***
The city was still emerging from night when they met on the edge of the open country. Behind them the streets lay quiet, vast washes of darkness where only the top of a wall or the side of a house could be perceived, an indistinct edge of grey, and where one was never sure whether a patch of greater darkness on the road marked a stain or a sudden hole, and it was difficult to tread with confidence. Above, the sky was almost completely clouded over; two or three stars shone high above, the moon had long set, and the sun was still pulling itself painfully back into the living world.
The world seemed to be holding its breath. The deep stillness was broken only by a distant solitary bird's melancholy song, and the sound of their feet crunching through frost and, once or twice, suddenly smashing the thin ice of a puddle. No one spoke, for they were mesmerised by the numinous silence; a sense of mystery that no one wanted to be the first to break.
Then a shout, and rapid hoofbeats, and a scatter of gravel. Tarquin had spurred out of Rome, and stopped where he'd found his companions, rearing his horse back on its haunches to paw at the air, and wheeling it round with the same motion, as he shouted a greeting at them, keeping the stallion teetering, short-reined, fighting against the empty air to keep from falling.
"You're not supposed to be here," one of the men muttered. "Your father's dead."
This was true, and no man whose father was not still living could dance with the Salii, but still Tarquin was here, and he smiled thinly.
"Yes, Quintus Brutus is taking your place," another one said.
Now Tarquin laughed. "I'll be one of the maidens, then, if you like."
"That's plain wrong. We're too many now. And anyway, we choose the maidens by throwing dice."
"Well," Tarquin said easily, "these things can change."
A cock crowed in the distance, and as if some starting signal had been given, the noises of the day began; more cocks answering the first, a cow bellowing in a dark stable, dogs yapping, the groan of a tired ox. Across the way, the slope of a hill glimmered stripy where frost lay in the furrows, and the sky was lightening faster now, from oyster grey to pinkish iridescence. Soon the sun would rise, molten bright yellow if they were lucky, and if they were not, the angry burning red that presaged storms and ill fortune.
Tarquin slipped easily from his horse, and gentled it with a hand on its neck, remembering how Arruns had always called his horsemanship flashy. "Showing off," Arruns used to say, "is the mark of a parvenu." He'd never understood Tarquin's intent, the deadly fall of two shattering forefeet in battle.
Strephon was there, and Quintus Brutus, and one of the Valerii, and a couple more youths Tarquin recognised from the cavalry, but there were a few new ones he didn't know from last year; one must have replaced Decimus, who had been found drowned, washed up on the gently sloping bank of the river below Tiber Island, and his friends still wondered if he'd died drunk, or if he'd upset one husband too many, and the Claudii boy had broken his leg in a bad fall from a horse, and had sent a cousin in his place. There were twelve of them there, and Tarquin made thirteen, and it was the thirteenth day, the Ides of March.
"These things can change," he said again, and noted which of them seemed shocked at his levity, and which laughed warily, while Strephon simply smiled slyly.
But there were only twelve shields, and only twelve spears, and only twelve Salii could dance. Tarquin looked at the shields, piled together, and the others watched him looking at them, and no one spoke, but they were all wondering who would be the unlucky one,
They were putting on the spiked headdresses now, tying the dangling cheek-strings firmly in place, and then the bronze breastplates went on, the men pairing up to fix the buckles; except Tarquin, who was odd man out.
Then Strephon laughed, a high, strained sound, and lay his breastplate down on the ground.
"Some things change," he said, "and some things don't. And one thing that never changes is that you always win, Tarquin."
He turned to go, and then turned back, shaking his hair boyishly, and said: "I'm tired of this pantomime, anyway." Then he set off down the road that led back into the city, towards the first pink intimations of the sunrise.
Tarquin didn't pick up the breastplate at once; he was wondering whether Strephon's surrender was as good-humoured as he'd made it sound. Was there petulance in that pantomime? You never knew with Strephon.
"Well," said Valerius, "get ready. If you're coming."
Tarquin grinned, and rather than stoop to take the armour, bent his knees and dipped, squatting easily. He laid one hand on the bronze.
"Need help?"
