Just in time…
What?
I took you away just in time…
But I’m dead. I can see my body.
You see what they see. But you know full well that what they see often does not correspond to what is…
The essential is invisible to the eye?
Clever boy… I see you have started learning.
And now?
Now you must tell me what you want to do.
What do you mean?
On the basis of human events, your existence has come to an end.
So it’s over.
But I could give you back some of the days that you pledged in your escapades.
They weren’t escapades… they helped me to protect and save those who trained me.
Very well, let’s put it that way if you prefer. And if it makes you more comfortable we can also imagine that it is possible for men and gods to engage in dialogue. But you know as well as I do that it is not so S– that it never has been and never will be.
And so?
So choose. Do you want to go back to them? I can offer you that. But you must give me a valid reason for it to happen. I only need one.
A reason?
Yes.
Her.
Still? At your age?
You asked me for a reason and I’m giving you one.
So be it… I find it a good reason. From a human perspective, of course.
Wait…
What?
You didn’t tell me your name…
There is no need. When you meet me again, you will know me.
*
Jago opened his eyes and found his blind gaze immersed in an ocean of blue. He coughed and started breathing again.
Dryantilla looked first at the bleeding wound and then at her companion’s face.
“You’re alive…”
She wanted to shout it, but somehow managed with an enormous effort to transform that liberating cry into a whisper.
“Keep quiet, don’t let them find you.” Jago remained still, his arms spread and his whole body flat on the damp ground. “Tell me what’s going on.”
With a distracted gesture, the woman covered her face with a corner of her cloak as she began to weep again. Dozens of shouting praetorians rushed past her and she turned her head slowly to watch them.
The leader of the group of Germanic druids took up an anonymous stick from the ground and began to draw a line on the ground.
“One of them has taken a stick,” the woman said in a low voice just loud enough for her companion to hear her, “and he is tracing a furrow on the ground.”
“They’re consecrating the place,” said Jago in a voice muffled by the folds of the fabric.
Holding their shields to their chest, their sword arms stretched out in preparation for the final assault, the Praetorians arrived a few steps from the priests. But at that moment, something repelled them. The impact was devastating: helmets, shields and swords flew through the air as if they had run into a wall.
“By Mars,” their commander cursed, finding himself face down on the ground. It took him a few moments to recover, and when he finally managed to lift his bloody head he saw many of his men on the ground unconscious. But the expression of surprise on his face for that strange situation was nothing compared to the one which took its place a few moments later when he saw Jago get back to his feet.
The Germanic priests railed against the Romans, and their curses, uttered in an archaic, guttural language, filled the forest. An icy wind began to blow between the branches and the darkness fell over the clearing like a suffocating mantle.
“Come on, you idiots!” shouted the Roman officer, who in the meantime had got back on his feet and recovered his weapons. “You’re praetorians, not little girls!”
Visibly confused, the soldiers looked at one another, uncertain about what to do – but when they too became aware of Jago, they were overcome with fear. As though they had received a peremptory order, they turned and headed for the trees, but their escape did not last long because they found facing them a host of angry human wolves dressed in animal skins and bronze upon whose faces pure hatred was etched. Armed with axes and spears, the barbarians had formed a human barrier, and there were at least twice as many of them as there were of the Praetorians.
The commander of the legionaries looked towards the priests who, protected by the invisible wall that they had traced on the ground, continued to chant, and then shifted his attention to the host of enemies on the other side of the trees. A long streak of blood ran slowly from his temple to his cheek, but was immediately washed away by the rain which had once again begun to fall on the forest of Teutoburg.
“We are trapped,” he said to the blind Lusitanian, “and I didn’t even manage to kill you.”
Jago took a deep breath. “Look for my staff,” he said to Dryantilla. The woman picked it up and handed it to him. “Now convince them all to come here.”
Dryantilla approached the legionary officer. The man instinctively squeezed the hilt of his sword, but then lowered the weapon and listened to the woman’s words. He looked at her for a long time before reacting then suddenly sprang into action, setting the example by running towards Jago.
“This way. Tortoise!”
Driven more by the force of despair than by the idea of obeying their leader, the praetorians surrounded the blind man and his woman and arranged their shields in their defence.
“Religio dira loci,” said the Lusitanian.
In response, the oldest of the priests pointed his finger at the Romans. “Aruusc n-arrligh,” he whispered. And the barbarian rebels charged.
