general, remounted and rode up into the hills above the drifting smoke, knowing that the Hun war party might attack again at any time. There would be no sleep nor rest from riding tonight.
13
It was late into the night when we came to an abandoned stone farmstead on a high plateau, with a half- broken stock wall. Aetius gave the order to dismount here and take our rest, with sentries posted. We made a single small fire within the shelter of the wall and rolled ourselves in our blankets.
As if to honour their dead, the wolf-lords recited in low voices the lays of their people. Long wanderings of their doomed and tragic tribe, driven from their ancient homelands in icebound Thule by a still more warlike people they called the Sweotheoden. Then half-destroyed by nameless Easterlings in Hrefnawude, or Ravenswood, in a great and terrible battle when the arrrow-storm pelted the shield-wall in the dark pine forests of that land, a battle etched in the memory of their bloodstained lays. They fled east and then south to the shores of the Scythian Sea, and then westwards again like autumn leaves, to find their final heartland in sunwarmed southern Gaul.
At dawn, after only two or three hours’ sleep on the hard ground, we arose and smothered the fire and rode on. Coming to the edge of the plateau we looked down, and eastward across the burning plain below we saw a hill- town shimmering in the hazy morning air, set atop a single cone of golden rock amid the waterless flatland.
Azimuntium.
We had thought to come here having made our peace with Attila, though Aetius always knew it would never happen. The emperor had expected us to come peaceably to Azimuntium, at a relaxed and serene pace, having seen Attila slain behind us and the Hun threat dissipated for good. I could still hardly believe such clumsy stupidity. We had tried to assassinate Attila himself! How we would pay for it in time. The whole world would pay for it. But we would be the first to suffer. Now we had to bring Her Majesty home urgently, ourselves already battered and reduced in numbers, with the darkest clouds rolling towards us, just over the horizon.
We rode round the edge of the plateau and down a narrow valley where a limpid brook flowed over rockfalls from pool to pool, and small trees grew and birds chittered, and eventually down and out onto the plain along a dirt track towards the town. We broke into a fast trot again here. The sun moving across the sky was our constant bane. Time was against us. Aetius sent outriders far to our left and right, but they could see nothing, and on a plain like this, a hundred thousand horsemen would kick up some dust. After a while, though, approaching us from the north-west we saw a small band of vagabonds, mounted and spiky with spears. Aetius reined in and we waited, the sun blazing down on us as if in angry warning.
Eventually the band came near, not slowing in their approach nor showing any sign of fear. There were but four of them and they made a motley crew. There was one youngish fellow, very scarred and bruised, a deserter perhaps; an arrogant-looking Easterner with long black moustaches; a grim-faced older fellow with cold eyes; and a fat, grubby oaf with a scarecrow thatch of hair, whose poor horse looked ready to collapse beneath him. None was clean-shaven, and all carried weapons and wore looted Roman armour. Aetius rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. He detested looters of slain soldiers. Battlefield carrion crows.
‘Where did you come by that armour?’ he demanded peremptorily.
The four slowed and reined in. They seemed in no hurry to reply.
‘Answer me, damn you.’
The fat oaf, quite unafraid, looked round at his three bandit comrades and grinned. ‘Well, I should say we came by it at Viminacium.’
Aetius’ hand tightened on his sword. He had executed looters on the spot before now. ‘Viminacium was destroyed.’
‘Quite so, your lordship, though not without a struggle, I should say, if you wanted to go and inspect the ruins, what’s left of ’em. And it’s bye bye to the field army, too, from what we heard on the road, over near the River Utus. Six whole Eastern legions gone up in smoke. Still, I always did say the Eastern legions wasn’t no match for the Western lot. Not that we been over River Utus way ourselves. There’s a few Huns about here and there these days, so you want to keep a low profile if you take my advice. Of course, if you’d rather-’
‘Shut it.’
Knuckles subsided into injured silence.
‘So you admit it? You are common looters?’
Neither ‘common’ nor ‘looter’ could be tolerated by Arapovian. He snapped back crisply, indicating Knuckles, ‘This one’s birth was not of the noblest, it is true, though beneath that ape-like exterior he has a noble heart. But I am Count Grigorius Khachadour Arapovian, the son of Count Grigorius Nubar Arapovian, the son of-’
‘Oh, ’ere we go,’ sighed Knuckles. He shook his head at Aetius. ‘I hope you’re not in a hurry, though you look like you might be. Now you’ve got him started, we’ll be listening to the names of his forefathers till tomorrow nightfall.’
‘Silence, both of you.’
Knuckles ignored him. ‘We’re from Viminacium.’
‘No one survived from Viminacium.’
The legionary looked around at the other three and grimaced with down-turned mouth. ‘Well, comrades, seems like we must be fucking ghosts of ourselves, then – thought I was feeling a bit funny.’ He looked back at Aetius. ‘Ghosts can’t commit crimes, sir. If there weren’t no survivors out of Viminacium, we’re the walking dead. And if we’re the walking dead, we ain’t no looters and we don’t belong to no legion except the legion of the damned.’
It was impeccable logic.
Aetius’ hand on his sword-hilt relaxed again. Though these four were as irritating as hell, he began to sense they were indeed no ordinary looters, and spoke the truth, or something like it. He threw his cloak back over his right shoulder to show his general’s epaulettes. The scarred young fellow and the cold-eyed older man immediately sat straighter in their saddle and saluted.
Aetius smiled grimly. ‘So you are deserters, not looters.’
Still holding his salute, the older man rasped back icily, general or no, ‘We are no deserters, sir. There was nothing left to desert from. ’
Aetius eyed him. ‘Name, rank and legion.’
‘Marcus Tatullus, centurion, primus pilus, the VIIth Legion, Claudia Pia Fidelis.’ He spoke these last words with exaggerated emphasis, his gaze fixed on Aetius, a look of agony behind his deep-set, unblinking eyes.
Likewise still holding his salute, the younger scarred fellow loudly pronounced the legionary motto, ‘Six times brave, six times faithful.’
‘Make that seven,’ said the centurion. His voice sounded strange.
‘Gaius Malchus,’ said the young fellow, ‘cavalry captain, VIIth Legion, sir!’
Aetius began to understand, though it was hard to believe. He felt a flood of emotion within him, and fought to control it. He looked at the last of the four, the thatch-haired troglodyte. ‘And you?’ he said, more quietly.
‘Anastasius, sir, son of the whore Volumella, one of the most noted whores on the Rhineland frontier in her day. Though most people call me Knuckles. I believe it suits me better.’
Aetius couldn’t help but smile, though his heart was heavy with emotion. ‘And your rank?’
‘An ordinary boot, obviously, sir. Of the lowest possible class, and common as muck in a cowshed.’
Aetius looked them over and saw them anew. I saw his breastplate heave and I knew his great heart shook. These were no common men, sitting their horses battle-scarred and travel-stained, unspeakably weary, and yet not broken. These were the backbone of the old empire, and with such the empire would live to fight again.
‘You survived Viminacium? You fought against the Huns there and survived?’
‘If you could call it surviving,’ said Knuckles.
‘You survived,’ affirmed Aetius. ‘Ride with us.’
‘You’re headed back to Constantinople, I take it, sir?’ asked Malchus.
Aetius nodded. ‘Via Azimuntium, that hill-town yonder. To provide escort home for the Empress Ath-Eudoxia.
