The Gathering of the Storm

10

At first there was discontent and opposition among his own men at the thought of joining with the Kutrigur Huns.

‘Imagine what terror we will strike into the hearts of our enemies now!’ said Geukchu. ‘With such great numbers! My lord, what strength in unity we shall have!’ But it was impossible to tell if Geukchu was sincere.

‘Let us hope,’ chirruped Little Bird, his meaning both sarcastic and insincere and sincere all at once, as always. ‘Let us hope that we do not pass by a clear lake on our journey. Our reflection would surely kill us with terror! And let us hope, also, that our pleasant amity with our Kutrigur kinsmen lasts. Civil war is always so messy and-’

‘Peace, fool,’ Attila cut him off. ‘We march under one banner.’

‘And one king?’

‘There can be only one king.’ Attila glared at Little Bird. ‘And another thing. I will not have you throwing your barbs at the chieftain, Sky-in-Tatters.’ Little Bird’s eyes glittered with malicious expectation at the thought of taunting that ox-like fool, but Attila narrowed his eyes and pointed his forefinger at him. ‘Understand. You can throw your barbs at me all you like, I care not. Words are just words. But men like Sky-in-Tatters do not take kindly to such humiliation. Words frighten them. And you will not break up this fragile alliance of our two tribes with your mischief.’

Chanat sat cross-legged in the dust. He did not look up, his long shaggy greying hair half-concealing his face. He spoke quietly but clearly.

‘My lord, the Kutrigurs are not our people. Their ways are not our ways. Their customs…’ He turned aside and spat into the dust, and they all knew to which customs he was referring. ‘Their customs are not our customs.’

‘Nor are the customs of…’ Little Bird shivered and could not say her name. ‘Nor are the customs of the witch my customs.’

‘She saved my life.’

‘Yet she smells of death.’

Attila stroked his thin beard and ignored Little Bird, but he looked steadily at Chanat with glittering eyes, every fibre tensed like steel.

‘You are telling me,’ he said very softly, ‘that I am mistaken?’

Chanat looked up and returned his king’s gaze. ‘I am. My lord, I beg you, let us return another way and leave these people. They are not our kin, they are not our people, and I fear that their customs and their dark name will follow us to the ends of the earth. Shake them off as a dog shakes off its fleas.’

The atmosphere was tense with opposition. Any moment the king could have flared out in fury. The silence was exhausting.

At last Attila gave his judgement: ‘The Kutrigur Huns, our kinsmen, stay with us.’

There was a moment’s silence, then Chanat drove his knife-blade into the dust, got to his feet and walked away into the darkness.

Beside a campfire he saw the witch, Enkhtuya, cooking a gobbet of meat on a stick. It looked like a heart.

Enkhtuya did not come back to Attila. His dressings were changed again by the woman who had ministered to him that first day. She was gentle, and she breathed on her cupped hands to warm them before she unwrapped his dressings. She was not so young, but her hands were still soft.

‘You have a husband?’

She kept her head down low and did not meet his eyes. ‘He was killed. Not in the battle,’ she added hurriedly. ‘Last winter.’

‘Hm.’

When she had finished, he ran his hand under the hem of her deerskin dress and caressed the back of her thigh.

She looked away with her head bowed low. But she did not move.

Later, as she left the tent, she dared to look back at him and murmur, ‘You are feeling better, my lord?’

He turned and growled after her and she fled.

Already, what had been an uneasy truce between enemies was growing into something else. Though it had seemed impossible that men who had seen their brothers, father and sons slain by these arrogant intruders should end serving shoulder to shoulder with them in battle, now it began to seem that it might come to pass. A unity might be forged. The Kutrigurs loved war and conquest more than they loved hatred and revenge. Though cruel and barbarous in their customs, they were not without a rude nobility.

Attila talked for long hours with Sky-in-Tatters. Him, too, he found more amenable than at first. The bull-necked chieftain had no cunning, and no insight into men’s hearts, but he was strong, simple and candid, and Attila began to warm to him.

