Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  He watched the men lighting the two fires down in the marsh by the gravelly shore of the stream; the intense yellow of the new flame, so pale it was almost white-hot, and dark shapes in the shadows, sometimes silhouetted by the flame, at other times half melded with the darkness. It seemed so far away from him; if he closed his eyelids he could see the fire still flickering on the inside of his eye. What was stranger was to see the fire and not be able to hear its crackle or the roar of the flames as they got up; the scene was uncanny in its silence.

  He looked up again at the sky, using his hand to sight south, along the river valley. The moon was not quite a third of the way towards the zenith. Two hours past sunset; it was time.

  As he neared the closest fire, his sheepskin still thrown over his head against the night chill, he was aware how two men silently flanked him, coming round him to the rear, cutting him off from retreat. Two others turned towards him, easily, as if by pure chance. Good, he thought; they're on their guard.

  "A cold night, to be zure," he greeted them, wondering if they'd fall for it.

  "You're out of your way here, grandfather." He couldn't see who had said that; the two men facing him were silhouetted against the fire. That was a smart move.

  "I'm cold," he said, ignoring the implicit question. "That's a nize vire, by the look of it."

  "Where have you come from?" Still polite, but insistent.

  "Over them hills."

  The man on the right stepped closer, and though he couldn't see, Tarquinius felt the prickling of hair that told him the two behind were closing on him. He wondered when it would become too dangerous to maintain the masquerade. Stupid to put the action at risk for a game.

  "Over the hills and var away."

  Suddenly Gaius laughed; at first nervously, then as the others realised the joke and joined him, louder, till Tarquinius threw back his sheepskin and let them all see. In the flickering light he could see a trickle of liquid down one man's cheek, like a slug trail; it might have been the smoke, though, that had set him off. The laughter was slightly manic, as if this release had broken through the tension that had surrounded them all afternoon; as if they were already tasting the slightly berserk courage they might need later.

  "I'm proud of you," he said, pitching his voice over the laughter, calling them back to mindfulness of the task awaiting them. "It's good to see such a well guarded camp fire."

  "It was that obvious?"

  "No, Gaius. It wouldn't have been, to anyone but me. Don't forget who gave you those standing instructions."

  "Really not?"

  "Really. Not obvious at all. And most efficient." He knew that word would appeal to Gaius. Personally, he'd always preferred elegance to efficiency; he'd learned the difference between the two from a Greek tutor. Efficiency meant getting the job done; elegance, getting it done in the best and least wasteful way possible, without brute force or too much effort. But the distinction would be wasted on Gaius.

  "How are we doing with the bonfire? All ready? Gaius, did you tell them what we're doing?"

  "I did."

  "Then men; it's time. Let's start the celebration."

  Anyone viewing the scene would have thought the men had gone mad. Perhaps, a stranger would have wondered if they'd been touched by one of the savage and chthonic gods of the land, a local Bacchus ready to rip men limb from limb, an Athene on the hunt for mortals to tear apart, some mad imp who'd stolen Tinia's thunderbolts. The men were building up the bonfires to a great height, the flames roaring up into the night sky; they staggered under the weight of the bundles of wood they carried, throwing them into the fires from a distance since the heat was so great they could no longer get close.

  "Pitch first!" Gaius yelled at one man who'd forgotten to soak the faggot he was carrying before throwing it on the bonfire. Soaked in the sweet smelling pine resin, it burst into flame almost at once, spitting bright malevolent sparks around it.

  "Right," Tarquinius shouted. "Time for part two."

  Now the men ran for the long poles, jamming them into the fire to lever out the flaming bundles, and push them into the river. One man flicked a bundle up into the air with his pole; it streamed flame behind it like a comet before hitting the water with a hissing shower of sparks.

  "Oy. No throwing," Gaius yelled. He was right of course; it was too dangerous. But there was no holding the men back now. They yelled, they screamed, their mouths wide open pits of darkness in flame-lit faces. They seemed mad, driven by the desire to burn the whole world, to set the very river on flame.

  In four hours' time, those burning bundles of kindling and pitch would arrive at the city on the Anio. In four hours' time, the first of them would bump across the wooden bridge at the entrance to the city. In a little over four hours' time, the first struts of the bridge would begin to burn, cutting the Sabines off from their city. And then, and only then, the Romans would attack.