Attila

3

Nearly a month later, a single rider, naked to the waist, with his hair worn long and oiled and his moustache luxuriant, rode into the city of Ravenna. The guards blocked his path at first, but when he said who he was from they reluctantly allowed him to pass, albeit accompanied by an armed escort.

At last, deprived of his horse, thoroughly searched for weapons – he carried none – and obliged to don a white cloak over his sinewy shoulders for the sake of decency, he was allowed into the presence of the Emperor of Rome.

The emperor’s sister was also present. A woman – seated on her own throne, as if the equal of a man! These Romans, thought the warrior with distaste.

He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, and instead of keeping his eyes respectfully bowed to the elaborate mosaic floor he dared to look the Divine Emperor Honorius in the face.

These barbarians, thought the emperor with distaste.

‘ Asla konusma Khlatina,’ said the warrior. ‘ Sizmeli konusmat Ioung.’

There was some uncourtly confusion while the palace chamberlains scuttled about looking for an interpreter who could understand the ugly language of the Huns. An awkward silence reigned meanwhile in the vast, dimly glittering Chamber of the Imperial Audience. The messenger’s eyes never left the face of the emperor. It was intolerable. Honorius looked down into his lap. His sister stared coldly back at the Hun messenger. His bold, slanted eyes reminded her unpleasantly of the eyes of another, younger visitor from the steppes.

At last an interpreter was found, and arrived in the Chamber looking frankly terrified. He stood trembling, some steps behind the Hun warrior, and waited for him to speak again. When the warrior repeated his words, the poor man looked even more stricken at the unenviable prospect of having to translate such impertinent words to the frosty Imperial Throne.

‘ Asla konusma Khlatina,’ repeated the warrior. ‘ Sizmeli konusmat Ioung.’

The translator stammered, ‘He says, “I do not speak Latin. You must speak Hun.”’

‘We had already surmised his ignorance of the learned tongues,’ cut in Galla Placidia.

The emperor glanced nervously at his sister, and then turned to the messenger and, via the interpreter, offered his greetings.

‘Likewise,’ said his sister, ‘our greetings to your king, the noble Ruga.’

The warrior did not offer greetings in return. There was a further silence, further moments of excruciating embarrasment, for all, it seemed, except the warrior himself.

At last Princess Galla said to the interpreter, ‘Do you think you could trouble him to inform us why we are so blessed with his gracious presence, on this particular day? I can’t imagine that he has ridden all this way from God knows what lawless outer darkness, just to tell us that he knows no Latin.’

Looking shakier than ever, the interpreter prompted the Hun.

The warrior remained inscrutable. At last he said, ‘My name is Chanat, the son of Subotai.’

Galla arched her eyebrows. ‘I’m afraid I have not had the pleasure of your father’s acquaintance.’

Chanat ignored her sarcasm. ‘I come with a message from my king.’

The emperor quivered a little. His sister’s lips tightened, becoming more bloodless than ever, but she said nothing.

‘One moon since,’ said Chanat, ‘the king’s nephew, Attila, son of Mundzuk, returned home to the camp of the Huns, beyond the Kharvad Mountains.’

There was silence.

‘He told us that he had escaped from being a hostage in this land, that you Romans had plotted to kill him.’

‘He lies!’ cried Galla Placidia.

Reluctantly, Chanat supposed that, if the woman addressed him, he must address her. These Romans… ‘He is a prince of the royal blood,’ he said calmly. ‘He does not lie.’

For a long while the icy eyes of Galla and the slanted eyes of the Hun warrior met across the vast, brittle space of the Audience Chamber. It was Galla who, at last, looked away.

‘In all the moons and years and generations henceforth,’ resumed the warrior, addressing Honorius, ‘the Hun nation will never ally with Rome again.’

The emperor looked up from his lap, where he had been watching his sweaty fingers writhe around each other in perplexity. ‘You are going to come and attack us?’

Galla winced with irritation.

Chanat remained motionless. ‘What I have said, I have said.’

Honorius looked down at his writhing fingers again, thinking how horribly they looked like maggots, and then he cried shrilly, ‘I could have you killed!’

Galla was about to signal to one of her chamberlains to come and escort them away, for the audience was clearly at an end, when the warrior spoke again.

‘Nothing you could do to me,’ he said, smiling broadly, as if at a joke, ‘would be so terrible as what my lord and king would do to me if I failed him.’

Honorius stared at this terrifying barbarian for a little while longer, his small round mouth agape. Then, with a high-pitched shriek, he sprang from his throne and ran off down the steps towards the rooms behind, clutching his skirts up round his bony shanks as he went. His sister stood and hurried after him.

The moment they were gone, Chanat ripped apart the delicate brooch that held the white silk cloak around his shoulders. The cloak slithered from his golden, lean-muscled torso and fell with a whisper to the floor. He turned and trod it underfoot and walked out of the Chamber of the Imperial Audience.

At the gates of the city, his horse was returned to him. He checked the reins, and found that not one of the decorative gold coins was missing. He complimented the guards on their honesty in perfect Latin, vaulted onto his horse, and rode away across the causeway over the flat Ravenna marshlands towards home.

Attila and Aetius hunted together more and more, along with their slaves, Orestes and Cadoc, until they began to be referred to among the People simply as ‘the Four Boys’.

They competed endlessly in games of wrestling and swordplay, spear- and noose-throwing, or the ancient Hun game involving furious galloping after an inflated pig’s bladder which they called a pulu. They came to worship Chanat, the greatest and most fearless warrior among all the People, but he told them to admire not strength but wisdom.

‘Wisdom,’ snorted Attila. ‘Give me strength any time.’

Chanat shook his head. Then he began to speak; strangely, he spoke of Little Bird, though Attila had not mentioned the mad shaman.

Nearby Aetius stopped to listen, his deep blue eyes grave in his fine-featured face. He, too, wondered about Little Bird, this high-born Roman boy, raised on the solemn teachings of Seneca and Epictetus as much as the doctrines of the Holy Catholic Church, and all their fine words about the wisdom of Providence, and the ultimate goodness of the world. In his heart the words and songs of Little Bird frightened him more than any other.

‘There are many reputed to be wise in this world,’ began Chanat slowly, ‘but we among the People know that Little Bird alone in all his madness is wise. He is wise because he is god-maddened. He alone has walked with the gods in counsel. He sat for nine winters and nine summers on a mountaintop in the holy Altai Mountains, and he ate nothing but a grain of rice a day. For water he sucked the snowflakes that landed on his lips. And for nine long years he never once opened his eyes upon the sensate world, but walked only with the gods, with the unknown powers behind the curtain of the world. When he came back, he came back not with a message of comfort.’

They waited for his words.

‘He came back from them, those beings with hawk-heads and eagle-eyes, who cast shadows on the earth bigger than mountains, those makers of the bear’s claw and the boar’s tusk – such things delight them. Since then, Little Bird only dances, or sings nonsense songs, or talks with his only friend, the wind. He delightedly mocks any who speak wise, grave words about the justice of the heavens, or the high duty and destiny of men. For, he says, we men are only the idle jokes of God.’

Aetius was afraid of Little Bird; or at least of the words that Little Bird madly spoke and sang. And he knew that his friend Attila was afraid, too.