The Scourge of God (8 page)

“It sounds like you need the book and lyre, not the bow and arrow.”

“The Hun use books to wipe our asses.”

“Because you can’t read and have no thoughts worth writing down.” Not the most diplomatic rejoinder, I know, but the man’s stubborn ignorance was dismaying.

“Yet you Romans pay tribute to us, the Hun.”

That was true enough, and it was unclear how this embassy would change that. I finally walked away, wondering what would be accomplished.

V

A TEST OF HORSES

W
e set out on horseback, the slaves and pack mules extending the total caravan to fifteen people and thirty animals. This was considered modest for an imperial embassy, but again, our mission was a quiet one. We would of necessity be camping. The Roman system of
mansionis,
or inns, located twenty miles apart, had been abandoned after the devastation of the recent wars, so we would set our own ambitious pace, averaging twenty-five miles per day. The Huns would have moved faster on their own, but our Roman baggage train, with its gifts and food, could not move faster.

“You travel so slowly that you need even more food and fodder, which makes you slower yet, and which requires yet more supplies. It is insane,” Edeco pronounced.

“We could leave the presents behind,” Maximinus said mildly.

“No, no,” the Hun muttered. “We will ride like Romans, and I will catch up on my sleep.”

It was late spring, the afternoons hot and the mornings cool; and the forests and meadows of Thrace were green and in high flower. Here, close to Constantinople, people had returned to their farms after the gallop of armies and there was a semblance of normality to the landscape. Cattle grazed, oxen plowed, grain was already high, and we would periodically thread through flocks of sheep or gaggles of geese. When we rode farther north and west, Maximinus warned me, the effect of the Hun raids would be more apparent. “The country will become increasingly wild. Bears and wolves have returned to valleys they haven’t roamed in generations—and stranger things, too, it is claimed. We live in evil times.”

“I would like to see a wild bear.” I’d seen only chained ones in the arena.

“I’d like to see peace and resettled farmers.”

While I had journeyed as far as Athens by sea, this kind of expedition was entirely new to me. I was unaccustomed to sleeping in a tent, being exposed to the weather, and riding my mare for so long at a time. The first days my thighs and butt were on fire; and while I stoically tried to hide my stiffness, I fooled no one. Yet I also felt a rare freedom. For most of my life my days had been carefully scheduled and my future plotted. Now my future was as open as the sky and horizon.

As the comforting walls of Constantinople fell behind, I studied the young Hun warrior who had taunted me. Skilla rode as if one with his horse like a centaur, his mount a bay gelding and his saddle made of wood and leather softened with sheep’s fat. His bow, like all those of the Huns, was that secret combination of wood, sinew, and bone, short but curved backward at the ends, that when pulled made them the terror of the world. Called reflex bows for the added power the bend gave them, they were short enough to be fired from a horse and yet uncannily accurate. The arrows could fly three hundred paces and kill easily at one hundred and fifty. The bow rode in a saddle holster to the Hun’s right, next to a whip to lash his pony’s flanks. A sword hung from a scabbard on his left, so it could be drawn horizontally by the right arm. A quiver of twenty arrows rode on the man’s back. On his saddle was a lariat, used by the barbarians to catch errant livestock and immobilize enemies so they could be enslaved. Unlike Edeco’s mail, purchased or stolen from some enemy, Skilla wore a light Asian cuirass of bony scales, cut from the hooves of dead horses and layered like the skin of a dragon or fish. While seeming dangerously light, it was also cool compared to Roman mail or breastplate. He had soft leather boots over his trousers and a conical wool cap he wore in the chill of the evening when we camped, but by day his head was often bare, his long black hair tied back like the tail of a horse. He was clean shaven and not yet ritually scarred like Edeco, and in fact boasted a somewhat noble and handsome look, his cheekbones high and his eyes black and shiny, like stones in a river. His costume was by no means typical because there was no typical barbarian dress. Onegesh wore a strange mix of Roman clothes and Hunnish fur, and Edeco seemed a vain mix of all nations.

