Pip Vaughan-Hughes - The Vault of bones

As I say, I was indulging myself in these thoughts, full of wine and pleasant fatigue and beginning to sink drowsily into my nest of crackling leaves, when Iblis gave a snort, and then a quiet whinny. Startled, I sat up, 'but there was nothing but the cicadas and the shrilling of bats and so I settled back down. He has probably scented a fox or a badger, I mused. And what a fine guard-dog he makes into the bargain. Feeling drowsy again, and pleased with my good fortune, my eyes began to droop and my head to nod, when from below me on the road came a loud drumming of hooves. More than one horse – three or four, by the clamour of them – were racing up from Narni at breakneck speed. Iblis whinnied again, then neighed in earnest, but if the riders heard him they did not stop, and I doubted they could hear anything above the din of their mounts. But I was surprised enough to grab the pommel of my sword and throw my blanket off, and in the few moments it took me to do so the riders had passed and the sound of them was fading away northwards, soon to sink beneath the chorus of cicadas.

I sat for a while, waiting for my heart to still, and listening for more travellers below. But everything was still on the road, and before long – and with the aid of the last of the wine -I laid my head down again, this time to sleep in earnest. By the time I woke early the next morning, thick-headed and with a mouth full of tiny ants, I had all but forgotten the riders. I found a little stream nearby and led Iblis to drink there, and bathed my own grimy face. Then we set out again.

After I had ridden for a couple of hours, the Ravenna Road began to amble through soft, rolling country again. It was a little like Devon, I mused, but with olives instead of apples. And then, to confound me even more, orchards began to spring up on either side of the road. There were mountains not too far away, brown backs dotted with trees, and every hilltop hereabouts seemed to have a castle or a fortified village perched upon it. I took an excellent lunch of grilled sausages in one of these villages before pressing on to Spoleto which, despite the innkeepers gloomy assessment, I drew near to well before the sun began to sink behind yet another ridge of high mountains.

If I had found Narni a little sinister, it was nothing compared to my first view of the city of Spoleto. I crested a hill, and the road – little more than a track, in truth – dropped steeply down into a wide basin between the ridge of mountains I had been riding towards, and the hills over which I had just ridden. A river ran coolly through the darkening land, past a crude round fortress; and away to my left a broad, flat, marshy valley stretched away almost to the horizon, only to be blocked by a high, round-topped peak that seemed to rise vertically from the valley floor. But ahead of me was a town built on a hill that rose from the centre of the basin – I say a hill, but it seemed no less than a tiny mountain in itself, so steep and craggy was it. Down this crag seemed to pour – or rather ooze, like golden resin from a pine-tree – a confusion of honey-coloured stone, which, as I stared, resolved itself into churches, spires, houses and streets, all clinging to the sides of the mountain and springing up in tighter clusters wherever there was a hint of flat land on which to gain a purchase. In the fading light it looked unbelievably ancient, or indeed other-worldly, as if not made by the hands of men at all. With a growing sense of foreboding I rode down the hill towards the gate.

The sun was not quite down, and the guardsmen, decked in livery the colour of old blood, let me through with suspicious glances but no trouble. I was to meet Horst at the White Lion, near the cathedral. I asked an old woman leaning in a doorway where that might be, and she wordlessly pointed straight up. I took this to mean that I had to ride to the very top of the hill, and indeed I thought I remembered seeing at least one belltower up there, so with a sincere apology to Iblis I guided him up the horribly steep roadway.

The arms of Spoleto proved to be a white lion, so I guessed that Horst was lodged at the city's chief hostelry. I was looking forward to some supper and a wash, so I fell to imagining what the kitchen might be offering, while Iblis plodded up, climbing the cobbled street with his head lowered purposefully. After a while I took pity on him and dismounted, and together we laboured along our zigzag course, for the road wound up the hillside like clumsy stitching. But despite my misgivings this seemed like a pleasant city after all. The streets, most of which, apart from the one we had chosen, seemed to be nothing more than staircases cut into the face of the hill, were full of people taking their ease, and children playing noisily with tops and hoops. Food was being prepared, and folk were bellowing at each other companionably from windows and doorways. Nevertheless I was beginning to grow weary by the time I led Iblis under a great, mossy archway and on to a patch of mercifully flat ground where, judging from the rotting fruit and vegetables being fought over by a swarm of bone-thin dogs, a market had recently held sway. There was a large church in front of me, and I hoped this was the cathedral, but a cowled monk, scurrying across the marketplace on some errand, told me that the place I sought was beyond, and to the right. As I suspected, that meant heaving our exhausted carcasses up another almost sheer street, and I was cursing the whole world when suddenly the buildings opened up on my left and I found myself looking down a wide course of steps and on to a wide piazza of golden brick, beyond which a marble church rose, blushing faintly pink with the last rays of the sun. This, plainly, was the cathedral. But where was the inn? I was sinking down on the topmost step to get my breath back, Iblis breathing hody down my neck, when there was a loud flurry of voices behind me. I turned, and saw that a party of young men were trotting down the street towards me, chattering loudly. Behind them, at the top of the hill, a loud argument was being played out between a very fat man with a bald head and another younger fellow, who with a final angry wave of his arms, took off after his friends. The fat man watched him go, hands on fleshy hips, before shaking his head and stepping back through a doorway, above which hung a sign emblazoned with the image of a white lion rampant against a blood-red field. I had found my inn.

The proprietor of the White Lion – the fat gentleman I had seen arguing outside – was evidently used to his guests arriving in the last stages of fatigue, and he raised not so much as an eyebrow hair as I stood before him panting, sweat pattering down on to my tunic from the tip of my nose. He had a bed for me, but of course. Please to leave my beautiful horse with Giovanni the groom. Of course, Signor Horst of the Cormaran had arrived four days ago; and come in, come in.

'He left this for you’ said the innkeeper, opening a drawer in his table and passing me a letter. I glanced at it, and saw that ‘Petrus Zennorius' was written there. I was about to ask for Horst's whereabouts, but at that moment a serving girl passed with a flagon of something cold enough to make the earthenware beady with dew. I must have looked desperate, for the innkeeper signed discreetly to another girl, who was placing a beaker of icy white wine in my hand so speedily I thought for a moment that I had conjured it up myself by sheer force of desire. I took a deep draught as the fat man watched me indulgently.

‘It is good, yes?' he asked. I nodded, although the cold liquor was making my teeth ache and my eyes throb. 'Our cellars are deep, the deepest in Spoleto. The Romans dug them down into the cold heart of the earth. Now, you may eat when you wish, but I would like you to take a jug of this wine to your room and lie down for a little. You look – forgive me, sir – but you look as if you passed last night in an unfriendly ditch’ 'Under a tree, actually’ I gasped through frozen teeth.