The Sword of Attila (21 page)

A rock suddenly loomed ahead, a stark white sentinel on the bank of the river, and in front of it Flavius could see the mist swirling over the entrance to a tributary that joined the river from the east. He put his hand up and Macrobius swung the tiller, then quickly furled the sail and lowered the mast for the final leg of their journey. The dense coniferous forest of the gorge had gone, and all they could see now was stark grassland and a few small trees. The tributary narrowed to little more than a stream, and as Flavius' paddle struck the bottom he knew that their destination could not be far ahead. Minutes later he saw a gravelly foreshore with two boats pulled up on it, and Macrobius turned the tiller until the bow grounded into the gravel. Flavius leapt out, followed by Arturus and then Macrobius, who reached in and tossed their bags out before pulling the boat up as far as he could and tying the painter around a wooden frame in front of the other two vessels. He stripped off his cassock, stuffed it in his bag, slung the bag on his back and then peered over the stream, his hands on his hips. ‘Well, what now?' he said.

‘That's what,' Arturus said, nodding up the slope. The other two followed his gaze, walking forward and then stopping abruptly in the same instant. A line of Hun horsemen was standing above the bank, the riders helmeted with their cloaks thrown back but their weapons still sheathed. They wore armour and garb that Flavius recognized as typically Hun: a blue woollen undercoat and light brown trousers, leather boots and a leather flapped cap, a conical helmet and the distinctive Hun body armour, a vest of segments of iron sewn into closely fitting flexible armour covering the torso and shoulders. Two of the men carried Hun bows, recurved composite bows made of horn, wood and sinew laminated together, two of them had war axes and all of them wore long swords in sheaths buckled to their waists. Unlike the Goths and the Alans, they were relatively short men, stocky and muscular, typical in their facial appearance of men from the windswept steppe-lands and tundra plains extending from the Hun heartland in the Danube watershed to as far east as men from the West had gone, to Thina and beyond.

One of the riders cantered down to the gravel, coming to a halt about ten paces away, the horse stomping and snorting and being calmed by the rider, who Flavius could see was a woman. She wore the same armour as the rest but her head was bare and her long hair was tied tightly back, and she bore the birth scars of a warrior on her cheeks. She stared at them haughtily, lingering on Arturus, whose face was still concealed under his hood, and then cantered back to the men, speaking to them in the guttural language of the Huns.

‘That's Erecan,' Arturus said quietly, his face still down. ‘Like Attila, she speaks Latin fluently, having been educated by scholars brought from Constantinople for the purpose. She was the only one of Attila's children to pass the birth ceremony, so she's been brought up as a warrior princess.'

Erecan returned to face them, and Flavius stepped forward, bowing his head slightly. ‘I am Flavius Aetius Gaudentius, tribune, nephew of
magister militum
Aetius and special envoy to the court of Attila of the emperor Valentinian, and this is my centurion Macrobius.'

‘Do you serve Valentinian or Aetius?' she said, swinging her horse around, her voice sonorous and resonating. ‘I hear that Valentinian is only served by eunuchs.'

‘Valentinian is my emperor, and Aetius my general.'

The horse snorted and she pulled its neck around, facing Arturus. ‘And who is this?'

Arturus pulled back his hood and threw off his cassock, revealing his long hair and beard and the tunic and sword belt of a
foederati
commander. ‘I am Arturus of the Britons, former tribune of the
foederati Britannorum
of the
comitatenses
of the North.'

She stared at him, and then leaned over and spat. ‘I do not know this man.' She reined her horse hard to the right and galloped back up to the others, Arturus remaining stock-still. ‘Hold your ground,' he said quietly. ‘This is just theatre.'

‘Just theatre?' Macrobius exclaimed. ‘How well did you know this woman?'

‘I was her bondsman.'

‘Meaning?'

‘She was my wife. In a manner of speaking.'

‘
Your wife.
So it was a bit more than unarmed combat.'

‘A bit more.'

Macrobius turned and peered at him. ‘When you left this place twelve years ago, did you say a proper goodbye to her?'

‘There wasn't time. Quiet now. She's returning.' Erecan halted her horse again in front of the three men but this time she leapt off and walked towards Arturus. She stood in front of him and stared him in the eye, the birth scars on her cheeks livid, then took out a knife and held it under his chin. ‘Explain yourself,' she demanded. ‘It was not like a future king to run away with your tail between your legs.'

