The Judgement

22

‘Sir,’ cried a runner, appearing up the side steps, his hobnailed sandals ringing on the stone. ‘News from the city, sir.’

Aetius said, ‘We can see.’

The Huns were inside the city after all, and all was lost. They had made it, tunnelling in under the walls, or perhaps by treachery, an unremarked postern gate unlatched for them by some craven Byzantine Judas for thirty pieces of silver. Already the eastern end of the city was burning. Soon they would hear the distant cry and wail of the people. The soldiers and citizens on the walls could not speak, gazing out over the suffering city aghast. All they had fought for was finished. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken us? It is finished.

Beyond that, all of Asia was finished, too. There was nothing left to oppose the Huns’ murderous progress. Rome did indeed stand alone, her sister city destroyed, and her inevitable destiny, as Aetius could well judge now, inscribed in stone. They themselves, the last of the few, were effectively surrounded, attackers before and behind, and this battered wall a mere promontory in a sea of blood. The city they had fought so hard to defend was already taken. Words came back to him from the past: ‘You are fighting for a cause that is already lost.’

He, Tatullus and Andronicus gripped their sword-hilts tightly. Captain, centurion, master-general of East and West: all three would die like common bloody soldiers today, shoulder to shoulder, and proud of it.

Surely it was the Imperial Palace itself that was burning? Aetius’ eyes were bright with emotion and despair. The view was increasingly obscured by a thickening pall of funeral smoke, but somewhere in that palace was the woman he loved – had always loved. He saw the scene. Tattooed warriors howling down marble corridors, priceless statues thrown down and broken, mosaics smashed, cloth-of-gold tapestries cut to ribbons and burned, prayer books, gospels and missals spat on and abused, slaves hung from hooks, or bound to pillars and used for target practice, maidservants raped and murdered, debauched even where they lay groaning in their own blood. The emperor pitifully down on his knees, babbling and pleading. She, the young, brilliant, bright-eyed daughter of Leontes of Athens, so full of youthful innocence and hope when he first saw her, now ravished and slain.

With his very last ounce of strength, Aetius shouted the summons: ‘All men standing, to me!’

It was still just possible they might find her… a rescue… a seaward escape…

The three hurried down the steps to inspect the gathering men, a pitiful scraping of less than a hundred, badged with wounds, hollow-eyed, sleepwalking into nightmare. Aetius did not even heed the arrival of a second runner.

‘Sir, news from the St Barbara Gate,’ he panted.

So that was where they had come in. From the sea, after all. With the aid of their Vandal allies? It could be.

‘Company!’ he cried out. ‘Forward!’

The few surged into a fast trot, every sinew crying out against it.

‘Sir,’ gasped the runner, only a youngster, trotting alongside, ‘the Vandal fleet is destroyed.’

Through what felt like smoke inside his head, the words slowly penetrated. Aetius called the halt, and stared at the runner. The fellow was still panting.

‘Repeat,’ he rasped.

‘The Vandal Fleet… mouth of the Golden Horn… burning.’

It was like a slow dawn coming up. A slow, beautiful dawn over a desolate, frozen plain.

‘The city is not taken?’

The runner frowned. ‘Not that I know of, sir.’

The men had already broken formation, against all the rules, and were crowding round.

‘Speak, man, for God’s sake!’ roared Tatullus, close to skulling the poor wretch with the butt of his short-sword.

The runner spoke rapidly. ‘The defenders attacked the approaching fleet with everything they had – clay pots of quicklime, serpents, scorpions, chains and flails, spiked slingballs, anything that might cut through the rowers’ overhead screens. They also moved operations up to the roof of the Church of St Demetrius, despite the priests’ objections. The Vandal ships tried to pull back, only to find themselves crammed up against the Great Chain with a following wind, and having trouble getting back out. The attack took them by surprise. And then the defenders launched another kind of weapon. There was this great flash, and at the same time, the St Barbara Gate was… sort of … singed – but also a great sheet of flame shot out across the water and hit the nearest couple of ships. It was as if the flames were actually clinging to the timbers. The sails went up like oilpaper, sir, and what with the following wind – only a light breeze off the Bosphorus, really, but enough – the rest of the Vandal ships soon caught fire as well. That’s them,’ waving eastwards, ‘still burning.’

