The Judgement

16

Elsewhere, all over the Eastern Empire in those days, the armies of the Huns roved unchecked, destroying all in their path. The shadow of Astur was indeed over the earth. The clumsy attempt on Attila’s life would be paid for with the lives of thousands.

At the seaports of the Adriatic, refugees took ship and fled west, spilling out of ramshackle boats and making landfall along the Italian coast. Stories of devastation soon reached the horrified ears of the Court of Ravenna, and Valentinian, rather than leading the Army of the West to face Attila in a last, desperate attempt to halt him, as a man of a different stamp might have done, ordered his finest legions to huddle uselessly about him, camped on the debilitating summer marshes, while his Eastern brothers burned.

Attila and his horde left Moesia, Macedonia, Illyricum and Thrace nothing but scorched earth. They razed to the ground the cities of Nicopolis and Marcianopolis and the great regional capital of Sardica. Their fury and their appetite for destruction knew no bounds, and they slew all they found. They destroyed Philippopolis, and Adrianople, and Edessa in Macedonia, and on the Euxine coast the lovely cities of Salmydessus, and Apollonia, and Tomi where Ovid in exile once wept. On the Aegean coast they destroyed Amphipolis, and the great port of Thessalonika, taking all that city’s rich stores of silver and lead away in their huge covered wagons. Some of their war parties rode on further, as if unable to rein in, and laid waste to Thessaly and even ancient Hellas itself. They found Corinth and Athens deserted, but destroyed many of the finest monuments of those revered cities in vengeance. Their victims numbered in the thousands, tens of thousands. The stench of rotting bodies was always on the wind.

Constantinople, the sweetest dish, the Red Apple as they called it, was left till last. The walled city of Constantine, the New Rome, was all that stood between the Huns and the treasures of Asia: the teeming millions of Syria and Egypt, the cities of Nicomedia and Ephesus and Antioch, the ancient centres of Christianity, far greater and more populous than any the Huns had yet devastated. As the terror of the coming storm increased, so, too, did the slow and horrified realisation that this was a storm which would not cease. Constantinople once taken, the Huns would cross the straits of the Bosphorus, and the rest of the world would be at their feet.

The Byzantines had visions of the Huns riding their rough ponies into the very Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, or the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, laying waste the site of Calvary and man’s redemption itself. Huns traversing the desert east and besieging far Damascus; crossing the Sinai and trampling the rich cornlands of Egypt, burning and flattening Alexandria, barbarous steppe horsemen amid the immemorial pagan temples and palaces of that ancient kingdom. Huns riding across North Africa, via the burning shells of Cyrene and Leptis Magna, and on to Carthage, meeting up with their Vandal allies under Genseric. There was no limit to the destruction they might wreak.

Constantinople must stand; even though her sister Rome would not stand with her.

I, Priscus of Panium, have seen the Hunnic destruction with my own eyes, and I have also read other chroniclers. Callinicus tells us that ‘More than a hundred cities were captured. There were so many murders and blood-lettings that the dead could not be numbered. For they took captive the churches and monasteries and slew the monks and maidens in great quantities.’ It was amid this impious slaughter that the mythic terror of the Huns was born. As Attila observed, terror is a fine weapon, and very cheap; and panic travels faster even than galloping horses.

That other noble chronicler, Count Marcellinus, wrote simply of that year of catastrophe, ‘Attila ground almost the whole of Europe into dust.’

There was one small town in those days, however, which did not fall. Tragedy did not visit it, History passed it by. It remained humble and unremarked, a common, ordinary, unheroic little town. I mean the town of Panium, standing there on the green hillside, valerian and stonecrop growing in the cracks of its ancient golden limestone walls, and the bell tower of the church peeping above. It had stood thus for many centuries, and it will stand for many centuries more, its people placid and unknown, goat bells sounding in the olive groves, cicadas chirruping in the sun-dried grass. In the evenings the old men still gather in the courtyard by the well to gossip and to drink the thin red wine. Just a simple green hillside, a little town of shepherds and farmers, a single half-literate priest. No, History never visited Panium, and it remains there still. It has no stories, for it has no scars.

