We were sitting on deck, where we could see anyone approaching three boats away; Anna was fidgeting round as if she didn’t know what to do with her legs, or like the look of them, if it came to that, the way she was glowering at her hose. “How long do have I to keep play-acting?” she asked. There was a whine in her voice that was becoming familiar.

“Only till we reach Ravenna. What’s wrong with what you’re wearing? Look at the problems the reverend ladies are having with their gowns.”

“The Blessed Paulus would have a fit at the sight of me in hose.”

“The Blessed Paulus would have a fit at the sight of me in hose,” I pointed out. “Civilized people went bare-legged.”

Her face went blank for a moment, presumably while she went through all the pictures she had seen, but then she came back with, “Anyway, people can see my shape.”

“What shape?” I had seen genuine eunuchs in the City with more bosom than Anna, and I was starting to worry about being thought too close with my money to feed my household properly.

“You wouldn’t understand,” she mumbled, plucking at her hose again. I sucked my teeth, looking out to sea. Understanding wasn’t the point.

“How long, anyway?” she asked.

“I told you. Till Ravenna.”

“Yes, but how long?”

“It all depends. If we can get a boat at Sycracusa, a week or so. If we have to travel by road, at least a month.”

“A month? It was only supposed to be a couple of weeks!”

“Well, that was when I thought we’d be able to change ships here. I hadn’t realized what cowards the sailors were.”

And I hadn’t realized how lucky we had been to get a berth at all. Our religious ladies from Gallia had chartered the ship to get them back home in time for Easter; fortunately the combination of solid gold and the ladies’ own holiness had won the captain round. They had taken to Anna as a suitable intermediary and had been regaling her with stories of their journey. My blood had run cold when I overheard them telling her about the “monk” at Sinai who turned out to be a girl, but apparently they never put two and two together, and it did reassure Anna a bit. Only a bit, though.

“Anyway, what happens when we get to Ravenna?” she asked.

“Apart from you going back to dressing in a grain sack? We join up with my kinsman Daniel and I try to get work with Odovacer. He should be in the market for a good engineer.”

“Who can build war machines.” I don’t know from where she got her contempt for logistics; certainly not her father. “And what happens to me?”

“I don’t know. Could you join a religious house?”

“I’ve spent nearly all day, every day, with our reverend ladies, because they’d rather not deal directly with nasty rough men, not that I blame them—”

“They like you. They’ve made you very welcome.”

“I daresay they do, but that’s not the point. They chatter in my ears all day in that jargon they’ve got the cheek to call Latin—”

“They all talk like that in Gallia and Italia.”

“That’s supposed to make me feel better? It’s as bad as Xenia going on about clothes, but it’s not even that, it’s where they’ve been and what they’ve seen and I could write a step-by-step guide to the Holy Land from Sinai to the Mount of Olives and I couldn’t . . . care . . . less.”

And of course that was the real point: not did they like her, but did she like them. Anna’s preferred reading-matter was Euclid, Diophantes, and the Classics, and she wasn’t likely to find kindred spirits in any community in the West.

I didn’t bother to mention the third possible course of action: leave her to fend for herself. We both knew where that would lead. In the morning we’d reach Ravenna and by evening she’d be installed in a brothel. Snatching her from the jaws of the Palace agents in order to become a seaman’s whore was not exactly what Metrodorus had expected of me; she could have done that in the City.

“So which is it going to be? Me or the reverend ladies?”

Anna didn’t bother trying to put a good face on it.

“I think we’re stuck with each other.”

Unfortunately, by the time we reached Syracusa, it was too late. If we had sailed directly to Ravenna from the Piraeus, it would still have been too late. The news had come down from the North that Odovacer had been defeated, totally, dead, and his men scattered, and Theuderichos the Goth was the man in possession.

“What now?” Anna asked. “Try for a post with Theuwhatsit?”

“Theuderichos, of the line of Amal. Grew up in the City—”

Anna’s face went the color of uncooked dough. I didn’t think much of my chances with him, firstly because he obviously had all the military staff he needed, and secondly, I wouldn’t have Daniel to speak for me . . . if Daniel was alive . . . but I couldn’t quite see why the collapse of my employment prospects should have that effect on her.

“It’s worth trying,” I said reassuringly. “You never know. Theuderichos might have something in the way of defences in mind, or even civil engin—”

“David, we mustn’t. We can’t go to Italia now.”

“Why the blazes not?”

“The Post!”

