The Challenge of the Legion Read online

  The Challenge of the Legion

  Oscar Luis Rigiroli

  Copyright © 2017 by Oscar Luis Rigiroli. All rights reserved. Neither this book nor any part of it may be reproduced or used in any form without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Published in 2017 in the United States of America

  It is a work of fiction. The names, characters, companies, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious way. Any resemblance to real people, living or dead, or real events is pure coincidence.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Index

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  About the Author

  Books by Oscar Luis Rigiroli

  Coordinates of the Author

  About the Publisher

  Index

  Dramatis Personae

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  From the Author

  About the Author

  Books by O.L.Rigiroli

  Author Coordinates

  About the Publisher

  Dramatis Personae

  Ivo Bianchi: Young historian born in Milan.

  Federica Dolfin: Venetian Aristocrat.

  Meryem Mahjoub: Young Moroccan with residence in Venice.

  Flavius Tullius: Centurion Roman in the 1st century BC, commander of a century.

  Lucius Sallustius: Signifer (standard bearer) of the century.

  Zhou Lian: (Lian Zhou) Chinese anthropologist.

  Andrea Bembo: Venetian Merchant of the 16th Century

  Cosimo Badoer: Young Venetian aristocrat, nephew of Bembo.

  Tiziana Bembo Badoer: Sister of Andrea, mother of Cosimo

  Pietro Badoer: father of Cosimo, husband of Tiziana.

  Bahadur: Persian warrior in the service of Andrea Bembo.

  Gerel: Woman of Mongolian origin.

  Ganzorig: Head of a Mongol horde.

  Enkhtuya: Daughter of Ganzorig.

  Chingis: Mongolian villager

  Zhou Fang: Father of Lian

  Zhou Ai: Mother of Lian.

  Zhou Bo: Brother of Lian.

  Zhou Fen: Sister of Lian

  Colonel Chang: Lian's hierarchical superior

  Riccardo and Anna Bianchi: Ivo's parents.

  Chiara and Matteo Bianchi: Brothers of Ivo.

  Enrico Maria Confalone: Noble Neapolitan, Director of the Italian Fondazione per gli Studi Storici Superiori

  Colonel Huang: Member of the secret services of the Chinese government.

  Prologue

  << What do you expect to find in China? Why do those who fund you believe that it is justified to send you for several months to find traces lost in the immensity of the Chinese desert? What important keys to European history can be found there? >> And finally <>

  With these questions in the midst of a restless dream Ivo suddenly sat up in the bed with his eyes wide open and some confusion in his mind. He looked at the alarm clock on the bedside table and saw that it was anyway time to get up and prepare his departure.

  He rose quietly so as not to wake Federica. As in the previous night they had made love until late hours he decided that it was preferable to let her sleep, even if she kept doing it when it was his time to leave. He could always say goodbye by means of a message to her cell phone. As he passed the lower part of the bed he saw that a foot of the woman was not covered by the sheets. Instinctively he bent down and kissed it, feeling himself a bit ridiculous for the gesture of tenderness. Then he covered the foot with the blanket.

  Ivo washed his face and shaved in silence, then headed to the living room where his suitcase was already half-prepared. He finished placing the things he planned to carry considering that although his stay abroad would be prolonged and the weather variations were large, he would have problems traveling with too bulky a luggage. He finally dressed in jeans and a sports jacket and was pulling on his boots when he instinctively turned his gaze to the bedroom door. In fact a sixth sense had warned him that he was being watched. Seeing her standing in her nightgown watching him produced him a slight alarm and he stood up.

  "Where do you think you're going without saying goodbye to me?" She asked with an air that was supposedly offended.

  "I did not want to ... wake you ... I ...”

  "Are you going to travel to Asia for an indefinite period without even saying goodbye?"

  "I ... I'm not very good at goodbyes, I never know what to say.”

  "We had the farewell last night. Now you cannot deprive me of every woman´s duty to shed some tears when her man leaves." Saying this Federica had surrounded his waist with her arms and stood on tiptoes trying to reach his lips without succeeding. The young man had to bow his head to consummate the kiss. Guided by custom, his hands slipped inadvertently on the woman's bottom.

  "You'll never get on that plane in this way." She said.

  In response, he slightly moved the left part of the woman's negligee, revealing a birthmark on her shoulder. It was a rather symmetrical rhombus with an approximate shape of the diamond in poker cards, and its shade was a bit darker than the rest of the woman's very white skin. She had already explained to him that it was a strange characteristic mark exclusive of members of her family that appeared sometimes skipping generations. Her maternal grandmother had had it even though her mother had not. Federica said jokingly that it was an indelible seal of nobility of her lineage.

