The Last Legion (9 page)

T
HE COLUMN JOURNEYED ALONG
the embankment that crossed the lagoon from north to south, down the ridge of an ancient chain of coastal dunes, until it reached the mainland. A dirt road that began at that point joined up a few miles later with the paved road known as via Romea, because it was the preferred route of pilgrims from all over Europe travelling towards Rome to pray at the tombs of the apostles Peter and Paul. Wulfila advanced at the head of the column on his battle horse, armed with his axe and sword. A coat of mail covered his torso, reinforced with metal plates on the shoulders and chest. He rode in silence, apparently absorbed in his thoughts, but in reality nothing in the fields or along the road escaped his predatory gaze. A couple of guards flanked him on the right and left, scrutinizing every corner of the vast territory opening up before them.

Two squads of a dozen warriors each scoured the countryside on both sides of the road at a distance of about half a mile from the main column, to head off any possible raids. Behind Wulfila were about thirty horsemen, followed by the carriage with the prisoners. The rear guard of twenty men closed the column at a suitable distance.

Inside the carriage, Ambrosinus sat opposite Romulus. He would point out details of their journey to the boy from time to time: villages or farmhouses, ancient monuments fallen to ruin. He tried to encourage conversation, with very little success. The boy answered in monosyllables or withdrew into himself. His tutor would then pull out the
Aeneid
from his satchel and read, raising his eyes every now and then to check their surroundings, or he would take out a tablet and a travelling inkwell. He would dip in his quill and write, for hours at a time. When the carriage crossed an inhabited area, one of the guards ordered the curtains to be closed: no one could see who was travelling inside.

The journey had obviously been planned with great diligence. When the convoy stopped the first night, at the twenty-fifth milestone on the road, the old dilapidated exchange post seemed to have been partially renovated. A light was on inside and someone was fixing dinner for the guests. The guards camped a short distance off and made their own meal: a porridge of millet seasoned with lard and salted meat. Ambrosinus sat opposite Romulus as the host served some pork with stewed lentils, stale bread and a jug of well water.

‘It’s not much of a meal,’ he admitted, ‘but you must eat. Our journey will be long and you are very weak. You must regain your strength.’

‘Why?’ asked the boy, eyeing the steaming food without any appetite.

‘Because life is a gift from God and we cannot throw it away.’

‘It’s a gift I didn’t ask for,’ replied Romulus, ‘and all I have before me is imprisonment without end. Isn’t that right?’

‘No one can speak of endless conditions in this world. Change is constant. Turbulence, upheaval. He who sits on the throne today may be biting the dust tomorrow. He who weeps may find hope with the new dawn. We must hope, Caesar, we must not surrender to misfortune. Eat something, please, my boy. Do it for me, you know how much I care about you.’

The boy took a sip of water, then said flatly: ‘Do not call me Caesar. I am nothing, and perhaps I never have been.’

‘You are wrong! You are the last of a great race of the lords of the world. I was present when you were acclaimed by the senate of Rome. Have you forgotten already?’

‘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:

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 his 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?’