INSURRECTIO Read online

  INSURRECTIO

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  What if Julius Caesar had taken notice of the warning that assassins wanted to murder him on the ides of March? Suppose Elizabeth I had married and had children? If plague hadn’t rampaged through Europe in the fourteenth century? Or if Christianity had remained a Middle Eastern minor cult, or Napoleon had won at Waterloo? If we dive into an alternative timeline where history took a different turn, who knows what might have happened?

  INSURRECTIO goes back to the early 1980s in an alternative Europe where the small but tough country of Roma Nova has survived since the break-up of the Roman Empire. But these are the dark days of the beginning of the Great Rebellion when the very existence of Roma Nova is threatened by a charismatic tyrant.

  While the whole idea of a society with Roman values surviving fifteen centuries is intriguing, I have dropped background history about Roma Nova into the novel only where it impacts on the story. Nobody likes a straight history lesson in the middle of a thriller! But if you are interested in finding out more about the mysterious Roma Nova, read on…

  What happened in our timeline

  Of course, our timeline may turn out to be somebody else’s alternative one as shown in Philip K. Dick’s The Grasshopper Lies Heavy, the story within the story in The Man in the High Castle. Nothing is fixed. But for the sake of convenience I will take ours as the default.

  The Western Roman Empire didn’t ‘fall’ in a cataclysmic event as often portrayed in film and television; it localised and eventually dissolved like chain mail fragmenting into separate links, giving way to rump provinces, local city states and petty kingdoms. The Eastern Roman Empire survived until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453 to the Muslim Ottoman Empire.

  Some scholars think that Christianity fatally weakened the traditional Roman way of life and was a significant factor in the collapse. Emperor Constantine’s personal conversion to Christianity in AD 313 was a turning point for the new religion. By late AD 394, his several times successor, Theodosius, had banned all traditional Roman religious practice, closed and destroyed temples and dismissed all priests. The sacred flame that had burned for over a thousand years in the College of Vestals was extinguished and the Vestal Virgins expelled. The Altar of Victory, said to guard the fortune of Rome, was hauled away from the Senate building and disappeared from history. The Roman senatorial families pleaded for religious tolerance, but Theodosius made any pagan practice, even dropping a pinch of incense on a family altar in a private home, into a capital offence. And his ‘religious police’, driven by the austere and ambitious bishop Ambrosius of Milan, became increasingly active in pursuing pagans.

  The alternate Roma Nova timeline

  In AD 395, three months after Theodosius’s final decree banning all pagan religious activity, over four hundred Romans loyal to the old gods, and so in danger of execution, trekked north out of Italy to a semi-mountainous area similar to modern Slovenia. Led by Senator Apulius at the head of twelve prominent families, they established a colony based initially on land owned by Apulius’s Celtic father-in-law. By purchase, alliance and conquest, this grew into Roma Nova.

  Norman Davies in Vanished Kingdoms: The History of Half-Forgotten Europe reminds us that:

  …in order to survive, newborn states need to possess a set of viable internal organs, including a functioning executive, a defence force, a revenue system and a diplomatic force. If they possess none of these things, they lack the means to sustain an autonomous existence and they perish before they can breathe and flourish.

  I would add history, willpower and adaptability as essential factors. Roma Nova survived by changing its social structure; as men constantly fought to defend the new colony, women took over the social, political and economic roles, weaving new power and influence networks based on family structures. Eventually, given the unstable, dangerous times in Roma Nova’s first few hundred years, daughters as well as sons had to put on armour and carry weapons to defend their homeland and their way of life. Fighting danger side by side with brothers and fathers reinforced women’s roles and status.

  The Roma Novans never allowed the incursion of monotheistic, paternalistic religions. Service to the state was valued higher than personal advantage, echoing Roman Republican virtues, and the women heading the families guarded and enhanced these values to provide a core philosophy throughout the centuries. Inheritance passed from these powerful women to their daughters and granddaughters.

