Attila

by William Napier

  The boy said nothing.

  ‘Lucky for you we came along when we did, anyhow. They’d have torn you limb from limb.’

  At last the boy spoke. ‘They wouldn’t have got close.’

  The lieutenant grinned. After a while he said, ‘And the man you put down?’

  ‘Self-defence.’

  The lieutenant nodded. It was clear enough.

  ‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ the boy blurted out.

  The lieutenant saw in some surprise that the boy’s eyes were bright with tears - not such a tough nut as he made out.

  The lieutenant nodded again. ‘It’s OK, son. It happens. You did well to defend yourself.’

  The boy tried to rub his nose with his bound arm, but couldn’t reach. If he sniffed the lieutenant would hear him, and he didn’t want that.

  They marched left into the Vicus Longus and began the long ascent towards the Palatine. At one point they passed the scarecrow preacher again, and the boy glanced at him with consternation and almost with fear.

  ‘Nutter,’ said the lieutenant.

  ‘Are you a Christian?’ asked the boy.

  The lieutenant grinned. ‘We’re all Christians now, son. Much good may it do us.’

  At last the drunken mob were beginning to thin out for the night. They made way when they saw a squadron of Frontier Troops approaching, looking on curiously from the doorways and the alleys at the strange, small, spiky, half-naked captive bound with rope.

  ‘I’d untie you if I thought you wouldn’t try to escape again,’ said the lieutenant, a little more gently.

  ‘But I would.’

  ‘I know you would.’

  ‘And I’d succeed, too.’

  ‘It’s possible.’

  The boy looked up at the lieutenant, and for a moment something like a fleeting smile passed between them.

  ‘So . . . you were trying to get home?’

  The boy didn’t answer. Instead, surprisingly, he asked a question. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘my dad was a soldier before me, from Gaul originally. But I served in the Legio II “Augusta”, in Britain, at Caerleon. You won’t have heard of it.’

  ‘I’ve heard of it,’ said the boy. ‘It’s in the west of the province, a frontier fortress to keep down the Silurian tribes.’

  The lieutenant laughed with astonishment. ‘How in the Name of Light do you know that?’

  The boy ignored the question. ‘What were you doing in Britain?’

  The lieutenant began to wonder if he should be talking quite so much. There was something about the lad that was . . . unusual.

  ‘Well, my mother was a Celt. My father married her over there. So I guess I’m half and half. But we’re all Celts under our Roman skins, or so we like to think. We - me and the lads here - served over there until just recently. Then—’

  ‘Then the emperor called the British legions home? Because Rome was in such trouble?’

  ‘Hold your horses,’ said the lieutenant easily. ‘Rome’s no home of mine. My home’s Britain. And anyway Rome’s not done yet. We’ve dealt with worse than Goths before. Remember Brennus and his Gauls? They sacked Rome itself. And Hannibal? And the Cimbri?’

  ‘But what’s wrong with the Palatine Guard defending Rome? There’s thirty thousand of them out at the camp.’

  ‘Jove’s balls, you really do know it all, don’t you? Well, you know what we Frontier Troops think of the Palatine Guard back in Rome. A little . . . soft, shall we say. Too many hot baths and too little real fighting.’

  ‘Is there still fighting in Britain?’

  ‘More and more these days,’ said the lieutenant sombrely. ‘The Picts are always raiding in the north, and now we have the Saxon pirates to contend with, all along the eastern and southern coasts. And our Count of the Saxon Shore is about as much use as a paper bucket. So yes, Britain has its problems, too. But from now on’ - he spoke with uncharacteristic hesitancy - ‘they’ll . . . they’ll just have to fend for themselves.’

  The boy pondered for a while. Then, ‘What else is Britain like? Your country?’

  ‘My country?’ The lieutenant’s voice softened again. ‘My country is beautiful.’

  ‘Mine too,’ said the boy.

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  So they passed the time on the return march describing to each other in loving detail their respective countries.

  The boy liked the sound of Britain: plenty of space, good hunting, and no fancy cooking.

  ‘Well,’ said the lieutenant as he watched his men untie the boy and hand him over to the Palace Guard. ‘Just remember, next time: keep your pride and your anger to yourself. Patience is a great military virtue.’

  The boy gave a wan smile.

  ‘Shake,’ said the lieutenant.

  They shook hands. Then the lieutenant barked an order, and his men fell into line. ‘Well, lads, our nightwatch is just about over. In two days’ time we march to Pavia, under the command of General Stilicho. So make the most of Rome’s glorious whores while you can.’

  At that glorious news, all the men raised their fists in the air and roared their hurrahs. Then they wheeled and marched away into the night. The boy looked down the street after them for a long time.

  He was taken and bathed, and escorted to his cell, and a guard was posted permanently outside his room. He drifted into a light, twitching sleep.

  6

  THE SWORD AND THE PROPHECY

  In the hot morning he lay in an uneasy doze when he was woken by low voices by his bedside. He opened his eyes.

