As we came near a large, plain black tent in the heart of the camp, a woman appeared from inside. And what a woman. Perhaps fifty years old, immensely graceful, with high cheekbones, a red silk veil drawn back over her slim shoulders, and wearing a diadem of astonishing richness, of hammered sheet gold ornamented with Indian almandines. I do not think the diadem was paid for.
We dismounted and bowed low. She was Queen Checa, Attila’s wife. His first wife, that is – he had many more, and countless concubines. All round the central circle of the camp were huge wooden wagons, those ships of the steppes, laden with decorated copper cauldrons, rolls of the finest silks and stuffs, and even occasional marble statues. A smaller, lighter wagon, guarded by two burly fellows who looked like brothers, bore Far Eastern saddle ornaments, fabulous reins decorated with gold cloisons and Indian gemstones, Pontic crowns and oval Sarmatian mirrors; tethered to the wagon was a pair of grey riding-horses branded with Turkic tangas. What a motley, magpie people, yet they had raided and looted their way across half the world.
Then word came to us. The Great Tanjou had returned. We unbuckled our weapons and left them in a heap.
Attila received us in his black tent supported on carved and polished wooden columns and hung with animal skins. He was seated on a barbarically carved wooden throne. The warriors about him were outlandishly accoutred in Chinese silks and fur head-dresses, their cheeks scarred with blue tattoos, but Attila himself was simply dressed, with a hatchet in his belt. A powerfully built man of medium height, with the scarred cheeks of his people, muscular forearms corded with ropy veins, and messily scarred, I noticed, from fighting in many furious battles. He had a strong and bony nose, leonine eyes glittering beneath lowered brows, face weathered and wind-furrowed, and he was leaning forwards slightly, stroking his wispy grey beard, a glimmer of something like amusement in his eyes. But none of this captures the spirit of the man. He radiated a terrifying force, the kind that turns to fury in a moment. Being close to him was like trying to find rest on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Had he turned and looked at me, my eyes would have dropped away instantly. Few men could meet that gaze.
Chrysaphius bowed lowest.
‘The Emperor of the East, the Viceroy of God, the Divine Theodosius, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and his subjects, the Senate and the people of Rome, wish upon you health, happiness and length of days.’
Attila smiled and said, ‘I wish upon the Romans whatever they truly wish upon me.’
Slaves came forward and presented the gifts we had brought: furs and silver goblets, dates and pepper. Attila received them without thanks.
We dined on juicy steaks cut from the croups of grass-fattened horses, and freshly slaughtered sheep and cows, roasted whole. It would have been impolitic to enquire at what livestock market such excellent meat was purchased. We lay on couches, Roman style, drinking from the finest goblets. The Huns themselves sat cross-legged, or upright on benches. Attila ate only meat from a plain wooden platter. Conversation was stilted but innocuous. Attila spoke very little. Only when his young son Ellak – his favourite, so they say – was brought in to say goodnight to his father did the King show pleasure.
For the night, we were offered the choicest young female slaves for our comfort, a Scythian compliment, but one disdained by our leaders – somewhat to my chagrin, I must admit. Well into my sixth decade, the chains of lust had loosened but by no means fallen away entirely. And so after we had retired to our own tents on the hill, I wriggled my way back out again, and hurried after the retreating women in the darkness, at one point tripping in a marmot hole in my haste and very nearly doing myself quite an injury. The girls heard me and turned, and giggled.
Though they were all lovely to look at, one drew me in particular. A Burgundian she was, flaxen-haired and as pretty as a flower. I took her by the hand and pulled her back to my modest little partition in the tent. In the dark I could barely see her features, but her hands were small and her lips were soft, and I confess I passed a happy night with her. In the morning, as she lay there only half covered by my side, she stretched sleepily and smiled and said that, although I was a very old man, I had not entirely failed to please her.
Aetius passed me as we ate bread in the morning sunshine outside our tents, and nodded curtly as I munched. ‘You must be hungry,’ he said.
9
Among those I talked to in the camp was an apostate Greek picking stones out of his horse’s hooves. When I asked him why he was there, he eloquently applauded the freedom he enjoyed among the Huns, compared with the iniquitous taxes, self-serving officials and meddling laws of Rome. Once, he agreed, Rome might have represented a kind of freedom with dignity under the law, but those days were gone. Here a man could be truly free. ‘You think Attila a barbarian tyrant,’ he said sardonically. ‘But he does not oppress me daily, he does not survey my every action, he does not dictate my religion, he does not tax me to death. Indeed, he does not tax me at all. I follow him, he protects me. It is a simple and noble society; as Rome was once, perhaps, long, long ago.’
‘It is a society that feeds off others!’ I protested.
‘In that respect, at least,’ he answered, ‘it is just like Rome.’
He was a very sardonic fellow indeed.
Of all the people in the camp of the Huns, aside from Attila himself, it was that other renegade Greek, Orestes, who seemed to me the most compelling and enigmatic. I was astonished, then, when I approached him later and respectfully asked if I might hear his story.
‘My story?’ he said softly. ‘Ah. Yes.’
Perhaps Attila himself had encouraged him to tell me, for my chronicle. I shall never know.
We sat on stools in the shade of a long tent. No others were near. A small fire burned in a brazier. Orestes cast a handful of barley kernels across an iron tray.
‘I was from Thessalonika,’ he began. ‘You know the history. You have heard of the atrocity.’
I nodded. Indeed.
‘My parents-’ Orestes stopped again and smiled, a bitter smile. ‘The man who died eight years before I was born, he who should have been my father.’
The barley kernels popped in the heat.
‘I will start again.’ He drew breath. ‘Some twelve years before I was born, my mother was married to a man of Thessalonika. He was a ship owner, a wealthy man, also a man of taste. He had a library. He was a Christian but kept his counsel. In their villa on a hill above the great harbour, they had mosaics of Silenus, frescoes of nymphs and tritons, silverware decorated with images of Mars and Venus on a shelf beside a devotional to the Virgin. My mother described it all to me in later years. My mother was high-spirited, mercurial. She was beautiful when she was young. Their house in Thessalonika was very fine. They had two sons, and then a daughter. They were a fine family. My family. Yet not.’