He learned early that music, like travel, required light baggage. You carried only what you could afford to lose. He was a singer in Rome, sang with the economy of someone who wastes nothing. The strings of his lyre were often replaced. At first he sang what people expected, love that did not last, journeys that did. Eventually they shifted. He sang that men worshipped order because it relieved them of thinking. He sang that cruelty, left unchallenged, normalized the worst instincts. They were observations, delivered like noticing wind direction before takeoff. It unsettled people more than anger ever could. They told him be careful.

Advice in Rome often arrived disguised as kindness. He continued, singing that the gods had grown tired and borrowed human voices. He sang that empires were impressive only until you flew above them. Those listening felt a strange sensation, the feeling of having recognized something they could not use. Invitations thinned. An offer came to perform beyond the city walls, he accepted. They requested something agreeable. He nodded. Then he sang about how systems outlast individuals. That truth rarely arrives on time, and almost never politely.

When he finished, there was no applause. Just stillness. They killed him efficiently. The sort of killing done by people who believe they are maintaining balance. By morning the city resumed. Markets opened. But something shifted. Rome remained Rome yet people found themselves hearing intervals where there had been none before. His songs had done what travel does, altering the map without asking permission. He was gone. The music stayed.