Etruscan Blood

by AM Kirkby

  ***

  It was hot in the litter, and cramped; more cramped than it should have been, but then the litter was only meant for one. (The men carrying it had complained about that, too.) A closed litter in the oriental style, unlike the usual mere carried couch, and that in itself was an odd choice for a Roman to make, but then Tarquinius always liked luxury.

  Tanaquil's legs cramped, shivered with prickly pain, tucked awkwardly underneath her. She clasped her burden to her, feeling her clothes gathered and sticky with sweat rubbing in the hollow between her breasts; she couldn't spare a hand to pull at the clammy fabric. The litter lurched and swayed; she could hardly hold herself upright, both her hands occupied, desperately trying to right the sagging luggage she held, not to let it fall out through the dark heavy curtains.

  The Romans, someone had told her, only used litters for funerals. Well, that was hideously appropriate.

  Her lip was bleeding where Tarquinius' head had swung against her with the full and unrestrained momenutm of the inanimate as the men lifted the litter. The cut stung if she licked it.

  "Just hold it upright," Servius had said, as if it was easy.

  They'd covered the gashes in Tarquinius' scalp with an artfully placed laurel crown made of gold, the triumphator's reward. It wouldn't stay on, even though she stitched it on to his braids, and in the end she'd had to stitch through the skin of his scalp to attach it. A never-ending triumph for the dead man; what a crushing irony that was. She caught herself scowling; that would bring wrinkles, she thought, and with an ageing woman's vanity recomposed her face into a smile even though no one could see it, except Tarquinius' hinthial, perhaps – though she thought she'd have felt something, if it were here.

  It was hard to breathe, darkly curtained from the air outside, in the thick sweat scented heat. She felt panic rising; fought it off, barely.

  She remembered Servius saying to her in the hall; "You're making a meal of it," and the judgment in his voice, as if she were something distasteful to him.

  She'd been the one the girl came running to when she found Tarquinius' body, the girl who'd been taking in the thin spelt porridge with which he started every day, before dawn, unless (and this was only too often the case these days) he'd been drinking too much the night before. The girl was one of those sweet, nice girls, the kind to whom nothing ever happens, the kind who imagine an unkind criticism is the greatest tragedy that could ever befall them, the kind with no salt in them, no spice, like the food you give invalids that isn't meant to taste of anything, and shock had shaken her wits loose; she burst out "He, he, he..." and couldn't get as far as a verb, and scrabbled at Tanaquil's hand till Tanaquil, impatient, pushed past her and into the bedchamber, and found the body sprawled, ungainly. The girl must have turned it over, for the open eyes stared blindly at the rafters, and the mouth had fallen open.

  It was that, really, she couldn't stand; Tarquinius dead was one thing, but she'd imagined him dignified, like one of the ancestor masks, stern or elegant, composed. He looked stupid in death, his jaw not only open but slackly hanging to one side, and that, as soon as she saw it, spoiled every memory she had of him, that she'd foolishly thought she could keep inviolate; she'd thought, even, that by killing him, in some way, she'd preserve the memory of that earlier, that better Tarquinius, her own Lauchme, when their marriage was freshly minted, before the shine had dulled. Now she'd for ever remember this obscenity, the pale, flaccid, gaping face of a dead idiot. (Which, come to think of it, wasn't far off the mark. That was the tragedy.)

  She'd been weeping silently when the girl came back; the girl stood at the door, clearly afraid to come back in. Tanaquil looked at her, opening her eyes wide; her eyes felt sore, as if she'd poked them hard. Then she knew silent weeping wasn't enough, and she began to scream, and to her surprise the screaming came naturally, as if somewhere inside her was a vast emptiness and hurt, that like a nine-months-carried child had to be born, or rip her apart trying. Or perhaps, above that real pain and grief, there was only a brittle, frangible puppet Tanaquil pretending to be in control, acting out the role of ironic observer, acting the tears that were, in fact, real. By the time she'd pulled out a first handful of hair (a new, good, clean pain compared to the throbbing tenderness of that part of her scalp from which Tarquinius had yanked out a hank) she almost believed in her own grief.

