The Scourge of God Read online

  “It’s just as I have tried to tell them—”

  Aetius stiffened as if coming to attention and thumped himself on the chest with his fist. “What is in your nest, tribune?”

  “In it?” Again, Stenis looked confused. “The garrison, of course. Some are sick, many on leave, but if we have time enough—”

  “What is within is what makes reputation. None dare disturb a wasp’s nest, because behind its paper wall is a deadly sting. The smallest child could pierce a wasp fort, but even the bravest warrior will hesitate to do so. Why? Because of the fierce sentries inside. Those insects are your lesson! Sharpen your weapons against the Hun!”

  “Attila? What have you heard?”

  What indeed? Rumors, warnings, and observations that his strange dwarf spy had scribbled on scraps of paper and sent to him from Attila’s camp. Did they mean anything? Was Attila increasingly studying the West? Had the disgruntled Frank named Cloda really fled to Attila to demand support for his claim to the throne of his people?

  “Make your men into wasps, soldier, before it is too late.”

  X

  KING OF THE HUNS

  Romans are coming!”

  The words were like flame in a darkened room. “An army?” Ilana asked.

  “Just an embassy,” the cook reported.

  The captive’s heart sank as quickly as it had soared, and yet still it hammered in her breast like an anxious bird. At last, the slimmest connection to home! Since the sack of Axiopolis and the death of her father, Ilana had felt fogged in a vast and noisy Underworld, a migrating Hun capital of unruly children, barking dogs, submissive women, smoke, dirt, and grass. She was only beginning to understand their harsh language, brutal customs, and sour food. The shock of her city’s massacre was with her at every moment like the pain of a broken heart, and the uncertainty of her future kept her anxious and sleepless. The dull work she was assigned failed to distract her.

  Her situation was better than that of many captives, she knew. Her assignment as handmaiden to Suecca, one of the wives of the chieftain Edeco who had conquered her city, had protected her from the enslavement, rape, and beating that some prisoners had to endure. The Hun Skilla, who had carried her here, had treated her with respect on the journey and made plain his interest in a wife. Ilana knew he had saved her life in the massacre at Axiopolis, and he brought her small presents of clothing and food, a generosity that gave her subtle status but also filled her with uncertainty. She didn’t want to marry a Hun! Yet without his favor she was little more than chattel, a prize to be traded. She’d pushed away his early clumsy advances and then felt guilty about it afterward, as if she’d swatted a pesky dog. He’d responded with hurt, amusement, and persistence. He’d warned other men away from her, which was a relief, but it was also a relief when he disappeared with Edeco on a mission to Constantinople.

  Now Romans, real Romans, had come, back with Skilla and Edeco. Not traitorous Romans like Constantius who served as Attila’s secretary, or the strategist Oenegius, who had tried to pretend to civilization by having a slave engineer build him a stone bathhouse, or the lieutenant Onegesh who had been sent south with Edeco. No, these were Romans from the Eastern emperor himself, representing civilization, faith, and order.

  “Please, Suecca, can we go watch?” pleaded Guernna, a German captive with long blond braids and impish restlessness. Any task, no matter how light, was daunting to her lazy nature. “I want to see their clothes and horses!”

  “What have the lot of you done to deserve to gape and jabber?” groused Suecca, who, despite her grumbling, was not an unkind mistress. “You’ve enough undone embroidery to last a year, not to mention having drawn neither wood nor water.”

  “Which is exactly why the sewing can wait!” reasoned Guernna. “Look at sad Ilana there, so quiet as she stitches. Some excitement might wake her up! Come, Suecca, come look with us! Maybe Edeco is bringing presents!”

  “Romans are no more special than sheep,” Suecca said. Nonetheless, she relented. “Go see them if you must and I’ll look for my lout of a husband, if I can even remember what he looks like. Just remember that you are of the house of Edeco, so don’t chirp like a nest of senseless chicks. The hearth of the warlord has dignity!”

