The Last Legion (6 page)

A
MBROSINUS GOT UP FROM
the ground and helped Romulus up as well. Completely soaked, his clothes soiled with algae and mud, his hair plastered to his forehead, the boy was shivering and his lips were blue. Ambrosinus took off his cloak and wrapped it around the child’s shoulders, saying: ‘Come on, now. We’ll go back inside.’ They were completely surrounded by Wulfila’s guards who threatened them with their unsheathed swords.

Ambrosinus passed through their ranks with his head held high, helping the boy along and whispering words of encouragement as they walked down the halls and up the stairs, back towards their detention chamber. Romulus said nothing, shuffling along with an uncertain step, tripping over his shredded clothes and over the cloak itself, much too long for him. His limbs were stiff and aching, and his soul was tormented by the image of his mother falling under the dagger of his father’s assassin. He hated the man who had deceived him with the hope of saving them. He had just caused worse trouble, and made his future look even more frightening. He raised his eyes to his tutor’s and asked: ‘My mother . . . she’s dead, isn’t she?’

Ambrosinus lowered his head without answering.

‘Is she dead?’ insisted the boy.

‘I’m . . . I’m afraid so,’ replied Ambrosinus, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulders and drawing him close, but Romulus twisted away, shouting: ‘Let me be! Leave me alone! I want my mother! I want to see her. Where have you put her? I want to see her!’ He rushed at the barbarian guards, furiously beating his fists against their shields. They snickered and started teasing him, pushing him off one against the other. Ambrosinus tried to get hold of him and calm him down, but he wouldn’t be caught. He seemed out of his mind. In truth, the boy was devastated. There was no glimmer of hope in his life, no escape from the horror. He was so inconsolable that his tutor feared he might try to take his own life.

‘Let him see his mother,’ Ambrosinus implored the guards. ‘Perhaps he’ll give vent to his feelings and then be able to settle down. I beg of you, if you know where they’ve put her, let him see her. He’s only a frightened boy, have pity on him.’

The barbarians stopped laughing as Ambrosinus stared into their eyes, one by one. His look was so intense, such disquieting power radiated from those blue eyes, that the guards dropped their gazes, as if subdued by some mysterious energy. Then, the one who seemed the squad leader said: ‘Not now. You have to go back to your room; these are our orders. I will refer your requests to my commander.’

Romulus had finally quietened down, worn out and exhausted, and they were taken back. Ambrosinus said nothing, because anything he could say would only worsen the situation. Romulus slumped down at the far side of the room, his head leaning against the wall and his eyes staring. Every now and then he would sigh and shudder. His tutor would then get up and draw nearer to examine his expression and try to understand what part of his spirit was vigilant and what was lost to delirium. In this disturbed state of intermittent sleep they passed the rest of the night.

When a little milky light had seeped into the room through a couple of loopholes high up on the wall, they heard a noise at the door. It swung open and two maidservants appeared. They carried a tub of water, fresh clothing, a jar of unguent and a tray with some food. They put everything down on a table and approached Romulus, bowing and kissing his hand deferentially. Romulus let himself be washed and dressed, but refused to eat despite Ambrosinus’s persistence. One of the maids, a girl of about eighteen, was very gentle and pretty. She poured some hot milk and honey in a cup and said: ‘Please, my lord, drink this at least. It will give you a little strength.’

‘Please!’ insisted the other girl, just a little older than the first. The thoughtfulness in her gaze was intense and sincere. Romulus took the cup and drank in long gulps. Then he set it back down on the tray and thanked them.

Under normal conditions the boy would never have thanked a servant, Ambrosinus thought. Perhaps that situation of extreme pain and solitude made him appreciate any gesture of human warmth, no matter where it came from. When the girls got up to leave, the old man asked them whether they had noticed any particular comings and goings that morning in the palace. They shook their heads.

‘We need your help,’ said Ambrosinus. ‘Any information that you can give us could be precious. Crucial, even. The emperor’s life may be at stake.’

