The Last Legion (49 page)

‘You’re a man of science,’ concluded Aurelius as if he hadn’t heard.

‘And a man of science doesn’t believe in prophecies; it’s not rational, is it?’

‘No, it’s not.’

‘Is there anything rational in what you’ve done? Is there anything logical in the events we’ve experienced over the past few months?’

‘Not much, I’d say.’

‘And do you know why? Because there’s another world, beyond the world we know. It’s the world of dreams, the world of monsters and chimeras, the world of delirium, of passion and of mystery. It’s a world that comes to the surface in certain moments and induces us to act in a way which makes no sense, or simply causes us to shiver, like a breath of icy air in the night, or the nightingale’s warble at dusk. We do not know how far this world reaches, if it ends or is infinite, if it is within us or outside us, if it takes on the semblance of reality to reveal itself to us or to hide from us. Prophecies are like those words that a sleeping man pronounces in his slumber. They apparently don’t make sense, but in reality they come from the most hidden abysses of the universal soul.’

‘I thought you were Christian.’

‘What difference does it make? You could be Christian as well, judging from the manifestations of your soul, and yet you are pagan.’

‘If being pagan means being faithful to the traditions of our ancestors and the beliefs of our fathers, if it means seeing God in all things and all things in God, if it means bitterly mourning a greatness that will never come back, then yes, I am pagan.’

‘As am I. Do you see this little twig of mistletoe I wear at my neck? It represents my ties with the world I was born in, with that ancient knowledge. Don’t we change clothing when we go from a cold clime to a hot one? Our vision of the world is much the same. Religion is the colour our soul takes on, depending on the light it is exposed to. You have seen me under the bright Mediterranean sun, but when you see me in the light-starved forests of Britannia, I will be another man and yet, remember this, the same. It is inevitable and thus it must be. Do you remember when we were on the Rhine and you began singing the hymn to the sun? We sang all together, Christians and pagans, because in the splendour of the sun rising after the night we see the face of God, the glory of Christ who brings light to the world.’

Thus the whole night passed. They would call out to each other now and then, to pluck up their courage, or they would row in silence, until the wind picked up and the fog finally began to clear. Demetrius hoisted the sail and his companions, exhausted by their prolonged effort, could rest at last.

As as soon as the glimmer of daybreak began to spread, Ambrosinus’s voice rang out: ‘Look! Look, everyone!’ he shouted.

Aurelius raised his head, Romulus and Livia ran to the forward railing, and Batiatus, Orosius and Demetrius left the sheets to admire the vision that was slowly unfolding before their eyes. In dawn’s first light, a land was emerging from the fog: a land green with meadows and white with cliffs, blue with the sky and the sea, encircled by swirling foam, caressed by the breeze, ringing with the cries of millions of birds.

‘Britannia!’ shouted Ambrosinus. ‘My Britannia!’ He opened his arms as if to greet a dear and long-missed friend. He was crying: hot tears lined his mystic’s face, making his eyes glow with a new light. Then he fell to his knees and covered his face, hiding it between his hands. He immersed himself in prayer and meditation before the Genius of his native land, before the wind carrying lost yet never forgotten scents.

The others watched him in silence, deeply moved, and soon they were startled by the sound of the keel dragging over the clean gravel of the beach.

*

Only Juba had accompanied them over the channel of Britannia, because the other horses had been left for Teutasius in payment for their passage. Aurelius led his horse down the narrow gangplank, stroking him to keep him calm. He couldn’t help but admire him, black and gleaming as a crow’s wing in that bright light that seemed a harbinger of springtime. All the others followed, Batiatus last, carrying Romulus on his shoulders in triumph.

They started walking north, across green fields dotted by patches of snow through which purple crocuses pushed up. The robins perching on red-berried hedges seemed to pause and watch curiously as the little procession passed along the path. Now and then colossal oaks rose in the middle of vast pastures. Golden mistletoe berries glittered on their bare branches.

‘See?’ Ambrosinus pointed them out to his pupil. ‘That’s mistletoe, a plant sacred to our ancient religion because it was thought to rain from the skies. The oak is sacred as well, giving its name to the wise men of the Celtic religion, the Druids.’

