The Last Legion Read online

  ‘How long ago was that?’ interrupted the boy. ‘A week? A year? I can’t remember, actually. It’s as if it never happened.’

  Ambrosinus decided not to insist. ‘There’s something that I’ve never told you. Something very important.’

  ‘What?’ asked Romulus distractedly.

  ‘How I first met you. You were only five, and your life was in danger. It was in the middle of an Apennine forest, not far from here, if my memory serves me. It was a dark winter’s night.’ The boy lifted his face, curious about the story despite himself. His tutor was a wonderful narrator. With just a few words he could create an atmosphere, give substance to shadows, life to ghosts from the past. Romulus took a piece of bread and dipped it in the stewed lentils, under the satisfied gaze of Ambrosinus, who had begun to eat too.

  ‘Well, what happened then?’ asked Romulus.

  ‘You had been poisoned. You’d eaten poisonous mushrooms. Someone, by mistake or intentionally, had put them in your food . . . eat a little meat.’

  ‘Mightn’t this meal be poisoned as well?’

  ‘I don’t think so. If they had wanted to kill you, they would have already done so. Do not fear, my boy. Well, you see, I found myself there by chance. I was tired and hungry, worn out by a long journey and numb with cold, when I saw a light in that tent in the middle of the forest and I felt something inside me. A strange emotion, like a sudden revelation. I entered without being stopped, as if I were a ghost. Perhaps God himself assisted me: he covered the guards’ eyes with fog and I found myself inside your tent. You were lying in your bed. So small you were! And so pale, your lips were blue. Your parents were out of their minds. I gave you an emetic and you vomited away all that poison. I became a member of your family then and I’ve never left you.’

  Romulus’s eyes filled with tears at the mention of his parents, but he forced himself not to cry. He said: ‘You should have let me die.’ Ambrosinus put a little meat into the boy’s mouth, and Romulus swallowed it whole. ‘What were you doing in that place?’ he asked.

  ‘What was I doing there? Well, it’s a long story, and if you like I’ll tell it to you along the way, but finish eating now so we can go to rest. Tomorrow we’ll have to get up at dawn and travel all day.’

  ‘Ambrosine . . .’

  ‘Yes, my son.’

  ‘Why do they want to keep me prisoner my whole life? Because my father had me named emperor? Is that why?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Listen,’ he said, his face suddenly lighting up, ‘I have a solution. I’m willing to give it all up, my title, my possessions, my crown. I just want to be a boy like all the others. You and I can go away somewhere. We’ll find work, we can become street singers, telling stories in the squares. You’re so good at that, Ambrosine! We’ll earn a living somehow and we won’t bother anybody. We’ll see lots of new places, we’ll travel beyond the sea to the land of the pygmies, to the mountains of the moon. Won’t that be grand? Won’t it? You go tell him, please. Tell him that I want to give up everything, even . . .’ he lowered his head so as not to show the shame on his face, ‘even avenging my father. Tell him I want to forget everything. Everything! And that he’ll never hear anyone mention my name ever again. As long as he lets us go. Please? Will you go and tell him?’

  Ambrosinus looked at the boy with great tenderness: ‘It’s not so simple, Caesar.’

  ‘You’re a hypocrite! You call me Caesar yet you won’t obey my orders!’

  ‘I would if it were possible, but it’s not. These men have no power to grant you anything. Odoacer could, of course, but he is in Ravenna, and he has given orders that no one would dare to argue with. And you must never call me a hypocrite again. I’m your teacher and you owe me respect. Now, if you don’t mind, finish your dinner and go straight to bed. No arguing.’

  Romulus obeyed meekly and Ambrosinus watched him chewing a last bite of bread before disappearing into the next room for the night. He pulled his tablet out of the satchel and continued to write by the flickering light of the lantern. From outside came the boisterous exclamations of the barbarians who were beginning to recover from the fatigue of the journey as the beer they drank in abundance warmed their spirits. Ambrosinus listened in: it was a good thing that the boy was sleeping and that he couldn’t understand their language. Many of them had taken part in the raid on Orestes’ villa, and were boasting about the sacking, the rapes, the violence and the defilement of every sort that they had inflicted on their victims. Others were part of Mledo’s army which had annihilated the Nova Invicta Legion. They told stories of atrocities, torture, mutilation of live prisoners – a succession of horrors, of cruelty beyond any imagining. Ambrosinus realized with anguish that these were the new rulers of the world.

