The Scourge of God (29 page)

Still, these men had at least nominal allegiance to the idea of Rome: the idea of order, the idea of civilization. I hoped they represented refuge. Our destruction of the bridge several miles back had delayed but not necessarily stopped the Huns. A Roman garrison might force Skilla to give up and go home.

“What the devil is
that?”
greeted the commanding decurion Silas, who had come to the gate and, after observing that four of us were crowded on two exhausted horses, was peering at Zerco.

“An important aide to General Flavius Aetius,” I replied, reasoning it would not hurt to exaggerate the truth.

“Is this a jest?”

“His wisdom is as tall as his stature is short.”

“And that sack of grain across your saddle?” He looked at the trussed and gagged Eudoxius, who wiggled to communicate outrage.

“A traitor to Rome. Aetius wants to question him.”

“An aide, a traitor?” He pointed to the woman. “And who is she, the queen of Egypt?”

“Listen. We’ve important information for the general, but need help. We’re being pursued by a party of Huns.”

“Huns! This
is
a joke. Any Huns are far to the east.” 

“Then why are four of us on two horses while our other grows Hunnish arrows?” Zerco piped up. He slid down from his mount and waddled over to the Roman captain, peering up. “Do you think a man as big as me would stop in a sty like this if I weren’t in dire peril?”

“Zerco, don’t insult our new friend,” Julia interjected. She too dismounted. “I apologize for his rudeness. We’re being chased by Attila’s men, decurion, and only the collapse of the bridge below saved us from capture. Now we ask your protection.”

“The bridge collapsed?”

“We had to destroy it.”

He looked as if not certain whether to believe anything we said, and to dislike us if he did. “You’re with him?” The commander nodded from Julia to me.

“It’s this rude one who is my husband.” She put her hand on Zerco’s shoulder. “He’s a fool and sometimes makes jokes that others don’t find humorous, but please don’t mind. He’s taller in spirit than men twice his size, and it is true, he serves the great Aetius. Do you know where the general is?”

The soldier barked a laugh. “Look around you!” The tower was mossy and cracked, the courtyard muddy, and the stabled animals thin. “I’m as likely to see Aetius as I am Attila! There was a report he was in Rome or in Ravenna or on the Rhine, and even a report he was coming this way, but then there was also a report of a unicorn in Iuvavum and a dragon at Cucullae. Besides, he never stays anywhere for long. With winter coming on, he may retire to Augusta Treverorum or Mediolanum. If you’re to reach him, you need to move quickly before the passes are snowed in.” 

“Then we need food, fodder, and another horse,” I said.

Which means I need a solidus, a solidus, and another solidus,” Silas replied. “Let’s see your purse, strangers.” 

“We have no more money! We’ve escaped from Attila’s camp. Please, we have information that Aetius needs to hear. Can’t you requisition help from the government?”

“I can’t get anything myself from Rome.” He looked at us and our meager possessions dubiously. “What’s that on your back?”

“An old sword,” I said.

“Let me see it. Maybe you can trade for that.”

I considered a moment, and then climbed down and unwrapped it. Black and rusty, it looked like it had been pulled from the mud. Which it had. Only the size was impressive.

“That’s not a sword, it’s an anchor,” Silas said. “It wouldn’t cut cheese, and looks too big to swing. Why are you carrying that piece of scrap?”

“It’s a family relic that’s important to me.” I wrapped it back up. “A token of our ancestors.”

“Were your ancestors ten feet tall? It’s ridiculous.” 

“Listen, if you won’t provision us, at least let us spend the night. We haven’t slept under a roof in weeks.”

He looked at Julia. “Can you cook?”

“Better than your mother.”

Silas grinned. “I doubt
that
, but better than wretched Lucius, without a doubt. All right,
you
will cook supper;
you
will fetch water; and
you,
little man, will carry wood. Your prisoner we’ll tie to a post in the tower and let him sputter. Agents of Aetius! The garrison at Virunum will laugh when I tell them that one. Go on, I’ll let you fill your bellies and sleep in my fort. But you’re on your way in the morning. This is a military post, not a
mansio
.”

