Successio

SUCCESSIO

Historical Note

What if King Harold had won the Battle of Hastings in 1066? Or if Julius Caesar had taken notice of the warning that assassins wanted to murder him on the Ides of March? Suppose Christianity had remained a Middle Eastern minor cult? Intriguing questions, indeed. Alternate (or alternative) history stories allow us to explore them.

Whether infused with every last detail of their world as in S M Stirling’s
The Peshawar Lancers
, or lighter where the alternative world is used as a setting for an adventure such as Kate Johnson’s
The UnTied Kingdom
, or a great and grim secret as in Robert Harris’
Fatherland
, alternate history stories are underpinned by three things: the point of divergence when the alternate timeline split from our timeline; how that world looks and works; and how things changed after the split.

SUCCESSIO
focuses on one main character, Carina Mitela, and her struggle to defeat a nemesis threatening to destroy her family and her country. As the title suggests, this story is ‘what happened next’ after
INCEPTIO
and
PERFIDITAS
, the first two in the series. But
SUCCESSIO
in Latin also suggests ‘the next generation’. Times move on and new history is made.

I have dropped background history about Roma Nova into the novel only where it impacts on the story. Nobody likes a straight history lesson in the middle of a thriller! But if you are interested in a little more information about the mysterious Roma Nova, read on…

What happened in our timeline

Of course, our timeline may turn out to be somebody else’s alternative one as shown in Philip K Dick’s
The Grasshopper Lies Heavy
, the story within the story in
The Man in the High Castle.
Nothing is fixed. But for the sake of convenience I will take ours as the default.

The Western Roman Empire didn’t ‘fall’ in a cataclysmic event as often portrayed in film and television; it localised and eventually dissolved like chain mail fragmenting into separate links, giving way to rump states, local city states and petty kingdoms. The Eastern Roman Empire survived albeit as the much diminished city state of Byzantium until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

Some scholars think that Christianity fatally weakened the traditional Roman way of life and was a significant factor in the collapse. Emperor Constantine’s personal conversion to Christianity in AD 313 was a turning point for the new religion. By AD 394, his several times successor, Theodosius, banned all traditional Roman religious practice, closed and destroyed temples and dismissed all priests. The sacred flame that had burned for over a thousand years in the College of Vestals was extinguished and the Vestal Virgins expelled. The Altar of Victory, said to guard the fortune of Rome, was hauled away from the Senate building and disappeared from history. The Roman senatorial families pleaded for religious tolerance, but Theodosius made any pagan practice, even dropping a pinch of incense on a family altar in a private home, into a capital offence. And his ‘religious police’ driven by the austere and ambitious bishop Ambrosius of Milan, became increasingly active in pursuing pagans…

The alternate Roma Nova timeline

In AD 395, three months after Theodosius’s final decree banning all pagan religious activity, over four hundred Romans loyal to the old gods, and so in danger of execution, trekked north out of Italy to a semi-mountainous area similar to modern Slovenia. Led by Senator Apulius at the head of twelve prominent families, they established a colony based initially on land owned by Apulius’ Celtic father-in-law. By purchase, alliance and conquest, this grew into Roma Nova.

Norman Davies in
Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe
reminds us that:

…in order to survive, newborn states need to possess a set of viable internal organs, including a functioning executive, a defence force, a revenue system and a diplomatic force. If they possess none of these things, they lack the means to sustain an autonomous existence and they perish before they can breathe and flourish.

I would add history, willpower and adaptability as essential factors. Roma Nova survived by changing its social structure; as men constantly fought to defend the new colony, women took over the social, political and economic roles, weaving new power and influence networks based on family structures. Eventually, daughters as well as sons had to put on armour and carry weapons to defend their homeland and their way of life. Service to the state was valued higher than personal advantage, echoing Roman Republican virtues, and the women heading the families guarded and enhanced these values to provide a core philosophy throughout the centuries.