  As these dark thoughts obsessed him, Wulfila abruptly appeared, his gigantic figure towering over the bivouac. His wide drooping moustache, long side burns, bristly head of hair and the long braids which fell to his chest made him look like one of the Nordic gods venerated by the Suebians, the Chatti and the Scanians. Ambrosinus swiftly blew out the lantern, so it would seem that everyone inside the exchange post were sleeping. He put his ear to the wall, still peering out of the half open window.

  Wulfila shouted something, a curse of some sort, and they all fell silent. He continued: ‘I told you idiots to shut your traps! We don’t want to attract attention. The less we’re noticed, the better it is.’

  ‘Come on, Wulfila!’ protested one of his men. ‘Who are you afraid of ? Even if someone does hear us, what could happen? I’m not afraid of anything! What about the rest of you?’

  ‘Shut up!’ ordered Wulfila harshly. ‘And the rest of you as well, that’s enough! Post the guards on two lines at a distance of one hundred paces from each other. If anyone abandons his assigned position for any reason, he’ll be executed immediately. You others get to sleep. Tomorrow we’ll be marching until after dark. We’ll set up camp at the base of the Apennines.’

  The men obeyed and mounted the guard while the others spread their blankets on the ground and lay down for the night. Ambrosinus went to the door and sat outside on a stool, immediately catching the eye of one of the sentries. He did not acknowledge the man, and looked up instead towards the sky to observe the constellations: Cassiopeia was low on the horizon and Orion shone high overhead, nearly in the centre of the sky. He searched for the North Star. The star of the little dipper; it made him think of his childhood, when his teacher, a Druid of venerable age, taught him to find his bearings by the stars and orient himself in the dark, in the open countryside or amidst the waves of the sea. He could predict the eclipses of the moon and read the passing seasons on the earth by means of the eternal motion of the stars.

  He thought of the boy and his heart swelled up with pity. He had persuaded him to eat something, and had dissolved a powder in his water to make him sleep. How could he persuade him to return to his life? And if he succeeded, what kind of future could he possibly offer him? How many days, months and years would they spend in the prison that awaited them? Endless imprisonment? How many paces would it take to measure the narrow space? How long would they be able to bear their hateful persecutors?

  The verses of a poem drifted into his mind from long ago and far away:

  Veniet adulescens a mari infero cum spatha

  pax et prosperitas cum illo

  aquila et draco iterum volabunt

  Britanniae in terra lata

  A sign reaching out to him from a remote past in that moment of infinite sadness. What kind of a sign? Who had sent it?

  He recited the words to himself again, slowly and softly, in a singsong. For a little while, his heart felt as light as a bird rising to take flight. He walked back into the rundown hovel that had once been a cursus publicus station, busy and teeming with customers. Cold and deserted now. He lit his lantern from the fireplace embers and entered the bedroom to lie down next to Romulus. He raised his lamp to light up the boy’s face. He was sleeping and hi
s breathing was slow and even. His boyhood flowed sweetly under his golden skin. He was a beautiful child; his proud, delicate features recalled his mother’s. Flavia Serena. Ambrosinus remembered her body stretched out on the cold marble under the vault of the imperial basilica. He swore in his heart that he would build a future for that boy. At any cost, even at the cost of his own life. He would have gladly given his life in love for the woman who had appeared to him long ago at the bedside of her dying child, on a cold winter’s night in an Apennine forest. He lightly touched the boy’s cheek, extinguished the lamp and lay down on the bed with a long sigh. His heart sank into a strange and unknowing serenity, like the surface of a lake on a windless night.

  *

  Aurelius turned over on the straw mat, still deeply drowsy; he couldn’t say whether the sound he’d heard was coming from a dream or from reality. Certainly, he was dreaming and his eyes were not yet open when he voicelessly murmured ‘Juba’. The neighing became louder and clearer and was accompanied by the splashing of hooves in water. He shouted then, ‘Juba!’ and the whinny he heard in reply was real and expressed all the joy of reuniting with a friend one had feared lost forever.

