Carthage, meeting up with their Vandal allies under Genseric. There was no limit to the destruction they might wreak.

Constantinople must stand; even though her sister Rome would not stand with her.

I, Priscus of Panium, have seen the Hunnic destruction with my own eyes, and I have also read other chroniclers. Callinicus tells us that ‘More than a hundred cities were captured. There were so many murders and blood-lettings that the dead could not be numbered. For they took captive the churches and monasteries and slew the monks and maidens in great quantities.’ It was amid this impious slaughter that the mythic terror of the Huns was born. As Attila observed, terror is a fine weapon, and very cheap; and panic travels faster even than galloping horses.

That other noble chronicler, Count Marcellinus, wrote simply of that year of catastrophe, ‘Attila ground almost the whole of Europe into dust.’

There was one small town in those days, however, which did not fall. Tragedy did not visit it, History passed it by. It remained humble and unremarked, a common, ordinary, unheroic little town. I mean the town of Panium, standing there on the green hillside, valerian and stonecrop growing in the cracks of its ancient golden limestone walls, and the bell tower of the church peeping above. It had stood thus for many centuries, and it will stand for many centuries more, its people placid and unknown, goat bells sounding in the olive groves, cicadas chirruping in the sun-dried grass. In the evenings the old men still gather in the courtyard by the well to gossip and to drink the thin red wine. Just a simple green hillside, a little town of shepherds and farmers, a single half-literate priest. No, History never visited Panium, and it remains there still. It has no stories, for it has no scars.

Aetius took a gamble and rode directly back to the capital down the open road. The Huns did not snap at his heels. Indeed, there was no sign of them. They were waiting, looting, slaughtering through all the surrounding land, leaving Constantinople alone in mournful isolation, her provinces cut from her like limbs and destroyed in the fire. ‘ How doth the city sit solitary…’ Aetius rode at the head of the column, face set, expressionless, never so alone. Athenais ached to see him.

This waiting, this torment, was also directed at him, as he well knew. Attila’s games, his complex furies and hatreds. He is isolating me, saving me till last too, he thought. As if I have somehow betrayed him, and my betrayal is the worst, and must be punished the most.

As they came across the flat plains past the last outlying and deserted farmsteads, and saw the great brick- banded Theodosian Walls ahead of them, and the domes and spires of the city within, it seemed as if they were arrived at a dreadful judgement and reckoning, entering upon some vast stage-set directed by History herself, and they were only actors, their speeches and destinies already written. Through late orchards they came, fruit falling from the trees ungathered, abandoned monastic houses, past Maltepe Hill and the shallow valley of the Lycus and, all defenceless, the forlorn and foredoomed Church of Theotokos, its precious furnishings and icons already taken by the priests and hurried within the safety of the Walls.

There was a brief and bitter meeting between the emperor and his general. Theodosius was aghast that the assassination attempt had failed. Vigilas? Dead from exhaustion. Aetius told him of Attila’s little joke with the fifty pounds of gold. And Chrysaphius? Aetius did not spare the details. It was time this stupid but well-intentioned man began to understand his enemy.

‘Attila cut his throat in front of us. Before that he tortured him a while. Broke his nose, smashed his anklebone underfoot and so forth.’

Theodosius held his hand to his mouth, looking at Aetius indignantly for having exposed him to such truths.

There was worse. Aetius produced the note Attila had given him.

To the Emperor of the Eastern Romans, slave, liar, coward and traitor. It is a wicked slave who conspires against the life of his master. You have forfeited your position and the Will of Heaven has henceforth placed you in my hands. We are coming to collect the debt you owe us. Attila, Tashur-Astur.

Theodosius looked on the verge of hysteria, but gradually calmed himself again. ‘We must buy him off. It is our only choice.’

‘You cannot buy him off. He will take the gold and then attack you anyway.’

He paced and fretted for long minutes. Finally he said, his voice quailing a little, ‘Can this city truly withstand the might of the Huns? With our own armies destroyed, and the help of the Western ships and legions… withheld?’

‘Yes. I believe it can.’

Thedosius looked sorrowful. ‘All my best generals are slain: Aspar cut down at the River Utus, Solimarius hunted to death like a dog by a Hun war-party in the Chersonesus, Zenobius – his earthly remains – perhaps somewhere in the ashes of Thessalonika, which he died trying to defend with a handful of mercenaries. And so you see…’ He opened his hands helplessly. ‘The city is yours to defend. I commit it into your hands. Do what you must.’ He hesitated a moment longer, looking at Aetius as if not seeing him, and then retired to his private chambers.

Outside the audience chamber, Athenais joined Aetius.

‘Your Majesty is in better health again?’

She smiled and did not answer. Instead she said, ‘The emperor is a good man.’

‘I know that,’ said Aetius. ‘No Valentinian.’

‘That is treason!’ Her tone was not entirely serious.

He grimaced. ‘Theodosius is all sweet reasonableness and gentle light, I know. But he has poor night vision. His wide eyes do not penetrate into the dark places either of the world or of men’s hearts.’

‘Whereas you have good night vision.’

‘Plenty of practice.’

The empress sighed. ‘He believes that all men are essentially like himself. A great folly, perhaps.’

‘A great folly for certain. Reason is weak, and unreason has unimaginable power against it: the power of ancient and irrational forces.’

‘Those powers burn strong in Attila.’

‘Strong as the sun.’ Aetius laughed harshly. ‘And the emperor, God save his Imperial Majesty, believes that he can negotiate with him. Can you negotiate with the sun?’

There was a silence, then she touched his arm and said his name.

He pulled away. ‘Excuse me, Majesty. I have work to do.’

There was still no news of the approaching Hun whirlwind, but the air was thick with heaviness and dread. It would not be long now. And so, amid signs and portents and the panicked babbling of crowds and self-appointed doomsayers in the choked streets of the capital, Aetius set about preparing for the coming onslaught.

He surveyed the city’s walls from the Sea of Marmara to the Golden Horn, wondering again at their colossal strength: squared stone facings of tertiary limestone, founded in bedrock, with mortared rubble for infill. The towers were built as separate structures, a masterstroke of that great overseer of the work, the Praetorian Prefect Anthemius, back in 413. An assault on the walls or settling of their foundations would do no harm to the towers themselves. And they were so massively built that even the largest artillery machines could safely be operated from their rooftops without damage to the structure below them. He inspected the artillery as he went, approving the low-slung onagers and the multiple arrow-machines with grim satisfaction. He even approved a couple of new- fangled machines supposed to hurl detonating fire-pots. None of the men operating the machines looked much good at hand-to-hand fighting; they were city guards and technicians only, but they would do. He inspected them all and gave praise or censure where due. Each artillery battery that he inspected, and spoke to of the coming attack, he left more sombre and more resolute than before.

The two Gothic princes in his party were awe-struck by the Walls: that feat of engineering which they had often heard of but had dismissed as exaggeration. Torismond leaned out from Military Gate V, overlooking the Lycus Valley, taking in the multiple defences of the city before any attacker could even begin to scale the primary walls, starting with the outer ditch sixty feet wide and thirty feet deep. He paused and turned to Aetius, looking puzzled.

‘Sir, I can hear something.’

Aetius nodded. ‘Keep watching.’

A light wind arose from the bare stone below, then as if from underground, there came a low, rushing sound. There was a trickle of water across the dusty facing of the ditch below, then a sudden, mighty onrush of waters, foaming in from the sea, where the sluice-gates had been opened on Aetius’ orders. The princes whooped with

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