“Look, girl, the Post goes everywhere. Odovacer, Theuderichos, there’s no odds.”

“Theuderichos grew up in the City. He’ll be much more willing to do favors. Like sending us back.”

“Why should he?” I was getting annoyed. “He’s not a Monophysite. He has no reason to grant Anastasios favors.”

“So what? He’s not a True Believer either, is he? He’s a ruler in Italia and the Empire has interests in Italia and he knows how things work. He’ll send us back.” She wasn’t whining any more. Clearly, it was much too serious for that.

I suppose I could have overruled her, and insisted on making for Ravenna, but I had a nasty feeling she might do something stupid like throwing herself overboard, and that would not discharge my word to her father either.

Anyway, there was no certainty of a post with Theuderichos. There were other rulers with bigger problems; one of them was sure to need me. It would just take longer, and a bit more talking.

“All right,” I said. “We’ll stay with the reverend ladies to Massilia and then find somewhere.”

The attendants must have been used to customers straight off the boat, if not usually that early in the year, because there were very few sarcastic comments. I did a quick deal for replacement clothing for Anna—the dealer seemed very pleased with the bargain, and so he should be, as her old clothes were much better quality, but I didn’t want us to stand out as fresh from the City. I put my clothes away so that I could get them laundered properly when we had gotten well away from the coast; at the bottom of my bag I had the Western clothes I had been wearing when I first arrived in the City. I had a proper shave, and got the barber to cut off all the dyed hair, which again did not cause all that much surprise; Goths and the like can please themselves, but on the whole, Romans prefer their heads without resident livestock.

Once we were clean and dressed, I was in a much better state of mind. Anna didn’t stand out so much in local clothes, and even her dodgy Latin was all right in Massilia, where they’re mostly Greek. At least after a few weeks of the reverend ladies, she could understand what people were saying to her.

I looked much better, too. My hair color is much more common this end of the world, and my old clothes completely broke the link with the City; it was not likely that anyone would recognise Hilditutus’ badge on the shoulders, but at least it was not an Eastern device. Anna, of course, was seeing Post agents round every corner, but there wasn’t any point in being stupid.

All in all, we looked quite respectable by the time we wandered back to the waterfront in pursuit of food, drink, and lodgings, in approximately that order. As it was so early in the year, I hoped accommodation would be reasonable; the only other travellers would be pilgrims like our reverend ladies, and pilgrims weren’t supposed to stay in inns and taverns.

Getting along the waterfront proved difficult. Most of the shipping in the harbour was fitting out, and the quayside was cluttered with spars, ropes, sails, pots bubbling on little fires, men arguing over the ropes they were splicing, and work progressing at the general rate of one brushstroke of paint to three speeches to justify it. The chandlers’ shops were full to overflowing with customers, and so were the taverns, most of which were just wine shops; people might be busy, but there wasn’t necessarily a lot of work getting done.

Anna grumbled continuously about the weight of the bags before I found what I had been looking for: a tavern with a little staircase up the side to an upper floor that might have rooms to let.

Inside, there was a pleasant smell of lamb and garlic, and Anna cheered up visibly at the sight of the little statue of Simeon the Polesquatter inside the door, just like in the City.

The proprietor was behind the bar, fussing with the charcoal under the wine-warmer. There were only two customers, facing each other across the big table and playing a game of Robbers. All three stopped what they were doing when we came in and stared at us in a way that wasn’t quite hostile, but might be prepared to run to it. They relaxed when I greeted them in Greek.

We sat at the far end and when Himself brought over our wine and a plate of olives I raised the question of accommodation. I let him see some silver in the purse when I paid him.

“Oh, yes,” he said enthusiastically. “A nice clean room. You’ll have it all to yourselves, too. We’ll start filling up once Easter is past, but we don’t get many land travellers.”

The upstairs room was clean enough; swept rather than scrubbed, that is, with half-a-dozen Greek-style beds and a grilled window looking out over the harbour.

Anna dumped the bags on the floor, and stood there drooping. “How long do we have to stay here?”

“I’ve no idea. At least till I can decide where we can go. With a bit of luck we’ll be gone before the room fills up. For now you can just be thankful that there’s a bed for each of us.”

Her face turned white, then crimson. I realized with an unpleasant jolt that while what I meant was that she wouldn’t be expected to sleep on the floor, she was thinking something completely different.

