Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby
Etruscan Blood
AM Kirkby
Copyright 2015 AM Kirkby
Short stories
A Ghost Story of the Norfolk Broads
The Tin Heart
The Tea Master
Sword of Justice
Sacrifices
Egerius
Wake the Dragon
Rise Above
Not a Ghost Story
Haunted
Westminster Chimes
The Augur
Novellas
Walsingham Way
Green Land
Doppelgänger
Novels
Etruscan Spring – forthcoming
Children's books
Kasbah cat
Pagliaccio the Opera Cat
The Cat Who Couldn't Miaow
We have a city founded by the auspices and augury: there is not a corner of it that is not full of our cults and our gods: our regular rituals have not only their appointed places, but also their appointed times.
Livy
The Master
It was like that recurring nightmare of his; a dark passage through which he had to stumble, towards no light but only more darkness.
There was only one man with him. One man alive, that was, and one man dead behind them. One man who had died without a sound, except the hiss of a knife and a sudden splash of blood.
He lurched forward as one foot failed to find a safe hold; for a moment he felt cold with fear that there was no floor in front of him, only the long fall into blackness. He didn't realise he'd ground his teeth together till he felt his jaws loosen with the relief of finding his footing again. As he scrabbled to stay upright, he scraped the back of his left hand on the rough rock wall. His mouth was open to curse before he remembered the need to stay silent.
Somewhere down here were the two brothers. Somewhere in the tunnels and watercourses that ate through the soft tufa below the city, some made by natural erosion, others carved with iron chisels. The darkness hid them, as it hid the shafts that fell away into blackness, the bones of animals that had crept here to die. As, perhaps, it hid more guards than the one he'd killed already. And so he crept on down the dark passage, feeling his way as silently as he could and feeling the weight of the rock like in the dream, as it began to crush him. No torches, no sound except the slow drip of water or blood and the dull roaring in his ears.
A wind was blowing a long way off; he felt the air move around him. He closed his eyes to feel it; no need to do that down here, there was no sight to distract him, but it was a habit of his, ingrained after long years. The breeze came from ahead; there was an opening there. He was unsure whether it was what he was looking for, or whether he'd passed the place he wanted, and was coming out at the other side of the rock. He stood for a moment uncertain.
A huge weight slammed into his back. It was too dark for Camitlnas to have seen him; his follower had walked right into him. For a moment they staggered in a silent, farcical slow dance till they regained their balance; then listened, wondering if any other ears than theirs had heard the scrape of soft leather soles on rock, the hiss of expelled breath. There was no sound. Which might mean no one had heard; perhaps no one was there to hear. (And though he didn't want to think it, he wondered if perhaps there was no one there to hear; if Avle and Caile were dead already, by the noose or by the knife, or by slow starvation.) Then again, if anyone had heard, they were waiting, silent, biding their time. They might be anywhere in the heavy dark. Damned game of cat and mouse.
He started forwards again, repeating in his mind the tenuous instructions he'd been given. He'd entered the tunnels at the mouth behind the well, where the five cypresses stood together. Following the right hand wall, till he came to the parting of five ways and felt in the darkness for the second passage on the left. He should have checked for all five; it might, it occurred to him now, not have been the right junction. If he'd got it right, he should be approaching the place where the brothers were being held. If not... he didn't want to think about it. They'd left a body behind them; there would be no second chances.
Ahead, the darkness seemed less intense. It was difficult to tell; his senses were on edge, and he wondered if he were imagining it, or if he'd been in the dark so long that he perceived it as less dark even though it had not changed. He slowed his pace, reaching out to hold Camitlnas back. If he looked back, he'd be able to see whether he was right. But Camitlnas' silent tug at his arm showed him the other man had noticed it, too. Of course, they could both be mistaken...
No, this wouldn't do, this doubting everything. You needed a certain scepticism to wage successful war; but you had to have something to rely on. Your own senses, your instincts, the men next to you. The darkness was not only less intense, it was tinged with red. He closed his eyes and squeezed his eyelids together, trying to call up the yellow and purple that swam in the dark spaces of his head; and then opened his eyes, and after that dizzy swimming moment, like waking, he could see that the redness was a different redness, not an illusion of his brain and nerves but a real redness, like fire or blood.
Torches, then, or lamps, or a fire. It was too dull for torches; pine resin would spit bright sparks of yellow. Lamps burned more brightly. A fire, then; and a fire banked, he thought, a fire smothered under its own ashes. They could not be far from the place.
What he hadn't expected - what his instructions hadn't covered - was a bend in the tunnel just before they reached the place where the prisoners were being held. He thanked his guardian lasa that he'd kept close to the wall - that was strategy, but it was pure luck that he'd kept close to the left hand wall; if he'd been the other side of the passage, the guard would surely have seen him. As it was, he had a single moment to react.
