TEXT: When inRome 
  When inRome 
  
  When in Rome
  Author: Davide Mana
  Credits
  Production: Gionata Dal Farra
  Art director & Fashion consultant: Angelo Montanini
  Graphics and Layout: Matteo Ceresa and Luca Basile
  Additional contents: Umberto Pignatelli 
  Editing: Clara Giuliani
  Cover:  Alberto Bontempi 
   
   
  This game references the Savage Worlds game system, available from Pinnacle Entertainment Group at www.peginc.com.
   Savage Worlds and all associated logos and trademarks are copyrights of Pinnacle Entertainment Group. 
  Used with permission.
   Pinnacle makes no representation or warranty as to the quality, viability, or suitability for purpose of this product.
  ©2018, Hope & Glory and all related marks and logos are trademarks of Gionata Dal Farra
   All Rights Reserved.
  
  Welcome to a new world...
  On the 21st of October 1852, the citizens of London and Paris were 
  awed at the sight of the western sky turning suddenly a strange shade 
  of purple and red.
  The first seismic shocks were felt all over the world in the following 
  hours, and by the dawn of the 23rd of October, the giant waves hit the 
  coasts of Europe. In the evening of the same day, while the tremors 
  continued, catastrophic waves also hit the coasts of Asia. Whole cities, 
  blasted by the earthquakes, were submerged by the sea. Millions of 
  lives were lost.
  Then the Black Rain began, washing the ruins and leaving behind a 
  thick layer of ashes. Dark, impenetrable clouds hid the sun, and the 
  Thirty Years Winter began.
  In the Northern Hemisphere crops failed, snow-bound cities went up 
  in flames as the populations rioted and the governments tried to find a 
  solution, the means to survive.
  One hundred years have passed now since the Catastrophe, and 
  humanity has survived.
  In the former colonial domains of Africa and South America. In 
  the blasted plains of China. Among the remains of the Japanese 
  archipelago. In Russian palaces sealed against the howling winds of the 
  steppe. In the land that once was India. With sacrifice and ingenuity, 
  with courage and hope, new nations have crawled back from the brink 
  to claim the new world.
  Science is a beacon to the future. 
  From the  frozen wastes of Europe, where the mammoth roam, to the 
  proud Zulu Nation of Africa, from the technological wonders of the 
  Anglo-Indian Raj to the mist-shrouded shores of Lost America, these 
  are the stories of a new, strange world.
  
  When in Rome 
  by Davide Mana
  
  1.
  The outskirts of Rome in August, cold beneath the gray sky, the smell 
  of incoming snow in the air. The natives were shuffling in line, each 
  one carrying some treasure they wished to trade. They wore rough 
  furs and assorted rags. They were dirty and uncouth and wild-haired 
  - descendants of those that had decided to remain when the ashes and 
  the snow came. Or maybe those that had been left behind. Here and 
  there, some quirky piece of ancient clothing or houseware appeared. 
  A crumpled stovepipe hat pulled down low on the dirty hair of an old 
  woman, a flower-patterned duvet worn like a cloak by a gentleman, 
  and a necklace of bent spoons gracing the neck of one of the younger 
  females.
  At the trading post, Hu and Luongo were haggling fiercely.
  The Romans loved that - gave them an excuse to linger at the table, in 
  the heat of the gas burners the Company men usually set up nearby.
  An old man was trying to exchange a gilded, baroque table clock, for 
  two blankets.
  “Umberto!”
  The Italian patted Hu on the shoulder and walked to Trevanian.
  “Boss?”
  “Is that thing working?”
  
  Luongo nodded. “Perfect conditions, grampy sez he got it in a big 
  house to the south. The place is snowed in, he sez.”
  “You believe him?”
  The Italian shrugged. “Might lead to something good.”
  Trevanian glanced at the old man. He was staring at them, protectively 
  cradling his clock. Looking closely, he was probably no more than 
  forty, but appeared worn and haggard like an octuagenarian.
  “Fine, throw in a box of cigars. Make it clear we are looking for special 
  stuff.”
  “Yeah, boss,” Luongo grinned. “Books, paintings...”
  “Exactly.”
  Luongo gave Trevanian a nod and went back to the table, stopping by 
  the crates of trading goods to get a box of Company Finest n. 5.
  
  2.
  Rome had been called The Eternal City, and for a brief moment, 
  soon after the first signs of the Catastrophe, it really had seemed 
  the ancient town would barely be touched. It was the southernmost 
  of the European capital cities, and Italy was protected by a high 
  range of mountains, a wall against the cold and the snow. The 
  Mediterranean would work as a thermal conditioning system, the 
  scientists in the Regia Accademia delle Scienze said as Turin, the 
  Savoy capital was freezing over. The climate would turn barren 
  Sicily into a garden, providing the Italian states with plenty of 
  food to survive the long winter that was seizing the rest of the 
  Northern Hemisphere. Italy would be a garden, surrounded by 
  ice, the Royal Academicals said.
  The cold wind at his back, the Savoy King had struck at Rome, 
  vanquishing the Papal forces and moving his court there, ready to 
  rule over a garden nation. But it turned out the Royal Academicals 
  had been overly optimistic.
  The Savoy crowd and the Republicans had been at each other’s 
  throat from early on, fighting in the north. Republican leader 
  Mazzini was not willing to come to pacts with the Piedmontese, 
  and the Austrians were backing him, themselves in search of a 
  southern, untouched paradise in which to move their population. 
  
  The British had done something similar, the Spanish and 
  Portuguese were looking for an escape route, too. And so had the 
  French. Why not turn Italy into the India, the Brazil, the Algerie 
  of the Austro-Hungarian Empire? But the weather worsened 
  after the Black Rain, and the war ground to a halt, the opposing 
  lines digging into the ashes and the sterilized soil to keep their 
  positions. But the King was far away, in the Eternal City, and he 
  did not feel the hardships of trench warfare. 
  Then the Thirty Years Winter came, pushing ice down the Alpine 
  valleys and the Appennines. No crops grew in ice-bound Sicily, 
  nor in Apulia, buried under fifteen feet of snow. Those that 
  could, ran. They moved south along the peninsula, carrying their 
  things in bundles. From Reggio della Calabria, from Brindisi, 
  they sailed. A nation of scatterlings, braving the storms and the 
  ice floes. To North Africa, to Egypt, to Palestine.
  Up north, the wind blasted the Piedmontese and the Republicans 
  in their trenches along the Ticino river. With the ice, strange 
  beasts and peoples came. Some were refugees from beyond the 
  mountains, feet wrapped in rags and hunger in their eyes. Some 
  were not.
  Cities fell: Bologna, Florence, Naples. And early one morning a 
  flying ship airlifted Pope Pius and his court from Castle Gandolfo, 
  where they had been holding on to what was left of the Papal 
  State, and the starving citizens of Rome finally understood it was 
  all over. Then what had happened in most capitals of the world 
  happened in the Eternal City. The people rioted, crowding the 
  snowbound streets in search of someone on which to discharge 
  their desperation. The systems failed, the forces of law collapsing 
  under the press of the rioting masses. Then the fires started, 
  staining red the clouds with their light, and blackening the 
  marble buildings of the Popes with their smoke. Heads fell as 
  the flames rose. Too late the Royal family tried to flee. Then the 
  howling wind overcame the howl of the crowd, and there was 
  finally silence. 
  The Eternal City had fallen, and was no more.
  
