Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  She'd seen the lictors, up ahead, and the flash of red and purple that was the mark of a king; and she leant across, snatching the whip out of Tarquin's hands, and pushed the horses to a full gallop. He caught a glimpse of her; she was smiling, her nose flared, her eyes wide, and her hair whipped around her, loose, wild.

  Two of the lictors had seen the chariot, and dived for the side of the road; cowards. A third looked, stood, staring, for a moment, before getting quickly out of the way; which left only three men, and the king. One of those men had stepped towards Servius, and then suddenly pushed him, hard, away from the line the chariot was taking; and as he did so, Servius looked up at the chariot, his eyes widening, and froze.

  And Tullia kept driving, kept whipping her horses; and Tarquin realised, suddenly, stupidly, that the horses were drifting to the right, a moment before they struck.

  ***

  They're out of control, the lictor thought; and then, they must be trying to scare us, they'll swerve aside at the last moment, perhaps it's a test to see which of the lictors will run. And then, a heart-beat later, he knew the horses were not stopping, were not swerving, and pushed Servius out of its way just before he went under the first horse's hooves.

  ***

  If this was a battle, Servius thought; if he had a weapon, if he hadn't spent too much time building walls, thinking he'd be safe behind them... Tanaquil, he thought,

  and then he was in that nightmare city he'd dreamt of once, a labyrinth of blank walls, and the walls were tumbling over his head, and the fire was rising up in him, the blood, the flame, he was burning up with the heat of it