The German axes and swords took only a few moments to reach the Roman shields, and the impact caused the tortoise to tremble. Protected from the myriad blows and slashes by the wall of wood and leather, the Roman soldiers could not make even the slightest movement.
The attack took place in a cloud of mud and earth thrown up by boots and sandals, but when the debris had returned to the ground, the tortoise emerged intact.
The priests cursed and the barbarians swore, but this time it was the Romans who took the initiative. All four sides of the tortoise opened up and swords snapped forward and then recoiled like the stings of the scorpions painted on the shields which had parted to let them pass.
The manoeuvre had a considerable psychological impact on their opponents: as they recovered from an attack that had produced no results, the barbarians suddenly realised they were unprepared in the face of Roman offensive tactics. And for their part, the praetorians had discovered that, properly handled, their enemies, however numerous, could be held off.
The stalemate, however, did not last long. Despite the blow they had suffered, the Germans threw themselves once again at the Romans, this time without any attempt at discipline, and paradoxically it was this that made them more dangerous.
Jago knew that the formula with which he had enchanted the area defended by the tortoise would help limit losses but not avoid them altogether, and when the first soldiers began to fall at his feet he realised that he would have to come up with something else to get them out of that situation alive.
“We’re done for unless we do something,” Dryantilla told him. “But my visions are confused – I can’t work out what’s going to happen.”
“You cannot predict what is not going to happen.”
“What should I do?”
“Follow me.” Jago got down on all fours and, dodging the swinging blades and kicking feet, he crawled between the soldiers’ legs until he finally managed to emerge from that storm of swords, Dryantilla managing to keep up with him by grabbing hold of a corner of his robe.
“Let’s go,” said the blind man, standing up and seeking the support of the woman’s arm with one hand. Thanks to darkness and the chaos of the battle, their escape had gone virtually unnoticed by both sides.
Virtually unnoticed.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
His sword in his right hand, the praetorian commander stood in front of them.
“You were going to kill him and he helped you anyway,” said Dryantilla. “Let him go now.”
“I cannot”.
“Let’s go,” Jago urged her, “none of this is real.”
But the soldier blocked his way and threatened him with his sword. Dryantilla made to put herself between the weapon and her man but Jago stopped her.
“There’s no need, I told you.”
When the praetorian spoke him, his voice sounded different from before.
“I didn’t like your choice,” he said in a strange, flat tone. “I love revenge, and you didn’t give me the satisfaction of it.”
“I made my choice. Now let me go.” Jago took a step but the man didn’t move and their bodies came into contact.
“No, I have no intention of doing that.”
“What else do you want from me?”
“You’re actually asking me that?” the praetorian officer smiled. “I promised you would recognise me the next time you met me. Well? If you know who I am then you also know what I want.”
Jago folded at the waist as though he had received a blow to the abdomen. “I know who you are and I also know that you feed upon the most equivocal human feeling – the one beyond good and evil, the one that unites good and evil.”
“Exactly – revenge. So what are you waiting for? They raised you to use you. And after using you, they decided that you could die and they killed you. And what did you do? You tried to help them.” The praetorian burst into mute laughter. “Pathetic.”
“Out of the way, servant of Wotan. Let me pass.”
“Forget it. Unless you decide to reconsider.”
He pointed to the battle between the legionaries and the barbarians who, thanks to the Lusitanian’s spell, could not break through the shield wall, and then his human body disappeared, his words lingering like a bat in the dark. “You must choose. It was for her that I allowed you to come back, not for them. If you wish to leave you must break the chain. And I will respond to the call of my priests and will be able to taste the vengeance of a Roman.” The voice fell silent for a moment, then resumed. “But if you prefer, you can stay and die with them.”
Jago was shaken by a tremor. He opened his eyes wide and clung to Dryantilla’s arm as if it were the final foothold on the edge of a precipice. He felt the familiar warmth of her flesh and he made his choice. Because he had sworn so. Once.
*
The right fight for a just cause.
Jago touched his right hand and stroked the white stone upon which was the obsidian horse.
Some will dare to tell you that there are many good causes.
The Lusitanian priest squeezed the ring with fingers like claws and turned it around several times, then he turned to the Praetorians who were trying to defend their small chance of survival. He could clearly sense the fear and pride mixed with the odour of the sweat under their armour.
But remember that iustitia is the only parameter which will show you the sanctity of your deeds.
“Whatever decision I make, will you be with me?” he asked Dryantilla.
“Of course,” she replied, holding him tightly.
“Even if…?”