  3.
  The ice was striped in different hues of gray, blue, black and purple. 
  Seasonal cycles, the Summer sun melting the snow, Winter freezing 
  the water trickling down the staircase in layer upon layer of ice.
  The banister was a sculpture of icicles, some crystal-clear, some 
  foggy, the ice giving way to metal and marble only at the very foot 
  of the stair.
  Captain Trevanian cranked the battery, the light of his lamp 
  brightening. He pointed the amber cone of light on the walls of 
  the corridor, causing the frost over the paintings to sparkle. Proud 
  bishops in purple stared at him severely through the thin veil of 
  frozen humidity. Indecently exposed matrons leered salaciously as 
  they reclined on extravagant ottomans, their bare skin pink and 
  florid despite the cold, their tresses piled up in unlikely hairdos. 
  He turned, his beacon reflected and refracted by old, wrinkled 
  mirrors. On a side table, another gilded baroque clock rested under 
  a cracked glass bell, its hands frozen in the past. The passage had a 
  kind of underwater quality, the checkered floor covered in debris 
  and snowdrifts, a chandelier leaning on its side where it had fallen, 
  glass teardrops scattered all around, each of them catching the 
  lamplight and multiplying it in a blizzard of rainbows.
  
  Halfway along the corridor, maybe ten yards from the foot of the 
  staircase, a single skeleton sat on the floor, the rags of some uniform 
  hanging from its bleached bones, scraps of cold-burned skin 
  plastered on its skull. Is waited there, shoulders propped against 
  the wall, with the relaxed, resigned attitude of someone that had 
  been left too long to wait.
  Trevanian did not recognize the uniform. Stepping cautiously on 
  the iced floor, a cloud of steam escaping from his pale lips, he moved 
  closer. The long bones of both legs were cracked. The adventurer 
  lifted his light higher, and squinted in the dusk.
  Something crashed somewhere upstairs, causing a rain of icicles. 
  The ceiling creaked. Trevanian cursed under his breath, and hooked 
  his light to his backpack harness. His gloved hands free, he turned 
  to climb back up the frozen waterfall that had once been a staircase.
  The sitting skeleton did not seem to mind, being left alone again. 
  
  4.
  “Whatever happened,” Trevanian asked, squinting in the glare of the 
  sun.
  “Sorry, Boss,” Hu pointed at a heap of wood and metal wires. “The 
  piano died on us.”
  Under the painted dome, the upper hall looked like a boxed stretch of 
  tundra. Snow had drifted in in through the smashed French windows, 
  enough of it to half-bury the wreckage – but not quite. Skeletal 
  sculpted chairs, rags of some draperies at the windows, a large painting 
  obscured by a thick layer of frost.
  Two men appeared from a side door, carefully carrying a painting.
  “We found a nice Venetian sunset,” Luongo said, coming after them. 
  He carried a box full of books. “And a fine selection of history books.”
  He put down the box, pulled off a glove and picked one of the volumes. 
  “And an old Bible. Very old.”
  Trevanian took the volume and turned a few pages. The binding 
  cracked, the paper rigid and frail. “Gutenberg?”
  Luongo nodded.
  “Where are the others?”
  The Italian was putting his glove back. “Singh took two men down the 
  service staircase.”
  Trevanian grimaced. The two lower floors were buried in ice.
  
  “There’s lots of stuff down there, right?” Luongo said.
  “Yes, but I don’t like this place.”
  Luongo shrugged. “The bums that live in the Quirinale ruins say this 
  is a good scavenging ground.”
  “If it’s so good, why aren’t they here scavenging?”
  “It’s not like we come here regularly. They did bring us some stuff 
  from this area, if not this house in particular. They just have no reason 
  to hoard books or paintings, or old mechanical things they can’t 
  understand anymore.”
  Luongo picked up the box and followed the footsteps of the men, to go 
  load his bounty on the back of the crawler.
  “We’re lucky they didn’t use the books as fuel,” he said over his shoulder.
  Trevanian stood alone in the center of the frozen room. He looked up, 
  at the procession of fat cherubs and smiling naked women, frolicking 
  among flowers, beneath a blue sky. A chunk of the fresco crumbled 
  into dust as he watched, the colored debris staining the snow. The 
  other captains in the Company called it Freeloading, and considered 
  it a nice way to make a collateral gain in spite of the regulations, but 
  to him this was a melancholy, depressing way to make a profit. Just a 
  step over looting the dead along the highway. He could not look on the 
  wrecks of the old European nations, and not feel a pang of nostalgia 
  for something he had never known. The nostalgia was mixed with 
  the curiosity for those people, their lives, their world before the skies 
  turned black and flames and ice engulfed the Old Continent.
  He could imagine them sitting here, sipping tea and listening to 
  someone playing the piano. A girl, he imagined, a young woman of 
  maybe sixteen, wearing a pale pink dress, her hair an extravagant pile 
  like those he had seen in the paintings below. Black hair, pale skin.
  “Too much imagination,” Swami Jairam had used to say, “is not a good 
  trait in a warrior.”
  But Trevanian never wanted to be a warrior, and right now he did 
  not feel like a merchant-prince. He kicked the remains of the crashed 
  piano. A string snapped, with a resounding noise.
  He felt like a grave robber.
  A gunshot rang out in the distance.
  Then two more, very close.
  No time for imagination.
  
  5.
  Trevanian took two men down the service staircase. They all carried 
  short repeater guns. They half-ran, half-slid down the steps.
  A narrow door led them inside the great kitchen of the villa, copper 
  pans hanging from the ceiling like stalactites, caked in icicles. Keeping 
  the guns at the ready, they cranked the batteries of their lights, casting 
  grotesque shadows on the walls. Footprints were easy to follow on the 
  frosted floor.
  They passed the ransacked remains of a large pantry, the door 
  smashed, jagged spikes of glass embedded in the ice where vases had 
  been smashed on the tiles.
  “Something comes!” one of the men hissed.
  They waited, guns pointed.
  Weak lights danced at the far end of the corridor, and soon Singh was 
  coming towards them, grim and disheveled, his thick sheepskin jacket 
  torn at a shoulder. Behind him, one of the men was helping the other 
  along.
  “Savages,” the Sikh said, moving to the side to let the injured man pass 
  and continue on his way. “Six of them.”
  “We better move on,” Trevanian said.
  Singh nodded, and rummaged in his breast pocket. “There’s something 
  else.”
  
  He handed over a single brass casing, as long as his thumb. “It was still 
  warm when I found it,” he said.
  Trevanian handled the metal cylinder awkwardly, the brass slipping 
  between his gloved fingers. He pulled off a glove with his teeth, and 
  took the casing between thumb and forefinger.
  “This is none of ours,” he said, squinting at the metal.
  “Russian.”
  “Are you sure?”
  Singh cocked his head. His family had been defending the Northwestern 
  Frontier for five generations. If someone knew a Russian bullet casing, 
  it was him.
  “So we have company,” Trevanian said. “More reason to get away from 
  here.”
  They started up the staircase, two men bringing up the rear, an eye 
  out for any savage Roman or other interlopers willing to try his luck 
  against them.
  
