“No, for pity’s sake! I beg you!”
The legionary, bound and shaven-headed, was held by two fellow soldiers while the centurion standing before him indicated with his staff a large hemp sack that moved as if it were alive. He had been deprived of his helmet, armour and weapons, and, in order not to leave him completely naked, they had made him wear a sort of hair shirt that looked like a short tunic. They had not tortured him for the crime of he was accused, but limited themselves to leaving him in the sun without water for a whole morning.
“Be silent, villain! What you have is only what you deserve!” The centurion roared in his face, brandishing his staff even more vehemently, “Try lying again. Try to convince me that you’re not a foul traitor, or perhaps,” he added, indicating a distant point, “That those men are still alive.”
The legionary trembled like a leaf. He raised his head slightly and his eyes tried to focus on the cause of the centurion’s anger. It was a hot day and the sun’s rays reflected off the desert sand, producing a thin blanket of light that rose like transparent smoke.
Far from the Roman garrison, just below the walls of the fortress of Primis, about thirty corpses, mostly legionaries, and a dozen horses lay on the ground. The bodies had already begun to decompose in the heat, aided by the scorpions and ants which competed for the unexpected banquet.
Three years earlier, following yet another act of rebellion by Queen Kandake, the prefect Petronius had been forced to move his legions to southern Egypt. The Kushites, at the end of a harsh and gruelling campaign of skirmishes and ambushes, had accepted a treaty of friendship and Petronius had returned to the north leaving a garrison in a hill fortress, strategically placed to guard a wide valley of dunes just behind the oases.
The natives knew the place as Qasr Ibrim but the Romans immediately renamed it Primis. Those legionaries selected to be stationed there saw it as a kind of punishment. Among them were two maniples of III Legion Cyrenaica and one of XII Legion Fulminata making a total of about six hundred men.
Then something had gone wrong. They became complacent and underestimated the intelligence of the enemy. Within a week of the departure of the bulk of the army, the Romans had found themselves inexplicably no longer inside, but outside the walls.
It was difficult to pinpoint what had contributed to that military disaster, but the entire burden of blame and the decisions that had to follow was on the shoulders of a handful of centurions, who had hoped to spend those last months in Africa before retirement as a sort of holiday.
“I swear it’s not my fault. I have nothing to do with it. I’m telling you the truth,” the prisoner continued to plead.
“The truth is clear. Those soldiers are dead,” the centurion replied.
“I tell you I’m innocent. I swear it to you by Mars,” replied the legionary, watching the movements inside the bag with wide eyes, “When I arrived, they were all dead.”
The centurion nodded to one of the soldiers by the sack, who immediately handed him a broken-tipped arrow. The officer showed the weapon to the prisoner. “You see this?” he asked, ‘We pulled it from the neck of one of the men you sent to die. Do you think this is my imagination?”
“But I swear to you on the heads of my children that they were all dead!’
“You bore me,” snorted the centurion, “Proceed.”
“No! No!’ The prisoner pleaded again. The legionaries dragged him with some difficulty toward the sack, while he kicked like a mule and stared at it with terrified eyes as if he saw a ghost in front of him.
The sack was opened with the aid of a long stick, and a tangle of snakes, stimulated by the light of the sun began to stir with even greater vigour.
Despite the fact that their hands and arms were wrapped with bandages to protect them from poisonous bites, the legionaries took great care not to get too close. They carried the prisoner to the sack and lifted him bodily over it, two of them holding him while another tried to direct his tied legs tied inside the opening.
When a legionary was convicted of high treason, putting him inside a sack full of poisonous snakes while still alive was the most merciful solution that a superior could devise. In general, the accused did not suffer greatly, as the poison circulated very quickly. He rarely even had time to notice as the sack in which he had been imprisoned was thrown into the sea or the nearest river.
But this particular prisoner seemed not to appreciate his good fortune and one of the soldiers was finally forced to hit him in the hips to get him into the sack.
“You’re making a mistake, a big mistake. I’m innocent! I have never betrayed Rome or my comrades!’
“If you weren’t about to die anyway, I would have you whipped for all these lies you’re telling us.”
The prisoner disappeared into the sack, which was immediately tied shut with a rope. His body thrashed wildly for a few moments under the watchful eye of those who had condemned him. Then, all of a sudden, the movements became slower, until they stopped altogether and the hemp bag sagged to the ground as if it had lost air from a leak. Other, smaller movements indicated that the snakes were enjoying their prey, now paralysed by poison.
“What is happening here?”
The question, addressed in a peremptory tone, made the centurion look round. A tall man, wrapped in a long dark cloak with a hood, had suddenly appeared among the dunes. His features were difficult to discern, but his dark clothing revealed enough to see that he was thin and balding. By his side stood a Roman officer wearing a hardened linen breastplate.
The centurion studied the two newcomers eyeing them from head to toe.
“Welcome general,” he said, his eyes pausing on the officer’s armour, “We have been expecting you.”
