The Kingdom of the Wicked by Burgess Anthony

Author:Burgess, Anthony [Anthony, Burgess]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

Marcus Julius Tranquillus received a letter, a note rather, telling him to watch his step and signed Quidam amicus. He had destroyed the note on receiving it, but he sat now in the diningroom of the little rented house on the Janiculum brooding about it. He was not watching his step. He was taking action. Tonight he had an appointment. Why night? Narcissus, the Greek freedman, had said night and he had his reasons. The trouble was that it was dangerous to have enemies at night. During the day you could avoid them. Night was different.

Sara was clearing the table after their evening meal, and Julius's brother-in-law Caleb sat at the table trying to force a white grape into the mouth of little Ruth, who resented being weaned and spat out solidities. But she sucked the scant juice of the grape.

'Time for her bed,' Sara told her brother, taking the child.

'I must get work,' Caleb said. 'Get married. Set up a family of my own.'

'If by that,' Sara said, 'you mean you've outstayed your welcome here —’

'No. Just restless. And whatever the work is, it won't be my real work.'

'Killing the Romans. Not very complimentary to your Roman brother-in-law.'

'Oh,' Caleb said, 'Julius thinks as I do. The Roman Empire is a great sham. Foul with corruption and yet it thinks it has this mission to clean up the world. I don't want to kill Romans. Not ordinary ones. They're just human beings. The Roman state is something else.'

'Julius gets paid by the Roman state,' Sara said, rocking the baby in her arms. 'But thank Jupiter or somebody he's no longer serving the wife of the Roman state.'

'I didn't know that,' Caleb said. 'When did that happen?’

‘Eh? What? When did what happen?'

'He wasn't listening,' Sara said. 'He was brooding about being removed from the beauteous company of the divine Messalina.'

'I have to go out,' Julius said.

'Tonight? Why?'

'I have to go to the Palatine.'

'Walk? It's a long way.'

'Only a mile or so. Downhill. Something to do with being given a new commission perhaps.'

'And yet you look gloomy. I do honestly believe,' Sara said, 'that you miss the divine Messalina.'

'Don't tease me,' Julius said. 'I never felt safe. And don't use words like divine. There ought to be an opposite to that word, but I don't know what it is.'

'There's an opposite in Hebrew,' Caleb said.

'She gave off a kind of — I don't know how to describe it.’

‘She looked like ice,' Sara said.

'You've never seen ice.'

'I've seen her. Admittedly only from a distance. Beautiful like ice.’

‘No ice there, I can tell you. Sizzling imperial smiles. When she — Never mind.'

'When she what?' Caleb asked.

'When she asked for discretion. That was her big word. But now I have to be indiscreet. Caleb — I mean, Metellus — We have to be discreet there, don't we? There's something — Never mind.'

'The Jews are coming back to Rome,' Caleb said. 'The Romans can't do without us. The synagogues will be opening up soon. With Roman troops outside to stop riots.

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