The Last Wife of Attila the Hun

by Joan Schweighardt

  Edeco’s smile waned. “Honoria is the sister of Valentinian, the Emperor in the West,” he declared coldly.

  One of the Hun women came in with the dinner tray. Edeco and I stared at each other until she was gone. “And her gift?” I asked. “What does it portend?”

  “Her gift was her ring. As to what it portends, you must have noticed, I had no chance to discover.” Edeco shook his head, as if to dispel some dark thought that had invaded it. Then he sat down. “She’s been out of favor in Ravenna for some time. My guess is that she sent her messenger to ask Attila to take her side against her brother.”

  “War with the Western Empire?” I cried, unable to conceal my alarm. Edeco eyed me irritably. But as my brothers were allies of the Western Romans, in dictate if not in spirit, I did not care that Edeco seemed in no mind to answer my questions tonight. “But there cannot be a war,” I exclaimed. “Why, Attila and Aetius are friends, have always been friends. It was not so long ago that Aetius sent a scribe—”

  “I cannot think why you bother to ask me questions when it seems you are capable of answering them yourself,” Edeco cried, turning his head aside.

  My own head was spinning so that I hardly heard him. “Does Attila even know this Honoria?”

  Edeco shook his head. “He has never met her.”

  “Why is she out of favor in Ravenna?”

  Edeco sighed. His look was the exasperated one that a mother bestows on a child who will not quiet. “Honoria had a palace in Ravenna,” he began, spitting out his words. “It was managed by a steward called Eugenius. As her brother the emperor has no children—his wife, it is said, is a virgin—there are many nobles in Ravenna who have sought to marry Honoria and produce royal offspring. But Honoria fornicated with her steward, Eugenius. And when Valentinian learned that she was pregnant, he had Eugenius killed. These events are recent. Whether or not she has delivered the child yet, I do not know. In any case, Honoria was banished to the Eastern Empire. But we learned from the Romans who came with Bigilas’ son that her mother asked Theodosius to allow her to return. Her brother will most likely want to find her a suitable husband before she gets herself into any more trouble. But as she has sent her ring to Attila, I would say it is already too late. There. Now you have it, Ildico. Now you know as much as I do.” And with that, Edeco got to his feet.

  “So soon, friend?” I cried. “Stay and share my wine, and my meal as well. I observed that you had no chance to finish your own tonight.”

  “You use me, Ildico,” he whispered, squinting down at me. “I am nothing to you but a source of information, whether to satisfy your curiosity or something worse, I do not care to guess.”

  I sprang to my feet. “It is true that without you I should be living in the dark without any knowledge of the world. But you mean much more to me than that.”

  “Do I, Ildico? I wonder. Your concern is never for me, for the affairs that complicate my life. You would rather know what Theodosius is about or who is Honoria.”

  “You led me to think that you were happy enough to share such knowledge with me. What am I to think? Your moods are more numerous than the trophies than hang from Attila’s walls.”

  Edeco continued as if he had not heard me. “And there was a time when you shared your knowledge with me as well, but—” He broke off and turned away from me.

  Amazed, I asked softly, “Can you mean my vision for your son?”

  “No more,” Edeco whispered, and he bolted out the door.

  * * *

  It was the young Hun girl who came to my hut the following day to tell me that I need not come to serve that evening. “What? Have they marched already?” I exclaimed unthinkingly.

  “They have gone off,” the girl responded, her dark eyes darting toward the guard riding beyond the open curtain.

  I did not sleep at all that night, nor the one after, for I was thinking of the danger my brothers might soon find themselves in. I told myself over and over that Attila could not have prepared for war so quickly, but still I paced and bit my nails and imagined that he had. On the third night, when I was so tired that I could no longer hold a thought together, I drank a good deal of wine in the hopes of finally getting some sleep. Finally I felt myself drifting, and soon I found myself caught in a dream in which there was a man watching me from the doorway.

