At dinner that night we were offered koumiss, the Hunnish drink made from fermented mare’s milk and very strong. The wolf-lords drank deeply as always, and yet even after their eighth or ninth goblet seemed barely affected. I, on the other hand, could feel a foolish smile spreading across my face after only the second goblet, and my loins beginning to stir and warm again at the thought of my flaxen-haired Burgundian girl. I wondered if it might be possible . . . again . . . tonight . . .
Then suddenly I was very sober indeed.
Attila had taken the floor in the middle of the tent. We paused in our eating. Everyone fell silent. It was time for his address to us; but not, alas, the address we had hoped for.
‘We came together in peace and friendship,’ he began.
We all applauded, our collective dishonesty breathtaking. Our applause soon died away.
‘But alas, our guests had other plans. For tonight,’ - and he took some bread and broke it, in dumbshow blasphemy - ‘I am to be betrayed, and handed over to my enemies. Except that’ - he popped a morsel of the bread in his mouth, though he reviled the stuff as fit only for farmers, and chewed as he spoke, his eyes glimmering, for he was enjoying this - ‘except that, unlike your god Christ’ - he spat the bread out - ‘I have an exceptional spy network.’
He was joined by his warlords, the clever Geukchu and the wary Greek, Orestes.
Aëtius beside me laid down his knife and said softly, ‘What is this?’
The weapons of the wolf-lords were outside the tent, far away. Within the tent, Huns had already unsheathed their swords.
‘He would not dare,’ I said.
‘Oh, he would dare,’ said Aëtius, clearly unafraid. ‘But it would serve little purpose.’ He looked on, curious rather than afraid. Myself, I was already wondering how I might slip away to the privy.
Attila strode around the tent, his voice strong and commanding, his whole figure with the bearing of absolute power. Never have I seen such bearing - except in Aëtius. They were like brothers in that.
‘Our guests, you see, these noble Byzantines, planned that I should be assassinated tonight. As if my death alone would save them. Ha!’
He was the only one in the tent, among a hundred, who laughed, albeit with a laugh as harsh and excoriating as sharkskin. Everyone else remained frozen.
‘These two loyal servants of mine, the Lord Geukchu of the Hun People, and the Lord Orestes, born in the somewhat decayed city of Thessalonika, but now also, and honourably, of the Huns - these two loyal servants, I say, remain as loyal as ever. We do not have traitors among our people.’ His smile and his roving, burning eyes were equally terrible. ‘But in embassy to the fetid and benighted city of Constantinople, ruled by women thinly disguised as men’ - at this, his warriors began to laugh, and relax - ‘they were inveigled into a plot to assassinate me, their divinely appointed King, in exchange for - what was it, my beloved Geukchu?’ He was playing with us, with the whole situation.
Geuckchu smiled broadly, too. ‘Gold, Great Tanjou.’
‘Ah, yes, of course. Gold.’ He roved around. ‘My beloved Geukchu, one of the closest and most trusted among my Chosen Men, who has ridden by my side for nearly a decade, ever since the day I returned from exile to claim my rightful crown. My beloved Geukchu, who rode with me east into hardships and battles unimaginable, who stood by my side in the foulest blizzards and the fiercest arrow-storms - this Geukchu, noble Geukchu, the Byzantines and their clottish emperor, Theodosius, the Calligrapher, and his barren sister, Pulcheria, believed could be bought off, and turned against me, after all this, with . . . gold.’
His warriors laughed and cheered, then fell silent again for their infallible King to continue. By my side, Aëtius was very still. Only once did he glance along the couches, to Chrysaphius and Vigilas. They, too, were very still. Vigilas’ right hand was on his fruit knife.
‘You fools!’ roared the king suddenly, smashing his mighty fist down on a near table and setting the dishes sliding to the floor. His fury seemed to make the felt walls of the tent bat in the blast. ‘You Roman fools! As if any of my people would envy the trappings and tinsel that festoon your brothel of a palace! As if any of them would exchange gold for glory!’ His voice dropped again. ‘It would not have been the first attempt on my life by the forces of Rome, a eunuch empire which prefers to slay its enemies by deceit rather than by bravery in battle. But you may be sure that, in consequence of this fresh attempt - the clumsiness of which would have shamed a child - our vengeance upon your heads will be only the greater.’
He turned to Geukchu and held out his hand. Geukchu passed him a sword.
‘Chrysaphius,’ he said, ‘beloved of the Emperor Theodosius, step forward.’
The saturnine ambassador looked very pale. His eyes darted desperately around, and he stammered, hoping for support from his fellows, but there was none. At last he stood and walked uncertainly into the centre of the circle, looking like he might faint.
‘So,’ said Attila regarding him with lacerating scorn. ‘You offered gold to my lords Geukchu and Orestes, limitless gold, so that they would lead you and the assassin Vigilas into my chamber at some opportune hour, and murder me as I slept.’
