Rome Burning

Book 0: Romanitas

by Sophia McDougall

Genres: General Fiction; Literary Fiction

Synopsis

In a parallel modern world, Rome and Japan stand on the brink of world war. When the Emperor falls ill, his young nephew Marcus Novius Caesar finds himself taking command of the greatest power on Earth. But behind the clash of empires, hidden forces are at work. For Marcus and his allies the price of peace will be higher than they dreamed. "A thoroughly good read...vividly imagined...elegant, lively writing" - SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

Release date: May 19, 2011

Publisher: Gollancz

Print pages: 599

Sample

(All characters named in the text. All dates are in A.U.C – e.g, 2757 = 2004 AD.)

A

ACCHAN A slave in the palace longdictor exchange.


‘AMARYLLIS’ A name for a slave-girl owned by DRUSUS.


ANANIAS A slave.


ANNA A slave.


AOI A senior concubine at the Nionian court.


ATRONIUS A slave supervisor at Veii Imperial Arms factory, formerly a vigile officer.


AULUS A doctor working at the slave clinic in Transtiberina.


B

BARO A slave.


BUPE A slave from Veii Imperial Arms factory.


C

CLEOMENES A vigile commander.


CLODIA AURELIA Mother of MARCUS, wife of LEO, supporter of the abolition of slavery. Murdered in 2757 along with her husband.


COSMAS A slave.


D

DAMA A slave, crucified for murder in 2753, but taken down from the cross alive by DELIR. Instrumental in establishing the slave-refuge in the Pyrenees. Involved in the rescue of MARCUS from the Galenian Sanctuary in 2757. Unaccounted for since.


DELIR A former merchant from Persia, subsequently a fugitive. Established a slave refuge camp in the Holzarta gorge in the Pyrenees,
after rescuing the slave DAMA from crucifixion. Roman citizenship revoked.


DRUSILLA TERENTIA Divorced wife of LUCIUS, mother of DRUSUS.

DRUSUS see NOVII.

E

EDDA A slave owned by EPIMACHUS.


EPIMACHUS Divorced husband of TANCORIX, living in Novomagius, Germany.


ERASTUS A slave.


EUDOXIUS A Senator.


F

FALX A Roman intelligence specialist on Nionia.


FAUSTUS See NOVII.


FENIUS A member of the Praetorian Guard.


FLORENS See SING-JI

G

GABINIUS A construction magnate, involved in the pro-slavery conspiracy that killed LEO, CLODIA and GEMELLA. Illegally detained VARIUS at his house for some weeks after the disappearance of MARCUS. Killed attempting to flee by boat in 2757.


GALLA A gladiatrix in the same troop as ZIYE.


GEMELLA Wife of VARIUS, poisoned in mistake for MARCUS by TULLIOLA in 2757.


GENG A peasant farmer in the Jiangsu region of Sina. Son of MRS SU.

GLYCON Faustus’ cubicularius, or private secretary.


GO-NATOKU Regnal name of the current Nionian Emperor.


H

HELENA A fugitive slave, formerly resident at the Holzarta refuge camp


HUANG A trader exporting Sinoan slaves into the Roman Empire.


HYPATIA A friend of MAKARIA living on Siphnos.


J

JUN SHEN also (to the Romans) JUNOSENA Dowager Empress of Sina.


K

KATO-NO-MASARU also (to the Romans) MASARUS CATO Lord of Tokogane.


KIYOWARA-NO-SANETOMO Lord of Goshu.


L

LAL Daughter of DELIR, also a fugitive. Roman citizenship revoked.


LAUREUS A young Roman aristocrat.


LEO See NOVII.

LIUYIN Son of an official, living in Jiangning.


LUCIUS See NOVII.

M

MAECILII, THE A Senatorial family.


MAKARIA See NOVII.

MARCUS See NOVII.

MARINUS A fugitive slave, formerly resident at the Holzarta refuge camp.


MATHO A fugitive Roman slave, working as a shopkeeper in Jiangning.


MAZATL?

MEI Purchased as a child along with ZIYE by HUANG.

MIMANA-NO-FUSAHIRA Lord of Corea.


MIZUKI A lady-in-waiting at the Nionian court.


MOULI A contact of DELIR living in a village near Wuhu, has assisted fugitive Roman slaves travelling through Sina in the past.


N

NORIKO?


NOVII, THE The Roman Imperial family.


