To steady my now horribly frayed nerves, I counted silently to fifty as the saddlebags were packed. At last it was all done.
As we were ready to depart, the first voice asked: ‘What password shall we take back with us?’
‘Canterbury,’ I answered, saying the first word that came into my head. I gave it in the English form, ‘Cantwaraburg’. I bit my tongue and cursed my nerves. I could feel the suspicious glances.
I laughed, adding: ‘Say you spoke with Flavius Aurelianus. They will understand.’
At last we picked our way on horseback down to the road. The smooth slabs underneath, I forced back the impulse to spur my horse to a wild gallop. Whatever had possessed me to open my mouth like that? I suppose it was that we’d been deep into a long day. I’d woken that morning, a shabby barbarian travelling with a priest who was barely less shabby, heading into a future that involved poncing my bread off others. I’d then killed two men in short order, taking over a tidy sum in gold. Now I’d just swindled another twenty-eight bags of gold from a band of mercenaries, any one of whom could have cut me down in the blink of an eye. Whatever I now got up to in Rome would be done in style. I was nervous. I was tired. Even so, I’d been stupid as a churl, and no one could blame me for wanting to get away while it was still in my power to do so.
A few hundred yards along the road, we broke into a steady trot. The gold was evenly distributed on each side of me, and the horse seemed hardly to feel the additional weight. A small but bright moon was now coming up in the sky with a star or two beside. We could make out the dreary waste that extended on our left, far into the distance. Way over on our right, the sea gently lapped the shore.
As we passed our fifth milestone, I began to breathe more easily. ‘How far to Telamon?’ I asked Maximin. I’d asked that the previous day, but had forgotten the answer with all that came between.
‘With horses on this road,’ Maximin said shortly, ‘I’d say we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.’
‘There used to be an inn about halfway there from Populonium. We can rest there.’
He looked nervously around. ‘I don’t feel too happy about sleeping in the open again.’
I agreed. We were now decidedly worth robbing. Besides, we had the means to make the last stages to Rome like persons of quality. I saw no reason why we shouldn’t do so, heart and soul. I opened my mouth to speak. Before I could even form the words, I clutched the reins in a spasm of fear.
Ahead, a horseman was galloping towards us. He was moving at a furious pace. It was no time at all before he’d passed from a tiny speck, only recognisable by the clatter of hooves in the silence of the night, to a solid presence just in front of us. About twenty yards away, he stopped and waited for us to come up to him. In the pale moonshine, I saw the glint of his half-drawn sword. And I could see the darkness about his left eye.
‘Singular courage,’ said One-Eye in accented Latin, ‘to be out alone on this road now.’ He let his sword slide back into its scabbard.
Did he recognise us from earlier? I’d then been in very different clothes. But Maximin was the same as ever, and there couldn’t have been many of my age in that region with my hair. Also, we’d seen him in Populonium. Why and when had he left? Why was he now racing back there? I was suddenly conscious of my sword, loose in its scabbard.
‘Greetings, my son,’ said Maximin, his voice bright and steady, ‘and a benediction upon your head. If you and like you are all we shall see this night, God will have smiled on us.’
One-Eye looked keenly at me. His good eye glittered cold in the moonlight. ‘You must be in a hurry for Rome – if that’s where you want to be,’ he said, speaking evenly. ‘Have you seen anything back along the road that so drives you forward?’
‘Nothing,’ said I in my best drawl. ‘We have business in Rome that will wait no longer.’ I added: ‘What do you think we might have seen?’
‘Perhaps nothing,’ came the reply. The face was now in shadow, but I could still feel the cold and searching look upon me. Was he looking at me or at my clothes? ‘Perhaps nothing at all,’ he repeated. ‘Or perhaps two men. Or perhaps more… This road is not always as lonely as it seems, nor as safe.’
We hadn’t yet passed again the spot where I’d killed the men. It had been a hot day, and those bodies must now be decidedly on the turn. Unless One-Eye had been in a gallop from before we’d seen him – and even then, he’d have needed a leather nose – he must have noticed some smell.
He continued to face in my direction, ignoring Maximin even when speaking with him. Was he thinking of some other question? Or was he merely setting me firmly into his memory?
He confirmed there was still an inn further along the road, though seemed deliberately vague about its distance. He spoke of other matters with Maximin. A casual listener might have found these matters unconnected with our journey. I could tell he was fishing for information.
Maximin answered him readily enough. An accomplished liar, he had no trouble keeping up a flow of chatter that gave out nothing of substance.
At last, though, One-Eye raised his hand in a gesture of parting and was on his way past us. He was no longer galloping. Whatever emergency had brought him tearing along the road seemed over for the moment.
While just within easy conversation distance, he turned and looked back. ‘You have good Latin for a barbarian,’ he observed. For the first time, I could hear a smile in his voice. ‘I may hear it again.’
With that, he was off. So were we. Every so often, I turned to look back. One-Eye kept up a steady trot that, as we both moved further apart, took him down to an indeterminate patch of darkness on the bright road, and then to a moving dot, and then to nothingness. We were alone again.
8
Mindful of the extra weight, we still didn’t want to push the horses. But the bright, silent stillness of that road was having its effect on us. The moon was now fully risen, and while the colour was bleached out, all around was clearly visible. There was no wind to disturb the dust on the road. The only noise was the striking of eight hooves on the paving stones and our own occasional and listless conversation.
By tacit consent, we chose not to discuss what we’d done that evening. The brief exultation of the getaway had worn off. I’d got the money. Now I had to make sure to keep it. We’d ride through the night, I told myself. We’d surely reach the inn by early morning. We’d eat. We’d sleep. We’d wash. I’d change into the less beautiful and well- fitting suit of clothes the tailors had found in a box. Then we’d join with the largest and best-armed group of travellers who were heading on to Rome. There, we’d make whatever introductions were in the detailed orders that Maximin had received in Canterbury but had never bothered sharing with me. After that – well, I had a few ideas of my own forming, and most of these didn’t bear discussing with Maximin; but I’d need to see that gigantic city for myself before deciding anything for certain.
In the meantime, we rode alone along that straight and interminable streak of whiteness.
‘Maximin,’ I asked, trying to make conversation, ‘who maintains this road? Is it still the emperor?’
‘If maintained at all,’ he answered, ‘it won’t be by the emperor. The roads in Italy aren’t like the ones in France. They were built more solidly in ancient times. They were kept up until recent times. I suppose, even now, the exarch takes a certain interest. This is a main military road that keeps Rome in touch with Pisa and with the Frankish allies when we need help against the Lombards.’
I shuddered in the dead silence that followed his words. ‘So the emperor doesn’t rule in Italy?’ I asked with another attempt at making conversation.
‘The emperor rules all from Constantinople,’ Maximin answered, ‘but no longer directly. Be aware that in ancient times, the One Empire of the World was divided in two. There was the East, which gradually turned Greek, and which had fairly defensible borders – the Persians on one side, the Danubian provinces on the other. And there was the West, which had too long a border on the Rhine. The barbarians couldn’t be kept out.’
I knew all this, but it kept that ghastly silence at bay. I tried to pretend it was all just like the day before yesterday, when Maximin lectured and I listened and learned.
‘You know what happened in England. Your ancestors turned up and smashed everything in their barbarian rage against all that was good and civilised. Here in Italy, it was very different. We had no emperor of our own, but the Goths weren’t so bad. Emperor Justinian decided on his great reconquest about eighty years ago. It was harder than he’d thought. There were twenty years of unexpectedly hard fighting – towns burnt, farming wrecked, Rome