‘A future king?' Macrobius exclaimed, staring again at Arturus.

‘He used to tell me his dreams,' Erecan said, the knife still at his throat. ‘About how one day he would return to his native Britain and rally the people against the Saxons, and create a kingdom that would be a worthy successor to Roman rule. After he left me without a word, I decided that it had all been hot air, that he was just another one of the renegades who come this way with delusions of grandeur. Most of them we kill, and I thought I should have done so with Arturus. Now could be the time.'

‘I came to your father's court twelve years ago as captain of Gaiseric's bodyguard,' Arturus said. ‘Already my cousin in the bodyguard had been murdered, and I was bent on vengeance. On the day that I left, one of the bodyguard, a Saxon with no love for a Briton like me, told Gaiseric that I knew he was responsible and was planning revenge. Once I heard that, I knew I had to leave immediately or risk being knifed in my sleep. You were out hunting on the steppe and I couldn't wait.'

She brushed the knife down his beard. ‘Well? Did you get your vengeance?'

Arturus gestured at Flavius. ‘Thanks to my friends here, two years after leaving you I was able to stand my ground before the walls of Carthage and face Gaiseric's army, sword in hand. Before the day was out I had accounted for two of his Alan bodyguard and six Vandal warriors, as well as an Alaunt war dog. The price of
wergild
for my cousin was easily paid, and vengeance was satisfied.'

‘And after that?'

‘My commission in the
foederati
was restored, and I have been fighting for Rome ever since.'

‘Fighting, or spying?'

Arturus lowered his voice. ‘Erecan, we need to talk. Out of earshot.'

She sheathed her blade and led them back a few paces towards the boat. ‘None of my Huns knows Latin. Their loyalty is to me, and not to my father. You can speak openly.'

‘It was no coincidence that it was you who came to meet us, was it?'

‘You're lucky that I was back from hunting, and that it was not my father's older brother Bleda who met you. He was passed over for the kingship at his birthing ceremony, but he has made up for it by being the most savage of my father's henchmen. It was he who took away the eunuchs who came from Constantinople and butchered them like the fattened pigs that they are, with his own hands. If Priscus and Maximinus had not left when they did, they would have suffered the same fate.'

‘So you knew we were coming.'

‘By chance the Huns who arrived from the island ahead of you were in my service, providing wine and food for my retinue. One of them saw you when they passed you in the town and recognized you from twelve years ago, despite the beard and the cassock.'

‘Then you will know that we have met Priscus of Panium.'

‘It's an open secret that he's hiding somewhere on the island. My father liked him, admired his scholarship, and the two spent hours discussing the geography of the outer reaches of the world, my father telling him much that was new about the ice cap to the north where the Huns have gone on expeditions to hunt whales and the great tusked seals. But my father has a mercurial temper, and would have ordered Priscus executed if he had caught wind of the machinations in Constantinople. He detests intrigue, and rates men only as scholars or as warriors. Priscus is beleaguered from both sides, and there is little I can do for him.'

‘He told us everything, Erecan. He told us of your nocturnal visit, and what you told him and Maximinus about Attila's plans. You remember me telling you of my dreams for Britain, but I remember you telling me of your hatred for your father after he murdered your mother, and your desire for vengeance.'

‘It remains undimmed. It is with me night and day. I will have it in this world, or in the next.'

‘Then there's something I must tell you. Something that Flavius and Macrobius know only in part, though they may have guessed the truth. Fifteen years ago when I deserted my
foederati numerus
it was not just because of my distaste for what we'd been ordered to do – to mop up and exact retribution after a peasant revolt in northern Gaul. When I voiced my discontent I was brought before Aetius, who'd heard about my background and recruited me into his newly formed intelligence service. Everything I've done since then, joining Gaiseric's bodyguard and coming to the Hun court, gaining Augustine's confidence and becoming his secretary, our mission here today, all of it has been in the service of Aetius. And there's nothing Aetius desires more than the destruction of Attila.'

‘Then you are my bondsman again, Arturus. But this time there will be no more unannounced departures. When there is a need to go, we go together.'

‘Agreed.'

