The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome (19 page)

She blushed, nonplussed at his compliment.

Tarchon gestured to Mastarna’s face. ‘How did you hurt yourself?’

‘It’s nothing—a boar hunt.’ He gingerly touched his cheek.

‘You look more like prey than hunter, or didn’t you use a net at the kill?’ Tarchon shot a glance at Arruns, who nodded behind his master’s back.

He has hurt his arm as well, thought Caecilia. Did he crave new scars?

‘It was a hunt, no different than any other,’ Mastarna growled. ‘We feasted for days. There is nothing more to say.’

He gestured to the stone bench from where she’d received clients that morning. ‘Word came to me that you’ve been greeting the city tenants with Ati.’

‘Yes,’ she said, pausing to find the correct words. ‘It is wonderful to do so.’

‘Good,’ he said, still unsmiling. ‘Then tomorrow we will meet our obligations together.’

She nodded, trying to imagine what it would be like conversing in daylight after a night lying soundlessly beneath him.

He stooped and picked up a nut. ‘I am curious. Just what do you learn by throwing acorns?’

‘To count.’

Mastarna examined Tarchon. ‘Perhaps you are not such a bad teacher after all. But now I must change. I am due to dine with the Zilath.’

Tarchon stepped towards him. ‘Did the coward agree to fight?’

Mastarna glared at his adopted son, speaking rapidly so that Caecilia could not follow. Tarchon reddened.

Her husband turned on his heel, leaving them standing among scattered nuts and potsherds.

Caecilia put her arm around the youth. ‘He is curt with you. What have you done to displease your father?’

‘I’ve told you before. He is not my father. My father was a mighty princip, a nobleman who fought bravely for Tarquinia. I will never forget him, nor my mother.’

‘Don’t lie, Tarchon. You long to please Mastarna, don’t you?’

The youth sighed. ‘What son does not want respect?’

‘You will gain it. I am sure of it.’

They knelt and picked up the pieces of vase. ‘I know you were asking him about the angry man at the banquet. Who was he?’

Tarchon concentrated on clearing up the mess. ‘His name is Laris Tulumnes and he is no friend to either Ulthes or Mastarna.’

Caecilia blinked in surprise. All Romans knew the name of Laris Tulumnes—the king who started the last Fidenate war. Her great uncle, Mamercus Aemilius, had ordered his execution. This man must be his son. It was no wonder he hated her and her people.

‘You are right to call him a coward. His father was as untrustworthy and cruel as any Etruscan can be.’

Tarchon sat back on his heels, eyes narrowing. ‘No crueller than you Romans. What Mamercus did was barbaric! Besides, it was the Fidenates who caused the trouble. It was all a misunderstanding.’

Caecilia glared at him. Tata had often told her Tulumnes’ story. How Fidenae appealed to the Veientane King to assist them when it rebelled against the Roman yoke twenty years ago. And how four Roman envoys visited the monarch to demand an explanation and found him playing dice. Tulumnes barely gave them greeting other than to say that his next throw would give them his answer. It was a signal. As the tesserae spun upon the table the Fidenates butchered the innocent messengers. ‘Laris Tulumnes deserved his fate.’

‘Do you truly think so, Caecilia?’ Tarchon’s voice rose in indignation. ‘What man deserves to be wrenched from his horse, pinned to the ground and bludgeoned to death by the edge of his shield? What warrior should suffer being stripped of his armour and his head spiked on a lance so that his soul is forever paraded as a trophy on a phantom battlefield?’

‘One who can end four men’s lives on the throw of a die.’

‘And did Mastarna’s father deserve to be killed by Mamercus Aemilius, too?’

His words checked her anger. Both Mastarna and Tulumnes had reason to hate the Romans. Her great uncle was responsible for the death of both their fathers, yet one was prepared to forgive the Aemilians while the other would never do so.

The scene at the wedding returned. Words spoken but not understood. Emotions spiking, tempers sharpened.