  ‘Juba, good boy, my good boy, come on, come on boy,’ he called. His mud-covered horse, grey and spectral in the morning fog, was walking towards him through the knee-deep water. Aurelius reached out and embraced him, overwhelmed by emotion. ‘How did you find me? How did you do it? Look at you! All dirty, full of scabs . . . you must be hungry, you poor thing, so hungry . . . wait, here.’ He went over to the niche that Livia used for storage and came back with a bucket full of spelt that the horse eagerly dipped his head into. Aurelius took a rag, soaked it in some water and began to stroke his coat until it was shiny again. ‘I don’t have a curry comb, my friend, we’ll have to make do. Better than nothing, wouldn’t you say?’

  When he had finished he stepped back to take a look at Juba. He was magnificent: fine, long legs, slender ankles, muscular chest, proud head, quivering nostrils, arched neck adorned with a splendid blue-black mane. He cleaned the saddle as well and adjusted the stirrups, and when he saw that Juba had had his full of food and water, he diligently saddled and bridled him, believing that he was a sign sent by his unknown ancestors from the other world. He took his sword belt and slung it over his shoulder, put on his hobnailed boots, took the horse by his bridle and headed to where the water was lowest.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting anything?’ asked a voice behind him, and the echo reflected by the huge vault repeated ‘anything?’

  Aurelius turned around with surprise and then embarrassment. Livia stood in front of him with a harpoon in her hand, wearing a sort of loin-cloth of tanned leather, with two bands of the same leather crossed over her breasts. She had just come out of the water which still dripped off her muscular body. She threw the fishing net she’d been holding in the other hand on to the ground in front of her. It was full of big mullet, still wriggling, and an enormous eel which twisted like a snake around the handle of the harpoon.

  Aurelius said: ‘My horse came back.’

  ‘I can see that,’ replied Livia. ‘I also see that you were about to leave. You could have waited until I came back, to say “thank you”.’

  ‘I was leaving you my armour,’ he said, pointing to the cuirass, shield and helmet abandoned in the corner of the large room. ‘You can do a lot with it.’

  Livia spat on the ground. ‘I can find all the scrap iron I need whenever I like.’

  ‘I would have come back, sooner or later, to thank you. I would have left you a message if I’d had something to write on. I can’t stand saying goodbye, going away. I wouldn’t have known what to say and . . .’

  ‘There’s nothing to say. Just go. Get out of here with your stuff and don’t ever come back. Nothing could be easier.’

  ‘It’s not like that. These last few days I’ve . . .’ He looked up slowly from the ground along her body as if afraid to meet her gaze. ‘I’ve never had anyone take care of me like this, a girl like you, so young and courageous. You’re like no one else I’ve ever met in my whole life. I thought that if I waited, each day would become more difficult for me . . . I was afraid . . . that I wouldn’t be able to leave.’ Livia did not answer.

  His eyes moved up now to meet hers, but stopped again for a barely perceptible instant on the pendant she wore at her neck, the little silver eagle. Livia noticed, and when he finally looked into her eyes, they were not as bitter as he had expected. She was looking at him with a mix of curiosity and rough affection. ‘You don’t need to talk such nonsense. If you want, you can go. You don’t owe me anything.’

  Aurelius could not say a word.

  ‘Where were you going?’ prompted Livia.

  Aurelius lowered his head again. ‘I don’t know. Away. Far from these places, from the stink of these barbarians and from our own corruption. Far from this relentless decadence, from my own memories, far away from it all. And you? Will you stay in this swamp for ever?’

  Livia drew closer: ‘It’s not the way you think it is,’ she said. ‘There’s hope being born in this swamp. And it’s not a swamp, it’s a lagoon. It’s full of life, and the breath of the sea.’

  Juba snorted humbly and pawed at the ground as if he didn’t understand the delay. Livia grasped the medal that hung from her neck and held it tightly. Aurelius shook his head: ‘There’s no hope anywhere. Only destruction, pillaging, oppression.’

