evaporated.
As the pointer on the clepsydra’s float reached the mark designating the hour, a tiny gilded bird above the escape cistern opened its beak and gave forth a gurgling trill. ‘Aaah!’ gasped Uldin’s father, his eyes shining with rapture. ‘It is indeed a princely gift. Thank you, my son.’
Uldin smiled to himself. His attempt to explain the function of the water-clock, a wondrous contraption of bronze and ivory, had failed completely. The measurement of time, in any form more sophisticated than noting the position of the sun, was a concept beyond the old man’s grasp. But that did not matter; he was captivated by the machine’s beauty and seemingly magical movements. To his kinsfolk packed inside the family yurt, Uldin distributed, to gasps of wonder and delight, the other treasures he had brought. There were silks, silver mirrors, and jewellery for the women and girls; and for the males, daggers with jewelled hilts, silver horse-trappings, and golden drinking-vessels. The gifts presented, and great platters of roast meat and bowls of
‘Can Constantinople be taken?’ demanded a fierce old warrior.
‘Not in a thousand years, uncle,’ declared Uldin.
‘Why?’ came back the other belligerently. ‘Viminacium, Margus, Singidunum, Sirmium — these and many others fell to us.’
‘Agreed, uncle,’ conceded Uldin, fondling Blitz’s head. ‘But we took them with the help of captured Roman engineers, who could show us how to make and use siege-engines. Constantinopolis is built on a promontory, surrounded on three sides by water with fast-flowing currents and rip-tides which make it difficult to attack from the sea, an option hardly open to ourselves in any case. On the landward side, it is sealed off by a great wall running north and south.’
‘Walls can be scaled.’
‘Not these walls, uncle. You have not seen them or you would not ask. Compared to them, the defences of Sirmium were like a brushwood fence. They are immensely tall and thick, studded with mighty towers with platforms for catapults, so that every approach is dominated by a field of fire. Any attacking force would be half destroyed before it reached the rampart’s base.’
‘And is the city big?’ asked a wide-eyed boy.
Uldin nodded gravely. ‘Yes, son, it’s big. Very big.’
‘Bigger than our royal capital?’
Uldin smiled. ‘This town would fit twenty times inside it and still leave room. As for numbers. .’ Uldin struggled to find a simile to convey the reality of half a million people. ‘As many as the flocks and herbs that graze the pastures around us.’
Uldin sensed that his hearers were impressed, his known probity ensuring that his remarks would not be dismissed as boastful exaggeration.
‘What is it like, this city?’ asked a young matron shyly.
‘It is more splendid and beautiful than you can imagine,’ replied Uldin with some feeling. ‘There are five great gateways through the wall, from the northern and southernmost of which two wide streets, both called Mese — after passing through the western suburbs where are great cisterns, a mighty aqueduct, and many monasteries and churches — come together in a great open square called the Amastrianum. The heart of the city lies beyond the Amastrianum, at the eastern end of the peninsula — almost a city within a city, you could say. Here are the great imperial palace, the barracks of the Emperor’s guard, the offices of his ministers, the huge Church of the Holy Wisdom, and the Hippodrome where chariot races are held. Here you will see the very heart of the city’s heart, the kathisma or emperor’s box, a building in itself, crowned by four mighty horses in bronze.’
‘From what you tell us, Uldin, it would seem that the citizens do not keep herds or flocks,’ observed his father, ‘and that not many of them are warriors. So what, apart from chariot racing, do they find to talk about.’
Uldin paused, aware that his answer could lead him into a verbal labyrinth, and wishing he possessed the skill to argue like a Greek. ‘Well, Father,’ he began, recalling the passionate theological debates he had overheard everywhere in the East Roman capital and which the translators had explained to him, ‘when not discussing trade or business, they converse mostly about their god.’
‘What is he like, this god of theirs?’
Uldin groaned to himself. An intelligent and by nature an enquiring man, he had, as a senior member of the Hun Council, seen as one of his obligations the need to acquaint himself to some extent with the mores and beliefs of the Romans. But how to explain an abstract concept like the Trinity to his fellow tribesmen? Their deity, Murduk, the god of war, was symbolized by Attila’s Sacred Scimitar on its plinth, and was, therefore, something tangible and visible. They could also hear him; for was it not his voice that spoke whenever thunder rumbled in the sky?
‘They believe he is one god, yet at the same time three — a father and his son, together with a being called the Holy Ghost.’
‘I shall remember that, next time I barter for a yearling foal,’ declared one tribesman gravely. ‘As you all know, the price for such a horse is three heifers. The vendor will of course complain when I offer in exchange a single cow. I shall reply, however, “This is a Christian cow, my friend; it may look like one beast, but really it is three.”’
When the laughter had died down, Uldin pressed on gamely, but with a growing sense of futility. ‘The Holy Ghost — who is god as well — fathered a child on a woman called Mary. The child, called Jesus — who is also god — after he was grown to manhood was put to death for his teachings by the Romans. Although they now believe in him, at that time they thought he was a danger to the state. Today, they worship him when they meet together in their churches, the houses where their god lives.’
‘But you said there were many churches,’ objected a shepherd. ‘How can their god live in them all at once, even if he can split himself in three?’
Uldin shook his head. ‘I do not know,’ he confessed, giving a weary smile. ‘It is a mystery.’
‘What do they do, these Christians, when they worship their Jesus?’
‘A shaman in a white robe speaks some words of magic over bread and wine, turning them into Jesus’ flesh and blood.’
‘If it works the other way, we should have one of these shamans next time a beast is slaughtered,’ whispered a boy to the friend beside him. ‘Think of all that blood turned into wine!’ (Their muffled giggling was swiftly quelled by a stern look from an elder.)
‘And what happens to this flesh and blood of Jesus?’ enquired a grey-haired Hun with skin as brown and corrugated as a walnut.
‘They eat and drink it.’
Exclamations of revulsion broke out around the yurt. ‘Then are these Romans cannibals,’ someone declared. ‘They call us savages, but we do not devour the flesh of men.’
‘The Christians call the change “transubstantiation”, Uldin pressed on lamely, aware that his audience was baffled, and that he himself was treading water. ‘By this they mean — at least I think they do — that, although the bread and wine continue to
‘Enough,’ interrupted Uldin’s father gently, laying a hand on his son’s arm. ‘Let us leave these matters for the Romans to untangle, if they can. Look, you have sent poor Blitz to sleep.’
THIRTY-ONE
The fair-haired races are bold and undaunted in battle; they calmly despise death as they fight violently in hand-to-hand combat
‘Sitting ducks, sir,’ called Constantius to Aetius cheerfully, as he splashed through the ford across the
