LITMIR.BIZ

      North of Rome, just past the Milvian Bridge, the road forked. The city behind them, the Via Flaminia now ran through a landscape ordered by the estates of great villas. Off to the right, sheep grazed on rich water meadows. Where the Tiber showed through a fringe of willows, its waters were green and placid. There were duck flighting over the river.

      Julius Burdo looked out at the pastoral scene, but some of his attention remained on his companion in the carriage. He was past fifty, and a frumentarius did not live that long if he abandoned his mind to idle fancies. Not when he was on a mission.

      The knife-boy Castricius sat in silence, looking at nothing, drawn in on himself. His left arm was bandaged, and he clutched a knapsack tight on his lap.

      Burdo shifted his sword belt. It dug into his girth. He had got heavier with age. He was tired. His dreams had not been good. Last night he had dreamt he was young again, back on his father’s farm up in Pannonia, towards the Danube. A brood of quail had picked their way through the mud of the yard. That was bad. Quail signify unpleasant news from overseas. From across the seas because they come from abroad, bad because the birds are belligerent yet faint-hearted. In the case of partnerships, friendships, marriages, and business transactions, they are symbols of discord and contention. And they are bad in regard of foreign journeys. For they indicate traps, snares, and ambushes.

      Castricius moved slightly, fingering the bandage. Burdo tensed, hand sliding towards hilt. Castricius put the knapsack next to him on the seat, leant his head back on the cushions, and shut his eyes. Burdo did not relax instantly.

      With this mission, no wonder his dreams were bad. He had been summoned by the new Praetorian Prefect. In his office on the Palatine Felicio had not been alone. With the Prefect had sat the young Senator Menophilus. The knife-boy had stood in the corner. The Senator had issued the orders. That had been no surprise. Menophilus had arrived to orchestrate the acceptance in Rome of the Emperors proclaimed in Africa. Menophilus was known to be close to the new Augusti, both Gordian the Son and the Father. In the past few days, with his own hands, Menophilus had killed two leading opponents of their fledgling regime. One he had beaten to death with the leg of a chair. He was a man whose commands it would be unwise to disobey.

      Burdo was to escort Castricius to the army in the north, to the camp of the tyrant Maximinus, somewhere beyond the Alps. Castricius carried a confidential message from Menophilus to the old Emperor. It should be enough to gain Castricius an audience. Once the youth had been admitted, Burdo was to see to his own safety. While the tyrant read the despatch, Castricius was to strike him down. Behead the snake, and end the civil war before it had begun.

      Castricius lolled with the motion of the carriage. His breathing was regular. Burdo studied him. He was very young, little more than a child, and thin. His face was angular and pointed, oddly lined for one so young. The few words he had spoken indicated a certain education. Burdo wondered where they had found him, how they had induced him to undertake this suicidal task, why they thought him capable of such a desperate venture.

      Castricius was snoring.

      To dream of mud signified sickness and lewdness. It meant sickness because it was composed neither of pure water nor of pure earth, a mixture of both, without being either. It meant lewdness because it defiles. Moist and soft, it indicated a catamite. Burdo looked back out of the window.

      Down by the Tiber, men were strolling along the bank. They were well dressed, leisured. They went from the bright sunshine into the shade of the trees. Burdo liked to read. The view reminded him of the opening of a Platonic treatise: the philosopher and his companions in some pleasant country place outside Athens, moved to unhurried discussion of the soul or the nature of truth. A world to which Burdo had always aspired.

      *

      ‘Do you know why Italian vegetables are the best in world?’

      Burdo said he did not.

      ‘Long ago, in its wisdom, the Senate banned all mining in Italy. The metals and the minerals have remained in the ground. They enrich the soil, enhance the flavour of everything that grows.’ Castricius grinned. ‘So my tutor told me, but I think it might be the climate.’

      The dining room of the inn was crowded. Burdo and Castricius had official diplomata, and they had a table to themselves in a corner.

      ‘Or maybe the way they

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