

Curriculum Vitae

# Pier Isa Della Rupe

Via Zuccari 270°/a

010100 Bagnaia (VT) Italy

w   
ww.pierisadellarupe.com

Pier Isa was born on a night when the moon was full in 1944.

She is a graduate of the "Accademia di Belli Arti.

Publications

1980 "Per non morire" (Not to die) Edizioni Cultura

1990 The novel "Le Streghe di Montecchio" (The Witches of Montecchio) Edizioni Il Nuovo1994 A collection of plays in Bagnaia dialect "Bagnaia e il suo canto" (Songs of Bagnaia) Edizioni Sette Città1997 The novel and play "La Bella Galiana" (Beautiful Galiana) Edizioni Banca di Viterbo2001 The collection "La Regina Amalasunta, la Bella Galiana e Le Streghe di Montecchio, miti e leggende della Tuscia" (Queen Amalasunta, Beautiful Galiana and the Witches of Montecchio - Tales from the Tuscia) Edizioni Sette Città.

Theatre

Plays written and directed for the Teatro Comunale dell'Unione di Viterbo

1993 "Le bugie hanno le gambe corte" (O what a tangled web we weave)

1994 "La Pucciarella"

1998 "La bella Galiana" (Beautiful Galiana)

1999 "Le Streghe di Montecchio" (The Witches of Montecchio)

2000 "Il tesoro della Regina" (The Queen's Treasure)

In 1998 the Bulgarian choreographer Anton Kalinov staged "La Bella Galiana" as a ballet at the Teatro Comunale dell'Unione for the "Viterbo Festival".

Pier Isa has been a guest on several Italian national TV shows including the iconic "Maurizio Costanzo Show" (Mediaset), the RAI breakfast TV show "Piacere Rai Uno" and the latest in

2004 on Michele Cucuzza's "Un giorno speciale" – A special day (RAI).

2007 The novel "Le Streghe di Montecchio" (The Witches of Montecchio) Edizioni Fefè Roma (II Edizione)

ETRUSCAN SWAN SONG

Latium 310 BC. In book 9 of his famous History of Rome Livy tells how the Romans, drained by their expansionist war against the Samnites in the south, were in need of a victory and rich booty. The most alluring prey within easy reach were the wealthy Etruscans just to their north but these were protected by the impenetrable barrier of the Cimina Mountains, reputedly haunted by evil spirits and demons. Marcus Fabius Cesus, brother to one of the consuls for the year and a well-known general, volunteers to seek a path through the wilderness. In Livy's words"He had been brought up in Caere, and was thoroughly conversant with the Etruscan language and literature. There is authority for asserting that at that time Roman boys were, as a rule, instructed in Etruscan literature as they now are in Greek, but I think the probability is that there was something remarkable about the man who displayed such boldness in disguising himself and mingling with the enemy. He is said to have been accompanied by only one servant, and during their journey they only made brief inquiries as to the nature of the country and the names of its leading men, lest they should make some startling blunder in conversing with the natives and so be found out. They went disguised as shepherds, with their rustic weapons, each carrying two bills and two heavy javelins. But neither their familiarity with the language nor the fashion of their dress nor their implements afforded them so much protection as the impossibility of believing that any stranger would enter the Ciminian forest."

This is the tale of Marcus' extraordinary journey; the tale of his slave, Janu, and his love for Orphea; the tale of the mysterious origins of the Etruscan race; the tale of the immortal priestesses, daughters of the god Arius, waiting to fulfill their sacred mission; the tale of Hanibald, the middle-eastern mystic who seeks religious solace in his lonely hermitage; but most of all it is the tale of the Etruscan civilisation's swansong.

Pier Isa della Rupe is steeped in the lore of her native Cimina mountains and this book is the fruit of careful research, accurate down to the last detail. But scholarship fades into the background as the reader is swept along on a torrent of rich, descriptive language perhaps rare in our minimalist-inspired age. This is no dry history but a visionary tale, a magical evocation of a place and its people, an inspired flow of words which I personally found an intense pleasure to translate. I hope that many people will be able to have the pleasure of reading it.

## PIER ISA DELLA RUPE

###  ETRUSCAN SWAN SONG

#### CHAPTER 1

Legend has it that Thetia, the famous Sybil of the Sacred Forests of the Cimina mountains, lived isolated from the world for thousands of years in a dark, windswept cavern under the gaunt Acqua Zita crag to the north of the Cimini Mountain chain. Her only companions were wolves, bears and a beautiful white lion that her mother, the nymph Athea, had given her. Her den was an intricate labyrinth of tunnels hollowed out of the volcanic rock which stretched down to where a hot spring bubbled from the bowels of the earth.

Among her collection of archaic documents written on palm leaves an ancient roll was found, half scorched, which claimed in mysterious verse that the world was created from the Cimina mountains.

Each year, on the seventh day of the harvest month, in the darkest hours of the night, Divine Thetia climbed the highest peak of the Cimini. She went barefoot, pale, with staring eyes, her thin, wiry body as slight as a dried thistle clothed in a long, simple robe of sackcloth. In the absolute silence of the heights she observed the stars and far-flung galaxies unfurling against the black sky. She crouched like a hare on the naked rock for hours, her soul intent on penetrating the concealed mysteries pulsating at the source of creation, until she was warmed by the first rays of the newly-born sun. Only then did Thetia shift her gaze from the skies to the earth, marking the flight of the migrating birds, the mist in the vineyards, the lazy drift of smoke above the primitive dwellings and the ripple of ripe grain in the fields.

Like an eagle whose burning eye observes the flock before swooping down on his prey, Thetia read the omens in all things, in the harsh croaking of a frog, the silken murmur of ships cutting through the sea beyond the fog, even in the raucous shouts and curses of the sailors. There on the heights her spirit laid bare her heart and soared over the miseries of the world. When she had meditated at length she drunk the bitter chalice of life and death from the Sacred Fountain of Gold and descended, exhausted, from the mountain heights to the crag above the chasm of the valley there to sing her divine prophecies. Her voice pierced the deep ravine of the Nine Loaves like a thorn from a wild rose and then echoed out onto the plain magnified a hundred times by the crevices in the rock.

That seventh day was eagerly awaited by the native tribes who lived in the valley. The women came out of their miserable wattle and daub huts with their children clustered around their skirts and the men abandoned their fields and vineyards to make their way all together to the foot of the crag and listen with bated breath to the dark echo, the burning lament, which sang of epidemics, wars and impending betrayals in sibylline verse. And all invoked her name, invoked her tragic music, which spanned the visible and the invisible in the eternal miracle of mystery.

Today the local boys still dare each other to climb the steep Acqua Zita crag with its beautiful silver-coloured stone twisted into fantastic battlements and turrets, and when they emerge from the narrow ravines they see the ancient figure of a lion sculpted on the rock face in the midst of gryphons, eagles and boars. Some ancient sculptor has left us the image of Thetia's white lion for all time. The tale goes that on those days when there is no trace of mist, when the hot wind from the south-east roars straight from the African deserts like a grizzly around the Acqua Zita crag bearing seeds, spore and red sand and rips the leaves off the chestnut trees in its rage, on those days if you look the lion in the eye and know how to listen, you can hear a soundless voice whispering from the intricacies of the cracked rock. A whisper that lives and breathes with the moss, coasting slowly over the stone to drench the trees and bushes, her whisper, her voice that will never die even if her body has been dust for centuries, she is still there, predicting the future. Her song is in the mists, in the very soil, in the scent of lilac; it is scattered with the cob nut pollen, penetrates the roots of the trees and soars to the stars.. it will be there until the end of time.

#### CHAPTER 2

I was wrapped in a deep sleep when suddenly towards midnight Eolo opened his black cave and released his lions. Their roars, like the stormy sea, rose from the depth of the volcano, struck the mountain slopes and with an echoing boom fell on the chestnut woods above the crag opposite my house. Violent gusts of wind struck the countryside with the furious intensity of a bellowing herd of beasts, trampling every living thing underfoot.

The first drops of rain echoed on the roof tiles like the beating of hooves, harbingers of the torrents which followed immediately afterwards, cascading in biblical floods against the panes of the dormer window.

I usually adore storms, but this one made me strangely nervous, frightened almost, my imagination leaping, holding my breath, and eyes wide, as I peered out of the window watching the lightning devour the darkness. The shrieking wind was joined almost immediately by claps of thunder interspersed by the ominous creaking of the roof beams; the earth and the sky strained against each other in mutually destructive explosive force as I shivered in terror. Then from the depth of the darkness, from the infinite abyss of eternity hidden even from the probing of a fearful mind, louder than the thunder, than the howling of the dogs, than the screech of the owls and than the storm itself I heard a voice screaming a name. I waited with baited breath until I heard it again:

"Isa! Isa!"

I realised that I wasn't imagining it, an unknown voice, a woman's voice, was screaming my name in the dark of the night.

Petrified I just managed to make the sign of the cross; in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Once, twice, three times and again; in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost ... I started to tremble like the last leaf desperately hanging on to a dead tree. God help me, a voice that sounded as if it came from the depths of a bottomless well, a voice that was certainly not of this world but issued from the breast of the night in all the clarity and vibrancy of one soul seeking another, which had me trembling because in truth I had been expecting its call for many a moon. I had awaited it like the Wise Men had sought the comet in the sky. I knew that the voice calling the living from beyond life could only belong to Thetia the seer. My fear caressed the dark, wrapped in a winding sheet of terror, frozen, but with my ears pricked like a panther crouched to kill, waiting for the call to ring out again...there it was!

"Isa! Isa!"

Like a sleepwalker I leapt out of bed and paced up and down the room in indecision, captivated by the mystery of the voice. The raindrops pressed against the windowpane like infinite eyes, secret bards of the waters, custodians of the truth beyond the clouds which they would never share with the river, with the sea or with me. I stared blindly at their glittering course down to nourish the earth's breast until even the night birds were shrilling my name..

I could bear the tension no longer and rushed out of the door barefoot into the storm.

Outside the skies were furiously spewing rain and hail. Blinded by the lightning I groped my way down the steps and crossed quickly into the storm-battered ilex grove. Flashes of lightning illuminated the branches of the trees tossing and groaning like chained monsters struggling vainly to get free. I quickened my pace and as if impelled by the fury of the elements started to run, my feet pounding on the livid, rain-battered earth. When I finally reached the stream I found it had broken its banks. The waters had demolished the fence and carried it away like a raiding pirate. The flood roiling in the stream bed had stirred up a mass of red mud which had inundated the surrounding land; even the little wooden bridge had been swallowed by its impetus.

To cross that Acheron in flood, where a frond of wisteria drooped like a ghostly liana, I wedged a plank between a walnut tree and the elders and groped my way across hanging on to the remains of the parapet. Beneath me the current was swollen with ferns, water lilies, reeds and tree bark, flotsam snatched away by the fury of the flood.

On the further bank in the overgrown vegetable patch a dripping tangle of brambles covered in old man's beard looked like a pale ghost stretching out its deathly hands towards me in the dark. As I fled with terror in hot pursuit I could feel in the midst of the dead leaves underfoot frogs, toads, snakes and other strange, tiny creatures evicted from their burrows by the fury of the storm fleeing up the rough hillside too, just as terrified as I was.

With tears in my eyes and my heart in my mouth I gathered my courage and started to pray aloud again, my voice rising and rising against the storm. I was almost shouting by the time I got to the chestnut forest that crowned the Acqua Zita crag.

Although the spring was well advanced and the yellow-gold beetle had been buzzing from elderflower to elderflower for days the chestnut trees were still stark and bare. Their mighty branches were always the last to bud and the nights would shorten before they were fully decked with their mantle of scented white flowers dangling like bunches of grapes. From then until the first autumn winds teased them into yielding their prickly round fruits the chestnuts would hold sway with their black and white magic, said to have wrought many marvels in the silent shade of their gnarled trunks. As I gazed at the wood a fork of lightning accompanied by an immense clap of thunder streaked over my head from above Thetia's cave and split a huge chestnut tree in two like a pomegranate right in front of me. Terrified I stood rooted to the spot and crossed myself yet again. God help me! Our Father who art in heaven... You who are all powerful, paint the skies with stars, throw a stone and chase the storm away. I prayed with my eyes shut and crossing myself again and again.

Many a time I had stopped dead above Thetia's cave, frightened that my footsteps crackling on the dry leaves could disturb her eternal sleep, but now a new, mad fear chained me trembling to the crag. Without moving a step I slowly opened my eyes and, with the help of the faint glow of light coming from the village behind me and the few farmhouses opposite it, managed to make out the scene around me. The mist had traced fine spiders' webs of silver threads on the thorns in the thickets and for a moment I was mesmerised by the tableau, then suddenly I realised that the wind had dropped and it had started to snow. Large snowflakes danced down around me and one landed on my face like a whisper straining to reach my ear.

And a whisper it was! The roar of that night had muted into a feverish, mysterious whisper, cosmic and prophetic. A whisper mingled with the falling snow, a disembodied voice, no louder than the buzzing of bees, more fragile than a ghost's caress, softer than the snow itself.

The unthinkable had happened, the storm had carried Thetia's voice through space into my thoughts, and while a white rainbow slowly covered me I listened in silence as she murmured in my ear.

And you, my reader, who now so carefully ponder these words, come closer; listen to Thetia's murmur with me, come, follow me on this journey and I will sing for you and you alone. Break your rusty chains and spread your wings to fly over the open seas with me. You and I will become corsairs, riding the waves, listening to the sirens' song. And when a scarlet bunch of grapes drop ripe from the burning sun we will drink a toast in the juice beloved of the gods. You long to fly but do not dare? Look then! See the frost already melting on the snowy peaks, crown your head with entwined olive leaves and fly with me, the earth warmed by the sun will open and at last we will see where the red poppy sleeps.

If you wish we will draw the poison forever from the fangs of the black serpent that lives in the sacred forest where the acorn's spawn grows tall, and together with Pan we will herd sheep and eat fruit which grows without seeds. But if you, you my friend, have lost forever the gift of flight, my wings alone will not suffice and not even the roll of a hundred thousand drums will wake you from your torpor. But if you desire, o man of a harsh race glued to the earth's hard crust, if you truly desire, for you and you alone I will summon from the depths of the earth a fiery steed with two tails who will take us where no one dares to venture.

Do not tarry here any longer, quick, jump up on his back and together we will ride over the terrible, scarlet-crested, Cimina Mountains, flying over woods and forests and hidden valleys. And in the golden sun of noon we will reach the endless grasslands where the flowers grow taller than trees and where the streams flow singing towards infinity. If the moon allows us to pass we will hover over the deep ravines dug by the Etruscans, over the bridges hidden under banks of hawthorn, over the red-painted tombs and once we have reached the place no one dares go we will stop to listen to the silence, the sovereign of all sounds.

If you come with me we will eavesdrop on Egyptian love songs, perch on King Solomon's carved cedar wood canopy, taste manna and wild desert honey, and as evening falls we will be warmed by Bedouin campfires and by the light of the flames we will watch slim-waisted dancers clash their golden ankle bracelets as they writhe in exotic rhythms and before we fall asleep on pillows of clouds we will give the stars new names and the Pleiades, the Hyades and the Bear will be reborn with us.

Together you and I will cancel forever the tracks left across the burning desert sands by slaves in chains and then singing we will take the Lion road to the tower of Babel in Babylon. Quick, jump up on his back, and we will wade across an imaginary stream and find ourselves in Jerusalem where we will seek the ancient treasure hidden by the Queen of Sheba.

But now, before we go, open your heart just for a moment and listen to Thetia's tale here with me:

"At the beginning of time, when the drums of the gods rolled in the chaos of nothing, the divine spirit who generated the earth and the sky separated dry land from the waters and the sacred forests of the Cimina mountains emerged proudly from the primeval mud. At first they were just a shapeless desert of mud and magma spewed from blazing volcanoes. It was only when the furnace had ceased to boil and hurl forth flaming boulders and liquid rocks that the Cimina became an arid crust of waste earth. Not even a bramble or gorse bush managed to penetrate the cracked lava spewed by the fire god, the wild, magnificent, shady forests were still merely a seed in the hand of the goddess of life. One day the goddess, mounted on her winged stag, was flying over the craters and saw that they were extinct. Seeing this, she threw a tiny scarlet acorn down onto the naked mountains and finally the earth swelled and gave birth to the first oak tree, the tree of life, creation's starting point, the transcendent umbilical cord the whole universe springs from.

Many aeons later, at the dawn of time, prehistoric peoples planted a huge spherical rock that had fallen from the skies in the soft clay. The cult stone protected the souls of the dead which it incarnated. The ancients sculpted the stone with a vaguely human shape, but one day other silent forms suddenly appeared, their eyes were deep-set in the rock; almost as if the bowels of the silent craters had born them. Who could have sculpted these mysterious idols, immobile sentries with their feet planted in the cold lava? Nobody knew, but from that day on the double-faced figures were guardians of the crossroads and defended the Cimina mountains from all evil spirits.

And so from the union between the oak and the sacred stone life's vital energy was born and from the cone of the volcano a large pool of boiling sulphur water suddenly erupted. The cone had always been a fetish with the local shepherds and now the ancient fathers decreed the boiling springs a gateway between the earthly and the divine. From then on, every year during the dry season, when the ears of barley dance with the poppies and the cornflowers in the dry breeze, I, Thetia, daughter of Janus, the god of the air who opens the doors of the heavens every morning and closes them again every evening, born of a wood nymph nurtured on cream and honey my father loved to madness, I was chained, naked and unadorned, to the highest branches of the sacred tree overhanging the steaming pool by the ancient shepherds to invoke my father Janus with my cries. I called on him again and again until he ordered the dense clouds to form and the rain to pour its gelid tears on the dry earth with its fields of barley and hidden, dormant life, and so finally the pastures would again be covered in rich green grass.

But one year the rains came early and soaked the fields with their abundant moisture and the shepherds did not chain me to the tree to entreat my father. My father was furious, blinded by his rage and desire to punish the ungrateful mortals he ran roaring to open the jars where he stored the winds. Like drunkards the winds blew crazily in all directions until they ripped the green leaves from the sacred oak and the leaves were buffeted blindly about like rudderless boats until they settled in piles in the mire around the sacred pool. Only one stubborn leaf, imbued with the divine seed, refused to give up and struggled desperately to rise from the depths. Such was its longing to fly again that, after untold toil, the tiny, fragile leaf managed to free itself from its companions suffocating embrace and soar over the pool once more, where it saw its reflection transformed into a beautiful white butterfly. Its companions, still buried in mud, were so mad with jealousy when they saw it fluttering free that they threw stones to bring it crashing down. Such a lot of envy produced so many stones that they piled up one on top of the other until they had made a mountain; the first. After that, every time my father opened his jar of winds and other leaves fell into the mire while the little white butterfly still fluttered from flower to flower, flying higher and higher. So more and more stones flew to join those first ones, so many that they formed a whole chain of mountains, the primary cradle of life, sacred site of creation, the Cimina Mountains, so wild that they terrified travellers."

Thetia remained silent, as if she had nothing more to tell, but her spirit was with me, was in me, in the mists of the night at the foot of the Cimina Mountains, and almost without realising what I was saying I asked her:

"You, O Thetia, who know the origin of these sacred mountains, can you tell me more about the mysterious woods? Can you tell me whether God moulded the first man from the burning ashes gushing from the Palanzana volcano or whether it is as the legend says and he was generated from the giant ferns in the narrow ravine of the Blue Mists? Is it true that..."

"We all arrived here naked, we all came from the same place and we are all passing through. But even if you were able to count all the waves breaking on the shore, all the grains of sand hidden in the desert, all the leaves on the trees in the woods, all the drops of dew, the number of spore on each fern... even then you still wouldn't be able to understand how God created the stars and the rain."

"But the legends, the ancient books tell..."

"How to touch the skies with your bare hands? Haven't you learnt yet that it is madness for fragile mortal creatures to try to understand the deep secrets of the spinning wheel that spins the mysterious thread of life? The rattling of the bones of our ancestors and the creaking of their skulls as they wander through the ruins of the past is enough to devour your sleep forever. Do you truly want to meet the dragons of the night who guide the coach with the spirits of those who took their own lives, spirits who lie unburied and flee the light? Don't you know that fear will forge you on her anvil and you will become an arrow in her bow, a bolt in her sling, a dagger in her sheath? But..... if you are not afraid of fear, not afraid of the clamouring of monsters from hell, not afraid even of the strangled gasps of night's spectres who will come to lie down beside you, if you want to challenge the ghosts of the past, in that case dig, dig without ceasing until you find the seeds of the snow, for only they hold the elixir of knowledge which will enable your eyes to see. What more are you waiting for? Hurry! Dig! Dig! Only cowards delay ."

Without thinking, and without asking further questions, I dropped to my knees and with shaking hands started to dig under the thin mantle of snow. With broken nails and bleeding fingers I went on digging deeper and deeper as if possessed until I was completely covered in earth, and finally my hole started to fill slowly with water like a bronze crater.

As I stared enchanted into the magic tarn everything around me assumed precise forms, Thetia was no longer just a whisper, but was standing beside me with her magnificent white lion. But there was little time, my pool was now brimming with water and the reflection beckoned like a mirror. Hurriedly I leaned over to plumb its depth like a child looking for the moon in a well. The smooth water quickened with life. A fascinating hazy picture took shape, a strange round object, a sort of floating transparent sphere seemed to be coming towards me.

"What is it?" I asked divine Thetia:

"The crystal ark which landed here many aeons ago. Do you not seek those who came before, our predecessors, the ones who used to walk this ancient land allotting every living thing its place? Well here they are, they came with the ark."

"Ark?" I echoed in astonishment, and as I watched the sphere landed as gently as a snowflake on the God Rock and the silent forest was magically suffused with silver.

Bewildered I looked through the cosmic sphere's clear glass and saw lovely girls with flowing locks: "Who are they?" I asked Thetia.

"Priestesses, guardians of the Ark, superb descendants of a magnificent race of giants, the mysterious Rasèni. They are the daughters of Arius, the first creatures to inhabit these mountains, they brought light to the primordial darkness, they sowed the seeds of civilisation and in the ancient world they were masters of the arts."

"Rasèni?"

"So they called themselves. But the Greeks named this mysterious, wealthy people after the sea they had settled on, calling them Tyrrhenian, and later the Romans called them Etruscans. Now the Rasèni are there waiting to descend the shining ladder, waiting for the white light of dawn to dance across the high meadows and purify the black substance hidden in the darkness. Only then may they finally set foot on the soil of their new home. The virgins know that once they have descended the ladder they will never be able to climb back up, and not even in their future lives will they be able to return to where they came from.

In very ancient times, long before many false gods saw the light of day, Arius was the Supreme Being, sole guardian of the mountains, the green pastures, the most remote glades, the rushing rivers. From the heights of his splendid chariot, drawn by all-seeing, all-hearing, flying deer, he generated a race of pure, light-hearted giants, masters of all, even the sun's rays and the dewdrops. The descendants of that immortal race sought refuge in these forests to save some faint shadow of their power and knowledge."

