Etruscan Blood

by AM Kirkby

  ***

  Morning dawned chilly and grey; autumn was reasserting itself against the unseasonal sun. Egerius woke in his own bed, couldn't remember for a moment how he had got there; reached out, felt for another body, realised he was alone. He remembered Daryush, how he'd kept crying out and turning over in his sleep; stumbling back to his room when he couldn't stand it any longer, falling into sleep as into a sudden vertigo.

  As every day, his mind ran ahead to list the things that had to be done; a visit to Gaius, checking on the girls – that should be done first; some trouble with herdsmen to the west of the city, some traders from Poseidonia to meet, orders to the household. The sun was still low, he thought, though the overcast made it difficult to tell; the household was still quiet. He wondered whether he might visit Daryush again; then shrugged, half amused at his own laziness and self-indulgence. No, there was work to do...

  Though it was early, one of the household slaves had already set a fire in the kitchen and was warming up some spelt porridge. He found the honey – he'd never been able to eat porridge without sweetening, something he'd always been teased for – and watched it dribble on to the thick gruel. The honey stood proud for a moment, then slumped and fused into a vague shimmer of dark brown on the surface of the greyish porridge. He stirred it in, his movements slow and deliberate as a drunk's.

  The girls would be up late, he thought. He couldn't go till they were breakfasted; it would be ungracious. He was glad of the solitude; for once he could let his mind wander, no one was asking him to make decisions, to judge, to act. He didn't even want to write poetry with his precious spare time; he just wanted to sit, to think of nothing, to daydream. He stirred the porridge again, watching the half-liquid mass swirl, a trough opening up behind the spoon and then slowly but inevitably closing up again.

  Apart from the regular whisper of the slave's broom on the cobbles of the atrium, the house was still quiet. A dog somewhere barked, far past the agora, perhaps in the country beyond, and went unanswered.

  Egerius scratched an eyebrow lazily with one fingernail. He breathed deeply, leaning back, feeling heavy, sleepy, relaxed. He felt his procrastination as physically as if he were swimming in it, thick around him. He dreamed of sunlight, of fullness; wondered if he'd ever again have a day when he could just lie on his back on a warm boulder and watch the clouds sail across blue sky, or clouds of linnets on thistles gone to seed.

  He had time. For once, he had time. Stretching himself, he thought; it's not so self-indulgent to visit Daryush again. He felt the blood warm in him, his body at ease, strong. How strange; he'd expected the death of Melkart would have unnerved him, or at the least made him feel melancholy, but instead he was well rested, happier than he had been in a long time. How had that happened?

  Yes, he'd go... he pushed his bowl away from him, put his palms on the table, got up. He walked across the atrium, his strides long and easy, his body loose, relaxed. Today would be a good day; a fresh start. Collatia would regain its optimism. All things were possible. Look, the clouds were withdrawing, uncovering a sliver, no, a whole quarter of sun, and the overcast sky was torn by shreds of blue. He'd get something done about educating Daryush, too; the boy could go to Simonides, or to Karite perhaps, and he'd take on himself the job of teaching him poetry...

  Daryush's room was dark. Shadows twisted, ran into one another. Let the light in, Egerius thought; he crossed the room, opened the shutters, stood for a moment looking out into the newborn day. He turned, his eyes dazzled for a second and unseeing in the interior dimness; only something moved, swung, confused his sight.

  "Daryush?"

  No answer. He took a step forward; squinted into the room. The shadows congealed, converged, took on form; it still took him a moment till he understood what he was seeing, the shape that was swinging, slowly, and spinning, Daryush's body, hanging from the roof beam.

  Superbus & Servius

  It was a double marriage; the two women standing next to each other, in their flame coloured veils, one taller, more erect, the other shy, looking down – her head slightly inclined, that much could be seen through the veil – one for Arruns and one for Tarquinius, both daughters of Servius Tullius. Two families to be neatly joined, raising the arriviste Servius to royalty. (Still, at least Servius, even if some said he was a manumitted slave, was Etruscan by blood. That counted for something with Tarquinius; but the daughters, they said, were half-Gaulish, offspring of a Celtic concubine who had been left in the country – at least, she was nowhere in evidence at this wedding.)

  Tarquinius and Arruns stood at the gate of the small atrium. Servius had bought the house, they said, specifically for the wedding, but the courtyard was tall and narrow, hardly enough space in it for the families, not enough for the crowds who pressed in at the street gate.

  Tarquinius had not met either of the girls; he wasn't even sure which was for him. Well, it wasn't that important, he supposed; there were enough women in Rome, he knew that already. And at least he was to married off at the same time as Arruns; they weren't fobbing him off, as he usually was fobbed off, with something inferior, with the excuse that his brother was the elder, the more serious, the one who didn't get into trouble.

  He couldn't see the brides' faces under the wreaths they were wearing; there were too many people in the way, and the flowers were too big – huge floppy poppies, their petals already wilting and blowzy. They had turned away from him, too, so that when he did catch a sight of the tall girl's face it was only a sliver, just a hint of nose and eyebrow, like seeing the slender crescent of a new moon.

  He was getting impatient now; the gold braid of his cloak made his neck itch where it scratched, though he was damned if he'd let anyone see his discomfort. He needed a piss, too; too much wine for breakfast. So when he was pushed forwards, he went gladly – at least it would be over quickly, the repetition of the formal words, the handclasping, the step round the fire – before he realised his servants were pushing him towards the shorter of the two girls.

  He could look down on the top of her head, she was so much shorter than him; and since she wouldn't look up, he saw almost nothing of her face, only the floppy wreath that was already beginning to slip. He put his hand out as he was bid; said the words, could hardly hear her voice saying them – she whispered as if afraid. Her hand, when he reached out to hold it, was limp and cold.

