The Scourge of God

by William Dietrich

  “All respect the power of Attila,” the senator placated him, obviously flustered by this rude and quick beginning. “We bring not only a share of the annual tribute but also additional presents. Our Empire wishes peace.”

  “Then abide by your agreements.”

  “But your thirst for the yellow metal is destroying our commerce, and if you don’t relent we will soon be too poor to pay anything. You rule a great empire, kagan. I come from a great one as well. Why aren’t we better friends? Can we not join together as partners? Our rivalry will exhaust both our nations and spill the blood of our children.”

  “Rome is my partner—when she pays her tribute. And returns my soldiers.”

  “We have brought five fugitives back to you—”

  “And shielded five thousand.” The Hun turned to Edeco. “Tell me, general, is Constantinople too poor to give me what was promised?”

  “It is rich and noisy and crammed with people like caged birds.” Edeco pointed to Bigilas. “He showed me.”

  “Ah, yes. The man who thinks his emperor a god, and me a mere man.”

  I was startled. How had Attila learned this already? We’d just arrived and already the negotiations seemed to be slewing out of control.

  Attila stood, his legs bowed, his torso like a wedge. “I am a man, translator. But the gods work through me, as you’ll learn. Look.” He pointed to the great sword displayed behind him, pitted and dull. “In a dream Zolbon, the one you Romans call Mars, came to me and revealed his sword. He showed me where to find it on the trackless plain. With this weapon, he told me, the Huns will become invincible. With the sword of Mars, the People of the Dawn will conquer the world!”

  He lifted his arms and his warlords sprang to their feet, roaring in agreement. Our little embassy shrank, and we clustered together, fearing slaughter. And yet as abruptly as he had stood, Attila dropped his arms, the noise ceased, and he and his chiefs promptly sat again. It had all been an act.

  He pointed. “Listen to me, Romans. It is the People of the Dawn who are your god now. It is our choice who lives and who dies, which city rises and which is burned, who marches and who retreats. It is we who have the sword of Mars.” He nodded, as if confirming this arrogance to himself. “But I am a good host, as you were a host to Edeco. Tonight we feast and begin to know each other. Your visit is just beginning. It is over time that we will decide what kind of partners to become.”

  Rattled by this reception, our embassy retreated to our tents by the river to rest and confer. Bigilas and Rusticius, with the most knowledge of the Huns, were the least disconcerted. They said Attila’s aggressive opening was simply a tactic.

  “He uses his moods to intimidate and rule,” Bigilas said. “I’ve seen him so infuriated that he writhed on the ground until blood spurted from his nose. I’ve seen him tear an enemy apart with his bare hands, clawing the man’s eyes out and breaking his arms, while the victim waited so frozen in fear that he was incapable of defending himself. But I’ve also seen him hold a baby and kiss a child, or weep like a woman when a favorite warrior was borne back dead.”

  “I was expecting patient diplomacy,” Maximinus confessed.

  “Attila will be more hospitable and less demanding at the banquet,” Bigilas said. “He’s made his point, just as we’ve made ours by showing Edeco the strength of Constantinople. It’s obvious that word of all that transpired on our journey was sent ahead. The Huns are not stupid. Now, having blustered, Attila will try to forge a relationship.”

  “You seem very certain.”

  “I mean no presumption, ambassador. I simply believe that, in the end, things are going to go our way.” He smiled, but it was a secret smile that seemed to conceal more than it revealed.

  We bathed with water from the river warm in its summer flow, dressed in finer clothes, and returned that night to the same great hall for Attila’s welcoming banquet. This time the room had been expanded. The tapestries and partitions that had backed Attila’s chair had disappeared, revealing a platform that bore the king’s bed, canopied with linens. It seemed odd to me to display one’s bedroom, given that Roman chambers were small and secretive, but Rusticius said this intimacy was taken by the Huns as a sign of hospitality. Our host was welcoming us to the center of his life.

