The Last Legion

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  *

  Aurelius met a number of road blocks during his nocturnal ride. Odoacer had assigned garrisons to the bridges and passes, and squads of barbarian soldiers from the Imperial Army were patrolling the consular routes, so he was often forced off the road. He found himself braving almost impassable mountain paths and fords made treacherous by the autumn rains. As he began his descent towards the valley, he realized that his horse would never make it. The generous animal would fall dead if he spurred him into another gallop; he was covered with sweat and foam, his breath was short and his eyes dilated with the strain. Destiny was with him, however, as he made out a building with a familiar look in the distance: an exchange post on the via Flaminia, miraculously intact and apparently still open. As he approached, he could hear the creaking of a sign hanging from an iron bar embedded in the outer wall. It was quite rusty, but he could still discern the figure of a sandal and a phrase in well-formed capital letters: ‘MANSIO AD SANDALUM HERCULIS.’ A milestone in front of the building said m.p.XXII: twenty-two miles to the next station. If it was still standing.

  Aurelius jumped off his horse and entered, short of breath. The post master was snoozing on a chair and a few couriers or customers were laid out on their cloaks on the floor, in a deep sleep. Aurelius woke the man: ‘Imperial service,’ he said. ‘With a matter of the maximum urgency and top priority: it may be a question of life or death for a great many people. My mount is outside, but he’s exhausted. I need a fresh horse, immediately.’

  The man shook himself awake, opened his eyes and realized, as soon as he had focused on the soldier before him, that what he was saying had to be true. Aurelius’s features were distorted with tension and fatigue.

  ‘Come with me,’ the post master said, handing him a chunk of bread and a flask of wine as they walked across the hall and down the stairs towards the stables. He could tell the man hadn’t stopped a moment, not even to eat. The stalls were mostly empty, but three or four horses were just barely visible in the dim light. The post master lifted his lantern so he could see them better: ‘Take that one,’ he said, indicating a sturdy-looking horse with a lustrous black coat. ‘He’s a magnificent animal. His name is Juba. His master was a high-ranking officer, who never came back to claim him.’

  Aurelius took a last bite out of the bread and swallowed a quick gulp of wine, then jumped on the steed’s back and urged him up the ramp, shouting: ‘On, Juba!’ He emerged into the open air like a damned soul escaping the underworld, crossed the consular road at breakneck speed, and turned down a path that shone white in the moonlit landscape. The post master came out shortly thereafter with the lantern still in his hand, shouting and waving a receipt, but Aurelius was already far away and Juba’s gallop faded off into the countryside.

  The man repeated in a lower voice, as if talking to himself: ‘You have to sign the receipt!’ He was startled by a quiet neighing and noticed Aurelius’s bay, steaming with sweat. He took him by the bridle and led him into the stables: ‘Come on in, boy, or you’ll catch your death out here. You’re all sweaty, and you must be hungry. You won’t have stopped to eat at all, I’ll bet, just like your master.’

  *

  A pale glow had just begun to light up the horizon when Aurelius came into sight of Flavius Orestes’ villa. He realized he’d got there too late. A dense column of black smoke rose from the ruined building and there were signs of savage destruction everywhere. He tied the horse to a tree and approached cautiously from behind an enclosure wall until he was near the main entrance. The gate doors were unhinged and scorched and lay on the ground, and the courtyard was thick with blood-clotted corpses. Many were soldiers of the Imperial Guard, although there were barbarian warriors as well, fallen in fierce hand-to-hand combat. The horror of death was still carved on to their faces, their bodies frozen in the ultimate spasm of agony.

  No sound could be heard save the crackling of the flames, joined every now and then by the dry snap of a falling beam or a roof tile as it shattered on to the floor. Aurelius walked through the desolation, dismayed and incredulous as the tragedy unfolded before his eyes in all its gruesome reality. He felt suffocated, crushed as under a millstone. The stink of death and excrement tainted the inner rooms, which had not yet been devoured by the flames. The corpses of women, stripped and raped, of young maidens with their legs obscenely split open, lay next to the corpses of their husbands and fathers. Blood was everywhere – on the intricately patterned marble floors, on the beautifully frescoed walls, in the atria, the bath chamber, the triclinium, spattered on the tables and over the remaining food. The curtains, carpets and table linens were soaked with it.

