William Dietrich - The Scourge of God

many months for my emperor to muster his armies and march to Hunuguri. Or to fight Gaiseric. It seems doubtful he could do so this season. So there is time, my lord, to make such a plea this winter, when the West and East can plan together. Our own battle with Attila will be decided long before then. Please don’t make me miss what I suspect will be a contest sung of for a thousand years.”

“Surely you’ve had enough blood already, Alabanda.”

“I’ve had enough for a lifetime. But more than almost any man here, I’ve seen what Attila represents. I watched him crucify a friend for no reason. He kept me from my love, humiliated my embassy, and sent men to kill me and Zerco. Let me stand in the ranks.” My words drew approval from the assembly. A personal grudge the tribesmen understood.

“I admire your courage,” Aetius said slowly, “and know too much of your cleverness to believe that serving as a common soldier is all that’s on your mind.” I shrugged. “Attila still imprisons the woman I love, general. I intend to kill him, cut my way through to her, and beg her forgiveness for having left her.” Now there was laughter and shouts of encouragement.

“You fight for love, not just for hate?” Aetius asked.

“I fight for the idea of a good, simple life.” Theodoric abruptly stood. “As do we all!” he thundered.

“Let the boy ride with us for his woman, as I do for my daughter! Let him ride with me!”

“For our women!” his chieftains cried.

Aetius lifted his hands for quiet. “No, Theodoric, I think I’ll keep him with the legions,” he said with a smile. “He fights for himself, but something tells me that Alabanda was sent to us for other reasons and that his full usefulness is not yet revealed.”

One hundred miles to the east, Attila’s vast train of wagons had been halted for two days. Ilana didn’t know what this meant. The sun was near its summer’s peak, and the fields were hot and hazy from the dust of countless thousands of horses and driven livestock, spilling across the rolling Catalaunian Plain of Gaul. Ilana had never dreamed the world was so big until she’d been driven like a penned animal across it, and now she wondered if she was coming to its end. Augustobona, called Troyes by its more recent inhabitants, was to the south, her driver had told her. Durocata-launi, the place the Franks called Chalons, was to the north.

Or rather, had been. Columns of smoke marked where each had existed.

The driver’s name was Alix, he had lost half a leg to a battle with the Byzantine Romans, and now he earned his keep by being a teamster in the kagan’s train of captured plunder, wives, and slaves. The thousand-mile trek had turned his initial contempt for the caged would-be murderess into something closer to pity. Ilana was bruised from the constant jouncing, filthy from the weeks of dust, thin from being fed only table scraps, and stiff from being confined in a cage. She spoke little, simply watching as they trundled across the famed Rhine, wound through wooded mountains, and now came to this open country reminiscent of Hunuguri.

Only when they stopped did she begin to grow dimly curious. Had Attila finally found a place he liked enough to stay? Had Jonas and Zerco escaped somewhere ahead? Were the Huns finally near the fabled ocean?

Probably not, Alix told her. There had been a battle ahead, and the Huns were falling back to gather their strength.

This was intriguing news.

Ilana had thought it her fate to rock hopelessly westward forever, but now more and more wagons were arriving to make a vast laager of wagons, surrounded by another that was bigger still. Regiments of Huns were beginning to con-gregate. Something in the tempo of invasion had changed.

Then Attila himself arrived, with a thundering contingent of warlords.

As always, his arrival caused an eruption of excitement.

He traversed the broad front of his forces like the wind, dashing from one wing to another, sending back an endless stream of looted treasures; captured food; jars of wine; stolen standards; pillaged church relics; kidnapped women; shocked slaves; and the ears, noses, fingers, and cocks of his most prominent enemies. He was the Scourge of God, punishing the world for its sins! He played the role like an actor.

He could laugh at an efficient massacre, weep for a single dead Hun, and impose his will on his lieutenants by rages so complete that his eyes rolled and blood gushed from his nose.

Now, with news that Aetius had marched to the relief of Aurelia, he had come to this cavalry ground of open, rolling hills. So the Romans had marshaled their forces, winning over even the reluctant Visigoths. Then so would he! All would be decided on a single great and bloody day, and when it was over he would either be dead or king of the world.

Never had he felt such excitement.

Never had he felt such foreboding.

That night, with his thousands of campfires an infinite mirror of the heavens overhead, he disdained most food, drank sullenly, and then, unexpectedly, sent for Ilana.

“Clean the girl, dress her, and make her beautiful. Then bring her to me.”

She came at midnight. Her hair had curled after its wash-ing, its darkness gleaming like wave-washed stones on a moonlit beach. Her gown was red silk, captured from the Romans, brocaded with silver and girdled with gold chain studded with rubies. A larger ruby the size of a goat’s eye was at her throat, and her sandals were silver. Under threat of death if she demurred, rings of slain matrons had been slipped onto each of her fingers, and the heavy earrings she’d been made to wear hung like trophies. Her eyes were lined with lampblack, her lips highlighted with red ochre, her skin had been scrubbed and moisturized with lanolin-rich sheep’s wool, and her breath purified by chewing mint leaves. The woman who had crouched in her cage like an animal just hours before now stood stiffly, like a child bewildered by fine new clothes. She’d no more choice in this dressing up than in being imprisoned, and it seemed equally humiliating.

“Kneel before your kagan,” he ordered.

Eyes lowered, cheeks blushing with anger, she did so. To refuse would only result in her being pushed down by Attila’s guards. From the corner of her eyes she looked for even the feeblest of weapons. Ilana had no illusions that she could kill Attila, but she knew that he or his guards would kill her , if she tried. That would be release, wouldn’t it? Did she have the courage? But there was nothing to even threaten him with.

“Do you wonder why I brought you here?” She looked up. “To your tent or to Gaul?”

“I could have ordered you a hideous death a thousand times, and yet I stayed my hand,” Attila said. “It amused me to watch young Skilla long for what I hate. From all reports he’s fighting like a lion to win my favor and your company.

It reminded me to be wary of desire and greed, because they change like the weather and have no more explanation. This is why I eat from a wooden plate, sleep in animal skins, and spit out soft bread in favor of meat and gristle. To long for too much is to risk losing it.”

Somehow, she found voice. “To fear to hope is the mark of a coward.”

He scowled. “I fear nothing but the stupidity of those I must deal with. Like you, who longs for what is out of reach: the past. A Hun like Skilla would make you a princess. A Roman like Jonas has reduced you to a cage.” She rocked back on her heels, her carriage more upright now. “It is your cage, kagan. And I know you can slit my throat in an instant. So, yes, why did you bring me here?” He leaned back in his camp chair, lazy in his power. “Alabanda is alive.”

Instantly she was tense. “How do you know this?”