“I don’t think it was us you were expecting,” the hooded man said. “We intercepted a request for help written by the prefect Petronius. The tone of the dispatch did not reveal any particular confidence in your testimony.”
The centurion swallowed. His head and his rank were dangerously in balance, as were those of the few other officers who were sharing that bizarre experience with him.
“So you have been stationed in Egypt?”
“Yes and no.”
“Then why have you come? We had requested native vexillatio.”
“I asked you a question,” the hooded man insisted.
The centurion showed that he understood, but did not answer. Rather, he turned to the officer who was still silent. In response, Victor Felix held up a hand to indicate to him that he could answer his companion.
“We have executed a traitor.”
“What had he done?” asked the hooded man, looking at the sack.
“He was one of our scouts. I had ordered him to sneak into the fortress to see if they were all dead and we could move forward.”
“Dead?”
“The Kushites. We have been keeping them under siege for a month,” the centurion continued. He pointed to the distant fortress. “That’s Primis, but they call her Qasr Ibrim. Until recently it was one of our garrisons. Then they took it back. Don’t ask me how they did it. It happened and that’s enough. We have tried to enter several times in recent weeks, but without success. I have rarely known an enemy put up a fight like those black-skinned monkeys.“
“And then what happened?” the hooded man urged him.
“Since we couldn’t get in by force, we tried to do it with cunning, so we feigned a pact with the besieged, promising them a truce during which we would supply water to prevent them from dying of thirst.”
Felix looked toward the fortress and made some movements with his fingers.
“A magnanimous gesture, it cannot be denied,’ the servant translated. ‘And yet it does not appear to have had the desired effect.”
“That depends on your point of view. The water had been poisoned, and we knew that within two or three moons they would all be dead. It was just a matter of waiting.”
Felix and the man with the hood remained silent, accentuating the embarrassment of the centurion.
“We waited five days, to make certain,” he continued, “and then we decided to go see what had happened. So I chose a scout, to whom I gave the assignment of entering the city. When he came back,” he added, pointing with a movement of his chin towards the sack, “the treacherous bastard assured us that the city was full of corpses. That every soldier and civilian inside the walls of Primis lay stone dead. And unfortunately, we believed him.” The officer shook his head. “I lost almost a hundred men.”
“How?” The prefect asked again through the translator.
“I sent a maniple under the city walls, and as soon as they came within range, a hail of arrows wiped them out.”
“Do you believe there is still someone inside that fortress?”
“I am convinced of it.”
Felix called his escort. The unmistakable gesture of the hand that first glided in the air and then closed in a fist as if to grab an insect in flight.
‘“Very well,” said the man, throwing back his hood, “I’m going to call Jago.”
*
The blind man advanced slowly across the sand. He wore open sandals and carried a rudimentary staff in his hands as though he needed propping up. A linen scarf covered his mouth and nose from the sand borne on the gusts of wind, and a long white tunic repelled the rays of the sun. He stopped as if he wished to scrutinise the edges of the fortress. His eyes widened and he smelled the air. “That man spoke the truth,” he said eventually, “They are all dead.”
“And what about them, then?” The centurion snapped. “Di they all die from heatstroke?” He went over to Jago and pointed to the dead that lay under the walls of Primis. Then he realised he was asking the impossible of a blind man and shrugged helplessly in the direction of the prefect Felix. “Those men are dead, pierced by arrows like a chest riddled with woodworm. Someone must have shot them, for Mars’ sake!”
“Someone,” said Jago, “Or something.”
The centurion raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth slightly.
“I don’t … I don’t understand you.”
“There is no need,” said the prefect’s servant, “You are not required to. Let the matter be, we will take care of it ourselves.”
“You?”
Felix pointed over the centurion’s shoulders. The soldier turned slowly and it was only then that he noticed dozens and dozens of black-draped wagons standing near the oases. At least fifty horses with coats so dark that they cast bluish reflections were stood watering under the eyes of half a dozen custodians.
The prefect walked by him and then moved his hands. “Tell your men to pull back, we won’t be needing them. And leave us an open field. We’ll take care of your dead, but tonight, when everything is over.”
“No, I can’t do that,” was the officer’s reply. “Their comrades won’t allow it.”
The prefect reflected for a moment, passing his fingertips over the contours of his anatomical armour with studied slowness. Finally, he nodded.
*
“Why is it that every time something happens, it is always us who have to go and investigate?”
Sibiam kicked a pebble that rolled to a stop right in front of the gaping lips of one of the dead scattered in front of the fortress. The lorica that covered its chest had collapsed as the dehydrated body had shrunk to a withered simulacrum of human being. The head, bent to one side, with a hollow cheek whose cheekbone seemed to want to insert itself into the sand like a tent peg, was covered with a translucent patina.