  At the foot of this platform Attila waited on a couch far more comfortable than the simple chair on which he had received us. Running the length of the hall from the couch to the door was a banquet table. As the guests entered, each was presented with a golden cup that was filled with imported wine. Then we all milled awkwardly, the finely dressed Romans clustering together amid Huns, Germans, and Gepids, all waiting for assignment to sit. I noticed that Edeco was murmuring something to Bigilas as they waited, again as if the two were almost equal in rank. The translator nodded expectantly. Maximinus noticed it, too, and frowned.

  Finally Attila commanded us to sit, his Roman-born minister Oenegius on his right and two of his sons, Ellac and Danziq, on his left. The boys looked subdued and frightened, with none of the boisterous energy you would expect of their early teen years. We Romans were told to sit on the left as well, Maximinus closest to the table’s head and I at his side to take any notes that were necessary. Then the other Huns took their places, each introducing himself in Hun-nish. There was Edeco, Onegesh, and Skilla, of course. But there were many other chiefs too numerous to remember, bearing such names as Octar, Balan, Eskam, Totila, Brik, Agus, and Sturak. Each boasted briefly of his deeds in battle before taking his place, most of their stories referring to defeats of Roman soldiers and sackings of Roman cities. Behind them were more horsehair standards of the Hun tribes with a bewildering thicket of names such as the Akatiri, Sorosgi, Angisciri, Barselti, Cadiseni, Sabirsi, Bayunduri, Sadagarii, Zalae, and Albani. Those spellings are my own, for the Huns of course had no written language and their tongue twists Latin and Greek.

  Strapping male slaves who wore iron collars like hounds and had arms as thick as roof beams bore the night’s food to us. The vast platters of gold and silver were heaped with fowl, venison, boar, mutton, steak, fruit, roots, puddings, and stews. Women served wine and kumiss, and they were without exception the most beautiful women I had ever seen—more beautiful, even, than the maidens chosen to grace Constantinople festivals. How my haughty Olivia would be put in the shade by these blossoms! All were captives; and they bore the looks of their homelands, from Persia to Frisia—their skin as dark as mahogany or as translucent as white alabaster, their hair the color of linen, wheat, amber, mink, and obsidian, and their eyes the shades of sapphire, emerald, chestnut, opal, and ebony. The Huns paid their feminine grace no special heed, but we Romans, except Maximinus, were as transfixed by these captive ornaments as we’d been by the women in Anika’s house. I confess to wondering, and hoping, if the same hospitality would be offered here. If so, I was determined to sneak away from the old senator long enough to take advantage of it! How desperately I longed for a respite from constant male companionship, and my body seemed fit to explode. I remembered Skilla’s friendly warning.

  One of the women I recognized as the dark-haired girl by the gate, whose rare beauty was magnified by her look of intelligence, fire, and longing. This evening she was so lightfooted that she seemed to float as much as walk, and I could have sworn that she peeked at me occasionally as my gaze followed her around the room.

  “For a man who said he didn’t want to lose his head around the Huns, Jonas, I fear it will twist off completely if you keep craning to watch that serving wench.” Senator Maximinus was looking agreeably and blankly at a Hun across the table as he gave this quiet scold in Latin.

  I looked down at my plate. “I didn’t think I was that obvious.”

  “You can be sure that Attila notices everything we do.”

  The kagan was again dressed more simply than any man or woman in the room. He wore no mark of rank or decoration. He had no crown. While his warlords feasted from captured gold plate, he ate from a wooden bowl and
drank from a wooden cup, rarely saying a word. Instead of alcohol, he drank water. He disdained what little bread there was and touched nothing sweet. He simply looked out at the company with dark, deep-set, all-consuming eyes, as if a spectator at a strange drama. A woman stood like a pillar in the shadows by the bed.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Maximinus.

  “Queen Hereka, foremost of his wives and mother of his princes. She has her own house and compound but attends her husband at state functions like this one.”

  Attila’s sons ate woodenly, not daring to look at their father or speak to the men around them. Then a third boy came in, nodded to his mother, and went up to the king. He was younger than the other two, handsome; and for the first time Attila betrayed a slight smile and pinched him on the cheek. “And that?”

  “It must be Ernak. I’m told he’s the favored son.”

  “Favorite why?”

  Rusticius leaned in. “Attila’s seers have foretold his empire will falter but that Ernak will restore it.”

