Etruscan Blood by AM Kirkby

  ***

  "I didn't come all the way from Rome to shovel shit. One day, fine; I understand what it's like, getting started, and I know you've got labour shortages after the Collatian emigration. But I've been here a week and I'm getting tired of it."

  Anicius wasn't happy. Nor was Gaius; despite the extra workforce, he'd been unable to get the stoa finished; all the purlins had been cut too short, and he was having to wait while new timber was found – and that wasn't easy, they'd gone through the stock they had – and purlins were sawn to order. Frustrated by his inability to get any work done, he was still obstinately trying to find out who was at fault; the only person he couldn't blame was Kallirhoe, whose calculations had been perfect. But with a workforce that continually changed, as it depended on who turned up from day to day, he couldn't pin the blame satisfactorily on any individual; it could have been one of the regular workers on the project, but it was equally likely to be someone who had only turned up for a day or two and then wandered away to work on something else. That hadn't improved his temper; one Etruscan had walked off the job huffily after Gaius had accused him outright of botching the job, and now everyone was waiting for Gaius to pick his next victim.

  "Look," said Egerius. "We're in trouble here. And I know the idea was you could join me in the administration, but we need to get the roof done before the weather turns."

  "I don't see you working on it."

  "I have my own work to do."

  "Which I should be helping with."

  Egerius shrugged.

  "There's no organisation."

  "People are free here. Not like Rome."

  "That's why it's all going wrong. Look, I was excited at the opportunity – you're trying something really new – but you have to have some way of organisating things properly, not this just-hope-someone-turns-up attitude."

  "Well you've turned up, anyway."

  "Yes, because you told me to. But you're taking advantage of me. You know it. I know it."

  "You're free to work on something else if you want."

  "Am I? Am I really?"

  "But you did agree to work on this, as long as we needed you."

  "So why didn't anyone else? Did you not have that little talk with them, like you did to me – that little we-ought-to-get-to-know-one-another-personally chat, when you explain how free people are to do what they want and then make them feel guilty for doing it? Come on, Egerius, don't look at me like that; you know what you're doing and how you do it."

  "It always used to work."

  "With a smaller colony, maybe it did. But the place is getting bigger; it doesn't work any more. Look around, Egerius. Do you see anyone you know working here?

  Egerius looked. There were men on the roof; men packing the leather buckets full of tiles to be hoisted up; men sawing the small battens that held the tiles, and tying them into bundles to be sent up on the roof. There was one girl, working up there, half stripped, and he realised that not one of the men gave her a second glance. That was progress; Kallirhoe and Karite would be pleased. But he didn't know a single one.

  A sudden shadow fell across the agora. He looked up; the sky was darkening. A trailing fragment of black cloud had half obscured the sun.

  "It'll rain later," Anicius said. "And then we'll have to knock off, and Gaius will be pissed off."

  "He is already."

  "Well, he'll be worse. We'll lose half a day. At least. And you never answered me. You know any of them?"

  "No."

  "See, people just drift – they come, they go, you don't know whether they know what they're doing, and if they fuck it up you don't know who to blame."

  "When we started here we agreed; no coercion. Everyone is free."

  "Well, that works nicely for the founders. Look; you put in the hours, I know that. But Melkart? Or Simonides?"

  "They're teaching. Well, Simonides is teaching; and Melkart's supposed to be …"

  "And what are they teaching? Is it useful?"

  "Funny. Gaius says the same. But you know, we're not just building a city. We're building a whole culture; art, philosophy, the very construction of our society. What they're doing is just as important as your work."

  "And a damn sight more pleasurable."

  "I don't know. I find some of their thoughts... disconcerting. Worrying."

  "Don't think them, then."

  "We have to. Our thoughts shape our world. And all the thoughts I was brought up with – all the ideas of my childhood – have to be rethought, one by one, rethought and reexamined. It's not easy; I can't do it well. But Karite can."

  "I haven't met him."

  "Her."

  Anicius' eyes widened for a moment. A sudden wind blew up, suddenly chill.

  "You're rethinking what, then?"

  "The basis of power. Equality of all men. Equality of men and women. The idea of money. The gods. The plan of the city. How to dance."

  Anicius shrugged. "It'll all come to the same thing in the end. You'll see."

  "Meaning?"

  "Someone always ends up in power. And the others out of it."

  "That's cynical."

  Anicius shrugged again. "That's human nature."

  A single raindrop hit the pavement; huge, overloaded, alone.

  Egerius wondered why these Romans came to Collatia. First Gaius, then Anicius; quite out of sympathy with the ideals of the city, the bold experiment that was being made to create something new, a society built around thinking and learning and free cooperation. Yet at the same time he was uneasily aware that they had some right on their side; that if it hadn't been for Gaius' uncomplicated efficiency, the new city would never have been laid out, the agora drained, the stoa erected.

  "Still," Anicius said, "you might manage to create the right checks and balances. If you're rethinking everything, there's nothing to stop you rethinking government; how to stop one man taking over, how to stop any one popular movement from forcing its views through. You might. I wouldn't mind trying to design that system."

  Another raindrop hit the pavement. Then two more. The air, suddenly, became noticeably colder; and then the restless, rustling sound of rain began. Anicius' mouth was moving, but Egerius could hardly hear a word; his ears were full of noise. Grabbing Anicius, he ducked in under the stoa; the rain outside had become a shimmering curtain, the city beyond invisible now, and the noise was louder, the rain smashing on the tiles above. He was aware of other men scrambling down the scaffolding from the roof, standing aimlessly against the columns watching the rain.

  A drip hit the back of his neck. He looked up. There were tiny points of light between the tiles; they hadn't been laid precisely enough. Droplets began to fall on the dusty floor; first making perfect circular depressions in the dust, then blurring together, till eventually the water began to stream downslope, carving out miniature gorges in the dust and pooling in the hollows. The floor should have been paved; how could that have been missed? Now it was too late.