by Harold Lamb
The priests even gave Skol a little wine from a silver cup and a small piece of bread. When they went away, Skol turned his head. Two tall candles had been placed a little behind his head, one on each side.
He looked at them, and at the men sitting by him. He listened to the distant chiming of bells and chanting, and his clotted beard wrinkled in a smile.
"'Tis a good place," he whispered, "a good place, and a fine sitting-by for my dying. A man cannot ask more than that."
He'd been listening to us quietly, there across the aisle in the ancient restaurant car of the Paris express. I figured him to be a strictly average retired Frenchman, with the usual red ribbon on the lapel of his neat black coat, and his white hair parted dead center, listening in on two foreign officers grousing about their jobs with NATO, which called for setting up military installations in a country like France that didn't seem to want them.
This was almost two years ago-June of'S i -when General Eisenhower was beginning to build a defense around and about, setting up skeleton divisions against a swarm of armies. Regiments against hordes. What, if it came to the pitch, was there in Western Europe to stop the manpower of the East? You know how we gripe.
The Frenchman looked up as if he were going to put in a word, but he sipped his coffee instead.
"We have our civilization, Bob," grinned Noel, digging into his brandied cherries. Being a member of His Britannic Majesty's Forces, Squadron Leader Noel laps up French cooking like a hungry pup.
"Do we?" I asked him. We'd all been reading how our Western civilization is on the downcurve, and how this world is whirling into an era of power politics, with armed manpower coming out on top. In other words, with the rule of the Eurasian, or Soviet, state on top. "Then where do we keep it?" I asked. "It doesn't seem to be around here."
Our obsolescent wagon restaurant was creaking through a gray twilight, because in order to save juice, no one had switched on the lights. Outside the window I perceived exactly one human being, the color of dirt, steering a plow behind a horse.
"It's in Paris, Bob," Noel told me cheerfully, spooning up the brandy, "'specially the opera house-the Masked Ball for us tomorrow night. It's also across the Seine, where the youngsters make love under the stars."
How can you argue with a guy like that? Noel reads ancient poetry and works out those double acrostics, while I like to keep my facts separate from such fancies. "That's fine," I conceded. "So we have our civilization in Paris. Where's your army to defend it? Are you going to mobilize an Allied army of one commanding general and those youngsters playing along the Seine, and these"-I pointed out the window-"farm- hands? It could happen that you'd have to defend a line somewhere against the combined armies of Asia."
Our French neighbor leaned over. "It did happen," he said in good enough English. "Yes, monsieur le capitaine, in the battle of long ago."
Evidently he knew insignia of rank when he saw it. A network of wrinkles around his dark eyes showed that life had not been all operas and brandied cherries for him, but he grinned like a kid as he explained that his name was Vesny. His red ribbon of the Legion of Honor might mean that he was either an ex-professor or an ex-soldier.
"In what battle?" I wondered.
"In the one of which monsieur speaks. Of the combined forces of the West against the East."
Noel and I looked at each other. What was happening now couldn't have happened a long time ago-"You mean, Monsieur Vesny," Noel ventured, "that history is repeating itself? Like a clock striking the same hour?"
"But certainly." The little guy flourished two fingers across his flowing mustache. "You are of course officers of the newer army, and no doubt you are greatly occupied with the radars and the swept wings. Yet human beings were the same fifteen hundred years ago." He peered eagerly out of our window. "Even this place is the same, although it was called the plain of Mauriac then."
Outside, the flat farmlands stretched to the hazy horizon. A few windmills turned lazily, and one bare hill stood up. Except that we'd left Chalons and crossed the river Marne, I had no idea where we were. However, I had a queer feeling, because everything outside our car looked as if it had been there for dark ages. "In the Dark Ages?" I asked, wondering if professors could be shell-shock cases, like dogfaces.
"Exactly! The age when the civilization of our ancestors was near its death in the West. The month, also, was June."
Suddenly Noel, who had been figuring to himself, smacked the table. "Fifteen hundred years ago! June four-five-one! Attila and the Huns!"
