Destiny's Children - Coalescent. Part 27

"Me, too."

"It's got the kind of depth of history I like about Europe. I know that's an obvious thing for an American to say."

"Well, I never met an American before."

Rea.s.sured, he said, "It's built on a stadium, put up by the Emperor Domitian. Did you know that? The stadium fell into ruin, and the stones were hauled off to make houses and churches and whatnot. But the foundations were still here, and the houses were built on top of them, so the square keeps the original shape of the racetrack." He shook his head. "I love that. People living for two thousand years in the ruins of a sports stadium. It gives you a sense of continuity-of depth. Do you know what I mean?"

"I think so," she said seriously. She felt baffled by his rapidfire speech. How could she match such perceptions? She felt stupid, malformed, a child; she was afraid to open her mouth for fear of making a fool of herself.

He rambled to a halt, and looked at her shyly. "Hey, I'm sorry."

That made her laugh. "You are always apologizing. What are you sorry for now?"

"Because I'm boring you. I'm a seventeen-year-old bore. My brother says this is why I'll never get a girl. I always lecture them. I'm full ofbulls.h.i.t ." He used the English word. "But it's just that I think about this stuff so hard. It just comes out . . . You know, you're beautiful when you laugh. And you're also beautiful when you are serious. It's true. I think we should always say what's true, don't you?

That's what I noticed about you in the Pantheon. Your skin is pale, but there is a kind of translucence about it . . ."

She could feel her cheeks burn, something warm move inside her. "I like your seriousness. We should be serious about the world."

"So we should." He was watching her. The light was fading a little now, and his face seemed to float in the glow of the lights from the cafe's interior. "But not serious all the time. Something's troubling you, isn't it?"

She looked away sharply. "I can't say."

"Okay. But it's something to do with your sister, and your aunt . . . Your mysterious family."

She folded and unfolded her fingers. "It's a matter of duty."

"Are they trying to get you to do something you don't want to do? What-an arranged marriage of some kind? I've heard of that in southern Italian families." He was fishing.

"I can't say anything." She didn't even know herself.

Suddenly he covered her hand with his. "Don't be upset."

His skin was hot, his grip firm; she felt the touch of his palm on the back of her fingers. "I'm not upset."

"I don't know what to say to you." He withdrew his hand; the air felt cold. "Look, you may or may not believe it, but I've no designs on you. You're a beautiful girl," he said hastily. "I don't mean that.

Anybody would find you beautiful. But-there's something about you that draws me in. That's all. And now I'm a little closer to you, I can see there's something hurting in there. I want to help you."

Suddenly the intensity of the moment overwhelmed her. "You can't." She stood up.

"Where are you going?"

"To the bathroom."

He was crestfallen. "You won't come back."

"I will." But, she found, she wasn't sure if she would.

"Here." He produced a business card from a pocket. "This is my cell number. Call me if you need anything, anything at all."

She held the card between thumb and forefinger. "I'm only going to the bathroom."

He smiled weakly. "Well, in case you get lost on the way. Put it in your bag. Please."

She smiled, slipped it into her bag, and moved into the shop. When she glanced back she could see his face, his blue eyes following her.

In the event, she didn't even make it as far as the bathroom.

They converged on her, Pina on one side, Rosa on the other. They grabbed her arms. Rosa's face was set and furious, but Pina seemed more regretful. They immediately began to march her out toward an open door at the back of the shop. There was absolutely nothing Lucia could do about it.

Lucia said to Pina, "You promised you wouldn't tell."

"I didn't promise anything. You made me think you were over this stupid crush."

"You followed me."

"Yes, I followed you."

They pa.s.sed into the street, and Lucia found herself bundled into a car. Lucia couldn't even see if Daniel was still watching. She would never know, she thought, if she would have gone back to him.

"Pina was right to call me," Rosa said. "I'm glad somebody has some sense."

Lucia shouted, "Can't you leave me alone?"

"No," Rosa said simply.

"I just wanted to see him. I was curious."

"Really? Curious about what, Lucia? Where did you think this little liaison would lead? Do you really have a crush on this boy, this Daniel? But you've only just met him. Do you want to fall in love? Do you want romance so badly that you'll approach a perfect stranger-"

"Stop it," Lucia said. She tried to hide her face in her hands.

