boy.’
Neither of them could speak the name of the barbarian warlord. Ironies were many, but none of them amused. At last, Lucius tried for a joke.
‘Even if he does destroy you,’ he said, glaring at Aetius, ‘and comes with his one hundred thousand tattooed horsemen to the shores of northern Gaul, above the white cliffs of Gesoriacum, and gazes across to the answering white cliffs of Britain, not even’ – he gritted his teeth – ‘not even Attila would invade us. Not even that all-devouring world-conqueror would want our miserable, fog-bound little islands.’
Aetius’ eyes glimmered with humour. He touched the older man on his strong right arm. ‘Believe me, old friend and guide, in these latter days you and all your people are better off on your own, in your gentle, sweet green island.’
Lucius would never have imagined hearing Aetius talk like this, as if fore-defeated.
‘How is your family?’ added the general.
Small talk was absurd. It was time to leave, empty-handed, and sail back for war-tormented Britain. But Lucius, rising to his feet, said that his wife still lived and his children were all grown and well.
‘Your son? The dreamer?’
‘Cadoc. Still dreaming, but he fights beside me well enough.’
Outside, Aetius was waiting for Lucius to remount when a horseman came galloping up the road from Aquileia. Aetius’ eyes narrowed. The fellow’s face was taut and his clothes were both sodden and dusty, as though he had been travelling heedless of weather. He almost fell from his horse and stood gasping.
Lucius pulled his own horse round as if business were concluded, but Aetius’ blood was like ice. ‘Speak, man.’
The fellow saluted rapidly. ‘Sir, the Huns have crossed the Rhine. All of Gaul is ablaze.’
Lucius stilled his horse again.
Aetius stared at the messenger in a daze. ‘Gaul?’ he repeated dumbly.
‘News from the Rhine stations. He crossed-’
‘There are no bloody Rhine stations left!’ roared Aetius, finding brief solace in blaming the messenger. ‘All remaining frontier troops are with me! All four bloody thousand of them or less!’
‘Neverthless, news came through from some last scouts, sir. He crossed the Rhine near Argentoratum, then turned back and fell on the city and destroyed it.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence.
‘And?’
‘Then the cities of Vangiones, Moguntiacum, and Colonia Agrippina, sir.’
The greatest of all the Rhine frontier cities. Even Aetius’ strong voice faltered. ‘Colonia… destroyed?’
‘So the reports say, sir.’ The fellow’s face was agonised. ‘Laid waste, all citizens put to the sword. The ice on the Rhine is dyed red, they say.’
Thousands more slain – tens of thousands. He had outwitted them. He had not turned on Rome, but had gone north and west. He would destroy everything else first, and leave Rome, the sweetest dish, till last. How could Aetius not have foreseen? He could have damned himself for his folly. All of Gaul lay undefended before the Hun holocaust. If they ever did defeat Attila now, there would still be nothing left afterwards, anyway. The empire had already been destroyed. The East had been devastated. Africa was in the hands of Attila’s allies, the Vandals. And now the rich fields of Gaul, wealthiest and most beautiful of all the Western provinces, would be turned into another land of ash. Italy would be left until last; and then only Rome.
His fists were clenched, white-knuckled. ‘You have not told me all yet.’
The fellow shook his head. ‘Then it seems his army split into two. One rode due west from the ruins of Colonia and laid waste to Tornacum and Cameracum, and then south and fell upon Lutetia. The second army rode south up the valley of the Moselle, and destroyed Augusta Treverorum, Mediomaurici and Rhemi.’
‘Treverorum, too.’ Its great black gate-tower, the Porta Nigra, with its massive portcullis, one of the wonders of Belgia.
‘It is believed that the first army – perhaps both – is aiming to fall upon Aureliana next. And then… come south.’
Leaving nothing but corpses behind them. All down the roads of Gaul, all down the Via Poenina and the valley of the Rhone, nothing but corpses.
He had crossed Germania in winter. Not only his army, but his entire people, old men and wives and children in their high-wheeled wagons laden with loot. That could not be done, not through those trackless and silent forests. An impossible task; but for Attila, Flagellum Dei, what was impossible? Did he not have God on his side? He had ridden through those dark and snowbound pine forests, never weakening but only augmenting his strength. Perhaps he had chosen a colder climate for his people to destroy the sickness and fever among them. And it had worked.
With his Byzantine gold, he would have bought more and more support along the away. Among his latest allies would be Gepids and Alans and lean Sarmatian lancers. As he traversed Germania, more and more forest tribesmen would have flocked to his banner, seeing this as the greatest raiding-party in history – easy loot. Among those Germanic tribes, surely there still burned an ancient hatred of Rome in the race memory. Those distant sons of old Arminius, still singing their lays of the Battle of the Teutoberg Forest, four long centuries before.
Aetius stood stunned. Then out of the corner of his eye he saw Lucius moving to dismount. He turned on him angrily.
‘No! You go!’ He mastered himself again, spoke more quietly. ‘Old friend and guide, for God’s sake, go. Ride back to the coast, take ship for Britain once more, even in winter seas.’ Lucius hesitated. ‘As I said before, you are better off there in your green and gentle island. The rest of Europe is burning. Only you are left. Only in your far west, it may be, will anything of the old world survive. Let that put strength in your swords when you fight the Saxons.’
Lucius regarded him gravely from under his bushy white eyebrows. Then he heeled his horse, slowly pulled round and, without another word, headed down the road to Aquileia.
‘There is more news, sir – not of Attila.’
Aetius was gazing after the horseman riding south, longing in his eyes. ‘Go on.’
‘From Constantinople, sir.’
Aetius turned to him again.
‘The Emperor Theodosius is dead. He fell from his horse while out riding, and injured his spine badly. He bore his agony with great fortitude and piety, it is said, and died three days later, the name of the Saviour on his lips.’
Aetius crossed himself. That scholarly, kind-hearted fool…
‘The new emperor is one Marcian, sir. He has already married the old emperor’s sister.’
Aetius blinked with disbelief. ‘Pulcheria? That prune-like perpetual virgin?’
‘The same, sir.’
‘And what of Theodosius’ widow? The Empress Eudoxia?’
‘She has retired to Jerusalem. It is said that relations between her and Empress Pulcheria were always difficult. Emperor Marcian has meanwhile already communicated with Emperor Valentinian, wishing him every success against the Hunnish hordes, expressing only regret that the East cannot be of any more assistance. But they have too little manpower, and besides, they are busy with the great new Church Council of Chalcedon.’
Aetius smiled a faint, sour smile, nodding, his mind racing, for a moment forgetting even Gaul. So she was back in her beloved Jerusalem: further away from him than ever. Long, long ago there, a young army officer had once kissed a beautiful empress, adulterously, on a moonlit balcony. Now she was a widow, and free. Yet the times were against it. It was impossible. He was needed elsewhere.
He pressed his finger and thumb into his eyes. At times he could come close to cursing God. He felt as if he was about to be torn apart. Everything was in ruins, the world was sick, and yet above he could hear the sound of heaven laughing. He felt on the brink of hysterical laughter himself for a moment. The messenger moved uneasily. But when Aetius opened his eyes again, there was that stolid Germanus before him, and Tatullus just behind. They saluted. He could have clung to them like a drowning man. The sense of illimitable horror faded a little.
Time to take command again. He told them the news from Gaul. They looked grim.
‘Men ready to move out at dawn tomorrow, sir,’ said Tatullus.