The Huns were from the steppes of Asia assented M. Vesny-I can't give his twist to words in my GI lingo ~. They had crossed the Danube and they were here in this plain of Mauriac. It was this same hour of sunset-of vespers, you understand, although no church bells rang in Gaul, as they called France, because doom hung over the land.
My ancestor really began the battle, because he was leading the first combat patrol up the road there by the windmills, coming from Troyes. He had orders from the commander of the Christian allies to drive in the enemy patrols and feel out the enemy line of resistance, but not to let himself be drawn into close combat. Well, my ancestor, whose name was Meroving-the Son of the Sea, you understand-was a big blond, very brave, and accordingly foolish. He rode by an empty bathhouse and a burned church without seeing a living soul, because the civilians had all fled to the coast or been gathered up by the invisible Huns.
So when big Meroving sighted something moving in the shadows ahead, he and his Franks ran up and let fly with the heavy axes they carried. These Merovingian Franks were the true barbarians of the allies, being without armor-or sense, according to some others. But they got their fighting blood warmed up quickly, and they cleared the road beyond the ruined church by using their hacking knives after they threw the twobladed axes. And, just as quickly, Meroving forgot his orders.
He ran on, over hill and dale, with his comrades, calling to the foemen to stand and be killed. Yes, he was a fool at fighting; he dismounted to share the hard blows with his comrades, and to give his poet, Oud the Voice, some brave deeds to sing out. By starlight Meroving was going on strongly, attacking bivouacs, and Oud the Voice was singing about slaying a host of pagans, when horsemen came galloping from a side road. Meroving and the comrades accordingly made ready to throw their axes again.
But the riders were armored and shielded Visigoths-the West Germans-with their prince Torismund, and he was hot with anger.
"Fathead Franks," young Torismund hailed without proper courtesy, "do you think you are boar hunting? Get back where you were ordered to be!"
Now, my ancestor hated the guts of the West Germans because of their conceit and because they had taken the best river lands of Gaul to farm, and most of all he hated the hard-riding Torismund, who dangled a fine jeweled long sword at his hip. Yet for this campaign of the Christian allies, my ancestor was oathbound to raise no weapon against his rival.
So he responded politely, "Son of Theodoric the Visigoth, dismount your fine carcass, take your toy sword, and stand your ground if you can against Meroving, chieftain of the Franks, and no fathead."
Willingly enough, young Torismund swung back his gold-crusted cloak; then he checked himself, saying, "I might well have known, although I did not, that Meroving was here, by the stink and uproar around me. Since we are oathbound to exchange no blow, I cannot draw my sword against that wood hewer you carry."
At that, Meroving's fighting blood boiled up- "We do not think, Torismund, that we drive boars this night. No," he said politely, "we are driving the horde of Huns while the noble Visigoths sit at the cook pots."
"Where falls Frankish foot," Oud the Voice chanted, "there lies meat for wolves and blood for the sating of ravens."
"Bats in the belfry!" swore Torismund. "If you think you drive the Hunnic horde before you, you are greatly mistaken. Those yonder are Gepid tribesmen who screen the Hun horsemen." Anxiously he bent down to the Frank, his rival. "Have you seen no sign at all of Attila?
"
"Not yet," quoth Meroving, more angry than ever at the prideful West German. Although baptized Christians, those Germans always put on their gold rings and brocade cloaks for a battle, in order, if they were killed, to take their place honorably clad at the banquet table of Valhalla. "Now look," he added, "if you are so reluctant to draw that fine sword, will you condescend to use it on our enemies? I challenge you, Torismund, to see which of us twain goes farthest into the enemy, when this affray is done."
"Fathead," quoth the German, angry in his turn, "I will take that challenge! Wherever you go, you will find me there before you!"
And he galloped off, while Oud the Voice leaped and cracked his heels for joy at hearing such a brave challenge.
Ah, they were young and headstrong. The night fell dark, and in the darkness the Flail of God lay waiting, mocking them. Trotting forward with his comrades, Torismund no longer heeded his own orders. Until he came to the dead watchers.
