Act 1, Chapter 2 of The Ashes of Rome
The broad valley spread out westward before us, its gently rolling hills dotted with copses of trees. In the distance, a taller hill shouldered its way over its brethren, a river flashing silver in the morning sun, coiled at its feet. A walled city of white buildings roofed with red clay tiles gleamed atop the hill. Farms and pastureland clustered around the city, as though paying homage.
“Behold, Clusium!” Aruns preened. “Jewel of Etruria and Queen of the League of Twelve!”
“Yes, it’s very nice,” Brennus noted, unimpressed. “We make camp here!” he shouted, before turning to me. “Talos, take Urus and Iestinus and see what there is to see. I want a detailed report of the area. The hilltop gives them the advantage, so we must draw them out from behind their walls. Where are their forces most likely to meet us? How many ways are there across the river?”
I nodded and opened my mouth to reply, but Aruns spoke over me.
“But I can give you that information! There is but one way across the river—”
“Oh, do not doubt that you will give me all the information I ask. However, Talos will still scout out your countrymen. Lucomo doubtless had word of our approach days ago and has had time to prepare a few surprises. I would know of those before we walk blindly into them.”
“I assure you he—”
“I could give a duck’s fart for your assurances, Aruns. Your gold may swell our coffers, but never forget whose swords will win your vengeance for you.”
The nobleman fell silent, the dark expression on his face suggesting he was having second thoughts about his choice of hired swords.
I grinned and went to find Urus and Iestinus amidst the chaos of setting up camp.
✸✸✸
Locating Urus proved more difficult than I had expected. He might be the largest warrior in the host, but our sheer numbers complicated what should have been a simple matter. Eventually, I stumbled over him by sheer luck, engaged in a game of tesserae with a couple of chariot drivers.
“Urus, you’re wanted at the front,” I said, clapping my hand on one massive shoulder.
“Not now, Talos, I’m winning!”
A glance at the drivers’ faces told me a different story. My hand tightened on his shoulder. “Brennus asked for you specifically.”
“We’re almost done,” one of the drivers said, not taking his eyes off the tesserae. “Why not give your friend a moment or two?”
“Fine, I can wait,” I replied, crossing my arms. Brennus would be fine with a little delay. It was not quite midday; plenty of time for me and Urus to start scouting. I settled in to watch the game.
Urus threw the tesserae, and they clattered across the board. He tipped them over — 1, 2, 2, 4, 3, and 4. He groaned in despair.
“What’s the wager here?” I asked him.
He gave me a forlorn look and indicated a mound to his left that had escaped my previous notice. Wineskins. Lots of them.
“Whose are those?” I asked, a sinking feeling in my stomach.
“Ours,” Urus admitted. By ‘ours’, the man meant those wineskins he could easily get his hands on. Those of his friends — me, Garamaros, Iestinus, Drutalos, and Lukotorix.
“You took our wine?” I demanded.
Urus’s shoulders sank, and he bowed his massive head. “They bet me three times the number of skins! And I beat them every game last night, Talos.”
“You’re not winning now, are you?”
He shook his head. “No, the gods have deserted me.” He sniffed and watched one of the charioteers throw — 4, 4, 3, 4, 3, 5. He heaved an enormous sigh. “It’s been like that all day.”
The next charioteer threw his tesserae. They rattled across the tray, landing on 3, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5. The gambler threw up his hands, cheering his good fortune. I grinned, not because of the man’s good fortune, but because of ours.
I patted a shoulder the size of an oak trunk. “Give me a moment. We might have cause to celebrate tonight after all.” I whirled on the other men. “You’re a cheating son of a goat, and I’ll have your teeth for it,” I growled, pushing past Urus and startling both charioteers.
“I’m no cheat!” one man yelled, voice high with fear. He knew me and my reputation. The first man clutched his tesserae to him, fumbling for the little leather sack that had fallen at his feet.
“Not you, your friend here,” I spat, stabbing a finger at the second man. The first charioteer shot his companion a look, and I saw something in his eyes. “Or maybe it’s both of you,” I hissed.