‘Don’t start complaining now. It’s going to be a long day.” Jago looked up and opened his blind eyes. Seeming to float on a background of amber , they wandered, uncontrolled. “And leave that shield. You won’t need it. “
“How did you know I’d brought it with me?” asked Sibiam, weighing the rectangular scutum
that he had stolen from a soldier of the Cyrenaica Legion. Faced with one of Sibiam’s more convincing arguments, the man had not even tried to protest.
Jago turned and gave his friend an annoyed expression.
“Fine, I’ll leave it.” Like Jago, Sibiam wore a white tunic without a belt. But in his case the simple garment highlighted his stature and proportions, which were worthy of a gladiator. He was barefoot and, instead of the scarf Jago wore, he carried a linen handkerchief to cover his mouth. At the centre of his chest he wore a breastplate of brown leather tied at the neck that passed under the armpits with a buckle connected to a shoulder pad.
He looked around him. The corpses of the legionaries hindered their progress towards the large wooden portal that sealed access to the fortress. Beside the walls, the abandoned Roman siege towers, like dormant giants, had become a garrison for vultures and other scavengers. Near the main entrance was the skeleton of a battering ram, lying on its side and almost totally incinerated. All the evidence showed that those silent walls had witnessed a bloody and prolonged skirmish.
Sibiam observed the scene in silence. “Where do we get in?”
“Since you have a more complete view of the situation,” answered the Lusitanian dryly, “What would you suggest?”
“We have three options. One of the towers is close enough to the walls to jump across. I also see a crack that we could creep through, with a little effort. And there is always the main entrance.” He stood in front of the portal and opened his arms as if to gather up the air. The structure trembled, at first slightly, then more violently. The hinges bent and squeaked as the studs that reinforced the slabs of wood began to loosen, revealing the lighter shades of wood never touched by the sun’s rays. The portal swung slowly open, offering the two men a glimpse of the interior of the fortress.
Jago shook his head.
“I would have preferred more discretion, but the damage is done now.” He planted his stick in the sand as if to move forward. “Next time, let’s discuss things before we act.”
The moment he spoke, the portal came back together with a sinister squeak, and the studs ripped off by the force of Sibiam’s mind returned to settle in their hinges.
“There. I think it’s for the best,” the Lusitanian exclaimed.
“Then let’s go through the crack,” said Sibiam.
The two friends advanced cautiously. When they were directly below the walls of Primis a tongue of shadow enveloped them, sheltering them from the relentless sun. The crack, created by the ram before the burning oil thrown by the defenders had put it out of action, looked like an angry giant had taken a chunk out of the walls.
Sibiam felt the edges of the crack with his fingertips. “I’ll go first. Keep close behind.” He held out a hand behind his back and squeezed the cold fingers of the Lusitanian, feeling his nervousness and concentration in those pulsing veins.
He advanced slowly, paying attention even to the rhythm of his breathing. “I wonder what your girlfriend would say if she saw us like this,” he whispered, “We look like two children who have just discovered the treasure cave.”
“Or fallen down a chasm,” Jago replied, ignoring his tone, “And don’t worry. They know we are here.”
Sibiam squeezed his companion’s hand tighter.
*
As they emerged into the fortified citadel, the spectacle that presented itself to Sibiam’s eyes made him regret having eaten breakfast. He gagged and felt as if an invisible hand were trying to crush his guts. The ground behind the portal was a carpet of corpses. Soldiers, but also civilians, women and even some children, contorted into unnatural positions.
It was as if, before they died, they had been in the grip of unspeakable pain. The suffering they had felt was written in the staring eyes that bulged out of their sockets, and in the burst capillaries that traced purple blooms on their now-waxen faces.
“Jago,” he whispered, “for once I wish I was as blind as you are.”
“I may not be able to see but I can feel them,” replied the Lusitanian boy. “All their anguish is still here, hanging in the air.”
As they advanced towards the centre of the fort, more shrivelled corpses greeted them, their gazes fixed in the void. Traces of smoke still rose from the stables. The African heat had kept the flames alive.
Jago raised a hand and Sibiam stopped. The blind man knelt down, keeping his balance with his stick. He breathed deeply and then closed his unseeing eyes.
‘Do you feel anything?” Sibiam asked, but the blind man did not answer.
Men in a circle. A fire. Singing.
Jago exhaled sharply.
Human sacrifices. Blood. More singing.
“Well?”
The blind man trembled.
Locus consacratus.
“A ritual took place here,” he said finally. “To consecrate the fortress to a god.”
“Who are we blaspheming against this time?”
Jago got back to his feet.
“The sun. Where is the sun now?”
Sibiam raised his eyes.
“On your left. Up. Just above the walls.”
“The sixth hour. We still have some time.”
“Time for what?”
“To try to strike a bargain.”
Sibiam looked around.
“With whom? I don’t see anyone here to negotiate with.”
“You can’t see them. For the moment.”
Jago opened his free hand palm downwards, and little swirls of sand arose like hypnotised cobras. “I smell blood, but it is not the blood of these dead.”