Out on the wintry plains, in a dusting of snow, he began to observe and then to lead the Kutrigurs in field exercises.

Sky-in-Tatters would remain chief of the Kutrigurs, of course. In matters of tribal law and punishment, in the arranging and approving of marriages, in the burial of the dead, he would remain supreme authority among his people. But in matters of warfare, he gave way, acknowledging the newcomer’s superiority. And he who rules in war rules in everything.

Attila’s men numbered ninety-one, of the chosen band of one hundred who had originally set out. Many of the wounded Kutrigurs had died groaning in their tents, bewailed by women dishevelled and cloaked in ashes. But many more had mended. The number of their combined men-at-arms still stood at over two thousand, their horses at four times that number. Their ambition was limitless as the sky.

And so by the common mingling of the two tribes, by the growth of ordinary comradeship, by the Hun nations’ inveterate delight in war, greed for gold and longing for plunder from that great, fabled, tottering empire to the west that was called Rome, as well as by the gentler powers of courtship and marriage, the Black and the Kutrigur Huns were hammered into a unity.

There would be jewels heaped up in gleaming piles, and dark-eyed slavegirls, and horses, the finest horses, from Araby, from the Barbary Coast, the equal of the Horses of Heaven.

At this, even Sky-in-Tatters objected. ‘There are no horses like the Horses of Heaven,’ he said. ‘Even the Emperor of China longs to be the owner of the Horses of Heaven.’

‘The horses of Araby are their equal,’ said Attila.

‘You lie.’

‘I do not lie.’

Again Sky-in-Tatters saw the lantern-light of truth in those unflinching yellow eyes, and was forced to admit grudging defeat. ‘I should like to see these horses of Araby.’

To his own men, Attila said that they might take widows for wives, or any old women – that is to say, any women older than thirty summers. He had done as much himself. The woman he had taken was a widow, and at twenty-eight certainly approaching old age. But they were to take or pursue no virgins. His men looked disgruntled, but did as he commanded.

‘My lord,’ said old Chanat afterwards in private. ‘The women of the Kutrigurs. If we must take them to wife, as you command…’

Attila turned and regarded him quizzically.

‘First impressions are not good.’ Chanat whittled a stick.

‘Not so good,’ agreed his king.

‘It is long since I have looked on a woman. Usually such length of time alone in one’s tent is enough to lower one’s standards.’

‘Broaden one’s interests,’ said Attila.

‘You speak like a Persian.’

A woman passed among the tents some way off, carrying water.

‘Look at that one,’ said Attila, nodding. ‘What about her?’

Chanat screwed up his eyes, and then his whole face, as if he was sucking a lemon. ‘She must be nearly forty summers.’

‘Older women,’ said Attila, ‘have more experience, more appetite, and much more gratitude.’

Chanat grunted.

The next day Chanat came to his king again.

‘The breasts are not good,’ he said, ‘a pair of horsechestnut leaves in autumn. But the other things you said are compensation.’

‘My heart soars like a hawk for you, Chanat,’ said Attila.

He was sitting crosslegged at the fireside with Orestes in companionable silence when he heard a familiar tread behind him. He held up his hand.

‘Chanat, if it is to tell me more about your marital problems, I’m not interested.’

‘On the contrary, my lord.’

Attila twisted round and saw that the old warrior was grinning from ear to ear.

‘And I have no greater wish to hear about your marital triumphs, either.’

‘I have discovered,’ went on Chanat unabashed, ‘that my new woman’s husband was the man we killed on the first day, on the rise, when Yesukai, rest him, set the partridges off into the air.’

‘I remember. So why are you grinning like a monkey? You have to tie her hand and foot before you can sleep at night, in case she cuts your throat while you snore?’

