"Whoever walks the Via Aurelia at dusk hears two bells: the old bronze of the Septizonium, and the painted steel of Central Station. When both strike together, the hour belongs to the Curia. When only one sounds, it belongs to the devil." — Aureline popular saying, recorded in 1872
Aurum Roma is the largest city on the continent. Political, religious and symbolic capital. Roughly eight hundred thousand people in 1890. Seat of the Pontiff of the Choir, of the Cathedral of the Choir, of the Curia, of the Pontifical Library, and of the Perpetual Vigil of the seven candles of the Archangels.
Urban geography
Where it sits
- The plain of the Aurum, centre-south of the continent.
- The river Aurum cuts the city north to south. Its mouth reaches the Sea of the Choir some eighty kilometres to the south-west. Seven historic bridges cross it inside the urban perimeter.
- Seven hills surround the old centre.
The shape of the city
- An old centre in an irregular oval, about twelve kilometres across at its widest.
- Industrial suburbs to the north and west, expanding through the Ages of the Forge and of Empire.
- Wealthy residential quarters on the hills, to the south-east and east.
- Working-class quarters on the flats west of the Aurum.
- A river port to the south-west, connected to the fleet of the Sea of the Choir by a navigable canal.
The districts — seven, and two more
The official division recognises seven central districts, matching the seven candles of the Perpetual Vigil, plus two industrial suburbs.
I. Coronato District (the absolute centre)
Dominant style: Victorian London crossed with ancient Rome.
- Square of the Choir-Cross: the absolute centre of the city. A quadrilateral two hundred metres a side, with angelic obelisks at the four corners. White marble paving with a Choir-Cross mosaic at the middle. Here stand the Cathedral of the Choir and the Pontifical Palace.
- Cathedral of the Choir (Cathedralis Chori): the principal building. Begun in 1820, in the Black Crusades; finished in 1888, in the Age of Stagnation. An enormous dome, seven pinnacles for the seven Archangels, a classical baroque façade with Victorian additions — Lumen stained glass, electric Hashmalite chandeliers. It holds twelve thousand.
- Via Aurelia: the main north-south avenue. Roman stone shows through the Victorian asphalt wherever the roadworks stopped.
Atmosphere: incense and gas smoke, bronze bells and painted bells, black carriages, clerics in cassocks, relic shops, cafés full of young canons, Catholic journalists, and an unbroken crowd of pilgrims. When the two bells strike together — old bronze and painted steel — it is the official canonical hour.
II. Aurelian District (east-central)
Dominant style: the same Victorian-Roman mixture.
- Trajan Market: a Victorian shopping arcade built inside a preserved imperial market. Cast iron, glass, brick and ancient arches. It sells relics, theological books, liturgical instruments, Lumen jewellery, perfume.
Atmosphere: respectable and prosperous. A conservative middle class. Old clerical families. Young canons lodge here in boarding houses. Bistros serving Roman-style lamb with wine from Vallia Sacra.
III. Solar District (south)
Dominant style: Victorian-Roman, more industrial.
- Central Station: an enormous railway terminus in cast iron, brick and glass. Sanctified trains leave for Ferrumkar, Pradel, Coronata, Schola Maior and Castrum Limentis. A neo-gothic arched roof. A Choir-Cross mosaic in the main hall.
- Liturgical factories: blessed wax, consecrated bells, vestments. Devout Catholic workers, and agnostics the local Inquisition keeps an eye on.
- The Salt Market: distribution of Seal Salt across the city. White sacks arriving from Pradel by train. Catholic families buy monthly for the household perimeter.
- The Pius Aqueduct: an ancient aqueduct still working, bringing water from the hills to the public fountains. Urban metal pipe and two-thousand-year-old stone arches, side by side.
Atmosphere: industrial and religious at once. A worker walking to mass before his shift. Chimney smoke and a cloud of incense in the same street. A children's choir rehearsing in a factory chapel.
IV. Pradian District (north)
Dominant style: traditional central European — Prague, Kraków, Vienna.
