Attila: The Gathering of the Storm

by William Napier

  Here at this court of supposed barbarians, wrote one admirer, the elegant-minded Sidonius Apollinaris, Bishop of Clermont, there was no heavy, discoloured old silver, but rather weight and value in conversation. Viands attractively cooked, not costly, and without ostentation. Goblets so replenished by silent slaves that both intoxication and thirst were unknown. There was Greek elegance, Gallic plenty, Italian vivacity. The dignity of state, the affection of home, the ordered discipline of royalty.

  And there was great, grizzled, grey-bearded old Theodoric himself, King of the Western Goths, the son of Alaric, the conqueror of Rome, glowering over the chessboard. It was said that when Sidonius played him at chess, the bishop always made sure he lost to the hot-tempered king. But Theodoric’s adversary today was of a different stamp. He was a lean, grey-eyed man of some fifty years of age, a Roman of noble birth and ancient lineage, currently a guest at the Visigothic court on account of certain tensions arising between himself and the imperial family, certain jealousies and insecurities, the details of which amused old King Theodoric rather more than they amused the Roman.

  The grizzled old Gothic king would slap his grey-eyed guest heartily on the back and tell him that he was welcome at Tolosa any time, any season. In fact, why not permanently? Quit the sinking ship of Rome for good. Get out while you can.

  But that was not the Roman’s way. His name was Gaius Flavius Aëtius. And he was determined to win not only his game of chess.

  Not that he wasn’t deeply fond of the gruff old king. Often grumpy and grouchy to a comical extent, Theodoric in fact meted out justice among his people with a scrupulously fair hand, and was revered by them in turn. Despite being powerfully built and as strong as an ox, he complained bitterly and daily about the evils of encroaching age and his failing strength. Such complaints earned him only wry looks and raised eyebrows from his family, especially his wife, Amalfrida, who knew him well enough after forty years of marriage. As he sat at dinner, loudly holding forth, before sinking his teeth into his third roast fowl of the evening, and draining his twelfth goblet of Provencal wine without the least sign of intoxication, it was hard to take his laments about waning powers too seriously. At one point during last night’s dinner, Theodoric had leaned over to Aëtius, nodding down the table towards two particularly comely young Gothic maidens who had recently arrived at the court as ladies-in-waiting, and muttered, ‘Strange how I stay the same, while the girls grow younger and prettier every year.’

  Such a man was King Theodoric: quick to anger, quick to forgive, lusty, powerful, a little hard of hearing. Just, passionate, oddly sentimental over trifles, such as injured animals; a lover of hounds and horses and well-trained hawks, given to bemoaning bitterly the slightest ache, pain or sniffle, but never having spent a single day in bed since the age of eight, when he was confined with a broken leg after falling off his pony at full gallop.

  Aëtius had a deep respect and affection for him, and sometimes wished that the book of history could have been written differently. But you are what you are. No man can change his tribe.

  Whilst beating the Gothic king at chess this afternoon, Aëtius talked to him of the affairs of the world. Of the savage reign of the Vandals in North Africa. Theodoric only grunted. Aëtius told him of how the brutish King Genseric of the Vandals, having gained a taste for naval warfare, had sailed from his capital at Carthage - what irony there was there! - and sacked many of the islands of the Aegean. The inhabitants of Zakynthos had put up fierce opposition. When they were at last overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, Genseric had had every man, woman and child on the island beheaded, and the mounds of heads shovelled into the sea.

  Theodoric looked up at his guest from under grey, bushy eyebrows. But still he said nothing.

  It was during this game of chess that a messenger came with two letters for Aëtius. He took the first and tore it open. After reading it, he sat and mused for a long time.

  ‘It is sad news?’ said Theodoric.

  Aëtius nodded slowly. ‘And from a man whose name I had almost forgotten.’ He stirred himself and spoke more briskly. ‘From a Briton called Lucius.’

  ‘A good Roman name.’