‘What did Mastarna tell you today?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Please.’

‘Tulumnes refused to apologise, claiming he was justified in what he said at the wedding.’

 ‘So the enmity increases.’

‘Yes, Tulumnes should have defended his honour. Now he is humiliated because he is considered a coward.’

Caecilia sat down cross-legged beside him, no longer wanting to argue. ‘What did he say that night to make my husband so angry?’

‘You do not need to know other than it was offensive.’

‘Tell me.’

‘He said Mastarna had disgraced the city by marrying a Roman.’

‘I understood that without knowing a word of your tongue,’ she said impatiently.

‘What else did he say? Please, I will not hate you for another’s words.’

Tarchon looked disconcerted, but she could see she had finally worn him down. ‘Very well. Tulumnes claimed Mastarna had insulted Seianta’s memory.’ He paused. ‘By fucking a Roman whore in her bed.’

It was as though she had been slapped. The vulgarity of the words struck her as much as their meaning.

‘I’m sorry, but you wanted to know.’

‘Such pain and anger.’

‘Yes, Tulumnes will not release the past.’

‘No, I mean Mastarna.’

She remembered his cold fury when she had said Seianta’s name. Cold fury after a cold consummation.

Tarchon brushed her cheek with his fingers. ‘You are a strange one.’

‘No stranger than you.’ Her smile was bittersweet.

The youth took her hand and Caecilia could tell he was summing up whether to disclose more. This was turning out to be far more than a language lesson.

‘Mastarna was inconsolable when Seianta died,’ he finally said, knowing the questions she wished to ask.

‘Is inconsolable,’ she added.

He nodded. ‘They had lost their little daughter the year before. Seianta was bereft.’

Caecilia thought of her own grief for Tata. Sympathy for Mastarna filled her. ‘How did Seianta die?’

Tarchon hesitated, then said almost too quickly, ‘Of a broken heart. She could not bear to see little Velia die.’

She sensed he would talk of Seianta no further, and she wondered why Mastarna’s first wife caused all who knew her to maintain such silence.

‘He wears anger and grief like a mantle,’ he continued, ‘warming himself with them, reluctant to shrug them from his shoulders.’

‘Since she died.’

‘Yes, holding hurt close instead of her.’

‘Why won’t he let the pain go?’

Tarchon ran the fingers of one hand through his hair. ‘Because it is hard to lose an excuse for shouting at Fate and seeing if she will smite him down.’

The afternoon sun had left the atrium. No more dust motes, only shadows lurking around the haunted face of Tuchulcha.

‘Does he often hunt death?’

‘Yes. Chariot races, duels, tournaments, boar hunts. And yet he survives. Perhaps deep down he clings to life as a punishment. Or Nortia is mocking him.’

‘But doesn’t he fear the demons?’

Tarchon frowned. ‘Mastarna does not believe in the Book of Acheron.’

Caecilia remembered the leopard, Fufluns’ guide to the Beyond.

‘But what concerns me now,’ continued Tarchon, ‘is that he has raised the stakes in his plunge to destruction.’

‘Because he scorns Tulumnes?’

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and so puts you at risk as well as this family.’

Caecilia lightly squeezed his hand. ‘And do you also hate the Aemilians?’

He smiled, making her glad the afternoon was not entirely destroyed by their argument. ‘We have been at peace for twenty years,’ he said. ‘Like you, I have been taught prejudice but not by Mastarna. He believes it is fruitless to continue teaching such lessons.’

His admiration for his adopted father once again bled through his words.

He reached over and picked a sliver of pottery from one orange slipper. ‘Besides, we are the same, Caecilia. Both orphaned and adopted. We should be friends, even if you are a Roman.’

‘I agree,’ she laughed. ‘Even if you are an Etruscan.’

*

The fibula was of gold. Small, intricate. A mother wolf was embossed upon it, suckling the twins, Romulus and Remus.

‘I had it made for you,’ said Mastarna.

