The Judgement

15

The general was shaken awake only a few hours later.

‘There are campfires burning all over the plain.’ It was Prince Theodoric.

He flung his cloak round him and they hurried outside, onto the walls. It was a pitch-black night, with no moon and thin skeins of cloud dimming even the stars. Someone offered him a torch to see his way but he damned him for a fool and told him to put it out. And then they were on the walls of Azimuntium, and the plains all about them were a sea of blackness studded golden with myriad campfires, like a fallen starlit sky.

‘So,’ he nodded. ‘They have come.’

‘The demand has been delivered already: an arrow over the gates.’

‘Let me guess. Surrender or die?’

‘In as many words,’ said Theodoric. ‘What do we do now?’

‘A small hill-town and a column of forty spearmen, facing a Hun battle group of thousands? We ride out and attack ’em, of course.’

Theodoric looked unconvinced. They watched the flickering campfires for a time, then Aetius gestured at the nearest. ‘How far out are they, would you say? The nearest?’

‘Hard to tell by night. Not so far.’

‘Choose four of your best men. Mounted.’

‘Myself among them,’ interrupted Arapovian.

Aetius’ eyes narrowed. ‘You are as good as the wolf-lords? ’

‘Better. I survived Viminacium.’

He grunted. ‘Prince, take three of your wolf-lords, and this one. Ride from the postern gate. The night is very dark. See if you can take a captive out there. Do not endanger your lives, not for one moment. Do you understand?’

Theodoric nodded and the four departed for the stables below.

The postern gate was opened without a sound, and left open, spearmen ranked inside. The four rode out at a walk with their horses’ hooves and muzzles bound in sacking, praying that the beasts would make no other noise, no friendly harrumphs to the horses of the Huns among the black felt tents. It would be pure luck if they did not. The riders wore dark cloaks, no helmets, and rode with their faces streaked with earth and bowed so as not to catch any light. The only weapons they dared carry were whips.

An old warrior stood in the darkness beside his tent, his campfire long since burned out. The four riders stopped in the shadow of a slight depression. The old warrior was naked to the waist, belting up his breeches. Arapovian dismounted, moved round behind him and dropped a cloth bag over his head and gagged him before he knew what had happened. The next tent was a mere ten yards off but the occupants were already sleeping, and the four made no sound louder than a mouse in a cornfield. In their haughtiness the Huns had not posted a single lookout.

They bound their captive with their whips. Another, smaller figure came out of the tent behind so they felled him and gagged and bound him likewise, and then pulled them back to the town behind their horses. The old warrior struggled mightily and threatened to cause trouble, so Jormunreik knocked him cold with a mighty fist to the back of his neck, and then they dragged him along peacefully enough in the dirt behind them like a travois. It was all done in two or three minutes, the postern gate latched and bolted again, the prisoners shaken back to consciousness and hauled up to the gatehouse for Aetius’ inspection.

‘Asla konusma Khlatina,’ growled the old warrior, his head still covered. ‘Sizmeli konusmat Ioung.’

‘Oh, I’ll wager you speak Latin very well,’ said Aetius evenly. ‘As I speak Hunnish.’ He glanced aside. ‘Light more lamps.’

They sat the two captives on stools and pulled off the first bag from the smaller warrior.

‘You’ve brought me a woman,’ said Aetius, glaring round at them. ‘You dolts.’

Prince Theodoric began to protest at this unchivalrous attitude, but Aetius silenced him. ‘Don’t add to your doltishness,’ he snapped. ‘It’s the Huns who don’t value women, not I. They’ll laugh in our faces if we demand favours in exchange for this one.’ He held the lamp up to the woman’s face. Dark hair, olive skin, a long, narrow face: she was no Hun. ‘My apologies for any rough handling, ’ he said more gently. ‘Where were you captured?’

‘Philippopolis,’ she said. ‘My husband-’

‘Calm yourself. You are free now.’

She tried to speak again, but another voice interrupted.

‘Leave her be,’ it growled. ‘She is a good ride.’

They pulled off the other bag to reveal an old warrior with fine long grey hair and oiled moustaches, his naked torso copper in the lamplight, as lean and hard as that of a man half his age. His arm muscles bulged and strained against the whip.

‘You are in no position to give orders,’ said Aetius. ‘And I have no desire to know about your carnal preferences.’

‘Astur curse you,’ spat the old warrior. ‘Cut my throat and have done. But know that I have no fear of you or your women, who sneak about in the night like pigeon-livered slaves.’

