‘Strange how I stay the same, while the girls grow younger and prettier every year.’
Such a man was King Theodoric: quick to anger, quick to forgive, lusty, powerful, a little hard of hearing. Just, passionate, oddly sentimental over trifles, such as injured animals; a lover of hounds and horses and well-trained hawks, given to bemoaning bitterly the slightest ache, pain or sniffle, but never having spent a single day in bed since the age of eight, when he was confined with a broken leg after falling off his pony at full gallop.
Aetius had a deep respect and affection for him, and sometimes wished that the book of history could have been written differently. But you are what you are. No man can change his tribe.
Whilst beating the Gothic king at chess this afternoon, Aetius talked to him of the affairs of the world. Of the savage reign of the Vandals in North Africa. Theodoric only grunted. Aetius told him of how the brutish King Genseric of the Vandals, having gained a taste for naval warfare, had sailed from his capital at Carthage – what irony there was there! – and sacked many of the islands of the Aegean. The inhabitants of Zakynthos had put up fierce opposition. When they were at last overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers, Genseric had had every man, woman and child on the island beheaded, and the mounds of heads shovelled into the sea.
Theodoric looked up at his guest from under grey, bushy eyebrows. But still he said nothing.
It was during this game of chess that a messenger came with two letters for Aetius. He took the first and tore it open. After reading it, he sat and mused for a long time.
‘It is sad news?’ said Theodoric.
Aetius nodded slowly. ‘And from a man whose name I had almost forgotten.’ He stirred himself and spoke more briskly. ‘From a Briton called Lucius.’
‘A good Roman name.’
‘He was a good Roman soldier. A good man. A lieutenant, as I recall. It was he who – yes, extraordinary to recall it now. It was he who accompanied the boy Attila on the great flight from Rome, back in 410, and who later made a great journey to the camp of the Huns, to find and buy back his own son. An incredible tale – I’ll tell it to you one day.’
‘What does he want with you?’
‘What everyone wants from me, except Rome itself,’ said Aetius. ‘Military aid. Which now I cannot give.’ He scanned the letter again. ‘He must be fifty – no, more. The father of good sons. The king of a little kingdom, as he ironically puts it, in the west of Britain, in Old Dumnonia. But the picture he paints is not a pretty one. The Picts, he says, are raiding further and further south, and the heathen Saxon raiders growing ever more bold. In the east of Britain, he says, Saxons invited over as mercenaries in petty wars have already settled and stayed. He is not optimistic.’ The general shook his head. ‘But I cannot help him. I cannot.’
‘What of the other letter?’ said Theodoric quietly.
Aetius tore it open and read it, then slipped it inside his robe. ‘How strangely news comes twice. This, too, is in remembrance of the Huns, and of a particular name among them. So suddenly he reappears. In a letter from Rome.’
‘To say?’
‘To say that the Hun nation has returned and is encamped across the Danube.’
Theodoric looked up sharply. ‘Who is their king?’
‘It is him,’ said Aetius, a note of wonderment in his voice. ‘The boy has come back. Attila. King Attila.’ He was silent for a while, then said, ‘Galla Placidia sends me welcome. She bids me return.’
‘And the emperor?’
He said nothing.
An unfortunate clerk chose that moment to come into the king’s presence and request his signet-stamp upon a document.
Theodoric turned on him in fury. ‘Out of my sight, wheyfaced ledger-slave!’ The poor clerk reeled backwards in the blast, open-mouthed. ‘Scullion! Fool of the counting-house! Come to tell me how much gold yet graces my treasury! What do you know but how to tell of gold! I’d see thy milksop temples furrowed with a man’s cares, a man’s burdens on your counting-house crouchback, see how you like that!’
Theodoric turned back to the chess game. He swiftly moved one of his pieces, and set it down with such force that the board shuddered and several more pieces moved in concert.
