Etruscans (14 page)

Authors: Morgan Llywelyn

BOOK: Etruscans

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Paulus reached for the severed tail. On closer inspection it did not appear to be a tail, but more nearly resembled the nether part of some huge serpent. He did not want to touch the repellent object but he could not back down now; he had carried the joke too far.

His fingers had barely grazed the scaly surface when the thing whipped around his wrist and crushed every bone.

TWENTY-THREE

I
t was important to take care of the family. Whenever Young Ones wandered away from the mouth of the cave, He would growl and wiggle his eyebrows, and She would run after their errant offspring, chittering anxiously. She was responsible for herding Young Ones back to safety. He did not tend Young Ones. He provided meat and mounted She whenever She invited him.

He remembered an Old One like himself who had brought meat to the cave when He was little. And an old She with drooping dugs who chased himself and other Young Ones. There had been more like them living in other caves throughout the hills. But not now.

Where had they gone?

When He tried to think about them his head hurt. It was not easy to construct a thought. Hunting was easier and required no thought. He liked hunting. Whenever He returned with meat, He would devour his fill, then let
She take her turn. Afterward they would sit in the sun outside the cave and watch Young Ones rend and tear what remained of the bloody flesh. Sun was good. A full belly was good.

Mounting She was good; locking his fingers in the shaggy yellow hair that grew along her shoulders and sides, thrusting deep into her, feeling the bursting feeling. Afterward He liked to sleep. She liked to sleep then, too, but Young Ones would take advantage and run outside and She would have to go after them.

Young Ones were a lot of trouble. They made a lot of noise racing and romping in the cave.

The cave smelled good. It smelled of rotten meat and dried blood, reminding He that his belly was empty. But no matter how He searched, there were no shreds of meat to be found. Not even a cracked marrowbone. All gone. Young Ones had eaten the last of the food.

One of them came too close and He growled and cuffed it with the back of his hand, but not too hard. Young One ran and hid behind She, peering out with bright, beady eyes. He growled again. Young One blinked.

She growled back at He, warning him not to threaten her baby. In response He showed her his teeth but She only growled again. Usually She would back down, but not where Young Ones were concerned.

He sighed and began picking through the thick mat of russet hair on his torso in search of fleas. She came over to him then and made a whimpering noise. When She pressed insistently against him He began grooming her, catching her fleas between thumb and forefinger and popping them into his mouth. But they were too small. They did not fill the belly. He must go in search of more meat now or sleep hungry.

When He pushed her away and stood up on his two bowed legs, She gave a grunt of protest that He ignored. From a pile of debris at the mouth of the cave, He took a
gnarled branch He often used as a club. If He hit meat on the head, meat would fall down and die. He swung the branch onto his shoulder and strode away without looking back.

She stood in the cave entrance and watched him go down the hill in the twilight with his peculiar, rolling gait. Soon He disappeared into a stand of cedar trees.

Licking her lips in anticipation, She sat down to wait. She knew what it meant when He took the club.

They would eat soon.

TWENTY-FOUR

T
he Roman matron called Delphia was stout and handsome, with oiled hair arranged in sculptured curls across her brow in a style copied from an Etruscan wall-hanging. Silver Etruscan beads hung in graduated strands around her neck. Like her husband Propertius, she exuded an air of prosperity. As she reclined at her ease in the cart, she was chattering merrily and examining her hennaed fingernails.

The couple was returning from a trip to view their latest acquisition, an estate near the border of Roman territory. Propertius sat facing his wife, going over accounts in his head and wondering whether their hired driver would try to extort more money from them before they got home. He was annoyed to realize they would not reach the gates of Rome until well after dark, and beginning to worry. He hated traveling at night. In spite of the warriors the city assigned to patrol the approaches to Rome, the roads were not safe. The most trusted drivers
had been known to betray their passengers to outlaws for a share of the profits.

As a member of the Roman Senate and the owner of a far-flung trading business, Propertius Cocles sometimes engaged in a bit of spying. Following his recent report on current Etruscan military strength, he had been rewarded by King Tarquinius with an estate in the country. The understanding was that in return, Propertius would put his property at the service of Tarquinius whenever required. Roman kings occasionally found themselves in need of a secret hideaway.

In truth the estate was little more than a sprawling farm bisected by a tributary of the Tiber, but the soil was fertile and with enough slaves, a man could produce an excellent profit. And there were always enough slaves, more than ever now that Rome was beginning to expand.