‘On the contrary,’ cried Chanat, laughing. ‘She detested him with all her ferocious heart!’ He came over and stood near, talking as rapidly and excitedly as a young man bragging to his fellows. ‘She hated him. It was good that this man died. He was a brute to her, he beat her for pleasure. He had a long seasoned cane that he kept specially for the purpose. He laughed. It amused him to count her bruises each morning, to set her foolish tasks, only to see her drudge and droil. We should have killed him with sticks.’

Attila grunted.

‘And you know why he was so angry a man?’ Chanat put his hand to his groin, crooked his little finger and waggled it absurdly. ‘Like a marmot!’ he cried. ‘Like a gnat!’ Attila regarded him with curiosity. Chanat was almost choking with laughter. He recovered himself a little and wiped the tears of mirth from his eyes. ‘You know, of course, that all men so cursed by the ill-humour of the gods are petty-minded and irritable, bad-tempered, spiteful and vain.’

‘And naturally, none of these qualities applies to you, friend Chanat.’

‘Of course not!’ he roared, holding his sinewy forearm bolt upright before his face by way of illustration. ‘And as for my woman, not only does her new man not beat her for amusement, but she is only too happy to see his long seasoned cane, I can tell you! She is a very happy woman! There is nothing she will not do for me!’ With another roar of laughter he turned and strode out of the tent.

They looked after him.

‘This new wife,’ murmured Orestes. ‘She may be old, but her attentions are making him like a young man again.’

‘It is what the Chinese call the mixing of yin and yang,’ said Attila. ‘Remember our conversations with our captive monk beside the Yellow River? Chanat’s ch’i is again in full flow.’

Orestes shuddered. Attila grinned.

Orestes reached into his robe and pulled out a small carved ornament. ‘Talking of the Chinese,’ he said, and handed it to Attila.

The king examined it closely. It was a bronze clasp for a nobleman’s robe. ‘Where did you find it?’

‘Not I,’ said Orestes. ‘Geukchu – eyes like a hawk. Out on the plains, in the grass. Not far from the Dzungarian gap.’

‘So far north,’ Attila mused. ‘Plunder?’

‘It’s possible. But it’s also possible the armies of the Northern Wei are on the march.’

It was midwinter, and the steppes stretched away on every side boundless and bare, dusted white with snow. Three months ago they had said goodbye to their women and to their tiny, wide-eyed children and set out from their camp. It seemed to some of the men that it was many years ago. It had been late autumn then, and their going at that drear time of year had astonished many of the elders. Since then it had grown much colder. But Attila said the shortest day of the year was now past. Soon it would be Tsagaan Sar, the new year, and soon after that spring. They laughed bitterly. Spring came slowly up this way, and never soon enough.

Sometimes the north wind blew out of the heart of Scythia, and then even the strongest men sat in the tents with the women and jostled for a place by the fireside. In the corrals, horses died on their feet, fell to the hard ground in a cloud of ice. But sometimes a southerly breeze blew, and then it was almost warm enough for the snow to melt, and for the great slow-moving ice floes coming downriver from the north to thaw and melt in midstream. Then the men strolled around bare-armed and basked in the thin sunshine, the younger naked to the waist, grinning and joking how balmy it was, their coppery skin showing a distinct and curious blue-grey undertone.

Attila went to Sky-in-Tatters on such a balmy day. ‘It is time we broke camp and went east.’

The chief looked at him in astonishment. ‘It is midwinter,’ he said.

‘Time does not stand still,’ said Attila. ‘Nor should we.’

‘What is your hurry?’

Attila grimaced. ‘There is the whole world left to conquer.’

‘You want to ride against this empire of Rome? In winter?’

He shook his head. ‘It will take more than our two thousand to ride against Rome, however drilled they are. We ride east. There are more allies there who will join us. And among the mountains of the Altun Shan, there is a remote kingdom, ruled by a syphilitic god-king. His people are numerous, his warriors are idle but strong. There are still others. Many will join us. We must not linger.’

Sky-in-Tatters folded his thick arms across his chest and stuck out his jaw. ‘It is not possible,’ he said, ‘to ride into the mountains in winter.’

