The Judgement

7

They rode out north the next day, banners fluttering, spearpoints gleaming. There was not a moment to be lost. They had delayed too long already. All of Gaul would soon be overrun.

Aetius could not help glancing back. It was a proud army. But did a sweet and innocent young girl have to be tortured half to death so that the Romans and the Visigoths could come together? Did God truly fulfil his purposes that way?

Now the resolution of the wolf-lords and their aged king was grim indeed. Theodoric had given orders that three thousand of his finest should be stationed down at Narbo, ready to repel any Vandal attack by sea, and another two thousand remain upon the strong walls of Tolosa. The rest rode north: fully fifteen thousand of the finest barbarian warriors in Western Europe. Together with the legions they numbered forty thousand. They rode at the fastest trot they could without tiring their horses beyond fighting speed.

The land rose to the central mountains of Gaul between Aetius’ horse’s nodding ears. He had always known in his heart that one day the Visigoths would ride with Rome. Those noble horsemen from the distant steppes, with their mighty ashwood spears, their Spangenhelms with nodding flaxen plumes, and their finely combed hair which shone like the burning sun. These things were written from the first dawn.

In order that they should not be outflanked or harried from behind, there was one more city Attila’s forces must take before they could ride on south: Marcus Aurelius’ city, fair Aureliana on the Loire, below the hills. For here was stationed Sangiban, the wiliest of Alan warlords, supposed Roman ally, and his force of several thousand horsemen.

The wanderings of the Alans, a people of Iranian origin, were almost as epic in nature as the wanderings of the Huns; and many times the two peoples had fought each other, as many times they had allied together, their friendship like the shifting sands of Khorasan. How an Iranian war-band came to be guarding the city of Aureliana for Rome is a story too complicated to be told here. But it is written in the chronicles.

Attila had expected the city to surrender promptly to his vastly superior numbers. The Alans were known for their taste for survival rather than for heroic death in battle. But, to his surprise, as the vanguard of the numberless Hunnish horde approached the city there came reports that the citizens of Aureliana and their Alan protectors had closed the gates of the city and were preparing for siege.

Attila cursed violently, and sent a blunt message to Sangiban and the people. ‘ Since you have decided to oppose me, I will lay the city to waste and destroy you all.’

To his surprise, the reply from Sangiban received only a few minutes later read, ‘ Your reputation rides ahead of you, Great Tanjou. You would have destroyed us anyway.’

For a moment, the old sardonic smile flitted across Attila’s face at Sangiban’s show of insolent spirit. It soon vanished. He smiled rarely these days.

‘Prepare the siege,’ he ordered.

The Bishop of Aureliana was one Ananias, an ecclesiastic of the type who was as willing to carry a sword as a crozier if the battle was on the side of right. Unknown to Attila, it was he who had pressured Sangiban into replying so impertinently.

Now he began to organise the citizens into armed bands and to fortify the city walls wherever possible. Beyond the eastern side of the city, the Hun horde, or that part of it which they could see – for it stretched for many miles, and the majority of those under Attila were in fact riding far and wide to pillage the countryside for leagues around, and would not even be required for the siege – already the Hun horde to the east of the city was busy constructing new siege-engines.

Ananias went up the tower of one of the churches with a younger priest, and they stared out.

The younger priest squinted hard, then said quietly, ‘Those building the engines, they are not easterners.’

Bishop Ananias nodded grimly. ‘I see them. They are Vandals.’

The people of Aureliana worked all night to prepare for the onslaught, but the next day broke grey and desolate indeed. Ananias came to address them. His message was short.

‘Our Alan friends,’ he said in his sonorous voice, ‘have deserted us. They crept out of the city last night.’

A low groan went up.

‘Whether they have gone to join Attila and his heathen horde, I do not know. But let us rejoice. They did not betray us into Attila’s hands, either. The gates remain barred, the city still stands. God is with us. And so: to work.’

The Huns did not trouble very long with the attack by the siege-engines and the onagers. Before an hour of the onslaught was up, the city’s east gates were smashed off their hinges and lying flat. In the exposed gateway, men of the city scrabbled to build new barriers, but Hun horsemen galloped in as close as fifty yards and shot them down. The open gateway was piled with the slain. It was a mockery of a battle. Other Huns simply sat their horses and waited, grinning and sharpening their knives. They would ride into this stiff-necked, barely defended city in an orderly column. What were the fools thinking of? Yet still they could see them rushing about on their simple walls: middle-aged men, young men and old, armed with fire-irons, butcher’s knives and pitchforks. They could even hear a deep, sonorous voice, a leader of sorts, shouting continual encouragement.

