Jago and Dryantilla had wandered all night. The rain had never stopped falling on Teutoburg forest, while the battle had subsided just long enough to allow Publius Quinctilius Varus to set up a rudimentary camp.
The first assault had decimated the ranks of the three marching legions. Nobody knew the fate of the missing and, above all, of the numerous civilians who had fled immediately after the start of the battle.
During their wanderings they had encountered injured legionaries, fleeing deserters and patrols of scouts, but the news they had received had been fragmented and discordant. The speculatores they had encountered shortly after dawn had offered to escort them to the camp at Var but the two had refused. Their first goal was to get out of that hell on earth.
“I just hope the others have managed to escape,” said Jago leaning against a tree to catch his breath. Dryantilla had supported him throughout the journey but now she too was showing the first signs of exhaustion.
They were in a clearing surrounded by a crown of tall, lush trees – a kind of natural refuge that sheltered them from much of the water the gods had decided to pour down on that terrible place. “Let’s stop for a moment,” said the woman, “I can’t take much more and this seems like a good place to rest.”
Jago dropped to the ground.
“How did they attack us like that? I heard the hiss of hundreds of spears.”
“It was thousands, I can assure you.”
“Thousands of men with spears, positioned only a few yards from the track? It’s impossible that the scouts wouldn’t have noticed them.”
“Perhaps they didn’t expect to.”
Jago shook his head and his empty eyes flashed.
Some had said that Arminius had betrayed the Roman cause and that the ambush had been carried out by the men of his tribe, but how many of them could there have been? Not enough to launch an attack capable of killing two thousand legionnaires in a few moments. Not even Hannibal’s armies had managed so much.
“There’s something else, I’m sure of it.”
“Perhaps you’re right, but what do we do now?”
“We rest, as I seem to remember you asking if we could…”
“I mean afterwards…”
“Instinct tells me we should look for the others but common sense suggests that we’d better get away from this place as quickly as possible.”
Dryantilla kissed him on the lips, and her gesture gave him new vigour. He raised his head like a cat in the presence of a captivating smell.
“Have you noticed it?”
“The screams? The sound of swords? Yes, I hear it too. All in all, it is better to hear where the danger comes from. It helps you to avoid it.”
“No. I meant the smell…”
The woman shook her head. The peculiar shape of the terrain inside the forest had favoured the creation of numerous fronts, each isolated from the other and capable of involving dozens of men. A constant trickle of violence and death that had only grown in intensity in the first light of morning. But the only smell was that of the fire which, when it finished consuming leather and fabrics, fed on human flesh.
Jago sniffed the air.
“Mistletoe… burning. Somewhere near here.”
White robes, blonde beards, crowns of thorns.
Dryantilla staggered, as Jago realised from the slight movement of air he felt.
“Speak to me.”
“Men dressed in white. They have long wheat-coloured beards and on their heads they wear ritual headdresses made of intertwined leaves.”
“Druids.”
Jago struggled to his feet.
“But what have they to do with all this?”
“I don’t know. Not yet. I can’t work it out.”
White robes, blond beards, crowns of thorns, burning leather, blood-stained tunics, severed heads, crosses made from tree trunks.
Dryantilla started.
“They have captured some legionnaires. And they are sacrificing them to their gods.”
“Very well,” said Jago. planting his stick among the leaves, “at least in this riot of inept human beings fuelled only by animal instinct there are some credible interlocutors with whom we can speak.”
“You want us to speak with the German priests? Us… by ourselves?”
“The priests? What are you talking about?! Come on, take me eastwards – the smell of mistletoe comes from that direction. “
The woman took the blind man’s arm and set off, and they soon found themselves walking across increasingly uneven terrain interspersed with escarpments. The remnants of burned carts and the carcasses of horses thrown to the sides of the paths showed that the Romans had decided to abandon everything that was no longer useful for making the battle proceed faster. After about an hour’s walk, the forest opened up in an area full of small streams. A strip of sand and earth still showed the hoof-prints of horses. Jago knelt and ran his fingertips across the ground.