“Cheating?” Urus asked, a dangerous edge to his voice. He leveraged himself off the ground, and I was gratified to watch both charioteers’ eyes widen as their gazes followed him up and up. “You vile little swine!” Urus’ voice grew louder, like the rumble of thunder at the edge of the valley.
“We did nothing wrong!” the first charioteer argued as he tried to stuff his tesserae away. I stepped forward and grabbed one of his dirty hands, forced him to turn it over, then wedged his fingers open. His tesserae fell, landing on the tray with a clatter. It was a near-perfect score — 5, 5, 5, 4, 5, 6.
“What’s this, then?” I stooped and picked them up, rolling them about in my hand. Ah, yes, I knew what they were doing now. I rolled them on the tray: 6, 6, 6, 6, 4, 6. I grinned evilly. “Done nothing wrong? The gods hate weighted tesserae.”
“THIEVES!” Urus’s voice shook the very air. The storm was here, and all the two men before me could do was hunker down and hope it blew itself out. A glance at Urus told me that was not going to be the case. His face was flushed red with rage, a vein throbbing in his forehead. He lunged forward and wrapped a fist the size of a chariot hub around each man’s neck, pulling them close enough that the spittle from his lips spattered across their faces.
“Do you know what I do with thieving little bastards?”
The men sputtered, faces turning purple as Urus slowly choked the life from them.
“I kill them and then turn their skulls into wine cups!” he roared.
The two men clawed frantically at Urus’s fingers. I knew I had to do something. Cheats, they might be, but we were at war, and you did not waste good fighting men. Especially not chariot drivers.
“Urus, we need to go. Brennus asked for you personally. We’ve got a mission!”
“Brennus is trusting me with a mission?” Hope flared in his dark eyes.
“Us. You, me, and Iestinus. We’re to scout Clusium, get her measure, and report back. I’d like to do it before dark so we can get some of that wine in us before you lose it in another game.”
He had the good grace to look embarrassed. Slowly, he loosened his grip on the two charioteers, and not a moment too soon. They collapsed to the ground, gasping and sputtering. One massaged his neck, but the other could do little more than suck in wheezing breath after wheezing breath.
“Go find Iestinus and I’ll meet you at Brennus’s command tent,” I told Urus. He wasted no time, eager to get about his duty and make his chieftain proud. After he was gone, I turned to the two men lying on the ground. “If I hear about this sort of thing again, I will personally hunt you down and let Urus rip your heads off your necks.”
They protested weakly, so I decided to double down. “And that means any word of cheating. Someone comes to me with a tale of woe, it’s your lives, even if you weren’t there.”
Not bothering to see if the impact of my words registered, I turned on my heel and left. The day was half over, and we still had a city to scout.
✸✸✸
The scouting expedition proved less thrilling than any of us had expected.
After circling the city, we stood south of Clusium, having avoided too much notice from the farms. The Clanis River flowed at our feet. Shallow but fast-moving, it was passable in most places, although I could spot a few deeper areas that would give our chariots problems.
I glanced back at the city on the hill. The gate faced south, and the road was wide and well-maintained. More importantly, the city was east of the river, with a wide strip of land between the hill’s base and the river’s banks. If the gods favored us, we could take the city without wetting our feet.
“Too many flies,” Iestinus complained, trying in vain to swat them away from his golden hair and beard.
“Too hot,” Urus muttered. The big man was drenched through in sweat, although I had a feeling it had more to do with the quantity of wine he had imbibed rather than the summer sunshine. Although it was hot. I wiped sweat from my brow with the back of an arm and turned to study the river once more.
“You can either go dunk yourself in the river, or you can wait until we get back to camp and hide under your tent,” I told Urus.
He eyed the water longingly.
“If you splash me, we will have words, you and I,” Iestinus told him stiffly. “More than we must have already, given your wagering with my wine.”
“Don’t be angry, Iestinus,” Urus pleaded. I could see the heat and hangover taking its toll.
“Angry? Wouldn’t you be? What else is there to do in this place besides drink and let the flies feast on you?” He swatted frantically at one persistent insect. “Do they train these creatures to attack foreigners, or do the flies love Etruscan flesh equally well?”
“What do you make of that?” I asked Iestinus, pointing at the city. The man was as vain as a Roman, but he had the best eyes of any of us.
“You mean the pyramids?”
