by AM Kirkby
***
The whole of Rome turned out to see the king invested; or at least, the men, and a few brave women. You could spot the Etruscans not just from the varied bright colours of their clothes, Tanaquil thought, but from the presence of their women, their hair piled high and unhidden by veils. Crowds thronged the slopes of the Capitoline; in their grey cloaks and dirty white tunics they reminded her of dingy sheep. The white heifer stood ready for sacrifice, garlanded with flowers, her horns shining with gilt. Above her, the curule chair had been set up on the terrace overlooking the forum; Tarquinius moved easily as his made his way to it, turning to call to a supporter in the ranks of the Faliscans. She remembered old Ancus Marcius' rigid march, so different from her husband's fluid movement, and smiled sadly; he'd been a good friend, the old man. She'd keep his secret.
But now she had work to do. Looking up, she saw Tarquinius had sat down. Their eyes met; he smiled. As the rex sacrorum stepped forward at the heifer's head, Tanaquil rose from her seat, and went to join him.
She could hear the angry whispering of the Romans, the excited chatter of the Etruscans. Only the Faliscans stood silent. The rex sacrorum looked at her in confusion.
“Carry on,” she said.
He took the cup from his assistant, and sprinkled the heifer's head with wine; it ran between the beast's eyes, swirling on the rosette of her forehead, trickling down to her soft nose. Giving the cup back to his boy, and taking another vessel, he threw grain and salt with a flick of his wrist, so that it fell on the animal's hairy back. The salt glittered in the air as it flew; Tanaquil found she was biting her lip.
“Shall I?” said the assistant.
“Be it so,” replied the rex.
She looked up; the sky was undiluted blue. Sun shimmered through her eyelashes. She didn't see the executioner swing his hammer at the heifer's head; but she heard the sound of the impact, the thrashing animal falling to her knees, the splash of blood as the priest drew the knife across her throat. She should be used to it by now, the bloodiness and the pity of the death.
They were already butchering the animal when she stepped forwards to take the augury. Plunging her arms into its soft insides, she felt for the liver. The earth was already soaking up the fresh blood; the hem of her skirt was stained with it, red on white. There it was, her hands recognised the shape and the density of it. She lifted the organ high; blood trickled down her arms, tickling on the skin. It was well shaped, healthy; she breathed in deeply. There could be no doubt any more; Tarquinius was the rightful king.
All she had to do now was place the liver on the altar, with the heart and the other organs, for burning. But Faustus was pushing through the ranks of the priests, his face dark.
“Let me see it! I demand to see it! We have a right to know the augury.”
Two of the priests were trying to pull him back; no one seemed to know what to do. The rex sacrorum raised his hands as if to apologise; his palms were red. Some of the Romans were shouting in support of Faustus; others were silent, shocked at the sacrilege. Tarquinius, she saw, was leaning forward, though he had not risen from the chair; she caught his eye, and winked quickly. She hoped he'd seen; she hoped no one else had, or if they had, that they'd thought she was simply blinking at the strength of the sun.
Turning, she met Faustus face to face, stepping inside his reach, right up against him. He didn't flinch; give him his due, he was brave. Stupid, wrong, but brave. Somehow that made her even angrier. She needed to show him the liver, though; needed to show him that the augury was a good one, to quiet the rumours he'd seed through Rome like weeds if she didn't. But she didn't have to give way gently. Besides, he was the first to breach protocol. Be it so, then.
Raising her hand, she dashed the liver into his face.
Master
He didn't know how he knew, he didn't know when he'd been told, but for as long as he could remember he'd known that Velx was the oldest of the Etruscan cities. It was Etruscan now; it was Etruscan as far back as the times of the men who knew no iron; it would always be Etruscan.
It was a city proud of its traditions; it was still a city for fine bronze working, only now, sometimes, the details might be inlaid with iron. It was a city of proud aristocrats; that excluded him, son of a renowned but ignoble warrior.
He never really knew his father. By the time of his first memories, his father had been a broken man; a spear wound in the side had left him crooked, and his breath wheezed. People told him, later, that Arnth had been a great fighter, that he'd held the bridge across the Fiora alone against three men of Cisra; but all he could remember was the pink eruption of that great scar, and that whistling in-breath, bubbling exhalation. By the time he was six, his father was dead.
His father's estate was modest, but it was just enough for what he needed; armour, a pair of horses, time. From the age of eleven, he was preparing for war; his father's name, at least, was good for something, and got him taken on in the household of a retired general. He couldn't aspire to the kingship, but he might rise as far as master of horse; or he could, if he made a name for himself soldiering, acquire his own men. Then he'd be able to fight for any city that would choose him. He'd seen how the general lived, and it was something to aspire to (though in the night sometimes he seemed to hear that whistling breath again, and wondered whether it was that, and not riches, that lay in his future as it did in his past).
He couldn't remember when he'd stopped calling the general 'general', and had started calling him Master Tute, and then, eventually, Vel Tute, and finally Vel. His place in the household was ambiguous; he was a student, and he was an extra pair of hands around the place when anything needed doing; a general in the making, perhaps, and at the same time a boy not yet grown up.
