Etruscan Blood

by AM Kirkby

  ***

  "Poison," Gnaeus was saying. "You know there's never been any love lost between her and Faustus."

  Servius considered the pot. It looked innocent enough; clay, a waxed fabric stopper. Small enough to weigh in the palm of the hand.

  "You say it was found in Faustus' house?"

  "His wife found it."

  "Many men have poultices and potions. To soothe a scratch, reduce bruising. I've used them myself."

  "She'd never seen it before."

  "Which proves nothing."

  "She asked where it came from. One of the slaves remembers Faustus tossing it down when he came back from exercise. Said he'd got it from Tanaquil."

  That was why she'd been brought here to Servius' rooms, by Gnaeus, who'd told her Servius required her presence, though in fact it seemed Servius had known nothing about it. She wondered whether it had been Faustus' wife or Gnaeus who had dreamed up the accusation.

  "Do you deny giving this pot to Faustus?"

  She considered Servius' question carefully, then shook her head. There would be no point denying it. Someone must have seen her give it him, anyway.

  "What's in it, then?"

  "Who knows?" said Gnaeus. "Could be anything."

  "Could be completely innocent," Servius said, and Gnaeus scowled. Servius opened the stopper, and had a finger almost in the pot before Gnaeus could stop him.

  "If it's poison..."

  "I'm not going to eat it."

  "You might not have to. It might work through the skin. Like Herakles' poisoned coat."

  Servius obviously hadn't thought of that. He put the pot down.

  "Find someone who understands medicine," he said.

  "I do," said Mamarke. "A little, anyway."

  "Not him," Gnaeus objected.

  "Why not?"

  "He's an Etruscan."

  "So am I, in case you'd forgotten."

  "I meant..."

  "I don't care what you meant."

  "He'll favour Tanaquil."

  "Well, find someone else then."

  "There's a Greek," Mamarke said.

  "That Alkestis fellow?" Gnaeus was clearly dubious.

  "Alkmaion."

  "That's what I said."

  "He knows about these things. Trained in Knidos."

  "Yes, but where is he?" asked Servius, impatient.

  "Somewhere around."

  "Rome's a big place."

  "Yes, but I think I know where to find him," Mamarke said, clearly not rattled by Servius' short temper.

  Gnaeus interrupted. "Tell me. I'll go."

  "You think I'll suborn him? Then go by all means. He works with the hoplites sometimes; bruises, sprains, cuts. They're drilling today."

  "Mars Field?"

  "I should think so."

  The air trembled with things unsaid, suspicions, uncertainties. Tanaquil sat easily, her spine a fluid curve, her eyes half closed. Waiting was a game she could play as well as a cat could; let them think she dozed, if they wanted to. Servius' fingernails tapped a short repetitive rhythm on the arm of his chair; in the stillness the sound travelled. Marmarke looked down at his hands, rubbing the knuckles of one hand with the thumb and forefinger of the other as if he'd seem some dirt that needed to be rubbed away. He had curiously long fingers, Tanaquil thought.

  "You wouldn't..."

  She shook her head, before she even heard what Servius was offering. His fingers began to tap again. Tik-tik-tik, tik-tiki-tik, tik-tik-tik. It was as maddening as hearing a mosquito in the bedroom at night and knowing it would keep whining till morning. She burrowed deeper into herself, listening to her own breathing, submerging into stillness, but still she could hear: tik-tik-tik. She let it run, carrying her thoughts.

  Alkmaion, when he came, had grey eyes, a face like a hare – soft and chinless and yet alert. Like a hare he turned his head to look at her, and stayed quite still, simply regarding. Then he turned to Servius, and held out his hand. "You have something you want me to look at." A man of few and simple words.

  He looked. He brought the pot to his nose and sniffed three times, screwing his nose up.

  "You know what it is?" Servius asked.

  "I think so."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I could be surer."

  He put a finger to the surface of the ointment, and rubbed it across. "Yes," he said, "it's the right consistency. Look, this is a bit of a risk, but..."

