The Once and Future Queen

“I think even if Prof Livius knows something he would never say anything. Especially if it’s anything juicy.”

“Right, as if Devyn Agrestis would have broken the Code.”

“You never know.” I shrugged with as much indifference as I thought she would buy.

“Maybe we’ll see him on the sands,” she said, wagging her eyebrows in a faux-ominous manner before dashing off, checking her hair out in a shop window as she made her way down the arcade.

A pang of unease washed through me. Having illegal tech could be a serious offence. Devyn undoubtedly took a risk in carrying such a thing into the heart of the city. But if the sentinels were questioning him, and he knew where it was, being caught with it in my pocket certainly wouldn’t aid my plausible deniability if Devyn gave me up.

I hurried through the forum, wondering what on earth to do with it until I passed by the Great Basilica. It was more properly known as Basilica Garai, in honour of the Governor who had rebuilt after the early Londinium settlement had been burnt down by some Briton queen. The basilica was home to a library that was the pride of the city. The lines and lines of dusty tomes hidden inside spoke of age and erudition nearly as much as the ivy that crawled up the stone walls and the impeccably preserved mosaics on the floor. Overtaken by technology, the books had little utility now and rarely left the shelves, which was perfect for my purposes.

I moved past the students and academics making use of the workstations, heading towards the deeper, dustier rows. I ran my fingers lightly along the edges of the books until I found a title that practically whimpered as it was pulled off the shelf.

Social Conventions and Concerns of the Shadower Woman in the Age of Sentenus VII, vol. 2748.1.

Hopefully the anthropology students had moved on to more significant issues by now than whatever petty concerns those who lived outside the walls had protested about nearly two centuries ago. The book had broken away from the spine, leaving just enough space for me to slip the small golden device inside. I pushed it back onto the shelf and walked back through the shelves, looking around casually before making my way swiftly home to change.

It would be safe there. I breathed a sigh of relief, my thoughts now turning to the big night ahead.

If anyone had told me yesterday that I wouldn’t even have started getting ready for my first Mete at this point in the day, I’d have thought them suffering from some kind of mind glitch. But here I was, only hours away from being there in person and from seeing Marcus in real life for the first time in years, and I hadn’t even done my hair yet.

Chapter Two

I made my way down to the lobby, my hands still smoothing my carefully selected outfit. I had spent weeks searching for precisely the right skirt to go with the aqua silk blouse I had bought almost a year earlier because it matched my eyes. My long hair was tied up in the elaborate braids that showed off its multiple hues to best effect. My mother might prefer it if I kept my hair tidied away, but I had moved on from my childhood desire to blend in and preferred to see my red-tinted hair as my signature not my stigma.

I surveyed my appearance in the mirror one last time. Satisfied, I headed for the door, smiling back at our maid Anna as she handed me my wrap on the way out. This was a once-in-a-lifetime event for most citizens. While it was not likely to be the case for me, I meant to savour every heartbeat of my first one, every scent, every sound to be imprinted on my mind for ever.

Attending the weekly Mete was a privilege afforded to few, as there was only room in the ancient amphitheatre for the greatest citizens: the council, of course, and the chosen of the city, those who had been recognised as having served the state and who were honoured by being granted a seat for the duration of their lifetime. The most prestigious families had boxes, many of which had belonged to their houses since the founding of the city. Then there were a couple of hundred seats left that were allocated either by lottery or charitable auction – or in my case because I was in the current civics class. Or rather, because I was in the civics class in the forum; other civics classes in the city weren’t afforded a similar privilege.

Too excited to wait around, I had decided to walk across the city rather than take the monorail. All the better to fully appreciate the day, or at least the evening. In light of earlier events, I felt, for the first time in my life, slightly worried about my own place in society. Up until this morning, I had been the most upstanding of citizens, could have walked with my head held high into the amphitheatre. Now I felt somehow tarnished, but I pushed the thought aside, determined not to let it ruin my evening.