Roma Nova’s continued existence has been favoured by three factors: the discovery and exploitation of high-grade silver in their mountains, their efficient technology, and their robust response to any threat. Remembering their Byzantine cousins’ defeat in the Fall of Constantinople, Roma Novan troops assisted the western nations at the Battle of Vienna in 1683 to halt the Ottoman advance into Europe. Nearly two hundred years later, they used their diplomatic skills to help forge an alliance to push Napoleon IV back across the Rhine as he attempted to expand his grandfather’s empire.

Prioritising survival, Roma Nova remained neutral in the Great War of the 20th century which lasted from 1925 to 1935. The Greater German Empire, stretching from Jutland in the north, Alsace in the west, Tyrol in the south and Bulgaria in the east, was broken up afterwards into its former small kingdoms, duchies and counties. Some became republics. There was no sign of an Austrian-born corporal with a short, square moustache.

Forty years before the action of
SUCCESSIO
in the early 21st century, Roma Nova was nearly destroyed by a coup, a brutal male-dominated consulship and civil war. A weak leader, sclerotic and outmoded systems that had not developed since the last great reform in the 1700s and a neglected economy let in a clever and ruthless tyrant. But with characteristic resilience, the families’ structures fought back and reconstructed their society, re-learning the basic principles of Republican virtue, while subtly changing it to a more representational model for modern times. Today, the tiny country has become one of the highest per capita income states in the world.

Dramatis Personae

Family

Carina Mitela – Major, Praetorian Guard Special Forces (PGSF), commanding Operations, nicknamed ‘Bruna’

Conradus Mitelus – Senior Legate, PGSF and regular Praetorian Guard, ‘Conrad’

Aurelia Mitela – Carina’s grandmother, head of the Mitela family

Allegra Mitela – Carina’s and Conrad’s eldest daughter

Antonia and Gillius – Twins, (Tonia and Gil) Carina’s and Conrad’s younger children

Helena Mitela – Carina’s cousin

Dalina Mitela – Family recorder

Lucilla Mitela – Lieutenant, PGSF

Household

Junia – Comptroller/steward of Domus Mitelarum

Galienus – Under-steward/housekeeper

Marcella – Aurelia’s assistant

Tellus family

Quintus Tellus – Head of Tellus family

Caius Tellus – (Deceased), Quintus’s brother, unsavoury rebel

Military

Daniel Stern – Colonel, deputy legate, PGSF

Fausta – Captain, PGSF, Digital Security

Sepunia – Major, PGSF, Intelligence Directorate

Carina’s Active Response Team –

Paula Servla, Flavius, Trebatia, Livius, Atria

Rusonia – Legate’s executive officer

Sergius – Captain, PGSF, Training and Personnel

Palace

Silvia Apulia – Imperatrix

Stella Apulia – Silvia’s eldest child

Hallienia Apulia – Silvia’s third child ‘Hallie’

Favonius Cotta – head of protocol, ex-Washington legation

Outside Roma Nova

Michael Browning – Captain, British special forces

Wilson – Lieutenant, British special forces

Nicola Sandbrook – Sergeant, British special forces

Johnson – RSM, British special forces

Andrew Brudgland – ‘Commissioner’, British security services

Christopher Newton – Ex-British special forces

Janice Hargreve – A teacher

Other

Lurio – Department of Justice Commander, Urban Cohorts (
Custodes
)

Pelonia – Department of Justice
Custodes
special investigator

Octavia Quirinia – Head of Quirinia Family

Maia Quirinia – Her daughter, a typical teenager

Philippus – Bar owner, ex-associate from the Pulcheria Foundation

Dania – Upmarket restaurant owner

Lucius Punellus – Retired adjutant, PGSF, Conrad’s ex-comrade-in-arms

Paulina Carca – Life partner of Lucius Punellus

Sertorius – Pompous, but effective, Mitela family lawyer

Faenia – Professor of Medicine, Central University, PGSF consultant

Carina Mitela

‘What do you mean? Who was she?’

Part I: Generations

I

It was far too quiet. Only an occasional owl call, the odd flutter of feathers and pitter-patter of a small night creature. Sure, the training area was literally kilometres from anywhere, somewhere called Norfolk, but a hundred people couldn’t stay that quiet, not even – arguably – the best special forces in the world. Beside me, the two centurions, Livius and Paula Servla, were motionless; I couldn’t even hear them breathe. I peered through the face veil hanging from my helmet. My eyesight was still good at thirty-nine, but I didn’t see a thing in the dawn light. I relaxed; we had a full five minutes before we needed to move.