‘My lord, I must protest, you have been grievously mis—’
The backhand blow Attila dealt him sent him reeling back three or four yards, before he crashed into a wooden trestle table amid a welter of sliding plates and food. Not one of our party or the wolf-lords stepped forward to help him. Deceit and assassination were no part of the Visigothic armoury, and, if the accusation were true, they despised him for bringing deep shame upon them.
‘I did not ask you for your commentary,’ said Attila gratingly. ‘I am not questioning you, I am telling you, and your disgraced comrades here.’
Two Hun warriors hauled Chrysaphius back and and dropped him at the feet of Attila. He lay there struggling for breath, blood flowing freely from nose and mouth after that colossal blow.
I glanced along at Vigilas. He had removed his hand from his fruit knife. It was hopeless. Across the tent, a dozen Hun arrows were trained on his heart.
‘To resume,’ said Attila. ‘Geukchu and Orestes, for amusement, agreed to your stinking Byzantine bribe. They led you back here, where they promptly reported your contemptible plot to me. How we laughed together, my loyal men and I. And now . . . here we stand.’ He looked at the rest of us. Another man had got to his feet. It was Aëtius.
‘Ah, Master-General. You are about to tell me that you had no part in this plan. You knew nothing of it, and would not have approved it if you had.’
‘Correct.’
‘I already know that. Please be seated again.’ He looked down at the bloody-faced ambassador at his feet. ‘Tell me how much you would have paid your assassin Vigilas for killing me.’
Chrysaphius breathed heavily and scarlet bubbles came from his nose. ‘Five pounds was mentioned, my Lord.’
‘I don’t know whether you are brave or stupid,’ said Attila, ‘but you are still lying to me.’ He raised his foot and brought it down on the ambassador’s bare ankle. Chrysaphius howled and tried to crawl away but could not. I winced and averted my gaze. The Hun King was pressing his whole weight down on that ankle, and I thought I could hear bones cracking. Cruelty like this demeans everyone: the torturer, the tortured and the spectators alike. Aëtius, too, was looking away. I quickly surveyed the Hun warriors around the tent. They were stone-faced, expressionless.
‘Vigilas was to be paid fifty pounds of gold,’ grated Attila. ‘A deal of gold, though’ - he smiled around at his own little joke - ‘I still feel undervalued.’
His warriors laughed.
He raised his foot and let Chrysaphius crawl free. The broken man, trembling all over, reached down to his shattered ankle, but it was too painful to touch. I thought I glimpsed shards of white bone showing through flesh. He wept. He would never walk without a crutch again.
Attila murmured something to Orestes, who wen
t out, then said, ‘Step forward, Vigilas.’
The little assassin did as he was instructed. He did not look afraid. A man of deceit and violence himself, he was accustomed to it in others, and knew exactly what to expect. But Attila was fond of springing surprises.
He drew his dagger from his broad leather belt and, instead of despatching his antagonist, tossed it to him handle first. Vigilas caught it deftly.
‘Now,’ Attila said, ‘finish your work.’
I was very afraid. The two men started circling each other, Vigilas armed, Attila not. Vigilas all furious concentration, Attila smiling, bare hands held out before him as if to swat away flies. What if Vigilas should succeed? The rest of us would all be slain by his warriors - and not quickly slain, either.
Yet Vigilas was determined to try. It was his nature. A different man might have used the dagger to cut his own throat, but he circled round the king, dagger held lightly in his right hand, his left arm extended for balance, his eyes fixed like a hawk on his prey. He knew he would have only one chance. The atmosphere in the tent had the skin-tingling tension before a storm. We could scarcely breathe. When the two men suddenly burst into action, like snake and mongoose, they moved so fast I could hardly tell what had happened. I think Vigilas tried to lunge forward, perhaps at Attila’s neck, and the king moved fractionally aside - enough for the dagger to miss its target by a hair’s breadth. He seized Vigilas’ right arm, still outstretched, in his mighty hands, one hand clamped around the assassin’s wrist and the other near his shoulder, raised his own knee, and brought the arm down. When it struck his knee, the elbow was turned backwards and unable to accommodate the blow. The arm snapped in half with a sound that sickened me. Vigilas screamed, and this was a man who did not scream easily, I was sure. He reeled back, clutching his broken limb to his body, his forearm twisted away from him at a horrible angle, his elbow . . . I could not look.
Orestes appeared, carrying a small sack. He dropped it with a heavy thud before Attila.
‘Now,’ said Attila, retrieving his dagger from the ground and reaching for the sack, ‘here is your gold. All of it.’ He opened the sack and showed it around and, sure enough, within lay the dully gleaming gold, all fifty pounds of it. ‘Here is your reward. You may have it from me, your intended victim. Only’ - he smiled, and lifted that fifty-pound sack into the air with one hand, his arm muscles bulging - ‘you will carry it yourself back to Constantinople, without aid from man or beast.’ He set it down and looked over at Aëtius. ‘Master-General, have I your assurance, as a Roman nobleman, that this sly and deceitful back-stabber will return to Constantinople as I command it, under your watchful eye?’
