Rome Burning by Sophia McDougall

possibly be blamed on himself or any Roman – surely that would be different. But – it was so unjust – even an unassisted accident would be no good to him now. And anyway, he had never been able to think of any such unimpeachable way, not after what had happened before, not now so much was known about Leo’s and Clodia’s deaths.
    He blinked with another start of shocked inspiration – Nionia! When the war came, as it was bound to, and if Marcus died that way, surely no one would blame him for a thing like that! He saw himself standing haunted and noble amid the cracked pillars in the Forum, mourning his young cousin, promising to shoulder the burden, urging the people not to be afraid.
    Drusus chuckled a little, guiltily. It was funny because it was shocking, treacherous – to be summoning a rain of Nionian bombs over his home, even in his imagination. Rome in flames, the Golden House shattered! Really it was so terrible that he giggled at himself for wishing it. Oh, no, really I would do anything to keep Rome safe, he thought, although it occurred to him in the same moment – with a bright, indistinct vision of huge unprecedented domes and arches – what I could build, afterwards!
    He kept indulging himself furtively in the daydream and with each repetition, a warm swell of confidence burgeonedthrough him a little higher, as if he were becoming drunk. Involuntarily he added extra touches; in snatches he could hear the words he would say, the tone of voice he would say them in: ‘We will always remember, but we will also …’ And less clearly – or equally clearly, perhaps, but very quietly – he allowed little swift, creeping notions of encouraging this to happen. If someone were to speak, just once, to the Nionians – if a body, dead already, were placed in a bombed building? It did not seem to him that he was contemplating having Marcus killed, or ever had – it seemed that it would still all be the actions of others or of chance; he would have done nothing but place a slight pressure upon events, correcting them. At the moment he was merely trying to judge his own chances of becoming Emperor, counting the ways it could come. All this desolate, heartbroken time, when he could barely stagger from a day’s beginning to its end – suppose it had all been needless, suppose he’d been only too
early
.
    He blinked as the light reappeared outside the glass. He was in Italy, and nearly home. For the moment his head was completely empty of Tulliola and bliss flowed freely into the space. It grew so strong that even the secret ideas about Marcus were silenced. It was as if he had removed restrictive clothes that he’d been wearing for years, had stepped into clean water.
    And of course, Marcus need not die. Perhaps the fact that he was Regent now was a good thing, the best thing that could have happened. Faustus was still alive to see that he had made the wrong choice, and change his mind.
    That morning, before he went to the temple, Drusus had called the Palace and learned that his uncle wanted him to ‘help’ Marcus, somehow or other. At the time it had seemed insulting, a shabby consolation prize that made him want to shout his disgust into the longdictor. But now he thought, work! That’s what I’ve been needing all this time! For of course there was so much to do, the whole Empire to keep steady – the war – and Marcus was so young. He could not really be more than a figurehead anyway; everything of substance would have to be done for him. He would, perhaps, even be grateful.
    Drusus actually began to feel rather affectionate toward Marcus; the indulgent patience appropriate to a younger relative, a harmless person.
    He stepped out of the metal tube onto the platform at Vatican Field, whose mane of slim columns looked too slight and graceful to support the distant ceiling. The vast clarity of the largest magnetway station in the world was enough, already, to bring tears into his eyes. The Tiber was