Etruscans Read online

  Safe.

  Following that first conscious thought, her other senses began to awaken one by one. She caught a whiff of the herbs and spices used in Etruscan cooking, then the lush fragrance of the flowers blooming in the courtyard. Gradually, feeling began to return to her nerve endings. At first she was but dimly aware that she lay on a couch piled high with cushions, but then …

  … with the restoration of total tactile sensation came pain, an explosion of agony that enfolded her body like a sheet of flame!

  Vesi screamed.

  “I tell you no man could have done this,” Repana was saying angrily to Caile, the purtan. A big-boned, middle-aged woman in a sky blue gown of elaborately pleated linen, Repana prided herself on being considered still handsome. Surely someday Pepan would notice.

  But her own appearance had become irrelevant. She fixed her eyes on the purtan’s face rather than look any longer at the damage that had been done to her daughter’s body.

  The paunchy priest was an easterner, not a full-blooded Etruscan, and excessively fond of the pleasures of the vine and the table. His thick lips were still glistening with grease from his most recent meal as he replied, “The man who found your daughter is a former mercenary, and we all know what they’re like. I feel quite certain he was the one who …”

  Pepan dropped his hand onto the purtan’s shoulder as lightly as if the touch might soil his fingers. A slender man with long-lidded eyes and a thrusting, aquiline nose, the Lord of the Rasne moved with the deceptive languor common to his race. He could be identified as a prince of Etruria by the way he wore his beard. All facial hair was plucked from his cheeks and upper lip, but from his chin hung a precisely coiled pair of dark brown curls. His clothing consisted of a narrow, short-sleeved white robe with a red border over which he wore a triangle of darker red, finely woven wool, drawn to one side and fastened high on the shoulder with a silver brooch set with lapis and carnelians.

  “The man who found Vesi is Artile the winemaker,” Pepan told the priest in crisp tones, “and is well known to me. A man of impeccable honor. I trust him implicitly, and on his behalf I resent your slander.”

  Caile widened his eyes. “I meant no harm, my lord! Certainly not! It was just a suggestion … one looks first at the most obvious …”

  Pepan locked his hands on either side of Caile’s head before the other man had time to flinch. He forced him to bend over the young woman lying on the bed. “Then look at the obvious!” Pepan commanded.

  Roughly he thrust the purtan down, holding his face just above the girl’s torn breasts. When the priest squeezed his eyes shut, pressure from Pepan’s thumbs made him open them again. “Look, you coward,” snarled the Lord of the Rasne. “Does this damage resemble the work of any human weapon … or human hand?”

  The purtan focused his eyes to find himself a mere finger’s length from mutilated flesh. He wrinkled his nose at the scent of blood and a smell as foul as excrement. His stomach heaved.

  “Repana is right, no man did this,” Pepan asserted, satisfied to have made his point. “We must seek elsewhere for Vesi’s attacker.” He released the purtan and stepped back, deliberately wiping his fingers on the red wool as if the touch of the priest’s flesh had insulted him. “I need some fresh air.” Folding his arms across his chest, he stalked into the courtyard and stared up at the twilight sky.

  The evening was sweet with summer, the first stars a handful of jewels flung against a peacock blue dome. Normally such beauty enthralled Etruscans. They composed countless poems to celebrate the first star, the warm night wind, the constantly changing hues of the heavens.

  But this evening Pepan’s outraged senses took no pleasure from beauty.

  A widower, he had long admired the widowed Repana. At the most unexpected moments he found himself thinking of her warm smile, her long-fingered hands. His sons and daughters were grown, and his house and his heart were lonely. He could not simply take Repana as wife however. Under the law, first the spirits of his own dead mate and Repana’s would have to be located in the Netherworld and propitiated, and these arrangements took time. The Lord of the Rasne had many responsibilities and put his responsibility to himself at the bottom of the list, something he would get around to … in the future.