Tarquin shook his head, still smiling. Pulling up the breastplate, he used one knee to hold it against his chest, leaning slightly into it, freeing both hands to buckle it in place. He shrugged his shoulders a couple of times, testing the fit, feeling his balance; then he readied himself, and sprang to his feet, rocking back on his heels. He nodded to himself; his body was responsive, and he took savage joy in the way he could feel every sinew singing, alive with the promise of the day. He felt his mouth and eyebrows tightening into a smile, and knew it was the same as his mother's, feline, cruel.
He looked at the others. Did they feel it too? Or were their bodies dulled by the long winter, was their blood sluggish and dark? What were they waiting for?
"Let's get started, then," he shouted, and grabbed a shield and a spear.
They leapt, they howled, they crouched only to leap higher, clashing their spears against the shields, making a brazen din, whirling, the light flashing from spearpoints and shield edges, the ululation carrying far in the still air. The noise, the noise; Tarquin felt his ears raw with vibration, felt the crashing of the shields in his bones, and howled more loudly still. They danced the boundary between the city and the world; only yesterday it had been a faint path trodden hollow in the springy turf, and tomorrow it would be again, but now it was the sacred border, the shining terminus, the limit set by the gods, Rome's protection and shield. Today they danced it.
They ran the line, loping, easy, shields carried low against their bodies; whenever the desire took them they stopped and danced again, leaping and whirling, whirling and leaping, and then set off once more on the path. They seemed never to tire, though from time to time one of them would stand a little apart and watch the others dance. The air was still cool, the sun still low.
They came down at last from the higher land back into the Tiber valley, back into the fringes of the city, and into the forum, and there the lictors awaited them, twelve serious-faced men standing rigid in a solid phalanx, carrying their bundled rods and axes of office. Four at the front, four at the back; two more at each side, tightly ranked, shoulder to shoulder, guarding something between them.
"Let him loose!" the cry went up. The lictors looked at each other, eyes flickering sideways without a turn of the head, and each man stepped one step away, opening the phalanx. An old man stumbled forwards; old, dressed in animal skins – rabbits perhaps, or rats, or cats, who knew – the skins still raw as if they'd only just now been stripped from the animals and roughly basted together; old, dressed in skins, bent over, his head poking up like a tortoise's.
"What did he do?" Tarquin asked Quintus Brutus.
"Rape, I think."
"No," said one of the others; "he killed a child."
"His own?"
"His sister's."
"Might well have been his, then," Valerii said, and sniggered.
"Drowned it like a cat."
"He'll take his chances then."
"It would be odd if my sword slipped, wouldn't it?"
One of the lictors stepped forward. "You know the rules," he said. "Flats of your swords only. Only the butts of your spears. No bloodshed."
They could beat the man to death, but they must not bring blood down on the city; and the man had a chance to escape, if he could run fast enough, if he could get from here to the boundary stone, and past it, into the unbounded cou
ntry.
Some years the man was half-dead before he'd even left the forum; there were years that the Salii started in all at once, a spear butt to the belly, a crashing blow to the head, and it was practically all over. Once, the man had simply died on his third step forwards, felled by his own fear, and they'd had to carry him to the boundary, pretending he was still alive, still carrying the city's evil spirits with him to the unregulated world outside. Once or twice a man escaped, though Tarquin couldn't remember the last time it had happened; more often he made it half way, or a bit further, before they caught up to him. Last year, they'd decided to let him run half way before they even started chasing; it made the ritual more exciting, giving themselves a challenge. They'd caught him almost on the line.
But this man didn't run. He just stood, hunched, moaning or perhaps muttering something to himself, but if there were words, they couldn't hear them.
"Run, you stupid fuck," one of the lictors said, and Valerius poked his shin with his spear-butt, but the man just flinched, and hugged himself tightly, and whimpered. This wasn't going to be much fun, Tarquin thought.
"You're meant to run," said one of the other lictors. "Look, the boundary's over there. You just have to make it there. Go on. Get going."
The old man seemed about to move, but all he did was scuttle sideways a little, and pull his head even further in between his shoulders.
