‘The emperor rules the Western Empire.’
‘Is that so?’
They regarded each other. Not equals in power, but maybe equals in spirit.
‘And your friend, the old Jew, Gamaliel,’ said Aetius. ‘I have met him since.’
‘Old Jew?’ Lucius frowned. ‘I have not seen him for years, but he is a true Celt.’ The two stared at each other a moment, then Lucius sighed. ‘In truth, I don’t think we will ever know what he is.’
‘He’s old now, and he no longer pretends he used to know Aristotle. But at Constantinople he was a good physician.’ Aetius grinned, despite himself. ‘Come on in.’
They sat on stools and Aetius poured his visitor wine with his own hand. They clunked cups. Once, decades ago, Lucius had come to the Hun camp and taken Aetius back to Rome, along with his own freed son, the boy Cadoc. And Attila had ridden into the wilderness of exile.
On the long journey back to the Danube, Lucius, a Roman lieutenant in those days, and the haughty Roman boy Aetius, solemn beyond his years, had developed a friendship of sorts.
‘I remember now,’ said Aetius. ‘The scar on your chin. You got it from tripping over a dog, when you were drunk, and hitting a stone water trough, in Isca Dumnoniorum.’
Lucius raised his cup. ‘I salute your memory, Master-General. You’re out of date, though. The city, what’s left of it, is called Esca now.’
‘Esca?’
‘I shouldn’t worry. As I say, there isn’t much of it left. A couple of broken walls, the remains of a market-place, a ruined church, a few sad kale yards. The old basilica’s a furnace and marl-pit.’ There was bitterness in his low voice. ‘And I am Ciddwmtarth. Lucius was a Roman name. But the Romans abandoned us. I know Britain never contributed much to the empire: in four long centuries, we produced only a heretic, a rotten poet and three traitors. So it’s said.’
Aetius smiled faintly and then looked grave again. ‘Is there peace with the Saxons?’
Lucius snorted. ‘There will never be peace with the Saxons. They already call us the Wealha, foreigners and slaves. In our own country! They crucify one in ten captives to their heathen gods. They are the worst: their drunken barbarism knows no limits, they shall never count among the civilised peoples of the world. My people are few and hard-pressed. I lead them in the fight, but the fight is continual, and they are very weary. They dream only of fleeing into the mountains westward, always westward. Already the Saxons have pressed as far as Corinium, and Viroconium of the White Walls. To think that we invited them in to work for us, and now they want the whole island of Britain for themselves, under their laws and customs. We have destroyed our own world.’
Aetius set down his cup. ‘My old friend and guide, I know why it is that you have sailed here all these weeks – and in winter, too. I know how bitter it must be for you. But we cannot send men to help you.’
Lucius seized his arm, suddenly impassioned. ‘Just a thousand of your men, I implore you! For the sake of old friendship, for the sake of Christ! Master-General of the West, whom I knew and travelled with as a boy, do not deny me. One thousand of your best, and I tell you we will meet the Saxons in open field, even ten thousand of them, and defeat them once and for all. They are many, but they fight wild, all solo howls and heroics. One good legion could take them. Then the kingdom of Christian Celtic Britain will be at peace. But my own people, they’re no warriors, only simple farmers. They cannot do it.’
‘Nor can I do it.’ Aetius’ tone was unbending. ‘I cannot give you a hundred, not fifty. There are twenty-five thousand men under my command, and every one counts. The barbarian army coming west numbers at least a hundred thousand mounted warriors, with twice as many followers. I cannot do it.’
‘And Rome matters more than Britain.’
‘It does,’ said Aetius evenly.
Lucius glowered at the ground. ‘And to think,’ he muttered, ‘that three times I saved his life – the Hun boy.’
Neither of them could speak the name of the barbarian warlord. Ironies were many, but none of them amused. At last, Lucius tried for a joke.
‘Even if he does destroy you,’ he said, glaring at Aetius, ‘and comes with his one hundred thousand tattooed horsemen to the shores of northern Gaul, above the white cliffs of Gesoriacum, and gazes across to the answering white cliffs of Britain, not even’ – he gritted his teeth – ‘not even Attila would invade us. Not even that all-devouring world-conqueror would want our miserable, fog-bound little islands.’
Aetius’ eyes glimmered with humour. He touched the older man on his strong right arm. ‘Believe me, old friend and guide, in these latter days you and all your people are better off on your own, in your gentle, sweet green island.’
Lucius would never have imagined hearing Aetius talk like this, as if fore-defeated.
‘How is your family?’ added the general.
Small talk was absurd. It was time to leave, empty-handed, and sail back for war-tormented Britain. But Lucius, rising to his feet, said that his wife still lived and his children were all grown and well.
‘Your son? The dreamer?’
‘Cadoc. Still dreaming, but he fights beside me well enough.’
Outside, Aetius was waiting for Lucius to remount when a horseman came galloping up the road from Aquileia. Aetius’ eyes narrowed. The fellow’s face was taut and his clothes were both sodden and dusty, as though he had been travelling heedless of weather. He almost fell from his horse and stood gasping.
Lucius pulled his own horse round as if business were concluded, but Aetius’ blood was like ice. ‘Speak, man.’
The fellow saluted rapidly. ‘Sir, the Huns have crossed the Rhine. All of Gaul is ablaze.’
Lucius stilled his horse again.
Aetius stared at the messenger in a daze. ‘Gaul?’ he repeated dumbly.
‘News from the Rhine stations. He crossed-’
‘There are no bloody Rhine stations left!’ roared Aetius, finding brief solace in blaming the messenger. ‘All remaining frontier troops are with me! All four bloody thousand of them or less!’
‘Neverthless, news came through from some last scouts, sir. He crossed the Rhine near Argentoratum, then turned back and fell on the city and destroyed it.’
There was a moment’s stunned silence.
‘And?’
‘Then the cities of Vangiones, Moguntiacum, and Colonia Agrippina, sir.’
The greatest of all the Rhine frontier cities. Even Aetius’ strong voice faltered. ‘Colonia… destroyed?’
‘So the reports say, sir.’ The fellow’s face was agonised. ‘Laid waste, all citizens put to the sword. The ice on the Rhine is dyed red, they say.’
Thousands more slain – tens of thousands. He had outwitted them. He had not turned on Rome, but had gone north and west. He would destroy everything else first, and leave Rome, the sweetest dish, till last. How could Aetius not have foreseen? He could have damned himself for his folly. All of Gaul lay undefended before the Hun holocaust. If they ever did defeat Attila now, there would still be nothing left afterwards, anyway. The empire had already been destroyed. The East had been devastated. Africa was in the hands of Attila’s allies, the Vandals. And now the rich fields of Gaul, wealthiest and most beautiful of all the Western provinces, would be turned into another land of ash. Italy would be left until last; and then only Rome.
His fists were clenched, white-knuckled. ‘You have not told me all yet.’
The fellow shook his head. ‘Then it seems his army split into two. One rode due west from the ruins of Colonia and laid waste to Tornacum and Cameracum, and then south and fell upon Lutetia. The second army rode south up the valley of the Moselle, and destroyed Augusta Treverorum, Mediomaurici and Rhemi.’
‘Treverorum, too.’ Its great black gate-tower, the Porta Nigra, with its massive portcullis, one of the wonders of Belgia.
‘It is believed that the first army – perhaps both – is aiming to fall upon Aureliana next. And then… come south.’