I’d been crazy to agree to take part in this exercise; I’d sat at a desk for too long. Commanding Operations did
not
mean taking part in every exercise. It’d been my vanity that made me put myself down for the ultimate – training with the British special forces. No,
against
them. Even more insane. I was no slouch and worked hard to keep my fitness up, but I really should have left it to the super-fit like Paula and Livius and, of course, Flavius. But a small country like ours didn’t refuse such invitations twice and the competition to be picked for this exercise had been near lethal.

Each year we invited a small number of allied countries’ special troops to Roma Nova to take part in our annual fitness-for-purpose exercise; thanks to our legate’s connections, there’d always been some British. Very effective and highly competent, they were reserved at first, like they’d swallowed some kind of ‘how to behave abroad’ manual, but by the end of the week, they’d usually relaxed. But this was a first for us to have an exclusive exercise with them, and on their ground.

The first night we’d arrived, we’d had all the ‘swords and sandals’ cracks in the bar from those who’d never met us. Sandwiched between New Austria and Italy, people thought Roma Nova was a cross between the
Sound of Music
and
Gladiator
with a dash of Ruritania thrown in. But when their commander welcomed us formally the next morning, he told the assembled host troops about our sixteen-hundred-year traditions and that the Praetorian Guard Special Forces were just as fearsome as they’d heard. And that Roma Nova had survived, clawing its way through the centuries, was in no small part down to the Praetorians. The British grunts tried not to appear impressed, but I saw a little more respect in their eyes after that.

*

Livius lifted his index finger a few millimetres from his rifle and glanced over at me. I gave a hint of a nod. Ahead of Paula and me by a body length, he started crawling forward. Using our elbows, we pulled ourselves behind and a little to each side of him across the forest floor covered in pine-needles. Three others, Allia, Gorlius and Pelo, followed in the same arrow formation. Reaching the crest of the washed-out shallow valley, we spread out behind it and froze. After five minutes watching and listening, I nodded and Livius took Allia and Pelo into the trees behind us and set off for the other side of the depression. Raising my hand a couple of centimetres from the sandy ground, I signalled Paula to maintain position here. I grabbed my assault rifle and in a crouching run made my way to the dip twenty metres away at the entrance. I glanced up to see Gorlius scrambling up into one of the trees behind Paula to act as lookout. As he drew one of the new individual cam nets over himself, he disappeared. I pointed my pocket scope up at him. Even his heat signature was pretty near neutral. Expensive but impressive. Now we waited out ten minutes to let the wildlife settle back down.

‘Contact.’ That one word hissed in my earpiece told me Gorlius had spotted them. We’d tabbed to this location by forced march – an old Roman tradition – so we could surprise them. And there they were, walking single file, sweeping their route with their eyes and weapons, watchful, but not wary. Too professional to make any unnecessary noise, they were nevertheless a little over-relaxed.

Their commander sent two ahead to check. Now they concentrated, their weapons raised and arms and legs tensed. Just before they reached the edge of the depression, one turned back to the commander and shook his head.

Livius dropped the two of them in rapid succession. Allia and Pelo launched at the main group from the far point and downed another three between them. Paula slammed the radio operator to earth, pinioning his flailing arms and legs. Gorlius fell on two others. I tripped the last one as he tried to escape and jammed my weapon in his throat as he attempted to struggle up. I didn’t need to look at my watch to know we’d done it in under two minutes. Hm, slowing up.

We secured and tagged them. While Livius and Pelo swept the back area for a possible second patrol, Paula scanned their radio with an electronic logger.

‘Can’t see any transmission within the past ten,’ she said, looking up. ‘But I think they check in every thirty.’ She spoke in fast street Latin in case any of these clever boys turned out to be linguists.

I turned to their officer, Lieutenant Wilson, from his jacket tab. ‘Now, Lieutenant, I hope we’re not going to go formal here. I just need you to confirm the time of your next radio check.’