  6.
  There were ten men, wearing black uniforms, waiting for them outside. 
  They were keeping Hu and the others at gunpoint.
  Trevanian stopped, Singh at his side hissing through his teeth.
  Luongo was talking with a tall woman in a man’s black uniform, long 
  blond hair cascading down her back. Ostentatious, considering the 
  wind. When Trevanian and his party froze on their tracks, the Italian 
  turned, and pointed at them. The woman said something, small vapor 
  clouds escaping her lips, and Luongo followed.
  “New friends of yours?” Trevanian asked when the Italian was close 
  enough.
  “A Captain Leonova, of the Buran. Imperial Air Service.”
  Trevanian cursed.
  The Treaty of Samarkand stated that Raj and Company expeditions 
  could land in Continental Europe only with the knowledge, and 
  explicit permission, of the other signers: the Russian Empire, the Zulu 
  Nation and the African Confederation. 
  True, the Ostrich was supposedly chartered to Luongo, who, as a 
  citizen of the Italian Principality, fell in a gray zone, as far as the Treaty 
  was concerned.
  But Russian enforcers with guns were no good news by any means.
  “What goes down?” Trevanian asked.
  
  Luongo pushed his hands inside his ample sleeves. “She does not 
  question the chartering,” he said. “I think the lady wishes to speak with 
  you.”
  Trevanian nodded, and walked briskly to the Russian woman.
  The soldiers, he noticed, were shock trooper material, massive 
  and squat. Instead of the typical armor, they wore thick coats, and 
  brandished short, fat barreled rifles. Hard to say, in the distance, if 
  they were Neanderthal or prolets.
  “I am Commander Tamara Leonova,” the woman announced, her 
  voice arrogant, her accent thick. “Of the Imperial Skyship Buran.”
  She was very tall, pale as a ghost, with sharp features and long straight 
  hair, so fair it looked white as the snow. A great black wolf fur on her 
  shoulders, she wore a black uniform with silver trimmings, and a fur 
  shako. Her eyes were hid by round tinted glasses.
  “You are far away from home, Captain.”
  She arched an eyebrow. “No more than you, sir.”
  Trevanian bowed. “I am...”
  “Captain Arthur Christopher Trevanian,” she said, her tone impatient. 
  “Of the Company Trader Ostrich, formally out of Hong Kong.”
  He gave her his most charming smile. “At your service.”
  “I hope so, Captain,” she said. “I am, indeed, in need of help.”
  A spark of hope. “So this is no courtesy visit?”
  She huffed, a cloud of vapor condensing in front of her face. “I have no 
  time to waste, Captain. By the treaty of Samarkand...”
  “No need to invoke treaties.” It was his turn for interrupting. 
  “Considering how we both have ignored them so far.”
  Again she arched an eyebrow.
  “My ship is not far from here,” he said. “We could discuss whatever 
  matter is at hand in more urbane surroundings.”
  
  7.
  There were ten men, wearing black uniforms, waiting for them outside. 
  They were keeping Hu and the others at gunpoint.
  Trevanian stopped, Singh at his side hissing through his teeth.
  Luongo was talking with a tall woman in a man’s black uniform, long 
  blond hair cascading down her back. Ostentatious, considering the 
  wind. When Trevanian and his party froze on their tracks, the Italian 
  turned, and pointed at them. The woman said something, small vapor 
  clouds escaping her lips, and Luongo followed.
  “New friends of yours?” Trevanian asked when the Italian was close 
  enough.
  “A Captain Leonova, of the Buran. Imperial Air Service.”
  Trevanian cursed.
  The Treaty of Samarkand stated that Raj and Company expeditions 
  could land in Continental Europe only with the knowledge, and 
  explicit permission, of the other signers: the Russian Empire, the Zulu 
  Nation and the African Confederation. 
  True, the Ostrich was supposedly chartered to Luongo, who, as a 
  citizen of the Italian Principality, fell in a gray zone, as far as the Treaty 
  was concerned.
  But Russian enforcers with guns were no good news by any means.
  “What goes down?” Trevanian asked.
  
  Luongo pushed his hands inside his ample sleeves. “She does not 
  question the chartering,” he said. “I think the lady wishes to speak with 
  you.”
  Trevanian nodded, and walked briskly to the Russian woman.
  The soldiers, he noticed, were shock trooper material, massive 
  and squat. Instead of the typical armor, they wore thick coats, and 
  brandished short, fat barreled rifles. Hard to say, in the distance, if 
  they were Neanderthal or prolets.
  “I am Commander Tamara Leonova,” the woman announced, her 
  voice arrogant, her accent thick. “Of the Imperial Skyship Buran.”
  She was very tall, pale as a ghost, with sharp features and long straight 
  hair, so fair it looked white as the snow. A great black wolf fur on her 
  shoulders, she wore a black uniform with silver trimmings, and a fur 
  shako. Her eyes were hid by round tinted glasses.
  “You are far away from home, Captain.”
  She arched an eyebrow. “No more than you, sir.”
  Trevanian bowed. “I am...”
  “Captain Arthur Christopher Trevanian,” she said, her tone impatient. 
  “Of the Company Trader Ostrich, formally out of Hong Kong.”
  He gave her his most charming smile. “At your service.”
  “I hope so, Captain,” she said. “I am, indeed, in need of help.”
  A spark of hope. “So this is no courtesy visit?”
  She huffed, a cloud of vapor condensing in front of her face. “I have no 
  time to waste, Captain. By the treaty of Samarkand...”
  “No need to invoke treaties.” It was his turn for interrupting. 
  “Considering how we both have ignored them so far.”
  Again she arched an eyebrow.
  “My ship is not far from here,” he said. “We could discuss whatever 
  matter is at hand in more urbane surroundings.”
  
  8.
  The coolies had placed a table by the anchor, upwind of the trading 
  post, behind a wall of crates to grant them privacy. They had hot tea, 
  cookies, brandy, cigarettes. Trevanian had no reason to invite his guest 
  o board, and the Russian usually made a show of their affinity for cold 
  weather. Why not humor them?
  The Russian sat on her wicker chair, crossing her legs. Trevanian 
  poured her tea himself, while she lit a cigarette. Up close she was 
  typical Imperial Aristocracy, straight out of a propaganda pamphlet. 
  Corrupt, decadent and cruel, a menace to everything the Anglo-
  Indian Raj stood for. Her naturally pale skin was made more so by 
  powder, her veins penciled in blue at the wrists, neck and temples 
  to accentuate the effect. Her lips were also painted a deep blue. He 
  wondered if she was chemically charged, and concluded she probably 
  was. She uncrossed her legs. She wore shiny boots, and was encased in 
  a stiff jacket encrusted with medals.
  She accepted the tea and when Trevanian offered his hip flask, she 
  liberally spiked it with brandy. Then she sipped it daintily, still wearing 
  gloves.
  “So,” he asked, “How can the Honourable East India Company help the 
  mighty Russian Empire?”
  “We have,” she said, “my ship, I mean. A situation.”
  
