As the quiet, implacable force of his threat sank in, the crowd actually began to part before him, like the sea parting before the God-driven command of Moses. And there is no doubt that, incredible as it would seem, the boy would indeed have walked away from them at that moment, leaving his huge opponent kneeling in the dust, looking like a man who has just wrestled with an angel; like Jacob at the brook Jabbok, wrestling with his unknown antagonist blindly in the night, never knowing that his opponent was of God.
But the uproar had by now come to the notice of the city guard, and as the sullen, bewildered crowd began to make way for the boy, a voice of a different stamp altogether rang out in the midnight air.
‘Clear the way there, clear the way! Come on, you drunken scum, get out of my way.’
Sensing a different danger, the boy turned on his heel and held his dagger out again.
The crowd parted, and there stood no drunken street-bully. There stood a tall, grey-eyed lieutenant in the chainmail uniform of one of the Frontier legions, with a ragged scar across his chin and a scornful smile playing on his lips. Behind him stood a dozen of his men.
The lieutenant was surprised to find that the cause of all this ruckus was this one small, dusty, bloodstained boy.
For a moment, the boy extended his knife-hand towards the soldiers themselves – all twelve of them.
The lieutenant glanced at the crop-headed, tough-looking man by his side. ‘What do you reckon, Centurion?’
The centurion grinned. ‘The lad’s got spirit, you’ve got to admit, sir.’
The lieutenant looked back at the boy, his right hand resting easily on the pommel of his sword. He didn’t trouble to draw it, and when he smiled his eyes were as cold as ice.
‘Drop it, son,’ he said quietly.
Attila returned his gaze for a moment. Then he sighed, straightened and dropped the knife at his feet.
The lieutenant turned to his men. ‘You, Ops, Crates, tie him up, arms behind his back.’
Still kneeling in the dust, Borus saw the boy being tied, and he relaxed, and felt his legs trembling, and then he stretched out his arms and fell, and lay in the dirt. His head was throbbing. He rolled half over. His mouth felt bitter, metallic, and his back felt strangely cold. He was bewildered. His eyelids kept drooping, he didn’t know why, and his limbs ached and tingled. He prayed. He could feel his heart hammering beneath his ribs – or fluttering, rather, like a bird trapped and panicking in a bone cage. He gazed into the stars above and prayed to every god he could name. His eyesight blurred, and it seemed to him as if every star was growing into a radiant circle of light. He prayed to Mithras and to Jupiter and to Isis and to Christ and to the very stars themselves.
The stars looked silently down.
‘And you,’ the lieutenant called to Borus, ‘get home to your wife. That wound needs seeing to.’
Borus didn’t stir.
One of the soldiers went over and knelt beside the fallen man and touched his fingertips to his neck. Then he stood up again. ‘He’s dead, sir.’
‘Why, you little-’ roared a man in the crowd, ‘I’ll-’
Two soldiers blocked his way with crossed spears, and one knocked him sharply back with a kick to his midriff.
But the crowd’s mood had turned ugly and belligerent.
‘You murdering swine!’ screamed an old woman.
‘Slit his dirty neck!’
‘String him up! Look at him, the little demon, look at that look in his eye! He’ll kill us all, give him half a chance!’
Several women in the crowd crossed themselves. A man clutched the bluestone he wore round his neck to ward off the evil eye.
The lieutenant regarded his captive. ‘You’re popular,’ he murmured.
The boy glared up at him with such unabated ferocity that even the lieutenant was momentarily nonplussed. Then he demanded his name.
The boy ignored him.
‘I asked you,’ repeated the lieutenant, leaning down, ‘ what is your name? ’
Still the boy ignored him.
From the angry crowd, a voice cried, ‘He said his name was Attalus or some such.’
‘Attalus, son of Turda, son of Arse-Lick,’ cried another.
For the first time, the lieutenant noticed the blue scars on the boy’s cheeks, eerily visible in the sidelong torchlight.
‘Not…?’ he wondered softly. He turned to his men. ‘Lads,’ he said, ‘I think we could be in for a little donative.’ He turned back to the boy. ‘Strip.’
