Death of an Empire (21 page)

‘In the early hours of this morning, he ordered that the saddles of the dead should be raised into a tower, like a funeral pyre, in case the camp fell. Attila seated himself at the very summit of the pile. Before us all, and under the relentless volleys of your arrows, he swore that no enemy would ever capture him alive, which terrified his allies, who expected to die with him. No other king has the strength of purpose to supplant Attila. We fear him as much as you do.’

‘So what are his plans now?’ Aetius demanded urgently. ‘Tell me, Gepid, for the lives of many men hang on your answer.’

‘For the first time, we saw fear in the eyes of Attila. Ardaric looked at him as he sat, high on his pyre of saddles, and could clearly see that the end of a long tyranny was upon us. And so he determined to send me to you as his emissary. The latest sheep intestines speak of further disasters and Attila will be forced to retreat.’

Aetius paced around the fire while the allied kings and Erikk Horsebreaker waited in silence. The flaring light from the burning logs outlined the Roman’s high cheekbones and turned his sunken eyes into black pits. He sucked on his teeth, spat, and made his decision.

‘We have lost thousands of men, and the accounting will take many weeks to finalise. King Merovech is dead and King Childeric wishes to return his body to the north for burial, while King Thorismund would inter our noble ally Theodoric at the place where he fell while charging his enemy. We will let Attila decide our course of action!’

The allied kings looked puzzled and the Gepid warrior would have remonstrated with the general had Aetius not silenced them all with a glance.

‘Hear me! If Attila turns towards Buda and his lands, then he may pass in peace. I am afraid that we lack the strength to defeat him so easily on a second occasion. If he is so unwise as to turn towards the south, we must ride against him. We will have no choice. Childeric, ensure that arrows pepper the Hun camp right through the nights to come. Aiming scarcely matters, for it’s the impact on Attila’s nerves that we seek. He has never experienced defeat, so we’ll let him feel it in his gullet until he chokes on it.’

Then Aetius turned his attention to Erikk Horsebreaker.

‘And you, Gepid, may tell your master that he is free to return to his homelands with no hindrance from us. But hear me, Erikk whatever-you-call-yourself. Do not cross my path again, for I dislike your manners, your face and your presumption. You will stay beyond the Reno river and we’ll agree to leave each other be. Thorismund!’ The Visigoth responded with a look of sheer contempt. ‘There are matters we need to discuss.’

Erikk Horsebreaker chuckled in Myrddion’s general direction as the fireside slowly emptied. ‘Well, well, well!’ he whispered softly. ‘Thorismund will need to hide his feelings more carefully in the future. Methinks there’s no love lost between those two!’

‘You spoke to me?’ Myrddion asked, imperious in his rusty black, and alien in this far, violent place.

‘Aye,’ Erikk replied. ‘Apart from the hulking Visigoths who brought me here, you’re the only person in earshot. Your Roman friend rides far too high and he’ll fall from his saddle faster than Attila at this rate.’

Myrddion paused to lift the edges of his robe away from a burning log that had rolled out of the fire. ‘Be careful what you say, Erikk, for Aetius might yet refuse to return you to your king
unscathed. Perhaps these warriors might escort you to the edge of the camp and give you a horse – just to make certain that Aetius’s orders are obeyed to the letter. And if I were you, I’d watch my back for stray arrows until such time as I was well on my way back to my master.’

The captain of the Visigoth guards grinned like a shaggy northern wolf. These men understood the nature of their Roman masters. And they did not approve of broken promises, even to erstwhile enemies. ‘I will organise a small escort, healer, to ensure that the Gepid avoids the general’s belated clutches. After all, we are only obeying his orders. King Theodoric would have enjoyed the irony of all this subterfuge.’ The Visigoth kicked the log back into the fire with a brief shower of sparks.

‘I’d be grateful for such an escort,’ Erikk responded, and bowed to his captors with genuine respect.

Once the fireside was deserted, Myrddion sat and thought carefully. He knew that the situation at the field hospital was in hand and he could absent himself for an hour or two.

Aetius was old-school Roman, Myrddion decided, but he lacked the moral core that those ancients were rumoured to have possessed. After all, he’s half Scythian, Myrddion reminded himelf, and the Scythians are closer to Attila in thinking than to the old Roman senators. The general would kill Erikk out of hand, without a second thought, for the sake of a perceived insult.

