***
They came home late, and half drunk; Lucius had drunk to solace the pain of his injuries, and Tanaquil, proud woman that she was, had insisted on matching him toast for toast. He should have felt dispirited and tired, but instead he felt strangely elated. He looked at Tanaquil; her eyes were huge and dark, and she had that cruel, serene smile he remembered from the first time they'd made love.
“I loved it when you leapt over the couch,” she said. “You looked so young, so fine. It made me remember you're the only man I know who can handle a chariot as well as I can.” She put her arm around him; with difficulty, he managed to stop himself wincing as her fingers brushed the place on his ribs where Robur had landed that first jab.
“I'm flabby,” he said. “I know I've put weight on, this last couple of years. If I were still fit, Robur wouldn't have won.”
“He didn't,” she said, pressing her lips to his neck. “And he's not sleeping with me tonight.”
Afterwards, the euphoria gone, they talked more seriously; talked till the lamp began to gutter, and they saw the listless grey of dawn outlining the edges of the closed door.
“We've made an enemy,” he said.
“Faustus was your enemy years ago.”
“We don't know that.”
“You're thinking it might have been Manius behind the accidents at the bridge?”
“It might.”
“Even so, you know Faustus was your enemy. He was then, and he is now. Nothing new.”
“But Robur wasn't.”
“He wasn't thrilled when you became his guardian.”
“No fifteen year old would ever be thrilled to be given a new guardian. He thought he was a man already.”
“He is now. And not well disposed to you; or to the Etruscans.”
She had a point. She always did. “Thank the gods it's his father I answer to, then, not him.”
“Yes. And I think we amused him. But we were close to the edge there. Be careful in future, Lauchme dear. Don't push him.”
“It wasn't me doing the pushing.”
“That's true. But... keep Ancus Marcius happy. And keep him well.”
He nodded. She was smiling that smile again. He wondered if it was just satisfied lust that had made her smile, or something else. Probably something else.
“If anything happens to Ancus Marcius, we'll have to leave.”
“Nothing's going to happen to him,” he said.
“I'll keep a couple of bags packed.”
“Going into exile?”
She shrugged. “We're in exile anyway.”
True enough, Lucius thought. Another year, another city; it would make no difference. He drew a circle idly on her belly with his fingertip. “As long as you come with me.”
“Of course... I wouldn't have seduced you if I didn't want to keep you.” She leant in towards him, and he felt her breasts against him, soft and warm.
“At least he seems to like me,” she said, her voice dreamy. She was already half asleep, he thought; and so was he.
Tanaquil
It had been a good few years, now she was a king's daughter again, or as good as, the way Ancus Marcius had come to care for her. The Tarquinian house had become the leading power in Rome, next to the king; and while the king controlled the salt, Lauchme had cornered the trade in salted fish. It helped, she thought, that he had ready access to bulk supplies of cheap amphorae; there was something to be said for being a potter's son, though she was happy that they could delegate that business to Aranthur.
There were banquets, and races, and the high days when Ancus Marcius would sacrifice a bull himself, and daub the blood on the faces of his attendants. There was music; that, at least, she'd managed to bring to Rome, the wild beat of the harvest dance and the piercing sound of the double-pipes. Then after hours there'd be dicing, between herself and her husband and the king, and perhaps Manius would join them, or young Tiberius.
But now winter was coming, and Ancus Marcius was failing. She saw his strength decline as the days grew shorter, and wondered if he'd live to see the spring. It had happened so suddenly; there was no visible change, at least at first, but it seemed there was no energy in him any more. Sometimes he'd be sitting in his justice chair, and his eyes would slide away from the accused and accuser; you'd see his face relax, as if he were asleep, and though his eyes were still open, they seemed to see nothing. Other days he'd be the same old Ancus Marcius, ox-like and commanding, and then when he came to rise from the curule chair his legs would tremble, and he'd have to use the arms of the chair to push himself up. Once, he nearly overbalanced and fell; that would have been a bad omen, Tanaquil thought. But then, there were no good omens any more, where Ancus Marcius was concerned, only the waiting demons and the endless darkness.
“It's not as if I'm dying of anything,” he said to her. “I'm just running down, like an old tree dying off, branch by branch.”
She thought of a walnut she'd seen once, the crown bleached by lightning.
“There are good days and bad days.” His eyes were far away, but it wasn't the distance of mindlessness; she knew he was seeing something, like a man at sea squinting to see the thin line that might be cloud, might be coast and home. “There are days when I remember youth, the golden sun, the wonderful sensation of burning lungs and tight muscle in a foot-race. My wife before she dried up and turned away from me.”
“And the bad days?” Tanaquil asked.
“There are days that I seem to be lost in a grey mist, when my mind doesn't seem to be working. And there are days when I'm in pain, when flames run through the marrow of my bones, and my joints are pierced with needles of ice. But it's the nights that are the worst, when I dream, and I see my father coming out of the grave, with a rustle of dried cornstalks, his face hollow like leaves falling to dust, gibbering at me.”
She hushed him gently, patting him on the hand, but he was lost to her, half fallen into the same nightmare, and the words wouldn't stop coming.
“He's after my blood. I can see his mouth opening and closing silently. There are no words, and if there were they'd make no sense. It's blood he wants.”
“I'll pour him a libation,” Tanaquil promised.
“It's blood, not wine, he wants.”
“We can give him blood,” she said reasonably. “Tarquinius will kill a bull for him.
“It's my blood, it's mine he's after. Oh father, father...”
She saw a tear slowly tremble on the edge of an eyelash, then smear its way down his hollowed cheek. Poor child, she thought; did all men return to infancy as death approached?
“Why did I do it, father? Why?” He was sobbing now, his white beard wet. She shook her head, and reached for him, pulling him towards her breast as she used to do for Arruns and Tarquinia. As she would do for her next child, she thought, a child Ancus Marcius would never see or stand sponsor to. He was no kin to her, and she'd sought him out only to promote Lauchme's interests; but still she felt her innards soften with immense pity, and raised a hand to stroke his long white hair.