As I listened to her I watched the priestesses descending from their sphere and kneeling down to pray on the livid earth which was to be their home from now on. Then they dug a very deep hole and buried the ark on a small ledge to one side of the god's rock, surrounded by thick trees and pools of boiling water, mouthpieces of the underlying volcano. Then they found a hollow rock and filled it with dry leaves and oak twigs; with a spark from a flint they proceeded to light the sacred fire destined to burn for all eternity.

"Why are they hiding it?" I asked Thetia.

"Just as a seed buried beneath the snow must putrefy without dying to create new life, so the ark, at the end of time, will become once again of the same substance as the stars. One day the virgins will build a high altar over it and thousands of times, over the years, they will loosen their long hair and conduct propitiatory rites, offering gifts, singing and dancing, they will cover it in white flour and fruits and pour milk, fine wine and honey into finely-chiselled crystal chalices. When this dark age is over a child will be born from the love between a daughter of Arius and a son of mortal man on the cusp of the new age, and this child will see the smoke of the sacred fire in the midst of the thick fog shrouding the Cimina mountains. Enormous flowers will grow in the pastures and corn will spring up spontaneously; the black serpent will retreat and when the poisonous hemlock sheds its seeds, by an act of faith the grown child will turn the sandglass of time upside down and will depart in the ark, destined to wander the skies and breathe life into new worlds."

For a moment the water in my pool went dark, but before I could utter a word my divine guide took the tale up again:

"Time passed slowly through the endless procession of the centuries and the Cimina mountains were still at the mercy of the planet's vitality, rent again and again by the volcano's activity.

The pure Rasèni breed, the beloved daughters of Arius, was preserved through the generations. The sisters lived scattered in caves, they had become a large tribe of expert hunters and horse tamers, they had magic power over animals and all living things, they were the perfect incarnation of their ancient ancestral world. Although they tried to instruct the primitive mortals in the revealed faith, in white magic and in their knowledge the tribe of men were afraid and many of them tried to avoid even their gaze, in time simpletons began to take them for wood nymphs. The daughters of Arius continued to live quietly near the ark's hiding place until on the day dedicated to Venus, the fourteenth of the first month of the third season in the year 310 BC, a man decided to cross the wilderness of the Cimina mountains.

No man before had ever dared cross the Cimina mountains, not even the bravest merchants. The Romans shunned it as an impenetrable, hideous wilderness and ancient legends said that its dark forests, cold and gloomy even at the height of summer, concealed the entrance to Hades, Lake Avernus.

To discourage the Romans the priests – who were Etruscans – had woven hair-raising tales about the Cimina mountains. They said that in a frozen valley in the middle of the Cimina wilderness a mountain of red earth covered the ruins of a city once greater than Rome. Buried in the depth of the mountain were endless galleries and tunnels hollowed out by a forgotten race of giants from another world. These mysterious beings had built a huge temple under two waterfalls, one boiling and one freezing, with a forest of stone columns which concealed a hundred doors leading to the darkness of the afterlife, a frozen lake no one ever returned from. The high priests narrated that when the hot south winds blew from the African deserts winged furies, the ghastly custodians of Tartarus, emerged from the earth, snakes entwined in their hair and bats clinging to their nipples; torches and whips in their hands. With horrendous shrieks they drove anyone daring to tread on that sacred soil into the black lake of death and then wrapped their broken bodies in shrouds and laid them to rest in magnificently frescoed chambers.

On that day dedicated to Venus, at a secret war council held on the Capitoline hill, an adventurous, arrogant Roman general, a brave and bloody warrior with long, flaming, red locks called Marcus Fabius Cesus, brother to Quintus Fabius Rullianus the Consul, asked the assembled senators for permission to penetrate the terrible barrier of the Cimina mountains.

General Marcus Fabius Cesus seemed an appropriate choice for the task; he had grown up in Etruscan Cerae with friends of the family, spoke perfect Etruscan and had been instructed in all their lore. He had a reputation for being more over-bearing than the devil himself and ever ready to flame up over any imagined slight. Thus the man who was proposing to explore the terrible wilderness, inhabited solely by beasts, where no mortal man had yet dared set foot. But hush, let us listen to his speech."
CHAPTER 3

The Roman patrician Marcus Fabius slowly took shape in my pool. He had a broad, bulging brow with a hint of obstinacy; deep-set, hawk-like grey eyes which gleamed with aggression, a wide mouth with thin lips apparently each drawn by two different artists. His jaw was fringed by a moth-eaten red-blond beard which he tugged at with a gloved hand. His freckled, peeling face had a tense, dark look on it. Finally he rose from his place and started to pace up and down impatiently. His voice rang out in the unnatural silence.

"By all the gods, listen. You all know that the sweet wine of Rome has long run dry in our cellars and not even the lees are left in the bottom of the jars. Our pastures have all dried up and there is not even enough grass to graze our sheep. The city is hungry, so hungry that soon we will be rooting in the woods for acorns to eat. We must act before the black plague strikes Rome. The people are mutinous, we cannot go on stripping the very flesh off their bones. The truth is that those cursed forests in the Cimina mountains that you are all so sure are haunted in reality hide great riches, including pools of hot thermal waters that cure all manner of ills."

"Do you really believe, O noble Marcus Fabius, that there are healing waters in those mountains?" Asked one senator frowning.

"Absolutely! I'm sure they work miracles too... but apart from the waters the whole of Etruria is incredibly rich. The pastures on the other side of the mountains are said to graze huge herds of cows and thriving calves with gold-tipped horns, while here we are on the verge of famine and the populace is on the verge of revolt. It's madness to struggle on like this, with the dead burying the dead.

History repeats itself, it was like this back in Coriolanus' time, the poorer the plebs get the more they hate us, just like they did then. Only yesterday I ran into a large group of citizens, all armed with clubs, pitchforks and rakes who were cursing the Senate, the patricians and the whole nobility. They were all ready to riot and risk what little skin was left on their bones for a hunk of mouldy bread. The whole pack of ignorant peasants turned tail when they saw me standing up to them firmly, but I had to promise cheap grain in the name of the Senate to get rid of them, and in the long run promises won't fill the curs' bellies or save them from the spectre of dire poverty. I have never seen the Romans so determined to die fighting rather than die of hunger. I'm afraid that any minute now we'll have an armed rabble here hammering on the Senate doors and baying for our blood."

Thus Marcus Fabius harangued his fellow senators, intent on inciting them to a course of action he ardently desired. A senator called Marcius Attilius pounded his lectern with his fist and thundered:

"Cheap grain, indeed! What you should have promised those miserable carrion was the gallows. The poisonous little worms are always whinging for free food, even if you gave them mills and fields of ripe barley they'd still come cringing to us for chickpeas and flour, the bastards, the plebeian curs, the mongrels...".

"Yes, but it's no good deceiving ourselves, even if they know that they can't have free bread they're still on the verge of riot."

"But when the state desperately needed their labour they refused to come out of hiding and now they dare revolt!"

"Noble Attilius, everyone knows that the only ones who wax fat on famine are the moneylenders, but with all due respect to you and the Senate I think we should be planning how to get over those mountains and invade the rich Etruscans rather than waste our time on useless words, because that's the only way we're going to manage to fill our granaries. You surely do not truly believe that the trees in those woods were planted by gods, do you? Here we are, bound hand and foot by the maunderings of a handful of drunken priests who wander round the city yapping like jackals with their heads shaved like vultures. It's obvious that all this Etruscan magic is merely a trick. How long are Roman soldiers going to cower in fear of imaginary bogeymen? How long is Rome going to go on gazing at the silver moon rising over the Cimina Mountains trembling like some superstitious whore? Aren't we powerful enough to decide by ourselves when to harvest our grain? Don't you think, O noble Attilius, that Roman citizens should go boldly forth and risk death fighting, whether they are farmers, shepherds or craftsmen, rather than attack the Senate or fester in their misery, howling at the moon like stray dogs?"

"Brave words, Marcus Fabius, if a Roman really could make his way through that wilderness where the cock never crows, where the swallows dare not nest and even the glow worms are obscured in the evening gloom, if that Roman then came home safe and sound, his reason intact and his soul still his own, then he'd be a hero for generations. Men and women would flock to hear his tales, abandoning their ploughs in mid-furrow. Minstrels would sing his praises down the ages. All the tribes would claim him as their own, respectable matrons would tear their veils off at his passing and throw themselves at his feet as if he were Jupiter himself. By all the gods of Olympus I declare that the hearths would burst into flames where no one had laid fires, rivers and streams would leap from their beds and the blind would see light. But tell me brave Marcus Fabius, come down from the clouds, how can there be such a paragon living and breathing in Rome without any of us ever noticing?"

"I'm your man, let me make the attempt. Send me out as a scout, I'm ready to leave. I have the strength to defeat friend and foe, the strength to climb mountains, wade rivers and if needs be I'm ready to descend into the very depths of hell. I have no fear of the thorny path, I'll make my way through that wilderness and then march on Etruria and no one is going to stop me."

"Noble Marcus Fabius, so like your dear father. Your boldness and daring do you honour. We know your reputation in battle, cunning and bravery are your blood brothers, your soul possesses a steel not found in other men. It is well-known that you were only sixteen when you first served your country. How with sturdy legs planted firmly apart you slew all your foes with a single thrust of your sword. The whole of Rome acknowledges you as our best warrior; an expert in war, your military exploits are magnificent, you are a lion, the heroic scion of an illustrious line, a worthy descendant of your noble house. If my memory serves me well it was one of your ancestors who built the aqueduct which still gives us our sweetest water.

But .... noble Marcus Fabius, you know well that those forests full of ravines, cliffs, mazes and secret passages leading to mysterious caverns are full of awful monsters that emerge from the mist. You know that whoever enters that wilderness is cursed. You are said to have looked the devil in the eye on more than one occasion, but the monsters I speak of pass through solid trees terrifying the very darkness, they burn in mysterious flames in the undergrowth and can transform themselves into serpents with eyes of fire, their wailing comes from beyond the grave, hideous shrieks which freeze the blood and cause the terrified horses to rake the ground with their iron-shod hooves.

Day or night makes no difference, it's impossible to get through. Scouts swear that they have seen them and the sight frightened them out of their wits, the curse palsied their limbs and wasted away their force, now they are like the living dead, pathetic heaps huddled in corners, staring eyes in spectral faces. Do you really want to end up like these poor madmen, the butt of cruel jokes, derided as a coward by men, women and children, maskless, witless, seeking only the comfort once found in your mother's breast? The fearful monsters who roam the Cimina are not made of mortal clay, they cannot be killed by your ready sword."

"Where there may have once been fearsome guardians in those mountains are now nothing but empty skulls with a thousand worms sleeping in their sightless eyes. These are false marvels, fit only to frighten women, those tender souls on the lowest rung of the human ladder, terrified by as little as a crow cawing, fear making their hair stand on end and shrieking as if they had been stabbed by a hundred knives, one grain of dust makes them blind. Fear, gentlemen, resides in a coward's breast and he dies a thousand deaths every day, are we going to submit tamely to fear and let Rome become a bleached skeleton instead of the Queen of Cities?

Heaven and earth are waiting for the Romans to stir from their torpor and shake off the lethargy of their long period of inactivity. Look at nature around us, when the cuckoo seeks a warm nest for her sole egg she knows no qualms. Bees swarm in orderly masses armed only with their sting, they seek no permission for their raids but carry their booty back to their queen."

"Careful! Your enthusiasm is overcoming your good sense. Being a good warrior is not always enough. Are your proud eyes blazing with such a bright light that you are blind to your own mortality?"

"I'm a Roman soldier, not a rag doll! You can't trick a soldier into watering nettles in a garden, a soldier doesn't back away from a rearing horse, a soldier must be a wolf, not a sheep, he must have coals of fire in his blood."

"True, noble Marcus Fabius, a soldier's destiny is to leave his warm bed, his home and his children to seek death on the battlefield. He knows that if he doesn't kill the enemy he will be killed in turn, or worse, captured and condemned to slavery in the endless darkness, but war and battle are one thing, the wilderness another..."

"A soldier is still a soldier in the wilderness, he won't stray from his path or despair, he won't bow down like a leafless tree under the weight of the winter snow, he doesn't believe in childish monsters, a soldier doesn't believe in ghosts or the shades of the dead that can't be driven off by a few stones thrown by a handful of women and children. I'll tell you what happened to your scouts who fled in such disorder from the wilderness; on a wild night they heard the cawing of some crows trapped in a ravine and from the boredom of idleness they started tippling cup after cup of wine, so when the storm finally broke and the wind uprooted trees with unearthly shrieks they were so befuddled they were ready to believe anything and ran amuck. All it took was a couple of claps of thunder to turn them into quivering women. How many times during a storm have I seen the livid dawn rub up against the stars, the sea roaring like a chained lion, the sky raining down flaming hailstones, the waves swelling to touch the clouds and then curling over to swallow ships whole? So even if those groaning trees started gushing bright red blood like a fountain with a hundred spouts I would plunge my hands into it up to the elbows rather than run away, a slave to terror. Even if the ground beneath my feet started to heave like a sinking ship and opened its jaws to swallow me whole I would not flee until those trees started vomiting live corpses."

"Tell me, Marcus Fabius, what sort of death do you defiantly seek? Those mountains hold no glorious death, and however brave and resolute you are, you cannot uproot every single tree or kill the king of the forest with your drawn sword. That red earth conceals the bones of tormented souls, invisible ghosts who unwind their shrouds and rise from their tombs each night at the witching hour when the moon shines."

"We are sons of Rome, a proud and lordly breed, we fear nothing. If we want to rule the earth we must cross that chain of mountains otherwise we'll be the laughing stock of future generations. How can you listen to such nonsense? It's all mere superstition, babble about spectres in the shape of sirens. If only they would appear to me, whether they be good or evil spirits, I'd give my eyes and ears to know about this ark everyone talks about.

I fear no omens, if you send me I swear that soon a thousand pillars made from the bronze of Etruscan ships will spring up on the crest of those mountains. I am ready to risk all to conquer the rich Etruscans. Black princes, Lucumi, head priests are all just a pack of poisonous scorpions cunningly telling ancient tales to stop us going where they don't want us to go. What they won't expect is to see us coming over the mountains despite their fearsome stories of haunted woods and monsters. Listen to me, Senators. Those mountains are Etruria's only protection. We need to hone our arms just like a bull sharpens his horns when he gets wind of a young heifer in season, the eternal madness of blind lust when the fire of Venus burns in his very bones and he prepares to do battle with his rivals. For days and days he charges at tree trunks spattering the ground with black blood and foam, the wilderness echoes with his enraged roars, and when he has finally worked himself up to a pitch he charges down on his enemy when he's least expecting it. And that's exactly what we'll do; we'll attack them on the flank and by the time they realise it we'll have already built a camp and we'll be drawn up with our swords out ready to kill the lot of them, not even the gods themselves will be able to stop us then, Etruria will be ours. As far as I'm concerned I hereby swear that I'll spill every last drop of my blood to make this mission a success."

"Do not blaspheme, leave the gods out of it and swear no more. A Roman soldier doesn't need to swear, oaths are merely a smokescreen, leave them to the whores of Babylon lounging under the torrid palm trees of Asia. If you are really determined to break your neck over this enterprise, so be it, go with our blessing! If you succeed in carrying out what you promise we'll all be in seventh heaven, but beware! The feast of the winter solstice is on 25th December when the wind blows from the north and the infant sun wins the battle over darkness, on that solemn day when Rome celebrates the ancient rite of the Sun's Victory with singing and dancing and music, if you are not back by that longest night, then I hope you're already dead and buried because anyone found out and about on that night is tried for high treason."

"Done! If I'm not back for the winter solstice then Jupiter, lord of the skies, lightning and the oak, can strike me down with a thunderbolt and you can condemn me to leap from the Tarpean rock and then bury me in an unmarked tomb. Because it will mean that I will have been foiled by cruel fate. Or if I come back with staring, mad eyes, trembling like a woman at every stir of wind, then rip my nails off, skin me alive and send me back to those infernal black caverns in the mountains where no man has set foot without so much as a grain of wheat. And there I will rot like a leper, in the stink of my ulcers, sores and fevers. And I, only I, will be there to hear my cries, my laments and my silences."

It was at this point that Marcius Attilius rose, red in the face and with his eyes blazing with the same expression as the fox's when he's trying to persuade the lion that the grapes are sour, and addressed the assembly:

"Heed him, noble senators, heed this son of Rome, as strong as a rock, as brave as a madman who has buried his soul under seven veils of daring. As far as I'm concerned he can leave at cockcrow, fill his cup with wine to the brim and as we await his return there will be no peace in heaven or on earth. May the god of war assist him and may that same god cause huge flowers to grow where he treads. But if he ever manages to return then he will be drawn in triumph through the city in a chariot pulled by four horses garlanded with oak leaves. The whole of Rome will cheer themselves hoarse singing his praises and scattering flowers in his path. The matrons will cast their spindles to the ground and will run to greet him with lighted torches held high, crying out his name, and a thousand virgins with bare feet and long flowing hair will wash his wounds in rose water from silver basins. Nothing else remains noble Marcus Fabius but to bid you farewell. Farewell and may the gods watch over you. Farewell, farewell."

CHAPTER 4

"That day," went on Thetia, "that day, long before the sands had run through the hourglass, the Etruscans' fate was sealed. Marcus Fabius, descendant of Hercules, decided to take his young slave Janu who also spoke fluent Etruscan with him as his sole companion. Janu was an expert hunter and a marvellous poet, a troubadour who sang old tales and legends, a perfect passport to enter Etruria and mingle with the people. Marcus promised him his freedom in return for his company on the dangerous enterprise, and swore solemnly that if they came back alive he would free him from his bonds of servitude in perpetuity.

Janu wanted nothing more, he had always been determined to make the best of his life and had decided that he would rather die than go on living as a slave, so was quite willing to accompany his master on what everyone thought was a dangerous wild goose chase. The young slave consulted the stars, disguised himself as a shepherd and with a leather goatskin slung over his shoulder set off with his master on the day of the moon."

I saw two men advancing side by side in my pool: Marcus, with his snub nose, thick neck and stocky body was well-knit and wiry and marched along at a soldier's steady pace. His companion was younger and slimmer, a handsome lad with a head of curly dark hair and golden-green eyes, finely-modelled lips and a dreamy look, who walked along with a slight stoop as if carrying an invisible burden; naked he would be like a statue. This was Janu, the handsome slave-poet.

At the beginning their journey was relatively simple, they travelled through small villages of mean hovels with turf roofs and as they got further away from the city the houses dwindled into the occasional peasant sty with filthy troughs nailed to the doors where pigs rooted happily. When they crossed vineyards nobody took any notice of them in this mellow season when the farmers are busy pruning the shoots back to help the bunches of grapes mature and the fig trees are already bearing their first fruits. The peasants saw them walking along chatting, both dressed as simple shepherds and carrying the tools of their trade as they made their way through rows of vines and newly-planted furrows of wheat and nobody suspected that they beheld the ferocious Roman general Marcus Fabius Cesus. The two men went on their way undisturbed, responding courteously to the farmers' greetings as they crossed fields mantled with swooping swallows, stony pastures and redbuds, slowly getting closer to their goal. When they finally reached the old mill that stood on the edge of the forest they stopped to eat a hunk of bread and cheese at a stream next to a stretch of undergrowth with a dense tangle of cork oak, ash, blackthorn, wild cherry and hawthorn known as the "Wolf's lair". Evening was closing in; it was the moment when the weary day fell asleep on the dark breast of the night, the magic hour when the women came singing out of their houses to fetch water from the well. The two men had not finished their frugal meal when they saw a procession of pretty, supple girls coming towards them, laughing and joking among themselves with terracotta jars balanced on their heads.

The maiden heading the group was an unfurling bud in the springtime of her years, mother nature had been bountiful and she was lovelier than a goddess, even more lovely than the bride in the Song of Solomon. She had sparkling black eyes set in a face bronzed by the sun which shone out of a fringe of long black lashes, her thick hair the colour of the turning leaves curled softly around her face. She made her way down to the spring with her water jar on her hip and the sun's dying rays fought for the privilege of kissing the flounces of her dress which danced lightly in a rainbow of colours.

Janu stared at her with his mouth agape, holding his half-eaten hunk of bread suspended in mid-air. Suddenly she turned her head and looked at him through her flowing veil.

Just for a second their eyes met, that first shining glance which is like a seed sown in a ploughed field by the god of love, like the invisible lighthouse that guides the night birds through the deepest dark. A signal was launched from the unknown island of the heart with the strength and heat of an overwhelming avalanche. Janu stood and stared enchanted, mesmerised by the magic moment, sure that he had already seen her in a thousand other lives, perhaps even before the creation of the world. In the time it took the girl to get down to the spring and fill the amphora under the silver jet of water from the bucket in the well the slave's world had been tinged with intense colour, and when she climbed back up the bank he was hopelessly in love, ready to die for a drop of her water. Almost forgetting his master he ran towards her saying:

"Stay, O sweet, mysterious creature, O desert rose! Do not melt away like snow in the sun. Stay! Give me a sip of your water, please. The heart of this migrating bird is dying of thirst and pleads a drink so that it can soar away once more."

Trembling like a star trembles in the dark of the night the girl halted immediately. How far beyond the genius of any poet to describe the meeting of two lost hearts, two souls who had been one before birth and had now finally met again. How precious dawning love vibrating like a harp string at the lovers' first glance, full of mysterious smiles, tender intimacy, timidity, token resistance. Janu and Orphea were lost, helpless mutual prisoners in infinite space, floating as weightless and evanescent as snowflakes.

"Good evening to you O traveller. Drink deep, drink your fill migrating bird and then please tell your humble servant what brings you wandering here..., but please do not soar away again so soon, flutter around these blue skies for a while."

Swiftly the girl lowered her jar and poured a stream of clear water into his cupped hands and as he drank without taking his eyes off her she added:

"Give me your water skin, stranger and I will fill it from the spring. But do you truly have to be on your way?"

Janu, with a lump in his throat, lost in that sweet, dreamlike state which cocoons lovers from worldly affairs, just managed to whisper:

"Ah, now the clouds have blown away, how I long to dry my wings in your sun. The joy of looking at you is like the joy of looking at the world's first flower, like the feel of the sun on a human face for the first time. Tell me, are you a sorceress? Indeed I think you must be if you can order the north wind to spin your garments out of sunbeams. O sorceress, what herbs, what luscious potions, were in your jar? What magic, what spell does your water contain that it so inebriates those who taste it? Answer me or I will lose my wits! Never have I known love before but you have driven me to madness. Spells are said to have the power to drag the moon down from the stars. With a spell Circe transformed Ulysses' companions into swine, with a spell a goose can sing like a swan. And you, what intricate knots have you tied to so imprison my soul? I pray you loosen them no more, for if one day you decided to free it I will get down on my bended knee to implore you to lash it up tight again with double knots. And to use the same bonds to chain my heart and mind again and again and again."

Laughing the girl went off to fill the skin, swiftly she lowered the bucket to the spring while Janu gazed at her and murmured to himself:

"As long as I live I will sing her praises and when cruel time has robbed me of all, to my very memory, my one recollection will be of her, and for her alone I will sing till my very last breath. Nothing and nobody will restrain me as nothing and nobody can curtail the flight of the lark."

As soon as the girl came back he asked her:

"Tell me who you are, O siren, what your name is, where you live, whose daughter are you? Answer me, please."