Malum carmen.
Jago nodded.
“An evil spell. A spell of entrapment.”
Sibiam shivered. “Are there prisoners? Where?”
Huat hauat huat ista piste sista dannabo dannaustra.
“A spell to strengthen the bones. To make the blood circulate again.” Jago began to back away. “It wasn’t poison,” he added. “It was a potion.”
“In plain words, what chance do we have of leaving this place alive?”
The blind man shook his head and then walked for a while among the corpses. “Before the battle they sacrificed children to their god. For the defence of the fortress. The god demanded a price.”
‘What price?”
At that moment they heard a bleating sound, faint and indistinct at first, then growing – the sound of a thousand voices.
Sibiam sought out a weapon in the rubble. With a flick of his fingers he pulled a rudimentary scythe into his fist.
“What is it?”
“Them.”
Jago pointed to the pile of corpses. The bodies remained still, but from their mouths there issued an inhuman, animal cry.
“What do we do?”
“The sun …”
“Now it’s directly above our heads.”
“The seventh hour. The time at which the legionaries attacked the walls. But the walls had defenders.”
Saepe animas imis exciri sepulchris vidi.
“We are in their midst,” the blind man continued.
“Then we should leave, don’t you think?”
“We have to break the spell. That’s why those legionaries are dead. They couldn’t see them.”
Jago advanced slowly towards the centre of the fortified citadel. The bleating became more and more insistent.
“Wait. Where are you going? If you think I’m following you, you can forget it.”
“That will not be necessary. Indeed, you should prepare to flee.” Jago bowed his head and his whole body shook as if he had suddenly been immersed in a basin of icy water. Something was telling Sibiam that he had to run. Run with all the strength in his legs.
“I am the one you met at the foot of the sacred mountain,” said the blind man, “And to whom you have revealed your name most great.” Silence. A breath of wind. “Honour to you Shadrapa,” said Jago, “Or do you prefer to be addressed as Bonlarth, god of death?”
*
The portal of the fortress swung open as though by a hurricane, and the creaking of the hinges was accompanied by a sandstorm, millions of grains rising into a wall of tiny glittering crystals, blocking what was happening inside the fortress from sight. There was a thud, then a din of boots, clogs and metal, as though several men, horses and swords had been enclosed in large barrels then rolled down a slope. Finally, as the noise reached a deafening crescendo, the silhouettes of two men emerged from the fog of sand.
“This way!” a female voice called out to them.
Dryantilla, driving an open wagon, was waiting near the remains of the ram.
“Jago,” shouted Sibiam, “Hold on to my robe.”
The two men struggled toward the wagon. They tried their best to run, but it felt as though an opposing force was trying to push them back.
“They don’t want to let me go,” said Jago, almost smiling, “That means it’s working.”
“Jago,” Sibiam told him, as his fingers managed to cling to the spokes of one of the wagon wheels, “Please explain to your phantom friends that you have a commitment that cannot be postponed, so that perhaps we can get out of here without having to drag the weight of a dead bull behind us.”
He pulled the Lusitanian, who almost lost his balance, then grabbed him by the shoulder and literally threw him onto the cart.
“Damn it,” Jago swore, “You could have killed me.”
“No need to thank me.” The horses whinnied and galloped away.
“We didn’t hold out much hope,” Sibiam sighed. Behind them the sandstorm was solidifying in a golden curtain and the chorus of bleating had become a nightmarish scream.
“You underestimate me. I knew exactly where and when you would come out,” Dryantilla replied without missing a beat, “What happened?”
“We must be prepared. They will soon become visible,” Jago told her in between fits of coughing. The scarf that covered his mouth was scant protection from the billowing sand that scratched at his face.
“Will our soldiers be able to see them too?”
“Of course. He promised me.”
“Who?” Asked the girl, as the cart raced along the dunes.
“Their god,” the Lusitanian replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
At that moment, a host of soldiers emerged from the wall of sand. They were all in neat rows, armed with curved swords and dressed in long draped material that wrapped their bodies in a blaze of damask. Beneath headdresses that vaguely resembled chrysalises, their faces, once bronzed by the sun, were as white as chalk .
“They’re not wearing armour,” said Dryantilla, looking behind her, “and that means they are particularly sure of their victory.”
Jago narrowed his blind eyes. “They don’t realise their god has betrayed them,” he muttered under his breath.
“But what are our legionaries doing? What are they waiting for?” asked Sibiam. The Roman soldiers in the distance did not turn a hair at the approach of the army of Kushites. His question became a vague suspicion and then a certainty.
“Damn it,” said Jago, running a hand over his forehead, “He tricked me.”
“Does this mean we’re not going back to camp?” Sibiam sighed.
“That means we have to turn around,” was the blind man’s reply.
‘Gods, I can’t believe it! You can’t do this to me now.” Dryantilla pulled at the reins of the wagon just in time.
“Are you talking to me?”
‘No, unfortunately.”
