The Last Legion (30 page)

Livia walked away towards the old tumbledown
mansio
. Aurelius was left alone under the black sky, listening to the voice of the wind, and to the cranes fending their way through the darkness.

T
HE HOOTING OF AN OWL
echoed repeatedly from the willow grove near the river, then a light moved back and forth over the bridge which crossed the torrent. Livia, inside the
mansio
, seemed asleep, reclining near a breach in the wall. The noise startled her into consciousness; she got to her feet and slipped silently through the crevice. Aurelius, who had finished his stint on guard duty, was sleeping wrapped in his blanket on the opposite side of the room. Demetrius was outside now, sitting on the ground against his shield, and Livia reasoned that he’d be watching the coastline in the hopes of sighting the ship. She circled the southern corner of the building and reached the pen at the back where the horses were tied. She kept her hand over her horse’s muzzle as she sneaked off with him, so he wouldn’t give her away. Juba didn’t even seem to notice her, or perhaps her odour was so familiar that he wasn’t distracted from his rest.

Livia proceeded west down the slope on foot. When she reached the river valley where she could no longer be spotted from above, she mounted her horse and turned right, through the willow woods, towards the bridge and the sea.

Ambrosinus, still inside the
mansio
, hadn’t closed an eye all night and had not failed to notice her movements. His decision had been made; he approached Romulus and nudged him gently until he awakened.

‘Shhhh!’ he whispered in his ear, to prevent any noisy reaction.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Romulus softly.

‘We’re leaving. Now. Livia has gone out; the ship may be arriving.’

Romulus hugged him tightly and his embrace expressed all the boy’s gratitude for that unexpected deliverance; Ambrosinus could feel his longing to be free, to leave that hurtful, bitter world behind. He whispered: ‘Careful not to rustle the straw as you get up. We must move like shadows.’ He led the boy to the door that opened on to the little garden behind the house. Romulus looked around, waited until Batiatus’s thunderous snoring reached its peak, then followed his tutor on tiptoe out of the door. The horses to their left pawed the ground nervously. Juba shook his proud head and snorted loudly. Ambrosinus signalled for the boy to stop and flatten himself against the wall.

‘Let’s give him a moment to calm down,’ he said, ‘and then we’ll head towards the forest. We’ll find a safe place to hide and wait there until this has all blown over. Then we’ll begin our journey, you and I alone.’

‘But if I run away, Aurelius and his friends won’t have their reward! They’ll have worked so hard and risked their lives for nothing.’

‘Shhh!’ insisted Ambrosinus. ‘This is no time to start having qualms! They’ll cope.’

The horse’s excitement was growing instead of abating, and Juba finally reared up and struck the wall with his front hooves, letting out a high whinny.

‘Let’s get out of here immediately,’ said Ambrosinus, taking the boy by his arm. ‘That animal is waking everyone!’ He was about to set off when a steel hand sank into his shoulder, paralysing him.

‘Stop!’

‘Aurelius,’ said Ambrosinus, recognizing him in the darkness, ‘let us go, I beg of you. Restore this boy’s freedom, if you care for him at all. He has suffered so much . . . let him go free.’ But Aurelius, without loosening his grip, was looking in another direction.

‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ he replied. ‘Look, over there, near those trees.’

Ambrosinus peered in the direction Aurelius was indicating: he saw a confused rush of threatening shadows and he felt his heart sink in his chest.

‘Oh most merciful God . . .’ he murmured.

*

Livia, in the meantime, had reached the bridge and could make out a figure behind a tamarisk bush, holding a lantern in the early dawn. She spurred on her mount until she was close enough to recognize him: ‘Stephanus!’

‘Livia,’ came the other’s response.

‘We chose a difficult route through the woods, but we managed to arrive in time regardless. Everything went well. The boy and his tutor are safe, and our men did a magnificent job. But where is the ship? It’s nearly sunrise, and it should have been here last night. Embarking him in full daylight will be risky – and anyone could have seen you signalling like that!’

Stephanus interrupted her abruptly. ‘The ship isn’t coming any more.’