"My name is Orphea, I belong to the Bangaria tribe. Our tribe is organised into families of hunters, shepherds and farmers. My father Meleager has a charcoal works in the beech woods. But must you truly be on your way so soon, stranger? And if I were to sing to bind you here?

Our tent always has an abundant supply of sweet goats' milk, fresh fruit and nuts to refresh weary guests. Wayfarers are sure of a bowl of fresh water to cleanse themselves with and a comfortable bed to rest on. Come and pass the night in my father's tent. See how the darkness is already drawing on its starry mantle and the mountain shadows are lengthening until they merge into one? Look, the flocks are being driven into their folds and the farmers are hanging lanterns outside their caverns. If you stay we will pile sheepskins outside the tent and tell tales of faraway lands by the pale light of the moon."

"Beautiful, bountiful Orphea, Your eyes alone would suffice to bind me here forever more and I swear that if I ever get back from this journey I will hasten to your tent with a bunch of almond blossoms tied up in a rainbow, but alas, now I am bound by another task. What bitter destiny to meet you and have to leave you so soon, cruel fate that I cannot come to your tent.

My name is Janu and I was birthed by Elena, Cadmius' daughter, one night on the cliffs of my native island, the moon played midwife. All during my childhood I ran naked and free along the endless beaches, dusted by the pollen of white sea lilies and surrounded by the dizzy scent of orange blossom, myrtle and prickly pear. Until twelve years ago I lived as free and happy as only a poet born to watch the clouds from the top of a mountain can live. I was a falcon who existed only to gladden men's hearts. I cast my nets in the glow of dawn and hauled in a catch of verse from the sea's depths.

My native city was no metropolis but was strongly built, ringed with stout walls and solid towers. But one month at harvest time it was besieged, and during a fierce battle, cruelly-armed Roman soldiers burnt it to the ground. Bleeding from a hundred wounds I was taken prisoner. With my ears still ringing with the cries of my dead companions, my mouth still sour with the taste of enemy blood and fire in my breast, with my hands bound in chains and my soul sequestered in a dark prison I swore an oath of loyalty to Rome rather than be killed out of hand. On that day my pain was born and poetry's sweet elixir muted into a bitter draught. At first I was chained hand and foot and condemned to row a galley with many other fellow wretches. Then one day my fate took a different turn and I was sold in the market for the price of twenty oxen and given as a gift to the man travelling with me.

Now I drink in the same stream as the jackal every day and live off the scraps left in the enemy's bowl. My heart is so devoured by worms that it will not let me sleep at night and with no love in this life I took comfort in the past, wandering like a sleepwalker lost in memories and wondering whether it would be better to die than go on thrusting my snout in the same carcass that feeds the vulture."

Thus said Janu, the enamoured slave. The girl replied:

"Your great love for your native island and your craving for your birthplace rings in your words, but your pride shines in your sad gaze too. Listen, O shepherd of the clouds, never let anyone dry your tears, or console your suffering, because it is the laden tree which is shaken and struck to make it yield its fruits and everyone knows that wild strawberries, like orchids, can thrive under the nettles' cruel sting, so do not despair. But if you really desire to break the chains of slavery and be free from the past, the present, and even the future, I can help you. Try this secret recipe. Gather red earth and spring water, mould them in the palm of your hand for during the night your handful of clay will rise and immediately, in the gloaming of the dawn amidst the dewdrops as chilly as pearls of pain you will be born again as if you had just emerged from a woman's womb."

"Even if it were so, my little oracle, tell me what woman, what land, what sea would succour me, if day after day I myself have forged my chains with an iron hammer striking an invisible anvil and then have thrown the key away as one sloughs a dead skin? And yet... in the depths of my being I still hope, although the gods alone know what hope a slave, imprisoned in a blind web, can have. My spring has run dry, every day I am forced to lick the hand that strikes me, I'm forced to abase myself before the tyrant even if he were to kill me. But I swear to you, my love, I swear that if ever the gods see fit to free me, for you I will once again become savage and terrible, for you I will march in triumph through my city brandishing the palm of victory.

I have been promised my freedom if we manage to cross these mountains and from slave condemned to wander forever only in the dark paths of my mind yearning for I knew not what, seeking the non-existent hidden in the mist, for you and for you alone I will ride the storm and snatch the very lightning bolts from the skies. Only yesterday I was like the night that cold and naked lies dormant in the fruit, and cold and naked I looked forward to death without knowing that I was already dead. But now I have met you I know why I was born, you have turned my pain into joy. Walking past your garden has taught me to fly, I have always dreamt of a girl who would give wings to my heart.

If you want this love I will come back to seek you even if I am in chains, and in chains I will shout my happiness to the wind from the rooftops, but if you do not want this absurd, mad love born in a cage, in due time it will be born again, perhaps in a thousand years. And if you still do not want it I will hover in the wind for another thousand years and after a sweet sleep of another thousand years it will come back again, it will batten on your heart until you finally let it in. Then we will be blessed with happiness, we will strew fruits and flowers, we will go and live wherever you want, in the rough countryside or in the woods and when the unharnessed bullocks graze and a tasty kid is roasting on the fire, I will weave you bracelets of flowers and play my pipes for you."

"And I, my lord, will serve you piping hot meat on vine leaves and will put chestnuts to roast in the embers of the fire, for you I will knead the dough for wheaten loaves and make sweet pastry. Every time you play your pipes I will dance until the ears of our corn will swell with grain, while Pan, the god of the woods, who was the first to play the pipes, will play laughing with us. Do not despair, my lord, if the cup you have drunk has burnt your lips, the pain you feel has brought you here to the Cimina Mountains, home of the gods.

You and I will hide behind the ancient oaks on these mountains and watch Bacchus gather grapes and figs, if he protects us no curse will be able to harm our lambs, we will be immune to envy and our fields will never be barren, Bacchus will crown us with vine leaves and when the grapes have matured to the colour of the sun, Jupiter will send his silver rain in abundance. During the winter when the trees are decked with snow we will shutter tight the doors and windows and settle down laughing in front of the fire to tell ancient tales. Your heart's winter is over for ever, my love, you are no longer alone, I was expecting you because a messenger dove had warned me of your coming. You, and you alone, are my spirit's true companion. It's true that geese only sing like swans in fairy tales, but I know that the eagle in you will soar with your pain up to the moon, beating his wings against the stars. Poetry has always caused suffering to its bards, but they are by nature free even if they are chained, even if they drink wine from another man's press and eat bread from fields that are not their own.

If your fate is linked to these mountains, my beloved, if you can only find freedom by crossing them, then remember that it will be no easy undertaking. You will run into many dangers on the way, many deceptions, these are not mere ivy-clad glades with a few nettles. Whatever happens, do not believe your eyes and your ears, listen only to your heart. Take this skein of flax, my love. While I awaited your coming I wove it during an eclipse of the sun, for this reason it is invisible, endless and cannot be burnt. Tie it to the trunk of the first oak tree you encounter on the edge of the deepest valley, at the Pass of the Kite. You will recognise this particular oak because its branches look like a sleeping giant's hair and the tip of its last leaf is always stretching to the sun, its trunk is gnarled with age and harbours, ants, grasshoppers, caterpillars and birds. If you are ever in danger I will find you by following this thread."

Janu took the skein without saying a word, and stared at her, enchanted, bewitched by love. For a long moment the two young people stood glued together, their hands entwined, lost to the world, drowning in each others' eyes, desperately imprinting the precious features of the other on their memories.

Now Janu saw his mission with completely new eyes as it was his only chance of earning his freedom. Janu the slave without a homeland, the slave who stared at the sun with glass eyes and grasped coals with burning fingers praying to the god of damned souls to extinguish his star on the distant horizon forever, Janu who never sought the east or the west, now that Janu was reborn for the love of a woman.

What sweet sickness is love, that can be healed by a word. Before leaving, Janu bent his head over hers and in a magic moment of ecstasy, the first sip from the chalice of love, the beginning of that emotion, that tremor, which cuts lovers off from the real world and transports them into a dream. In that instant, hand in hand, gazing into each others' eyes, the tale of two hearts that meld together to burn as a single torch begins. Then he whispered a single word, a word which burned hotter than a kiss on the lips, the same word that God whispered into the clay he had moulded into the shape of man, a divine whisper that the chaste wind hurriedly blew into the cave of silence before dragging it off to a fool's heaven. But the jealous wind does not tell us, and never will, what that whisper was that united two souls for all eternity by a chain spun from a spider's web. The ardent, passionate look, like the embrace the sea reserves for water tumbling down steep cliffs that accompanied it must suffice the enchanted onlooker.

And so they parted with her image branded on his brain and a promise echoing in the still air. Marcus Fabius and his slave set off immediately. As the dusk descended and the remnants of the sun painted a scarlet brushstroke on the western horizon they made their way up the western slopes of those inviolate, unknown mountains. They spent the first night at the Kite's Pass exposed to the wind and the stars with just a cloak to protect them.
CHAPTER 5

At the first light of dawn they started to explore that unknown world that had never been trodden by Roman feet. They realised at once that finding a path through the Cimina wilderness was going to be no easy task. The wooded clay slopes were extremely steep and further on the mountains reared up almost in cliffs, covered with dense scrub and tall trees. The only way ahead was to tunnel through the undergrowth on their hands and knees; so Marcus and Janu crawled along, hacking their way through thickets of bushes and brambles with saws and axes. Wriggling through a particularly dense patch of hawthorn bedecked with bright red berries they found a vague track which eventually led them out onto an open down.

They were still silently celebrating that first, tiny victory when they caught sight of a manikin with two heads, a satyr-like figure with a goat's thighs. The strange creature was leaping over thickets of bramble bushes in an intricate dance and playing a divine melody on a double flute. The two men stared at him in astonishment but before they could do anything he disappeared in a flash. Marcus and Janu were well aware that the Cimina Mountains were home to all sorts of strange phenomena, a den of tricks and false apparitions, the lair of primitive men who could be hidden anywhere around them, above them or even in the depths of the ground beneath them. To be sure of finding their way back through that maze of deception they carved marks on the trunks of the bigger trees.

Even during the worst of his fatigue Janu did not forget his Orphea. His long curls were always getting tangled in the twigs but his green eyes were filled with the vision of his love as he signalled the springs he found to his master, and even though he was dead tired, that evening he perched on a rock and played a sylvan melody for her before sleeping.

Next day Janu found two precious springs of mineral water, one hot and one cold. This was exactly what Marcus Fabius had hoped for but even so he was dissatisfied and irritated. He longed to reach the last peak of Mount Cimino itself so that he could look down over all Etruria and spy out the lie of the land like a vulture. Therefore he pushed on and on without a moment's respite, marking possible routes for the army as well as mineral springs on his map. He reconnoitred potential campsites and paced out measurements for the cavalry and the infantry, exploring the undergrowth where the grassy downs plunged into the woods and deciding where to position his archers. He was a man used to commanding entire legions, used to the clash of hand-to-hand combat, the pounding of his racing heart as he massacred his enemies, used to sacking defeated populaces and holding his troops in his iron hand, and now he was feeling claustrophobic in that endless, dark wilderness.

Ever since they had set foot in the forest he had felt that they had somehow stepped out of the mainstream of life and as they penetrated further and further into the depths of those mysterious woods he felt less and less sure of himself, although nothing in the whole world could have persuaded him to abandon a mission he obstinately considered a sacred trust.

A few days later, when Janu had gone ahead to cleave a path through the undergrowth as usual and Marcus was drawing a map of a series of grottoes which riddled the cliffs of a steep ravine. He was intent on his task when suddenly he heard the sound of a distant melody, poignant and sweet, music without words, unreal but true, it seemed to issue forth from every leaf on the forest trees, to descend from the clouds, to rise from the red earth. How could anybody possibly be playing so beautifully in the midst of that inhospitable wilderness, inhabited solely by foxes and sparrow hawks? Marcus was so surprised that he froze into immobility, sitting on a stone listening, unable to sum up the willpower to move. When he did move to seek the source of that strange phenomenon it was in a trance, a secret mystic force drew him towards that ancestral call.

The slopes of that part of the Cimini rose majestically, honeycombed with caves and strewn with enormous boulders. Scrambling over rocks and up and down stony vales choked with briars was no easy task for a warrior used to fighting on horseback. But Marcus clung on to the rocks tenaciously with tooth and nail, ready to go all the way to hell to discover who was playing that tune.

Finally, when his hands were covered in scratches and embedded thorns, he rounded a hedge of bay leaves and dog roses and espied a beautiful young girl. She was wearing an immaculate white robe bordered with golden leaves, a candid goatskin was gathered at her breast by a panel embroidered in gold thread with animals and plants. The embroidery was rich but extremely delicate. A finely-spun gold snood gathered her night-black hair softly to the nape of her neck and then left it to flow freely down to her feet, her skin was as soft as a petal, her wrists and ankles were adorned with garlands of woven bay leaves and cyclamens. The suns rays caressed her face, as pure and beautiful as a marble statue from Lysippus' magic chisel.

Who could she be, as delicate as the dawn, as beautiful as the moon and as bright as the sun? Who was this arcane figure bedecked like a goddess, reclining like a siren on a cradle-shaped rock?

The girl was playing a short-stringed instrument that Marcus had never seen before, and a small roe deer was lying down beside her. Amazed, Marcus came to a dead halt behind a tree and gazed at the scene without saying a word, as if he had been struck by an arrow. The girl went on playing for a while, but when she realised she was no longer alone she rose slowly, tied up her delicately-worked sandals that shone like gold, and walked away without saying a word. She walked through the undergrowth until she came to a waterfall thundering down a cliff, here she suddenly took a cat-like leap and disappeared behind the curtain of rushing water and spray with her deer.

Marcus the warrior had followed her like pollen helplessly blown by the breeze. Once he got over his initial shock he spent hours searching around the rocky cliff amidst a labyrinth of boulders, thickets of brambles and clumps of wind-swept heather.

He searched for a passage, an underground entrance, for the whole of the afternoon, firmly convinced that there must be a hole in the rocks, some way into a hidden cave. After an endless, fruitless search he had to give up as the sun shed her last rays to be admired just before setting. Exhausted soaked in sweat and disappointed Marcus contemplated the ball of fire dying like a poppy in the golden sky as he collapsed against a tree trunk next to the stream.

He was just coming to the decision that the spirit of the mountains had played a trick on him when he heard a moan coming from the reeds on the banks of the stream. His curiosity aroused, he approached the spot as quietly as he could, hoping against hope to catch another glimpse of the beautiful siren. In the soft twilight, half hidden in the reeds and ferns, in a pool carved by the rushing stream, he saw a woman with long plaits hanging down over her naked breast and another plait wound around the crown of her head in an elaborate style. The woman was kneeling in the water with her legs spread wide and was gently rocking back and forth. Marcus realised immediately that she was in labour and embarrassed, tried to beat a hasty retreat, but the woman caught sight of him and with no sign of displeasure called out:

"Stop, stranger. Don't run away. Who are you, can you speak my language? Perhaps you're an immigrant? You're not frightened of a birth, are you?"

"Woman, I'm not afraid of the devil himself, but, to tell the truth... a birth daunts me somewhat. I confess that childbirth terrifies me."

"You speak my language very well, stranger. Haven't you ever watched an ear of wheat swell and crack to release the ripe grain? Haven't you ever seen ripe figs open on the tree and scatter their seed? This is exactly how my womb will open, so what is there to be frightened of? Don't sheep, bitches, wolves and bears all give birth? Animals all lick their young as soon as they're born. Mother Nature doesn't find it repugnant but makes proud display of her work, just as we, the women of the Cimina, always come to give birth here. Here we can wash our children as soon as they are born, proud of our labour and its fruits, because a sterile woman is like a dry field, a thicket of briars that produces nothing but scratches. What use to the tribe is a woman without children, her flaccid flesh dried up like a dead thistle? She is just a useless mouth to feed. So, stranger, stay where you are and do not offend me by going away, stay and watch this miracle, do not shut out life and beauty."

"But I really wouldn't know how to help you woman! Did you come up here all on your own? Where do you live?"

"In the broad valley at the foot of the mountains."

"What is life like down there?"

"Like life anywhere else, like yours on the other side of these mountains, beyond the trees, beyond the rivers and ravines, if you live beyond the Cimina Mountains. Yes, I came here alone. We Rasèna women, Rasèna is the name of my people, we always come to give birth to our children alone here in this clear running stream. All a child needs to be born is its mother. I don't need any help from you, all you need to do is wait here for my child with me. A child is more than a miracle, it comes into the light covered in blood and mucus, heaven and earth touched in the darkness to cause its birth. Now wait here with me, wait for my child, wait until the flowing waters of the stream have sculpted my wild body and my cries will have filled all creation, then new life will spring from the depths of my being. Only then may you go on your way. I want to be alone with him when he takes his first swim in this rushing stream, as I bend over him like a willow tree to help him. I want to be alone when he first suckles my milk, life itself, from my swollen breasts. And I want to be alone when, replete, he falls asleep in my warm embrace to the sound of the blood flowing through my veins. But while we wait I will tell you how I had a son from the earth.

As I disrobed in the gardens of heaven, watching the vines budding and the almond trees flowering, I asked the wind to make my rose bud too, and I asked the air, the sun and the clouds for the same miracle. As I dug the earth I hoped that it would fulfil my desire, as I kneaded the bread I prayed that my dough would rise too, as I emerged my body in the running stream I prayed that my breast would run with sweet milk, until, one day a fertile seed finally took root in my womb. Hark my words, stranger. Even if I were certain that this eagerly-awaited son would one day hate me and turn on me like a rabid dog, spitting venom like a viper, even if I were certain that one day he would abandon me in the deepest cavern and knife me in the back, I swear, stranger, I swear that I would still await him as eagerly as the night awaits the day."

Marcus sat uneasily on the banks of the stream listening to the young woman's words without looking at her. Then she was overcome by labour pains and started to pant as she clung to a trailing tangle of traveller's joy. Only when the echo of her cries had risen like a prayer into the quiet of the night, only then, did Marcus silently leave her.
CHAPTER 6

Next evening, while Janu was roasting a hare he had just caught, Marcus Fabius finished tracing his plan of attack on wax tablets. He kept thinking about the woman giving birth in the stream so proudly, but most of all he was thinking about the young siren, when suddenly he heard a celestial song. He leapt up and followed the voice, in the distance he could see a figure on the Palanzana Pass gathering rose petals by the light of the moon and carefully storing them in a fold of her filmy robe. By the moon's rays he could see her splendid face shining brighter than any diamond, brighter than the panel of embroidered gold at her breast. It was his siren, moving so lightly over the silver dew that she seemed to float.

Marcus crept closer, careful to remain concealed, and when he looked more closely he realised that her bare feet did not touch the ground and, despite being bathed in full moonlight, she cast no shadow. When the girl caught him watching her in amazement she was suddenly transformed and Marcus found himself facing a humpbacked, crippled old crone who advanced towards him with her toothless mouth agape in crazy laughter. She hobbled along leaning on a gnarled ash plant, her sparse white hair wound around her head like a bird's nest and three owls with dark yellow eyes poked out of the filthy apron she wore knotted over her dirty, worn dress. Before Marcus could say a word the owls started to peck her head and she disappeared into the darkness of the forest.

As he looked around for her Marcus heard the light sound of feet striking the ground rhythmically as someone danced. He cocked an ear for a moment and then leapt into the undergrowth, shaking the bushes to make sure they hid nothing and then peering through the tangle of branches he saw a shadow dancing in the firelight. Hoping it was the mysterious siren, he ran swiftly towards the shadow. Suddenly he found himself in front of a cave where someone had lit a fire in a circle of grey stones.

The only person the flames illuminated was an old gypsy with a wrinkled face so roughened by the smoke from endless fires that it looked like a funeral mask. An old rag did duty as a cloak, thrown over his shoulders; he had a long, tangled white beard, as wiry as donkey's coat and his completely bald head was garlanded with a wreath of bay leaves woven with medlar and hemlock flowers. Moss grew on his bare, hardened feet. He was dancing half-naked under the stars in ecstasy, every now and again he broke off his dance and ran to the fire to brand a goat's skin with a burning iron hook heated in the flames, only to start dancing again while he watched the skies with feverish eyes. As soon as he realised that someone was watching him the deep shadows under his eyes suddenly became bottomless pits and he tried to flee.

Marcus was too quick for him and blocked his path. Then saluted him with a raised arm and his usual mocking smile on his thin lips.

"Greetings to you, old man. Tell me, have you lived in this cave for long?"

"When I arrived here the earth was still unformed and empty, darkness cloaked the depths and the spirit hovered over the waters." Replied the old man darkly.

"What do you mean?"

"It means that when I came here, your mother and the mother of your mother and the mother of the mother of your mother together with all the generations of sluts before them, were still sleeping in a fantasy world of dreams and it would have been much better for everyone if they had never awakened."

Marcus was not at all upset by this impertinent answer, he even seemed amused and went on smiling during the diatribe.

"If you were younger and in your right mind, a real man, I would have smashed your face to pulp by now, scattered your bones out to dry in the sun and hauled the remains of your carcass into a tree to hang there by its entrails. But I'd be wasting my time with an old fossil like you whose grave lies gaping behind each tree in the forest, there's no point in blunting my sword's blade on your tough old hide."

"Oh yes, you can see from a mile off that you're a bold, violent type, always spoiling for a fight, and although you could sully your insolent sword with my poor exhausted body you certainly could never wound my soul. Even were you to tie me up hand and foot and drag me off to a dark cell you couldn't imprison my thoughts, which would fly off as free as a migrating bird fluttering from bush to bush and soaring from limitless sky to limitless sky."

"You're so wise old man that I'll have to pardon you. So let's start from the beginning again, shall we? Who are you, where are you from? Who do you descend from, where is your native land, what are you doing here?"

"Every cave is my native land, the human race is my tribe, but I am a stranger wherever I go."

"Not more of that! You don't think you should be a little bit frightened of me by any chance, do you? All I ask is what ocean of pain brought you to these shores."

The old man was silent and Marcus began to lose his temper.

"So you refuse to talk, do you? Plague take you, come, tell me who you are and let's get it over and done with."

"And who may you be, what do you want from me, what hell have you crawled out of? You don't really think you can frighten me, do you? Or do you want me to throw myself on my knees and implore mercy as if you were a god? Who are you? You're not brown enough to be a foreigner from the far lands beyond our sea, so if you're not a common robber, or a more exotic corsair, what other sort of barbarian are you? I don't think you're one of those wretches who come here to do penance for their crimes, or one of those madmen who hide here from the rest of the world, living on grass and birds, betrayed by their own minds. But that's enough! I hate idle conversation, tell me which your true portrait is!"

"My true portrait, old man?"

"Of course, someone as proud and arrogant as you, ready to stick his knife into anyone, who kills without thinking twice, doesn't wander round these forests merely to pick some fresh fruits or gather a bit of firewood. A man who chooses to live here where the sands of time run slowly through the hourglass has to be ready to suffer fevers, hunger, thirst and the immense desolation to then lift his spirit up to the heavens, but you don't seem to fit that category either, so what are you doing here? I've been chasing my shadow under the stars and talking to myself out here for more than three hundred years, but I've never seen anyone like you, ready to give even the moon a good kicking."

