B
eyond the bend of the river, Vesi strolled in the sunshine. She loved being out under the bright blue sky. Let others shelter themselves in houses, in cities. Above all things she enjoyed unfettered freedom.
Suddenly she detected a change in the atmosphere. An unexpected chill, though the day was warm; a brief bitterness on the wind, overriding the perfume of ripening grapes. Vesi shivered in spite of herself, then laughed off the sensation. She would not let anything spoil her mood on this radiant late summer day.
Tossing back hair the color of a moonless midnight, the girl closed her eyes. Wide-set eyes, dark and bright as onyx. Her sheer
peplos
was dyed with saffron, complementing her olive complexion. A crimson scarf was draped across her shoulders. Strings of tiny silver bells were laced around her throat and wrists, making music with her slightest movement.
The bells tinkled as she breathed deeply, savoring the sweetness of the air. Without visual distraction her other senses came to the fore. She measured the weight of the wind on her shoulders, as light as a lover's caress, and turned her face to welcome its breath. Warm again. The momentary cold had been just an aberration. Thankfully, the girl abandoned herself to the delights of the season.
With a delicate sniff she identified the smells of summer one by one. Dew-drenched grass, sun-warmed earth, flowers in the meadow, droppings of sheep and scat of fox, the odor of a young bullock grazing not far away, and an old wolf bitch tardily coming into season. Underlying these was the verdant scent of trees at the edge of the forest and the fecund mud of the nearby river.
A hundred fragrances assailed Vesi's nostrils, each telling their story of life.
There was just one smell she did not recognize.
A faint but acrid tang still lay like a stain on the air. She curled her lip in distaste. How monstrous that something ugly should mar the otherwise perfect day! She would ignore it and surely it would go away.
Tilting her head, the young woman redirected her concentration to the natural music surrounding her. She could recognize sixty species of bird by their song, differentiating between those that were native to Etruria and those that merely visited the lush meadows on their way to the northern Darklands or south to the realm of Aegypt, the fabled Black Land.
One by one, Vesi sorted through various sounds until she found one she could not identify ⦠a distant, labored gasping, occasionally punctuated with a groan.
An injured wild boar perhaps. But no, this was no animal. Vesi knew all the animal voices. Perhaps she was hearing a member of one of the primitive tribes her people had dispossessed in claiming this land long ago.
Her forebears styled themselves the Rasne, the Silver People, although others referred to them simply as the Etruscans. In a time recalled only by storytellers they had moved into the territory between the rivers Magra and Rubicon. Eventually their control was total in an area bordered by the Arno on the north and the Apennines and Tiber to the east and south, extending as far as Latium. Force of arms and superior intellect made the land theirs. None had been able to stand against them, neither the indigenous inhabitants nor the subhuman beasts who infested the mountain wildernesses.
Not all the vanquished had left the land. Those who remained, in the high mountains and primeval forests, were in the process of creating legends. Tales of the Silver People.
Opening her eyes, Vesi blinked against the bright sunlight, then shaded her face with both hands and gazed toward the south.
The bitter smell and gasping breath both seemed to emanate from the site of the incomplete
spura,
the Rasne city being built beyond the bend of the river. But the place was uninhabited at the moment. Although the ground had been cleared and the
purtani
, the priests, had blessed the boundaries, the final sacrifices had yet to be made. Vesi knew that none of the Rasne would break the taboo and enter unhallowed Sacred Space without being accompanied by a
purtan.
Yet someone was there.
As she stood, puzzled, the wind changed, carrying to her the unmistakable odor of fresh blood.
Drawing her long-bladed knife from its tooled leather sheath, Vesi glided silently forward. Since earliest childhood she had loved to play at hunting, like a boyâto the despair of her mother, who wanted her daughter to be feminine and delicate. Rasne women were works of art.
But Vesi had no desire to be a work of art. Such a static image bored her. Life was to be
lived.
She thrilled
to the prospect of adventures. Now her callused bare feet slid through the long grass, testing every step before trusting her weight. One could never be too cautious. A patch of quicksand might be anywhere.
Spurae
were sometimes sited to take advantage of such natural defenses.
She drew another questing breath. The blood-smell was stronger now, identifiably human but disgustingly tainted with something foul.
Another groan sounded. There was no mistaking the voice of a man in pain. Abandoning caution, the girl started forward just as a rising wind whipped her hair into her eyes. It might have been an omen; the Rasne believed the gods spoke to them in such signs and portents. The girl paused long enough to take a gleaming silver fillet from the leather purse she wore at her waist She settled the band firmly on her brow to hold her hair in place.
Then she began to run.
Since none of her people would have ventured on their own into the unfinished
spura
, she assumed the groaning man must belong to one of the native tribes. Or, more dangerously, be a hawk-faced Roman from Latium, an advance scout for an army hoping to extend Rome's territory. Such raiders had become a constant threat. Once the Etruscans had feared no one, dominating not only Etruria but much of Latium. With increasing prosperity their aggressive impulses had diminished however. The Rasne had become tired of war, tired of the casual butchery, the stink of the dead and the dying. They had taken their martial arts and turned them inward, using them to create rather than destroy, to build rather than pull down.
And now the jackals were gathering.
Vesi hefted the knife in her hand, her thumb caressing the hilt with its encrusted carnelians. But she did not hesitate. At the back of her mind was some romantic,
childish notion of taking an injured Roman warrior prisoner at knife point and leading him home in triumph. No Rasne woman had ever done such a thing before.