  "No," said Gnaeus, but this time he was too late; Alkmaion had already put his finger in his mouth, sucked, and was licking his top lip with his tongue, his eyes rolled up a little as he tried to identify the flavour.

  "Basil. Honey. Two or three other herbs... it's a fairly standard mixture."

  "Could it have killed Faustus?"

  "Killed him?"

  Servius described Faustus' death. Quite accurately, even if he hadn't been there.

  "Saved him, more likely, if he'd taken it. For a man of his age, given to anger, that's the recipe I would usually make up." Obviously he knew Faustus' reputation, if not the man himself. "Was he often breathless?"

  "Sometimes," Mamarke said. "When he exercised. More than you'd expect. More than he used to be."

  "Well then. It's harmless. And he didn't take it, more's the pity."

  "He didn't?" Servius was surprised, evidently.

  "Look here," Alkmaion said, holding the pot out. Where his fingertip had dug it out, the paste was bright, and dull everywhere else. "It darkens in the air," he said helpfully. "And the top was completely flat and smooth when I put my finger in it."

  Servius looked abashed. Kings never apologise; a few years ago he might have, but not now. That look, though, was as good as an abject apology to Tanaquil. He'd misjudged her, and now he knew it.

  "So Tanaquil is innocent," Gnaeus said, clearly disappointed.

  Servius nodded. "But more than that," he said. "I didn't know you had it in you, Tanaquil."

  She looked at him, but said nothing.

  "You hated the man, and you still tried to help him. If he'd not hated you so much he might still be alive. There's more generosity in you than I ever thought. I'm sorry."

  That was surprising. Kings never apologise. Never. And it was typical, she thought, that he'd give her an apology when she no longer needed it.

  But he was wrong. She'd double bluffed him, and everybody else. She'd given Faustus a medicine she knew he'd never take; he'd thought exactly what she'd meant him to think, that it was poison, that she'd thought him stupid enough to take it. He'd left it alone, and he'd gone out looking for his death on the exercise ground, though he didn't know that was what he was looking for.

  And those young men had done exactly what she'd meant them to do. They'd spread the word that Faustus needed to be pushed, that even if he asked to be given an easy ride, they'd be doing the best thing for him by making him work harder. They'd believed they could defeat him; their pride wouldn't let them back down. She'd set him up for a fall. And so, given the right encouragement, Faustus had committed suicide; spectacularly, publicly, conveniently.

  "I underestimated you," Servius said. "Forgive me."

  "You did," she said, and kept her own counsel on the matter of forgiveness.

  Master

  A world of black and bronze and furious red. Terrible heat, and the smell of metal and sweat. A world of incessant noise, the hissing of hot iron plunged in water, the roar of flames, hoarse bellows sighing out air, the sound of hammers that made Mamarke wince at each blow. The hammers never stopped; building a city, building an army, arming the men, the rhythm never changed, never faltered.

  A dim world, under the wooden roof, in which Servius found it difficult to navigate till his eyes had adjusted. Spots of intense hot light flared in the dark; white and yellow glare of molten poured metal, the yellow rage of furnaces with single eyes as malevolent as cats', and slowly fading puddles of pulsing red. Mens' bodies, stripped but for their black leather aprons, shone with sweat, mu
scles a chiaroscuro of red and black. And the heat, the terrible heat, that dried his eyes up and made his hair drip with sweat, made his senses jangle.

  There was too much movement here; he couldn't orientate himself. Everyone was moving all the time; iron put in the furnace, taken out, on the anvil, off the anvil; men bringing fuel, pumping the bellows, fetching new supplies, throwing work they'd done with on to a pile. He was lost in here, like a child whose mother let go its hand in the Forum; he didn't know where to start looking for Tullus. No point asking for him; he'd have to shout, and even then no one would hear, against the hammering and the roaring fires.

  Then he saw, across the workshop, a knot of men in the far corner, and realised their eyes were looking in his direction; and that unerring instinct told him that they were, indeed, looking at him. He started to make his way towards them; but before he could get there, a thickset older man was already coming to him, confidently making his way through the hazards of fire and darkness.

  "Let's get out of here," he said, leaning close to Servius to be heard.