  Afterwards, Servius had said that she'd overdone it. Too much yelling, and everyone knew, anyway, that she'd walked out on her marriage; it didn't ring true.

  "Just because I left him, you think I didn't love him once?"

  "You killed him. Do I have to remind you?"

  "I still loved him. Once."

  Servius' face was closed. She couldn't guess what he was thinking. "You thought your squalling would convince them that you're innocent?"

  She blinked. Treacherous tears. Tears she didn't need, now.

  "It was excessive."

  "Well, the Romans will think it's just the Etruscan temperament. Or a ritual."

  "The bloodletting comes later, if you've forgotten... There are enough Etruscans here to see through that."

  "Are there, though?"

  It turned out that there weren't, and Servius, though he'd planned everything else so well, hadn't realised it; they were in the minority even within the palace, so far wrong had things gone in Tarquinius' declining days. So few friends, and so much danger.

  That excessive display, though, had turned to her advantage, whether or not Servius liked it; she'd taken to her room, barring the door. There she could grieve in darkness and in silence, or so she'd said; in the stark, stone-like silence that followed when grief was all wept out. So no one would expect her to be here, clutching her husband's cadaver to her as they rode to meet the Roman army.

  Tarquinius was ill, that was the official line, but his love for his nation and his army was so great that he would be carried out to take the salute. (The army was, almost, the nation bearing arms, and the nation was, you could say, only the army in a state of peace, since it had been built by rape and conquest, and when it ceased to conquer, it would cease to exist.) What kind of sickness no one had specified, but Manius had hinted that it might be a bad idea to approach the litter too closely; whether that was because the disease might be communicated to the soldiers, or because Tarquinius' enfeebled state rendered him too sensitive to bear the contact, he'd left unstated.

  And now the problem of dealing with the baggage had worsened, as the body started to stiffen. Tanaquil heard the clash of spears against shields, a shout going up: Tarquinius! Tarquinius!

  Servius' voice outside.

  "Sir, sir, you should speak to them, sir, are you feeling well enough?"

  She grunted. If anyone was close enough to hear, they'd think Tarquinius was too ill to speak.

  The curtain twitched. Servius' face appeared.

  "Do it," he said.

  She stuck one arm through under Tarquinius' armpit, clutched the body under its cloak with the other. Had she made sure Tarquinius' right arm was pulled back, invisible? She had. She burrowed her head into the back of Tarquinius' braids; it was a long time since she'd nuzzled into his neck, but she recognised the smell of him, the mix of oiled hair and something less easily identifiable, slightly herbal and dry. She was ready; she pulled the curtain open with her left arm, put her right arm out, index finger slightly protruding from a loose fist, slowly describing a rough circle with the finger. There was a cheer; the litter moved forwards, along the line. She realised that with one hand on the curtain and the other waving she no longer held the body securely; she tensed her elbows inwards, but while this gave her purchase on the waist, the head was still lolling forwards. She couldn't let the curtain drop, not yet, not till she'd passed the lines; she couldn't yell to Servius for help, in case someone heard; the arm she was waving was in plain view; but if Tarquinius' body slewed to one side, or the head fell forwards, the game would be up.

  There was only one way to keep that head
steady; there was nothing else she could do. She opened her mouth and bit down on the braids, pulling them with her teeth to pull the head back and straight. She could feel her mouth moistening, saliva starting to slip from the corners of her mouth; no way to wipe it, and the mixture of spit and hair was beginning to choke her. She squeezed her eyes shut; she concentrated on keeping the motion of her right arm regular and slow.

  Then at last the litter was turning, and she heard the thump of spear butts on the ground, and knew she was safe. She let the curtain fall, and at the same time spat out her mouthful of hair. There was one hair left in her mouth, almost making her retch, and she tried to pull it out, but it evaded her probing fingers; she could feel it with her tongue, and gradually pushed it towards the back of her front teeth, but it was some while till she could grab it with a finger hooked over her upper teeth. It was slight and thinner than it had felt to the tongue, and beaded with saliva that made her skin cold where it touched, and she shuddered, and rubbed it off on the cushions of the litter.

