Conspiracies of Rome Read online

  ‘We’ll ride as long as we can through the night,’ Lucius told me. I suggested hamstringing the other horses in the stable. But there were too many, and we might be caught. We paid and rode off.

  We rode until the moon was high overhead and until little puffs of steam came from the horses in the chilly night air. We stopped in a small grove high beside the road. This allowed a fine view back along the road. We didn’t bother with a fire, but sat down on a fallen tree and ate what we’d bought.

  Lucius questioned me again about my life in England. I told him of the broken-down house in Richborough, and Auxilius, who with his loving pedantry had given me a key to the world beyond. I told him of the humiliations that had attended our fall from nobility and the increasingly desperate shifts by which I’d supplemented Ethelbert’s dwindling charity. I spoke of my dead mother.

  ‘Not that much difference between us, then,’ said Lucius when I’d finished. ‘We both come from families pushed below their proper station in life. The Gods willing, though, we’ll rise together all the way back to what we were born to, and – who knows? – we’ll die higher yet.’

  He told me nothing in continuous narrative about himself. From the disjointed anecdotes he gave me instead, I gathered his parents had died in one of the plagues when he was very young. He’d then been handed around various grandparents and uncles, getting scraps here and there of an education, while his family had wondered what to do with him.

  At last, the plagues had done him a favour. ‘It was like an invisible beast,’ he said, ‘the sort that comes again and again, but always takes others and never yourself.’ While he grew up without a day’s illness, all his relatives had sickened and died. His grandfather made sure to give the bulk of it away to the Church in his will, but Lucius had finally come into the full remaining wealth of the family. And he would have had more, but for those charges of treason laid in Constantinople against his one genuinely rich relative.

  ‘The man is trash,’ I agreed, hoping to deflect him from another of his denunciations of Phocas. ‘But when you came back to Rome, was it to be forever?’

  ‘Don’t forget, Alaric,’ the reply came, ‘I am a Roman. The city is my world – this city and all that is natural to it.’

  He’d come back to Rome, he then admitted, with no apparent alternative to settling into the life of a decayed noble. Except for his deep – if inconveniently placed – religious feelings, he was no different from any other member of the Roman nobility. He repeated himself: ‘I am a Roman, and the city is my world.’

  He’d thought at first to refuse the invite to that dinner party. It was too painful, he said, to look at what he was sure he was now fated to become. All that had got him along there in the end was the chance to see the learned yet deadly barbarian from far-distant Britain. And he had met me.

  ‘And now,’ he concluded, ‘we are both fugitives from Rome on our way to what I hope will be a hero’s reception in Ravenna. The Old Gods have a sense of humour – and, I think, of justice.’

  When the moon had risen high above, we took turns at sleeping, the other keeping watch. A few night birds aside, and the rustling of nocturnal animals in the undergrowth, I heard nothing. As I lay down to sleep, it was for all the world as if Rome had been a bad dream, and I was still travelling there with Maximin. Except the weather was far more clement, it was like any other night we’d spent camping out in the open.

  ‘They’re still following,’ said Lucius, prodding me awake. ‘But they are a long way behind.’

  I heaved myself up in the first light of morning. Whatever dreams I’d been having vanished beyond recall. I was stiff and cold. But the sun was rising in a clear sky. This would be another lovely day, though a little cloud cover would have been better for the horses.

  I looked beyond the arm that Lucius extended back along the road. Far in the distance, I could see the faint glint of armour in the pale sunlight. For some while, we’d been riding uphill. We were passing into the range of hills and mountains that run down the centre of Italy. Far below us, shining like ants after a storm, our pursuers toiled forward in search of a quarry they themselves couldn’t see. But still they came.

  Lucius bent and stretched some life back into his stiff muscles. ‘If we can keep ahead of them till nightfall,’ he said, ‘we’ll be far outside the zone of papal influence. They can keep following, but their ability to command help will be at an end. By tomorrow, I’ll be able to use the exarch’s name to slow them down, or even have them turned back.’