The boy didn’t stir.
The lieutenant nodded, and one of his men stepped forward, gripped what remained of the boy’s tattered tunic at the neck, and ripped it down to the waist.
The crowd gasped. They had never seen anything like it.
The boy’s back was decorated with the most fantastic swirls and curlicues, weals and welts, some made by needles and blue ink, some more cruelly cut in with a knife and then sewn up with a horsehair in the wound to ensure that the scar remained bold and prominent. It was the way of the Huns.
Not Attalus. Attila. The fugitive.
Princess Galla Placidia would be grimly pleased at his recapture. She seemed to have a strange obsession with the boy.
‘Well done, lads,’ said the lieutenant. ‘And the rest of you,’ he said, raising his voice again, ‘disperse. Or we’ll make you – which will hurt.’
The crowd sullenly and reluctantly began to move away. One of them walked over to Borus and covered his face with a cloth.
The lieutenant asked him if he knew the dead man. He nodded.
‘Then you’ll see to his corpse,’ he said.
He turned back to his troop. ‘Right,’ he barked, ‘back to the Palatine. On the double.’
‘Word of advice,’ said the lieutenant affably as they marched back up the hill, the boy’s arms trussed tightly behind him like spatchcock chicken. ‘Next time you’re on the run, try not to attract so much attention to yourself by killing someone.’
The boy said nothing.
‘Lucky for you we came along when we did, anyhow. They’d have torn you limb from limb.’
At last the boy spoke. ‘They wouldn’t have got close.’
The lieutenant grinned. After a while he said, ‘And the man you put down?’
‘Self-defence.’
The lieutenant nodded. It was clear enough.
‘I didn’t mean to kill him,’ the boy blurted out.
The lieutenant saw in some surprise that the boy’s eyes were bright with tears – not such a tough nut as he made out.
The lieutenant nodded again. ‘It’s OK, son. It happens. You did well to defend yourself.’
The boy tried to rub his nose with his bound arm, but couldn’t reach. If he sniffed the lieutenant would hear him, and he didn’t want that.
They marched left into the Vicus Longus and began the long ascent towards the Palatine. At one point they passed the scarecrow preacher again, and the boy glanced at him with consternation and almost with fear.
‘Nutter,’ said the lieutenant.
‘Are you a Christian?’ asked the boy.
The lieutenant grinned. ‘We’re all Christians now, son. Much good may it do us.’
At last the drunken mob were beginning to thin out for the night. They made way when they saw a squadron of Frontier Troops approaching, looking on curiously from the doorways and the alleys at the strange, small, spiky, half-naked captive bound with rope.
‘I’d untie you if I thought you wouldn’t try to escape again,’ said the lieutenant, a little more gently.
‘But I would.’
‘I know you would.’
‘And I’d succeed, too.’
‘It’s possible.’
The boy looked up at the lieutenant, and for a moment something like a fleeting smile passed between them.
‘So… you were trying to get home?’
The boy didn’t answer. Instead, surprisingly, he asked a question. ‘Where are you from?’
<
br /> ‘Well,’ he said, ‘my dad was a soldier before me, from Gaul originally. But I served in the Legio II “Augusta”, in Britain, at Caerleon. You won’t have heard of it.’
‘I’ve heard of it,’ said the boy. ‘It’s in the west of the province, a frontier fortress to keep down the Silurian tribes.’
The lieutenant laughed with astonishment. ‘How in the Name of Light do you know that?’
The boy ignored the question. ‘What were you doing in Britain?’
The lieutenant began to wonder if he should be talking quite so much. There was something about the lad that was… unusual.
‘Well, my mother was a Celt. My father married her over there. So I guess I’m half and half. But we’re all Celts under our Roman skins, or so we like to think. We – me and the lads here – served over there until just recently. Then-’
‘Then the emperor called the British legions home? Because Rome was in such trouble?’
‘Hold your horses,’ said the lieutenant easily. ‘Rome’s no home of mine. My home’s Britain. And anyway Rome’s not done yet. We’ve dealt with worse than Goths before. Remember Brennus and his Gauls? They sacked Rome itself. And Hannibal? And the Cimbri?’