‘I know,’ replied Romulus. ‘From the Greek word
drys
, which means “oak”.’

Aurelius called them back to reality. ‘We’ll have to procure horses as soon as possible; we’re too vulnerable on foot.’

‘As soon as possible,’ promised Ambrosinus. ‘As soon as possible.’ And they carried on, walking all day through fields scattered with wooden farmhouses covered by thatch roofing. The villages were small, clusters of little houses built close together, and as the evening of that short winter day approached, they could see smoke rising from the chimneys and Romulus imagined families gathered around frugal tables, around the dim light of a lantern, consuming the fruits of their labour. He envied them their simple, humble lives, sheltered from the greed of powerful men.

Before night fell, Ambrosinus, holding Romulus by the hand, walked up to one of the houses and knocked on the door. It was isolated, bigger and clearly more prosperous than those they had seen until that moment. A large pen alongside held a flock of sheep with thick woolly coats, while another enclosed a small herd of horses. The robust man who opened the door wore a grey wool cloak and his face was framed by a black beard run through with silver threads.

‘We are wayfarers,’ said Ambrosinus. ‘Other companions of ours are down by the hedge. We have come from beyond the sea and must reach the lands of the north, which I left many years ago. My name is Myrdin Emreis.’

‘How many of you are there?’ asked the man.

‘Eight in all. We need horses, if you can sell them to us.’

‘My name’s Wilneyr,’ said the man, ‘and I have five sons, all strapping lads good at using their weapons. If you come in peace you’ll be welcomed as our guests. If your intentions are otherwise, be advised that we’ll shear you like sheep.’

‘We come in peace, my friend, in the name of God who will judge us one day. We carry arms of necessity, but we will leave our weapons outside the door if we enter under your roof.’

‘Come on then. If you want to spend the night, you can sleep in the stables.’

‘Thank you,’ replied Ambrosinus. ‘You won’t regret this.’ He sent Romulus to call the others.

When Batiatus appeared, the man widened his eyes in wonder and backed up as if taken by a sudden fright. His sons gathered round him.

‘Don’t be afraid,’ said Ambrosinus. ‘He’s only a black man. In his land, everyone is as black as he is, and if a white man goes that far, he arouses the same wonder and the same surprise that you are feeling now. He’s a good man, and quite peaceful, although he’s very strong. We’ll pay double for his dinner, because he eats enough for two.’

Wilneyr had them sit around the fire and gave them some bread with cheese and beer, which put them all in good spirits.

‘Who do you raise those horses for?’ asked Ambrosinus. ‘The ones I saw are war stallions.’

‘You’re right, and they’re always in great demand, because there’s no peace in this land, anywhere, as far as I’ve travelled, at least. That’s why there’s always bread on my table, and mutton and beer. You, who say you come in peace: why are you accompanied by armed men wanting to buy horses?’

‘My story is a long one, and quite sad, in truth,’ replied the old man. ‘The entire night would not suffice to tell it, but if you would like to listen, I’ll tell you all I can, because I have nothing to hide, except from the enemies who pursue us. As I’ve already told you, I’m not a foreigner. I come from this land originally, from the city of Carvetia, and I was raised by the wise men of the sacred wood of Gleva.’

‘I realized that when I saw what you wear at your neck,’ Wilneyr said, ‘and that’s why I let you in.’

‘I might have stolen it,’ observed Ambrosinus with a wry smile.

‘I don’t believe so. Your person, your words and your eyes tell me that you do not wear that symbol unworthily. Tell us your story, then, if you are not too tired. The night is long and we don’t often receive guests from so far away,’ he said, looking again at Batiatus with amazement: his pitch-dark eyes, his huge lips, his flat nose and bull’s neck, and the enormous hands he held folded between his powerful thighs.