They sat their horses in a line, set up on stakes, with lances tied to their hands. Torismund reined his plunging horse up to the dead riders and iden tified them as deserters who had gone over to the Huns. "I see well," he told his men, "that Attila has been here. Column, guide on me."
There was a blackness rising ahead against the stars; there was the smell of cattle dung and the sound of creaking wagons. By those signs Torismund knew the Huns themselves to be near. He led his column up the height against the stars, and found himself on the bare summit of a hill with no living foeman near. He could smell the pagan horde and hear it, but he could not see it. So he halted there on his hill ...
Meroving was racing on, fearing that Torismund would outspeed him. Leading his Franks with their short axes hewing and flying, he raised such a hue and cry that it seemed as if an army were rushing away before him, but he could see nothing at all. Then from the blackness of a wood he came out into the grayness of an open plain where campfires smoldered in a ring, and within their circle uprose a strange pavilion, like a dome, and all deserted.
A musty smell came from this silent tent. For a moment Meroving hung back, thinking it was fey and ill-omened for him. It stank of the nomad Huns, but they were not there.
Lighting torches from the embers of the fires, he led his Franks into the dome tent. They all shouted and snatched at plunder, for furs and gold bowls lay strewn about on horsehides. And hanging on the tent pole Meroving beheld the sword.
In the torchlight it gleamed with the fire of rubies, its tapering blade unlike any short Roman blade-a long sword, worthy of a king.
Craving a noble weapon like Torismund's, Meroving thrust aside his comrades to seize it himself. When he gripped the hilt, it felt light in his hand. A prisoner, a wolf-like Gepid, cried out that it was Attila's sword.
"If this sword is his," cried Meroving, staring through the smoke of the torches, "then this tent is his that we have taken!"
Oud the Voice leaped to his full height and cracked his heels twice for joy. And Meroving, exulting, sent a fast runner to report to the allied commander that he had captured the tent of Attila, supreme khan of the Huns.
So swiftly did the Frank runner find his way back that the Roman legions-the mainstay of the infantry-were barely digging in for the night, when he dropped at the feet of Aetius, the general commanding, yelling, "Victory!"
Aetius was munching a biscuit soaked in wine, and after the runner reported all of the great victory, he asked one question, "Where?"
When the runner pointed out the glow of the fires, far ahead in the dark plain of Mauriac, the Roman commander threw away his biscuit and sent a legate to warn Theodoric, king of the West Germans, that the situation had gone from bad to worst, because the Franks had fallen into the trap of the Huns.
Sitting on a log and quieting his nerves with strong Rhine wine, Aetius the patrician, the last of the Roman commanders, reviewed the situation before him in the fourth hour of that June night, to see if any hope remained.
He had no support behind him. His boy emperor played striptease with girls at the Ravenna seaside resort, and chariots still raced in the Roman circus, but Rome itself was dying. The only surviving army was here, digging a defensive ditch by torchlight-sixty thousand barbarians drilled in the equipment of Roman legionaries. And the unreliable Franks and the suspicious West Germans-
Behind a staked ditch, he thought, they may stand against the charge of the Huns, because of their farms and families back of them. Its the one chance.
How much of a chance? Somewhere in the darkness the horde of the Huns was moving, with the conscript armies of the satellite peoples, the Slavs and Gepids, the mountain Alans and Ostrogoths-the East Germans-and the tribes of the Don and Volga-two hundred or four hundred thousand in all. Aetius could not know their numbers.
That was bad. But Aetius dared not hope that the sagacious Kagan of Asia would make a frontal attack on his skeleton legions. For Attila wisely held back his own army; his spies announced through the west that the Kagan was bringing only peace and liberating all oppressed people from Roman imperial rule and taxation. Then, if a town in Gaul resisted, Attila would set his Gepids against the Franks, holding back the terror of his Huns. Until he had ended resistance and could ride to the Channel of Britain, and rule from Africa to the Great Wall of China.