  ‘Then why did you try to abduct that boy?’

  ‘I didn’t want to abduct him. I wanted to free him.’

  ‘That’s hard to believe.’

  ‘It’s true, whether you believe it or not. It was his father who asked me to save him, as he lay dying. I got to the villa in Placentia after the massacre. I was coming from the field where my legion was already surrounded by a throng of enemies; I left them to seek help. When I found him he was still breathing. He begged me with the last life he had in him to save his son. What else could I do?’

  ‘You’re crazy. You’re lucky it didn’t go well. What would you have done with him if it had?’

  ‘I don’t know. Taken him somewhere with me. I would have taught him to work the land, raise bees, plant olive trees and milk goats. Like a true Roman.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t like to try again?’ rang out a voice behind them.

  ‘Stephanus! What are you doing here?’ demanded Livia. ‘Our pact was never by day and never here.’

  ‘You’re right, but there’s an urgent reason. They’ve left.’

  ‘For where?’

  ‘No one knows. They’ve taken via Romea, headed for Fanum. I believe they’ll go south on via Flaminia at some point. We’re trying to learn more.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ asked Aurelius.

  ‘About freeing a boy,’ replied Stephanus, ‘and we need your help.’

  Aurelius looked at him and shook his head incredulously: ‘A boy . . . Him?’

  Stephanus nodded: ‘Him. Romulus Augustus Caesar, Emperor of the Romans.’

  7

  AURELIUS SHOT AN AMAZED look at the man, then turned towards his horse and started adjusting the saddle straps as if he were about to leave: ‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’ insisted Stephanus. ‘You already tried once, and you were alone; it was hopeless from the start. Now we’re offering you our support and help, for the same identical mission, multiplying the chances for success. Why should you refuse?’

  ‘It was different before. I did it because it seemed right and because I thought I had a hope of succeeding by taking them completely by surprise. And I did nearly succeed. I don’t know what your motives are and I don’t know you. After my raid, surveillance will have been intensified. No one will manage to get close to the boy any more, that I’m sure of. Odoacer will have set his whole army around him.’

  Stephanus drew closer: ‘I represent a group of senators who maintain direct contact with the Eastern Roman Empire. We’re convinced
that this is the only way to prevent Italy and the West from sinking into complete barbarism. Our envoy met with Emperor Basiliscus in the Peloponnese and has returned with an important message. The emperor is willing to offer Romulus hospitality and protection at Constantinople, and to provide him with an annuity worthy of his rank.’

  ‘And that doesn’t seem suspicious to you?’ asked Aurelius Basiliscus, as far as I know, is nothing more than a usurper. How can you trust him? How do you know he won’t treat the child even worse than this barbarian?’

  ‘This barbarian had the child’s parents massacred,’ observed Stephanus. Aurelius turned towards him and met his firm and apparently impassable gaze. His Oriental accent reminded him of the way certain comrades from Epirus spoke.

  ‘What’s more,’ Stephanus continued, ‘he is destined for imprisonment without end in an isolated, inaccessible place, condemned to live with his nightmares and terror for the rest of his days, awaiting the moment in which any change in his warders’ mood decrees his death. Can you imagine the abominations a child could be subjected to at the mercy of those brutes?’

  Aurelius remembered Romulus’s eyes at the moment in which he had been forced to let go, his shoulder pierced by an arrow: desperation, impotent rage, infinite bitterness. Stephanus must have noticed that his arguments were hitting their mark, and continued: ‘We have friends at Constantinople, very influential friends. They will be able to protect him.’

  ‘What about Julius Nepos?’ insisted Aurelius. ‘He has always been the East’s candidate for the Western throne. Why should Basiliscus change his mind now?’

  Livia tried to intervene but Stephanus stopped her with a look: ‘Nepos has fallen completely out of favour; he’ll be left to grow old in his villa in Dalmatia, isolated from the rest of the world. We have a very ambitious plan in mind for this child, but in order to succeed we must shield him from all danger. He must receive an adequate education and training and grow up in the imperial house in a tranquil, serene position. He must not be touched by doubt or suspicion, until the moment comes when he is ready to reclaim his legacy.’