The morning sun fell like an anvil over Rome, crushing the shadows against the cobblestones of the Appian Way. Marcus moved among the bustle, where the scents of freshly baked bread and old urine mingled with a rumor swelling like the tide.
In the Forum of the Crowns, the vendors hurried to close their stalls. A baker haggled with a customer while casting nervous glances toward the Capena door:
—My brother-in-law saw the riders at dawn... the Bronze Arm of the King, all wearing those red cloaks that seem to drip blood...
The echo of her words was lost amid the clatter of a cart loaded with amphorae, where two slaves whispered about golden eagles seen in the south.
Turning toward the temple of Bacchus—now converted into a stable—the air changed. The smell of fermented hay and horse sweat announced what the eyes later confirmed: a double line of Gothic warriors stood guard beside the baths. Their armor, polished like mirrors, returned dazzling flashes.
A drunk stumbled into Marcus, spitting wine and prophecies:
—They're coming for our own again! Just like in the days of Alaric!
The procession now advanced along the Booksellers' Street, where scholars had abandoned their scrolls to watch the spectacle pass. Among the crowd, a rhetoric master attempted to explain to his students what a republic was, but his words became entangled in comparisons with Athens and legends of the first consuls.
—It was when the people... well, not exactly the people... rather the patricians... although now...
The clatter of hooves against stone drowned his explanation. Marcus distinguished the standards: the Gothic fist alongside old Roman symbols unearthed from some dusty archive. On the walls, the city guards exchanged knowing looks with the newcomers.
Beside the Fountain of Juturna, where washerwomen used to sing, only guttural orders in Gothic were now heard. A little girl quickly gathered her basket of clean clothes when she saw an officer with a silver helmet approaching.
Marcus's path ended where the shadows of the Palatine began. From there he saw the last squadron of heavy cavalry entering the Gothic camp, raising a cloud of dust that darkened the sculpted faces in the ancient arches.
In the sudden silence left by the riders' passage, only the murmur of the Tiber striking the docks remained, indifferent to the new masters of the city.
The giant atop the courser towered like a living monument over the Roman throng. Ingomer, the Bronze Arm, smiled beneath his helmet adorned with runes, enjoying how the eyes of the common folk widened at the sight of him. "What curious creatures," he thought, watching the Italians huddled against the walls—small, tanned, with that spark of pride that not even centuries of decadence had managed to extinguish.
—Look, Hrodulf, he rumbled in his guttural tongue, pointing with his war hammer toward the Arch of Titus, —even their ruins look down on us with disdain! What a city! What a people!
His commander, a veteran scarred with marks crisscrossing his nose like a battle map, nodded solemnly:
—They are not like the Franks, my lord. These mice have lions carved in their memories.
Ingomer laughed, a roar that made the plates of his lamellar armor vibrate.
—That is why my brother chose me! Not to crush them, but to make them roar again!
His vision was clear: Rome would rise again, not as a den of pagans, but as a beacon of true Christianity. He already imagined the old temples transformed, the statues of Jupiter and Mars torn down to raise crosses and effigies of the prophets. And above all, he thought with a childlike gleam in his blue eyes, the vicars of God governing from these marble palaces.
—Those mercenaries from the south..., he murmured, caressing the handle of his hammer, —playing at being Roman legions. How many republics have we already buried, Hrodulf? Three? Four?
The commander spat on the ground:
—Italians of fragile bones. They shatter before our cavalry like glass under an anvil.
Ingomer nodded, but his affable face suddenly hardened. For a moment, the passersby who admired him saw the warrior who had massacred the Gepids at Sirmium:
—This time will be no different.
The courser neighed impatiently, and the Gothic giant soothed it with a pat that would have felled a normal horse.
—Soon, my brother will have his Rome... and I will have my mission.
And among the crowd, while the sun gilded his armor, no one noticed the cold-eyed monk who observed everything from the shadows.
The children ran like ghosts among the living ruins of Rome. Their bare feet scratched the worn cobblestones of the Appian Way, where the ancient stones bore deep grooves carved by generations of carts long vanished. They passed a broken aqueduct, its monumental arches now a refuge for beggars and pigeons. The water that once flowed proudly had dwindled to a dirty trickle that smelled of urine and rotten herbs.
In the Boarium Forum, where slaves and spices were once traded, only miserable stalls remained, selling floury bread and candles made from stolen church tallow. A drunken Ostrogoth slumbered against the remnants of an altar to Hercules, his chainmail rusted open to reveal a belly scarred with wounds. Nearby, a newlywed slave woman nursed a child whose father could have been any of the warriors patrolling the streets.
The children leaped over a fallen column, its Greek marble chipped from years of use as an improvised step. As they turned toward the Velabrum, the air thickened with the smell of forged iron: the Goths had converted the ancient temple of Portunus into a forge. Three blacksmiths, their torsos glistening with sweat, hammered swords on anvils placed where the statue of the river god once stood.
—Hurry up! panted Lelia, dodging a puddle of stagnant water in which floated the bloated corpse of a cat.
They crossed the bird market, now silent. The empty cages swayed in the wind, their open doors like mouths screaming silently. An old man sold the last birds—scrawny sparrows—for a few bronze coins. No one bought.
