Attila

by William Napier

  And he increased his demands. Now he wanted all the gold in the city, and all the silver, and the handover of all slaves of barbarian blood. The demands were outrageous, and the Senators said as much. ‘What then will we be left with?’ they asked indignantly.

  Again the reply was laconic. ‘Your lives.’

  Nevertheless, although in the open field there was none to stand against Alaric and his horsemen, the barbarian king knew he had no skill in siege warfare. Rome might withstand them for months, and the besiegers, as is so often the case, would soon be every bit as trapped, malnourished and diseased as the besieged. So, instead, Alaric turned his men away from the walls and made down to Ostia, the port of Rome, where the great grain-ships came from Africa and Egypt. And they sacked Ostia, and laid it waste, and burnt the massive grain-houses, and sank the huge, clumsy ships in the harbour. And Rome began to starve.

  Alaric returned to camp outside the walls of Rome and waited for the inevitable surrender that must come soon.

  The tall, fair-haired warrior leant on his spear outside his tent and shielded his eyes from the sun. Across the shimmering fields came a man, unarmoured, unarmed, on a fine grey horse. Little plumes of dust arose from the horse’s hooves as it trod delicately down towards the Gothic encampment.

  Lucius looked neither to left nor to right. Over his head he could feel the sign that the hermit on the rock had made in the mountains by moonlight. His heart was as steady as his hands. He walked on between the first felt tents of the Goths, towards the walls of Rome.

  More and more spearmen emerged from their tents to stare. Some of them called out angrily, some hesitated, some even laughed.

  ‘You have a message for us, stranger?’

  ‘What is your business?’

  ‘Speak, man.’

  Lucius rode on through the camp. Outside these tents, the wives of warriors sat cross-legged before campfires, stirring pots or nursing infants at their breasts. Children ran about in the dust, or stopped to stare at the strange man on the grey mare. One little boy ran across almost under Tugha Bàn’s hooves, and Lucius reined in to let him pass unscathed, then rode forwards again. At last the road ahead was blocked by four mounted men who lowered their spears towards him.

  ‘Hva þat waetraeth?’

  He drew up in front of them. They eyed him easily, unafraid, their spears held loose but firm at their sides. Their blue eyes never wavered. These were no bandits who could be brushed aside with a swordstroke. Besides, he had thrown his sword away.

  ‘Do you speak Latin?’

  The horseman to his right nodded. ‘Some.’ He swiped his hand over his mouth. ‘Enough to tell you to depart.’

  Lucius shook his head. ‘I’m not departing. I have business in Rome.’

  The horseman grinned. ‘We too.’

  Another horseman, his mount restive and his eyes burning at this Roman’s impertinence, pulled up tightly on his reins and said angrily, ‘Tha sainusai methtana, tha!’

  The warrior to the right, with the easy smile but the firm and steady eyes, leant forwards. He rested his muscular forearms, banded with bronze arm-bands, on the pommel of his saddle, and said conversationally, ‘My friend Vidusa here is growing angry. He says you must go. Otherwise . . .’

  ‘I am unarmed.’

  ‘Then we will pull you from your horse and knock your teeth out. But you will not ride into Rome through this camp without—’

  ‘I will ride into Rome,’ said Lucius, his voice quiet and steady. ‘I have business there that cannot be denied.’

  A sound of furious galloping approached, and Lucius’ back and neck shivered with readiness for the cold bite of sword-blade or arrowhead. But none came. Another warrior skidded to a halt at his side. From the way the first four sat up and looked respectfully into the far distance, Lucius judged that the newcomer was a nobleman. He glanced to his left. The new arrival wore cross-gartered trousers, and was naked to the waist. His biceps bulged as he wrenched back the reins. His hair was long and fair and his eyes burnt keenly into Lucius’. He wore no sign of his rank, but the air of authority and power was unmistakable. He bellowed at his four inferiors and they answered sheepishly. They lowered their spears. The newcomer then turned his attention fully on Lucius. His Latin was basic but adequate.

  ‘You are Roman? Answer.’

  ‘I was.’

  The newcomer frowned, his horse curvetting skittishly in the dust. The warrior wrenched the reins so fiercely that its head was pulled round almost to touch his legs, and the skittishness subsided.

  ‘Was?’ he rasped. His voice was deep, hoarse with dust, but powerful. ‘Can a man change his tribe? Can Roman become not Roman? Can Goth become Saxon or Frank? Can man disown father and mother, even people? Answer.’

  ‘My name is Lucius,’ he said. ‘I am from Britain.’

  ‘Britain,’ repeated the newcomer. ‘It rains.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘Often. Always. But grass is green. Answer.’

  Lucius nodded. ‘Grass is green.’

  The warrior grinned suddenly from under his bushy moustache. He sliced his hands at the walls of Rome. ‘After Rome burns,’ he said, ‘we come to Britain. We graze our horses where grass is green.’

  Lucius shook his head. ‘The grass of Britain for my people. Our land.’

  The warrior’s grin vanished as abruptly as it had appeared. He rode in alongside Lucius and stared at him closely. ‘You not afraid, Was-Roman?’