‘What does not kill us makes us stronger.’

‘I have spoken in judgement,’ said Sky-in-Tatters. ‘We ride out in spring. The day of the first windflower, and not before.’

They rode out three days later, Sky-in-Tatters rueful and silent. This yellow-eyed bandit king’s powers of persuasion were very great.

Before they went east, Attila broke away from the huge, lumbering train of oxen and wagons and numberless horses, and rode alone back to the high plateau. He found the villagers huddled under mere awnings amid the blackened ruins of their huts. He sought out the old priestess. She emerged and offered him bread and salt. He declined.

‘We ride east,’ he said.

‘In winter? That is folly.’

He sighed. ‘I have had this argument before.’

She pulled a face. Other villagers gathered curiously around.

‘The river is yours. It is restored to you.’

The people stared at him in astonishment, and then at each other. Then they began to babble and laugh, and they moved forward to embrace their saviour’s legs, his horse’s neck, anything. He heeled Chagelghan gently backwards and bowed.

‘The river is yours, as it always was,’ he said. ‘Your gods be thanked.’

The old priestess was regarding him curiously.

‘You can even eat fish again,’ said Attila, ‘if you must.’

She almost managed a smile. ‘You do not like fish?’

‘As lovers do the dawn, madam.’ He grinned and yawed his horse furiously round and several villagers leaped aside to avoid him. ‘As lovers do the dawn!’ He bunched the reins tight in his fists and his biceps bulged and he drove his heels into his horse’s flanks and roared a grating ‘Yah!’ and Chagelghan gathered himself upon his thick, squat haunches, reared and surged forward. In a flurry of dust and powdery snow, horse and rider vanished across the desolate plateau.

The villagers rushed about like excited ants. By nightfall they would be restored to their beloved riverside. They would pick up driftwood there, coming down from the northern forests, and soon build themselves new huts. Then they would drink and feast and praise their gods and their Mother Naga as never before. Only one figure stood still among the commotion. The old priestess hunched over her knobbly stick, gazing out eastwards over the plateau, her thin lips moving as if in prayer.

Many among both the Black and the Kutrigur Huns looked back on that winter ride into the east as they might on an uncertain dream. Always at their head, face bowed to the snow and the blizzards of daggers and ice, rode that single, solitary, implacable figure, hunched over in a black bearskin, refusing to countenance any other way.

How many of them died on that trail of ice and snow, it was hard to say. Enough men buried their women by the wayside, enough women buried their children as well as they could beneath cairns of ice, to have caused an angry rebellion. But there was none. The yellow-eyed bandit king had spoken, and it was as if a far higher authority had spoken, an authority no man could gainsay.

They rode over frozen rocklands and stones, and through the cruel Dzungarian gap, a fifty-mile corridor of brutal wind that they called the buran, howling between the holy Altai Mountains and the towering Tien Shan, the Mountains of Heaven. As they passed by Attila made a sign of sacred respect towards the High Altai, as if he knew them for a second home. He had been there long, it was said, in his time. But what gods, what shamans, what occult rites he had seen or known in those distant mountains, no man can say.

In summer those mountains were a land of green and plenty, crocuses breaking from the brown earth as the days warmed, and pistachio and walnut forests growing on the southern slopes. But they passed by on the northern side, and in winter, and there was no warmth or respite for them.

Hunting was sparse and the animals were lean. At times they caught great bustard on the grasslands ringed by the mountains, which ringed them about and watched like cold, indifferent heavenly spectators over the vast, treeless plain. Occasionally their outriders glimpsed ibex, corsac fox, even the rare and magical sight of the snow leopard pacing slow and silent over the drifts upon the lower slopes. Camped by frozen rivers, where they had to smash the ice with picks to reach water, they were joined after dark by other animals drawn to the river: wild dogs, grunting brown bears, the last fleet-footed, high-strung Asian cheetahs.

The cold and leaden skies were patrolled by black vultures and imperial eagles, watching them in their turn. They buried their dead deep.