by AM Kirkby
***
The lake of Aricia shimmered before her like a baroque pearl, the wooded sides of a crater sloping down to the water. As the breeze picked up, she saw the surface of the lake darken with ripples, as if a cloud had passed over; but the sun was not occluded, it was the wind only which had done this, and which now passed leaving the lake shining silver once more. She felt herself shiver, and wondered if it had been an omen, or just a trick of wind and light.
She'd set off with her maid Hercla, but the girl had got sunstroke, so she'd left her at a small village just off the road, and struck on, rather than wait for the girl to recover. So again she approached the god alone, and as she descended the slope towards the lake and the sacred grove she wondered if that was how it was meant to be.
Where the chariot track ran out - she'd been warned about this - she unhitched the horses, hobbled them, and let them wander. Picking up the hem of her skirt, she took the path onwards, downhill between scattered trees and then across a broad greensward towards the grove. As she descended, the wind dropped, and she felt the sun warm on her skin. She twitched her light tebenna over her head to shield herself from the heat, looping it over her forearms, so that she was mantled in floating scarlet.
Down by the lake, a rough circle of ancient oaks stood, their leaves shivering in the slight breeze. There seemed to be nothing else; no temple, no priest, nothing but the lake, the trees, and the sky. She stepped between two of the trees, into the grove; the light dappled and wavered as she passed, and then the sun was shining again on her. The sky seemed to be a deeper blue, and the water more silver than gold now, as if her perceptions had sharpened or changed; even the whisper of the wind in the leaves seemed more sibilant.
She stood there a moment, turning her head to scan the grove. She realised after a few moments that she was counting the trees, numbering them in her head; thu, zal, si, huth, mach, sha... and when she came round to the tree behind her, she realised that she'd counted to thirteen, yet she could have sworn there were only twelve trees. She tried to resist counting them again, but it was impossible, as long as she looked at them; shutting her eyes, she turned round, facing the gap between the two great oaks where she'd entered the circle.
When she opened her eyes, there before her stood a grey-clad woman, her veil pulled over her face. She started, recoiling from the apparition; she hadn't heard the woman's footsteps. Surely if she could hear, as it seemed, each individual leaf shivering in the trees, she should have heard the priest's approach? If indeed this was a priest, and not a hinthial, a revenant from the dead land.
The woman stretched her hand out; Tanaquil saw the flesh wrinkled and spotted with age, the fingers bony and thin. Even with her arm at full stretch, the woman didn't quite touch Tanaquil; after a second, she stepped forwards, till her hand struck Tanaquil's shoulder, and after a moment's grasping Tanaquil's tebenna, groped slowly upwards till she could feel her cheek, the line of her jaw, her nose.
“Daughter,” the old woman said. It was not a question or a greeting, simply a statement of fact.
The woman lowered her hand to take Tanaquil's right elbow, and began to guide her slowly towards the lake side of the circle. This was no hinthial, Tanaquil knew; her hand was dry but warm against Tanaquil's arm.
“Here is Diana,” the woman said, as they stopped on a patch of bare earth in front of the oldest of the trees; and with a start Tanaquil realised that the living tree had been carved with the likeness of a woman, the bark slowly growing back to enclose her. It was an archaic representation, the body represented only by the small protrusions of perfectly circular breasts and an incised necklace, and a deeply carved triangle beneath. Huge blank eyes stared from a long face. There was something chilling, Tanaquil thought, about a statue so inhuman, reducing the form of the warm body to such cold abstraction.
Tanaquil reached into the bag she carried with her for her offering, but the old woman must have heard something, for she laid her hand on Tanaquil's, and whispered urgently; “No offerings.”
“But surely I need to bring something for the god?”
“Nothing made by hands. You cannot worship her with metal or with wood, or with bread. Only with the sacrifice of blood.”
Tanaquil frowned. “I should have brought an animal to sacrifice, then.”
“No. Diana drinks only the blood of her worshippers. Look.” She pulled her mantle back from her arms, which were deeply scarred with crisscrossing cuts. “Do you have a knife?”
“Of course.” Tanaquil reached for the knife she kept in a leather scabbard on her thigh; she'd sharpened it yesterday, and she tested it tentatively against the tip of one finger. It was still sharp. “How must I...”
“A single slash on one arm is sufficient.”
