sentence hanging in the air, Eudoxius shrugged, and smiled offensively.
‘Guard your tongue, Roman dog,’ growled Attila. ‘You are fortunate indeed to be a guest of the Huns and not the Vandals, or it would not long remain tenant of your mouth. Do not presume too far upon the laws of hospitality. There is another side to what you say. Half the Franks may support Merovech’s brother, but the other half would certainly stay loyal to their King, who, by all accounts, rules his people justly and well. Gaiseric wants us to invade the West because he fears the Visigoths will join with the Romans to drive him from Africa. As for the Roman army in Gaul, I grant its circumstances may be straitened, but it can still win battles. Or have you forgotten Narbo and Vicus Helena?’
‘Forgive me, Your Majesty,’ retorted Eudoxius with false humility. ‘You are right to remind me of those victories. One was achieved only with Hun help, the other was a glorious triumph against unarmed civilians. But no matter; the Romans indeed are doughty fighters. Attila shows wisdom in advising caution before engaging them.’ Again the provocative smile.
‘I will not stoop to answer that,’ responded Attila with weary contempt, rueing the day he ever gave refuge to this agitator. ‘You say we have but two alternatives. There is in fact a third choice.’ And he went on to expound Aetius’ offer made through his emissary Titus Valerius Rufinus: military service to keep the German federates in check; a share of the West’s revenues; the possibility of future union with the West.
The response was not encouraging. Onegesius, with a few of the older and more experienced nobles, nodded and murmured in agreement. The remainder kept silent, apart from Eudoxius and a group of younger Huns clustered round him. They seemed to have formed a distinct faction, with the one-time doctor at their head. They shook their heads vigorously and muttered noisily in protest. Attila had an unfamiliar and disturbing feeling — that events, which he could no longer fully control, were moving ahead of him. He seemed to be witnessing the scene from the viewpoint of a detached observer. It was the first time since his clash with Bleda, before the Treaty of Margus, that his authority had been challenged. There was only one way to deal with the potential crisis: attack the ringleader and defeat him.
‘Speak up, Eudoxius,’ he challenged. ‘We cannot hear you if you mumble like a toothless graybeard.’ To his relief, a ripple of chuckles greeted this sally.
But Eudoxius could sting in return. ‘Very well, Your Majesty,’ he snapped, his face flushing with anger. ‘Your fine suggestion amounts to this: the Huns to become the paid lackeys of a Roman general, one who by his folly cost the lives of sixty thousand Huns. We all know he was long your friend. It seems you place a higher value upon propping up that broken reed than on the welfare of your people. Otherwise, why has Attila withheld the contents of a certain letter from the Council?’
It was a shrewd and telling blow, Attila conceded silently, one he had not foreseen. He had assumed that only he was privy to Honoria’s missive. How had Eudoxius found out about it, and how much did he know? The bearer, a Persian eunuch, had seemed trustworthy enough. Presumably, Eudoxius had noticed the man’s arrival and had waylaid him on his departure. This was a supremely dangerous moment; unlike a Roman Emperor, a barbarian leader ruled ultimately by consent. Once perceived to be weak or unsuccessful, he was finished. Attila dared not call Eudoxius’ bluff. Though it was unlikely that Honoria had confided in the bearer, Eudoxius might have forced him to reveal that the letter was from the disgraced sister of the Western Emperor, and that it came with a ring enclosed — a symbol which could have but one meaning. If Eudoxius’ suggestion that important information was being kept from the Council, Attila’s position would be severely compromised. There was only one way to draw the serpent’s fangs before they could inflict a deadly bite: by forestalling him. But that would force Attila to follow the course he was least willing to adopt. However, there was now no help for it. The wily renegade had won.
‘Ungrateful wretch, is this how you repay our hospitality?’ he said icily, his words all the more menacing for being uttered softly. ‘Suborning a king’s messenger: in a Hun that would be treason. In a guest it is an inexcusable breach of trust which places you beyond the protection of immunity. Have you forgotten what happened to Constantius? Perhaps I should ask the Council to pronounce a fitting sentence.’