As they jolted along in the high-wheeled wooden cart behind a bristle-maned Thracian horse, Delphia was enthusing, “Now that I've seen the land I have so many ideas, Propertius. We must build a villa for ourselves overlooking the river, so we can get away from the heat of Rome in the summer. It never seems to bother you, of course, but myself and the children suffer dreadfully. I want an enclosed garden where the younger children can play, and separate slave quarters, and perhaps a â¦”

Propertius was used to Delphia's chatter. The bulk of her conversation consisted of demands to which he responded with unfailing agreementâalthough he never really listened. He would build what he wanted and his wife would have to â¦

“What is that? Gods defend us!”

Propertius's musings were cut short by Delphia's shriek of horror. At the same time their driver began furiously plying the whip, but the Thracian horse was fat and sleepy. It broke into a trot instead of the gallop the situation demanded.

The monstrosity that came hurtling toward them
down the cedar-covered slope was enough to chill the spine. Though man-shaped, it was not a man but a massive shaggy horror. The curious rolling gait of the thing was deceptively swift; in spite of the driver's frantic efforts, in a few moments it had reached the road and was bounding toward the cart in prodigious leaps.

Only then did Propertius's numbed brain realize that one of the monster's disproportionately long forelimbs was carrying a club.

Springing to his feet, the Roman shouted, “Help! Someone help us!” as loud as he could. But there were no patrols within range of his voice. The hilly, wooded countryside through which they were passing was empty except for occasional scattered farmsteads. There was no one nearby to save themâand their hired driver was useless. He could only gape in horror as their attacker leaped for the horse.

Too late the animal realized its danger and plunged forward. Simultaneously the shaggy creature hit it between the eyes with a mighty blow. The sickening smash of the skull was clearly audible, even above Propertius's calls for help. The horse fell dead in the traces, bringing the cart to a shuddering halt

Lifting the club to its mouth, the monster licked at the blood and brain matter clinging to the wood and grunted with pleasure. It might have been satisfied with its equine prey had not the driver panicked and leaped out of the cart at that moment, slashing at the creature with his knife. With a roar, the thing took a swipe at the man that knocked his head from his shoulders.

Delphia's screams drew the creature's attention to the white-faced passengers. Curious, it started toward the cart, nostrils flaring, trying to decide if these hairless ones were its own kind or simply meat. The brute was making appalling noises, a combination of growls and grunts that so unnerved Propertius that his knees gave way. He slumped back onto the seat, moaning in terror and clutching his chest.

Seeing her husband on the verge of fainting had quite the opposite effect on Delphia. Her terrified shrieks were transformed into an ear-splitting yowl of anger as she snatched up the whip the driver had dropped and lashed it across the face of the monster. The brute paused for the briefest moment, staring at her in obvious surprise. An overlong pink tongue traced the bloody cut on its hairy cheek.

Then, with a grunt, it scrambled over the side of the cart.

Seen up close, the creature was even more horrific than Delphia had realized. Its skull was grotesquely large, back-slanting, with a shelflike brow extending over sunken eyes. The broad, flat nose had cavernous nostrils, the slobbering mouth stretched in a disgusting grin. Except for its face, the monster was covered with filthy reddish hair, and the breath that washed over Delphia was so foul she thought she would vomit.

Worst of all, however, were the eyes. Staring at her with an expression of murderous hunger, they were obviously intelligent and very close to being human. At this realization, Delphia came close to fainting herself.

The monster's grin stretched even further to display cruel yellow fangs. Leaning back to give itself room in the cramped confines of the cart, it raised the club for the killing blowâjust as the first stone hit it in the back of the head.

He gave a grunt of surprise. Turning, He saw another hairless one running toward him. With incredible agility the human was scooping up rocks from the road as he ran and hurling them one after another.

The next hard-flung stone struck He squarely on the nose. His roar of pain echoed across the countryside. When the sound reached the cave on the distant hillside and his waiting She, the female responded.

Her mate was in danger!

Frantically, She called to him again and again, raising her voice in an eerie, ululating cry that rebounded from
hill to hill; a cry born of the swiftly descending night and an even more ancient darkness.

It was the loneliest sound in the world.

When the stranger leaped into the cart to grapple with the pain-dazed monster, Delphia seized the opportunity to scramble out. Then she reached over the side and tugged desperately at her husband. “Come, Propertius, hurry! While they're fighting we can get away.”

The Roman almost fell as he stepped to the ground; only his wife's outstretched arms saved him.

Meanwhile the stranger had succeeded in wrenching the club away from the monster. The thing possessed extraordinary strength, but its reactions were slow. When he pried the club from its grip and threw it as far from the cart as possible, the brute turned to watch it rather than concentrating on fighting its opponent.