The walk would take an hour or so, and I needed every minute of it to get rid of the jitters that had beset me since I arrived home. I didn’t often walk, usually taking the trains or the elevated red buses that sped around the higher levels of the city. But sometimes I was overcome by a restlessness, a sense of being caged that sent me out into the streets, walking until I was too exhausted to feel it anymore.

Constrained by the walls that protected it, Londinium could not move freely outwards, and so the city had instead built upwards, ever higher and higher into the clouds. I followed the layers of the city into the sky. The grand avenues, interlaced by the medieval lanes and alleys, wound upwards through a city of concrete and steel, marble and glass, the lower levels dotted with the temples and buildings of the ancients.

The few areas where the sun shone all the way down to ground level were exclusively reserved for the first imperial jewels: the forum, the Governor’s Palace, the amphitheatre, and the White Tower, protected over the ages by the council. The historic temples and some public parks were also conserved, but the scrapers still straddled them, casting them into shadow. Only a handful of ancient buildings were so prized that miles of unhindered sky was kept free above them. It was these precious few that held the most fascination for me.

Sometimes I felt overwhelmed by the chaos of the world I lived in, lives taking place at different layers of the city. There was the bustle of the ground, the merchants and traders, each street-level front door and window plying their wares in the various sections – Rope St, Candle St, Tailor St – by the forum. There was Services St, Design St, and the like past the financial district up by the silicon roundabout. Surgeons and plastics and dermatologists inhabited the Harley St area. The city was fed via the great Tower markets – meat at Smithfields tower, fish at Billingsgate. Fruit and vegetables had moved from Covent Garden further east towards the docks as the inner West End and Drury Lane tower became a hive of theatres and entertainment centres.

As I made my way through its labyrinthine grandeur, the thought of that strange stolen device was a loaded stone in my heart. What had I been thinking? Even to touch such a thing was a sin against society. Our city might be seen by the Caesar as a remote outpost, but here we considered it a shining beacon of civilisation, one that should be nurtured and protected. Even if it wasn’t actively dangerous, illegal tech of any kind was a threat to the city I loved and the people in it. I vowed to throw it in the Tamesis as soon as I could – as I should already have done. That would be an end to it.

I had purposefully chosen to take a highwalk, the curling path taking me through the neons of Piccadilly. It skimmed across the top of the theatre district, many floors above the older theatres and opera houses at ground level and past the more avant-garde centres where the live-streamed dramas and comedies my friends and I watched were produced.

I kept my eye out for a glimpse of any actors, who could sometimes be seen exiting the stage doors. The die-hard fans always knew how long it took their favourites to end a scene, get out of costume, and hit the exit, so I slowed whenever I saw a group gathered beside a door.

But I couldn’t afford to linger, even when I noticed a particularly large crowd outside the Windup Theatre which broadcast my latest favourite period drama, set in the reign of Governor Jerolin, who had ruled during the war years before the Treaty. As I approached the Bailey Tower my heart started to beat faster. I went up a couple of levels to ensure I came out at one of the higher balconies, all the better to savour every moment of my approach.

The bustle and excitement of the crowd swept me along to the southwestern balcony above the amphitheatre. I looked up to savour the darkening sky and, wriggling through to the front of the gallery, I let my gaze drop down the vast expanse of air, taking it all in: the northern and eastern balconies, the lights of the housing behind lowering as the balcony curtains were dropped, the oohs and ahhs of the crowd making their way onto the terraces as the neon display screens perched high on the surrounding buildings came on. It really was the most spectacular sight and I had timed my arrival perfectly. I smiled my delight into the cooling evening air as my gaze dropped level after level until I could see the oval of the arena itself. The hairs on my arms raised. I could barely believe I was going to be down there.

“Cassandra.” I turned at the sound of my name, scanning the people milling about on the balcony behind me.

“Cassandra, over here.”