  We still had to look out for the lighter, faster pursuers. And we were making slower progress as we rode continually uphill. But there came a moment when, though we looked back, we saw no one in pursuit. No matter how I squinted back into the sunlight, I saw no pursuit.

  ‘We haven’t outrun them,’ said Lucius during one of our little stops. ‘They’re still back there, and any delay on our side will bring them back into sight. Don’t forget how desperate they are. But they’ll need all the luck in the world to catch us now.’

  Because these high lands had never been much settled even in ancient times, there were fewer signs of recent devastation. I saw a few abandoned villages and a few broken temples. But these were so weathered and overgrown, they might have been out of use for centuries, perhaps even before the making of the law to close them all down. I wondered if the inscriptions that covered the fallen columns were in Latin or in that older language I’d seen in Populonium. But Lucius made sure to keep me moving on the road.

  We spoke about women. As I’d thought, Lucius had no taste for them whatever. He’d once considered marriage. But this had been purely for cash. And her father had broken off the engagement when a more substantial catch arrived suddenly from Carthage.

  He’d found release in his better-looking slaves, and sometimes in the boys who were laid on for anyone in the nobility or higher offices of the Church who wanted their services. Then his friend the priest had persuaded him to a life of semi-continence – he’d been assured it made him a more fitting instrument for the will of their Gods.

  Either the adherents of the Old Religion had cleaned up their act in competition with the Church, or those declamations I’d read against their lustful ways were just lies. Whatever the case, his own priests weren’t unaware of how sex blunts the religious sensibilities. That may be why I’ve had so few of them – not even when I was posing as a bishop. Lucius had learnt to contain himself. Then he’d met me.

  He asked me again about Edwina. Feeling the jealousy behind his playful tone, I spoke lightly of her. I said nothing of the love that had burnt – and still sometimes did burn – in my heart.

  Though the sun shone bright overhead, the air was crisp. We passed streams and waterfalls. These were swollen with the snow from the mountains that rose about us. The tops of the mountains shone white in the sun. Even from a distance, I could see how densely the tops were fringed with the deep greens of the trees.

  The rains and ruin of winter were over. All around us, later than on the plains, I could see the world coming back to life. Not for the first or the last time, I was forcibly impressed by the wondrous beauty of the nature in Italy.

  Once, we passed a group of free peasants, taking their produce to some town along the road before us. We bought some food from them. For a few silver coins, they agreed to climb up to an outcrop above the road and force a rock fall that left a ten-foot-long band of jagged rocks. It took a while to supervise the work, but probably bought us much more time than we spent. It would take days to get that lot clear. Just getting horses over it would take long enough.

  Onwards and upwards, the road extended. It cut through peaks and ran on bridges across the deeper ravines. Hardly once did it deviate from a straight line, and then only to skirt something that even the ancients didn’t think it worth trying to overcome. It must have taken years and whole armies of slaves to build. Lucius had barely any of the historical knowledge of Italy outside Rome that had allowed Maximin to bring
the vanished past to life. But I could imagine the settled, populous Italy of earnest officials and competent engineers who had strained every nerve to push these lines of domination to the farthest corners.

  We rode all day. In the evening, we stopped at another post inn. This was smaller, but otherwise just like the one at which we’d stopped the previous evening. We ate a meal of meat and bread. After a change of horses, we were off again. As before, we took turns to sleep and keep watch in the open. As before, we were undisturbed.

  45

  We ran into trouble on our third day on the road, this being a Thursday. We were just coming out of a particularly wild and quiet stretch of road. We were deep into the afternoon. The sun shone. The birds sang. There was no other noise but the sound of our horses, as their hooves clattered slowly on the road, and our few words of desultory conversation.

  We rode over a small hill and down into a shallow depression. As we reached the bottom, I heard a sound to my left. It was the bridling of a tethered horse.