‘We’ll do what we can,’ answered the older girl, ‘but we don’t understand their language and often don’t know what they’re saying.’

‘Could you take out a message?’

‘They search us,’ replied the girl, blushing, ‘but we can repeat a message, if you want. Unless they have us followed. There’s great hostility and suspicion in the palace against anyone who is Latin.’

‘I understand. What I need to know is whether a Roman soldier was captured last night, a man of about forty-five, powerfully built, with dark hair, greying a little at the temples, and black eyes. His left shoulder was wounded.’

The girls exchanged a glance and said that they hadn’t seen anyone who fitted that description.

‘If you should see him, dead or alive, please let me know as soon as possible. One last thing: who sent you?’

‘The master of the palace,’ answered the older girl. ‘Noble Antemius.’ Ambrosinus nodded: he was a senior functionary and had always been faithful to the emperor, whoever the emperor happened to be, without asking questions. Evidently it seemed only right to him that he should serve Romulus, until a successor had been named.

The girls walked out, and their light steps faded into the heavier stride of the guards who were escorting them. Romulus curled into a corner of the room in obstinate silence, refusing to accept any invitation to converse on the part of his tutor. He simply didn’t have the strength to climb out of the abyss that he’d fallen into. To judge from the fixed, uncaring expression of his eyes, lost in the void, he was continuing to slip down deeper, but then his eyes would glitter with untold emotion and the tears would begin to run down his cheeks, wetting his clothing.

More time passed: it must have been nearly noon when the door opened again and the guard Ambrosinus had spoken to the night before appeared on the threshold and said: ‘You can see her now, if you like.’ Romulus immediately shook himself out of his torpor and followed him out without even awaiting his tutor, who joined the two of them. Ambrosinus had not spoken because he knew that there were no words that could light up that chasm, and because he believed that nature protected her little ones, and only she could heal such painful wounds.

They walked towards the southern wing of the palace, to the now-deserted quarters of the palatine guards. They went down a flight of stairs and Ambrosinus realized that they were headed for the imperial basilica, which he had entered from the women’s gallery such a short time ago. They crossed the nave and went down into a crypt, partially invaded by the brackish water of the lagoon. The central altar and the small presbytery rose out of the water like a little island, linked to the church floor by a walkway of bricks. They crossed the crystalline water which sparkled over an ancient mosaic that depicted the dance of the seasons. Flavia Serena’s body was lying on the marble altar table. White as wax, covered by a white wool blanket that fell on both sides, her hair had been combed and her face cleaned and lightly made up. One of the palace maidservants must have composed her body with great care.

Romulus stared at his mother at length, as if her lifeless body might miraculously awaken under the warmth of his gaze. His eyes then filled with tears and he wept his heart out, his forehead pressed against the cold marble. Ambrosinus, who had drawn close without daring to touch the boy, let him give vent to his feelings. Romulus finally dried his eyes and whispered something that Ambrosinus could not quite make out. The boy turned to the guards standing by, barbarian soldiers in Wulfila’s charge, and his tutor was struck by the firmness with which he said: ‘You’ll pay for this. All of you. May God damn you to hell, you pack of rabid dogs.’

Not one of them understood the boy’s words, pronounced in archaic Latin, like the curse he had uttered. His tutor was relieved, but above them, standing on a small gallery near the apse, Odoacer had observed the scene. He turned to one of his servants and asked: ‘What did he say?’

‘He swore revenge,’ replied the servant summarily. Odoacer sneered indulgently, but Wulfila, half hidden in the shadows behind him, seemed the physical manifestation of that curse. The wide slash inflicted by Aurelius’s sword disfigured his face, and the stitches that the palace surgeon had applied made his swollen cheeks look even more repugnant. His lips contracted into a grotesque grimace.