  He was silhouetted by the moonlight that streamed in through the gap in the curtain where his hand clutched it. I had blown out my taper; I could not see his face. “There will be war,” he said.

  Ah, it is only Edeco, I thought, and I took a deep breath while his declaration lapped at the edge of my consciousness. Then it entered. As I was getting up on one elbow, straining to break out of my slumber, he let go of the curtain and put an end to the stream of light behind him. “Theodosius is dead,” he stated. “Marcian, the new emperor, has sent an embassy to say that we can no longer expect tributes from the Eastern Empire.”

  Relieved, I sighed and let my head fall back onto the pile of skins. “Then you will march on the Eastern Empire,” I heard myself mumble.

  “And so I thought, too, at first. But Attila has decided to take Honoria’s ring as a pledge of their betrothal. For her dowry, he wants half the Western Empire.”

  I made a noise in the dark, a cry such as an animal makes when it is cornered. Edeco went on. “Two of our embassies leave the City of Attila tomorrow. One will go to Constantinople to inform Marcian that war will result if he does not reconsider on this matter of tributes. The other will go to Ravenna to warn Valentinian that he had best not let any harm befall Honoria as Attila claims her as his wife.”

  I made no answer for a long time. I had begun to dream of my brothers, to see their dear faces floating before me in the dark. Edeco’s words seemed a dream within a dream, and when at last they reached me, I asked, “In which direction will you ride?”

  “Neither,” he said stiffly, “though it pleases me to see that you bother to ask. I am to stay here to help Attila prepare for war.” I went so far back into the dream of my brothers that I was startled when he spoke again. “There is more,” he said. His tone was urgent, and it sent my brothers’ images spiraling away. Now I could imagine Edeco’s officious expression in the dark. It struck me all at once how strange it was to be dreaming of a voice in the dark, and I wondered whether I had ever had such a dream before. Edeco said, “I will not be coming to visit you here again, Ildico. Last night, while we were riding back from the plain where we had gone to meet with Marcian’s embassy, I asked Attila to grant me permission to marry you. He was very kind. He took me aside, and we made a fire up on a knoll while the others rode for home. He explained that he has come to believe that all his good fortune in recent times—his successful march on the Eastern Empire, his uniting of the Huns, and now Honoria and her ring—are a result of the powers of the war sword. For a long time, he said, he thought it was enough to keep you alive to ensure that the sword would continue to bring him fortunes. But he saw that as he permitted you more freedoms, his fortunes increased proportionately. Ildico, Honoria is not the only woman Attila intends to marry. You will be his wife as well, though I doubt it will be soon. He is inclined to wait until these new events have taken their shape.”

  There was a silence for a long time, so that I wondered whether my dream of Edeco had passed from me. But then Edeco’s voice came again out of the darkness, closer now than it had been before. “I must go, Ildico. I had Attila’s permission to come to you tonight, for I made him see that I should be the one to tell you this news. In the future, I would be risking my life to come to you. No man would dare to be caught with any woman to whom Attila has laid claim. As of now, you are betrothed to him.”

  I heard myself laughing, and then Edeco’s voice saying, “Is there humor in all this?”

  “Attila seldom looks at me, Edeco,” I whispered.

  “A woman is a woman to Attila
. You brought him the war sword of the gods, and thus he will marry you. It is that simple.”

  His voice was so close now that I thought he must be leaning just over me. I reached out my hand to touch him, but it sliced though the air and hit on nothing. “And you, Edeco? What is a woman to you?”

  He hesitated. “Until I met you, nothing more.”

  “And how am I so different?”

  “You have courage. Your heart is the heart of a man.”

  I had courage, I mused. It seemed strange that Edeco should think I had it still, and stranger yet that he should mention it when it had brought him only agitation in the past. My sudden recollection that all my courage was gone from me, that the thing that I had once admired so in myself had been as fleeting as it was precious, frightened me, and I cried out, “Hold me, Edeco. I am all alone.”

