by AM Kirkby
***
They came into Suana as the shadows thickened in the valley, into the sunken roads between deeply scored walls of soft tufa, where brown-leaved beeches whispered overhead; a painted mermaid glowered at them from a tomb, a contemptuous lion from another. Kavie had gone on ahead, so they were expected, and a vast room next to the temple had been allotted them; there three of the council came, without fuss or announcement, and were surprised to find Arnza running about barefoot, swinging a stick he'd picked up somewhere in circles around him, or prodding the air with it, and shouting "Die, Rrumach!"
"Is he yours?" one of the councillors asked Ramtha.
"Yes," she said; it was not a lie, really.
She sketched out the story quickly. The way Servius had been corrupted; from a man of the people he'd become a demagogue, a tyrant. She told them how his increasing depradations were impoverishing his people - ancient families' golden inheritances snatched to pay for more weapons, all the young men taken into the army, and no one left to work the land but the toothless old ones and the youngest women, and the children, and - she smiled at Arnza - what use were they, really, except for scaring the birds off the sown seed or the ripening fruit? He had set Rome upside-down; a peasant-slinger from some two-mule village up in the hills had been put in charge of the army, instead of the prince Tarquinius, son of kings, son of a princess of Tarchna. (She saw one of the boys wince at that; there were no kings in Vulci, now.) Free of constraint, Servius took what he wanted; wealth, boys, women. There was no stopping him, and under him, no stopping Rome.
The tale was a good one, woven by Tanaquil out of equal measures of true and false yarn; the stories of womanising were more true of the young Tarquinius, if Ramtha's informers had the story right. It was a story that was being told in Rome, too, and every thread of that weave ran back to the clew that Tanaquil held in her hands.
"Fine," said one of the council, an older woman with flabby cheeks but piercing dark eyes. "Servius is ruining Rome. Why should we care?"
"Rome threatens us all. Rome under Servius threatens us all."
The youngest councillor nodded; he'd instantly apprehended her meaning.
"You think Sovana can take on Servius' army?" the woman asked, and her tone of voice showed she clearly didn't expect an answer.
"Even with Velx? No. That's not the plan."
She wasn't putting together an army to take the war to the open field. She wanted only a few picked fighters, who could be placed within easy distance of Rome, discreetly hidden in the side valleys of the Tiber. Then it was a matter of waiting; waiting for Rome to revolt, waiting for Tarchna to make a move.
"This must stay hidden," she said; "it may never come to a fight. But if Servius falls, we are there."
"You mentioned Tarchna," the old woman said. "The last king of Rome was an exile..."
"More important; Thanchvil is a Spurinna."
"Then Thresu..."
"The Spurinnas stick together."
"And you've heard..."
"Nothing. I make a deduction, as you do."
"Deduc-shun! Deduc-shun!" Arnza yelled, and started running, shouting, ducking and weaving to avoid Kavie, who was trying to catch him. Damn, Ramtha thought, that's blown it. But then she heard a hoarse coughing; the old woman was laughing, laughing hard enough to choke, and that laugh, as laughs do, infected everyone, even Arnza, now firmly snatched up into Kavie's arms, who was chuckling to himself, unaware that he'd just cemented the new alliance.