NOVIA FAUSTINA, nicknamed MAKARIA – only child of FAUSTUS.

DRUSUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS Son of LUCIUS and DRUSILLA TERENTIA, cousin of MAKARIA and MARCUS.

LUCIUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS Brother of FAUSTUS and LEO, father of DRUSUS, uncle of MARCUS and MAKARIA. Suffers from the ‘Novian curse’ – excluded from succession.


MARCUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS LEO Son of LEO and CLODIA, nephew of FAUSTUS and LUCIUS, cousin of MAKARIA and DRUSUS. Heir apparent to the Roman throne.


OPPIUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS The first member of the NOVII to become Emperor in 2509.


TERTIUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS LEO Youngest brother of FAUSTUS and LUCIUS, father of MARCUS. Heir presumptive to the Roman throne, supporter of the abolition of slavery, murdered along with his wife CLODIA AURELIA in 2757.


TITUS NOVIUS FAUSTUS AUGUSTUS Emperor of Rome.


O

OCTAVIA A divorcée living in the same block of flats as VARIUS.


OPPIUS See NOVII.

P

PACCIA A slave.


PROBUS A Senator acting as minister for Terranova.


PROCULUS Manager of Veii Imperial Arms Factory.


Q

QUENTIN, MEMMIUS, an advisor to Faustus.


R

RONG Purchased as a child along with ZIYE by HUANG.

S

SAKURA A lady-in-waiting at the Nionian court.


SALVIUS General of the Legions of the Roman Empire.


SIBYL, THE The Pythia at Delphi.


SING-JI The Sinoan Emperor, son of the Dowager Empress JUN SHEN. Also (to the Romans) FLORENS. [, in Pinyin: Xing Zhi?


SOHAKU A retainer to KATO-NO-MASARU.

SU, MRS. A peasant farmer, mother of GENG.

SULIEN Brother of UNA. A former slave with strange abilities born in London. Sentenced to crucifixion for rape in 2757, but rescued by Una and later exonerated by the testimony of TANCORIX.

T

TADAHITO also (to the Romans) TADASIUS The Nionian Crown Prince, eldest son of the GO-NATOKU EMPEROR.


TAIRA A Nionian Lord.


TANCORIX The daughter of the London family that owned SULIEN. Formerly married to EPIMACHUS, disgraced by admission of an affair with a slave. Now living as a singer in Rome.


TIRO A fugitive slave, formerly resident at the Holzarta refuge camp.


TOMOE A lady-in-waiting at the Nionian court.


TULLIOLA (TULLIA MARCIANA) Former wife of FAUSTUS. Arrested for involvement in the pro-slavery conspiracy that killed LEO, CLODIA and GEMELLA. Died in custody, apparently by suicide, in 2757.


U

ULPIA Nurse to LUCIUS.


UNA Sister of SULIEN. A former slave with strange abilities born in London.


V

VARIUS, CAIUS Director of a free clinic for slaves in Transtiberine Rome. Former private secretary to LEO, widower of GEMELLA. Charged with murder and treason in 2757, but later exonerated.


W

WEIGI An interpreter at the Sinoan court.


X

XANTHE Daughter of TANCORIX.


Y

YANISEN, MARCUS VESNIUS Head Governor of Terranova.


Z

ZIYE A former gladiatrix of Sinoan origin. Escaped to the Holzarta refuge camp in 2754, now a fugitive.


She had barely slept. The single damp sheet that lay over her was smothering, a heavy pelt, but when she pushed it off she
felt exposed, a little panting grey animal, curled up in the heat. The windows were all open, but when the air moved it made
no difference, it was like moist wool brushing over her. Summers had not always been like this, had they? She thought she
could feel the bricks of the house, the trees outside and the miles of dry ground, hurt with heat, straining and creaking.


But after all she must have been more than half-asleep, for she was very late noticing the sound, or the scent.

She thought that perhaps something had moved in the corner of the room, near the door: an animal, or a person. She blinked
heavily and pressed her cheek to the pillow, not afraid; it did not really occur to her to believe there was anything there.
She lay, possibly asleep, eyes open or shut, she could not tell. The heat puffed and crept.


Then again she had the impression of motion, in the air above her this time – a dark ripple – and she smelt it now.

She sat up, and the gasp she made brought the bitterness in the air far more sharply into her throat. She had seen smoke moving,
and there were flames like small creatures skittering on the floor.


