The Last Wife of Attila the Hun

by Joan Schweighardt

  One evening it was the young Hun again who came in with my dinner. I moved my mouth to greet the girl, for I had not seen her in some time, but in the end, I did not manage it. The Hun stood looking down on me with so much pity in her eye that I thought my heart should break anew. Then she smiled all at once, and after glancing behind her to be certain that the guard was not riding near the open doorway, she said, “I have some news. A messenger came today to say that Attila will soon return.”

  I could see by her look that the Hun had volunteered this information solely to comfort me, thinking, as I had once given her cause to think, that I was interested in events concerning Attila and his men. I forced myself to smile. Indeed, I should have been happy enough, for Attila had not been gone long enough to wage war on anyone, let alone the Western Empire. But I had no feeling on the matter one way or another. The only thing it meant for me was that now I would have to cease my mourning and begin training my mind again on the poison and its descent into Attila’s cup.

  They marched into the city at night, quietly this time, and once again without any celebration to mark their entry. And thus I was surprised when I went to the hall the evening following and found Attila looking satisfied with himself and his officers. I was surprised, too, when my careless eye fell on Edeco, to find that my disdain for him was not at all diminished. So as to please Sagaria in one respect at least, I had made some effort to forgive him, for he could not have done otherwise.

  Though I made no attempt to listen that night, I happened to be near when Attila said to his men, “Let Aetius and Valentinian think that it was the words of their Pope that turned us back. We saved many lives by getting out before the plague flourished. The plague is our ally. It will work on our behalf now and take as many lives as we would have, but at no risk to ourselves. Attila is content to wait. And when the plague has finished its work, when the living are wandering among the dead, counting them up and grieving over their number, we will march again. It is all very clear to me now. I had a dream last night wherein I saw it all at work. As soon as the plague is over, I will make Honoria my wife and claim my right to half the Western Empire. In the meantime, we will march on the Eastern Empire. After the way I played into the hands of the Pope, making such sweet promises to him, Aetius would not dare to come to Marcian’s aid.”

  Attila chuckled and nodded at his men. And though I had seen a few of them exchange amazed looks between themselves while Attila had been speaking, his men chuckled and nodded back. Then Attila sat forward suddenly, his face rigid and his fist held ready to strike his breast. “I am Attila!” he roared. “The war sword was given to me for a reason. Me. Not Valentinian. Not Marcian. Let no man forget that.” He dropped his fist and stared down at his tray. When he looked up again, his features had softened. “Now eat and go,” he said softly. “I have my letter to Marcian to compose tonight.” Then he shifted his tray and began to poke at his meat. But a moment later, with his mouth stuffed full, he added, “Let no one here speak a word of this until I say so.”

  Perhaps unconsciously, Orestes turned to look at Eara and me; we were pouring at the table just behind him.

  Attila swallowed his mouthful hastily and laughed, saying, “Do you concern yourself with the loyalty of my sister and the one who will soon be my wife, Orestes?”

  Involuntarily, I looked up at Eara and found her looking back at me. So, I thought, Eara is Attila’s sister. And all at once I realized that she hated him as much as I did.

  * * *

  One afternoon I heard a voice outside my hut saying to the guard, “You need not come again. She marries Attila tonight.”

  I sat up promptly, thinking that I must have been dreaming, and waited for my head to clear. In a moment, the curtain was pulled open and Edeco stood at the threshold with his mouth open as if he had so many things to say that he did not know where to begin. “I heard,” I said to save him the trouble of repeating himself.

  He turned to watch the guard ride off. Then he cried, “You must hurry. My orders were to tell your guard to bring you to the bathhouse to prepare. But Attila is meeting with his sons now, almost all of whom will be riding with us tomorrow when we leave to march on the Eastern Empire. I am taking the chance that no one will say to him, ‘I see it was Edeco who brought the Thuet to the bathhouse,’ for no one heard his order but me.”

  I jumped to my feet, crying, “Fool. How dare you risk reviving his suspicions now!”

  “Gudrun,” Edeco began, “I only desired to bring you the news myself, to say a few words to you before—”

  “Did you imagine that I would be pleased to have your company?”

  Edeco’s eyes hardened. “My mistake,” he said stiffly. “But it is too late for it now, Gudrun. Hurry along.”

  “And never say my name again,” I snapped.

  Edeco lifted his head higher. “Forgive me. As soon as we reach the bathhouse, I will assign a guard to take over. I only thought—”

  “Enough,” I said, and I went out of the hut before him.

  I was walking so briskly that Edeco had to rush to mount his horse and take his place behind me. When he had caught up, I cried over my shoulder, “You will not be marching tomorrow. By tomorrow Attila will be dead.” I smiled when I heard him gasp.

  “What can you be thinking?” he asked. “We tried, we failed. Now you will marry him. There will be plenty of time in the future to—”

  “To conspire again with you, Edeco? You make me laugh. Your heart is what it has always been, a vessel for two opposing passions.” I began to walk faster.