  Servius was half blinded by the light. The quiet outside was almost stunning till he got used to it again. His ears felt as if he'd got them full of water, or dived till they were vacant and deaf. He realised when he spoke to Tullus that he was shouting.

  And now he got a good look at Tullus. In his sixties, Servius reckoned, but still compact with muscle, though his hair was bristled salt-and-pepper and his heavy eyebrows almost completely white. This was the man he needed to provide the weapons for his army, and he was telling him it wasn't going to happen.

  "I can't do everything," Tullus said. "There's not the time."

  "Time?" He'd thought getting enough metal was the problem.

  "A sword takes time to make. Forging the bar. Annealing, forging, quenching. Do it too fast, you end up with a brittle sword that will snap if it's caught, if it's twisted. Or you get a sword that'll never stay sharp. It can't be hurried."

  "More men?"

  "Trained men? Try to find one. I can't. And if I get new men, where do I put them? Our resources are finite. What you need to decide is how to use them. Let me put it bluntly; I can't do everything. You have to decide what your priorities are."

  Servius laughed. This man he could deal with. Like Vulca; no bullshit.

  "A big army, fighting in formation. Giving every man something to fight with. Anything that works. Spears, for instance. Are spears quicker to make than swords?"

  "Depends. But for your purposes, yes. No fancy work."

  "No swords?" Mamarke asked.

  "We're building a broad front. An army to smash and grind. Win the battle in the first charge, they won't even need to draw their swords."

  "And if we don't win it then?"

  "Enough of them have swords."

  "And the others? The others die?"

  "The others run," Tullus said. "Retreat is a horrible thing. Men throw away their weapons, they tear off their armour. If they're clever they chuck them at the enemy's feet to trip them up or slow them down. Some just drop them. You see soldiers stripping off their breastplates as they run. A breastplate or a shield can save your life when you're advancing; retreating, it just slows you down. Then you start thinking whether it's worth losing the time now to pull off your greaves if it means you can run faster without them. You have to watch your feet; the ground is scattered with useless metal to trip you up or slice your feet. You keep looking behind you; the odds keep changing." He shook his head, looked up at Mamarke. "You'd know that if you'd been a hoplite."

  "I train my phalanxes to stick together," Servius said. "Even in retreat."

  "Good luck to you," said Tullus. "But you won't do it. Human nature. Every man for himself."

  "You're speaking from experience," Mamarke said. The smith nodded.

  "You fought in Greece?" Servius asked. Tullus nodded again.

  "Little battles," he said; "Little towns, little battles. I forget what the wars were about, if I ever knew. And anyway; spears, you say. And the bronzeworkers, I hope, you've got them making enough shields for your front line?"

  "That's not your concern," Mamarke said.

  "Don't you worry, I've got that sorted out," Servius answered, patting Mamarke on the arm; there was no point upsetting Tullus, and it hardly mattered whether he stuck his nose into that business or not. "It's the spears I've got a problem with."

  "I'll get on to it," Tullus said. "I'll let you know if I need more raw materials. And I mean iron; I don't mean ore; there's not enough time to process it."

  And with that, Tullus simply turned his back, and went back to his forge.

  "How did you know?" Mamarke asked.

  "What?"

  "That he'd fought in Greece."

  "He's a Roman. No doubt about that, with a name like Tullus, and an attitude like that. And Rome never used to fight in a phalanx. He's been retired how long? Twenty years? Thirty?"

  "Ah."

  They walked on, back from the forge, stuck out in a scratchy area of dirty workshops and dirtier houses, towards the Forum; past the piss stink of tanneries, past dark puddles on which dust floated, and streams whose waters were flecked with bubbles of scum. A chicken ran between them, nearly under their feet; Mamarke turned on the ball of one foot and slid past, but Servius kicked it out of the way. It left behind it a started squawk, a few curled feathers drifting in the air, a smear of white shit.

  "You're taking a risk," Mamarke said.

  "I am?"

  "You couldn't delay?"

  Servius shook his head. "If we wait, they'll be ready for us. We have to move before they know what we're doing."

