by AM Kirkby
***
She was screaming, her clawed fingers tearing at her hair, pulling out twisted flimsy handfuls where she'd managed to pull the braids apart; tiny droplets of blood encrusted a livid line where she'd clawed her face, which was wet, as if with tears. She kept screaming, a yell that ripped the silence and brought guards and servants running, and Gaius, and young Tarquin, and Servius, and last of them all, Manius, knuckling his eyes and stumbling a little. Torches' hellish flickering light burned their eyes; the hall was cramped, hot, full of screaming. At first all that could be heard was the scream, long, uninterrupted, as if she never needed to stop for breath, a natural force like whistling wind or crashing storm; and then slowly they began to distinguish the words, such as there were; Tarquinius, death, death, Lauchme, vengeance, death.
Servius had run into the dark corridor ahead of them all; he came back out, and stood barring the way, forcing back Manius and struggling with young Tarquin, who was trying to rush him. Tarquin was taller, but Servius held him easily, weight against height, solid, unmoving. And still the screaming.
It was always strange how the mood of a crowd could change in a few moments; suddenly the running stopped, the shouting stopped, Tarquin stopped struggling, and Tanaquil caught her breath raggedly, and began to sob, the scream changed into a thin, tight wail like a splinter under a fingernail.
Servius was talking earnestly now to Tarquin and Manius. It was strange how everyone was looking at them while trying to look as if they were looking somewhere else; a room full of looks. Stray, furtive glances.
"We have to..."
"Can't keep it quiet..."
And around the hall, others were making their own judgements. Tarquinius ill. Tarquinius dead. Tanaquil only just back from exile, and how convenient for her despite her protestations of grief. Tanaquil and Tarquinius reconciled, and now this, how tragic, poor grieving widow. And the questions. What was Servius doing here? Where was the guard who should have been at the door? Who's giving the orders?
Servius was shouting; even though every individual voice was hushed, not quite whispering but with a temple-visiting lack of projection, still the noise of all those voices together made it difficult to hear what he was shouting, but the fact that he, alone of all those in the room, was raising his voice meant something on its own. It was, in a way, an answer to that last question of who was giving the orders now. The man who gave the orders now would probably continue to do so; and it wasn't Tarquin. (As for Tanaquil, normally commanding; she wasn't in any state to lay down the law, and anyway, she'd been banished till a few weeks ago, her loyalty to Rome and her place in it still in doubt.)
Still Tanaquil was keening, but Servius' words could be heard. Tarquinius, dead. And a price on the heads of Ancus Marcius' sons, who had murdered him. But it might be best, he added, if they kept this to themselves, if no one outside the palace got to know about it until they had ensured their safety. At this point, a few people looked at the doors. Silently, the lictors had arrived, one standing foursquare in front of each door, holding his bundle of sticks and axe across his chest; merely a symbol perhaps, but in those set square jaws and grim stares the message was clear to read; just you try.
"But he's due to inspect the parade." Tarquin's voice was quiet but insistent. "They'll realise something is up."
"No one ever changed a plan before?"
"He never did, Manius."
"A parade. A parade. Hm. What would he do if he was ill?" Servius asked.
"He'd still go."
"He might have taken a litter," Manius said.
"He might."
"Tricky," Servius said. "They'd expect him to say a few words. At least."
Servius was doing something complicated with his hands, steepling them with the fingers interwoven and then reversing them, cracking the joints, stretching the fingers back again and again, betraying the way his mind was working tensely and fast, though his face was still.
"I don't understand. Why not just tell them?"
"Think, Tarquin. How many would love to have the Marcians back?"
"Half the bloody army. That won't change."
"It'll change. Things always do. We just need a couple of days. A couple of days to start some rumours, get people thinking."
"Win their support," Manius put in, obviously intending to be helpful.
"Make them afraid. What the Marcians might do. There are a lot of people out there who supported Tarquinius, or at least who didn't protest much when he took over. A lot of people who might lose their houses, their slaves, their lives. A lot to be afraid of."
"A couple of days?"
Servius was still twisting his hands. Looking down at them now, almost as if he hadn't realised what he was doing till he saw he was doing it. He looked up, met their eyes; stopped twisting his hands.
"Yes. But how do we get that time, that's the question."
"We have to do something about that parade," Tarquin said.
"A litter. An empty litter."
"No good, Manius. They'll know. They have to see Tarquinius."
"Impossible."
"I know... no, hang on, no, it isn't."
"It isn't?"
"We have a body."
"You think you'll fool anybody with that?"