Lucius was dead, and I had killed him. For all I loved him, for all I clung to him, for all he had done with and for me, I had to kill him. Because I loved him, I had made his death as sweet as any man might want. He died in the arms of his love, just moments away from a triumph after which all else would surely be disappointment. I sent him into the darkness with all hopes undimmed. But I had killed him, and he lay dead in my lap.
I think the sun was heading towards the west when I heard a rattling. ‘In the name of the Church, open this door!’
It was a harsh, urgent voice. Still looking down at my poor, dead Lucius, I gave it no attention. ‘Open, or I break it open.’
The voice was louder and more menacing. Still I ignored it.
There was a great crash and splintering of timber. Fragments of shattered door hung loose on the hinges. The men who’d smashed it in stood smartly back. In their place, filling the doorway, stood One-Eye. Sword in hand, he was, as ever, dressed in black.
He looked at us awhile with his good eye, taking in the situation. ‘Get dressed,’ he said at last in a quiet, neutral voice. He gave orders in an Eastern language I didn’t understand. His assistants went downstairs, where I soon heard cries and protests of diminishing volume.
He threw my clothes over at me. ‘Get these on you,’ he said, now with a hint of anger in his voice. He leaned forward, speaking quietly again, though there was no one to overhear. ‘Your life is in the hands of the dispensator. He alone will decide your fate. But my orders are that, if at any time between now and our arrival in the Lateran, you speak a single word to anybody, I am to kill you on the spot. Do you understand? One word of any kind, and I kill you.’
I nodded.
‘Then get dressed, and be fast about it.’
As I finished dressing, One-Eye had his assistants pack everything up. The room was to be left empty, all trace of our presence there erased as if it had been a sheet of misused parchment. He made sure to take the obvious items into his own possession.
At last, he scooped Lucius up and wrapped him in some of the bedding. He threw the body over his shoulder as if it had been a carpet.
On the ground floor, everyone else at the inn had been forced at sword-point into the kitchen, where great and humble stood alike, all protesting at the violation of their rights. The door to the kitchen was guarded by the three assistants One-Eye had with him, also dressed in black.
There were other armed men in that place, and these might have resisted. But the dispensator’s warrant, it seemed, was valid even to the gates of Ravenna.
‘God save us, master!’ a voice cried in rough Latin. One-Eye stood out in the courtyard, with me close beside. He was awaiting the final gathering and loading of our horses. He stiffened at the cry. From outside the main gate came the sound of many hooves. A whole party of men was tearing up or down the road towards the inn.
One-Eye put a hand on his sword. He called out more orders in that unknown language. Then he turned to me. ‘Remember what I said,’ he repeated. ‘One word and you die. One step beyond where I set you, and you die.’
He turned back to face the riding party as it pelted at full speed into the courtyard. It was obvious at once they’d been coming up from Rome, not down from Ravenna. One-Eye relaxed the grip on his sword, but kept it covered.
It was a party of five men. Covered in dust from the long ride, the cloaks that covered their heads had turned from dark to streaky white.
The leader of the party continued forward a few yards after the others had stopped. After a momentary pause to take in what he saw, he jumped briskly down and walked confidently over to us. He staggered just a little as he pulled back the hood of his cloak, but recovered his balance at once, and continued over to us as if just back from a brisk morning canter.
The diplomat looked at One-Eye and smiled. He let his eyes linger a moment on the rolled-up bundle. ‘It seems, my friend, I am just a moment too late.’
Except for his black face and the high, accented Latin, he might have been any other shabby horseman we’d encountered on the road. He looked back at his four assistants. He looked at me and smiled. ‘You would be the luckiest man alive, had I only got to you first,’ he said. ‘As it is-’
‘As it is,’ One-Eye took up in a voice of flinty grimness, ‘you are too late. Ride on towards Ravenna if you must. The exarch might not hang you. Or go back to Rome. In either case, you can get message back to your master in Carthage that you failed again.’
The diplomat looked again at me. Silent, he bowed. He turned back to his assistants. They’d ridden like the wind up from Rome. They’d checked every inn along the road. But it had been too late.
He called something at the others in their own language. Then he laughed. The others following, he led his horse into the stables.
Unseen by anyone else, Lucius and I were taken back out onto the road. I was given a horse – something big and unfamiliar that it alarmed me ever so slightly to ride. One of the three assistants rode close beside me. Without speaking, he gave me to understand that the orders they’d received would be carried out to the letter if need be.
They buried Lucius in the marsh. The city walls were just visible in the distance. Otherwise, I looked over a flat, dreary waste. There was no tree nor rise of the land to break up the monotony. Not even a bird sang. They gouged a shallow hole by the road and threw the body in. It landed unwrapped with the head by chance at a normal angle. The eyes looked at me from a face that carried some ghost of its living expression. I ignored the command to get back on my horse, and looked steadily down until the black, stinking mud had closed over him forever.
Lucius had come so far. Now he lay in an unmarked grave by the long causeway that led from Ravenna.
I wept. I wept so that I could hardly stand. I was made to remount, but I wept on, oblivious of the horse that moved beneath me, taking me further and further from the one I had loved.
The journey back from Ravenna was less dramatic than my journey there. We didn’t bother with the Flaminian Way. Instead, we cut straight across country, riding on little, often unmade roads. In the winter and early spring, I don’t doubt, they were impassable. By now, the hot sun had done its work, and they were as hard and smooth as if they’d been paved.
We crossed at some point into Lombard territory. We were met at the frontier by an armed guard bearing the insignia of the Lombard king. They gave a formal salute as we crossed over, and rode with us in close formation. They deterred any armed attack on us, and waved us through any official delay.
We passed through regions of devastation more utter than I’d ever seen before. We passed also through regions of surprising prosperity. Some of the towns were just as large as, and no more apparently ruined than, those in imperial territory. But we didn’t stop at any inhabited point. Each evening, we camped in the open. I slept beside the fire, always under close watch. I said not a word. Beyond the minimal instructions that One-Eye rasped at me, no one spoke to me.
I think we made still-better time across country than I had with Lucius.
We crossed the whole northern width of Italy, coming at last to an isolated inlet somewhere on the western coast. A fast ship awaited us there. Propelled by strong slaves who kept time to the rapid beat of the drum, we made an uneventful passage to the south. I looked over the left side several times, thinking I made out some of the landmarks I’d seen coming along the Aurelian Way with Maximin. Once, I was convinced I saw the shrine of Saint Antony rising above the surrounding cover.
On the tenth day after setting out from the marshes of Ravenna, we docked in the port of Ostia. Bathed in sea water and clothed in the white linen Lucius had urged on me for my reception by the exarch, I looked over the crumbling docks and semi-deserted town that had once served as the sea port for the greatest city in the world.
One-Eye spoke earnestly with the captain, every now and again casting a look with his good eye in my direction.
We transferred to a boat with a bottom flat enough to get us through the now silted estuary of the Tiber. We arrived in Rome early the next morning, disembarking by the island on the Tiber. I was taken in a covered litter straight to the house of Marcella. This was occupied by more of those dark guards. Neither Marcella nor the slaves
