She could so easily pick up the old battles again, but it was not what she wanted. She had believed as desperately as he had in the revolution in Rome. She had labored and argued for it too, worked all day and all night in the hospitals during the siege, carried water and food to the soldiers, in the end even fired the guns beside the last defenders. And she had understood why, in the end, when Mario had had to choose between her and his love of the republic, he had chosen his ideals. The pain of it had never completely left her, even after all these years, but had he chosen otherwise it would have been worse. She could not have loved him the same way, because she knew what he believed.
She smiled back at him, a little bubble of laughter inside her.
“You have an advantage. I would never, in even my silliest dreams, have thought to find you here, all but shoulder to shoulder with the Prince of Wales.”
His eyes were soft, old jokes remembered, absurdities within the tears. “Touche,” he acknowledged. “But the battlefield is everywhere now.”
“It always was, my dear,” she answered. “It is more complicated here. Few issues are as simple as they seemed to us then.”
His gaze did not waver. “They were simple.”
She thought how little he had changed. It was only the superficial things: the color of his hair, the faint lines on his skin. Inside he might be wiser, have a few scars and bruises, but the same hope burned just as strongly, and all the old dreams.
She had forgotten love could be so overwhelming.
“We wanted a republic,” he went on. “A voice for the people. Land for the poor, houses for those who slept in the streets, hospitals for the sick, light for the prisoners and the insane. It was simple to imagine, simple to do when we had the power … for a brief spell before tyranny returned.”
“You hadn’t the means,” she reminded him. He did not deserve to be patronized by less than the truth. In the end, whether the French armies had come or not, the republic would have fallen because those with the money would not give enough to keep its fragile economy going.
Pain flashed into his face.
“I know.” He glanced around the marvelous room in which they stood, still full of music and the chatter of voices. “The diamonds in here alone would have secured us for months. How much do you think these people are served in these banquets in a week? How much is overeaten, how much thrown away because it wasn’t needed?”
“Enough to feed the poor of Rome,” she answered.
“And the poor of London?” he asked wryly.
There was a bitterness of truth in her reply. “Not enough for that.”
He stood staring silently at the throng, his face weary with the long battle against blindness of heart. She watched him, knowing what he thought all those years ago in Rome, and saw beyond doubt that he was thinking the same now. Then it had been the Pope and his cardinals, now it was the Prince and his courtiers, admirers, hangers-on. This was the Crown of Britain and its Empire, not the three-tiered crown of the Pope, but everything else was the same, the splendor and the indifference, the unconscious use of power, the human frailty.
Why was he in London? Did she want to know? Perhaps not. This moment was sweet. Here in this noisy, superficial glamour of the ballroom she could feel the heat of the Roman sun on her face, see the dust, sense the glare in her eyes—and imagine under her feet the stones that had rung to the steps of legions who had conquered every corner of the earth and shouted “Hail Caesar!” as they marched, eagles high, red crests bright. She was back where Christian martyrs had been thrown to the lions, gladiators had fought, St. Peter had been crucified upside down, Michelangelo had painted the Sistine Chapel.
She did not want the past overwhelmed by the present. It was too precious, too deeply woven into the fabric of her dreams.
No, she would not ask.
Then the moment slipped past, and they were no longer alone. A man named Richmond greeted them pleasantly, introducing his wife, and the moment after, Charles Voisey and Thorold Dismore joined them and conversation became general. It was trivial and mildly amusing until Mrs. Richmond made some comment about ancient Troy and the excitement of Heinrich Schliemann’s discoveries. Vespasia forced her attention to the present and its trivia.
“Remarkable,” Dismore agreed. “Extraordinary persistence of the man.”
“And the things they discovered,” Mrs. Richmond enthused. “The mask of Agamemnon, the necklace probably worn by Helen. It makes them all real in a way I had never imagined … actual flesh and blood, just like ordinary people. It is the oddest sensation to take them out of the realms of legend and make mortals of them, with lives that leave physical remains, artefacts behind.”
“Probably.” Voisey sounded cautious.
“Oh, I think there’s little doubt!” she protested. “Have you read any of those marvelous papers by Martin Fetters? He’s brilliant, you know. He makes it all so immediate.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Yes,” Dismore said abruptly. “He is a great loss.”
“Oh!” Mrs. Richmond colored deeply. “I had forgotten. How terrible. I am sorry. He … fell …” She stopped, clearly uncertain how to continue.
“Of course he fell!” Dismore said tartly. “God knows how any jury came to the conclusion they did. It’s patently absurd. But it will go to appeal, and it will be reversed.” He looked at Voisey.
Richmond turned to look at him as well.
Voisey stared back.
Mario Corena was puzzled.
