itself was no more. We’d smelt what we found there from a good quarter-mile away. But two-score rotting bodies, many hideously mutilated before death, was a dispiriting sight. Maximin had studied with the abbot, and was naturally upset to find parts of the man carefully draped around what remained of the chapel.
I found a couple of books that hadn’t been consumed by the flames, but they were too heavy to carry away, and weren’t worth the effort. At every monastery we’d stopped at along the way to beg a meal and a warm place for the night, I’d charmed my way into what library was available. In the evenings, I’d read. By day on the road, when not talking with Maximin, I thought about what I’d read. It was a good continuing of my education. But this was a dead monastery. There was nothing here for me.
‘We could spend the night here,’ I’d suggested, looking round the outhouse. It’s surprising what bad smells you can get used to after a couple of hours, and it would be warmer than bedding down again by the side of the road, and perhaps safer.
Maximin wasn’t so sure. ‘This repose of the godly has been made into a house of Satan,’ he’d insisted.
So we’d gathered up what food we could carry and started along the road again, turning after a while to the seashore, where some fishermen were looking for somewhere safe to put in for the night.
We’d slept eventually in a little copse by the shore, waking in terror every time we heard the undergrowth rustle. Now it was morning, and I was sitting by the stream deliberately washing my bum.
All the signs were for a lovely day ahead. During our passage of France, Maximin had kept me cheerful in the bitter cold and rain by teaching me Greek – he’d recite from The Acts of the Apostles, and let me struggle to compare this with what I could remember of the Latin version I’d read in Canterbury – and by assuring me that the world would soon come to an end. It was because of this, he said, that he’d volunteered for the English mission. Augustine and company and Pope Gregory were of a different opinion. They saw the mission as one of permanent occupation. Maximin’s interest, though, was in getting as many souls converted before the Second Coming of Christ. This would atone for his many sins. What these were, he never let on – I imagine he’d had a few impure thoughts twenty years before: his lack of scruple in advancing the Faith was evidently not something that had ever preyed on his mind. So he declaimed on and on about the approaching end, warming to his theme whenever we passed another derelict villa, or, once into Italy, some present evidence of the decline and fall.
For myself, the decline and fall seemed purely a human matter. The trees still blossomed. The birds still sang in the trees. The warm Italian sun still shone as it surely always had. And it was a lovely sun – quite unlike anything I’d seen in Kent. It bathed the land in a beautiful golden light, and was reflected back in the living greens and pinks of the vegetation, and in the deep blue of the sea. It could even make the human devastation all around less bleak than it might otherwise have been.
If the world really was coming to an end, that was not a fact taken into account by the armies of ants scurrying around me to collect building materials for their nest, or by the rabbits hopping about on the other side of the stream. Beyond all doubt, there had been a big change in human affairs – whether good or bad on balance, I leave to you. But the greater universe went undisturbed about its normal business.
I heard a cry from the embanked road about twenty yards back. It was Maximin crying loud in Latin: ‘My sons, I am but a lone priest on my way to Rome. Take these wretched morsels of food, but spare my life. Spare me in the name of our Common Father in Heaven.’ He began a prayer, then switched into Greek without any change of tone: ‘Save yourself, my boy, for I am surely lost. I have two brutes upon me.’
5
I pulled myself together and raced silently up the slope to the road. I crawled into the ditch beside it and darted my head up and then down again. Two mounted men had caught Maximin. They were big, ugly creatures, in furs and leather armour – possibly from the raiding gang that had taken the monastery. Whatever they might have done, it was plain they had no intention of letting Maximin pass unmolested. They were dismounted, both swaying gently as they passed a wineskin back and forth. They were turned away from me, swords still sheathed, and were laughing at Maximin while he begged at their feet.
‘You fucking old blackbird,’ one of them rasped in Vulgar Latin. ‘Do you think we give a shit about you and your Triple God?’ He sucked in a mouthful of wine and recited: ‘The Father is greater than the Son, and separate from him.’
He continued with a garbled account of the Arian heresy, while Maximin nodded eagerly, doubtless considering whether they’d spare him if he pretended to convert.
They were enjoying themselves too much to make an early end of Maximin. The drink had made them merry in their brutal way. Perhaps they would let him go. But I doubted this. I knew their sort. They’d soon grow bored, or their drunken mood would change in some other way, and then Maximin would be another bloody heap to frighten later passers-by as we’d in turn been frightened by the half-eaten corpses that had dotted the road every few miles from Pisa.
I thought quickly. I’d acquired a good sword from a drowned brigand outside Paris. I had this in my hand. But there were two of them, and each was a match for me in open fight. What to do? Taking Maximin’s advice wasn’t an option. Once you’ve walked several hundred miles with someone, in generally disgusting weather, through dangerous country, you’re pretty well best friends. Besides, I owed him. I owed him my life. I owed him my further education. I owed him whatever prospects might present themselves in this world outside England. I owed him – and, unless you’re one of those degenerate Latins or Greeks whose sophisticated treachery is losing or has lost them control of the world, I don’t need to say more than that.
I bobbed up again. They were still looking at Maximin. I waved to him. His eyes remained fixed on the bandits.
‘I have a silver crucifix in my baggage,’ he said in a wheedling tone. He jerked his eyes over to the far side of the road. Fortunately, one of the horses was sniffing at the baggage, concealing the fact that there was too much for one man to carry. The bigger of the two grunted and went over to look. By the horse, he steadied himself and stopped for a piss.
That was my chance. I was up and across the road before either had a chance to look round. I swung my sword high and got the one by Maximin a blow to the unprotected head. He went straight down.
With a shout of rage, the other had his breeches up and his sword out almost before I’d got my own sword clear and steadied myself from its recoil. He came at me, a dark stain growing down his left trouser leg. I jumped back, slashing at him.
He grinned at me, an ugly scar running down his face into the straggly yellow beard. He stretched up and threw his arms wide, taunting me. ‘Come on, you miserable little fucker. See what you can do with a man who’s looking at you.’ He stamped on the ground and spat. ‘Come on. I want my breakfast!’
I circled him, carefully staying out of sword reach. He seemed unbelievably big and heavy. He must have been pillaging and murdering since before I was born. He had armour. I had none. How I’d beat him I had no idea. I tried reasoning with him.
‘Get on your horse and be off,’ I said. ‘We saw Imperials just down the road.’
No luck. He took advantage of the effort I put into the words and lunged at me. An inch to the right and he’d have had me.
I danced back again and waved my sword. It felt suddenly heavy and twisted in my sweating hand. He stepped forward at me. His arm and sword were both longer than mine. I swung at him. Apart from a bit of playing back in Kent, and a quick running skirmish on the road in France, this was my first swordplay. Hardly moving, he parried me with a flick of his wrist. I staggered and nearly lost my sword as steel clashed on steel.
Without warning, he lunged forward again, sword arm outstretched. Again, he nearly had me. It was only because I was still swaying about that he missed. As it was, he sliced a long cut into my tunic. He wheeled around, forcing me to look at him with the sun behind.
I was breathing hard. He’d hardly raised a sweat. I could see he was enjoying himself.
‘Oh, fuck,’ I thought. This was a shitty hole I’d dug for myself. He’d skewer me with that blade of his and then turn back to Maximin, whose show of Arianism would have no chance now. I couldn’t even run away. He’d get on that horse of his and ride me down in no time. From the corner of my eye, I could see the wineskin deflating as it spilled its deep red content over the road. Not, you will agree, the most inspiring image in the circumstances!