He remembered the day he'd arrived.
“This is the boy,” his mother said.
The general looked at him; strode slowly up, with that jerky, too-tight gait horsemen acquired after a while, and looked at him again, closer.
“Can he ride?”
“No,” his mother said.
“Can he use a sword?”
“Not really.”
“I'll take that as no. Can he gut a chicken?”
“Yes. And he can manage an axe, for chopping wood.”
“Good.” The general stretched the word out as if he were still thinking whether it was true or not; gooo-ood. Then he slapped the boy (and ever after, he was 'boy' or 'the boy', until he earned another name), and said, having made his decision; “He can stay, then. He'll be useful. And if he manages to learn anything when he's not hard at work, he's welcome to it.”
His mother looked unimpressed. She'd known that might be all they would get; even so, she seemed disappointed, and as if sensing this, the general lowered his voice a little, and said; “I might see if I can get him into a decent unit, when he's older, if he shows any talent.”
Later on, when he had his own command, the Master would say to his men; “I grew up shovelling shit in the stables;” but that wasn't quite true. He was jack of all work in the household; fetching and carrying, mostly, getting water from the cistern, grain or beans from the dried stores, lugging a fresh amphora of wine in from the storehouse. He helped to butcher the pigs; not killing them himself, but pulling out the long strings of intestine for sausage casings, washing the stinking things and scraping them clean. It was his task to mix the crushed grain into the basinfull of blood and stuff the sticky mixture into the skins for black pudding; it was his job, usually, to sweep the courtyard.
Those first few years, he wasn't given much free time. Even in the evenings, he'd often be called to serve at a banquet, though he usually left before the wine drinking really started, after the sweets had been set out on the tables. Every so often, one of the retainers would remember he was supposed to be learning something, so the boy would be taken out to the back field and thrashed with a wooden sword till he fought back, or made to run laps till his lungs burned and his legs cramped.
After his first couple of years, his mother came to see him. Or rather, she came to see the general; it was a formal meeting, and though he wanted to run to her, to hold her in his arms, he had to stand at a distance as she discussed him with the general almost as if he hadn't been there. Was his work satisfactory? Yes. Was his physical development satisfactory? Yes. Was his attitude satisfactory? Well... yes.
“So you'll be keeping him on?”
He'd not known there was any doubt of it. Now he realised how tenuous his situation had been. It was not an easy feeling. He waited in fear for the general's dismissal.
“He's useful enough.” Not 'yes', he noted; it was a grudging acceptance. But it was an acceptance, at least.
After that interview he was relieved of some of the basic tasks; one of the retainers had to sweep the yard in the mornings, and spat after the boy when he saw him taking himself off to his exercise. Now, the general saw to it that one of his men was responsible every day for giving the boy his training; riding every second day, sword and spear on the others.
He'd expected his mother to be there for his third lustrum, his coming of age. She never came. He spent four days sulking.
The next day, there were two new horses in the stables. They were small, round horses with rough hair and uncombed manes, looking nervous and unused to the noise of the household.
“Careful, he kicks,” the stable lad told him.
“They look a bit rough. The general's usually a better judge of horseflesh than that,” he said.
“They aren't the generals, I don't think.” The lad scratched behind his ear. “Came in yesterday. Dunno what for.”
It wasn't till the afternoon that he found out. The general called for him, and he went gladly, thinking his mother would be there; something must have delayed her. But he was careful not to run; you didn't run, not in this household, unless you wanted to be shouted at, or known for a child. You didn't show emotion, either, unless you wanted to be teased; so he walked steadily, and showed no enthusiasm.
When his mother wasn't there, he showed no disappointment, either.
“You'll be wondering why I asked for you, no doubt.”
“Sir.” No need for yes or no. There never was, when the general asked that kind of question. He wouldn't pay any attention to your answer, anyway.
“Right. First. It's time you started learning tactics if we're going to make an officer of you. I'll want you here, every day, straight after the midday meal, and look sharp.”
“Sir.”
“And secondly. Your mother sent two horses for you. I understand they're rather raw. Completely untrained, in fact. So that's a job for you.”
“Sir.” He controlled himself with difficulty; he didn't know whether to feel more embarrassed at the poor quality of the horses his mother had sent, or excited at the prospect of training his own horses. Then he remembered his remark to the groom, and flinched with shame.
“Now then, I don't want you neglecting your training sessions. You'll join the men for the sword drill next eight-day, instead of taking your lessons with Karkanas; you're good enough to hold your own, I think, and if I'm wrong, you'll soon learn.”
“Sir?”
“What is it?”
“May I... well, do the...”
“Out with it, boy. If it needs to be said, say it.”
“Tack, sir. I don't know if my mother sent any tack with the horses?”
“Well if she didn't, ask the lad to sort some out for you. And if you want some help with training you can ask him, too. Nobody else, mind. And remember; no horsetaming till your work's done. Right. You can go.”
“Sir,” he said, feeling he would burst in a moment if he didn't get out of the room. He walked to the door, keeping his shoulders back and his back straight; but as soon as he was in the yard he looked around, and as there was no one there, allowed himself a hop and skip of joy.