  And then it was time for the rape – to grab her, to pull her screaming away from the house, away from her father, into the street; they liked this, the Romans, the imitation of the rape of the Sabines' women. Etruscan rites were more restrained; but there was something in this that heated the blood – the feeling of her tiny wrists struggling in his hands, her body twisting in his hold. He wished she'd resisted more, like her sister, who was screaming, kicking Arruns' shins, fighting like a fury; it was too soon over, and then his friends were helping him , pushing her out of the gate, making sure she couldn't escape Tarquinius, helping him get her mounted behind him on his white horse. He let the stallion go, in a mad dash through the darkening streets, horseshoes sliding and grating on the stone paving.

  She was grabbing him round the waist, clinging to him; he could feel her body rigid with fear against his. He laughed; his blood was up. The horse plunged to its left; he felt the girl grabbing at him, felt her fear. Instantly, he pulled the horse to the right; it kicked the air for a moment, rearing, and he felt her sudden gasp of fear tighten her body against his. Behind him, his brother Arruns made a more stately progress; more a procession than a rape, and on this one day when rape was licensed, where was the fun in that?

  He outran his companions' torches in the darkened streets, then doubled back to meet them, almost running headlong into them before pulling his horse up, so that its back legs slipped, and the girl behind him screamed out. They were yelling, the torchbearers; "cunt!" one shouted, and another answered him – "Tanaquil's cunt! The way to happiness!" The way to the throne, Tarquinius thought; it was so obvi
ous she was screwing Servius, he'd have to watch himself or his father-in-law would take his place and Arruns'...

  The Palatine blazed with torches; in the palace, the masks of the ancestors shone ghastly in the lamplight, as they would at a funeral. Only the high couch in the atrium showed this was a marriage, not a death; four dolls were propped on it, strange lumpy things with bundles of twigs for hands, and wax heads with sightless eyes. They could at least have put two couches out, Tarquinius thought, angered as he so often was where his brother was concerned; as if he had to deflower his bride in his brother's presence, in the same bed. It wasn't as if the King of Rome was short of money; why the single couch?

  It was here in the forecourt of the palace that he saw the other Tullia clearly for the first time; Arruns' bride, the tall girl, the one who had screamed and fought and (he was told later) scratched and bitten Arruns when he tried to take her from her father's house. Arruns had halted his horse at the threshold, and dismounted, and made as if to help her off the horse, reaching up to her; but she struck at him and leapt, lithe and quick, to the ground. She looked round the court, her head turning fast, arrogant; her eyes flashed in the lamplight. Then she seemed to look straight at Tarquinius; in a single instant he saw her, the high nose, the dark angry eyes, her hair blazing red with a slight tinge of blond in it, and then she'd turned again to face her husband.

  In that moment Tarquinius knew. Some would say it was love; some, fate. He believed in neither. He simply knew that he wanted her; first, because she was Arruns'; and secondly, he knew with a pain as slight and sharp as a razor nick, because there never had been and never would be another such woman for him – one who could fight, could leap from a horse, who could reduce the palace of the Kings of Rome to rubble with one look. He knew and he was lost. Tullia the Red. His fire.

  "The pig," Arruns was saying.

  "What?"

  "We have to kill the pig. For the gods' sake, Tarquinius, get a grip."

  It was a huge boar; their father hadn't stinted on this, anyway, and it took three men to hold it back. Its tiny eyes shone with pure wickedness above its long, spit-flecked snout as it threw itself from side to side trying to shake them off. He felt fear for a moment, and just as suddenly, excitement, the same excitement he'd felt on his wild ride through the streets.

  He stood one side, Arruns the other. He noticed Tanaquil and his father in the crowd, looking at him, talking. He looked again for the red-haired Tullia, but couldn't see her, nor her sister; and now Tanaquil was striding towards them, a long knife in each hand, which she held out to them, handle end first.

  "My present to you," she said; "use them well."

  Oh, I will, he thought, feeling the leather of the grip soft in his hand. Soft grip, hard steel, just like his mother; was there a message in this? He heard Arruns suck in his breath; he'd taken the knife clumsily, nicked himself on the sharp blade. Tarquinius grinned; he spun his knife round in his hand, a trick he'd picked up from a young athlete in Cisra, one hot afternoon when they'd both bunked off from training. The metal glittered, he felt the hilt secure in his palm, saw Arruns' sidelong look of hatred. He shrugged, held the knife still again. It was nicely weighted; a good one. But coming from Tanaquil, it should be. He looked over at Arruns.

  "Shall we?"

  "Do it."

  Together they plunged their knives into the boar's throat, pulled them back. The pig roared; they said pigs squealed, but this was a darker sound, a grating, creaky roar. He could hear each pulse of blood spattering on the ground, each pulse weaker as the beast began to die. The body thrashed; they held the boar's shoulders, pushing it into the ground, till it was safe to let go. It twitched a few times, one leg scrabbling for a foothold. Strange, he thought, how long they can keep going, and still not be dead.

  He hardly remembered the rest of the ceremony. Both brides touched the sacred fire that burned behind the ancestors' masks; the red-haired girl determined, flinching only momentarily as she felt the heat, the other hesitant and afraid. He knew now he'd got the wrong one; Arruns had his bride, Arruns who wouldn't know what to do with her. Tanaquil took the girls with her, to undress them and invoke the gods; at least he wouldn't have to share a bed as his simulacrum had, he thought angrily. It was a bad thought, as it brought with it the image of Arruns deflowering the red Tullia; the thought that he might have to hear her crying out, to hear their couch creaking, to hear Arruns' grunting and thrusting. By the time he was called, he was thoroughly angry.

  He took his Tullia rough and quick. She cried afterwards, and he thought; I should have had the other one.