Odoacer turned to the guard standing next to him: ‘Take the boy back to his room and bring me the old man: he must know a thing or two about last night’s raid.’ He cast a final look at Flavia Serena’s body, and in the darkness no one could see the expression of profound regret that passed through his gaze for an instant. He turned away and walked off, followed by Wulfila, headed towards the imperial apartments. One of the guards went down into the crypt and murmured something to the commander. Romulus was immediately separated from his tutor who was taken away by the newcomer. The boy called after him: ‘
Magister
!’ Ambrosinus turned around. ‘Do not abandon me!’

‘Do not fear. We shall see each other soon. Keep up your courage, and do not let anyone see you cry. Never, for any reason. You have lost both of your parents, and there is no sorrow in life greater than this. Now you can only rise from the depths of your grief. And I will be there to help you.’ He walked away after the guards.

*

Odoacer was waiting for him in the imperial apartments, in the room which had been the study of Julius Nepos and Flavius Orestes himself.

‘Who was the man who attempted to free the prisoners last night?’ Odoacer asked, mincing no words. Ambrosinus was staring at the long shelves, full of scrolls and books; how many of them he had consulted, when he had had occasion to visit this sumptuous residence in the past! Odoacer was greatly irritated by his attitude and shouted: ‘Look at me when I talk to you! And answer my questions!’

‘I don’t know who he was,’ was the old man’s calm reply. ‘I had never seen him before.’

‘Don’t lie to me! No one would have attempted such an undertaking without a prior agreement. You knew about him, and perhaps you know where he is now. You had better tell me: I have ways to make you talk.’

‘I don’t doubt that,’ replied Ambrosinus, ‘but even you can’t force me to say what I don’t know. Just ask the men in the escort: from the moment in which we left the villa, we were in contact with no one but your barbarians. There were no Romans in the group you sent in for the massacre, and none of Orestes’ men survived, as you know well. What’s more, I myself prevented that man from carrying out his plan to take away the boy . . .’

‘Only because you didn’t want to put the child at risk.’

‘Of course. I would never have agreed to such a plan! Hopeless from the start, and the price was horrendous. It may have been the last thing he intended, but his rash gesture resulted in disaster. My lady, the empress, would still be alive if it weren’t for him. I could never have approved of such folly, for a very simple reason.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘I detest failure. He was certainly a very courageous man, and that dog of your guard will remember him for some time: he sliced his face from side to side. I know you want revenge, but I cannot help you. Even if you cut me to pieces, you will learn nothing more than what I have already told you.’

He spoke with such calm and self-assurance that Odoacer was impressed: a man like that could be very useful to him, a man with the wit and wisdom to guide him through the maze of politics and court intrigue that he was about to be drawn into. However, the tone he’d used in saying the words ‘my lady, the empress’ left no doubts concerning his convictions and his loyalty.

‘What will you do with the boy?’ Ambrosinus asked him.

‘It’s no affair of yours,’ replied Odoacer.

‘Spare him. He cannot harm you in any way. I don’t know why that man attempted to liberate him, but he’s no worry for you in any case. He acted alone: if this had been a plot, the choice of the time and place would have been different, wouldn’t you say? A greater number of men, accomplices along the way, an escape route: do you know that I had to suggest a way to escape myself?’

Odoacer was surprised by the old man’s spontaneous admission, and struck by the logic of his words. ‘How did he manage to find your apartments, then?’

‘I don’t know, but I can imagine.’

‘Well?’

‘That man knows your language.’

‘How can you be certain?’

‘Because I heard him speaking with your soldiers,’ replied Ambrosinus.

‘And how did they get out?’ insisted Odoacer. Neither he nor his men had managed to explain how Romulus and Aurelius had been found outside the palace when all the escape routes were closed off.

‘This I do not know because we were separated by your men’s raid, but the child was wet and smelled terrible. One of the sewers, I’d say. But what difference does it make? You can’t be afraid of a boy of not even thirteen. What I’m telling you is that that man acted alone. And he was badly wounded. He may even be dead by now. Spare the boy, I beg of you. He’s little more than a child: what harm could come of it?’