Empire to come to our aid. While Marcianopolis was burning, the celebrated general Flavius Aetius preferred to sit in Rome, leaving Moesia to her fate. So much for the promises of Valentinian, emperor of the West!”
“But the earthquake damage has been repaired,” I pointed out with the optimism of youth. “The Huns have retreated. . . .”
“The Huns know our weaknesses better than any nation, which is why you and I can never afford to be weak. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jonas?”
I swallowed and stood straighter. “We represent our people.”
“Exactly! We come not with strength but with the wit to manipulate a people simpler than ourselves. I’m told Attila is a great believer in prophecy, astrology, omens, and magic.
He claims to have found the great sword of the god of war.
He thinks he is invincible until someone convinces him oth-erwise. Our job, with no weapons and no tools, is to do that convincing.”
“But how?”
“By reminding him how long Rome and Nova Roma have prevailed. By reciting how many chieftains have been smashed, like waves, upon the rocks of Rome. It will not be easy. I hear he is aware of the vision of Romulus, and that is just the kind of thing to give barbarians courage.”
“I don’t think I recall the vision of Romulus.” I was less familiar with the legends of the West.
“Pagan nonsense. Still, I suspect Attila is crafty enough to use it to his advantage. The legend is that Romulus, the founder of Rome, had a dream in which he saw twelve vultures over the city. Soothsayers have long contended that each bird represents a century and that Rome will come to an end at the end of the last one.”
“Twelve hundred years? But—”
“Precisely. If our historians have counted correctly from the city’s founding, the prophecy calls for Rome’s end in just three years’ time.”
It was a strange party that set out to reach Attila. Maximinus I have already described. Rusticius was more acquaintance than friend, but an earnest and well-meaning fellow who greeted me warmly. He was in his thirties, widowed by the plague, and, like me, viewed this mission as rare opportunity for advancement. He’d been captured by the Huns while on a trade mission from his native Italy and ransomed by a relative in Constantinople. At school, he had shared tales of his life in the West. Since we were natural allies and I felt somewhat in his debt, we immediately decided to share a tent. Though not particularly quick nor a leader, Rusticius was consistently good- humored and accepted new situations with equanimity.
“Had I not been captured I would not know Hunnish, and had I not known Hunnish, I would not know you or be on this embassy,” he reasoned. “So who but God is to say what is good and what is bad?”
He would become my closest friend on this expedition, humble and steady.
The other translator was unknown to me and somewhat aloof: not from shyness but from self-importance, I judged.
He was an older, shorter, and rather oily Roman named Bigilas, quick to talk and slow to listen, whose manner had the false sincerity of a rug merchant. This fellow, who had been a captive and done some bartering with the Huns, carried himself with an odd presumption of rank. Didn’t he know his place in the world? He even pretended to some secret familiarity with the Hun leader, Edeco, and talked to him like a comrade. Why the Hun tolerated this self-importance, I didn’t know, but the barbarian made no move to put Bigilas in his place. I found his cultivation of mystery irritating, and he in turn ignored me unless to give unsolicited advice about what I should wear or eat. I decided he was one of those people who think constantly of themselves and have no empa-thy for others, and I took mean satisfaction in noticing he had fondness for the grape. This man, I thought early on as I watched him drink, is trouble.
The Huns, when I finally met them, were simply arrogant. They made it clear that in their world a man’s worth was measured by his skill at war and that any Hun had ten times the skill of a Roman. Edeco was proud, crude, and condescending. “In the time it takes Romans to pack a mule, a horse and donkey could produce a new one,” he growled the morning we left.
Onegesh was more urbane, given his background, but left no doubt that he felt he had improved himself by trading the Roman world for this new barbaric one. Captured in battle, he had promptly defected. His choice astonished me, but he told me that he now ranked higher and had grown richer, besides learning he preferred the sky to a roof. “In the Empire, it’s all birth and patron, is it not? In Hunuguri, it’s ability and loyalty. I’d rather be free on the plains than a slave in a palace.”
“But you weren’t a slave.”
“To expectation? Everyone is, in Rome and Constantinople. Besides, I had no rich relatives to ransom me but only my own wits and ability. In the Roman army, I was ignored.
In Hunuguri, I’m listened to.”
Most irritating was the youngest Hun, a warrior named Skilla just a few years older than I. He had arguably the least rank of any of us and yet exemplified Hun pride. I sought him out the day I arrived and found him squatting by their fire, working on the fletching of an arrow and disdaining to even glance at me. I tried a formal but simple greeting.
“Good day to you, companion. I am Jonas, secretary to the senator.”
Skilla kept working on his arrow. “I know who you are.
You’re young to go with the graybeard.”
“As are you to go with your uncle. In my case it’s because I’m skilled with letters and know your language.”
“How do you know Hunnish?”
“I enjoy foreign tongues and Rusticius taught me yours.”
“Soon the whole world will speak the words of the People of the Dawn.”
Well, that seemed presumptuous. “Or we will live as neighbors and share Latin, Greek, and Hunnish together.
Isn’t that the point of this embassy?”
Skilla sighted down the shaft of his arrow. “Is our language
“I am schooled in many things, like classics and philosophy,” I said carefully.
The Hun looked up for a moment to study my face and then went back to his arrow, as if I’d revealed more than I intended to. “But not horses and weapons.”
This was annoying. “I’ve been trained with arms and animals but been educated in much more. I know music and poetry.”
“No use in war.”
“But of great use in love.” I’d wager he coupled like I’d seen the Huns eat: with too much speed, too little care, and a great belch afterward. “Have the Huns heard of love?”
“The Huns have heard of women, Roman, and I have one of my own without need for music and poetry.”
“You are married?”
“Not yet, but I have Attila’s promise.” He finished bind-ing his quill of feathers to the shaft and allowed a smile. “I have to teach her not to scratch.”
“It sounds like you need the book and lyre, not the bow and arrow.”
“The Hun use books to wipe our asses.”
“Because you can’t read and have no thoughts worth writing down.” Not the most diplomatic rejoinder, I know, but the man’s stubborn ignorance was dismaying.
“Yet you Romans pay tribute to us, the Hun.”
That was true enough, and it was unclear how this embassy would change that. I finally walked away, wondering what would be accomplished.
V
I
A TEST OF HORSES
We set out on horseback, the slaves and pack mules extending the total caravan to fifteen people and thirty
