Successio (5 page)

‘She’s… she’s indisposed, Senior Centurion, so I thought I’d better come and take notes in her place.’

Flav rolled his eyes and muttered, ‘For fuck’s sake!’ not quite under his breath.

‘Well, let’s get on with it,’ I said. ‘You’ll have to convey our decisions back to her, Lucy. We don’t have time to waste on another meeting. If she doesn’t like what we agreed, tell her to take it up with the legate.’

*

Somehow, Conrad and I seemed to miss each other at home. Was it just a case of split work shifts or deliberate evasion? Either way, I didn’t have the opportunity to raise the question of Nicola again with him. I had a Senate committee meeting this afternoon and spent lunchtime going through the paperwork. I hated being on the bureaucratic end of the security oversight group. I sometimes had to grill my own colleagues – a near impossible situation. I knew how tough their job was without having to justify every
solidus
of their budget or every tiny action. But I had no choice; that was my job. One of my other jobs, I should say.

Giving up on reading the papers, I went through the main part of the house up to my grandmother’s rooms as I did at least once a day. Marcella, her assistant, now grey herself, led me through to the bedroom. Nobody had used the D word yet, but Aurelia Mitela, my grandmother, my beloved Nonna, was dying.

She was propped up in bed, eyes half-closed. I looked down at her face, frail skin sagging over the shrunken flesh beneath. My hands balled automatically. I felt angry and powerless at the way the cancer was destroying her. She was only in her eighties; according to the records, our family usually reached the century. Gods, how unfair it was for such a clever and affectionate woman to be taken like this.

‘Hello, darling,’ she said. Her voice was surprisingly strong as was the sparkle in her eyes. ‘You look so tired, Carina. You should try to rest, you know.’

What in Hades was I supposed to say to that? Nothing adequate presented itself, so I said nothing. I just held her skeleton’s hand.

‘I’m fine, Nonna, really,’ I lied after a few minutes. ‘I have to go to the security committee session this afternoon and the documents were giving me a headache.’

‘Really? That’s it?’ I felt her eyes delving under my facade. ‘I don’t think that’s everything, is it?’

‘No,’ I admitted, ‘but I have something I need to sort out in the family and I haven’t worked out what or how to do it. But I don’t want to bother you with it.’

She snorted. More like a wheeze, but effective enough. ‘I’m not on my bier yet, Carina. So tell me, please.’ She never sounded more clipped as then. She was back in her role as head of a rich and powerful family with connections and influence all the way up to the top. She had more steel in her poor wasted hand than most had between their head and tail.

When I’d finished, she gave me a steady look.

‘I know you felt you didn’t have much choice, but I don’t think you handled it very well, darling.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was a mistake to confront him as soon as you got back. I would have carried on my investigation behind the scenes for a little longer.’

I was hurt by her analysis; I was considered a strategic specialist. Maybe I’d lost my edge during the past two years I’d commanded Operations. Or let my deep concern for Conrad interfere with logic. But no way was I going to start a major argument with her. I didn’t go for the old and dying.

‘Somebody cut your tongue out?’ Her eyes glittered almost maliciously. ‘Too scared to fight me?’

‘You’re impossible! Of course I can’t fight you, you’re—’

‘Yes?’

‘You are so unfair, Nonna.’

‘Yes, I know, but you’re so vulnerable, Carina, it’s irresistible.’

‘Well, behave yourself, Nonna, and try to help me out here.’

‘Only if you stop being sentimental and pretending I’m not dying. You’re wasting both our time.’

I choked on my next breath and felt my eyes tearing. She sent me an incinerating look. I drew myself up, swallowed and looked straight at her.

‘Better,’ she observed. ‘Now, try and rescue some brains cells from the sloppy mush in your head and listen to me. Conrad has reached some kind of crisis, perhaps something from his past and the letter from this girl has triggered it. Your grandfather, Euralbius, went through a similar phase, so I know what I’m talking about. They do get over it, so long as you keep your head.’

I stroked her hand, blessing myself again for her wisdom and hard-headedness.

‘Try very hard not to oppose him directly. It’s like dealing with an adolescent, but a lot more serious. I’m not telling you to submit in any way. Be patient, but clever.’ She gave me a measured look. ‘You’re crafty enough to be able to work this out, Carina. I suppose you’ve gone soft worrying about me. Well, you can stop that, right now. You’re going to have to concentrate.’

