The Last Legion

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  He broke off as if he dared say no more, but I believed I could express his unspoken thoughts. I said: ‘You are a Roman from your feet to the roots of your hair, son and grandson of Romans, perhaps the last of this race. I can understand you, even though I believe that it is impossible to stop time, to turn back the wheel of history.’

  ‘You are wrong,’ replied Paullinus. ‘That’s not what I was thinking, although in my heart I have continued to dream that the eagles would return. I was thinking of the day that we brought Germanus to you, mortally wounded, from the battlefield. There in the forest of Gleva, so that you might cure his wounds . . .’

  ‘I remember that day well,’ I admitted. ‘There was little I could do.’

  ‘You did enough,’ said Paullinus. ‘You gave him the time to receive his last rites and absolution from a priest, and to pronounce his last words.’

  ‘That you alone heard. He murmured them into your ear before taking his last breath.’

  ‘And now I shall reveal them to you,’ continued Paullinus. He brought a hand to his forehead as if trying to concentrate all the force of his memory and power of his spirit there. Then he said:

  “Veniet adulescens a mari infero cum spatha,

  pax et prosperitas cum illo.

  Aquila et draco iterum volabunt

  Britanniae in terra lata.”’

  ‘They seem the words of some old popular song,’ I replied after having reflected on them. ‘A young warrior who comes from the sea bringing peace and prosperity. That’s a very common theme. Similar songs always spring up in times of war and famine.’

  However, it was evident that for Cornelius Paullinus they had another meaning. He said: ‘But these were the last words of a hero at the moment of his death. There must be another meaning, deeper and more important, essential to the salvation of this land and all of us. The eagle – ‘aquila’ – represents Rome and the dragon – ‘draco’ – is our ensign, the standard of the legion of Britannia. I know that everything will become clear when you have reached Ravenna and the emperor. Go, I implore you, and carry out this mission.’

  So intense and inspired were his words that I accepted what he asked of me, even if those strange verses aroused no particular vision in me. Before the senate of Carvetia, meeting in a plenary session presided over by Kustennin, I swore that I would return with an army to liberate our land once and for all from the barbarian threat. I left the next day. Before going to the port with my travel companions I cast a last look at the Great Wall, at the purple-tailed dragon fluttering from the tallest tower. A figure wearing a cloak of the same colour stood on the rampart walkway: Cornelius Paullinus and his hopes vanished slowly behind me in the light mist of an autumn dawn.

  We set sail with a favourable wind, headed for Gaul, where we set ashore at the end of October. The journey we embarked upon then was long and tiring, as I had predicted. One of my companions fell ill and died after falling into the icy waters of a river in Gaul, and another was lost in a blizzard as we crossed the Alps. The last two died in an ambush laid by brigands in a forest of Padusa. I was the only survivor and when I reached Ravenna I tried without success to be received by the emperor: a faint-hearted fool already in the hands of other barbarians. Of no avail were my pleas or the fasting that Paullinus had demanded of me. In the end, weary of my presence, the servants chased me away from the palace atrium with sticks.

  Exhausted by the long wait and my hunger, I fell prey to desperation and left that city and its arrogant men. I wandered from village to village, asking for hospitality from the farmers and paying for their dry bread or cup of milk with my skills as a doctor and veterinarian. I practised both professions equally well, and there was no doubt that I was keener sometimes to help innocent beasts of burden than obtuse and brutal human beings.

  What had happened to their noble Latin blood! The countryside was infested by bands of brigands, the farms inhabited by miserable peasants oppressed by intolerable taxes. What had once been proud cities encircled by turreted bastions along the glorious old consular roads, were now nothing more than ghosts of crumbling walls invaded by dark ivy. Emaciated beggars at the thresholds of the villas fought the dogs for food scraps, coming to blows over the stinking guts of butchered animals. There were no grape vines on the hills, nor the silvery olive trees that I had dreamt of as a boy, reading the poems of Horace and Virgil at school in Carvetia. No white oxen with crescent horns turned up the earth with their ploughs. Nor were there farmers sowing seed: only coarse, half-wild shepherds urging flocks of sheep and goats over arid pastures, and packs of pigs rooting under oak trees for acorns. Famished all, beasts and men.

  We had placed our hopes in this land! Order, if one could call it that, was maintained by troops of barbarians who made up most of the imperial army, more loyal to their own chiefs than to the few remaining Roman officers. They tormented the people much more than they defended them. The empire was nothing more than a larva, an empty husk like its emperor. Those who had been the lords of the earth were now under the heel of rude, arrogant oppressors. How often would I peer into those brutalized faces, those filthy brows dripping with servile sweat, to search for the noble features of Caesar and Marius, the majestic lineaments of Cato and Gracchus! And yet, like a beam of sun may suddenly penetrate dense clouds in the midst of a tempest, sometimes, without any apparent reason, the proud valour of their ancestors would flash from their eyes, and this made me hope that all was not lost.

  In the cities and villages, the religion of Christ had taken root everywhere, and the crucified God looked down upon his faithful from altars sculpted in stone and marble, but in the countryside, temples dedicated to the ancient divinities still stood, concealed and somehow protected by dense thickets. Unknown hands laid offerings before their broken, mutilated images. Sometimes flutes and drums sounded from the heart of the wood or the peaks of the mountains to call believers to conjure up the dryads from the forests, the nymphs from the streams and lakes. Then, from the fragrant musk in the deepest caves, Pan himself would appear, feral with his cloven hooves, with his enormous phallus distending from his obscene groin, witness to orgies never finished nor forgotten.

