‘Yes, sir.’
The Moors on their white chargers went coursing away across the meadows and up the low green hills, their white camel-hair cloaks flowing in the wind.
Sangiban cursed in the name of Ahura Mazda the moment he realised there was a column ahead on the road, and cursed again when he gave the order to turn round and one of his commanders pointed out to him that there were more horsemen occupying the ridge all along their left flank and behind.
Sangiban adopted a fixed smile, and rode forward to greet the new arrivals.
The Roman commander cantered out alone to meet him. It was Master-General Aetius. Sangiban had met him before. He cursed a third time, silently, and his fixed smile broadened. They reined in their horses. Aetius’ glance took in the Alan warlord’s eyebrows curved like black scimitars, his flashing, unstable eyes, startlingly blue in his swarthy face, his thin lips and aquiline nose. Behind him, a good proportion of his easterners even had freckled faces and fair hair, which they wore scooped back in gold bands. Some said they were descendants of the army of Alexander the Great. They were handsome devils, right enough. But they were riding the wrong way.
‘Lord Sangiban.’
‘Master-General.’
‘I am glad we met you. You were coming to warn us of the approach of the Huns?’
Sangiban let his smile go at last and nodded gravely. ‘They are besieging Aureliana. We managed to evade destruction by the skin of our teeth, and raced southwards to inform you.’
Aetius’ eyes roved over the elegant Alan horses: no sweat.
It was his turn to smile. ‘Do not fear, our gallant ally Sangiban. You shall yet have your chance to be avenged on your ancient foemen.’
Sangiban looked puzzled. ‘General?’
‘We will put you and your lancers in the thick of the fight.’ The smile vanished. ‘Fall in.’
As he watched the Alan lancers ride past and join the column, Germanus joined him.
‘Three thousand in all?’
‘More or less. Useful.’ Aetius looked after them. ‘Fine fighters when committed. Otherwise, totally untrustworthy. ’ He pushed himself up in his saddle and bellowed back to the column. ‘To Aureliana, riding trot!’
‘The Huns will be inside the city by the time we arrive, sir,’ said Germanus as they moved forward. ‘This will be no cavalry fight.’
Aetius knew what he meant. What did it matter if their horses did arrive tired? This would be hand-to-hand fighting in the streets – if there was any fighting at all left to be done. But Germanus didn’t know the terrain.
‘The Huns will be ranged north and east of the city,’ he said, ‘between the Loire and a low line of hills. Well-wooded hills.’
‘You mean…?’
‘Not enough room for them. Not for an army of two hundred thousand. They’ve got themselves trapped. We want our horses fresh enough to fight, believe me. The people of Aureliana must hold out just a little longer.’
Bishop Ananias turned to his citizen leaders. ‘They’re coming in now. Prepare yourselves.’
He sent word once more to the lookout in the church tower. One last desperate hope. No, the answer came back: still no sign of a relief column.
The Huns came galloping in through the east gate tightly packed, swords and spears at the ready, and found themselves in long, narrow East Street. They surged on, only to find the side streets blockaded by overturned carts, crates, stacked wine barrels, blocks of building stone. Immediately they began to feel trapped and claustrophobic. The houses and churches hemmed them in. This was no terrain for horse-warriors. This was like fighting in a cavern.
The people of the city had vanished into their houses, or maybe underground. The sky overhead had turned a bruised grey, threatening heavy rain. Some Huns rode forward in their fury and began to hack at the wooden carts with their swords, howling. Others punctured the wine barrels with their spears and lay on the ground with their mouths open beneath the crimson spouts. Then missiles started raining down on them – stones, bits of twisted iron, horseshoes, anything. Barely armoured as they were, and few wearing helmets, since they were riding in to slaughter unarmed civilians, several horsemen reeled in their saddles, skulls cracked, blood coursing down into their eyes. Others leaped off their horses and kicked in doors, dragging out the occupants and butchering them in the streets. It was to be a foul fight.
Behind them, more Huns were still trying to get into the city, packing ever closer and closer. Bishop Ananias directed operations as best he could from the bell-tower of the cathedral. The Huns had thus far made so little progress through the city’s narrow streets that his runners were able to transmit messages freely. Once more he sent for word from the lookout priest, and once more the reply was ‘Nothing’. Inside the cathedral, women lit candles, pale imitations of the devouring Hun fires already roaring in the city’s suburbs, and the air was filled with the sounds of prayer and lamentation.
The fight was becoming desperate. The sturdiest citizens had appeared on the streets with their fire-irons and pitchforks, more frightened of huddling in their cellars and waiting to be slaughtered than of fighting out in the open streets. But this was a mistake, for as soon as the Huns saw moving living targets they unslung their bows and punched them full of arrows.
With every street blocked and every house barricaded, the barbarian horsemen’s progress was slow and painful, and their longing to be free to gallop and shoot and cut down was frustrated at every turn. They yelled brutal taunts and savage war songs, dragged people from their houses by the hair and slit their throats, lassoed the wagon blockades and tried to haul them free. But it was slow and dispiriting work.
Then there came a new sound over the roar of the flames and the cries of the people. The church bells were ringing: a moving dust-cloud had been seen on the far horizon.
Attila ground his teeth. ‘They cannot have ridden this far so soon. This cannot be the Romans.’
‘It is, Great Tanjou. And with them…’ Even Orestes hesitated.
‘ Speak. ’
‘And with them ride the Visigoths.’
Attila’s roar filled the tent. A wooden stool flew and smashed into the mainpost. He strode outside and surveyed the view. His men were crowded round the pent-up gates of Aureliana. Behind lay a low ridge of thickly wooded hills. The silver river gleamed. There was no room to breathe. No room anywhere.
‘That city’ – he pointed with his spear – ‘that city… I will return… that city…’ He was jabbing the air now, his mouth working, his face livid, beaded with sweat. Orestes was already untethering their horses. ‘That city, I will not only lay it waste, I will torture its every citizen, every man, woman and child, I will have daughters murder their fathers, mothers their sons. Their bodies will hang crucified all along the road from here to…’ With a mighty heave he hurled the spear into the air where it arced and sank to the ground and stuck fast. ‘To Tolosa!’
Orestes mounted.
Attila wiped the spittle from his beard. ‘Pull them back,’ he said. ‘We cannot fight here.’ His barrel chest heaved, he clutched his side. ‘I cannot breathe!’
The moment the Roman and Gothic banners were perceived in the wind, the mood in the city changed. The bells rang from church to church, spreading like birdsong through a wood in springtime, and the great cathedral bell rang out over all of them. The Huns in the streets stalled and looked around, bewildered, as word gradually spread that they were to retreat. Some ignored the order and pushed on into the city. None of them survived. The citizens, newly fired with confidence and anger, struck them down and slew them wherever they found them.