  The handmaidens ran, Ilana among them. Just the physical release from Edeco’s wooden compound was enough to pierce her fog. A tide of inhabitants was rushing with them, all curious to see this latest in the steady parade of kings, princes, generals, and soothsayers who came to pay court to the great Attila. Someday, Ilana prayed, Romans would come in real numbers and put an end to her captivity.

  Edeco she recognized almost immediately, leading the procession with his horsehair spirit banner held high, allowing just the slightest grin to crack the reserve of his ritually scarred face as he spotted his wife Suecca. Close behind came Onegesh with his paler face, who nonetheless rode with an ease and satisfaction that sometimes made him seem more Hun than the Huns. Finally came Skilla, straight and proud, as if merely visiting the Empire had granted him new status. When his eye triumphantly caught hers, it lit with recognition and possession. She flushed with confusion. He was not ugly like many of the Huns and was quite earnest in his attentions, but he didn’t understand that to her eyes he was a barbarian responsible for the destruction of her city; the death of her betrothed love, Tasio; and the end of her dreams. “That is gone" he had told her. “Now you will be happiest if you pair with me"

  Behind the Huns came the Romans. At the sight of them, her heart lifted a little. The man in front had draped his riding clothes with the complex ceremonial folds of the ancient toga; and she guessed that he was the lead ambassador, perhaps a minister or senator. Those following did not appear to have his importance, but she eagerly studied them as a reminder of home. Two were in the court dress of aides or interpreters. The shorter man looked uneasily at the throng of Huns as if he feared being found out. The other, who sat straighter and had a pleasanter, more friendly face, kept his eyes carefully ahead as if not to offend anyone. There was also a handsome young man of her age in slightly finer clothes, who peered about with a look of alert and innocent curiosity. He seemed young to have earned a place in an imperial embassy.

  The Romans’ slaves and pack train were diverted to open grass near the Tisza River that had been reserved for their camping space, deliberately positioned downhill from Attila’s own compound. Edeco led the diplomatic contingent itself farther into the vast sea of yurts, huts, cabins, and wooden palaces that rambled on the eastern bank of the Tisza for two miles, representing a central guard of at least ten thousand warriors. Small villages of allied tribes clustered around this crude city like moons circling a planet. The curious crowd moved with the diplomats, flowing around houses like water and chanting greetings to the Hun warlords and good-natured taunts to the Romans. Children ran, dogs barked, and tethered horses whinnied and snorted at the embassy’s ponies as they passed, the ponies in turn jerking their necks up and down as if in greeting.

  As the Romans and their escort approached the stockade of Attila’s compound, Ilana saw that the king’s own wives and maids had come out in proud procession under the cloud of cloth, a ceremony she had now seen several times. The tallest and fairest formed two rows, and between their up-stretched arms they carried a long runner of white linen, wide and long enough that seven girls walked beneath. All bore flowers that they cast at the ambassadorial party, filling the air with Scythian song. Maids lifted bowls of food to Edeco and his companions, and the barbarian lieutenants gravely ate while sitting on their horses—the consumption acknowledgment of Attila’s sovereignty, just as Communion was acknowledgment in Ilana’s world of the sovereignty of Christ.

  The Romans were given nothing.

  They waited patiently.

  She noticed that the handsome young man was looking curiously at the horsehair banners before each yurt or house. Each of these spirit banners was made from the hairs of favorite stallions. The richer the owner in h
orses, the thicker his banner. On the other side of each doorway were horse skulls of favorite past steeds mounted on poles as protection against evil spirits, their large teeth set in permanent grins and their eye sockets empty. Also staked near each house were hides and meat drying on racks, a cloud of flies around each. Mounted on either side of the gate of Attila’s own house were two stuffed and snarling badgers, the king’s totem. Watching the newcomer take it all in, Ilana was reminded of the powerful stink that had seemed overwhelming to her when first brought to this place: an odor of musty bodies, horses, manure, cut grass, strange spices, and a sallow fog of cooking fires. The Huns believed their odor was an emanation of their souls, and instead of a kiss or a handshake they often greeted each other with a sniff, like friendly dogs. It had taken Ilana a month to get used to their smell.