She sprinted up a hill, then dropped flat at the crest so she would not be silhouetted against the sky. From this vantage point she could look down upon the
spura
spread out below like some child's toy.
The area had been cleared, foundations dug, drains installed, streets laid out. Each house, shop, and public building was already allocated a site that would contribute to the symmetry of the whole. Squares and rectangles were pegged with fluttering strips of pale cloth. Stone footings would be placed to support walls of sunbaked brick covered with tinted plaster. Courtyards and roofs would be tiled; murals would be painted on every available surface. Terra-cotta piping was stacked to one side, waiting to serve the fountains that would sparkle throughout the city.
The choicest site of all was reserved for the great
templum
at the center of the
spura.
Plinths would be placed at intervals along the approaching avenue; statues of the
Ais
would stand there, gazing down with blind eyes upon their people. But before this could happen, the entire area must be consecrated with blood and flesh and smoke. Then a city wall would be raised to protect Sacred Space and construction could begin in earnest.
The result would be the finest
spura
ever built, even more elegant than Veii, which was celebrated as the most beautiful city in Etruria. And as everyone knew, Etruria was the most beautiful land in the world. Its inhabitants were the special favorites of the
Ais
.
“Great are the gods and precious their love,” Vesi murmured automatically.
She shaded her eyes with one hand so she could make out details of the scene below.
There!
In the center of the site designated for the
templum
lay a huddled body. Desecration! When Vesi leaped to
her feet with a yelp of outrage she accidentally dropped her dagger. It struck the soft earth point first and stood there quivering.
She was quivering herself, with indignation. Injured or not, the man had gone beyond all bounds of decency! The most Sacred Space of all had been defiled. The priests would not use it now; the lengthy process of selecting another site for the city would have to be undertaken. It might be many seasons before an equally propitious location was determined.
To add to Vesi's dismay, she glanced down to discover that her knife was stabbing the earth. With a soft moan the girl stooped and withdrew the blade. She removed the clinging soil with reverent fingertips, then tenderly pressed the tiny particles back into the ground as she murmured a prayer to the goddess Ops. “May the earth spirits forgive my carelessness; I meant them no harm.”
Straightening, she drew a deep breath.
The blood-smell was stronger than ever. The figures lying in the center of the
templum
space was not moving.
Keeping a firm hold on her knife, Vesi trotted down the hill toward the
spura.
When she reached the edge of the first marked foundation she stopped, reluctant to cross the invisible line that bordered the most dangerous of Sacred Space: unhallowed ground, designated but not protected from the more inimical inhabitants of the Otherworld.
Pacing along the line, she stared at the man lying on what should have become the floor of the
templum.
From a distance she had thought he wore a tattered cloak; now she saw it was the flesh of his naked back, torn in bizarre strips. Vesi wondered what animal could have inflicted such wounds. Neither bear nor boar nor aurochs, whose marks she recognized. Could it be one of the legendary monsters said to inhabit the mountains of Latium? Would such a creature have come this far into Etruria in search of prey? Surely not.
Yet obviously some predator had been at work. The injured man must have been caught and mauled and then dragged here, suffering terribly.
Vesi caught her lower lip between her teeth as she pondered a new mystery.
Where was the trail of blood?
Crimson had seeped from the man's body to puddle beneath him, yet there was no gory pathway across flattened grass to the place where he now lay. An animal dragging him would have left one. Instead there were only spattered droplets, indicating he had walked there by himself. Furthermore he looked wet, as if he had recently emerged from the nearby Tiber. Swimming? So wounded?
Suddenly the fallen man gave an appalling shriek and convulsed like a fish on a hook. Fresh blood began oozing from his wounds.
His anguish was so acute Vesi could almost feel it herself. She could go for help, but by the time she returned he would surely be dead. Fortunately she was not afraid of blood. Had she not watched from hiding as the
purtani
set the silver plate into her father's crushed skull after the hunting accident that eventually claimed his life? She could help this man if he was not too far gone, if he had not lost too much blood.
Vesi looked over her shoulder. The rolling hills were tapestried with flowers, many of them possessing healing properties. She could cleanse the wounds and apply a poultice to staunch the bleeding. The
purtani
would criticize her for usurping their healing functions and probably punish her for entering unhallowed Sacred Space. But if she were to allow a man to die needlessly when she might have saved him ⦠was that not the greater crime?
Vesi pressed her forefinger and middle finger to her lips, kissed them, and bowed her head in reverence. “Culsan, the god of destiny; Tuflas, goddess of healing, guide me. What I do now, I do through you.”
Then she stepped over the line.
Walking through the unmade city was terrifying. In unhallowed Sacred Space the fabric between the worlds was very thin. Vesi was certain she could hear
hia
and
siu
whispering in the Otherworld.
She could even catch the faintest scent of the Netherworld where Satres ruled and Veno protected the dead. As long as she was alive its mysteries were denied her. But the perfumes that wafted from that dark kingdom were spiced with myrrh and cinnamon and subtler, more alluring fragrances that promised and beguiled. She felt their temptation, potent as a stirring in the loins.
Death, the Aegyptians claimed, was a jewel of incomparable brilliance.
On every side shadows twisted and dissolved, hinting at wonders, each one attempting to draw her into the darkness from which she knew she would never return.
Fragments of songs, ghosts of winds, the distant trilling of unknown birds called to her, and behind them the faintest whispers that might have been prayers, incantations, secrets ⦠.