  Roma Nova’s continued existence has been favoured by three factors: the discovery and exploitation of high-grade silver in their mountains, their efficient technology, and their robust response to any threat. Remembering their Byzantine cousins’ defeat in the Fall of Constantinople, Roma Novan troops assisted the western nations at the Battle of Vienna in 1683 to halt the Ottoman advance into Europe. Nearly two hundred years later, they used their diplomatic skills to help forge an alliance to push Napoleon IV back across the Rhine as he attempted to expand his grandfather’s empire.

  Prioritising survival, Roma Nova remained neutral in the Great War of the twentieth century which lasted from 1925 to 1935. The Greater German Empire was broken up afterwards into its former small kingdoms, duchies and counties; some became republics.

  Despite the legal reforms in the mid 1700s, there was little fundamental change in Roma Nova’s governance. Until the late 1970s, tough female rulers drawing on centuries of experience had provided active, solid if traditional leadership. But a weak imperatrix without vision or desire for change opened up the opportunity for a power hungry charismatic leader and his populist, brutal nationalist movement in the early 1980s. INSURRECTIO is the story of that crisis and the parts played by Aurelia Mitela and her nemesis, Caius Tellus.

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Mitela family

  Aurelia MitelaGovernment minister and imperial councillor, head of the Mitela family

  Marina Mitela Aurelia’s daughter

  Miklós Farkas Aurelia’s companion

  Household

  MiloComptroller/steward of Domus Mitelarum

  CallixtusHead of security

  Tella family

  Domitia Tella Head of the Tella family

  Caius TellusDomitia’s great-nephew

  Quintus Tellus Domitia’s great-nephew, brother of Caius

  Constantia TellaDomitia’s granddaughter

  Conradus TellusConstantia’s young son with Richard Berger

  Richard Berger Constantia’s companion

  Military

  VoluseniaColonel, Praetorian Guard Special Forces

  FabiaMajor, PGSF

  NumerusEx-senior centurion, PGSF

  Pia CalaviaLieutenant, PGSF

  AtriusGuard, PGSF

  Palace

  Severina Apulia Imperatrix

  Silvia ApuliaSeverina’s daughter

  Julianus Apulius‘Julian’, Severina’s son

  Fabianus Apulius (ex Mitelus)Severina’s husband, father of Silvia and Julian

  DrusillaHousekeeper

  Government

  Tertullius PlicoSenior imperial secretary, External Security Affairs

  Claudia Cornelia Aurelia’s assistant

  Quirinia Budget minister and Aurelia’s friend

  Castra Lucilla (Mitela home farm)

  Priscilla Farm manager

  GavinusTechnical manager

  SentiaFarmworker

  AlbinaFarmworker

  Other

  William Brown EUS defence electronics contractor

  Senator Calavia Pia’s grandmother

  Paula Atria Atrius’s si
ster

  Phobius Caius Tellus’s henchman

  PART I: AURELIA

  I

  Early 1980s Roma Nova

  ‘Anything else, Claudia?’

  At my office in the Foreign Ministry, I’d just finished a briefing meeting for our new nuncia appointed to head up the Roma Nova legation in Louisiane. She’d returned the previous day from an intensive refresher course in New World French. Her success as political officer in Québec three years ago made her ideal for this promotion. I’d handed her the letters patent to present to the gouverneur général, wished her luck and shaken her hand. Claudia Cornelia, my assistant, escorted her out while I took a few moments. It was past seven-thirty and thank the gods, my last meeting. I’d flown back from Berlin early this morning; now I had a headache and wanted to go home.

  Claudia diverted to the side table and poured me a glass of water. Shorter than me, a graceful figure in a navy suit, her serious dark brown eyes and tightly drawn back hair gave her an air of maturity. She was only twenty-one but she’d achieved two promotions since starting with the foreign service at eighteen. And now she was an assistant minister’s assistant.

  ‘Nothing scheduled, consiliaria, but Tertullius Plico is waiting in the side room.’