'Mars Ultor!'
His voice sounded as loud as thunder. It was the password Tanaquil had given him; he hoped it was the right one. If it wasn't, he had no idea how many guards might lie beyond this corner.
'Roma Victrix!' came the answer, and he saw the guard relax, dropping his hand from the hilt of his sword. As he rounded the corner, he took in what he could of the room beyond; two men he took to be guards, sitting by the banked fire. The face of one was brightly lit by the flames' red glow; he was not one of the brothers, nor anyone Servius knew. Slumped some way beyond them were three naked bodies; asleep or dead? he wondered.
Roma Victrix; Rome triumphant. He allowed himself a wry smile at the thought that this time, at least, Rome might not triumph; or not as completely as she thought. And that was his last conscious thought, as he gave himself up to his instincts and the memories of war his body held, shouting to Camitlnas to attack at the same time as he stabbed his short sword into the first guard's guts.
Camitlnas took the man whose face had shone in the firelight, slicing through his throat. The blood stank like iron and wild lightning. Then Servius was through to the bodies beyond, trusting Camitlnas to take the other guard; and praise Tinia, the men were alive, though trussed with rope. Putting his sword back in its scabbard, he drew his dagger and cut through the rope around the first man's wrists; giving him the dagger, he turned to the second man, slicing his bonds away.
“Free yourself, then the third man,” he yelled, and turned to see how Camitlnas fared.
Camitlnas had the second guard backed against the wall; he'd raised his sword, ready to slice down diagonally at the guard's throat. One or the other of them had kicked the ashes covering the fire away, and it was blazing up, lighting their faces, lighting the blond hair of the desperate man facing Camitlnas.
Avle was up now, and Caile was struggling to his feet, the third man still shaking his legs free of the rope; Servius had brought a second sword with him, and yelling Caile's name, threw it to him, still in its scabb
But Servius was thinking hard; that gleam of blond hair had him thinking he knew the man Camitlnas had backed up against the wall. Blond hair was unusual in a Roman; was this an Etruscan noble, then? He looked across; Camitlnas had forced the captive to his knees, and grabbed that glorious blond hair in one hand, jerking the man's face up, raising his sword again for a final blow.
And suddenly Servius knew where he had seen the man before, and shouted “No!” But it was too late, he knew before he said it that it was already too late, and he saw, in that awful slowing down of movement that comes with drunkenness but also with battle, the sword scything through the air, the gash opened in the throat, the curtain of blood.
Then the other guards were running into the room, and Avle and Caile and Larth Ulthes were running forwards to take them on, and it was every man for himself, a confusion of sweat soaked bodies in the glaring red light, and feet plashing in water and piss and blood, and it was too late, it would always be too late.
Tarquinius
He knew as soon as he encountered Tanaquil that he was in the presence of someone quite exceptional. She was an aristocrat, of course; but it was not just her lineage that marked her out, but a certain aristocracy of attitude; the assurance of someone who has never either lacked, or been found lacking.
She had incredible poise; as if she were posing, and yet she seemed superbly unaware of the elegance of her attitude, the way her arms flowed down to her artfully raised fingers, the way one eyebrow lifted as if to ask the question how he dared even approach her; the way her nostrils flared almost insensibly, giving her features a cast of pride. All this he noticed in a second, and felt all the more ill at ease.
How ridiculous; she was much younger than him, and not even beautiful. Her nose was too sharp, her forehead too high. But there was something fiery and indomitable in her, something that belied the precision with which her hair was braided, and the tidy pleats of her chiton. He wondered - and this was within moments of meeting her - what she'd be like in bed.
“What are you thinking?”
Damn her; she could read your thoughts. He tried to keep his voice light; felt warmth in his cheeks, despite himself.
“Oh, I was wondering where you had your earrings made.”
“Do you like them?”
“Very much,” he said, though in fact it wasn't the earrings he'd noticed so much as the way the gold touched the downy skin of her neck.
“They're from the best workshop in Tarchna,” she said; “the work of Aristodemus the Corinthian. All the best jewelry is Hellene, of course. Oh!” She put the tips of the fingers of one hand to her mouth. “Of course you know that.”
He flushed; the reminder of his Greek ancestry was her first misstep, and she knew just how unwelcome to him it must be. They'd been talking for a while; she knew from his single name that he was of immigrant stock; he knew from her gentilicial name, her father's name, her mother's name, exactly how well born she was. As if her self-assurance alone weren't enough to tell him that.