  “Indeed.”
  She put down her teacup and inhaled a big lungful of smoke, staring 
  up at the hull of the Ostrich. Trevanian could understand her 
  embarrassment. All things said and done, the Russians were violating 
  the Samarkand Treaty, just like the Company was. Continental Europe 
  was off limits for both of them. Not on pain of death, like Lost America, 
  but should the news circulate, heads would fall, both in the Czar’s 
  Court and in the Company’s Council room.
  But of course, Trevanian ran a privateer, and a little bending of the 
  rules was to be expected. She, on the other hand, ran an Imperial Navy 
  Skyship.
  “What kind of situation?” he finally asked.
  Emotions he was unable to define chased each other like ghosts over 
  her pale features.
  “You must understand,” she said, “that I am a servant of the Czar. I 
  command a frigate in his sky fleet, I have my orders.”
  “Of course.”
  A lot of stories, all of them extremely unpleasant, circulated about the 
  way in which discipline was maintained in the Russian forces. 
  “My ship is currently detailed as personal transportation for Prince 
  Marko Zavadovski.”
  She waited for his reaction. 
  “I fear I am not familiar with the Prince,” Trevanian said. He could see 
  she did not like her assigned duty, but he was not going to make it any 
  more pleasant. 
  Leonova made a face, as if to say she was not surprised. “Prince Marko 
  Zavadovski is the Imperial Master of the Hunt in Tsaritsyn. He is also 
  second cousin to Great Duchess Alexia, and a personal friend of Czar 
  Vladimir. A very close friend.”
  Trevanian sipped his tea-spiked brandy and nodded. He thought he 
  saw where all this was going.
  “And the Prince decided to visit Continental Europe,” he said.
  She put down her cup, and stubbed her cigarette in it. “Exactly. He is 
  a hunter.”
  Trevanian waved his hand dismissively. “I doubt he’d be able to find 
  here in Italy any quarry different from what roams the waste out of 
  Tsaritsyn.”
  “The animals here are supposed to be wilder,” Leonova said. “And 
  smarter.”
  
  Trevanian squinted. “What do you mean?”
  “This is not important now.”
  “How long has his party been missing?”
  The woman looked at him, her blue lips turning into a thin line. “Two 
  days. He was alone with his gun carrier.”
  Trevanian shook his head. “Two days? Alone? In the wilds of Lost 
  Rome?”
  She nodded again. “I need help finding him.”
  Him, Trevanian noted. The gun-carrier be damned. “You don’t need 
  help finding him,” he said. “You need a safe conduit for Dehli, for you 
  and your ship. I could arrange that.”
  Leonova stood. “I have no time for your flippancy, Captain Trevanian!”
  “It’s no flippancy, Captain. Alone out there for two days and a night, 
  your charge is dead by now. Dead in a bad way. If the Prince is half as 
  influential as you said, your situation is dire. I would again suggest you 
  bring your ship to friendlier shores. The Company is always looking 
  for good ships and good captains.”
  And one straight from the Tsar’s court would be doubly valued.
  She stared at him, her lips pressed together,
  “You don’t understand,” she said.
  He passed a hand over his chin. The smell of incoming snow was 
  getting stronger. 
  “Wait here,” he said, turning away.
  Luongo innocently passed by the crates, and gave him an interrogative 
  look.
  “Close the shop,” Trevanian ordered. “And dial Singh to lower the 
  Ostrich.”
  “Trouble, Boss?”
  “There’s two people out there somewhere. We need to find them.”
  He was pretty sure they would only find the frozen, half-eaten remains 
  of the fool and his servant. But he did not dislike Captain Leonova 
  completely, and he liked the idea of a Russian flyer owing him a favor. 
  A good merchant recognizes an opportunity, even when it comes 
  accompanied by armed men.
  
  9.
  “I don’t like this, sahib,” Aram Singh said with a smirk.
  “Don’t you sahib me,” Trevanian replied. He was buttoning up his fur-
  lined jacket, staring critically at his reflection.
  “They have a ship,” Singh. “How hard could it be for them to spot the 
  trail of their duke?”
  “It’s a prince, not a duke, and the gentleman’s on foot with a single man 
  as retinue.”
  The Sikh laughed. “Then he’s a fool, and deserves to die.”
  Trevanian stared at his first officer with pretended disapproval. “How 
  can you be so cynical, my friend?”
  “I don’t like Russians,” the other said. “And I don’t like the idea of 
  sending our men out there among the ruins on a wild goose chase.”
  Trevanian flexed his arms, trying to adjust to the thickness of his 
  clothes.
  “The men have been ordered to be cautious, and at the first sign of foul 
  play—”
  “Fall down and play dead,” Singh grinned.
  Trevanian sighed and shook his head. “Aren’t you curious?”
  “Your people have a saying about curiosity, and cats. About how 
  curiosity slices the cat’s throat in silence, and then drops the body in 
  the Ganges, for nobody to find it anymore.”
  
  Trevanian chuckled. “You are a load of laughs, my friend.”
  From his trunk, he took the gun and the boarding saber the Chamber 
  of Commerce of Hong Kong had presented him as a sign of gratitude. 
  It was good Sheffield steel. On second thoughts, he put the saber back.
  He pulled his goatskin poshteen out of his closet and donned it over his 
  jacket, winding a blue sash around his waist. His utility belt went over 
  the sash, with the gun and the pocket compass. He took the turban and 
  the scarf from the shelf, and walked to the starboard port, where the 
  landing team was waiting.
  “You keep the ship on alert, and tell Mr Luongo to make it fast.”
  Singh’s eyes were two dark slits. “What kind of trouble do we expect?”
  “I don’t know. That’s what’s worrying me.”
  “And still you go out there with that people.”
  “We are here on business, and we must follow every opportunity.” He 
  took a deep breath. “We rarely have an opportunity to observe these 
  people closely. They are secretive--”
  “And dangerous.”
  “Yes, and dangerous. And a report about their activities, their outlook 
  and their plans would make us proud with the Board of Directors.”
  “Proud and well paid,” Singh said.
  “And I like the idea of having a Russian officer owe me a favor,” 
  Trevanian added.
  “Especially if she is young and attractive, and dangerous.”
  “I did not notice she’s attractive,” Trevanian smirked.
  “Too busy being worried?”
  “Probably.”
  The first officer nodded. “Good. Better worried than dead. Worried 
  makes dead less likely.”
  
  10.
  The fronts of the advancing ice sheets rose over the horizon, broken 
  walls of white, deep blue and black. Water poured at the bottom of the 
  glaciers, and flowed to feed the Tiber, that slithered through the ruins 
  of the Eternal City like a glass-skinned snake.
  They had formed two search parties, to complement the two that 
  Leonova had already deployed north and west of the city. Four hands 
  from the Ostrich, led by Hu, would move east, going upriver. The men 
  had been instructed to interrogate the Romans, and offer a reward for 
  information. 
  Meanwhile, Trevanian himself would join Leonova and her guards and 
  continue south. Alone. A sign of trust, a way to unbalance the woman, 
  to make her feel secure. Maybe cause her to open up.
  Singh had taken the Ostrich higher, to work as a relay between the 
  searchers and the Buran.
  “Doesn’t the Prince have any means of communication with your ship?”
  “He carries a flare gun. In case of need, he is supposed to fire the flare.”
  They had moved south of the river, pointing towards the arch of hills 
  jutting out of the snowy cover, like a natural amphitheater. Trevanian 
  remembered the blinding mirror of the iced lake there, like a beacon 
  when they had flown over it on their way in, three days before. Albano, 
  Hu had called it. An ancient volcano.
  