  “Wait, Gu…Ildico,” Edeco called, bringing up his horse. “We must speak about this. I must know what your plan is. You cannot possibly think that you can overpower him. You need only seem to be reaching for the war sword, and in the next instant, your head will be rolling on the floor.”

  “We Burgundians are used to losing our heads,” I answered dryly. I was sorry now that I had bothered to disclose my ambition to him.

  “And even if you did manage it,” Edeco was saying, “you would never escape alive. Not a night goes by when his guards are not posted outside the palace. And furthermore, there is no reason to act. We are weak. The Eastern Empire is strong. Let these events take care of themselves.”

  Edeco went on in this vein, loudly at first, and then softly as we went through the village.

  But I had an idea, and I had stopped listening to his tirade so as to consider it. When we reached Onegesius’ gates, I took advantage of their screeching to say to Edeco, “Can you get Ernac away tonight?”

  He stared at me incredulously. A guard came to take his horse, and we entered the tunnel that led to the world without. There was no one about. “Can you?” I asked again.

  “I have no reason to.”

  “You have. This is likely the last request that I shall ever—”

  “It is not possible. I am to ride tonight to meet with some of the leaders of the tribes outside the city to make certain they are well prepared. It is my guess that Attila wishes to spare me the pain of watching you become his wife. And it will be painful, Gudrun, because—”

  I cut him off. “All the better. Surely Ernac would be pleased to be asked to ride at your side.”

  “My sons ride with me.”

  “Ask Ernac, too.”

  “But, I—”

  “Now fetch me a guard,” I said, and I turned into the tunnel that led to the bathhouse.

  “I must know your plan,” Edeco whispered, hurrying behind.

  I reached the door and extended my arm as if to lift it myself. “Go,” I commanded. I turned from him, and in a moment I heard him retreating. I bent my head and pulled off the chain, for if anyone were to recognize it, it would be here, where Sagaria too must have come regularly to bathe. I heard footsteps behind me and glanced over my shoulder to make sure that it was the guard.

  Al
l the usual attendants were within. They greeted me, as they had learned to do over the years, and stood back, as they knew I liked, while I undid my broaches and slipped out of my robe. I slid the chain from one hand to the other so that now it was enclosed along with my other trinkets. Then I placed the lot against the wall in a heap. Hoping to keep the attentions of the attendants and the guard on me, I made my way to the pool chattering, asking one woman whether the water was warm today and another whether she had slept well, for I thought, I said, that she looked tired. While the second woman answered, enumerating all the tasks she had to see to in the course of a day, I slid into the pool and bathed quickly. When the woman had finished with her catalog, I turned to the guard and cried, “Can you not turn you back?” He laughed and went on staring. “Monster,” I cried as I climbed out of the pool. “Has no one told you that I am to marry Attila tonight?”

  His expression sobered at once, and he looked to the attendants for confirmation. They nodded and chuckled as they wrapped me in drying cloths, and the guard, whose mouth was still agape, turned aside. One of the women came toward me with a pale silk robe. And when I saw another moving to collect my broaches and other trinkets, I dodged out from under the drying and swooped them up myself. “We must hurry,” I cried. “I could not bear it if Attila were upset with me on our wedding day. I have waited far too long for this.”

  I slipped the chain into one hand and held the broaches and the rest of it out to the attendant with the other. The robe was lowered over my head. “It is not likely that he would expect you so early,” my attendant commented. The woman with the broaches added, “It seems to me that I remember someone saying that Attila’s new wives are first brought to the old ones to be advised.”

  “Ah,” I answered. I was dressed and ready to go. No one had seen the chain. The guard, who was standing now with his back to me, was so far lost in his own thoughts that I had to tap him on the shoulder to inform him that the time had come to lead me out. As I walked in front of him, I slipped the chain over my head and the gem into the neck of my robe. But whereas the gem’s bulge had never been noticeable beneath the fabric of my looser, coarser garments, it protruded now prominently under the silk one. I moved the gem to the back, so that my hair fell over the bulge. Now it only looked as if I were wearing a short chain, and as many of the Hun women wore such things, I had no reason to think that anyone would notice it.

  Edeco was outside, talking to the guards at the gate. My own guard, still dumb-founded, approached him timidly to ask what he should do with me next. Edeco answered, “Take her into the courtyard, to Hereca’s tent.”

  Hereca, who was waiting outside, looked me over carefully as I approached. I looked her over, too. I had never seen her this close before, and with the sun ablaze in the west, I saw how old and wrinkled Ellac’s mother was. I glanced at the hall. There were, as always, several guards on horseback before it. As the door was still down, I assumed that Attila was still meeting with his sons.

  “So, Attila has decided to marry you,” Hereca said.

  “So it seems,” I answered flatly.

  Hereca walked all around me. When she came before me again, she said, “I cannot think what he sees in you.”

  “I might say the same of you,” I replied.

