silver, and it’s just been abandoned. Maybe we should bring the history prof down here. He’d have a ball.’
‘No.’ His voice came out sharper than he meant it to. ‘This is a private place. He doesn’t get to come here.’
Moriana glanced at him warily but made no comment as they left the side room they’d been exploring.
All doorways and arches led back to the main room. It was like a mini town square—or town circle. He looked up at the almost magical glass ceiling. ‘Maybe our forefathers studied the stars from here. Mapped them.’ Perhaps he could come back one night and do the same. And if he took another look at those naked people tiles in the room with the empty pool, so be it. Even future kings had to get their information from somewhere. ‘Maybe they hung a big telescope from the ropes up there and moved it around. Maybe if they climbed the stairs over there…’ He gestured towards the stairs that ran halfway up the wall and ended in a stone landing with not a railing in sight. ‘Maybe they had pulleys and ropes that shifted stuff. Maybe this was a place for astronomers.’
‘Augustus, that’s a circus trapeze.’
‘You think they kept a circus in here?’
‘I think this is a harem.’
So much for his innocent little sister not guessing what this place had once been. ‘I’m going up the stairs. Coming?’
Moriana followed him. She didn’t always agree with him but she could always be counted on to be there for him at the pointy end of things. It didn’t help that their mother praised Augustus to the skies for his sharp mind and impeccable self-control, and never failed to criticise Moriana’s emotional excesses. As far as Augustus could tell, he was just as fiery as his sister, maybe more so. He was just better at turning hot temper into icy, impenetrable regard.
A king must always put the needs of his people before his own desires.
His father’s words. Words to live by. Words to rule by.
A king must never lose control.
Words to be ruled by, whether he wanted to be ruled by them or not.
They made it to the ledge and he made his sister sit rather than stand. He sat too, his back to the wall as he looked up to the roof and then down at the intricately patterned marble floor.
‘I feel like a bird in a cage,’ said Moriana. ‘Wonder what the women who once lived here felt like?’
‘Sounds about right.’ He wasn’t a woman but he knew what being trapped by duty felt like.
‘We could practise our archery from up here.’ Moriana made fists out in front of her and drew back one arm as if pulling back an imaginary arrow. ‘Set up targets down below. Pfft. Practise our aim.’
‘Bloodthirsty. I like it.’ Bottled-up anger had to go somewhere. He could use this place at other times too. Get away from the eyes that watched and judged his every move. ‘Swear to me you won’t tell anyone that we’ve been here.’
‘I swear.’ Her eyes gleamed.
‘And that you won’t come here by yourself.’
‘Why not? You’re going to.’
Sometimes his sister was a mind-reader.
‘What are you going to do here all by yourself?’ she wanted to know.
Roar. Weep. Let everything out that he felt compelled to keep in. ‘Don’t you ever want to be some place where no one’s watching and judging your every move? Sit in the sun if you want to sit in the sun. Lose your temper and finally say all those things you want to say, even if no one’s listening. Especially because no one’s listening.’ Strip back the layers of caution and restraint he clothed himself in and see what was underneath. Even if it was all selfish and ugly and wrong. ‘I need somewhere to go where I’m free to be myself. This could be that place.’
His sister brought her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. The gaze she turned on him was troubled. ‘We shouldn’t have to hide our real selves from everyone, Augustus. I know we’re figureheads but surely we can let some people see what’s underneath.’
‘Yeah, well.’ He thought back to the hour-long lecture on selfishness he’d received for daring to tell his father that he didn’t want to attend yet another state funeral for a king he’d never met. ‘You’re not me.’
Sera
Sera wasn’t supposed to leave the house when her mother’s guest was visiting. Stay in the back room, keep quiet, don’t ever be seen. Those were the rules and seven-year-old Sera knew better than to break them. Three times a week, maybe four, the visitor would come to her mother’s front door and afterwards there might be food for the table and wine for her mother, although these days there was more wine and less food. Her mother was sick and the wine was like medicine, and her sweet, soft-spoken mother smelled sour now and the visitor never stayed long.
Sera’s stomach grumbled as she went to the door between the living room and the rest of the once grand house and put her ear to it. If she got to the bakery before closing time there might be a loaf of bread left and the baker would give it to her for half price, and a sweet bun to go with it. The bread wasn’t always fresh but the sweet treat was always free and once there’d even been eggs. The baker always said, ‘And wish your mother a good day from me’. Her mother always smiled and said the baker was a Good Man.
Her mother had gone to school with him and they’d played together as children, long before her mother had gone away to learn and train and become something more.
Sera didn’t know what her mother meant by more; all she knew was that there weren’t many things left in their house to sell and her mother was sick all the time now and didn’t laugh any more unless there was wine and then she would laugh at nothing at all. Whatever her mother had once been: a dancer, a lady, someone who could make Sera’s nightmares go away at the touch of her hand…she wasn’t that same person any more.
Every kid in the neighbourhood knew what she was now, including Sera.
Her mother was a whore.
There was no noise coming from the other room. No talking, no laughter, no…other. Surely the visitor would be gone by now? The light was fading outside. The baker would close his shop soon and there would be no chance of bread at all.
She heard a thud, as if someone had bumped into furniture, followed by the tinkle of breaking glass. Her mother had dropped wine glasses before and it was Sera’s job to pick up the pieces and try to make her mother sit down instead of dancing around and leaving sticky bloody footprints on the old wooden floor, and all the time telling Sera she was such a good, good girl.
Some of those footprints were still there. Stuck in the wood with no rugs to cover them.
The rugs had all been sold.
No sound at all as Sera inched the door open and put her eye to the crack, and her mother was kneeling and picking up glass, and most importantly she was alone. Sera pushed the door open and was halfway across the