  The priests of Christ announced the saviour’s imminent return and His final judgement, and exhorted the people to abandon the thought of earthly cities and raise their eyes and their hopes to the City of God. And so, day by day, the love of the Roman people for their homeland was dying. The cult of their forebears vanished and their most sacred memories were left to the purely academic studies of the rhetors.

  I lived this way for years, survival my only care, unmindful of the reason that had pushed me so far from my native land, certain that there as well, at the foot of the Great Wall, all had fallen into ruin, all was lost, dead my friends and companions, extinguished their hopes for liberty and dignity and civil living. How could I possibly attempt to return, with what money and what supplies, if what I was able to earn barely sufficed to ease the pangs of my hunger?

  Only one desire remained, one dream: to see Rome! Despite the ferocious plundering she had suffered more than half a century before at the hands of Alaric’s barbarians, Rome still stood, one of the most beautiful cities of this earth, protected more by the aegis of the Supreme Pontiff than by the violated walls of Aurelian. The Senate still met there in the ancient curia, to perpetuate a revered tradition rather then to make decisions which no longer involved their authority. So one day I set off, dressed as a Christian priest, perhaps the only figure that still instilled a bit of reverential fear in the brigands and thieves, and it was during this journey across the Apennines that my fate abruptly changed, as if Destiny had suddenly remembered me, recalling that I was still alive and perhaps could still accomplish something in that desolate land.

  It was an October evening. Dusk was falling and I sought some shelter for the night, gathering up dried leaves to serve as my bed under an overhanging rock, when I thought I heard a moan coming from the forest. It seemed the cry of
a nocturnal animal or the hoot of the scops owl, which sounds so much like a human voice, but I soon realized that it was the wailing of a woman. I got up and followed that sound, slipping amidst the shadows of the wood, light and invisible, as I had learned to move in the sacred wood of Gleva when I was a boy. All at once I saw, at the centre of a clearing, a camp guarded by both Roman and barbarian soldiers, all of them fitted out in the Roman manner. A fire was burning at the centre of the camp and one of the tents was illuminated. The moaning was coming from there.

  I drew closer and no one stopped me, because at that moment my ancient Druidic art allowed me to make my body so insubstantial that it seemed nothing more than one of the many shadows of the night. When I spoke I was already inside the tent and they all turned towards me, astonished, as if I had materialized out of nowhere. The man before me had a powerful build and his face was framed by a dark beard which gave him the look of an ancient patrician. His pronounced jaw was tightly clenched, and his deep, dark eyes revealed the anguish that weighed on his heart. Next to him, a beautiful woman was weeping disconsolately, alongside a bed where a little boy of perhaps four or five lay, apparently lifeless.

  ‘Who gave the order to call a priest?’ asked the man, perplexed. There must have been something in my humble appearance, in my dirty, wrinkled clothing, that made me look more like a beggar than a minister of God.

  ‘I am not a priest . . . not yet,’ I replied, ‘but I am an expert in the art of medicine and perhaps I can do something for that child.’

  The man stared at me with fire and tears in his eyes, and said: ‘This child is dead. He was our only son.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ I answered. ‘I still sense the breath of his life in this tent. Let me examine him.’ The man nodded with the resignation of despair, and the woman looked up at me with a gaze full of wonder and hope.

  ‘Leave me alone with him, and before dawn I will give him back to you,’ I said, surprising myself with my own words. I couldn’t understand how, in that solitary place, I could feel the ancient science of Roman knowledge and the heredity of my Druidic powers unite at the bottom of my soul in a potent concentration of raw energy and serene comprehension. Although I had lived for all those years forgetful of myself and my dignity, all at once I knew that I could put colour back into the wan cheeks of that creature, and light into the eyes that seemed dimmed under his closed lids. The signs of his poisoning were evident, but I could not see how far the process of intoxication had gone. The man hesitated, but the woman convinced him. She pulled him away by his arm, whispering into his ear. She must have thought that I couldn’t hurt the child any more than the disease she believed him to be suffering from.

  I opened my satchel and took stock of what remained, realizing that at least, throughout all those years, I had never let my supply of medicines run out. I had continued to collect herbs and roots when the seasons were right and to treat them in keeping with the rules of my art. I put some water to warm on the brazier and prepared a potent infusion that would force his organism to react. I heated up stones and wrapped them in clean cloths, arranging them all around his cold body. I poured the hot, nearly boiling water into a wineskin and placed it on his chest. I had to reawaken a whisper of life in that little body before I applied the remedy. When I saw little drops of sweat forming on his cyanotic skin, I instilled the infusion in his mouth and nose and noticed a slight reaction, a nearly imperceptible contraction of his nostrils.

  The world outside was immersed in silence. I could no longer hear the weeping of his mother. Perhaps that lovely, proud woman was resigned to such a terrible loss? I instilled a few more drops and saw a stronger reaction, and then a visible contraction of his stomach. I pressed down hard and the little one vomited a greenish, foul-smelling fluid that left me no doubts. I instilled more of the emetic potion; more contractions followed and then a stronger retching and still more convulsions. Then the little boy lay back as if exhausted. I undressed him and washed him and covered him with a clean blanket. He was drenched with sweat but he was breathing now and his heartbeat was picking up: a faltering rhythm that to me seemed louder and more triumphant than the roll of a drum. I examined his stomach contents and my doubts were fully confirmed. I left the tent and found his parents in front of me. They were sitting on a couple of stools in front of the campfire, and there was a powerful excitement in their eyes. They had heard their son retching; an unmistakable sign of life. Yet they had held strong to their promise and left me alone with the boy.

  ‘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 d
id 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.