She ran shuffling across the room. The door led into her sitting room, the stairs down into the rest of the house were beyond
it. The little flames by the door were not, in themselves, terrifying, but when she pushed the door open, the room was bright
with yellow fire, and a thick hovering flood of hot gas and dust struck her face.


She choked and cried out, backing away into the bedroom. She groped towards the window, at first only for the air that now seemed clean and cool. Then she looked down and saw the
thick red flames, gushing like a liquid, like blood, upwards out of the lower windows. Her brother and sister-in-law, and
their children – they were out, weren’t they? She could see dim figures in the garden, but there was no light except that
of the fire.


She could not climb down or jump. Her rooms were on the third floor, out of the family’s way. She had not meant to end up
surviving on goodwill like this, but she’d always lived in this house, and now, even as she leant out, calling for help, she
wanted to weep with grief for it, for the things, furniture her parents had bought, pictures—


A rich fountain of black smoke, fast and bloated, rolled up to her window from below and forced her back into her bedroom.

The vigiles, surely, must be nearly here.

She stood for a moment, coughing, clasping her hands near her face, and then plunged through the burning doorway into the
other room. Down near the floor there was still some air, though her palms and knees were seared at once. She crawled into
the cavern of heat, whimpering with pain and horror, and at the sight of her possessions blazing – hidden in the drawers of
the burning writing-desk – her bundles of letters. Some of them thirty years old, some of them she could almost never bear to read over, but they were terribly important,
necessary.


She could not understand how the familiarity of the room’s shape could be burning away with everything else, how hard it was
even to remember the way to the door, but she saw in despair that even if she reached it, it would be no good; of course the
stairs would be impassable with flame. And she could not breathe; the fire encroached towards her from all sides, it steered
her, so that she had to scramble backwards again, and could barely make it into the bedroom once more, in pain, her hair already
singed and eaten to rags by the fire.


But this room too was soaking with heat and poison; she could not even try to get near the window again: the curtains were
moving murderously and dropping away in flakes as they burned. Flame was beginning to pool on the ceiling.


‘If there is ever a fire, don’t hide, children die in fires because they hide from them.’ Her parents had told her this. She
crept under her bed. It was decades since she had been a child, and there was nowhere else to go. She lay there on her stomach
and saw the carpet steam or smoke. She could feel that she would probably lose consciousness soon, and was afraid that even
if the vigiles came in now they wouldn’t find her; they wouldn’t know she was there.


But nothing was ever found of her. She was dead before the orange flame burst from the floor, from the bed, before the roof
fell through, crushing the shell of her body into black crumbs of bone that later could not be told from those of the slaves,
or even, at first, from the scorched chips of plaster and wood.


The heat exhausted Faustus, heaped viscously over his body, gripped his head, a bottling, fermenting feeling. It was hard
to think clearly, but the month’s meetings kept multiplying, swelling: there were forest fires, more this year and worse than
any he could remember, huge red flotillas, crescent-shaped on Terranova, advancing on tall sails of smoke towards the cities
on the west coast. And also in Gaul, and even in Italy itself, to the north. And Nionia – how serious the threat was, how
fast it was growing – just for an hour he should be allowed to forget it all. But he could not, and at nights he could not
sleep.


His eyes pulsed redly against his shut lids.

The woman trying to rub the ache out of his shoulders was young, with long dark hair which sometimes he felt whisk against
his skin. Not really like Tulliola, except in that. A slight pleasure glowed in his scalp as her fingers moved up into his
hair, but the tiredness had only retreated from her a little, she could not do more than touch the surface of it.


He felt a very faint, very perfunctory excitement, mingled with a stronger boredom at the knowledge that, if he wanted, he
could turn over, reach for her. He was the Emperor, she would have to …


But he did not want to. Because of Tulliola, and because he was so tired.

There was a slight noise, a tap, a warning, recognisable clearing of the throat at the door to which Faustus uttered a vague
grunt of mingled assent and protest, knowing at once that it was Glycon, his cubicularius or private secretary. The girl draped
a towel over him, and he raised himself, embarrassed, not by his nakedness, but by the slowness with which he did it, the little groan that escaped him, a creaking
‘mmm …’ His eyes were still shut.


‘Sir.’

Faustus opened his eyes, knowing the tone of voice. He had of course heard it several times, but worst of all and most repeatedly
during the terrible summer and autumn of three years before, beginning with the news that his youngest brother was dead. Then
everything with his nephew Marcus, and finally that they had found Tulliola, dead under house arrest.