  ‘He was a good Roman soldier. A good man. A lieutenant, as I recall. It was he who - yes, extraordinary to recall it now. It was he who accompanied the boy Attila on the great flight from Rome, back in 410, and who later made a great journey to the camp of the Huns, to find and buy back his own son. An incredible tale - I’ll tell it to you one day.’

  ‘What does he want with you?’

  ‘What everyone wants from me, except Rome itself,’ said Aëtius. ‘Military aid. Which now I cannot give.’ He scanned the letter again. ‘He must be fifty - no, more. The father of good sons. The king of a little kingdom, as he ironically puts it, in the west of Britain, in Old Dumnonia. But the picture he paints is not a pretty one. The Picts, he says, are raiding further and further south, and the heathen Saxon raiders growing ever more bold. In the east of Britain, he says, Saxons invited over as mercenaries in petty wars have already settled and stayed. He is not optimistic.’ The general shook his head. ‘But I cannot help him. I cannot.’

  ‘What of the other letter?’ said Theodoric quietly.

  Aëtius tore it open and read it, then slipped it inside his robe. ‘How strangely news comes twice. This, too, is in remembrance of the Huns, and of a particular name among them. So suddenly he reappears. In a letter from Rome.’

  ‘To say?’

  ‘To say that the Hun nation has returned and is encamped across the Danube.’

  Theodoric looked up sharply. ‘Who is their king?’

  ‘It is him,’ said Aëtius, a note of wonderment in his voice. ‘The boy has come back. Attila. King Attila.’ He was silent for a while, then said, ‘Galla Placidia sends me welcome. She bids me return.’

  ‘And the emperor?’

  He said nothing.

  An unfortunate clerk chose that moment to come into the king’s presence and request his signet-stamp upon a document.

  Theodoric turned on him in fury. ‘Out of my sight, wheyfaced ledger-slave!’ The poor clerk reeled backwards in the blast, open-mouthed. ‘Scullion! Fool of the counting-house! Come to tell me how much gold yet graces my treasury! What do you know but how to tell of gold! I’d see thy milksop temples furrowed with a man’s cares, a man’s burdens on your counting-house crouchback, see how you like that!’

  Theodoric turned back to the chess game. He swiftly moved one of his pieces, and set it down with such force that the board shuddered and several more pieces moved in concert.

  ‘The Huns,’ he rumbled. ‘Alliances. I know what you seek: a new alliance, my warriors to ride in Rome’s defence. And this Lucius the Briton, he should be riding in your defence too.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Never mind your going to Britain to fight the Saxons for his salvation! We are all under attack in the Last Days!’

  Aëtius studied the board.

  ‘But I am old, my Roman friend. My old eyes weep and dazzle under the sun. My ears, alas, hear less than they once did. Although they hear less folly too.’

  He heaved himself more upright in his great wooden chair. ‘Yet I think I do still bear me most royally in my hoary, rheumy old age, do I not? Eh? Eh? Though no more than a bag of old bones, held together by this kingly ceinture.’ He slapped the great gold buckled belt round his broad stomach. ‘A bag of ancient, mead-filled, boarmeat guts!’ Suddenly Theodoric turned in his chair. ‘Do you eye my throne, boy?’ he roared.

  Aëtius looked up. It was the king’s eighteen-year-old second son, the tall, graceful Torismond, waiting respectfully to speak.

  ‘May you suffer hell’s own haemorrhoids seated here if you take your place before the appointed time!’

  ‘Father, I—’

  ‘Bring me a pot to piss in.’

  Torismond obediently retreated, and returned a moment later with a pot.

  Aëtius gazed away over the courtyard rooftops. Swifts were wheelin
g in the spring sky, their high-pitched screams swooping over the red-tiled rooftops of the city.

  The poor clerk was scuttling along in the shade of the colonnade, still clutching his unsigned document and hoping to pass unnoticed, when Theodoric saw him.