"Three hundred years? "Echoed Marcus. "So solitude really does turn the brain..."

"Does three hundred years seem such a long time to you, little man? Don't you know that you lay dreaming on a goat's skin for thousands of years, back to the time when the great mammoth roamed the earth and ice still hadn't covered the land and that you've only just come out of hibernation? If I could show you solid proof that this is the truth would you still think me mad?"

"I realise that you're not very keen on questions, so I won't pry anymore, not even into the vexed question of how old you are exactly. But if you've lived here so long perhaps you can help me. Have you ever seen a lovely, wild creature like a siren with long hair down to her feet anywhere around the hot spring waterfall? She had a roe deer with her and was playing a strange instrument, her skin shone in its..."

"....brightness? And did she have black eyes like two pools in the night, skin brighter than the sun, and as soon as she saw you did she leap off, swifter than her own deer, with her skirts flying around her long legs until she disappeared into a crack in the rock and the waterfall of boiling water covered any trace of her with a curtain of grey vapour?"

"Yes... that's exactly what happened! So, you know her well, do you? Tell me all about her old man, what's her name, where does she live, who is she?"

"I bet you hunted for her all through the light and shade, you would have combed the clouds and the stars to find her, but if she doesn't want to be found, you'll never find her. There are seven girls like her here in the forest, their names are taboo, they never reveal them to anyone because merely to say them would be sacrilege. All I can tell you is that you have seen one of the seven priestesses who are the guardians of the Holy Woods, but if the long-robed maiden you saw had a roe deer with her then she was the youngest of the seven sisters, the one I call Uri to distinguish her from the others."

"Uri?"

"That's right, Uri! In my country it means a maiden with eyes as black as the night. Uri is one of the vestals of the tribe of the daughters of Arius. They are wild, mysterious women, mistresses of the magic arts, they know the past, present and future and they never let anyone come anywhere near them. They live hidden in the bowels of the earth, in bottomless caves with secret, invisible entrances. They have lived in these woods since the beginning of time. They have strange habits; they live on fresh milk and distil honeydew from oak trees and feed bears on it from wooden cups that they themselves have chiselled. They know all nature's secrets and know how to cure the animals they find wounded in the woods with their roots and herbs: mandragora, verbena, mistletoe, rose mallow, nettles and a thousand other plants, and they look after them in their secret caves until they are completely healed and..."

Marcus sniggered ironically. "By all the gods of Olympus you've got a fervid imagination, old man, these sisters are really talented... demi-goddesses who sow the clouds with chick peas and then harvest mushrooms from the heavens. From the way you're talking it sounds as if these women can work miracles with a few simple roots. Women like that must know where rainbows are born and where thunder dies, they can probably harvest juicy red grapes from a thicket of briars. By all that's sacred, what's this fable, old man? You'd have me believe that a tribe made up of women alone have lived in this forest since ancient times?"

"And what about you, you son of a monkey who hasn't even lost his tail yet? What do you think you're doing when you use poppies, clover and elderflowers? Your savage ancestors, revolting monkeys, as I said, had just emerged from the bowels of the earth to swing from the branches of the forest trees and imitate bird song when the divine daughters of Arius already knew how to make honeycomb, taught people how to make bread from spelt flour and how to grill meat over aromatic fires. Many dawns and many dusks were to go by before your hairy forebears picked up a flint and started to chip at it. The priestesses are the fruit of an apparition, the result of a higher decision to promote collective growth. They brought the seeds of flax, barley, lupin with them and all these trees, big and small that surround us and they made the wilderness flower.

Your wretched life certainly hasn't taught you the virtue of humility, don't you know that the whole universe is forever moving and forever still? Everything is equal in nature, there's no difference between your imposing house, my cave and an insect's tiny burrow. The wind that stirs the leaves on the top of that tree over there is the same as the one that's tickling your wiry beard, and when it gets bored with you it'll go off and whip up the waves on the sea."

"What's all this about insects, winds and monkeys? What are you babbling about, old man?"

"What you don't realise is that when the priestesses first arrived elephants still roamed around the forest and men were still lurking in caves, they wore animal pelts, had no weapons and didn't know how to tame horses. The maidens taught them how to work the magic black rock that drops from the sky like a thunderbolt and they used it to make their first axes and..."

"Planting trees, sowing flowers and making arms aren't miracles, old man. And how are these maidens supposed to have got here? Did they just walk across the seas trailing their long arms against the skies?"

"Be quiet, blasphemer, be quiet, you don't know what you're saying...What are you after here on these mountains anyway? Do you think that the transcendent spirit of the maidens is about to fling wide the gates of heaven just so that you can catch a glimpse of mighty Jupiter riding his unicorn or perhaps you think they should revive the red woolly mammoth or the double-horned rhinoceros who grazed peacefully here for centuries?"

"All I need to believe all this would be to see..."

"What? A flying donkey? Arius's daughters work real miracles, not the sort of conjuror's tricks you're thinking of. I've met several of them since I came to live in these woods and they all work magic, especially the seven vestals of the Holy Woods. I know that each of these marvellous creatures is more beautiful than the next, but just in case you get any strange ideas about Uri, or even if you are only thinking of trying to find her, you'd do much better to dig a grave under that oak tree and bury yourself alive so that its roots can feed on your blood and your remains will lie safely under its branches for all eternity. Take my advice and get away from here as quickly as you can, go away if you don't want to be thrown into the pool of the Holy Waters, those muddy, boiling waters that flay a man's flesh from his bones and part his soul from his body. Whatever it is you seek, leave now while you can. Forget you ever saw the fair vestal before all that's left of you is a bleached skeleton."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you shouldn't dream of coming through here. These forests and all that lives in them, flies over them or burrows under them are guarded by the daughters of Arius. They don't let anyone cut the trees down, lumber from these forests has never gone to make prisons, scaffolds, gallows or even bird cages. Uri may appear as delicate as a lily bud, more fragile and transparent than a drop of dew as it falls from moon's eye, sweeter than a basket of strawberries and honey, but in reality she, like all her sisters, are capable of feats you wouldn't dream of. If she so desires she can turn into a cloud in a blink, and then from cloud to monster, even into a serpent with fiery eyes, and then in a beat of a swallow's wings she can turn back into the extraordinarily beautiful young girl you encountered. But that isn't all, she is capable of much more than these simple spells."

"Indeed, I have seen her change before my very eyes. In a fraction of a second she became a lame old hag, but I can't believe what I actually saw because if it were true it would be much more than a simple spell, old man."

"These forests conceal thousands of marvels. If you intend to cross this wilderness then you'll have to learn to digest the thorns in each of its thickets."

"Thousands of marvels? How can you possibly think I'm going to believe tales like that, old man? "

"Because I never lie. You're talking to Hanibald from the noble, ancient line of Debora, you ignorant savage. My father was Tobi, son of the Great Mother Debora herself. She could work lead better than a hundred skilled craftsmen and knew a secret recipe to transform dirty water into virgins' milk and, when it curdled, into precious stones. I was born of her line and as I slept in my papyrus cradle I listened to my mother singing King Solomon's Song of Songs, in those far off arid lands where the heather and the candid lily grow unaware of the caravans of merchants who struggle through the sands, where the lotus flower born in the waters is ever thirsty. Is that answer enough to your question, you faithless little mortal, or do you want to know more?

You look at me and say nothing. Perhaps you're wondering whether once upon a time, many years ago, I was as young and strong as you are now? Certainly, when I came out of my mother's womb I was happy and grew up with dreams of flying on magic stags. I remember my mother as if she was here beside me: her hands were always full of white jasmine blossoms and when she cradled me in her arms the bracelets around her ankles tinkled softly. Sometimes I can still smell her perfume and I often wake up at night to the sound of her bells. As a boy I was fascinated by the sea and when I went to gather sea fennel on the cliffs I would peer over the sheer drop, lost in dreams. On clear days I thought I could see myriad stars and planets in its transparent depths and I was never afraid of the black gullies with their monstrous mouths agape, ready to devour me.

As I grew up I, like every other living thing on the planet whether they be man, beast or bird, fell into the furnace of love and in the grip of that fever which obliterates all else, that hot wave that erodes whole mountain ranges, like a crazed stallion who gnaws his own limbs away to run free, I fled into the desert with the Bedouin's daughter. Lovely and ardent was she, wide-hipped and with rose-scented burnished skin, the essence of the desert. I played the lover with her for many moons, languishing over her breasts, her hair and mixing my blood with hers, but.... when our wells ran dry I realised that the time for play was past. So I studied the hundred roads I could take ahead and chose the hardest.

For years I sowed seeds in the arid soil and waited to see the first shoots emerge from its harsh folds, for years I fought the bleak earth with its thistles, weeds and rocks which seemed to pop up over night in the ploughed fields like mushrooms. That earth drank all my blood and was ever thirsty for more. I always sacrificed a tenth of my harvest to the gods, the best ears of wheat, the first wool, the first black figs, the first bunches of grapes, wine, oil and pomegranates. Another portion I distributed among widows and orphans, and yet I was unfulfilled.

One day as I turned the olive press I felt as if I was blindfolded, I could no longer see the pressed oil. This had already happened to me before while I was pressing grapes and again one morning when I was haggling with some merchants over some sacrificial doves, suddenly I could no longer see the merchants or the doves. Nothing in the world aroused my interest any more, but I didn't want to give in, the only thing I understood was that I no longer wanted the burden of possessions. I desired to follow the seasons, the majesty of the passing years, to seek a nest in each flower and a flower in each nest to grasp the roots of life in my bare hands. I desired to find death in the wrinkles on my face and in the seeds of each fruit, but how?

Finally one stormy day I suddenly had an inspiration: the harvesters were fleeing with sheaves of grain on their heads, fleeing before the thunder arrived. I stood, immobile under the pouring rain, trying to understand: were those men really fleeing from the storm or were they running to embrace it? Without waiting for the answer I fled too, I left my beloved garden with its trees of incense, myrrh and aloe and its thousand herbs and spices. I left my tribe, my wives, my children, my house and my camels to wander around the world, a desert monk, seeking the stars under the golden sands. Finally free to contemplate nature, for years I was wracked by thirst as I followed the howling wind that scattered and buried whole caravans in cemeteries of sand as deep as fiery caverns, until one day while I admired an immaculate flower that rose from the mud around a spring like a star, I met the prophet Zoroaster, peace and blessings be on him. I soon became his disciple and his god became my god, the god that is the sun in the skies and fire on earth.

One day as my divine master, peace and blessings on him, was walking in a pomegranate orchard he went into a trance and received a message from Mithra, the god incarnate of the ancient Persians. The message told of a mountain which was the focus of celestial powers, a reference point for the stars. To reach this holy mountain all we had to do was find the nebulous wake of a certain star. I, Hanibald, who had learned the arts of astronomy and astrology from my divine master, peace and blessings on him, sought and found that star and three hundred years ago, to follow its hairy wake, I left the deserts of Persia. I covered my head with ashes because my hair wasn't white in those days, clothed myself in sackcloth and with a bamboo walking stick and a brass bowl, struggling with Satan every step of the way, I made my way to this mysterious cradle of nature where the star halted."

"You're not trying to tell me that you're one of those priest-sorcerers from the days of Zoroaster, are you? And you're still trying to make me believe that you're over three hundred years old. Nobody can live that long."

Hanibald murmured as if he was talking to himself.

"O dullard and infidel, are you teased by a spider's web of years? Stop and think... how long does a fig tree live? An olive? A tortoise? Do you know how long a snail lives? As long as the moon is in the sky everything around us is moving and nothing stays still. Think of heaven and earth which batten each other constantly, think of the squared circle that becomes a dot, the dot that become nought and, if you can, think of eternity. Think that a traveller without a guide like you can get lost in this black forest. Here one night can last a thousand years and more, mysterious time runs its course without seeking your permission and when you leave here, if you ever do, you will find yourself in a time without time."

"What are you muttering about, you evil genius? By all the gods how I wish you weren't so old and infirm, then I could show you a thing or two. I could make a very nice drum from your leathery hide... what secrets does your sick mind harbour behind these ramblings?"

"Go and hang yourself from the chief executioner's lintel, you stupid, obstinate, heartless fellow. You're just an ant who thinks he's a bull. You want to measure the world by pacing it out when the thing you should be measuring is your spirit. I hope that you'll soon come to a sticky end in these woods."

Hanibald picked a burning brand up out of the fire:

"The incessant moaning of the north wind can deprive even the powerful eagle of its sight, and once blind it fails to find it way back to its own nest. But a little ant can be maddened by a mere spark from a burning brand. You think I'm mad, don't you? Perhaps you're right."

"What do you mean? I think you'd better explain, old man, because I'm beginning to lose my patience."

"What I mean is that we two are different, when you descend to the fiery depths of your hell, I rise to my heaven. But come with me, come and discover the secret of my madness. During all these years, day after day, I've etched all the movements of the heavens on the rough rock, and, day after day, I've touched the heart of eternity. But before entering this holy place, little mortal, you must shake off the cobweb which covers your brain just as the wayfarer shakes the dust off his sandals."

Despite his eccentricity, his tangled beard and the absurd wreath on his bald head emphasizing the sunken eyes in his corpse-like face, Hanibald inspired respect and obedience. He radiated an immense internal force, a spiritual strength that Marcus had never encountered, so he followed him even as his ironic smile became a grimace of disapproval.

The monk led the way with a firm step, and the torch illuminated drawings here and there on the rough walls of the cave, endless astronomic maps of the stars. Hanibald moved around the dim cave confidently, proudly showing Marcus one constellation after the other and the spinning planets by the flickering light of the torch. In the midst of that maze of lines and complex signs he unerringly pointed to a precise spot on the rocky wall:

"You see that bright red star there? That's Jacob's star, the brightest in its constellation, it was conceived from the opaque light of our hopes at the beginning of time. It is older than the ancient moon and has been up there since all was chaos, before time chimed its hours with its iron-shod hooves, long before winter invented the spring, long before the forests were lulled on angels' wings by the gentle glow of the fireflies. Much later, when the earth was born from the vast waters which covered the infant world and soil reared its head in the midst of the first fragile blades of grass, that star was still there, and when you and I and every flower on this mountain will be reborn in thousands and thousands of years time, as the natural cycle of life and death so decrees, it will still be there illuminating that quarter of the heavens.

One of my divine master Zoroaster's prophecies, peace and blessings on him who read the skies from his perch on a cloud, claimed that when men will see that star from the east it will mark the miraculous birth of a divine child. The king of a kingdom above all earthly kingdoms, able to resurrect the dead. He will be born to the descendants of Abraham and will be cradled on straw in a manger, adored by kings and beggars both. He will travel over many lands during His brief life and will be counted a stranger in each, mad, a madman in the midst of other madmen, but when He speaks all will be silent, the whole world will stop and listen to Him and His countenance will shine like molten gold. Many will dismiss Him as a fanatic, a rabble-rouser, an outlaw preaching to other outlaws and one dark Friday during the spring, when the snows of Lebanon are melting and watering the parched valleys and the red anemones unfurl their petals like drops of blood, that wayfarer King on the way which leads to the temple will be betrayed by a man called Judas; betrayed, sold and.... crucified."

"Crucified? A great King who resurrects the dead? And this is all written in that star? What tale are you telling now, old man?"

"Yes! The Messiah, the King of the Jews, will be crucified! Many will weave him a crown of thorns, many soldiers will be there, Roman soldiers, in their arrogance, faithlessness and stupidity."

"Why do you say that those soldiers will be Roman?"

"Because that is what is written in the stars, can't you see? On a black Friday they will drag him up to Golgotha and do to death Jesus of Nazareth, who came into this world to cure the blind and the deaf, and when the time comes the whole world will be terrified of night everlasting; the earth will be rent, the seas will tremble, the mountains will vomit gobbets of flame and while frogs, dogs and birds speak the wells will run red blood.

Can't you see? It's all written here in the stars. I understand your amazement, because your clay heart has hardened in the sun's kiln and is no longer capable of feeling anything, but what use is a voice in the land of the deaf? If you can't hear the music of water running down to the sea, if you can't recognise the sound of someone walking towards eternity, then these scribblings of mine will merely look like a child's drawings on the sand, whereas from this line here to three lengths and a span from this one, thousands and thousands of years of planet movements have been recorded, planets which tell the story of the world.

You must know that the movement of heavenly bodies determine our lives and deaths. The stars govern man's life and spirit from the first breath he draws after his mother's scream and sometimes they shed their petals like blooming roses, fragments of tiny drops of stellar dew that turn into precious stones when they land on earth, treasures which create a connection between man and heaven, to our delight."

"So," Marcus answered "you believe that the stars are like the gods who keep men below them so that they can dominate them until the end of time and, like the gods, send men whole bundles of pain so that they will be prayed to and asked for succour and what's more they rain terrible storms and earthquakes on our heads so that we will raise our voices to the heavens and bow down before them, is that right, old man? Do you truly think this or are you just spinning tales?"

"The stars observe the sky from above, but can you do the same, little mortal? Life isn't all pain, if we truly want to we can see the marvels of divine nature beyond the firmament, following in the footsteps of the planets. Don't you know that even the smallest star can make the gods green with envy? They can order the winds to drown the land under the seas, order the waves to ferment in the vortex and inhale the dark sands and then to spit them out and cover every living thing in oblivion. Can you see this rare conjunction of Venus and Jove here? That year these two planets were united in Leo three times. This truly extraordinary event tells the tale of Noah and all his charges on board leaving the ark when it landed on Ararat after the flood. And right under here, look at this triple conjunction which only occurs once in a million years; a second group of celestial bodies narrate the tale of another ark, a mysterious ark that wasn't built of acacia wood but out of pure crystal, an ark that left a fiery trail as it steered its way through the cosmos and landed here, in the midst of these misty mountains.

I have searched everywhere for it, even in the crater of the extinct volcano which is now a lake, I've waded right round it from shore to shore, where the reeds crowd down to the shore from the woods, where the cries of the waterfowl echo as they lay their eggs and where flocks of wild geese come to rest and preen. Once I thought I had found it on a ghostly boat that appeared out of the lake mists at sunset only to disappear again, swallowed by the dark. On another occasion, down where the iron-rich stream called the red river flows into the lake, I saw a form floating on the water, but it was just a trick of my imagination."

"So in all these years all you've done is carry out a fruitless search for this mysterious ark?"

"Fruitless, you say? Certainly I have long sought it and I seek it still, just as my divine Master, peace and blessings on him, taught me. And yet, when the moment comes, I know I will find it even if I am blind. It was thrown onto the earth like a seed and one day it will burgeon into the light. When the wind blows into its golden horn, bears and tortoises will awake from their winter slumbers, the high tides will flood and heavens' cataracts will unleash their burden on the earth. Cries of wild animals will echo from cave to cave and a lightning bolt that will singe this white beard of mine will be flung from the sea. When the sound of the golden horn wakes the high tide the bears will chase a tiny snowflake and I will finally be consumed, passing from the memory of time to the great void of nothingness. But only when a strong north wind blows ... only then will the firebirds soar into the starry vault... "

The old man stopped talking abruptly, almost as if he regretted having said too much, and for another instant he bent his fiery gaze on Marcus, then he stooped down and plucked a tuft of maidenhair from a crevice in the wall of the cave, he stared at it intensely for a few moments, almost as if he wanted to count its fronds, then he stuffed it quickly into his mouth. Chewing like a goat, dribbling from tightly-closed lips, he fled bent over like an ear of wind-tossed wheat, he fled seeking his delirium and disappeared into the undergrowth.

Left alone, a surprised Marcus, found himself repeating the old man's words almost without realising what he was saying:

"The sound of the golden horn will wake bears and tortoises from their winter slumbers, they will all race after a tiny snowflake, the woods will stir and even the smallest of creatures will burrow down into the depths of the earth while the firebirds soar..."

He went on repeating this mantra for a while, without understanding a word of it, and then shook himself out of his dreams and bent down to pick up the engraved piece of leather the monk had dropped next to the fire. He examined it at length without making any sense of the obscure signs, a series of dots which were scattered around a square to form a circle. Finally he decided to go back into the mysterious cavern without wasting time looking for his slave. Once again his torch illuminated the graffiti, the maps of the stars, the mysterious signs, but not content he moved a few paces further into the grotto, as if seeking something.

Without thinking consciously about it, he penetrated further and further into the cavern, which led to an endless maze of underground tunnels. The torchlight illuminated an infinite web of tunnels hewn out of the living rock, a complex labyrinth of passages and cells seemingly constructed with the deliberate intention of preventing undesired intruders from profaning its mysteries, or of ensuring that once they had ventured in, they would never be able to find their way out.

He wandered like a seer in total silence, lost in that tortuous underground maze, he ventured on round blind corners as if drawn by a magnet until he came to a lonely, deep, narrow ravine cut into the volcanic rock. Amazed, he wondered who could have had the patience to quarry out so many passages? An underground river, a local tribe, primitive, Neolithic beings seeking a safe hiding place from wild beasts, or did these mysterious tunnels harbour a different secret?

Suddenly Marcus decided to continue his unplanned journey; he was seized with a desire to see and explore everything he could. Slowly, almost without realising it, he went deeper and deeper into the tangle of tunnels until he arrived in a small isolated room at the end of a long shaft. It almost seemed like an antechamber which led to a narrow path cut into a flow of lava. The tiny path crossed a patch of deep, impenetrable darkness over a wooden bridge and opened out into a cavern with a vaulted, domed roof. There was an opening at the apex of the dome which flooded the cave with the strange, bluish glimmer of moonlight, illuminating it as if it were a temple. Or perhaps it really was a temple because there was a rock-hewn altar heaped with offerings set in the rear wall; precious oils, perfumes in magnificently sculpted horn chalices, Marcus had never seen anything like it and stood stock still in bewilderment as his fevered brain wondered whether the hole in the dome was part of the architecture of a massive funeral monument. The labyrinth he had come through was not a series of natural caves and tunnels as he had thought but a man-made complex designed to join the depths of the earth to the heavens above. But... whose hand had hewn this vast work?

He continued to examine the chamber and discovered a small niche hacked out of the rock. He went towards it down some steps which proved to be the entrance to a long corridor. There was a clay oil lamp covered in dust and cobwebs in the niche, Marcus picked it up and blew hard to free it from the weight of time, as he puffed the fleeing detritus revealed a painted warrior. He lit the wick of the lamp with his torch and continued on his way. He made his way slowly down the corridor which had doorways leading off it, but without letting himself be side-tracked he persisted until he reached the main chamber.

He was almost holding his breath for fear that the lamp would blow out, by now he was used to the dark and felt infinitely calm. When he reached the end of the corridor a huge round boulder blocked the way. Marcus used all his considerable force to push it slightly to one side and open a narrow gap. As soon as the entrance was clear Marcus made his way into the main chamber with his heart beating like a drum, and what he saw took his breath away. The weak light of the oil lamp shone on a fantasy world. The main room was an ancient tomb hacked out of the rock and stuffed full of treasure and precious objects, wealth beyond dreams.