Eudoxius, realizing he had over-reached himself, and in so doing both forfeited his influence with the assembly and put his life in danger, turned ashen-faced. ‘I. . I beg your forgiveness, Sire,’ he croaked, all his truculence deserting him. ‘I but saw the messenger arrive. I know nothing of what it is he brought.’
‘As well for you,’ responded Attila sternly. ‘On this occasion I will spare your worthless life. From now, keep silence. Break it, and I may not be merciful a second time.’ Turning from the trembling Roman, he addressed the assembly, now become quiet and receptive. ‘This poor apology for a man’ — he nodded at Eudoxius — ‘has presumed to anticipate the purpose of this meeting. Which was to inform you of the contents of the letter he dared to speak of. But before I told you of it, you first had to know all other options, that together we may choose the best path for our nation to follow. The letter is from the Augusta Honoria, wrongfully imprisoned these fourteen years in Constantinople by her jealous brother Valentinian, the puppet who disgraces the throne of Ravenna. In it, she entreats me to release her from a cruel bondage, offering in return her hand in marriage. And as a pledge of her affection and good faith, she included with her letter a ring.’ Attila looked round the faces of his audience, now hanging on his every word. ‘Should we decide to follow up the lady’s offer,’ he said with a judicious smile, ‘I think we could reasonably insist on a substantial dowry — say, half the Western Empire. Shall we accept?’
The roar of acclamation that followed answered the King’s question. He had survived, his leadership unscathed — indeed, strengthened. But at a bitter personal price.
That evening, sitting his horse by the banks of the Tisa, Attila withdrew from a bag suspended from his saddle-bow the silver dish that was the gift of Aetius. He retraced in his mind the scenes depicted on it, each representing a stage in a long and eventful friendship. Now circumstances had decreed that it was impossible for him to keep it. Instead, it would become a worthy votive offering to Murduk, the great God of War. ‘Goodbye, Aetius, old friend,’ he murmured in sorrow. ‘This is the hardest day of Attila’s life, for from this moment we two are enemies.’ He flung the dish high in the air above the water. It spun in a glittering arc, then plunged with a splash into the river. For a moment, he glimpsed its fading sheen beneath the surface, then it vanished from his sight.
Riding homewards, Attila said a final farewell also to his dream of building a Greater Scythia. Nothing now remained for him except to lead his people in a bleak and bloody cycle of warfare, plunder, and destruction. He who rides a tiger. . Of a sudden, the third part of Wu Tze’s prophecy echoed in his brain: ‘The wounded eagle turns on the ass, which leaves it to attack the first eagle.’ The wounded eagle: the eagle of East Rome, whose empire he had ravaged. The ass: the wild ass of the plains — in other words, the Huns. The first eagle: the symbol of imperial Rome, the Empire of the West. It all fitted together. The East had mauled the Huns at the Utus, and were now refusing tribute; the Huns had then decided to switch their attack to the Western Empire. What was the last part of the seer’s prophecy? Resolutely, Attila closed his mind against recall. Perhaps his actions were indeed already written in the scroll of Fate. But he would continue to act as though he alone controlled his destiny.
When Attila’s intentions (and consequently the tenor of Honoria’s fatal letter) became public knowledge, the guilty princess was sent away, an object of horror, from Constantinople to Italia. Her life was spared, but she was married off in indecent haste to an obscure nobody, who was happy to receive a generous fee in return for going through the forms of marriage as her nominal husband. Then, safely insured against the marriage claims of her would-be deliverer, Honoria was consigned to perpetual imprisonment.
FORTY-FIVE
Attila’s terrible horde: warlike Rugians, savage Gepids, Scyri, Huns, Thuringians. . poured across your plains, O Belgica
Gripping the shaft of his late father’s