Aetius took a gamble and rode directly back to the capital down the open road. The Huns did not snap at his heels. Indeed, there was no sign of them. They were waiting, looting, slaughtering through all the surrounding land, leaving Constantinople alone in mournful isolation, her provinces cut from her like limbs and destroyed in the fire. ‘ How doth the city sit solitary…’ Aetius rode at the head of the column, face set, expressionless, never so alone. Athenais ached to see him.

This waiting, this torment, was also directed at him, as he well knew. Attila’s games, his complex furies and hatreds. He is isolating me, saving me till last too, he thought. As if I have somehow betrayed him, and my betrayal is the worst, and must be punished the most.

As they came across the flat plains past the last outlying and deserted farmsteads, and saw the great brick-banded Theodosian Walls ahead of them, and the domes and spires of the city within, it seemed as if they were arrived at a dreadful judgement and reckoning, entering upon some vast stage-set directed by History herself, and they were only actors, their speeches and destinies already written. Through late orchards they came, fruit falling from the trees ungathered, abandoned monastic houses, past Maltepe Hill and the shallow valley of the Lycus and, all defenceless, the forlorn and foredoomed Church of Theotokos, its precious furnishings and icons already taken by the priests and hurried within the safety of the Walls.

There was a brief and bitter meeting between the emperor and his general. Theodosius was aghast that the assassination attempt had failed. Vigilas? Dead from exhaustion. Aetius told him of Attila’s little joke with the fifty pounds of gold. And Chrysaphius? Aetius did not spare the details. It was time this stupid but well-intentioned man began to understand his enemy.

‘Attila cut his throat in front of us. Before that he tortured him a while. Broke his nose, smashed his anklebone underfoot and so forth.’

Theodosius held his hand to his mouth, looking at Aetius indignantly for having exposed him to such truths.

There was worse. Aetius produced the note Attila had given him.

To the Emperor of the Eastern Romans, slave, liar, coward and traitor. It is a wicked slave who conspires against the life of his master. You have forfeited your position and the Will of Heaven has henceforth placed you in my hands. We are coming to collect the debt you owe us. Attila, Tashur-Astur.

Theodosius looked on the verge of hysteria, but gradually calmed himself again. ‘We must buy him off. It is our only choice.’

‘You cannot buy him off. He will take the gold and then attack you anyway.’

He paced and fretted for long minutes. Finally he said, his voice quailing a little, ‘Can this city truly withstand the might of the Huns? With our own armies destroyed, and the help of the Western ships and legions… withheld?’

‘Yes. I believe it can.’

Thedosius looked sorrowful. ‘All my best generals are slain: Aspar cut down at the River Utus, Solimarius hunted to death like a dog by a Hun war-party in the Chersonesus, Zenobius – his earthly remains – perhaps somewhere in the ashes of Thessalonika, which he died trying to defend with a handful of mercenaries. And so you see…’ He opened his hands helplessly. ‘The city is yours to defend. I commit it into your hands. Do what you must.’ He hesitated a moment longer, looking at Aetius as if not seeing him, and then retired to his private chambers.

Outside the audience chamber, Athenais joined Aetius.

‘Your Majesty is in better health again?’

She smiled and did not answer. Instead she said, ‘The emperor is a good man.’

‘I know that,’ said Aetius. ‘No Valentinian.’

‘That is treason!’ Her tone was not entirely serious.

He grimaced. ‘Theodosius is all sweet reasonableness and gentle light, I know. But he has poor night vision. His wide eyes do not penetrate into the dark places either of the world or of men’s hearts.’

‘Whereas you have good night vision.’

‘Plenty of practice.’

The empress sighed. ‘He believes that all men are essentially like himself. A great folly, perhaps.’

‘A great folly for certain. Reason is weak, and unreason has unimaginable power against it: the power of ancient and irrational forces.’