‘What did you say?’

‘You heard me well, unfortunately. The ship won’t be coming.’

‘Was it attacked? Sunk?’

‘No, no shipwreck. It’s simply that . . . things have changed.’

‘Listen, I don’t like this. I’ve risked my life for this mission, and so have my men . . .’

‘Calm down, please. It’s not our fault. In Constantinople, Zeno has reconquered the throne usurped by Basiliscus, but he needs peace to consolidate his power. He can’t antagonize Odoacer, and as you know well, Julius Nepos has always been his candidate for the Western throne.’

Livia suddenly realized the alarming implications of what he was saying, for all of them. ‘Has Antemius been informed of all of this?’ she asked.

‘Antemius had no choice.’

‘Damnation! But this will mean the boy’s death!’

‘No it won’t. That’s why I’m here. I have a boat a little further up north, near the mouth of the river. We can go to my villa in Rimini, you’ll all be safe there, but we must be quick; we’re too exposed here.’

Livia jumped into the saddle: ‘I’m going to tell them what’s happened.’

‘No, wait,’ shouted Stephanus. ‘Look, up there!’

Livia looked towards the hillside and saw a group of barbarian horsemen encircling the
mansio
from the south, while others emerged from the brush to join them. Stephanus tried to hold her back. ‘Wait, they’ll kill you!’ He tripped and his lantern fell to the ground, shattering and spilling its oil which burst into flames. Livia took one look at the field of stubble and the heaps of straw and didn’t hesitate an instant. She pulled her bow from its saddle strap, set the tip of one of her arrows on fire and shot it up in a high arch into the straw, followed by a second and a third, until the huge piles slowly began to give off dense clouds of smoke.

‘You’re mad!’ shouted Stephanus, getting up. ‘You’ll never succeed.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ shot back Livia.

‘I can’t stay here any longer, I have to get back,’ said Stephanus, visibly frightened by the turn events were taking. ‘I’ll be waiting for you in Rimini. Save yourself, for the love of God!’ Livia barely nodded her head and raced off on her horse towards the hillside.

*

The barbarians were so intent on surrounding the old
mansio
that they noticed nothing at first. They had left their horses and were advancing on foot with their swords drawn, awaiting a signal from their commander: Wulfila.

The atmosphere was immersed in that unreal silence that falls upon nature when the voices of the nocturnal animals cease and the diurnal creatures do not yet dare to welcome the sun, the silence which separates the darkness of night from the first light of day. Only the sign hanging from the post creaked painfully as the first sea breeze touched it. Wulfila gave the signal, abruptly lowering his left hand which had been raised above his head. They stormed into the building, brandishing their weapons and plunging them into the unsuspecting bodies still buried in sleep. Just moments later, their furious swearing made it clear that they’d discovered the trick. There was only straw under the blankets: the
mansio
’s guests were gone.

‘Find them!’ screamed Wulfila. ‘They have to be around here somewhere. Look for their traces, they have horses with them!’ His men rushed outside, only to find fire consuming the field, the flames licked high by the gathering wind. It seemed a miraculous event, since Livia was still hidden from sight at the bottom of the river valley.

‘What the devil is happening?’ snarled Wulfila, who could not provide an explanation for that sudden change in scene. ‘It must have been them, damnation! Find them! They’re still close by!’

The men obeyed, scattering all around, scouring the terrain until one of them found tracks of horses and men heading towards the forest. ‘This way!’ he shouted. ‘They went this way!’

They all set off on the chase, but Livia realized what was happening and came out into the open to attract the enemy’s attention. Another one of her fire arrows hit its mark, spreading the flames, whilst a second flew through the air and struck one of the barbarians. Livia yelled: ‘This way, you bastards! Come and get me!’ She began prancing back and forth halfway up the hill, vanishing behind a thick curtain of smoke only to emerge farther down to strike again with her deadly darts.

