Etruscan Blood

by AM Kirkby

  ***

  If you'd asked Aranthur two years later whether he'd had any difficulties learning to write, of course, he would have said no. He'd started by reading slowly, forming the sound of each separate letter with his mouth, listening to his own voice to see if he could hear what the word was. Then one day, only a few weeks afterwards, he'd read; 'What is the principle of all things?' And he'd already spoken the words 'Everything changes, isn't that it?' when he realised he hadn't actually read the question with his lips, he'd seen it and understood it without the mediation of sound.

  From then onwards he learned quickly. He learned the skills Ramutha wanted him to learn; how to write a business letter, to keep accounts, to write a eulogy of a wealthy patron. He learned about Etruria - his tutor had lived in Tarchna, and had visited Veii and Velzna, before moving to Cisra some years ago. They discussed the trade between towns; the way cities had specialised, Tarchna in the luxury trade, Vulci in bronzeworking; even the distinctions of burial rite between the southern and northern cities of the federation. He learned Greek history, too; and through that, the history of the Persians, the Medes, the Phoenicians. The world grew as he looked at it; he began to dream of deserts, wide expanses, the dark sea in a storm.

  But it was the philosophy he really wanted to learn; he even got his tutor to lend him writings, and spent his afternoons reading. By the end of the first year he was beginning to push his tutor for answers. By the end of the second, he was beginning to write his own answers, in inexact Greek where the Etruscan language didn't have the right words, or any words at all. He hoped, one day, his tutor would volunteer to stay after midday; but he never did. Aranthur told himself the tutor was no doubt engaged elsewhere in the afternoons, but even so, he was disappointed. He never let it show, any more than he ever allowed anyone to guess his hunger for ideas.

  “I don't understand you any more,” his mother said. He thought; you never did. “What use is that stuff? Why would you care about the beginning of the world?”

  “Because it's where we come from,” he said. “Because it explains.”

  “I wish your father were here. He'd have put an end to this. It's all Ramutha's idea, isn't it? She just wants to take you away from me.” She sobbed.

  A year ago he would have turned away, dismissing her. But for the last few weeks he'd been discussing ethics with his tutor; not rules for living, but thoughts about how one might go about creating such rules. They'd talked about subjectivity; how the world as each person experiences it is different, how to frame a moral imperative in such a world. There were no answers; then, there never were any answers, that was something he'd learned over the course of his studies.

  Now he looked at his mother, and saw not the desire for possession, but the neediness of a woman whose only love had ended in death and penury. He was no longer irritated by her; it was worse than that. He was deeply, woundedly sad that she had never been able to love him in any other way; that she could only desire to hold on to him, to grasp him tightly, too tightly. With tears blurring his vision, he went over to her and bent down - he'd grown, this last year - to put his arms around her.

  She was shaking with sobs; he felt how gross as he'd thought her flesh was, there was very little weight to her. In a different world, he thought...

  “Aranthur. I need you. Now.” Ramutha's voice was sharp. Aranthur turned angrily; but he calmed as soon as he saw how flustered she was. He had never before seen her anything other than composed. “I may be poor, but I am still noble,” she'd said once, “and as long as I keep this house, I shall keep up decent standards of behaviour”; and that, for her, included a certain frostiness and immobility. But today he saw her hands trembling, the veins clear and blue on the backs of her hands, her thin throat pulsing as she swallowed. He was suddenly aware she had grown old; when had that happened? (Was she still the same Ramutha she had been yesterday? Or a year ago? Or when she married old Vestiricina, when she was young, and he too, who had been dead since before Aranthur was born? His mind chattered incessantly, while he thought on another level, what could have broken her self-control?)

  “There's a messenger. You must come.”

  He let go his mother's shoulders, turning her face upwards so that he could look her in the eyes. Strange, he'd never noticed how light they were, brown flecked with green.

  “I'll be back in a moment,” he said, and squeezed her once, hard, before he followed Ramutha into the courtyard.

  “He's from Tarchna.” He'd never known Ramutha afraid to speak out, but as she muttered to him, she was looking sideways at the man who stood in the centre of the yard,; a tall man, his riding cloak folded over one arm. A golden brooch gleamed on one shoulder; the pointed toes of his red boots were covered with dust, but they showed fine, soft leather. Aranthur remembered his dreams; his grandfather had sent for him at last.

  “Aranthur son of Arruns?”

  He nodded.

  “Then I've been sent to find you. Venel Camna, at your service.” Venel dipped his head gracefully; his hair swung forward, and his golden hair ties clicked as he bowed.

  Aranthur looked at Ramutha; she was holding her back rigidly straight, and had tilted her head up a little so she could look along her sharp nose at the messenger. Seeing her poise, he collected himself; he wouldn't give her cause to be ashamed of him.

  “You have found me.”

  The messenger's eyes widened very slightly. “Then I have a message from your grandfather.”

  Aranthur extended his hand. “Give it me, then.”

  The messenger looked puzzled. His hands remained by his sides.

  “You said you have a message. Give it me.”

  The messenger took a breath. When he spoke, his voice was high and musical, as if he were reciting a poem. Which, Aranthur realised, was not far off what he was doing; reciting from memory.

  “Demaratos of Tarchna, sends greetings to the son of Arruns. For years he searched for his son, who is lost. But since a son of the family remains, he wishes to extend his hand to him. I am sent to bring him to Tarchna.”

  It was that daydream, but made real; this was the different world, in which Aranthur's grandfather sent for him. He should have distrusted his luck, and yet he felt everything was playing out as happened in dreams.

  There was a long silence; then Ramutha spoke. “Demaratos is an odd name.”

  The messenger cleared his throat. “It is a Greek name, lady.”

  “A Greek name. How interesting.” She had regained her control now, was icily, almost insultingly cool.

  “He married into an Etruscan family in Tarchna.”

  “We've heard nothing for thirteen years.”

  “We didn't know where Arruns had gone. He said something about Phoenicia; he must have come back through Pyrgi, and eventually settled in Cisra.”

  “He died here.”

  The messenger had the grace to look sorrowful.

  “And my grandfather,” Aranthur broke in; “Who is he? What is he?”

  He dreaded now - now that he knew his father was no lucumo, not even an Etruscan - that he'd find out he was some shabby immigrant living in a squat outside the town. But he had enough clout to send a noble messenger, he thought.

  “Demaratos was a noble of Corinth before events there made it, ah, advisable for him to leave. He is a wealthy man in Tarchna; his house is your house, Aranthur son of Arruns.”

  “You'll be a wealthy man,” Ramutha pointed out; “You'll be his heir.”

  “Unfortunately not,” the messenger said gently. “His son Loukios is that. And there are the sisters, too. But he'll recognise you, none the less. You'll want for nothing, you can be sure.”