The rear wheel axle had decided to surrender to the sand at the worst time.
Sibiam was the first to fall from the wagon. And also the first to realise that it had happened just a few steps away from the approaching enemy.
“Wonderful,” he said, spitting sand.
*
The legionaries of the garrison had lined up in the field on the orders of Victor Felix as soon as his own men had entered the walls of Qasr Ibrim. The prefect, who was also the highest ranking officer, had asked the two maniples of the Cyrenaica to position themselves to the left of the fortress and the single maniple of the Fulminata to guard the area to the right of the largest viewing tower. The centurions had obeyed without a word, but now they looked with concern at the gap in the centre of the line.
Not far behind them, astride a horse with a gleaming black coat, the prefect scrutinised the abandoned fortress. He had allowed Dryantilla to go and get her man and his best friend, and he had also given her time to get back, but then he had watched the portal open wide and the cart halt in its tracks. And that fog that did not promise anything good.
It would be imprudent to wait any longer. He had trained those youths to perfection. They would make it back. And so, he pointed to the battlefield.
His slave, who had also observed the scene, nodded. “Battle formation,” he said to a cornicen who stood beside him, waiting.
The soldier put the instrument to his lips and blew firmly. A sharp, monotonous note spread through the air, mingling with the wind and the sand. An initial blast, then a second, longer, and finally a third, brief and decisive.
The legionaries all turned to look at the source of the sound. The prefect with the white armour and grey cloak watched them with folded arms from the top of a small hill.
“Don’t get distracted, by Mars!’ shouted a centurion, and the soldiers looked back in disbelief at the fortress. The sound of the horn was ordering them into a tight formation ready for battle. But against whom? For a moment they felt lost.
“I don’t know what will happen today,” one of the centurions said suddenly to the standard-bearer who stood beside him, “But if luck is on our side, we will be among the few who can swear they have seen them.” He pointed with his spear behind the formation, to the spot where the two wings of the deployment parted, leaving an empty space. A space that now began to take on a shape.
*
At first glance it looked like a block of obsidian and metal wrapped in an ivory-coloured mist, but as the eyes of the soldiers grew used to the reflections of the sun against metal, the indistinct outline resolved itself into the shapes of iron helmets, black silk tunics and creamy white cloaks. The white anatomical armour of the soldiers seemed to merge with the sand, so it looked like a giant black scorpion with shining claws advancing across the desert.
None of them had any doubts about what had appeared before them on the battlefield. The legend in the flesh. It was a vexillatio of around six hundred men on foot, arranged in six rows of a hundred and led by an officer levis armaturae, whose clothing did not differ much from that of the men under his command. The soldiers wore short black tunics protected by a sleeveless scaled lorica, and calf-length boots with braided strips of white linen strips attached to the tops. On their heads they all wore striking helmets of Attic origin, characterised by imposing crests that protruded ahead as if wishing to throw themselves into the fray. Here, too, the dominant colour of the crest, composed of ostrich feathers, was black.
But the strangest part of their armour was the shield, a small citron, no bigger than a Celtic shield, enclosed in a tight white leather sheath and depicting an image of a black stallion rampant. The standard-bearer that accompanied the officer held a wooden pole with a black rectangular flag at the top, on which the words ‘Vigiles in tenebris’ were embroidered in gold.
“By all the gods,” exclaimed the Fulminata commander, taking a step back instinctively as the black-clad legionnaires passed his men to take their positions at the centre of the deployment, “Reinforcements directly from the underworld.”
For some time, many had been telling of a mysterious legio sine note for which Augustus was said to have put aside even his most faithful praetorians. It was spoken of at bath houses, during patrician dinners, in the cities and in the provinces. A legion with supposedly miraculous origins, which different retellings had contributed to amplify and distort. An elite force that no one had yet seen in action. But the people of Rome had named it nonetheless, and it had become known to all as the Legio Occulta.
Perhaps feeling the weight of a thousand eyes on their shoulders, the men in black, at a nod from their line commander, drew their swords, producing a noise like a cascade of microscopic metal balls. The points of hundreds of glittering blades defied the sky. Before them, the shape of the fortress loomed, like a stone giant with its jaws open, ready to bellow.
Everything was in place. But Victor Felix hesitated. He was concerned about the behaviour of his scouts.
*
“I have to do it myself,” said Jago, spitting sand.
Sibiam helped him to his feet.
“Felix will take care of it. We can’t stay here in the middle.”
The Kushites advanced. Another twenty steps and they would be upon them. It was fortunate that they maintained an extremely slow pace. On the other side, the two wings of legionnaires stood immobile, watching the void as if waiting for some sign. It was obvious that they could not see their enemies at all. Instead they were following with skepticism and some amusement, the movements of three individuals in civilian clothes who had just been thrown out of the wagon.
‘No, it will take Felix too long to realise what is happening,” said Dryantilla, turning her gaze to the legion that had filled the space between the vexillationes of Cyrenaica and Fulminata, “Jago is right. He must do it. And he must do it here.”