My own weaponry was mostly packed away. I had brought the full shirt of mail, helmet, shield, and heavy spear that I had used for the basic military training all men of my class received, as well as my new sword. But only the latter was kept at my side. The rest seemed too heavy for a peace party, so it was bundled on one of the animals. My mare, Diana, bore a padded Roman saddle that borrowed from Hun design, crowned front and back by wood ridges to hold me in place, my legs dangling free. I wore a fine woolen tunic of yellow with blue borders that I had purchased in the forum of Philadelphion, sturdy cavalry trousers, and a fine leather baldric studded with gold coins that held an ivory-handled dagger. A felt skullcap gave me some protection from the sun, and my cape was tied behind my saddle.

I was of approximately the same height and proportion as Skilla, my Greek complexion dark but not as dark as his. I rocked more than he did as Diana clopped down the road, not as at ease on a horse. But then he was useless in a library.

The early part of the journey was uneventful as our group established a pace and learned one another’s habits. We camped in early evening, the Romans pitching tents and the Huns sleeping under the stars. I found the nights unaccustomedly dark—I was used to the city, of course—and the ground damp and hard under my sheepskin. I wakened frequently to the sounds of the night and stumbled clumsily when I got up to urinate. When I went out of our tent the first night I saw that the Huns had simply rolled themselves in their cloaks and slept with their heads against their wooden saddles, using for a pillow the same saddle blanket that reeked of horse. From each cloak the hilt of a sword protruded, and near the shoulder their bow and arrows were nestled as carefully as their heads. When I passed near Edeco, he jerked up and then, recognizing me, sank again in dismissal.

“What do they do when it rains?” I whispered to Rusticius once as we lay side by side, comparing impressions.

“Get wet, like their horses.”

Each dawn we set out again, my own body still tired from a restless night. And so began a daily rhythm of hourly pauses, a noon meal, and camp again before sunset, mile succeeding endless mile.

Periodically Skilla became bored with this routine and galloped ahead for amusement, sometimes looping around and coming down at us from a nearby hill, yipping as if charging. Another time, he dropped back to study me. Eventually his stare became a challenge as he searched for diversion.

“You ride a mare,” the Hun said.

Quite the observation. “Yes.”

“No Hun would ride a mare.”

“Why not? You ride a gelding. Their manners are similar.” Castrating stallions was a basic skill in successfully running horse herds, I knew.

“They are not the same. Mares are for milking.”

I had heard the Huns fermented the milk to purify it and drank it like wine, and I had smelled them doing so.
Kumiss,
they called it. By reputation it was awful stuff, as rancid as their trousers. “We have cows and goats for that. Mares have just as good endurance, and better character, than geldings.”

Skilla looked at Diana critically. “Your horse is big but fat, like a woman. All Roman horses seem fat.”

Because all Hun horses looked half starved, I thought, ridden hard and forced to forage. “She’s simply muscular. She’s a barb, with some Arabian. If I could afford a pure Arabian all you’d see is her tail this whole trip.” It was time to return some disdain. “Your steppe horse looks sized for a boy and skinny enough to go to the knacker.”

“His name is Drilca, which means spear, and our ponies have made us master.” He grinned. “Do you want to race, Roman?”

I considered. This at least would break the monotony of travel, and I had great confidence in Diana. Nor was I as weighted with weapons. “To the next milepost?”

“To our next camping place. Edeco! How far is that?” The older Hun, riding nearby, grunted. “Still half a dozen miles.”

“How about it, Roman? You are carrying less than me. Let’s see if this mare of yours can keep up with my pony.”

I judged the barbarian’s small, shaggy horse. “For a gold solidus?”

The Hun whooped. “Done!” And without warning he kicked his horse and was off.

Game now, I shouted “Yah!” and set off in pursuit. It was time to put this young Hun in his place. With Diana’s longer stride we should catch and pass Skilla’s mount easily.