How should he think of Tulliola now? As little as possible, and not, if he could, as having been his wife. He was so ashamed
of her. He did not know why she had done such terrible things, and he never wanted to find out, and she had been so beautiful.
He was almost grateful to her for having killed herself. It was better than having to have her executed.


So, his first thought was that, again, he was going to hear that something had happened to one of his family. Marcus, who
was his heir now. Or even worse, his daughter Makaria – no, please, not her. Or it could be both of them, they were both in
Greece.


‘We need you downstairs,’ said Glycon. ‘There has been a massacre.’

Oh, thank goodness for that, thought Faustus, disgracefully, glad that no one would ever know. He sat up and punitive pain
flowed back into his head.


It eased off. ‘What do you mean by a massacre? How many people?’

He felt sorry for Glycon, knowing he would hate giving a straight answer. He saw Glycon flinch, resist the urge to dodge the
question altogether and settle on saying softly, ‘The lowest figure I’ve heard was a hundred, the highest was four hundred.
Yanisen can tell you more.’


‘This is on the Wall, then, of course?’ Yanisen was the Governor of Roman Terranova.

‘The Wall has been breached,’ said Glycon, just as gently.

Faustus felt a sharp twang of real shock for the first time. ‘The Wall has been breached? Are you telling me about an invasion?’


Again Glycon recoiled a little. ‘It’s a matter of the last few hours. It’s very unclear. I wouldn’t like to speculate. But
you will need the military options before you: I have General Salvius waiting with Probus, and Memmius Quentin, because obviously
the impact on the public will become important very soon.’


‘Good,’ said Faustus heavily. ‘You’d better get, ah …’ For an odd moment he could not get the name to form, either in his
brain or on his tongue. ‘Falx,’ he said finally. Falx was an intelligence specialist on Nionia.


‘He’s on his way.’

He walked with Glycon through the Palace. The massage seemed to have done no good at all. He was as sluggish as before. He
felt oily under his clothes.


‘We can talk to Nionia through Sina or our trade contacts,’ said Glycon. For eighteen months and more there had been, officially,
only bitter silence between Nionia and Rome. The last Nionian ambassadors had been spies, or at least, the danger that they
were spies had been too strong to take chances.


‘Sina,’ answered Faustus dully. The light through the gold-tinted glass hurt his eyes.

In the private office the doors were almost invisible when closed: carved leaves obscuring the edges, even the hinges and
little handles concealed among the unbroken ivy and clematis painted in fresco round the walls, so that once inside you seemed
to be within a large, cool, motionless garden, beautiful, with no way out. But there was a bright flat aperture now in the
green wall opposite Faustus’ desk, where the shutters that covered the longvision were folded back, displaying Yanisen.


Yanisen was Navaho, but looked – was – as essentially Roman as the men in the room: dressed in crisp white, his stiff, lead-coloured
hair cut short and square above his elegant long face. Terranova was one of the few regions left in the Empire where languages
other than Latin still had much currency, but the Governor’s full name was Marcus Vesnius Yanisen, and he would probably have
dropped or altered even the Navaho cognomen, if it had not run easily enough off tongues used only to Latin.


He and Probus should have been preparing what they would say to Faustus; instead they were in passionate argument: ‘If you
had given me the resources—’


‘Do you – think – this is – an appropriate time – to be scoring points?’ said Probus, in a series of low, dry, furious gulps.


‘I think it’s a time to remember that I’ve been warning about this for years!’

‘Yes, we are all very aware of that, you’ve spent less time …’ he swallowed again, ‘actually doing anything about it.’


Probus was thirty-six, a short but upright man with dark hair and a square face. He was precociously high-ranking, the youngest
person in the room, and the most afraid for himself – for it was true Yanisen had often complained to him, as the tension
on the Wall grew and the skirmishes got worse. It was also true that Salvius and Faustus himself were just as responsible
for refusing Yanisen everything he had wanted, but Probus must know he would be the easiest to blame, if it came to that.


Yanisen opened his mouth, incensed, but cut himself short, seeing Probus react as Faustus entered. The appalled, argumentative
look of them brought the ache and the weariness to a peak again in Faustus. The lovely green room felt inexplicably stuffy.


