It would be a brisk trek towards the city of Foligno.

Once Felix was certain he was clear of danger, he slept beside an oak tree. Its leaves were an autumn yellow. Caesar curled up and slept beside him.

The next morning, Felix awoke to the taste of blue morning.

The old Roman roads flowed between every city in Italy, and the breaking sun made the Via Cassia shine like water. The landscape beside it existed nowhere else in the world, and sang with the poetry of a tapestry—rolling hills of the central Apennine Mountains and their snow-capped peaks in the distance, and a spattering of pastoral farms every half mile surrounded in sunlit fields of golden wheat.

The October harvest was among the common folk. They were in their fields, adorned in simple tunics and breeches, reaping with their plowshares for the last time this year. The women worked alongside the men and wore linen wimples on their heads. An early chill could soil the harvest, so they hurried to complete it together. The wheat, once milled into flour, would last them through the winter. A majority would go to their lords, what was needed for the hungry mouths of their families would be kept, and the rest would be sold.

Some of the men stopped to watch Felix pass by, rubbing sweat from their brows and relishing the reprieve from their work. Indulging in a bit of curiosity, they inspected the lone horseman and considered if he was a threat. As they were armed with scythe and sickle and he was alone, they were confident that he posed no danger to them, and they returned to their toil.

Felix wondered of the men as well. In his belief, men are of two kinds.

Those that create, the engineering mind. They seek to make order of things. They plot and plan and build. But they also flounder and starve without education. For the tools of the mind must be sharpened to erect wonders, or they fall into melancholy if they cannot find the will or way to see their imagined creations to completion.

The other is the hunter, the focused mind. They identify only friend and foe and ignore all else. Their desire is to seek kinship and dominate those who do not fall within their tribe. They must always look outward, stay dutiful and active, for when they are at rest they suffer from paranoia and the prey they seek to make submissive becomes within their own household.

These traits must be identified young. Too often a sword is thrust upon a young man when a paintbrush or plow is more suitable. But do not be confused, both types of men are capable of exquisite war.

Women are of one kind, but it is often enigmatic and bewildering to their brutish kin. They look inward, always. They like to gather, to collect. Be it objects they deem significant in some way, or bits of information they gain through gossip. This also makes them experts of war. For centuries it has been women who had the ears and hearts of rulers and generals. And while the poets and historians do not give them great significance, more cities have been razed and cultures extinguished by the wills of spiteful women than all the fury and might of men. In this way, all women are dangerous.

As he continued up the road beside the busy farmers, he imagined himself among them, completing a season’s harvest and spilling ale in a warm home surrounded by laughing children. He shook the image from his mind. No, his destiny lied elsewhere.

His journey was punctuated by the occasional bleat from Caesar, who trotted just behind him. The sight of the goat clinging to his horse’s flank amused Felix despite himself. He could not admit that the goat’s companionship was at least a bit agreeable to him—Felix so often traveled alone.

Ahead, where the road turned around a hill was the familiar forms of peasants marching in a procession. What was of particular interest to Felix was that these men were in the nude. At the lead were four naked men who held a long wooden box on their shoulders—a coffin.

Felix slowed as he came upon them in the road. The oldest man beneath the casket was crying, straining to hold it. If it was the weight of the body or the weight of his heart, it was too heavy for him, and he collapsed. The now uneven coffin teetered on their shoulders and was liable to drop.

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Felix slid from his saddle, his spurs ringing as his boots hit the dusty road, and ran over to take the old man’s place. Heaving from bent knees he lifted up the vacant front corner, and walked in silence with them. The old man got up and walked beside him, still weeping.

“My son,” said the old man.

Felix looked to him and gave a dour, sympathetic expression.

“He had not confessed.” The old man turned away. “I did not have the money to pay for his sins to be forgiven. He will burn in purgatory. It is my fault.”