Tanaquil laid the knife against the white flesh of the inside of her left arm. For a moment, she paused, and bit her lip against the fear; and then, realising that if she didn't do it immediately she would never do it at all, she slipped the edge of the knife quickly across, watching the blood well up in tiny drops, which flowed into each other and joined and started to trickle silently down her arm, and then to the ground.
“Is it done?”
“It is done.” The blood was beginning to darken the earth, first in tiny circles where each drop had fallen, and then pooling a little, though the thirsty ground drank it up quickly, leaving only a rusty stain.
“It was Orestes who brought Diana from Tauris,” the woman said, her voice slightly heightened in telling a story she had repeated time after time, a story that had become a ritual. “In Tauris, she demanded the blood of every stranger washed up on the coast; man or woman, slave or free, their blood washed her altars like the waves of the sea.”
Tanaquil shivered. It wasn't the pain that frightened her, but the fact that it had intensified every sensation; she could feel the pulsing of her blood, now flowing freely to the ground, she even felt she could taste the blood in her mouth, smell its richness. The pain was suddenly an intense pleasure; you know you're alive when you're bleeding, she thought. And women know this; every month that we bleed, we're more alive than a man could know. Then in savage joy at the sharpness of the pain and pleasure, she slashed her arm again, a thumb's breadth from the first cut she'd made, and deeper, and heard the blood begin to spatter the ground.
She'd almost lost the thread of what the priest was saying, and forced herself to listen, repeating the words in her own head as they were said to fix them there.
“Any slave who flees here can seek sanctuary in the grove. But he must fight the king of the grove, and it is always a fight to the death. Diana is not a merciful god. If the slave kills the king, he will become the new king; and he will live until he too is killed in combat in the grove. And so Diana feeds on the blood of men, and rules by killing men.”
Tanaquil thought of her own part in Ancus Marcius' death. This Diana was cruel - not her Menrva; but perhaps this god understood her only too well. To rule by killing men. Still, men ruled only by killing other men, particularly Romans; they might find it unacceptable in a woman, or in an Etruscan, but they themselves were nothing but murderers and thieves. At least she had a reason for her ruthlessness, not mere imperium but the bringing of civilisation to Rome. And they had what, exactly, as their motive?
She wondered if the king of the grove knew the weariness of power. She imagined his wariness, always carrying a sword, his eyes for ever scanning the trees of the grove for the stranger who might step between the them, carrying his death in potential. Did the priest only greet those who clearly came to worship? She knew from Tarquinius the air of a man who didn't get enough sleep, the creases at the corner of the eyes, the way his eyes would always slip away from you, scanning the crowd for enemies or putative friends.
“I feel you have some power,” the old woman was saying, her voice no longer the sing-song of the storyteller but a whisper like dry reeds. “Yet you are not used to blood.”
Oh, I'm used enough
to blood, Tanaquil thought; I've made enough auguries, shoving my hands in the entrails of the future. And yet even so, to see me own blood flow, that's something...
“I have not worshipped a god that needed my blood,” she said, choosing her words precisely.
“But you will worship her in future. With your blood, and the blood of others.”
Tanaquil knew it was true; and she knew she did not want it to be true. She knew that something in her had changed. She promised herself, though, that she would remain faithful to the god of her first vow, to Menrva the wise huntress; when she returned to Rome, she would ensure that she had a temple built to her. Perhaps not yet, perhaps not for some years, but when her rule was established and secure. Despite the edge of pain and pleasure that came from Diana, she rededicated herself to her Etruscan gods. She looked up at the sky, hoping to see a bird, or a cloud, that would confirm her rededication; but the sky was blue and empty, devoid of meaning.
Bowing her head, she looked again at the spattering of her blood on the earth. Her cuts were beginning to close, the blood thickening and congealing.
“Bless me, mother,” she said, and the old woman once more put her hand out to touch Tanaquil's face.
She had spent how long in the grove? She couldn't say; one hour of the morning, perhaps? But when she came out between the two great guardian trees, the moon was already high in the slowly dimming sky.
Tarquinius
It hadn't been easy. Nothing was ever easy. Tarquinius had known the old Roman centuries had no chance. They were underpowered. The stupidity of a people who wanted to take on the world, but limited the size of its army to a few well-born natives! He'd already expanded the senate; now the army too needed to be increased in size.
