Etruscan Blood

by AM Kirkby

  ***

  Tarquin had instinctively recoiled from Arathenas; there was something offputting in that languid pose, like seeing a coiled snake, puffy and inert. His elegant affectations reminded Tarquin sometimes, and with sudden pain, of Strephon, but he hadn't Strephon's innocent desire to be loved, nor Strephon's energy; there was something sluggish and sour in his nature. On the other hand he found himself spending more and more time with Arathia - initially at least because the more time he spent with her, the more he could palm Arathenas off on to Tullia, who seemed more able to tolerate him, and then later, because he had become rather captivated by her slight and hesitant charm.

  They had made something of a habit of walking on one of the terraced parks that overhung the great cliffs, down gravelled alleys under mop-headed box trees still glossy and green, looking out to the plains and the great sky with its neverending drama of clouds. Some days there were immense thunder-heads like anvils, such dark grey they were almost black; other times, soft folded clouds like the fur of a cat's belly, or thin streamers of tattered faint white.

  For all his doubts, for all his feeling that there was something about this city he didn't understand, he loved it; the ceremoniousness of its life, the way it was governed by song and music and the rites, and its wealth, too.

  "Isnt Rome rich enough for you?" Arathia asked him. "You dress well, well enough to rival the richest families from Cisra or Tarchna; you have taste, and that usually doesn't come without a certain amount of funds."

  "It doesn't always come with a certain amount funds, though; look at Thresu."

  "Surely Rome is rich?"

  "It's a shanty town. My mother told me stories of Tarchna, the wonderful city with its walls and its fine temple and the families who wore purple and gold; and we were living with chickens scratching holes in the floor, and pigs stealing anything you put down for a moment. Even now, we've got a great temple of Tinia, and the forum is paved, but the walls are a scratch in the ground, and if you go a hundred paces from the palace you find squalid huts thrown up overnight, and children running round naked and dirty."

  "And Tarchna was different?"

  "The invitation never came."

  "Rome will be rich," she said; "when you govern it, you can make it more orderly."

  "But it's so new. Everything we have is new. Everything has had to be bought. I don't have anything of my grandmother's, not even an old pot or a single earring. It makes life so shallow; we practically don't have ancestors, whereas here..."

  "Oh, here!" she said, and looked sad. "Here, you can't move for ancestors. Everything we do has been done before. You know, compared to Velzna, Tarchna's the same; all bright new pots from Greece, and Phoenician jewellery, and ostrich eggs and exotic flimflam."

  "Terrible," he said, with a feeling of having been, ever so slightly, put in his place.

  "I don't know; I rather like it."

  She wasn't fiery like Tullia, but she had a peculiar quality of intensity; like a strung bow, ready. And he thought suddenly; like a bowstring that splits and unravels when it's fired without an arrow set to it, she would be spoiled if she wasn't used, if she didn't find a task great enough to use her talents.

  They had come to the end of the walk, and turned to go back. He noticed she'd fallen into step with him. It happens, he thought; people do fall into step, naturally. But there was something peculiarly right about it, with Arathia; it was a sign of some sympathy between them. Then as they turned, their bodies touched, and he was tempted to reach out for her small wrist; but he hesitated a moment, and they walked on, though he could feel, for a moment, her fingers brush his, and the soft hair on her arm. And before he could turn his face to hers, she had turned away to look at a small bird that was drinking from a smear of rain left in a hollow of the path.

  Well, he thought, if she noticed, leave her wanting. He wouldn't risk making a fool of himself. But the world glittered again with possibility; this was what life was about, the wonderful game, the chase, the danger, the excitement. It was like when you had the blood up in a fight, or a cavalry charge, and everything seemed to slow around you, and the world became as clear as mountain water or ice.

  "I've been wondering," he said, and she turned, her face raised to his, eyes wide.

  "Yes?"

  "About the king," he said, and it was as if a cloud passed overhead, and the world darkened.

  "The king?"

  "There is a king in Velzna, I suppose? But I don't hear anything about him."

  She looked away. "He's ill," she said, looking unhappy.

  "So there really is a king? You're not just ruled by the temple, or a council of twelve?"

  "We don't talk about it. It's not lucky."

  "Suppose I wanted to speak to him." She started to answer, but he held up a hand to hush her. "No, I don't want to, but suppose I did - or anyone, Thresu, perhaps, or Teitu - how would I go about it?"

  "He'd find out," she said. "A king always does find out. And someone would be sent."

  "And then what?"

  "We really don't like to talk about it," she said, and nothing he could say would bring her back to the subject.