  ‘Here, wheyface! Take this pot. Here man, take it from me! Damn thee for a fool to fear to soil thy hands with the royal piss, that daily soil thy palms with foreign gold.’ The clerk retreated, stumbling backwards. ‘Ledger-slave!’ the king roared after him. ‘Coin-counter! Now go spill it on the palace roses! They will smell all the sweeter for it!’

  He looked back at Aëtius. He took a deep draught from the plain wooden cup by his side and smacked his lips. ‘There can be no alliance between the Goths and the Romans, old friend. The past forbids it. The past makes a mockery of it, though there will be friendship until death between you and me. We are Christians both, are we not? Yet you call me an Arian, and a heretic.’

  Aëtius shook his head. ‘Christians both. I am no theologian.’

  ‘Don’t pussyfoot, man, I know you have a braver heart than those who hide their convictions like a bear hides its dung! Is the Son equal to the Father? Is my son equal to me?’ He looked round at Torismond, waiting patiently. ‘Are you greater than your father, boy?’ he bellowed.

  The youth gave a graceful bow. ‘I am not, my lord.’

  ‘I am!’ said a bright, girlish voice, ‘and a deal prettier to look at too!’ In a flash and blur of white robe and flying blond hair, a young girl tripped across the little courtyard and flung her arms round her father, bestowing a flurry of kisses on the laughing king. She was Amalasuntha, Theodoric’s only daughter, some fourteen summers old and the apple of her father’s rheumy eye. He doted on her. So did her six elder brothers, for that matter. A little spoilt she might be, but none of them resented it. Spoilt and vain and careless, she was also sweet-natured and full of spirit and laughter. One day she would make quite a match. But woe betide any man who dared to offend her honour or her name before that day. He would have Theodoric and his six sons to contend with.

  There was no man on earth whom the king would not bellow insults at if he felt so inclined. But against women he was rather less certain of himself. And with his vivacious young daughter ... he was putty in her hands. Aëtius tried to hide his smile.

  ‘What are you laughing at, General?’ asked the girl archly. ‘Do share your little joke. It is well known what a keen sense of humour you have - always laughing and joking as if you had not a care in the world.’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ replied Aëtius gravely, thinking what a flirt she was becoming already.

  She tossed back her long fair hair and kissed her father sweetly once again. ‘Well,’ she said. And then she flitted away across the courtyard. Aëtius did not turn to watch her go. He knew she would be looking over her shoulder for him to do so. And he old enough to be her father - her grandfather.

  ‘Hm,’ murmured Theodoric fondly, his hand to his cheek. ‘Well, then.’ He sat up and returned to the attack.

  ‘That Christ, he was a great prophet, a blessed one,’ He turned back to Aëtius. ‘but to say he was the same as the Aesir, and the power that moves upon the waters of the deep, or that brooded upon eternity in his vast and silent solitude, in the time before time was created ... that is folly. No man is God.’

  Aëtius kept his silence.

  ‘Christ told his followers to get themselves swords. That is good: he was no milksop!’ Theodoric touched his hand to the hilt of the scabbarded sword that lay on a bench close by, even in this peaceful palace courtyard. It was the king’s hereditary sword, called in the Gothic tongue Tilarids, Attacker, mysterious with runic silver set in beaten iron. ‘That Christ, he said he came to bring fire upon the earth! To burn up the heathen and the unbelievers, and with them the accursed Huns, I would believe. That is good. That Christ, he was no wheyfaced ledger-slave, he despised the things of the counting-house, did he not? He was a man of war.’

  Aëtius coughed. ‘It is an interpretation that I—’

  ‘And his Jewish forefathers, certainly, they were great fighters.

  As are we. We Visigoths. The Gothic People of the Plains. And I, Theodoric, son of Alaric, have played my part in our people’s battles most royally, have I not? Nor cried out womanishly in the fight? And fought with that still undefeated power, the Most High God. All my fighting is done, but for that unending word-war, that ceaseless strife in the silence of my soul with that one ceaseless and undefeated adversary. Him I still find worthy of my sword-arm, the Lord High God! And may I yet hobble to my bed at evening undefeated.’