Overcome by his emotions Marcus paused in the middle of all this magnificence like the burial chamber of some oriental prince. He took everything in, the circular chamber cut out of the rock was rather like a dwelling and magnificent bronze bowls decorated with lions and bulls rested on the ground, carved birds heads adorned andirons and mirrors, incense-burners, candlesticks and vases were heaped in profusion. Holding his lamp up high to throw as much light as possible he spotted a bronze-covered throne richly decorated with chased lions, running deer and entwined flowers. As he made his way towards it he tripped over a sheet of marble balanced on two carved columns, he held the lamp out .... and almost blew it out in shock when he saw her!

She lay there bedecked with all her jewels, a princess of darkness, the very young daughter of a Lucomone, an Etruscan priest-king. She lay there as if she merely slept, had just stretched out on the richly-embroidered pall. Death had left her fresh young body completely intact. The massive gold buckle that held her cloak together was enough to show her rank, it was decorated with five magnificent lions in a half moon encircled by two entwined wreaths of lotus flowers cleverly set together and surrounded by twelve winged felines girdled in their turn by the same number water fowl.

Marcus froze, with the lamp almost brushing his face, gazing at her. A woven wreath of immaculate, white lilies adorned the princess's head. Perhaps the heat from the oil lamp's tiny flame moved their stamens, but it was not his imagination, they were definitely waving gently back and forth and a heavy scent filled the air, harrowing the Roman's mind and soul.

Tossed on a storm of emotions, Marcus could not take his eyes off the girl, and at the same time he was wondering if something or someone had guided his footsteps to this very place, perhaps that superior power which regulates all events, that force that men call destiny. Perhaps. As he looked the body suddenly rose into the air and hovered like a cloud. Stunned, Marcus, stared at the transparent white linen tunic floating in front of him and captured by the unique magic of the moment, stopped breathing. The lilies danced as they floated and emanated their magic scent, more and more pervasive, and as the tiny flame of the oil lamp flickered and threatened to go out everything suddenly disappeared. The whole scene had lasted a fraction of a second, the span of a dream, the time it takes to draw a choked breath. The princess of darkness fell back on her sumptuous pall and disintegrated for good, nothing was left of her, nothing at all.

The lilies that had adorned her brow had disappeared too, as had the transparent white linen tunic that had been draped around her slender body. The only thing left on the catafalque was a heap of dust with the five golden lions from her buckle scattered on it and, slightly to one side, a double flute. Above the double flute the memory of her, and above the memory the heavy scent of lilies which still tormented his mind and soul.

The horrified Roman did not even notice that there were other funeral slabs close by where fully armed warriors appeared to be resting from battles they had fought and a funeral urn nestled in a niche surrounded by arms while a bronze bier held other bones in the corridor. As his eyes got used to the dark he made out another treasure hanging on the walls, great, round shields decorated with panther heads, mouths agape and enamel eyes glaring at him, splendidly wrought bronze kraters adorned with strange animals, gryphons and long-necked dragons. The floor was heaped with cups, kraters, bowls and jugs all in the famous Etruscan red earthenware and all decorated with various types of monstrous animals.

In that unreal atmosphere Marcus, enchanted, studied the marvellous frescoes which covered the walls of the tomb. They showed hunts, scenes from everyday life of labour in the fields, men wrestling and when he turned he saw a mysterious flying object like a transparent sphere poised for flight painted on the wall behind him.

For the very first time in his life he was overcome by a strange mystical magic and for a moment he forgot his mission, forgot the treasure trove he had found, even forgot the existence of the outside world. In that underground chamber, buried as if by an avalanche, the doughty warrior faltered.

He was lost in his meditations when the deep sound of running water brought him back to his senses. Coming down to earth again, he pricked his ears and followed the sound, ending up in a deep, narrow gorge, whose tall cliffs were carved from golden tufa rock. The ground was heavily scored by tracks of heavily laden carts and a river of hot water raced and roiled in its bed next to the cart track, then flowed into a sort of underground storage room full of large stone tanks. Between one cave and the next, and Marcus had counted ten so far, a series of narrow passages carved into the rock whose steep walls barely left room for one man to squeeze through, before he reached the last cave he was overpowered by a strong smell of sulphur. Along the path the tufa–rock walls were richly decorated with exotic figures.

The last cave was particularly rich in paintings of people, plants and decorative themes, all with an oriental air, the like of which Marcus had never seen before. Stylized lions, panthers, leopards, cheetahs, ostriches and monkeys, palms and lotus blooms were all depicted. Fantastic beings and animals, a flora and fauna that told tales of faraway lands and, next to them, mystical beasts; the fantastic fruits of the artist's imagination, gryphons, dragons, sphinxes and chimeras, winged bulls and lions with men's heads.

Rapt in contemplation of those masterpieces which had first been sketched on the walls, then etched into the rock and finally painted, Marcus suddenly became aware of a gleam from behind him, he turned and saw a magnificent bier in solid gold with two huge wings engraved on its sides, as he went towards it he almost fell into a small lake of boiling sulphur water where a column of fire generated in the depths of the earth rose towards the surface with a low gurgle.

Taken unawares, Marcus had to cling onto the limestone rock to save himself from falling into the cauldron, and backed away in horror once he had regained his balance. Why did the caves and passages lead from the tombs to the these fatal pools of boiling water. His mind reeled with hundreds of unanswered questions until he suddenly spotted a vein of cold water, a stream that cut across the cave and disappeared into a crack in the tufa-rock wall. Without thinking twice Marcus decided to follow the watercourse out into the open air and crawled into the narrow gap where the stream plunged into the rock.

As soon as he had managed to wriggle his way through the fissure he was swept away into the black bowels of the earth by the irresistible force of the current. During that mad ride down through the rock Marcus was in constant danger of being dashed to pieces on the jagged rocks but, finally, he was catapulted out into the open, battered and bruised but miraculously whole. Dazed and bleeding from an array of cuts and scrapes he peered around, the earth heaving under his feet.
CHAPTER 7

The rainbow-lit stream had borne him into an unknown world, beguiling, enchanting, scented with the pervasive perfume of damp moss and incense. He had landed in an ancient wood of wonderful cork trees whose branches were behung with glowing globes and blue fruits, the moon shone as brightly as daylight on a flock of sheep and goats miraculously bedecked with wreaths of blue anemones and lilies who were grazing peacefully on the banks of a blue river.

In the middle of the broad glade a group of girls, hands linked, were turning a circle, their naked limbs bathed in the colours of the rainbow. Each of them was playing a stringed instrument wrought in gold and a flock of snow-white birds flew around their heads like a moving crown. As Marcus gaped at this dream-like vision he became aware that an exotic scent permeated the air, a celestial perfume, as strong as incense and more inebriating than wine. He stood surrounded by a scene of overwhelming beauty, wrapped in a magical, mysterious aura when suddenly he heard a voice calling him from the river behind him:

"Come here, stranger. I want to talk to you."

He turned round and stared at the blue river, where a splendid Uri had just appeared out of thin air as if summoned by a painter's brush, born from the water itself and a handful of clay. Marcus had longed to see her again and had even combed the forest for her for hours, but he was so surprised that while he gazed at her as if mesmerised at the same time he glanced around, terrified she would vanish again. But this time Uri emerged from the waters and gestured to the other virgins who disappeared into the dark. She paced towards him majestically and calmly started to talk:

"I was waiting for you because I need to talk to you. You should not be here. This is the valley of dreams and no human has ever seen it or heard the sacred music. Powerful giants stand guard over it, demon sentries who keep intruders out. You who are not clothed in the ceremonial garb should not be here, stranger. Listen, I have a message for you that comes from the stars, they have sent me to reveal their design, and I will reveal it, even if death were to scythe me before I could speak, tomorrow others would come in my place, no secret can be kept forever. I know that you are no weary traveller who has halted to bathe his swollen feet. You are no one's guest in this remote forest, you are here to roam the hills and glades seeking the stag with golden horns."

"The stag with golden horns? Do you know, then, who I am?"

"Exactly because I know who you really are that I implore you in name of the gods you invoke every day; go away! Go, as I ask you to. Say nothing to your fellows about these magic fields where the rivers run with the sweetest wine and the fluttering birds sing like angels."

Marcus answered with a challenging air:

"So the stars want me to go away, do they? And can you give me a single good reason for me to obey?"

"Have you inhaled the fragrance of our flowers? Have you smelt how they scent the air? Let the daughters of dreams go on strolling in this sweet meadow, give them one more cup of joy. If you tell what you have seen my people will die, and it is not yet time for them to go to their long night, it is not time for them to go hand in hand together into the shadows of a golden twilight, the signal has not come."

"You know that nothing lives for ever, nothing is eternal."

"Nobody can snatch a sleeping child from its mother's womb. If this should happen before its allotted time, before the sun's chariot is ready, the voice of my people will be silenced forever, the Father will hear our invocations to love no more. Let the hungry earth feed on our bodies when the time comes, then, and only then, we will be ready to follow the impatient neighing of the winged horses who will carry us far away. Then, and only then, we will dress in our scarlet cloaks, gather our shells and lift the veil from the face of death, abandoning all we have here without regrets. But if you dare deny us our rightful end the whole world will curse you and you will discover the paradise of tears. Whereas if you leave us as free as the fireflies who shine in the dark of the night, winging over the leaves from bush to bush up hill and down dale, illuminating solitary paths as they seek a companion, like fireflies we will light our lamps for you, and for you alone we will play the music of dreams on our harps when evening comes."

Uri continued to speak but Marcus was no longer listening to her, he stared at her, determined she would not escape a second time, and suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrists without saying a word. Her touch sent a hot shiver through him, a strange, unknown, sweet languor, a novel feeling of excitement bordering on madness, a sense of dizziness, as if he had drunk too much and danced too much at the Atlantis Inn at the foot of the Capitoline hill. The sensation of unbridled folly travelled slowly up his body from his ankles to the nape of his neck and made him even more determined to never let her go, to the contrary, the more she glared at him, her lips twisted in disgust, her proud, feline eyes radiating sparks of wrath, the tighter he held her, blinded by a passion which had awoken the beast in him that never really slept.

"Let me go, no one can hold me against my will." She hissed.

Marcus was still that arrogant bully who thought that water should gush out of arid rocks on his orders, the usual Roman adventurer, convinced that he could make the very stars acknowledge him master by the strength of arms. With bloodshot eyes he gripped her tighter and tighter, his fingers biting into her slender wrists like steel bands. Even though a small inner voice told him to let her go, a mysterious, malign force urged him on to hurt her despite himself, until he felt her abandon all resistance and collapse like a wounded bird scrutinising the invisible over the horizon with dull eyes. For a moment he stared at her and felt remorse, loosening his grip, .... and Uri wrenched her hands away and as swiftly as a gazelle pursued by a wolf leapt onto the rocks. Never taking her fiery eyes off him she shouted:

"You can't capture birdsong with your coarse fists, barbarian." Then she curled up on the ground in a fetal position and drew an imaginary circle around herself with her open hands; the circle immediately became a crystal sphere and with a deft gesture the girl gathered her long hair into it, crossed her arms on her breast as if to stop her heart from bursting and whispered the single word, "Arius", before vanishing.

With the name of the god her father on her lips Uri and her sphere had dissolved into thin air in less time than it takes a heart to beat. With her the blue glade, the anemones, the lilies and the old monk's cave all disappeared too. Marcus was left leaning forward, frozen in the act of his triumphal capture, unable to believe his own eyes, empty-handed, broken-hearted. Shocked and trembling, his hands curled into fists until his nails were digging into the palms of his hands, his face livid with blind rage, deformed into a demonic glare.

"When I catch you, you treacherous bitch, I swear I'll put your head under my knee and your neck under my heel, but if the gods do not permit me to capture you again, then may I be forever cursed and with these same hands that could not hold you I will tear my own heart from my breast."

Bellowing his grievances into the night, Marcus plunged blindly into the undergrowth, breasting his way through the low, moonlit bushes like a delirious surfer. Swearing and babbling like a madman, he cursed everyone and everything, himself above all. His cries loud enough to frighten the black night shades, he howled: "Uri, where are you, Uri?". Racing furiously he fell, picked himself up, fell again, yelling Uri's name all the while, running faster and faster until the sweat trickled down his forehead and stung his eyes. Exhausted and thwarted he fell to the ground and rolled over and over, biting the ground and clutching his breast and belly trying to suffocate his longing for her.

Much later Janu found him lying dirty on the damp grass, felled like an uprooted tree, curled up, trembling, his lips gripped tight shut, his wiry red hair even more ruffled than usual.

Next day the two men searched desperately for the cave, the old monk and the girl without finding any vestige. Marcus and his slave worked their way back along all the paths they had marked on their maps but the forest had swallowed all trace, including the signs they had made on the tree trunks. They walked for miles without landmarks until they came to the beech woods; from there they climbed up to the pools of boiling water and then down to Vicus lake where the woods were already covered in fiery scarlet berries. They followed the sun's course for hours while livid, black clouds raced westwards, billowing into bizarre shapes.

To Marcus the shapes all looked like female figures; women in the form of serpents, flying winged women, sirens, women, women, women all around him on earth and in the skies. Swearing and cursing the whole chain of the Cimina Mountains, he continued his desperate search for a sign, combing the rocks, the brambles, the glades and the high plateaus, but found absolutely nothing either then or the next day. In the end he was forced to give up and face the thankless task of remapping all the paths.

When evening fell the two of them would seek refuge in a handy cave under the indifferent gaze of the moonlit trees, but nothing was the same as before. Marcus would lie on his makeshift pallet of bracken for hours studying the old monk's parchment. It was the only proof he had, sleep eluded him, he dwelled obsessively on his encounters with Uri, on the cryptic juxtapositions of the stars and planets the old monk had shown him, but mainly on how to find the mysterious cave which led to the tombs and the golden bier. More and more often he found himself asking his slave:

"What hour of the night is it, my faithful Janu?"

"The moon has risen, my lord, to illuminate the livid sky with its alabaster disk and now rests like a rotten apple, laughing as it looks down on the mountains, counting the hours until it sets, we are just halfway through the night, Lord."

"Can you too feel this uncanny dark silence tonight, my friend? Although it has no breath and no lips, silence talks, it tells of dangers near and far, and yet when a not a leaf stirs and the crickets are silent in the woods, a strange, subtle fear pervades the spirit, the cold clear moon, like a faithless sentry, illuminates all, prying into hidden corners. Everything around us here appears secret, prohibited, and prevents me from getting any sleep. What say you to a throw or two of dice? No! No! I'm no fit company for anyone this evening, I can't stop thinking about that young priestess, my ears are still ringing with her strange plea for help, but what terrible spell was hidden in that message from the stars? And I can't forget how she disappeared in that crystal sphere, and how when I tried to find her I got lost in the wilderness and the more I tried to find my way out, the more entangled I got."

"If the old man says she is Arius's daughter and her tribe of women have been here since ancient times then you shouldn't be so surprised at her prodigious powers, Master."

"And you expect me to believe that tale spun by that dribbling old bag of bones? If he hadn't been so decrepit, if he hadn't dragged his feet like two rotten lumps of wood, I would have carved him a new profile and would have helped him find eternal peace sooner than he expected. The truth of the matter is that listening to him confused me, but on the other hand I have to believe the evidence of my own eyes. And then there must be more than meets the eye to his stories, otherwise how could a parcel of women, however divine they are, dig all those caves, tunnels, bridges and secret passages which lead to the tombs?"

"But thinking about it, perhaps there was no need to dig in the sense that we mean, Master, physically dig for year after year. Perhaps those tunnels through the volcanic rock were dug by the power of thought alone, without the need for any human agency."

"What do you mean? Explain better."

"Simply that priest-magicians asked their god for help and their prayers were answered. A superior being could create endless tunnels and massive bridges in a blink, and the same superior being could easily find metal masses hidden in the depths of the earth and bring them to the surface all ready to be worked on."

"That's what the old monk wanted me to believe. At first I took him for a lunatic, but now, thinking about it... there was something about him, an aura of power, his burning eyes, they told more secrets than all the words in the world."

"And if a divine helping hand wasn't enough, Master, there's always the art of magic, that magic practised by superior beings, superior brains, demigods, much more than an art really, something they learned from the divinity they sprang from which goes beyond the ability to see through the veils that obscure the future. If those seven priestesses are the founders of the Etruscan race, divine initiators of the Tyrrhenian civilization, they must possess potent talismans they can use to trace borders with the infinite, they must possess the alchemist's secret of how to make bronze, silver, gold and platinum by magic spells. All these marvellous secrets and magic spells are forever forbidden to human beings, so there's no point in seeking an answer, Master."

"But if those virgins of noble descent were really the founders of this fabulous race, my faithful friend, then shouldn't their blood have had to remain pure? They couldn't possibly have debased it with blood from the local tribes, so where did they get the men to perpetrate their superior breed from? But now I come to think of it, the monk mentioned new people, men who came from islands and peninsulas far away beyond our seas, not pirates, they must have been something else. Perhaps they were the ones who dug that underground temple."

"If you want to know what I think, Master, that old man who talked like a prophet and not like a word-merchant, knew far more than he was prepared to say."

"I think you're right, my faithful Janu. Before, while I was keeping my vigil, I was listening to the frogs croaking in the stagnant waters of that pond when I thought I felt a light breath behind me and for a moment I hoped it was him. I long to speak to him again, but then I saw that there was no one there and I felt oppressed by a strange fear, like a bunch of grapes wrung in the press. I know I shouldn't keep you awake, but this journey has become too difficult, I'm sure that I won't get a wink of sleep tonight either."

"Usually it's the screeching of the night jars that keeps you awake, Master, but tonight all is silent. But don't worry, O Lord, tomorrow I will make you a tisane of sweet nettle juice which will calm your agitated spirits and when evening comes you'll be asleep as soon as the sun goes down. "

"Many thanks, but now do you think that you can manage to keep your eyes open a little while longer? I feel uneasy, perhaps you could play the flute, or ... tell me that story about the princess who was kidnapped and held in the dungeons of her own palace."

"That story again, Master? If you want I could tell you one of Aesop's fables instead, like the one about the fox and the lion!"

"Aesop... Aesop, let me see if I can remember, wasn't he that ugly, deformed Athenian slave who was freed because of the wonderful stories about animals he made up? When exactly did he live?"

"Great Aesop lived in the time of the Pharaoh Amasis. Before he was freed he was the slave of Iadmone, and I don't think he can have been ugly because all the statues of him, carved by a pupil of Lysippos', show a tall, well-built man. What's more he must have been attractive because he was the lover of Usenna, the most beautiful and famous dancer of her time. As far as his wonderful fables are concerned they have all become immortal, listen to this one:

\- An old lion lay mortally ill in a cave. His friend the fox went to see him often and one day the lion said to the fox: "If you really want to do something for me so that I can go on living, bring me the great stag from the forest, I will only get better if I can eat his heart. Spin him one of your clever tales and persuade him to come here." The fox set off to find the stag in the forest and once he had found him he greeted him saying: "I am the bearer of great news, my dear friend.

You know that our king, the lion, is gravely ill and is on his deathbed. Now the problem is, who is fit to reign our forest after him? We all know that the boar lacks intelligence, the bear sleeps too much and is unreliable, the panther is as irritable as an old maiden aunt and the tiger is too much of a braggart. The king thinks that the only animal worthy of the sceptre is the stag. Truly, you have an imposing mien, your horns command respect, what more is there to say? So the forest has decided that you should reign after the lion. Come with me and await his passing."

The stag puffed up with pride as he listened to the cunning fox and set off immediately with him to the king's cavern, in blissful ignorance of the fate that awaited him.

As soon as the lion saw him he lunged at him, but he only managed to scratch his ears with his claws because as soon as the stag was attacked he fled into the trees of the forest.

The desperate king of the forest roared and whimpered in pain and hunger and implored his friend the fox to try again. "Please, please, bring me the stag back with another of your cunning tricks." The fox was upset too because his efforts had been in vain, but he said: "You have set me a difficult, unpleasant task but I want to help you once more."

He went to look for the stag again and found him covered in blood in his den licking his wounds. As soon as he saw him the stag leapt up with all his hackles raised in wrath and said: "Fox, you are the outcast of society, the lowliest animal in the whole forest, don't you dare come near me again if you value your life. "

And the fox answered boldly: "O long-horned stag, why so timid and cowardly? Why are you so suspicious of your own friends? The king seized you by the ears because he wanted to give you advice, instructions on the delicate task of government, because he is at his last gasp, but if you can't even take a little scratch from a dying animal's claw what sort of king will you make? The lion is right to be angry now, in fact he's thinking of making the wolf king of the forest. Just imagine what a wicked sovereign we'd have then. But if you come back with me now and manage to conquer your fear, the crown may still be yours. I swear the king will do you no wrong and all I wish is to be your humble servant." These were the words the cunning fox used to beguile the wretched stag a second time, but this time as soon as he set hoof in the cave the lion finally managed to capture his prey and eat his fill. While the lion greedily devoured bones, marrow and liver, the watching fox managed to grab the heart and eat it without being seen.

Once the lion had taken the edge off his hunger he began to search through the rest of the carcass looking for the heart. He went through it bit by bit, but there was no sign of the heart. Then the fox, keeping his distance, said: "That stupid stag obviously didn't have a heart, Great King, there's no point in looking for it, what heart could any animal stupid enough to venture twice into the lion's den have?"

"What will I do without your stories, my faithful servant? That whatshisname... Aesop, obviously understood the human soul, ready to do anything for honours... but I don't want to think of serious things this evening, my spirit is tormented by strange presentments, I'd like to hear something cheerful, recite some of your poetry please."

"Just as dreams vanish in the morning light, all my poetry has vanished in me this evening. The muse is a strange creature, Master, on those rare occasions when she's there she blinds you, but when she pokes her timid head out of her burrow to indulge us poor mortals, if we don't grab her immediately she spreads her wings and flies away. I seek her constantly, both within and without, but often all I find is her companion, the demon enchantress.... often the only way to find poetry is to dig into the right vein, here, where the blood flows through my wrists. Listen, Master, these are the lines I dedicated to her, to the muse:

I have sought you in the hot ashes of my hearth,

In the pebbles in my garden,

Among the cherry blossoms, behind the thorns on each rose,

By candlelight I have sought you,

In the smoke over the rooftops I have sought you,

On the highest mountain I have sought you,

In the treetops, I have sought you,

I have dug deep with my bare hands and I have sought you,

In the midst of every flower's roots I have sought you!"

"By all the gods, Janu, a poet as fine as you should wear the myrtle crown, what will I do without your poetry when this journey is over, my friend? But go now, go and rest. There's a heaviness to the air tonight which beckons to deep slumber, dead sleep or perhaps the sleep of the dead. Goodnight Janu, my faithful friend, I won't disturb you again tonight, but stay a moment! Tell me, you have been very sad over the last few days, sadder than usual, but I have promised you your freedom when we get back from this journey, you'll be freed from slavery, like the great fable-teller Aesop. You should be happy, you'll be free day and night, as free as the air, free even when your eyes are closed, free to go or to stay, you'll even be able to sing your songs on the temple steps if you so desire, why aren't you happy? No! Never mind, don't bother answering, go to sleep now my good servant, you're already nodding off."

"Sleep well too, Master. May the gods send you sweet repose."