  "Even if half our men are unarmed?"

  "It won't come to that."

  "Won't it?"

  Servius said nothing. But he felt his jaws so tight his teeth were grinding, so tight he bit the inside of his cheek, and felt the sudden, almost comforting pain. He was so close to shouting at Mamarke; it wasn't his job to ask questions, how did he dare doubt Servius, a king had only to speak and a thing would be done. It was such a temptation to yield to the soft omnipotence of kingship; to demand obedience, obeisance, and that particularly from the generally emollient Mamarke. Such a temptation to play the tyrant; it was men like Vulca and Tullus who would keep him straight.

  "Tullus will do his job. And we're not so far behind on shields. And the cavalry is ready, has always been ready."

  "With Tarquin in charge."

  "Yes, and Tarquin will do his job."

  Mamarke said nothing, but his tight face betrayed his disbelief.

  "Mamarke, didn't I hear somewhere that your father was an augur?"

  "Still is. Why?"

  "Nothing... no, let me ask you. Visions of fire. Know anything about that?"

  "Who's been having visions of fire? What kind of fire?"

  "Some old woman. There was talk of... a man with fire blazing around his head. That's all I know."

  "Well. That could be a number of things. Death by fire, obviously. But then the obvious meaning is so often not the right one. Then it's possible that it might mean illness, a fever, fire in the body."

  "I see." He didn't.

  "But that's not the main meaning. Or it could be, if the augur sees the man burning up. You wouldn't know..."

  Servius shook his head.

  "Because that makes a difference. So many things make a difference, father always says. It always made me mad when I was a child; I could never get a straight answer from him, only 'It depends', or 'maybe this, maybe that'."

  "So are you going to give me a straight answer?"

  "Oh, I'm sorry. It might also mean the fire of the gods."

  "Meaning what, exactly?"

  "Well again, it's difficult to say, exactly. But it means, whoever the man is, he's been chosen by the gods. As a priest, as a sacrifice, or as a king."

  "Indeed," Servius said shortly, and walked on. Mamarke fell behind, after a while, realising with his usual discernment that Se
rvius wasn't in the mood for further conversation. No doubt he'd be wondering if he'd overstepped the mark with his questions about the war, Servius thought; well, let him.

  Now Servius could walk on his own, as he liked to be, though he knew solitude made him vulnerable. He was alert to the glitter of a blade in the darkness of a tavern doorway, to men who kept their arms covered by their tebennas or togas, to the hustle and jostle of the crowd, to small groups of men who seemed to be standing too close together. Rome was all risk; but he'd take his chances. He'd taken worse.

  Then he saw something that made him pause; a face that shouldn't be there. A face he recognised, but couldn't put a name to immediately. It took him a moment to remember those shifty eyes, that scar – pale now, angry red when he'd last seen it. But before he remembered Postumus' name, Postumus had slipped between two older men, leaving them slightly startled.

  "Hey, wait," Servius shouted. The two men Postumus had jostled turned, angry at another interruption to their conversation.

  "What now?" said one of them, but Servius was already pushing between them, trying to reach Postumus.

  "People nowadays," said the other. "They'll let anyone into Rome. It can't go on. Someone should tell Servius..."

  He'd seen Postumus again, the other side of a cart which blocked his way for a moment; when the way was clear again, Postumus had vanished once more. He looked up and down the street; nothing. Or not nothing, precisely; plenty of things – a horse, its owner, the two old men (still grumbling about modern life), a slave tutor with a reluctant boy in tow, a couple of women whose heads were covered by bright saffron veils; his trained memory identified them, enumerated them, and then, flicking back, his eyes picked up a pair of legs under the horse's belly, legs that didn't belong to the horse, and he was off again, nearly knocking over one of the women in his haste.

  Again Postumus had disappeared. There were only two ways he could have gone; into a dark doorway, or into a hardly shoulder-width alley between two walls. Was Postumus on the run? If so, he'd not have gone into a closed court or a shop; Servius rushed for the alleyway, caught a glimpse of his man rounding a corner at the end – at least, he thought it was his man – and ran after him, his left elbow dragging along the wall, leaving a smear of blood on the rough stone.

