Attila:The Scourge of God Page 4

  ‘Hold still!’ roared a mighty voice in Hunnish — Carpilio had picked up enough of it to understand the words. Attila kneed his horse into the line of panicking beaters. ‘Present your lances; he won’t face the points.’

  But the advice went unheeded. The line wavered, then broke, as first one youth then another dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and bolted. In a few moments, all the beaters in sight of the bear, except Carpilio, were galloping pell-mell for safety. Last to flee was Barsich who, turning in the saddle, presented to his friend a face contorted by terror and anguished guilt. Left to confront the enraged bear were Carpilio, his father, Attila, and an elderly foot-retainer with three hunting-dogs in leash.

  The old man loosed the dogs, huge, wolf-like brutes with spiked collars. They flew at the bear, which reared up on its hind legs, displaying to the full its awesome size and menace. A forepaw armed with sickle-like claws flicked out; the foremost dog cartwheeled in the air, its back broken like a dry stick. Undeterred, the remaining pair leapt at their quarry, sinking their teeth into its flank and haunch. With an ear-shattering roar of pain and rage, the bear struck its tormentors with those terrible claws. One spun to earth, howling, the pink coils of its intestines spilling from a gashed belly; the other dropped lifeless, its skull stove in like a crushed eggshell.

  ‘Keep still, boy,’ Carpilio heard his father whisper as the bear turned its attention to its human adversaries.

  Attila charged, his lance aimed at the bear’s chest. As the point struck home, in a blur of movement too fast for the eye to follow a paw connected with the horse’s head, hurling rider and mount to the ground. Towering above them, the lance embedded in its body, the dying monster raised its arms to smash the life from the man pinned helplessly beneath the screaming, blinded horse. But before it could deliver the death-blow, Aetius, vaulting from the saddle, ran forward to confront it. Head swinging to face this new opponent, the bear roared, blood gushing from its gaping jaws. Simultaneously, Aetius thrust upwards with his spear. Impelled with all the power of a strong and desperate man, the blade drove through the creature’s palate deep into its brain. For a moment, the stricken animal stood still. Then it swayed, and toppled with a crash that shook the earth.

  Like ripples from a stone dropped in a pool, a hush spread through the assembled tribesmen. All, on horseback as tradition dictated, were from the same clan as the disgraced beaters. Headed by Rua, the venerable leader of the chief division of the Hun Confederacy, those who would decide the fate of the offenders filed in cavalcade into the central space cleared for them: Attila and his brother Bleda, Aetius, and five senior elders. The culprits, ten in number, cowered bound and terrified on the ground. Carpilio, as the one beater involved in the incident who had stayed at his post, and was therefore an important witness, was also present.

  ‘We’re not here to discover the guilt or innocence of these boys,’ announced Rua, speaking in a surprisingly loud, clear voice for one so old. ‘Everyone knows they ran away, thus putting at risk the lives of our Roman guests, as well as that of my nephew Attila. It was a shameful thing to do, bringing dishonour not only on themselves but on their families, their clan, and indeed their whole tribe. All that remains is to decide their punishment.’ He turned to face Aetius. ‘General, as our guest, whose hosts betrayed your trust, it is for you to recommend an appropriate penalty.’

  ‘Friends and fellow Huns,’ said Aetius, speaking in their language. ‘I feel that I may address you thus, having lived among you as a hostage when a boy. What are we to do with these young men? We could, I suppose, be merciful; many among you may think that their lapse was not so very terrible. Faced suddenly with appalling danger, is it not understandable that untried boys should flee? And should we not on that account forgive them? I say we should do both. Not to understand, not to forgive — that would call for hearts of stone indeed. But’ — Aetius’ gaze moved round his audience, holding it — ‘I say we should also punish. I say this not from any petty personal desire for revenge because their cowardice put my son’s life in danger, but because not to punish them would weaken your clan, and in the end destroy the guilty ones themselves. If out of misguided pity we were to spare them, think of the consequences. Next time a wolverine attacked the goats in his charge, the herd-boy, fearing to face such a terrible animal, might also flee, knowing that he could expect to be excused. The rot would spread like a grassland fire. Courage and hardihood — these are the twin thongs that bind your clan together. Loosen them, and the clan falls apart. Understand that mercy can have cruel consequences.’