‘Not a chance in hell.’ His eyes half closed and he snorted.

I sighed and signalled Allia forward. From her sleeve pocket she extracted a slim tin containing two syringes and an ampoule, knelt down by the officer, prepared a needle and waited for my confirmation.

Wilson drew back. ‘What the fuck is that?’

‘A fast acting relaxant that‘ll have you chirruping like a mongoose on holiday. No permanent effect, you may be a little disorientated for ten to fifteen minutes afterward. We need to move on now, so I can’t wait for you to have a mothers’ meeting about whether to tell me.’ I nodded and Allia pulled his sleeve up, jabbed the skin and depressed the tiny plunger.

I counted to twenty before I stood over him and asked again, ‘Time of next radio check?’

‘Get—no, not—’ Sweat broke out on his face with the effort of defying the chemical. ‘Twenty, no—, twenty-two. No—’. He dropped his head as if humiliated, but it wasn’t his fault.

We now had a generous margin before any alarm was given. Paula threw the opposition’s radio batteries into the woods. Allia checked out the other captives, but they only had hurt pride and a few bruises. We looped a line through their cable-tied hands, securing it to a tree and left with mildly obscene curses and promises of revenge behind us.

Setting off north at a fast march, we circled around after five minutes to parallel the trail for the exercise headquarters. We’d finished our tasks half a day early. Now we’d eliminated our closest rivals, I figured we’d be the first team back. After three days out in the field, we were looking forward to hot food and a chance to clean up properly.

Allia jogged beside me and I could see a question ready to burst out. She was very young, around twenty, and this was her first time on overseas exercise. I checked the proximity sensor; no biosignatures apart from ours for at least three kilometres.

‘What is it, Allia?’ I whispered. ‘It’s okay, just keep your voice down, though.’

‘Why are they all men, ma’am? I mean, I saw some women at the start, but only a very few and we haven’t come across any out in the field.’

‘Western forces don’t generally have women in front line combat units, and only a few in their special forces. You’ll probably see more in the American military, if you ever go there.’

I saw the disbelief on her face. I smiled at her, but said nothing. I wanted to conserve my strength and wind.

Fifteen minutes later, Livius stopped, held his hand up. We dropped to the ground as one. Between the trees, I could see the edge of the clearing housing the exercise headquarters. After a long five minutes, Livius sent Gorlius and Pelo forward to check out the approach. It was such a classic trick to stake out the base camp approach. So near our goal, no way did we want the embarrassment of falling for a classic. I watched the two of them walk in, circling back to back, across the innocent-seeming twenty metres. The remaining four of us took shallow breaths and readied ourselves for reaction.

‘Clear,’ came Gorlius’ disembodied voice. I signed Livius to cross next with Allia; Paula and I brought up the rear.

The exercise gate passed, we checked in at the admin desk with the sergeant, one of the few women Allia had seen. Her dark blonde hair was plaited and piled up on top of her head, almost like a Roman. Something familiar yet repelling about her distracted me. Nothing in her face was wrong; she smiled pleasantly enough, her light eyes shone with interest. She noted everything down efficiently; her checklist was marked up neatly, spare pens in perfect parallel to each other. I rolled my shoulders to disperse my unease; I had so much else to do. But still…

Behind her stood an older man, around fifty, built like a block of muscle. He reminded me of our former
primipilus
, the senior centurion. He wore a leather band on his wrist with a crested metal badge, so a traditionalist, but the standard uniform button tab showed he was a warrant officer, like a top sergeant. I glanced at his name tab as he nodded to me.

‘Morning, Major.’

‘Mr Johnson.’

‘Enjoyed yourself?’

‘Oh, I think so.’ I grinned and he smiled back, one per cent off a smirk. Yeah, just like the
primipilus
.

‘You’ll find fresh food for your team in the mess tent.’

They’d reached the tent first while I’d been doing the nicely-nicely with Johnson. Livius beckoned me over to the table they were clustered around and he thrust a plate of some kind of brown meat stew, potatoes and vegetables toward me. I poked at it.