Myrddion was still deep in thought when Thorismund came charging through the darkness from the direction of Aetius’s tent. He was muttering savagely under his breath. ‘Oh, it’s you, healer! Where’s the Gepid?’

‘I sent him off with your guard for protection. I hope you aren’t angry at my decision, but I feared he’d not reach the outskirts of our position alive without an escort.’

Thorismund laughed drily. ‘A good guess, healer! I can see why
my father set such store by you, although I must warn you that Vechmar doesn’t like you – as if his opinion matters! What do you think Aetius should do?’

‘Smash Attila while he can,’ Myrddion replied economically.

‘I agree, but he won’t do it. He informed me that he wanted to counsel me on my tenuous position as heir to the throne. Yes, healer, in the middle of a war, Aetius wanted to advise me on the security of my succession. What does that tell you?’

‘That you shouldn’t be talking to me,’ the young healer responded. ‘Or anyone who can’t be totally trusted. You must watch your back at all times from now on.’

‘Frankly, Myrddion Emrys, you don’t matter sufficiently to the success or otherwise of the alliance to be any threat. If I ask advice of anyone, you are one of the best choices, because no one will listen if you inform on me.’

Myrddion nodded at Thorismund’s convoluted, but accurate, assessment of his worth.

‘I was lost when I rode into Attila’s camp.’ Thorismund laughed sardonically. ‘I was looking for Father – and I had no idea where I was. Now Aetius thinks I’m a fire-eater and a threat! He’d rather strip the alliance bare than have the Visigoths snarling at his back. Believe it or not, he fears me because I got lost in the darkness. The man is so used to treasonous thinking that he expects such behaviour from everyone.’

‘Did you explain your mistake to him?’

‘Do I look crazed, healer? Of course not! When you lie down with wolves such as Aetius, you’d better make sure your teeth are very sharp, as my father always said. I’ll let the Roman think I’m more audacious and courageous than I really am.’ Myrddion nodded in agreement. ‘As for the situation at home, Aetius is half right. My brothers might be tempted to chance their arms against me. Perhaps! Do I stay with Aetius and wait for a knife in the ribs
in the dead of night? Or do I return to Tolosa and secure my throne?’

Myrddion placed his finger directly on the seat of the problem. ‘Can Attila hurt the Visigoths now?’

‘No. He can’t hold this part of Gaul, even if he wins tomorrow’s battle. He must be nearly out of supplies for that vast horde. He can’t hurt the Visigoths any more than he has already done.’

‘Can the Romans hurt the Visigoths?’

‘Ah, now you have it in a nutshell. If I die, my brothers will scrabble for power like dogs and my son will have little chance against them. I need time!’

Myrddion smiled at the older man and laid one hand on the bowed shoulders. ‘You know the answer then, my lord. The blood that is shed in the name of ambition is much the same the world over. Your position must be bolstered in foundations of stone. But first your father must be buried, as must your many dead, so leave your decision for a while. Aetius will go down his own road, no matter what I or my prophecies might promise him.’

Thorismund raised his head and grinned fiercely. ‘Aye. You were right with every detail of your cursed predictions. I should hate you, Myrddion Emrys, but how can a man hate the wind that carries the promise of a storm? Better I should be your friend than your enemy. Should you pass through my lands, call on me or mine if you need assistance. I will remember the kindness you showed to my father when you did not tell him that he would surely die. My father was no Merovech who assiduously courted death, so your silence was generous.’

‘Your father was a closed and secretive man whom duty sorely harried. How could I add to his woes? Lord, acquit me of a kingly generosity, for I was silent because your father carried too many woes already. Besides, I think he already knew his fate.’

Thorismund sighed, and his love was plainly written on his face.
‘Yes, my father was the centre of power for too many years to ever sleep soundly in his bed. He loved beautiful things, you know, and he was concerned for every man who gave him loyalty, so their deaths affected him deeply. His life had been hard, and he feared death. He might have known his fate in his secret heart, but suspecting and being told are very different things. No, you were generous.’

