I was sure that my lodgings would be watched, but they were not, or at least I saw nothing to make me suspicious. And I had been certain that they would at least have searched my rooms, but again all was safe and in its place. So I hastily pulled on my clean clothes, neatly folded on the bed, and stuffed the vinegary ones into a saddlebag. The gold was where I had left it, up in an old mortise-hole in one of the ceiling beams. The excitement I always felt before beginning a journey was offset by a sharp foreboding that, on top of my sleepless night and the blow to my head, began to make my limbs twitch as though Saint Vitus's dance were creeping over me.
Eventually I could bear my own nerves no longer and drank off a pint of the landlady's strong, sweet wine I kept for emergencies, but which I heartily disliked. But it did the trick, settling my stomach and curing me of the urge to scuttle away to the jakes every five minutes. At last I saw that I was ready for the off, and allowed myself a moment to lean on the cold marble of the windowsill. There was no one about down in the street. The air was cool and sharp, not the usual rich swirl of the sun-baked kennel, but astringent, dry: the breath of Rome's ancient stone. There was a pallor in the east, and the red flowers that cascaded from roofs and windows all around were beginning to glow with the first hint of sunrise. Time to go. I buckled on my sword and slung my bags across my shoulder.
Dawn was unfolding its petals far above the city as I looked up and down the street from the doorway. It was still night down here, and I saw nobody, heard nothing, until my own footfalls rapped – too loud, surely – along the dirty stones. I tried not to hurry around the corner, through the passageway beside the Frisian hostel, and as I saw that only the bony grey cats kept watch my heart began to grow calm and I slowed down. There was a lamp lit at the livery stables and a bleared and surly boy in a leather apron greeted me with an uncivil leer. My horse was deep in his nose-bag and bared his great teeth at us when we put an end to his breakfast, but when he saw it was me he had the grace to nod his head and even whinny a little. I raised an eyebrow to the stable-boy, who ignored my natural mastery of all creatures and instead presented me with his master's well-padded bill, which I paid with what was, by Roman standards, quite good grace. He watched me critically as I made my packs fast to the saddle and fiddled unconvincingly with the bridle and girth. I tossed him another farthing to get lost, and when I was sure no one was watching I patted the horse on the nose and muttered into one ear: 'Don't fuck me about, please, beast’
The horse – I could not bring myself to think of him as Iblis, a far too exotic and mysterious name for a pretty grey nag – regarded me with a jaundiced eye. I had never noticed how long horse eyelashes are, and seeing Iblis bat his girlish lashes at me, I began to feel much less afraid of him. I swung myself up into the saddle. This was the moment of truth; I made sure the stable-lad was not looking, and urged the horse on with a gentle rub of my heels. Earning my eternal gratitude, he snorted purposefully and headed for the door.
Horst, I realised, had taught me well. Now I was on my own, I found that riding held no terrors for me after all. Indeed, by the time we had wound our way through the tangled lanes of the Borgo, keeping the grim bulk of the Castel Sant'Angelo to our right, I felt, if not quite a centaur, at least almost normal. The guards outside the fortress gate regarded us with baleful disinterest. Dawn was soaking fast into the sky, and on the other side of the river the mouldering corpses that hung from the gibbets of the Tor di Nona were tinged a lovely shade of rose. I spat, and urged Iblis into a trot.
There were no straight roads in Rome, I knew, and so I plunged into the chaos of streets and alleys, always keeping the rising sun on my right hand. The great city was waking up, and as I rode deeper into the maze I found myself pushing through a growing crowd of people, some friendly, some not, but all of them as loud and vehement as a flock of magpies. Cooking smells filled the air, doing battle with the fetid reek of night-soil, and I was tempted by more than one food-seller. But I was in a hurry, and keeping my rumbling guts under control I pressed on. Now I found myself in a river of men and women pushing barrows, driving carts or bent under packs, all on their way to the Pons San Petri. They carried vegetables, fruit, flowers, all still with the morning's dew upon them. I passed what seemed to be a walking rosebush, and looking down, saw a little girl staggering along under the weight of a huge bunch of roses, all pink petals and gold stamens and so fresh and fragrant that a few sleepy city bees were taking breakfast there. The girl looked up at me and for a moment I caught her eye and she stuck out her tongue at me and cackled. She was the happiest creature I had seen that morning, and I would have dropped her a coin or two if I had not seen that she needed both hands and all her strength to carry her gorgeous burden. And I noticed, as I rode on, that the thorny stems had scratched her bare arms so that blood had begun to drip from the cut ends. I shuddered. As usual, Rome was making me feel slightly sick, but if it was with disgust or joy I had still not quite decided.
