The door was drawn closed and there was silence.
2
It was well that Galla died when she did. Only three days later, a message came to the court of Ravenna. It was from Attila’s amanuensis, Orestes. He wrote that Attila was betrothed to the Emperor Valentinian’s sister, Galla Placidia’s daughter, the Princess Honoria, and that he would take as his dowry half the Roman Empire. Specifically, the Western half.
Valentinian laughed hysterically. Even Aetius nearly smiled. That demonic sense of humour was still intact. Then he recalled something Theodosius had said, something about a plot of Honoria’s being discovered…
It was no joke of Attila’s, as rapid communication with the embarrassed court of Theodosius proved. It was all true.
In this winter of AD 450, Princess Honoria, still living an enclosed life with the emperor’s sister Pulcheria and her pious ladies’ maids in the palace in Constantinople, was still only in her late twenties. Amid the chaos of these days, she had at last seen her chance for escape, and for revenge upon the family who had humiliated her and stolen her girlhood from her.
She managed to bribe one of the guards who was escorting the seven thousand pounds of gold to Attila – what manner of bribe it is perhaps best not to enquire but, given her character, it is not difficult to imagine. She persuaded the guard to smuggle out to Attila a gold betrothal ring, and a brief message from her. An offer of marriage, if he came to her rescue and liberation. Quite what sort of freedom Honoria thought she would enjoy as one of the junior wives of the Great Tanjou in the Hun camp, one can only speculate. But Attila accepted the offer, adding that for dowry he’d expect half the empire. She said that he was welcome to it.
Hence the message sent by Attila to Ravenna. In deadly earnest.
Thank Christ, thought Aetius, that Galla Placidia had not lived to see her daughter conspire with Attila himself. Constantinople was all ready to have Honoria strangled for treason on the spot, but further hurried communication dissuaded them. Personally, Aetius thought the poor girl had suffered long enough. One youthful indiscretion as a girl – and a clumsy attempt to have her brother assassinated… Well, that was certainly understandable. Why couldn’t she be married off now to some unfussy old dotard, for God’s sake? Pen her up there in the Imperial Palace like a nun, with that old harridan Pulcheria, and it wasn’t surprising she dreamed of marrying what she must have pictured to herself as an exotic Scythian warlord.
Theodosius gave the command, and at the age of twenty-nine, Honoria was married instead to the fifty-nine-year-old Fabius Cassius Herculeanus. By all accounts it was a very happy marriage – not least, court rumour had it, because the husband turned a blind eye to his wife’s numerous and entirely characteristic indiscretions, his own interests being primarily boys.
It was a ludicrous and squalid affair. Even more farcically, it gave Attila the paper-thin pretext he needed for an attack on the West, as the punitive expedition had for his attack on the East.
‘Helen was the destruction of Troy,’ murmured Aetius, ‘and Honoria of Rome.’
He read the message again.
The last line read, ‘ Attila, my Master and yours, bids you prepare a palace for his reception.’
Aetius found General Germanus in a makeshift hot bath at the field army’s camp outside Ravenna. Germanus looked red-faced, lightly poached and embarrassed.
Aetius flung him a towel. ‘Saddle up,’ he said. ‘Attila’s coming.’
They rode north-west up the Flaminian Way, the field army visibly delighted to be on the move again, away from that vast, wretched, stagnant campsite – even if they were riding to meet the greatest army Rome had ever faced. Despite rumours of the vast difference in numerical strength, it always felt good to be one man among a solid twenty-five thousand.
The two thousand men of the Palatine Guard, grudgingly released by Valentinian after much persuasion, marched at the front, black armour gleaming. Then came the central legions: the Herculians, numbering nearly six thousand men, the ancient complement, with their gold-rimmed shields decorated with black eagles; then the Cornuti Seniores, their shields a red icon on white; the Batavians, their shields a solid red with an evil-eye boss, and among them a single century of intensely trained superventores or special forces, their typically Batavian speciality being to swim fully armoured across rivers of any depth, even in full spate, and slip in among the enemy by night, cutting throats by the dozen, loosing horses, setting fires. Used well, they could be massively destructive.
Then came the Mauri, the light Moorish cavalry, horses’ white manes and riders’ white woollen cloaks of finest camel-hair flowing together in the wind, beautiful to watch. The horses were skittish and high-stepping, manageable only by the very best horsemen, possessing astonishing speed and stamina beneath their pretty white manes and high-tossed tails. You mistook those Berber horses for useless, girlish mounts at your peril, and the Moorish javelin shower at full gallop, javelins tipped with cruel barbed angons, was famous. Next came the equally elite Augustan Horse, positively prancing to be on the road and heading for battle at last. Finally there came the four doggedly surviving frontier legions: the I, II, XII Artillery, and the XIV. Aetius rode at the front with General Germanus and with his own motley, hand-picked close-guard. He glanced back over the huge column of men. They looked good, on this bright winter morning. Outnumbered, depleted, certainly; but they still looked good.
‘Where will we draw up our line?’ Germanus asked.
‘Beyond the Padus.’
‘You think – with respect, sir – but you think he will lead his men across the Julian Alps in winter?’
Aetius nodded. ‘He crossed the Julian Alps in winter once before, when a boy of no more than eleven. He was fleeing from us, with only two companions, another boy and his sister. It will appeal to him: coming back that way again.’
They skirted the marshlands of the Adriatic shore, and then, traversing the rivers Padus, Athesis and Plavis, in five days they came to the broad, flat plain of the Venetia. A good place to fight. Here, history would be decided. Aetius sent scouts out as far as Aemona and the head-waters of the Savus, but from the east there was no sign. The Huns would not be here for at least another three weeks, then. That was to be expected. Attila would be in no hurry, preferring to make them fret, wait and stagnate. He had not conquered this far without being a master tactician.
Aetius would not let his men stagnate or fret for one moment. Their camp having been built, he had them dig trenches, cut down woods and copses, even engage in competitive games, one regiment against another. And there were more solemn rituals, such as the tubilustrium , the purification of the war-trumpets for the campaign ahead, one of the numberless centuries-old traditions of the legions. It crossed Aetius’ mind that this might be the last such ceremony ever performed.
Then, leaving his men under the capable command of Germanus, he rode into Aquileia.
He went to find an obscenely wealthy senator, one Nemesianus, a man whom he despised but who had influence. A man close to the emperor, it was said. Perhaps some good would come of it, some change of heart… So far the senatorial classes had been singularly lacking in martial or patriotic spirit.
From Nemesianus’ vast villa – one of his villas – he was directed to Aquileia’s amphitheatre. Yes, even with the Hunnish hordes riding down upon them, a few tired games were still being held.
Nemesianus was elderly, but he had the golden glow of the very rich, promising great longevity. Aetius found him seated in the higher stalls, wearing a beautiful cloak of what looked like pure ermine, and flanked by two of his spintriae, his young boys, one of them working away with his hand beneath Nemesianus’ furs. Nemesianus greeted the general with no interest, only mild irritation.