Stephen Baxter - Coalescent

Amator drank deeply of his wine. “Thus the Visigoths, who are barbarians, are employed on the Emperor’s payroll to keep down the troublesome bacaudae , many of whom are Roman citizens. Makes you think.”

“But I don’t want to think,” she said, and held up her cup for more wine.

“Quite right, too.”

Athaulf stood up in the rubble of the hypocaust. “Look! I found an iron hook!”

“It’s a strigil , you savage. It’s supposed to keep your skin clean. Oh, throw it away. Cura! Enough of that funeral music. We want to dance!”

With a whoop, Curatia abandoned her gentle dirge and launched into a lively rhythmic tune, an ancient British piece.

Amator yelled, dragged Regina to her feet, and took her in his arms. They started with formal steps, but soon, as Athaulf joined in, they clambered in and out of the old hypocaust and ran laughingly along the sections of broken walls.

As she danced in the ruins, and the cool autumn air mixed with the heady wine and the scent of the candles — and as Amator’s legs brushed hers, and his arm circled her waist — Regina could feel her intoxication growing, as if her blood were burning. This multileveled place, full of complicated light and Curatia’s shimmering, oddly wistful music, came to seem as unreal and enchanted as if they had been transported to a cloud.

Later, she found herself lying on a thick woolen blanket, cast over the stones of the broken wall. She was panting hard, the blood in her head singing from the whirling dance. Amator was lying beside her, propped up on his elbow, looking down at her. She could sense his old intensity in the way he looked at her. But that frisson of fear she had once felt had gone now, leaving only warmth.

“I wish this night would last forever,” she said, flushed and breathless. “This moment.”

“Yes,” he murmured. “So do I.” He lay beside her, his arm over her stomach, and she felt his tongue flicker at her ear.

She stared up at the silent stars. “She had such parties,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“My mother … Why did it all go wrong, do you think? The town. The way people lived. There are no barbarians here .”

“None save capering oafs like Athaulf.”

“But there aren’t. The ocean didn’t freeze over, like the Rhine, so the barbarians could walk in. And there was no plague, no great fire that burned everything up. It all just — stopped. And now Cartumandua can’t buy a new vase, because nobody makes them anymore, and money is useless anyhow …”

“It was all a dream,” he said softly. “A dream that lasted a thousand years. The money, the towns, everything. And when people stopped believing in the dream, it disappeared. Just like that.”

“But they will believe again.”

He snorted, and she could feel his hot breath on her neck. “Not here they won’t. Here they are pursuing a different dream, of a man on a cross, a martyr’s grave at the top of the hill.”

“No, you’re wrong. When things get back to normal—”

He leaned over her; his eyes were black pits, unreadable, deep, and welcoming. “Elsewhere the dream goes on.”

“Where?”

“In the south and the east. Around the coasts of the central sea, in Barcino and Ravenna and Constantinople, even Rome itself … There are still towns and villas. There are still parties, and wine, and perfumes, and people dancing. That’s where I’m going.” He leaned closer. “Come with me, Regina.” His hand moved beneath her tunic, and caressed her thigh.

Her blood was surging; his every touch was like fire. “I thought you didn’t like me,” she whispered. “I knew how you looked at me when I first arrived. But you never touched me. And then you went away.”

“Ah, Regina — would I pluck an apple before it is ripe? But—”

“What is it?”

“There has been nobody else?”

“No,” she said, averting her face. “Nobody else, dear Amator.”

He took her chin and made her face him. “Come with me, then, little Regina, little chicken. Come to Rome. There we will dance for another thousand years …” His face descended toward hers, and she felt his tongue probe at her lips. She opened her mouth, and he flowed into her, like hot metal.

At first there was pain, sharp and deep, but that soon transmuted to pleasure.

Amator rolled away from her, turning his head. She felt oddly cold, and reached for him. He came back, and filled her cup with wine.

After that, her thoughts became fragmentary.

There were only bits of clarity, scattered like the tesserae of the smashed mosaic. The sharpness of the pain of the rubble that dug in her back when he lay on her. The sense of bruising in her legs and belly as he thrust. A glimpse of Athaulf standing on the broken walls with his tunic raised, pissing noisily on the ground beyond, while the girl Curatia massaged his legs and bare buttocks.

And then the last time, a different weight, a different scent, a different sensation between her slippery thighs. When he pulled away, belching, not looking at her, this time it was not Amator but Athaulf. But she felt too broken, too disconnected to grasp at that thought.

The last memory of all was of a painful stagger through the streets of Verulamium, where with every pace she seemed to trip over some bit of rubble, her arm draped over Curatia, for Amator and Athaulf had gone.

After that it seemed just a moment before she woke in her bed — and was immediately assailed by the stink of vomit — but Marina was here, wiping at her brow, while Cartumandua’s face hovered beyond like a concerned, disapproving moon. Her head throbbed, her throat was sore with vomiting, her belly was filled with an empty ache, and between her legs was what felt like a single great bruise that spanned from one thigh to the other.

That first day she stayed in the dark, sipping the soup and water Marina brought her. Amator didn’t call for her, to take her to Rome.

The second day she got up and dressed. She felt a lot better, save for a lingering sickness at the base of her stomach — and a sharp pain between her legs, a pain she clung to, trying to keep her memories of Amator strong, despite that disturbing final image of Athaulf.

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 chores, 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 the matres 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 goddesses 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 the matres 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.