  ‘And what punishment would you suggest as fitting?’ asked Rua.

  ‘To remove the cancer that, left untreated, would grow and spread throughout the clan, there can be only one penalty.’

  Mingled with whickers and neighing from horses, a stir and murmur swept round the assembly, then gradually subsided. Rua looked round enquiringly at the members of the tribunal. ‘If any other would speak, let him do so now.’

  ‘Flavius, old friend,’ said Attila in a deep rumble, addressing Aetius rather than the audience, ‘you and I go back a while. We have both seen and done things which at the time seemed past mending, but which in the end came right. Surely, in this special case, mercy could be shown. These lads have learnt their lesson. I would be willing to swear, by my honour and the Sacred Scimitar, that they will never re-offend.’ His broad Mongol features puckered in a frown. ‘When all’s said and done,’ he went on, a hint of appeal creeping into his voice, ‘they’re only boys.’

  Aetius, sitting upright in the saddle, shrugged impassively and remained silent.

  ‘Must all be put to death?’ remonstrated Attila, leaning forward over his horse’s neck. ‘Would it not suffice if lots were drawn?’ The note of entreaty was now unmistakeable. ‘Yesterday, Flavius, you saved my life. Do not make that debt harder to bear by forcing me to plead.’

  Aetius conceded, and so it was decided that lots be drawn. The prisoners’ hands were unbound and a jar containing pebbles — seven black, three white — was passed around them. White meant death. When Barsich’s turn came, his eyes sought Carpilio’s. The boy withdrew his clenched fist from the jar. For a long, agonizing moment the friends’ eyes locked.

  Barsich opened his hand. The stone was white.

  The tribesmen assembled near the top of the cliff to witness the sentence, watched in silence as the three condemned were led towards the five-hundred-foot drop. Two began struggling and crying for their mothers as they were dragged to the edge before being hurled over. Bodies twisting and flailing, they screamed all the way down. Pleading with his guards, Barsich prevailed on them to release him, so that he could die with honour. Freed from their grip, he walked calmly to the lip of the precipice and stepped into the abyss. .

  ‘Did he really have to die, Father?’ Carpilio fought to keep his voice from breaking.

  The general placed a hand on his son’s shoulder, which was shaking with the boy’s suppressed sobs. ‘Some day you’ll understand,’ he said gently. ‘As long as it stays strong and brave, a people will survive. Just so long — no longer. We Romans should remember that.’

  The love and admiration Carpilio felt for his father were joined by a disturbing intruder. Fear.

  FOUR

  Athaulf himself was badly wounded in the assault [on Marseille, in 413], by the valorous Boniface

  Olympiodorus of Thebes, Memoirs, c. 427

  General Flavius Aetius, Master of the Horse in Gaul, second-in-command in Italy, and now (thanks to the hold his Huns had given him over Placidia) Count, was in a sanguine mood as he rode home from the imperial palace. His campaign against Boniface was going better than he’d dared to hope. So well in fact that, less than an hour ago, Placidia had promised him that the imperial summons recalling Boniface from Africa would be on its way by fast courier that very afternoon.

  Boniface: virtual ruler of Africa, and commander of all its forces; terror of the barbarians; friend of the clergy, e
specially Augustine, the saintly Bishop of Hippo; loyal champion of Placidia, sticking by her during her exile in Constantinople and the usurper Ioannes episode. The Count of Africa was now the only obstacle between Aetius and supreme power in the West. It had ever been thus in the Roman world (or in either of the two Roman worlds that now existed), the general reflected. There had never been room for two rivals to co-exist: Scipio v. Cato, Octavian v. Marcus Antonius, Constantine v. Maxentius, Placidia and Valentinian v. Ioannes. And now Aetius v. Boniface. For the victor, either the purple or command of the army. For the loser, death. (A vanquished rival, always a potential focus for disaffection, was too dangerous to be permitted to live.)