  Sharing the couch on the crawler with taciturn Captain Leonova, 
  Trevanian took some time to observe her men. They were squat and 
  massive, with flat faces and unblinking eyes. Not the dread beastman 
  Cossack he had already met in India. Something rougher, more 
  elementary. Less sophisticated, less polished than the Neanderthals. 
  More like unthinking brutes, musclebound men-machines. The 
  proles, he thought, Russia’s legendary cave-dwelling workers, whose 
  backbreaking toil fed the aristocracy in its sealed castles. Individuals 
  bred for fatigue and blind loyalty, slaves owned by the Czar.
  He shuddered, and pulled up his collar against the cold air.
  “You are fascinated by the rabochiye,” his companion said. “What do 
  you call them? The proles, right?”
  “It’s not often that we get to see your lower classes,” he replied, 
  defensively.
  “Workers are the same everywhere. You have your coolies, yes? Your 
  wallas.”
  “It’s different. I think.”
  “How so?”
  “They are free men.”
  She smirked. “Freedom doesn’t exist.”
  He stared at her. 
  “Would you say we are free?” she asked. “I am a servant to my Czar, 
  just as you owe your allegiance to your Board of Directors. Is this 
  freedom?”
  Something sparked a fire in Trevanian’s chest. “I am a Tai-Pan,” he said, 
  his voice level.
  “A merchant adventurer,” she nodded. “And does that grant you 
  freedom? Or does it just entail more duties, more rules, more 
  obligations?” She shook her head, her eyes hidden behind her tinted 
  lenses. “No, Captain, your freedom is just a construct of the mind. A 
  construct from which the rabochiye are not burdened.”
  “I still prefer dealing with coolies,” Trevanian said.
  “A matter of management. Of efficiency.”
  Trevanian eyed the stolid individual running by the side of the tracked 
  vehicle. His legs pumped like pistons, his eyes roamed the landscape, 
  his breath escaping in thick clouds through his flared nostrils. He 
  did not seem particularly smart, but admittedly, this was not the best 
  circumstance in which to evaluate his intelligence.
  
  11.
  They were considering a place to stop when a thin stream of pale vapor 
  cut through the sky. The proles pointed at it like a single man, their 
  arms coming up at the same time, short thick fingers trailing the flying 
  rocket. Then the pink flame of the flare bloomed silently, and hung 
  against the slate-colored clouds.
  “There!” Leonova glanced at Trevanian. “As you see, Prince Marko is 
  still alive.”
  The Company man pressed his lips tight. “Then we better hasten. His 
  luck won’t last forever.”
  She gave him a smirk, and turned to her men, giving them orders. With 
  a deep rumble, the tracked crawler started again between the snowdrifts.
  Soon, the ground rose, and the wreckage of once proud villas peeked 
  through the ice.
  Trevanian scanned the ruins, a sense of uneasiness crawling up his gut.
  “What was your man hunting again?”
  “Samaya opasnaya dobycha,” she replied.
  “I don’t speak Russian,” he said.
  She shrugged. “Languages proficiency is suited for servants, not for the 
  aristokratiya.”
  Trevanian pulled the scarf closer to his neck. 
  It was the second time the woman avoided his question.
  
  12.
  The Romans attacked as the crawler was trying to negotiate a patch 
  of fresh snow. They came running and shouting their hearts out, their 
  rags flapping in the cold wind.
  The prole shock troopers fell into a loose defensive formation, their 
  guns leveled at the incoming ragtag band of raiders. The first line of 
  crazed savages fell to Russian bullets, but more men rushed in. They 
  brandished scraps of rusty metal forged into primitive swords and 
  lances. Again the troopers fired, and this time the assailants came 
  closer. A few of them, carried by their momentum, slammed into the 
  standing soldiers, falling into a tangle of arms and legs.
  And more yet were coming.
  Leonova stood, a long-barreled gun in her right and a heavy saber in 
  the right. She mercilessly picked out the Roman savages. By her side, 
  Trevanian pulled his revolver and tried to do his part.
  A man with a patchy black beard and feverish eyes jumped on the 
  crawler’s fender and lifted a conical blade high over his head. Trevanian 
  shot him in the face. 
  “They set us up!” he shouted.
  “Nonsense,” she replied.
  As an echo to those words, a bulky brute in animal skins stepped in 
  front of the crawler and pointed a flare gun at them.
  
  Trevanian grabbed the Russian woman by an arm and jumped off 
  the vehicle just as the flaming projectile hit the couch, erupting in a 
  roaring fire.
  Ignoring Leonova’s protests, he pushed her down and covered her with 
  his body. 
  The crawler exploded.
  Then the Romans came, screaming in a frenzy of bloodlust. They 
  steamrolled the remaining soldiers and made a beeline for Trevanian 
  and Leonova. 
  The Company man and the Russian scrambled to their feet, fired 
  blindly into the incoming mass of kill-mad savages, and ran.
  “There!” Leonova pointed.
  The corner of a building had survived the ravages of time and weather, 
  and stood like a spur, jutting out of a pile of fresh snow.
  They staggered in that direction.
  Trevanian turned in time to see a wild-haired man, his teeth bared, his 
  eyes bloodshot, as he came towards him.
  He lifted the gun, the hammer extracting only a hollow click out of the 
  chamber.
  The Roman tackled him and he fell, rolling on his back. The savage 
  tried to bite at his face.
  With a colorful oath, the Company man kicked off the thin frame of 
  the wild man, and tried to stand. The Roman crumpled on the floor, 
  moaning. Leonova was by his side, brandishing her saber with chilling 
  efficiency. Three more men came at them, shouting.
  And the ground fell away beneath them, swallowing them.
  
  13.
  Trevanian slammed against the smooth surface of the underlying ice 
  wall and slid down, picking up speed. The fall took a few heartbeats, 
  and then he was in a vast chamber beneath the glacier, , in a heap of 
  smelly bodies.
  He heard Leonova curse in her language, and the sickening sound of 
  a sharp blade biting into flesh. One of their assailants tried to claw at 
  his face, and he pushed him back, his heel smashing the poor bastard’s 
  mouth.
  In the uncannily blue half-light of the glacier chamber, Trevanian 
  stood and faced the remaining Roman. The man looked like a scared 
  animal, first at him and then at Leonova. The woman was shaking 
  blood from her saber. The Roman started in her direction. She just 
  flipped the point of her blade up, impaling the man through the chest.
  Mouth agape, the man slid to his knees, chin on his sternum – quite 
  dead.
  “Stupid beast,” Leonova hissed.
  She placed her foot on the man’s shoulder, and pushed him clear of the 
  blade.
  They stared at each other.
  “Nice rescue mission,” Trevanian said.
  
  His gun was dangling from his shoulder on its strap. He picked it up 
  and proceeded to reload it. “Who’s going to come and rescue us, now?”
  Leonova sheathed her saber.
  “I did not mark you for a defeatist,” she said.
  To their right, the ice chamber opened into a corridor-like gallery, at 
  the bottom of which a stream ran. “Your men or mine will see the 
  smoke from the crawler,” she said. “And they will come.”
  “My first mate has orders,” Trevanian said.
  She gave him a look, and scoffed “Should anything happen, disengage 
  and report back home.”
  He nodded. “I guess you gave similar directives.”
  Leonova gave him a dispassionate look. “Our ships come before our 
  safety, don’t they?”
  Trevanian gestured her towards the gallery. “After you, Captain.”
  She arched an eyebrow. Then she walked into the dark tunnel, feet 
  splashing in the stream.
  
  14.
  Leonova raised her closed fist.
  “What now?” he whispered. 
  She nodded in the direction of the ice-encrusted corridor on their left. 
  She pointed two fingers at her eyes, and then at the passage.
  Trevanian nodded and pulled out his gun, taking a first tentative step 
  in that direction. His boots squeaked on the floor marble of the floor. 
  A shape bolted at him from the corridor. A man in stinking, dirty rags, 
  screaming madness and wielding a long shard of glass like a knife. 
  The impact sent Trevanian sprawling on his back, the savage trying to 
  stab him in the chest. Trevanian fired his gun, slamming the man back 
  into the corridor. The bang echoed through the passages in the ice, 
  deafening and mocking.
  “This seems to be a promising direction to pursue,” Leonova said.
  She stepped over the dead Roman and entered the new passage.
  