  Lucius shook his head again. ‘Not afraid.’

  ‘Why not afraid? We kill you. Answer.’

  Lucius remembered the words of the Greek philosopher: ‘How marvellous it must be for you to have as much power as a poisonous spider.’ But Lucius was not a man to borrow another man’s words. He spoke his own words, simple and true.

  ‘I am not afraid, because I am not your enemy. You will not kill me. I will ride into Rome. I have business there. Then I will sail home to Britain.’

  ‘Where the grass is green.’

  ‘Where the grass is green.’

  The warrior stared into Lucius’ eyes a little longer. Lucius returned his gaze without blinking.

  ‘You are strange, Was-Roman,’ said the Goth at last.

  ‘I don’t doubt it,’ said Lucius.

  Then the warrior wheeled away and threw his arm out wide to his men, roaring at them in the Gothic tongue. They parted, and Lucius rode on between them.

  Several hundred yards separated the perimeter of the Gothic camp from the walls of Rome, well out of missile range for both. Lucius rode up under the shadow of the Porta Salaria and shouted for entrance. No questions were asked, and there was only a brief delay before the door in the centre of the great oak gates was opened. He dismounted and stepped through it, leading Tugha Bàn behind him. He wondered why it had been so easy, but when he saw the guard on the gate he wondered no more. He was starving. His eyes were hollow and red, and his hair had fallen out in clumps from his white scalp. Spittle had dried and crusted round his mouth, and his lips had almost shrunken away with starvation. In such a condition, a man can barely think straight. The city was in a desperate situation.

  Lucius led his horse up the street, and everywhere there was the stench of starving, unwashed and, even worse, unburied bodies. He saw people huddled along the edges of the streets or in the shadows of the darkened alleyways, sometimes holding out a clawed hand in beggary. He stopped only once, when he came upon the body of a child in rags, no more than four or five years old, its face of parchment, eyes rolled up in its head, flies settling already around the shrunken lips and the flaking nose. The child would be the same age as his own . . .

  He bowed his head sorrowfully and could walk no further. He let go of Tugha Bàn and leant down and gathered the dead child up in its rags. He covered its face - it was impossible to say even whether it was a boy or a girl - and laid the featherlight bundle at the side of the road, brushing away the flies and hiding the drawn, ashen face with a corner of
ragged cloak. It was not enough, it was never enough, but it was as much as he could do. Then he and Tugha Bàn walked on.

  The whole city lay under an ominous silence, except for perhaps a long-drawn-out, barely audible sigh as it settled into enervation and death. The bodies of the dead were everywhere, and the clouds of breeding flies. It was still August, and in this heat Disease would soon make his appearance, close on the heels of his beloved bride, Starvation, and add to the manifold miseries of Rome.

  Lucius and Tugha Bàn walked for half an hour through the starved and haunted streets, the huddled groups of the dying sometimes stirring and chattering as they passed, eyeing with glittering, half-mad eyes the plump, grass-fed flanks of Tugha Bàn. Lucius patted her on the nose.

  At last they came to the Palatine Hill and the gates of the Imperial Palace. The guards here looked better fed. He demanded entrance, saying he came from Count Heraclian, from the column that had been despatched to Ravenna earlier in the month, and he gave the correct passwords. There was a long delay, and then at last he was admitted. He insisted on an audience with Princess Galla Placidia, saying that he had a confidential message for her from Count Heraclian himself. He was told to wait, and he waited for two hours. He waited until the evening. And then they said that the Princess Galla would receive him.

  ‘Look after my horse,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I’ll be coming back for her.’

  They gave him their word.

  He was escorted by four armed guards into the Chamber of the Imperial Audience, and there in regal splendour on her throne of finest Carrara marble sat Princess Galla Placidia. Close by her stood the eunuch Eumolpus.

  The princess let her pale eyes settle upon him for some time. Then she said, ‘So Heraclian is safe in Ravenna.’

  ‘He is. Along with his beloved Palatine Guard.’ The soldier’s tone was peculiar, sarcastic.

  ‘Address the Throne as “Your Excellency”,’ hissed Eumolpus.

  Lucius turned and gazed at him steadily. Then he turned back and looked at the princess with equal steadiness. He said nothing.

  Galla was astonished, but she betrayed nothing. A princess must never betray any emotion, which is weakness; she must never raise her voice, and she must walk with a slow stateliness at all times, as if a cup of water were balanced on her head.

  Besides, perhaps this filthy, tousled, bare-legged soldier, whose malodorous presence she must endure for the sake of his communication from that fool Heraclian, had sunstroke, or was weak with hunger or something. No matter. For once, palace protocol could be put aside. All she wanted to know was: ‘And the rest of the column?’

  ‘Dead.’

  She nodded. ‘And the Hun boy?’

  ‘Apart from the boy. He is free now.’

  She smiled. ‘As you put it.’

  Lucius nodded. ‘He will be well on his way back to his people by now.’

  Galla hesitated. ‘You mean . . . his ancestors?’