Jormunreik stepped nearer to him, but Aetius held up his hand. He was beginning to enjoy this obstreperous old warrior’s company. Then Arapovian came forward, examining the old warrior’s face more closely.

‘You were at Viminacium. You met us on the road.’

The Hun glanced up at him, uninterested.

‘You said the next time you met us, you would kill us.’ Arapovian’s eyes glimmered with cold mirth. ‘Well, here we are.’

The Hun bared his teeth.

Arapovian turned to the general. ‘This one is compensation for the woman. This one you can bargain with. He is a khan.’

‘You, your people will bargain for,’ said Aetius. ‘What is your name?’

‘I am the Lord Chanat, son of the Lord Subotai. In my youth I once visited your Ravenna, doing the bidding of King Ruga. I have never forgotten your city.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Indeed. The foul stench of it stays in my memory still – worse than the stench of these sneak-thief women standing about me now.’

Aetius grinned. ‘If you think Ravenna smells bad, you should try Rome.’

Chanat scowled at his flippancy. ‘In those days, the Romans tried to kill King Ruga’s nephew, the boy Attila.’

Aetius nodded. ‘I knew him once. We rode together.’

Chanat looked momentarily puzzled as he scrutinised the Roman.

‘From what I have heard of those days,’ said Aetius, ‘it was not so simple. King Ruga was not averse to his troublesome nephew… disappearing, one way or another. And he was very fond of Roman gold.’

‘You lie!’ Chanat struggled against his bonds, but Arapovian snatched at his whip and tightened it.

‘Ancient history,’ said Aetius, waving his hand. ‘Is King Attila with you now?’

‘You think I would tell you if he was?’

‘Not really. We’ll find out soon enough.’

Chanat snarled. ‘Now Attila Tashur-Astur is our King, and a Great Tanjou, and you tried to kill him again, in your sneak-thief, womanly way, to cut his throat as he lay sleeping, as you visited us in pretended peace and friendship. ’ He leaned forward and spat. ‘You failed, of course. At all times, Astur watches over him. Nothing can stand against him. And now he has come to kill you.’ He looked around. ‘All of you.’

Aetius ignored him. ‘So. We have ourselves a Hun khan, as well as one of his captured concubines.’

‘I have seven wives,’ said Chanat with dignity. ‘But it is long since I have known them.’

Aetius considered, then ordered Chanat taken to the dungeons. To the woman he said, ‘The sisters in the convent will care for you.’

The woman looked after Chanat with something like agony on her face. ‘My lord!’ she cried. Then she turned desperately to Aetius. ‘I will stay with him.’

‘You… you would go to the dungeons with him?’ Aetius frowned. ‘But you mentioned a husband?’

She spat. ‘A pig.’

Chanat turned in the doorway, a grin of triumph on his broad, high-cheekboned face.

Aetius said, ‘I’ve heard of ravished maidens in old tales falling for their divine ravishers, but this is ridiculous.’

‘Your women would rather go with us, eh, Roman?’ crowed Chanat.

Aetius waved his hand irritably. ‘Take them away.’

At dawn, he sat his horse at the gate, with Prince Theodoric and two of the wolf-lords. Lord Ariobarzanes came down the cobbled street to wish them well. He stopped beside Aetius. His old hand shook on his walking stick, but his voice was even and his words uncompromising.

‘Not one breath of surrender, now,’ he said. ‘The men of Azimuntium do not surrender. Never, ever, ever. Remember our demands. We want our flocks and our herds returned to us, every single animal they carried off, and the shepherds they have enslaved. When that is done, their captive will be returned to them, this Chanat, and then the Huns may ride back to their own land unmolested. ’

Aetius smiled. He liked the old man’s attitude.

‘All barbarians are the same,’ said Ariobarzanes, ‘They despise weakness, they admire strength.’ His voice dropped to a mutter. ‘As old Rome did once.’

Aetius kicked his horse forward and they rode out, unarmed, under a fluttering white flag of truce.

A gang of Huns on motley ponies immediately rode with them, arrows to the bow, aimed at their hearts.

‘There is no need. We have no weapons,’ said Aetius.

The Huns’ faces were expressionless and the light in their eyes burned hard and their bows did not waver. They were small compared to the wolf-lords, riding half-naked, their arms and chests pure strength and sinew.

‘Who is the leader of your battle group?’ asked Aetius.

One of the warriors indicated a black tent and grunted. They dismounted and were herded in. There in the half-light of early morning, beneath the smoke-hole of the tent, on a plain wooden stool sat the Lord Attila.