If the decurion seemed a reluctant host, his bored soldiers welcomed our company as entertainment. Julia cooked a hot and hearty soup; Zerco sang them ribald songs; and I told them of Constantinople, which to them seemed no more or less distant and incredible than Rome or Alexandria. Eudoxius, his gag removed, insisted he was a prince of the Huns and promised all of them their weight in gold if they would free and return him. The soldiers thought him as funny as Zerco. They assured us that Huns did not exist in these parts or, if they did, were no doubt on their way home by now. Forts less than a day’s ride apart guarded the approaches to Italy, and we could travel from one to the next. “Sleep well tonight,” assured Lucius, “because we don’t allow barbarians in upper Noricum.”

At the gray smudge of dawn, that time when sentries finally become dark silhouettes against a barely lightened sky, just two Romans were still awake in our small outpost.

Both died within moments of each other.

The first, Simon, was at the gate and looking in sleepy boredom down the lane. He hoped that Ulrika, a local milkmaid who had udders like a cow, might make her delivery before he was called off duty to breakfast. He was thinking of her breasts, round as melons and firm as a wineskin, when a pony trotted out of the gloom and, before he could call challenge, a Hun arrow took him squarely in the throat. He gurgled as he sank numbly down, wondering what the devil had happened to him, and what had happened to Ulrika. It is oft remarked that a common expression on the dead is surprise.

The second man, Cassius, was at the top of the tower and was pacing back and forth to keep warm. It was a strange humming that caused him to look up before a dozen arrows hissed down like a sudden squall. Four of the arcing missiles found their mark, and the others rattled on the tower roof like hail. It was this, and the thump of his body, that woke me and the others.

“Huns!” I cried.

“You’re having a dream,” Silas grumbled, half asleep.

Then an arrow sizzled through the chamber’s slit window and banged off the stone wall.

We heard a rumble of hooves as Skilla’s men galloped to the compound wall in a rush, leaped from their pony’s backs to the lip of the wall, and then streamed over like a ripple of shadow. So far, remembering the lesson of yesterday, they had not let their voices make a sound.

They dropped lightly down into the courtyard like the softest of warnings, the quiet broken only by a dog that barked before it could be speared and a donkey startled and braying before it was brained by an ax. It took the barbarians a moment to explore the kitchen, storerooms, and stables, running lightly with swords drawn. Then, learning quickly enough that all of us were in the tower, they charged its door and found it barred. Now Roman heads were popping from the tower windows and shouting alarm. It was Silas who was the first to strike back, hurling a spear from a third floor window. It struck so fiercely that it staked the Hun it found like a tent peg.

“Awake!” he roared. “Grab your sword, not your sandals, you oaf! We’re under attack!” He stepped aside an instant before another arrow whistled through the window. It struck a beam and quivered.

I’d rolled out of my sleeping mat with loincloth and the Roman short sword I had killed Attila’s sentry with. Julia still had the spear with which she’d gutted my horse. Beyond that and the dagger I’d taken from Eudoxius, we fugitives were virtually unarmed: my skills as an archer were still indifferent. Now I ran for the rack of javelins, grabbed one, and peeked outside. It was barely light, and the Huns below were scuttling back and forth across the courtyard like spiders. One paused, looking up, and I threw. The man saw the motion and dodged. There was something familiar to his quickness. Skilla?

Now more Romans were throwing javelins or firing crossbow bolts, even as Hun arrows clicked and ricocheted off the stones of the tower.

“Who in Hades is attacking us?” Silas demanded.

“Those Huns you said would be scurrying home by now,” I responded.

“We have no quarrel with the Huns!”

“It appears they have a quarrel with you.”

“It’s you! And that prisoner, isn’t it?”

“Him, and that rust you called an anchor.”

“The sword?”

“It’s magic. If Attila wins it, he will conquer the world.”

Silas looked at me in wonder, once again not certain what to believe.

“Julia, heat the soup!” Zerco cried, gesturing toward the pot of beef and millet broth that remained warm in an iron pot. Then the little man ran up the stairs toward the top of the tower, his boots pounding.

Heat the soup?
Then I realized what the dwarf had in mind. Julia was fanning and feeding the coals. Meanwhile I looked and waited for another target from my window. Finally a Hun made a dash for the door at the base of the tower. Reminding myself of my combat with Skilla, I waited for a covering arrow to clang off the stonework and then leaned out and threw. The weapon fell like a thunderbolt, and the Hun fell with it, dying halfway to the door.