  The alley turned a right angle, and as he rounded it, Servius felt despair grip his heart in cruel fingers; ahead lay another street, the end of the way down from the Celian if he wasn't wrong, and busier than the road he'd left behind him. Could he possibly be fast enough to catch Postumus in the open before he had a chance to hide, to turn off into one of the yards or hide in one of the shops behind the portico, or pick another road, perhaps turning back on himself to head back towards the shanties, the forges and tanneries, where Servius would never find him? He ran faster, forcing his legs so fast he was almost falling, so fast he skidded on the dusty road surface at the corner and nearly plunged headlong into the street; and he realised, as he struggled to regain his balance, that he'd lost Postumus completely.

  Still, he thought, he might at least check on the nearest shops; Postumus might have headed into one, hoping Servius would run past, and he'd be able to double back. Even with their rough double doors wide open to the street, they were dim, the corners puddled in gloom; they stank of the only half-tanned and already rotting skins that were stacked on a counter, the putrid aromas of fish gut sauce or cakes of salted anchovies, oozing overripe cheeses or musty air-dried sausages, their skins furred with white mould; only a timber store smelt sweet with pine resin and the peppery scent of olivewood, and the slatted shadows of the leaning planks seemed to form such good hiding places, but there was no sign of anyone there. Cats slunk through the shadows; a litter of white puppies tumbled in the sawdust of the timber store. The street stunk of horse shit. Too many competing impressions; too many people, too many horses, no sign of his man. Eventually he gave up; it wasn't so much that he wanted to talk to Postumus, though as soon as he'd seen him he'd wanted to find out what he was doing, wondered if he could win him over to his own service – he was piqued by Postumus' disappearance, intrigued by what could make Postumus so keen to avoid him, slightly worried, even, by Postumus' evident alarm. He had better things to do with his time.

  He worried a little, too, about his regal dignity, though it was a little late for that; the two old men hadn't recognised him, at least. Some people never did. He remembered Rasce telling him, once, "They never look at you, when they're in the stable, never look you in the eye. They take the reins and go. And then if they see you somewhere else, where you're not a servant, they have no idea who you are. No idea." People never looked at servants, and they never looked at kings, and once he'd taken off the purple and the laurel crown, for those people, he'd become invisible.

  But Postumus had recognised him. Postumus whose darting eyes saw everything.

  He realised he'd been gripping his left elbow in his right hand; it stung, and when he took his hand away, it was sticky with half-dried blood. He swore, and gathered up a bit of his tebenna in one hand, and spat on it, and wiped roughly at his elbow; there was grit in the wound, he could feel it. He'd have to get it seen to later, when he got back to the Palatine; wash it out with spirits of wine, or vinegar.

  He turned back. Might as well take that alley, he thought, and come out where he'd started. The road had got busier; when a group of soldiers came through, at the quick march, people surged to the sides of the road. It was like a sudden flood in a culvert. One puppy hadn't made it in time; it lay still, not a mark on its body. When the bitch came and tried to nose it up, it flopped like a rag. A tiny cost of his war.

  Back through the alley. A short youth was coming in the other direction, and as he angled his body to let him through in the confined space, Servius thought: you're not being careful enough. Your whole belly's open to a thrust, a stab. He could feel the boy's hips against his, shockingly intimate. Hadn't even looked him in the eye. And what to do? Stab him before he had a chance? Servius felt the handle of his dagger hard under his hand, felt the rage of fear rising in him, and then he was past, and coming out back where he'd begun, and feeling the cold creep across his shoulders and his flesh shiver and his face burning as he realised what he'd almost done, what, except for the speed of events, he would have done.

  He was just rounding the corner when he nearly crashed into someone walking fast along the street. Clumsy today, he thought; maybe after all he shouldn't be on his own, without Mamarke or one of the lictors. Then he realised who he'd run into, and reached out, and grabbed Postumus' arm, and stepped past him and through, so he had the man's arm twisted behind his back.

