Etruscans

by Morgan Llywelyn

  “Leave it alone, will you!”

  “A demon’s tail? I think not. I want it if you don’t. We can hang it on the wall of the barracks along with the captured trophies.” Paulus made a great show of searching among the rocks and bushes while some of the other Romans sniggered at Sextus’s discomfort. But just as Paulus found what he sought half-concealed in a clump of cedar, Antoninus barked, “Get on, you lot, I want us all back inside the walls before the dark catches us. Those things might come back … with reinforcements,” he added for emphasis.

  Paulus reached for the severed tail. On closer inspection it did not appear to be a tail, but more nearly resembled the nether part of some huge serpent. He did not want to touch the repellent object but he could not back down now; he had carried the joke too far.

  His fingers had barely grazed the scaly surface when the thing whipped around his wrist and crushed every bone.

  TWENTY-THREE

  It was important to take care of the family. Whenever Young Ones wandered away from the mouth of the cave, He would growl and wiggle his eyebrows, and She would run after their errant offspring, chittering anxiously. She was responsible for herding Young Ones back to safety. He did not tend Young Ones. He provided meat and mounted She whenever She invited him.

  He remembered an Old One like himself who had brought meat to the cave when He was little. And an old She with drooping dugs who chased himself and other Young Ones. There had been more like them living in other caves throughout the hills. But not now.

  Where had they gone?

  When He tried to think about them his head hurt. It was not easy to construct a thought. Hunting was easier and required no thought. He liked hunting. Whenever He returned with meat, He would devour his fill, then let She take her turn. Afterward they would sit in the sun outside the cave and watch Young Ones rend and tear what remained of the bloody flesh. Sun was good. A full belly was good.

  Mounting She was good; locking his fingers in the shaggy yellow hair that grew along her shoulders and sides, thrusting deep into her, feeling the bursting feeling. Afterward He liked to sleep. She liked to sleep then, too, but Young Ones would take advantage and run outside and She would have to go after them.

  Young Ones were a lot of trouble. They made a lot of noise racing and romping in the cave.

  The cave smelled good. It smelled of rotten meat and dried blood, reminding He that his belly was empty. But no matter how He searched, there were no shreds of meat to be found. Not even a cracked marrowbone. All gone. Young Ones had eaten the last of the food.

  One of them came too close and He growled and cuffed it with the back of his hand, but not too hard. Young One ran and hid behind She, peering out with bright, beady eyes. He growled again. Young One blinked.

  She growled back at He, warning him not to threaten her baby. In response He showed her his teeth but She only growled again. Usually She would back down, but not where Young Ones were concerned.

  He sighed and began picking through the thick mat of russet hair on his torso in search of fleas. She came over to him then and made a whimpering noise. When She pressed insistently against him He began grooming her, catching her fleas between thumb and forefinger and popping them into his mouth. But they were too small. They did not fill the belly. He must go in search of more meat now or sleep hungry.

  When He pushed her away and stood up on his two bowed legs, She gave a grunt of protest that He ignored. From a pile of debris at the mouth of the cave, He took a gnarled branch He often used as a club. If He hit meat on the head, meat would fall down and die. He swung the branch onto his shoulder and strode away without looking back.

  She stood in the cave entrance and watched him go down the hill in the twilight with his peculiar, rolling gait. Soon He disappeared into a stand of cedar trees.

  Licking her lips in anticipation, She sat down to wait. She knew what it meant when He took the club.

  They would eat soon.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The Roman matron called Delphia was stout and handsome, with oiled hair arranged in sculptured curls across her brow in a style copied from an Etruscan wall-hanging. Silver Etruscan beads hung in graduated strands around her neck. Like her husband Propertius, she exuded an air of prosperity. As she reclined at her ease in the cart, she was chattering merrily and examining her hennaed fingernails.