‘Those powers burn strong in Attila.’

‘Strong as the sun.’ Aetius laughed harshly. ‘And the emperor, God save his Imperial Majesty, believes that he can negotiate with him. Can you negotiate with the sun?’

There was a silence, then she touched his arm and said his name.

He pulled away. ‘Excuse me, Majesty. I have work to do.’

There was still no news of the approaching Hun whirlwind, but the air was thick with heaviness and dread. It would not be long now. And so, amid signs and portents and the panicked babbling of crowds and self-appointed doomsayers in the choked streets of the capital, Aetius set about preparing for the coming onslaught.

He surveyed the city’s walls from the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn, wondering again at their colossal strength: squared stone facings of tertiary limestone, founded in bedrock, with mortared rubble for infill. The towers were built as separate structures, a masterstroke of that great overseer of the work, the Praetorian Prefect Anthemius, back in 413. An assault on the walls or settling of their foundations would do no harm to the towers themselves. And they were so massively built that even the largest artillery machines could safely be operated from their rooftops without damage to the structure below them. He inspected the artillery as he went, approving the low-slung onagers and the multiple arrow-machines with grim satisfaction. He even approved a couple of new-fangled machines supposed to hurl detonating fire-pots. None of the men operating the machines looked much good at hand-to-hand fighting; they were city guards and technicians only, but they would do. He inspected them all and gave praise or censure where due. Each artillery battery that he inspected, and spoke to of the coming attack, he left more sombre and more resolute than before.

The two Gothic princes in his party were awe-struck by the Walls: that feat of engineering which they had often heard of but had dismissed as exaggeration. Torismond leaned out from Military Gate V, overlooking the Lycus Valley, taking in the multiple defences of the city before any attacker could even begin to scale the primary walls, starting with the outer ditch sixty feet wide and thirty feet deep. He paused and turned to Aetius, looking puzzled.

‘Sir, I can hear something.’

Aetius nodded. ‘Keep watching.’

A light wind arose from the bare stone below, then as if from underground, there came a low, rushing sound. There was a trickle of water across the dusty facing of the ditch below, then a sudden, mighty onrush of waters, foaming in from the sea, where the sluice-gates had been opened on Aetius’ orders. The princes whooped with glee. Within minutes the great moat was flooded to a siege-depth of twenty-five feet. The seawater settled and stilled, glinting and opaque.

‘The Huns don’t like water,’ murmured Theodoric.

‘You see that the moat is divided into segments,’ said Aetius, ‘rather than being a continuous ditch. Why?’

Torismond frowned. ‘I’d have thought that weakened us. Those dividing walls – the Huns can come across them on foot.’

Aetius snorted. ‘One at a time, single file. We can pick ’em off easily enough. No, those dividing walls are Prefect Anthemius’ most brilliant device of all. What will the Huns do when they first encounter the aqueducts outside the city?’

‘It had crossed my mind,’ murmured Theodoric. ‘They’ll destroy them.’

‘Poison them, block them up, break them down, whatever. Quite so. But, firstly, every one of our cisterns will be filled to the brim before then. Secondly, those dividing walls below you conceal further underground aqueducts. The Huns will never realise. Our water supplies will continue, if severely reduced, even with our great arched aqueducts destroyed.’

The princes gaped at such ingenuity.

Having crossed this first obstacle, by swimming or boat, pontoon or cumbersome infill of timber and brushwood lashed together, the attackers would have to scale a low crenellated wall and then face an exposed terrace thirty feet wide. This was the first killing-ground, bare under the sun before another, higher crenellated wall, seven feet thick, thirty feet high and with ninety-six towers along its length. Even the most skilled artillery attackers, utilising the most minutely calculated trajectories for their missiles, would find it virtually impossible to hit this second wall at its foundations and effect any serious damage. Should the attackers succeed in scaling the second wall, they would face another broad, cruelly exposed terrace, wider still than the last, and then the final obstacle: the Walls themselves, beyond compare, no walls in the world higher. Sixteen feet thick, a sheer forty feet high, and with a further massive ninety-six defensive towers. Not even Babylon’s walls at her apogee could rival the walls of Constantinople; walls whose broad tops, Herodotus tells us, the young men of ancient Assyria used to race around at evening-time, in chariots drawn by four horses abreast. A thousand years ago.