  So he had done nothing as yet about his feelings for Repana. But he had developed a paternal affection for her daughter; if—when—he wed Repana, Vesi would become his child. He could taste, as bitter as bile on his tongue, fury at the wanton damage that had been inflicted upon the lovely young woman.

  “If no man is responsible, then the girl must have been mauled by a beast,” Caile was saying in an effort to regain his dignity. “That stench, that wild smell, could come from a bear or …”

  Repana uttered such an exclamation of disgust that the purtan backed away from her, fearing she might strike him. “Look around, what do you see?” she demanded to know, making a graceful gesture that included the entire house. “The fur rugs underfoot, the tusks of boar and horns of aurochs that hang on the walls … every one of those trophies was taken by my husband. He prided himself on his skill with the spear; it was an art form, he said.

  “Usually he killed his prey and made a sacrifice of propitiation to its spirit. But sometimes the beasts left their mark on him. I have tended and stitched many such wounds, including the one that ultimately proved fatal when a bear ripped off the top of his skull. I also saw the damage done by the pack of wild boar that killed my sons when they tried to follow in his footsteps as a matter of family pride. You might say I am an expert on hunting injuries,” she added, with a bitter twist of her mouth.

  Pointing toward the four terrible raking wounds on her daughter’s body, she concluded, “I tell you, priest, there is no wild animal in Etruria that leaves marks like these.”

  “If it was neither man nor animal, it must have been some monster that strayed into our territory,” Caile suggested. “Perhaps a creature from the Darklands, one of those things with the head of a boar and the body of a lion and great leathery wings. We know such monsters live there.”

  “We know?” Pepan called scornfully from the courtyard, not even deigning to look over his shoulder at the purtan. “Who is this ‘we,’ priest? You never venture outside the tular spural, the city boundaries. I have scouted the forests and mountains and found them inhabited by debased tribes one could scarcely call human, yet they fear us more than we fear them. In all my travels I have seen no such monster as you describe. Nor have I seen anything like what has been done to this girl.”

  “But if you eliminate man and beast and monster,” the purtan argued, throwing up his hands, “what does that leave? What else is there?”

  “Hia,” breathed Repana. Suddenly her courage failed her. “Hia!”

  To the terror of all, occasionally some corrupted hia would break through from the Otherworld or, more terribly, from the Netherworld. Ravening and uncontrollable, the thing might fasten upon a living person. Once it had selected a victim, it would use its malign influence to drive the unfortunate to commit the most appalling acts, even self-mutilation. But Vesi could not possibly have done this to herself … and Artile had seen another … if the old man had not disturbed her attacker, Vesi might have endured a fate beyond imagining. The thought sickened Repana.

  But as she shuddered with horror, a cracked whisper said, “No, this is not the deed of a mere hia.”

  Repana whirled around as Caile dropped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the floor. In the courtyard, Pepan did the same. A slight, bent figure stood in the doorway of the house, ignoring the men who prostrated themselves in reverence.

  “Not hia?” Repana asked hoarsely.

  “No. Something worse, I suspect. Much worse.” The shape at the door moved and an old woman hobbled into the room. She was almost hairless with age, her skin taut across the bones of her face, giving the impression of a skull.

  “Uni Ati,” Repana murmured. She attempted to kneel, but the old woman placed
a restraining hand on her arm.

  “Stand with me, daughter. Lend me your support while I examine the child.”

  In silence the two women gazed down upon the suffering girl. After her one scream Vesi had made no further sound. Tears seeped from beneath her closed eyelids however.

  “Leave us,” the old woman ordered the men. “We have no need of you now. I can do whatever needs to be done for this girl.”

  Without protest, the purtan and the Lord of the Rasne scrambled to their feet and left the house to join the crowd gathered outside. Not only the Rasne, but even the humblest of their slaves had been drawn by news of Vesi’s injury—and the more astonishing and unprecedented visit of the Uni Ati to a private residence.

