Destiny's Children - Coalescent. Part 14

She emerged into bright daylight, and, somewhat sheepishly, sought out Cartumandua. To her relief Carta didn't scold her, or remind her of her previous warnings, or of her promises. Carta gave her ch.o.r.es, cleaning tasks in the kitchen and the bedrooms. But she wouldn't meet Regina's eyes.

Regina tried to make a fuss of Marina. She made a special effort to clean out the room they shared, after the mess she had made of it. Oddly, though, she felt uncomfortable in the room in those first few days, and had trouble working out why-until she saw that thematres were still in the corner of their shelf, where she had so carelessly shoved them aside to make room for her jewelry. She restored the G.o.ddesses to their position. But they felt cold and heavy in her hands, and their small faces seemed to watch her.

She was not the same person as she was last time she had touched them, and never would be again.

Somehow thematres knew it. And beyond their blank stone faces she saw Julia and Aetius and Marcus and everybody she had known staring at her in dismay.

She nursed the secret of Amator's promise to take her away to the southern cities, a secret promise that made everything she had gone through worthwhile. But still Amator didn't call. Still the pain in her belly lingered.

And as the days wore on, the bleeding didn't come. She knew what that must mean. Her anxiety and sense of dread deepened.

It all came to a head on the night of the fire.

It had been a difficult night from the beginning.

After dinner Carausias had made a terrible discovery. He had wailed and wept. Then he had given way to anger. He stormed around the house, smashing furniture and crockery and even some of Carta's irreplaceable pottery, despite the efforts of Carta and Severus to restrain him.

Regina had no idea what was troubling him. He had always seemed so strong, so solid. Frightened, she had retreated to her room where she lay on her bed.

She had dark troubles of her own. Her bleeding hadn't returned. She longed to talk to Carta, to throw herself in her arms and ask for her forgiveness and help. But she could not. Then there was another secret, the secret that was lodged deep in her mind, as the growing child must be lodged in her belly, a secret truth she had tried to keep even from herself: that Amator would not come back for her, that he would never come back, that he had already taken all he wanted from her.

As she lay brooding, at first she imagined that the stink of smoke, the sound of screaming, was part of her own fevered imagination. But when red light began to flicker beyond her window, she realized that something serious was happening. She got out of bed, pulled on her tunic quickly, and ran to the door.

Carta, Carausias, and the others were standing in the courtyard. Their faces shone red, as if they faced a sunset. But the sun was long gone, and the light came from a great bank of flames, visible over the silhouetted rooftops. There was a great crash, more screams, and sparks rose up like a flock of tiny, glowing birds.

Regina ran to Carta and took her hand. "What is it?"

"I think that was the Basilica," Carta said.

"It may have started there," Carausias growled. "But it's spreading fast. All those stalls in the Forum.

The thatched roofs . . ."

"I think it's coming this way," said Carta.

Carausias's voice was bitter. "Once there were volunteers to put out such fires. We'd have run with our bowls of water and our soaked blankets, and everything would be saved-or if not saved, rebuilt until it was better than before-"

Carta snapped,"Uncle!"

He turned and looked at her, eyes wide. "Yes. Yes. The past doesn't matter anymore. We must leave.

Even if the fire spares the house, the town is done after this. All of you, now, quickly . . ." He turned and ran into the house, followed by Severus and Marina.

Carta held Regina's shoulders. "Get your things. Nothing but what you can carry, nothing but what you need."

"Carta-"

"Are you listening, Regina?"

"Where will we go? Will we go to Londinium, and book the ship to Armorica? Perhaps we will meet Amator there-"

Carta shook her, sharply. "You must listen. Amator is gone. I don't know where. And he took Carausias's money."

It was hard for Regina to take this in. "Allof it-"

"All of it. All the savings."

"The ship-"

"There will be no ship.Can you not listen, child? When the house is destroyed, we will have nothing."

There will be no dancing, Regina thought stupidly, no more dancing. And when she thought of the growing ma.s.s in her belly she felt panic rise. "How will we live, Carta?"

"I don't know!" Carta yelled, and Regina saw her own fear.

There was a fresh roar as another great section of building collapsed. From the streets outside the courtyard there came yells, screams, and a strange, twisted laughter.

"Time is running out. Go, child!"

Regina ran to her room. She dragged out the largest bag she thought she could carry, and scooped into it clothes, her perfumes, her pins, her jewelry, everything she could grab in those few frantic heartbeats.