Silently, Myrddion nodded and left the campsite, leaving the new king to ponder over brutalities and broken alliances.

As the red morning dawned on the second day after the battle, Attila sat in his camp and brooded, while Aetius paced his tent and worked out strategies that would save Gaul for the Empire. The Catalaunian Plain was wreathed in smoke, for the armies were burning their dead. Myrddion feared disease more than he feared Attila, and he welcomed the acrid smoke and the stink of roasting flesh.

If Attila was destroyed, then the Visigoths would be the uncontested rulers of this whole wide land, and Aetius understood that he lacked the power to stop them from consolidating their control. If it served his purposes, he would murder Thorismund and send the Visigoths scurrying back to their rat-hole at Tolosa. That he might spare the Dread of the World, a man responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, was of little importance to Flavius Aetius,
magister militum
and king-maker. The balance of power must remain tipped in Rome’s favour.

‘Needs must!’ Aetius told the silence of his campaign tent. ‘Needs must!’

Myrddion understood the edges of the Roman general’s thoughts, for he retained a memory of his trance, a strange after-shadow that warned him that Aetius was a truly dangerous and ruthless man who lacked even the justification of patriotism. Aetius sought to elevate his family to the throne of the Western
Empire, and if allowing the Hun to live would ease that path, then he would not care if a million further men died on the altar of his hubris.

Myrddion realised that King Vortigern had not been so very bad after all. He had sought to achieve and retain power over his vassals, but he had ruled well for many years. Vortimer, Ambrosius and even Uther were Celts or Romano-Celts who were devoted to their land and their subjects in their own different fashions. But Aetius was obsessed with the acquisition of personal power and the elevation of his family, even if the Empire was destroyed in the process. Myrddion searched his heart and his memory to find those motives in the great men he had known, and failed.

‘I am learning, Cadoc, what true wickedness is. And it’s not always to be found in cruelty or in violent murder. Sometimes, wickedness can wear a fair and reasonable face and swear that it fights for the lives and welfare of all. True wickedness cannot tell the difference between a lie and the truth.’

‘Whatever you say, master,’ his apprentice replied blankly. Sometimes, Myrddion spoke in riddles, and Cadoc, being a plain man who dealt with what he understood when it crossed his path, always took the line of least resistance.

In his secret heart, Myrddion felt his slow anger building. When powerful men exerted their influence to harm those who were weaker than themselves, or less intelligent or more sensitive, then the healer felt his temper ignite somewhere under his ribs. He had seen too much violence and random cruelty to be unmoved by the death of even one man.

The following day, the funeral of Theodoric was celebrated and then, regretfully, Thorismund put his nation first and led his army out of bivouac, away to the south and Tolosa. Vechmar went with them, along with his wagons and the Visigoth wounded.

That evening, four days after the Battle of the Catalaunian Plain,
Prince Childeric summoned the healer to the campsite of the Salian Franks. Myrddion dressed carefully for the occasion, for he planned to say his farewells to Merovech. The dead king was his avowed lord, unwanted, but his liege none the less.

Before speaking to the healer, Prince Childeric led Myrddion to a small tent on a low rise some distance from the campsite. Four warriors guarded the outside of the tent, one for each corner of the world, and each wore a muffler of wool across his mouth and nose.

Myrddion could smell the green, acid stink of corruption long before he reached the rise, as the prevailing wind brought the smell directly to them. Childeric watched the healer closely for a reaction, and Myrddion knew that he was being judged. But his trade was to deal with death on a daily basis, and Myrddion had learned to breathe through his mouth so that he was no longer sickened by decay. Far worse than the smell of the dead was the same deadly reek within the flesh of those who remained alive.

Merovech was laid out in a wooden sarcophagus that Childeric’s smiths had sheathed with lead to minimise the outward signs of corruption. The lid lay to one side, ready to be nailed into place when the new king gave the order.

Washed, dressed and with his hair freshly oiled and combed, Merovech looked surprisingly young under the grey marbling of his flesh. The body was swelling under the rich armour and the nails of the fingers that held his sword’s pommel were purpled and seemed to be loosening in their beds. Childeric and Myrddion looked down with shared regrets at the reckless, masculine face that possessed a special, marred beauty.