  “Attila will falter?” Now I was curious. First Rome is prophesied doom and now Attila. Competing prophecies! “Looking at him tonight, it seems unlikely.”

  “He’s to falter only after vanquishing us.”

  Music started—a mix of drum, flute, and string—and the Huns began a round of rousing song. They sang from deep within their torsos, a strange, beelike humming, but it was hypnotic in its own way. While the instruments, noise, and growing drunkenness made translation difficult, I realized that most of the music again celebrated the slaughter of their enemies. There were ballads of triumphs over Ostrogoth, Gepid, Roman, and Greek, sung with no acknowledgment that all those peoples had representatives at the feast. The Huns conquered, and our injured pride was of no consequence.

  Then came lighter entertainment: dancing women and acrobatic men, jugglers and magicians, mimes and comic actors. Attila watched it all with an expression as dour and flat as if he were watching the day’s shadows move on a wall.

  The entertainment climaxed when, with a somersault, a dwarf rolled from the shadows and sprang up wearing a mock crown, bringing howls of delight from all the Huns except Attila. He was a grotesque little creature with dark skin, stumpy legs, a long torso, and a flat, moonlike face, as if an exaggerated caricature of how we Romans saw the Huns. He began prancing and declaiming in a high, piping voice.

  “Zerco!” they cried. “King of the tribes!” Attila’s mouth had changed to a grimace, as if the jester’s was a performance to be endured.

  “Our host doesn’t like the little one,” I murmured.

  “Why?”

  “The dwarf was the pet of his brother Bleda, who Attila doesn’t like to be reminded of,” Bigilas explained. “The freak was never a favorite of Attila, who is too serious to appreciate mockery. After Bleda died, the king made a present of Zerco to Aetius the Roman, a general who once lived among the Huns as a hostage. But Bleda had rewarded Zerco by allowing him to marry a slave woman and the dwarf pined for his wife, who remained here. Aetius finally persuaded Attila to take the jester back, and the king has regretted it ever since. He insults and torments the jester, but the halfling endures it so he can stay with his wife.”

  “Is the wife deformed as well?”

  “She’s tall, fair, and has learned to love him, I’ve been told. The marriage was supposed to be a joke, but the couple has not conspired with the mockery.”

  The dwarf raised his arms in mock greeting. “The king of toads welcomes Rome!” he proclaimed. “If you cannot outfight us, at least outdrink us!” The Huns laughed. He scampered over and, without warning, leaped into my lap. It was like the bound of a large dog, and I was so surprised I tipped over my wine. “I said drink, not pour!”

  “Get off me,” I whispered desperately.

  “No! Every king needs a throne!” Then he leaned, impishly sniffed Maximinus, and kissed his beard. “And a consort!”

  The Huns howled.

  The senator flushed red, and I felt stricken with embarrassment. What was I supposed to do? The dwarf clung to me like a monkey. I glanced wildly about. The woman who had caught my eye earlier was watching me curiously, to see my response. “Why do you mock us?” I hissed.

  “To warn you of danger,” the dwarf replied quietly. “Nothing is as it seems.” Then he sprang away and, laughing maniacally, ran from the hall.

  What did that mean? I was bewildered.

  Attila stood. “Enough of this foolishness.” They were his first words all evening. Everyone fell silent and the gaiety was replaced by tension. The king pointed. “You Romans have presents, do you not?”

  Maximinus stood, somewhat shaky from his embarrassment. “We do, kagan.” He clapped his hands once. “Let them be brought in!”

  Bolts of pink and yellow silk unrolled against the carpets like the flash of dawn. Small chests opened to a shoal of coins. There was a galaxy of jewels scattered by Attila’s wooden plate, engraved swords and lances leaned against his bed platform, sacred goblets arranged on a bench, and combs and mirrors set on the skin of a lion. The Huns murmured greedily.

  “These are tokens of the emperor’s good faith,” Maximinus said.

  “And you will take back to him tokens of mine,” Attila said. “There will be bales of sable and fox, blessing bundles from my shamans, and my pledge to honor whatever agreement we come to. This is the word of Attila.”