Aetius observed the princes’ faces now shining, all youthful confidence and eagerness for battle, and reminded them that the Huns would have learned much in the siege and destruction of dozens of former cities. There was also disease. There were also food and water shortages, with the city’s swarming populace swelled further by refugees. They could expect no help, no relief forces, no lifting of the siege by outside agency. There would be no mercy shown if the city fell to Attila, only the same universal massacre that he had perpetrated before.

‘And we have no defensive forces to speak of,’ he added.

‘We have artillerymen, and the wolf-lords.’

‘Forty-four wolf-lords, yes. Two centuries of Imperial Guard, some auxiliaries. Attila’s army could be a hundred thousand men, and he has the whole of Thrace and Moesia behind him for looting and forage. We have failed to disrupt a single supply line. Neither his men nor his horses will go hungry, even as winter approaches. We have only what is already within the walls. And perhaps a few hours to prepare ourselves for the assault.’

The princes looked very different now, but Aetius had no remorse. The truth must prevail.

As if to confirm his grave diagnosis, a centurion appeared before them and snapped to attention. It was Tatullus. Only the third centurion in the entire city, and already appointed Aetius’ second-in-command.

‘Sir. Manpower report.’

‘Proceed.’

‘Sir. Two centuries of Palatine Guard stationed beside the palace, a hundred and sixty men, on orders to remain there. Four survivors from the VIIth Legion, including myself, sir. Two auxiliary alae of Isaurian mercenaries, loyalty uncertain, numbers severely reduced, survivors from Thessalonika and Trajanople. Total head-count, around eighty. Currently barracked off the Forum of Arcadius. Full complement of city watch, couple of hundred, untrained, armed with staves. Able enough to police a crowd but in battle couldn’t fight off my granny, sir. Artillery operators, unarmed and unarmoured, untrained in any hand-to-hand, but full complement. A machine on fifty-six of the ninety-six towers. No specialist archers, sir. No-’

‘No archers? In the entire city?’

Tatullus remained expressionless. ‘No, sir. None.’

Aetius compressed his fists. ‘Very well. Continue.’

‘That’s the manpower report, sir. No cavalry. And that’s it. Apart from civilian population, around a million, plus further forty or fifty thousand refugees.’

‘And forty-four Gothic wolf-lords,’ said Theodoric. ‘Archers, spearmen, swordsmen.’

Aetius brooded. Around three hundred fighting men in all. ‘Billet all refugees on existing households – none to be camped rough in the streets, do you hear? The city is to be kept scrupulously clean. No handouts from the state granaries until I give the order. Have the city watch oversee it. Order the auxiliaries to the walls. And your three men along with’ – he turned to Theodoric – ‘your wolf-lords.’

A hundred and thirty men, including eighty mountain mercenaries from the wilds of Cappadocia. Christ have mercy. The Palatine Guard must be released to fight on the walls. He sent an urgent message to the palace.

Almost immediately, there before him was another messenger, his face white and taut. One of the palace staff.

‘Have I the honour of addressing Master-General Aetius?’

‘You have. Speak, man.’

‘Esteemed sir, ships have been seen passing eastwards through the Hellespont and coming this way. A small party crossing to Chalcedon saw their sails over the Propontis and courageously turned back to warn us.’

Aetius’ blood ran cold. ‘Ships? How many?’

‘They said… they said, “a flotilla”, sir. A large number, not precisely counted.’

‘But, but,’ interrupted Theodoric, looking bewildered, ‘the Huns may have mastered siegecraft, but they have no naval forces. Impossible.’

Aetius turned on him so fiercely that the prince almost quailed before him. ‘When is your sister – what’s her name?’