  Aurelius fell to his knees and covered his face with his hands. A growl of impotent fury escaped him. He felt powerless to move, his forehead practically touching his knees, as his despair grew. He was suddenly shaken by the sound of groaning. Was it possible? Possible that someone was still alive in that slaughterhouse? He sprang to his feet, hastily wiped away the tears running down his face and headed in the direction of the sound. It was coming from the courtyard, from a man prostrate in a pool of blood. Aurelius knelt beside him and turned him over gently, so he could see him in the face. The man, so close to death, recognized his uniform and insignia. ‘Legionary,’ he whispered.

  Aurelius moved even closer: ‘Who are you?’ he asked.

  The man moaned in pain; every breath was costing him terrible suffering.

  He answered: ‘I am Flavius . . . Orestes.’

  Aurelius shook with emotion: ‘Commander,’ he said, ‘oh great gods . . . Commander, I’m with the Nova Invicta Legion.’ And that name – ne’er defeated! – seemed a bitter mockery.

  Orestes was shivering and his teeth chattered as the chill of death invaded his body. Aurelius took off his cloak to cover him. That gesture of pity seemed to hearten the man, restoring a glimmer of energy: ‘My wife, my son . . .’ he said. ‘They’ve taken the emperor! I beg of you, tell the legion. You must . . . free them.’

  Aurelius lowered his head: ‘The legion has been attacked by overwhelming forces. I had come to ask for reinforcements.’

  An expression of profound discouragement was painted on Orestes’ face, but as he stared at Aurelius with tear-filled eyes, his voice still trembled with hope: ‘You save them,’ he said. ‘I beg of you.’

  Aurelius couldn’t bear to meet the distressing intensity of his gaze. He looked away, saying: ‘I am . . . all alone, Commander.’

  Orestes seemed to ignore his words completely. With his last bit of strength he tried to pull himself up and gripped the edge of Aurelius’s cuirass: ‘I implore you,’ he panted. ‘Legionary, save my son. Save the emperor! If he dies, Rome will die. If Rome dies, all is lost.’ His hand slipped lifelessly to the ground and his eyes took on the stupefied stare of death.

  Aurelius closed Orestes’ eyelids. He took back his cloak and walked away as the sun rose gloriously over the horizon, illuminating the full horror of the massacre as he turned his back to it. He reached Juba, who was calmly nibbling at some grass. He untied him, got into the saddle and urged him north, on the traces of the enemy.

  3

  THE COLUMN LED BY Wulfila proceeded for three days in an arduous march over the snow-covered Apennine passes, and then across the foggy plain. The prisoners were worn out by fatigue and insomnia, pushed to the limit of their powers of endurance. None of them had properly slept a single night; their troubled sleep was racked by nightmares. Flavia Serena called up all the courage instilled by her strict upbringing, so that her behaviour would be an example to her son Romulus. The boy would lay his head in her lap and close his eyes, but as soon as he began to drop off, images of the massacre invaded his shaken mind, and his mother could feel his limbs cramping up painfully. She could almost see the scenes of horror dancing under his eyelids. He would awaken suddenly with a shout, his brow beaded with cold sweat, his eyes full of anguish.

  Ambrosinus lay his hand on Romulus’s shoulder, trying to convey a lit
tle warmth. ‘Take heart, my boy,’ he said. ‘Destiny has dealt you the cruellest and most difficult of fates, but I know you will withstand it.’

  When he noticed the boy falling asleep, he would whisper soft words into his ear, and for a little while the child’s breath would come longer and his features would relax.

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Flavia Serena.

  ‘I spoke to him with the voice of his father,’ replied Ambrosinus enigmatically. ‘It was what he wanted to hear.’