  “Do not tempt me woman,” Edeco replied harshly.

  Again a silence fell between us, and now I thought I could see the silence and the darkness merging and revolving around the place where I lay and where I imagined Edeco stood. Then Edeco’s voice came again. “I must have the pearl back.”

  My fingers, which had been around it the whole time, tightened. “It has meaning for me, Edeco. I cannot give it up.”

  “Do not make me linger, Ildico. I betray Attila more by the moment.”

  “Betray? You use the word lightly tonight.”

  “Do I?”

  I wished that I could see his face. I tried to make it materialize, but I had no power to do so. “What are you saying to me, Edeco? All this talk of courage and betrayal. What does it mean?”

  “Give me the pearl, Ildico.”

  I slipped the necklace over my head obediently. Then I reached out and found his outstretched hand. Our fingertips grasped and fumbled. “When you first gave it to me,” I whispered breathlessly, “I promised myself that I would never again speak to you from my heart on matters where we have disagreed in the past. But now that you have taken it back—”

  “Aye. I have set you free,” he interrupted.

  I could not imagine why I had said such a thing to Edeco. Nor could I imagine why he had answered as he had. And moreover, I had long since given up my ambitions. They had gone the way of my courage. To name them now seemed a travesty, a distortion of the truth. “I am sorry I caused you so much pain, so much confusion,” I said, thinking to end it there. But then I said to myself, This is only a dream, a senseless fantasy in which all things are possible and no one need account for them. “I came to the City of Attila with no purpose other than to cut Attila down,” I whispered, and I braced myself to be struck or kicked by Edeco’s phantom.

  “Then I will do what I can to advise you,” Edeco whispered back, “though I cannot imagine that it will do any good. And as for myself, I will never play an active part in any plans that you may conjure. My heart is the heart of a coward—of a slave, as you were once kind enough to point out.”

  My heart is the heart of a coward’s, too, I mused, and my mind stretched to take in all the nights that I had bent over Attila to place his tray on his lap. On any one of them, I might have reached for the war sword. I might have tried. “I understand,” I said. “You have your sons to think about.”

  “Were I thinking of my sons, I should pledge myself over to you completely. I think of myself, Ildico.”

  “No. You think of more than yourself, or these words would not be passing between us.”

  Again he sighed. “I do not know what I think of anymore. I think of my position with Attila, tainted now somehow by the very thing I sought to strengthen it. I loved him well enough until… I think of the vision you foresaw—a vision which lived in my own heart beside my love for Attila, though it was more a fantasy, until you saw it too. And I think of you, Ildico. I would like to think that I came to all this from some place other than my feelings for you, but I cannot be sure. I am greedy for many things, and they are all in conflict.”

  In my dream state, Edeco’s talk of visions only served to confuse me. But I had not failed to grasp his declaration of love. And that awakened my own emotion. “When Attila is dead,” I whispered, “I will be honored to be your wife.”

  He was silent for a moment. “I told Attila that I would come directly to the palace and let him know how it went with you.”

  “Tell him I detained you with my joy. Tell him I fell to my knees crying, ‘At last I know why the war sword led me here.’”

  “I shall, Ildico.”

  The darkness swirled, sucking the silence into it. “But you must tell him, too, that I have no friend other than Edeco. You must be allowed to continue to come to me.”

  To this Edeco made no answer, for he had already gone.

  * * *

  When I awoke the next morning, I was amused to think that I had dreamed so vividly, and I regretted that I could never share my dream with my friend, for how could I relate to Edeco a dream wherein he denounced his master? Smiling, I reached up to fondle my pearl, and I gasped when I realized that it was gone. I rummaged through the skins on which I had slept, but I could not find the thing. And then all at once I knew that my brothers were in grave danger, and, too, that I could no longer shun my obligation to find the means to cut Attila down.