Upon reaching the Ponte Fabricio, the Tiber showed its cruelest face: corpses of the drowned trapped between the pillars, swollen like the stench of cheap wine. The children did not stop. They had seen worse things in the alleys near the Monte Testaccio, where the broken amphorae of the imperial age mingled with the bones of the unburied.
The Gothic procession caught up with them just as they passed the Theatre of Marcellus, now converted into a fortress. The hooves of the heavy horses made the ground tremble, as if the very ancient gods protested underground. The riders bore standards with runes that no Roman could read, yet whose message was clear: Rome was no longer theirs.
When they finally reached Saint Peter's Square, breathless and with bloodied feet, they saw the true Rome:
The basilica rose imposingly, but its steps were crowded with refugees cooking over improvised fires. The frescoes of the saints looked down from above, their faces blackened by the smoke of hundreds of bonfires. Beside the colonnade, a group of monks sold indulgences next to a stall offering fake relics: dog bones presented as those of martyrs, splinters of old furniture touted as fragments of the True Cross.
And there, amid the decay and despair, the children understood why they had run so fast:
Because even in ruin, Rome remained the stage upon which history was written.
While the Bronze Arm entered the Vatican amid forced cheers, the little thieves lost themselves in the crowd, ready to recount what they had seen. For in this dying city, even the beggars and the children knew one truth that the powerful forgot:
Rome belonged not to the Goths, nor to the popes, nor to the mercenaries.
Rome belonged to those who survived within her depths.
The dim light of the basilica vibrated with the murmur of ecclesiastical dignitaries, their liturgical robes forming a mosaic of purple and gold under the faint light of the taper candles. Pope John I stood motionless before the altar, his hunched figure weighed down by pontifical vestments that seemed to consume what little of his fragile humanity remained. The white wool pallium, adorned with crosses of black silk, fell over his shoulders like a spiritual slab, while the heavy chasuble of golden threads—woven with scenes of the Passion—dimly glowed with every labored breath.
At his right, Cardinal Antonino stood out like a fox among crows, his crimson velvet mozzetta contrasting with the white beards of the surrounding bishops. The pastoral ring in his right hand, a sapphire carved with the symbol of crossed keys, captured the light in an almost provocative manner with each calculated gesture. The other prelates, clad in purple silk dalmatics and stoles embroidered with golden threads, formed a semicircle of barely concealed discontent, their fine leather shoes tapping impatiently on the marble pavement in a courtly manner.
The air smelled of melted wax and stale incense, mixed with a faint aroma of sweat that seeped beneath the clerical perfumes. The mitres of the younger bishops trembled slightly, not out of devotion but due to the tension that enveloped the sacred space. Pope John I slowly raised his pastoral staff, momentarily making the golden crucifix that crowned him shine as his tired eyes scanned the central nave, where soon the towering barbarian would appear.
In the shadows of the colonnades, the acolytes huddled like frightened mice, their simple linen tunics brutally contrasting with the opulence of the high dignitaries. One of them, a young man with a sharp face, clutched a censer with trembling hands that no one had requested, his gaze fixed on the imposing fresco of the Last Judgment that stretched overhead—a wry, celestial warning for those who played with earthly power.
The procession of bishops had arrived with dusty robes and spirits worse than their sandals. Crossing half of Rome under the sun of justice, dodging makeshift trash piles and shouting merchants, was unworthy of their station. The bishop of Ostia—a man whose nose always seemed to detect some repulsive odor—wiped a handkerchief over his purple neck beneath his stole, murmuring curses that would have scandalized his own deacon.
—They make us come as if we were village priests... in my day the barbarians knew how to present themselves at the Lateran as God intended, he grumbled, adjusting the mitre that sweat made slide.
But all complaints were silenced when Ingomer burst into the temple like a bull.
The Gothic giant strode among the columns with resonant steps, his bald head gleaming like polished metal under the tapers. Without a helmet, he proudly displayed the scars that marred his skull—each one telling a tale of battle where others would have perished. His reddish beard, braided with golden threads, violently contrasted with the carefully trimmed beards of the prelates.
—Holy Father! the cry resounded, making the incense in the thuribles tremble.
The bishops instinctively recoiled as the colossus knelt without ceremony, the slabs creaking under him. His chainmail reeked of iron and horse sweat, a barbaric aroma that invaded the sacred space.
—I have brought offerings for the fisherman! he announced, pointing to two slaves dragging an oak chest. When he opened it, the gold inside shone with insolence, making the ecclesiastical ornaments pale.
Against all odds, Pope John I felt his trembling hand rise almost of its own accord to bless that pious ruffian. There was something moving in his vulgar sanctity, like a faithful dog bringing its bone as an offering to the altar.
—The Lord receives your devotion, my son, the pontiff said, while the bishop of Ostia stifled a sound of indignation.
Ingomer smiled like a child, his bald head flushing with emotion.
—And now, holy father, allow me to tell you about my dream! An angel with my own face told me that...
The bishops exchanged horrified glances. Cardinal Antonino, however, watched the scene with calculating eyes, while Brother Marcus, motionless in the shadows, wondered how long that idyll would take to turn into a nightmare.