  Yet what was at stake was immeasurably more significant than a personal vendetta, Aetius thought, the pounding rhythm of his horse’s hoofbeats somehow conducive to the free flowing of ideas. It involved nothing less than the proper governance, and perhaps even the survival, of the Western Empire. For all his good points (and he had many, Aetius conceded, courage and magnanimity being the most outstanding), Boniface lacked the ruthless will and clarity of vision demanded of whoever ruled the West. His unshakeable loyalty to Placidia would ensure that, should he gain power at the expense of Aetius, he would share it with the Augusta, like some latter-day Mark Antony to Placidia’s Cleopatra. And that would be disastrous for Rome. Placidia’s priorities were narrowly dynastic, and her indulgent treatment of Valentinian, who already showed signs of a weak yet vicious nature, would mean power eventually transferring to an unstable degenerate.

  ‘When did it all go wrong for Rome, old friend?’ he murmured to Bucephalus, feeling the muscles bunch and flow beneath him as the great horse ate up the miles in an effortless canter. ‘You were not born when it started, and I was but a boy.’ His mind flashed back twenty years to that fatal crossing of the Rhenus1 by a Germanic confederation, which had brought about a fundamental change in Rome’s stance regarding the barbarians: accommodation rather than exclusion.

  The consequences today of that mass invasion had been cataclysmic. With its field forces withdrawn to Gaul, Britain was under attack from Saxons, Picts, and Scots from Ireland; Hispania was overrun by Suevi and Vandals and, for the time being at least, virtually lost to the empire. But Africa and Italy were still secure, and so, if precariously, was most of Gaul. It was of vital importance that whoever ruled the West should shape his strategy according to the new realities. Constantius, Honorius’ co-emperor, had coped superbly, pacifying the powerful Visigoths by granting them, after their many years of wandering, a homeland in Aquitania,2 and halting the Burgundian encroachment into imperial territory, just west of the Rhenus. But Constantius was dead these six years, and Rome’s federate ‘guests’ grown restive once again. The former north-south axis of power, Mediolanum to Augusta Treverorum,3 had gone for good, thanks to the increase of Frankish raids into the Belgic provinces. The new axis was east-west, Ravenna to Arelate in Provincia,4 a situation which he, Aetius, was well placed to exploit re his ability to influence the government.

  ‘Who would you choose to rule the West, my beauty,’ he chuckled to Bucephalus, ‘myself or Boniface?’ The horse’s ears pricked up as if in empathy. ‘You might be wise to pick the Count of Africa. For if your master wins, one thing is sure — cavalry will be hard-used as never before.’

  Boniface was the last person who should hold the reins of power. His approach to dealing with barbarians was head-on confrontation, an outdated strategy almost bound to fail. The tribes settled within the empire were too entrenched and numerous to be removed by force — unless the West received massive military backing from the East. Which wasn’t going to happen; those days had ended with the death of Theodosius. He, Aetius, on the other hand knew barbarians, having in his boyhood been a hostage first of Alaric, then of the Huns. He could sense when it was politic to make concessions to them and when to apply pressure, the right moment to be diplomatic, or to take an uncompromising stand. And he fully grasped one all-important fact: the power of barbarians could often be neutralized by pitting them against each other; Huns against Visigoths, Visigoths against Suevi, et cetera. This called for skill and cunning based on understanding of the barbarian mind — something he, Aetius, possessed in abundance, his rival not at all. Boniface was good at killing barbarians; of handling them, he knew little and cared less.

  As in a game of ludus latrunculorum or ‘soldiers’, Aetius reviewed the relative strengths and weaknesses of himself and his rival as regards the coming struggle. On the surface, Boniface appeared to have one supreme advantage, the confidence of Placidia. But Boniface was in Africa, whereas Aetius was here in Ravenna, able to exert all his considerable charm and powers of persuasion to poison the Augusta’s mind against her favourite. By posing as her devoted friend and ally (even to the extent of being pleasant to the royal bratling), he had, over the past few weeks, gradually melted her hostility and won her trust. This had enabled him to undermine Boniface by means of hints and innuendo, reporting ‘rumours’ that he was secretly plotting against her and stirring up sedition among courtiers and army officers. And his efforts had now been crowned with success, it would seem.

