Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  She hadn't ordered new jewellery for years. She hadn't needed to. She had never needed to, she admitted to herself; she had always had good jewellery, even as a girl of eight or nine, some of which had come down to her from her mother or grandmothers, some of which her father had bought, or aunts who had visited Velzna for the festivals, and brought back gifts. But she'd used to enjoy the process of commissioning a new piece every so often, or seeking out something new, fine, unusual; when had she stopped? She couldn't remember the last time, and yet she'd never taken a decision that such and such a piece was her last; she'd simply let the habit slip, and now she thought about it, she was shocked by her forgetfulness.

  Why had she stopped? Had she stopped caring about her appearance? She thought hard; no, she still dressed her hair as neatly as she ever had, she still wore the bright blues and scarlets of her youth, she still carried herself well. She knew she was one of the few women in Rome who could wear the full panoply of the Etruscan nobility – the great pectoral, the heavy earrings, the headdress, the gold-embroidered purple tebenna – and still attract attention for her striking looks, not simply for the weight of gold. She had not stopped taking pride in herself; but maybe she had stopped taking pleasure in herself. It was time she changed that.

  It was time for a trip to the jeweller. Or rather, it was time to command a goldsmith to make the trip from Tarchna to the Palatine; a man she'd patronised before, one of the great goldsmiths who had no particular speciality, unlike many, but used all the techniques together – granulation, filigree, casting, carving, embossing, repoussé – so that the work sparkled and shone, and seemed almost alive. He'd made her disc earrings once, spinning stars with tiny black glass insets that glittered dangerously, like tiny points of night set into the face of the sun.

  Meanwhile, she had Servius to attend to.