  The couple was returning from a trip to view their latest acquisition, an estate near the border of Roman territory. Propertius sat facing his wife, going over accounts in his head and wondering whether their hired driver would try to extort more money from them before they got home. He was annoyed to realize they would not reach the gates of Rome until well after dark, and beginning to worry. He hated traveling at night. In spite of the warriors the city assigned to patrol the approaches to Rome, the roads were not safe. The most trusted drivers had been known to betray their passengers to outlaws for a share of the profits.

  As a member of the Roman Senate and the owner of a far-flung trading business, Propertius Cocles sometimes engaged in a bit of spying. Following his recent report on current Etruscan military strength, he had been rewarded by King Tarquinius with an estate in the country. The understanding was that in return, Propertius would put his property at the service of Tarquinius whenever required. Roman kings occasionally found themselves in need of a secret hideaway.

  In truth the estate was little more than a sprawling farm bisected by a tributary of the Tiber, but the soil was fertile and with enough slaves, a man could produce an excellent profit. And there were always enough slaves, more than ever now that Rome was beginning to expand.

  As they jolted along in the high-wheeled wooden cart behind a bristle-maned Thracian horse, Delphia was enthusing, “Now that I’ve seen the land I have so many ideas, Propertius. We must build a villa for ourselves overlooking the river, so we can get away from the heat of Rome in the summer. It never seems to bother you, of course, but myself and the children suffer dreadfully. I want an enclosed garden where the younger children can play, and separate slave quarters, and perhaps a …”

  Propertius was used to Delphia’s chatter. The bulk of her conversation consisted of demands to which he responded with unfailing agreement—although he never really listened. He would build what he wanted and his wife would have to …

  “What is that? Gods defend us!”

  Propertius’s musings were cut short by Delphia’s shriek of horror. At the same time their driver began furiously plying the whip, but the Thracian horse was fat and sleepy. It broke into a trot instead of the gallop the situation demanded.

  The monstrosity that came hurtling toward them down the cedar-covered slope was enough to chill the spine. Though man-shaped, it was not a man but a massive shaggy horror. The curious rolling gait of the thing was deceptively swift; in spite of the driver’s frantic efforts, in a few moments it had reached the road and was bounding toward the cart in prodigious leaps.

  Only then did Propertius’s numbed brain realize that one of the monster’s disproportionately long forelimbs was carrying a club.

  Springing to his feet, the Roman shouted, “Help! Someone help us!” as loud as he could. But there were no patrols within range of his voice. The hilly, wooded countryside through which they were passing was empty except for occasional scattered farmsteads. There was no one nearby to save them—and their hired driver was useless. He could only gape in horror as their attacker leaped for the horse.

  Too late the animal realized its danger and plunged forward. Simultaneously the shaggy creature hit it between the eyes with a mighty blow. The sickening smash of the skull was clearly audible, even above Propertius’s calls for help. The horse fell dead in the traces, bringing the cart to a shuddering halt

  Lifting the club to its mouth, the monster licked at the blood and brain matter clinging to the wood and grunted with pleasure. It might have been satisfied with its equine prey had not the driver panicked and leaped out of the cart at that moment, slashing at
the creature with his knife. With a roar, the thing took a swipe at the man that knocked his head from his shoulders.

  Delphia’s screams drew the creature’s attention to the white-faced passengers. Curious, it started toward the cart, nostrils flaring, trying to decide if these hairless ones were its own kind or simply meat. The brute was making appalling noises, a combination of growls and grunts that so unnerved Propertius that his knees gave way. He slumped back onto the seat, moaning in terror and clutching his chest.

  Seeing her husband on the verge of fainting had quite the opposite effect on Delphia. Her terrified shrieks were transformed into an ear-splitting yowl of anger as she snatched up the whip the driver had dropped and lashed it across the face of the monster. The brute paused for the briefest moment, staring at her in obvious surprise. An overlong pink tongue traced the bloody cut on its hairy cheek.

  Then, with a grunt, it scrambled over the side of the cart.