It was only at the very last moment that she thought of thematres . She unfolded a tunic, carefully wrapped the little stone G.o.ddesses, and tucked them into the bag. They were small, but they made the bag unaccountably heavier. She hoisted the bag onto her shoulder and ran out into the courtyard.

Soon all of them had gathered, Carausias, Carta, Marina, and Severus, all laden with bags and bundles of blanket. By now the glow of the fire was bright as day, and the billowing smoke made it hard to breathe.

Regina thought she saw moisture in Carausias's rheumy eyes. But he turned away from his house.

"Enough. Let's go."

Half running, stumbling over the debris in the road, the four of them joined a ragged line of refugees who streamed out of the burning town through the northern gate and into the cold country beyond. Away from the town there were no lights, and the night was overcast. Soon they were fleeing into pitch darkness.

Chapter 12.

Despite all the tension with Gina, I wanted to trace Uncle Lou. I stayed on in Florida a few more days, through the weekend.

A day after that unsatisfactory conversation with my sister I got an unexpected call. It was Michael, asking me if I wanted to come over to watch the s.p.a.ce shuttle launch.

"Sure. I mean, if that's okay with your mom. You'd better put her on . . ."

"Whatever," said Gina.

So I drove over. The launch was scheduled for eightP .M.

"I didn't know a launch was due," I said. "Do they show it on TV?"

Michael said, "On NASA TV, yes. But you can see it from the porch."

I felt a foolish p.r.i.c.kle of wonder. "You can see a s.p.a.ceship take off from your back door? . . ." I'd been to Florida many times, but that had never occurred to me.

The boy grinned. "Sure. Come on, I'll show you."

Gina said, "Don't go sitting in the damp. And don't stay out too long if it's delayed, and you get cold-"

"We won't," I said. "Come on, kid." I stood up and let Michael lead me by the hand, out through the darkened hall to the back door.

At the back of the house was a long covered porch. A couple of big swing benches hung from the roof, and big electric lamps were fixed to the wooden wall, banishing the night; beyond was just darkness.

"Shall we sit here?"

Michael said, "It's kind of hard on your b.u.t.t. Mom puts the cushions indoors to keep them dry."

"Oh, okay."

"Anyhow it isn't the best view. Come on." Still holding my hand, the boy made his way along a gravel path, barely visible to me, that sloped down toward the coast. He stepped confidently, secure in his little domain. I tried to follow without hesitation.

Gradually, as the house receded, a little island of light, the night opened up around us. The sky was black and huge, and speckled with stars. Behind me, inland, the lights of the city stained the scattered clouds orange-yellow. But when I looked east, toward the sea, there was only darkness. I could hear the ocean now, a low, restless growling.

Michael led me off the path a little way. I found myself walking on fine sand that slid into my shoes, so that I walked with a rasp. After a few paces Michael flopped to the ground. I somewhat gingerly lowered myself down, and found myself sitting on soft sand matted with coa.r.s.e gra.s.s. The gra.s.s was p.r.i.c.kly and a little damp with dew, and I knew my back would soon get stiff. But for now I was comfortable enough.

"My mom won't let me go farther toward the sea at this time of night," Michael said solemnly. A soft ripping noise told me he was tugging at the gra.s.s.

"Well, that's sensible." I spotted a light, far out on the breast of the sea. I pointed it out to Michael. "I wonder if it's something to do with the launch. Don't they have ships to pick up those solid-rocket boosters that drop off when the shuttle flies?"

Michael snickered. "I don'tthink so. The recovery ships are along way downrange."

"Oh, right."

Michael started talking briskly about shuttle launch operations, miming the a.s.sembly of the booster stack, and the liftoff from the Canaveral pads with his small hands. He parroted technical terms and acronyms, and when I gently tested him by asking about what lay behind the acronyms, he was always able to answer.

It was all of a piece with his work on the Frisbees. It hadn't been so long-Christ, just a few years- since we had watched theApollo 13 movie on TV, and we had chanted the countdown together, because that, said Michael, was the magic you needed to make a s.p.a.ceship go. Later we had talked each other through the dreadful loss of theColumbia . Now his enthusiasm was still endearing, but his depth of knowledge was startling. To him, the shuttle was no longer a magical chariot, but a piece of engineering that you could pore over and take apart andunderstand -and maybe even make a better version of one day.

I suppressed a sigh. After all that he was only ten years old. Childhood is so long when you live it, but so brief when you look at it from outside. And my visits, the brief forays across the Atlantic at Christmas and in the summer, so precious to me, amounted to no more than a few days in total, spread over that evanescent decade.