“Well, yes, those, but also all the other structures outside the wall.”
“They’re tombs, Talos. The Etruscans like to keep their dead close.”
“What manner of person would they honor with that?” I asked, pointing at a massive tomb. Five pyramids stood on a raised platform, soaring perhaps a hundred and fifty feet into the air. Behind those stood yet another raised platform with four more towering pyramids, and then a circular pedestal with five narrow but very tall pyramids. At the front of the thing gaped a black pit in the ground. A tinkling sound came to us even over the distance between us and the city.
“That’s the tomb of Lars Porsena, unless I miss my guess. He went to war against Rome a long time ago.”
I grunted. It was impressive, certainly. Even more impressive was that while Porsena’s tomb was by far the most spectacular, it was only one among a vast number. Tombs of all shapes and sizes spread from the base of the city’s walls outward and were even carved into the face of the hill on which the city stood. The only visible area where they did not dominate the view was the area before the city’s gate.
Brennus could meet Lucomo’s forces before the gate, although it was still within the realm of possibility that Clusium’s ruler had sent for reinforcements from one of the other Etruscan cities in the region. Still, they were days away even on horseback, and no commander worth his salt would let his cavalry get that far ahead of his infantry. No, we had Clusium to ourselves, at least for now, except for the dead.
✸✸✸
“The main gate faces south, and the earth there is bare enough of tombs that it’s likely our best avenue of attack,” I said. “There is also a well-made road leading directly to the gate, more than wide enough to accommodate our needs.”
Brennus nodded. “We’ll approach from the south, then. Once they see our host, I feel they will rethink any ill-informed desire for bloodshed.”
“And if he’ll not talk?”
Brennus’s smile was less than pleasant. “Then we set a siege, and we’ll wait them out. Stop your worrying, Talos! Aruns will call Lucomo out, and the knucklebones will fall as they will.” He thought for a moment, then continued. “You three did good work today. Go and get some rest. We’ll find out what the gods have in store for us on the morrow.”
I returned his grin and strode off, not to rest as would have been wise, but to collect my wine from Urus’s gambling winnings. After that, a certain mischievous grin and bouncing curls were on my mind.
The first was easy enough. Urus had put my share of the winnings in my tent. My eyes widened, and I felt a foolish grin spread across my lips. Five wineskins, all for me. I said a quick prayer of thanks to Rosmertā for her bounty and for her blessing on my blade in the coming battle.
The second took a little time and several slugs from a wineskin. With my belly hot from drink, I found Catta sharpening her sword in her tent.
“That’s not for me, is it?” I asked.
She shot me a glance, curls the colors of oak trunks and sunbeams bouncing around her face. Realizing who spoke, she crinkled her nose. “You’d just stain my blade.” She held her sword up, eyes traveling its edge. “This is for a greater foe.”
“Are you implying that my steel’s not enough to challenge you?”
Her grin turned impish. “What steel? Likely, the wine has turned your blade to lead, and I can bend it with naught but my hand.”
“Come and try it then,” I invited her.
She laughed, set her sword aside, and wrapped her arms around me. My world dissolved, now extending no farther than her fiery lips and the curve of her hips.
Later, we both lay sated, half-wrapped in furs on the floor of her tent.
“You made me a liar,” she said, punching my arm lightly.
“How so?”
“It seems that the wine had not quite unmanned you.”
I laughed, luxuriating in the feel of her next to me. A man could grow used to such things. “Ah, truth be told, you could take me any day.”
Her expression turned serious. “Do you think Lucomo will parley?”
I traced the line of her collarbone with a finger. “I do not know. Brennus seems hopeful. If I were in Lucomo’s position, outmanned and with little hope of help coming before the enemy overran the walls, I would. Why does it worry you?”
She hesitated a moment. That caught my interest. Catta was never shy about sharing her mind. It was one of the things I liked most about her. “If he parleys, Aruns has no need of us and will try to buy Brennus off with gold. But if Lucomo fights, we’ll be granted the land that was promised.” She stared at some point past the tent’s fabric ceiling. “I… I would like a farm.”
“You? A farmer? What do you know of rooting around in the dirt?” I could not stifle a laugh, but the hurt in her expression told me my humor had gone amiss.