  Seen up close, the creature was even more horrific than Delphia had realized. Its skull was grotesquely large, back-slanting, with a shelflike brow extending over sunken eyes. The broad, flat nose had cavernous nostrils, the slobbering mouth stretched in a disgusting grin. Except for its face, the monster was covered with filthy reddish hair, and the breath that washed over Delphia was so foul she thought she would vomit.

  Worst of all, however, were the eyes. Staring at her with an expression of murderous hunger, they were obviously intelligent and very close to being human. At this realization, Delphia came close to fainting herself.

  The monster’s grin stretched even further to display cruel yellow fangs. Leaning back to give itself room in the cramped confines of the cart, it raised the club for the killing blow—just as the first stone hit it in the back of the head.

  He gave a grunt of surprise. Turning, He saw another hairless one running toward him. With incredible agility the human was scooping up rocks from the road as he ran and hurling them one after another.

  The next hard-flung stone struck He squarely on the nose. His roar of pain echoed across the countryside. When the sound reached the cave on the distant hillside and his waiting She, the female responded.

  Her mate was in danger!

  Frantically, She called to him again and again, raising her voice in an eerie, ululating cry that rebounded from hill to hill; a cry born of the swiftly descending night and an even more ancient darkness.

  It was the loneliest sound in the world.

  When the stranger leaped into the cart to grapple with the pain-dazed monster, Delphia seized the opportunity to scramble out. Then she reached over the side and tugged desperately at her husband. “Come, Propertius, hurry! While they’re fighting we can get away.”

  The Roman almost fell as he stepped to the ground; only his wife’s outstretched arms saved him.

  Meanwhile the stranger had succeeded in wrenching the club away from the monster. The thing possessed extraordinary strength, but its reactions were slow. When he pried the club from its grip and threw it as far from the cart as possible, the brute turned to watch it rather than concentrating on fighting its opponent.

  In that moment Horatrim wrapped his hands around the creature’s neck.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  From the moment he heard the first screams for help, he had been aware of a singing in his blood. “Stay here and stay out of sight, Mother,” he had told Vesi, seating her on a large stone behind a screen of cedars. Then he began to run in the direction of the screams.

  Pepan’s hia followed.

  The singing had intensified as Horatrim ran. It became the sound of a thousand bees—or a thousand voices—humming confidently through his veins, giving specific directions to his limbs and muscles. By the time he came in sight of the cart on the roadway, his body had known exactly what to do.

  The stones Horatrim threw distracted and then briefly disabled the monster, allowing him to enter the cart and close with it. His hands were hardly large enough to encompass the massive, muscular throat, but his fingers knew just where the nerves and veins were located beneath the skin. He pinched the windpipe shut, then compressed the thick artery that brought blood to the brain.

  The creature slumped immediately, not unconscious but shocked by the pain and confused by the shadows that had gathered so quickly, the numbness that threatened its limbs.

  Step by step Horatrim forced it backward, out of the cart. They staggered together to the ground. Once it felt solid earth under its feet, the creature erupted in a frenzy. It broke free of Horatrim and ran off into the darkness, leaving him holding a handful of russet hair and a patch of flesh torn from its hide. As it ran the monster emitted another chilling, inhuman cry. In the distance, something answered.

  Horatrim threw down the hair and torn flesh in disgust and turned to the couple from the cart. They were both trembling but unhurt. Gently, he led them away from the road and helped them sit down. They wrapped their arms around each other and sat watching him like two terrified children as he went back to the cart to examine first the driver, then the horse. Nothing could be done for either.

  Horatrim returned to the pair he had rescued. “You cannot stay out here in the open tonight,” he said to the man, a short, stocky individual with a fringe of graying hair around a head rapidly going bald. The man merely stared at him. Horatrim tried again, finding a different language on his tongue. “Where were you going when you were attacked?” he asked.