Sibiam closed his eyes and let his arms fall to his sides. “But for Mars’s sake, they’ll destroy us!’
“It is a risk that we have taken on other occasions.” Jago got to his knees, calculating each movement so that the adversaries did not become suspicious.
‘But that doesn’t mean we need to do it every day,” protested Sibiam.
Jago bent his head several times to loosen his neck muscles. “Get on the floor, both of you. With your hands on your heads, please.”
Sibiam glanced at Dryantilla. The girl was unable to conceal her concern.
“What do you see?” he asked.
“No… you’ll be sick.”
“Anything but that!’
Jago smiled.
“Sibiam, only you can make me laugh at a time like this.”
“That’s what friends are for, isn’t it?”
“Stop it you two. Let’s do what needs to be done.” Dryantilla fell to the ground with her hands behind her neck and buried her face in the sand. But before she started holding her breath she looked at her man one last time. “Be careful.”
The Lusitanian closed his eyes. Her voice felt like a soft caress. He could already sense the unnatural blood that infused the eyes of the enemy. Their bodies were enveloped by bluish halos like will-o’-the-wisps. Then he was transported to another place. A place where his unseeing eyes were rekindled with reflected light.
*
Victor Felix jumped into the saddle and turned to his slave with alarm in his eyes.
“I don’t know, Victor,” answered the man at his side, “Perhaps there is a problem. Perhaps
someone was injured when the cart rolled over.”
The prefect shook his head vigorously.
The servant strained his eyes and pushed down with his arm muscles to raise himself. His chestnut mount seemed bothered by the imposition. “I would assume that they had stopped to repair the wagon,” he said, describing aloud the scene before him, “But I don’t understand what they are looking for.”
Felix stretched his hands out with his palms down and then moved them as if to smooth the air.
“Apothanatismòs.”
*
‘My synmystai are my witnesses.” Jago spoke through clenched teeth and the anger seemed to ooze from the edges of his light robe as it was shaken by the elements. “You tricked me. You made a bargain and you have not respected it. So I have come to you to remind you.”
The blind man’s staff rose suddenly, gripped by white, emaciated fingers. Its curved tip cut through the air describing a circle around the place where the Lusitanian knelt, from which a wave of sand rose into the air.
Dryantilla was almost completely submerged and Sibiam was thrown aside and rolled several times before coming to a halt. Of all this, the immobile legionaries lined up on the battlefield saw only the tongues of sand. Hundreds of pairs of eyes stared at the scene before them, while the centurions kept turning to the prefect Felix for a nod or an order. None of them could imagine how close they were to feeling their enemies’ breath upon their faces.
Dryantilla wiped the sand from her mouth. Still lying on the ground, she tried to work out if her commander had decided to act.
“Look, Felix, look at us. You must understand.”
She clenched a handful of sand in her fist and felt it slide away between her fingers like water. The ghost soldiers were now only a few steps away from the first legionary lines.
“Convince them to retreat,” said Jago, stepping back into the real world, “I can’t help you.” And then he disappeared.
*
Victor Felix was first to notice that Jago had gone. An unnatural gust of wind had raised tons of sand, hiding the scene from onlookers for a few moments as the blind boy prepared to perform one of the most difficult and skilful rites, which they had been taught during their long training at Leptis Magna. All that remained was a semicircular pit, right at the point where, up to a few moments before, Jago had stood.
Semicircular.
But why would he try something so risky when there was no imminent danger?
Semicircular.
It would have been better to go back and leave the field to real soldiers.
Semicircular.
Unless there was something else.
Semicircular.
Unless that mark in the sand had been hindered by something he couldn’t see. Something that had prevented the circle produced by the shock wave from settling according to the natural laws. An obstacle. A long obstacle placed along a single line.
Felix reached for the necklace around his neck and squeezed the stone. Sometimes a torch is necessary if the light is not enough.
At that moment Dryantilla began to cry out and run towards the Legionnaires of the Legion Fulminata.
“Get back! Go back! Go back, all of you!’ she yelled, as the soldiers looked at her as though she had lost her mind. Some laughed, while others exchanged incredulous glances. But nobody intended to obey her. Behind her she heard the clash of shields and saw, through the corner of her eye, the gleam of curved swords.
The first row of legionaries passed from the incredulity of surprise to death in a few seconds. The invisible shockwave of enemy swords brought down around thirty men who fell to the ground, drenching the sand with blood. Their companions, horrified by the spectacle of severed heads and mangled bodies, retreated in disorder. The cries of the centurions as they sought to restore order were useless. The terror in their own eyes did nothing to help instil confidence in the soldiers.
“Protect yourselves!’ yelled Dryantilla. Most ignored her words. Only a handful tentatively raised their shields and were among the few to be able to tell of the misadventure in the days that followed. A second wave of invisible blades further decimated the vexillatio of the Fulminata.