  ‘No, I mean his people. Out on the Scythian plains. That’s clear enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘Your Excellency!’ cried Eumolpus, snatching up his skirts and hurrying out into the centre of the chamber. ‘This impertinence is grotesque! I must abjure you’ - he swung round to the deranged soldier who dared to address the Imperial Throne in such a way - ‘I must abjure you . . .’ Uncertain of what exactly he must abjure the soldier from, he raised his hand angrily.

  ‘Slap me,’ said the soldier quietly, ‘and I will break your neck where you stand.’

  ‘Oh!’ cried Eumolpus, backing away. ‘Your Excellency! Guards!’

  But Princess Galla waved the guards away. ‘Bring this man some wine.’

  ‘I have no need of your wine,’ said the soldier. ‘It might make me puke.’

  Galla’s face began to show signs of revulsion, uncertainty and fear in equal measure. When she spoke, it was with further hesitancy. ‘What is your message, soldier?’

  Lucius fixed her unblinkingly. ‘“If Satan cast out Satan,”’ he said, ‘“how then shall his kingdom stand? For then he is divided against himself.” The Gospel of St Matthew, chapter twelve, verse twenty-six.’

  Eumolpus retreated to his mistress’s side, and the two of them stared at the strange, sun-maddened soldier.

  Finally, Galla spoke again. Her skin and her pale red hair looked paler than ever. ‘You are telling me the boy got away?’

  ‘The boy got away. Heraclian and the Palatine Guard got to Ravenna. And the rest of my century - my entire century - got wiped out. By a detachment of Batavian cavalry from the Danube station, disguised as a Gothic warband.’ Lucius kept his eyes on Galla all the time, his voice rising now in volume and anger. ‘I don’t have a message for you from that scumbag Heraclian, may he rot in hell. I only came here to ask you a question. One simple question, to which I trust you will give a straight answer. Is it true that this whole disgusting business - this massacre - was merely a—’

  ‘Your Excellency!’ cried Eumolpus, unable to contain himself any longer. ‘This is outrageous! You, an unwashed hooligan, do not put questions to Her Imperial Majesty, and you do not—’

  Lucius took two deliberate steps towards Eumolpus. ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he said. ‘I want to hear an answer from the one who gives the orders, not a fucking eunuch.’

  ‘Guards!’ yelped Eumolpus. ‘Arrest this man!’

  This time, the princess was so shaken that she did nothing to stop them. Two burly Palace Guards soon had Lucius’ arms locked up painfully behind his back, but he appeared not even to have noticed. His eyes never left Galla’s porcelain-white face.

  ‘If you do not answer,’ he said, as he was dragged back from the throne, ‘I will assume that my century was destroyed on your orders, as part of a plot using the Hun boy as a pawn. Am I right?’

  Galla said nothing, but her lower lip trembled, and she clenched one small white fist in the palm of her other hand.

  ‘Am I right?’ roared Lucius, and his voice echoed deafeningly around the cavernous chamber like an angry missile.

  Still there was nothing from the throne but an aghast silence.

  ‘Then I pray to God that you are punished for it,’ said Lucius, his voice quiet again but perfectly clear. ‘And that the line of Honorius die.’

  At last it was too much for Galla. She leapt to her feet, all regal diginity and slow stateliness gone, and she raised her voice and cried with considerable emotion, ‘Take this man away! Have him beaten - and executed within the hour!’

  And Lucius was dragged from the room.

  ‘So the Huns will not come?’ said Eumolpus, once the obnoxious soldier had been dragged away.

  Galla resumed her seat, still shaken. ‘If what that madman has just told us is correct, the Huns will not come. The plan has failed.’

  ‘What must we do now, Your Excellency?’

  Galla scowled in fury. ‘We must negotiate with the Goths. At first light tomorrow.’

  ‘And the boy? We do not know how much he really knows. If he makes it home to Scythia - unlikely, I know, but if he does - and tells his story, we will make mortal enemies of the Hun nation as well.’

  Galla turned such a look on Eumolpus that he quailed where he stood.

  ‘Kill him,’ she said. ‘Send out orders. Scour all of Italy, and all of Pannonia beyond, to the very banks of the Danube. He must be destroyed. He must not get away. Rome itself may depend on it. Find him. And kill him.’

  After ten lashes from the knotted rawhide whip, his back was streaming with blood. After thirty lashes, the flesh hung from his back in ribbons, and soon after that he lost consciousness. By the time the guards were done, the white of his ribs showed through the flesh.

  He was not aware of the appearance of two Palatine officers in the cell beside him, nor of the low, urgent conversation they had with the prison guard. He did not hear them say ‘... from Heraclian’s column . . . the sole survivor . . . sweet Jesus ... not ours to ask questions, soldier . . . be criminal to . . . No on
e will ever know.’

  Then the two guards who had tied him up and lashed him tended him as he lay belly down for three days not moving. He tried to speak but they told him to shut up. They told him they knew who he was, and he would not be executed. He muttered that they could be put to death themselves for this disobedience. They shrugged.

  They sewed up his wounds, where there remained enough skin on his back to do so, and they bathed him every hour, day and night. Sometimes the officers of the Palatine Guard came into his cell and looked him over. Not a word was exchanged. And then the officers left again. They, too, could be put to death for this.