Yet long after we left the main party far behind, the Hun remained elusively ahead. After a brief gallop the barbarian’s horse settled into a sustainable canter, Skilla leaning forward in his saddle, legs cocked easily, his hair like a banner in the wind. I put Diana into her own lope to conserve her energy, and yet the Hun’s smaller horse seemed to eat ground with an enviable efficiency that my own mare lacked. Despite Diana’s longer stride, Drilca kept steadily in front. A mile passed, then two, then three. We pounded past farm carts, couriers, peddlers, and pilgrims. They stared as we passed, Hun and Roman linked.

We entered a copse along a river bottom where the lane twisted through the trees, obscuring the view ahead. I could hear Skilla’s mount break into a gallop to lengthen his lead. Determined and increasingly anxious, I did the same, riding hard past the poplar and beech. Yet at wood’s end I seemed entirely alone. Skilla had already passed over the rise ahead.

Angry now, I kicked Diana into a dead run. I didn’t want Rome to be beaten! We pounded in a blur, gravel flying, and after another mile I had the Hun in sight again. Skilla’s horse had once more settled into a rhythmic pace and so now I was gaining, the drum of hoofbeats forcing Skilla to look behind. Yet the Hun’s horse didn’t mimic Diana’s gallop, staying instead in his easy canter. Diana pulled abreast . . . and then the Hun grinned and kicked. We raced together now, neck and neck, our mounts galloping along the ancient road, but my horse began to fade. Diana was losing her wind. I could feel her straining. Not wanting to harm her, I reluctantly let her fall back again, Skilla’s dust swirling over us. Drilca’s tail became a taunt, its hooves a receding blur. Beaten!

I slowed and glumly patted my horse’s neck. “Not your fault, girl. Your rider’s.”

At a small stream where we planned to camp, Skilla was lounging in the grass.

“I told you she’s for milking.”

Drilca was tired, too, I saw, its head down. In war, I knew, Skilla would switch to a new mount. Each warrior took four or five horses with him on campaign. Here the lack of endurance was more apparent.

“My mare has more stamina.”

“Does she? I think she’s longing for her stable. Drilca is more at home out here under the sky, eating anything, bearing me anywhere.”

I flipped him the solidus. “Then race me for two of these tomorrow.”

Skilla caught it. “Done! If your purse gets light enough, maybe the pair of you can go faster. By then I’ll have enough coin to wed.”

“To a woman who scratches you.”

He shrugged. “She’ll think twice about scratching when I return from Constantinople. I am bringing presents! Her name is Ilana, she is the most beautiful woman in Attila’s camp, and I saved her life.”

* * *

That night I brushed my mount down, checked her hooves, and went back to the baggage train to fetch oats I had packed in Constantinople. “A Hun can’t feed what he can’t grow,” I murmured as she ate. “His horse can’t draw on strength it doesn’t have.”

Skilla boasted of the day’s victory to the others around our fire that night. “Tomorrow, he promises me two gold coins! By the time we reach Attila, I’ll be rich!”

“Today we ran your race,” I said. “Tomorrow we run mine. Not a sprint but endurance: whoever goes farthest between sunrise and sunset.”

“That’s a fool’s race, Roman. A Hun can cover a hundred miles in a day.”

“In your country. Let’s see it in mine.”

So Skilla and I set out at dawn, the others in the party making their own bets and cheering us as we departed, joking about the frisky foolishness of young men. The Rhodope Mountains were to the left and Philippopolis ahead. There I first encountered Attila’s destruction. We skirted the devastated city at mid-morning; and while Skilla scarcely glanced at it, I was stunned at the extent of the ruin. The roofless metropolis looked like a torn honeycomb, open to the rains. Grass grew in the streets, and only a few priests and shepherds resided around a church the barbarians had somehow spared. The surrounding fields had gone to weeds, and the few villagers peered from huts like kittens from a den.

I had to beat the Huns who had done this.

The road crossed the Hebrus River on an arched stone bridge, crudely repaired by the locals, and became rougher, side hilling along the river’s valley. With the rising terrain, my confidence grew. Still we kept within sight of each other: sometimes the Hun riding ahead, and sometimes my determined mount passing him. Neither of us stopped for lunch, eating in the saddle. In the early afternoon we crossed the river again and then the land began to steepen as the road climbed toward the Pass of Succi.