  15.
  “Neimovernyy,” Leonova whispered.
  In its unstoppable crawl down the hill, the glacier had climbed over 
  the rooftop of the building. It had scraped away the tiles and the 
  beams, that now laid into frozen heaps in front of the doors of the 
  ground floor. The glacier, deep blue and pink, rolled over the house, 
  like a giant frozen wave, creating a dome-like cavern through which 
  the stream they had followed ran, gurgling. The mass of the ice had 
  somehow pushed and pressed the building, giving it a skewed shape. 
  The baroque facade leaned to the right, and cracks ran through the 
  walls. The windows were black hollow discontinuities in the white and 
  brick of the structure.
  A man sat with his back to the ice encasing the remains of the roof, and 
  Trevanian was reminded of the skeleton he had found that morning. 
  The man was dead, a sad expression on his face.
  Leonova walked briskly to the body.
  He wore a dust-blue uniform, with red stripes down his trousers, and 
  a smattering of medals on his chest.
  “This is Grigori,” she said.
  “The gun carrier.”
  She nodded. She stood, and looked again at the face of the building.
  “Your highness!” she shouted. “We have come to rescue you!”
  
  A sinister creak echoed in the chamber, followed by a rumbling sound, 
  and a cloud of dust and icicles rained down the face of the villa.
  “We better keep our voices down,” Trevanian said.
  Then he pointed at the dead man. “What killed him?”
  She just shrugged. 
  He crouched by the body. No visible fractures, no wounds.
  He tried to pull the body, but it was stuck to the ice. Trevanian pulled 
  harder, and the body fell forward, revealing a ragged wound in the 
  back, iced blood turning the scraps of the jacket into stiff dark brown 
  blades. 
  “They were attacked by the savages,” Leonova said.
  Trevanian shook his head. “No human being did this. A wild animal. 
  Your prince’s prey became the hunter.”
  The door to the ground floor gaped open.
  They traded a glance. Once again Trevanian bowed and gestured for 
  her to take the lead.
  “After you, madame.”
  
  16.
  A vast staircase lead to the upper floor, white marble beneath a 
  transparent layer of ice. Vases had sat at the end of the balustrades. 
  The cold had caused the vases to explode, and a scattering of sharp 
  porcelain were embedded in the ice, white and blue, like broken teeth.
  Trevanian turned a professional eye on the remains of the lost Roman 
  civilization around them. Paintings hung to the walls, cracked and 
  broken like old windows, the ice having turned the canvas into rigid, 
  fragile sheets. Here half the face of some pope or cardinal, there a rosy-
  cheeked young woman, a fracture zigzagging across her neck.
  There was a carpet, buried in the ice on the floor. Persian, by the look 
  of it.
  “If your man’s in here,” he said, softly, “why doesn’t he show up?”
  Leonova was staring at the empty frame of an old mirror. “Maybe he’s 
  wounded.”
  “Maybe he’s dead.”
  He stopped at the foot of the staircase. “The savages assaulted him and 
  his man. They got his flare gun, they killed him. The servant ended up 
  down here—”
  “How?”
  Trevanian shook his head.
  “If there’s a way out, it goes through this place,” Leonova said.
  
  She bent down and pulled a span-long dagger from her boot. “We use 
  this now, not the guns,” she said, and placed the weapon in his hand.
  Then she turned left and right, and deciding on the left, walked through 
  a door.
  Cursing under his breath, Trevanian followed her into a parlor.
  The ceiling sagged like a wet sail, and the room was littered with 
  scraps of wood and the remains of smashed furniture. There was a 
  table, rolled on its side against the wall. Water had dripped along 
  the chimney and down into the fireplace, filling it with a multi-
  layered block of colored ice.
  The carcasses of a variety of animals were piled at the center of the 
  room.
  Trevanian hoped they were just animals.
  “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
  A low growl responded to him from a darkened hallway.
  Leonova shouldered him out of the way and stood, saber in hand, 
  facing the behemoth charging at them from the darkness.
  She met the creature’s claws with her blade, and then danced away, 
  avoiding a killer hug. The monster stood on its hind legs, its massive 
  head brushing the ceiling. It roared in rage, and the whole house 
  creaked and groaned.
  A bear.
  Ursus spaeleus. One of the beasts that had come with the ice.
  A black bear, a monster one thousand pounds heavy, with claws like 
  daggers and a mouth big enough to bite Leonova’s head off. It took a 
  step forward and almost dismissively slapped her away. The woman 
  slipped on the iced floor and crashed into the wall.
  The beast fell back on all fours, and again prodded the woman, causing 
  her to roll on the floor. The bear roared, and again the building 
  responded with a shower of plaster flakes and icicles.
  Trevanian pulled out his gun.
  Leonova was trying to rise. She looked at him. Her fur hat had been 
  knocked off, and her white hair fell like an avalanche on her shoulders.
  “No!”
  He pulled the trigger. A 465 bullet hit the bear in the head, and bounced 
  off its thick skull. The beast looked up, staring at Trevanian in surprise.
  Then it let out a booming growl, and charged.
  The man pulled his trigger again, and again, hitting again the monster 
  in the head as it drew closer. 
  
  The third bullet found the animal’s eye.
  With a strangled yelp, the bear reared, and stretched its forepaws, . 
  Leonova slid in front of it and pushed with both hands her saber at the 
  base of the monstrous… neck.
  Another slap sent her reeling.
  Then finally the animal’s simple brain realized it was dead, and the 
  massive body crashed on the floor. Everything was very still for ten 
  seconds.
  Then with a rumble, the sagging ceiling collapsed on the dead animal, 
  in a cloud of debris. 
  
  17.
  They crawled out of the wreckage, coughing and shaking their heads.
  They crossed the entrance hall running, and staggered out as the whole 
  building collapsed in slow motion, like a folding house of cards.
  They retreated against the back of the ice cave, the sleek crystal around 
  them groaning and snapping as its mass readjusted itself to the new 
  equilibrium.
  Breathing heavily, they leaned against the ice, trying to catch their 
  breath.
  Leonova was bruised and disheveled. Trevanian slipped some new 
  bullets in his gun.
  “Now what?” he asked.
  Before she could answer, there was a chorus of shouts, and through the 
  slowly dissipating cloud of iced dust, a band of ragged Roman savages 
  was on them.
  Trevanian could not say if they were the same that had ambushed them 
  outside, or another band of hunters.
  He fired his gun at the closest, the bullet pushing the man back. Then 
  he stood back to back with the Russian, their attackers milling around 
  them.
  
  The early moments were like a dance. Shoot. Dodge. Parry with the 
  dagger. Kick the adversary in a knee. Turn around. Stab an aggressor. 
  Shoot again.
  The Romans fell, sorry men wearing rags and animal pelts, brandishing 
  makeshift weapons.
  They were too wild and desperate to put up any serious fight, but they 
  seemed to go on forever.
  Trevanian’s gun clicked on empty. He turned it, gripping the hot barrel, 
  and started using it like a hammer, hitting the incoming barbarians, 
  smashing jawbones, cracking skulls.
  At his side, Leonova suddenly let out a wild bellow. Her saber had been 
  left stuck in the bear’s carcass, and she was fighting barehanded.
  Trevanian watched her in gruesome fascination as the woman, tall and 
  thin, poured a storm of punches and kicks on her adversaries. The 
  Romans were ignoring him, all their efforts focused on Leonova. She 
  moved like a dancer. She rolled, jumped and pirouetted through the 
  mass of the incoming brutes. She broke wrists and arms, she snapped 
  necks, she punched through chests. Her adversaries fell groaning, 
  spitting broken teeth, holding fractured limbs.
  Finally she grabbed a Roman twice her size. She lifted him high over 
  her head, and then let him fall on her bent knee, noisily breaking his 
  spine.
  The survivors retreated, dragging the wounded with them.
  And finally it was silence again.
  