Salvius made him tired too; he was sitting on one of the green couches, scowling at the argument but taking no part in it.
He sprang up to greet Faustus with the energy of a charge going off. He was white-haired, but the hair was still thick, and
combed to a snowy gloss, and he was as muscular and handsome as he had been at twenty-five. Leo, Faustus’ dead brother, had
been similarly careful of his appearance, and yet Faustus did not believe Salvius was really vain at all, as Leo certainly
had been. Salvius had simply realised at some stage that to look this way helped him extract respect. He certainly had none
of Leo’s loucheness – he seemed to have been happily faithful to his wife for thirty years. Oddly, even though politically
they must have violently disapproved of each other, Leo and Salvius had got on quite well, out of military fellow-feeling, and the conscious shared possession of a certain kind of strength.


Salvius bowed. Faustus took his hand, and felt that though it gripped firmly on his own, it trembled too, but not with fear
like Probus’. Faustus looked into Salvius’ face and saw the spontaneous, wounded outrage there, and was surprised. Again he
felt rather ashamed of himself; he just did not feel as if he personally had been attacked, when presumably of all people
he ought to.


Salvius burst out, ‘That’s the last shred of Mixigana gone, Your Majesty, and frankly it’s been a farce for years anyway:
we’ve got no choice but to show we won’t tolerate this.’ Mixigana was the peace treaty that had established the Roman–Nionian
border more than three hundred years before.


‘That’s probably the best way to let this out, it makes it clear you’re still in control,’ agreed Quentin, although Salvius
did not seem to relish the advisor’s support and glanced at him with minor distaste. Quentin was in his forties but plumply
boyish-looking, round-faced, with smooth chestnut hair. He did not look particularly shocked by what had happened.


‘Quiet,’ said Faustus. ‘You may think you know what this is all about, but I don’t. Yanisen?’ It was principally for Salvius’
benefit that he tried to sound forceful, pulled his protesting body up as straight as he could. You’ve got to watch people
like that, he felt, deeply and instinctively. The Novii might have ruled in Rome for two hundred years now, but it would never
be long enough to be completely certain they were safe; not for any Emperor.


Salvius looked at him broodingly, and he and Quentin subsided. Probus stood and clenched his teeth.

Yanisen nodded. ‘Sir. Our troops came under the kind of attack they’ve experienced many times, especially in the last four
years.’


Probus grimaced, longing to interrupt.

‘Where?’ said Faustus.

‘This was in – that is, it began near Vinciana.’

‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘No, there’s no reason you would have done. But it’s in Arcansa, very near the Wall, close to where it intersects the Emissourita. Of course, our troops retaliated. I think we lost
four or five men at this point, sir. You must understand that with all of this – because of the way things escalated, it’s
hard to be precise. A detail in armoured vehicles advanced a little way into Nionian territory to disperse the enemy. It appeared
they had done so successfully. But on the return they were attacked again. Sir, the Nionians must have reinforced at some
point in the last month; it was much more sustained, the numbers were such that the Roman soldiers were all but wiped out.
We haven’t been able to recover the bodies.’


‘But that can’t have been a hundred people?’ asked Faustus.

‘No. The Nionians pursued the remnants back. And this is when they fired explosives at the Wall itself. Of course, by this
time our surviving troops had called for support, but it didn’t come in time, there was no way they could hold the breach.
The fighting spilled into Vinciana. And then, I think they – the Nionians – must have begun simply killing people indiscriminately.’


Faustus exhaled heavily; he hadn’t realised so many of the deaths were civilian. He understood Salvius’ indignation better
now, but he still couldn’t share it, not really; he felt more depressed than anything.


‘But they were driven back or killed after that? They’re not still there?’

‘No. The back-up from the next fort arrived; it doesn’t seem there’s been any more gunfire.’

‘And the breach itself?’

‘They’ve got it contained for the moment.’

‘But how big is it? What does the town look like now?’ ‘Well, it’s – the damage must be – I’m not there.’

‘Then go there. But first find me someone who’s there already. And decent pictures. And some idea of where these numbers are
coming from.’


‘Very well,’ said Yanisen, his voice strained. Then, seemingly trying in vain to stop himself, he continued through his teeth.
‘The town is still vulnerable, of course, and will continue to be. I am sorry, Your Majesty, I feel I have to say, this could have been prevented—’


‘Yes, you could have prevented it,’ exclaimed Probus savagely. ‘Don’t you try and lay the blame here because we weren’t prepared to
throw good money after bad.’


