Conspiracies of Rome a-1

by Richard Blake

  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, Lu
cius 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.

  While I sat gasping and waiting for the red mist to pass from just inside my eyes, Lucius made a tour of the carnage on the road. His face expressionless, I watched him cut the throats of the wounded, carefully stepping back each time to avoid the gush of blood. One tried to avoid the knife with a wail of terrified pleas. It might have been the cry of a stricken deer for all the effect it had on Lucius.

  He passed from this to an examination of the tethered horses. I looked at him and then back at the road. In the golden sun of late afternoon, the paving stones of the road were a deep and slimy red, and were littered with bodies and body parts. I saw one body lying with its head split in two from crown to jaw. I’d done that, I vaguely remembered.

  It was a fine sight, I suppose. I’d so far killed about twelve men – forgetting the churl I’d accidentally pushed over a cliff above Dover. That was a good total for a man of my age and quality who’d never yet fought in a regular battle. This kill had been a good one, almost worth commemorating in verse. But it didn’t register. I was as if in a dream. All it meant to me at the time was that I wasn’t going back to Rome until I was ready.

  As cool as iced water, Lucius counted the horses and assessed their power and speed. He found nothing written in their bags. Again, he ignored my suggestion to hamstring them. Instead, he cut away the leather ties that attached saddles and bridles. They would be unharmed but useless to anyone who found them. Then, with a shout and a few jabs from his sword, he drove them off into the woods.

  He turned to me. ‘Mount up, my Alaric,’ he said. ‘Don’t ask me how the dispensator got these men ahead of us. But if he can get some ahead, he might get others. Let’s press on.’

  We mounted and galloped forward along the road.

  In ancient times, some of the Greeks used to fill their armies with lovers. It made the armies into invincible fighting machines – though not in the end against the Romans. I felt the power of that force as we tore along the road. That moment of calm as I’d sat in the road had passed. Now, we raced through the late afternoon. My body was on fire with an exultation I’d never before felt. To speed over those paving stones with Lucius beside me was better than the best sex I’d e
ver had. We rode on and on, until the horses began to falter.

  Then we stopped.

  We stopped beside another of those little streams and watered our horses. As we washed the blood and gore from our own bodies, I noticed for the first time that I’d been wounded. The left sleeve of my riding tunic was slashed down to the wrist. There was a deep vertical gash on my arm underneath. There was another shallow puncture in my left side. How I’d got these I couldn’t imagine. I’d felt nothing at the time, nor afterwards. Now, I sat beside the stream feeling suddenly weak and cold as the blood poured down my arm in a crimson stream. I could see the parted skin hanging loose in flaps.

  Lucius washed and dressed the wounds.

  ‘I don’t think this will turn bad,’ he said grimly. ‘But I guarantee it will hurt by nightfall like nothing you’ve ever felt.’

  ‘Thank you for coming back, Lucius,’ I said feebly.

  Lucius stood over me, looking down. ‘How could you possibly think I would ever have gone off without you?’ he asked. ‘You are my beautiful young Alaric. You are the sun that illuminates my soul. So long as I live, I will never leave you, my golden love, my everything. We go together through life, or not at all.

  ‘Fuck the letters in my bag,’ he added, more lightly. ‘I couldn’t go off without you.’

  ‘We made a proper mess back there,’ I said. Well, Lucius had made a proper mess. All I’d done was blunder about like a drunk in a tavern. I took another gulp of the wine he held out, and looked at the notches cut here and there in my now blunted sword.

  ‘You fought well,’ said Lucius firmly. ‘You have strength and speed. You have the courage of your noble fathers. All you need more is the practice that brings them together. We’ll see to that in Ravenna, when everything else is over.