Aetius believed that Attila would win. For he had studied the victorious Hun, going up in the guise of a hostage to the nine-times-guarded Ring, the wooden fortress of the Huns on the blue Danube, where converted Romans like Orestes and the Italian banker Constant served Attila and enjoyed their freedom, paying no taxes. Or so they said. They feasted well in the Ring, with toasts before every course-poking fun at the Roman ambassadors while Attila jested about how the Romans paid out gold for peace, and demanded of the ambassadors whether they wanted peace or war. Attila, jesting, set the price of peace higher each year-up to two thousand pounds of gold a year, along with the return by the Romans of all deserters from the Hun frontier. Until the Roman senate paid out all available gold. Until the senators cried to Mitius to put these last legions in the field. And Attila crossed the Danube to invade the West.
I was a fool not to take his offer, the Roman soldier thought, of an estate on the Danube and command of an army of Asia. For until now he has won what he needed most without war, and if there is a battle he can easily win that also.
Then the giant Theodoric came with the legate, taking off his horned helmet to sit on the log and ask, "What is the worst?"
Theodoric, king of the West Germans, used few words because he had many troubles. Attila had sent to urge him to become an ally against his old enemy, the Roman Empire, but Theodoric had chosen to make a stand with the soldier Aetius, and now he worried about that.
Aetius knew his mind. Aetius had to hold the West German cavalry fast. "The Franks are lost," he said, wearily and truthfully. "We have to decide-to try to reach them tonight or hold our line here."
Every word the bearded Theodoric weighed carefully. "How are they lost?" he demanded.
"When we gained contact with the Huns at Orleans, you remember how they retreated from the siege of the city. Why? They are nomads, dangerous with bows and lances. Their strategy is to simulate hurried retreat, to draw pursuit straggling after them. When they reach a level plain like their own steppes, they turn and attack like a whirlwind. Now, on the Mauriac, they have reached such a plain." Aetius nodded at the darkness ahead of them. "No civilians will be left alive to inform us of their position." He poured wine for the German. "The Merovingian Franks are out there; they report they have forced Attila to retreat and have captured his tent and sword."
"Umpf." Theodoric pulled aside his mustache to drink, while he pondered.
"I have heard, general, that he has a sword of power."
"So? Do you think he would leave it behind unless he wanted it to be found?" Aetius shrugged. "Noble Visigoth, he wants to draw us on. What do you say?"
After thinking, Theodoric said, "Let God decide."
"Listen," muttered Theodoric, putting down his cup.
Out on the plain there was a murmur of sound. After calling for silence in the trench details, the Roman commander identified the sound as hand combat in advance of his right flank. "Now, what-" he muttered.
Theodoric straightened with pride. "That is my son, Torismund, searching for the Huns with the finest horsemen."
Aetius struggled with a spasm of fury. Both his flanking forces had wandered forward after Attila's lures.
"All right, that does it," he gave in. "Theodoric, God Almighty never meant us to wait, split up into three parts, for sunrise.... Legate, sound the trumpet for advance with all equipment, including trench stakes. The advance will be to the new line of the flank parties. The time of the advance is now."
So it happened that Aetius, the veteran commander, led badly tired legions forward in the last hours of darkness in the face of rested, alerted cavalry, position unknown. It seemed to him that he was being drawn forward to his doom by Fate itself.
"Look," said old Theodoric, riding at his side.
The bearded face and helmet of the Visigoth showed more clearly in a dim light that came from no true dawn. Abruptly the Roman turned in the saddle, staring into the east. There was no gleam of the sun along the dark horizon.
"Mist," said Theodoric. "The Lord hides us from the eyes of our enemy."
And the Huns, Aetius thought mechanically, can be on top of us before we see them. But he did not say it.
Attila the Kagan waited for the sun to burn away the mist. Although it was late in the morning, only a pale light showed above him, as if a lantern had been hung there in the sky.
Patiently the Kagan waited, kneeling on the white horsehide, his handsome gray head bent in thought, his robe of the finest silk clinging to his small, stooped body.