But Rosa wouldn't let up. "Listen to me. You are part of the Order. In the Order, there is no room for love or romance. In the Order, efficiency is everything."

Lucia, forced to look at her, tried to understand what she was saying. "Efficiency in what?"

"In relationships. In reproduction. I'm talking about the demands of survival, Lucia. Do you think the Order would have lasted so long if it had allowed its members to follow the random dictates oflove ?"

Lucia didn't understand any of this, but she felt a deep horror creep over her.

Pina, too, looked shocked. "You shouldn't be saying this, Rosa," she said in a small voice.

Rosa sat back. "It's the last time I will allow you out of the Crypt. The last time, do you hear? If I have to bell you like a cat . . ."

Lucia, released, turned away.

If she tried hard she could imagine the warmth of his hand on hers. When she thought about that she could feel heat in her lips and eyes, and a hot tautness across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and her skin tingled under her clothes, and there was a deep burning at the pit of her belly. In the dismal, silent interior of this car, despite the cold severity of Rosa beside her, she had never felt more alive. Rosa hadn't won.

And she still had Daniel's card in her bag.

Chapter 24.

As their long sea journey drew to a close, despite the tension between them, Regina and Brica crowded together at the prow of the small ship, hungry for their first glimpse of Italy.

The early-morning air was already hot and dense, and the salt smell of the sea was exotic. The crew called coa.r.s.ely to each other as they pursued their bewildering tasks, adjusting the ship's green sails as it approached the sh.o.r.e. This was just a small cargo craft dedicated to transporting jewelry, fine pottery, and other expensive and low-bulk wares, and the ship creaked as it rolled. But to the women, now veterans of an ocean crossing from Britain, the tideless rolling of the Mediterranean was as nothing.

It was Brica who saw the lighthouse first. "Ah, look . . ." It loomed over the horizon long before the land itself was visible, a fist of concrete and masonry thrusting defiantly into the misty air. Soon afterward a great concrete barrier came into view, cutting across the horizon. This was the wall of the harbor, one of two huge jutting moles. The ship was steered easily toward the break between the moles, and sailed past the lighthouse.

The lighthouse was centuries old. It had been constructed, like the port itself, by the Emperor Claudius, who had conquered Britain. But though its concrete fascia was weathered and cracked, it surely stood as solid and intimidating as the day it was constructed. As she pa.s.sed, Regina could see how it was founded on a sunken ship, whose outlines were dimly visible through the murky, litter-strewn water. The story was that this great vessel had been built to transport an obelisk from Egypt, and then filled with concrete and deliberately sunk. The huge old lighthouse loomed over the ship, utterly dwarfing it. But the crew seemed oblivious to its presence, and Regina tried not to cower.

Inside the harbor, the water was a little calmer-but this harbor was so vast it was itself like an enclosed sea. Ships of all sizes cut across its surface. Most of them were wallowing cargo ships, decorated with the dark green of the imperial navy: grain transporters, scores arriving here every day from Italy and Africa. The seamanship required to maneuver these huge ships in such cramped and crowded conditions impressed Regina, and there was much mocking rivalry between the crews as they hailed each other across the narrow strips of water between their vessels.

Regina's ship pa.s.sed through this crowd and approached another concrete-walled entrance at the far end of the harbor. When they pa.s.sed through, Regina found herself in yet another harbor, much smaller, a landlocked inner basin. It was octagonal in form and was lined with wharves and jetties, where ships nuzzled to unload their cargo. This harbor within a harbor had been constructed by the emperors to provide a port close to Rome capable of taking large oceangoing ships in all conditions. A ca.n.a.l had been cut from here to the Tiber, and grain and other goods were carried on smaller freshwater vessels to Rome itself. The engineering was mighty. This inner harbor alone could have swallowed the whole of Verulamium or Durnovaria, and the port complex would probably have drowned Londinium. But it was necessary; the flow of grain into the city could not be allowed to fail, no matter what the weather.

As the ship nuzzled toward a jetty, Regina tried to ignore the fluttering in her stomach. Already, long before reaching Rome itself, she was beginning to feel overwhelmed by the sheer scale of it all. Here in this bright, liquid Italian air, Britain seemed a remote, murky, underpopulated, undeveloped place, and everything she knew, all she had built, seemed petty indeed.