  Lucius reached over and clutched at my arm. Before us, the road was blocked, just before the peak of the rise out of the depression, by eight men. Big, with the usual plaited hair and long moustaches, they were lightly armed irregulars. Whether they were Lombards or imperial mercenaries was impossible to say. They might even have been bandits, in search of valuables from the few passers-by. It was impossible to tell. They all looked alike in those days.

  They weren’t bandits. That much was soon clear. We’d come on them by surprise. They were still wandering about after a slow lunch. But, if they hadn’t expected us just at that moment, there was no doubt they had been expecting us. Though on foot, they blocked the road in a broad, muscled mass.

  One of them stood forward. ‘Lucius Decius Basilius and Aelric of England,’ he said in a thick Germanic accent, ‘we have orders to apprehend you for returning to Rome. You will dismount now and lay down your weapons.’

  He spoke with an easy confidence. The men behind him drew their swords and grinned. They knew their business. They wanted none, but were prepared for trouble. Dead or alive, we were to be taken and sent back to the dispensator. What he’d do with us I could hardly guess.

  I looked round. There were now two men behind us. On our right was a sheer cliff, on our left a gentle descent through trees so tightly packed together, I could hardly see beyond the tethered horses.

  There was no point in denying who we were. We were trapped. If we were to escape at all, it would be by going back – and we knew what was back there. Even if we did make a dash for it, we’d be in the jaws of a closing trap.

  ‘How the fuck . . .?’ I heard Lucius mutter.

  I thought the same. How could anyone have got ahead of us? Our pursuers must have been twenty miles back, if that close. There was no shorter route than the one we were taking. Lucius had joked about growing wings on horses. It seemed the Church had managed just that. Was this some genuine miracle of the Church?

  ‘Dismount now and lay down your weapons,’ the leader repeated, now louder.

  Lucius pulled the reigns of his horse tight and drew his sword. I did the same. I’d left that heavy old Frankish sword behind in Rome. I had with me only the shorter sword Lucius had given me. But I tested its balance again, and looked at the bright gleam on its sharpened edges.

  The men stood about ten yards before us, now spaced out on the road two deep. They knew exactly what they were doing. Breaking through might not be impossible, but would require great force and as much speed as we could manage uphill.

  If anything in my narrative so far may have inclined you to despise the Roman nobility, let me assure you it doesn’t apply to Lucius. Whatever else he had of his great ancestors, he had all their courage and cool nerve. Lucius had many faults. But he was no coward. If he was to go back to Rome, it would be as a corpse tied across the saddle of his horse. Alive, he’d go on to Ravenna.

  Even before the leader of that group had stepped back to take his place in the picket, Lucius had spurred up his horse. He shot forward and upwards like an athlete starting a footrace. I followed close behind.

  In a moment, we were on them. In a single, fluid motion, Lucius raised himself on his stirrups and leaned over to his right. With a bright, slashing arc of his sword, he had the head clean off the leader of the men. The head flew into the air. Spurting blood, the body continued standing. It must eventually have buckled and fallen over. But I didn’t see this. What I did see was like watching corn cut with a scythe.

  Lucius twisted his sword upright and struck hard with the pommel at another who tried to clutch at the reins of his horse. He got a massive, bone-shattering blow to the man’s head, and was through, whooping and yelling as he picked up speed. Before anyone could turn, he was over the ridge and shooting down the other side.

  I followed. I wasn’t so skilful or lucky. I got one of the men. But it was one of those glancing blows to the collarbone that has a recoil. I had just the briefest moment of instability. But that was enough. Two pairs of hands grabbed at the bridle of my horse. I felt another hand from behind dragging at the saddle.

  I wheeled the horse round and tried to scatter the men. But they stood just away from me in a tight group. Whichever way I looked, they stood in a close mass not six feet away. They saw no reason to push their luck as individuals by coming closer. But there was no chance of gathering the momentum to break through them.

  I came to a halt in the middle of the group. I looked round at the sweaty, grinning faces.