  Superbus

  Fuck him. Fuck her.

  They'd played him. Keep your mouth shut about what you saw. Keep the people, keep the army thinking Tarquinius is alive. Let's blame it on the Marcians. Let's set things up.

  He thought she meant him to be king. "Another Etruscan king," she'd said; "we'll take Rome into the Etruscan League. We'll be a truly Etruscan city." He thought she'd meant him.

  There was that charade with the army. You had to admire Tanaquil; invisible, immobile, holding her husband's corpse. It had been Servius' idea, of course, but she'd carried it out impeccably despite her grief. She'd drifted apart from his father over the years - how could you avoid it? Lust cooled, and love congealed – but even so, it was a loss to her, he could see that, and he admired the determination with which she'd set her feelings aside. Romans, though. Stupid, not to suspect something; an invalid king behind heavy curtains, without a voice, they'd have to be stupid not to have sniffed out that something was going on.

  He'd seen the body. It had shocked him; the pale wounds, their edges swollen and grey like slugs, the lip Tarquinius had bitten through in his last agony. You imagined all kinds of wonderful things about war - he'd been jealous of Arruns, leading the troops out; but was this the end of it all? One of the servants had vomited, but it didn't take him that way; just the thought kept recurring, was this all there was, after all the bravery and pomp, expectation and pleasure, just this... nothing? He'd be drinking wine, and suddenly it would be tasteless. He couldn't settle to anything. Hunting might have shaken the ghosts out of his brain, but he was confined to the silent palace. He'd kept thinking; those dead eyes.

  Fuck it, Tarquinius had died at the wrong time. There was never a right time for your father to die, he supposed; did every man go through this dark brooding, suddenly realising that if his father was mortal, he too would not be spared mortality? But this was the wrong time; with Rome under threat, the succession not determined, Tarquin still only in the junior ranks. The wrong time for him to go and fucking die.

  Through it all, Tanaquil had worked unceasingly. Two days they'd had; Tarchna was more than half a day's ride – half a day out, half a day back, however long their council needed to decide. She was calling in her favours all over Etruria, all over Rome, while they waited to find out whether Tarchna would come to save them.

  "Tarquin," she'd called; "your army friends."

  He resented her wording; his men, he thought. He'd have to show her he wasn't a boy any more.

  "What about them?"

  "Are they... reliable?"

  Reliable as he needed, he thought. But that wasn't really the question. "The Etruscans I'll vouch for; one or two of the pure Romans, none of the Faliscans. And Demetrios. He's good."

  "Can you get a message to them?"

  He shrugged.

  "Get them here. We need them."

  "If you've forgotten, Servius wants me here. I can't leave."

  "I'll send someone."

  "Send me," he said, and thought he could stare her out; but his eyelids flickered before hers.

  "Why not send me?"

  "Servius wants you here. And I need you here. Tarquinius' son. You give us legitimacy. I can't risk you in the city. Send someone you trust."

  There's no one, he'd thought, no one I trust. Not even you, mother. Especially not you. But he'd agreed to send a message through one of the servants, technically Tanaquil's, but who'd worked for him a couple of times; someone his friends would recognise, anyway, and he'd briefed him exactly what to say, and made him repeat it back three times, to make sure he had it by heart. Tarquin sends his regards, and would you remember the snails in vinegar we had at Tertia's, and bring the recipe, as he'll be cooking this evening and wants you all here.

  "Snails in vinegar?" Tanaquil had asked.

  "You don't want to know."

