Etruscan Blood
Page 72
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Tanaquil/Faustus
sending Faustus to head the attack on Nomentum
at the head of the army - prestige
openly, Tanaquil has pleaded to forgive Faustus
but secretly, Tanaquil has arranged for the mining of the town defences to be arranged so that Faustus will be buried alive with his advance guard
she has also arranged for Manius to be brought in as leader of the 'diversion'...
Manius waits, and waits deliberately too long
buried alive... swallowing dirt
while the main force goes in through the main gate, Manius and Tanaquil together having organised a neat treachery
Master
He was 'Master' now; they never called him anything else. His youth had been burned away in service, and so had his name.
Old Tite Vipienas still ruled, nominally; but he stayed hidden behind the blank walls of the great house, in darkened rooms that felt cold even in summer. It was the brothers, Caile and Avle, who controlled everyday business, and when they visited the old man, Master accompanied them as far as the threshold, though no further than the great brass bound door.
Master of Horse; that meant more than it seemed to, since he was in charge of all military matters now, and managed the brothers' household. He managed Ramtha, too, her complacent husband leaving affairs to him; and owned his own slaves, a Gaulish woman for warmth, a Greek boy who did the cooking and knew how to massage aches from Master's muscles. And meanwhile, he learned the secrets of diplomacy, whether from Ramtha or from the brothers, directly or by eavesdropping, and he began to pin together an idea of the way the Federation was moving, the eastern cities drawing together against the western, and bringing the further northern towns of Arretium and Felsina into their ambit.
Ramtha taught him to be bound and to bind; she taught him the ways of pain. This wasn't the honest pain of a ten mile run or the ache of a morning after a bivouac on hard ground; it reminded him of that almost forgotten pain when his mother had left him with the general, and not looked back. He learned the delights of cruelty, something he'd never been tempted to with horses or with his men; the precision of a fingernail drawn down the curve of a buttock, the exact pressure of bite needed to hurt without piercing the lobe of an ear. He learned the taste of blood and the taste of power.
"Does your husband do this?" he asked once.
"That's not for you to know."
He pulled her back against him, forcing her spine into an arc; he could break it so easily, just another inch of torsion, and she knew it, her mouth turned up in a strange smile.
"He can't please you, the way I can."
"Did I ever say that?"
He'd pushed her away then, hard, and turned her over, pinning her to the bed and taking her; taking was the right word, like taking a city, with all the hardness and tightness of his practised body. And yet once he'd finished, and heard her whimpering softly under him, he wondered if she hadn't played a double game, if he hadn't himself been taken and betrayed.