The Last Legion (22 page)

One of the side walls had crumbled, forming a sort of slide that he could use to drop down on to the floor below. He entered and pulled the grate back over his head, slipping down without much difficulty. A dreamlike sight unfolded before his eyes: beams of light filtered from the drainage grate above him, revealing a long paved passageway flanked to the right and left with statues of the Roman emperors, each on a marble pedestal, their storied cuirasses and faces illuminated by the changeable light that poured in from above. The boy walked on, overcome by wonder: each pedestal reported that man’s endeavours, his honorary titles, his triumphs over his enemies.

With every step he felt increasingly overwhelmed by the sheer mass of history. What a heritage he had weighing on his fragile shoulders! He strolled slowly, reading the inscriptions, repeating those names and titles under his breath: ‘Flavius Constans Julianus, Restorer of Rome, Defender of the Empire. Lucius Settimius Severus, Particus Maximus, Germanicus, Particus Adiabenicus, High Pontiff. Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Pius Felix, semper Augustus, High Pontiff, six times Tribune of the People. Titus Flavius Vespasianus, Augustus. Claudius Tiberius Drusus Caesar, Britannicus. Tiberius Nero Claudius, Germanicus, Father of the Country, High Pontiff. Augustus Caesar, son of the divine Julius, High Pontiff, seven times Consul . . .’

A light layer of dust had settled on those impressive effigies, on their thick eyebrows, on the deep wrinkles that furrowed their brows, on the draping, the weapons and the decorations, but none of them showed signs of disfigurement or mutilation. The place must be some sort of sacrarium, created in secret. By whom? Julianus, perhaps, the first of the figures, whom the Christians had condemned to infamy with the name of Apostate, inaugurating the line-up of the lords of the earth with his own frowning, melancholy image.

Now Romulus, trembling with emotion and astonishment, found himself in front of the northern wall of the cryptoporticus. Before him was a vertical slab of green marble, decorated at the centre with a laurel crown in relief made of gilded bronze. Inside this, in capital letters, were the words:
CAIVS IVLIVS CAESAR.
Caius Julius Caesar! Beneath, in cursive letters, was an enigmatic expression:
quindecim caesus
, that Romulus repeated softly: ‘Stricken fifteen times.’ What could it mean? Caesar had been struck by thirty-eight dagger blows as everyone knew from their history books, not fifteen, and why would such a sad reminder of the Ides of March appear in a grandiose epigraph of precious marble, bronze and gold? It made no sense: an inscription that commemorated the slaughter of the greatest of all Romans.

What could that number mean? He thought of all the acrostic and enigmatic puzzles that his tutor proposed so often to sharpen his mind and keep boredom at bay. He read the letters forwards and backwards; there must be a trick of some sort, a key to interpreting that strange expression.

No sound came from outside except the monotonous chirping of the sparrows. In that empty, suspended atmosphere, the boy’s mind frenetically explored any and every combination to find a solution. He realized that someone would be noticing his absence soon and that all hell would break loose in the villa. Ambrosinus himself would be in danger. His mounting anxiety honed all the powers of his intellect and his thoughts alighted like a butterfly on those words, breaking them down into a series of numbers that added up to a total of fifteen. The sum of V, V and V: the Vs of gilded bronze that appeared in the words
CAIVS IVLIVS.
The inscription which followed –
quindecim caesus
– had deliberately been written in cursive letters instead, where the ‘u’ was not equivalent to ‘v’ as it could be in a capital letter. That must be the key to the solution! He pressed his trembling hand in succession on the three Vs: they receded into the slab but nothing happened. He sighed resignedly and was turning to go when he suddenly had another idea: the phrase said ‘
quindecim
’ which meant three times five, not three fives in a row. He turned back and pressed all three Vs in the words
CAIVS IVLIVS
at once. The three letters receded and he heard a sharp metallic click, the sound of a counterweight, the creaking of a winch and then a puff of air emanated from the sides of the slab as the huge stone revolved upon itself and opened.

Romulus grabbed the edge, pulled hard so that it turned a little on its hinges and put a stone in place so it couldn’t close behind him. He took a deep breath and went in.