Redirecting my search over to the balcony on my right, I spotted Ginevra and Ambrose waving excitedly. I grinned back at them, indicating I would meet them at the nearest lift. Taking one last glance at the arena below, I started to push through the second wave of the crowd entering the balcony. Unlike some who had apparently been holding their spot for hours, these people seemed happy to arrive with only half an hour to go and jockey and jostle each other for whatever view they could manage to get from further back on the public galleries high above the arena.

I was scanned for my right of admission and, at a nod from the sentinel, skipped over to where Ginevra and Ambrose waited. Ginevra was talking nonstop as we stepped into the glass cube that swept us down to ground level, the cubes synchronised so that the entry of the arena’s audience was efficiently and gracefully controlled.

I could see that the stone walls and the original cobbles were dusted with sand as we got closer. I could scarcely believe how familiar and iconic everything was, yet also how strangely new it felt seeing it firsthand like this. I reached out and trailed my hand along the ancient honey-coloured stone walls of the entrance. What must those awaiting judgement feel now? I shivered at the thought.

What type of offences would be on show tonight? I hoped it was something good. Last Saturday’s event had been something of a damp squib, definitely the least interesting Mete from recent months. Those in my class whose surnames began M through Q had been disappointed, though they, of course, had still been all about their experience in class on Monday. The worst of the criminals judged last Saturday had been sentenced to the stocks, which those classmates had made sure to visit during the week, if only to lob a piece of bad fruit at them for not having committed something more worthy of what was likely to be the single visit of their lifetime to the amphitheatre. As we followed the signs to our allocated seating, Ambrose and Ginevra speculated animatedly on the type of Codebreaker we might see this evening.

Nearly every seat was taken when the high council entered, the twelve senators elegantly taking their seats; their immediate families were already seated further back on the balcony. I recognised the Lord Procurator who held the purse strings of the city, Senator Jerdin beside him with whom my father had occasional dealings, then Senator Dolon on the far left. I cast around for his son Marcus, gnawing my lip; I would have expected to see him in the family area behind the council. Was he not coming? It seemed unlikely – if I had a permanently available seat I would never miss one – but I couldn’t see him. I felt a pang of disappointment. I had tried not to think about it too much, but I had secretly hoped to see him in real life this evening.

I scanned the tier of boxes occupied by the great houses once more. Ah, there he was. A burnished head sat amongst a glamorous group in the Courtenay box. Of course, he would have a box, inherited from his mother’s family, along with his surname which was one of the oldest in the city, and correspondingly one of the largest boxes. Ginevra caught the direction of my gaze and coughed pointedly at catching me mooning over the city’s most eligible son, before bursting into a fit of giggles at the resulting flush of colour on my cheeks. But I could hardly be blamed for looking, as Ginevra well knew.

“All right, settle down,” I pleaded with my friend, trying to conceal my blushes from the rest of the group, whose attention was being drawn by her peals of laughter. My connection to Marcus Courtenay was not public knowledge and I frowned at my friend’s lack of discretion.

The announcement of Governor Actaeon and Praetor Calchas thankfully drowned her out, and an expectant hush came over the crowd as the pair made their way solemnly to the front of the council’s box in full ceremonial regalia.

The stern-faced governor strode to the front of the box and solemnly cast his gaze around the arena. I was torn between looking at the big screen above the highest tier of the amphitheatre to take in the high-definition close-up of the most important man in our province, and looking at the actual man standing not twenty feet to my right. I finally settled on watching the man in person as I could always re-watch the actual broadcast later. He looked smaller in real life, as he delivered the traditional welcome.

“Friends, Romans, citizens, we are gathered here once more in Londinium’s great amphitheatre that has witnessed our dedication to the imperial Code for two thousand years. We are the first and last defence of the Empire. The walls keep us safe, but our Code keeps us strong. In the Code we are one.”

And the entire arena responded together, “We are one in the Code.”

The moral and ethical Code protected us all. It was the system we all relied on as much as the programming Code given to us by tonight’s honoured citizen, the legend and genius that was Louis Vanders, who in his youth had brought new depths to the computing languages on which the technology underpinning our world ran.