  I’d only seen Plico four days ago for our regular fortnightly briefing. What could he want so urgently that he’d come to see me at this time of night?

  I swallowed some water to relieve my parched throat. The only things disrupting the surface at the moment were minor trade disputes, diplomatic mumblings which were more about hurt feelings and ego than anything else, and the failed attempt by an overseas corporation to bribe one of my ministerial colleagues. All were relatively low-key and being handled by more junior functionaries; none fell within the remit of head of the intelligence service.

  On my nod, Claudia opened the door to usher Plico in. His plain face had fleshed out in the thirteen years since I’d first met him; jowls now disguised what had been an angular jawline. His hair was greyer, but it emphasised his deep brown eyes. I knew how he worked from when he’d been my supervisor. I might have shot up the promotion scale to assistant foreign minister, and he might now be a senior secretary, but he remained the same crafty bastard running foreign intelligence as he had been all those years ago.

  ‘Assistant Minister.’ He held out his hand as he advanced across the room.

  ‘Cut it, Plico, it’s just us.’ I shook his hand.

  ‘Humph. Well, at least you haven’t gone all high and mighty on me like some people.’ He sat down without invitation and pulled a folder out of his briefcase – a red one.

  Hades.

  Red files usually contained a maximum of half a dozen sheets, often only one. Each sheet had a unique log number. The penalty for copying anything from a red file was a minimum of two years’ imprisonment.

  ‘I thought long and hard about showing you this,’ he said, ‘but it does affect you directly. I’ll sit here while you read it,’ he prompted. Not a sign of any emotion on his face. He crossed his pinstripe-suited legs, unbuttoned his creased suit jacket and waited.

  I didn’t want to open it, although I’d handled two similar cases over the past five years. It always meant deep trouble. But Plico wouldn’t have brought it to me without cause, so I took a long breath, and flipped open the cover.

  Two sheets of double-spaced typescript on the right-hand side and a photocopied form in Germanic were held at the top left corner by a stationery tag with a page at the left containing a scrawled note with yesterday’s date. Unusual that it had been originated on a Sunday. More unusual that it was signed ‘Severina Apulia Imperatrix’. I was cleared to red level, so that wasn’t the problem. I froze when I read the name typed above the first line.

  Just over twenty minutes later, I set the file back on the table and breathed out. The three sheets of paper, so pristine with the neat black typing, looked innocent but the memory of my desperate escape from being terminated that evening thirteen years ago in Berlin slammed into my mind. Even now I could recall the pain shooting through my bleeding and broken foot as I hobbled away, attempting to run from two killers. I smelt the stale prison air again, the despair of the courtroom where I was being framed for murder and the fear of losing my daughter’s childhood. A sour taste rose up through my throat; it was all because of the man whose name was on this file. I swallowed hard.

  ‘See what I mean?’ Plico interrupted.

  ‘I thought the Prussians weren’t due to let Caius Tellus out of prison for another two years,’ I said, pulling my wits out of my emotions. ‘But according to this file he’s out in two weeks. Why?’

  ‘Apparently, he’s been a model prisoner.’

  ‘He would be.’ I snorted. ‘I never understood why the sentence wasn’t longer. Here, he’d be in Truscium for twenty-five years – if he survived that long.’

  ‘Bit too soft, the Prussians,’ Plico said. ‘They’re into rehabilitation and re-education up there. They say Caius is quite the reformed character; their psychologist reports conclude he’s genuinely contrite about killing Grosschenk and trying to frame you for it. He’s followed several educational and self-development courses.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘This stinks. In my bones, I know he’s a danger, but we have nothing here to put him away for – not even his part in the silver smuggling.’

  ‘Why can’t you arrest him for that?’

  ‘We’ll detain him, of course. He’s being deported from Prussia, so that’s automatic. The accusatrix’s department is not optimistic. There’s a strong case that he’s already served his sentence for it. After all, the Prussian sentence for smuggling ran alongside the murder one.’

  ‘Surely that doesn’t count here?’