  He couldn't remember who the comment had actually been made about; it wasn't him, but it might have been Strephon, or Larth, whose penis had been compared to a snail in vinegar. There'd been a bit of a scrap; he just hoped they worked out what "bring the recipe" meant, and brought their weapons, not just themselves. If anyone tried to get the message out of its purveyor, they'd be none the wiser; and if the messenger himself wasn't completely to be trusted, he was hardly going to convey such a uselessly frivolous message to whatever paymasters he might have. Now, if Tanaquil or Manius had sent a message like that, everyone would expect it to be a ruse, and be trying to work out what it meant; but the advantage of having a reputation as a waster was that he could get away with it, send a message about Tertia's tits or Falernian wine or snails in vinegar, and everyone would think that it meant exactly what it said. Who was the clever one now?

  And they'd arrived. Strephon and Larth and Sethre and Thesanthei and the rest of them, slapping him on the back and joking about the snails. (It had been Sethre whose prick had been insulted, apparently, and Larth who'd landed the first punch, for what that was worth.) Joking about the snails, but each one of them with as many knives as he could carry and a decently sized sword, and breastplates on under their tebennas.

  Servius wasn't impressed. "Marzipan soldiers. What use they'll be..."

  "Shut up." Tanaquil's temper was short. She'd looked at Tarquin with adoring eyes; he'd wondered whether she ever looked at his father like that. "They're young, but they'll be brave if it comes to it." She'd looked at him again; perhaps he'd been wrong about the adoration. Her eyes probed, searched, judged.

  "You know," she said - ostensibly to Servius, but her voice was small and thoughtful – "he might surpass his father, given time..."

  But Servius got his way about sending them off to wait in the servants' hall.

  A dozen men arrived from Tarchna in the middle of the night; and they said there were more coming, encamped overnight about two miles from the city, ready to march in the morning. Their footsteps rang loud in the portico, but when they spoke with Servius their voices were hushed.

  Tanaquil was pulling strings. She'd sent for Fabia, and the senior Vestal had come, with a basket of parchments.

  "You can't fight a war with parchment," he'd said, but Tanaquil looked sharply at him.

  "Can't I, though? Listen to Fabia. It might be educational."

  "Here's one," Fabia said, pulling a scroll out of the bundle. "Marcus Aemilius. One of Faustus' old supporters, I think. Well connected. House on the Esquiline, a couple of farms, all of which came to him from his uncle, Titus Aemilius."

  "So?"

  "Titus left the farms to Marcus despite the fact he had two sons still living. I'm sure Marcus Aemilius wouldn't want this will to go missing, or for rumours to spread that it was improperly witnessed. And..." - she rummaged in the basket, pulled out another scroll and spread it crackling on her lap – "nor would Gaius Junius be pleased that his father's disinherited him. We might do something about that, in return for a favour."

  "Junius?" he'd said. "He's got the best chariot team in
Rome, apart from mine. And he sponsors a dozen fighters."

  "We know." Fabia's voice was light, but her eyes were hard; he had a sudden impression of huge reserves of painfully acquired patience.

  Two days. Two days of learning the art of manipulation. Two days of feeling stupid, of being made to feel stupid. Two days of wondering how his father had coped with Tanaquil. Two days of lessons. Two days for them to make Rome their own, before they announced his father's death.

  They brought one Greek trader over by offering to take two of his daughters into the Vestals, and with him came his debtors, debts forgiven if they complied with his requests, or a threat of foreclosure if they didn't support the Tarquinian line. Tanaquil's properties, held by Fabia, were potent bribes, too.

  It would have been less galling if they'd let him do anything. He could only watch and listen. Watch, listen, and drink.

  "Watch what you're drinking," Tanaquil said; "I need you sober."

  Yes, of course, he thought; you need me sober to speak to the people. I have to tell them I'll be a good king, whatever the truth of it. I have to win them over with my charm. They may not love me, but they can admire me. But in truth, he knew, he was drinking because he felt stupid - a stupid puppet of his mother's, a damn fool who'd never really understood the way things worked – and he couldn't stand it, couldn't stand the way Tanaquil and Fabia looked at him, talked past him.