In the church tower, the young priest with the good eyesight kept continual watch on the road south.

Aetius was riding at the front of his column, having just stopped for grain. He summoned Knuckles and Arapovian alongside him. As his close guard, they too were mounted. Arapovian rode with elegance. Knuckles slumped like a sack of turnips, the fast trot jolting him terribly. He disliked horses in general, and the one beneath him in particular. The horse didn’t look too happy either.

‘Give me a donkey over a horse any day,’ he used to say. ‘Donkeys have brains. Horses just have nerves.’

Aetius wanted to know what else they had learned of the Huns in the disaster at Viminacium. Speaking as survivors.

‘They are the finest warriors in the world, man for man,’ said Arapovian bluntly.

Aetius inclined his head noncommitally.

‘They are hunters,’ explained the Armenian, ‘pure hunters. They have spent their lives hunting over the Scythian plains, creeping up unseen and unheard, even unsmelt, on creatures far more sensitive than us – wild horses, saiga antelope, deer. The children begin hunting fieldmice and marmot this way. Beware of any people who are great hunters, you city-dwellers, you townsfolk. You will be hunted next.’

Knuckles added his own more light-hearted observation, somewhat coarse in nature, expressive of his suspicion that they were also far too intimate with their horses – an observation which had Tatullus threatening to clock him for impertinence before his commanding officer.

Aetius reined in sharply and gazed along the road north, his eyes narrowing. ‘Do you see dust?’

‘I’ve been watching it grow for the last half-league or so,’ said Arapovian calmly.

Aetius rounded on him. ‘Well, why didn’t you say, you damn fool?’

Arapovian arched his fine black eyebrows at the master-general. ‘You didn’t ask.’

These two… As good a pair of soldiers as he’d ever had under his command, but they drove him to distraction.

‘Get back in line,’ he growled.

The dust-cloud rose above the horizon. Aetius sent out his fastest scouts to ride north along the hills on their right and report back with all speed. They returned within minutes.

‘Lancers, you say?’

The scouts nodded, their horses foaming with sweat.

‘Easterners?’

The scouts looked hesitant.

‘You’re scouts, damn you!’ roared Tatullus in their startled faces. ‘Didn’t you use your eyes?’

‘I think they were easterners,’ said a scout nervously. ‘They had black moustaches, a lot of them.’

‘Moustaches,’ growled Aetius. ‘We’re planning our campaign around bloody moustaches. You,’ – he glared at the scouts – ‘into line. And bring me better intelligence next time.’

‘Sir!’

Aetius regarded his colleagues.

‘It can only be one thing,’ said Germanus.

‘I agree.’ Aetius looked grim. ‘That moustachioed, yellow-bellied runaway Sangiban fleeing from Aureliana. Which means we know precisely where the enemy is now.’

‘And Aureliana is entirely undefended.’

‘The last milestone said sixteen miles. We’ll be there in two hours. Meanwhile, we must first persuade Sangiban of the error of his ways. Bring up the Moorish Horse!’

In moments the five hundred splendid African cavalrymen had appeared under their commander Victorius, a prince of Mauretania.

‘Take those hills,’ said Aetius, indicating the ridge to the north-east. ‘Don’t trouble about concealment – in fact, make sure you’re seen. There’s a column of Alan lancers coming down the road, and I don’t want them thinking they can turn tail and run. I want them to think they’re surrounded. Yes?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The Moors on their white chargers went coursing away across the meadows and up the low green hills, their white camel-hair cloaks flowing in the wind.

Sangiban cursed in the name of Ahura Mazda the moment he realised there was a column ahead on the road, and cursed again when he gave the order to turn round and one of his commanders pointed out to him that there were more horsemen occupying the ridge all along their left flank and behind.

Sangiban adopted a fixed smile, and rode forward to greet the new arrivals.

The Roman commander cantered out alone to meet him. It was Master-General Aetius. Sangiban had met him before. He cursed a third time, silently, and his fixed smile broadened. They reined in their horses. Aetius’ glance took in the Alan warlord’s eyebrows curved like black scimitars, his flashing, unstable eyes, startlingly blue in his swarthy face, his thin lips and aquiline nose. Behind him, a good proportion of his easterners even had freckled faces and fair hair, which they wore scooped back in gold bands. Some said they were descendants of the army of Alexander the Great. They were handsome devils, right enough. But they were riding the wrong way.

‘Lord Sangiban.’

‘Master-General.’

