And we sit and fester, brooded Aetius: Africa uncaptured, the empire slowly starving to death, and our offer of aid turned down by Theodosius, the scholar-emperor. Perhaps he was riding to war against the Huns even now, his head full of Homer’s hexameters. O Christ, our Saviour… Aetius thought of the Hun horses, their heads like bullock-heads, battering down men and walls in a ceaseless charge, men flying apart, lines of lightly armed Greek peltasts fleeing before their furious onslaught. In his dreams sometimes he saw those horses of the Asiatic steppes galloping down on him, screaming, their faceless riders lashing them forwards without mercy, their mouths curled back against the cruel bit, tongues lolling, the very teeth of those brute-headed horses smeared with blood… But one rider was not faceless. One rider’s face he knew of old.
3
Aetius could wait no longer for news of the great confrontation between Attila and the Eastern Field Army. It might be days yet, even weeks, and the thought of it made him horribly uneasy, with a prophetic unease.
‘I am very displeased,’ said Valentinian. His eyes were narrow and darting and dull with broken sleep and haunted dreams.
‘Neverthless, Majesty, I beg you will release me to sail east.’
‘And I am very mistrustful.’
Aetius said nothing.
‘You will take no legions, nor ships from Sicily.’
Aetius bowed.
‘And what of those oafish Visigoth friends of yours? I said I would not have them on the soil of Italy.’
Aetius could have reminded Valentinian that his mother, Galla Placidia, had once been married to a certain Athaulf the Goth. But he thought better of it.
He said, ‘The Princes Theodoric and Torismond and their one thousand wolf-lords are stationed at Massilia, with their father’s blessing. They would not have sailed with me against their Germanic kinsmen the Vandals, of course. But they would willingly sail with me east to fight their ancient enemy the Huns.’
‘You’re welcome to them. Perhaps they will not return. ’
‘I still believe, Majesty, that the Visigoths might yet prove our greatest allies.’
Valentinian took a sudden, close interest in a loose thread in the hem of his robe.
Eventually, Aetius said, ‘Majesty?’
He looked up testily. ‘Yes, yes, go, then. But I may not want you back.’
Aetius almost smiled. Oh yes you will, he thought.
‘Take this,’ said Galla. She pressed a small, leather-bound book into his hands. It was a rich psaltery, most delicately illustrated.
He refused it. ‘Salt water,’ he said, ‘would ruin it.’
‘Then keep it well protected.’
‘And if we go to the bottom?’
There was a lost look in her eyes. Then she leaned up and kissed him. ‘Take it,’ she said.
He rode fast westwards to Mediolanum and on to Massilia, cursing Valentinian at every milepost. He took only his boy optio, Rufus, who chattered excitedly much of the way. How large is Constantinople? What is the food like? Do they still have gladiatorial combats there? Aetius told him Constantinople was much like Rome, except it didn’t smell so bad.
On the edge of the great port of Massilia he found the Visigothic princes in a fine villa, their wolf-lords’ tents spread across parklands, vineyards, half a hillside. The villa was half-wrecked, the adolescents dishevelled, red-faced and hung over from last night’s debauch. He gave them a talking-to. They hung their heads. He said he would be sailing on the evening tide and if they weren’t ready, prepared and sober, he would sail without them.
‘Sailing?’ said Torismond, looking anxious.
These steppe horsemen. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve never been on a ship before?’
They hadn’t. They thought they would be riding east, a thousand of them in gorgeous panoply, to fight the Huns on the Pannonian plain.
‘Nope. You’re sailing east to Constantinople, under my command. Just fifty of you and your horses. The rest of your wolf-lords can head back to Tolosa. There’ll be no more room aboard. Ship’s only small.’
Torismond swallowed.
‘Be ready.’
Aetius commandeered two naval ships, a fast Liburnian, the Cygnus, and a round-bellied cargo ship which would do for a horse-transporter.
The two princes, the sons of Thunder, were there with their fifty as ordered.
‘Some in Massilia said we’ll never get through. They said the Vandals were the masters of your Mare Nostrum now,’ said Torismond.
Aetius eyed him. ‘By “some in Massilia”, I assume you mean a bunch of Cretan sailors, drunk in a whorehouse?’
Torismond said nothing.
‘We’ll get through,’ said Aetius.
The wind was steady but not strong enough to whip up too big a swell. Torismond and Theodoric both looked sea-green at times on that first day, but managed not to vomit. The horses were calm in the following transport ship.
How good it was to sail. To be moving towards some appointed destination at last. Aetius stood at the prow of the Cygnus, heart racing, thinking of all the glorious works and days of man. The lethal underwater ram surged forward through the low swell, the sea arching back over it in slow curls. Slaves strained at the oars down below the fly deck, great firwood oars kept white and smooth with pumice and the scouring salt-waves. Aetius could hear their leathery creak in the thole-pins, between the beats of the hortator ’s hammer on the drum. Just below him hung the iron anchor, dripping, still trailing weed from Massilia. The immense red-and-white-striped sail hung from the topspar, catching a strong north-westerly and bellying out in the wind. Salt spray dashed in his face, dried and crusted on his cheek. He inhaled deeply. Now that he had decided upon a course of action, there was no stopping him.
The princes came to him.
‘Sir,’ said the quietly spoken Theodoric respectfully, ‘we are only fifty. The Huns number many thousands.’
Aetius nodded. ‘Half a million, rumours say. When rumours give you numbers, always divide by ten.’
‘So they still outnumber us a thousand to one.’
‘You’re a Visigothic Pythagoras.’ Aetius grinned. ‘I’m not expecting you to defeat Attila on your own, boy.’ He cursed himself inwardly for calling the prince a boy, and vowed not to do it again. Theodoric was no boy. ‘Our first task is to… liaise with Emperor Theodosius, make our peace, offer him our services. We’ll wait for news of the Eastern Field Army, and be ready to move fast.’
‘You mean you expect their field army to be destroyed? ’
Aetius said nothing.
‘And their generals with it? So you’re going to have to take command?’
‘What, no fighting?’ cried Torismond.
Now he was still a boy. For him, fighting meant fun.
‘Oh, there’ll be fighting,’ said Aetius. ‘Never you worry.’
At twilight, the rowers stood down to eat and sleep, curled up like dogs beneath the benches, and the second batch took their place on the blistering oars. The hortator ’s relentless beat continued, his hourglass running. Master-General Aetius himself had given the order to make all speed for the east.
The second day the wind came on stronger, the light ship bucking and rearing. Cat’s claws raked over the surface of the sea, and spray flew back from bow-waves half the length of the ship. The huge sail, much repaired, snapped back and forth as the wind grew unsteady and they altered course to meet it. Behind them the sky was darkening over Gaul.
Aetius knelt down beside Torismond, who was sprawled on the deck beside the mainmast, clutching it in both arms, vomit staining a shirt-front finely embroidered by his beloved mother.
‘Storm coming,’ said Aetius cheerfully. ‘Summer storms are always the worst.’
A little cruel, but the plain truth. The lad would get inured to the sea either fast or not at all. His elder brother, meanwhile, Prince Theodoric, had donned his royal gold fillet, despite the sailors’ looks and muffled jeers, wearing it as if to remind the insolent sea of his royal blood and his direct descent from the divine Odin and Nerthus, the Earth Mother. He paced the length of the ship ceaselessly, jaw clenched, hands behind his back, a rigid regal bearing, saying nothing. As terrifed as his younger brother, clearly, but determined to master it. He was quite a fellow. One day he would be a great king.