The Venice conspiracy

CAPITOLO XIV

The Sacred Curte, Atmanta Tetia feels strangely nervous as she makes her way down the hillside to the groves near the settlement walls.

The sound of hammering spills from the temple in the adjoining curte. Squinting into the sun, she can see the silhouettes of slave workers moving like crabs along the roof as they pin tiles to timber frames.

She'd long anticipated the day when her husband would consecrate the completed temple in front of her family and all the other villagers. Now, for the first time, she has a sensation of dread.

Will Teucer be able to see by then? Will he ever see again? Will the elders and the nobles and the magistrates still want him as their netsvis?

She sees the sacred circle. Without Teucer, it doesn't seem sacred any more. She walks clockwise outside it, her thoughts trailing behind her like a long robe. The grass is all trodden down. The blaze that claimed her husband's sight is nothing but a blackened hole in the turf. The frenzied marks made by Teucer's lituus are still visible – as is the small but distinctive oblong he scraped in a clay patch in the west of the circle.

She senses something. Someone close to her. Behind her.

She wheels around.

Nothing.

No one there.

Her baby kicks as she crosses the line of the sacred circle, almost as though it remembers what occurred the last time they were here. Now she can clearly see the small patch of reddish clay where her husband made his knife marks. Tetia has brought her own sculpting blades to erase his impressions, but she can't resist letting her artist's eyes examine them.

They're stunning.

So precise, so detailed and intricate. She'd have never thought him capable of such beauty.

She drops to her knees and the baby makes her stomach groan.

'Incredible,' she says to herself. The snakes are so vivid she can almost picture them moving. The evil demon doesn't look that evil to her, in fact there's a certain majesty to him. She smiles, the netsvis even bears a passing resemblance to Teucer. She bends closer to examine the final revelation. It's magnificent. The couple look so peaceful, so happy. And the baby – surely he is everything she could hope for in a son.

Tetia feels happier than she's done for months. She runs her light, sculptress fingers over the indentations. They even feel pleasurable to touch.

She unwraps a cloth containing her work tools. Selects a broad knife. Takes a deep breath and meticulously begins.

Only she no longer intends destroying the markings. She's decided to keep them. Lift them from the ground and keep them for ever.