But she did not have time to be overwhelmed. She had a tablet on which was scrawled an address: that of Amator, the rogue son of Carausias, the last legacy of that stubborn old man. That address was where she would begin her Roman adventure-and where, she thought coldly, Amator would begin to pay back the debt he owed her.

Standing at the prow of the ship she raised herself to a fuller height. As Artorius had said, once this great city had been overwhelmed by the Celtae, her people. And indeed, only decades before, it had suffered its first sacking at barbarian hands in eight centuries.I have nothing to fear of Rome, she thought.Let Rome fear me.

They landed safely, and their few sc.r.a.ps of luggage were briskly off-loaded. Regina's first steps were unsteady. After so many days at sea, it felt odd to walk on a surface that did not swell under her. The land behind the wharves was crowded with warehouses and manufactories. Great machines, powered by slave muscles, were used to off-load the grain into giant granaries. Spanish oil, Campanian wine, and many other goods came in amphorae, carried by dockworkers who filed back and forth from ship to sh.o.r.e like laboring ants. The bustle, noise, and sense of industry was overwhelming.

There were plenty ofnegotiatores to be found at the quaysides. It did not take Regina long to secure a carriage that would take them to Rome itself.

The road to Rome cut across marshy farmland, studded with olive groves and red-tiled roofs of villas.

The road was crowded with pedestrians: great files of people plodded to and from the port, their heads and shoulders and backs laden with crates and sacks. Carriages, chariots, and horseback riders picked their way through the crowds. They pa.s.sed strings of way stations, and vendors competed to sell food, water, footwear, and clothing to the pa.s.sing traffic.

Regina checked the contents of her purse. "That's nearly the last of Ceawlin's money."

Brica peered down glumly at the throng. "I hope you thought it was worth it," she said coldly.

"Yes, it was worth it," Regina said. "It was worth it because we had no choice. Listen to me, Brica. I'm not sure what waits for us in Rome. It will surely be another challenge-as great as I faced on the hill farm when you were born, or when we were taken to Artorius's dunon. We will overcome it. But we must support each other. And we must lance this festering sore between us. Remember how I saved you from the Saxon. I risked my life-"

"Yes, you saved me from the Saxon. But that was long ago, far away. I don't know what's happened to you since then, Mother. I don't know what you have become."

"Brica-"

"I am your daughter, your only child," Brica said tonelessly. "I am the future, for you. I am everything.

That's how it should be. Perhaps that was once true. Butyou , you have destroyed my life, bit by bit. You took me away from Bran, and then from Galba, who made me happy, and with whom I wanted to have children of my own. And then you sold me to that pig of anegotiatore ."

Regina grimaced. She had never told her daughter how she, too, had been used by Ceawlin. "I had no choice."

"There is always a choice. I think your mind has died, or your heart-"

Regina grabbed her by the chin and forced her head around. "Enough.Look at me. "

Brica resisted, but she had never had her mother's physical strength. Her head turned, and her eyes, smoky gray like Regina's, met her mother's.

Regina said, "Do you think you are the only one who has made sacrifices? Youare precious to me-so precious. If I could save you from harm I would. But there is something more precious still, and that is the family. If we had stayed in Britain while Artorius got himself killed posturing on the battlefields of Europe, we would not have survived him for long. And if you had married Galba, your children would have been farmers, their minds dissolving in the dirt, and within two generations, three, they would have remembered nothing of what they once were-"

"But they would exist," Brica snapped. "Mychildren. Mother, it was my choice, not yours." She pulled her face away. "And now you're looking for your own mother, who abandoned you all those years ago.

Whether or not she lives, you are selfish and morbid. Your relationship with your mother no longer matters.You do not matter. All that matters is me, for my womb is not yet dry, like yours. The future is mine-"

"No. The future is the family."And even you, my beautiful child, Regina thought sadly,are only a conduit to that future.

Regina's determination was strong, clear, untroubled. She was dismayed, she admitted to herself, by the iron coldness she saw in Brica. It was as if the recent events had crushed the life and warmth out of her- and thoroughly wrecked her relationship with her mother. Well, a lifelong battle with Brica would be hard, but Regina was used to hardships, and to overcoming them.