Michael suddenly sat bolt upright. "Look! Look, there it is!"

And so it was, right on time. Looking to the north I saw a spark of light, supernova bright, climbing, it seemed, out of the sea. Its trajectory was already curving, a graceful arc, and I saw how the spark carved out a great pillar of smoke in the dense sea air, a pillar that itself was brightly lit from the inside. All this took place in utter silence, but the sense of power was astonishing-like something natural, a waterfall or a thunderstorm-it was startling to think that this mighty display was human-made.

We both erupted into cheers and applause, and hugged each other.

When we ran out of cheers I could hear more distant noise, a kind of crackle like very faraway thunder, or even gunfire. It might have been the sound of people cheering, strung out along this coast, or it might have been the sound of the shuttle's ascent. As the shuttle climbed farther its light spread over the ocean, and a hundred reflected sparks slid over the gently swelling surface, tracking the rising s.p.a.cecraft.

In the pale rocket light the face of Michael Poole Bazalget was like an upturned coin, but his mouth was set with a kind of determination, his eyes shadowed. I felt unaccountably disturbed. I wondered what this child, and his own children after him, would do with the world.

Chapter 13.

The little party of refugees straggled up the hillside from the road.

The farmstead was just a huddle of buildings, lost on the hill's broad flank. There were no lights. Regina saw the gaping holes of unglazed windows, decayed roofs, fields sketched out by drystone walls but choked with weeds. Beyond the buildings a forest, dense and dark, coated the upper hillside.

The place was abandoned.

There were five of them-Regina, Cartumandua and Severus, Marina, Carausias-and they stood in a huddle. Already the night was falling, the cold descending. They had been on the road for nearly a month, since the burning of Verulamium, a month they had spent walking ever west. They must look as lost and helpless, Regina thought, as the buildings themselves.

"They said they would wait," Carausias said plaintively. "Arcadius was a friend of my brother-a close friend. They said they would wait for us."

Severus broke away, snarling his contempt. "I've heard nothing but your whining and excuses, old man, all the way from Verulamium."

Carta said wearily, "Severus, we're all exhausted."

"And because of this old fool's sentimental stupidity we are stranded on this hillside. I told you we should have gone to Londinium."

"We've been over this. There was nothing for us in Londinium."

"Arcadius said he would wait," Carausias repeated. He rummaged beneath his cloak. "I have the letters, the letters-"

Severus stalked off over the darkling hillside.

Marina said, frightened, "Severus, please."

Carta held her back. "Let him go. He'd do no good here."

"But what are we to do?"

Carta had no answer. Carausias walked purposelessly back and forth over the hillside, limping as he had done since the first day, despite the bandages that cradled his feet inside his leather shoes. It was as if they were all locked in their own heads.

Regina crouched down, hugging her knees to her belly. At least she was spared the cramps she had suffered almost continually since they had started their great trek from Verulamium.

Arcadius was a friend of the family who had a farmstead here, deep in the heart of the countryside to the west. It had always been the plan for Arcadius and Carausias to pool their resources and make for Armorica together. Because of Amator, Carausias had lost his money, and he admitted that it had been a year or more since he had been in contact with Arcadius, because of the unreliability of the post these days. But he was sure that Arcadius would wait for him, and would welcome them into his home.

That had been the promise that had sustained them through that first, terrifying night of flight from burning Verulamium-the first dismal hours when they had tried to sleep out in the open, keeping away from the stream of refugees, the crying children and limping invalids, the drunks-the promise that had kept them all going through the days and nights of their hike ever west, as Carausias and Severus had used the last of their money to buy a little food, water, and shelter from broken-down inns.

Then the countryside had been hostile. The collapse of the Roman province had affected most directly the one in ten who had lived in the villas and towns, many of whom were now trying to find a place in the countryside, like Regina and her party. But the farmers had been affected, too, however they had grumbled about tax. Without the need to produce a surplus to pay the Emperor's taxes the farmers had cut their workload back to what was necessary to maintain their families. But with the towns declining there was no market to sell or trade what surplus there was, and there was nowhere to buy manufactured goods like pottery or tools. Iron goods in particular were in very short supply, for people had forgotten the ancient craft of iron making. Many farms were being operated at a more basic level than the farmers'

ancestors had achieved centuries before.

Anyhow there had been no place for Regina and her party: no hospitality, no offers of help from hungry, resentful, suspicious people, and they had used up the last of their money on overpriced inns. But it didn't matter. Once they got here, to this hill farm and Carausias's friends, everything would be all right.