  My boldness surprised me as much as it did Hereca. I considered it for a moment and concluded that such an attitude must be common among folk who are prepared to die. I had many important things to think about, and I did not want to spend my last moments sparring with Hereca. I saw Edeco ride past and join the guards at Attila’s door. I looked away from him.

  “You are impudent,” Hereca said. “You were brought to me so that I might instruct you on how to behave tonight in Attila’s bower, but—”

  “I have no need of your instruction.”

  Hereca smiled and glanced at the men at Attila’s door. “Oh, yes. I had forgotten. You were once Edeco’s lover. Some say you still are.”

  “Do they?”

  Hereca began to circle me again. “Now, if I were to go about asking questions, I could probably find someone willing to say to Attila that he saw you with Edeco just last night.”

  I laughed. “That would be a difficult task, Hereca, as there was a guard posted outside my door last night.”

  Unperturbed, Hereca turned to look at Edeco again. “A handsome man, is he not?” she asked.

  “Aye, but nothing compared to Attila,” I answered blandly.

  Hereca stepped back and raised her voice slightly. “I might have given you some useful advice,” she whined. “But as you are so stubborn and impudent, you will have to do without it. Should Attila come to me in the morning before he marches and ask how it is that I failed to instruct you properly, I will be sure to tell him that I tried, but that your eyes were all for Edeco.”

  Unable to fetter my smile, I answered, “I doubt he will say that to you in the morning.”

  “I wonder,” Hereca said. Then she shot one more look at Edeco and marched into her tent.

  I sat down on the rug that was spread out at the entrance to the tent, eager to concentrate on my plan. But my mind was full of distractions now, and I could not seem to remember the carefully detailed strategy I had designed when I had first learned that Attila was still intent on making me his wife. Instead, my entire life seemed to want to erupt before me. I closed my eyes and let the visions come. I saw their faces—Sigurd’s, Guthorm’s, Hagen’s, Sagaria’s, Brunhild’s—all dead, and all because I had failed them somehow. Then I saw the faces of my mother and Sunhild and Sunhilda, and I bade them each a silent farewell. And then I seemed to feel a burning sensation on the backs my eyelids, and I said to myself, It is nothing but the sunlight at work on my eyes. But I was facing east, and the sun had begun its descent behind me. The sensation became light and the light divided and became two fiery orbs, and I wondered whether these might not be Wodan’s eyes. Thinking that perhaps he had found me in this godless land after all, I prayed hastily, Oh, Wodan, all-father, if only you had not abandoned me since my coming here. What mistakes I have made without you to guide me! But you are here now, and I beg you not to leave until you have heard my petitions. Guide me now, Wodan. Lend me your wisdom, your cunning. If this is the thing I was born to do, then be at my side when I do it. Guide my fingers. Let me not err in this one account.”

  Then the two orbs burst into new flame, so that now I fancied that they had not been Wodan’s eyes after all. And thinking that it was perhaps Thunor who had come to hear my last words, I prayed, Thunor, how many times have I praised you for leading my father to Valhalla? Requite me now and lead me to the task that will make of Thuets and Thuets brothers once more, free men who minister unto themselves. If not for me, then do it, I beg you, for my father, whom you proved you loved when you marked his passing with your bolts and bellows. Oh, Wodan, Oh, Thunor, hear me, I beg you, though I am surrounded by enemies and must speak your praises inwardly.

  My eyes popped open and I found myself looking at Edeco. I was horrified to see that he was hanging back from the conversation with the others on horseback near Attila’s door so as to stare at me with his eyes full of longing and remorse. It seemed to me that no man could look at him and fail to realize that we had been conspirators and more. I shot him a look and closed my eyes again, but now Wodan or Thunor was gone. I saw only an orange glow floating over a darkness that put me in mind of Sagaria’s eyes. And I had such a sense that my sweet friend was with me again just then, that I began to pray to her, and to her Jesus as well, and Wodan and Thunor too. I prayed that I would not have to kill Attila, that somehow he would die all on his own. I prayed that I would live to see my daughter again.

  I was startled out of my reverie by a sensation along my upper arm. I opened my eyes and saw Edeco looming over me from up on his horse. The thing on my arm was his riding whip. He held it there so tenuously that it was a wonder that I had felt it at al
l. Suddenly, I found myself longing to embrace him, longing to cry against his broad shoulder. He must have seen the fear in my eyes, for with a flash of his, he indicated the entrance to Hereca’s tent. In his officious voice he said, “The time has come, Ildico.”

  The serving women were already within, and it was strange for me to think that I was not to join them. Attila, whose heart had not failed him, whose lungs had not given way, was already spread out on his red couch. I stared at him a moment, hoping childishly that the gods and Sagaria had heard my pleas and would act as I looked on. But Attila only looked at me indifferently, and thus I bowed my head and quickly prostrated myself. Then I moved to stand near the bower, in the spot where I had seen so many of Attila’s wives stand, and waited for my table to be brought to me. Soon I was joined by Hereca and two of Attila’s other wives.