The Last Legion

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  ‘Let’s say you were unconscious for two days and two nights. Justinus said that your fever was high and that you were delirious. You said the strangest things . . .’

  ‘You saved my life. Thank you.’

  ‘It was five against one. I thought I should balance up the odds.’

  ‘Incredible aim you have, at night, with the fog . . .’

  ‘A bow is the ideal weapon in such unstable surroundings.’

  ‘My horse?’

  ‘They’ll have caught him for sure. Eaten him, maybe. Tough times, my friend.’

  Aurelius sought out her gaze but she escaped him.

  ‘Do you have any water? I’m dying of thirst.’

  The girl poured him some from an earthenware jug.

  ‘Do you live in this place?’ he asked.

  ‘It’s one of my . . . shelters, shall we say. It’s lovely, isn’t it? Big, spacious, hidden from curious eyes. But I have others.’

  ‘What I mean is, do you live in the lagoon?’

  ‘I have since I was a child.’

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Livia. Livia Prisca. And you?’

  ‘Aurelianus Ambrosius Ventidius, but my friends call me Aurelius.’

  ‘Do you have a family?’

  ‘No, no one. I don’t remember ever having had a family.’

  ‘That’s impossible. You have a name, and isn’t that a family ring you are wearing?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe it was given to me, or maybe I stole it. Who can say? My only family has been the army. My comrades. I can’t remember any further back.’

  The girl couldn’t quite make sense of what he was saying. Perhaps the fever had shaken his mind. Or perhaps he didn’t want to remember. She asked him: ‘Where are your comrades now?’

  Aurelius sighed. ‘I don’t know. Dead, probably. They were extraordinary fighters, the best: the legionaries of the Nova Invicta Legion.’

  ‘The Nova Invicta, you said? I never thought it really existed. The legions belong to the past, with battles on the open field, infantry against infantry, cavalry against cavalry. You say all your comrades are dead, and yet you managed to survive. Strange. In the city they’re saying that a deserter tried to kidnap the emperor. There’s a sizeable price on his head.’

  ‘And you’re interested in collecting that reward, aren’t you?’

  ‘If I were, I would already have done something about it, don’t you think? You would have woken up in prison or swinging from the gallows, or you would have died as they were taking you in. We would never have met.’

  Her tone was light and ironic. She had begun to fuss with her fishing net and avoided looking her guest in the eye. He couldn’t understand whether these were the harsh manners of one used to living in the wild, or whether she was timid. Aurelius fell silent, as if listening to the cries of the swamp birds getting ready to migrate or to the monotonous dripping of water into the great green pool. His comrades thronged into his mind. He had been unable to save them or help them. Submerged in a sea of enemies. He imagined their bodies left unburied, riddled with wounds, prey to stray dogs and wild animals. Vatrenus, Batiatus, Antoninus, their commander Claudianus. It broke his heart, and tears rose to his eyes.

  ‘Don’t think about it,’ said the girl as if she were looking him in the face. ‘The survivors of a massacre always feel guilty. Sometimes for the rest of their lives. Guilty of being alive.’

  Aurelius didn’t answer and when he spoke again he tried to change the subject: ‘How can you live in a place like this? A woman, alone, in a swamp?’

  ‘We are forced to live like barbarians to continue living as Romans,’ answered Livia in a low voice, as if talking to herself.

  ‘You know the writings of Salvianus!’

  ‘So do you, I see.’

  ‘Yes . . . scraps of knowledge that somehow come to mind from my past. Words . . . images, at times.’

  Livia got to her feet and came closer. Aurelius raised his eyes to observe her: a ray of light filtered from a crack in the wall, light that had pierced the morning fog, and it spread over her slender figure like a diaphanous aura. She was fascinating . . . beautiful, even. His gaze fell to her breast; the medal hanging at her neck bore the image of a wide-winged eagle. She noticed his look and her expression changed instantly. She considered him with an inquisitive, almost searching glance. In his mind’s eye, Aurelius suddenly saw a city in flames – a dilated, distorted image – and over that sea of flames he could see the necklace with the eagle floating down lightly like a leaf twirling in the air. Livia shook him out of his reverie: ‘Does it remind you of something?’

  Aurelius looked away: ‘What?’

  ‘This,’ replied the girl. She took the medal in her hand and knelt down next to him, raising it to the level of his eyes: a bronze circle a little bigger than a five-solidus coin, decorated with a small silver eagle.