Janu went to sleep in the depths of the cave and while Marcus Fabius sat in the lantern light meditating on the day's events he was already dreaming of his lovely Orphea.
CHAPTER 8

Suddenly, as the moon set and morning dawned, the whole forest fell silent as if all its living creatures were obeying a signal; the frogs in the mud ceased croaking, and in the distance the ancient lament of the owls died away on a lingering note. Marcus was only half awake, his head cupped in the palm of his hand, when a diaphanous figure with enormous scarlet wings, fiery eyes and coils of hair twisting like a thousand serpents, emerged from that unreal silence as if it had descended from the starlight and the moon's rays, as ephemeral as the morning mist over the lake. It wove its way silently through the trees until it reached the cave and Marcus. Marcus raised his head and could not believe his eyes when he saw the ghostly shape. When he spoke his voice came out feeble and hesitant, like an echo from far away:

"Stay away from me, you incubus! Out, malign spirit, you can't be real, I must be dreaming. You cannot be a creature from this world, but... are you alive? Do you breathe? Can you speak? Are you a secret messenger from some divinity? Are you a god? An angel? A magician? Why do I feel cold and my blood freeze when I look at you? Speak, tell me what you seek, but if you are a damned soul get you back to the underworld. Don't you know that the grave and the tomb cannot return their dead? So if you know the origin of all things, the human race, the beasts, lightning, rain and if you know the meaning of pain then you know that the dead belong to the dead, just as the rivers must run down to the seas, so leave the living to abide their allotted span. Have you abandoned your tomb solely to terrorise me? Perhaps you want me to lift that veil of mist that hides your face with my sword? You are silent, do you truly want to frighten me? As you wish, fear – swell my breast, and you, heart – burst if you can."

The winged being remained silent, while the old monk's parchment, that Marcus had dropped on the ground in surprise, suddenly burst into flames and burnt like a torch as if by magic. Marcus jumped up and shouting as he brandished his scythe traced three circles around the dying flames to ward off evil, his cries are echoed by the mournful call of an owl close by. The familiar screech seemed to calm Marcus who went on in a raucous voice:

"Tell me your name, strange creature from another world. Are you a celestial body? If you are I would fane dance with you on my snow-covered tomb, would fane have encountered you on a boat on the eternal lake, would fane be ferried by you to the shores of the infinite. But here in this obscure wilderness, where all is harsh all I can do is hold my breath to capture the sound of your beating scarlet wings. So tell me what you want of me? Speak illusion, tell me who you are, what, silent still? Perhaps you have not the power of speech?"

Finally, with a voice that seemed to issue from the underworld, the creature spoke and his words dropped like stones into the pool of silence.

"The spirit created life and life like water runs ever on, from the springs of its birth to the black sea of its death, the spirit of the secret room created man elevating him from nebulous dreams, and man is unsteady and fragile, glued to the earth like a reed that needs water to grow, and for man days and years were born."

"Who are you? You who rise from nothing in this desert of silence to fill me with horror and when you speak it is but to terrify my soul. Come closer so that I can touch you."

The shade came closer and Marcus tried to catch hold of it without success.

"I can see you but I cannot touch your body, you are the opposite of the wind, we feel the air on our bodies but nobody can see it. So what manner of creature are you, then?"

"Every creature is like a seed, an apple contains a whole invisible orchard, but the seed will only grow tall and strong if it falls on fertile ground."

"A seed? And if that seed falls on a stone where even the thorn birds cannot peck it up, what will become of it?"

"It is always a fragment of you. I have been thrown into the furrow of your dreams by a forgotten race, the ancient child that sings inside you, you yourself give me life and breath."

"The ancient child of a forgotten race?"

"The same race that wove the soul of man from air and fire with a strand of eternal light which had lain hidden for thousands of years in the centre of the earth where water and mist were born. That is the race I come from and I am nourished by the mist."

"Who are you? Are you death? No, you cannot be death. I have seen death in an old picture, he is a skeleton armed with a long scythe, and he has the face of woman.. perhaps to deceive us better. So if you aren't death, who are you? I want to cry your name to the night."

"Everything that lives and breaths comes under my wing sooner or later because I am Azelen, the Herald of Death! I accompany souls on their last dark journey."

"Take me then, I am not afraid. Come, Azelen, you evil angel, embrace me, kiss me with your frozen lips, deliver my being to the air, until I can hear nothing but the hymn of eternity. Why do you wait? Are you hoping to frighten me? If you know me as well as you claim, you will know that I have faced the enemy alone in battle. I, alone, when my soldiers fled like rats from a sinking ship at the first roll of the drums of war, battled my way through the gates of the enemy's stronghold and wherever my sword fell it bit deep, rivers of blood swirled around my feet. From the helmet on my head to the soles of my sandals I was completely encrusted in blood... and none of it mine. That feat earned me a crown of oak leaves and the palm of victory. So, Azelen even were you a monster with a thousand heads I still wouldn't be afraid. Come, Evil Angel and bear me off with you into deepest hell."

"Your time has not yet come, but remember that death walks forward laughing night and day with her big, black wings spread wide. And without knowing it each living being walks behind her, when she looks over her shoulder many souls fall like ripe fruit at her feet into a sleep from which there is no awakening. But this only happens when their time has come, otherwise all those souls go on walking in that fatal procession behind death, who implacably continues her march towards eternity without a pause, because she is never tired, never hungry, never thirsty. Remember when you see me again that I will be with her and I will push your soul into the abyss. If you want to prevent this from happening before your allotted time, then leave these mountains. Go! Go as quickly as you can and never come back again."

"If you are not here to take my soul, why are you here?"

"To remind you that only a fool, a madman, would attempt to challenge with impunity the divine design."

The angel glided off, beating the air with its long scarlet wings, but suddenly it stopped and turned back to look at Marcus and whispered its last terrible words softly to the breeze:

"Only the humble in life will live forever in eternity!"

With this it disappeared. Marcus was bathed in sweat, great drops of it rolled down his forehead and into his eyes and mouth, shaking with terror he blinked several times and looked around, then he yelled for his slave.

Janu arrived with his cloak flung upside down over his shoulders and a lit torch in his hand.

"Do you want me to sing again, Master?"

"No! Tell me about those concoctions you make. Yesterday I saw you collecting belladonna, I know it imprisons the mind and sends men on imaginary journeys. You didn't dare mix any into my drink, did you?"

"Why should I, my lord? The concoction you mention helps to lower fevers. Have you got a fever, Master?"

"No! It's not fever that bothers me tonight, my friend. But... if I'm not drugged or drunk then why am I sweating like this? Am I supposed to believe that that vision was real and it wasn't you shouting out in your sleep? You are an explorer of silence, I've often heard you shouting out during the night and when the morning came you would explain that you had heard faraway voices from your beloved native land, voices that hadn't been created yet. Tell me, have you ever heard of a black angel called Azelen, the Herald of Death, who issues forth from the horrors of hell?"

"No, My Lord. But... yes, it is true that I often used to shout in my sleep. In the dark of the night men often call to their fellows for help because the spectre of death lives in each of us. So a son calls on his mother and a mother calls on her son, but I, I, My Lord, no longer keep a vigil in the silence of the night waiting for a saviour to rescue me from my slavery. Who can people like us call on for aid, My Lord? This is why I no longer cry out, although my sorrow for my homeland is as deep as ever, but I no longer dream of it and I no longer dream of my ship coming into port with the beloved faces of the men of my homeland at the prow."

"So... it must have been real, and in my dreams, even if I could swear that I was awake, I was about to kneel down before that shade from the spirit world. It was a moment snatched from eternity, I was the murderer kneeling in front of his victim. Do you think that eternity has wings to flee with? But... if you are sure that you didn't see or hear anything then what else can I say? Perhaps fear freezes time and I didn't see that ice-cloaked monster in the guise of an angel last night, even if everything seemed so real. It was a truly strange being, almost a prince of darkness, beautiful and terrible, it talked about death walking ahead of us, even if we..... pretend not to see her. It spoke about the spirit who conceived us, who transforms heat into cold and about a light that has been lying buried in the centre of the earth for thousands of years."

"A light, My Lord?"

"Yes! And then all of a sudden it just dissolved into the mist like a pool of boiling water leaving a wisp of smoke behind."

"Smoke, My Lord?"

"Wake up, by all the gods! And stop echoing everything I say. Can't you see that I'm so desperate I could tear my eyes out for not having been able to see what was before them? Yes, it just suddenly vanished, evaporated and left a little pile of ashes on the ground. Please, please, say that you saw it too. You saw it, didn't you? You know how to read the seeds of time and know which ones will sprout and which ones won't, tell me that it was just .... . Ah, well, if you really didn't see or hear anything then go back to sleep, I don't want to rob you of any more, leave me to this endless, comfortless night. No! No, please wait here with me a while, I don't want it to come back again. Tell me, do you believe what they all think back in Rome that these strange apparitions, women giving birth in the water, spectres of death, virgins as savage and beautiful as sirens, who all appear and disappear out of nowhere, do you think they're the work of the devil? Do you think that this enchanted forest where even the trees sob in the darkness can drive you really mad?"

"Mad, My Lord? Well, it's a fact that it's difficult going here. It's no breeze getting through this wilderness, you don't come across industrious charcoal workers or wood-cutters with their axes slung over their shoulders, but thinking that it can drive you mad, My Lord, just because you've seen a woman happily giving birth in a stream, or that creature, that siren that you said was beautiful enough to put the stars to shame, well that seems a bit much to me.

I don't know any absolute truths, but I do know that even the loveliest garden can be devastated by the north wind when it comes racing down and strips trees and flowerbeds bare, and it's that same wind that blows gales with waves so high that they devour men and ships, but what of it? Are we all supposed to go mad? Our last hope lies in our tacit knowledge of what exists apart from ourselves. Just like seeds trembling under the snow before they sprout into new plants, we only tremble from the fear of fear. When I served a Phrygian seer I learnt that earth dogs sometimes come out of those limbos where matter ends and appear to human beings in all sorts of shapes and guises. My master called those dogs devils."

"You're right, my faithful, wise Janu! I've often dreamt of angels and demons during the dark hours before dawn when life is at a low ebb, but they were only dreams. I remember a fire once that was particularly lively and leapt all over the place, it managed to take on an almost human shape ... , but the fire couldn't speak."

"My master said that there is a magic moment in the folds of time when everything is possible. In a tiny fragment of that strange hour when the tide turns at the end of the day and night begins, there is a hidden moment that belongs to neither the earth nor the heavens. It conceals a thousand doors with a hundred thousand chinks which open and close to reveal strange figures anchored on strands of spiders' webs. In that fragment man's thoughts can reach the stars and finally meet his god. Each creature can walk on the moon's rays if he wishes, because morning never dawns until she has explored all the secret paths of the night and the shadows. The angel you saw, my lord, existed only in your mind, born of a fragment of a memory thousands and thousands of years old, the memory of another life, a witness from long ago, that perhaps lived many millennia ago, before the wind gifted man with words. Be sure that it will live on in you until the end of time and if you really want, but only if you really want to, you can conjure it again and again."

"Do you mean that the angel of death is always with me, Janu?"

"Exactly! My old master claimed that every man lives thousands of life in a sole life. When night falls and an exhausted man goes to sleep and dies, the next day he is reborn to another life. So do not fret any more, fear attacks us and penetrates our very bones, but it must be tamed and not killed, if we want to overcome our basest instincts."

"I saw it clearly. My eyes were wide open when it suddenly transformed itself into air and disappeared. How can you be so calm? Answer me. Have you gone back to sleep? My poor friend, you're right not to listen to me anymore, this mission is wearing us out in more ways than one, here am I still wearying you with my ghosts in the middle of the night when you look as if you're wool-gathering."

"Pardon, master, I woke in the middle of a dream, and in my dream..."

"You were dreaming of her, weren't you?"

"You know how my disobedient mind has been wandering lately, master, almost as if I was under a spell."

"A spell? So you're still in the coils of love's mad spell, are you. Are you still hankering for that pretty girl with her water jar on her hip? The girl with skin like honey who skimmed past you on the path to the spring, your lovely desert rose. What's her name?"

"Orphea, my lord."

"So, lovely Orphea has coloured your heart and moulded it to her pleasure, if she now inhabits your lonely dreams. Without needing any spell she has well and truly captured you, from the way you lose your head at the mere mention of her name. I was watching you back there at the spring when her dress brushed against your hands, or was it your soul? You looked as if a spirit had soared off with you to the highest peaks, and now she's gone you look as if you've had all your feathers plucked. Am I right in thinking you're longing to fly to her lily-like lips and settle there forever more?"

"It was she who taught me to fly, when I saw her coming towards me as light as a feather, with her water jar on her hip, as splendid as a comet behind the mountains, I shuddered and thought I was going to die. She, a star, and me, a poor thirsty wayfarer, and when she looked at me it was as if a petal had descended from heaven and caressed my soul. I knew I'd die if I didn't talk to her."

"And when she gave you a drink of her water..."

"I couldn't quench my thirst, it still rages...for her, like a lark awaiting the new day to drink the dewdrops, I await her to fly to heaven, without her all the stars have paled, I can't forget her for a single moment, just as the earth doesn't forget the seeds it harbours in its womb and a mother doesn't forget the pains of childbirth. She has taught me that a tiny dewdrop can become a river, master."

"Really? Even if you haven't picked a single rose from her garden yet or tasted the meanest of her sweet fruits..."

"Even if I only got as far as her garden gate, gazing at her like a hungry beggar, I saw the faces of my unborn children in her ardent eyes. She holds them like a hidden desire in her heart and moulds them like clay for me day after day. If magic managed to reveal all this treasure in the light of her eyes then that same magic will give me the strength to cross deserts, scale mountains and navigate the seas, I'd fearlessly tear suckling wolf cubs from their mother for love of her. For her I'd burn like incense and then fly to the ends of infinity in that thick fog that wraps the soul in sweet pain and my happy cry would wake the stars themselves."

"What ardour, by all the gods of Olympus! But if my memory serves me well, before meeting this girl with skin like honey, every time we used to talk about love you never had a word to say and now here you are chattering about your children as if they were already here by your side helping you to cut your way through this wilderness."

"Indeed they are, every day they're here helping me, ever since I've learnt to love this sweet poison burning like a flame in my breast, I feel them here with me, from the first morning light when the tousled dawn peeks out from the sun's skylights, to when a yawning night leans out of sunset's windows. I constantly think of them and their mother, her beauty will not fade in the autumn of her days and as I sleep, I dream of lying under an arbor bedecked with bunches of stars and I watch her dance in the waving wheat with a snowflower in her hair, while our unborn children play the double reed flute for us, laughing."

"How I envy you! You understand love so well. Whereas I lost my faith in it long ago, and now consider it a fairy tale. When I was a young dreamer I experienced a love so painful that it became the bane of my life, and to free myself from the memory I started to go joyfully into battle without any fear of death, this is what my reputation for cruelty springs from."

"Truly, master? You've never mentioned it before. Tell me, what was her name? Do I know her?"

"I seem to remember her name, but I can't be sure, I do know that I never want to hear it again. I don't want to tell you who she was, I swore that her wretched name would never pass my lips again, I wouldn't even scribble it on these tablets, because her memory is a thorn in my side, it still stings."

"Tell me the story without mentioning her name then, the memories are churning in your brain now anyway."

"You're right, I can't pretend otherwise, The wound may heal if it is aired.

Her father died when she was just a child and one day her mother disappeared too. She was left an orphan with no one to look after her, so she lived alone under the protection of goodness knows what god between heaven and earth at the foot of the Palatine, a stranger in her own land. Her hut stood on a slip of land between a wheat field and a spring where the women went to fill their water jars at sunset and travellers stopped to rest and quench their thirst. The first time I saw her she was just a heedless, barefoot goatherd in a ragged shift racing after someone else's stray goat. I helped her capture her runaway goat and when we had put it back with the rest of the herd she was so happy that she danced round me singing like an enamoured butterfly, in no time at all I had completely lost my head over her. I was overcome by emotions I had never experienced before, strange thoughts crowded my mind, I felt as if I had discovered a new land.

I couldn't wait for her to grow up so that I could take her home with me, I wanted to rescue her from her hard life. Although she was so used to hard work that she didn't even seem to notice it anymore. She laboured constantly for long hours without ever complaining, stopping only to consume a hunk of bread before resuming whatever task occupied her that day. She never took holidays or a day off but did the work of the seasons, labouring in the vineyards or herding the goats. At sunset she sat by the fire spinning and weaving ropes. Before dawn she was always up kneading the dough for the day's bread, she was truly an angel. She was used to her solitary life but all she had to do was stamp her foot and I would run to her side with a rose between my teeth and a sheepskin ready to warm her feet.

The mere sight of her slender hips and white, undeveloped breast drove me mad. Her hair, her eyes, her child-like smile ... when she smiled she used to part her lips very slightly, like a butterfly intent on sucking nectar from a flower, and I felt lost as I saw my reflection in her eyes. I knew that she was mine for the asking; sometimes as she lay on her bed crying and trembling like a tree tossed by the wind she would cling to me, offering all the sweet fruits of her love, but I never laid a finger on her because for me she was a sacred trust. She was just a child in the springtime of her existence, a virgin with a soul as pure and unsullied as an unploughed field.

I had known her for some time when I finally decided to give her a white silk dress with a white bodice embroidered in gold thread and a crown of jasmine for her hair. It was my wedding gift. As an orphan the most she could have hoped for was marriage to a humble pig man, so when she saw my precious gifts she jumped for joy, let her long locks down and insisted on trying everything on there and then. She was as splendid as a goddess and as sweet and tender as a lamb. I left her hut impatiently counting the days until she would be mine forever.

That same evening a fine knight came riding down the slopes of the Palatine on a horse as sleek and well-bred as its master. They said he had noble blood in his veins, certainly he was sumptuously dressed in silk and had ardent eyes and long black plaits bound up around his head. He came up to the hut, glanced inside and smiled as his gaze slid over her bare feet, her sweet, innocent countenance, budding breasts, slender hips and long hair hanging loose.... .

His horse was exhausted, its flanks heaving with sweat and needed forage. The handsome knight dismounted and swung his costly cloak off his shoulders .... much later, someone only half awake remembered hearing the door of the hut bang and the shrill neigh of a galloping horse ringing out in the night over the fluttering of bats' wings.

Next morning when the women went down to the spring with their water jars they looked everywhere for her in vain. They called out her name again and again but their only answer was the soughing of the wind. So with their heads bowed they made their way back to her hut; the door was open and inside no one stirred, the embers of the fire were dying, the lantern was unlit, the bed unmade and the water jar lying empty on the ground. These were the only traces of her. Where was she? Where had she gone? Nobody wanted to say it but everyone had heard the thunder of hooves on the rocks and everyone knew that she and the handsome stranger had fled clasped in each others' arms on the fleet white horse that could gallop like the wind.

That day the birds didn't sing and the bees made no honey. The young girls sat in a row next to the spring and cried their grief out loud, burying their faces in their hands and lamenting as if she were dead. The old women cried and beat their breasts, supplicating the gods of Olympus with loud laments and prayers. One old crone intoned the same prayer for hours, imploring the gods to grant the young flower, the silver bud, bloom of the mountains and valleys, the nightingale, the swan, a fresh spring with warm bread and a shelter wherever fate took her, over mountains and plains. At the break of day nameless messengers whispered to the breeze that they had been seen sailing away alone, bound for unknown lands."

"Master, didn't anyone pursue them? Try to find them? Didn't anyone think that a rich, strong knight with a swift horse could have easily taken advantage of the poor girl all on her own, perhaps she was not willing, perhaps he had snatched her from her hut and bundled her on his horse ... "

"Just like the miserable little baggage she was? Trembling with pride and shame just like any other bashful virgin? No, the girl who had promised me her heart, swearing eternal love, went with him willingly .... like a bird who suddenly finds the cage door open she sang her happiness as she fled. It was she who clung to his horse's tail until he pulled her up pillion behind him. She was even seen unplaiting his long braids and feeding him water from her own lips before she put on her silken dress she wore to elope in. If she had run away naked like the bitch in heat she was or with her everyday rough shift I could have forgiven her, but to flee like a virgin with a garland of jasmine, symbol of purity, in her hair...

No! Was I then supposed to go looking for her? No, I didn't go after her because if I had caught them I would have ripped her eyes out in my wrath. I would have happily blinded her with a burning iron poker or a silver pin. Neither of them would have survived my fury in that bitter hour, I wouldn't have spared a single leaf, a bird, or a forest shadow in my rage. I stood outside her hut cursing anything she had touched, savouring the bitter fruits of her orchard which slowly imbued my flesh with their poison, the thorns of the undergrowth were piercing my skull, lacerating my skin with festering sores and my dreams were burning in the wind. I had one of my servants tie me to a tree by my hair for the whole of that day, from dawn to dusk, to stop myself from running after them. When I remember I can still feel my scalp tear.

Luckily I never saw her again, nor do I desire it. This is why I don't believe in fairy tales anymore, my confused memory of my only love is a besmirched horror. Love came to me like an all-consuming flame that turns all it touches to ashes and is only quenched when there is nothing left to burn. It still torments me to think that I will die without ever having my revenge. Women: poisonous serpents, desert scorpions, tomb vipers. I don't hate women as such, I hate the evil they incarnate, their falsity, their hypocrisy, their treachery, their complete inability to love, the venom they ooze from every pore, their creeping egoism and all the false stories they invent to prop up their usual pack of lies.

If she suddenly appeared in front of me here and now I'd still strangle her with my bare hands without batting an eyelid, sure that I wouldn't be dammed because I would only be ridding the world of a rotten seed, harbinger of decay. After that, I wouldn't mind at all being thrown to the executioner, in fact I'd stroll to the block with him arm in arm, finally free of the memory of a wholy perfidious creature.

This is as much as I can tell you without speaking her name. If I had gone on living my usual life in Rome, obsessed by thoughts of her, I would have gone mad. The Samnite war saved me. Marching off with the army meant travelling, seeing faraway places, so I answered the call to arms content, ready to butcher the first enemy I saw, and above all deliriously happy with the thought that I might never come back. In those far lands I spent a long, cold, icy winter which froze the heart, with no other company but my anger. To vent my bitter rage I would gallop my horse through ice and mud chasing ghosts in the mist as if I was chasing those two.

There I discovered that no cold is as intense as the chill in our hearts, a frozen soul that no fire, no fur, no cloak suffices to warm. Although it was the first time that I came into close contact with the brutality of death, lurking in each reed bed we passed, I discovered that I wasn't afraid of death, only of that biting cold, that went on and on and is with me still.... But enough of me and all the troubles she caused me, dwelling on it is like drinking kraters of drugged wine until you go out of your mind, talking about it wastes moments of precious eternity, remembering a dirty bitch. What about you, you've been lucky enough to find true love. You are a poet, can you describe it to me? What do you feel exactly?"

"True love lasts forever, master. It soars in the air like a thousand glass birds. It is a basket of knowledge, it never breaks and never wears, it outlives a thousand generations of man, it lives in these mountains and beyond them, beyond the forests of giant ferns, beyond envy and harmful gossip, beyond ... everything. Its delirious, feverish, happily melancholic. Listen to these verses and perhaps you will understand.

With my back against the wall,

I ride my horse without a carriage,

backwards.

Melancholy burns within me like yellow fever.

A dog barks outside.

The leaves on the devil's tree with its ripe strawberries ripple.