On Wulfila’s signal, three of his men separated from the group and raced at her, while the flames, fed by the wind, had transformed the entire field into a roaring brush fire. Livia’s pursuers were upon her, but she ran one of them through, dodged another and hurled herself at the third with her sword in hand. He charged her, screaming like a madman, but she managed to throw him off balance with a feint. She crashed into the side of his horse and sent him sprawling into the blaze. The shrieks of the barbarian, transformed into a human torch, were soon drowned out by the din of the flames. Livia galloped off through the hellish fields until she reached the edge of the forest and appeared all at once to her comrades with her sword in fist and her hair spread on the wind, like an ancient goddess of war.

‘We have to get out of here!’ she shouted. ‘We’ve been betrayed! Follow me, fast! They’ll be upon us any moment!’

‘Not before we’ve left them something to remember us by!’ replied Aurelius, and he gestured to his men posted behind the piled-up logs that Vatrenus had seen the night before. At his signal, they used their axes and swords to chop through the twine and Batiatus gave them a push and sent them rolling. The huge trunks quickly picked up speed as they flew down the hill, bouncing off the craggy terrain and sowing panic and death among Wulfila’s horsemen as they tried to make their way uphill. Other logs crashed into the blazing straw heaps and exploded them into balls of flames that the wind turned into burning clouds.

Aurelius reached out his hand to Romulus so he could climb on to Juba, then they set off through the forest after Livia, who seemed to have some idea of where to go. They followed her at full tilt down a path which wound through the vegetation and ended up at an old branch of via Popilia, now little more than a trail which led into a thicket of brambles and oaklings. Livia jumped to the ground and pointed at a passage through the wood, slightly uphill from where they were. ‘Get off your horses and lead them by the reins. The last one to pass must be sure to cover our traces.’

Orosius volunteered for the job; he bundled some branches together and brought up the rear, wiping away all their tracks. Livia had gone around the dense thicket which had interrupted their path until she found herself at the base of a hillock blanketed with creepers and ivy. She dipped her sword into the thick vegetation here and there until it sunk in all the way to the hilt. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘I’ve found it.’ She moved aside the creepers and uncovered a passage carved into the sandstone, which led deep inside the hill. Her comrades followed her one by one. Orosius was last, and he rearranged the vines so that the opening of the chamber was camouflaged once again. When he turned around to face the others inside, they were all looking around in astonishment. The light of day filtering through the leaves relieved the darkness, making the outlines of the cavern visible.

‘It’s an old sanctuary to the god Mithras which hasn’t been used for centuries. This Mithraeum was once patronized by sailors from the east who came ashore at Fanum,’ explained Livia. ‘I used it once before as a hideaway. It’s a miracle that I remembered its position. God must be with us if he’s shown us the way to salvation like this.’

‘If your God is with us he has a strange way of showing it,’ commented Vatrenus, ‘and if I must be honest with you, I wish he’d forget about us in the future and worry about someone else.’

‘Gather all the horses together at the darkest part and try to keep them quiet. Our pursuers will be here any moment, and if they find us this time, it’s all over.’

She hadn’t finished speaking when the sound of hooves was heard on the road. Livia neared the entrance and peeked outside: Wulfila had arrived at the head of his men and raced by at great speed. Livia breathed a sigh of relief and was about to let the others know that the worst was over when she suddenly had to reconsider. The noise of the galloping stopped all at once and she could now hear the slow shuffling of the horses as they turned back. Livia signalled for the others to remain completely silent and turned to face the entrance. Aurelius joined her after leaving Juba’s reins in Batiatus’s hands.

Wulfila was no further than twenty paces from the opening to the chamber, his chest and shoulders protruding from the thick brush that hid the original course of the road. He was a horrible sight to see: his face was black with soot, his eyes were red and his scar stood out on his cheek as he sniffed the air like a wolf who has scented his prey. His men were right behind him, fanned out to patrol the forest all around in search of footprints. Inside the cave everyone held his breath, sensing the imminent danger, and gripped the hilt of his sword, ready, as always, to fight to the death with or without a reason – but then the squad dispersed. Wulfila had had to acknowledge the failure of their endeavour and he called them off. They retraced their steps, back to the
mansio
.