The emperor Valentinian seemed equally oblivious to the danger. In response to Aetius’s pleas for more men, weapons, and supplies, he responded with lengthy letters complaining about the incompetence of tax collectors, the miserly ways of the rich, the dishonesty of bureaucrats, the treasonous plotting of his sister, and the selfishness of military planners. Couldn’t the army appreciate the problems of the imperial court? Didn’t Aetius understand that the emperor was doing all he could?
I suspect your spies are quite misinformed about the intentions of Attila. You may be unaware that Marcian has suspended the tribute payments that the East has made to the Huns and has recalled troops from Persia.
Isn’t it more likely that the Hun’s wrath will fall on Constantinople? Isn’t Attila one of your oldest friends? Have not the Huns served bravely as mercenaries in your own campaigns? Is not my half of the Empire poorer than Marcian’s? Why would Attila attack here? Your fears are exaggerated, general. . . .
It was like the prattle of a nagging and self-pitying wife, Aetius thought bitterly. He knew Valentinian had committed large portions of the budget to circuses, churches, palaces, and banquets. The new emperors refused to acknowledge they could no longer afford to live like the old. Legions were at half strength. Contractors were corrupt. Equipment was shoddy. Maybe the prophets are right, the general thought.
Maybe it’s Rome’s time to die. My time, as well. And yet . . .
He looked out at the green Mosel, swollen with spring rains. This river had long since lost the thick traffic of imperial trade but still led to a remnant of Roman agriculture and commerce in the northern reaches of Gaul. The barbarians might disdain Rome, but they also copied it in inferior, almost childlike, fashion. Their churches were rustic and their houses crude, their food plain, their animals unkempt, and their contempt for literacy impregnable to reason. Still, they pretended at Romanness, preening in plundered clothing and living in half-ruined villas, like monkeys in a temple.
They tried to cook with aniseed and fish oil. Some men cut their hair short in Roman style, and some women traded their clogs for sandals, despite the mud.
It was something. If Attila won, there would not be even mimicry. The future would be a return of wilderness, the eclipse of all knowledge, and the extinction of the Christian Church. Couldn’t the fools see it?
But of course one fool could: Zerco. It was odd how the dwarf had become a favored companion. He was not just funny, he was perceptive. He came back not just with information about Attila’s power but about the Hun himself: His fear that civilization was corrupting. Aetius remembered Attila as the quietest and most sullen of all the Huns he’d met while a hostage in their camp. Aetius had wondered if the unhappy man, nursing some secret wounds, was simple.
The opposite was true, of course, and while Hun warlords had preened and boasted, Attila had made secret alliances with a fierce, quiet magnetism. He had proved to be as masterly a tactician off the battlefield as on. While others had strutted, he had risen, wooing, allying, and killing.
And what had been a plague of raiders had turned, under Attila, into something far worse: a horde of would-be conquerors who wanted to go back to a salvation of animal-like simplicity.
All this Zerco tried to explain and more: that the core of the Hun army was not huge, that the barbarians often quarreled like dogs over a scrap of meat, and that their spirits were winded quickly if they could not prevail. “They will win only if the West believes they must win,” the dwarf argued. “Fight them, sire, and they will back off like a jackal looking for an easier meal.”
“My allies are afraid to stand up to them. They have cowed the world.”
“Yet it is often the bully who is the most fearful and weak.”
The young man Zerco had brought with him, this Jonas from Constantinople, also had spirit. He was in love with a captive woman—ah, the age when such longing could consume you!—and yet hadn’t allowed it to entirely cloud his reason. He had proved to be an able diplomatic secretary, despite his fantasies of rescue and revenge. While the youth chafed under his scholarly duties—“I want to fight!”—he was too useful to waste as a mere soldier. He was as interesting as Zerco, recounting how he had outlasted the arrows of a rival in a duel and arguing that Rome could do the same. As dusk fell in a March chill, Aetius ordered a fire lit and these two friends brought to him. Leaves were budding, and as soon as the grass was high enough to feed their horses, the Huns would come. On this side of the Rhine, every ally would be watching to see how many would unite under the Roman general. If he could not hold firm, all would come apart.
“I have a mission for each of you,” Aetius told them.
He could see the Byzantine brighten. “I’ve been practicing with your cavalry!”
“Which will serve, eventually. In the meantime, there’s a more important and pressing task.”
The young man leaned forward, eager.
“First, Zerco.” He turned to the dwarf. “I’m going to send you to Bishop Anianus in Aurelia.”
“Aurelia?”
“It is the capital of the Alan tribe, whose name the new rulers corrupt in their tongue so that it sounds like ‘Orleans.’
It is the gateway to the richest valley of Gaul, the Loire, and the strategic key to the province.”
Zerco stood up in self-mockery, his eyes at belt level. “I am certain to stop him if he gets that far, general.” His eyes twinkled. “And enjoy myself if he doesn’t.”
Aetius smiled. “I want you to listen and talk, not fight. I send you to Anianus as a token of friendship and, indeed, one of your tasks is to befriend him. I’m told he is a particularly pious Roman who has inspired great respect among the Alans; they think him holy and good luck. When the Huns come he will be watched closely by the population.
You must convince him to lead in our cause.”
“But why me, a halfling?” Zerco protested. “Surely a man of greater stature—”
“Would be watched too closely by Sangibanus, king of the Alan tribe. I have received word that Sangibanus is listening to emissaries from the Huns. He fears Attila, and wants to keep what he has. Once more I need you to play the fool, caper in his court, and pass me your judgment on which side he’s leaning toward. If he betrays Aurelia to Attila, then all of Gaul is opened to invasion. If he holds, we have time to win.”
“I will learn his mind better than he knows it himself!”
Zerco promised.
“And if there is a plot of betrayal then I will fight to stop it,” Jonas chimed in.
Aetius turned to him. “No, you have an even more important and difficult task, Bringer of the Sword. I am sending you to Tolosa.”
“Tolosa!” Far in the south of Gaul, it was two weeks’
journey away.
“Somehow King Theodoric must be persuaded to ride with us. I have reasoned, argued, and begged in correspondence, and still he refuses to commit. Sometimes a single visit is worth more than a hundred letters. I am making you my personal envoy. I don’t care how you do it, but you must bring the Visigoths to our cause.”
“But how?”
“You know Attila. Speak your heart.”
While Zerco and Julia set out for Aurelia, I ascended the Rhine by boat. All seemed quiet in the greening valley, war a distant dream, and yet change was in the air. Cavalry clattered by on the old Roman roads, evidence of preparations, and when the ship put in to deliver goods and messages or take on provisions, there was a solemn and watchful atmosphere in the riverside villages and old Roman forts. In the evenings the men honed weapons. The women smoked meat and loaded the last of the previous year’s grain into bags in case flight became inevitable. All had heard rumors of stirrings to the east. Few had ever seen a Hun. At inns I warned of Hun ferocity. At fortresses, I reviewed troops in Aetius’s name.