  “You boast of knowing all my body so I'm sure then that you have seen this stain before” She said with a feline gesture. The man kissed the mark and ran his tongue over it.

  "You're not going to erase it even if you try."

  "I want to get lucky on my trip.”

  "Oh! Then it is an amulet, something like rubbing a rabbit's foot.”

  By all answer the young man moved away the hair that covered part of her face and they united in a passionate kiss.

  He placed the suitcase and the backpack into the trunk of the car and closed it. Then climbed through the passenger's door and fastened the seat belt. Federica was already leaving the building, locking the door behind her. She wore a wide dress that displayed
her beautiful silhouette, a real pride at fifty-five. The young man sighed and felt the temptation to abort the journey to stay with the woman of his dreams but the weight of all the preparations made him keep to the fulfillment of the plan. He knew that in China they were waiting for him two days later. Anyway he was counting on Federica to be expecting his return since she too was madly in love with him.

  "Go now to China," said the woman. "I do not ask you to remain faithful to me because I know you will not, but I am sure that at the end of the road you will return to me.”

  Passing through the glass door to perform the pre-shipment formalities, Ivo turned to look at her for the last time until his return, stipulated on an imprecise date but not less than six months. Federica's eyes were drawn to the side, no doubt trying to hide her tears. The irresistibly romantic scene produced a warm feeling inside Ivo.

  When she saw that the last passengers, almost all Asian, disappeared behind the gates guarded by two policemen, Federica slowly started the return to the parking lot. She knew perfectly well that a part of her heart was going with the young man and anticipated that she would feel lonely again, something that terrified her. Federica had met Ivo immediately after a very complicated divorce and he had immediately filled her life with light. The woman had had two husbands and several lovers before, but she had only known romantic love with Ivo. Full of apprehension, she started the car.

  In the two hours time before embarkation Ivo absent-mindedly walked by the free-shops, when suddenly a thought came to his mind. He pulled out his cell phone and looked for a number in its memory. After a few seconds he heard a feminine voice, somewhat childish and with a strong foreign accent.

  “Hi, Meryam. It´s me, Ivo.” The young man explained the reasons for his call from the airport, including the details of his trip to China.

  "And you call me all of a sudden; to tell me you're going to China for a long time?" The girl's tone showed real anger. Ivo had prepared a series of explanations that he knew beforehand would anyway sound empty. A little calmer, the girl replied resignedly.

  “ Surely with your taste for exotic women in the East you will satisfy your appetites.”

  "None of that, I will remain faithful to you and carry you into my memory.”

  "What fidelity are you talking about, when you live with your Marquise or Countess?" The tone was again recriminatory and jealous.

  "She has no title of nobility. Federica only belongs to an ancient family.”

  "No older than mine, only I know nothing about it."

  Already aboard the Lufthansa plane that would take him to Beijing after two stopovers and a little more than 17 hours, Ivo Bianchi allowed his nervous system to slacken, abandoning the attitude of permanent alert and the consequent anxiety that the international trips produced to him.

  With a glass of red wine on the table in his seat his mind naturally returned to review the latest developments in his life and those in perspective. His relationship with Federica was already five years old, when she was fifty and he was twenty-three. The woman was an offspring of an old family of the Venetian patriciate, divorced twice and with a daughter of approximately the age of the young man whom she seldom saw.

  After finishing his studies of history in the University Ivo had entered to work in a Foundation of historical and heraldic studies of the Veneto, for which he had to move of its native Milan. There he had met Federica who was divorcing her last husband and the infatuation had been mutual and instantaneous. The woman was a member of the Board of Directors of the Foundation and had a preponderant role in it, since the rest of the vowels were elderly people who lived scattered in the north of Italy.

  Apart from romantic love and companionship, Federica and he had explored all the possibilities of eroticism and neither had sexual fantasies they had not satisfied. Ivo knew every intimate corner of her body as few men know their partners, and the woman could say the same.

  Although Federica had remained faithful to him, she had tolerated the boy's escapades with Meryem, the young Moroccan with whom he had a sporadic but torrid relationship. For Ivo, the relationship with Federica was a placid brook that ran in the forest, while the one he had with Meryem resembled more a volcano.

  When two months earlier the president of the Foundation had brought the proposal of his trip to the consideration of the Governing Board Federica had fervently supported it and finally had obtained its approval. It was the President, a knight of the Order of Malta who had promoted the appointment of Ivo to carry out the fieldwork in China, and Federica had supported it in the midst of sighs.

