Kings are not, captains are not, who fought and died like Yesukai,
An eagle among men, a leopard, he has left his people poor;
Let the vultures cry among the Tien Shan, let the winds tell it over the Plains of Plenty,
Let the rains fall year long on the green grasslands in mourning for Yesukai!
The sword is cast away, the bow is broken, the weapons of war are perished,
Comfort is not, consolation is not,
For our noble friend, our Yesukai, is fled from us,
And we are left alone.’
At last the funeral pyres burned down low and they mounted their horses again and moved slowly away east.
The chief of the Kutrigurs, their uncertain allies, called out to them in the darkness, ‘Where are you riding?’
Attila regarded him. At last he nodded and said quietly, almost with tenderness, ‘Come.’
After half an hour’s ride through the desolate night, towards the river, with the women and children and the ancients of the Kutrigurs, restored to them and now unroped and unshackled, trudging along in the rearguard, they emerged onto the lush floodplain of the great river. They sat their horses and waited for the Kutrigurs to draw up alongside them on the rise.
Sky-in-Tatters came alongside Attila and gasped.
Ahead of them burned the remnants of a huge fire, some way from the camp of black felt tents. It was an artificial fire, made of brushwood drenched with pailfuls of the foul black oil that Attila had made his men collect in the desert. Now they understood: another of Attila’s tricks. The black smoke that the Kutrigurs had seen on the skyline, and assumed was their camp going up in flames…
The camp still lay by the river’s edge, as ever, under a soft and benevolent moon. The horses’ were breathing and peaceful in the corrals, the tents deserted and unharmed.
Sky-in-Tatters tore his gaze away from the sight of the untouched camp and gazed with grudging admiration at this yellow-eyed bandit king, Attila, son of Mundzuk.
‘You fought like lions today, and sent many a warrior of my people to his grave. But our old and our young, our women and our virgins, and even the tents and the corralled horses of our camp, you left untouched.’
‘It is our usual way.’
Sky-In-Tatters grunted. ‘You are not the biggest fools I have ever met.’
Attila smiled.
Finally Sky-In-Tatters pushed himself up in the saddle, raised his spear and shouted a declaration to his ranks of exhausted and bewildered men.
‘From this day onward,’ he cried, ‘there is neither Black Hun nor Kutrigur Hun! There are only the Huns. And it is as we have heard. We shall be a great nation on the earth!’
The fifteen hundred horsemen, despite exhaustion and injury and a longing for sleep rather keener, at this moment, than any longing for conquest or empire, responded with a mighty shout which was heard for many miles over the treeless steppes, and set even the golden jackals in their lairs shivering with fear.
9
Sky-in-Tatters took possession of Red Craw’s tall tent at once, and indicated that Attila should take his rest there, too. Seeing that he was wounded, he offered him a couch and sent out for a medicine woman.
The bandit king lay down gratefully on a sheepskin.
‘We are the same people, you and I,’ said Sky-in-Tatters. Attila said nothing. ‘We are kings among men. And our men are no more desert Huns or steppe Huns, or, to the east, the Huns of the mountains. We Huns shall be one people, and we shall be the terror of the earth.’ He passed Attila a beaker of koumiss and gulped another down.
‘The villagers you fought so hard to defend,’ he went on, ‘those slaves. Why did you fight for them?’
Attila laid back his head and closed his eyes.
Sky-in-Tatters went on, ‘We know of your people, Uldin’s people of old, and how you forged west. We thought you had vanished over the rim of the earth, dared its uttermost bounds, and paid the price.’ He nodded grimly. ‘How wrong we were, and what a price we paid today.’
There was a movement at the tent door and Sky-in-Tatters stood. ‘Your medicine woman. I shall leave you.’
The woman knelt at Attila’s side, saying not a word, keeping her face bowed low. She very carefully unlaced his leather jerkin and pulled the sodden material gently off his chest. Her heart sank. The arrowhead was buried deep. No blood bubbled on his lips, so the arrow had not pierced his lung, but it was perilously close. He would have to be strong.
‘Push,’ he grunted. ‘Right through.’
She reached for a long, thin steel bar. She would have to be strong, too.
It was many minutes later that she was finally able to sew up the garish exit wound with horsehair and a fine needle, and poultice both entry and exit wounds with boiled herbs, and bind his chest with fine white linen bandages.
How strong he would have to be.
Suddenly an iron grip on her slender wrist made her cry out in shock and pain.
He raised himself. ‘Do not try to poison me as you pretend to heal me, woman. You will not succeed. I will live, despite your poisons. And I will kill you.’
She did not doubt him.
Poison or no, the king grew steadily weaker. The arrow had gone deep, and pushing it free had caused much agony, much loss of blood. Perhaps there was infection. It did not yet stink in the way that said the gods had marked a man for death, even though the arrow itself was long gone. But he was fighting. His face was pale, and then he was racked by fever. They fed the fever as best they could, piling thick sheepskins over him until his face was bloodlessly pale and drenched in sweat, like ice melting in the sun. They made him drink only the freshest, sweetest water straight from the river, taken upstream each morning at dawn.
Still the fever raged, and at times he ranted: mysterious and terrible words, verses that sounded like prophecies of the apocalypse. He muttered and raved about a king of terror, and the fall of burning cities, of a great lion, an eagle, and a rough-haired slouching beast who would yet come into his kingdom and exact vengeance for twelve long centuries of sin. The woman mopped his brow and made him drink and pitied him his nightmares.
Little Bird came to visit him. His king could barely see him.
‘There is poison,’ he murmured, ‘but it came not from the woman’s hand.’ He choked a little and spat. ‘Where were you in the battle? I had forgotten you.’
‘Where was I?’ said Little Bird. ‘Surviving. That’s where I was.’
Attila almost managed a smile. He looked sidelong at Little Bird and saw an old man, sad-eyed and weary. He forgot how old the shaman was, he always seemed so ageless. But not now.
He held his hand out and Little Bird took it, like a son taking the hand of his father on his deathbed. The thick, snaking, ropy veins were fallen flat and gone, as if there was no blood left in him. Nevertheless, when Little Bird spoke, his voice remained sprightly and careless, such were the contradictions of his heart.
He said he had learned that Sky-in-Tatters was in fact one of the sons of the old chief, Red Craw.
‘The eldest?’
Little Bird shook his head. ‘But the eldest to live.’ His eyes glittered. ‘He is not the only great chief to have killed his father. I heard a rumour of it.’
‘Peace, Little Bird,’ croaked the dying king. He was like a very old man. Little Bird could not cease from his cruel barbs and pointed jests, for it was in his nature and in the nature of his wisdom to speak thus, yet even as he joked he bowed his head and wiped the tears from his cheeks to see his Father brought low like this, laid at death’s