A sense of marvel rushed over him as soon as his eyes became used to the dusky light: before him was a magnificent statue, sculpted using different coloured marbles that imitated natural tones. It carried real metallic weapons, finely embossed.

Romulus slowly ran his eyes over the statue, exploring every detail, from the knotted footwear rising up his muscled calves to the storied cuirass with images of gorgons and sea monsters with scaly tails. His face was austere, his nose aquiline, his eyes flashing with the fierce pride of the
dictator perpetuus
. Julius Caesar himself! A strange light seemed to flutter over the surface, like the reflection of invisible waves, and he realized that a shifting blue light was illuminating the statue from below, from a carved marble well-head that he had taken for an altar at first. Romulus leaned over the edge; all he could see at the bottom was a light blue glimmer. He dropped a stone and listened for long seconds before he heard the splash of the stone being swallowed up into water. The drop must be tremendous!

He backed away and walked around the statue, examining it with greater attention. He had never seen such realism in any statue of bronze or marble. The belt bearing the sheathed sword seemed real. He climbed up on to one of the capitals and reached out a shaky hand until he could grasp the hilt, trying to avoid the withering stare of the dictator. He pulled. The sword docilely followed his hand and began to emerge from the sheath that contained it. He’d never seen such a blade before! Sharp as a razor, shiny as glass and dark as night. There were letters carved into it, but he couldn’t quite make them out. He held it tight with both hands at a palm’s width from his face and he quivered at the sight like a leaf in the wind. This was the sword that had subjugated Gauls and Germans, Egyptians and Syrians, Numidians and Iberians. The sword of Julius Caesar!

His heart beat wildly and he thought again of Ambrosinus, who must be terribly worried at not finding him anywhere. Wulfila would be enraged. He considered putting the sword back in its place but a force greater than his will stopped him. He would not, and could not, separate himself from it.

He took off his cloak and wrapped it around the sword then retraced his steps and moved the slab back into place. He shot a last glance at the stern dictator before he disappeared from sight and whispered: ‘I’ll only keep it a little while. Don’t worry, I’ll bring it back . . .’

It took some doing to get back up out of the hole, but he managed, looking all around and waiting for the moment in which no one could see him. He slipped behind a row of bushes and scurried between a double line of clothing hung out to dry until he succeeded in reaching his room. He hid the bundle under his bed. Outside, the entire villa resounded with cries and shouts and spreading uproar as the guards could not seem to find him. He went down to the ground floor and walked through the stables, plastering some of the chaff on to himself before he came out into the open. One of the barbarians noticed him immediately and shouted: ‘He’s here! I’ve found him!’ He grabbed the boy brutally by one arm and dragged him towards the guards’ house. Romulus recognized the moaning coming from within and his heart leaped in his chest: Ambrosinus was paying dearly for the temporary disappearance of his pupil.

‘Let him go!’ he shouted, wriggling away from his warder and hurrying inside. ‘Let him go immediately, you bastards!’ Ambrosinus was immobilized on a stool with his hands tied behind his back. He was bleeding profusely from his nose and mouth and his left cheek was swollen. Romulus ran towards him and hugged him tightly: ‘Forgive me, forgive me,
Ambrosine
!’ he cried. ‘I didn’t want . . .’

‘It’s nothing, my boy, nothing at all,’ he replied. ‘The important thing is that you’re back. I was worried about you.’

Wulfila grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him backwards, sending him sprawling: ‘Where were you?’ he screamed.

‘I was in the stables. I fell asleep on the straw,’ replied Romulus, leaping back on his feet and confronting him bravely.

‘You’re lying!’ shouted Wulfila, dealing him a backhanded blow that hurled him violently against the wall. ‘We looked everywhere!’

Romulus wiped away the blood dripping from his nose and approached him again with a courage that Ambrosinus could barely believe. ‘You didn’t look well enough,’ he retorted. ‘Can’t you see I still have chaff on my clothes?’ Wulfila raised his hand to slap him again but Romulus stared at him unperturbed, saying: ‘If you dare touch my tutor again, I’ll slit your throat like a pig. I swear I will.’

Wulfila burst into noisy laughter. ‘With what?’ he sneered. ‘Get out of my sight now and thank your God that I’m in a good mood today. Get out of here now, you and that old cockroach!’