‘It’s all right, Bruna, it’s dead,’ Paula Servla said. ‘Quite tasty, in fact,’ and followed her words by loading a spoonful into her mouth. The others laughed at my expression, even Allia and Pelo who were very junior. My friend and comrade for nearly fifteen years, Paula had used my
nom de guerre
– Bruna – with ease as she teased me. But she was right, the stew was good.

Afterwards, I told them to go grab a few hours’ rest. I settled down to write my report. I was finishing the first draft when a shadow fell across the table.

‘Major Mitela.’

Crap.

‘Lieutenant Wilson.’ I looked up at him. He winced.

Damn
. I’d used the American pronunciation. The Brits hated that.

‘Have you recovered?’ No harm being polite.

He snorted. ‘That was an illegal procedure and I intend to report it to my and your senior command.’

I shrugged. ‘Fine by me. Do it.’ I bent my head back down to my report. He had no choice but to go. I watched through my eyelashes as he stomped off to the command tent. Gods, some of them took it so badly. Tough. We trained like every exercise was a live operation, usually without any blood, and used all the techniques, equipment and training at our disposal. When it came to it, a live operation unfolded like an exercise, but sometimes included casualties. A hard way, but successful. Sometimes a little too robust for outsiders.

More of our teams drifted in through the afternoon and I went and spoke to them as they settled down to their food. Two had been brought in as captives, so commiserations to them. Overall, though, we’d acquitted ourselves well.

A joint senior staff mop-up meeting was held before the evening meal where I had the impression we’d won a few friends, one unfriend and a decent amount of respect. Nobody said a word about our unorthodox methodology.

*

Making my way over to the wash tent later, a tingle ran across the back of my neck. I whirled around but nobody stood behind me, nor anywhere in the clearing. I stood completely still and listened. But I knew somebody was watching, and purposefully. I pulled the outside flap aside slowly. Nobody. No sound of water falling. I checked all the canvas-sided cubicles. Only the smell of soap, and the sheen of wastewater with a few surviving bubbles in corners of the trays. But I still felt uneasy. After a few moments, I decided that I was being ridiculous. Maybe it was tiredness. I shrugged and chose one of the cubicles to the right.

As I dressed afterward, I glanced up at the sign ‘Female showers’. How had showers acquired gender? You didn’t get that ambiguity in Latin, even in the 21st century.

*

Early next morning, I went for a run with Flavius. Now a senior centurion, he and I had met fourteen years ago on an undercover operation. He was smart, aware and physically tough. He wasn’t a pretty boy like Livius; his light brown hair and mid-brown eyes together with the other standard features you got in a face made a pleasant, but not outstanding combination. This was a great asset for a spook as nobody remembered the average. But when he smiled his soul shone out from his eyes. He gave me balance, sometimes quite starkly, other times humorously. He was my comrade-in-arms, but above all a friend.

‘How do you think it’s going?’ I asked.

He grinned at me. ‘I heard you pulled one of your little tricks.’ He ducked my flying hand.

‘All perfectly routine,’ I said.

‘Yeah, but this lot play by the rules, generally. Rules of engagement, they call it.’

‘I bet they don’t when they’re in the middle of some covert op in the African mountains,’ I snorted.

‘Well, I gather we’re making a good impression, at least in comparison to the Americans and the Prussians.’

I showered and went for breakfast, getting waylaid in the mess tent by one of their captains, called Browning. His long sculptured face was lightened up by a charming smile. I had a penchant for blond hair, which in his case topped blue eyes and, curiously, a scattering of freckles over his nose.

‘
Salve
Carina Mitela,’ he began and went on, in slow but correct classic Latin. ‘Your forces fight well, with much courage and cunning.’

‘Thank you, tribune,’ I replied, trying my best to match his formality of voice. ‘I accept your praise on behalf of my troops. Your Latin is excellent, very cultured. May I enquire where you learnt to speak so well?’

‘Universitas Sancti Andreae.’ He smiled at my puzzled look and reverted to English. ‘It’s a university in Scotland. I tried it out on some of your people, but I quickly realised it hadn’t moved on since Augustus.’ He smiled ruefully and led me towards an empty table.