  I was beside myself in the days that followed, and I would have given anything to speak to Edeco of my concerns, but of course he did not come to me. I saw him in the courtyard on several occasions, but he only bowed his head and looked aside. The other officers, who had never taken note of me before, bowed, too, now when they saw me approaching, so that I knew that they knew that I was betrothed to their master. And when I went into the hall one evening and heard one of my fellow servants saying to another, “I cannot think why he should want to marry a Thuet,” I knew that Attila’s mind was set and the abominable event would come to pass.

  Now I set my own mind on feigning a new attitude, for if I were to find the means to cut down Attila, I had better not let my expression reveal my disdain. And thus I went into the hall each evening smiling and with my head held high, as if I were proud to think that I should become Attila’s wife. Each time I bent over him with his cup or his tray, I bade myself, Now! Now, take up the sword and do the thing that you were born to do, for tomorrow he may march again. But my hand never heeded the order, and the conceit I wore on my face soon became a contradiction to the self-loathing I bore in my heart.

  One night toward the end of winter, Attila had a great many unfamiliar Huns to dinner—so many that there was a shortage of space. Six or seven men had to squeeze around tables meant only for four. I could not guess what their business was, for they did not speak of it. They were jolly one and all, and there was much laughter and toasting among them. Zerco was brought in to be mocked, and these unfamiliar Huns mocked him with far more gusto than had any of Attila’s previous guests, striking out at him as he danced by, and then laughing so hard at his horror that their drinks rolled down their faces. Even Attila seemed to find Zerco amusing on this occasion.

  With all the shouting and laughter, it was a wonder that I was able to hear Edeco clear his throat when I bent over his table to pour for Elsa, who was sitting beside him. Though Edeco’s eyes were fastened on Zerco, he nodded once when I turned to look at him. After that, I was in a panic, for I imagined that Edeco meant to inform me that Attila would be marching on the Western Empire in the morning, that these strange Huns were some of the men who would march at his side. And if it were so, then my chance to take hold of the war sword, to exchange my own meager life for the lives of countless others, Burgundians surely among them, was coming to a quick end. But I had already brought Attila his wine and his tray by then, and furthermore, because of the crowd, several other women from the village had been brought in to serve, all of whom were so eager to please that one or another of them beat me to Attila’s side each time he lifted his wine cup into the air to be re
filled.

  The banquet went on until very late in the night. After a time, I gave up my ambition, for now it seemed unlikely that these men would be fit to ride anywhere in the morning, much less off to battle. At length Attila began to yawn, and then he held his hand up in the air. Still chuckling over something one of the others had said to him, he declared, “Attila must sleep.” The unfamiliar Huns went on talking and laughing even as the familiar ones began to file out. But Attila was in such a good humor that he only raised his hand higher and repeated his declaration. When the servants came to clear the tables from the floor, Attila’s additional guests finally roused themselves. But Attila remained seated. And later, when the servants were finished and on their way out, the Attila they prostrated themselves before was already fast asleep on his couch with his lips stretched, as if he were dreaming already of victory.

  Thinking that Edeco might be waiting for me outside, I kept myself to the rear of the other servants. But except for a few men still straggling toward the gates, the courtyard was empty. When we had passed through the gates, I broke off from the other women to make my way to my hut. It was then that I saw Edeco sitting on his horse, talking to Orestes and some others. As I passed them, they nodded and then went quickly back to their conversation. I was rounding the palisade. In a moment I would be out of their sight. I had an idea, but there was no time to think whether it made sense to execute it. I turned my ankle, and crying out, fell to the ground. I could hear the men chuckling behind me, and then a horse approaching slowly. I did not dare to lift my face from the dirt until I heard Edeco’s voice. “Fool,” he cried. “Perhaps we should have you take Zerco’s place at the next banquet.” The others laughed harder.

  “Do not mock me,” I cried in a pained voice, and I attempted to get up but then stumbled again.

  Sighing as if he were much annoyed, Edeco slipped off his horse and, taking my arm, yanked me to my feet.