by AM Kirkby
***
They sent Manius, in the end. Tanaquil would have preferred Servius, but Tarquinius was adamant; Manius would go, with Gaius. Servius, perhaps, was too identified with Velx to make a good Roman emissary; Velzna might consider his loyalties suspect. Or had Tarquinius turned against Servius? She couldn't read him, now; he'd become guarded, hard and silent as stone.
She liked his plan, as much as she'd been able to work it out; send Manius apparently to negotiate a treaty, but with instructions to temporise – to find reasons to delay, reasons why he might have to send back to Rome for advice, why he would have to draw up ever more detailed riders and conditional clauses. At the same time, Gaius would be able to find out the state of Velzna's military strength, the city's preparedness to stand a war or a siege. And while Velzna thought Rome was about to contract a treaty, the city might not be motivated to build up its military power, or to seek alliances elsewhere. Fatal complacency, if that was the case. Then, once Tarquinius was ready, he would strike.
The bluff was clever, though it was a trick that would only work once. Was this the right time to use it?
She thought of the great cliff of Velzna rising above the dusty plain; the city hanging over the precipice, the temples looking out to the huge sky and the distant hills. She'd been trained for augury there, so long ago; she'd been so young, barely thirteen. Now, she could hardly imagine what she'd been like at that age. She was no longer that Tanaquil. But she remembered the quality of the light; so much more brilliant, sparkling, than the glowering or gloomy light of Rome. She found herself longing for the life less serious, the life of sunlight, of wine and music; longing for the touch of the gods, for the visions that came when you fasted through the night, till your head was as light as your feet in the dance. Three months, only three months, but her memory of that time was jewel-sharp.
Yet it hadn't seemed like that at the time. Her mother told her she'd been miserable, and pined, and her aunt the priestess would have sent her back early if she hadn't known that Tanaquil had the makings of a great augur. Memory was a strange thing; like augury, it couldn't wholly be trusted.
So there was Manius, and there was Gaius, the one resplendent in purple and gold, as representative of the King of Rome, the other shelled in hard leather and bronze, with only the red horsetail of his helmet to blazon forth his rank.
Odd that Tarquinius had tried to hide his bluff. Did he still not trust her about Tarchna? Or was he playing games; trying to find out how efficient her network was, how quickly she'd find out? Make no mistake, whatever he did, she'd find out, one way or another. Strange, though; she had really come to the conclusion he was going to move on Velx, and he'd wrongfooted her.
Well, good luck to Manius. An honest man playing a dishonest game. She wished Tarquinius had sent Servius; a charioteer could understand the need to run a twisted course.
Oh, she was tired of twistedness, tired of strategem and subterfuge and mixed loyalties. They were talking to Velx, they were talking to Velzna, Rome was talking to everyone's face and behind everyone's back; every Etruscan city thought it was next on the list. Any one of the cities would sell the others to get Rome off its back. She couldn't trust her husband; her son didn't deserve to be trusted; even Servius she wasn't sure of, and the gods weren't talking to her any more.
That glorious summer in Velzna there had been only her, the yawning emptiness of hunger, and the god; now she'd lost that certainty, and the omens were obscure. All but one, one that was clear and unarguable. Ever since Tarquinius had started hearing the owls, he had been marked for death.
Master
She'd made him a tebenna, in the kingly colours, red and purple.
"You can't," he said, when she gave it to him. He'd seen her weaving it; all her own work, she wouldn't let any of the household slaves touch the loom when she was working.
"Why not?"
He didn't like to say. It felt too intimate; it was something his wife would have done for him. His wife in Velx, that is, the northern woman he'd never actually got round to marrying.
"No one else has to know," she'd said; but that wasn't the point, whether or not other people knew she'd made it for him. Fact was, whenever he wore it, he felt uneasily in her debt, constrained. And whenever she saw him in it, she'd feel the pride of ownership, as if he was a horse dressed up in her liveries, or if she didn't, he'd think that she did. Having fought for his freedom of action all his life (and maybe that was one reason he'd never got round to marrying his housegirl) he found such obligations irksome; the feeling that he'd been bought irritated him, like a burr or a stone that had worked its way into his boot.
At least if he'd been bought he'd sold himself dearly. The cloth was woven in an undulating pattern that shimmered when he moved. A pattern so faint it was hardly visible, unless you were looking for it, like the shiver of a calm lake that precedes a gust of wind.
"Did you ever weave a tebenna for Tarquinius?" he'd asked. She wouldn't say.
She'd started teaching him something about prophecy, too, despite his reluctance. It was a woman's thing, he thought. At least, the way Tanaquil did it, it was a woman's thing. How in Charun's name could the Romans think augury was for men? It was something hidden, inside, like a woman's sex; the thought of that vacancy inside them had always disturbed him. Men were straightforward, solid; women carried a wound with them, bleeding or not.
That first day; a horror.