  He bowed his old grizzled head. ‘But O, my Roman friend, must there be more battles? “Hard is the gods’ will, My sorrows but increase, And I must weep, beloved, That wars will never cease.” That is an ancient rhyme, and an ancient truth. Never have I shirked a man’s duty to fight, nor a king’s, either. But now, must we ride out against the Huns, our oldest enemies? And in alliance with Rome?’ He gave a bear-like rumble. Any moment he might give a bear-like roar. But still he spoke quietly, meditatively. ‘History is against such an alliance, friend Aëtius. You know of what I speak.

  ‘The Huns of Uldin - now of this Attila, whoever he may be - I have no love for them. They drove us shamefully over the face of the world, from east to west, and we fled, not knowing where we should go. Where we should rest our heads each night, nor where to take our stand, disarmed, desperate, pitiful refugees. How could we stand against them? We fled from under their rainstorm of arrows. Any people would have done the same. They were demons of the steppes.

  ‘Ancient is the enmity between our people and those demons of the steppes.’ Theodoric stroked his long white beard, still streaked with yellow. ‘But enmity with the Huns does not necessarily mean amity with the Romans. My people still remember how we were treated by Rome when we were penniless immigrants, shamefully stripped even of our dignity.’

  Aëtius said quietly, ‘Rome is not without injustice. No city or empire, no civilisation or people, is perfect. Not even the noble Visigoths.’

  Theodoric grunted. ‘The Huns fought against the Goths under Athanaric. “Ymb Wistlawudu, heardum sweordum”, In the Vistula woods, with hard swords. That day of sorrow lives on still in the lays of the people. By moonlight the Huns crossed the Vistula upstream, and fell on our flank like wolves. And many were the tall horsemen that fell that day.

  ‘The lovers and the dancers are beaten into the clay,

  And the tall men and the swordsmen and the horsemen, where are they?

  And there is an old beggar wandering in his pride -

  His fathers served their fathers before Christ was crucified.’

  Aëtius listened patiently. He knew every detail of the story, of course. But it was a deep Gothic tradition to recite the lays again and again, until they became holy by repetition. Besides, it was good to sit in this sun-warmed courtyard, in this small haven of peace, and listen to the old king talk, even if the story he told did no honour to the name of Rome. And respite would not be long.

  ‘Three generations ago it was now,’ said Theodoric. ‘Athanaric and his people fled south - though they were a brave people, do not doubt it.’

  ‘I do not doubt it,’ said Aëtius. He had seen the Goths fight.

  ‘They fled south, across the Carpathians to the banks of the Danube. They stretched out their hands to Rome, and the emperor of those days, Emperor Valens, assented. Preparations were made for our many thousands to come into the empire. But then the Romans demanded we surrender our weapons, our swords. Once we were disarmed, they demanded payment. Your frontier lords, and the officers of your rapacious state, how they loved gold.’

  Aëtius met the old king’s eagle eye steadily.

  ‘The noblest names among the people, even the red-cloaked Wolf-Lords of the Visigoths, were held at swordpoint. They were bargained with, they were exchanged like cattle. Still they were not permitted to cross the Danube. More came, mor
e refugees from the north and the east. They were invited to sell their dogs, their own wives and children, it is said, to pay their passage into this coveted empire. They were starving and destitute. The bellies of their children sagged like the bellies of old men and women. Their cheekbones stood out from their young faces. Their eyes wept tears.

  ‘Did you listen to their cries? Though they were not of your tribe, yet their cries were human. They were your fellow men: their children hungered and sorrowed like your children. Did you take them in? You did not. You looked out across the river to these pitiful refugees from the outer darkness, beyond the walls of your fortified Europe. And you saw only . . . what? Enemies? Demons? Danger? A danger so weak it could barely walk. What danger is that? All men will be brothers. That is an old Gothic saying, and it is what Christ taught. ‘Will be brothers’: note well the future tense. It is prayer, a hope, perhaps a prophecy. It is certainly not a description of the way things are.’