I felt nothing but satisfaction. I was not the boy I had been.

The Romans were fully aroused now and the growing light was helping. But with our dead and wounded—two more had been struck by arrows—we were outnumbered more than two to one. More ominously, the Huns were dismantling the shed roof of the stable, loosing the tile covering from its posts and gathering men around it. Their intention was obvious. They would use the roof as a shield to get themselves to the gate. Other Huns were gathering straw and timber to start a fire at the door.

With both sides fully alert now, the arrow volleys were slackening as the battling warriors became wary about exposing themselves. Our supplies of missiles needed to be hoarded. Insults in Latin, German, and Hunnish echoed back and forth across the bloody courtyard in lieu of volleys.

“Give up our slaves!” Skilla called in Hunnish.

None of the Roman garrison could understand his demand.

Zerco came pounding back down the stairs, his eyes bright with excitement. Penned as he was in a fortress, he was something of an equal in this fight or even had an advantage, since he didn’t have to crouch so much to stay away from the arrows. “I lit the signal fire. Lucius and I have loosened some of the stones at the top to throw down on them when they charge the door. Is the soup hot?”

“Beginning to bubble,” said Julia.

“Get Jonas to help you pour. Stick that bench plank out the window to make a sluice. When their makeshift roof breaks, pour our lunch down on anyone in the wreckage.”

“What if I get hungry?” one of the soldiers tried to joke.

“If you can’t get to the courtyard kitchens by the time your stomach growls, you’re already dead,” the dwarf replied. Then he pounded back up the stairs.

Outside there was a shout and a volley of arrows shot upward again, many keying accurately through the windows.

“Keep down until our friends drop the stones!” Silas ordered. “When the Huns run back for cover, rise and use the crossbows!”

I watched from one side of the narrow slit window. The detached stable roof suddenly rose, rocked slightly as the Huns positioned themselves better to carry it, and then began to trundle forward. Crouching toward the rear were warriors with combustibles and torches. The rhythm of Hun arrows from their archers discouraged us from trying to hit the oncoming barbarians. I couldn’t help but flinch each time a missile whizzed through the narrow windows. There was a thud as the lip of the roof struck the base of the tower, and then harsh shouts as hay, wood, and torches were passed forward.

“Now!” came Zerco’s piping cry from above.

I could hear the rush of wind as the parapet stones plummeted. There was a brutal crash, cries, and oaths as the stones, half the weight of a man, punched through the roof and shattered its tiles.

“The board!” I ordered. A soldier slid the bench out the window and tilted it downward to direct the soup away from the walls. Then I and Julia, our hands wrapped in cloth, hoisted the black pot off the hearth fire, staggered with it to the window, and poured. It was clumsy, a gallon or two of good food splashing inside our chamber, but most of the hot liquid gushed outward as planned and hissed downward in a plume of steam to strike the Huns entangled in the wreckage. Now there were screams as well as curses.

The Huns broke, running, and the aim of their companions faltered as the barbarians came streaming back. Now we Romans filled the windows to shoot or throw, and two enemies were hit in the back and fell, skidding, as they tried to flee. Two more lay insensible or dead in the roof wreckage, and a few more were limping or staggering.

The odds were beginning to even.

We cheered until smoke began ominously rising up the face of the tower. I risked ducking out the window to look, jerking back just in time as an arrow bounced by my ear.

“A fire has started in the wreckage and it’s against the door,” I reported. “We need water to put it out.”

“No water!” Silas countermanded. “We barely have enough for a day, let alone a siege.”

“But if the door burns—”

“We pray it doesn’t, or kill them on the stairs. We need to be able to wait for help.”

“What help?”

“Your little friend’s signal fire. Let’s pray that your Aetius, or God, is watching.”

The Huns were beginning to shout and howl in excitement at the sight of the flames burning outside the tower door. One suddenly darted across the courtyard with an armful of hay and wood and hurled it into the makeshift bonfire, then dashed back before any Roman could successfully hit him. A second pulled the same trick, and then a third.