  Now here he was, watching his father's funeral. The body carried on the litter above the soldiers' shoulders, lying turned and supported on one elbow as if at a feast, golden laurel leaves on its head, the hair shining with gold dust. The nose was sharp, the cheeks fallen and thin; strangely, dead, Tarquinius seemed younger, as Tarquin remembered him before age and fat had blurred and coarsened him.

  Here he was, dressed as a prince, watching the funerals of a king. He smoothed down the front of his tebenna, feeling the gold embroidery of its hem rough against his palms. The body was lurching as the men passed the litter up to the top tier of the high pyre. His hands were sweating, though the day was cool. A priest he'd never seen before came, eyes hidden under the shadow of his conical hat, and handed him a flaming torch.

  "Go on," Tanaquil said. He stepped forwards. There was a gap between two logs at the base of the pyre; he touched the torch to it. Immediately, flames shot up as the straw packing inside caught light; he stepped back, fast enough that some one in the crowd thought it was funny, and laughed briefly, the nervous laugh of a man on the edge, as everyone was, today.

  It was surprising how quickly the flames caught; the pyre became a grid, a cage of black timber and roaring brightness. An incandescent fringe crept across the crumbling hangings; a sudden gust of wind blew shreds of blackened fabric, which, when the wind dropped, floated down like dark snow. The crowd encircling the pyre began to draw away as the heat intensified, but Tarquin remained there, now isolated, feeling the skin on his face drying out, becoming thin and taut, and his eyes smarting with the drifting smoke. For a minute he'd been able to see his father's form against white smoke and pale fire, but now the flames had leapt high, hiding the body from view, except that every so often he'd see the dim outline of a head, on which the skin was beginning to blacken and shrivel.

  Across the Forum, a flight of crows skittered up, black wings ragged against the sky.

  He remembered the sudden noise that had broken out the morning after Tarquinius' death. He'd run out with Servius to see what was happening; someone had found two men lurking in the kitchens. By the time Servius got there, one was dead, and the other had been beaten unconscious; he had no face any more, just blood and bruise. It might have been kinder to kill him. Voices shouted their justifications for bloodlust.

  "Those are your murderers."

  "We got 'em."

  "They hadn't got no business here."

  "They were hiding."

  That didn't impress Servius.

  "Hiding? No wonder, looking at you lot. Anyone sensible would."

  There'd be no getting anything sensible out of the survivor, even if he did come round. Nothing sensible coming out of the crowd, either; everyone had joined in after the fight had already started, had heard someone else shouting that the men were the killers, had come to see what was happening. Someone must have started it, but nobody had. Eventually Servius managed to find out from a frightened child who worked in the kitchen that the two men had been delivering quail for a feast that no one had bothered to cancel. When he looked, there were four wicker cages under one of the tables; the birds were piping feebly, a crush of soft feather and tiny glittering eyes.

  The pyre was burning fiercely now. On the top tier, a log crumbled and fell inwards; sparks flew up in the whirling smoke, dying as they rose. He squinted at the light, morbidly looking at black shards sticking up in the heart of the fire and wondering whether they were his father's ribs, or just timbers half charred. He felt the scorching heat; of all the mourners, only Tanaquil still stood her ground, like him. Damned if he'd step back before she did. Damned if he did.

  He stepped back, anyway.

  She'd woken him early on the third day. Morning wasn't his time; he took a while to understand what she was saying. When he got out of his bed, the air was cold on his bare legs. Wash? In cold water? But he did, and curled his dark hair neatly into place, and put on the red tebenna with the gilded border, while she stared at him, as if he could never be fast enough, never clean enough.

  Once he'd been her golden child, her young prince, hope and glory of the house. When had that changed? Then he'd thought to himself; of course, now I'm not just a young officer, now that I'm a king in waiting, she has to demand more of me. That sudden understanding filled him with a sense of his own importance, a full, ripe pleasure that made him smile flirtatiously at his face in the mirror, angling his head a little to look coyly, sidelong at himself.

