Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  Tarquin's way was blocked. The Forum was thronged, as if for a triumph. He wouldn't have come this way round, normally, but he'd thought he might drop in on Aglaia's before heading to the Palatine, and now he was wishing he'd gone straight to Tanaquil, instead.

  He'd been out of Rome for a few days, meeting with Teitu, listening again to Teitu telling him to have patience, and wondering whether Tullia listened to his own advocacy of that virtue with the same lack of it. Teitu's explanations of the fine balance of factions in Tarchna should have intrigued him, but he felt himself bored, after a while; Tanaquil's visit was quickly arranged, and there had been no real reason for him to stay, other than that they enjoyed hunting and sleeping together, and that the longer he stayed with Teitu, the longer he put off having to tell Tullia that yet more patience would be required.

  It was too crowded; he couldn't take his horse through. He'd have to ride round, Tiber-side.

  The crowd surged forwards. That would make it twice as difficult to back out, against the flow. He saw a soldier he knew - Crassus, he thought the name was, but it might have been Cassius - and managed to catch his eye.

  "What's going on?"

  "A fustigation."

  "Oh. Bit of a crowd for it, though."

  "You haven't heard?"

  "Been out of town."

  "One of the Vestals." The man leered slightly. The expression didn't suit him.

  "The Vestals..." Tarquin felt the hair prickle gooseflesh up on his arms, even though the sun was warm this morning. Trouble in the house of Vesta might make trouble for him. Even before the soldier said it he was sure he knew the name. Fabia. O gods, Fabia.

  But now, this would be her alleged partner, some poor bastard whose life was cheap enough to waste. It was all a fake, anything to shut Fabia's mouth for good; Tanaquil must have found a new immigrant, perhaps a vagrant, a man who could disappear easily. Here he came; two lictors leading him out. He came slowly, stumbling like a drunk, not a fighting drunk but the kind of drunk who wants only to piss in a corner and then sleep, sleep deeply... He must be drugged, Tarquin thought; that at least was a blessing.

  He'd better get out of here before it started; the horse would shy at the screaming, and there would be screaming, there always was. However often Tarquin had heard men say they'd never scream, they wouldn't give the whipmen that satisfaction, his experience had been that when it came to it, they'd cry in the end. There were different kinds; the men who were shocked into it by the first stroke; those who bit it back till they weakened, and screamed; those few, very few, who stifled the screams, but in the end, whimpered like kicked dogs. Not one, ever, silent.

  And the smell of blood. Well, his horse was used to that, at least; any hunting horse was. But still, he ought to be going.

  There was Postumus, beside the lictors. What was he doing? So Servius had a hand in this, too, did he?

  The lictors pulled the man's hands round the post; they pulled his arms up, but his head hung down. Dirty, tangled hair dangling almost to the ground. One lictor stood each side, whip in hand; they'd alternate the blows, they always did. A single man needed too much recovery between each blow, after the first five or six; two men could keep on beating, beating, as long as they needed to. And how long that would be, Tarquin wondered.

  "Hundred blows?" It was the soldier Tarquin had spoken to. "Hundred? Hundred ten? Make it a bet?"

  Tarquin scowled and turned his face away from the man. He really should be gone by now, but as he'd thought, there was no room to back his horse; he was stuck.

  The first lictor pulled back his arm. The whip hissed, smacked; and the man's head came up, suddenly, his mouth open, screaming. It was Sethre, Tarquin's friend Sethre, the prince of Velzna; how could it be? But it was, and he was sobbing now and hitting the side of his head on the post as he tried hopelessly to angle his body away, as the blows descended, lurching crazily, stretching the leather bonds.

  Tarquin's horse snorted. It would be bucking, next. He stroked its neck, talked gently. It jittered sideways. Tarquin looked over to the bet-loving soldier. At least he could get him to hold the horse's head, that might be worth something.

  How could it be Sethre? How could it? The voice wasn't Sethre's, he told himself; but the voice could be anything, by now, a dying horse in battle, a pig with its throat cut, a dog run over by a cart. In the end he found himself looking at the collapsed red tatter-coated lump and thinking not: how could it be Sethre? but instead: how was this ever alive?