  The Roman’s gaze eventually came to rest on her and she saw him pause with interest for a moment, a reaction from men she’d enjoyed before. He registered her beauty as if startled, and she liked to think she still looked Roman, not barbarian. Then his inspection moved on to other people but once or twice returned in her direction, trying to pretend his gaze was casual but nonetheless determined to seek her out.

  For the first time since her capture, Ilana felt a glimmer of hope.

  And so I, Jonas, came to Attila’s palace. It was modest by Roman standards but still more magnificent than I’d expected. I wasn’t sure if I’d find the king of the Huns in a tent, hut, or golden palace, but his principal and least temporary headquarters was somewhat between: made of wood but of superior craftsmanship. The Huns, I realized, were caught halfway between their migratory origins and a settled existence, and their city displayed this awkward transition. Yurts, wagons, log cabins, and wattle-and-daub houses all served as homes, scattered haphazardly.

  I had already noticed the fondness of Hun warriors for gold jewelry, elaborately styled bridles and harness, fine saddles, and weapons inlaid with silver and jewels. Their boot buckles were apt to be of silver and their waistbands of silk. Now I saw that the women were even more elaborately decorated. Their necklaces and intricate belts were draped over embroidered dresses that came in a hundred colors, meaning I watched goat girls chase their flocks in gowns threaded with silver. Their hair was braided and fenced with circlets of gold on their brows. Gold clasps designed like cicadas held the garments of the queens and princesses at each shoulder, and belt ends looped and dangled to their ankles, the entire length sparkling with metal and jewels. Some of their necklaces fanned from neck to breast as intricately and thickly as a sheath of mail.

  Wooden structures showed similar craftsmanship, the timber hauled from long distances and the logs and boards carefully dressed and carved. Attila’s palace was finer yet: the planks of its stockade as straight and close fitting as a floor; its guard towers boasting complex balustrades; and the grand home itself as intricate as a jewel box, every board polished to a warm red sheen. Porticos gave shelter on its sides; outbuildings lined the stockade walls; stepping-stones provided pathways across the mud; and ovens, storerooms, cellars, and wells made the complex self-sufficient against attack. Window grilles, rafter ends, and eaves bore carvings of horses, birds, and dragons.

  “German craftsmanship, done by captives,” Rusticius said quietly. “The Huns themselves disdain construction labor. They can’t even make bread.”

  This palace was one of a half dozen such compounds Attila had scattered along the rivers of the Hunuguri plain, Bigilas told us, but this house was reputedly the most impressive. Circling the great hall was a small forest of staffs bearing horsehair banners representing the Hun clans. Again, each staff was topped by the skulls of royalty’s noblest and best-loved horses.

  More disquieting were poles that bore human skulls.

  “What are those?” I whispered.

  “Vanquished enemies,” said Bigilas.

  Each was mounted on a spear tip with the flesh allowed to rot away naturally. By now, most of the heads had been eaten by the crows down to bone, topped only by a few shreds of flesh and strands of hair that fluttered in the wind.

  Just as odd were the curiously misshapen heads of some of the Huns. I noticed it first among the bareheaded children and thought that perhaps they were simply imbeciles, malformed at birth. Their foreheads seemed twice normal height, sweeping backward from their faces, so that their heads came to a kind of rounded peak. Politeness forbade me to comment, but then I saw the same feature on some of the male warriors and even on their women. Add this deformity to their swarthy complexion; dark hair; ritual scars; and small, squinting eyes, and the result was a terrifying visage.

  “What has happened to these poor people?” I asked Rusticius.

  “Poor? They wear more gold than I will ever see.”

  “I mean their heads. They look like the kinds of babies best left on a slope.”