  "Why did you run?"

  Postumus licked his lips. His mouth worked soundlessly. He kept looking up and down the street. What for? Help? To make a run for it if Servius let him go?

  "Tell me. You ran."

  "Nothing to say to you."

  "Why run?"

  "You're dangerous. She... "

  Stupid, stupid. Shouldn't have raped her. Lost control, the way you're losing control here, the way you nearly lost it in the alleyway. Now she's after you.

  "She thinks I'm in Velzna."

  "And you're not."

  "I had to come back, I had to. They found me too quickly. Someone tipped me off. I got out in time."

  "And you came back here. But she thinks you're still there. Didn't want to tell her you'd failed? Or is there something else?"

  Postumus squirmed. Defeat and fear had shrunk him, somehow.

  "You know the kind of game this is. No one trusts anyone."

  I used to, Servius thought. I trusted the General. I trusted Ramtha, at least a little. I trusted Avle and Caile, absolutely. And it's all gone to ruin, thanks to bastards like you. And now I don't trust anyone, either. Particularly not you.

  "Well, you have a problem."

  "If she thinks they got to me first..."

  "She's more likely to think that the longer you skulk around try
ing not to be seen."

  "I was succeeding, till you turned up."

  "And what makes me dangerous? Explain that."

  "You know her. You know me. You know too much."

  "Oh, I know nothing at all, really. And anyway, I might have some use for you. Why would I tell Tanaquil anything, if you were more useful to me on the loose? You know, Postumus, I admire you. Really I do. You're ruthless. Quick. Smart. Know how to obey orders, even nasty ones. I could do with a man like you."

  He still didn't really believe Postumus' story, or only half believed it. Postumus was lying, or he was running some take on the side, or perhaps Velzna had in fact got to him and sent him back to work for them in Rome. Here, between the fullers and tanners and the fish gut sauce vendors, Postumus had gone to ground.

  "We're going to go and talk, Postumus. We're going to drink a cup or two of wine, and we're going to talk. And you're not going to run. If you do, I'll find you."

  Postumus nodded. Servius began to walk, holding on to Postumus' arm, pushing him in front of him. There was a wineshop a few doors away, if he'd remembered right; and he had. Postumus stumbled on the step, whether that was an attempt to break out or a genuine misstep; in any case, Servius was holding on to him tightly. He pushed Postumus to a seat in the corner, and sat himself across the front of the shop.

  "Wine," he said to the shopkeeper.

  "We don't..."

  "You do. Wine. Red. Hot. Not too much honey."

  It came. As did the realisation that Postumus might have had a knife. Probably did have a knife. Could have used it. This was all getting very bad, very bad indeed.

  "I have a problem," Servius said.

  "Being a king is a problem?"

  "I've inherited far too many men who are afraid to tell me the way things are. Too many men who won't tell me to my face I'm wrong. I have too many men, not enough weapons, too many enemies."

  "You have a problem, then."

  "I'm dealing with that. That's not what I want you for. There's something else worrying me. Remember how Tarquinius thought he had Velx sewn up? And Velzna?"

  "I don't see what you mean."

  "If we go to war..."

  "Which Tanaquil said you would, and imminently."

  "If," he said again, "we go to war, I want to hold on to my conquests. Not conquer a town, leave it, see it rebel. I want to move fast. I need people in all the Etruscan cities, working for me. People working for Rome, ready, in place."

  "You want to put me somewhere."

  "No. I want you to organise it."

  This was a stupid risk to take. Postumus was Tanaquil's; probably, he had already betrayed her, too. But on the other hand, if Postumus was really afraid, the gamble would work; a drowning man clutches at anything that floats.

  "But I work for Tanaquil."

  "Not any more."

  "I was going to tell her... when..."

  "You still can. If you have to. Or stay hidden. You work out your own arrangement."

  He could see the calculation going on; Postumus' eyes narrowed, and, for a moment, quite still.

  "It might work," he said. "I'll think about it."

  Servius left, turning his back on Postumus; one last gamble.

  Across the road, a woman turned away. Her red hair reminded him of Tullia.