‘Amalasuntha.’

‘When is the poor maid to be married to the son of Genseric?’

‘I, I have no idea, sir. I… She is already betrothed to him. ..’

The poor girl. A child, a light-footed, laughing child when last he saw her in the Court of King Theodoric at Tolosa, throwing her slim arms round her father’s shaggy old head. Now a mere pawn in this catastrophic game of chess, which was becoming a war for the fate of the world.

‘Pray God she is not yet sent to Carthage.’

‘But… the Vandals are our allies. We have sworn ancient Teutonic oaths of blood loy-’

‘Too late, boy. Those are Vandal ships crossing the Propontis towards us. Those are Attila’s allies. We are now at war, we and Genseric, and your father will soon have to choose on which side he stands. We will get no supplies or reinforcements from the sea now.’ He turned to the messenger and rapped out the latest sketch of the situation for the emperor, unsparing in its direst details.

‘What of the Byzantine navy?’ asked Torismond.

‘No manpower. No marines. They died with the field army on the Utus. I’ve given orders for the ships to be scuttled to block the Golden Horn.’

Theodoric crossed himself. ‘If it is true that the Vandals have allied with the Huns…’

‘It’s true.’

‘Then my father will have blood for blood.’

‘I pray it may be,’ said Aetius. ‘I’ve said it before: your people may yet be Rome’s last hope.’

The messenger returned breathless from the Imperial Palace only a few minutes later. The Palatine Guard had been released for duty on the Walls, and the Divine Emperor Theodosius had retired into his private chapel to hear mass and to pray. He wished to receive no further communications from Master-General Aetius until the victory was won. Until then they must trust to God and his Holy Mother.

Tatullus brought two men to him, very different in appearance. One was clearly the Captain of the Guard, doubtless the first-born of one of the noblest and most aristocratic families in Constantinople: a tall, handsome, slightly arrogant-looking fellow in his darkly shining black breastplate, his helmet with its dark crest cradled under his left arm. He saluted smartly. He’d be eager for battle and glory, this one, chafing at having to remain behind in the city barracks as the emperor’s personal bodyguard. Now was his chance.

‘Captain Andronicus, sir. First Commander of the Imperial Guard.’

‘Your men fit and ready?’

‘As ever, sir.’

‘They’d better be. How’s your arithmetic, man?’

‘Arithmetic, sir?’

‘You heard aright. The Theodosian Walls are around three miles in length, from the Golden Horn to the Sea of Marmara. You have a hundred and sixty of your own men, plus eighty auxiliaries.’

‘And a column of Gothic horsemen, I heard?’

‘They’re my close guard. It will be an easy calculation for you to space your men evenly along the Walls. Yes?’

Andronicus looked distant for a moment, and then grinned. ‘Three miles… some six thousand paces. Six thousand divided by two hundred and forty is… a man about every twenty-five paces.’

‘Quite so. Not a lot, is it, soldier?’

‘It’s not, sir.’

‘Your men are going to have a hot time of it.’

‘Never fear, sir. My men are as highly trained as any in the empire.’

Highly trained, yes, and an elite; but little used. Maybe that would be a good thing. They would be eager to test themselves.

‘You’ll have noticed, too, soldier, that there are three defensive walls west of this city. If we manned them all, what spacing?’

‘A man every seventy-five paces, sir. Too little.’

‘Quite so. Even manning two walls would be over-stretch. We can man only the inner wall. No chance of defence in depth this time. In other words, your men are going to have to hold their nerve like veterans, because in a few hours’ or a few days’ time, however long our enemy in his kindness and consideration allows us, a hundred thousand Huns are going to come across the moat and over the first wall, virtually unopposed but for what our artillery can do. Then they’re going to come over the second wall, still virtually unopposed. Only at the third and last wall will you have your chance to fight. A man every twenty-five yards. Does the immensity of our task impress itself upon you, Captain?’

The handsome miles gloriosus grinned again with satisfaction. ‘Can’t wait to get stuck in, sir.’

