Attila:The Scourge of God

‘The choice is yours, Brother,’ said Attila quietly, moving to the door.

‘What is it?’ whispered Bleda, pointing to the horn, with its semi-translucent, almost milky contents.

‘Hemlock. Compared to crucifixion or the gauntlet, it brings a merciful and, save at the end, painless death. First, you will become weak, so that if you attempt to walk, you will stagger. Then your hands and feet will begin to feel numb, and paralysis spread up your limbs to your body. Finally, your lungs will cease to work and you will die in asphyxial convulsions. A Greek called Socrates was condemned to die by this method. His crime was corrupting youth. An appropriate death for you to share considering your subverting of Constantius. When I return tomorrow, it will be to find you dead or dying, or to have you brought before the Council. It would be pointless for you to try to escape; the room is closely watched. May your last night on earth bring peace, Brother.’

After Attila had gone, Bleda sat staring at the horn in horrified fascination. Several times in the hours that followed, while sunlight slowly bled from the chamber to be replaced by the faint illumination of the stars, and the moans of Constantius came thinly to his ears, he approached the thing with hand extended, only to shrink away in terror at the last moment. Eventually, exhausted by fear and tension, he fell into a fitful sleep, waking as the first grey light of dawn filtered through the windows. Constantius’ cries had at last fallen silent. Presumably, he was dead and so at peace. Peace. Even if that was the blackness of eternal night, surely it must be preferable to prolonging his life for a few more wretched hours, which was all he could look forward to if he refused the hemlock. Before his resolution could falter, Bleda grasped the horn and drained it in a single draught. Soon, a not unpleasant tingling began in his toes and fingers, to be succeeded by a creeping numbness. .

Bleda’s death went unlamented. His contribution to the achievements of the dual monarchy had been negligible, eclipsed by the mighty exploits of his brother. Nevertheless, whatever his deficiencies as a ruler might have been in life, in death he was accorded a funeral befitting a King of the Huns. If anyone suspected that Attila had played a part in his brother’s death, they remained silent — less, perhaps, from any fear of retribution, than from indifference. Bleda had been neither loved nor respected, and, besides, possession of the Sacred Scimitar conferred on Attila an authority believed to be divine.

Attila was now sole monarch of the Huns, the undisputed ruler of a realm stretching from the Visurgis² in the west to the Oxus in the east; between Scandia in the north and Persia in the south. It should have been a moment to savour. But the knowledge brought him no satisfaction, was as gall and wormwood on the tongue. For his dream of greatness for his people lay in ruins, past any hope of restoration.

¹ Trans-Caucasia. Colchis, the legendary location of the Golden Fleece, was famous for its fruit.

² The Weser.

THIRTY-SIX

To Aegidius, 1 consul for the third time, the groans of the Britons.

Gildas, The Destruction of Britain, late fifth or early sixth century

The tempest that had raged over Britain for many days and blown the two sea eagles from their hunting range above the Cambrian cliffs almost to the shores of Gaul, was at last abating. The two great birds swooped and soared among the lessening gusts. Then, finding a field of stable air some thousands of feet above the Fretum Gallicum, the narrow strait between the coasts of Gaul and Britain, they turned north-west and headed for their eyrie, with slow, majestic flaps of their huge wings.

From such a height, the whole of Britain’s Saxon Shore, with its chain of forts extending from the Metaris Aestuarium to the Isle of Vectis,² was encompassed by their indifferent gaze: Branodunum, Garannonum, Regulbium, Rutupiae, Portus Dubris, Anderida and mighty Portus Adurni.³ For more than a hundred and fifty years, these massive structures had kept at bay the blue-eyed heathen pirates from across the German Ocean. Now, but thinly manned by unpaid limitanei, they were failing to hold the line. These second-rate frontier troops were all that remained of the Army of Britain after the usurper Constantine (self-styled the Third) had, more than a generation before, led away the legions into Gaul, never to return.

No longer under the unified command of a Count of the Saxon Shore appointed from Ravenna, the forts had become mere isolated strong-points, between which the Saxon raiders could row their craft unchecked up creeks and estuaries, to ravage far inland. With no Duke of Britain to organize resistance, the hinterland behind the forts was reverting to heath and scrubland, as people fled the land to migrate west or seek shelter behind the strong walls of the cities. Grass now grew on the splendid roads that had once echoed to the tramp of Roman cohorts; the fox and badger made their lair in abandoned farmsteads, and the mosaic floors of crumbling villas became the hearths of passing war-bands.

On the wrinkled sea beneath the eagles’ flight, three dots crept towards the British coast.

‘To Flavius Aetius, Patrician, Master of Soldiers in all the Gauls, in his third consulship, greetings. I, Ambrosius Aurelianus, your friend and fellow Roman, humbly ask that you will heed my plea on behalf of the miserable inhabitants of this island: defenceless sheep harried by the Saxon wolves, whose plight-’

Ambrosius threw down his stylus in disgust. Had he really written that? With the blunt end of the instrument he erased what he had written on the waxed tablet. Seeking inspiration, he began to pace the room, an upper chamber of an inn in Noviomagus⁴ which, as consularis of the province of Maxima Caesariensis, he had taken over as his headquarters. Ambrosius chuckled to himself. Consularis of Maxima Caesariensis! A meaningless euphemism plucked from the imperial past and bestowed on him by Noviomagus’ remaining decurions, and implying governorship of an area covering the whole of south-east Britain. In fact, of course, he was nothing more than a successful warlord, whose fief precariously extended from the Fretum Gallicum northward to the Tamesa, and east to west from Cantium⁵ as far as near Sorbiodunum the ancient Hanging Stones.⁶ He supposed he owed his position to a record of proven ability as councillor, then mayor, and latterly resistance leader; also perhaps to the mystique conferred by his senatorial rank, and the fact that he was a Roman from a distinguished consular family — a real Roman, not a Celtic chief with a veneer of Romanitas.

He looked northwards over the city’s neat grid of red-roofed houses to the chalk ridge⁷ swelling on the horizon, the whole scene bathed in mellow summer sunlight. But that idyllic view masked an uncomfortable reality. Beyond the city walls, where once were only gravel pits and cemeteries, extended a wide belt of cultivated strips; with the rural population crowding into the towns, these had in effect replaced the villas as centres of food production and distribution. And those distant hillsides, once grazed smooth by sheep, were now disfigured by a creeping pelt of furze and bracken.

His reverie was interrupted as a retainer, accompanied by a stranger in the garb of a minor cleric, appeared in the doorway.

‘A message for you, sir,’ the retainer announced in halting Latin, before retiring. Ambrosius sighed. It was a matter of regret that Britain, part of the empire for nearly four hundred years, was discarding Rome’s legacy with unseemly haste. These days, you were lucky to hear Latin spoken in the streets; everyone was reverting to the native British tongue which, prior to the loss of the diocese, had been shunned by anyone with social or political ambitions. Roman dress, too, had been virtually abandoned, as had refinements like bath-houses, central heating, three-course meals, and reading the classics. It was a sign of the times, he thought sourly, that he couldn’t even find a secretary with enough command of Latin to take dictation in the tongue of Cicero and Claudian.

Smiling, Ambrosius looked enquiringly at the cleric.

‘I come from the Bishop of Autissiodorum, Your Honour,’ the man said, ‘on whose staff I serve as a humble reader. The bishop, who is on an official visit to Britain, finds himself in your vicinity and wonders if he might avail