Bertrand blinked. “Not a child but a dwarf.”
“An emissary from Aetius, bishop. My name is Zerco.”
The bishop’s face admitted surprise. “Not the usual representative.”
“When I’m not representing my master I amuse him.”
Zerco bowed. “I admit to being unusual but not useless. Not only am I a fool by profession, but I came through the gates with Burgundian refugees. No one notices a halfling if there are children all around.”
“I thought it was the business of a fool to
“In less perilous times. But there are agents of Attila in Gaul as well as agents of Aetius, and I’d prefer not to meet them. I bring you greetings from the general and a warning that Aurelia is in the path of the Hun. Aetius wants to know if the city will hold.”
“The answer to that is simple. It will hold if Aetius will come.”
“His army has temporarily retreated to Limonurr in hopes that, by offering such proximity and support, Theodoric will bring his Visigoths. If Aurelia can buy my general time while he rallies the western tribes—”
“But what are the Visigoths going to do?”
“I don’t know. An able friend has been sent to urge them to join us, but I’ve had no word of his success or failure. My assignment is to know what Aurelia is going to do.”
Anianus laughed. “Everyone is waiting for everyone else! Surely there is a parable about such meekness, but I can’t remember it now. Yet what choice do all of us have? If the Huns succeed, the Church is finished before it has properly begun, and I will be roasted as a preview of eternal punishment. I know more of Attila than you might expect, halfling—enough to have taken the time to learn Hunnish!
There is no question what
“Let it start with you and me, bishop.”
He smiled. “A man of peace and a dwarf? And yet isn’t that the message, in essence, of our Church? Of taking a stand against evil? Of belief in the face of fear?”
“Just as you know something of Attila, I know something of you. People sang your praises the closer I came to Aurelia, Bishop Anianus. They will unite behind you if Sangibanus allows it. But Aetius fears that the king of the Alans has no faith in him or anything else and will sell himself to the Huns.”
Anianus shrugged. “I am bishop, not king. What can I do?”
“I will listen to Sangibanus, but I need the eyes and ears of your priests, nuns, and prelates to find out what is really going on. If there’s a plot to betray the city we need to learn of it and stop it, and convince the Alans to hold until Aetius comes.”
Anianus looked sober. “If he doesn’t, Attila will kill us all.”
“If you give up Aurelia and put Attila in a position to win this war, he will kill the entire Empire, bishop, and with it the Church. The world will go dark, and men will live like beasts for the next thousand years. I, too, know more of Attila than most men, because I’ve played the fool for him.
One thing I always remember: I’ve yet to make him laugh.”
If the Huns had an emissary in Aurelia he was well hidden, but the news from the east was grave. An ever- growing flood of refugees was pouring into the city. Mediomatrica had been entered on the eve of Easter, its inhabitants slaughtered and its buildings burned. Durocortorum was destroyed when its population fled. Nasium, Tullum, Noviomagus, Andematun-num, and Augustobona went up in flames as Attila’s vast army split into arms to sustain itself. The bishop Nicacius was beheaded, and his nuns raped and speared. Priests were crucified, merchants flayed until they revealed the hiding place of their valuables, children enslaved, and livestock slaughtered. Some Aurelians were already fleeing toward the sea. Yet the news produced grim determination as well. In the depth of despair, some people were finding courage. Aurelia was bitterly divided—as Axiopolis had been, far to the east—
on whether to resist or surrender.
In the end, Zerco’s discovery depended on luck. A boy assisting a new unit of hastily organized militia had gone to the city’s weapon shops and had curiously slipped through a narrow passageway briefly revealed by a shifting of shelves.
Inside, the boy glimpsed a glittery cache of weapons and armor. The youth always prepared earnestly for the sacrament of the Sabbath, but always had difficulty during confession to find some sin with which to practice penance. It was hard to be venial enough to occupy the confessional’s time when you were only eight! He finally remembered to confess his trespass, and it was the room’s very existence that caught the priest’s ear. He thought the hidden cache of weaponry peculiar enough to mention to a prelate, who in turn remembered the bishop’s request to report anything unusual. Anianus mentioned it to Zerco.
“It seems strange to lock armor away.”
Zerco thought. “Saved for an elite unit, perhaps?”
“For when? After the city has fallen? And that’s not the only peculiar thing. The boy said all the helmets and shields and swords looked alike.”
Now this was intriguing. The tribesmen who had settled in Gaul retained individual taste in weaponry. Every man had his own armor, every clan its own colors, every nation its own designs. Only the thin and depleted Roman units managed by Italians retained a uniformity of equipment. Yet Roman troops were far away, with Aetius.
“Perhaps it is innocent or a boy’s imagination. But I’d like a look at this storeroom, bishop. Can you get me in there?”
“That’s the province of the marshal, just as the altar is mine.” He considered. “But I might send an altar boy to fetch Helco, the youngster who made his confession. Someone of your stature, in a vestment, might just get close enough. . . .”
“An altar boy I shall be.”
Zerco was helped by the confusion the approach of the Huns had caused. Men were assigned to the armory at morning and reassigned to a tower by noon, and then posted to the granary at dusk and a well by midnight. Private arms were being sold, donated, and redistributed. As a result, a small altar boy with a concealing hood, sent by the bishop to find another lad, did not cause much notice at first. Zerco spied a narrow opening behind the regular armory storage, and when eyes were turned tried to slip inside.
But a guard challenged him. “Hold up, boy. That back there is not for you.”
“The bishop has sent me to fetch Helco. The captain said to look there.”
“The captain of the guard?”
“Ask him if you must. But Anianus is impatient.”
The man scowled. “Stay until I come back.”
Once the guard left, Zerco didn’t pause. There was a tight twist in the rocky corridor and a wooden door with a heavy lock. The dwarf had brought a hammer and chisel, and with a bang, the lock parted. If he was caught, his means of entry was the least of his worries.
The room was dark, so the dwarf lit a candle to reveal the gleam of steel and leather. It was much as Helco had described, except the boy had omitted a crucial detail.
“Roman!” There was enough Roman armor to equip a troop of cavalry, yet no Roman troops would come to Gaul unequipped, and none would report to Sangibanus before reporting to Aetius. This was for barbarians, but why? And why was this equipment kept secret? Because any men wearing it would be assumed to be Roman. . . .
Zerco heard voices and snuffed out the candle, melting into the shadows. He discarded the hood and took out the signet medallion assigned him by Aetius, in hopes it would make the guards hesitate long enough for the dwarf to remind them that Anianus knew where he was.
The corridor filled with approaching light and then the broken doorway filled with men and oaths. There was the guard who had challenged him and a second, older, grizzled soldier, probably his captain, angry at the broken lock.
These two put their hands to the hilt of their swords. A third man, shorter and stockier and with a brimmed