  His men rumbled their approval.

  “But Rome is rich, and Constantinople the richest of its cities,” he went on. “All men know this, and know that what you have brought us are mere tokens. Is this not true?”

  “We are not as rich as you belie—”

  “Among the People of the Dawn, treaties are marked by blood and marriage. I am contemplating the latter and want proof of the former. Emperor after emperor has sent the Hunuguri their sons and daughters. The general Aetius lived with us when I was a boy, and I used to wrestle with him in the dirt.” He grinned. “He was older, but I beat him, too.” The assembly laughed.

  Now Attila pointed abruptly at Bigilas. “You, alone among the Romans who have come to us, have a son. Is this not true?”

  Bigilas stood in seeming confusion. “Yes, my lord.”

  “This boy will be a hostage of your good faith in these negotiations while we talk, no? He will be evidence that you trust Attila as he trusts you.”

  “Kagan, my son is still in Constan—”

  “You will go back to fetch him while your companions learn the ways of the Hun. It is only when your boy gets here that our negotiations can conclude, because only then will I know you are men of your word: so faithful that you trust your son to me. Understand?”

  Bigilas looked at Maximinus. Reluctantly, the senator nodded.

  “As you order, kagan.” Bigilas bowed. “If your riders could send word ahead . . .”

  “Some will accompany you.” Attila nodded. “Now, I will sleep.”

  It was his announcement that the evening was over. The guests abruptly stood as if on a string and began moving out of the hall, the Huns pushing their way first with no pretense at politeness. The banquet had ended abruptly, but our stay was obviously just beginning.

  I glanced around. The intriguing woman had disappeared. Nor was Hun sexual hospitality about to be offered, it seemed. As for Bigilas, he did not look as downcast at this sudden demand as I’d expected. Did he want to return to Constantinople so badly? I saw him trade a glance with Edeco.

  I also spied Skilla, watching me from the shadows at the far end of the hall. The young man smiled mockingly, as if knowing a great secret, and slipped through the door.

  XI

  A WOMAN NAMED

  ILANA

  Let me get the water, Guernna.”

  The German girl looked at Ilana with surprise. “You, Ilana? You haven’t wanted to soil your pretty little hands with wood and water since you got here.”

  The maid of Axiopolis took the jar from the German and balanced it on her head. �
��So much more reason for me to do it now.” She smiled with false sweetness. “Maybe it will help quiet your whines.”

  As she left Suecca’s house to walk to the Tisza, Guernna called after, “I know what you’re doing! You want to go past where the Romans are camped!”

  It was late morning after the banquet, and the encampment was finally stirring. Ilana hoped the young Roman was awake. The bright reds and blues of the embassy tents were a vivid contrast to the browns and tans of barbarian habitation, making them easy to find, and the hues made her long for the colorful paints and bustling bazaars of civilization. It was astonishing what quiet passion the arrival of the Roman embassy had stirred in her. She’d been half dead, going through the motions of the days and half resigned to union with Skilla. Now she was seized with fresh hope, seeing an alternative. Somehow she had to convince these Romans to ransom her. The key was the embassy scribe and historian who’d followed her around the banquet room with his eyes.

  A year before, the thought of such calculation would have horrified Ilana. Love was sacred, romance was pure, and she’d had a queue of suitors before settling on Tasio. But that was before her betrothed and her father had died, and before Skilla seemed determined to marry her and stick her forever in a yurt. If she acquiesced she’d spend the rest of her days wandering with his tribe from pasture to pasture, bearing Hun babies and watching these butchers bring on the end of the world. She was convinced that ordinary Romans had no idea of the peril they were facing. She believed this because until her own former life had ended, she’d had no idea as well.

  Ilana had donned the Roman dress she’d been captured in for this occasion, and carefully washed and combed her hair. A Hun belt of gold links helped emphasize her slender waist, a medallion the swell of her breasts, and Roman bracelets on the raised arm that balanced the jar caught the light of the sun and called attention to her errand. It was the first time since her capture that she’d really tried to look pretty. The jar was seated on a round felt cap on the crown of her head, the posture needed to bear it giving a seductive sway to her walk.