Romulus untied Ambrosinus’s bonds and helped him to get up. The tutor saw something in the eyes of his disciple, a fierceness and pride, that he had never seen before, and was greatly struck by this unexpected miracle. Romulus held him up lovingly, leading him towards his quarters amidst the laughter and jeers of the barbarians, but their euphoric and almost frenetic rejoicing revealed just how terrified they had been a few moments before. A boy of just thirteen had eluded the surveillance of seventy of the best warriors of the Imperial Army for more than an hour, throwing them all into utter panic.

*

‘Where were you?’ asked Ambrosinus as soon as they were alone in their apartments.

Romulus took a damp cloth and began to clean his face. ‘Somewhere secret.’

‘What? There are no secret places in this villa.’

‘There’s a cryptoporticus under the pavement of the lower courtyard and I . . . fell in,’ he fibbed.

‘You aren’t any good at telling lies. Tell me the truth.’

‘Well, I went in on my own, by moving away a drainage grate. I could feel a puff of air coming up so I prised it out and dropped myself down.’

‘And just what did you find down there? I hope it was worth all the knocks I suffered for your sake.’

‘Before I answer I have to ask you a question.’

‘Let’s hear.’

‘What do you know about the sword of Julius Caesar?’

‘Strange question, my boy. Let me think . . . ah, yes, when Caesar died, there was a long period of civil wars, with Octavianus and Mark Antony on one side, and Brutus and Cassius on the other. You’ll remember that they were the ones who had conspired against Caesar on the Ides of March and had had him murdered. As you know well, the final battle was in Philippi, in Greece, where Brutus and Cassius were defeated and killed. That left Octavianus and Mark Antony, who shared power over imperial Rome for several years – Octavianus in the West and Mark Antony in the East – but their relationship soon deteriorated, because Antony had repudiated Octavianus’ sister to marry Cleopatra, the fascinating queen of Egypt. Antony and Cleopatra were defeated in a great naval battle at Actium, and fled to Egypt where they committed suicide, first one and then the other. Octavianus remained the sole lord of the earth and accepted the title of Augustus from the Senate. At that point, he had the Temple of Mars the Avenger built in the Roman forum and there he placed the sword of Julius Caesar. In later centuries, however, when the barbarians began to threaten Rome at close range, the sword was taken from the temple and hidden. I think it was Valerianus or Gallienus, or perhaps some other emperor. I even heard that Constantine had taken it away to Constantinople, his new capital. They say that at some point the sword was replaced with a copy, but no one knows where the original ended up.’

Romulus gave him an enigmatic yet triumphant look and said: ‘You’ll know now.’ He went to the window and door to make sure that no one was around, then, under the curious gaze of his tutor, bent under the bed and pulled out the bundle he had hidden there.

‘Look!’ he said, and bared the gleaming sword. Ambrosinus was speechless in amazement. Romulus held out the blade on his open hands and the polished steel shone in the semi-darkness. The golden hilt was exquisitely carved in the shape of an eagle’s head with topaz eyes.

‘It’s the sword of Julius Caesar,’ said Romulus. ‘Look at this inscription: “
Caii Iulii Caesaris ensis ca
. . .”’ he said, starting to read out the letters that formed it.

‘Oh Great God,’ Ambrosinus interrupted him, stretching his trembling fingers towards the sword. ‘Oh, Great God. The Calibian sword of Julius Caesar! I had always thought it had been lost for centuries. How did you find it?’

‘It was on his statue, inside its sheath, in a hidden place. One day, when their surveillance becomes more lax again, I’ll take you there and you can see it for yourself. You won’t believe your eyes. But what was that word you said before? What’s a Calibian sword?’

‘It means “forged by the Calibians,” a people of Anatolia who were famous for their ability to produce invincible steel. They say that when Caesar won the Pontic war at Zela . . .’

‘When he said “Veni, vidi, vici”?’

‘Exactly. Well, they say that a forge master whose life he had saved built a sword for him using a block of siderite, iron fallen from the sky. This meteor, found on a glacier on Mount Ararat, was tempered by fire, hammered incessantly for three days and three nights, and hardened in the blood of a lion.’