Etruscans by Morgan Llywelyn Read Free Book Online Page A

the victim was allowed to bleed to death over a long period of time. This was the way favored by traditionalists, who insisted that only blood could be certain of attracting the favor of Veno.
    Repana never intended to find out.
    Even if Pepan had not called her attention to the sacred glade deep in the forest, which was famed as a sanctuary, she had already chosen that as her destination. Hers and Vesi’s. But first they must escape the spura .
    The rear of Repana’s house was actually the high wall that encircled the Rasne city. The house consisted of three small wings surrounding the courtyard, but its size was a blessing for a widow with only one child. There was another advantage, however, which Repana now appreciated for the first time.
    She stood quietly for a moment, looking down at Vesi. From outside came the voices of the crowd raised in supplication to the gods as Caile led them in a wailing singsong that grated on Repana’s nerves. Bending, she wrapped her semiconscious daughter in a cloak, then somehow got the girl to her feet. “It hurts,” Vesi whimpered, but only once. Whimpering was not part of her nature.
    Through a combination of cajoling and brute force Repana succeeded in hoisting Vesi through a narrow vertical opening let into the city wall. Intended as a loophole to allow javelin throwers to defend the Rasne spura , the shaft was not meant to accommodate a human body. When Repana followed she found it a very tight squeeze. For a moment she panicked. What if she got stuck and they broke into the house and found her?
    Then with one final, desperate wriggle, she was through, emerging in an angle of the wall screened from casual view by a clump of shrubbery. There she found Vesi slumped on the ground, her figure no more than a dark huddle in the darker night. Her mother caught her
by the shoulders and dug in her fingernails, hoping to rouse the girl with pain. When Vesi murmured an inarticulate protest, Repana whispered urgently, “Stand up, child. I can’t carry you; you will have to walk … or die. Walk, I tell you. Now! Walk!”
    Without a backward look, Repana had led her daughter away from the only home they had ever known, across the fields and into the black maw of the forest. From behind them came the sound of chanting slowly rising toward an inevitable crescendo: the Song of a Dying.
    As she made her way into the forest, Repana could not remember the last time anyone had defied a Uni Ati. Such a deed would merit the most dire punishment. Nor could she recall any Etruscan ever exiling themselves from one of their spurae . Immersed in beauty and comfort, they were the god-chosen, the god-blessed, the god-loved. In living memory none of her race had turned their back on such a heritage.
    But sometimes slaves attempted to escape. Or thieves. Then the great hunting dogs came into their own. No one escaped the massive hounds with their sensitive noses and long, silken ears. And sharp fangs.
    Repana could feel a prickling of the skin on her back as if the hounds were already right behind her. She tried to get Vesi to hurry, but the girl could barely walk. In addition, the footing was treacherous, the forest so dark that each step had to be felt out with a tentative foot. When they had gone far enough that they could no longer hear the chanting, Repana allowed her daughter to stop. While the girl leaned panting against the bole of a huge tree, her mother scooped out a shallow bed for them between the roots. There they hid until dawn, concealed beneath dead branches.
    When the first daylight filtered into their sanctuary they were up again. Vesi’s injuries forced them to travel very slowly; they seemed to be inching through the forest rather than running away. More than once Repana
ground her teeth with impatience. When a storm overtook them, thunder and lightning signaling the fury of the gods, she did not dare stop to propitiate the elements. She and Vesi must keep