Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  Manius, of course, had to be kept sweet. Even though Ancus Marcius had named Tarquinius his successor, the Interrex could set that aside at his discretion, for any one of a number of reasons – heredity, or race, or a personal preference, or simply in response to the ebb and flow of Roman opinion. Tanaquil couldn't take any part in lobbying the Interrex; it was too obvious, for one thing, and for another, a woman taking part in politics was tantamount to a declaration of war on Roman decorum. So she had to use someone, and Manius was the obvious tool for her to use; biddable, but not too obviously allied to her cause or that of Tarquinius, and, even though he was a foreigner, not an Etruscan.

  She continued to flirt with him, though never again under Tarquinius' eye; she held him in a web of small attentions, hints, half-veiled looks from under drooping eyelids. She let him come into her chamber when she looked still drowsy from sleep, though that morning she'd already been awake for two hours, reading the post from Tarchna, letting him smell the rich warm odours of a slept-in bed. And she schooled him in the arguments he should use.

  "Of course the main objection is that he's not a Roman," Manius said. "We keep coming back to that one."

  "Not born a Roman, no."

  "He's Etruscan."

  "No, that he isn't," she said, fixing him with a severe glance. "I'm Etruscan; he's a half breed. And if it makes it easier for the Romans to stomach it, he was pretty close to thrown out of Tarchna, if the truth be known."

  "Oh?"

  "I was allowed to marry him. But the price was exile." It was, in a way, the truth, or close enough.

  "But you're Etruscan."

  "Of course. But it's Tarquinius, not me, who will rule."

  "They say it's a fiction; you'll rule through him."

  She laughed. "How likely is that? You've seen him when he doesn't like something I'm doing; you think I rule him? With his temper? And you can see how little he likes Etruscan customs. Yes, if I'd stayed in Tarchna, I'd be a ruler; here in Rome, I'm just a wife, like any other. I weave, I sew."

  "And you go to banquets, which no true Roman wife would ever do."

  "Perhaps I go to banquets; but I don't rule. I don't go to the Forum. I don't speak in debate."

  Manius shifted on the couch uneasily. "Some people are proposing Marcus Robur as king after his father."

  "He's a true Roman," she said, and knew immediately she'd said it that it had been a mistake – that she hadn't managed to keep the acid out of her voice. True Roman, she thought; violent, a pig, and thick-headed, and thought women should be silent, except in bed. (And probably in bed, too.)

  "Men like him. They know what they're getting. Tarquinius is too subtle, too changeable; they're never sure what he will do."

  "He'll make Rome great," she said, a little irritable now. "Robur will only keep it the way it is. And besides, electing Robur would create a precedent for the kingship passing from father to son; and once you start that, you know where it would end."

  "No."

  "An aristocracy. The birthright of the elite. No room for anyone else. Nothing new, ever."

  "Everything we came to Rome to avoid." He frowned. "Yet Robur seems so very much a true Roman."

  "What is Roman?"

  He looked at her blankly, obviously didn't quite understand the import of her question. She let the silence deepen for a moment, then spoke again.

  "Romulus was a fatherless man. He even had to steal his wife. Rome is the city of fatherless men; men without a heritage. Rome is innovation. Rome is freedom. The city open to talent, to hard work, to success."

  "And to manipulation."

  "That too."

  He understood now. The Etruscans, the Sabines, the Greeks who'd swapped the sybaritic couches of Neapolis and Syracuse for the hard bread and rough wine of Rome - this was their city, and it always would be. A city where you made yourself, through hard graft or brilliance or a mix of the two, and where kings were made, not born. As for Robur, they'd turn his Roman blood against him; even the true Romans of the curiate assembly wouldn't vote for a king whose power would threaten their own.

  Besides, if Robur would ossify Rome, Tarquinius would make Rome great. You could see his work everywhere; the bridge, the salt works, the temple walls rising in what had been marshland by the Tiber, drained by his instigation; causeways that led straight as arrow flight across the wastelands, bringing wine and oil and gold, exporting armies and diplomats. The future shone brightly, like the tantalising sheen of dew on the grass early on a summer morning; you could almost believe you could reach out and grasp it.

  Tanaquil saw Manius' face sharpen, thought; he's taken the bait. And perhaps also he'd taken the other bait she'd hidden in reserve, the scent of her bed, the unaccustomed proximity of her body. She noticed he wouldn't look her in the face, though he was normally so candid. But next to her daring in recasting the good Roman as a threat to Rome, playing on Manius' desires was tame, too easy to be interesting.

  "And Faustus?"

  "A dupe."