‘Your men aren’t professional archers, is that correct?’

‘They can handle a bow, sir.’

‘Very well. Now get ’em up there. I want the Guard stationed from the Marble Tower in the south, right up to St Romanus Gate. North around the Blachernae Palace down to the Charisius Gate, station your auxiliaries. The city watch will be in reserve at key points if things get desperate.’

Andronicus curled his finely chiselled lip disdainfully. Desperate indeed. The indignity of having to fight alongside those peasants, with their staves and billhooks!

‘And the Lycus Valley, and Military Gate V, sir?’

The weak point, the crunch point, where glory would be won or lost and the fate of the city decided. ‘My Gothic allies,’ said Aetius. ‘But don’t worry, soldier. We’ll all end up fighting there sooner or later, I don’t doubt.’

He turned to the other man, a squat, burly figure with a bushy, unkempt, salt-and-pepper beard. ‘And you are?’

He did not salute. ‘Tarasicodissa Rousoumbladeotes.’

Aetius grimaced. ‘Say that again and you’ll give me a headache.’

Andronicus grinned. The bearded chieftain did not.

‘And salute your commanding officer when he first addresses you,’ snapped Aetius. ‘Tarasicodissa Rousoumbladeotes. ’

He spoke the name perfectly, after one hearing. Few men had ever achieved that. Tarasicodissa Rousoumbladeotes saluted.

Aetius nodded. ‘Very well. From now on I’m calling you Zeno, so you’d better get used to it. You hear me?’

‘I hear you.’

‘You and your Isaurian tribesmen are far-famed for banditry, in your Cilician mountains.’ Zeno glowered. ‘But here you’ll have the chance to win a higher renown. Your eighty will hold the walls of the Blachernae Palace until the Huns are destroyed. Yes?’

The chieftain nodded.

‘Now move, both of you. There’s work to do.’

Despite the manning of the Walls – or perhaps because of it: the results were so visibly thin – the atmosphere in the city grew more hysterical by the hour, as the day slid into dusk. Twice a cry went up from a church or palace tower that a mighty host was approaching from the west, and twice it proved to be false. The second time, it turned out to be a great, dark cloud of rooks. Aetius sent word that any more false alarms would result in flayed backs.

There also came news that a boy had seen a vision of the Virgin on the walls, bearing a flaming sword, ready to fight alongside her beloved and faithful people for the Holy City of Byzantium.

‘Probably just bad wine,’ said Tatullus, unmoved, gazing steadfastly out into the twilight.

‘On the contrary,’ said Aetius. ‘A miracle.’ He told the messenger to spread the word.

‘Sir?’

‘Spread the word, damn you! The Virgin has been seen on the walls. Take the fellow round, give him wine to loosen his tongue, encourage the visionary in him. Find others who can corroborate his story. Move.’

Tatullus grinned into the darkness. The master-general turned everything into a weapon against the enemy, even pious delusions. Then he frowned. The rooks were coming back out of the twilight, circling again, as if unable to settle in their treetop colony.

Aetius joined him. ‘They are infected with the general panic of the city,’ said the general.

‘In the street below,’ murmured a nearby voice – it was Arapovian, characteristically not requesting permission to speak before commanding officers – ‘I saw a cat curl up and try to sleep, then leap up again with its tail straight out. And…’ He hesitated, hardly daring to impart more bad news. He had seen one city fall to the Huns, and had stood in despair amid its ruins. He did not want to see another. Not this city, too.

‘Go on, man.’

‘This afternoon I saw my cup of water shake when I stood it on the wall. I saw its surface ripple.’

Tatullus stiffened. The rooks circled and cawed. Aetius whispered, ‘Oh, no. Please God, no.’

‘I know the signs: they are common in my country. The cat, the ripples, those rooks…’

‘No.’ Aetius laid his hands flat on the top of the battlements. Suddenly these mighty walls seemed things of gossamer.

Arapovian nodded grimly. ‘There is an earthquake coming.’