I said, “We’d better get one thing straight. Marriage or no marriage, as long as you have to pass for a boy, nothing will happen between us. Nothing. Do you understand?” She nodded, but rather uncertainly. “Look, the one thing that would really spoil your chances of passing as a eunuch would be a bulging belly. Is that clear enough?” She swallowed and nodded again. After a little I sighed, and said, “Come on. There’s wine and decent food downstairs.”

The smell of lamb and garlic was more tempting than ever. A few more customers had arrived, and we slid quietly into our places for our first proper meal in the West.

It seemed Alarichos spent his time at Tolosa when he wasn’t fighting. I knew vaguely where Tolosa was, but Aquitania is a big area, and I didn’t want to go wandering over half Gallia with an over-protected Greek and all those bags: she could hardly get them from the Baths to the harbour.

“Savages,” I heard someone say. “That’s all they are. They dress fancy and give their kings decent chairs to sit on in decent halls, but scratch a Goth and what do you get? Barbarian warriors. Even their nobles. Even their kings. Look at Gundobad: as civilized as you please over in Italia setting up an Emperor, but things go funny and where do you find him next? Sitting on a Roman Chair of State in a Roman hall in a Roman city and holding court like something fresh out of the forest.”

“Oh, yes, I’ll grant you Gundobad,” said another voice, “but take Theoderichos, now. He’s a diff—”

“Don’t you believe it. It takes more than a few years in a city to sweat the savage out of a Goth. He’ll go just the same, you mark my words. Give him a year or two and we’ll know all about it.”

“You think so?”

“I’m sure of it. There’s no odds between Gundobad and Alarichos now, and before long there’ll be no odds between Theoderichos and Alarichos. It’s in the blood.”

“Oh, God, yes! I mean, look at their so-called nobles. They’ve got some sort of pride of ancestry, I suppose, but do you know what they really take pride in? The lands they own? They don’t own a square foot! Heaven forbid, someone might take them for farmers! The only thing they’re interested in is how many men they lead into battle. Not provide, mark you. Lead. Right there in the middle of the fighting. I ask you! What sort of gentry do they call themselves if they spend all their time running round with common soldiers?”

“Not so common if you believe them,” the first voice commented acidly. It came from a middle-aged fat man, prosperous looking even in drawers and a towel. “Even their commoners are supposed to be descended from gods, if you please.”

“And they call themselves Christians.” The second voice belonged to another middle-aged man, not as fat but still obviously not poor, with a natty Goth-style haircut that didn’t look young and fashionable, just silly, with a bald spot in the middle.

A loud sniff came from the first speaker, and a silence which was all that comment deserved. At this point the fat man noticed me looking at them and switched to Greek.

“My wife’s cousin in Tolosa has got one of the animals billeted on him. He can’t even entertain without putting a place for him, he can’t even walk in his own garden without the stink of milk fat drowning the roses.” I looked as blank as I could while I went on listening as hard as I could; in the meantime Anna wiped me almost clean off the board.

It was nice to know that her distressing experiences were not interfering with the important things in life. When I turned fifteen, my uncle Aaron had warned me, ‘Never play for money with a stranger’s dice.’ You could add to that, ‘Never play Tables with Anna for money. Ever.’ I was still only back on the first half when Anna went right out, because I was still listening to their comments on brigands, or rather the lack of them, which seemed to be the only good thing they could say about Goths, and very nice to hear it was, too.

I was just wondering what excuse I could use to ask the fat man about the route to Tolosa when he solved the problem by coming over and offering to play, talking slowly and rather loud; though I wasn’t quite sure whether he thought I was a Goth or just Country-bred.

I accepted, not sure whether he had seen the end of the game; I thought he probably must have when he said that putting a bit on it would add a bit of spice to the game. I agreed, making myself look rather worried as the best way to keep from grinning. I may not be able to multiply and divide and what else in my head like Anna, but I can, by God, see patterns in things, and I know a good bit about how dice fall, and against anyone but Anna I’m likely to make a profit.

The first game was pretty level, partly because I was still after information, so I wasn’t giving the game my full attention. I just managed to win, though, which was encouraging. By the second game I had the journey clear in my mind: first go to Aquae Sextiae and then West to Arelate, cross over the Rhodanus and go down via Nemausus where I could probably join a party, and after that I was giving all my thoughts to the game.

I slaughtered him, as badlky as Zeno’s Defeat, and he hadn’t even had really bad throws; it was just that my men weren’t where he needed them to be. I wondered about suggesting a third game, but apparently he had an early dinner engagement to attend, so we went off to our own dinners—straight away; it was rather a lot of money to have around when you’re half naked.