  ‘No,’ answered Aurelius sharply.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Why should it?’

  ‘It looked as though you recognized it.’

  Aurelius turned on his pallet and lay down on his side. ‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘I’m exhausted.’

  Livia didn’t say another word. She turned away and disappeared under an arch. He could hear bleating; there must be animals somewhere close by.

  She reappeared with a bucket of milk and poured some in a cup. ‘Drink,’ she said. ‘It’s fresh, and you haven’t eaten for days.’

  Aurelius drank and the warmth of the milk filled his body and mind with an unbearable weariness. He lay back on the straw and drowsed off. Livia sat next to him and stayed to watch him for a while. She was looking for something in his features but she couldn’t say what, exactly. The situation was making her feel very uneasy; an uneasiness born of hope but mixed with the feeling that such hope was absurd. Impossible.

  Livia shook her head, as if to chase away a worrisome thought, and got up. She reached her boat, pushed it into the water and took off across the lagoon until she came to a cane thicket, where she stopped and lay back on the bottom of the boat, waiting. Stretched out on the fishing net, she watched the sky as it slowly darkened. Flocks of ducks and wild geese flew high overhead in long lines, over huge puffy clouds reddened by the setting sun. She could even hear their calls as they prepared for migration. A blue heron took flight, slow and solemn, low over the water’s surface. The fields and canals sounded with the dreary croaking of frogs.

  The autumn and the flight of the migrating birds always made her feel melancholic, even though she had lived through many a season on the swamp. She would have liked to fly far away herself, towards another world, beyond the sea, to forget about that dank swamp, the familiar but disquieting walls of Ravenna, shrouded in fog for so many months a year. The damp, the gloomy rain and the cold wind from the east that chilled your bones. But when spring returned and the swallows came back to their nests among the ruins, when the sun sparkled again on myriad tiny silver fish, she felt hope rise up again within her, hope that the world could have a new start, be born again, somehow.

  She had always lived like a man. She had learned how to survive in a harsh and often hostile environment, to defend herself and to attack when necessary, no holds barred. Her body and her soul had been hardened, but she’d never forgotten her roots, the few years that she had lived serenely with her family in her home town. She remembered the traffic, the markets, the ships at port, the fairs and festivals, the ceremonies of many different religions. She remembered the white-robed magistrates who administered justice, seated in their high-backed chairs in the forum. She remembered the Christian priests who celebrated the mass in a church glittering with mosaics. She remembered the plays at the theatre and the lessons of her teachers at school. She remembered what civilization was.

  Then, she remembered, one day the barbarians came. A horde of them from the east, small and ferocious, their eyes long and their hair pulled back to look like the tails of their bristly little h
orses. She thought she remembered the prolonged lament of the horns, echoing from the walls to sound the alarm, the soldiers, running on the rampart walkways, taking position, preparing for a long, stubborn resistance. The commander was away on a mission. The officer who took command was very young. Little more than a boy. Much more than a hero.

  The sound of an oar shook her from her thoughts. She sat up and listened: a boat was approaching the shore. A couple of men got out; the first was elderly, but well dressed and very dignified looking, while the other was slender, not too tall and quite finely featured, a man of about fifty. Livia had seen him before; he was the older man’s personal guard, if she wasn’t mistaken. She left the cane thicket and approached them: ‘Antemius,’ she greeted the elder of the two. ‘I thought you’d never get here.’

  ‘It wasn’t easy for me to leave the city. I’m under their surveillance and I don’t want to rouse suspicion. I had to wait for a valid pretext. I have important news, but if I’m not mistaken, you have something to tell me as well.’

  Livia took him by the arm and accompanied him towards an abandoned farmhouse that had sunk into the swamp down to the window-level. She didn’t want their conversation to be overheard.

  ‘The man that I saved the other night is the one who tried to abduct the emperor from the imperial palace.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘As sure as I can be. He was being chased by Odoacer’s troops, and when I told him that in the city they were looking for a deserter who had attempted to carry off the emperor, he didn’t even try to deny that it was him.’

  ‘Who is he?’ asked Antemius.

  ‘He’s a legionary from the Nova Invicta. An officer, perhaps . . . I’m not sure.’

  ‘The unit that Orestes was secretly training to be the pillar of the new empire. Annihilated.’

