The priest was on his knees, retrieving the icon from the floor and cradling it, weeping. Attila kicked him hard in the ribs and sent him sprawling, retching for breath. Then he stuck his dagger under his belt, strode out into the night, vaulted onto his horse and kicked it forward. Orestes spoke no more.
Instead Geukchu came and rode by his side, and at his other side rode the witch Enkhtuya.
‘The earthquake we have heard of,’ said Geukchu in a low, sinuous voice, ‘surely Astur is with us! It is as if, my lord, you had planned it all yourself.’
But even at this stage Attila still disliked flattery, and he only murmured a couplet from some ancient Persian poem. ‘“ The spider weaves the curtains in the Palace of the Caesars, The owl calls the watches in the Towers of Afrasiab…”.’
They rode on, and night closed around them, and in the woods behind, as if in answer to those melancholy lines, there were only the sounds of a lych-owl and of a solitary holy man weeping in his cell for the sins of all the world.
19
Aetius stood on the walls beside Military Gate V. Near him stood the lean, ancient figure of Gamaliel.
‘You again,’ was all Aetius had said sourly to him in greeting; but he had put him in charge of the nearby Emmanuel Hospital, all the same, and ordered the monks there to do his bidding. There would be plenty of work there soon enough, and this old trickster seemed to know his stuff.
Below in the street children were playing, happily oblivious for a moment of the world and its shadows. People of all ages sat awake through the night now, huddled around fires, talking. The children sang an ancient nursery rhyme: ‘Tortoise, tortoise, what’s going on?
I’m weaving Milesian yellow and yarn.
How did your father happen to die?
Fell off his white horses and drowned in the sea.’
It seemed an ominous rhyme. In a sudden flash, Aetius pictured himself dying. A sign of old age: young men never imagine they will die, but now he felt all too often the stab of a dagger or a spear in his belly, saw himself lying in a blood-soaked hospital bed, arms outstretched in supplication but slipping away, the battle still raging on the walls. He hoped this was no foreseeing.
Tum magna sperabam, maesta cogitabam – Then greatly I hoped, but sadly I thought.
Gamaliel was talking about the Hun pantheon, as if delivering a lecture. He said the gods were fighting a battle among themselves by proxy.
‘The Hun gods fight well, and fight dirty,’ muttered Aetius. ‘Astur and Savash and the rest. Attila believes in them as he believes in himself.’
Gamaliel turned to him gravely in the darkness. ‘Men believe in a god who is a reflection of their own hearts. Dark heart: dark god.’
‘Then whose god is true?’ said Aetius.
‘Whose heart is true?’
Another was brought to him in the night, led by Prince Torismond, looking distinctly amused. It was the Cretan alchemist, Nicias.
Aetius growled, ‘I thought you were in Antioch, or Alexandria.’
‘I was,’ said Nicias woundedly, ‘collecting together another set of alchemical equipment – and very costly it was, too. Then I returned here to experiment upon the, ah, pre-mortem dismemberment of tunny by alchemical means.’
‘You’ve been blowing up fish?’
‘Precisely.’
‘You alchemists are strange.’
Nevertheless, the man of science assured him that, after further unplanned experimental outcomes – Aetius noticed that Nicias still had no eyebrows to speak of – a happy conclusion had finally been reached, when a large tunny was simultaneously exploded and incinerated, while still in the water.
‘A miracle to behold, I’m sure,’ said Aetius. Not without some misgivings, he gave Nicias permission to station his wretched firepots and God knew what else on the towers of the Gate of St Barbara, overlooking the entrance to the Golden Horn. He could take command of the single artillery machine there, and hit anything that moved. Vandal warships, ideally.
‘Oh, and if you see any ships bringing Western legions to help us, let me know.’
Nicias looked puzzled. ‘Is that likely?’
‘It is not. Now scram.’
The alchemist scuttled off.
‘The next thing we hear,’ said Aetius, ‘he’ll have burned the imperial palace to the ground.’
Torismond grinned.
The sun came up on the third morning after the earthquake, and the autumn mist gradually cleared from the country around. But away to the west there was a section of the horizon that did not clear. That was not mist but dust.
They were coming, in their countless thousands.
Along the walls, Aetius saw to his horror, the empress herself was processing with some of her ladies’ maids, talking to the soldiers, doubtless wishing them well and the blessings of Christ upon them; all grace and comfort. But this was no time for such things. This was a time for hot fire and cold steel. Aetius marched over to her.
‘Your Majesty, I must insist that you return to the palace immediately. This is no place for you now. Besides,’ and his voice was harsh, ‘you’re getting in the way of my men.’
She regarded him evenly, no fear in her eyes. But then she had never seen the Huns fight. There would be fear soon enough, with all hell unleashed.
‘Master-General,’ she said, ‘you govern your little domain here like an Oriental despot.’
Even now, she was playing with him. He felt his anger rise. This was no time for games. She had no idea how bad the situation was. She knew nothing. He swore foully and said that if she didn’t get off his walls he’d throw her off himself. At last she reacted, her eyes wide with astonishment and even disgust, and seconds later she and her retinue were hurrying back to the steps and down into the city.
Behind her he roared again, this time to his troops: ‘Bar all the gates! You’ve got five minutes!’
‘Sir,’ said Tatullus, pointing, ‘there are still refugees coming in ahead of them. Look.’
Aetius looked. Against the long, low terracotta horizon that was the Hunnish horde and their siege-engines, there came a few dozen last stragglers hurrying across the plain. Behind them, catching the eastern sun, arose a gigantic cloud the colour of old blood, and in its midst the watchers on the walls saw the huge shapes of what they most feared: siege-engines.
They must lock everything down. This would be terrible, a battle they must win, with all of Asia cowering helpless behind them, dependent upon them. But they could not possibly win. Not alone. Aetius knew that, Tatullus knew it, all the men knew it. The fate of half the world was in their hands, and they would fail it. But they would go down fighting in fury.
Yet here were refugees from the outlying villages, humble peasants, fleeing to the Walls for shelter from the coming storm. Stumbling in cracked earth, a few pitiful possessions hauled in sacks, mothers clutching infants, children trotting, so weak and undefended, glancing back into the mouth of hell. Asses heavily laden, usually such wise and philosophic creatures, bellowing and cantering, their big eyes terror-stricken, eyes rolling back to the whites.
The kind of decision kings and emperors make every day, thought Aetius bitterly. Which innocents shall I condemn to death this morning? Whom shall I damn and whom shall I save?
The first horse-warriors were minutes away, galloping with all savagery. They would fall on the refugees like scythes.
