Braving the great cat’s snarling spitting rush, riding the pain as its claws raked his arms and chest, until he managed to draw his knife and plunge it into the creature’s neck. Then his first raid: riding as a youth at his father’s side against a Sarmatian war-band, his thrilled surprise at seeing warriors fall to the arrows he shot in quick succession from the powerful recurved bow of laminated wood and sinew that was his father’s gift. He remembered Margus, where he had stamped his authority on the Huns, and forced the Romans to a shameful treaty. Incidents in his long friendship with Aetius (now, such were the strange workings of fate, his deadly foe) paraded in his memory — the great hunt where Carpilio, the Roman’s son, had faced the bear; the shooting of the rapids of the Iron Gate. .
Attila jerked awake, chilled and stiff. The moon had set. The shimmering greyness of the false dawn came and went, leaving the night blacker than before. Then a rosy flush appeared in the east and a tide of light spilt over the horizon, gradually suffusing the wide expanse of the Catalaunian Plains. The time had come, Attila told himself with a kind of defiant exultation. He would embrace death joyfully, with no regrets.
An hour passed.
When the camp beneath him was fully astir, and the full light of Midsummer’s Day exposed a silent battlefield, empty save for corpses, Attila knew that the Romans would not come. He was being allowed to escape. A wave of weary disillusionment engulfed the tired old warrior. The struggle would resume, and once more he must take up the burden of leading his people, a burden grown so heavy as to be well-nigh unendurable.
As Attila began his retreat towards the Rhenus, he heard again the final words of Wu Tze’s prophecy: ‘The eagle is joined by the boar, and together they put the ass to flight.’ The eagle was Rome; the boar was the favourite emblem of German warriors; the wild ass of the plains represented the Huns. The meaning was clear: Rome and Germany would join together to defeat the Huns. All along, the seer’s prediction had proved correct, Attila reflected, with gloomy wonder. In the end, it seemed, no man was master of his fate.
Titus exclaimed in disbelief, ‘You let him go, sir! Why?’
Aetius looked up from scanning a tally. All over the battlefield moved little knots of men, burial parties, and assessors compiling lists of the fallen. They were all Romans, the Visigoths and other allies having left the Catalaunian Plains for their homelands. In the case of Torismund, elected king on the battlefield after his father’s death, he had taken Aetius’ advice to return without delay to Tolosa, to prevent his brothers challenging his succession.
‘It was the wisest course,’ said Aetius. He gestured at the buzzards wheeling overhead. ‘Would you wish their feast prolonged? This has been Rome’s bloodiest victory. Another day’s fighting would have all but wiped out the remaining legions, cohorts, and
‘
‘Indeed. Without the fear of Attila to make the federates stay friends with Rome for their own safety, they’d start carving out more territory for themselves. Unless I get fresh Roman troops, which there isn’t the money to raise, I’d never be able to stop them. Which is why I persuaded Torismund to head for home as soon as possible — just in case he was tempted to start getting above himself.’
‘A shabby way to treat our staunchest ally,’ said Titus, unable to conceal his disgust at the general’s cynicism. ‘Without the Visigoths we’d probably have lost.’
‘Not “probably” but certainly,’ conceded Aetius. ‘To spare my Roman troops who, being virtually irreplaceable, are too valuable to be squandered, I had to ensure that the Visigoths bore the brunt of the toughest fighting. Pitting barbarians against barbarians — that’s been a policy of all our generals regarding federate troops, in order to cut down on Roman casualties. I salute the Visigoths; they performed magnificently.’
‘But might that not have dangerous repercussions? They’re bound to feel exploited.’
‘Which is why I want them as far away as possible,’ observed Aetius, like a lecturer expounding an elementary point of logic. ‘At this moment, despite their losses, they’re elated by victory. Resentment will come later — against myself, against Rome. But that’s a price I’m prepared to pay for victory against Attila.’
‘I see,’ said Titus, both impressed and shocked by this revelation of the general’s calculating craftiness. He paused, then added gently, ‘But there was another reason, apart from keeping the federates on side, why you spared Attila, wasn’t there?’
Aetius shrugged, then gave a wistful smile. ‘True,’ he admitted; ‘the most important reason. He was my friend.’
1 ‘Cohort’ was a sub-division of the old legion. ‘Auxilium’ (a ‘regiment’) was the name for one of the new formations replacing the legion.
PART IV
FIFTY
And God breathed life into the dead and lifeless hand and she stretched out to take the tome
‘Chalcedon!’ screamed Valentinian, leaning forward in his throne to point an accusing sceptre at the sturdy old man in pontiff’s robes who stood before him. ‘A boatload of bishops to the Bosporus! Did you hear that, Heraclius?’ The emperor turned to the plump eunuch, his chief adviser, standing beside the throne. ‘He means to ruin us.’ To the pope he continued, ‘Do you have the least idea how much this expedition will cost in fares, in board and lodging, in expenses? And for what? A vast quantity of hot air expended in theological hair-splitting.’
Pope Leo controlled his temper. ‘With respect, Your Serenity, to determine the true nature of Christ can hardly be dismissed as hair-splitting,’ he countered, with some difficulty keeping his tone reasonable. Had he been dealing with Valentinian’s predecessors, Honorius, the Emperor’s pious and gentle uncle, or his grandfather, the great Theodosius, who had knelt in humble supplication before Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, this conversation would have been very different. With disapproval, Leo noted the colossal statues of pagan gods and emperors that lined the walls of the great audience chamber of Domitian’s palace in Rome — which city the Emperor increasingly favoured for his residence over Ravenna. It was said that Valentinian was a Christian in name only, that in secret he practised the black arts of sorcery and divination. But of course it was wise to keep knowledge of such rumours to oneself.
‘The matter is closed,’ snapped Valentinian. ‘The state cannot afford it. Tell him, Heraclius.’
‘I think, Your Serenity, the Treasury might
‘It would hardly be dictating,’ Leo protested; then he rumbled into silence as Heraclius shot him a warning glance. A tough and experienced negotiator, Leo knew enough about the ways of the world to understand the game Heraclius was playing. Vain, profligate and vicious, heading a corrupt and inefficient government, Valentinian was
