‘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 taken and retaken, plague and famine all over. By the time his eunuch general Narses had cleared out the last of the Goths, much of Italy was devastated.
‘It might not have been so bad, if Narses had been left in charge. Having conquered, he knew how to leave things alone. But the next emperor wasn’t happy with the tax receipts or the spending on defence, and tried to recall him in humiliating circumstances. In revenge, Narses called in the Lombards. You can see the rest for yourself. What remains of Italy is ruled by the emperor’s exarch, who sits in Ravenna-’
He broke off and put his hand suddenly up. We stopped. All around us was absolutely silent. Then, as my ears adjusted, I heard the gentle lapping of the waves far over on our right. Ahead, a fox darted onto the road. It stopped and looked at us. Then it was gone. Maximin breathed again.
‘If only we hadn’t stopped at the monastery,’ he said wistfully, ‘we’d be well towards Telamon by now. There would be more traffic on the roads.’
Well, I’d argued long with him over that. But it hadn’t turned out too badly, I thought now to myself. Certainly, I’d not have changed things for the world. I reached back and patted my full saddlebags. I couldn’t hear the gold move, but I felt its heavy and satisfying bulge under my hand.
We rode on. Maximin made a feeble effort to draw my attention to the white ruins on our left of single buildings and more substantial settlements. But his ancestral recollections of a settled, teeming Italy had charm tonight for neither of us. We rode in silence, slow along that ever straight, and ever interminable road. It had survived the race that built it and, for all I knew, would survive those that came after.
Now I heard a noise. It came from behind us – just a brief snatch of something so faint I told myself it was my ragged nerves. I focused and listened again, and heard nothing but ourselves. We rode slowly on in silence.
It seemed to come again. ‘Some nocturnal animal or the lapping of the sea,’ Maximin muttered.
I stopped again. ‘Maximin,’ I whispered.
We listened again in silence. There was nothing. There was surely nothing.
My horse neighed suddenly. I almost fell off with shock at the unexpected loudness. I muttered an obscenity in Latin that I’d heard earlier back in Populonium. I came out with a little laugh and prepared a witticism. But Maximin reached over and put a hand on my shoulder. We looked back along the road. Far in the distance, there seemed to be a slight blur in the moonlight. It was as if a little cloud had fallen from the sky. We stared again, straining our eyes in the moonlight. It seemed dazzlingly bright – unless you really wanted to see something. Then it might have been a single candle in a church at midnight.