Free The Wedding Shroud - A Tale of Ancient Rome by Elisabeth Storrs Page A

too, their laughter raucous and drunken. Their slap-on-the-back joviality made her uncomfortable, even a little frightened, their voices growing louder as they embellished their brave deeds. When Apercu stood up and urinated in front of her, the long, steady stream of piss hit the fire sending a chimney of smoke billowing into the air. Turning her head, she wished perversely that she could be as she was usually in Rome: unseen and unheard and forgotten.
    Mastarna kept steady pace with the other’s drinking, but after Apercu’s crassness he became pensive, turning his back on the others and attending to her instead.
    ‘Who were those men today?’ she asked.
    ‘Gauls. We have traded with them for centuries, but now some want to do more than barter. I have not seen raiders like them so far south before.’
    ‘I have never heard of such a race. Perhaps Veii alone fears such marauders.’
    ‘Not just Veii, Caecilia, but all the Rasenna. My people. Those you call Etruscans and the Greeks Tyrrhenians. The land of Etruria stretches from the far north where those clay-streaked thieves live to the curves of the western coastline and the borders to the south. My people, Caecilia. Who created an empire long before Rome had even thought to build mud huts. Who ruled your city for centuries and founded its institutions.’
    ‘Yes, I know your people,’ she said, icily, remembering her husband’s lineage. ‘We threw out your tyrants long ago.’
    ‘Yet there are still patrician families in Rome who are descended from those kings.’
    ‘And they have strived for more than a hundred years to overcome their past.’
    Mastarna sighed. ‘Yes. Our ancestors have much to fester over. But luckily men like your uncle are wise to extend this treaty instead of letting us spiral once again into revenge and retribution.’
    Caecilia recalled Tata’s hatred for the Veientanes and how his brothers had died at Fidenae. ‘They have let an enemy put a foot over its threshold without having to force the door.’
    Mastarna looked her up and down. ‘You are as warlike as a hoplite, wife—and as single-minded. Rome never lacks enemies. Not when it’s so proud of squabbling with its neighbours.’
    ‘Rome only wages just wars,’ she declared, resentful that he should make her question what always was and what always should be. ‘Our city must be defended and if defence means attack, then so be it.’
    ‘So you do not believe in forgiveness, Caecilia?’
    ‘Not if honour is to be denied. Not if we must bury our dead and then forget them.’
    He paused to throw a log upon the flames, sending a spray of sparks swirling, and she noticed how the fire loved his face, its harsh angles trying to deny the light purchase.
    ‘Look at these men around you,’ he said presently. ‘Do you think they haven’t lost family, too? Apercu and Pesna both lost their brothers, and Vipinas’ only son was killed by Romans. Don’t you see? Each of us trail a line of dead men in our wake adding another body each time vengeance is wreaked, dragging us down until we are drowned. And that, wife, is why Veii and Rome must forget old hurts lest the list of both cities’ dead grows even longer.’
    Mastarna spread some ashes across the ground, using a stick to draw a map. ‘See how Veii sits to the north on one side of the Tiber with Rome on the other. My people must cross at Fidenae to reach the trade route to Campania in the south. But Rome first took the salt beds at the mouth of the Tiber and then, not sated, took Fidenae so it could levy taxes upon our traffic of silver and tin and grain.’
    ‘Don’t act like you are merely humble traders minding your own business! Veii has tried to conquer Rome more than once.’
    Excitement and indignation stirred within her, the freedom to dispute a man about war was exhilarating. Her voice rose enough for the three noblemen to look up. Mastarna gestured to her to speak more quietly but he did not silence her.
    ‘Ah, how