‘Stop,’ barked Faustus, acting fury easily enough; after all these years he could produce the right voice and expression on
demand. ‘You can continue this in person. Probus, you should be out there too.’ Probus nodded shakily, but Faustus added,
‘Now, go now,’ and felt – vague as his desire for the girl in the bath-suite – a pang of pleasure at being able to flick Probus
across the globe. Infantile, really. Probus left, still swallowing dryly; Faustus thought, with mingled scorn and pity, that
he might even burst into tears.


He gestured at the screen and a slave turned it off. An aide had entered and whispered something to Glycon.

‘What are we hearing from Cynoto?’ Faustus asked.

Glycon looked disconsolate. He was training a quietly tormented, imploring expression on a cherry tree painted on the wall,
and he had to lower his hand from his mouth to speak; unconsciously, he’d been biting the flesh of his index finger. ‘It’s
taking time,’ he replied.


‘They’re not refusing to speak to us?’

‘No. Possibly keeping us waiting to make a point.’ He slipped out of the room.

Faustus and Salvius exchanged a silent look now, not quite of guilt, but both were aware that for years they had considered
quietly, why lavish money on the Wall when a war with Nionia might be coming, after which the Wall would be pointless? Yanisen
must have known as much.


‘All right, now you can talk.’

‘We have almost the numbers on the Wall to head north already; we can reinforce them within weeks. I don’t believe it would
take more than four months to take control of the territory.’


Faustus nodded. Glycon re-entered to interject. ‘Falx is here.’

‘In a minute. But could we keep the war contained in Terranova?’

‘Obviously we would attack Cynoto from the air at the same time,’ said Salvius.


‘And their bases in Edo?’

‘It goes without saying.’

Faustus nodded again, but he looked at Quentin. ‘Are you sure this looks like being in control? Because you could equally
well say the opposite.’


‘Well,’ said Quentin, ‘people will want to feel something is being done.’


‘But – not to belittle what’s happened today – we don’t need to overstress it to the public, do we? People are used to hearing
about skirmishes.’


Quentin looked thoughtful. ‘It’s true that it’s a long way away for most people. But it’s not as easy to keep things quiet
these days; and even if we were successful, they might then find it harder to accept if you did decide war was necessary.’


Salvius by this time was looking overtly disgusted. ‘What?’ demanded Faustus loudly, finding with some surprise that he was contemplating Salvius almost with hatred. Oh, you think
you’d do so much better, he thought sourly.


Salvius hesitated, bristling warily. ‘I suppose it seems like a question of right or wrong to me. A question of the interests
of Rome, at the least. I’m a little surprised it’s being considered in these terms.’


‘We’re considering everything, I hope,’ Faustus snarled.

‘Of course,’ said Salvius, trying to sound dispassionate.

Faustus wanted Salvius out of the room so he could release his body from the straight posture he’d hauled it into, knead his
face with hands. He said, ‘You talk with Falx. Come back and tell me what we can expect from the Nionians, and what we need to do to be ready.’


Salvius was even a little appeased by this. When he and Quentin were gone, Faustus let himself sag, as he’d wanted to. He
rubbed at the back of his neck and head, trying to mimic what the girl had been doing, but holding his arm aloft like that
only seemed to make the muscles stiffen even more painfully and he let it drop.


He noticed Glycon, who had retreated diffidently into a chair at the edge of the room. As the conversation had gone on, he had wound himself by subtle degrees into a position that looked agonising: his legs twisted round each other, his shoulders
skewed, his hands up to his face with the interlaced and steepled fingers spikily protecting the lower half of his nose, his
thumbs under his chin, jutting into his neck. He might be unaware he was doing it, but Faustus was sure Glycon wanted him
to say, as he did now, ‘You’re looking very gloomy.’


Glycon separated his hands to hold them splayed in midair. ‘Of course,’ he murmured. ‘The situation …’

‘No, don’t give me that,’ said Faustus, tersely gentle. He dragged a chair into place to sit opposite Glycon.

Glycon unknotted himself fully, sighing. ‘I think the general reaches decisions so fast,’ he confessed. ‘I think it … it’s
possible he underestimates the cost – financially, apart from anything else. And in – destruction.’


This was an unusually strong word for Glycon: having said it he blinked and made a mute gesture, as if to rub it out of the
air.


‘Of course, he may