At last – it seemed as if I had been riding for an eternity, and I had begun to fear that I had missed my way – the dark, narrow alleyway down which I had been forcing Iblis, and which had seemed like the only even vaguely northward-leading route, suddenly gave out on to open country. Just like that, I had left Rome. The buildings thinned out abruptly until I was riding through a curious landscape of poor huts, vegetable plots, waste-ground through which jutted odd, decayed blocks of travertine, and everywhere the low, toadstool-shaped pine trees that grew wherever men had abandoned even the tiniest patch of Roman ground.
On my side of the river I was in a landscape of little hills, all terraced and planted with olives and vines, and crowned, every one, with a thicket of Roman pines. From every bush and tree, insects battered and clattered out their songs. Here and there, great clumps of butcher's broom were flowering, and the scent filled the dry air. It was already getting hot, although I found I had made good time so far. Leaving the city had been much easier than I had expected. And the day seemed to be going well for my fellow travellers as well, for I was riding against a flowing stream of country folk all hurrying towards the city. They were seemingly all in good humour, singing and laughing to one another, exchanging loud greetings with others passing in the opposite direction. It was impossible not to get caught up in the jollity, and soon I was beaming to myself as I rode along. And what was there to be sour about? The blue heavens stretched flawlessly above. A light breeze stirred the olive trees, and their silvery grey leaves danced against the sky. I was alone with nothing more daunting than this road before me, and – this above all else – I was friends with my horse.
And he, it appeared, was determined to be friends with me. He clopped along at a sprightly walk that had us overtaking most of the other traffic, but he did so with a supple grace that caused my arse, unused as it was to the hard contours of a saddle, no undue discomfort. Such was our progress that in what I judged to be an hour and a half we came up to the river Tiber – for I had asked the way to the Saxa Rubra from a couple pushing a handcart of pinioned geese – and to a disreputable, crumbling bridge that had undoubtedly stood there a very long time. I heard the words ‘Ponte Milvio' uttered several times by those preparing to cross, and then I realised that this was the Milvian Bridge I had read of in Eusebius, years ago in the college library of Balecester. This was where Constantine had seen the fiery cross and the words of the Lord before his battle with Maxentius that had won him the Roman Empire. I glanced up, but the sky was innocent of either cross or writing. In hoc signo vinces, the emperor had been told: In this sign you shall conquer’ But time appeared to have conquered here, and human frailty, judging by the party of lepers who squatted off to the side of the road, waiting for a break in the traffic so that they could cross without disturbing those of sound body. I looked down at the Tiber as it rippled below, hoping to catch some hint of the Divine, perhaps, or at least of something vaguely mysterious. But here, as at the ancient, holy monuments I had visited in Rome, there was nothing but de
cay and the exuberant intrusion of the present. I shrugged, scratched Iblis behind the ears, and rode on, looking out for Marcho Antonio Marso.
The Rubra Saxa were not the landmark I had expected, just an outcropping of reddish stone that reminded me of the red earth around Totnes, far away in Devon. Marcho Antonio appeared from a spinney of holm oaks, seated, to my amazement, upon an ass that supported his angry bulk with the detached look of a martyr in extremis. Who goes there: Maxentius or Constantine?' he boomed.
'At this point I'm the disembodied fucking voice’ I told him. 'There's not much else left’ He laughed and handed me my valise.
'I resisted the temptations of the Dark Lord and did not break the seal of Antichrist’ he said. 'Very sorely tempted I was, too. If you get the chance, ask Michel to explain it all to me one day, will you?'