“Of course, it was planned to be a marvel,” she explained. “It didn’t just grow, like the Old City, and it wasn’t laid out like an army camp; it was built to be a nice place to live, and every house has an interesting view. Take the house where I lived. We had a view of the column with the statue of Constantinus Himself—”

“So you could always find your way home even when you’d had a few too many,” I broke in, and told a not-very-edifying story of a visitor to one of the gridiron towns who thought he was returning to a second assignation with one of those obliging ladies in yellow dresses, lost count of the cross-streets, and ended up trying to break down the door of a group of religious ladies.

This prompted someone to tell another story, about a rather too good-natured (and rather absent-minded) sailor’s wife: “So there’s this knock on the door and voices downstairs, and she shakes him awake and says, ‘Quick, out of the window, it’s my husband,’ and he says, ‘What do you mean? I am your husband!’

After a few more in the same line, talk returned to the City, with Anna doing most of the talking. One of the two men who had been there when we had first arrived, a small man with a heavy accent, commented on it to me. I shrugged.

“The boy grew up there,” I said. “Stands to reason, he knows the place inside out and backward. I only saw half the places he’s been talking about.” He nodded, his eyes still on Anna.

“He must have set you back a good bit.”

I smiled and went back to my wine. Anna was explaining the other benefits of it being a new city.

“And the churches! Churches everywhere! It was built to be a Christian city. Of course, the old city became irrelevant with all that clutter of old gods. Naturally, there are a fair number of Greeks, particularly among the scholars—”

A lot of people nodded sagely, including the little man with the accent, who said, “Stands to reason. Can’t study the Four Branches without the Three, can’t study Grammar without reading the old books. And that can put temptation in people’s way, can’t it? Didn’t you find that?”

I agreed vaguely, not at all sure whether to be pleased that he had me down as a scholar, but absolutely adamant that I wasn’t going to admit to any interest in mathematics. I asked him what his particular interest was.

“Medicine,” he said. I nodded sagely again, and made a mental note not to jump to conclusions; there was no good reason why a little man with a funny accent shouldn’t be a doctor.

At that point I realized they had been asking Anna about the big festivals in the City; she had apparently just finished with Easter and they were looking appropriately impressed, and she was starting on Christmas. I kept the same vague look on my face, but inside I was swearing. I was still trying to think of a way to stop her without drawing attention to what she was telling them when it was too late.

“—And then, of course, the climax on Christmas Day itself is the Pantomime. The Emperor and the Empress—”

“Pantomime?”

“Acting. You know, like in the theatre.” They all nodded again, though half the theatres I had seen in the West were being used as rubbish dumps, which when you come to think of it, is pretty appropriate. “The Emperor and the Empress dress up as the Unconquered Sun and—”

There was nearly a riot. I grabbed her by the shoulder and started yanking her out of the room.

“Is that right, what he’s saying?” the doctor asked.

“No idea. I wasn’t there over Christmas. No, I shouldn’t think so. The stupid brat’s had more than is good for him. Come on, you little bastard, and stop making a fool of yourself.”

I dragged her up the stairs, and there wasn’t a great deal of play-acting in it. I didn’t let go till we were in the room, then I pushed her across it, barred the door, and said, “You stupid, crass, little—”

She had stumbled into the wall, quite hard by the sound of it, slid down to sit on the floor and started to cry.

“What’s the matter? What am I supposed to have done?”

“It’s not what you’re supposed to have done. It’s what you have done. Opened your ignorant little Eastern mouth too wide, that’s what you’ve done. If I hadn’t dragged you out of there, God knows what they’d have done to you.”

“But what’s the matter?”

I took a few deep breaths. “This city is a Greek foundation, so they understand some things. When you say Greek and mean not Christian they understand what you mean. But they’re all Christians here, and what they don’t understand is how a Christian emperor, on the feast of Christ’s Nativity, in the great Christian city, can dress and act the part of a false god.”

“But everyone knows—”

“Everyone in the East knows. This is the West. They don’t understand.”

“You mean you don’t understand,” she said with a spiteful note.

“That’s right. I don’t understand it, and when it comes to belief, these people are more like my people than yours. That’s why I stopped you from giving details about the Column. The statue’s fine of itself. If it was only the Palladium—”

“But that’s the whole point! The continuity! Troia to Old Roma, Old Roma to New Roma—”

“If it was only the Palladium buried underneath, that could be explained. But that crown Constantinus is wearing? The Crown of the Unconquered Sun, made from the nails of the True Cross?”