All of a sudden, a legionnaire on horseback appeared on the scene, out of breath. “Order of the prefect Victor Felix,” he said to the nearest centurion, “The girl must take command of the units.”
The centurion spat on the ground. “What?” he roared, looking first at Dryantilla and then at the officer, ‘Take orders from a woman? What madness is this?”
The answer that came to him was lost amid the agonised screams of his men. More legionaries fell, a short distance from his boots, the mixture of surprise and pain contorting their faces into haunting grimaces. The centurion shook his dagger angrily. “So be it,” he said, loud enough that Dryantilla heard him too. “What do you want us to do?”
The girl took a deep breath. She studied the scene with care and then came to a decision.
“Have the front line kneel and create a shield barrier.”
“There is no longer a front line, but I will do as you say.” The centurion barked a series of concise orders and about fifty legionaries got to their knees, raising their shields in a protective wall. A sudden impact with something heavy that they could not see made them falter, but thanks to their defensive position their lives were saved. For the moment.
Dryantilla put her hands in her hair. A part of the ghostly army had detached from the bulk of the assault block to head towards the cohorts of the Legion Cyrenaic.
“They’ll never make it,” she said, as another violent wave of blades fell on the surviving legionaries.
It was at that moment that a sustained rattling sound became audible in the distance. The tight ranks of the soldiers made it impossible to determine its origin. Then the lines parted.
*
The children were completely naked and hairless. At their ankles they wore strips of leather to which dozens of tiny gold bells were tied. Boys and girls, joined in a single body of human flesh, smooth and translucent, that moved with dancing footsteps through the hot sand, impervious to the sun and heat. Their faces wore rapturous smiles, as though they were performing some unseen miracle. In their midst middle moved a young man who was dressed in a long green tunic, and waved a stick adorned with more bells. His gestures provided a countermelody to the movements of the little white feet that ran towards the walls of the fortress.
They arrived a few paces from the first corpses, oblivious to everything that was happening on the battlefield, as if they were accustomed to blood and death. Then the children formed a circle and began to dance around the boy dressed in green.
An unnatural cloak of silence settled over the battlefield. The assault of the phantom soldiers stopped suddenly. Dryantilla and Sibiam were the only ones who could see the wonder in those dead eyes.
The man in the green planted his stick in the sand and the children stopped dancing. A tinkling of little bells froze them into bizarre, artificial poses, like marble statues in a temple.
The man in green spoke a single word but its meaning was lost amid the chorus of bells. The children’s heads began to emit a strange fluorescent crimson glow. They looked like a circle of human braziers. There was a flash of light and, as if by magic, the hideous mask-like faces of the Kushites appeared a few inches from the Roman shields.
The soldiers’ first reaction was one of surprise and fear. They took a few steps back.
The hoarse voice of a centurion shook the air, “What are you doing, you idiots? Now is not the time to retreat!’ He advanced and stuck his sword into the body of one of the ghosts. The Kushite watched sadly as the blade penetrated his body, which was made of energy. He felt no pain, but turned to his companions with a look of helplessness then disappeared in an instant, leaving two footprints in the sand.
The centurion turned to his men, “Your comrades are watching you. Make sure that they have no reason to mock your cowardice if you have the fortune to be reunited with them in the Elysian fields tonight!’
The end of his speech was drowned out by the sound of horns. Short bursts but with an unmistakable meaning, the call that had preceded the advance of the legionaries in black only a few moments earlier.
*
Night descended, wrapping Primis in a blanket of warm humidity. The moonlight reflected against the sand was like a large sheet of sepia-coloured silk. The armour of the dead soldiers surrounding the fortress looked from a distance like jets of silver water. There were many of them, all Romans, and they bore witness to the violence of the clash that had taken place that morning with the ghostly Kushite army.
There was no trace of the fallen enemy, whose bodies had evaporated as soon as they were slain, depriving the surviving legionaries of the satisfaction of counting how many of their opponents they had been able to send to the other world. But that night, the soldiers sitting around the campfires erected just below the fortress had other things to talk about.
Their descriptions of that white linen armour, of the gleaming silver helmets with their crests of feathers, black as pitch, passed from mouth to mouth and acquired new details, growing larger until it became the new piece of a legend that by now ran through the stationes of every province to the four corners of the Empire. Whispered voices, made up of dialects that melted and changed, gave form to deeds and actions, that until that morning would have seemed fantastical. They formed a murmur that rose from the tent flaps and played among the flames of the fires, that was mirrored in the bronze of the polished helmets before losing itself in the dunes, where it reached even the ears of Dagos, the albino augur of the XII Legio Fulminata.