- Baroque-eclectic housing: four-storey buildings with façades painted in pastels — old rose, sky blue, mustard yellow, moss green. Tall narrow windows. Ornamental stucco. Steep red-tiled roofs.
- Pradian Square: a tree-lined square with a fountain at the centre. Statues of southern and northern saints. Cafés under arcades. The municipal band plays on Sundays.
- University of the Bell: a branch of Schola Coronata, where provincial students spend a year or two before moving on to Schola Maior.
Atmosphere: markedly more central European. Less Roman. Colder. People in wool coats and scarves. Beer in a vaulted hall. A smaller bell than the central one, but rung more often, and at folk festivals.
V. Old Pontiff District (east)
Dominant style: traditional central European, with more orthodoxy and the mark of Vykhradian migrants.
- The Magnates' Quarter: few families, and enormously rich. Vykhradian aristocrats who keep a house in Aurum Roma for political weight. Mansions with closed courtyards, coach houses and servants.
- The Fur Market: pelts out of Königsmark and Vykhradia. The Aureline winter requires them.
Atmosphere: aristocratic and diplomatic. Languages mixing — Ecclesial Latin, Vychodski, Nordsprek. The duel is still alive here, illegally. Canons of Vykhradian origin carry a heavy Slavic accent.
VI. Argenteo District (south-west, working class)
Dominant style: heavy industrial Victorian London, without the Roman side.
- Glass Alley: a street of workers who counterfeit Lumen. Industrial heresy — they make Lumen lamps without a full blessing and sell them cheap in the popular market.
- The Argenteo pubs: workers' taverns. Beer, vodka, cheap wine. Political argument, and revolutionary argument. The Reformed Inquisition puts men inside periodically.
- The Aurum Docks: the river port. Cargo comes up the Aurum from Coronata.
Atmosphere: fog, smoke, dark brick, gaslight, street crime, and revolution talked about quietly. The bell you hear most is the factory alarm, and it is not liturgical.
VII. Hospital District (west)
Dominant style: philanthropic Victorian.
- Greater Hospital of the Hashmal: the reference hospital of the Hospitallers. Five buildings around a quadrangle. Exorcism surgery, electrical medicine, anti-possession therapy.
- House of the White Mediums: a house of retreat and formation. It receives candidates from across the continent.
- House of the Poor of the Choir: a soup kitchen and a hostel for refugees from the frontier.
- Aurum Cemetery: a monumental neo-gothic cemetery. Headstones with the Choir-Cross. Angel statues. A funerary chapel every hundred metres.
Atmosphere: charity, suffering and institutional hope. White sisters, Hospitallers, middle-class volunteers. Wounded soldiers back from Limes Orientalis are admitted here.
VIII. Forge Suburb (far north, industrial)
The workers' suburb where the heaviest factories settled after 1850, outside the old central perimeter.
IX. Sun Suburb (far south, suburban agriculture)
Smallholdings, vineyards, farming monasteries. It supplies the city, and marks the effective edge of the metropolis.
Principal institutions
| Institution | District | Function |
|---|---|---|
| InstitutionCathedral of the Choir | DistrictCoronato | FunctionSupreme liturgical seat |
| InstitutionPontifical Palace | DistrictCoronato | FunctionResidence of the Pontiff |
| InstitutionThe Curia (offices) | DistrictCoronato | FunctionEcclesiastical bureaucracy |
| InstitutionPontifical Library | DistrictAurelian (Septizonium) | FunctionArchive and study |
| InstitutionUniversity of the Choir | DistrictOld Pontiff + Pradian | FunctionElite ecclesiastical formation |
| InstitutionSchola Coronata branch | DistrictPradian | FunctionTechnical university |
| InstitutionGreater Hospital of the Hashmal | DistrictHospital | FunctionAnti-possession medicine |
| InstitutionHeadquarters, Knights of the Seal | DistrictSolar | FunctionContinental seat of the military Order |
| InstitutionReformed Inquisition — the See | DistrictCoronato (palace annexe) | FunctionInvestigation of heresy |
| InstitutionCentral Station | DistrictSolar | FunctionRailway hub |
| InstitutionAurum Exchange | DistrictAurelian | FunctionTrade — the lesser rival of the Brithon Exchange |
| InstitutionHouse of the White Mediums | DistrictHospital | FunctionReception and formation |
| InstitutionOld Septizonium | DistrictAurelian | FunctionOpen library and ruins |
| InstitutionHouse of Imperial Ceremonial | DistrictOld Pontiff | FunctionVykhradian embassy |
The Perpetual Vigil
At the absolute centre of the Coronato District, inside the Cathedral of the Choir, stands the Chapel of the Seven Candles. Seven eternal candles, one for each Archangel — Mikahel, Gabriah, Rafalim, Urial, Selaphiel, Yeduhel, Barukhiel. Lit on 23 June 1786, during the Intervention of the Archangels. They have never gone out.