  Beside his bed stood Serena and, behind her, General Stilicho himself.

  ‘Well, my young wolf-cub,’ said the general, smiling. ‘And what headaches have you been causing the empire this time?’

  Attila said nothing. He didn’t smile.

  Serena reached down and laid a cool hand across Attila’s forehead. ‘Foolish boy,’ she said.

  He wanted to glare at her but couldn’t. Her eyes were so gentle.

  ‘Here,’ said Stilicho, tossing something onto the bed. ‘This is for you. But only if you promise me never to try to escape again.’ Now he was stern, soldierly. ‘Do you promise, lad?’

  Attila stared down at the package by his side, and looked up again and met the general’s eye. He nodded.

  Stilicho believed him. ‘Open it when we’ve gone.’

  Serena bent and kissed him, nodded to her husband, and departed.

  Stilicho hesitated for a moment, then sat down on a small wooden stool, a little awkwardly for a man of his soldierly frame. He rested his elbows on his knees, rested his chin on his clenched fists, and scrutinised the boy long and hard. The boy waited expectantly.

  ‘I’m riding north for Pavia tomorrow,’ said Stilicho. ‘Serena will remain here in the palace.’ He fell silent a while, then said, ‘The Gothic armies are regrouping under Alaric. You have heard of him?’

  Attila nodded. ‘He’s a Christian, too, though.’

  ‘He is. If he sacks Rome, he has promised to touch not a stone or a tile of any Christian building.’ Stilicho smiled. ‘Some chance. The Gothic armies won’t be sacking anywhere soon, least of all Rome. But . . . ’ The great general sighed. ‘We live in difficult times.’

  Attila looked down. He felt obscurely guilty.

  Stilicho was searching for the right words. He felt somehow that it mattered, deeply, what he said to the boy at this moment. Almost as if . . . almost as if he’d not be seeing him again. As those ancient Sybilline Books had said . . . He put all thought of those haunting Books from his mind, and said, speaking as slowly and carefully as he would to Galla at her most predatory, ‘Difficult times. Strange times.’ He looked hard at the boy, and said simply, ‘Do what is right, Attila.’

  The boy started. The words surprised him.

  Stilicho went on, holding the boy’s eye. ‘I have always served Rome, though I am of barbarian blood. But then, we were all barbarians once. What was great Rome
herself, in the days before Numa and Romulus and the Ancient Kings? A village on a hillside.’

  The boy smiled uncertainly. He was unaccustomed to hearing the general speak in this way.

  ‘What else is there but Rome, to hold back the blood-dimmed tide? To continue . . . History itself? Without Rome, the world would be again a place of dark forests and witchcraft, legends and ghosts, horned warriors, human sacrifice, those terrible Saxon pirates . . . Without Rome, the world would fall back again into the world before history. Do you see what I am saying, boy?’

  Attila nodded hesitantly. The two stared at each other and then the boy’s gaze dropped.

  ‘Someone said to me,’ he said hesitantly, ‘someone said that the Romans are all hypocrites, and no better than anyone else. They go on about barbarians doing human sacrifices, and how disgusting it all is, and how they need Roman law and civilisation and all that - but what is the Roman arena but one huge human sacrifice?’

  ‘Who told you that?’ asked the general, frowning.

  Attila shook his head.

  Stilicho knew better than to try and wring it out of the little mule. He sighed and said, ‘We have lived through centuries of struggle, we Romans. We are not a soft people. No society is perfect; but judge it by its ideals. We have made laws, we have set limits. There are no more gladiators, you know that. The Christian faith has introduced us to guilt - and no bad thing, perhaps. Only criminals and prisoners of war are now executed in the arena, which they fully deserve. Likewise, a master no longer has the power of life and death over his slaves. He can even be tried in court for their murder. Over centuries of struggle, things do get better. Can you say that of life and law in the barbarian lands?’

  Attila said nothing.

  Perhaps it was fruitless. Stilicho brooded for a while, and then he started again, in a vein the boy barely understood.

  ‘Prophecies fulfil themselves.’ He spoke softly, with deep sadness. ‘And in our time, the twelve hundred prophesied years of Rome will come to an end. We might destroy all evidence of the prophecies themselves - we might indeed burn the Sibylline Books, as has been commanded by the powers-that-be. But the prophecies would remain. They are not confined by a single scroll of vellum, nor ended by its burning. Prophecies are things of power. Beliefs are things of power, of real power, in the world. An army that believes in something will always destroy an army that believes in nothing - no matter how great the odds against it. But what do we still believe in? Do we still believe in Rome? Or do we believe in those ancient and implacable Books, which tell only of Rome’s allotted twelve hundred years?’ He shook his head. ‘I should have burnt them all and had done with them.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘But that cannot be the end of everything. It cannot all have been for nothing. It cannot!’ Stilicho’s voice was raised almost to a cry of anguish, his fists tightly clenched. ‘Those twelve long centuries of suffering and sacrifice cannot all just be lost in time, like dead leaves in the wind. The gods could not be so cruel. Something must survive of them.’

