Conspiracies of Rome (8 page)

    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.

    ‘They’re after us!’ Maximin’s voice was soft but urgent. Now I heard the noise clearly – a distant clatter of many hooves on the paving stones. As yet, the riders were visible only from the dust they threw up behind them.

    I made the obvious calculations. I failed to see how One-Eye, even at speed, could have got back to the mercenaries and then brought them over so fast. But they were after us, and coming on at full speed.

    Now we did spur the horses. The long silence of the road was over. All was suddenly a clashing of hooves on the hard surface of the road, and a panting of horses and the internal sounds that go with hard jolting, and the sound of wind in my hair.

    For all his uncertainty of touch with the gelding, Maximin was ahead of me by a full horse-length. Either fear was discovering a riding ability until now unknown, or the gold was dragging me back. I thought of lightening my saddlebags. But greed and the knowledge that the delay would be compensated by no amount of lightening had me just digging in the spurs and using my whip. I darted forward, catching up with Maximin.

    For a while, we kept the noise at a steady level behind us. We flew along the straight, raised length of the road. The stones flashed past beneath us. I remember the brief but heavy stench of death as we passed where we’d stopped the night before.

    Even Maximin was lighter than our pursuers in their armour, and our horses were better bred for speed than theirs. I almost began to feel better as we raced along. I got my body into a rhythm that made lighter work of me for the horse. We’d surely outrun those clumsy great Englishmen.

    But what they lacked in speed, they more than recovered in stamina. There is a limit to what unskilled riders can do with whip and spur, and, little by little, the sounds behind increased in volume. I tried to tell myself they were strung out along the road, and that only one or two of them were beginning to catch up. Perhaps these would fall back.

    I didn’t dare break the rhythm of my body by looking round. But I knew they weren’t strung out. These were experienced riders. They knew the road. They knew perfectly well how much time they had. If they hadn’t caught up with us already, it was so they could keep together.

    Now, to the rising clatter of hooves were added the cries of pursuit, and then the faint jingle of harness. Even had we been able to get off that road without being seen, there was no cover on either side. Straight as an arrow, it stretched on before us in the moonlight.

    Some years later, I slowed a pursuit by throwing little three-pointed spikes onto the road behind me. On another occasion, I outran a band of Avar raiders by throwing coins over my shoulder. Now, I didn’t even think to empty the loose gold from my purse – and, if I had, I might have doubted its effect on men frantic to recover a much larger sum.

    I still couldn’t – still didn’t dare – turn my head to look behind. But they can’t have been a half-mile behind as I felt my horse begin to flag. I dug in my spurs and shouted at the beast to get a move on. For a moment, I felt a quickening of speed. But it was a momentary quickening. The horse was already approaching the limit of its endurance.

    Maximin looked round for me and slowed his own horse. ‘Ride on,’ I called to him. ‘We can outrun them. Ride on!’

    I knew I was lying. But I wanted him at least to get away. This was all my fault. If anyone had to suffer for it, that duty was mine. ‘Ride on!’ I called again.

    ‘Stop right there, you fuckers!’ came the words in English so close behind I could hear they came from Big Moustache. For all that sounds travel oddly by night, I knew they were just a few hundred yards behind. And they were closing on us.

    I could hear the panting of their own horses. I could hear the grunted obscenities in at least two languages.

    ‘Don’t let the fat one get away,’ I heard one call, nearly frantic with the strain of pursuit. ‘Get either side of him.’

    They were so close, we were almost a single group. I pushed my head into the mane, and dug in my spurs for a final, desperate effort of speed. But I was falling behind. Only his continual looking back and waving me on kept Maximin from flying ahead. I could almost feel the approach. I imagined a hand reaching for the reins, and at last the swing of the heavy sword  . . .

    As we came to a slight incline in the road, and my horse eased to a diminishing canter, the clatter behind ceased abruptly with a babble of obscenities. At first, I paid no attention.

    ‘Faster, faster, fuck you!’ I snarled at the horse. I dug my spurs viciously into its flanks. I plied the whip to every point I could reach without falling off. But, as the poor thing continued slowing, I realised we were indeed without pursuers.

    I didn’t look round. But I did lift my head and look forward. At the top of the incline, as if come from nowhere, sat a band of mounted soldiers. It took a few moments for me to realise what was happening. How long had my head been down? Until then, the road ahead had been empty. Was I imagining the soldiers? Was this some mirage, brought by my own imagination to lessen the horror of the killing blow from behind? But the soldiers were real enough. Like fish scales, their armour glittered in the moonlight. They sat in perfect formation, parting on either side as my horse staggered through.

    I saw Maximin already dismounted, talking to one of the men and pointing wearily back at our pursuers. As my horse came to a spontaneous halt, I fell to the ground. Every muscle suddenly ached. My clothes were wringing with sweat. Until I felt the smooth, stable warmth of the slab under my cheek, I hadn’t realised how cold I’d become in the night air. I shivered. I was too exhausted otherwise even to pant.

    There was a shout of orders in a language I didn’t know, and the men were off in pursuit of the now fleeing pursuers. The renewed clatter of hooves faded into the distance. Maximin knelt by me, pouring water between my parched lips and uttering soothing words.

    ‘Whatever were you doing so late on the road?’ a new voice came in Greek.

    I opened my eyes. An officer with a great dark beard stood looking down at me, his steel helmet a cone of light.

    ‘They were chasing us,’ I whispered feebly in Latin. Not much of an answer – but it was the truth.

    ‘We are on business for the universal bishop,’ Maximin added in Greek. He seemed almost his usual self. ‘We have a relic of the highest value to give back into his holy keeping.’

    The officer grunted an order to a couple of men who hadn’t joined in the pursuit. They poured water for my poor shattered horse and began sponging the gore from its flanks. One of them gave a disapproving look at my bloody whip and at the smear of blood that led from it to near my right hand. ‘Your arse will hurt like buggery tomorrow,’ he said in jocular but accented Latin.

    I nodded feebly. I was hurting badly enough already. The pain would soon be ready to blot out the relief of not having been caught by those English bastards.

    ‘Welcome to the Empire of the Greeks,’ said Maximin, fully himself again and without any hint now of exhaustion. He nodded to the soldier, who went back to his work of sponging. He continued in English: ‘I don’t think we shall go beyond mentioning the relic.’

9

I was lucky in my first view of Rome. It was on a Monday and, according to the modern style, was the twenty-first day of April in the year 609. The spell of drizzle that had been with us for the last few days of our journey on the road was now lifted. Before riding on ahead into the city, one of the soldiers who’d accompanied us told me that spring was now here with no chance of a relapse.

    We entered through the Pancratian Gate and, the great wall of Aurelian behind, we rested our horses atop the Janiculum Hill. We dismounted and ate a little breakfast of bread and cheese. From here, in the morning sun, we could see the Seven Hills and appreciate the city as a whole.

    I had never seen anything so gigantic or magnificent. Within the immense circuit of its walls, Rome spread out for miles across in all directions. There was still a mist in the lower parts, and this prevented a full view. But I could clearly trace the circuit of those walls, and I knew that everything inside was Rome. It was so vast, you could have dropped in the whole area of Canterbury and Richborough together, and had room to do it dozens of times over.