How did she do this? I know she was a bone-and-blood Roman, but such toughness and selflessness was beyond anything. If I could behave one tenth as well, I should be very proud.

The next moment, she wilted, sinking into the cream lace-edged pillows. It was a small vanity of hers to have wide swathes of hand-made lace to frame her sleep. I would have bought her an ocean of it if it would have taken this evil disease away.

V

Checking my mails next morning, one sprang out at me – Conrad’s executive officer, Rusonia, asking me to call by his office ‘as soon as convenient’. Which meant now. I glanced at my watch. It was barely seven thirty. What was so urgent? He’d come home late last night, I’d been drifting off to sleep when I’d felt him slide into our bed, but he didn’t say a word. Nor did he touch me. When I woke around six, he’d gone, not even appearing at breakfast. Was Nonna right? Maybe I should have left it.

I hurried along the cream corridors, el-pad in hand, my sandals scarcely sounding on the polished wood floor. I smiled at Rusonia as I entered the anteroom.

‘Go straight in, ma’am, he’s expecting you.’

Nevertheless, I knocked on the door and waited, my nerves jangling. For Juno’s sake, I wasn’t some lowly recruit in disgrace. I heard nothing; I knocked again and went in.

The legate’s office was a large room, located in the corner of the building, with floor to ceiling bulletproof windows on two sides. The regulation cream was broken up with a lot of bookshelves, some prints and maps and a display cupboard. The little gold eagle I’d bought him at Christie’s on our previous trip to London glistened behind the glass doors as it reflected the early morning light. Unlike other people’s offices, the large meeting table was paper-free.

He was sitting behind his desk, head down signing some document. He finished, closed the folder, put the top back on his pen, laid it on the desk and looked up. I was shocked by the dark shadows under his eyes and taut lines around his mouth. What in Hades was happening to him?

I half-extended my hand, instinctively, but quickly drew it back. We were in our work environment; he the unit head, me a senior officer, but under his command. Not easy, but we’d made it work over the years.

‘Sit down, Carina,’ he said, waving me to the chair opposite him. ‘Two things. Firstly, I’ve had a complaint from Colonel Branca. She’s aggrieved that she wasn’t at the recent liaison meeting and you saw fit to carry on without her. She felt slighted to have been “relayed instructions via a junior officer.” Any comment?’

Gods, he was all business this morning.

‘It was a periodic meeting, with a month’s notice. We were to address training needs in light of the recent overseas exercise.’ Since I had nothing to lose, I let him have it. ‘Training has been both inadequate and poorly organised this past year and operational arms are suffering as a result. If I may speak so freely, Colonel Branca has little interest or motivation for her job, to the extent of negligence where people may get killed or injured as a result.’

‘A serious charge.’ His voice was grim. ‘Can you substantiate it?’

‘How much evidence do you want?’

‘Then why haven’t you raised it before?’

I gasped. Anger swept up through me. ‘May I bring the Legate’s attention to my report last month and the report after the winter warmer exercise?’

Both had highlighted serious training defaults. Hadn’t he read them?

‘I raised them with Colonel Branca, but she considered you were exaggerating.’

‘She what?’ I took a deep breath. ‘You didn’t think to discuss it with me?’

‘No.’

‘Why ever not?’

‘Not your domain.’

‘That’s it?’

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. ‘I forget how argumentative you are. Yes, that’s it. I’m perfectly aware she hasn’t been the most effective training officer we’ve had. Her departmental staff has managed well, though.’

I was bursting with my own opinion, but kept it to myself, remembering Nonna’s advice.

‘This brings me neatly to the second thing. Effective tonight at 18.00 you’re relieved of your command of Operations.’

No!

I stared at him. I couldn’t move. I ran his words through my head again. Why? Gods, it was unfair. Just because I’d criticised a useless but well-connected old lush. Was Conrad getting personal here? Was he resentful of how I’d reacted to Nicola’s letter? No, that was so out of character for him. I had no option but to accept it, but throwing me out of the job he knew I loved was unbelievably severe.

Then I spotted tiny creases around the edge of his mouth that had nothing to do with his tiredness.

‘You’re taking over Training and Personnel on promotion, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. Congratulations.’ And he smiled at me with the warmth and sparkle of normal times.

‘You—’

‘Yes?’

I swallowed. Hard.