Yellow melancholy.

The sun is sinking,

Its last ray kisses the owl I painted yesterday,

The owl seeks love.

The blacksmith seeks love too,

But hasn't found his mate,

And she hasn't found the blacksmith,

The blacksmith's hair is long and white.

My hair is long too, and I ride,

With my back against the wall,

I ride my horse without a carriage,

Backwards.

This, and many other things, is love, master. If you haven't found the right person in the past it doesn't mean that you cannot love again, because love jumps up from its straw pallet without warning and runs around happily in the fresh green grass, among the bushes and rocks, with a flower in its hair as it shouts out your name. Love can work miracles, master, it's the memory of a kiss like soft rain that lingers on your wet lips, love is biting the same apple, a lake where the stars admire their reflection, like the wind stripping the blossom from the apple and almond trees, like the perfume of dried wheat at the height of the summer.

Love is like a silver thread that drops from the heavens like a rare pearl, it is the torch that lights dark paths, a dewdrop on a butterfly's wings. Love is the painter's inspiration, the poet's muse, it is sitting on the cliffs and looking at the stars as you listen to Creation breathing. This, and a thousand other things, is love: the love that the wood-elves hide in the wrinkles of time because they are jealous of those who find it."

"Heavens, after your hymn to love what instrument will ever be able to play me the song? So if young Cupid with his blindfold happens to pull a poisoned arrow out of his quiver and hits his mark, your life's ruined forever .... how true that love and pain are two sides of the same coin. It's a pity that I'm no good at these idle games anymore, after my sad experience I've turned as rough and tongue-tied with young girls as some poor peasant offering his basket of figs at the gods' altar."

"You can always learn again, master."

"Learn again, now? What, to recite poetry perhaps? I don't think so, I can't be bothered to stutter my way through sweet nothings, I like to be straightforward, I don't want to murmur the usual lies that girls enjoy so much. I'm a Roman soldier and can butcher more than a hundred enemies in battle in one day without turning a hair, but when it comes to courtship I don't want to have to fumble my way, find myself tied up in silken bonds; as soon as I can I run like a hare. Do you really want to know the truth, my friend? Ever since then no flame has burnt in my breast, my love has been reduced to a few weak groans and my heart no longer sings nor seeks new lands and new skies. When I want to, I can jump on a she-wolf in heat until kingdom come, I can even pretend to swoon amidst the marvels and mysteries of her blowsy lilies, but I'm completely unmoved by the floods of tears and sighs of some frivolous nymph with plump, tender lips and breasts as round and hard as unripe apples, there I stand like marble, with never a moment's regret for her or for me."

"And what, master, if one day just like any other day of your life, love caressed you once more with her delicate fingers, waking you from your long sleep? Then what would you do? Would you spurn her just because one day many moons ago you had met the malicious nymph you were telling me about? Not all girls are treacherous, not all of them produce tears at will or display that false candour that upsets you so much."

"All the ones that I've ever met were able to produce floods worse than Jupiter's best efforts, and then through their tears, sobbed onto your chest, they talk of eternity, of clinging to each other forever, and in truth some girls have got eternity printed on their eyeballs, on their lips, and on their breasts and you think that I shouldn't make off as fast as my legs can carry me?"

"But once we've got to the bottom of this mission and it's over and done with, you'll want to spend some time with a pleasing companion rather than gazing at the pale moon all on your own?"

"You're right, after this mission I deserve a rest, so I'll need someone to enliven my days and warm my nights. Now what could I get up to if I had a little lovebird to hand: on summer days I could doze outside in her arms on a haystack, and then as summer draws to an end I could fecundate her with burning kisses and then die between her flaming thighs. In the autumn I would hug her close under a shady pergola covered in vines hung with bunches of plump black grapes, and then poison myself drinking a river of sweet juice from her ardent lips, and in winter, amidst the white snow, to the sweet sound of the lute, I could....

No! No! Enough my friend, for heaven's sake, these are all just idle wanderings, I don't want to keep you up any more, please forgive me, go back to dreaming of your nymph with the skin like honey, you lucky fellow, and don't bother about an old bear like me. Think that when we get back from this journey your love will be strong enough to uproot whole trees and towers."

"Goodnight then, master. Always at your service."

Janu went back to sleep at the back of the cave. In the deep silence sleep held the whole forest in its grip and the young poet was soon fast asleep and dreaming again.

At dawn when the whole world was still asleep, a strong wind tossed the trees against the sky and first one hawk then another drifted by. Janu, from his hiding place in a reed bed near the lake, watched them swoop as he waited for some game. He was just driving a deer into a net when he realised that all the animals in the woods were strangely silent.

Not even a croak or a honk from the frogs and the geese, nor the usual distant neighs in the fog from the wild horses racing each other across the meadows. The only thing running and making a noise that day in the forest was him. A cold wind was cutting its way through the thickets of bramble bushes like a rusty old knife, tearing at the tangled sprigs of hawthorn. Janu was still thinking about the events of the previous night and wondering about the angel with the scarlet wings his master claimed to have seen, when suddenly he heard the dry reeds behind him stir and then almost groan like a soul in purgatory. He turned round and saw a whole swathe of reeds had been flattened by the wind's fury and were now dangling broken like so many useless swords at the end of a terrible battle.

As he studied the outcome of the war he became aware of a pair of fiery eyes staring at him from some bushes half-hidden in the fog. Taken by surprise he abandoned his prey for a moment and the deer fled with its horns to the wind, while Janu decided that he had to solve the mystery at all costs.

On his hands and knees he groped his way into the dense undergrowth, long thorns scratched his face, he couldn't work his way free of the intricate tangle of brambles that surrounded the lake. He felt as if he were suffocating in their clinging embrace and up to his knees in water he dragged himself over the thick roots underfoot. The thick fog prevented him from seeing anything clearly. A dull noise came from a clump of strawberry trees and without hesitation Janu rushed up the bank and plunged recklessly into the grove.

In his haste he didn't even notice his hands, face and neck getting scratched, but obstinately went on looking until he spotted something moving in the ferns under the oak trees in the Iacona valley. He flung himself into the ferns and ran after the shadow until he reached the hot spring and from the spring he ran on until he came to the Femmina Morta cliff. On the edge of the cliff the mist from the lake suddenly cleared and he saw his daemon just as the black profile of the ravine came into view.

It was a giant asp, a monstrous snake with eyes as red as fire, a scaly head larger than a man's and long wiry tangled hairs dangling off its whole body. Its long body had a yellowish belly and a bronze-coloured back. This monster had always infested the Cimina Mountains and was more poisonous than the vipers who hid in tombs. It was particularly feared because of its ability to spit venom mixed with saliva from a distance.

The snake had stopped under the last tree before the cliff as if it were waiting for him, curled up on the tree trunk with its huge head leaning on the bark and its red tongue hanging out, it stared at the man as if it were challenging him. Janu, hypnotised by its magnetic gaze, didn't manage to stop in time and went tumbling over the cliff's edge down to the bottom of the ravine...

Not far way Marcus Fabius heard nothing. Ever since he had woken he had been anxiously observing strange clouds of black smoke that were rising helter-skelter into the sky like a herd of maddened goats not far away. He was still staring at the mysterious phenomenon when he heard a huge explosion. Hundreds of startled birds rocketed out of the surrounding woods over his head and the frogs in the ditches seemed to have gone mad. Marcus realised immediately what the smoke and the explosion meant; the fire god who slumbered in Mount Venus in the middle of Vicus Lake had awoken and issued forth from his den. His bellows shook the earth's surface and a fountain of boiling lava spurted towards the livid skies to a towering height, pouring its effluvia in a deadly stream. In only a second, or perhaps a fraction of a second, the whole area was smothered in black smoke and while rabbits and wolves cowered in their dens, a giant with arms of fire rolled huge boulders and launched them on the world.

A river of blazing magma gushed down the mountain scything hundreds of oak trees that burst into flames and then collapsed in blackened heaps, but the magma maintained its inexorable flow until it swirled into the lake while the volcano spewed forth a steady hail of stones which spun through the air carving up trees and rocks like a flock of mad sculptors. Marcus, caught in the midst of this blind, devastating war which had seized him by his throat with steel claws like pitiless death itself, sought refuge, but as he tried desperately to flee he fell and hit his head.
CHAPTER 9

Heedless of the raging fury which destroyed all, the hours passed slowly. Marcus lay on the ground unconscious, more dead than alive for two days and two nights. He woke on the third night with the moon turning the darkness into a mere twilight and illuminating the columns of black smoke that still blanketed Mount Venus. The woods around him were covered in blue-grey ash and seemed to sway with a rippling effect like a rough sea; far, far away tree trunks stripped of all foliage and branches stood out starkly like spectral mummies covered in black soot. He found himself lying all alone half-naked in a puddle of mud, blood and sweat, with a gash on his head, charred clothes and his throat parched with fever. He had no idea how he had got there or why, there was no sign of his young slave, nor did his master remember him.

So, dirty and bloody, as if he had just emerged from his mother's womb, Marcus was reborn. He had forgotten the Capitoline, the Senate, the mission he had called sacred, he had lost all his strength and ardour, his fiery gaze and thundering voice, his memory was a blank, he did not know where or who he was and the earth seemed about to open and swallow him up beneath his naked feet. He had lost all sense of direction and could not remember his own name, or where the sun rose or where the black shadows that rise from nothing hide. Rome's arrogant, bloodthirsty, unscrupulous, iron general was lost in the woods like a child with his eyes filled with tears, and like any child lost in a strange place he hid his head between his knees and grasped his calves sobbing, rocking himself back and forth until he dropped into a leaden sleep like death.

Dawn found him stretched out on the ground with his eyes wide open staring at the sky like a dead man's, he was surrounded by a tragic silence only broken occasionally by the cawing of the birds of prey who circled above him, eager to claim their share of the prize, while other strange forms slink in and out of the smoke. Marcus took no notice of them just as he took no notice of the white clouds racing across the skies like a stampeding herd of wild horses, he did not even see the sky, he had been lying there sphinx-like for hours, his glassy gaze on a black spider spinning a web in the twigs of a laurel hedge.

Only when the spider's web was a perfect trap gleaming in the sunlight did the sphinx wake from his torpor and heave himself painfully up to wander off endlessly in the woods around the lake, coming back to the same place time after time again. Exhausted, with the ache of fever penetrating his very bones and unable even to stand upright anymore, racked with hunger and pain from his wounds, closer to death than life, he continued to clamber bent double over the rough-edged rocks seeking his lost path. When he saw a dead leaf trembling in the breeze on a bush he was overcome by a mad desire to launch himself into the air and fly away to escape the hounding of death. Because he could feel death; it was there with him accompanied by a thousand lost souls dancing around like maddened butterflies. And at their head was the angel with the huge scarlet wings .... he was overcome by a chill wave and gripped by cold shivers and suddenly he remembered everything: Rome, his mission, the secret meeting in the Campidoglio, his slave Janu. He saw beautiful Uri again and Azelen, the angel of death, as he unfolded his enormous wings and whispered from icy lips,

"Leave these mountains. Go! Go as quickly as you can and never come back again."

Time slid slowly by, long, difficult hours, and Marcus remained in the same place, imprisoned by invisible chains. A storm raged in his head, a battle royal of conflicting, tumultuous thoughts; then as the air slowly warmed the wilderness rang out with the love song of the blue rock thrush, singing his heart out from a lonely branch in the middle of the wood beside his burnt nest. A desperate Marcus listened to the hauntingly lovely notes as he clung to an oak tree on his hands and knees, and long-forgotten memories came back to him as clearly etched as pink clouds, in a flash he saw his whole life and remembered another thrush singing in his youth.

That bird had been as blue as the sky after sunset too, and had sung on and on as it waited for its mate and built its nest in the chimney of his childhood home; still singing it had fluttered to the branches of the pomegranate tree in the garden. Marcus, saw himself as a child under the tree, while his mother threaded the seeds from an open fruit into a necklace as if they had been precious pearls, and how, laughing, she had jokingly put it round his neck. He remembered how he used to play with a little wooden boat in the stream in front of the house; it was a hot day in August and he was happily launching his little boat as far as possible when suddenly gusts of winds swept dark storm clouds over the sky and curtains of rain began to fall, sinking his little boat which disappeared under the water forever.

Then he saw himself grown up, commanding his men on a large ship, also made of wood, he saw once more the battles, the sacks, the dead, so many dead... and to block out that terrible picture he closed his eyes, but it was too late, enormous roots had grown in his soul.

His face livid, his lips drawn back in a rictus, his heart was a burning brand in his breast and bowels. He started to cry again, wringing his hands: he cried for all the widows' tears, for all the mothers' laments, for the hunger of the orphaned children, for the cruelty of war, for his own contempt for life. He cried for the ferocious beast which lurked in man, remembering all the men he had killed, and finally, lacerating his face and breast with his nails, he cried for himself: "you will discover the paradise of tears," Uri had predicted, and for the first time in his life Marcus, so sure of himself, domineering and bold, used to commanding other men, felt lonely and frightened, terribly frightened. He felt as if he were already dead, dead and exiled even from hell, wandering aimlessly with a train of other ghosts brandishing burning torches and setting fire to banners dyed with their victims' blood.

The storms, earthquakes, fires and other scourges which afflict nature, are they not all like the hate, envy, vendetta and desire for ill which afflict men's hearts? The ferocious elements rage, devastating and destroying the earth only to subside, and from their fury men learn to know and tame them, but first come blood and tears. After his cathartic cry, drained of all his bitter tears, Marcus calmed down and reflected on his limited powers against those invisible forces, hidden beneath the earth's crust; he lingered, torn between desperation, pain and torment. But hunger and thirst drive the wolf from its lair, and like a wounded giant Marcus staggered up, resolved to make a last desperate effort to save himself.

Slowly, painfully he pulled himself up and with the aid of a dried branch as a walking stick he set off into the smouldering woods, straining to hear the sound of running water. He was desperately thirsty, he would have given his life just to be able to wet his lips and struggled along buoyed up by the hope of finding a spring. His knees were buckling, his dragging feet left bloody footprints, but stumbling and falling he managed to make his way from one spur to another until he plunged into a dense green cloud.

He was greeted by an overpowering smell of sulphur and when he reached the rim of the crater he peered down into a bottomless pit. Muffled sounds rose from the depths of the riven earth, mournful murmurs and laments from the eternity of an infinite abyss.... but Marcus was determined not to give up, so with his eyes watering from the fumes and a hand cupped over his brow to ward off the sun's glare, he pressed on until he came across a little stone temple in the middle of a grove of trees. It was the famous temple dedicated to the Cimina Jupiter, sited right on the god's rock. Marcus was oddly comforted by the sight of a man-made object and persevered with his climb over the smoking rocks. From the summit he swept the valley below with his eagle's eye and summoning the last remnants of his ringing soldier's voice, a voice that in the heat of the battle had shaken the earth itself, he raised his staff high and like Moses from the heights of Sinai, thundered:

"Is anyone there? Can you hear me? What cheer? I, Marcus Fabius Cesus, Rome's general, I am still alive. Do you hear me? Come and get me, I am alive, alive, still alive!"

After that outburst, rather like a sick man who seems to improve just before the onset of death, Marcus felt faint and grabbed hold of a tree to stop himself falling. Then suddenly like magic he saw a dreamlike vision emerge from that pathless wasteland wreathed in black smoke.

The sun was drowning in an immense plain which stretched down to the sea. It was the famous broad valley of red earth where the blond Tiber placidly flowed, backed by a chain of azure mountains caressed by the last rays of the dying sun. Far away the trunks of shorn cork oaks gleamed like burning brands and on the horizon the Tyrrhenian sea shone like golden mother of pearl as it kissed the skies.

Houses were set in huge, stupendous gardens full of magnificent trees groaning with ripe fruit. The tiled roofs were supported by wonderful painted columns shining in the sun. The ashes from the volcano had not touched the green plain where herds of cattle and horses grazed peacefully. Some farmers were bent over their ploughs, others were singing as they scattered seed over the fertile soil. Lush vineyards dotted the valley interspersed with waving olive groves. Wild myrtle, holly, bay leaves, rosemary and lavender mingled their scent with that of the dog roses, pines and cypress trees. A paradise strewn with little groves here and there among the fields and criss-crossed with rivers and streams leaping joyfully over the golden tufa rock.

This marvellous, sweeping prospect was protected on one flank by the harsh wooded chain of the Cimina Mountains with lake Vicus, and on the other by hot and cold thermal spring lagoons. The rolling fields stretched to the horizon in an archaic vision moulded like the rounded forms of a woman nourishing the villages with the milk from her breasts. The magical vision reverberated with the sound of the sirens' singing and was bathed in a pure light coloured from the palette of some unknown god. An amazed Marcus was convinced he was seeing things, castles in the clouds created by light and shadow, the whole scene looked like an incredible painting by a crazed artist sprung magically into life.

Some cunning magician must have breathed over the timeless masterpiece on this land where the inhabitants seem to have just woken from a deep sleep. Although nature reigned over the scene the valley hummed with life and bustle; in the distance the sound of bronze axes and picks rang out as deep tunnels were dug under the mountains to extract ore, and long processions of carts hauled precious metals from the mines. Marcus glimpsed the fires of the charcoal burners and caught the glow from numerous forges hard at work.

Down below smiths were working copper, iron, gold and other metals, smoke from the new industries hung over the plain and there was a hive of activity by the sea; the ports were clogged with the coming and going of ships loading and unloading their goods at the wharves, while the warehouses overflowed with merchandise from all over the world. Everywhere Marcus looked people were on the move. He was overcome with dizziness and closed his eyes. He did not realise that he had finally reached Etruria, his objective, and now had the privilege of observing the secrets of that mysterious population without being seen, now that he had a pageant of Etruscan life being played out before his eyes his only thoughts were on survival.

He had to get down and out of the forest as quickly as possible, find people to help him, food and medication for his injuries. His dry lips, swollen tongue, empty stomach and the pain from his hurts all sharpened his vision and hearing, he looked around carefully until he saw a spiral of smoke from a fire rising quite close by. This was his last chance, so with the hope that someone was next to the fire he set off, following the drifting smoke as trustfully as the pollen blows in the wind. Slowly, almost on his hands and knees like a wounded wolf, he advanced cautiously down towards the fire.

Around the burning embers he found people bustling about preparing food for a great banquet: some of the servants had butchered a large goat with curved horns and were cutting the meat up into pieces, others were beating the meat before roasting it, a scullion was kneading dough in a large basin and other helpers were flaying kids and roasting pork. Handmaidens were placing platters and bowls on tables with artistically carved legs in the shape of various animal hooves, servants were spreading cow hides on the ground and carrying bread baskets and other food to the tables, others were pouring wine mixed with honey and water into jugs, carafes and kraters in gold, silver and ivory.

Sweet incense was burning in a richly carved bronze tripod and to one side someone played the double flute as dancers in beautiful transparent veils paced through their steps. Close by in front of a cave entrance completely covered in moss, ferns and red earth an old woman sang to herself as she wove a linen cloth with the colours and patterns of the sacred serpent.

Marcus stayed hidden watching this scene of refined luxury and ostentatious wealth without being able to decide what to do; in the meantime the sacred drums began to boom in the depths of the forest, their beat magnified a thousand times as they thudded through his chest. Suddenly group of beautiful maidens filed out of the woods, more beautiful than roses at dawn, and in a single instant, perhaps less, the thorny brambles cover them with white veils over their hair gleaming like silk. The splendid maidens were dressed for the hunt, their white tunics damp with perspiration clung to their bodies as if they had just sprung from the womb of the earth. With their skin glowing like the moon they seemed to belong to some remote age when god's face was mirrored in the countenance of the human race.

Captivated by so much beauty, Marcus wanted to shout out, but his cry died on his parched lips; he tried again without success, he had completely lost his voice. The pain from his injuries and hunger set his head spinning, and his eyes clouded over. Through a grey haze he glimpsed the bows and arrows and slings the girls were carrying and tried to follow the sinuous movements of their closely draped white tunics embroidered with gold thread, their bare breasts and naked shoulders ... , suddenly he felt someone grasp him by the shoulders and a rough voice asking:

"Who are you stranger? Where do you come from, of what blood are you? Did the wind blow you here? Are you alone? Where are your companions?"

Before his strength abandoned him again, Marcus tried to answer but he could not even manage to turn round, he was already encased in death's chill, he could not see the man behind him and in his delirium all he could do was to stare straight ahead at the girls in front of him and their rich black locks which had been bound in plaits coiled around their heads before the hunt, but had escaped in the fury of the chase and fell around their shoulders in soft wavy swathes, making the young amazons even more majestic and attractive.
CHAPTER 10

When Marcus awakened again he found himself lying on a warm sheepskin near a fire just outside the door of a wattle and daub hut. He was wearing a long, soft white linen tunic, his injuries were perfectly healed and next to him chestnuts were roasting in the fire's embers and a cork tray was spilling over with grapes and figs.

Not far away Hanibald, the old monk with the long beard, was sitting on the bank of a stream quietly contemplating the flowing waters. He was wearing rough goatskin breeches and he still wore his garland of meddlers and hemlock flowers on his bald pate. At first Marcus Fabius looked around as if he were seeking someone, but then he wondered desperately if he was not dreaming. Could his mind have imagined the whole thing? He made his way towards the old man on his hands and knees, his voice trembling as he asked him:

"Old man, that evening when I met you, after you had fled, I went into your cave and wandering around I accidentally ended up in a labyrinth of tunnels, endless passages that led me to caverns with altars, tombs, pools of boiling waters, grottoes with vaulted roofs, can you tell me anything about them?"

Hanibald looked at him darkly at first and then bent his gaze back on the flowing waters without answering, he lowered his head almost as if he wished that the other man would disappear. But Marcus persisted:

"Old man! Are you blind or deaf? Has time warped your mind and spirit as well as drying out your raddled old body if you hear me but don't answer?"

"Science turned my hair white, long vigils weakened my sight, but my ears work perfectly. Rather than waste words on you, I'd prefer to get drunk or throw myself to the wolves. My old master Zoroaster, peace and blessings be on him, was right when he said that the dregs of mankind hardly ever realise when they see the light because the sacred light blinds them like a lightning flash. So tell me..... tell me how a little worm of a barbarian Roman, a monster of pride and arrogance, who dared enter the famous twelve caves reserved for the sacred rites following the Sacred Road to the afterworld, how come you weren't instantly blinded? How come the viper of the sepulchres didn't strike your heart as soon as you set foot in the burial grounds? Don't you know that passage is only used by solemn processions with heavy funeral cars? It is forbidden to the uninitiated. Didn't the hyenas, the devil custodians, see you? They would have torn you to pieces."

"Roman? You called me Roman? So you know who I am? Who told you of my plans? How did you manage to worm my secret out, old man?"

"I've known all about you ever since you first set foot in the forests at the Pass of the Kite, I know you're not a robber or a pirate even if you do command the waves with iron oars. Your Roman friends say that you're brave, loyal and strong, that nobody can withstand you, nobody can escape you, nobody can .. kill you. In battle you fight like a savage, if you're left alone and wounded on the field you'd drink your own urine and eat tree bark like a goat to survive, because you'd survive anything, you can eat poisoned berries and stinging nettles without problems. I know all this and more about you, soldier.