‘The Huns,’ he rumbled. ‘Alliances. I know what you seek: a new alliance, my warriors to ride in Rome’s defence. And this Lucius the Briton, he should be riding in your defence too.’ He laughed harshly. ‘Never mind your going to Britain to fight the Saxons for his salvation! We are all under attack in the Last Days!’
Aetius studied the board.
‘But I am old, my Roman friend. My old eyes weep and dazzle under the sun. My ears, alas, hear less than they once did. Although they hear less folly too.’
He heaved himself more upright in his great wooden chair. ‘Yet I think I do still bear me most royally in my hoary, rheumy old age, do I not? Eh? Eh? Though no more than a bag of old bones, held together by this kingly ceinture.’ He slapped the great gold buckled belt round his broad stomach. ‘A bag of ancient, mead-filled, boarmeat guts!’ Suddenly Theodoric turned in his chair. ‘Do you eye my throne, boy?’ he roared.
Aetius looked up. It was the king’s eighteen-year-old second son, the tall, graceful Torismond, waiting respectfully to speak.
‘May you suffer hell’s own haemorrhoids seated here if you take your place before the appointed time!’
‘Father, I-’
‘Bring me a pot to piss in.’
Torismond obediently retreated, and returned a moment later with a pot.
Aetius gazed away over the courtyard rooftops. Swifts were wheeling in the spring sky, their high-pitched screams swooping over the red-tiled rooftops of the city.
The poor clerk was scuttling along in the shade of the colonnade, still clutching his unsigned document and hoping to pass unnoticed, when Theodoric saw him.
‘Here, wheyface! Take this pot. Here man, take it from me! Damn thee for a fool to fear to soil thy hands with the royal piss, that daily soil thy palms with foreign gold.’ The clerk retreated, stumbling backwards. ‘Ledger- slave!’ the king roared after him. ‘Coin-counter! Now go spill it on the palace roses! They will smell all the sweeter for it!’
He looked back at Aetius. He took a deep draught from the plain wooden cup by his side and smacked his lips. ‘There can be no alliance between the Goths and the Romans, old friend. The past forbids it. The past makes a mockery of it, though there will be friendship until death between you and me. We are Christians both, are we not? Yet you call me an Arian, and a heretic.’
Aetius shook his head. ‘Christians both. I am no theologian.’
‘Don’t pussyfoot, man, I know you have a braver heart than those who hide their convictions like a bear hides its dung! Is the Son equal to the Father? Is my son equal to me?’ He looked round at Torismond, waiting patiently. ‘Are you greater than your father, boy?’ he bellowed.
The youth gave a graceful bow. ‘I am not, my lord.’
‘I am!’ said a bright, girlish voice, ‘and a deal prettier to look at too!’ In a flash and blur of white robe and flying blond hair, a young girl tripped across the little courtyard and flung her arms round her father, bestowing a flurry of kisses on the laughing king. She was Amalasuntha, Theodoric’s only daughter, some fourteen summers old and the apple of her father’s rheumy eye. He doted on her. So did her six elder brothers, for that matter. A little spoilt she might be, but none of them resented it. Spoilt and vain and careless, she was also sweet-natured and full of spirit and laughter. One day she would make quite a match. But woe betide any man who dared to offend her honour or her name before that day. He would have Theodoric and his six sons to contend with.
There was no man on earth whom the king would not bellow insults at if he felt so inclined. But against women he was rather less certain of himself. And with his vivacious young daughter… he was putty in her hands. Aetius tried to hide his smile.
‘What are you laughing at, General?’ asked the girl archly. ‘Do share your little joke. It is well known what a keen sense of humour you have – always laughing and joking as if you had not a care in the world.’
‘Nothing, nothing at all,’ replied Aetius gravely, thinking what a flirt she was becoming already.
She tossed back her long fair hair and kissed her father sweetly once again. ‘Well,’ she said. And then she flitted away across the courtyard. Aetius did not turn to watch her go. He knew she would be looking over her shoulder for him to do so. And he old enough to be her father – her grandfather.