‘You… you surprised me, that’s all.’

He burst out laughing. ‘You are such a liar.’

‘Yeah, well. That wasn’t nice.’

‘But fun.’ He smiled.

I didn’t think so, but he had a more robust sense of humour than I. I think most men did.

He went over to his coffee machine and brought me back a cupful to which he promptly added a slug of brandy.

‘For the shock, of course,’ he said and winked.

*

Branca was ‘retired’ on medical grounds. She had to get dried out as a condition of drawing a full pension, which I thought was fair. Although I was functionally in charge of such things now, I lost interest once I’d seen the mess she’d left the department in. Branca’s executive officer, Captain Petrus Sergius, had held it together as much as he could. His human resources background before joining the PGSF had been invaluable. No, it had pretty much saved it all from going under. I was mentally exhausted, but in a way grimly satisfied, after our long hours hammering out the new framework.

‘Thank you, Sergius, good session. Let me have the budgets as soon as you can. Last thing, can you open up a feedback mailbox on the department intranet?

‘Do you mean like a suggestions box, ma’am?’

‘Exactly so. I want input from everybody.’

His grey eyes looked wary.

‘What?’

‘Colonel Branca expressly forbade such a thing and made it a disciplinary.’

I couldn’t believe it. She really had made the rules up as she went along.

‘Well, Sergius, news for you. I want to know. You might find a revisit to the legate’s standing orders about transparency and teamwork of, what, nearly eight years ago, worthwhile.’

His face closed down; he tightened his mouth, his eyes lost a little light.

Oops
.

‘Don’t take it badly, Captain. You did a great job. Now you’re going to help me do a better one. Besides,’ I grinned at him, ‘apart from knowing what they’re bitching about, we may learn something ourselves.’

‘Very well, Colonel, I’ll get it set up.’

Colonel! I’d have to get used to being called that.

He ran his fingers along the side of his el-pad and hesitated.

‘Something else?’

‘It’s something Colonel Branca dealt with. It’s done, but—’

‘Try me.’

‘It’s fairly routine, just a follow-up after the recent exercise.’

‘Okay, Sergius, let’s get a few things straight if we’re going to work together. I don’t play games with colleagues – I don’t have time. If you have something to say, say it. I really don’t mind if it’s as trivial as somebody sniffing in a different way, or a major attack. If it has any significance, or it’s bothering you, you tell me. Use your judgment, sure, but err on the telling side. Okay?’

He nodded, looking a little defensive. He’d get used to me, I hoped.

‘It’s a mail we had from the English liaison officer, Browning, enquiring about a familiarisation visit.’ He paused, looking awkward. ‘Although it was addressed to you, it got routed to us as it had a training code in the reference. I suggested forwarding it to you, but the colonel insisted we deal with it and replied that we were too busy to entertain such informal trips.’ He threw a speculative look at me and decided to stop talking.

Good move. He learned fast.

‘Okay, Sergius. Thanks for telling me.’ I couldn’t take it out on him. ‘Forward it, and Branca’s reply, to me ASAP. I’ll sort it out with Captain Browning.’

He looked relieved.

‘Oh, and don’t call them English. They get seriously miffed if you get their complex nationality thing wrong. Their naval and air forces are “royal” and their army “British”. And for Jupiter’s sake don’t ever call any Scottish people English. They have this love-hate thing. You‘ll know how annoyed they are by how hard they hit you.’ I grinned. ‘It’s a bit like Castra Lucillans and Brancadori.’

*

After Sergius left, I called Colonel Stimpson’s executive assistant at their base in the west of England and she patched me through to Michael.

‘I don’t know how to apologise for my predecessor’s rudeness, Michael. She somehow didn’t pass your message to me. Of course, we’ll be delighted if you can find time for a liaison visit. How long can you stay?’

‘I was thinking of a week to ten days, if you’ll have me. I might add on some leave I’ve got due.’

‘Great, I’ll get a programme drawn up for the official visit. Is there anything you particularly want to see or anyone you want to meet in your free time?’

‘I’d very much like to have a look inside your university, if that can be arranged.’

‘Sure, easiest thing in the world.’

‘I’ve also got a little bit of news for you, but we’ll talk about that when I get there.’

‘Don’t be such a tease, Michael. What is it?’

‘I’d rather not say over the phone.’

