forth. Your name, boy?’
The prince told him.
‘What verminous company you keep. Your men slew many of my men in the mountains.’
‘We were attacked.’
‘My heart bleeds for you.’ Attila’s eyes glimmered. ‘You would make a precious hostage, would you not? Why should I release you?’
‘In exchange for your Lord Chanat,’ said Theodoric. Aetius clenched his hands behind his back. Yes. The boy was doing well.
‘So,’ rasped Attila. ‘You ride with the Romans now?’
‘My brother and I and our retinue ride as the friends of Aetius.’
‘Friends and assassins?’
‘I knew no more of that low plot than did the master-general here.’
‘How many men left in your retinue?’
Theodoric smiled. ‘Enough.’
Attila smiled too, differently.
‘The Visigothic nation remains neutral,’ said the prince.
Then Attila leaned forward, and his eyes burned, and all in the tent felt the ferocious power that was in him. His voice changed and his face darkened. He fixed the boy with his gaze. ‘You should ally with us. You should know which way the wind of history blows.’
There was a silence and then Theodoric replied, with audible contempt, ‘My people ally with the Huns? I think not.’
Attila sat back again. ‘Have a care, boy. I could send you back to your father as a barrel of chopped flesh.’
‘Then you would have the entire Visigothic nation against you, as well as the legions of Rome.’
‘The Huns have dealt with your nation before. Have we not harried you across all of Europe, from the shores of the Sea of Ravens westwards? You ran from us as if you were trying to catch the setting sun, wailing like women!’
The boy’s blue eyes blazed, like fire seen through ice.
Control yourself, lad, Aetius willed him. He is only testing you.
When the prince spoke again his voice remained calm. ‘You did not deal with us well in the mountains. The Visigoths will flee from you no more. The next time, like the last, we will turn and fight.’
‘That is not your decision, boy. Your father still rules the Visigoths, does he not? Unless you intend perhaps to usurp him?’
Now Theodoric had the measure of Attila and his games. Calm was strength. He only replied, ‘Return the stolen flocks and herds to the people of Azimuntium, and the kidnapped shepherds, and we shall return your Lord Chanat to you. Then we shall ride away south.’
Attila stroked his beard awhile and pondered.
Someone else came into the tent, without requesting permission, and the little grey-haired shaman whimpered and fled out of the back. Even Aetius blanched when he glanced at the newcomer. This was a Hun witch.
She was very tall and thin, her chest flat and bony, her face like that of a corpse, her hair dyed an unnatural tawny red. She wore a sloughed snakeskin round her throat, and though she was very dark skinned her eyes were a pale blue. Everything about her was wrong. She strode over to Attila and spoke in his ear, her voice a strange, high insect whine. Aetius thought he caught the name of Anashti, the moon goddess. As she spoke, she looked at Theodoric and showed her teeth. They were filed. Aetius knew what she was saying, and hoped Theodoric didn’t. The lad was holding his nerve well so far. She was speaking of the deep, strong mana of sacrificing the first-born, especially the first-born of a king, and she held out a wooden cup.
Attila looked at Theodoric. ‘Would you care for wine?’
Theodoric did not hesitate. ‘I would not. It is poisoned.’
The King laughed a harsh laugh. ‘You are not the greatest fool I have ever met. Yes, it is poisoned. You would have died in agony.’ He waved the witch away. ‘She is a jester, is she not? But she has no notion of politics and power. She thinks it can all be done by spells.’
They remained silent. Then Attila stood.
‘Lord Chanat is worth many sheep. And I like men brave unto folly. Sometimes.’ With those words he turned at last to Aetius, and handed him a note. ‘Take this to your pig of an emperor. You and I, we will meet again.’
‘On a battlefield?’ replied Aetius quietly. ‘After a battle’s end? After the deaths of countless thousands of men?’
‘Life is sacrifice,’ said Attila. ‘The world is an altar of sacrifice.’
Attila kept them waiting all day and on into dusk.
Aetius stood tirelessly on the battlements, waiting. The moon was not yet up, but he could imagine it glimmering across the Euxine Sea to the east, and shining blue-white on the snowy flanks of the Caucasus, and silvering the Danube delta, and that haunted White Island there where Achilles and Helen lived. Sailors said that they heard the sounds of their lovemaking as they sailed past, and saw Achilles’ sword play like a ghostly flame high in the rigging.
Then Gamaliel came to him. The empress grew neither stronger nor weaker.
Aetius said nothing.
‘And Attila? Do you trust him?’
‘Not one inch,’ said Aetius. ‘I know him of old. But horses can’t gallop up walls like these, and I saw no siege-engines. Even this little town would be hard to take without siege-engines.’
‘You observed well.’
‘One of the reasons I went to parley: to check out the camp.’
Gamaliel was amused. ‘But this is only one battle group.’
‘One of many. The others will have the engines.’
‘And where are they?’
Aetius looked bitter. ‘Ask the citizens of Sardica, of Adrianople, perhaps even of Thessalonika. They will be fully experienced in the Huns’ use of siege-engines by now, and there is nothing we can do to help. The East has no army to speak of, only the last of the Imperial Guard, and any odd Isaurian auxiliaries we can round up to resist the attack on Constantinople itself.’
‘That is coming?’
‘Oh, yes. That is coming.’
After a pause to digest this black news, Gamaliel said, ‘I used to pray that men would love God more than power.’ He paused. ‘I am still praying.’
Aetius only grunted.
Gamaliel said, ‘Do you remember the other boy with you in the camp of the Huns?’
‘The Greek slave Orestes.’ He nodded. ‘He is still there. Older and balder.’
‘No, the Celtic boy, Cadoc, the son of that good officer Lucius.’
‘My God,’ said Aetius softly, sad and still with memories. Never look back, they said, Not if you want to stay strong. But now… ‘I remember him, just.’ It seemed so long ago. Such length of time, and all so greatly changed. He ached with unaccountable longing. What is that longing? For another world.
Then he straightened his shoulders. No. There was more to be done.
As if reading his thoughts, Gamaliel said, ‘Things are coming to a great conclusion. An age of the world is ending, another is being born, and we are its unlikely midwives.’
There was a stirring out in the dusk. The Huns were mounting up.
‘Riddle me no riddles, please,’ snapped Aetius. ‘I’ve enough to think about.’
‘Do you remember the Last of the Sibylline Leaves? They are important. That boy, Cadoc, and his father Lucius before him, they are the last who remember them. The parchments were all destroyed, all but one, saved by General Stilicho himself. Lucius and Cadoc, in far and forgotten Britain, they are the living Last Sibylline Leaves.’
Aetius was tiring of the old man. ‘I don’t believe in sibyls and prophecies and spells. They are the things of
