The Last Legion (21 page)

‘He will live,’ I said with studied, subdued emphasis, and I added immediately: ‘He had been poisoned.’

They ran into the tent and I could hear the mother sobbing for joy as she embraced her child. I walked away from the camp, towards the guards’ campfire so as not to disturb a moment of such intense emotion, but a strong voice stopped me. It was him, the father.

‘Who are you?’ he asked. I turned around and faced him as he stared at me as if seeing me for the first time. ‘How did you get into my tent, surrounded by armed guards? How did you bring my son back to life? Are you . . . a saint or an angel from heaven? Or are you a spirit of the wood? Tell me, I beg you.’

‘I am only a man, with some knowledge of medicine and natural sciences.’

‘We owe you for the life of our only son, and there is no sufficient recompense for this on this earth. Ask whatever you like, and if it is in my power it will be granted.’

‘A warm meal and a piece of bread for tomorrow’s journey will be enough,’ I answered. ‘My greatest reward was seeing that child breathe again.’

‘Where are you headed?’ he asked me.

‘Rome. To see the City and its marvels has always been the dream of my life.’

‘We are going to Rome as well. Please, remain with us. You will be safer and your journey will be free of troubles. Both I and my wife ardently hope that you will wish to remain with us forever and care for our son. He will need a teacher, and who could teach him better than you, a man with so much knowledge and such miraculous skills?’

His were words that I had hoped to hear, but I told him that I would consider his offer and give him my answer in Rome. In the meantime, I would help the child to recover fully, but he, the father, would have to find the assassin, a man who hated him to the point of poisoning an innocent child.

The man seemed to be struck by a sudden awareness, and replied: ‘This is my affair. The culprit will not escape me. Please accept my hospitality and my food, and rest for what remains of the night. A rest well deserved.’

He told me that his name was Orestes and that he was an officer of the Imperial Army. As we were speaking, his wife, Flavia Serena, joined us. She was so moved that she took my hand to kiss it. I withdrew it quickly and bowed to render her homage. She was the most beautiful and most noble person I had ever seen in my life. Not even the terror of losing her son had affected the harmony of her aristocratic features nor dimmed the light in her amber-coloured eyes, which had only become more intense in her trepidation and suffering. Her bearing was dignified but her gaze was as soft as a springtime dawn. Her high forehead was crowned by a braid of dark hair with violet reflections, her fingers were long and tapered, her skin diaphanous. A velvet belt accented the soft curves of her hips under her dress of light wool. At her neck she wore a silver chain from which a single black pearl hung, nesting between her immaculate breasts. I had never in all my life seen a creature of such enchanting beauty, and from the first moment I laid eyes on her I knew I would serve her devotedly for the rest of my days, no matter what destiny had in store for us.

I bowed deeply and asked permission to retire. I was very tired, having spent all my energy in that victorious duel against death. I was accompanied to a tent and I fell exhausted on to a little cot, but I spent the hours which separated us from dawn in a sort of lethargic stupor, broken by the screams of a man being tortured. It must have been the man whom Orestes suspected of having administered the poison. The next day I did not ask nor did I care to find out who it was, as I already knew enough: the father of that boy was surely a man of great power if he had enemies so fierce that they would plot against his son’s life. When we moved on, we left the tormented corpse tied to a tree trunk behind us. Before evening, the forest animals would have left nothing but the bare bones.

So I became the boy’s tutor and a member of that family, spending many years in an enviable position, living in sumptuous houses, meeting important people, dedicating myself to my favourite studies and experiments in the field of the natural sciences, and nearly forgetting the mission for which I had been sent to Italy so many years before. Orestes was often away on risky military expeditions and when he returned he was usually accompanied by the barbarian chiefs who commanded the army units. Every year there were fewer Roman officers. The high aristocracy preferred to join the Christian clergy and become shepherds of souls rather than leaders of armies. This was true for Ambrose, who at the time of Emperor Theodosius had abandoned a brilliant military career to become the bishop of Milan, and for our own Germanus, of course, our leader in Britannia who had cast away his sword to take up the staff.

Orestes was of a different temperament. I learned through time that as a young man he served under Attila the Hun, distinguishing himself on the basis of his wisdom and intelligence. There was no doubt that his final objective was power.

He esteemed me greatly and he often asked my opinions, but my main task remained that of educating his son Romulus. He delegated me with his paternal duties, since he was so often completely absorbed in his climb to top military rank, until one day he obtained the title of Patrician of the Roman people and was given command of the Imperial Army. At that point he made a decision that would profoundly influence all of our lives and somehow give birth to a new era.

Julius Nepos was the reigning emperor. He was a cowardly and incapable man but a friend of the Emperor of the East, Zeno. Orestes decided to depose him and seize the imperial purple. He told me about his decision and even asked me what I thought. I replied that his plan was pure folly: how could he imagine that his destiny would be any different from that of any of the other emperors who had succeeded one another on the throne of the Caesars? What tremendous danger would he be exposing his family to?

‘This time it will be different,’ he replied and refused to say more.

‘But how can you be certain of the loyalty of these barbarians? All they want is money and land. As long as you can provide these, they will follow you, but when you can no longer make them rich, they’ll find someone else who can, someone more powerful and more open to their demands and their boundless avidity.’

‘Have you ever heard of the Nova Invicta Legion?’ he asked me.

‘No. The legions were abolished long ago. You know well, my lord, that military technique has undergone considerable evolution in the last hundred years.’ I thought of the legion that Germanus had founded before dying at the foot of the Great Wall, a legion to guard the fort at Mount Badon. Perhaps it no longer existed.