  18.
  Leonova sat on a frosted bench. Her jacket had been ripped in the 
  fight.
  On first sight Trevanian thought she was wearing some kind of armlet, 
  encircling her biceps. But just as he looked the thing clicked, rotated 
  like the drum of a gun, and a piston pushed a glass vial, the size of a 
  bullett, into a side compartment. There was a hiss, and the woman was 
  shaken by a violent shudder.
  Then with a gasp she sat up, eyes ablaze.
  They stared in each other eyes for a moment.
  Her pupils sparkled, and her usual haughty smile curled her blue lips. 
  “Are you shocked?” she asked, defiantly.
  Trevanian shook his head. “I didn’t know…”
  She laughed, harshly. “What did you expect? Some vulgar contraption, 
  brass tubes and wires, like in some of your penny dreadfuls?”
  “I thought that stuff was reserved to the proles, in the workers’ caves,” 
  he lied. 
  “Your information is imprecise. Those are productivity elixirs. This is 
  panatseya.”
  She pulled the strips of her shredded sleeve together, covering the 
  dispenser. Then she lifted her hand, opening and closing the fist slowly, 
  gazing intently.
  
  “You all right?” he asked.
  “What? Yes, it’s only, as I was saying, the panatseya…”
  She seemed to drift for a moment. He came closer, to help her.
  “Don’t touch me,” she said. “Don’t or I’ll kill you.”
  Trevanian took a step back, raising his hands. He looked at her. Her 
  face was becoming paler, the blue of her veins more defined. Then she 
  sighed, a deep, almost obscene sound, and she threw back her head, 
  the bones in her neck snapping, a strand of snow-white hair escaping 
  from under her fur hat. She looked at him. “I’m fine,” she said.
  “If you say so…”
  She chuckled. “So shocked!”
  She took a few steps, her heels clicking on the scarred marble of the 
  floor. She breathed, fast and deep. “I am a member of the aristokratyia,” 
  she said, matter of factly. “Panatseya is part of what I am. It makes me 
  what I am.” She turned to him, hands on her hips. “I was weaned on 
  it. I was dosed for the first time when I was twelve, as it is required. It 
  was the most important day of my life. You can’t imagine how it feels.”
  He nodded at the broken forms of the Romans, laying on the ground. 
  “But I guess they can.”
  Leonova grimaced. “So sportsman-like, so British. And yet you did 
  shoot two of them. You don’t seem to worry when it comes to using 
  your technology against these poor bastards. But you are shocked if I 
  use mine.”
  “My gun does not make me something different from what I am.”
  “Really? Well, panatseya does. It makes me better. Faster, stronger. 
  More aware, more aggressive. It washes away hesitation, it makes the 
  cold nothing more than an afterthought.”
  “A gun and a fur coat don’t make me dependent.”
  “So you say. Then do without them.”
  Trevanian lifted his gun, and flicked it open. The brass cases slipped 
  out of the drum and fell on the floor, tinkling. “I’ll have to do without 
  this all right.”
  He snapped the gun closed, and belted it.
  “Now what?”
  She snorted. “We follow them,” she said. “No matter what, they come 
  from the outside.”
  
  19.
  SPrince Marko Zavadovski, master of the hunts at Tsaritsin, and 
  personal friend of the Czar himself, had been crucified in the middle 
  of an old square. Two beams had been set on the pedestal that had 
  once held a monument of some sort. Then the Romans had strapped 
  the Russian aristocrat to the cross, and they had killed him. Slowly.
  Captain Leonova staggered into the square and then sat down heavily 
  on the dais at the foot of the cross.
  Trevanian had no idea what she was saying under her breath, if it was 
  a prayer or a litany of curses. He looked around, warily. They had not 
  encountered any resistance on their way up from beneath the glacier. 
  The sun was setting, and the Romans were nowhere to be seen, dead 
  or alive.
  Only this gruesome trophy remained.
  The Company man climbed up on the pedestal. He still had Leonova’s 
  dagger, and it felt like the decent thing to do to cut the man’s ropes, and 
  somehow compose his body. Prince Marko Zavadovski was covered 
  in a thick crust of ice, like an armor. They had not killed him straight 
  away. The prince had been stripped of his coat and jacket. He had 
  been beaten, a shoulder dislodged. Then they had cut him. Trevanian 
  grimaced. He had been around enough to recognize the sort of cuts 
  that grant maximum bleeding while keeping the victim alive.
  
  Then they had probably doused him in water, and left him to the night 
  winds. He had been dead for at least a day now.
  Once on top of the marble cube, Trevanian noticed something piled in 
  front of the dead man, bathed in his blood.
  He bent down. Animal pelts. No. Scalps.
  He counted fifteen scalps. Black, blonde, red-haired. Freshly cut, and 
  stiffened by cold. Three at least were combed in the long braid the 
  Roman women wore.
  He looked up at the man hanging there, and felt a sense of nausea.
  “He was hunting them,” he said.
  Leonova looked at him.
  “He was hunting human beings,” he repeated, indignation lending an 
  edge to his words. “That’s why they came at us like that. Revenge.”
  “The most dangerous game,” she said, matter of factly.
  Trevanian closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, the cold air gripping 
  his chest, making his heart skip a beat.
  “What are you?” he asked.
  The white-haired woman looked at him.
  He thought about the propaganda. About the self-righteous pamphlets 
  that circulated in the Raj. Documents written by learned nonentities, 
  accusing the Czar of every sin in the Good Book, and a few extra 
  dozens. He thought about how he used to leer at such ravings. People 
  are people, across every border. This was his experience. This had been 
  his experience so far.
  Leonova was standing now, arms crossed. She looked tired, as if the 
  drugs in her system were losing their grip.
  “You came here to hunt human beings,” he said. He stood. He shoved 
  at her a handful of scalps. “You were taking trophies!”
  She stared at him dispassionately. “Isn’t it what you do, too?”
  “How dare you—!”
  She smirked. “You think we don’t know? You come here with your 
  airships, trading art and books and technology for trinkets. You have 
  the Romans dig in the ruins, and bring you back the best pieces, in 
  exchange for what? Canned food, blankets, colored beads and toys.”
  “It’s a completely different story.”
  “Really? Do you care if these men and women live or die? You treat 
  them like the trained monkeys in the King of Siam’s personal guard. 
  Worse, because those monkeys are fed and housed, while you let these 
  