Aetius was suddenly racing back up the steps to the platform of Gate V, the runner and the men all hurrying after, still stunned and silent, but a light beginning to shine again in their eyes.

The general waved towards the palace. ‘So the city’s not burning?’

‘Only’ – the runner coughed, as if slightly embarrassed – ‘only the St Barbara Gate, sir, a bit. But… but the enemy fleet is all but destroyed, many of their sailors and marines killed in the firestorm, and even when they leaped into the water, it was like a holy miracle, sir, they-’

‘Don’t tell me,’ said Aetius in a low voice. ‘They continued to burn. So maybe not all Cretans are liars after all.’

Then he did a most ungeneral-like thing. He threw his right arm around the lad’s shoulders, hugged him, ruffled his hair and kissed the top of his head like he was his son, and said he’d be getting a gold solidus before the day was out. The boy looked pink and pleased, and a huge roar went up from the men, and all along the walls. From the houses people slowly emerged, and from the churches came priests, and from the hospital came the shuffling figure of Gamaliel, suddenly looking old now, but his eyes dancing, and with him several bandaged and faltering figures on crutches. And then everyone was cheering.

‘But, sir, I must emphasise,’ said the lad, determined to transmit his message in its solemn entirety, ‘that the St Barbara Gate is very badly compromised.’

At that grave news, Aetius said something about Huns swimming as well as cats, and bugger the St Barbara Gate, and began to laugh, his eyes watering, slapping his comrades on the back, chest heaving, face running with tears, all decorum gone.

More messages came. The emperor and empress sent greetings, and bade them all give thanks for God’s mercy.

‘Always nice to be appreciated,’ growled Knuckles, jabbing the ground with his club.

‘The alchemist, the Cretan, what’s his name, Nicias,’ demanded Aetius. ‘He’s still with us?’

‘He is, sir, and drunk with victory.’

‘Let him stay that way. Meanwhile, we must get news of this to the Huns. Any setback to their allies is a bonus to us.’

‘Sir,’ said the runner, ‘a Hun war-party was spotted on the hills above Galata during the sea-battle.’

‘Observing, you mean? You think they saw?’

‘They must have done, sir. They’d left by the end of the show.’

Aetius grinned. ‘Spread the news.’ He broke into a stride again, his voice rising, his energy renewed. ‘All church bells to ring twenty-eight full peals! Spread the word throughout the city. A massive naval battle has been fought off the Horn, our Vandal enemies have been driven before the fiery Breath of God, our gallant artillerymen and our ingenious men of science have triumphed over a flotilla of thousands. You’re runners and heralds, for God’s sake! Run and herald! Publish the news! The Battle of Constantinople is already half won. Scram!’

Among the soldiers, the outburst of joy subsided into tired grins all round.

‘That’s marvellous, sir!’ said Malchus. ‘The battle half won already!’

Aetius drawled, still grinning despite his words, ‘Of course it’s not, you dolt – that’s absolute bollocks. The Vandal ships were never more than a side-show. The battle’s less than a hundredth won. But morale is everything. Now, back to your posts.’

Hobnailed boots rang on stone. ‘Sir!’

No more Hun attacks came that afternoon, and towards evening the sky clouded and it drizzled again. In the greying light, Aetius stood on the tower and gazed out. A mosquito hummed nearby. He slapped his neck. Heavy clouds rolled in from the south, the wind got up, and it began to rain harder. He flung an oiled woollen cloak round his aching shoulders. The rain drummed the plains to an indistinct mist. Tonight he might actually get some sleep.

An hour later, and the rain still fell. Out there beyond the moat, its surface stippled like pewter by the rain, the Huns’ ten thousand tents were camped amid mud and swamp. Many bodies had been burned, but many of the Hun dead still lay round about. The stench must be awful in that rough camp. Was it wrong to pray to the God of Love to bring pestilence on men? Yet remember the plagues of Egypt, Aetius prayed.