He regarded them steadily. The atmosphere was very different from that of the embassy – the supposed embassy.

No word was spoken for a time. And then another figure entered, a small, antic shaman with ribbons in his hair. His cheeks were very smooth and boyish but his eyes were old and cunning, and his hair bound up in a topknot was tatty grey.

‘The years roll back, Little Father,’ he murmured, coming close to Aetius with careful steps and staring at him. ‘This fine old warhorse, I have seen him before, a young colt in the fields of the Huns.’ He glanced back at Attila. ‘He drew a sword, white boy drew a sword.’

Attila’s glittering yellow eyes never left Aetius’ face, but now he waved his hand and told the shaman to be silent.

‘Where it chatters, Little Bird, water’s but shallow.’

The shaman disregarded him, and began to caper more and more, though slowly, an arthritic old clown on tired legs. ‘The years roll back, the years roll back. Yes, your uncle Ruga of blessed memory, uncle nuncle was he, he struck you to the ground, you were always a terror as a boy, scarce out of the womb and cut from the caul you were trouble. O Terror of the World, Great Tanjou, my Lord Widow-maker, Scourge of God and all your other magnificent titles which I forget now, he struck you, Uncle Ruga did, and white boy drew a sword in your defence. You hunted together, you frolicked, you did, on the sunny plains in your youth.’ Little Bird paused for breath. ‘I remember that big boar. Huge it was, and rancid-tasting by the time you dragged it home. What joker-gods look down! He was your friend, this one. Now look at you, like two old buffalo fighting over the herd!’

There was a long silence, and then, as if he could not speak a word directly to Aetius, Attila turned instead to Prince Theodoric.

‘So, a Visigoth prince once more in the camp of the Huns. I did not have the pleasure of making your acquaintance when you made your. .. embassy. I had other things on my mind, my impending assassination and so forth. Your name, boy?’

The prince told him.

‘What verminous company you keep. Your men slew many of my men in the mountains.’

‘We were attacked.’

‘My heart bleeds for you.’ Attila’s eyes glimmered. ‘You would make a precious hostage, would you not? Why should I release you?’

‘In exchange for your Lord Chanat,’ said Theodoric. Aetius clenched his hands behind his back. Yes. The boy was doing well.

‘So,’ rasped Attila. ‘You ride with the Romans now?’

‘My brother and I and our retinue ride as the friends of Aetius.’

‘Friends and assassins?’

‘I knew no more of that low plot than did the master-general here.’

‘How many men left in your retinue?’

Theodoric smiled. ‘Enough.’

Attila smiled too, differently.

‘The Visigothic nation remains neutral,’ said the prince.

Then Attila leaned forward, and his eyes burned, and all in the tent felt the ferocious power that was in him. His voice changed and his face darkened. He fixed the boy with his gaze. ‘You should ally with us. You should know which way the wind of history blows.’

There was a silence and then Theodoric replied, with audible contempt, ‘My people ally with the Huns? I think not.’

Attila sat back again. ‘Have a care, boy. I could send you back to your father as a barrel of chopped flesh.’

‘Then you would have the entire Visigothic nation against you, as well as the legions of Rome.’

‘The Huns have dealt with your nation before. Have we not harried you across all of Europe, from the shores of the Sea of Ravens westwards? You ran from us as if you were trying to catch the setting sun, wailing like women!’

The boy’s blue eyes blazed, like fire seen through ice.

Control yourself, lad, Aetius willed him. He is only testing you.

When the prince spoke again his voice remained calm. ‘You did not deal with us well in the mountains. The Visigoths will flee from you no more. The next time, like the last, we will turn and fight.’

‘That is not your decision, boy. Your father still rules the Visigoths, does he not? Unless you intend perhaps to usurp him?’

Now Theodoric had the measure of Attila and his games. Calm was strength. He only replied, ‘Return the stolen flocks and herds to the people of Azimuntium, and the kidnapped shepherds, and we shall return your Lord Chanat to you. Then we shall ride away south.’

Attila stroked his beard awhile and pondered.

Someone else came into the tent, without requesting permission, and the little grey-haired shaman whimpered and fled out of the back. Even Aetius blanched when he glanced at the newcomer. This was a Hun witch.