As for the gold that glittered at her neck and wrists, the transparent linen of her long dress; wealth wasn't always accompanied by high social standing, his father's example showed that. Nor was wealth always accompanied by such exquisite taste, such impeccable - apart from that one lapse - manners. They'd been discussing politics in a desultory way; Tarchna had sent an embassy to Karthagos again, to strengthen the alliance they'd already made, and every prominent member of Tarquinian society seemed to have a different view on the matter. Tanaquil had said nothing out of place, nothing that another young girl of the ruling class might not have said, yet he'd felt a keen intelligence at work. And he'd felt, too, that in some way she was not just delivering an opinion, but also measuring him up, and finding him wanting.
He remembered the first time he'd understood his place in Tarchna. He'd been six or seven then, old enough to be allowed to go with one of the household servants for the morning shopping. He'd been pampered, as a boy with six older sisters always is. There was one younger girl too - 'disappointment' seemed to be her name, though he didn't understand that for a long time. In the women's quarters he was always the focus of attention, pulled this way and that way between laughing girls. When he was sick, or simply tetchy, he'd climb up on to his mother's lap and stick his head into the sweet stink of her armpits, or hit her legs with his little fists till she picked him up and put him to her breast.
His father was a more remote presence, a big man with curly black hair and a beard he could lose his fists in. Even his mother was afraid of Demaratos; in his presence she seemed to become thinner, and her face was washed clean of emotion as if every laugh, every joke had been wiped away with a sponge. But Demaratus would take his son on his shoulders, or swing him around by his chubby little arms; and if it frightened him, being so high, it excited him too, and he knew he was loved.
So when the first handful of mud struck the wall near him, that day he'd crept out of the house on his own, it was a nasty surprise.
“Greek scum!”
He'd howled for hours afterwards. The cook had come out to see what the noise was, and found him whimpering in the alley. The boys who'd thrown the mud had scarpered.
It happened again a month later. That time a clod of earth had struck his cheek, smashing the soft inside of his mouth against his teeth. He'd tasted blood. His own. A scatter of stones hit the wall behind him.
That was the day he'd asked his father what a half-blood bastard was.
“If you look closer, you'll see how they've used granulation on the tiny lions,” her voice said softly, interrupting his bitter memories. “It's an intricate technique; they have to make the golden balls first, then solder them to the cast lions, and then finally they apply the lions to the discs. Twelve lions on each, twenty-four lions in all, and each one with its fur made out of granulation.”
He realised she was talking to fill the silence, to prevent his being embarrassed. To be polite, he looked at the earrings; they were indeed fine. But he hadn't looked interested enough, obviously; taking his hand in hers, she put his fingers to her earlobe, so that he could support the heavy gold in his hand while he inspected the workmanship. Her ear was surprisingly warm in his hand. He wondered if she realised what a dangerous thing she was doing, how much the momentary contact excited him. Of course she did. It was a game, a game the nobles could play, because they didn't have to take such things seriously.
But it wasn't earrings they talked about for the rest of the day; it was politics. Lauchme's father had been exiled from Corinth after losing a high-stakes game of influence. At least the Greeks were more civilised than the Phoenicians or some of the Italic nations; they exiled you instead of making you part of a bonfire or pouring your blood out in the market place.
“We kill people too sometimes,” Tanaquil riposted. “Didn't you know?”
He hadn't. She seemed, in a way, quite proud of it.
“Every time a temple is built, it needs a sacrifice.”
“I know. But I thought it was goats. Or sheep. Or a bull. Not... when was the last time?”
“I'm not sure. My father would know. But I do know that the great temple of Tarchna was built over the body of a child.”
“How on earth do you select a child for that purpose? You cast lots? Or do you just take a child from the street and murder him?”
She looked at him as if he'd said something unutterably stupid.
“The child is chosen by the gods, of course.”
It turned out that the sacrifice was always an albino, or an epileptic; or, in this case, both. And she knew this, even though it was two hundred years
“But you are right, of course, that we don't do much of that any more. We tend to solve political disagreements by talking, not unlike the Greeks. I can't talk for Spina or Felsina, of course; the north isn't quite civilised. I'm intrigued how shocking you find the idea, though. Didn't you say you were brought up here in Tarchna?”
So he had to tell her his story; and that necessitated telling his father's story; and to be understood, that story in turn had to be prefaced by the history of Corinth, or at least as much of it as was needed to see that Demaratos had overplayed his hand - and within half an hour (as he realised glumly soon afterwards) she'd mined him for as much information as any Etruscan would ever need about the political affairs of the Hellene cities, and the way Demaratos had made his fortune. If Tanaquil ever played her own political game, he thought, he wouldn't want to oppose her; and she wouldn't overplay her hand.