The Venice conspiracy

666 BC

Atmanta Teucer and Tetia sit together outside their hut, watching an autumnal dawn break across a perfect Etruscan skyline. Burnt orange, pale lemon and deepest cherry colour the distant forests.

Neither of them sleep well any more.

They sit here most mornings, holding hands, resting against the outside of the modest hillside home Teucer constructed of hewn timber, thatch, wattle and terracotta paste.

But life is better.

They have got away with it.

The thing they never now speak of – they are sure they have got away with.

Tetia leans her head on her husband's shoulder. 'One day soon we will sit here with our child and teach it the beauty of our world.' She puts his hand on her bump and hopes he feels the magic of the child kicking.

Teucer smiles. But it is not the expression of an excited father-to-be. It is one of a husband putting on a brave face, one who is worried that the unborn may not be his but that of the man who raped her.

Tetia squeezes his hand. 'Look, only the pines over by the curte seem to hold their green. Everywhere else has been set ablaze by the gods.'

He follows her eyes across the canopies of trees and tries not to think of his growing hate for the child she carries. 'The fires of the season cleanse the grounds for the coming crops.'

'You have seen this, husband?'

He laughs. 'It is not divination, it is fact.'

She wraps an arm around him and falls silent. Silence is often best these days. Somehow it seems to hold them together, heals the wounds they dare not speak of.

The sun is dripping golden light on to the valley. The syrup of a perfect morning is being poured. They notice a dark shape down the opposite hillside, rolling like a boulder.

Teucer sees it first. He stares hard. Blinks. Hopes he is mistaken. Maybe it's a giant bird or a wild cat, its black shadow cast on the straw-coloured land.

It's not.

His mouth grows dry.

Tetia sits up straight, brushes her long black hair from her eyes and squints into the warm light.

There's only one house on the other side of the hill.

Only one man who would send a rider from there so early in the day.

The dark shape gets bigger. In the seat of the valley it stops.

Teucer knows the figure is looking at them.

Preparing for them.

Coming for them.