“The tracks are deep. These horses were running.” He opened his eyes wide, revealing two amber glimmers. “They wanted to set up a fortification, but the enemy was harrying them so they gave up trying. Even getting into close formation was difficult. So they fled.” He stopped to think. “I don’t know how many of them. Probably towards the river Ems,” he concluded,” leaving behind the slowest, the injured, women and children. The ones for whom the mistletoe is now burning.”
When the landscape once more became wooded, the terrain grew more rugged. The weather, though, seemed to be improving: the rain had given way to an invisible blanket of moisture made up of millions of water particles which stuck to the face and streamed down their features in fine rivulets.
White robes, burning leather, crosses…
“We’re there.” Dryantilla stopped. The vision that appeared before her eyes communicated an unequivocal message. “Few. Very few will be saved today.”
“Tell me what you see.”
The scenario was difficult to describe. The German priests had scattered dozens of altars throughout the forest: enclosures of stones and boulders which delimited sacred areas. With trunks and branches tied in rudimentary fagots they had erected crosses similar to those used by the Romans for their executions. While most of the Druids sang songs and litanies, the rest – probably the oldest – dealt with the sacrifice of the prisoners. Dryantilla saw soldiers slaughtered on improvised stone altars, women hung on iron hooks like sides of meat and hoisted up to the tallest branches of trees where they were left to bleed to death. And then children hanged, mutilated and even decapitated, their heads displayed on stakes set in the centre of the enclosures or inside artificial swamps obtained by digging up the soil and allowing the streams of rain to flow into it.
Those legionnaires still alive were all on their knees, lined up, with their hands tied behind their backs and their heads completely shaved. The priests inspected them, stopping in front of each of them and only in that moment deciding how to kill them. One had had his eyes pulled out with a double hook, another had had both hands cut off.
Dryantilla restrained her nausea but only realised that she had witnessed the execution of the luckiest when she saw, hanging from a tree, a centurion both of whose feet had been cut off. The blood dripped into a large tub at the base of the tree, but despite the unspeakable pain he was suffering, the officer could not scream because his mouth had been sewn shut
“I see hell…”
A man on the ground. His head tilted back. Blood between his teeth. His eyes… blind.
Dryantilla raised a hand to her mouth but was unable to stifle the cry that this last vision elicited. The nearest of the priests turned his attention from the victim he had just castrated and looked over at her.
“Gods, they’ve seen us.” She put both arms under his partner’s armpits and pulled him up to his feet. “Come on, we have to leave. As quickly as possible.”
“No. It’s pointless. They would catch up with us anyway.” Jago dropped his staff and spread his arms, mimicking the shape of a crucifix. He opened his hands. “Tell me when they are twenty paces from us. And then leave.”
Dryantilla took three steps backwards. The druids emerged from the dense woods still holding the sacrificial blades in their hands. The one at the head of the squad, who appeared to be the oldest, began to curse in Celtic, but then they all stopped and pointed at Jago.
“They seem to be afraid of you.”
“It’s not me they’re afraid of.”
“What?”
“It’s what’s behind us that they’re afraid of.”
Dryantilla turned and saw the numerous Praetorians who had appeared in the bush. They were all dressed for battle and their officer held a bone-handled sword.
The druids hesitated. The Praetorians advanced, and the officer stopped near Jago. The blind man stood motionless, his arms outstretched. He closed his eyes at the exact moment when the man asked him: “Are you Jago the Lusitanian? The one they call the ‘witness of the gods’?”
Jago let himself fall backwards and collapsed in a trance to the muddy ground, sending up a cloud of dead leaves.
“Yes, that is his name,” Dryantilla replied for him. The Praetorian officer made sure that the druids were still at a safe distance and then knelt beside the human crucifix in front of him and scrutinised him. “You take care of them, men,” he said, pointing to the priests with the point of the sword. “And I’ll take care of him.”
He grabbed the hilt of the sword as if it were a dagger and brought it down hard.
Paralysed by shock, Dryantilla stood immobile. She put her hands to her mouth but nothing came out. She fell to her knees beside Jago and began to tremble. The man’s body jerked. The dagger had penetrated the sternum up to the hilt.
“What… what have you done?” she managed to stammer in disbelief.
But the legionary commander had already risen to his feet and his gaze was now focused on the Germanic priests.
“Don’t hurt the woman,” he ordered absently, “they want her alive.”