‘I am glad we met you. You were coming to warn us of the approach of the Huns?’

Sangiban let his smile go at last and nodded gravely. ‘They are besieging Aureliana. We managed to evade destruction by the skin of our teeth, and raced southwards to inform you.’

Aetius’ eyes roved over the elegant Alan horses: no sweat.

It was his turn to smile. ‘Do not fear, our gallant ally Sangiban. You shall yet have your chance to be avenged on your ancient foemen.’

Sangiban looked puzzled. ‘General?’

‘We will put you and your lancers in the thick of the fight.’ The smile vanished. ‘Fall in.’

As he watched the Alan lancers ride past and join the column, Germanus joined him.

‘Three thousand in all?’

‘More or less. Useful.’ Aetius looked after them. ‘Fine fighters when committed. Otherwise, totally untrustworthy. ’ He pushed himself up in his saddle and bellowed back to the column. ‘To Aureliana, riding trot!’

‘The Huns will be inside the city by the time we arrive, sir,’ said Germanus as they moved forward. ‘This will be no cavalry fight.’

Aetius knew what he meant. What did it matter if their horses did arrive tired? This would be hand-to-hand fighting in the streets – if there was any fighting at all left to be done. But Germanus didn’t know the terrain.

‘The Huns will be ranged north and east of the city,’ he said, ‘between the Loire and a low line of hills. Well-wooded hills.’

‘You mean…?’

‘Not enough room for them. Not for an army of two hundred thousand. They’ve got themselves trapped. We want our horses fresh enough to fight, believe me. The people of Aureliana must hold out just a little longer.’

Bishop Ananias turned to his citizen leaders. ‘They’re coming in now. Prepare yourselves.’

He sent word once more to the lookout in the church tower. One last desperate hope. No, the answer came back: still no sign of a relief column.

The Huns came galloping in through the east gate tightly packed, swords and spears at the ready, and found themselves in long, narrow East Street. They surged on, only to find the side streets blockaded by overturned carts, crates, stacked wine barrels, blocks of building stone. Immediately they began to feel trapped and claustrophobic. The houses and churches hemmed them in. This was no terrain for horse-warriors. This was like fighting in a cavern.

The people of the city had vanished into their houses, or maybe underground. The sky overhead had turned a bruised grey, threatening heavy rain. Some Huns rode forward in their fury and began to hack at the wooden carts with their swords, howling. Others punctured the wine barrels with their spears and lay on the ground with their mouths open beneath the crimson spouts. Then missiles started raining down on them – stones, bits of twisted iron, horseshoes, anything. Barely armoured as they were, and few wearing helmets, since they were riding in to slaughter unarmed civilians, several horsemen reeled in their saddles, skulls cracked, blood coursing down into their eyes. Others leaped off their horses and kicked in doors, dragging out the occupants and butchering them in the streets. It was to be a foul fight.

Behind them, more Huns were still trying to get into the city, packing ever closer and closer. Bishop Ananias directed operations as best he could from the bell-tower of the cathedral. The Huns had thus far made so little progress through the city’s narrow streets that his runners were able to transmit messages freely. Once more he sent for word from the lookout priest, and once more the reply was ‘Nothing’. Inside the cathedral, women lit candles, pale imitations of the devouring Hun fires already roaring in the city’s suburbs, and the air was filled with the sounds of prayer and lamentation.

The fight was becoming desperate. The sturdiest citizens had appeared on the streets with their fire-irons and pitchforks, more frightened of huddling in their cellars and waiting to be slaughtered than of fighting out in the open streets. But this was a mistake, for as soon as the Huns saw moving living targets they unslung their bows and punched them full of arrows.

With every street blocked and every house barricaded, the barbarian horsemen’s progress was slow and painful, and their longing to be free to gallop and shoot and cut down was frustrated at every turn. They yelled brutal taunts and savage war songs, dragged people from their houses by the hair and slit their throats, lassoed the wagon blockades and tried to haul them free. But it was slow and dispiriting work.

Then there came a new sound over the roar of the flames and the cries of the people. The church bells were ringing: a moving dust-cloud had been seen on the far horizon.

Attila ground his teeth. ‘They cannot have ridden this far so soon. This cannot be the Romans.’

‘It is, Great Tanjou. And with them…’ Even Orestes hesitated.

‘ Speak. ’

‘And with them ride the Visigoths.’

Attila’s roar filled the tent. A wooden stool flew and smashed into the mainpost. He strode outside and surveyed the view. His men were crowded round the pent-up gates of Aureliana. Behind lay a low ridge of thickly wooded hills. The silver river gleamed. There was no room to breathe. No room anywhere.

