Attila: The Judgement

by William Napier

  Aëtius set down his cup. ‘My old friend and guide, I know why it is that you have sailed here all these weeks - and in winter, too. I know how bitter it must be for you. But we cannot send men to help you.’

  Lucius seized his arm, suddenly impassioned. ‘Just a thousand of your men, I implore you! For the sake of old friendship, for the sake of Christ! Master-General of the West, whom I knew and travelled with as a boy, do not deny me. One thousand of your best, and I tell you we will meet the Saxons in open field, even ten thousand of them, and defeat them once and for all. They are many, but they fight wild, all solo howls and heroics. One good legion could take them. Then the kingdom of Christian Celtic Britain will be at peace. But my own people, they’re no warriors, only simple farmers. They cannot do it.’

  ‘Nor can I do it.’ Aëtius’ tone was unbending. ‘I cannot give you a hundred, not fifty. There are twenty-five thousand men under my command, and every one counts. The barbarian army coming west numbers at least a hundred thousand mounted warriors, with twice as many followers. I cannot do it.’

  ‘And Rome matters more than Britain.’

  ‘It does,’ said Aëtius evenly.

  Lucius glowered at the ground. ‘And to think,’ he muttered, ‘that three times I saved his life - the Hun boy.’

  Neither of them could speak the name of the barbarian warlord. Ironies were many, but none of them amused. At last, Lucius tried for a joke.

  ‘Even if he does destroy you,’ he said, glaring at Aëtius, ‘and comes with his one hundred thousand tattooed horsemen to the shores of northern Gaul, above the white cliffs of Gesoriacum, and gazes across to the answering white cliffs of Britain, not even’ - he gritted his teeth - ‘not even Attila would invade us. Not even that all-devouring world-conqueror would want our miserable, fog-bound little islands.’

  Aëtius’ eyes glimmered with humour. He touched the older man on his strong right arm. ‘Believe me, old friend and guide, in these latter days you and all your people are better off on your own, in your gentle, sweet green island.’

  Lucius would never have imagined hearing Aëtius talk like this, as if fore-defeated.

  ‘How is your family?’ added the general.

  Small talk was absurd. It was time to leave, empty-handed, and sail back for war-tormented Britain. But Lucius, rising to his feet, said that his wife still lived and his children were all grown and well.

  ‘Your son? The dreamer?’

  ‘Cadoc. Still dreaming, but he fights beside me well enough.’

  Outside, Aëtius was waiting for Lucius to remount when a horseman came galloping up the road from Aquileia. Aëtius’ eyes narrowed. The fellow’s face was taut and his clothes were both sodden and dusty, as though he had been travelling heedless of weather. He almost fell from his horse and stood gasping.

  Lucius pulled his own horse round as if business were concluded, but Aëtius’ blood was like ice. ‘Speak, man.’

  The fellow saluted rapidly. ‘Sir, the Huns have crossed the Rhine. All of Gaul is ablaze.’

  Lucius stilled his horse again.

  Aëtius stared at the messenger in a daze. ‘Gaul?’ he repeated dumbly.

  ‘News from the Rhine stations. He crossed—’

  ‘There are no bloody Rhine stations left!’ roared Aëtius, finding brief solace in blaming the messenger. ‘All remaining frontier troops are with me! All four bloody thousand of them or less!’

  ‘Neverthless, news came through from some last scouts, sir. He crossed the Rhine near Argentoratum, then turned back and fell on the city and destroyed it.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence.

  ‘And?’

  ‘Then the cities of Vangiones, Moguntiacum, and Colonia Agrippina, sir.’

  The greatest of all the Rhine frontier cities. Even Aëtius’ strong voice faltered. ‘Colonia ... destroyed?’

  ‘So the reports say, sir.’ The fellow’s face was agonised. ‘Laid waste, all citizens put to the sword. The ice on the Rhine is dyed red, they say.’

  Thousands more slain - tens of thousands. He had outwitted them. He had not turned on Rome, but had gone north and west. He would destroy everything else first, and leave Rome, the sweetest dish, till last. How could Aëtius not have foreseen? He could have damned himself for his folly. All of Gaul lay undefended before the Hun holocaust. If they ever did defeat Attila now, there would still be nothing left afterwards, anyway. The empire had already been destroyed. The East had been devastated. Africa was in the hands of Attila’s allies, the Vandals. And now the rich fields of Gaul, wealthiest and most beautiful of all the Western provinces, would be turned into another land of ash. Italy would be left until last; and then only Rome.

  His fists were clenched, white-knuckled. ‘You have not told me all yet.’

  The fellow shook his head. ‘Then it seems his army split into two. One rode due west from the ruins of Colonia and laid waste to Tornacum and Cameracum, and then south and fell upon Lutetia. The second army rode south up the valley of the Moselle, and destroyed Augusta Treverorum, Mediomaurici and Rhemi.’

  ‘Treverorum, too.’ Its great black gate-tower, the Porta Nigra, with its massive portcullis, one of the wonders of Belgia.

  ‘It is believed that the first army - perhaps both - is aiming to fall upon Aureliana next. And then ... come south.’