Nothing is a mystery here in the Holy Woods of Etruria, the cradle of the faith revealed. These lands were once inhabited by the population of the Falischi, who descended directly from stone age man, children of the giant ferns, a hardy race of hunters, fishermen and shepherds. You came blundering along ready to cut the throat of friend or foe and got lost in the meandering tunnels quarried by this antique population like a little boy. "

"So those labyrinths and caves, the tomb of the princess, the solid gold bier, the lake of boiling water, they were all real? In that case those villages with youths playing the flute and long-haired maidens dancing in walnut and pomegranate groves watered by running streams were all real too? And that wonderful valley bathed by the sea full of deer and gazelles, marvellous vineyards where singing women crowned with wreaths of lilies and laurel leaves pressed the grapes, all that paradise is real too? Tell me old man, did I really meet the secret tribe of the daughters of Arius or was that all a dream? If it were all true then I could find Uri, my siren with her hair flowing down to her feet."

Hanibald got up slowly, picked up a bundle of dry sticks lying on the ground and put it on the fire, then he stoked the fire carefully with a cherry branch and methodically added more wood, obviously trying to gain time before he answered, he nibbled his lower lip to delay speaking. His face was more drawn than ever, emaciated and shadowed, so pale and drawn the white gleam of his skull shone through his paper-thin skin. Finally he looked Marcus full in the face with his hawk's eyes and whispered in a grave tone:

"It would have been much better for everyone if you'd bought yourself a nice donkey and gone off to chop wood instead of coming to break your neck here.

No! You didn't dream your barbaric sacrilege, your sin-stained eyes really saw the tombs, the lake of boiling water, the golden bier where the Elected One will lie in state for the last Etruscan cycle of the moon. The groves with their flowing streams and bountiful fruits, the deer and gazelles and all the rich Etruscan lands, they were all real too. It was Uri, the priestess you call siren, who saved your life. For seven days, while you lay possessed by the dark, she healed you with decoctions of burdock and chamomile flowers, you were just a broken reed and in the eyes of Uri's sisters you should have died, were already dead. But she watched over you day and night and didn't let anyone touch the sacrilege."

"What are you talking about, old man? Why should Uri have healed me, answer me, why?"

"Certainly not for your own sake, or to let you complete your mission in these sacred mountains. And yet every day lovely Uri made you drink her healing drafts and then spent hours and hours anointing your disgusting, smelly, suppurating wounds with a salve from a clay vase she had prepared. Although you were a mass of revolting, running sores, a mangy, stinking carcass, she cured you as if you had been a dying bird with a broken wing. She took your sandals off and massaged your feet with her own hands, every day she prayed to the god of the volcano to save you because it was he who had thrown you onto the rocks like a wrecked, rudderless boat with a broken mast. He had left you hanging between life and death at the mercy of human piety. Neither heaven nor earth had pity on you. If Uri hadn't saved you, you would have been keeping Pluto company down in the depths of his kingdom beyond the grave days ago."

"Why did Uri rescue me from my evil fate then?"

"Do you remember when she tried to talk to you? She laid out the life of her people before your unseeing eyes. She explained the beginning and the end without omitting a single thing, but you didn't understand and now you're asking me why she saved you? As I've already said, it certainly wasn't so you could complete your disgraceful mission, she and her sisters and all the people of Etruria know that their destiny is almost complete, a thousand years of glory for the people of the Tyrrhenian sea are about to come to an end. Your useless death wouldn't do anyone any good."

"What you say is true, old one, other soldiers would come after me and more after them. But this doesn't make Uri any less generous. She saved my life, and I am her worst enemy."

"Uri did wonderful things for you, things you will never discover. But you, you blind, deaf, wingless being, how are you going to repay her hospitality, my brave soldier? Are you going to draw your sword and sack the whole of Etruria, killing its people and leaving its women and children widows and orphans? Do you want to know whether Uri hates you? Whether she hates your land, its people, your mould-clogged eyes? Well, even if she knows all about your plans, even if she found all your maps with their carefully drawn paths and each and every one of the signs you left on the trees, she still doesn't hate you. Nobody knows what hate is here. Listen, you sneaked in here like a ghost, like a silent ship without sails or oars, go back to where you came from you repulsive insect of death, give up your fell plans, there's still time, you can still put things right."

"You can tell Uri that I have no intention of using those maps."

"Liar!"

"Or rather, I want to tell her personally, please let me see her so that I can explain everything."

"Certainly, now you want to say you're sorry, now you're truly grateful, you wear a humble guise with cold pride and haughtiness, you're ready to swear on your knees that you'll halt the infamous treachery you're planning, but this is just a passing phase. While the storm is raging cowardly man crawls fearfully into the creases of the earth to hide, but as soon as he gets his strength back there he is, popping up out of his burrow like a rabbit after a storm, hungry for power and ready to spit venom like the serpent he is. But over my many, many years I've learnt that there's always a shred of decency even in the most arrogant of men, so if you want to be noble and virtuous for once in your life there is one thing that you can do: when you get back to Rome wait a little while before telling them what you have discovered. Your lips can be messengers of life or death, it's up to you to choose which they will be. Let the Etruscans conclude their mission on this earth and you shall have a great reward."

"I swear that I will do what you ask, but now let me see Uri, I only want to talk to her for a minute."

"No! I am here to tell you that you will never see her again. Forget her and go now that you are healed, go you scoundrel, go as quickly as you can. It would have been better for all of us if you had never come, even if it won't be you with your ship of straw who conquers this holy land."

"But I must see her!"

"No! No mortal will ever see her again. From now on until the cycle of the moon next August when the sacred lanterns will be lit in the Divine Temple under the sign of the constellation of Leo, Uri will remain alone, preparing herself for her complete separation from the material aspect of life. The Council has chosen her as the high priestess who will show the way during the last cycle of the moon, it is she who will embark and set sail on course for the dream of immortality, finally returning to her father."

"I knew that Uri was one of the predestined priestesses for the divine mission but if she stayed by my side to save me when I lay here close to death, why can't I see her now?"

"Uri allowed you the honour of being by her side when she spoke to you, but you failed to understand her message. Then she saved your life despite everyone's opposition, but at the time she still hadn't been elected high priestess. Now neither you nor anyone else can go anywhere near her. Nobody must disturb her. You will never see her again in this life, so I'll say it again for the last time, get out of here, Roman barbarian. Go and hunt pharaohs, dragons or rats for all I care, but get out of here. That's all we ask. For the last time, go, before the crows build a nest on your head, get back to that conceited race of yours. You cannot grasp the secret of how to swim in the realm of fantasy, you will be a slave to your earthly span for the rest of your days."

"How to swim in the realm of fantasy? What are you talking about, old man? No, I'm not going until you've explained, what do you mean when you say she's been chosen for the last cycle of the moon? The last cycle of the moon of what?"

"Of the Etruscan civilisation. Uri's mission is the most important a living creature could be charged with, she is to be sacrificed to the Supreme Etruscan Being to reach the pastures of the realm of the stars. "

"How will she be sacrificed?"

"When a red comet appears in the western sky, that is the sign of the end. A golden horn will proclaim the final command and the doors to eternity will be flung wide. When the time comes Uri will throw herself into the boiling pool at the end of the sacred way that runs through the twelve caves. She will enter the spring of the sacred waters amidst music and dancing and there will accomplish her glorious mission, swallowed by the deadly waves."

"Do you mean that Uri will deliberately throw herself into that boiling sulphur pool?"

"A butterfly is born to live for a beat of its wings, hovering over the stamen of a scarlet poppy. The dog rose flowers in the morning and bestows its petals on the evening breeze, neither seeks to linger forever in the mist. Even the water lily is born in mud only to be immediately devoured by larvae."

Marcus had hundreds of other questions to ask but, struck by these hard, prophetic words he fell silent, remembering the noxious fumes and sinister seething of the sulphurous pool with horror.
CHAPTER 11

On the seventh day of the second decade of the new moon, the time that had passed since Janu set off into the wilderness, Orphea raised her eyes in the direction of the Cimina Mountains again and again. Where their peaks thrust up into the blue skies, she sought in vain to interpret the flight of the birds and the cawing of the crows and ravens. For several days now she had no longer being keeping strict watch over her sheep swollen with milk as she sat anxiously under the oak tree next to her vegetable patch; nor did she heed the black ram if he strayed too far in search of tender young shoots of grass. She no longer paused, as she had done before she had met her love, to admire the last smudge of lacquered pink which stained the western horizon where the angelic blue sea met the land at the twilight hour when a fluttering bat would announce the onset of night. Nor did she wait to catch sight of the evening star twinkling out from behind the clouds. As she listened to the jackals howling at the moon she thought she could hear the laments of her injured love far, far away.

That morning Orphea had just got up when the foxes started to bark as if they had all gone mad, then their voices were drowned by a huge volcanic explosion, like the crack of a thousand bulls' horns against a cliff. Instinctively she turned to look at Mount Venus and realised that it was in full eruption, like a diabolic forge, cloaked in dense black clouds shot through with gouts of flame and jets of purple lava. Her thoughts flew to her love and without a moment's hesitation or fear she abandoned the ripe fruit hanging from the trees and prepared to go and seek him. To face the perils of the forest she took her father's cloak and tucked her long hair up under a wide-brimmed hat, thus disguised as a charcoal-burner she set off towards the mountains.

Running like a wounded deer she reached the old oak tree by the stream with its myriad nests and found the linen thread Janu had tied around its trunk. All day and all night she struggled through the woods following the thread, crying and praying:

"Where are you my love? For you I scatter my flowers to the wind and now my basket is almost empty. Where are you my heart? Days go by and the evening shadows lengthen to their allotted span, but where are you, my love? I waited for you in front of my tent for days and days, from dawn till dusk and on into the night, but the hours passed in vain and you did not come. How long must I wait? Look, my love, the light is fading and in the last rays of the sunset all the birds are returning to their nests, but I am still alone. Can't you hear my silent footsteps? I walk on and on and on.

Night and day I walk but where are you my love? Darkness is nigh and in the vast emptiness the stars sail through the sky like drifting boats hiding their broken masts with the brightness of their glow. Perhaps like me they are frightened of this enflamed darkness, this burnt earth oozing blood. I am tired, my love, tired and ship-wrecked in this emptiness, in this lack of you, my poor body in this sunset that inflames the sky's vault with burning gold. In a while all the leaves and all the birds in the forest will be asleep, my love, and only I will not be able to sleep, fearful never to wake again. Help me, my love, help me to stay awake, and you, dark-plumaged night birds of the forest, come and entertain me with singing and dancing; make a new song for my love and I."

Finally at dawn on the seventh day Orphea's efforts were rewarded and she spied her love in the distance. Janu appeared out of the mist, stretched out on the grass among the buttercups like a poor bird with broken wings.

Orphea's heart leapt and she summoned up the last of her energy to run to him. Love, joy, worry, all jostled for supremacy until they were overcome by fear that bound her in iron shackles as she realised that her love lay unconscious without moving on the ground.

Janu lay lifeless like a felled tree, bare-chested, wounded and bloody. His whole body had been grazed and bruised in his calamitous fall, he was covered in festering sores and dried, crusted blood and his feet had the marble chill of death.

Trembling Orphea knelt down beside him and covered him with her cloak. Bending over him she stroked him and murmured soothingly as she gathered him into her warm embrace, calling his name and whispering the sweet words of love. When she had washed his wounds she took a handful of golden fern seeds from her pouch and chewed them into a paste to anoint his hurts. Then she lay down next to him and prayed:

"Bring him back to me all-powerful god of love. You, who have the power to set the world ablaze, send a spark of your heat to warm this poor body back to life. He is in your hand, save him from death's cruel talons, have mercy on this vulnerable young poet who never wanted more than a smile from the world. Give him breath to hymn the eternal water song to the heavens in a shower of poetic beauty. Save my love I beg you, my god, you, who hold sway over life and death, you, who guide our souls to the light, do not let him drink the bitter chalice of death now that I have found him. Save him and he will be your root here on earth for all his allotted span. Out death, go so that he can see me again, but... if you cannot go empty-handed, if you have to have a soul, then take mine, take it now, immediately, because I couldn't go on living without him, otherwise go and do not return."

Exhausted, Orphea stroked her lover's eyelids murmuring softly to him:

"Wake up, my love, wake up. My heart is calling yours back to life and its wings will carry us both far away, to where we can listen to the hooves of time beating on the waves of the sea. Speak to me, my love, say something so I can hear the sweet sound of your voice once again, but never mind if you cannot speak, but don't go, my love, don't fly away alone like a migrating bird. Stay here with me. I have walked many miles and stayed awake many nights and now I am tired, my knees ache and my eyelids droop, but I'm frightened of losing you if I sleep. I'll rest here with your hands clasped in mine, but please my love, my migrating bird, don't go without me, don't fly away."

As an aeon of time went by Orphea steadfastly warmed Janu's frozen body with the flame of her love and with agonising slowness it warmed. Finally Janu managed to open his eyes. As soon as he realised who the girl next to him was he made a desperate effort to pull himself up but he was too weak and fell back into Orphea's arms. He longed to talk, to tell her of his love, but he was not strong enough and his eyes clouded over. A tear and a smile said what his tongue could not. Orphea was still clinging to his hands but at this she embraced him and kissed his forehead, his mouth, his eyes and dried the tears which trickled down his emaciated cheeks with her lips. Then she gathered him to her breast and in a tone as sweet as the breath of life she whispered:

"Weep, my love, weep and fear no more now you are safe in my arms. You have come back from the kingdom of the shades, our love has triumphed over death and while ever my heart beats I will not leave you again. No more wandering for you, your travels are at an end. Now don't tire yourself trying to talk, your breath is like a thousand words for me. Listen to me instead and I will tell you all I have done since you left:

I heard you call me and I got up from my bed, abandoning my father's tent to walk over the grass. The night dew soaked my dress and the sun's rays guided my daytime footsteps and now I'm here with you, ready to follow you to the ends of the earth until the end of my days without once looking back. Do you remember? You promised to bring me a bouquet of almond blossoms bound up in a rainbow when you returned; now the time has come and I will deck my hair with one of the buds and draw your head to my breast. You will be mine forever, without you I was like a flower imprisoned in the night, but now the dawn has come to free me. My fingers will caress your eyelids when you reawaken, your eyes have opened to the sun's rays and the clamour of life's hooves echo from every cave, every crevasse, every hole in the earth's crust. Together we will plant a lilac grove, my love, and our dwelling will overflow with flowers, we will follow their scent as we walk barefoot on the strand between the sand and the frothing sea and not even the waves will be able to erase our united footprints. Life with you will be wonderful, my love, I will listen to your poet's heart everyday."

At sunset the lovers found a refuge in a cavern and for weeks Janu hung between life and death, but his love gave him the strength to heal and Orphea was always by his side, protecting him like the snow protects the delicate seeds in the ground until spring comes. For love of Janu she made up new ballads every day and would rock him in her arms like a child and there, hidden in the earth's embrace, Janu was reborn in the midst of the dewdrops.

Finally came the time to leave and the lovers set off arm-in-arm in the depths of the night. Their way was lit by a full moon which bathed the countryside in a green light like day and they were hymned by the sweet song of the nightingale as they left the sacred Cimina Mountains forever. "

"Did Janu the poet manage to regain his freedom?" I asked divineThetia."

"As free as a migrating bird, as the leaves drifting down from the autumn trees. Never to wear chains again, he was reborn in his love for Orphea. Together they reached the coast and found a ship to carry them far away from their enemies' grasp.

The Roman patrician, Marcus Fabius Cesus, never saw nor sought his slave again.

When the time came for him to leave the Cimina Forest he swore solemnly to old Hanibald that he would have waited to tell the Senate what he had discovered until the Etruscans had completed their cycle of life on earth. He promised that for the time being all he would say was that he had crossed the hostile mountains without finding a way through to Etruria.

It would have been sufficient for Rome if he had merely shown how he, the first Roman in history, an arrogant adventurer from a noble house, had risked his life, crossed the rivers and lakes to explore the terrible forests of the Cimina Mountains. He would have been the first to have seen beyond the terrible, thorny wilderness to the north that shut Rome off from the world and history. But on 25th December, during the festival of the winter solstice in the Campidoglio, during the Senate meeting fixed so many moons ago, the general forgot the promises he had made and pressed by the Senators' questions he told the whole tale of his adventures. Thus he became both a liar and an executioner.

The tale of his discoveries spread around Rome like wildfire, Marcus was the man of the hour. The great patricians fought to entertain him at their famous banquets, even the deaf and the blind wanted to hear his tales. The crowds climbed up on the walls merely to catch a distant glimpse of him as he passed in the streets of Rome, roofs and windows were crowded with admiring faces and everyone tried to push their way to the fore to see him. When he came out of the Campidoglio, matrons would lie in wait for him for hours and hours, collapsing at his feet shrieking and crying, tearing their veils in joy. Maidens blushed merely at the sight of him. Rome was full of tales about his mission; his detailed description of the terrain he had explored, the rich lands of Etruria: its houses, gardens, the treasures found in the tombs, the hot and cold mineral springs, the bulicame – the boiling sulphur pool, even the plebs wanted to hear his stories. So for the first time in his life the noble general Marcus Fabius Cesus sat down and talked to the masses, and they, who had hated him, ended up loving him. Rome was one in giving thanks to the gods for their brave, bold son...

His information forced the Consul Quintus Fabius Rulliano to advance through the wooded mountains. In the euphoria which Marcus's tales generated, the death-knoll for the Etruscans, smiths and other craftsmen sprung up like mushrooms. They worked day and night to forge arms to defeat the peaceable Etruscan people.

The Roma militia refused to invade the terrible Cimina heights for months, terrified of Arius's curses on those who violated Etruscan lands. The terrifying wilderness still paralysed men's souls, the military leaders finally managed to persuade the troops to penetrate the marshes which devoured men and horses worse than any quicksands. But the soldiers' terror only served to postpone Etruria's fate.

As time went by the brave Roman warriors were persuaded to attack that land where peace reigned supreme. In the fields, the vineyards and the olive groves the peasants went about their usual work without suspecting a thing. All the flocks were out grazing and there wasn't even one sentry on guard, so the Consol found it child's play to bring up his men who crept forward quietly to throw themselves on an enemy still half-asleep. Instead of fierce hand-to-hand fighting it was a sack, the Romans dragged their victims off by their hair. The native Rasèni were anything but soldiers, their light vessels carried out trade with Corsica, Sardinia and other nearby islands.

Divorced from material goods, the Etruscans had no desire to conquer other people or extend their natural borders through violence, they had never subdued other races into slavery. Their true mission on this earth was wrapped in mystery, but they certainly did not know how to live in hate, they were born to love, and their pacific nature could not survive against the brutal ferocity of their invaders avid for booty and prey, ready to conquer and betray. Many of the so-called Etruscan army threw their arms away and exposed their breasts to the invaders and even those whom the Romans would have spared to make slaves, strong, young men and pretty girls, killed themselves to conclude their destiny in this life forever with a massive migration into the next world.

For them the secret of immortality was worth far more than all the gold in the world, this was why so many women, children, priests, warrior-kings, magicians and vestal virgins decided to immolate themselves in the stinking, boiling waters of the bulicame pool as a sacrifice to their supreme god. Never had a column of condemned victims been so desperate and so happy at the same time. Thousands of people offered themselves up as a sacrifice and disappeared forever more without trace. The total disappearance of that noble breed was the beginning of a whole tradition of silent heroes who preferred suicide and death to submitting to barbarian conquest."

"Even the maidens and the mothers preferred to die?"

"Yes! It was better to die than to wander around the ruins in rags and in bitter tears calling on sons who would never have answered again. Over the years the peasants have found rusty Roman javelins and Etruscan helmets as they ploughed the earth and children playing in the woods and caverns have unearthed white bones with no names. But all this is ancient history."

"And what about the crystal ark?" I couldn't stop myself from asking.

"When all was over, some of the priestesses freed the ark and left on it to bring life to other worlds."
CHAPTER 12

Suddenly the water in my pool muddied and then shattered like glass... all the visions disappeared, everything around me was silence, the raging storm like waves crashing on the shore had gone as had the snow and the mist, the thunder, the wind and Thetia's white lion. Thetia, who had returned to fly over imaginary trees for me, was gone for good.

I was left with a terrible feeling of nostalgia, that fatal sentiment that those who arrive too early or too late for a vital appointment feel, but one day she and I will meet again, no, one night, at a given hour in a moment divided by endless centuries, when her tragic countenance will have visited my dreams, our footprints will walk together once more. Our spirits will meet in that empty space between one thought and another. Her light whisper will reach me between the last instant of the day and the first moment of the night, in that empty field which is not part of the earthly realm, where the immense door of mystery ever gapes open. There on that cosmic, unreal, field will I await Thetia.

And on that same field will I await you, my reader. You'll recognise me immediately because I'll be holding the Songs of Solomon in one hand and my hair will be braided with old man's beard. I will await you, and if you do not come I will await you for ever more. We have ridden the moon on a moonless night, we have fought fierce warriors of mist plunging our daggers into the stars, we have filled our baskets and aprons with ripe cherries, I swear we will meet again, on a rainy day, on a street corner, in the mother-of-pearl eyes of a vagabond, in the claw-like hand of a beggar, in the rambling tales of an old man sitting in the shade of a tower, in a haystack built by a barefoot child under the blazing sun. I await you there, near the angels' harps, and we'll drink from the same wooden cup, and we'll offer other cups to other lips, and drinking again we will listen to the beating of the hooves of time in our breasts. And now, my friend, who has followed the poet patiently in this voyage, you must do one more thing: beneath the bramble bush where the black serpent observes us in silence, is a tiny rose with a drop of dew on it. Pick it and throw it over the cliff in front of Thetia's cave, so that when the sun comes up, a rainbow will appear magically to signal the end of our journey.

Don't you want to grasp it? Are you afraid? You mustn't be because you are in a dream, nothing can happen to you, it is like looking at a picture, nobody is frightened of a snake in a painting. But if you are still afraid we will pick it together and together we will throw it into Thetia's cave...

Thus we have seized life itself. In a book I have read that life is a drop of dew on a flower's stamen.

This is the drop our rainbow will be born from. Imagine how beautiful it will be, how it will sparkle on the wet stone, light up the mountainside, the trees, the leaves the nests and how it will awaken the angels and queens who lie in rest here. Their moss-filled eyes will open again, their curls will fly loose in the sunshine and a warm tremor will bring them back to life again... But we will not be there to see them because it is time for us to go, come quickly, jump onto our restless two-tailed steed. Before the sun shines from the gates of orient and its light blinds all the stars, long before our rainbow appears and the cock crows, we will ride through the sacred chestnut forest in the dark of the night, fly over rivers, ferns, lilies and reeds, and follow a narrow secret path without looking back until sooner than you think, I swear my friend, I'll have you home safe and sound.

The time will come, on a summer's evening, when the birds come and sing at your window and man's fatigue is soothed in sleep's arms, when the just and the unjust, the good and the bad all sleep, when the reaper with his scythe lying next to him sleeps in the fields and the flocks are all at rest, you will tell the sons of your sons how we flew as free as migrating birds over the terrible scarlet-crested Cimina Mountains seeking the cuckoo's nest.