Seven Contemplative Whites keep permanent vigil in six-hour shifts, twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year. Each candle burns with a colour of its own, revealed by the Hashmal. If a candle goes out by itself, it is the canonical sign of an imminent descent by the corresponding Archangel — an apocalyptic alarm.
The chapel is closed to the public except on the Feast of the Intervention, 23 June, when it opens for twenty-four hours for the procession.
The city by the hour
- Before dawn, four to six: Matins. Liturgical bells across the whole city. Priests crossing dark streets with sacramentals.
- Morning, six to noon: masses, market, schools, offices. Heavy traffic. Carriages, horse trams and electric trams — Hashmalite — sharing the same street.
- Afternoon, noon to six: a siesta in the south — Coronato, Aurelian, Solar — inherited from Rome. Full activity in the north — Pradian, Old Pontiff — inherited from central Europe. The cultural seam is visible.
- Evening, six to eleven: gaslight. Salons. Theatres. Restaurants. Young canons in cafés. Aristocrats at receptions. Workers in pubs.
- Night, eleven to four: the city almost silent. Patrols of the Reformed Inquisition work the alleys. Statistically, possessions happen at this hour.
Speech
- High Ecclesial Latin in liturgical and academic settings.
- Bilingualism is common in Pradian — Latin and Germanic-alpine — and in Old Pontiff — Latin and Vychodski.
- The workers' slang of the Argenteo mixes popular Latin, Vykhradian terms brought by immigrants, and Brytonian words carried in by island workers who came for the factories.
Food
- Lamb à l'Aureline (Aurelian): slow-roasted with alpine herbs.
- Ash soup (Solar): a broad-bean broth with a crumb of Holy Ash — household protection and nourishment at once.
- Pane Coronato: flatbread stamped with the Choir-Cross, sold everywhere.
- Wine of Vallia Sacra: liturgical red, and the same wine watered for the table.
- Pradian beer: a dark central-European beer, in the vaulted halls of the Pradian district.
- Aureline pasticcio: a pastry pie of offal and herbs. Traditional.
Canonical events, 1780-1890
- 1786 — the Intervention of the Archangels. The Conclave of the Twenty-Three meets in the Cathedral of the Choir, then in ruins and rebuilt afterwards.
- 1788 — institutional founding of the Clerical Order in Aurum Roma. The first Pontiff of the Choir, Pontifex Coronatus I.
- 1820 — reconstruction of the Cathedral of the Choir begins.
- 1851 — the symbolic pact-bound bombardment of Aurum Roma. Pact hosts reached eighty kilometres from the city in an incursion that should have been impossible. They were driven off, and the shock reorganised the defence of the Limes.
- 1865 — the Broken Glass crisis begins in Aurum Roma, in the Argenteo District, before spreading across the continent.
- 1872 — Lumen electric lighting installed on the main avenues. The city becomes the first on the continent with fully electrified public streets.
- 1888 — the Cathedral of the Choir is completed. The seven pinnacles finished. Consecrated by Pontiff Coronatus VII.