‘That city’ – he pointed with his spear – ‘that city… I will return… that city…’ He was jabbing the air now, his mouth working, his face livid, beaded with sweat. Orestes was already untethering their horses. ‘That city, I will not only lay it waste, I will torture its every citizen, every man, woman and child, I will have daughters murder their fathers, mothers their sons. Their bodies will hang crucified all along the road from here to…’ With a mighty heave he hurled the spear into the air where it arced and sank to the ground and stuck fast. ‘To Tolosa!’

Orestes mounted.

Attila wiped the spittle from his beard. ‘Pull them back,’ he said. ‘We cannot fight here.’ His barrel chest heaved, he clutched his side. ‘I cannot breathe!’

The moment the Roman and Gothic banners were perceived in the wind, the mood in the city changed. The bells rang from church to church, spreading like birdsong through a wood in springtime, and the great cathedral bell rang out over all of them. The Huns in the streets stalled and looked around, bewildered, as word gradually spread that they were to retreat. Some ignored the order and pushed on into the city. None of them survived. The citizens, newly fired with confidence and anger, struck them down and slew them wherever they found them.

Then came the sound of Roman trumpets and bugles giving their sharp, precise commands, and the Huns were suddenly fleeing in a drunken panic with the citizens at their heels. When the tattooed warriors emerged again from the East Gate, which they had entered not an hour or two previously, it was to see their vast host already disappearing over the low hills to the north under the threatening sky. They remounted and galloped after, but a great serpent of gleaming armour cut between them and their comrades, and the would-be sackers of Aureliana were put to the sword, one and all.

The Romans reassembled their column on the outskirts of the city, and rested and watered their horses. The citizens brought them provisions, and Bishop Ananias spoke with Aetius, and also with Theodoric.

‘“And lo, I shall smite them with the sword,”’ roared the old King, ‘“and the heathen shall flee before me into the hills!”’

Ananias nodded. ‘Thus spake the Lord of Hosts.’

‘You fought well, my lord Bishop,’ said Aetius. ‘But turn your attention from the Scriptures just for a moment. Your Majesty, did you see the banners of the enemy riders on their left flank as they fled?’

‘The banners of the heathen,’ rumbled Theodoric, ‘barbaric ensigns, covered with the runes of savagery and unbelief.’

‘Among them, the Black Boar.’

Theodoric gasped and clutched his beard.

‘Genseric’s sons are here.’ Aetius nodded coolly. ‘Frideric, Euric and Godric.’

Theodoric was already turning his horse and digging his heels in, but the princes rode in either side of him and calmed him.

A scout rode up.

‘Have your skills improved?’ snapped Aetius.

‘Sir, they ride north-east. At least some of the horses look lean and sickly.’

‘Hm. Another job for the Moorish Horse.’

Victorius appeared.

‘Centurion, spread out the map.’

Tatullus knelt on the dry ground and spread out a huge campaign map, made of the thickest rolled vellum and taller and wider than the height of a man.

‘Listen closely, Moor. Ride east and then north with fifty of your best men. Ride as fast as you ever have ridden. Overtake the Huns, but be on your guard for their outriders – they range far. Here, at Melodunum’ – he pointed with his staff – ‘and also here, at Augustabona, there are vast horrea, granaries. The locals will direct you to them. The Huns must not get to them. You understand? Burn them to the ground, then circle back and find us again. The Huns won’t catch you, not with them on their half-starved ponies and you on your fine Berber horses.’

‘And what of fodder for our fine Berber horses?’ said Victorius.

‘They’ll be well fed from our supply lines south. It’s not a problem; we’ve got it covered. You know that a full marching legion of five thousand men needs eight thousand pounds of grain a day, plus six hundred pounds of fodder for its auxiliary cavalry. A full cavalry division needs a whole lot more. And you think nomads like the Huns will have planned ahead for provisions? They’ll never find pasture enough, not in cultivated Gaul.’ The cool grey eyes scanned the horizon. ‘Sometimes military victory lies in details, not in heroics. Attila and his horde in Gaul are going to starve.’

The Mauretanian grinned, and without another word stretched out his arm and galloped forward. Fifty men surged after him, swinging east, wide of the retreating horde.

Aetius looked at the map again. ‘The nearest flatlands north-east,’ he said. ‘The valley of the Marne?’

Tatullus nodded. ‘Catalaunia.’

‘The battle of the Catalaunian Fields,’ murmured Aetius. ‘Sounds good.’