  Her relationship with the Venetian nobility, according to the data that Federica had about her own origins, could be traced back to the most powerful families of the Republica Serenissima di Venezia since at least the 13th century when her ancestors had hobbled with the Dandolo and others Princes who handled the city and its naval traffic. Nevertheless, for many years the woman had been member of a militant group of the most radical left and participated openly in all kinds of public demonstrations. This apparent contradiction was among the details of her character that Ivo loved most, even though in his inmost heart he was convinced that they were poses adopted by his lover, incapable of living without being surrounded by comfort and a certain luxury.

  While the boy was lost in those pleasant thoughts the memory of the questions with which he had awakened startled returned like a flash to his mind. He found that during the day elapsed he had unconsciously worked out the answer of at least the last one of them: Why do you abandon the comfort of Venice and the body of your loved one to undertake this trip? Ivo smiled as he became aware of the answer.

  << For the sake of adventure, of course. >>

  Indeed, the desire to do something with his life before plunging into the tedium of a chair of Classical History or a function in a museum was the engine that drove him to accept the challenge of the unknown.

  Finally the fatigue of the preparations for the trip overcame him and drowsiness undermined the resistances of the vigil.

  Chapter 1

  Year 53 BC- Carrhae (Nowadays Harran- Turkey)

  Desiring to equate the warlike exploits of Julius Caesar and Pompey, Licinius Crassus, the richest man in Rome and one of the three members of the government that controlled the city and the Roman Republic, left Syria at the head of an army composed of seven legions with 45,000 men, including infantry, riders and archers in order to conquer the mighty Parthian Empire. Once the Euphrates River was transposed, his troops were attacked and beaten by the fearsome Parthians at the Battle of Carrhae (present-day Harran, Turkey), with some 20,000 men perishing, including Crassus himself, who was beheaded by the enemies while attempting to negotiate with them. Only 10,000 legionaries returned alive to Syria. The victors let about 10000 prisoners to stay alive on condition of serving the empire childbirth as custodians of its eastern border. So they were sent to Bactriana, on the banks of the Opus River, in what is now Afghanistan. Their mission there was to contain the precursors of the dangerous Huns who tried to enter the empire territory.

  From that moment there is an interregnum during which there is no information about the fate of the legionaries. After later defeating the Parthians, the Romans managed to retrieve the banners of the legions, but they did not obtain any details of the destiny of these soldiers.

  Cordillera de Pamir- Central Asia- Year 41 BC

  The centurion Flavius Tullius raised his right hand indicating to the rest of the diminished century that they would rest in the small plain where they had arrived after a strenuous effort.

  Grateful, the legionnaires at his command dropped into the place where they were. They all knew that the centurion was a hard and demanding man, but they also recognized that they had only survived and escaped from the state of slavery of the Parthian Empire thanks to Tullius and other born leaders like him.

  Signifer Lucius Sallustius carefully placed the banner of the unit on the ground and looked at it. The insignia had kno
wn better times and Lucius remembered the pride with which the portade to the unlucky crossing of the River Euphrates twelve years before. His position in the century was second in command under Tullius and he was in charge of carrying the banner that played an important role in the battles as it visually indicated the course to follow, points of regrouping and other tactical instructions. The legionaries in the heat of the battle constantly watched the course of the banner to place themselves in the battlefield. Being a signifier was a place of honor in the Roman legions and Lucius had been named for his bravery and sagacity in combat.

  The man, who was still young but worn out by a life of struggle and deprivation, sat on a high cliff that gave him a broad view of the two valleys that converged on the mountain where they were. The landscape was completely covered with snow except on the steepest slopes and the view stretched in an infinite distance. The Roman had to admit that in other circumstances he would enjoy a beautiful and awe-inspiring sight.

  One of the legionaries approached each one of his companions with a large container of water with which he filled the jug that his comrades extended to him. Indeed, combating dehydration was a primary task at a mountain crossing. The signifer extended his jug and listened in silence to the sound of the liquid being poured. The Legionnaire continued on his way, and Lucius carried his vessel to his mouth. At that moment his eyes saw a movement barely perceptible in the bottom of the valley that was opposite him. It was hard to pin down what it was because of the distance that Lucius estimated in more than two miles, as well as a certain fog that covered the valleys as the temperature dropped further. He frowned, trying to get a better focus on the object, and soon saw a kind of long line that his military experience identified as a column of marching men.

  The signifer called one of his subordinates who were near him, a youngster that by the time of the Legion's entry into Asia must have been almost a child, and told him.

  "Adair, call the centurion and tell him to come here. There is something he must see.”