‘Oh, and if you see any ships bringing Western legions to help us, let me know.’
Nicias looked puzzled. ‘Is that likely?’
‘It is not. Now scram.’
The alchemist scuttled off.
‘The next thing we hear,’ said Aetius, ‘he’ll have burned the imperial palace to the ground.’
Torismond grinned.
The sun came up on the third morning after the earthquake, and the autumn mist gradually cleared from the country around. But away to the west there was a section of the horizon that did not clear. That was not mist but dust.
They were coming, in their countless thousands.
Along the walls, Aetius saw to his horror, the empress herself was processing with some of her ladies’ maids, talking to the soldiers, doubtless wishing them well and the blessings of Christ upon them; all grace and comfort. But this was no time for such things. This was a time for hot fire and cold steel. Aetius marched over to her.
‘Your Majesty, I must insist that you return to the palace immediately. This is no place for you now. Besides,’ and his voice was harsh, ‘you’re getting in the way of my men.’
She regarded him evenly, no fear in her eyes. But then she had never seen the Huns fight. There would be fear soon enough, with all hell unleashed.
‘Master-General,’ she said, ‘you govern your little domain here like an Oriental despot.’
Even now, she was playing with him. He felt his anger rise. This was no time for games. She had no idea how bad the situation was. She knew nothing. He swore foully and said that if she didn’t get off his walls he’d throw her off himself. At last she reacted, her eyes wide with astonishment and even disgust, and seconds later she and her retinue were hurrying back to the steps and down into the city.
Behind her he roared again, this time to his troops: ‘Bar all the gates! You’ve got five minutes!’
‘Sir,’ said Tatullus, pointing, ‘there are still refugees coming in ahead of them. Look.’
Aetius looked. Against the long, low terracotta horizon that was the Hunnish horde and their siege-engines, there came a few dozen last stragglers hurrying across the plain. Behind them, catching the eastern sun, arose a gigantic cloud the colour of old blood, and in its midst the watchers on the walls saw the huge shapes of what they most feared: siege-engines.
They must lock everything down. This would be terrible, a battle they must win, with all of Asia cowering helpless behind them, dependent upon them. But they could not possibly win. Not alone. Aetius knew that, Tatullus knew it, all the men knew it. The fate of half the world was in their hands, and they would fail it. But they would go down fighting in fury.
Yet here were refugees from the outlying villages, humble peasants, fleeing to the Walls for shelter from the coming storm. Stumbling in cracked earth, a few pitiful possessions hauled in sacks, mothers clutching infants, children trotting, so weak and undefended, glancing back into the mouth of hell. Asses heavily laden, usually such wise and philosophic creatures, bellowing and cantering, their big eyes terror-stricken, eyes rolling back to the whites.
The kind of decision kings and emperors make every day, thought Aetius bitterly. Which innocents shall I condemn to death this morning? Whom shall I damn and whom shall I save?
The first horse-warriors were minutes away, galloping with all savagery. They would fall on the refugees like scythes.
Already some of the refugees were outside the bolted gates, wailing for entrance, but there was no help for them now. Some lay in despair where they fell, in the very shadows of the walls, and never stirred again.
‘Let them come,’ said Aetius quietly. ‘There is room for all.’ He remembered the mad bird-catcher in the woods. Room for all, in death’s capacious basket. ‘Open the gates!’
‘But, General, the enemy are-’
He was already striding towards the steps himself. ‘Get that gate open, and bring me my horse. Wolf-lords, to me!’
In a moment the thick crossbar was raised and the massive iron-banded gates were being dragged back. Aetius vaulted onto his white horse and it reared up, champing at the bit. Behind him the wolf-lords mounted likewise, their horses packed together, jostling, shields and scabbards clanging, short cavalry bows clamped in their right hands, reins in the left.
The empress was watching from the bell-tower of the nearby Church of St Kyriake. Then she looked away, as if no longer able to bear the danger, or the evidence of what kind of man he was.
Aetius and the column of a mere forty-four streamed through the middle wall and then the outer, over the hastily lowered drawbridge and away onto the plain, looping out round the dumbfounded refugees like sheepdogs rounding up the flock. Immediately the people picked themselves from the dust, barely able to believe such a redemption, and hurried over the drawbridge into the welcoming arms of the city. The wolf-lords formed a galloping circle, their ancient steppe-warrior formation as if written into their blood, lowering their bows outwards towards the red cloud away to the west. Before it they could already see the nearest ranks of horsemen. The wolf-lords themselves were now well within range of a volley from those lethal, high-sprung Hunnish bows. But something had happened. The Huns had slowed and stopped. Somewhere their leader had brought them to a halt, as if to take in the poignant scene before him.
Attila grinned. What a scene of bravery and manliness! What touching salvation for these wretched, earth-grubbing peasant-farmers, as they stumbled gratefully within the Walls. Let them stumble. The Walls would come down soon enough anyway, and the refugees have to face the terror of the Huns all over again. And then there would be no salvation for them, and their skulls – large and small, one and all – would soon take their place in the biggest pyramid of human bones the world had ever seen. So Astur’s justice would be done, and all mankind would tremble.
Aetius slowed, too, seeing what had happened. It did not surprise him. He ordered his wolf-lords to range up and save their energies. Away to the north more figures arose from the earth itself. In dusty travel-stained garments, like creatures out of the apocalypse, more refugees who had been sheltering unseen down in the Lycus valley came running towards the open gates with stricken faces. It seemed that Attila would let them all pass. His games.
Attila sat his horse and watched from less than an arrow’s range. The dust they had raised fell and drifted among their horses’ hooves with the gentle breeze, and the army of the Huns for the first time became visible. It was indeed numberless as the stars.
The watchers on the walls looked out over it and knew that they were to die soon. Some groaned and turned away. The citizen bands, especially, looked ready to desert the walls altogether, but the Palatine Guard marched among them and rallied them, saying to trust in God and the Walls.
Beside Attila sat the witch Enkhtuya, her teeth and mouth stained red with berry juice. Many of the Hun horses, too, beside their usual charnel decorations, had their pale manes and tails and fetlocks stained berry-red for this titanic battle, as if they had already waded deep in blood. They champed and stepped high at this abrupt interruption of their advance, as if even they were touched with bloodlust. But Attila, at that moment at least, was touched by something else. Curiosity, perhaps. A little sardonic shadow of a smile as he watched his old friend, companion of his boyhood, the light to his shadow, Aetius, moving among the fleeing crowds, helping them home.
Like Jesus among the poor; like Jesus feeding the five thousand. His smile grew fiercer.
Enkhtuya purred beside him. ‘See how his heart is sorrowful. How he has compassion upon the destitute and wretched of the earth.’