gilt chairs and watched us set a bad example.

I swallowed mine quickly and put my glass forward for another. Aurelia looked at me sharply, but said nothing. The three of us sat there, sharing a quiet moment. Nothing could start without us.

After making appropriate speeches of welcome, i.e. short, Aurelia and I mixed, smiled and talked with the swarm of relations assembled in the hall. Trebatia, now in a calf-length gown Marcella had found her, trailed around in my wake. With her slight figure and fresh complexion, she looked more like somebody’s kid sister than a bodyguard, but she scanned everybody and everything, her hand fixed on the gold-embroidered purse containing her semi-automatic.

Around four hundred Mitelae packed the atrium, a little under two-thirds of the recorded number of cousins to the second degree. It was a tribal meeting, supposed to remember the links of blood and loyalty across nearly sixteen centuries. That was a romantic idea. In reality, those here today were because of careful, often conniving and sometimes bloody manoeuvring to protect and promote the family so it survived over those years. Like most organisations, it was the pedantic, boring people who kept the records and sat on the family council, but you had to give them their due: they’d held it all together. Over centuries and against the odds.

We spilled out from the atrium into the back garden to eat – a huge relief as the noise was way above reasonable. Junia had mobilised the household to produce so much food that Abundantia could have refilled her cornucopia from it. Once the drink started flowing, the noise and testosterone levels had ramped up. Despite the mobile crowd, I managed to find Superbus’s wife. I’d sent a car for her earlier that morning. She and her two children were sitting alone, largely ignored by the rest.

‘Hello, Valeria. Fabia, Caius.’ I waved over one of the older house servants, who I knew had grandchildren, to take Fabia and Caius to find Allegra.

‘Please tell Allegra that Mama has asked her to keep special care of these two.’

Watching them go off, Valeria turned to me. ‘Countess Carina, how can I thank you?’

‘Oh, Valeria, none of this is your fault.’ She looked pretty miserable, though. ‘What do you want to do? Can I help with anything?’

‘Oh, I’ll divorce him. He’s a waste of space.’

Excellent plan.

‘He was so stupid. I didn’t know he was up to anything special until two weeks ago when that man appeared.’ She looked down the garden at the chattering crowd.

Petronax, I’d bet, come to finalise his plans.

‘I was crossing the atrium after seeing the children to bed and saw Superbus on the far side with a visitor. They looked like cartoon characters: Superbus fat and fussing, and the dark man tall and calm. Then the man’s head swivelled round – he must have heard me. I’ll never forget those black eyes.’ She caught her breath. ‘They bored into me. I don’t think I’ve ever been so frightened in the whole of my life.’ She gave me a tight smile. ‘Perhaps it’s nothing. I haven’t seen him since.’

The noise buzzed around me like a swarm of angry wasps on adrenalin.

No.

Nearly one million people lived in the city. Amongst a people descended from Romans, there must be a high proportion with dark eyes. There was no way it could be him. I batted it out of my mind. I had other stuff to concentrate on today.

Valeria glanced at me, then stared down at her hands. She seemed uncertain what to do next. I jumped up, pulled her arm through mine, and took her with me. As we circulated, I made sure people saw us together. I left her talking to some cousins of her own age, including the magnetic Dalina.

I saw Allegra queening it over a children’s party area, watched over by Junia’s deputy, Galienus, recovering from his injuries. They had magicians, games and races laid on, so they probably had the best time. The weather was outstanding, warm for early October. Most of the teenagers disappeared, probably to the maze. Whether they’d emerge intact in the strict sense was anybody’s guess.

The band left off easy listening and started playing some classical dance music, and the middle-agers stampeded onto the temporary wooden dance floor. The trellis over it was decorated with swathes of silk, white flowers, ribbons and fairy lights, and looked pretty in a kitsch way.

But, almost surprising myself, I’d discovered for the first time how much pleasure there was in reinforcing and nourishing these family links. I wanted to hear about problems, perhaps even throw in an idea or two to help. I laughed and smiled at the gossip; I rejoiced about the triumphs, whether a child’s school success, a business deal or a published novel. I relished making connections between two cousins, introducing unknown ones, finding a useful contact for somebody.

Around six o’clock, parents started gathering their children up, who by now were sick, crying or sullen, and their elders who were maudlin about “the olden days”, and carted them off home. The professional middle-agers started “networking” over generous amounts of champagne. I saw Conrad, having gotten rid of his heavy toga, escort more than one to a hedge or shrub where they could quietly throw up. I sighed. We were down to the hard core.

My grandmother had taken up position on the terrace with a group of cronies, Allegra had gone, and Helena. I evaded Trebatia and made my way down to the walled garden for some peace. I let myself in and sat under the myrtle tree. I could hear faint shouts and giggling from the maze. The odds against Lucy not being in there leading the mayhem were pretty slim.

I shut my eyes and breathed in the last myrtle scent. But, when I did, I only saw black eyes set deep in a fine-boned face and projecting an ironic expression. As I brought my hands up to my face, I saw they were shaking.