  Leaving nothing but corpses behind them. All down the roads of Gaul, all down the Via Poenina and the valley of the Rhône, nothing but corpses.

  He had crossed Germania in winter. Not only his army, but his entire people, old men and wives and children in their high-wheeled wagons laden with loot. That could not be done, not through those trackless and silent forests. An impossible task; but for Attila, Flagellum Dei, what was impossible? Did he not have God on his side? He had ridden through those dark and snowbound pine forests, never weakening but only augmenting his strength. Perhaps he had chosen a colder climate for his people to destroy the sickness and fever among them. And it had worked.

  With his Byzantine gold, he would have bought more and more support along the away. Among his latest allies would be Gepids and Alans and lean Sarmatian lancers. As he traversed Germania, more and more forest tribesmen would have flocked to his banner, seeing this as the greatest raiding-party in history - easy loot. Among those Germanic tribes, surely there still burned an ancient hatred of Rome in the race memory. Those distant sons of old Arminius, still singing their lays of the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest, four long centuries before.

  Aëtius stood stunned. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw Lucius moving to dismount. He turned on him angrily.

  ‘No! You go!’ He mastered himself again, spoke more quietly. ‘Old friend and guide, for God’s sake, go. Ride back to the coast, take ship for Britain once more, even in winter seas.’ Lucius hesitated. ‘As I said before, you are better off there in your green and gentle island. The rest of Europe is burning. Only you are left. Only in your far west, it may be, will anything of the old world survive. Let that put strength in your swords when you fight the Saxons.’

  Lucius regarded him gravely from under his bushy white eyebrows. Then he heeled his horse, slowly pulled round and, without another word, headed down the road to Aquileia.

  ‘There is more news, sir - not of Attila.’

  Aëtius was gazing after the horseman riding south, longing in his eyes. ‘Go on.’

  ‘From Constantinople, sir.’

  Aëtius turned to him again.

  ‘The Emperor Theodosius is dead. He fell from his horse while out riding, and injured his spine badly. He bore his agony with great fortitude and piety, it is said, and died three days later, the name of the Saviour on his lips.’

  Aëtius crossed himself. That scholarly, kind-hearted fool ...

  ‘The new emperor is one Marcian, sir. He has already married the old emperor’s sister.’

  Aëtius blinked with disbelief. ‘Pulcheria? That prune-like perpetual virgin?’

  ‘The same, sir
.’

  ‘And what of Theodosius’ widow? The Empress Eudoxia?’

  ‘She has retired to Jerusalem. It is said that relations between her and Empress Pulcheria were always difficult. Emperor Marcian has meanwhile already communicated with Emperor Valentinian, wishing him every success against the Hunnish hordes, expressing only regret that the East cannot be of any more assistance. But they have too little manpower, and besides, they are busy with the great new Church Council of Chalcedon.’

  Aëtius smiled a faint, sour smile, nodding, his mind racing, for a moment forgetting even Gaul. So she was back in her beloved Jerusalem: further away from him than ever. Long, long ago there, a young army officer had once kissed a beautiful empress, adulterously, on a moonlit balcony. Now she was a widow, and free. Yet the times were against it. It was impossible. He was needed elsewhere.

  He pressed his finger and thumb into his eyes. At times he could come close to cursing God. He felt as if he was about to be torn apart. Everything was in ruins, the world was sick, and yet above he could hear the sound of heaven laughing. He felt on the brink of hysterical laughter himself for a moment. The messenger moved uneasily. But when Aëtius opened his eyes again, there was that stolid Germanus before him, and Tatullus just behind. They saluted. He could have clung to them like a drowning man. The sense of illimitable horror faded a little.

  Time to take command again. He told them the news from Gaul. They looked grim.

  ‘Men ready to move out at dawn tomorrow, sir,’ said Tatullus.

  ‘But nowhere near enough ships at Aquileia,’ said Germanus.

  ‘Nor at Ravenna,’ growled Aëtius, ‘quite apart from the fact that the military harbour there was condemned to neglect decades ago, and has since been planted with fruit trees.’

  Germanus shook his big bullet head. ‘Bloody disgrace. How’s Rome supposed to fight her enemies these days? Throw figs at them?’

  ‘Quite. So we march. We have a prior appointment overland, anyway. Six hundred miles away, so it will take us a month.’

  ‘In winter?’

  ‘In winter.’

  Germanus and Tatullus both looked puzzled.

  ‘At Tolosa,’ said Aëtius. ‘At the court of the Visigoths.’

  4

  THE TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION

  Attila crossed the frozen Rhine six miles south of Argentoratum, the bitter winter suddenly his ally, the great river as solid as a marble pavement. It took his titanic army over a week to ride from east bank to west over the sparkling ice. He rode with his remaining Chosen Men and his best warriors, and then the rest of the Hun people behind. There rode with him the Kutrigur Huns under their leader, Sky-In-Tatters, and the people of the Oronchan Valley under Bayan-Kasgar; Hepthalite Huns, White Huns, Black Huns, Huns from the shores of the Aral Sea and the very northern limits of the Scythian steppes, clad in furs, with their wicked curved bows and their quivers bristling with arrows.