  The Uni Ati, whose title meant First Mother, was the oldest of all the Silver People. She had been the senior elder of the Council for as long as anyone could remember. The most serious disputes of the Rasne were referred to her; her judgment was final and irrevocable. In addition, she was a skillful healer, and many who had been given up as hopeless by the purtani were taken to her and subsequently cured.

  It was claimed that she never changed the rags she wore nor left the hillside cave that was her only home. Yet she had come to Repana’s house this evening.

  “No hia caused this,” the old woman repeated. Extending her left hand palm downward, she rotated it in a sunwise circle above Vesi’s torn body. Her knuckles and joints were so knotted with age as to resemble the mangled claws of birds. But when she moved her fingers through the air, the bones glowed through her skin with an eerie green light.

  Vesi convulsed.

  Repana tried to gather her daughter in her arms but the old woman blocked her with her own body. “No!” she cried, continuing to make gestures above the girl’s torso. “These are not fatal injuries,” she remarked after a time, “only very painful ones. But …” She drew a deep breath and moved her hand in a different pattern, allowing it to rest for a moment above Vesi’s torn belly. Once she darted a glance at Repana and swiftly looked away. Moments later, she grunted as if confirming some suspicion.

  With a sigh, the Uni Ati folded her hands and withdrew them into the sleeves of her tattered robe. “Your daughter was attacked and violated by a siu,” she told Repana. “That is demon’s stink on her flesh.” One hand reemerged from the sleeve of her robe holding a ceremonial knife with a curved bronze blade. “She would be better off dead”

  “No!” Repana gasped. “No, First Mother, she is everything to me! I gave birth to four children: three boys and this girl. Over the years I have attended the dying not only of my husband but also my beloved sons. I am not ready to put my last child into her tomb. Can you understand? I want to enjoy her living. Please! Why do you want to do this?”

  Still holding the knife aloft, the old woman replied, “I tell you your daughter has been impregnated by a siu. Even now the demon’s seed swells within her; she will give birth to an abomination. Is that what you want for her? Do you wish her to be feared and loathed by the rest of the Rasne? Do you think they will even allow the two of you to remain in this spura?”

  Pressing the knife into Repana’s numb hand, the Uni Ati closed the woman’s fingers around the handle. “It is up to you to sacrifice your daughter,” she said. “You must offer her to Veno and request that your ancestors be allowed to come for her. Assure her of a proper dying, and implore the Ais to destroy the siu spawn.”

  Repana was very pale. “What if I refuse?”

  “Then someone else will do the deed, for it must be done. But remember—only Vesi’s nearest kin can summon the hia of her ancestors to conduct her spirit to sanctuary in the Netherworld. Without such guides, she is not likely to find her way there alone. She could be lost to wander frightened and confused through the Otherworld instead, a helpless ghost. There she would easily fall prey to evil spirits.”

  From the hollows of her sunken eyes, the Uni Ati gave Repana a searing look. “You have no choice,” she said. Then she hobbled from the house.

  As Repana stood beside her daughter, clutching the knife in fingers turned to ice, she could hear the old woman’s cracked tones beyond the door. “Caile, we will require your services after all. Dress yourself in your ceremonial robes and summon the townspeople. There is to be a Dying.”

  “A Dying? But why?” Pepan demanded to know. “Appalling as they are, Vesi’s injuries need not be fatal. You can heal them, First Mother. Your skills are …”

  “Be silent and do not interrupt me! Repana has chosen to give the girl to Veno because she is carrying the spawn of a siu,” the old woman snapped. “Were Vesi to live, her child would bring disaster to the race of the Rasne.”

  FIVE

  From its source on the northwestern slope of the Apennines the water flowed relentlessly downward. At first an inconsequential rivulet that sang to itself in the sun, the stream gathered force as it descended. In time a mighty river swept seaward to a raw young city sprawling across seven hills.

  Long before the birth of Rome, the Etruscans had named the river Tiber, meaning notched. Of all the watercourses that flowed through their land, this was the most important: Father Tiber.

