“No-one agreed with him, my lord,” Centurion Marius ventured.
Sputum slathered Rufio’s chin. He pointed at them with shaking finger. “From this moment, if one jackanapes among you utters a single word in defiance of my orders, he dies.” He clambered into his saddle. “We ride on… do you hear me? We ride on until I say we stop! There are two more hours before nightfall, valuable time which we cannot afford to waste.”
The party moved wearily on, Rufio riding at the front. Alongside him was Trelawna. Her honey hair hung in unwashed strands. Her fine clothes were torn and travel-stained. But she was still beautiful. She sat upright in the saddle, staring directly ahead.
“I suppose you think I acted too harshly?” he said tightly.
“At least you improved on your master’s example,” she replied. “You only killed one, instead of one in every ten.”
“You should say a prayer that those who are following us will restrict themselves to killing one in every ten. Somehow I suspect they won’t.”
“There is one solution, Felix. That you continue to your family refuge, and I return to my husband.”
Rufio looked amazed. “You’re suggesting I give you up?”
“It’s the best chance your family has of extracting itself from this tragedy.”
“You think my family needs such a chance? Do you know who we are, my lovely baroness? We are the Dukes Malconi, the embodiment of Roman nobility, in the cleft of whose noble arse your husband and his vagabond retinue are little more than an itch.” Suspecting this latest idea had come from Gerta, he glowered over his shoulder. The elderly servant rode several yards behind them. She returned his gaze severely. “Perhaps we should send your prattling wet-nurse back,” he said. “So she can leave them in no uncertainty about the danger they face?”
“Threats will not dissuade them,” Trelawna said. “They are sworn to the quest.”
“The quest! Always I hear about this! What is this quest of which your country bumpkin knights are so fond?”
“With each knight it is different. They pursue the chivalrous ideal.”
“What is that supposed to mean? They dedicate themselves to good deeds?”
“To the knightly virtues — courage, honour and so forth.”
“And how do they square that with slaughter and pillage?”
“Arthur has rules against such indiscretions.”
“Nevertheless, your knights indulge.”
“There are rotten apples in every barrel. The ideal remains untainted.”
They rode in silence, before Rufio asked: “What of Sir Lucan? Is he a rotten apple?”
“No… but he is tainted, in his way. As a youth he suffered much.”
Rufio recollected the dark spectre he’d almost been confronted with in the midst of the battle. There’d been no mistaking the black mantle, the cloak of black wolf-fur — the longsword swirling as the demonic shape hacked his way though Roman horsemen, their sundered corpses crashing to earth, gore pulsing through broken helms and pierced breastplates.
It hadn’t been difficult to turn tail and flee.
That was something Rufio didn’t like to admit, not even to himself, but there was no doubt, when he’d seen his opponent delivering death on all sides like the Reaper, working his way ever closer… it had been a barely conscious decision to quit the field.
“I wonder why Arthur would use such a man,” Rufio said, thinking aloud.
“Lucan only ever slays Arthur’s foes.”
“In grotesque numbers.”
“Men like Lucan made the kingdom safe.”
“And freed it of political rivals.”
She glanced around at him. “What do you mean?”
“One man’s rebel is another man’s freedom fighter. Your great King Arthur is just another tyrant. You know he now marches on Rome itself?”
“Rome attacked Arthur’s allies first.”
“Tit-for-tat massacres. How chivalrous.”
“You can hardly talk, Felix. Your Emperor despoiled an innocent land with mercenaries.”
“In whose company Earl Lucan would feel very cozy.”
“Does he terrify you so much, soldier of Rome?”
Rufio spun around in the saddle, the back of his gauntleted fist catching her a stinging blow in the middle of the face.
Behind them, Gerta squawked with outrage. Trelawna hunched forward, one hand clamped to her nose, which streamed blood. Rufio reined up, wild-eyed and red-cheeked, looking as if he was about to strike her again. The rest of the company laboured past, uninterested. Most probably thought the heretic bitch had got exactly what she deserved.
Only slowly did Rufio’s anger seem to abate. “Forgive me,” he said at last, when all the others had gone, though he didn’t sound particularly contrite.
Gerta glared fiercely at him as she wrapped her arms around her mistress.
“It seems my full anger is being horse-drawn from me today,” he added.
“Aye,” Gerta retorted. “Onto the helpless.”
“What did you say, servant?”
“Gerta, ride on,” Trelawna instructed.
Very reluctantly, Gerta spurred her horse forward.
“That crone needs to learn some respect,” Rufio snapped.
Trelawna put a crumpled wad of linen to her nose. “In all my years in that brute land you despise so much, no man laid a finger on me.”
“Well, what do you expect?” he shouted. “You accused me of being frightened, but why wouldn’t I be? All our dreams are laid waste. New Rome, which took twenty years of political and military craftsmanship to reconstruct, is gone in an instant.”
“Much like the freedoms of those many lands New Rome reacquired.”
“I love this new-found reaffirmation of your loyalty to Arthur’s realm, Trelawna… now that his man is hot on our heels.”
“If only he were coming as Arthur’s man. There’d be a possibility he might show some restraint.”
“Oh, dear Christ, alarm me no further!” Rufio wheeled his horse around to continue uphill. “Your barbarian friends are nothing but ignoramuses! They may win the odd battle, but there are other powers in this world! Powers they cannot imagine!”
Twenty-Six
Bishop Malconi reasoned that the smaller his party, the less chance there was of it being noticed. Thus, aside from his travel-coach — a solid wooden box plated with steel, once overlaid with fabric bearing the red and gold lions of Ravenna, but now clad in simple rustic brown — he journeyed north with only his ten bodyguards, who wore their hauberks under cloth and were armed unobtrusively.
Such anonymity served its purpose as he passed through the dusty villages and rural towns of Lombardy, but when he left lowland Italy behind and entered the Ligurian foothills, he became afraid that he now wasn’t protected enough. The bleaker and wilder the terrain, the more the bishop travelled with his coach shutters bolted, his bright eyes glued to a viewing slot too narrow for even a broad-headed arrow to penetrate.
Even in late summer, with the meadows still green and only tinges of red in the trees, this was a desolate region. The few people they saw were illiterate shepherds who lived in turf huts, the only livestock sheep and goats. The higher they rose into the great Alpine massifs, the more this meadowland fell behind them, until soon they were following narrow ways amid misty crags, or winding through dense pinewoods. The road was increasingly difficult, churned to porridge by rain and hardened again by the summer sun so that it was all ruts and divots.
Night was a particular challenge — for that was when they heard things. After dark, Malconi would not even venture out of his carriage. He now wore mail himself and sat rigid inside, his face beaded with sweat. Outside, his bravos — not quite as afraid as he, but still on edge — slept around their fire, two of them always standing guard, listening to the encircling woods and to the cries and gibbers of unnatural creatures.