  Flavia said nothing and continued to stare at the long winding road that descended towards the Adriatic Sea, crested with grey foam under a leaden sky. They arrived near Ravenna on the evening of the fifth day, as it was getting dark, crossing over on one of the many embankments which led through the lagoon to the group of islands where the city had been founded, now joined by a long coastal dune. The rising fog crept over the surface of the still water and seeped over the dry land, where it lapped at skeletal trees and at the isolated huts of fishermen and farmers. The cries of the night animals were muffled, distant, as was the barking of a solitary dog. The cold and damp penetrated their bones, and their fatigue and discomfort felt unbearable.

  The towers of Ravenna rose suddenly before them like giants in the mist. Wulfila shouted something in his guttural tongue and the gate swung open. Dozens of galloping horses rumbled across the access bridge, then they slowed to a trot and entered the deserted, foggy city. The inhabitants seemed to have all disappeared: the doors were barred and all the windows were closed. A boat made its way down the canal like a ghost, oars slicing silently through the waters. They stopped at the entrance to the imperial palace, made of red bricks and grey Istrian stone columns. Wulfila ordered that the mother be separated from her child, and that the boy be taken to his quarters.

  ‘Allow me to go with him,’ Ambrosinus swiftly proposed. ‘He’s terrified and exhausted; he needs someone with him. I am his tutor and I can help him. I implore you, powerful lord, let me accompany him.’

  Wulfila, flattered by that designation, to which he was hardly accustomed and which had certainly never been directed to him before, acquiesced with a grunt. Ambrosinus caught up with his disciple as they dragged him away. Romulus twisted around, crying out for his mother. Flavia Serena cast a sorrowful yet dignified look at her son, silently exhorting him not to give up hope. She walked off down the hall between two guards with a firm step, shoulders squared and arms crossed over her breasts, to conceal what her torn gown left unveiled.

  Odoacer had been notified of their arrival and he awaited her, seated on the ivory throne of the last Caesars. At his peremptory gesture, Wulfila and the guards left him alone with the woman. A chair had been prepared at the foot of the throne and Odoacer invited her to sit down, but Flavia Serena remained standing, her back straight and her eyes staring into the distance. Even though her clothing was in shreds and her hair clotted, even though her tunic was bloodstained, her forehead blackened with soot and her cheeks gouged, she radiated proud, untamed femininity. Her beauty had been insulted but was still intact, superb and delicate at one and the same time. Her neck was pure white, her shoulders curved softly and her hands crossed over her breasts could not wholly conceal their perfection. She felt the barbarian’s eyes upon her even though she would not look at him, and she felt ablaze with disdain and impotent rage, but the pallor of her fatigue, hunger and lack of sleep cloaked her true emotions.

  ‘I know you despise me,’ said Odoacer. ‘Barbarians, you call us, as if you were somehow better. Yours is a race prostrated by its own vices, by power and corruption! I had your husband killed because he deserved it. He had betrayed me by going back on his word. I had to make an example of him, so that everyone would understand that you cannot deceive Odoacer with such impunity! The example had to be such a good one that everyone, everywhere, would understand, and be terrified by it! And don’t imagine that you can count on your brother-in-law Paulus: my troops have surrounded his army and destroyed it. But I’ve had enough of all this blood! I do not intend to make this country suffer. I want it to be reborn; the arts must be revived, work in the fields and the shops must flourish again. This land deserves better than Flavius Orestes and his child emperor. It deserves a true sovereign who will guide and protect it like a husband guides and protects his wife. I will be that sovereign, and you shall be my queen.’

  Flavia had remained still and silent until that moment. She finally reacted, and her voice was as cutting as a blade: ‘You don’t know what you’re saying. I descend from those who have fought you off for centuries, and chased you back into the woods where you can live like the beasts that you are. I am nauseated by your stench, your ignorance, your savagery. I hate the sound of your voice and your language, which seems like the barking of a dog, not the tongue of a human being. I am disgusted by your skin, which can’t bear the light of the sun, by your hair of straw, by your moustaches, always filthy with the remains of your food. Is this the marriage bond that you desire? The exchange of feelings you dream of? Kill me, now, my life doesn’t matter to me. I will never marry you!’