We had one of the most secure military comms systems in the world; even Fort Meade in the EUS had a problem listening in, and I doubted he was using a public payphone either. So what was the problem?

*

Nine days later I met Michael off his flight. I threw my weight around and took our wheelbase out airside and had him disembarked first. My driver loaded his bags, we processed him through the military side of Portus Airport and were soon on our way back to the PGSF building. He couldn’t resist gaping like a tourist at everything. I recalled how entranced I’d been by it all when I’d arrived fifteen years ago, so I gave him the running commentary as we drove along. Cream stone with terracotta roof tiles mixed in with tall, much grander blocks and modern buildings standing alongside older ones; somehow it all fit together.

In the centre, 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 – the forum – containing various public offices, including the Senate. The smaller ones were mostly temples. When I’d first caught sight of it, I’d thought it looked like a sword-and-sandals movie set with extras going up and down the steps, but in normal twenty-first century clothes.

Twenty minutes after we left the airport, we were skirting a hill rising steeply to an old castle ruin perched at the top of a cliff commanding the whole river valley. Halfway up was a beautiful stone house, the Golden Palace. With long single storey wings running out from each side, it looked like a bird poised for take-off.

I wasn’t sure how much English my driver understood, so describing the scenery kept us to general topics until we were safe inside my office in the PGSF.

At the guard post, I’d retrieved a slim metal wristband with a tiny screen and clipped it on Michael’s wrist.

‘It’s an ID and commset combined. Don’t forget to wear it at all times, otherwise you’ll have sudden company in the form of a security detail. If the guard watch office sees a biosignature in the building without an ID attached on their screens, they automatically respond. Pretty robustly.’ I grinned at him.

‘Consider me warned,’ he smiled back.

‘C’mon, I’ll take you on the short tour before lunch.’

One military unit headquarters is pretty much like any another, but our sports area included a sand-floored arena and the armoury for bladed weapons. Michael was drawn to the small museum and talked in his stilted Latin to the curator. Marcellus Vitus had been the
primipilus
, the most senior enlisted man, before his retirement three years ago. He just knew everything, so I listened carefully too.

‘I’d like to have another chat with Vitus, if that can be arranged,’ Michael said as we made our way to the mess area.

‘Sure, I’ll—’

‘Carina! Where’ve you been? I get back and you’d vanished. Oh, congratulations, by the way.’

Daniel. Now unit deputy, he’d been my buddy since we were junior officers together. Well, apart from a really frosty period seven years ago after the final Pulcheria operation. That had lasted a whole uncomfortable year. Eventually, he’d thawed and we’d mostly regained our friendship, but with a tentative note still hanging there.

The teasing expression in his dark eyes now was matched by his infectious grin.

‘Good morning, sir,’ I said formally, locking down my answering grin and switching to English. ‘May I present Captain Michael Browning, of the British Army special forces? Michael, this is Colonel Daniel Stern, the deputy legate.’

‘Oh. Morning, Captain. Good to meet you. You’re with us for a couple of weeks, I believe?’

‘Yes, I am, sir. We’re scheduled to meet tomorrow, at 11.00 hours.’

The two men assessed each other. Daniel broke first, smiling, took the Brit’s arm and pulled him along. ‘Let’s grab a beer then, before lunch, and get to know each other.’ He turned his head over his shoulder towards me and winked. ‘You can run along now,
Lieutenant
-Colonel,’ he said. I said nothing, but smiled to myself as I walked back to my office, pleased the two men had gelled so quickly. I glanced at my watch. Half an hour before lunch. I’d quickly check my desk and join them in the bar.

‘Colonel,’ a sombre-faced Sergius greeted me. He had a naturally solemn expression, but now his features looked pinched in. ‘Something unfortunate has occurred.’

Not my grandmother. Please Juno, no.

‘What? Is it the Countess?’

He shook his head, but looked as if he was eating stale field rations. He shuffled his feet and looked away. Sergius’s carefulness was starting to annoy me. Didn’t he ever take a risk?

‘Then what?’

‘The DJ
Custodes
XI Station rang through. They’ve arrested a female juvenile. Drunk in a public place.’

‘And?’

I didn’t particularly care about some stupid kid pissed out of her head. Strictly one for the
custodes
. Then fear stabbed me in the gut. Please gods, not Stella. Silvia would be mortified. Good thing they’d rung me, not the palace, if it was her.