  Boniface was too honourable and trusting for his own good, Aetius thought with a twinge of conscience. Totally loyal and incorruptible himself, the Count of Africa was naive enough to ascribe those qualities to those in whom he put his trust. What he failed to understand — and herein lay his great weakness — was that most men (and women) were weak and could be manipulated, given enough pressure or inducement. Yes, politics was a dirty game; there were times when Aetius found it hard to avoid feeling self-disgust at his involvement in its machinations. But the end, so long as it merited achievement, could usually be made to justify the means, even when that involved deceit and betrayal. And, if he were honest, Aetius loved it all: the excitement of pitting his cunning and resources against a worthy adversary; the thrill of combat; the heady joy of victory.

  Arriving at his villa, Aetius flung Bucephalus’ reins to a groom, and strode through the suite of halls to the tablinum — more office than library, in his case. As usual, the place was in chaos, with books, papers, and accoutrements, scattered everywhere in disorder. Not that he could blame the house-slaves; he had given strict orders that, basic cleaning apart, the room should remain undisturbed in order to preserve the integrity of his ‘system’. The books were mainly on military matters: Vegetius (an idiot who conflated tactics from the time of Trajan and Hadrian with those of the present); On Matters of Warfare, an interesting treatise by an anonymous author on army reform, advocating greater use of machines to save manpower; a precious copy (updated) of the Notitia dignitatum, a government list of all key offices of state for both empires, including military posts and the units under their command.

  Now for the second part of his campaign against Boniface. Dropping his sword-belt over a bust of the Count (Aetius believed in the principle ‘Know your enemy’), he made to call for his secretary, then changed his mind. What he intended committing to papyrus was so perilous that it was best not seen by any eyes but his own and the recipient’s. Rummaging among the clutter, he finally located pen, ink, and scroll, then began to write.

  The task completed, Aetius cast about in his mind for a suitable person to deliver the letter. Someone utterly reliable, discreet, and a good rider. It was essential, of course, that his message reach Boniface before Placidia’s. He had it: Titus, the perfect choice. The lad was an excellent horseman, of proven loyalty, and of an unquestioning nature. He dispatched a slave to summon the lad.

  ‘Ah, Titus Valerius, I’ve an important job for you. Ever been to Africa?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘You’ll like it. Nice people, good climate, no barbarians. You’ll deliver a letter to Boniface. In person — that’s absolutely vital. You should find him in Bulla Regia or Sufetula.’5

  ‘Boniface?’

  ‘The Count of Africa. One of the finest generals Rome’s ever produced — I say nothing
of myself, of course. Working together, the two of us could revive Rome’s fortune’s in the West. Now, details. Here’s a travel warrant from the Master of Offices, valid for Africa as well as Italy. It’ll let you change saddle horses at the imperial post’s relay stations. Ariminum-Rome-Capua-Rhegium-Messana-Lilybaeum-Carthage, that’s your route. Take passage on the fastest vessels you can find for the crossings. Time is of the essence, you understand. Cash: this purse of solidi should more than cover your expenses. Any questions?’

  Surveying the latest batch of recruits standing by their mounts for morning inspection, the senior ducenarius of Vexillatio ‘Equites Africani’ groaned to himself. A poor, scratch lot, thought Proximo, who had been a centurion of the old Twentieth when it was recalled from Britain for the defence of Italy. In Proximo’s view, these new units — vexillationes (cavalry) and auxilia (infantry) — couldn’t hold a candle to the old legions, half of whose men had been wiped out during the Gothic Wars and which were now in process of being phased out. His present unit had been raised from the notoriously inferior frontier troops, and upgraded to field status in the Army of Africa. At least the horses were good quality — better than the men — though of the chunky Parthian type the Roman stablemasters would insist on sending. More sensible to use the local African breeds, which were small and wiry, but better adapted to the heat. He sighed; some things the army never seemed to learn.

  Rising above the east curtain-wall of Castellum Nigrum — one of the chain of forts established by Diocletian to check raiding Moors and Berbers — the sun flooded the parade-ground with harshly brilliant light, instantly raising sweat on men and mounts. The valves of the south gate creaked open to admit the day’s first supply-cart, disclosing a vista of irrigated vineyards and olive groves stretching away towards the distant snow-capped peak of Jurjura, thrusting above the blue rampart of the Lesser Atlas. An arresting, vivid scene, Proximo conceded, but not to be compared with the softer beauty of the British landscape. Oh, for just one glimpse of the silver Deva6 winding through green meadows, with the mist-veiled Cambrian hills lifting to the west!