She was very tall and thin, her chest flat and bony, her face like that of a corpse, her hair dyed an unnatural tawny red. She wore a sloughed snakeskin round her throat, and though she was very dark skinned her eyes were a pale blue. Everything about her was wrong. She strode over to Attila and spoke in his ear, her voice a strange, high insect whine. Aetius thought he caught the name of Anashti, the moon goddess. As she spoke, she looked at Theodoric and showed her teeth. They were filed. Aetius knew what she was saying, and hoped Theodoric didn’t. The lad was holding his nerve well so far. She was speaking of the deep, strong mana of sacrificing the first-born, especially the first-born of a king, and she held out a wooden cup.

Attila looked at Theodoric. ‘Would you care for wine?’

Theodoric did not hesitate. ‘I would not. It is poisoned.’

The King laughed a harsh laugh. ‘You are not the greatest fool I have ever met. Yes, it is poisoned. You would have died in agony.’ He waved the witch away. ‘She is a jester, is she not? But she has no notion of politics and power. She thinks it can all be done by spells.’

They remained silent. Then Attila stood.

‘Lord Chanat is worth many sheep. And I like men brave unto folly. Sometimes.’ With those words he turned at last to Aetius, and handed him a note. ‘Take this to your pig of an emperor. You and I, we will meet again.’

‘On a battlefield?’ replied Aetius quietly. ‘After a battle’s end? After the deaths of countless thousands of men?’

‘Life is sacrifice,’ said Attila. ‘The world is an altar of sacrifice.’

Attila kept them waiting all day and on into dusk.

Aetius stood tirelessly on the battlements, waiting. The moon was not yet up, but he could imagine it glimmering across the Euxine Sea to the east, and shining blue-white on the snowy flanks of the Caucasus, and silvering the Danube delta, and that haunted White Island there where Achilles and Helen lived. Sailors said that they heard the sounds of their lovemaking as they sailed past, and saw Achilles’ sword play like a ghostly flame high in the rigging.

Then Gamaliel came to him. The empress grew neither stronger nor weaker.

Aetius said nothing.

‘And Attila? Do you trust him?’

‘Not one inch,’ said Aetius. ‘I know him of old. But horses can’t gallop up walls like these, and I saw no siege-engines. Even this little town would be hard to take without siege-engines.’

‘You observed well.’

‘One of the reasons I went to parley: to check out the camp.’

Gamaliel was amused. ‘But this is only one battle group.’

‘One of many. The others will have the engines.’

‘And where are they?’

Aetius looked bitter. ‘Ask the citizens of Sardica, of Adrianople, perhaps even of Thessalonika. They will be fully experienced in the Huns’ use of siege-engines by now, and there is nothing we can do to help. The East has no army to speak of, only the last of the Imperial Guard, and any odd Isaurian auxiliaries we can round up to resist the attack on Constantinople itself.’

‘That is coming?’

‘Oh, yes. That is coming.’

After a pause to digest this black news, Gamaliel said, ‘I used to pray that men would love God more than power.’ He paused. ‘I am still praying.’

Aetius only grunted.

Gamaliel said, ‘Do you remember the other boy with you in the camp of the Huns?’

‘The Greek slave Orestes.’ He nodded. ‘He is still there. Older and balder.’

‘No, the Celtic boy, Cadoc, the son of that good officer Lucius.’

‘My God,’ said Aetius softly, sad and still with memories. Never look back, they said, Not if you want to stay strong. But now… ‘I remember him, just.’ It seemed so long ago. Such length of time, and all so greatly changed. He ached with unaccountable longing. What is that longing? For another world.

Then he straightened his shoulders. No. There was more to be done.

As if reading his thoughts, Gamaliel said, ‘Things are coming to a great conclusion. An age of the world is ending, another is being born, and we are its unlikely midwives.’

There was a stirring out in the dusk. The Huns were mounting up.

‘Riddle me no riddles, please,’ snapped Aetius. ‘I’ve enough to think about.’

‘Do you remember the Last of the Sibylline Leaves? They are important. That boy, Cadoc, and his father Lucius before him, they are the last who remember them. The parchments were all destroyed, all but one, saved by General Stilicho himself. Lucius and Cadoc, in far and forgotten Britain, they are the living Last Sibylline Leaves.’

Aetius was tiring of the old man. ‘I don’t believe in sibyls and prophecies and spells. They are the things of childhood. I believe in a line of good infantry – or a column of Gothic wolf-lords, if it comes to it.’

‘Nevertheless,’ said Gamaliel, ‘the Son of God was born under a star descried by eastern Magi, was he not? And of a virgin? According to the ancient Jewish prophecy?’

‘There’s religion and there’s superstition. Don’t confuse the two, old man. “By their fruits ye shall know them”.’