  Everyone except him seemed to have known there would be something going on. Servants lined the corridors; there were people waiting in the courtyard, and Servius in the upstairs room where Tarquinius had used to call meetings, from time to time. Below, in front of the palace, small groups of bystanders were beginning to coalesce into a crowd; two lictors were already pacing the perimeter slowly, with their little knots of lightly armed men. He would have given anything for a glass of hot spiced wine to take the edge off the morning and put an edge on his brain.

  "You're ready?" Servius asked.

  "Yes," Tarquin answered; but he realised as soon as he said it that it hadn't been him Servius had been asking.

  Tanaquil looked at Servius; Servius looked at Tanaquil.

  "Better do it, then," she said.

  "Tell them they've lost a king."

  "Tell them they have a new one."

  This is it, Tarquin had thought. A minute away from a crown. A minute away from power.

  Tanaquil stepped up to the window. A servant pulled the curtains back fully; light struck the back wall of the room, had made Tarquin squint against the low sun.

  And still the pyre was burning; Tarquin and his mother stood alone watching the fires. The crowd had receded; some of the bystanders had drifted away now the initial conflagration had died down. The hangings had all burned, flaring up spectacularly, in the first proud uproar; now the wood burned steadily, the flames reduced to their blue hearts except in the very centre of the fire, which shifted red to yellow to almost white in the heat.

  Suddenly, the top timbers started to move against each other, the whole structure beginning to sway. A crack opened down the side; through its darkening sides the eye of the fire could be seen, glaring molten white. For a moment Tarquinius feared the fire would burst out and claim him; then the pyre collapsed inwards, and the fire burst upwards in a great searing flame and a flurry of sparks, before the thump of falling timber and the outwards burst of ash and grit.

  There was dust in his eye. He blinked hard, feeling the friction of eyelid on eyeball, his eyes had become so dry from the heat of the fire;
he squeezed his eyes closed, yet still the cleansing tears refused to come. Was it a bit of his father's ashes stuck in his eye? he wondered. The wind stirred up the embers, which glowed for a few moments till the wind dropped, and died back to black furred with soft grey; only in deep crevices in the charred wood was the heart of fire still visible.

  "Not long now," Tanaquil said, startling him. She must have stepped back at the moment that the pyre fell; charred fragments of wood had been scattered where she had been standing. No doubt she'd be able to take an oracle from their positions, from the length and degree of charring of each one. She could take an oracle from the sound of you pissing in the morning for all he cared.

  Not long till the fire died down. Not long till all that was left was a sifting of ashes and a few shards of bone, which Tanaquil would have to gather. Bone still warm from the fire, thin and friable. A fragment of shoulder-blade, branching and porous like some strange fungus, or the round hollow smoothness of a piece of skull; his father transmuted into strangeness, and yet this, when you thought about it, was more truly his father than the changing face he'd known, which had accumulated fat, and wrinkles, and care. He looked away from Tanaquil, wondering whether she'd ever lain in the same bed with his father and seen the skull under his sleeping face.

  He remembered how she'd stepped up to the window. How the crowd had fallen silent for her. How she'd paused, silent, letting the silence become potent, expectant; and then, only then, when even the wind seemed to have stilled, spoke.

  "Rome needs a king; Tarquinius' true successor," she'd said.

  Him, obviously; true son of his father. Even though, in some things, he thought his father hadn't gone far enough, wasn't quite the example he'd want to follow; even so, Tarquinius' true successor.

  "A true son of Etruria and a true son of Rome."

  She had to say that, he supposed, but he didn't plan to be Roman. Tarquinius might have gone native, but he'd take the city into the bright new Etruscan age. True son of Etruria. That had a good ring. He'd use that. He smiled; turned his face slightly to the right side, his better profile, thinking of how graciously he'd accept the crown.

  "Recognised as the son of Tarquinius."

  She was laying that on a bit thick. Recognised, when there had never been any doubt. Or at least, not more than the normal doubt in any Etruscan family, though no Roman would understand that...

  "Recognised as worthy through his deeds. Recognised through marriage to Tarquinia."