  Livia thought of the anguish in Aurelius’s eyes as he remembered the sacrifice of his comrades: ‘Is it true that no one was saved?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Some may have been taken as slaves. Tomorrow the army commanded by Mledo that Odoacer sent to wipe out the legion should be returning. If there were any survivors we should hear about it. That soldier’s raid on the palace was a disaster. He did kill off a dozen barbarians, which pleases me no end, but he involuntarily brought about the death of the empress, Flavia Serena. The whole palace is up in arms now. The barbarians suspect everyone of everything. I was afraid that the life of the emperor himself was in peril, but fortunately Odoacer has decided to spare him.’

  ‘Very generous on his part, but I can’t say I’m convinced. Odoacer never does anything for nothing, and that boy represents a lot of problems for him.’

  ‘You’re wrong,’ said Antemius. ‘Odoacer is beginning to understand how politics work. If he killed the emperor he would have to deal with the hate and scorn of the Roman population. The Christian clergy would certainly compare him to Herod, and the eastern crown would assume that he was aspiring to take the empire himself. If the boy is spared, he will be considered magnanimous and forgiving, and will not give rise to dangerous mistrust in Constantinople.’

  ‘Do you really think that anyone cares about Romulus Augustus in Constantinople? Emperor Zeno backed Julius Nepos, the last Emperor of the West, after Flavius Orestes had deposed him, and he offered him his own properties in Dalmatia during his forced exile. As far as I know, they make fun of the boy in the East. They call him Momylus instead of Romulus, imitating the pronunciation of a little child.’

  ‘But Zeno himself has been dethroned. Basiliscus reigns in his place, and Basiliscus is now in Pyrgos, in the Peloponnese, at only three days’ navigation from here. I have sent a small delegation, disguised as fishermen. They should already have met with him, and his answer may reach us at any moment.’

  ‘What have you asked?’

  ‘To provide refuge for the emperor.’

  ‘And you believe he will consent?’

  ‘I’ve made him an interesting offer. I think so.’

  The sun was setting on the vast, silent lagoon, and a long train of warriors on horseback stood out against the red disc as it sunk into the dark, flat countryside.

  ‘Mledo’s advance guard,’ observed Antemius. ‘Tomorrow we will know for certain whether any of your soldier’s companions survived.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ asked Livia.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trying to save the boy. There’s no advantage in it for you, either.’

  ‘Not in particular, but I’ve always been faithful to the family of Flavia Serena. Fidelity is a virtue of old men; we’re too tired to change our attitude or our ideals.’ He sighed: ‘I served her father for years and I would have done anything I could to help her, had I had the time, had that soldier not got mixed up in this.’

  ‘Perhaps he had a good reason.’

  ‘I would like to hope so. It would be a pleasure to meet him, if you can arrange it.’

  ‘If Basiliscus agrees to give asylum to that boy, what will you do?’

  ‘I will free him.’

  Livia, who had been walking in front of him, spun around: ‘You’ll do what?’

  ‘What I said. I’ll free him.’

  Livia shook her head and looked at him with a derisive grin: ‘Aren’t you a little old for such adventures? Where would you find men who will agree to carry this out? You’ve already said that Odoacer is willing to spare his life. Isn’t that enough for you? It’s best to leave things as they are.’

  ‘I know you will help me,’ Antemius continued as if she had not spoken.

  ‘Me? I wouldn’t dream of it. I’ve already risked my life saving that poor soul. I don’t intend to challenge destiny in a hopeless match.’

  Antemius took her by the arm: ‘You have a dream yourself, Livia Prisca, and I can help you to attain it. You’ll be given a huge sum of money: enough to pay off whoever you choose to involve in this endeavour, and enough left over to accomplish your own plans. But this is all premature: we need to have Basiliscus’s response first. Let us go back now; my prolonged absence might be noticed.’

  They walked towards Antemius’s boat. His escort was sitting on the shore.

  ‘Stephanus is my secretary and body guard. My shadow, you could say. He is aware of everything that is going on. He could be our contact in the future.’

  Stephanus could not quite hide his admiration as he stared at her, as if appealing for her consent.

  ‘As you wish,’ shrugged Livia, ‘but I believe you are too optimistic, and too trusting. Basiliscus couldn’t care less about Romulus’s life.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ was the old man’s reply. He got into the boat and Stephanus set himself at the oars, but not before he had taken a last look at the girl. Livia stood still on the bank, watching them as they slipped off into the darkness.

  6

  THE 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 sa
t 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?’