Gamaliel raised his bushy eyebrows. Then he changed tack. ‘This Attila, he is a superstitious man, is he not?’

Aetius hesitated. ‘He has shamans and witches about him, yes, though he pretends to scorn them.’

‘You know he believes. His people believe in him, too, for now, and that he is the son of Astur, the All-Father, and possessed by the bloody spirit of Savash, their god of war. This is a struggle not just between armies, but between what people believe.’

Torchlights were moving over the plain. Aetius strode to the edge of the battlements to order the wolf-lords to stand ready.

‘Remember the verse,’ urged Gamaliel after him. ‘“Four will fight for the end of the world, One with an Empire, One with a Sword, Two will be saved and one will be heard, One with a Son and One with a Word.” And also the verses about a King of Terror from the East-’

‘Baulk the main gates!’ roared Aetius.

‘Sir!’ replied one of the men down below. It was the centurion, Tatullus. ‘Listen to that!’

There was a kind of muffled movement, a tramping, and then he could hear it: the baaing of sheep.

Attila always admired the brave and bloody-minded. The men of Azimuntium had triumphed.

After the herds and the flocks had been returned, along with the captured shepherds, filthy but well enough, Aetius ordered Chanat brought up from the dungeons.

The old warrior glared at him. ‘A horse.’

‘You Huns have horses enough. You can walk back to the camp.’

Chanat growled, ‘Slaves walk.’

Aetius turned to the woman. ‘And what about you? Will you return to your lawful Christian husband, or do you wish to go with this ageing barbarian?’

The woman gave Chanat a look that said it all. Chanat grinned. ‘I take the woman instead of a horse. She is slow but comfortable.’ The woman bowed her head in shame, but stayed by his side.

Aetius sighed and looked away. ‘Open the postern gate.’

‘You have no courtesy, Roman, no hospitality for your guests,’ said Chanat as he departed.

‘You weren’t a guest, you were a prisoner.’

‘But I think we shall meet again. Maybe on some bright, bloody battlefield, and it will be a glorious death for both of us. But you should ride away quickly now. The shadow of Astur follows you over the earth, and we, too, are riding south. The next time we meet, the Lord Attila may not be so accommodating!’

After the gate had closed on the pair, Aetius turned to his wolf-lords. ‘Saddle up fast.’

He insisted that the empress ride in a carriage, but she well knew what threat lay over them, and that time was against them: not just this party, but the entire city of Constantinople. She rode on a horse, clutching her reins, pale and silent. Lord Ariobarzanes came down to bid them farewell, grimly satisfied with the return of the sheep and cattle, and swearing that if ever the Huns appeared in his domains again, the men of Azimuntium would destroy them. Finally, the old Jewish healer or whatever he was came and spoke to him. Aetius asked him to ride with them, but he said that his path was by another way. His arms were full of ancient scrolls which he had taken from the synagogue, fearing that they would fall to the Huns, to be used for lighting campfires. As if one man could gather all the scrolls of the ancient world and save them from the fire to come.

Aetius had other things to think about, such as checking their provisions, exchanging a half-lame horse for a better one, and deciding what route they should take before the path of the oncoming whirlwind. But still Gamaliel followed him, shambling around the courtyard of Azimuntium before the gates as the wolf-lords and the empress’s retinue assembled, tripping over the tattered hem of his old grey robe, talking of the Sibylline Leaves, which were destroyed but not yet silent. He told the general to remember the prophecy recorded by Livy, that Rome would stand twelve centuries plus six lustra, which period was soon coming. And the king who destroyed two kingdoms. All is not all that it seems. The story is not yet finished. Is it ever? Which is the real, time or eternity? In dreams there is no time.

Aetius peered into a pannier, checking grain, finding the old man very distracting.

‘Last night,’ said Gamaliel, ‘perhaps you dreamed of your boyhood again. You were back at school under the stern eye of the magister. ’

‘Dreams play us false,’ snapped Aetius.

‘Did the dreams of Pharaoh play him false? Or Nebuchadnezzar? God speaks in dreams. The wise man listens and attends. Have hope, Aetius. Have precious hope.’

Aetius mounted, called for the gates to be opened, and turned back to look over the column. So feeble, so few in number. The wolf-lords with their banners floating in the breeze… the empress with her dark, pained eyes. Then he muttered to Prince Theodoric at his side, ‘Time to go. Attila will be hunting us. The game has begun.’

‘He thinks war a game?’

‘He thinks all of life and death a game. Forward!’