  Now there also rode with him Gepids from the Transylvanian hills, under their King Ardaric; Sarmatian horse-warriors, and blue-eyed Alan lancers, an Iranian people, cunning and untrustworthy. The ancient Persians, it was said, had been taught three things as boys: to ride a horse, to shoot an arrow, and tell the truth. The Alans still excelled at the first two.

  There were stocky, bearded Rugians from the far northern shores of the Baltic Sea, Scirians in leather body-armour, carrying long javelins and battle-axes, and flaxen-haired Langobards with great two-handed swords. As the horde passed through Germania they were joined, as Aëtius had guessed, by Thuringians, Moravians, Herulians, Burgundians, and even the sons and grandsons of those nationless freebooters who had once ridden under the banner of Rhadaghastus, and been so savagely defeated by the Huns themselves upon the Tuscan plain.

  The losses that Attila had sustained at Viminacium and the other cities of the East, at the battle of the River Utus, and finally beneath the walls of Constantinople - a few thousand in all - had been made up forty- or fifty-fold. The chilly dust-cloud and the steam from their horses could be seen a day’s march away. His army shook the earth as it rode west.

  In the cities along the Rhine they slew every living thing they found. They would have driven off the sheep and cattle as their own, but already they were overburdened, and it was late winter still, and not enough forage. So they took only what they could carry from those wealthy cities, loading it onto their groaning wagons: armour damascened with gold and silver, silken stuffs, rugs and furs all heaped together with sacred objects looted from burned churches, reliquaries studded with precious stones and housing the bones of forgotten martyrs, chalices, pat-tens, jewel-encrusted gospels they could not even read.

  Among those they captured at Colonia Agrippina was a nobly born Cornish maiden called Ursula, who was to be betrothed to a son of a patrician in the city, and her eleven maidens. After amusing themselves for a while trying to make the girls fall to their knees and worship their god Astur, the Huns ravished them and slew them and hung their bodies from the walls of the city, along with many others. The Cornish maid was soon declared a saint, and a legend rapidly grew up about St Ursula and her Eleven Thousand Virgins. In this way, history was already reverting to myth, and in place of sober chronicles a new age was being ushered in which would prefer extravagant tales and foolish superstitions to hard-headed facts. It was as if Attila was drawing in, in the very wake of his horse as he rode, a new dark age which would cover all of Europe.

  The invaders laid waste the lovely valley of the Moselle, which Ausonius had once so rapturously praised, with its handsome villas amid lush meadows, its valley sides thickly planted with green vines, its bargemen transporting bales of cloth and casks of wine, shouting out to the laughing girls dressing the vines as they passed. At Augusta Treverorum the citizens showed spirit merely by shutting the gates, but Attila had his men drive forward at spearpoint women and children captured from the surrounding farms and villages, and threatened to slaughter them all unless the citizens of the town opened the gates and treated with him. The gates were duly opened to save innocent lives, at which the Huns slaughtered them all anyway, captives and citizens alike. At Mediomaurici there remained not a building standing except the solitary little chapel of St Stephen.

  Often they came to towns and cities already deserted, and then the Kutrigur Huns galloped forward with particular alacrity, like hounds on the traces, putting their hunting and tracking skills to use. Almost always they found the absconded citizens, huddled in terror in a nearby stretch of forest, and put an end to them there.

  After two or three weeks of wreaking havoc all down the Moselle, Attila and his horde left behind them a two-hundred-mile-long valley of the dead.

  In all this destruction they met not a breath of opposition, yet all the time Attila himself grew more and more silent, solitary and withdrawn. He also became increasingly superstitious, never tiring of consulting Enkhtuya for signs and portents, and demanding to know when the Western Roman Army under Aëtius would be marching north to meet them. Every night there were strange ceremonies in his tent, with fur-clad shamans beating deerskin drums to summon the ancestral dead, and antlered sorcerers dancing with rattles, flagellating themselves, wailing nasal incantations. The future was descried in the foam of boiling water, the entrails of chickens, sticks flung at random; by scapulimancy from signs read in the heat-cracked shoulderblades of cattle, and from the gyrations of smoke from burning incense. The portents were always good, but the Great Tanjou looked more and more like a man haunted by some vast and nameless sorrow.

  Someone sang,

  ‘Turn back, turn back, my mad master,

  For things are not as they seem,

  My dreams are awakened to nightmare,

  And all the world is a dream.

  ‘Such are the wages of vengeance,

  Such is anger’s yield,

  My master with all his sad captains

  Lying silent in the field.

  ‘Kites and crows his companions,

&nbs
p; His banner a banner of blood,

  All treasures, all holy things

  Lost in the flood.’

  Attila did not silence the singer. He only bowed his head. So let it be.

  From the Moselle, Attila’s army swung west through the dark and dense Carbonarian Forest: the country of the Batavians, of ghoul-haunted birchwoods and fens, stagnant ponds, thick mosses, dripping ferns, and foul-smelling bogs which could suck down a horse entire and close over its last pitiful struggles in silence as though it had never been.