He hadn't expected the opposition that he met, nor the quarter from which it came. Faustus, for once, had thrown his influence firmly behind Tarquinius. That was the nice thing about Faustus; with him it was just Rome, Rome, Rome. What was good for Rome was right for Faustus. With Faustus came most of his faction; some eagerly, some reluctantly, some with a bloodthirsty look. Killing was in the offing. A few remained to be convinced.
That was before the attack. Just before dawn on an early summer morning the Sabines had ridden into Rome. A disorganised small force of cavalry split up, driving their horses hard, shouting and screaming. Anyone who gave in to the natural impulse to go to their doors, to see what was happening, was summarily disposed of; a thrown spear or the rapid backhand of a sword put an end to them. That accounted for some thirty men and boys, and one woman. Tarquinius, with more prudence, ordered the doors of the house locked and bolted with the huge oaken beam that hadn't been used since the day he moved on to the Palatine. It hadn't been needed; the Sabines didn't get that far before they turned back.
They didn't stay. They weren't interested in conquest, even in theft; the raid was a warning, Tarquinius thought. A pre-emptive strike. They must have come down from Subiaco the day before, along the Anio, and crossed the river into Rome early in the morning. They'd slipped by the scouts he had posted, too; or else they'd paid them off.
No point pursuing them; they'd be long gone, and the Roman infantry were slower, even if the horses were tired. With only three centuries, he couldn't afford to send one away, either. He needed more men; and he needed cavalry, but the Romans restricted horsemanship to the nobles. The only way he was going to get good horsemen was to send to Etruria. He might build a larger unit in Rome, later, but he needed them now. And he'd need a good cavalry teacher, a good tactician. He cast about for whatever names he could think of; there was Chiron in Felsina, he'd heard good things of him, and there was a master in Velx who was supposed to be good.
“Is it over?” Tanaquil had asked, unperturbed by the Sabine raid.
“The raid's over. I can't say the same for the political situation.”
“The Sabines will never be happy neighbours.”
“No one will ever be happy neighbours for Rome.”
Her eyes narrowed. She didn't have to ask him; he knew that look well enough by now.
“It's not up to the Sabines. But if Rome insists on seeing themselves against the whole world, seeing the whole of the universe as just so much land to be conquered...”
“Isn't that how you see it? Just land to be surveyed, divided, marked out?”
“It's not the same...” He was uneasy. “You know we stop when we have enough.”
“And how do we know when we have enough?”
“Well, the gods...”
“The gods you don't believe in, Lauchme. You never did.”
“Never mind the gods,” he said crossly. It was a bad sign when she used his Etruscan name. “Look, people like us...”
“Etruscans.”
“Yes, Etruscans know when to stop. It's a matter of boundaries. And yes, there are contentions, and yes, there are quarrels and the occasional raid, but we put those in front of the Confederation princes and we sort them out. We keep things running properly, everything in its place, and we make sure the boundaries are kept.”
“Oh, we do. Don't we.”
“But these Romans have a thirst. They have to conquer. And that makes the Sabines uneasy neighbours.”
“I'm hardly surprised,” she said, looking down at her toes, which she was curling and uncurling inside her sandal. Then she tapped her foot; she'd reached whatever conclusion that toe-curling had been leading her to. He waited. She'd tell him if she wanted to.
“Perhaps the Etruscans ought to be less easy with Rome than they are,” she said.
“Ah.”
“Except that we're not Etruscan any more, are we? I'd forgotten. What are we, Lauchme? Romans? Mongrels? Half-breeds?”
“Don't remind me.”
“Sorry. I didn't mean... but we don't belong to Tarchna any more. So what do we do? Warn the cities? Or hope to bring enough of our people to Rome that we can Etruscanise it?”
“Etruscanise? That's an ugly word. Did you just make it up?”
“What if I did?”
“You can try. But that thirst. That's something else. A Greek, an Etruscan, they drink when they're dry, they stop when they're satisfied. But Romans don't stop. And it's going to be hard to make them.”
“Yes. And the Sabines know that.”
“Yes. And the Sabines are the ones with the horses. And the men.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Go back to that question of getting extra men. They'll vote me the numbers I need now.”
She smiled thinly. “I think they might.”