***
"Velx won't deal with us," Manius said.
A lesser man, or a Roman perhaps, would have thumped the table, but Tarquinius merely tightened his grip on the winecup he held till the colour bleached out of his knuckles.
"That was treachery," he said.
"Even so. They won't deal with us. And nor will Tarchna."
"What's it got to do with them?"
"Perhaps they see what you're doing."
"What am I doing?"
"Splitting the federation," Manius said. "It's amazing you've got away with it this long."
"Velzna will gather the League," young Tarquin said.
"Velzna is ours."
"The territory, maybe. But the Vipienas will gather the League."
"We can't let that happen," Tarquinius said. "They should be dead."
"It was a clumsy move to let them go."
"We didn't let them go. They were taken."
"By your friend Servius."
Of course Tarquin had never liked Servius, or Servius' closeness to Tanaquil; but now Servius was Tarquinius' friend, Tarquinius' problem. Tanaquil, naturally, smiled like a cat at the news the Vipienas had escaped; but like a cat that had carefully licked its paws free of the cream, there was no way to prove her guilt, and she knew it.
Tarquinius had known Tarquin would be a problem, but he'd had little choice. With Gaius dead, Egerius not yet recalled, Arruns dead, Servius a traitor, he'd had to bring Tarquin into the council. Tarquin's mind was bright as his mother's, the hard brightness of polished stone, but he'd attacked his father twice already today.
"Clumsy and dishonest."
Leaving Tarquinius naked in front of the world; his policies ripped away, he was bare and shamed.
"We have a strong enough army now to face them all," Manius said, with the slight whine of a man pleading for peace in a drunken brawl.
"It's too soon," Tarquinius said. And Tarquin smiled.
"Why did you start it, then?"