So Ambrosinus told of how he had left his city and his wood so many years before to ask the emperor of the Romans for help, as he had been ordered by the heroic Germanus and by General Paullinus, the last defender of the Great Wall. He told of his wanderings and of his misadventures, of happy days and of long suffering. Wilneyr and his sons listened as if enchanted because that story was the best they’d ever heard; not even the bards who went from city to city, from house to house, to narrate the adventures of the heroes of Britannia, had such tales to tell.

However, Ambrosinus did not reveal the identity of Romulus, nor did he speak of the boy’s destiny, because the time had not yet come. When he finished it was the dead of night, and the flames in the hearth had begun to languish.

‘Now you tell me,’ asked Ambrosinus, ‘how is power divided on the island? Who among the lords of war is the strongest and most feared? What has happened in the cities that were still proud and flourishing when I left?’

‘Ours is an age of tyranny,’ answered Wilneyr gravely. ‘No one cares about the good of the people. The law of the strongest rules, and there is no mercy for those who fall, but certainly the most famous and most terrible of the tyrants is Wortigern. The cities once turned to him for protection against the attacks of the northern barbarians, but he, instead, subjugated them and imposed heavy tributes. Although the councils of the elders have survived in some of the cities, they no longer have any real power. The merchants who populated the cities were eager for peace, so they could prosper and grow rich through trade and barter. They ended up exchanging their freedom for the promise of security.

‘Wortigern himself gradually lost the vigour of his youth, and was no longer able to carry out the task for which he had been given such great powers, and so he decided to call upon the Saxon tribes who live on the continent, on the peninsula of Kymre, but the remedy proved to be worse than the disease. Instead of abating, oppression doubled. The Saxons were only concerned with accumulating wealth by robbing it from the citizens, and certainly not with stopping the raids of the Scots and the Picts from the north. Like dogs over a bone, these barbarians fought each other for the meagre spoils of that which was once a prosperous and lively country and which is now just a shadow of its prior self. We’ve escaped this fate only here in the countryside, as you can see, but perhaps even this won’t last long.’

Aurelius, dismayed, sought out Ambrosinus’s gaze: was this the land so long dreamed of ? In what way was it any better than the bloody chaos they’d just escaped from? The wise man’s mind was elsewhere, however, seeking distant images left behind when he had abandoned his country. He was readying himself to mend a tear in time, an open wound in the history of man and of his people.

They were accompanied by one of Wilneyr’s sons to the stable, where they stretched out exhausted on a bed of hay near the oxen who ruminated tranquilly. They abandoned themselves to sleep, guarded by the dogs that had been freed from their cages. They were huge mastiffs with iron spiked collars, used to fighting off wolves or even more fearful beasts.

They woke at dawn and drank the warm milk that Wilneyr’s wife poured from a bucket, then prepared for their journey. They bought a mule for Ambrosinus and seven horses, one much smaller than the others and one a great deal bigger: a massive stallion from Armorica, used to cover the Britannic mares. When Batiatus mounted on his back he looked like a bronze equestrian statue, one of those that had once adorned the forums and arches of the world’s capital.

Wilneyr counted up the money; Livia had given him everything she had left. Satisfied with doing such good business so early in the day, he rested against the threshold and watched them leave. They had taken up their arms, suspended their swords from their belts, and in the first light of the morning they looked like legendary warriors. Even the pale youth who rode in front on his pony seemed like their young leader, and the girl a woodland dryad. What exploits awaited such a tiny army? He didn’t even know their names, and yet it seemed that he had always known them. He raised his arm to bid them farewell and they did the same from the top of the hill as they wound their way at a steady pace, dark shapes against the pearly dawn.

*

This land, so fraught with danger, held no secrets from Ambrosinus, as though he had been gone for a couple of days instead of years and years. He knew the language, the countryside, the character of the inhabitants, he knew how to cross the forests without losing his way and without ending up in the dark corners where outlaws might lie in wait. He knew the depths of the rivers and the length of the days and the nights. From the colour of the sky he could tell if a storm was approaching, or if they could expect good weather. The voices of the birds were precise messages of alarm or peace for him, and even the knotty trunks of the trees spoke to him. They told him stories of long snowy winters or fertile springs, of incessant rains, of lightning bolts fallen from the sky.