“That’ll keep you breathing, but not happy,” he says seriously, voice having the clipped staccato delivery of a man raised in gladiatorial academies. There’s no affectations here, no purring insults or games. It’s a refreshing, if estranging, directness. “This was my father’s refuge, and his father’s before mine,” Romulus says, gesturing for me to take a seat on one of the stone benches. “I thought it a fitting place to discuss the future of my family.” He plucks a tangerine from the tree and sits on an opposite bench. “And yours.”
“It seems a strange amount of effort to expend,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“The trees, the dirt, the grass, the water. None of it belongs here.”
“And man was never meant to tame fire. That’s the beauty of it,” he says challengingly. “This moon is a hateful little horror. But through ingenuity, through will we made it ours.”
“Or are we just passing through?” I ask.
He wags a finger at me. “You’ve never been credited for being wise.”
“Not wise,” I correct. “I’ve been humbled. And it’s a sobering thing.”
“The box was real?” Romulus asks. “We’ve heard rumors this last month.”
“It was real.”
“Indecorous,” he says in contempt. “But it speaks to the quality of your enemy.”
His daughter left little muddy footprints on the stone path. “She didn’t know who I was.” Romulus concentrates on peeling the tangerine in delicate little ribbons. He’s pleased I noticed about his daughter.
“No child in my family watches holos before the age of twelve. We all have nature and nurture to shape us. She can watch other people’s opinions when she has opinions of her own, and no sooner. We’re not digital creatures. We’re flesh and blood. Better she learns that before the world finds her.”
“Is that why there are no servants here?”
“There are servants, but I don’t need them seeing you today. And they aren’t hers. What kind of parent would want their children to have servants?” he asks, disgusted by the idea. “The moment a child thinks it is entitled to anything, they think they deserve everything. Why do you think the Core is such a Babylon? Because it’s never been told no.
“Look at the Institute you attended. Sexual slavery, murder, cannibalism of fellow Golds?” He shakes his head. “Barbaric. It’s not what the Ancestors intended. But the Coreworlders are so desensitized to violence they’ve forgotten it’s to have purpose. Violence is a tool. It is meant to shock. To change. Instead, they normalize and celebrate it. And create a culture of exploitation where they are so entitled to sex and power that when they are told no, they pull a sword and do as they like.”
“Just as they’ve done to your people,” I say.
“Just as they’ve done to my people,” he repeats. “Just as we do to yours.” He finishes peeling the tangerine, only now it feels more like a scalping. He tears the meat of it gruesomely in half and tosses one part to me. “I won’t romanticize what I am. Or excuse the subjugation of your people. What we do to them is cruel, but it is necessary.”
Mustang told me on our journey here that he uses a stone from the Roman Forum itself as a pillow. He is not a kind person. Not to his enemies at least, which I am, regardless of his hospitality.
“It’s hard for me to speak to you as if you were not a tyrant,” I say. “You sit here and think you are more civilized than Luna because you obey your creed of honor, because you show restraint.” I gesture to the simple house. “But you’re not more civilized,” I say. “You’re just more disciplined.”
“Isn’t that civilization? Order? Denying animal impulse for stability?” He eats his fruit in measured bites. I set mine on the stone.
“No, it’s not. But I’m not here to debate philosophy or politics.”
“Thank Jove. I doubt we’d agree upon much.” He watches me carefully.
“I’m here to discuss what we both know best, war.”
“Our ugly old friend.” He glances once at the door to the house to make sure we’re alone. “But before we move to that sphere, may I ask you a question of personal note?”
“If you must.”
“You are aware my father and daughter died at your Triumph on Mars?”
“I am.”
“In a way it’s what began all this. Did you see it happen?”
“I did.”
“Was it as they say?”
“I wouldn’t presume to know who they are or what they say.”
“They say that Antonia au Severus-Julii stepped on my daughter’s skull till it caved in. My wife and I wish to know if it is true. It’s what we were told by one of the few who managed to escape.”
“Yes,” I say. “It is true.”
The tangerine drips in his fingers, forgotten. “Did she suffer?”
I hardly remember seeing the girl in the moment. But I’ve dreamed of the night a hundred times, enough to wish my memory was a weaker thing. The plain-faced girl wore a gray dress with a broach of the lightning dragon. She tried to run around the fountain. But Vixus slashed the back of her hamstrings as he walked past. She crawled and wept on the ground until Antonia finished her off. “She suffered. For several minutes.”
“Did she weep?”
“Yes. But she did not beg.”
