verses, and that after he had heard them in full the dread King of the Huns, the Scourge of God, hung his head, and began to pull his men back and turn them round. Some even claimed that Rome was saved by Attila’s superstitious dread of the Christian Church, and a few old, garbled rhymes. Others commented that Attila’s force was spent anyway; he had been defeated on the Catalaunian Fields.
The meeting did confirm one thing. The legions of Rome truly belonged to the past. Attila did not fear armies, but he feared the god of the Christians: the god who had thundered at him from the dark depths of Rhemi cathedral. The old military power of Rome was extinguished, but the new power of the Catholic Church had replaced it.
‘It was not the priest of the Christians who made me depart,’ said Attila, ‘but that other, in the white robe, standing behind him.’
Orestes frowned. ‘There was none such.’
‘He bore a flaming sword.’
Orestes fell silent and then stepped out of the king’s tent. He heard a sing-song voice away in the darkness.
‘The Great Spirit wills it.
Dry your eyes.
The white man comes.
A People dies.’
13
In the west of Britain, an old man and his son at last came home to their simple long-house. The old man eased himself off his horse and a woman only a few years younger came out and wept and embraced him. They clung to each other, then went inside. The younger man went to stable the horses.
The woman said, ‘The Christians prevailed?’
Lucius nodded. ‘This time.’ She helped him off with his heavy British cloak. ‘What news?’
She shook her head.
‘From the fortress of war?’
‘It has been silent. A messenger rode out, travelling by water. But…’
‘He has not returned?’
Seirian shook her head again, pleading, ‘But the fortress of war cannot have fallen?’
Lucius turned to see Cadoc stepping over the threshold, unbuckling his sword-belt. He reached out a hand to his son.
‘Keep it on.’
Cadoc looked up, his hand still on his buckle, eyes bright and prophetic.
Attila’s sons were already squabbling over his inheritance while the aged King sat upon his wooden throne in his tent upon the Hungvar, bow clutched in hand, staring ahead, his face as grey as old lead, his thoughts devouring him.
‘For of this generation of men they shall not say we were the mightiest. The great Eagle of the Skies turns his head away, his golden eyes no longer mark us, his gaze is upon far other kings and empires now. We are little creatures to him, we are chirruping crickets in the grass, we are tedious to him, and all our vaunts and wars are ridiculous to him. He has left us here, our All-Father has abandoned us, and we are but orphans of the steppe, orphans of the world. The gold and the precious stones and all the treasury of his divine blessing is passed on to another people, and we are utterly forgotten.
‘I read it all in the book of the Jews and the Christians. He has cut us off in the day of his fierce anger. He has led us into darkness and not into light. Surely he has turned against us. He has made our chains heavy, and our ways desolate. The joy in our hearts has ceased, for he has set his bow against us and made us a mark for the arrow. Our dance is turned into mourning, and the crown of the world is fallen from our heads.
‘The ghosts of my people came to me, skeletal, barely fleshed, clawing at me, ancient hags with wrinkled dugs, saying I killed my father; and now my Father kills me. The Lord Astur is against me, the wind of the world is turned upon me, my sons fight before my eyes, the battle is lost and the dream is done. We are all orphans in the end, O my soul.
‘How all things fall and perish! And how all things come about again. Our crimes and iniquities, which we fancied we left on the road behind us, long ago, as we went forth to our glory, in truth ran ahead of us in the night while we were sleeping, and wait for us on the road ahead to greet us, their smiles grim and their hands outstretched.’
But his pride was very great and, rather than ask forgiveness, he would go down stiffnecked and unrepentant to Hell. A great city which looked much like Rome.
Only the wind plays the shepherd’s pipe,
Only the north wind sings your song,
O my People…
At a banquet he apportioned out his imaginary empire among his favourite sons. China to Dengizek, Gaul to Emnedzar, Italy to Uzindar, the Homeland of the Hungvar to his beloved Ellak, Persia to Ernak, and Africa to Geisen. Even as he was talking, his sons were laughing among themselves. The old fool!
They were sly and small of spirit, Attila’s sons. They had no strength in them. It had all been crushed out of them by the great rock that was their father. In his shadow they were blanched little weeds, sunless and sly. Little Bird turned away, weeping, unable to look. They mocked him before his face, those unworthy sons.
Attila announced that this was also a wedding banquet, for he had taken a new wife, a Burgundian girl. Her name was Idilco, and she was but nineteen or twenty years old. The women brought her into the tent. She was very beautiful, and the sons of Attila made lewd comments and catcalls. They joked among themselves that old boars had no business with young sows, and they shouted out that, though the knife gelds quickly and age gelds slowly, they both make geldings in the end.
Orestes’ hand was on his sword. But Attila only stared ahead, his once-mighty fist clutched round his wooden goblet, not hearing them.
Idilco smiled.
That night, Emperor Marcian in Constantinople dreamed of a great broken bow in the sky, like a strange new constellation. The dream puzzled him deeply.
Among the tents of the Huns, the chill dawn revealed the revellers asleep amid the empty flagons on heaps of animal furs. The fires burned low. But there was no sign of Attila. After some time, his faithful servant Orestes batted on the leather door of his inner tent. There was no answer. Orestes called again and again, but there was only silence. At last he cut the ties and went in.
At his anguished cry, warriors came running.
Idilco was crouched in a corner, shivering like a frightened animal. Attila lay on his back on the couch, naked. Blood had gushed in torrents from his mouth, drenching half his body. His eyes stared skywards.
Orestes moved over to the girl, knife ready.
She stood and held out her hand, an accusing, shaking finger.
‘I will not allow you the time for a dying curse,’ he said, grabbing for her long fair hair.
She stepped back. ‘Not a curse, a truth. You will hear it.’
Orestes paused. The atmosphere in the tent was heavy with horror and thick with the metallic odour of blood.
‘The Huns fought the Burgundians twenty years ago. I am twenty. Under their King Ruga, that foul drunkard, that hireling, the Huns were paid by the Romans to fight the Burgundians, my people.’ The girl grew in strength as she spoke. ‘My mother was very beautiful. She was raped. My father was slain. Perhaps I am half Hun, I neither know nor care. So all things come around. The Huns destroyed my family.’ She tossed back her hair and smiled. ‘Now I have destroyed their king.’ She looked at the horrible mockery of a marriage bed. ‘Cut his thoat like a hog. I