“Especially if…”
“Good,” the blind man nodded. “Then let’s do the job we were trained for.” He let go of the woman’s arm and advanced decisively towards the battle. When he was right in front of the two fighting armies he raised his staff at the Germanic priests and the irreparable came from his lips.
“Numina, I beg you.”
He fell to his knees.
He could have run away. He could have saved the woman he loved more than anything else in the world. He could have left the Roman soldiers at the mercy of their enemies. He could have done all that. But not on that day. He brought his hands to his chest. The wound was no longer bleeding.
“Numina, I implore you.”
The Germanic priests realised that something unexpected was happening. Flashes of light shone through the dark cloud that until then had covered the battlefield, and among the blood, sweat and mud, the scorpions of the praetorians on the white of their shields once again became visible.
“Numina, I welcome you,” said Jago, raising his hands. And the sky was torn apart, allowing the sunlight through along with the rain.
The Roman soldiers greeted the unexpected change in the weather as an omen of victory and began to fight with greater vigour. The banner of the praetorian cohort that had accompanied them flew again at the centre of the battle.
Jago began praying once more. A blind ghost who throws himself off a cliff. Without thinking, he grabbed a nearby legionary by the shoulder and pulled him close until he could smell the man’s breath.
“Some of you go and deal with their priests,” he ordered, then he let go and the soldier staggered a moment before being sucked back into the battle. A moment later, he appeared again at the head of half a dozen legionaries who ran in the direction of the Druids. Their initiative was met with total indifference. But then the Lusitanian spoke.
“Sacer esto.”
And the praetorians crossed the invisible wall.
Amid screams and curses, the Roman swords mowed down dozens of druids. and when the soldiers found themselves faced with the torture perpetrated against their fellow legionaries during the night, nothing could stop the momentum of their vendetta against the few survivors.
“Let’s go away, now,” pleaded Dryantilla, trying to drag him out of the fray. “I don’t understand why but I’m not able to see things.”
“Events that don’t happen cannot be foreseen.”
The seer grimaced. “You said that before and I still don’t understand what you mean.”
“They gave me back one day of the many.”
“And you accepted, for them? For the ones who wanted to kill you?”
“In this battle I see only the symbol of Rome. It is for that symbol that my sacrifice will be remembered.”
“And what about me? What will remain in my arms? Your sacrifice?”
Jago didn’t answer. He savoured the smell of the terror of the fleeing Germans and of the adrenaline of the legionaries who pursued them. Dryantilla grabbed him by the sagum and shook him. “Jago! Can you hear me? Will you answer me?”
*
“Jago! Jago! No!”
Dryantilla bent like a twig in the wind and fell in a crumpled heap upon the man who lay on the ground. A pool of blood emerged from beneath his now lifeless body.
At the sight of the praetorians, the German druids had fled and the soldiers of Rome in their white armour now surrounded the blind Lusitanian.
“Help me, please. He saved your life,” the seer implored, “you cannot abandon him like this!”
“This woman raves – take her away,” the praetorian officer ordered. “And take that corpse too.” Then he turned to look at something in the middle of the forest. In the distance there were the muffled screams of the last Roman generals whom bad luck had kept alive.
The sudden sound of galloping hooves made him start. He prepared himself for his umpteenth battle by calling all his men to him, but a patrol of Praetorians on horseback emerged from the thicket of the bush. It seemed that the rain and the battle had decided to spare their armour. The senior officer ordered the others to stop and then trotted over to his comrade who was meanwhile sheathing his sword.
“What’s going on here?” he asked peremptorily.
“Two spies,” explained the other. “We killed one and are taking away the other.”
The general on horseback hesitated. “What is your cohort, tribune?”
“The third… forgive me but in this light I cannot see your rank.”
“The third cohort. The famous third cohort,” commented the officer on horseback,” where brave soldiers once served.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“There is no need.” The man on horseback pulled a copper tube out of one of his saddlebag, unscrewed the cap and slid out a roll of parchment. He opened it and showed the tribune the seal at the bottom of the document. “Do you recognise this symbol?”
The officer advanced towards the horse.
“It is… is that of the Emperor.”
“Good. That is already a step in the right direction.” The soldier on horseback stroked the neck of his steed. “I want to leave this sewer as soon as possible. From what I’ve seen along the way to get here, I doubt Rome will emerge victorious from this battle. So I give you a choice: do you wish to know the will of the emperor before or after you give me your weapons and those of your men?”