  He lowered his voice. ‘I am sorry, I - I am making little sense.’ He compressed his lips, and then started again. ‘The believers, those who defend what they know in their hearts to be right, will always triumph. I have seen a small, weary group of bloodied and battle-weary soldiers, surrounded by ten, twenty times as many of their enemy. But those outnumbered men were loyal to each other. They trusted in themselves, and in each other, and in their god. I have seen a band of no more than sixty men, infantry only, protected only with light mail and leather, armed with only shield and spear and sword - no javelins, no missiles, no artillery, no cavalry back-up or reconnaissance, no archers or slingers, nor even the time to set staves and put out caltrops. But still I have seen them lock shield to shield, clutch their spears in defensive undergrip, and I have seen them hold themselves proudly against as many as a thousand mounted warriors - and walk from that field bloodied but unbowed. Undefeated.’ Stilicho nodded. ‘I know, because I was one of them.

  ‘An army that believes in its cause will always defeat an army of unbelieving savages, who believe only in the flame and the sword. Remember that, Attila.’

  The general stood and resumed his usual aloof demeanour. ‘You have to believe in something. So believe what is right.’

  He stepped towards the door of the boy’s chamber, and threw a last glance back. He nodded at the package on the bed. ‘You can open it now,’ he said.

  The door closed behind him.

  The boy unwrapped the package and found inside the wrappings of fine oiled linen a most beautiful sword, as long as his arm, with gold scrollwork in the handle and a honed double blade that was sharp even to the lightest touch. It was of finest carburised steel, and rather old-fashioned type, the gladius hispaniensis or Spanish sword, a beautifully sinuous and dangerous shape with a swelling then tapering blade and an exceptionally long point. No shield or armour known to man could withstand a straight under-arm thrust from a sword such as this. He wrapped it in its protective oiled cloth again and laid it under his pillow, and daydreamed.

  When he finally arose and went out into the courts of the palace, he found that the other hostage children had heard of his escape. They were fascinated. Hegemond, the fat Burgundian boy with the sleepy eyes, waddled up to him in the palace gardens, where they were playing beneath the mulberry trees, and asked if it was true.

  Attila was wary. He had heard enough questions from these lumbering, slow-witted German children before. Is it true that the Huns coat themselves in animal fat and never take baths? Is it true that the Huns eat only meat and drink only fermented mare’s milk? Is it true that the Huns are the offspring of witches, who were driven out of Christian lands and coupled with the demons of the wind and the desert? ‘Yes,’ he used to nod solemnly. ‘It’s all true.’

  Hegemond made it clear to Attila that he was invited now to join their gang. ‘Even if you are a Hun.’

  But the boy kept his distance and his proud aloofness, as he always did. He watched the German children shout and play at soldiers for a while, amid the Paestum roses in the hot Italian sun. Then he turned away.

  That evening, he had a visitor very different from the morning’s. He was drifting off to sleep when there came a knock on his door. The knock was clearly a formality, however, as the door then promptly opened and a tall, lean figure stepped inside. It was Eumolpus, one of the head palace eunuchs.

  He stood at the end of the boy’s bed. ‘A message from Serena,’ he said coldly. ‘You are to have no more converse with her. Neither with General Stilicho, should you ever meet again.’

  Attila stared at the eunuch. ‘What do you mean?’

  Eumolpus smiled thinly. ‘I am so sorry, perhaps your Latin is still not good enough for you to understand even so simple a command as that. I repeat: you are to have no more converse with Serena. Ever again.’

  ‘By whose order?’ said the boy, pushing himself up on his elbow.

  ‘By the order of Serena herself,’ shrugged Eumolpus. He added, for his own personal amusement, ‘She says she finds your company . . . distasteful.’

  He had gone too far.

  There was a split second of deafening silence in the little room, and then Attila, screaming ‘You lie!’ sprang from his low bed and hurled himself at the startled eunuch with his teeth bared and his fists flying.

  The guard heard the eunuch’s screams and rushed in, tore the raging boy away from the wailing Eumolpus and knocked him smartly to the floor. Then he turned back to the eunuch, who was lying speechless across the bed, and gave a low whistle.

  ‘Jupiter’s brazen balls,’ he gasped.

  The eunuch looked as if he’d been savaged by a Caledonian hunting dog.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there swearing,’ blubbered Eumolpus through the blood that spilt from his battered mouth, and with a shaky hand held to his throat where the boy had bitten deeply into it. ‘Get a physician.’

  That night, f
or the first time, Attila was locked and bolted inside his chamber, and a guard of three was posted on his door.

  He couldn’t sleep anyway. His heart thumped with a black rage that would keep him awake for years.

  Stilicho was abruptly summoned the following morning to the Chamber of the Imperial Audience before his departure for Pavia.

  When he got there he found not the emperor seated upon the throne, but Princess Galla Placidia. Honorius had already departed for the safety of his palace amid the marshlands of Ravenna.