And it wasn't as if Brica could get away. Ironically the narrowness of her upbringing on the farmstead and the dunon, against which Regina had always railed, now left her stranded and baffled away from her home ground; Brica couldn't leave Regina's side no matter how much she wanted to.

Now they were both distracted, for they approached the city itself.

Ahead, the air was striped with a thick layer of orange-yellow: the c.u.mulative smoke from thousands of fires and lanterns, not yet dispersed in the morning light. On the horizon Regina glimpsed aqueducts, immense structures that strode across the landscape, imposing straight-line geometries of astonishing lengths. There were ten of them, she knew, ten artificial rivers to water a city of more than a million souls. As they neared the city, gaudy mausoleums sprouted beside the roadway. Citizens were allowed to inter bodies only outside the city walls, so routes out of the city became lined with sarcophagi. And around the cemeteries of the rich crowded the remains of the poor, the ashes of cremations stored in amphorae stuck in the ground, only their necks protruding into the air.

"The scale of it, even of their dead, is astounding," Regina murmured.

Their driver turned to grin at her. He must have been more than sixty years old, and a single tooth stood like a stump in his mouth. He spoke a coa.r.s.e country Latin she found it hard to make out.

Brica said, "What was that?"

"He welcomed us to thecaput mundi . To the head of the world . . ."

They fell silent, each locked into her own thoughts, as the carriage wound its way along the crowded road.

Rome was dominated by mud brick and red tiles. But at its heart were the Capitoline and Palatine Hills with their great palaces and temples, like a floating island of gleaming marble. Regina thought she glimpsed the curving wall of the Flavian Amphitheater, astoundingly huge, like a house for giants.

But as the carriage approached the center of the city it entered a maze of streets, and the wider view was lost. The closer they got to the center the more crowded the buildings were, and the taller they seemed to grow; they were rickety heaps of wattle, daub, and crimson-red tiles, two, three, four stories high, like unhealthy plants competing for light. In some places theseinsulae , islands, were so closely packed together that their balconies touched, shutting out the sky altogether. The stink was overwhelming, of rotting sewage, cooking food. And the noise of the city seemed to engulf Regina, a constant clamorous racket. It was the noise of a million people, she thought, a million voices joining into one great unending roar, and as they penetrated deeper into this crowded, unplanned maze, Regina felt as if she were becoming lost in a great formless sea of people.

Brica grew even quieter, receding into herself. Probably, Regina thought, in the last hour her daughter had seen more strangers' faces than she had seen before in her entire life.

On the driver's recommendation they were brought to a restaurant. The owner, who happened to be the driver's brother-in-law, also owned some of the apartments in the block above the restaurant, and the driver had promised he would rent the women a room.

Set on a street crowded with shops, the restaurant occupied the block's ground floor. It was a low- roofed, well-lit place: people sat on benches at the front, eating snacks and drinking wine as they watched the bustle of the street. Regina glimpsed marble counters on which samples of dishes were displayed, and behind them was a green-lit central atrium, set with more tables.

From the outside theinsula actually had an attractive appearance, with its roof of terra-cotta tiles, its stucco facade decorated with tiles and small mosaic images. Balconies of wood and brick projected from each story, and potted plants were set on each one. But the apartments were small and cramped, and got steadily worse as you climbed the stairs. And Regina's and Brica's, on the topmost floor, must have been the worst of all.

The windows were covered with sheets of bark. The only furniture was two beds fixed to the wall, some shelving and cupboards, and a few stools and low tables. There was a brazier for heating and an open stove for cooking, appliances Regina immediately vowed she would use sparingly, for she was convinced that they would set theinsula and the whole district on fire, and would be the death of them both. Even in this cramped setting their few belongings, homemade at the dunon, looked pathetic and provincial. But Regina unpacked the threematres and set up an improvisedlararium in one corner of the room.

Even up here the smells from the restaurant reached them, and soon they were both very hungry. Regina ventured back down the stairs. The menu food was predominantly cooked meat, highly spiced with pepper and fish sauce and garlic-but she didn't have the money to spare. She went out to the street stalls and bought a little bread and salted meat, and a small pitcher of wine.