  Then he'd realised. Then he'd seen where Tanaquil had been leading, all the way through those two days; for whose benefit he'd brought his own men into the Palatine, for whose benefit he'd come to witness a coronation.

  "Servius Tullius," Tanaquil said, and Servius stepped forward. The applause had already started.

  And now, now the bitter wind blew up grey grit in his eyes, and he stood and watched his mother raking in the ashes of his hopes.

  Servius

  Always before he'd known his own feelings, he'd known his direction and his loyalties; things had been clear, promotions had come as reward for his work, earned and rightful. Now after years of serving Rome and Tarquinius not faithfully perhaps, but well, he was king; and he felt not guilty exactly, but somehow unequal to it, as if he hadn't deserved it. He argued with himself; he hadn't killed the Vipienas, he hadn't killed Tarquinius; it would have been a disaster for Rome if Tanaquil's involvement in her husband's murder had been found out; Tarquin was in no way ready to rule – that would have been a disaster too. But however rational his arguments, they remained mere rationalisations; ways of palliating an unpalatable truth, that the one distinction of which he should have been proudest was that of which he was most ashamed.

  He had to feel his way. Was Tanaquil protecting Manius? Was Manius protecting Tanaquil? He wondered how far she'd taken Manius into her confidence while he was out of Rome; not far enough to try to make him king, though perhaps she was simply too astute to back a man so far from both Marcian and Tarquinian families. He'd have to beware of Manius.

  Tarquinia had had nothing to say about his promotion to king. She rarely did have anything to say, or at least not to him. He'd seen her perhaps three or four times since he came back to Rome; he couldn't say that she treated him with disdain, but she seemed to accept his presence sullenly, as one of those indignities like monthly bleeding that women were subject to. She slept with him if he demanded it, and turned her back to him afterwards, and slept as easily as a tired out child.

  He hadn't much time to himself; Tanaquil had arranged meetings with the Etruscan cities, with the priesthoods of Velzna, with the odd prophet or augur who might influence the future by foretelling it; the days were not long enough. Then there were logistics; the armies to provision, kept in readiness for any attempt on Rome in these days of transition and uncertainty. There was an inner council to choose; he'd not realised till now how dangerously isolated he'd become, with only Tanaquil remaining from his old friends in Rome, and the furious set-aside Tarquin now leading opposition to his rule. It was only Tarquin's obstinate Etruscan snobbery that stopped him becoming a real threat, since his hatred for the Old Romans kept him from forming common cause with the now proscribed sons of Ancus Marcius. He chose men he trusted; and men he didn't trust, but needed to do a favour; and one woman, of course, Tanaquil, who took her seat in his first meeting of his advisers with a relaxed, graceful smile and a long gaze down the table resting on each man in turn, that suggested an easy sense of entitlement. He saw more than one of the Romans stir, but none spoke. Good. That was one less thing to worry about.

  The council decided nothing. It wasn't asked to. The point of the meeting was simply to have one. Some of those present simply needed to feel they were being listened to (they weren't); others he was testing, gently, probing their advice, finding their prejudices and persuasions like feeling around a tooth with his tongue for cavities or cracks; noting who was voluble, who was not, who spoke before he thought, and the reverse; and noting, quite specifically, the small lie told by one Quintus, when he had no need to lie, about his lateness (and he had not, after all, been very late). So plausible; Quintus could so easily have been delayed by his business with the grain merchants, except that Tanaquil had already told Servius that the merchants were all closed this morning. So why lie? Was Quintus a traitor, or just the kind of man who who talked to hear his own voice, or who felt guilty for every small thing and couldn't rest till he'd exculpated himself, and at length? Time would tell... looking at Quintus' guileless, rather stupid face, he rather inclined to the latter, but he'd watch him carefully, none the less.

  He dismissed them at the third hour. Tanaquil was the last to leave.

  Thunder rumbled in the distance. The Capitoline was in sunshine, but far behind the hills, the sky was black.