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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