Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby
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Servius had heard the news of of Tarquinius' chariot race, and the golden krater that was the prize – who hadn't? It was the talk of Etruria, such a rich donation – far beyond the gold-ornamented harnesses that most victors walked away with. Only the team of horses given as a prize at the great festival of Velzna was worth more; and the northern states had never been represented at that festival, so the competition at Rome would be more intense, the prize more glittering for the difficulty of achieving it.
He'd have been in Rome for the race anyway. But what he hadn't mentioned to Tanaquil was his last quarrel with Ramtha.
"You couldn't fuck me, now you want to fuck my husband," she'd shouted at him when he'd criticised Vipiena's policies. "Master of Horse isn't enough for you; you want to be king? Never. A boy from the stables. A boy from nowhere."
His face was still stinging from her slap, but more from the shame of his impotence shouted aloud. It would be all round the city in hours. And it was true, he wanted to be a king, now he'd seen what a king was, what a king could have. Obedience, of course, he was accustomed to – but only from his men at arms; it was less tangible than that. Men argued with Vipienas, spoke behind his back or to his face, but it was his word that counted, in the end, and his policies that were carried out, and if Master thought that appeasing Rome was right, or wrong, that counted for nothing, or at least, for less than he would have liked. He tasted blood in his mouth where she'd split the tender inside of his cheek.
He looked at her and saw only a harpy, an eager, devouring face and sharp claws. He stuck his tongue into his cheek and felt the wound, licked the blood. Anger rose in him, like a thin vomit, and he reached out to grab her wrists, pulling her towards him, feeling her bones twist under his hands.
He pushed her down on the couch. Fear entered her eyes then, and like the taste of his own blood the sight of her fear set something in him on edge, like the cold fury of the chariot race or of battle. A bell from one of her dangling earrings came loose and fell to the floor, and rolled tinkling across the marble. He still held her wrists, he had his knees between her legs. One of his hair braids came untied and fell across her face; he tossed his head to clear it, but it fell back again.
"Bitch," he said, and took both her wrists in one of his hands, gripping hard, to free his other hand. He pushed her skirts up. "Bitch."
She fought him, or at least he thought she was fighting, and that spurred him on, but at the end he wondered whether she had simply manipulated him into doing what she wanted, for nothing was ever simple with Ramtha and she'd always played with the edges of compulsion, and his anger melted into the familiar goose-pimple sensation that immediately preceded his climax. And then, suddenly, she was pushing herself free of the couch, taking advantage of the momentary relaxation of his grip, and he was falling free of her; as he fell, he felt his cock spurt, and saw the four separate pulses of seed fall on her thigh, on the couch, on the floor, and felt suddenly lost and ashamed.
She tugged her clothes around her. She reached for the krater of wine. She seemed not to see him; it was as if he didn't exist, as if she had erased him from the world. (Was this how hinthials felt, he wondered, unseen by the living?) Apology was impossible; he'd crossed a border, just as surely as the dead crossed over.
He hadn't looked back. Hadn't said anything. There was nothing to say. But she hurled a single word after him.
"Slave!"
And when he came to Rome, it was that word he had adopted as his name.
Tarquinius
The new man kept surprising Tarquinius. It wasn't his judgment of horses, though that was good, nor his cynicism in dealing with dealers, though that was notable – after all, he was a chariot racer and trainer, Tarquinius had first thought to employ him as an agent for bloodstock acquisition, these skills were part of the trade. It wasn't even his brusque manner; unusual for an Etruscan, perhaps, but then by the sound of it Servius had had a tough life, and perhaps that had left scars on his character as well as his body. It was the fact that Servius – unlike almost everyone in Rome these days – talked straight to Tarquinius; if he thought an idea was a bad one, the most stinking, stupid, badly planned crock of shit since Avle defied the oracle, he'd come straight out and say so.
Tanaquil seemed to like him; was promoting him, in fact, which disturbed Tarquinius slightly, as many things about Tanaquil always had. The older he got, the more he wondered whether he shouldn't have settled for a more comfortable woman, one without her fierce visions and wild ambitions; he could have been happy in Tarchna, moderately wealthy and perhaps influential, even without formal power. Yet she was still a fire in his blood; just to look at her, to catch her eyes on him, stirred him, like a trout disturbing the mud at the bottom of a clear stream. He wished he could live without it; but the truth was, he couldn't. So he accepted Servius, as he accepted many things about his wife.
"He's ambitious," she'd said to him, and that was a warning sign, too.
"A charioteer?"
"He's more than that," she said; "I've been checking up on him." He didn't ask how; she had her ways, she had her people.
Need more stuff here – some plot