Aëtius struggled for a moment. But this wretched plot had shamed them all, and the two conspirators were lucky to have escaped with their lives. ‘You have,’ he said.
Attila nodded. What a gesture, what theatre! How magnificently scornful he had shown himself of the Byzantine plot. Never before had we faced an enemy like him.
There was one more gesture. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Chrysaphius trying to pull himself to his feet against one of the tent-posts.
‘Ah, no,’ he said, his voice almost gentle, stepping over to him, his dagger still in his grasp. ‘For you, coward as well as deceiver, there will be no return to Constantinople.’ He took the ambassador by a hank of his hair and pulled his head back and sliced the blade across his throat. He wiped the blade clean of blood on the dead man’s fine court robes and stood again and smiled round at us broadly, his arms outstretched, his dagger still in his fist.
‘My dear friends, I think our meeting in peace and friendship is at an end, is it not?’
Behind him, Chrysaphius’ body was already being dragged from the tent, leaving behind it a shining trail of gore.
We returned to our tents without another word, our hearts full and dark.
Before we left at dawn, in the dull grey half-light, an extraordinary meeting occurred. Attila came to Aëtius. I watched from the shadows.
They spoke to each other without formality, as if they were old friends. A naïve observer might have thought Aëtius indeed a traitor, newly allied to Attila, there seemed so little tension between them. Then the Hun grasped Aëtius’ arm as if with a mix of urgency and brotherly affection, and I heard his harsh, passionate voice.
‘One of the reasons I exposed your treachery - the treachery of your master, the emperor in Constantinople last night - was to show you the rottenness of your world, your eunuch empire.’
Aëtius said nothing, and did not try to pull free of Attila’s clasp. His expression was deeply troubled.
‘And your Valentinian, Emperor in the West, feeble-minded son of that bitch Galla Placidia, he is still worse. He sacrifices cockerels, he studies witchcraft.’
Aëtius muttered, ‘You, too, have witches about you.’
‘I do not claim to be Christian. Aëtius, your empire is tottering.’
Now Aëtius resisted him. ‘The VIIth legion at Viminacium, they did not totter.’
‘They gave us a good fight.’
‘They gave you hell.’
Attila’s teeth showed in the gloom. ‘They fought like men. But for what? For a decrepit empire, a long lost cause? It is the time of new powers and other empires now. Rome’s all done.’ His grip on Aëtius’ arm tightened, and I heard his astonishing words: ‘Join me.’
It was long before Aëtius responded; too long. His eventual response was only to pull away, saying nothing.
‘You fool,’ said Attila. ‘You have already lost whatever it is you fight for.’ He remounted his horse. ‘Fly back to your city, fool. I am hot on your path.’
11
THE BIRD-CATCHER
We rode away south that morning in anger and shame. Behind us staggered a small, broken figure, carrying his cruel sack of gold.
There was nobility in the soul of Attila, that I could see. Aëtius saw it, too. But the darker traits of malice, tyranny and vengefulness were overshadowing it, and ultimately it would be extinguished. His ruthlessness and avarice would destroy him as a living human soul. It has happened many times in human history. Already his nobility and grandeur were fading before his hunger for world dominion, his furious desire to seize and master life itself - a hunger which had also driven, in different ways, Alexander the Great, and Phidias, and Euclid, and even Sophocles. But such men as Sophocles and Phidias grow wise before they grow old, and let go of their hunger, and instead of wanting to seize and master life, they fall down before it and kneel in silent wonder, understanding that they may never master or understand but only worship. Attila saw such humble wisdom only as inglorious defeat. He was ever one of the rebellious sons of God.
Attila’s hatred of Rome was like a fire, blazing up and destroying some great, majestic basilica. But when the flames have finally devoured and destroyed that basilica and laid it to ashes, the fire also dies: it has nothing left to feed on. So his hunger was devouring his own self from the inside, engendering only more and more appetite in place of his youthful pride and fire. And when there is only appetite, allied to the stubborn, implacable vindictiveness of old age, there is no telling what evils may ensue.
After only two days, Aëtius halted the column towards evening and looked over his shoulder. Far behind us was the hunched, misshapen figure of Vigilas with his sack. He was no longer moving. Aëtius galloped back, and I saw him lean from his horse, pull up the sack and rest it on his lap. Vigilas rolled onto his side in the road and was still. Aëtius brooded a moment, then dropped the sack in the road and rode back to us. None of us uttered a word in protest. We knew it was like a gift of Agamemnon’s Greeks. Timeo Danaos . . . Let a peasant find it, an untold treasure, and bury it beneath an oak tree by moonlight for his old age.
Our journey back was long and wearisome, for we rode fast and relentlessly without Vigilas to slow us. We must take in the little town of Azimuntium on our way and find the empress, then retreat to safety behind the great Theodosian
Walls of the capital. There at last, I observed, we would be safe.
‘Safe?’ said Aëtius savagely. ‘As safe as a rabbit in his burrow, with a huge and ravening wolf just outside, his stinking breath in the very mouth of the burrow. How safe is that, do you think?’
Attila: The Judgement Page 26