  Propertius shook himself as if awakening from a bad dream. A sense of relief washed over him. Their rescuer was not only a man like himself, but also spoke Latin, albeit with a strange accent, a man of some learning. “My wife and I were returning to Rome,” he replied in a voice that still quavered slightly. “I am called Propertius Cocles, and I am in your debt for saving our lives.”

  “The … the gods were with me. They sent me to you. You owe me nothing. But come, we should move away from here; the bodies will bring scavengers.” He urged the couple down the road toward the hiding place where he had left Vesi.

  “I am in your debt,” Propertius insisted on repeating as they walked. “I am a man of no small importance, and my honor is precious to me. I always pay what I owe. You can ask anything of me and it is yours. Just tell me your name and family, that I may do you—and them—proper honor.”

  “I am called Horatrim. As for my family …” The young man hesitated, then went on, still guided by the strange music surging through him, “My mother is my only family. We are Rasne. Travelers on our way to Rome.”

  The woman brightened. “Etruscan? How wonderful! I do admire the Etruscans, they are so very elegant.” Delphia, a person of warm affections and instant enthusiasms, was ready to welcome this new hero unreservedly.

  Her husband was more cautious. Horatrim’s background gave him pause. For generations there had been sporadic conflict between Etruria and the tribes of Latium, although never enough to put an end to trade. Frequent intermarriage had done little to lessen the tension. The Etruscans resented the rise of a more vigorous culture, the people of Latium were jealous of past Etrurian achievements.

  In spite of this stormy relationship, in Roman society an ancient Etruscan bloodline was highly desirable. To be considered patrician, a member of the nobility, it was almost essential to have at least one Etruscan antecedent. The present king was a perfect example. Lucius Tarquinius Superbius frequently called attention to the pedigree of his Etruscan father and tended to overlook his mother’s Latin family.

  Years of experience trading with the tribes of Etruria had made Propertius wary however. The Etruscans believed that every aspect of their lives was influenced by gods and demons, by the shades of their ancestors and the malice of disembodied spirits. The result was a complicated culture where countless invisible entities had to be placated before the smallest action could be taken. It often got in the way of business.

  Propertius mistrusted mysticism; he put little faith in things he could not see and count. In this he differed from most of
his contemporaries. Burgeoning Rome was seeking an enhanced spiritual identity. Simple pastoral gods of field and forest were being superseded by more esoteric deities, each with its own priests and rituals shrouded in mystery, though as a businessman, Propertius could appreciate that there was money in religion.

  In the privacy of his own home Propertius scoffed at the proliferating religions. He was particularly contemptuous of the Cult of Magna Dea to which many of the women, including his wife, were devoted. “It’s nothing more than the attempt of idle women to usurp power for themselves,” he said. “The only god Romans need is Mars. War is good for business.”

  Still, one must admit Etruria had attained a level of prosperity that was the envy of Latium. For generations wealth had poured into their cities from copper, lead, and iron mines, from farms and vineyards, from Eastern trade and Western piracy. The Etruscans insisted they owed their entire success to the benevolence of their gods.

  Now this young man had appeared just in time to save the Roman and his wife from a monster. He had accomplished the feat with extraordinary skill and agility and was not even breathing hard afterward. “The gods were with me,” was all he offered by way of explanation.

  Propertius was prepared only to believe in what he could see and touch. Tonight, perhaps, he had seen a miracle: the gods working directly with and through a human. An Etruscan. A young, handsome Etruscan, obviously educated and therefore from a good family.

  Propertius had a daughter of marriageable age.

  Arranging his face in his best trust-me-I’m-an-honest-trader smile, he said, “Since you’re going to Rome anyway, Horatrim, we would be grateful if you would accompany us. I fear we shall have to travel on foot the rest of the way, but it’s not far now. You will stay the night with us of course; in fact, I insist you stay for as long as it pleases you. I want to hear more about these gods of yours.” He eyed his rescuer’s filthy clothing of uncured hides. “And surely we can find you something better to wear. I have a son almost your size.”