Conspiracies of Rome by Richard Blake Page A

of your piety on the Final Day.’
        ‘You’ll want these as well,’ said Big Moustache. He reached into the back again and drew out three sealed letters. He passed them up to me. Without looking at them, I handed them down to Maximin. He gave them a cursory glance and put them beside the casket.
        ‘Right,’ I said, now businesslike, ‘get twenty of those bags into my saddlebag. The rest goes with Father Constantine.’ I nodded to Maximin.
        To steady my now horribly frayed nerves, I counted silently to fifty as the saddlebags were packed. At last it was all done.
        As we were ready to depart, the first voice asked: ‘What password shall we take back with us?’
        ‘Canterbury,’ I answered, saying the first word that came into my head. I gave it in the English form, ‘Cantwaraburg’. I bit my tongue and cursed my nerves. I could feel the suspicious glances.
        I laughed, adding: ‘Say you spoke with Flavius Aurelianus. They will understand.’
        At last we picked our way on horseback down to the road. The smooth slabs underneath, I forced back the impulse to spur my horse to a wild gallop. Whatever had possessed me to open my mouth like that? I suppose it was that we’d been deep into a long day. I’d woken that morning, a shabby barbarian travelling with a priest who was barely less shabby, heading into a future that involved poncing my bread off others. I’d then killed two men in short order, taking over a tidy sum in gold. Now I’d just swindled another twenty-eight bags of gold from a band of mercenaries, any one of whom could have cut me down in the blink of an eye. Whatever I now got up to in Rome would be done in style. I was nervous. I was tired. Even so, I’d been stupid as a churl, and no one could blame me for wanting to get away while it was still in my power to do so.
     
    A few hundred yards along the road, we broke into a steady trot. The gold was evenly distributed on each side of me, and the horse seemed hardly to feel the additional weight. A small but bright moon was now coming up in the sky with a star or two beside. We could make out the dreary waste that extended on our left, far into the distance. Way over on our right, the sea gently lapped the shore.
        As we passed our fifth milestone, I began to breathe more easily. ‘How far to Telamon?’ I asked Maximin. I’d asked that the previous day, but had forgotten the answer with all that came between.
        ‘With horses on this road,’ Maximin said shortly, ‘I’d say we’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.’
        ‘There used to be an inn about halfway there from Populonium. We can rest there.’
        He looked nervously around. ‘I don’t feel too happy about sleeping in the open again.’
        I agreed. We were now decidedly worth robbing. Besides, we had the means to make the last stages to Rome like persons of quality. I saw no reason why we shouldn’t do so, heart and soul. I opened my mouth to speak. Before I could even form the words, I clutched the reins in a spasm of fear.
        Ahead, a horseman was galloping towards us. He was moving at a furious pace. It was no time at all before he’d passed from a tiny speck, only recognisable by the clatter of hooves in the silence of the night, to a solid presence just in front of us. About twenty yards away, he stopped and waited for us to come up to him. In the pale moonshine, I saw the glint of his half-drawn sword. And I could see the darkness about his left eye.
        ‘Singular courage,’ said One-Eye in accented Latin, ‘to be out alone on this road now.’ He let his sword slide back into its scabbard.
        Did he recognise us from earlier? I’d then been in very different clothes. But Maximin was the same as ever, and there couldn’t have been many of my age in that region with my hair. Also, we’d seen him in Populonium. Why and when had he left? Why was he now racing back there? I was suddenly conscious of my