  Odoacer clenched his jaw. Her lashing words had wounded and humiliated him. He knew that nothing could win over such scorn, and yet the feeling of boundless admiration that had struck him as a young man when he had first entered the Imperial Army was still keen and unchanged – admiration for those ancient cities, their forums and basilicas, their columns and monuments, their streets and ports and aqueducts and arches, their solemn inscriptions in bronze, their baths and their houses. Their villas were so beautiful they seemed the residence of the gods, not of mere men. The empire was the only place in the world where life was worth living.

  He looked at Flavia and found her more desirable than ever, even more so than the first time he had seen her, when she was just twenty and was betrothed to Flavius Orestes. She had seemed so distant to him then – as lovely and unattainable as the star that he would watch as a child, stretched out in his parents’ nomadic cart under the night sky, in the midst of an endless plain. Now she was at his mercy and he could have her whenever he wanted, even in that very moment, but that was not what he wanted, not yet.

  ‘You’ll do as I say,’ he told her, ‘if you want to save your son. If you don’t want to see him killed before your eyes. Get out of here now.’

  The guards entered and escorted her to the western wing of the palace.

  *

  Ambrosinus was looking through the keyhole as he heard the men’s low voices. He called Romulus to his side: ‘Look,’ he said, ‘it’s your mother.’ He brought his index finger to his mouth in warning as he stepped aside so the boy could see.

  The small cortège soon passed beyond his restricted line of vision, but Ambrosinus put his ear to the door and counted their steps until he heard the click of a door opening and closing.

  ‘Twenty-four. Your mother’s room is twenty-four paces from ours, and may be on the other side of the corridor. We’re probably in the women’s quarters. I lived here for a while a couple of years ago, and your mother also knows the place well. This could be an advantage for us.’

  Romulus nodded, accustomed as he was to following his tutor’s elaborate reasoning even when he could make neither head nor tail of it, but was not particularly convinced. The door to their room was bolted from the outside and guarded by a warrior armed with an axe and sword. What chance was there that he’d ever see his mother again?

  He lay on the bed, exhausted by too many emotions and by enormous fatigue. Nature took its course and Romulus soon fell into a deep sleep. Ambrosinus covered him with a blanket, patted the boy’s head softly and then lay down himself, hoping for some rest. He refrained from extinguishing the lantern because he was sure that the darkness would have aroused images from which he might not be able to defend himself. He wanted to stay vigilant on such a night, teeming with vengeful shadows.

  He couldn’t say how much time had passed when a sound struck his ear, followed by a dull thud. Romulus w
as deeply asleep and apparently hadn’t heard anything: he was still in exactly the same position as when he had first lain down. Ambrosinus got up and heard another noise, a sharp metallic click this time, directly outside the door. He shook the boy: ‘Wake up, quickly. There’s someone at the door.’

  Romulus opened his eyes without realizing at first where he was. He became painfully aware of his surroundings as he looked around at the walls of his prison. The door had opened, creaking, and a cloaked, hooded shape appeared in the doorway. Ambrosinus’s glance fell to the tip of the sword in the figure’s hand and he instinctively moved to shield the boy, but the man uncovered his face.

  ‘Quickly,’ he said, ‘I’m a Roman soldier. Nova Invicta Legion. I’ve come to save the emperor. Now! We’ve no time to lose.’

  ‘But how can I—’ began Ambrosinus.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I promised to save him, not you.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you, I don’t know who you are . . .’

  ‘My name is Aurelius and I’ve just killed the guard.’ He turned around and dragged in the body.

  ‘I won’t come without my mother,’ said Romulus at once.

  ‘Then move, in the name of the gods,’ replied Aurelius. ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Down that way,’ offered Ambrosinus. Then, grappling for some proof that he was indispensable to the escape effort: ‘What’s more, I know how to get out of here. There’s a passage that leads to the women’s gallery in the imperial basilica.’

  They headed to the door of the room where Flavia Serena was being held prisoner. Aurelius inserted his sword between the door and the jamb, prised the bolt and managed to draw it out. At just that moment a guard appeared on his rounds: shouting in alarm, he ran towards them with his sword drawn. Aurelius faced the barbarian, knocked him off balance with a feint and ran the man through from side to side. The guard collapsed without a moan and the legionary entered Flavia’s room: ‘Quickly, my lady, I’ve come to free you. There’s not a moment to lose.’