Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

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 decay and the exuberant intrusion of the present. I shrugged, scratched Iblis behind the ears, and rode on, looking out for Marcho Antonio Marso.