Felix, with his neck bent to accommodate the casket, did his best to meet the man’s eyes. “The flames of purgatory do not burn. They are a cleansing fire and reveal the path to heaven. Your son will be there. And he will greet you when it is your time.”

The old man wiped away a tear. “You are kind to help us.”

There were a dozen people in all, and Felix was in the lead—carrying the corpse of a stranger.

“Where are we going, father?”

A smile grew on the old man’s lips. “A holy place.”

The old man was right. They turned towards a hill. At the top of the hill was a stone chair, carved from a solid block. And above it was a large, overgrown olive tree. In its twisted branches were human bones. A skull looked out from its center, held in place by gnarled branches, staring at Felix with its hollow eyes.

“What manner of sacred site is this?”

“Oh, son, I’m not that old. It is one of the apostles. No one is sure of which. I believe it John who fled Rome after he was cast into a vat of boiling oil. He shed a tear at the top of this hill, and from it this olive tree grew and swaddled him. My son should be beside him. They can watch over one another.”

A hole was already dug and a simple wooden crucifix erected at its head.

“Do you have a priest?” asked Felix.

“No. We could not afford one. And we do not know the words. We hoped this consecrated soil would suffice.”

“I know the words,” said Felix.

The old man smiled, showing his few remaining teeth. “Would you, please?”

Felix nodded, and then knelt down as they reached the hole in the hill. The coffin was intricately carved and painted, and it would be reused. So they slowly opened the casket and gently slid the dead man’s body, wrapped in thin white sheets, to its final resting place.

The old man stood beside it, looking down. Holding back his tears. A woman came to his side. Then he began to speak to the gathered people. A thread of something familiar flowed through them. Felix knew at that moment that they were family. The woman was the dead man’s wife.

“What can I say for Fabian? I do not know how best to eulogize my son. He was a father. He was a husband. He was a good man who lived every day for those he loved… until he didn’t.

The old man paused to look among the nude people. They shared the same sad eyes that looked like his own.

“Some grow up healthy and strong. Others are ill-made, and these are special gifts from God that bestow us with immaculate uniqueness. Fabian’s heart may have been weak, but it beat so fiercely for his family. May he be with God for all time.”

The old man nodded to Felix.

Felix held his hands down, and began his benediction in Latin.

Deus, cujus miseratione animae

Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis

Requiescat in pace

Amen

The old man dropped a handful of dirt onto body, and then the three men that helped carry the casket began filling the hole with dirt using their hands.

The woman approached Felix and kissed him on the cheek. Then she smiled.

The old man held a hand to his chest. “Thank you, friend. I am Galleotto. How can I repay you?”

Felix considered it for a moment. How could these people, who could not even afford clothes, offer him anything?

Felix gave a warm smile and shook his head.

The old man’s thick white eyebrows shot up in realization. “Oh, no, traveler. We are not bare before God for want. We are Benandanti. This is our custom.”

Felix knew of the nudist cult, but had yet to encounter them. They were spirit travelers. On sabbath nights they believed they left their bodies while asleep and flew into the sky to wage holy wars against evil. This would ensure a good harvest.

The man lowered his head and seemed concerned, looking sideyed to the men still pushing dirt into the fresh grave, then back to Felix.

“We are Christian. I promise you,” said the man, hurriedly.

Felix did his best to put the man at ease. Felix was armed and armored, and these people no doubt had a history of persecution by the Roman inquisition for their queer practices. “If Christ be your shepherd, your customs are your own.”

“I thank you.” The old man looked relieved. “Where are you going, traveler?”

“To do battle with my own evils,” said Felix.

“Then we will aid you in our dreams.”

Felix looked down the hill to see his horse and Caesar waiting by the road. Then he turned to the old man. “I will look to the skies for you.”

Felix took one last look at the grave, the shrine, the throne, the olive tree, and the skull hung from its branches. Would he count this man among those he had put in the dirt? He did not wish to linger on the thought.

Then he headed down the hill. There would be more men in need of burying. And he would send them there.