‘But what’s wrong with the Palatine Guard defending Rome? There’s thirty thousand of them out at the camp.’
‘Jove’s balls, you really do know it all, don’t you? Well, you know what we Frontier Troops think of the Palatine Guard back in Rome. A little… soft, shall we say. Too many hot baths and too little real fighting.’
‘Is there still fighting in Britain?’
‘More and more these days,’ said the lieutenant sombrely. ‘The Picts are always raiding in the north, and now we have the Saxon pirates to contend with, all along the eastern and southern coasts. And our Count of the Saxon Shore is about as much use as a paper bucket. So yes, Britain has its problems, too. But from now on’ – he spoke with uncharacteristic hesitancy – ‘they’ll… they’ll just have to fend for themselves.’
The boy pondered for a while. Then, ‘What else is Britain like? Your country?’
‘My country?’ The lieutenant’s voice softened again. ‘My country is beautiful.’
‘Mine too,’ said the boy.
‘Tell me about it.’
So they passed the time on the return march describing to each other in loving detail their respective countries.
The boy liked the sound of Britain: plenty of space, good hunting, and no fancy cooking.
‘Well,’ said the lieutenant as he watched his men untie the boy and hand him over to the Palace Guard. ‘Just remember, next time: keep your pride and your anger to yourself. Patience is a great military virtue.’
The boy gave a wan smile.
‘Shake,’ said the lieutenant.
They shook hands. Then the lieutenant barked an order, and his men fell into line. ‘Well, lads, our nightwatch is just about over. In two days’ time we march to Pavia, under the command of General Stilicho. So make the most of Rome’s glorious whores while you can.’
At that glorious news, all the men raised their fists in the air and roared their hurrahs. Then they wheeled and marched away into the night. The boy looked down the street after them for a long time.
He was taken and bathed, and escorted to his cell, and a guard was posted permanently outside his room. He drifted into a light, twitching sleep.
6
THE SWORD AND THE PROPHECY
In the hot morning he lay in an uneasy doze when he was woken by low voices by his bedside. He opened his eyes.
Beside his bed stood Serena and, behind her, General Stilicho himself.
‘Well, my young wolf-cub,’ said the general, smiling. ‘And what headaches have you been causing the empire this time?’
Attila said nothing. He didn’t smile.
Serena reached down and laid a cool hand across Attila’s forehead. ‘Foolish boy,’ she said.
He wanted to glare at her but couldn’t. Her eyes were so gentle.
‘Here,’ said Stilicho, tossing something onto the bed. ‘This is for you. But only if you promise me never to try to escape again.’ Now he was stern, soldierly. ‘Do you promise, lad?’
Attila stared down at the package by his side, and looked up again and met the general’s eye. He nodded.
Stilicho believed him. ‘Open it when we’ve gone.’
Serena bent and kissed him, nodded to her husband, and departed.
Stilicho hesitated for a moment, then sat down on a small wooden stool, a little awkwardly for a man of his soldierly frame. He rested his elbows on his knees, rested his chin on his clenched fists, and scrutinised the boy long and hard. The boy waited expectantly.
‘I’m riding north for Pavia tomorrow,’ said Stilicho. ‘Serena will remain here in the palace.’ He fell silent a while, then said, ‘The Gothic armies are regrouping under Alaric. You have heard of him?’
Attila nodded. ‘He’s a Christian, too, though.’
‘He is. If he sacks Rome, he has promised to touch not a stone or a tile of any Christian building.’ Stilicho smiled. ‘Some chance. The Gothic armies won’t be sacking anywhere soon, least of all Rome. But. .. ’ The great general sighed. ‘We live in difficult times.’
Attila looked down. He felt obscurely guilty.
Stilicho was searching for the right words. He felt somehow that it mattered, deeply, what he said to the boy at this moment. Almost as if… almost as if he’d not be seeing him again. As those ancient Sybilline Books had said… He put all thought of those haunting Books from his mind, and said, speaking as slowly and carefully as he would to Galla at her most predatory, ‘Difficult times. Strange times.’ He looked hard at the boy, and said simply, ‘Do what is right, Attila.’