  He laughed. “It’s a sign of beauty among these monsters! Some of them flatten their heads deliberately when the bone is soft at birth. They lash a board and tighten the thongs while the baby howls. They think such deformity attractive.” We finally dismounted just steps from the palace porch and Edeco, Onegesh, and Skilla led our little party of Romans into the rectangular great hall of Attila’s palace. This reception area was modest by imperial standards, just large enough to hold perhaps a hundred people, and had a wooden floor strewn with carpets and a timbered ceiling that peaked about thirty feet high. This, apparently, was Attila’s throne room. Tapestries and captured legionary standards decorated the walls, and small grilled windows let in a modest amount of light. Armed guards stood in the corners and Hun nobles sat cross-legged on the carpets of both sides, the men short, swarthy, and apelike. My childhood idea of barbarians—tall and graceful black Nubians or strapping blond Germans— had been corrupted. These men seemed more like gnomes, squeezed down into compact balls of hard muscle. If anything, this density made them more menacing. They watched us with narrow eyes, their noses broad and flat and their mouths tight and expressionless. Each had a sword by his side and bow and arrows laid against the wall behind him. They seemed as cocked as the trigger of a crossbow.

  In the shadows at the far end of the room, on an elevated platform, was a single man, sitting in a plain wooden chair, without weapon, crown, or decoration. A curtain of tapestries hung behind him. This was the king of the Huns? The most powerful man in the world seemed a disappointment.

  Attila was more plainly dressed than anyone, his torso erect and his feet firmly planted. Like all Huns he was short legged and long waisted, his head unusually large for the length of his body, and so motionless that he might have been carved from wood. He was, as reputation suggested, a somewhat ugly man: flat nose, eyes so deep set that they seemed to peer from caves, and the ritual cheek scarring that marked so many Huns. Had Attila cut himself after murdering his brother?

  The king’s wispy mustache drooped in what I had come to think of as the Hunnish frown, and his beard was scraggly and flecked with gray. Yet his gaze was focused and penetrating; his brow large; and his cheekbones and chin hard and pronounced, resulting in a visage that was undeniably commanding. His physique added to his presence. His shoulders were broad and his waist narrow, making him—at forty-four years—as fit as a soldier of twenty. His hands were large and looked as brown and gnarled as exposed roots, the fingers gripping the arms of his chair as if to prevent himself from levitating. There was nothing on his person to give any mark of authority, and yet without saying a word or moving a muscle he commanded the room as naturally as a matriarch dominates a chamber of children. Attila has slain a hundred men and ordered the slaying of a hundred thousand more, and all that blood had given him presence and power.

  There was a gigantic iron sword behind him, resting horizontally on two golden pegs. It was rusty and dark, as if of great antiquity, its edge jagged. It was so enormous—it would reach from my feet to my cheek—that it seemed made more for a giant than a man.

  Maximinus noticed it, too. �
�Is that the sword of Mars?” he murmured to Bigilas. “It would be like trying to swing a roof beam.”

  “The story is that it was found near the banks of the Tisza when a cow cut her hoof on something sharp in the grass,” Bigilas answered quietly. “The herdsman alerted Attila, who had it dug out and shrewdly pronounced it a sign of favor from the gods. His men are superstitious enough to believe it.”

  We were waiting for a sign of what to do, and suddenly Attila spoke without preamble—not to us but to his lieutenant. “I sent you to get a treaty and treasure, Edeco, and you have brought me only men.” His voice was low but not unpleasant, a quiet strength to his tone, but his displeasure was obvious. He wanted gold, not an embassy.

  “The Romans insisted on addressing you directly, my kagan,” the warlord answered. “Apparently they found my conversation lacking, or felt they had to explain their recalcitrance in person. At any rate, they’ve brought you presents.”

  “As well as our emperor’s wish for peace and understanding,” Maximinus added hastily as this was translated. “For too long we’ve been at odds with the king of the Huns.” Attila studied us like a lion stalking a herd. “We are not at odds,” he finally said. “We have an understanding, ratified by treaty, that I have beaten you as I have beaten every army I’ve encountered, and that you are to pay tribute to me. Yet always the tribute is late or too small or in base coins when what I demanded was gold. Is this not true, ambassador? Do I have to come myself to Constantinople to get what is rightfully mine? If so, it will be with more warriors than there are blades of grass on the steppe.” His tone was a growl of warning, and the warlords who were watching buzzed like the warning hum of the hive.