In that moment Horatrim wrapped his hands around the creature's neck.

TWENTY-FIVE

F
rom the moment he heard the first screams for help, he had been aware of a singing in his blood. “Stay here and stay out of sight, Mother,” he had told Vesi, seating her on a large stone behind a screen of cedars. Then he began to run in the direction of the screams.

Pepan's
hia
followed.

The singing had intensified as Horatrim ran. It became the sound of a thousand beesâor a thousand voicesâhumming confidently through his veins, giving specific directions to his limbs and muscles. By the time he came in sight of the cart on the roadway, his body had known exactly what to do.

The stones Horatrim threw distracted and then briefly disabled the monster, allowing him to enter the cart and close with it. His hands were hardly large enough to encompass the massive, muscular throat, but his fingers knew just where the nerves and veins were located beneath
the skin. He pinched the windpipe shut, then compressed the thick artery that brought blood to the brain.

The creature slumped immediately, not unconscious but shocked by the pain and confused by the shadows that had gathered so quickly, the numbness that threatened its limbs.

Step by step Horatrim forced it backward, out of the cart. They staggered together to the ground. Once it felt solid earth under its feet, the creature erupted in a frenzy. It broke free of Horatrim and ran off into the darkness, leaving him holding a handful of russet hair and a patch of flesh torn from its hide. As it ran the monster emitted another chilling, inhuman cry. In the distance, something answered.

Horatrim threw down the hair and torn flesh in disgust and turned to the couple from the cart. They were both trembling but unhurt. Gently, he led them away from the road and helped them sit down. They wrapped their arms around each other and sat watching him like two terrified children as he went back to the cart to examine first the driver, then the horse. Nothing could be done for either.

Horatrim returned to the pair he had rescued. “You cannot stay out here in the open tonight,” he said to the man, a short, stocky individual with a fringe of graying hair around a head rapidly going bald. The man merely stared at him. Horatrim tried again, finding a different language on his tongue. “Where were you going when you were attacked?” he asked.

Propertius shook himself as if awakening from a bad dream. A sense of relief washed over him. Their rescuer was not only a man like himself, but also spoke Latin, albeit with a strange accent, a man of some learning. “My wife and I were returning to Rome,” he replied in a voice that still quavered slightly. “I am called Propertius Cocles, and I am in your debt for saving our lives.”

“The â¦ the gods were with me. They sent me to
you. You owe me nothing. But come, we should move away from here; the bodies will bring scavengers.” He urged the couple down the road toward the hiding place where he had left Vesi.

“I am in your debt,” Propertius insisted on repeating as they walked. “I am a man of no small importance, and my honor is precious to me. I always pay what I owe. You can ask anything of me and it is yours. Just tell me your name and family, that I may do youâand themâproper honor.”

“I am called Horatrim. As for my family â¦” The young man hesitated, then went on, still guided by the strange music surging through him, “My mother is my only family. We are Rasne. Travelers on our way to Rome.”

The woman brightened. “Etruscan? How wonderful! I do admire the Etruscans, they are so very elegant.” Delphia, a person of warm affections and instant enthusiasms, was ready to welcome this new hero unreservedly.

Her husband was more cautious. Horatrim's background gave him pause. For generations there had been sporadic conflict between Etruria and the tribes of Latium, although never enough to put an end to trade. Frequent intermarriage had done little to lessen the tension. The Etruscans resented the rise of a more vigorous culture, the people of Latium were jealous of past Etrurian achievements.

In spite of this stormy relationship, in Roman society an ancient Etruscan bloodline was highly desirable. To be considered
patrician
, a member of the nobility, it was almost essential to have at least one Etruscan antecedent. The present king was a perfect example. Lucius Tarquinius Superbius frequently called attention to the pedigree of his Etruscan father and tended to overlook his mother's Latin family.

Years of experience trading with the tribes of Etruria had made Propertius wary however. The Etruscans believed
that every aspect of their lives was influenced by gods and demons, by the shades of their ancestors and the malice of disembodied spirits. The result was a complicated culture where countless invisible entities had to be placated before the smallest action could be taken. It often got in the way of business.

Propertius mistrusted mysticism; he put little faith in things he could not see and count. In this he differed from most of his contemporaries. Burgeoning Rome was seeking an enhanced spiritual identity. Simple pastoral gods of field and forest were being superseded by more esoteric deities, each with its own priests and rituals shrouded in mystery, though as a businessman, Propertius could appreciate that there was money in religion.

In the privacy of his own home Propertius scoffed at the proliferating religions. He was particularly contemptuous of the Cult of Magna Dea to which many of the women, including his wife, were devoted. “It's nothing more than the attempt of idle women to usurp power for themselves,” he said. “The only god Romans need is Mars. War is good for business.”

