‘What kept you?’ she said. She might have been referring to his whole life.
He looked at the ground. ‘I was needed elsewhere.’
‘And still are?’
He looked troubled. ‘We must leave when we can. There isn’t much time.’
‘Do not leave,’ she said, misunderstanding. She reached out a trembling hand. ‘Stay.’
A nurse lit a candle for her bedside. After a moment, Aetius called for a chair to be brought.
In the night she was feverish again, talking in her delirium, repeating an old rhyme: ‘Many a couple love one another, Though they never come together, Nor shall know each other’s name ever.’
Suddenly she half sat up and stared at him. ‘Let us ride away.’
‘We will,’ he said quietly, ‘once you are well.’
One of her handmaidens eased her gently down again.
‘Far away,’ murmured the empress. ‘Do not let the angel of history harry us to the bitter end.’
The handmaiden looked awkwardly, questioningly, at the general. He nodded her away.
‘Somewhere there is escape from it,’ Athenais murmured, barely audible, her dark hair streaked with grey and plastered to her face.
‘You should rest now,’ he said. And then very carefully, with gross presumption by all the rules of court etiquette, he reached out his big scarred hand and stroked the hair back from her cheek. He took up the damp cloth on the edge of the bowl beside her and pressed it to her brow. She breathed in deeply, seemed calmer again.
‘Somewhere there is escape from it,’ she repeated softly. ‘Somewhere we might awake one morning out of the clutches of this nightmare.’
He did not want to hear her words, but he could not leave her.
‘In two or three generations’ time, all this will be at an end.’ She was looking intently at him again, and he could see she knew who he was. She was not so delirious. ‘Rome and her empire… These things are at an end. Can you not see, Aetius? In two or three generations’ time, these things will be only glorious memories in the minds of old men, monks and scholars in their chilly skylit cells, dreaming of the Golden Antique Past, and of the Kingdom to Come, and of Christos Pantocrator who will descend from heaven and spirit their souls away to a far, far better world than this. And why should they not dream? For the present will be nothing but dust and darkness and ashes. The lights are going out all over Europe, the darkness is coming. Only in a few isolated places will the flickering candles be kept burning. But the strong, brave dream that was Rome in her might and youth’ – she clutched his wrist with one hand – ‘and her centuries of confidence and pride… They are gone. It is done, and only darkness and ignorance remain.’
Gently he released her grip and laid her arm back beside her. In the corner, in the gloom, her handmaidens were watching.
‘The barbarians pour over the borders,’ she murmured, falling into oblivion again. ‘Or else they invest the empire from within, and in a dream people stagger on, the living dead, their civilisation long since finished, believing in nothing. A ghost culture kept going only by comfort and illusion and wealth.’
They said the prophecies of the dying were the most powerful of all.
When Gamaliel returned, Aetius leapt to his feet and went to him. They spoke quietly in the shadows for a while, then the old physician mixed up more of his willow-leaf infusion, and added other ingredients from two more vessels. One of her handmaidens held up the empress’s head and she drank and then she slept.
Aetius would not leave, though he looked worn out.
‘You want me to assure you that she will live,’ said Gamaliel.
Aetius said nothing.
‘Well,’ said the old man. ‘You know the cynical old saying: “Ubi tres physici, duo athei – where there are three doctors, there are two atheists.” But I am the third of them. God is with us, in ways we cannot even imagine.’ He laid his hand on Aetius’ arm. ‘A leader of men needs sharp wits, which means good sleep.’
Against his will, Aetius followed someone else’s advice for the first time in decades.
15
The general was shaken awake only a few hours later.
‘There are campfires burning all over the plain.’ It was Prince Theodoric.
He flung his cloak round him and they hurried outside, onto the walls. It was a pitch-black night, with no moon and thin skeins of cloud dimming even the stars. Someone offered him a torch to see his way but he damned him for a fool and told him to put it out. And then they were on the walls of Azimuntium, and the plains all about them were a sea of blackness studded golden with myriad campfires, like a fallen starlit sky.
‘So,’ he nodded. ‘They have come.’
‘The demand has been delivered already: an arrow over the gates.’
‘Let me guess. Surrender or die?’
‘In as many words,’ said Theodoric. ‘What do we do now?’
‘A small hill-town and a column of forty spearmen, facing a Hun battle group of thousands? We ride out and attack ’em, of course.’
Theodoric looked unconvinced. They watched the flickering campfires for a time, then Aetius gestured at the nearest. ‘How far out are they, would you say? The nearest?’
‘Hard to tell by night. Not so far.’
‘Choose four of your best men. Mounted.’
‘Myself among them,’ interrupted Arapovian.
Aetius’ eyes narrowed. ‘You are as good as the wolf-lords? ’
‘Better. I survived Viminacium.’
He grunted. ‘Prince, take three of your wolf-lords, and this one. Ride from the postern gate. The night is very dark. See if you can take a captive out there. Do not endanger your lives, not for one moment. Do you understand?’
Theodoric nodded and the four departed for the stables below.
The postern gate was opened without a sound, and left open, spearmen ranked inside. The four rode out at a walk with their horses’ hooves and muzzles bound in sacking, praying that the beasts would make no other noise, no friendly harrumphs to the horses of the Huns among the black felt tents. It would be pure luck if they did not. The riders wore dark cloaks, no helmets, and rode with their faces streaked with earth and bowed so as not to catch any light. The only weapons they dared carry were whips.
An old warrior stood in the darkness beside his tent, his campfire long since burned out. The four riders stopped in the shadow of a slight depression. The old warrior was naked to the waist, belting up his breeches. Arapovian dismounted, moved round behind him and dropped a cloth bag over his head and gagged him before he knew what had happened. The next tent was a mere ten yards off but the occupants were already sleeping, and the four made no sound louder than a mouse in a cornfield. In their haughtiness the Huns had not posted a single lookout.
They bound their captive with their whips. Another, smaller figure came out of the tent behind so they felled him and gagged and bound him likewise, and then pulled them back to the town behind their horses. The old warrior struggled mightily and threatened to cause trouble, so Jormunreik knocked him cold with a mighty fist to the back of his neck, and then they dragged him along peacefully enough in the dirt behind them like a travois. It was all done in two or three minutes, the postern gate latched and bolted again, the prisoners shaken back to consciousness and hauled up to the gatehouse for Aetius’ inspection.
‘Asla konusma Khlatina,’ growled the old warrior, his head still covered. ‘Sizmeli konusmat Ioung.’
‘Oh, I’ll wager you speak Latin very well,’ said Aetius evenly. ‘As I speak Hunnish.’ He glanced aside. ‘Light more lamps.’
They sat the two captives on stools and pulled off the first bag from the smaller warrior.
‘You’ve brought me a woman,’ said Aetius, glaring round at them. ‘You dolts.’