Since sunset, Dagos had been walking among the bodies of his soldiers, collecting last words or objects that would be returned to the families of the dead. He was a little over twenty years old, and had watched that morning, helpless and perhaps only dimly aware that he was witnessing the end of an era. The propitiatory rites before the battle had a different feel to them, as though they were automatic, powerless, even meaningless gestures. The words and movements had been only casually followed by the officers. Their attention was directed elsewhere. It was directed towards the ones without armour, who negotiated the ranks of the armies heedless of danger, as if they were protected by fate. But most of all it was directed towards those men in black, who were slowly preparing themselves to face the battle. Legionaries almost oblivious to their companions, isolated in another world, another dimension, where only the enemy to be faced mattered and where the signs of an augur were almost an irrelevance.
The legionaries in black had their soothsayers and augurs among them. Their own priestly college where even women were permitted to come to the battle front to support the soldiers. Sometimes they even seemed to dictate orders.
What could it all mean? And what would become of the priestly tradition of Rome that Augustus himself had wanted to restore and strengthen, but that he now seemed to diminish in the eyes of the military by preferring children dressed as slaves to his own flamines?
And where did they come from? There was talk of a secret fortress. A legend? Perhaps, but all these rumours weakened the authority of the priestly caste. And every success in battle achieved by those magicians and their soldiers in black seemed to travel along the arteries of the Empire faster than a tax collector who has just received a mandate to turn you out of your home in your underwear.
Dagos had seen them advancing in a formation so perfect it seemed almost to have been drawn at a table. The wind seemed not to touch their cloaks and even the heat did not dare to approach the determined features of those marble faces. But the thing that struck him most were the horses. Beside the front-line maniple he had seen a cavalry squadron of no more than a hundred men, wrapped in their long, broad black cloaks. The beasts were barebacked and advanced at a slow trot with their riders beside them, one hand on their flank, as though to reassure the animal, and the other holding a shield to defend both. A duo in which each had a task and each defended the other as far as possible.
Dagos paused a moment to catch his breath. He would go as far as the remains of the siege tower he saw in the distance and then return to the camp. The scouts, helped by teams of pioneers, would clear the fortress of rotting corpses during the night and by the following morning, the eagle flag would fly above Primis once again.
He resumed walking, and a light breeze accompanied him to his destination. He leaned against a wheel, which tilted diagonally on its axis, and caught a glimpse of something darker than the blackness of night from the corner of his eye. He turned to look and saw a body hidden just below the base of the tower. No further inspection was required to ascertain that this was one of the legionaries in black. The wooden platform that provided access to the staircase, helped by the onset of sunset, had obscured the body from view, and it had thus escaped the meticulous searching of the men belonging to the prefect Felix, who had forbidden anyone who was not part of his legion to approach the bodies of the fallen.
Dagos knelt down. Despite the darkness, the anatomical shell of hardened linen looked like shiny plaster, newly dampened with water. The augur touched the feathers of the helmet with his fingertips and a strange thrill of excitement passed into his bones. He had never seen a soldier of the Legio Occulta so closely. Even that morning, during the battle, he had observed them from the top of the hill where the priests had accompanied the highest-ranking officers.
Something gleamed among the folds of the dead man’s tunic. A reddish glow coming from a dagger blade that gave off almost as much light as a torch. The fingers of the hand that gripped the hilt were only partially closed and the index finger protruded, revealing a ring that was partly covered by the sand.
He reached out, grabbed the body and tried to pull. The body slowly slid across the sand without too much resistance and the ringed hand showed itself in the starlight. Dagos hesitated, then leaned in for a closer look. It was made of a metal similar to silver. He knew very little about alloys, but he was sure he had never seen anything that so resembled the reflection of early morning light from crystals of snow. There was a stone set in the centre.
Dagos grasped the dead man’s wrist and tried to remove the ring.
“Stop! Get away from that body!’
Dagos jumped. The voice of the man behind him had pierced him like a javelin. He turned and found two pitch-black eyes boring into him with and interrogating expression. The legionary had pushed aside his cloak to allow a glimpse of the ebony pommel of his dagger. Here too, the blade glowed like steel that has just been pulled from the flames of the forge.
“I was just inspecting the field for the men of the twelfth,” said Dagos in an attempt to justify himself as he got back to his feet, “Some of them might still be alive.”
“Those do not look to me like the symbols of the Legion Fulminata,” replied the soldier in black, indicating the corpse with his eyes.
“No, I suppose not.”
“Then disappear.”
“Certainly,” said Dagos, casting a final glance at the corpse, “Good night’.
The legionary in black did not answer but watched him go until he seemed far enough away to ignore. Then Dagos saw him kneel next to the body of his fallen comrade and noticed what seemed to be an imperceptible movement of his lips, as if he were addressing the dead man or perhaps praying for him.
The augur turned and headed with decision towards the camp. He looked at his right hand, which had been clenched into a fist, and then slowly opened his fingers. The ring sparkled in the night, a black onyx horse set in a white ivory base fixed to what looked like a silver ring. The young priest did not know whether to rejoice over the precious loot or to be worried about the consequences of his actions if he was discovered. Full of doubt, he adjusted his robes and headed towards the nearest of the fires.