I assured him that I would, and to my surprise he leaned across and embraced me. It was like being hugged by a bear that had bathed in wine and rubbed its pelt with garlic, and I was so moved that I began to weep. I halted for the night at the village of Rignano, that lies under the mountain called Soracte. It had been an easy ride but a long one, and the stars were beginning to shine and bats to whirr above my head as I guided my weary but uncomplaining horse up the narrow street to the inn, which a countryman, baffled at first by my request for directions in execrable Roman dialect, had kindly pointed me towards from the now almost deserted Ravenna Road. Dog-tired, I ignored the travellers' chatter around me in the common room as I hurriedly ate a chicken and bean stew, drank a jar of thin wine and took myself off to bed, but not before giving my vinegar-soaked clothes to a maid for the best wash she could manage. Iblis I left in the stable, face deep in a bag of oats. As a brand-new horseman who had just completed his first day in the saddle without mishap, I can perhaps be forgiven for the grateful kiss I planted on his bony forehead, and the silver coin I gave to the astonished stable-lad to buy the best possible care for my friend.
I secured the door to my room, and dropped on to the bed. It was time to examine the letter that Gilles had left me, and suddenly I hoped that it had not contained instructions for any task I should have performed before leaving Rome. I broke the seal with anxious fingers. The bulk of the letter – what had made it seem so fat – was merely another map, a simple copy of the one I already had, which dispensed with all except the line of the road and the towns and landmarks along it. I was pleased to see Rignano appear as a tiny turreted building, then squinted to see the word 'bedbugs', much underlined, scrawled beside it. Plainly, I should have opened the letter last night. I looked closer, and saw that the map was heavily annotated in many different hands. I recognised Gilles' letters, but there were others that were strange to me. Nevertheless they offered good advice, these absent guides: 'sweet water'; 'brigands'; 'dishonest landlord'; 'horrible wine'. Beside one village much farther up the line, someone who I took to be the Captain had scribbled Try the sheep's feet!'. In other places the only admonition was a stark 'AVOID'. I turned to the other part of the letter. To Petrus Zennorius, traveller, vanguard and agent of the ship Cormaran, greetings!
I trust this finds you recovered from your sickness. I trust you will pardon our precipitate departure, but I received word of a ship to be had at Brindisi, and I have already delayed long enough. My hope is that this crude map will be of use and comfort. I assure you, though, that I, and the others whose scrawl you will find upon your map, have trod those roads, and slept in those beds, more recently than Pliny.
One thing: I would have you perform a small service for us on your way. Take the branch of the Ravenna Road which passes through Spoleto – that is the right branch that comes soon after Narni – and in that interesting city put up at the White Lion. I have sent Horst there. He will have left some documents for you, letters of credit from some business contracted in Florence that Captain de M wishes you to deposit at our bank in Venice. If he is still there, make him buy you dinner, for he will have received a fat commission (but please do not tell him that you know this!). That is all. Then hurry to Venice. Your destination, in case you do not remember, is the Palazzo Centranico on the Rio Morto, hard by the Church of San Cassan in the sestriere of Santa Croce. You are expected, and more detailed instructions will await you there.
With any luck at all, you will also find some fresh communication from myself and perhaps Captain de M as to the progress of our affairs. If all goes well I shall see you there myself before next spring has passed. But we will discuss this in more detail, for, good Patch, I will require you to be a more diligent writer of letters than you have so far proved. Soy until we meet again, good luck and fine weather! Gilles de Peyrolles
Chapter Twelve
‘The next morning I awoke to bedbugs and drizzle. The tiny swine had pecked a tracery of red into my shins and arms, and one of my ears felt hot and swollen. I cursed them volubly in broad Devon. Tired as I had been last night, I had made sure to tuck my sword beneath my bolster in case the inn was less friendly than it seemed. I had been attacked, all right, but the villains had been rather smaller than I had thought to guard against. But my clothes were clean and had dried by the fire, and to my surprise the hideous cloak, now freed of the filth of ages, seemed to have once been a rich man's garment, for there was silver thread in the hem, and the cloth was fine. I grudgingly paid my bill and managed to be back on the Ravenna Road while the air was still cool.