Most of the Salii had stepped back. This wasn't how it was meant to go. No one knew quite what to do. Quintus Brutus delivered another prod, this time to the man's shoulder; he cried out once, a thin sound like a hungry child, but still he didn't move.
"This can't go on," one of the Salii said. "He's got to move."
"Do we push him, or what?"
The Lictors had stepped back. It wasn't their problem any more.
"If this carries on he'll die here."
"He'll starve to death," Tarquin said, "and so will we, if we let it carry on. Why in all the hells couldn't they have picked a criminal with a bit more fight in him?"
People who had been watching from the sides of the open space when the Salii arrived had drifted closer as the hitch had become evident. A scatter of small groups of youths, some Tarquin knew, others he didn't; a butcher still with bloodstains on his tunic, and soft, pink hands, and a couple of effete young nobles with long braids and identical sneers, and a gaggle of boys who pushed and shoved like young bullocks to see over the ones in front, and a solitary veiled woman who stood slightly apart. It was unusual to see a woman on her own; there were no laws, women weren't confined to the house as in Greece or Persia, but few women went out without a slave, or a friend, or, occasionally, their husbands.
"Well?" asked Valerius, and Tarquin realised that even though they hadn't wanted him with them, now that he was there they were deferring to him, just as they had for the last three years.
"We push."
"But you can't!" one of the newcomers said, quickly hushed by the older Salii.
"Where does it say we can't?"
"We never have," Valerius said.
"Doesn't mean we can't do it now. It's not actively forbidden. Not like drawing blood, after all. And he has to cross the bloody line."
Tarquin turned, nodding to the two closest to the victim. "Go on."
They took a moment to consider how best to comply; spear and shield were in the way, the spears unwieldily long, and when they rebalanced their spears, the shafts clashed against the swords in their scabbards. In the end they locked shields together to make a wall, and pushed against the man with that. He staggered forwards, stopped again. Again they pushed. Another of the Salii joined the crew, pushing the victim slightly sideways; he was caught on another shield, rebounded, staggered and nearly fell. The other Salii were catching on now to this game; another of the dancers caught him on his shield, and this time pushed him off, towards one of the others, opening his eyes wide and grinning at the other to let him know he was the intended recipient of this awkward package. The pace picked up, and the play became rougher; the man fell, picked himself up, was pushed at once of his feet again, caught before he hit the ground and pushed forwards again, taking a step to stay upright, then another, and finally, he was scrabbling, limping where he'd bruised himself against a shield edge; at last, he was running.
Now the Salii began to dance. Now the Salii began to whoop, to yell, to sing like hounds in pursuit. They leapt, they bounded, they played, hanging back a moment only to catch up with him easily. One slid a spear across his shin to trip him; the man stumbled, put his hands out to catch himself, pushed himself up again. The palms of his hands were covered in mud, and his tunic was smeared, wet.
Quintus Brutus shoved him. He fell again. This time he lay winded for some moments, and one of the other Salii landed a blow on his shoulders, and then another.
"Careful," Tarquin said. "He's still got a way to go. It comes to carrying, you can carry him yourself."
The man was up again, cupping one arm in the palm of the opposite hand; he must have banged his elbow going down, or broken it. His eyes were darting, looking everywhere for the best way; he saw the boundary marker, and his eyes fixed on it, and he began to run again, limping slightly and still holding his damaged arm.
"Get going!" one of the Salii cried, but Tarquin couldn't tell whether his words were addressed to the hunted or the hunters; and now they were all after him, smashing their spears on their shields and shouting out, "Run! Run!" Only Tarquin, now, kept prodding the old man with his spear, his long legs keeping up with the victim's frenetic flight without him even needing to break into a run. And though nearly falling several times, tripped by the spear or by his own cramping legs, the old man kept on his feet.
He very nearly got to the boundary stone.
But just as he was about to cross to freedom, the other Salii closed in, shields up, and surrounded him, crushing him with their shields. Tarquin kicked him once, in the ribs, and turned with the rest of them, back into the city, and left the man to crawl slowly, painfully over the border, into no man's land, towards death.
Quite satisfactory, in the end.