  Like fertile Sister Nile and dark Brother Styx, the Tiber was both a barrier and a conduit. Unpolluted and pristine, the living waters of the great rivers straddled the divide between the worlds of flesh and spirit. Strange beings inhabited the three realms—Earthworld, Otherworld, Netherworld—traversed by these rivers.

  Only rarely did the occupants of one realm venture into another.

  The great river gave life and took life. On its journey to the sea it drained meadowland and fed marsh; incubated dragonflies, dissolved the flesh of carrion, and scrubbed the bones clean. Some worshipped it, some feared it, and only the fool ignored it.

  The river was unforgiving.

  Denizens of the Otherworld clustered most thickly around the Tiber’s banks, and Earthworld hunters found the richest bounty there.

  Wulv pressed the tip of his bronze dagger into the pile of dung in the center of the path. The outer crust cracked open to reveal a moist and steaming interior. The man smiled to himself, but the expression was distorted by the scars that covered the left side of his face, pulling his lips away from his teeth in a permanent leer. Unkempt hair straggled to his shoulders; eyebrows as tangled as briar thickets overhung his deep-set brown eyes. Even among his own tribespeople, the Teumetes, Wulv was considered ugly.

  But he knew how to track animals.

  The boar had passed this way recently and was keeping to the trail, a well-worn animal trail winding through the forest west of the Tiber. If the beast followed the usual pattern, it was heading for a familiar lair.

  Of course, there was always the possibility that it would break with the pattern. Throughout his life Wulv had hunted bear, wolf, and wildcat, but of all creatures, boar were the most unpredictable. Bears were not much better, however. The bear that had torn open his face should have been hibernating when a much younger Wulv stumbled across its den. The bear had taken his face—but he had taken its hide. Made into a mantle, the trophy still hung across his broad shoulders.

  Wulv had been tracking this particular boar for three days, patiently, biding his time. Any other hunter would have abandoned the pursuit and returned to the comfort of friends and family, but Wulv had neither to distract him. All he had was single-minded determination.

  The boar he was following had rampaged through the fields bordering the Teumetes village on the fringe of the Great Forest. What the animal had not eaten, it had trampled in wanton destruction. A hunting party composed of the young men of the village had gone out and eventually killed a boar—a young, wiry-bristled female they’d trapped in a patch of marshland. They had hurled as many spears into the animal as the fingers on two hands, slung the dead boar from a pole, and carried the carcass back in triumph to their village.

  One look at the beast convinced Wulv it was the wrong animal. The slain boar had a broken hoof that wo
uld have left a distinctive track and was not nearly as heavy as the animal that had ravaged the crops. But when Wulv called attention to these facts, he was shouted down by the triumphant hunters. Their beardless leader even threatened him. Only the patience Wulv had learned while waiting for his bear injuries to heal had prevented him from removing the youth’s liver with his knife.

  Instead he had gone home to wait. He did not live in the village, but some distance away on an islet in the middle of a marshy lake at the very edge of the Great Forest. Wulv preferred to spend his days where no man would laugh at his ugliness and no woman would shrink from his touch.

  Four days later the village elders paid him an unprecedented visit. They implored him to forgive the rash behavior of the young men and begged him to go in search of the original boar. The beast had returned, doing even more damage than before. In addition, it had killed a tiny boy child whose mother was working in the fields. The sight of her half-eaten toddler had, the elders related, driven the woman to madness.

  Wulv listened without comment, his arms folded and his eyes staring into some misty distance. He let his visitors work up a sweat as they strove to persuade him and accepted, with apparent reluctance, the bribes they pressed upon him. Then at last he gathered his weapons and a few supplies and set off—as he had meant to do all along.

  The boar was a challenge.

  As if the beast knew it was now being hunted by an expert, it abandoned the area, moving deeper and deeper into the forest. Wulv had no difficulty picking up its trail. Perhaps, he speculated, the boar was deliberately leading him somewhere for reasons of its own. The creature was intelligent and cunning, and obviously learned from experience.