‘We have horses for you. As we ride you can tell me exactly what you are plotting.'

For the next few hours the group wended their way ever further into the steppe-land, passing the two Huns and the traders they had encountered on the island, seeing how they had lashed their amphorae on the sides of donkeys and put the barrels and parcels into a cart that was being pulled along slowly by a pair of bullocks. Erecan had stopped, smashed the top off an amphora and filled a wineskin for her men, pouring the remainder into another skin and passing it to Macrobius. He had drunk his fill, and then passed it to Arturus and Flavius, who did the same. It was a Gaulish vintage that Flavius had recognized from the amphora stamp as Lugdenese, made close to the hunting estate that had been given to his grandfather Gaudentius when the Romans had decided to settle the Visigoths in the old province of Gaul. Wine had been made there since earliest times and had been drunk by Gaulish chieftains before Germanic warriors had acquired a taste for it, and now it seemed fitting that it should be drunk by the next wave of those beyond the frontiers who had found some of what Rome had to offer intoxicating.

Flavius had tossed the wineskin back into the bullock cart and resumed his place beside Macrobius as they trotted forward, enjoying the warmth in his belly but momentarily regretting not wearing his cassock as a sharp blast of wind hit them from the steppes. The path dropped out of the wind into a gully, and Arturus dropped back too, the three of them now riding side by side behind the Huns. Macrobius turned to him. ‘Nice one with the
wergild
story, by the way, Arturus. That might have saved our skin.'

Arturus gave him a rueful look. ‘If you want to get out of a scrape with Huns, tell them you were seeking vengeance. That goes straight to their soul, and they'll forgive you just about anything.'

‘So,' Flavius said. ‘Arturus, future King of the Britons?'

‘The word
king
was Erecan's, not mine,' Arturus replied. ‘For now, I'm no more than a special agent of the
magister militum
; I'm just a man who exists in the shadowlands of history and might well leave no trace of his passing.'

‘But it could be otherwise.'

Arturus reined up his horse as they waited to go over a wooden bridge. ‘If we succeed in our mission here, you and Macrobius can return to soldiering, as men whom Aetius might value highly for the first-hand knowledge you will get here of Attila and the Huns. But for me it's different. Already Heraclius is on to me, and soon enough he'll know the extent of my intelligence activities for Aetius. He might try to woo me into his own fold, but I would never serve a eunuch. This will be my last mission for Aetius. I plan to return west from here to my own people, and use the skills I've learned in the service of Rome to lead the resistance against the Saxons.'

‘If any of us survives whatever lies ahead of us in this place,' Macrobius said.

The last of the Hun horses clattered over the bridge, and they moved forward. Ahead lay a deepening cut in the folds of the steppe, an old river channel that had eroded into a ravine. An eagle flew high above them, dark and menacing, flapping against a wind that they could barely feel down below the level of the plain. A well-trodden path beside the stream in the centre led them along a sinuous route, left and then right. Flavius could see how the ravine could easily be defended by archers and catapult men ranged on the slopes above, the turns of the ravine breaking up an attacking army into sections of a few hundred infantry or cavalry who could be dealt with before the next section attempted to force their way through. After about a mile the ravine widened, large areas of well-watered land now abutting the stream on either side, some of it cultivated in patches of green, with people visibly hoeing and picking. They turned a corner, carried on for another quarter of a mile and came to a huge earthen vallum that stretched across the entire ravine from one side to the other, a wooden palisade with crenellations and low towers running along the top. The gate in front of them swung open and Erecan led them inside, the Hun horsemen now encircling the three men in a tighter formation as they carried on forward.

As Flavius looked up an astonishing sight met his eyes. Ahead of them lay a vast wooden citadel, rising almost to the height of the surrounding cliffs, but far enough away to be out of arrow or ballista range. In the foreground were numerous butts for archery practice, and to the right a track the size of the hippodrome in Rome where groups of galloping horsemen were kicking up great clouds of dust. Tented encampments lay everywhere, round huts of hide with wisps of smoke issuing from holes in the centre of their roofs, horses tethered nearby and the smell of cooked meat wafting over the road. Flavius could see that Priscus was right, that this was the encampment of an army numbering in the tens of thousands, with many more men presumably in outlying encampments and on the steppes ready to heed the call to arms when it came.