Attila:The Scourge of God

² Belgrade.

³ The Sea of Marmara.

⁴ The Balkan provinces.

⁵ The Balkans (region).

⁶ Gallipoli.

⁷ Ni, Sofia.

⁸ The Dardanelles.

⁹ 443.

THIRTY

We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on earth; for on earth there is no such splendour or such beauty

Report of the envoys of Prince Vladimir of Kiev, on Constantinople, tenth century

‘Gold, more gold. . Let us send envoys to extort rich gifts. . They are pressed by enemies on all sides — Persians, Isaurians, Saracens, even black men from Axum in the farthest south, so they cannot refuse us anything we ask. . Gold, gold. .’ From all over the assembly, convened to determine Hun policy towards Eastern Rome, arose excited demands, inflamed by avarice and arrogance deriving from overwhelming victory, to extract more and yet more tribute from the Romans following their crushing defeat in the Chersonesus. After that battle, peace terms had been negotiated with Anatolius, military commander for the diocese of Oriens, terms which were vastly harsher and more punitive than those of Margus, but which the East had been in no position to refuse.

Savages, thought Attila, surveying his Council with weary contempt. Short-sighted barbarians. In wishing to impose such humiliating conditions on the Eastern Romans, his people were forgetting the cardinal rule of nomad society: you did not destroy a beaten enemy, you assimilated or befriended him, becoming in the process more powerful yourself. The Huns were changing he thought sadly. Gold and grass — or rather the lack of it — were now the new determinants. Gold had made them greedy; and in extending their conquests so far westward, the Huns had at last run out of steppe. With no more grasslands to the west of them, and too little in their present homeland to sustain their herds indefinitely, the old free nomadic life was ultimately doomed. All the more reason then to find accommodation with the Romans, rather than bleed them white.

Trapped in his role of mighty conqueror, the terror of his enemies and bounteous provider to his people, Attila assured the Council that a series of embassies would be sent to Constantinople, ostensibly to oversee the implementation of the treaty. In addition, the intention was to intimidate the imperial court into appeasing their conquerors by presenting the ambassadors with valuable gifts, symbolic reminders of their own weakness and the Huns’ supremacy.

‘Saiga!’ cried the groom to Uldin, pointing to a cluster of faraway dots moving slowly across the dusty plain. This land had once been part of Dacia, a province abandoned by the Romans these hundred and seventy years. To recognize the antelope at such a distance, the lad must have eyes sharper than a hawk’s, thought Uldin admiringly. Though not yet forty, Uldin was already an elder of the Hun Council, elected for his shrewdness, good sense, and ability to relate to people — even Romans. It was for these qualities that Attila had chosen him as one of the first envoys to be sent to Constantinople, a mission from which he was now returning. Some way off rode the other envoy, a taciturn man who preferred to keep his own company. Behind, surrounded by the grooms, pages, and translators of the ambassadorial retinue, rocking and rolling over the steppe, came the supply-wagon, part of its load consisting of valuable gifts from the imperial court.

And none more valuable than that loping beside him as he rode, thought Uldin with pride. While in Constantinople, he had one day seen in the gardens of the imperial palace a strange animal being walked on a leash by its keeper. With its tawny black-spotted fur, cat’s head, and long tail, the creature somewhat resembled a leopard, but the exceptionally long legs and deep chest were those of a coursing dog. His curiosity aroused, Uldin had asked the handler, an elderly Goth who, it transpired, had survived the Great Expulsion of his race in the previous reign, about the animal. The man had replied that it was a youze or chita from Persia, much prized for hunting on account of its speed. ‘I call him Blitz,’ the man said, ‘which in my tongue means “lightning”.’

So taken with the creature was Uldin that, when the time came to depart, he had begged the emperor that he be permitted to forgo all other presents, if only he could have Blitz. Theodosius had demurred, but his sister, the Augusta Pulcheria, had overridden him, generously waiving the suggested condition and presenting Uldin with the cheetah in addition to his other gifts.

In the early stages of the thousand-mile journey back to Transylvania, Uldin had taken time to get to know Blitz, talking to and hand-feeding him. The attention was rewarded with affection, the animal often choosing to accompany him during each day’s ride, and sleeping next to him at night.

Now, feeling his blood begin to stir with the anticipation of the chase, Uldin dismounted and slipped a leather hood over the cheetah’s head. After attaching a long leash to Blitz’s silver collar, he swung himself back into the saddle, and, calling to the groom to follow, headed for the saiga herd. Covering the ground at a fast tripple, he detoured somewhat to the flank in order to stay upwind of the antelope, which would stampede at the slightest hint of danger.

Two hundred yards from the edge of the herd, Uldin dismounted and threw the reins over the horse’s head as a sign to it to stay still. Unalarmed, the antelope continued to graze. Pale brown above, creamy-white below, the males alone bearing lyre-shaped horns, the saiga were distinguished by a grotesquely inflated nose. Removing the leash and holding the cheetah by the collar, Uldin slipped the hood from its head. Immediately, the animal tensed and pulled against the restraining grip.

‘Go, Blitz,’ Uldin whispered, and released the collar. The cheetah crept towards the saiga, undulating over the ground as it took advantage of every bush and unevenness for concealment. Warned at last by a sentinel antelope, the herd suddenly took off at a lumbering gallop, but were swiftly overhauled by their pursuer — a streaking tawny blur as it accelerated to an incredible speed. Selecting a victim, the spotted cat bowled it over with a blow of its paw, ripped open its throat, and proceeded to suck the blood spouting from the severed arteries.

‘Well done, my Blitz!’ cried Uldin in delight, as he cantered up. Enticing the cheetah from the kill with a strip of meat he had ready in his saddlebag, Uldin signalled to the groom to gut the carcase, prior to removing it to the wagon. He thrilled with the anticipation of seeing the admiring envy on the faces of his fellow Huns, passionate hunters all, when he showed off the cheetah’s skills. His one fear was that Attila might himself take a fancy to Blitz. As a gesture of courtesy, he would have to offer the King the presents he had received. But Attila was a just and open-handed monarch; surely he would not deprive a favoured councillor of the one gift he prized above all the rest. Would he? With something akin to surprise, Uldin acknowledged to himself that to part with Blitz would cause him real distress.

‘It’s a leopard!’ Uldin’s wife screamed in consternation when, followed by a train of grooms bearing the presents from Byzantium, and accompanied by Blitz, Uldin reached his home on the outskirts of Attila’s royal village. (As he had hoped, the Hun king had graciously disclaimed any royal right to the gifts, save for one, a cup supposedly made from the horn of a unicorn, which was said to possess the valuable property of changing colour when charged with any liquid containing poison.)

With some difficulty, Uldin managed to persuade his wife and extended family that Blitz was not a leopard, displaying, instead of that feline’s vicious temperament, a gentle affectionate nature and a fondness for being petted. (Few Huns, the younger ones especially, had ever seen a leopard. But folk-memories from the tribe’s long sojourn in Asia, of a fearsomely dangerous animal capable of disembowelling a man in seconds with its raking hind claws, were still strong.) After Uldin had arranged a race over a short distance, in which Blitz left his mounted competitors standing, any lingering hostility towards the cat