  ‘No, not strictly, but he’ll get some fancy lawyer to plead it out.’

  ‘Give me strength. You know something? We need some serious legal reform in this country.’ I flicked over to the second page. My fingers trembled, but it was anger now. ‘I accept the threat to me and my daughter is real. In a funny way, I’m pleased to have it recognised officially. But what can we do about it?’

  ‘That sharp lawyer, Galba, who defended you in Berlin, wrote a full report after the trial.’ A few flakes of dandruff were liberated as he scratched the top of his head. ‘She grumbled when I went to see her in her plush office the other day. I asked her to update the report and she gave me all kinds of reasons why she hadn’t got time – she’s such a big cheese in her law firm now – but she filed it a day before my deadline. Anyway, she recommends maximum protection to you and your property.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘I’ll talk to the Praetorian Guard legate and the local vigiles chief, but I can’t promise anything. I think the Praetorians will be better – they always look after their own.’

  I wasn’t sure of that. I was forty-three and I’d left the Guard when I was twenty-nine. Times had changed.

  Caius Tellus, safely contained for twelve years in a Prussian prison, was about to be set loose again. I’d never forget how he’d threatened to corrupt my daughter. Nor that he caused me to miscarry my second child. Caius had undermined me constantly when we were children, tried to seduce me when I was sixteen, and nearly succeeded in having me falsely imprisoned for murder in Prussia. I would never stop loathing him – we had too much history between us – but when I’d fought and defeated him in Berlin, I thought I’d overcome my fear of him. So why were my nerves jumping around? I stood and walked over to the coffee maker. Plico shook his head when I raised an empty mug in his direction. As the machine bubbled away, neither of us spoke.

  ‘Look, Plico,’ I said as I came back to my desk with a steaming mug, ‘I’m always driven about in a radio car and escorted everywhere on official business. This building is secure. We’ll take additional precautions at the house,’ I smoothed my skirt as I settled back behind my desk. ‘Marina has her compan
ion with her and is always chauffeured.’ My daughter hadn’t shown any interest in learning to drive herself – a blessing. ‘And Miklós is there with us – he’d need only the slimmest excuse to beat the living daylights out of Caius. Or go further.’ I picked up my silver fountain pen and twisted it between my fingers. ‘When Caius sees trying to touch us is too difficult, he’ll think again,’ I lied to both of us.

  ‘Are you being naive or just stupid?’

  ‘Neither, just objective.’

  ‘I know you have good security, but Caius Tellus is not an idiot. He got into your house twice when he was on the run. And not being rude, your companion tends to take off every now and again. I’ve seen the intelligence reports on him.’

  ‘Are you tracking Miklós?’

  ‘Not actively, but his name comes up now and again.’

  ‘Well, keep your nose out.’

  ‘Miklós Farkas has done nothing wrong as far as we’re concerned. As a Hungarian national, he has no obligations to Roma Nova and we have none to him. As far as I know, he’s broken none of our trading laws with his activities, so we’re not interested. However, the Prussians still want to talk to him about a few things.’ He glanced at me. ‘I’ve told them he’s off limits.’

  ‘Thank you so much.’ I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. Plico knew I would use every solidus I possessed and every drop of influence I could squeeze out from anybody to protect Miklós. We had been lovers – no, heart and soul companions – since I’d been on that mission in Berlin, but Miklós was a free spirit and became restless after a few months in one place. It pulled us both to pieces when he felt compelled to go wandering again, but he always came back to me.

  ‘Going back to Caius,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he did reform in prison.’ I hoped I didn’t sound desperate.

  Plico replied with a very rude word.

  A hard, dark silence hung between us. Plico was right, Jupiter blast him. I knew in my heart that Caius would be satisfied with nothing but my death and Marina’s destruction. He’d sworn to do it when I’d visited him in the maximum security prison in Prussia following his conviction. I trembled for my daughter, but I would not let him or his presence in Roma Nova pollute or constrain our lives.