There came the stir of a breeze and a sliver of sunlight across the fields, and then out of the wind-thinned mist on the hill, figures came tumbling back down the slopes on the Hunnish side. Ponies rolled over and over, warriors staggered with their own arrows plucked from their quivers and driven through their torc-decorated throats. The mist thinned further, and it was a rout. The Visigoths’ white horses reared up against the eastern sunlight, snorting, magnificent, triumphant, swords circling overhead and flashing silver in the morning air, and the Hunnish archers broke and fled.
‘Palatine Guard, second cohort!’ roared Aetius. ‘Consolidate the position on that hill! Improvise brakes, trenches, whatever it takes. That hill is ours and it stays ours. Move it! You’ve got about five minutes before the shooting starts.’
The black-armoured Palatine Guard ran as swiftly as four hundred Achilles over the wet fields to the hill and up, while the wolf-lords drove the dispossessed Huns all the way back to their own jeering lines.
‘Call them back, Sire!’ Aetius galloped over to King Theodoric, who was by now firmly seated on what looked like an eighteen-hand ploughhorse, in a huge and elaborate carved and painted wooden saddle with solid gold finials, thoroughly enjoying the grandstand view of his wolf-lords’ heroics.
‘Your Majesty, call them back! The Hun archers will kill them all when they come in range.’
‘Nonsense,’ bawled Theodoric. ‘Let them have their glory. My son Torismond is a fine lad, is he not?’
Aetius could hardly bear to look. Yet even though they rode as near as eighty or seventy yards to the Hun lines, the wolf-lords took not a single hit, veering away well after the last moment and galloping back round the hill towards their own lines. They returned to festive cheering as if they were all at an afternoon of the games and their chariot team had just won. King Theodoric’s voice sounded most loudly of all, as he cuffed his boy jovially round the head.
Now the dispositions of the two opposing armies were clear.
Attila had concentrated his own warriors in the centre, with the Kutrigur Huns to his right, their flank protected by a lesser river, and other peoples to the left and behind. At least a mile back or more were his baggage wagons and the non-combatants; for the women and children had followed even here to spectate at this great day in the People’s history.
Aetius’ dispositions were more complex. He had placed Sangiban and his three thousand Alans at the centre – as promised. They were dismounted, their long lances set in the ground like pikes. Behind them were ranged his best field-army legions, the Herculians, Batavians and Cornuti Seniores, and held in deep reserve were the remaining cohorts of the Palatine Guard. On the left wing he had his Augustan Horse, themselves saved from outflanking by the presence of the hill, along with the last few centuries of the frontier legions, excepting only the XII Fulminata, the Lightning Boys. Them Aetius had despatched up to the hill to dig in their sling-machines and arrow-firers behind the fierce ranks of staves and trenches that the Palatine Guard would already have established. Only lightweight field artillery, but very effective from that commanding height.
On the far right of the Roman field was the great, fifteen-thousand-strong wing of the Visigothic nation. Among the many brightly coloured pennants decorated with Christian symbols could still glimpsed the occasional likeness of a raven: Odin’s bird. Before them lay all the space of the desolate plain in which to arc out wide and scythe into the vast war machine opposite. They had already identified the banners of the Black Boar: the Vandals.
Theodoric nodded gravely, gazing across at those fated ensigns from under his bushy white brows. ‘So let it be, for weal or woe,’ he rumbled. ‘Let us have one afternoon of righteous happiness, before our long evening-time of sorrow.’
He summoned his sons alongside him, and laid his hand on his armoured breast; the princes did likewise. Beneath their bronze cuirasses, father and sons each wore a silver locket containing a single lock of a young girl’s fair, fair hair. They clasped their right hands together. For them, this battle was not about the future of the world.
The sun was rising fast in the eastern sky, flashing on shields and swords. Aetius rode ceaselessly among his lines on his white horse. He gave many curt orders but no great oration. There were multiple motives and loyalties here today – all nations from the Volga to the Atlantic were present. But he spoke to each legion and body of men in turn, and saw resolution in every face.
Across from them, a mile off at most, was the army of Attila. It was impossible to count, but the Romans were probably outnumbered five to one. Yet it was only the second time that Attila had faced a professional army on an open battlefield – and the first time he had faced a commander who knew how to win. Already the Huns, and their less committed followers even more so, were haunted by a deep fear that the might of Rome remained intact, despite all assurances of decadence and decline.
The sun rode higher, the plain burning clear of mist. It was the perfect terrain for the lightning attack of the Hun horsemen with their lethal arrow-storm. But Attila did nothing. He sat his muddy skewbald pony like a stone horseman, staring across at his adversary, the great Master-General Aetius, as he tirelessly worked his lines.
‘Great Tanjou,’ said Chanat, coming alongside him.
Attila did not react for a long time. Then he said something about how even an ancient and ivy-grown castle can still resist attack if its walls are strong.
‘My lord?’
‘But no matter.’ He turned to Chanat and showed his teeth. ‘My guide Enkhtuya has examined the entrails. “Today, the leader of your enemies will die in battle”: there is a simple and straightforward prophecy for you, old Chanat.’ He gazed out over the field again. ‘Aetius’ day is almost ended,’ and he struck his fist upon his saddle so that his horse harrumphed and shifted.
‘Then let us fight, Great Tanjou. It is time.’
Attila nodded. ‘My order is coming.’
‘General Aetius, sir. War-band approaching from the north.’
Aetius sighed. Another little volunteer force to mess up his lines. He could do without them, frankly. He rode around the back of his lines and skirted the hill.
Across the sunlit farmland came a neat column of, at most, two hundred men, spears to the sky. Aetius’ heart stirred, despite his more rational reservations. Two hundred, coming to fight two hundred thousand. Here was valour.
As they drew nearer he saw the leader of the column, a broad-shouldered fellow with a white beard. He gasped.
The leader reined in and nodded. ‘Master-General Aetius of the Romans. Ciddwmtarth of the western Celts and his knights, at your service.’
Aetius tried to speak but could find no words, could only seize Lucius’ arm in its studded leather vambrace.
The old soldier’s eyes twinkled in his lined face to see this famously stern Roman general so moved. He had a heart after all.
‘Gallant little Britain comes riding to rescue all of Europe from the hand of tyranny and the Hun.’ Lucius’ voice was deep and dry indeed.
Aetius spoke with deep sincerity. ‘You are welcome, friend, welcome. You asked for our aid and got none. Now you come riding to our aid unbidden.’ He shook his head.
Lucius said nothing.
‘Are your people safe while you are gone?’
‘There will be more fighting to be done upon our return,’ said Lucius laconically.
Aetius recovered himself. ‘This will not be forgotten.’ He looked at the man riding behind Lucius: perhaps fifty or so but his hair still dark, his face unlined, his brown eyes observing this exchange with quiet attentiveness. ‘And you. You are…?’
The man nodded. ‘My name is Cadoc, son of Ciddwmtarth.’ And he smiled. Yes, fate was strange.
‘To think,’ Aetius murmured, shaking his head again, ‘to think, there were once four boys who played together on a Scythian plain. A Roman and a Hun, and Greek and Celtic slaves.’