I followed the direction of the Governor’s nod to locate him. He was on the far side of the arena, a woman who must be his nurse or daughter helping him rise to accept the crowd’s applause.

The crowd grew silent again as the great doors to the arena opened, and the governor took his seat.

Praetor Calchas, the highest judge in the land, and commander of the legions stationed in the province, and who was rather more approachable-looking than the governor, stepped forward.

“Bring forth the accused,” he directed at the sentinels who flanked the shadowed entrance.

Tonight’s accused, wearing standard black uniforms, shuffled into the arena. The traditional masks and hoods that covered their faces were in place, beneath which their hearing would also be blocked so they were unable to hear what happened to their fellow accused. This meant they existed in a state of stasis at the side of the arena until it was their turn to be brought forward and judged.

The silence was unnerving. I was used to hearing the swell of the signature music that accompanied the entrance of the accused into the arena. Then the stamping began, each member of the audience contributing to the pounding which reverberated through the building. I shivered in response. The accused must be able to feel it – the thud of the crowd, a vibrating baying for their blood. I marvelled at the revelation. Familiar as I was with the Metes, I had already glimpsed an authentic aspect of the event that I could barely have guessed at watching the broadcast.

What must the accused make of it? This unexpected pounding that vibrated through the very foundations of the ancient building must be disconcerting at the very least.

I wasn’t sure why I was spending so much time thinking about the accused and what they must be feeling. Usually, I was too busy making sure I had everything I needed for the Mete when I watched at home. I took my obligation to judge very seriously, often taking notes to make sure I followed the more complicated cases.

My mother’s approach was much less considered. She usually judged the person on the way they took the sands to face judgement, often before the first clip had been shown. She had a pretty shoddy record in other aspects as well: it was mandatory to vote on at least 80% of judgments but my mother, at 84%, was well below the average. Usually, it was because she was out socialising and used the time of the broadcast to whip across the city in a fraction of the time. My father and I took it much more seriously, he at 98% – exemplary – and I at 91%. This was low considering I had never missed a broadcast since I turned eighteen, but I was squeamish about voting in capital offence cases. My father even allowed me to leave the room during the executions. He had taken me aside earlier in the week to warn me my vote would likely be under more scrutiny while I was in citizenship class. I needed to redress the balance so that my lack of voting in more serious cases wasn’t so apparent. I hoped there wasn’t anything horrible here tonight. I had no desire to witness blood on the sand.

The first of the accused was walked into the centre of the arena, guided by two sentinels. His hood and mask remained firmly in place – justice had to be blind so we wouldn’t see their faces until after the vote had taken place. The mask also had a switch that was controlled remotely so they could hear the evidence against them when it was their moment on the sands.

The praetor’s voice rang around the arena as he spoke the most iconic words in our city.

“You are accused of crimes against the Code. How do you plead?”

The crowd held its breath. The man in the hood fell to his knees; he chose to deny the accusations, to throw his case open to the judgement of his fellow citizens. The amphitheatre broke into delighted applause. The entertainment was underway.

Praetor Calchas waited until the applause died down before pointing up at the screen.

“The accused has been charged with breaking the Code by failing to pay taxes owed to the city.”

The film rolled, compiled by the sentinels from the city’s pervasive cameras. In it we watched as a tall ship sailed up the Tamesis. The name was blurred out – a precaution to ensure voting was as unbiased as possible – just as the face of the accused in the footage was blurred in bright red; any bystanders in the shots were also blurred out in grey to ensure no innocent party was targeted after the Mete by members of the public. After all, they weren’t to know that they were associating with a Codebreaker. Unless they did, I admonished myself.

We watched as the ship’s cargo was offloaded onto the docks, inspected, and duly signed off by the customs officer. Fast forward to night time, and the ship’s captain – for that was who the accused seemed to be – returned and entered the warehouse where he cut into a number of the bales carrying cotton from the Americas and pulled out several small bags. As he exited the warehouse, the sentinels closed in. The camera panned in for a close-up on the bags as they were opened and nuggets of gold were produced from within.