Still, one must admit Etruria had attained a level of prosperity that was the envy of Latium. For generations wealth had poured into their cities from copper, lead, and iron mines, from farms and vineyards, from Eastern trade and Western piracy. The Etruscans insisted they owed their entire success to the benevolence of their gods.

Now this young man had appeared just in time to save the Roman and his wife from a monster. He had accomplished the feat with extraordinary skill and agility and was not even breathing hard afterward. “The gods were with me,” was all he offered by way of explanation.

Propertius was prepared only to believe in what he could see and touch. Tonight, perhaps, he had seen a miracle: the gods working directly with and through a human. An Etruscan. A young, handsome Etruscan, obviously educated and therefore from a good family.

Propertius had a daughter of marriageable age.

Arranging his face in his best trust-me-I'm-an-honest-trader smile, he said, “Since you're going to Rome anyway, Horatrim, we would be grateful if you would accompany us. I fear we shall have to travel on foot the rest of the way, but it's not far now. You will stay the night with us of course; in fact, I insist you stay for as long as it pleases you. I want to hear more about these gods of yours.” He eyed his rescuer's filthy clothing of uncured hides. “And surely we can find you something better to wear. I have a son almost your size.”

“I would be happy to see you safely home, but I'm not alone. I have my mother with me. I left her at a safe distance when I heard the screaming.”

“Bring her too!” Propertius insisted. “Any woman who gave birth to such a hero is welcome under my roof. We'll treat her with every courtesy, I assure you. Where is she? I want to congratulate her on her son.”

Horatrim hesitated. Here was an offer of shelter and protection for Vesi, but it was coming from one of the Romans. Yet was he not being led into the very heart of the Roman world anyway? The knowledge that mysteriously had been imparted to his muscles was of no help in this situation. He needed to confer with Vesiâor rather, with the gods who spoke through Vesi. But he dare not leave the Roman couple alone, not with the monster's voice still reverberating across the hills.

“Come with me,” Horatrim said to Propertius and his wife. “I'll take you to my mother.”

Night had fallen by this time; a humid, overcast night, an obsidian night in which unseen entities whispered and rustled. He was accustomed to a presence at his back that he assumed was that of the gods, the Ais. But there were other invisibles too, less benign ones. He could feel them, watching, waiting.

Horatrim was anxious to get back to Vesi.

When Horatrim had run off in the direction of the screams, Vesi had waited patiently where he left her. Waiting did not bother her. Nothing bothered her. The boulder on which she sat radiated residual warmth from the sun.

When the hooded figures slunk out of the night, she paid them no attention.

They had been trying to find a safe place where their injured comrade could be left to recover, if possible. They stumbled upon Vesi quite by accident It was one of the tenets of their religion that nothing ever happened by accident however. Finding the woman was surely part of the goddess' plan. So while Vesi looked on mute and uncomprehending, the hooded beings addressed their deity and asked for guidance.

An answer came, very soon.

They were delighted to discover that Pythia was no longer displeased with them; in fact, she congratulated them for having done well indeed.

Then she took control of the situation.

Horatrim found Vesi just as he had left her, sitting on a boulder in the darkness with her fingers laced around her knees. Hurrying to her side, he put his fingers under her chin and turned her face up toward him. She did not speak but he liked to believe that she recognized him. He needed to believe.

“This is Vesi of the Silver People,” he told the two Romans.

The woman on the rock said nothing.

Propertius leaned forward to peer at her in the gloom. “Is she ill?”

“No, just â¦ quiet. We were â¦ attacked by brigands, and she was badly injured some time ago. As a result she stopped speaking.”

“Ah, that's a pity. Have you had a physician look at her? We have several in Rome who might be able to help. I will arrange for the best of them for you.”

“Truly we have been led to you by the gods,” replied Horatrim.

He put his hand under Vesi's elbow and lifted, and she came obediently to her feet. “We are going now, Mother. These kind people have offered us aid and shelter.”

“I am Propertius, dear lady,” the beaming Roman introduced himself. “And this is my wife, Delphia. I hope you will consider us your friends.”

“We are indebted to your son for our lives,” the woman added. “What he did was so wonderful; you should have seen him!”

Vesi said nothing.

Delphia turned to Horatius. “Does she never speak?”

“Rarely.”

“And you have been looking after her for how long?”

“Most of my adult life,” Horatrim replied with truth.

“You are indeed a hero,” declared Delphia. Her voice choked. “A son any mother should be proud of.”