‘You’re wrong,’ retorted Orestes. ‘The Nova Invicta is a select unit made up of Romans from Italy and the provinces. I’ve reorganized the legion in complete secrecy and it’s been ready for action for years, at the command of an absolutely upright man of great civil and military virtue. They are advancing this way at a forced march, and they will soon make camp not far from our residence in Aemilia. But that’s not the only surprise. I won’t be the emperor.’

I looked at him, stunned, while a terrible thought began to worm itself into my brain: ‘No?’ I asked. ‘Who will the emperor be then?’

‘My son,’ he answered. ‘My son Romulus, who will also assume the title of Augustus. He will bear the names of the first king and the first emperor of Rome, and I will shield him by maintaining the high command of the Imperial Army. No one and nothing will be able to hurt him.’

I said nothing because I knew that anything I said would be useless. He had already decided and nothing would dissuade him from his plans. He didn’t even seem to be aware that he was exposing his own son, my pupil, my boy, to such extreme danger.

That night I went to bed late and sat up at length with my eyes wide open, unable to sleep. Too many thoughts assailed me, not least of all the vision of those men advancing at a forced march to shield the boy emperor: legionaries of the last legion, sworn to supreme sacrifice for the destiny of the last emperor . . .

*

Here the story finished and Romulus raised his head, closing the book. He found Ambrosinus standing in front of him: ‘Interesting reading, I suppose. I’ve been calling you for ages and you haven’t even bothered to answer. Dinner is ready.’

‘I’m sorry,
Ambrosine
! I didn’t hear you. I saw that you had left this here and I thought . . .’

‘There’s nothing in that book that you can’t read. Come now, let’s go.’

Romulus put the book under his arm and followed him towards the refectory: ‘
Ambrosine
. . .’ he said suddenly.

‘Yes?’

‘What does that prophecy mean?’

‘That prophecy? It certainly isn’t a complicated text to understand.’

‘No, it’s not, but . . .’

‘It means:

‘It’s a prophecy, Caesar, and like all prophecies, difficult to interpret. It speaks to the hearts of the men that God has chosen for his mysterious designs.’

‘
Ambrosine
. . .’ started up Romulus again.

‘Yes.’

‘Did you . . . love my mother?’

The old man bowed his head and nodded gravely. ‘Yes, I loved her – a humble, devoted love, that I would never have dared confess even to myself, but for which I would have been ready to give my life at any instant.’

He turned to the boy and his eyes gleamed like embers in the dark when he said: ‘The man who made her die will pay for it with the most atrocious death. I swear it.’

A
MBROSINUS HAD DISAPPEARED
. For some time he’d been devoting himself to exploring the less apparent corners of the villa, especially the old quarters which were no longer in use, where his insatiable curiosity was fed by a number of disparate objects which he found exceptionally interesting: frescoes, statues, archival documents, laboratory materials and carpentry tools. He spent his time repairing old implements that had fallen into disuse ages ago, like the mill and the forge, the oven and the latrine with running water.

The barbarians considered him some kind of eccentric lunatic and snickered as he passed, making fun of him. All but one: Wulfila. He was all too aware of the old man’s intelligence. He let him roam freely in the villa, but not outside the external circle of walls, unless he was subject to strict surveillance.

Romulus imagined that Ambrosinus had forgotten about the Greek lesson they were supposed to have that day; he must have found some new engrossing activity. The boy wandered down to the lower part of the villa which descended along the slope. There were very few guards down there because the wall was high and had no access from below, ending in a steep, rocky precipice. It was a cool day in late November, so clear that from the highest vantage points he could see the ruins of the Athenaion of Surrentum and farther off the cone of Mount Vesuvius, iron red against the intense blue of the sky. The only sounds to be heard were his own footsteps on the pavement and the whisper of the wind through the leafy fronds of the pines and age-old holm-oaks. A robin redbreast took flight with a slight fluttering of wings, an emerald green lizard scuttled to hide in a crack in the wall. That little universe acknowledged his passing with barely perceptible murmurs.

There had been a terrible racket coming from the soldiers’ quarters all night after the arrival of a shipload of prostitutes, but Romulus did not feel tired from lack of sleep. How could he be tired when there was no activity, no plans, no prospects, no future? At that moment he did not feel particularly unhappy, nor especially happy, since there was no reason for either emotion. His soul reached out absurdly and uselessly to the world around him like a spider’s web in the wind. The clean air and the tranquil breath of nature were reassuring. He hummed a little children’s song that for some reason had just come into his mind.

He thought that perhaps he’d get used to his cage, after all. One can get used to anything and his fate was certainly not worse than that of many others. On the mainland there were massacres and wars and invasions and famine. He need only succeed in wiping the image of Wulfila from his mind. The thought of him was the only thing that could shake the apathy that he had fallen into and set off wild convulsions in his spirit, unleashing an anger that he could not allow himself nor sustain, a fear that was no longer justified, an oppressive sense of shame that was as troublesome as it was inevitable.

All at once he felt the strange sensation of a gust of air against his face: intense, concentrated, smelling of moss and the trickle of hidden water. He looked around but saw nothing. He was about to move when he felt the same sensation again, clear and strong, accompanied by a barely discernible hiss of the wind. He realized suddenly that it was coming from below him, from the holes of a clay grate for draining off rainwater. He glanced around surreptitiously: there was no one to be seen. He took the stylus from his pocket, knelt down and began scraping at the grate which was emitting that curious sigh. When he’d cleaned all around, he prised up one side with a stick and lifted out the grate, placing it alongside on the pavement. He took another quick look around, then stuck his head into the hole. The vision before him was astonishing, even more impressive upside down: a vast cryptoporticus adorned with frescoes and grotesques, opening up into the heart of the mountain.