“And what’s wrong with that?” she demanded, fire in her brown eyes, as she leaned up on one elbow to glare at me.
I held out both hands, palms open. “Nothing at all! Only I never knew you had such dreams. Tell me, what would you grow on your farm?”
Somewhat mollified, she nestled beside me once more. “Grain, of course. The Etruscans grow a different type of wheat than we have in Gaul. Barley, too.” She flashed a look at me. “We could brew beer. And we could have a vineyard.”
“We?” I asked, certain that Catta could hear the thunder of my heart.
She smiled shyly. “We.” She put a hand on my chest. “Would you like to be a farmer’s husband?”
I took her in my arms and answered her with my mouth all over her body.
✸✸✸
“They look enthusiastic,” Brennus observed. “Perhaps Lucomo will let us skip both the parley and the siege.”
I grunted noncommittally. Battle would not necessarily grant Catta her dream, but if Lucomo and Aruns came to terms, it was far less likely to work in our favor, at least where land was concerned.
The object of our attention was a gathering of Etruscan warriors. They stood just outside the city’s gate, pounding their swords and spears against their shields. The gate stood open behind them, and we could clearly see more warriors waiting behind the first few lines. Curiously, none had yet ventured far from the walls.
“A strange way to wage war,” I observed. “They make a lot of noise, but it seems to be mere posturing. Will they not advance? If we charged them now, we would boil through their defenses in mere moments.”
Brennus nodded his agreement. “It is strange, I admit. Perhaps we’ll know more once Aruns gives his terms.” He glanced around. “Where is the man?”
A commotion behind us announced Aruns’s arrival. He wore a white undertunic covered by a bright red robe edged in cream and green. A wreath of green leaves sat atop his head. The man positively strutted toward the city.
“Almost looks the part, no?” Brennus asked with a chuckle.
I had to agree.
Aruns walked toward Clusium’s gate, flanked by Urus and Garamaros. Someone I did not know came behind him. When they were close enough to the city that his voice would carry, they stopped. Aruns cleared his throat, hesitated, then took another step forward.
“Lucomo, debased and corrupt king! I, Aruns, son of Clusium and husband of Pevtha, demand justice! We demand a reckoning!”
There was a stir in the enemy’s lines, and a single man stepped out. I heard the murmurs of appreciation from our lines. Aruns came with an armed escort, but Lucomo needed none.
“I have come, Aruns. What foolishness is this that you bring the destroyers of the Umbri to our gates? Are you mad?”
“I come for a recompense!” Aruns shot back. “I ask that you parley. Hear my terms! If not, we will cut you out of the city by force, like a cancer!”
“That was well said,” Brennus commented. A rumble from behind us told me that our forces agreed.
“Terms, from the likes of you? A coward who fled to murderers when presented with a problem does not deserve my time.”
“Then you will not listen?”
“Get you gone and those dogs behind you also!”
The rumbling behind me grew in volume. Our warriors were angry. Being called murderers and dogs will do that.
“Then you choose destruction!” Aruns threw back. There was an immense roar from behind us, as thirteen thousand warriors raised their voices to the heavens, demanding blood.
Brennus’s grin was fierce, and battle fury burned in his eyes. I threw back my head and laughed, worries about Catta’s farm and Aruns’s offer of rewards melting away. My hand found my sword hilt. Now it was time for something we Senones understood deep in our bones and sinews: bloodshed.
Brennus raised his sword high. When it descended, we would rush the field, crush our foes, and take their city for Aruns. The blade glittered in the morning sun, limned in gold. It began its downward arc. My blood pounded in my ears and behind my eyes. I sucked in a great breath, preparing to unleash a war shout and—
“Hold! Stay your advance!” a voice rang out over the tumult. Three men stepped out of the crowd of Clulsians, but these were no Etruscans. They were dark-haired, with neatly trimmed beards, and they wore white togas draped around their bodies.
“What is this madness?” Brennus wondered aloud.
“We are Quintus, Numerius, and Caeso, sons of Marcus Fabius Ambustus, pontifex maximus of Rome, and we are here to treat with you for peace!”
“Well, damn,” I muttered as cries of disappointment rose all around me.
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