She sat huddled by the wall, her face buried in her arms. Occasionally she made a gasping sob. I sat beside her, close but not touching. I still wasn’t sure she really understood the danger, but it was painfully clear how lonely and homesick she was. I reached out to touch her shoulder, but she jerked away from me and curled up into a tight ball, the sobs coming quicker and louder.

The doctor was already there, playing Robbers with his friend, when we came down. He gave me a cold stare only slightly mollified by the sight of the bruise and Anna’s puffy eye.

“Looks like he cost you more than he’s worth,” he said as we came in for a bite of bread. “You’d better see that he keeps a civil tongue in his head. While he still has a tongue in his head.”

“That’ll do,” Himself said sharply, setting out the bread. Don’t you pay any attention to Mamertius,” he said to me. “Man can’t help being a foreigner.”

“Foreigner!” Mamertius glared at me again. I paid no attention, like I had been told, and asked Himself if he knew a reliable donkey merchant.

I hoped, that with an introduction, we wouldn’t be cheated too much, but I know absolutely nothing about donkeys. I stared at the one they offered me—which stood there looking like a toy horse—and found it difficult to believe it could carry anything heavier than a fancy saddle cloth. If it had been a real horse, I would have known what to look for, but as it was, I pretended to look knowledgeable, had the dealer walk it up and down a bit, tried to memorize its face so that next morning we would be collecting the one I had paid for, and caught it looking at me. This was worrying. On the whole you can get horses to do what you want them to because horses are stupid. This wasn’t a horse, and I had a nasty feeling it wasn’t stupid.

We arranged to bring down our bags and collect the donkey in the morning, and this got another resentful glower from Anna. We went and bought the rest of the things I thought we’d need: lentils, oatmeal, a string of garlic, and part of a flitch of bacon—half a pig, half a flitch, as they say, about as much as I thought we could carry. A belated thought struck me and I bought a cooking pot, a leather bucket, and a small jar of wine.

I was not looking forward to the journey. I was well out of practice for long marches and Anna, until the day we fled, had never walked further than the church. If we had any problems, there was a serious risk that we might not be able to reach lodgings for the night, but even if we had to sleep outside, we wouldn’t starve.

For a change from lamb and garlic, we had chicken and garlic for dinner that night. I intended to make a good meal, as I could see us getting fed up with lentils and oatmeal, even if the army had conquered half the world on it, and it irritated me that Anna just picked at her food. The company had obviously decided they didn’t want to hear any more about the City, so they left us in peace; but after a while, I became more aware of Mamertius’ accent getting heavier and louder, and eventually I could ignore no longer that he was talking about me. At first, it was comments about my inability, or unwillingness, to control my household, then it started getting personal. Most of it I’d heard before, and you can get used to anything if you don’t have the option. He got scathing about the way I broke my bread, so I let it be and concentrated on my chicken; unfortunately, getting the meat off a chicken wing gave rise to another volley of comments. A respite came when he left to get rid of some of the wine, and I made the most of it, but when he returned, instead of going to his own seat, he stood behind me and started again, addressing his comments to his Robbers opponent, who was looking more and more uncomfortable.

Suddenly he grabbed hold of me, pinning both my forearms to the table. He may stood almost a foot shorter than me, but he was behind me and leaning down heavily. Everything went a bit pale and grey for a while, and I missed some of what he was saying.

When things got clearer again I heard, “—Did think you seemed to have rather a lot of money for someone who wasn’t too forthcoming about what you did. I remember hearing they cut thieves’ hands off in the City.”

The place couldn’t have gone quieter had he dumped Medusa’s head on the table. It was so silent, I heard the plop as a piece of chicken slid off someone’s spoon. Then the pressure on my arms stopped and, behind me, Himself shouted, “That’s more than enough! Out, you! I’m not having you insulting paying customers!”

“Paying customers, is it?” Mamertius shouted back. “Ask him where he got the money to pay you. Go on, ask him!” His voice faded and stopped when the door slammed. Gradually the company de-petrified.

“Never could hold his wine,” one voice said.

“Funny background,” said another. “I heard tell his father had his hair down his back till he was twenty.” More conversations began, and the noise was back to its old level by the time I pulled myself together enough to stand. I didn’t have much appetite left, and I could see no point in staying there any longer.