  ‘We’ve got you, my lad!’ one of them gloated. ‘You’re coming back with us.’

  ‘There’s business waiting for you in Rome,’ another said in English. I should have guessed from their appearance and efficiency that they were my people, and not just any old barbarians.

  There was a laugh behind me. It had no words attached. But the meaning was plain. It needed no words. I might try and pretend I was some stuck-up Roman, with my good riding clothes and fancy Latin. But what was I really but another English barbarian on the make? I was no better than them. And they’d do their best to make sure I was soon much worse.

  I was annoyed. I was frustrated. But I wasn’t frightened. I’d wanted to go on to Ravenna with Lucius. But the important thing was that he’d got away. Taken back to Rome together, I didn’t doubt the dispensator would have seen to it that our headless bodies were washed up in Ostia. But Lucius was going on to Ravenna. This put me into a different position. The dispensator might try at the worst to use me as a bargaining counter with Lucius and the exarch. He was far too intelligent to give in to any temptation of revenge.

  I lifted my right foot from its stirrup as I prepared to swing myself off the horse.

  There was a sudden clatter behind me of hooves on paving stones. The men just in front of me clutched at their swords.

  ‘Eat shit and die, motherfucking scum!’ I heard Lucius cry from just behind me. I heard a terrified scream that bubbled and stopped. Even before then, Lucius was in front of me, slashing to right and left.

  I steadied myself in the saddle, striking out at one of the men who’d turned his back on me. I felt the heavy impact of steel on bone as I got him on the neck. I got the sword free and steadied myself again.

  Lucius was twisting in his saddle, and was slashing out to left and right. As if they’d been a team all its life, the horse danced beneath him, sometimes trampling the fallen, sometimes avoiding the obstacles of their bodies. I saw the wild bloodlust in Lucius’s eyes as he sliced at the men, shouting obscene abuse in Latin and in Lombardic.

  I got myself alongside him, and cut down another of the men. It was a good blow that took his sword arm off at the shoulder. I followed this with a raking blow across the throat that started another fountain of blood.

  ‘No survivors from this, I think,’ said Lucius in a conversational tone, as he steadied my horse with his free hand. ‘We get them all.’

  I needed no encouragement. On horseback, ten against two would have been
decisive in their favour. Even the four left still on their feet outnumbered us. But if they had expected us, perhaps the men hadn’t expected us to be with them so soon. Or perhaps they hadn’t expected serious resistance. Whatever the case, the real fact was they were on foot. They’d been dismounted when we came on them, and hadn’t had time to mount. That was their undoing. They hadn’t even the slim advantage that so many footmen would have had against cavalry. They were too used to fighting on horseback. They’d almost have been more effective without swords than without horses.

  They ran about as individuals, making a poor effort with their swords as they jabbed and waved without the familiar height and mobility. Lucius darted among the men, shepherding them back to the centre of the road, where we could ride them down, cutting off every escape into the cover of the trees.

  I can’t say how long the fight raged, or what my own movements were. I only remember shouting and slicing and stabbing at everything I found beneath me on the road. My horse jerked me around continually, and half my own fight was to stay mounted. A few times, I noticed how the sword Lucius had given me was short by a few inches of the ideal for heavy fighting. But I know I hacked and sliced and stabbed wildly in that depression of the road.

  One of those men ran at me with greater presence of mind than the others. He made a stab towards the underside of my horse. I got him a stab right in the mouth. There was a splitting of teeth and grating of bone. Then I was through with my sword. I pulled back the blade, and he went straight down, threshing out his lifeblood on the road.

  At last, there were only two men left standing. They gave us a final, desperate look, and made a dash for the side of the road. I screamed something nasty in one of my various languages and spurred my horse forward. Lucius followed.

  We each caught one before he could get to his horse. Lucius made short work of his. I cut mine about horribly before he fell down. Then I got down myself and pushed with all my weight through his ribs until he stopped moving.