I had hoped to spend the night at Narni, but it was further than I had thought, and instead we stopped at Vigne, where I took the precaution of sleeping on the floor of my room. Rising early next day with no fresh bedbug bites, I set off for Narni. It was late afternoon before we topped a ridge and saw the town before us, perched on a steep stone hill above the Tiber. There was not much left of the day, and I should have halted there, but I thought it looked sinister perched up there on its crag, and so I urged Iblis down the slope to the bridge. The country on the other side of the river looked rich and friendly, and I guessed I would find a pleasant bed there without too much difficulty. The guards – the first soldiers I had seen on my journey – regarded me sourly but gave me – no trouble, and I paid my toll and rode across. It was indeed pleasant on the other side, and with the anticipation of supper giving me confidence, I nudged Iblis into a trot, then a canter. Down the road we swept, kicking up dust and earning curses and cheers in equal measure from the people on foot, for the road was busy again here.
But strangely, as we topped the nearest ridge, the people thinned out to nothing and we were alone again. And there before us, painted a sombre crimson by the setting sun, was a great slab of mountain which cut off the view to the north and east. It was like a wave of stone rearing up over the gentle landscape, menacing it with a savage face of cliff and tumbled rocks. The road descended to pass beneath this frightful monster, and down there it looked dark and sinister. I scanned the way ahead for any sign of an inn or even a farmstead where Iblis and I might buy a place to sleep, but there seemed to be nothing but olive trees and the occasional hovel. So reluctantly we passed the night in a grove of ancient olive trees a little way back from, and above, the road. It was clear that the trees were ancient, for they were little more than gnarled tangles of wooden tracery that still supported branches heavy with leaves and unripe fruit, and their roots reared up out of the ground, forming little hollows filled with dry leaves, natural beds that looked almost inviting. Fortunately I had bought bread, hard cheese, some onions and more leathery sausage at Vigne, and I had topped off my wineskin too, so supper was no great hardship. And to sleep on the bare earth was nothing new to me, so after making sure that Iblis had plenty of green stuff on which to graze, I arranged my packs to make a pillow and laid my sword down beside me, and tried to fall asleep. If you are bone weary you will fall asleep under a tree as readily as you would in a feather bed. If you fear the wild world, you will lie, saucer-eyed, and try in vain to see through the black night which your fancy has peopled with imps, ghosts, wolves and murderers. But if, l
ike I was then, you are neither tired nor afraid of the world beyond your walls and doors, you will stay awake for hours listening to the sounds of the night and gazing up at the stars. Tonight the Via Lactea leaped across the sky and all the star-creatures blazed down: bears, dragons, long-dead gods and heroes made immortal as solemn, silvery points of light. A nightingale started up in a thicket nearby, then moved further and further away until I could hear her no longer. Owls hissed and shrieked, and everywhere, from every rock and blade of grass, the insects poured out their song, as implacable as waves hissing on a pebble shore. So there I lay, idly sipping from my wineskin and thinking of the last time I had slept on the ground: a far less happy night that I had passed under a rain-drenched yew tree in one of Dartmouth's churchyards. I had been a frightened boy then, nothing but death behind me and less than a glimmer of hope in front. I had woken up starving and robbed some poor gravediggers for my breakfast, but that night I had come aboard the Cormaran for the first time.
As I say, I was indulging myself in these thoughts, full of wine and pleasant fatigue and beginning to sink drowsily into my nest of crackling leaves, when Iblis gave a snort, and then a quiet whinny. Startled, I sat up, 'but there was nothing but the cicadas and the shrilling of bats and so I settled back down. He has probably scented a fox or a badger, I mused. And what a fine guard-dog he makes into the bargain. Feeling drowsy again, and pleased with my good fortune, my eyes began to droop and my head to nod, when from below me on the road came a loud drumming of hooves. More than one horse – three or four, by the clamour of them – were racing up from Narni at breakneck speed. Iblis whinnied again, then neighed in earnest, but if the riders heard him they did not stop, and I doubted they could hear anything above the din of their mounts. But I was surprised enough to grab the pommel of my sword and throw my blanket off, and in the few moments it took me to do so the riders had passed and the sound of them was fading away northwards, soon to sink beneath the chorus of cicadas.
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