  people sleep in the cold and fend for themselves. You treat them as 
  tools. Is it so different from what we do?”
  She pushed one of the scalps on the ground with the tip of her boot. 
  “So don’t give me your sanctimonious scruples. You treat them like 
  animals. You just don’t kill and eat them, but that’s the only difference 
  between these sub-humans and any other animal in your menageries. 
  Or in ours.”
  “You are crazy.”
  “We are strong.” She held his gaze. “You are weak. You still think the 
  bright light of your British technology will bring these sad remains 
  back to civilization.” She chuckled. “You saw them. You felt their foul 
  breath as they tried to kill you. You had no problem shooting them.”
  “I did not stalk them with a high-powered gun. I defended myself.”
  She laughed. “You are full of excuses.” She turned back. “The strong do 
  not need excuses. The strong live by their own rules.”
  Shouts and the sound of rhythmic steps sounded in the plaza.
  Soon, a small squad of prole troopers was deploying on the iced 
  pavement. A man in a black officer’s uniform ran to Leonova, and 
  bowed. He stared at the dead body on the cross, and then spoke rapidly 
  to the woman.
  She snapped an order back.
  He rummaged in his coat’s pockets, and offered her a cigarette holder, 
  and a light.
  The Russian captain put the fire to the tip of the cigarette took a long 
  pull. 
  Her officer undid his coat, and offered it to her. She draped it around 
  her shoulders, while the man stood impassive, despite the biting cold.
  “What should we do, now?” she asked Trevanian, arching an ironic 
  eyebrow.
  Trevanian straightened his back. “Are you a huntress, captain?”
  Leonova’s eyes widened. “No, captain. Alas, I am not a sportswoman. 
  But I am a woman with a problem.”
  “I thought the strong were above problems.”
  “Sarcasm is the refuge of the craven, captain Trevanian, and you are 
  no craven.”
  Trevanian eyed the shock troopers, standing still in the increasingly 
  chill air. He considered the officer in black, standing still in his jacket.
  Then he turned back to Leonova.
  
  “You have lost your charge,” he said. “The Czar won’t be pleased.” He 
  allowed himself a weary grin. “You will have to learn fast the art of 
  making excuses.”
  “What if I were to accept the offer you made me this morning?”
  “That offer does not stand anymore.”
  Her blue lips contorted in a grimace. “So self-righteous.”
  She snapped her fingers. Her man extracted his gun and handed it to 
  her.
  “Are you afraid of death, captain?” she asked.
  A sun exploded in the sky above them, bathing the plaza in stark white 
  light.
  A buzz and a screech announced that the Ostrich’s external loudspeakers 
  were online. 
  Singh’s voice thundered like the voice of God down from the sky. 
  “Is everything fine, boss?”
  Trevanian lifted a hand above his head, and waved.
  “And you, captain?” he asked. “Are you afraid of death?”
  Light increased in intensity as the Ostrich hovered closer to the ground.
  A ladder was unfurled from the mizzen hatch.
  She was staring at him, silent.
  “Well, by what little I have learned about your kind,” Trevanian said, “I 
  think you’ll learn to be afraid of it very soon.”
  He gripped the ladder, slipped a leg over a rung, and let his men pull 
  him up. 
  
  20.
  “What did I tell you, boss?”
  Trevanian, Singh and Luongo were sitting in the wardroom, having a 
  robust breakfast. The Ostrich was en route to Delhi via Sharm el Sheik, 
  where they were expected to berth in 36 hours.
  During the night, Trevanian had dictated a full report to his majordomo, 
  and had the printout read and signed by Singh and Luongo, before 
  locking it inside a brass tube for dispatch to the Board of Directors.
  “The fact that you were right does not make me any happier,” Trevanian 
  replied. He had barely touched his eggs.
  Luongo chuckled. “Fact is,” he said to the Indian, “our boss kinda 
  fancied the little Russian belle, and the fact that she turned out to be 
  a homicidal hussy with an autocratic bend did not go down too good 
  with him.”
  The Italian laughed and lifted his orange juice in a silent toast.
  “You realize, of course,” Singh said, “that at the net of everything else, 
  you made yourself an enemy.”
  Trevanian shook his head. “I don’t think she’ll live long enough to give 
  me any real trouble.”
  “She misplaced one of the Czar’s favorite playthings,” Luongo noted. 
  “Good old Vladimir is not the easygoing sort.” He turned to the 
  captain. “You should have offered her a safe passage to the nearest 
  
  Company port. I’m sure the Board of Directors would have appreciated 
  the opportunity of tapping a Russian sky captain’s brain, and taking a 
  gander at their technology.”
  Trevanian was silent for a moment.
  “I offered her a way out,” he said. “But she wouldn’t take it.”
  Singh squinted at him, frowning.
  Luongo shook his head and sighed. “The last thing you want, boss, is a 
  woman with a sense of duty.” He grinned. “And a passion for hunting.”
  Trevanian stood.
  “If you will excuse me, I have some sleep to catch.”
  Singh watched him walk along the corridor and into his cabin.
  Then he, too, excused himself and went to his post on the bridge.
  
  At last...
  When in Rome is a story set in the universe of “Hope & Glory”, a game 
  setting developed for the Savage Worlds rules.
  The “Hope & Glory” universe exists for the game and for the gamers, 
  and what follows is a roundup of gaming information for those readers 
  that would like to start playing straight away. We hope the readers not 
  (yet?) interested in gaming will find the additional informations on the 
  story background interesting.
  Thanks for reading, and have fun!
  
  Afterword -  
  Not Last Year’s Steampunk
  The core concepts of this story were developed in 2014, as a short 
  demo scenario for the Savage Worlds RPG. Called “The Snowglobe 
  Caper”, it was based on what, at the time, was just an elevator pitch and 
  a notebook filled with notes, and a working title.
  What I wanted was a different sort of steampunk/steampulp world, 
  an exciting and diverse gaming world for the players to explore. 
  Something that could be described as “not last year’s steampunk”.
  In the end, that demo game was never played - and the story slowly 
  morphed into “Glass Houses”, the first story, and the first published bit 
  of the “Hope & Glory” universe.
  I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it.
  And talking about writing - this is not a one-man-show (even if it 
  maybe started like one), and there’s a few people I need to thank. 
  I am tremendously indebted to the graphical artists currentli at work 
  on the project, Angelo Montanini and Alberto Bontempi, whose 
  vision gave body and color to what were only words on a screen. 
  Without Angelo and Alberto’s contribution, this project would be 
  going nowhere.
  I also need to express my gratitude to my long-suffering editor, miss 
  Clara Giuliani, that helped turning my first draft into something 
  readable and (hopefully) worth reading.
  And a big thank you to Umberto Pignatelli, that took my raw notes 
  and turned them into playable concepts in the Appendix.
  Finally, a tip of the hat to the GGStudio team: Matteo Ceresa and Luca 
  Basile, and of course our fearless leader, Gionata dal Farra.
  Davide Mana
  Asti, Italy
  January 2017
  
  About the Author
  Davide Mana was born in Turin, Italy, 1967. He studied science in 
  Turin, London, Bonn, Urbino. He got a BSc and a PhD in Geology. He 
  served in the Air Force. 
  Davide has been a call center operator, language teacher, scarecrow, 
  university researcher, freelance researcher, post-doc course teacher, 
  translator, author, content crafter, art show coordinator, editor, 
  lecturer, game designer, fantasy writer, teacher of Taoist Philosophy, 
  book reviewer, web designer, bicycle repairman. 
  He lives in Castelnuovo Belbo, a 900-souls community in the hills of 
  the Monferrato area of Northern Italy. 
  Davide has been writing – both for the fiction and gaming markets – 
  since the mid ’90s, and his works have been featured in a number of 
  fiction anthologies and gaming books. 
  In his spare time he listens to music, plays at tabletop roleplaying 
  games, cooks and watches old movies. He’s currently waiting for 
  the dealer to deal him the next hand of cards.
  He blogs – about history, adventure, literature – at the Karavansara 
  Blog 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Savage Worlds System (SWADE) [multi]/Hope & Glory/Savage Worlds - Hope & Glory - When in Rome.pdf