A keepsake to remind her of her home. Caecilia traced the figures. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘I am glad it pleases you.’

Caecilia said nothing, merely stared at the trinket, turning it over and over in her hand. She had been hopeful that he would not return from his dinner with the Zilath, but it was not to be.

Mastarna looked weary. The scar from nose to mouth was purple in relief against wan skin. The bruises from the hunt competed in their shadows with the dark circles beneath his eyes. Perhaps he will want only to sleep, she thought.

‘Wear the brooch on a new cloak. It is time to shed Roman drabness. It does not suit a comely woman like yourself.’

Immediately, she put her hand to her neck, wondering if he was mocking her.

He stepped closer and traced the outline of the birthmark with one finger. A pulse beat spasmodically beneath her skin. ‘This is considered a sign of a fortuitous marriage by my people.’

Caecilia raised her eyebrows. ‘Now there is an irony.’

He smiled briefly. ‘Time will tell. And soon, perhaps, you’ll find our ways aren’t so terrible. After all, you seem to be happy with your role as matron of a Veientane house.’

‘Taking audience is much different to the sins I have observed.’

It was his turn to raise his eyebrows. ‘I am afraid it is not so easy to pick and choose, Bellatrix. The pleasures you saw at our wedding are freedoms and can be as tantalising as your new-found authority. I wager that soon you will be seduced by us. Our world is hard to resist.’

She pointed at his bruised face. ‘And must I seek out hurt while I enjoy life to the fullest?’

He touched the swelling. ‘No, risking death is my choice alone,’ he said quietly.

His patient mood, despite tiredness, was disarming. As she took in the warmth of his fingers’ touch, her thoughts returned again to the night at Fidenae when he’d given her the name of a star and talked to her as though she were a man.

‘Here,’ he said, searching in the folds of his cloak. ‘Hold this.’ He placed the tiny golden box with its gilded dice into her hand. The hard skin on his palm scraped against her, evidence that he still trained with the sword even if high office threatened to make him soft. His vices, it seemed, did not weaken him either.

She dropped the tesserae onto the sheets as though they were embers, her thoughts returning to the wicked Veientane king, suspicious of Mastarna’s motives. ‘I don’t want anything to do with your gambling. Men should only play dice at the Saturnalia.’

He laughed. ‘Sometimes it seems you know as little about Rome as you do of Veii. Men drink and wager and embrace prostitutes in your esteemed city just as keenly as they do here. Only they manage to exclude their wives from observing such pursuits.’

He gathered up the dice again. ‘Besides, what is there to fear over two tiny tesserae? You will have to get used to wagering, Bellatrix. Our people only survived because of it.’

Again she wondered at his mood. Had he been drinking? What had the Zilath said to release him from irritability?

Thinking any delay was welcome, she asked him what he meant.

Mastarna dropped the dice into the box. ‘Long ago the Rasenna lived in a country whose harvest could no longer fill the bellies of all. So the King cast half his subjects, led by his son Tyrrhenus, adrift upon the Tyrrhenian Sea to find another realm or perish. The prince landed safely in the land of Etruria, but until crops could be sown and reaped and eaten the first survivors had to scrounge for food and shiver through the winter. Yet not one person died.’

The tesserae clicked together in the container. Caecilia wanted to pretend she was not interested, but Mastarna, knowing better, continued.

‘So Tyrrhenus commanded that half the people take it in turns to eat while the other half gambled.’ He smiled. ‘Behold, hunger pains were staved off with the roll of the dice.’

He offered the golden box to her again. ‘Sometimes my people place lots or dice in tiny canisters like this, then ask the gods to answer yes or no to their queries.’

Mastarna curled her fingers around it. ‘Perhaps you would like to ask the gods a question?’

‘What would I ask?’

‘Whether they wish you to lie with your husband tonight.’

She tried to pull her hand away but he held it fast. ‘Your jest is cruel.’

‘I don’t mock you, Caecilia. I want you to desire our couplings not endure them.’