The boy started. The words surprised him.
Stilicho went on, holding the boy’s eye. ‘I have always served Rome, though I am of barbarian blood. But then, we were all barbarians once. What was great Rome herself, in the days before Numa and Romulus and the Ancient Kings? A village on a hillside.’
The boy smiled uncertainly. He was unaccustomed to hearing the general speak in this way.
‘What else is there but Rome, to hold back the blood-dimmed tide? To continue… History itself? Without Rome, the world would be again a place of dark forests and witchcraft, legends and ghosts, horned warriors, human sacrifice, those terrible Saxon pirates… Without Rome, the world would fall back again into the world before history. Do you see what I am saying, boy?’
Attila nodded hesitantly. The two stared at each other and then the boy’s gaze dropped.
‘Someone said to me,’ he said hesitantly, ‘someone said that the Romans are all hypocrites, and no better than anyone else. They go on about barbarians doing human sacrifices, and how disgusting it all is, and how they need Roman law and civilisation and all that – but what is the Roman arena but one huge human sacrifice?’
‘Who told you that?’ asked the general, frowning.
Attila shook his head.
Stilicho knew better than to try and wring it out of the little mule. He sighed and said, ‘We have lived through centuries of struggle, we Romans. We are not a soft people. No society is perfect; but judge it by its ideals. We have made laws, we have set limits. There are no more gladiators, you know that. The Christian faith has introduced us to guilt – and no bad thing, perhaps. Only criminals and prisoners of war are now executed in the arena, which they fully deserve. Likewise, a master no longer has the power of life and death over his slaves. He can even be tried in court for their murder. Over centuries of struggle, things do get better. Can you say that of life and law in the barbarian lands?’
Attila said nothing.
Perhaps it was fruitless. Stilicho brooded for a while, and then he started again, in a vein the boy barely understood.
‘Prophecies fulfil themselves.’ He spoke softly, with deep sadness. ‘And in our time, the twelve hundred prophesied years of Rome will come to an end. We might
destroy all evidence of the prophecies themselves – we might indeed burn the Sibylline Books, as has been commanded by the powers-that-be. But the prophecies would remain. They are not confined by a single scroll of vellum, nor ended by its burning. Prophecies are things of power. Beliefs are things of power, of real power, in the world. An army that believes in something will always destroy an army that believes in nothing – no matter how great the odds against it. But what do we still believe in? Do we still believe in Rome? Or do we believe in those ancient and implacable Books, which tell only of Rome’s allotted twelve hundred years?’ He shook his head. ‘I should have burnt them all and had done with them.’
There was a silence.
‘But that cannot be the end of everything. It cannot all have been for nothing. It cannot!’ Stilicho’s voice was raised almost to a cry of anguish, his fists tightly clenched. ‘Those twelve long centuries of suffering and sacrifice cannot all just be lost in time, like dead leaves in the wind. The gods could not be so cruel. Something must survive of them.’
He lowered his voice. ‘I am sorry, I – I am making little sense.’ He compressed his lips, and then started again. ‘The believers, those who defend what they know in their hearts to be right, will always triumph. I have seen a small, weary group of bloodied and battle-weary soldiers, surrounded by ten, twenty times as many of their enemy. But those outnumbered men were loyal to each other. They trusted in themselves, and in each other, and in their god. I have seen a band of no more than sixty men, infantry only, protected only with light mail and leather, armed with only shield and spear and sword – no javelins, no missiles, no artillery, no cavalry back-up or reconnaissance, no archers or slingers, nor even the time to set staves and put out caltrops. But still I have seen them lock shield to shield, clutch their spears in defensive undergrip, and I have seen them hold themselves proudly against as many as a thousand mounted warriors – and walk from that field bloodied but unbowed. Undefeated.’ Stilicho nodded. ‘I know, because I was one of them.
‘An army that believes in its cause will always defeat an army of unbelieving savages, who believe only in the flame and the sword. Remember that, Attila.’
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