Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  "Thank you," said the woman across the table from Tanaquil. "I don't know how I could have borne it without you."

  Tanaquil shrugged. She would keep her horror to herself. To kill a girl for losing her virginity; that was barbaric. The Etruscans might have sacrificed virgins, once; but that was a long time ago, even in Felsina they wouldn't do that now. At least, she thought, she hadn't known the girl; had never seen her alive, undrugged, never seen her face.

  "It counts as incest, you know."

  "What?"

  "The Vestals are under the guardianship of Rome itself. She is a daughter of Rome; so her crime is incest. Technically."

  As if that made it all right to kill her. She looked at the other woman; a wrinkled face that would have looked kindly, but for the hard, thin mouth. It would, she thought, be easy to be misled. You didn't get to be senior Vestal for forty years without a certain toughness. And for twenty of them, near enough, Fabia would have known the dead Vestal; would have seen her grow up, from a child of six or seven when she was brought in, to today's execution. She was tough all right.

  "You never missed having a man?"

  Fabia shrugged. "Not really. I could have left after thirty years; that's the rule."

  "And you didn't."

  "Never even considered it. To be some man's slave..."

  "There are other options," Tanaquil said.

  "Not in Rome."

  "I don't know. I live like an Etruscan princess. The first few years, it was difficult, but now..."

  "That depends on Tarquinius."

  "He'd never..."

  "Maybe not. You're lucky in him."

  Lucky? She thought; there was no luck involved, she'd chosen him, and whatever had happened, however far apart they'd drifted in some things, she'd choose him again.

  "Tarquinius … he's Etruscan too. He'd never put limits on my freedom."

  "What happens if he dies?"

  "I retire to Tarchna, I suppose."

  "Not if your sons object."

  "What?"

  "You'll be under the guardianship of your sons. They could prevent you, if they wanted to."

  "Why would they want to?"

  The Vestal smiled. "You've no idea, have you? Retire to Tarchna, and you become a focus for opposition."

  "Like Robur..."

  "Exactly. Even if you have no intention of playing the game, you're too dangerous. So they might not let you go."

  "I'd be gone before they knew it."

  "And your estates? You can take gold; but the vineyards, the palaces, the slaves; they'd all belong to your sons."

  "I do know that. That's the reason I'm here."

  That had startled Fabia, she could see, though the older woman hid her surprise well; only a flicker of one eyelid, a slight sideways shift of the eyes, betrayed it.

  "Am I right in thinking the Vestals have absolute power over their own possessions?"

  "Yes."

  "And yours are... considerable, I think?"

  Fabia didn't hide her shock this time so well; her mouth tightened, and her voice cracked. "They are."

  "A house on the Viminal; vineyards; an estate near Alba. You were negotiating with Marcus Faber for a house on the Via Sacra; did you complete?"

  "What's that got to do with your inheritance?"

  "Isn't it obvious?"

  It evidently wasn't; so she explained. Over time, Tanaquil would transfer ownership in selected properties to Fabia; she couldn't do it with everything she owned, but she could transfer enough for her to live comfortably on the income, whatever her sons decided. She'd have sufficient funds to indulge herself in politics; if she didn't retire... though she couldn't imagine a life without involving herself in the diplomacy of the Etruscan cities; she'd been playing that game since she was fourteen, after all.

  Where it got really clever was in the small details. What happened if the senior Vestal died, for instance; the estates would all go to separate Etruscan temples, as donations. Donations exceptional only in that it was still unusual for a pure-blooded Roman like Fabia to leave funds to an Etruscan temple, outside the city; but then, the Romans would probably believe that an old, unmarried woman might have strange fancies. No one would dare overturn her expressed wish. And none of them, Tanaquil thought, would realise that all the temples were her foundations, or controlled by her allies, so that their treasuries would, if she needed, be open to her for whatever purpose she required; though Fabia had, naturally, seen through that straight away. (Good; it was never smart to use stupid people.) Clever in the little detail that Fabia was to swear her testament in a binding oath before Vesta, so that she could never have second thoughts, or at least, if she did, couldn't act on them.

  Tanaquil might never need to call on these resources. Life was uncertain. If Rome became an Etruscan satellite, as she purposed, she'd never need her security; if her Etruscan blood and customs ran true in her sons, she'd rule in Rome through them, as well as through Tarquinius. Arruns would be no problem; but young Tarquin was wild, ungovernable, and it was impossible to tell whether he'd settle down, perhaps with a good marriage, or acquire the political wisdom that any king of Rome needed. It was possible, too, that she might die before her husband; though she rather thought not...

  "You don't miss having children?"

  The Vestal smiled. "I have my daughter."

  Tanaquil frowned. She thought the Vestals were enjoined to strict chastity; hadn't she just seen one buried alive? Was this Fabia's secret, revealed in a sort of quid pro quo for Tanaquil's own confidence?

  "Your daughter," she said, careful to keep her voice very flat, not to stress either word. She deliberately did not look away, not to the sides, not down, but kept her open smile fixed, looking Fabia in the eyes, as if she'd been offered a third cup of wine or a recipe for fig jam.

  "The junior vestal. Not a relation by blood; or a very tenuous one, to be precise – her mother is a distant cousin. But my daughter, none the less."

  "Blood is..." Tanaquil thought of her own blood shed in painful childbearing, a sacrifice to the sons who tore her body for their release; thought of young Tarquin biting her tit as he fed, savage from the start. Fabia didn't know what motherhood was. Yet she knew what love was; and Tanaquil filed that information away, for use, if ever needed.

  "Blood is different? Yes. This is better. She'll never marry away from me; I'll never see her join some man's household and leave mine. We'll share the same household till I die, and she'll be there to catch my last breath. And you know, I chose her; she is all mine, not some chance of or sport of mixed blood, but mine alone."

  "I'd rather have my sons," Tanaquil said.