The crowd roared and the captain pushed himself up to a standing position. The crowd roared even louder at his impudence. It was far too late to attempt to get out of a public vote. The severity of the sentence tended to be influenced by the results of the election, and the evidence here left little doubt.

Praetor Calchas raised his fist, thumb out to the side and the crowd fell silent for the sixty seconds accorded to the Public Vote. I reached into my pocket and clicked the button to indicate guilty. Around the city, I imagined the thousands of others who were doing the same as the clock counted down.

The dong signalled the end of the vote, the sentinels removed the man’s hood and mask, and he watched as the praetor took the note handed to him and his thumb pointed down.

“Captain Delmer, you have been found guilty of smuggling and in light of a 99.87% conviction rate you are sentenced to our most severe punishment for evasion of taxes. You are to serve the city for ten years, during which time you will take no profits from your work, and at the end of this period your case will be reviewed.”

The man sagged onto his knees once more. He would be utterly ruined, but the sentence was just; this was what happened to those who stole from the city.

The crowd applauded again but politely, their interest waning. There was no further fun to be had with this one then. Calchas raised his hand once more.

“In light of your freedom to exit the city, please note that should you attempt to flee your sentence, your family will be held accountable, and their blood shall stain the sand in your place. This is the sentence of the city upon you.”

The sailor on the sand nodded, accepting his fate. He walked from the sand, but as we were waiting for the next accused to be brought forward, our attention was caught by activity happening off–screen.

The sentinels were dragging a new hooded figure onto the sands. I had no memory of anything similar ever happening before, either of an accused arriving after the opening ceremony or of them being dragged in unable to walk on their own. The man was thrown into the cage where the others waited, and was left by the sentinels sitting propped up by the wall of the arena. I looked to the big screens but the cameras hadn’t shown this unusual event; only those in the actual arena would have witnessed the late entrant. The swirl of the praetor’s robes caught my eye as he turned to glare at someone behind him – a praetorian guard hurrying forward to whisper in his ear. It appeared Praetor Calchas did not approve of this event either. Was the latecomer unexpected or was he just annoyed at the untidiness of his arrival?

The next accused was marched to the centre of the sand. Praetor Calchas’s voice rang out once more.

“You are accused of crimes against the Code. How do you plead?”

This man, slighter than the last, also knelt. Another citizen wishing to put his fate in the hands of the people. The crowd roared their approval.

Calchas again pointed up at the screen.

“You have been accused of theft.”

The screens lit up with the evidentiary reel. An apprentice – the accused – toiled away at a work table cutting and sewing cloth. The finished products were cheap and of average style. Disappointing.

My attention wandered, the attraction of checking out Marcus Courtenay – golden prince of the city – too difficult to resist. He sat in the middle of his box, the charismatic centre of his group of friends, the last scion of the old blood, descendant of the rose king of York. My heart fluttered. It was hard to believe that the stranger on the other side of the arena was my soulmate.

I caught myself. I knew better. That word, the concept of someone being the predestined other half of your soul, was outdated, like religion or one of those twentieth-century cars that ran on fossil fuel or something. I’d studied enough literature to know that in earlier times it had been a matter of luck: you met and married the nearest person to your village who was also looking for someone, usually based on status or looks or, hard though it was to believe, physical strength. I’d seen this whole series of bursts on it. The idea had intrigued me though. The bursts were on a sociological matrimonial study. Each looked at a different aspect of how matches were made in real time through the eras. Even early online experiences had been hit and miss with a laughably low ratio of successful matches, but steadily online rates had improved as real-time opportunities became fewer. New technological advances had also helped, mainly the take-off of pharma combined with wearable technology that added a chemical dimension to the psychometric to allow the sequencing that ultimately perfected the matching system.