Attila the Hun (23 page)

So they prepare to set out. The seven officials have been joined by a businessman, Rusticius, who has dealings with one of Attila’s several secretaries. And this connection reminds us that nothing is as simple as it seems in this barbarian-versus-Roman rivalry, for this
secretary of Attila’s is an Italian named Constantius, sent to him by Aetius – Aetius, the great Roman general, who is happy to help Attila with his international contacts. Rusticius, with his friends inside Attila’s court, also has the advantage of speaking Hunnish, which will prove useful when the time comes.

Eight official appointees, then, plus Edika’s attendants to pitch the tents and prepare the meals, all on horseback: perhaps fifteen horses in all, with a large tent, some smaller ones for the slaves, cooking utensils – silver, as befits an embassy – and peppers, dates and dried fruits to tide them over in case fresh food is in short supply.

O
ver 300 kilometres and almost two uneventful weeks later they are in Serdica (Sofia). There, approaching the borders of Attila’s new territory, some of the hidden tensions begin to emerge. They break the journey for a day or two. Having slaughtered some locally bought sheep and cattle, the Romans offer their Hun travelling companions hospitality. Wine flows. There are toasts: To the emperor! To Attila!

It is Vigilas who starts the trouble. Vigilas, remember, is in on the plot. Priscus isn’t, and has no idea of the tension Vigilas must be under. Vigilas has a sudden thought that perhaps he had better show himself loyal to his emperor, and mutters to Priscus, ‘It is
not proper to compare a god and a man
.’

‘What did you say?’ That’s Orestes, who knows Greek.

‘I said,’ slurs Vigilas, ‘it is not proper to compare a god to a man.’

‘Right. Attila
is
a god. Good to hear it from a Greek.’

‘No. Theodosius is the god, Attila the man.’

‘Attila a mere man?’ The Huns are up in arms at Vigilas. After what he has achieved? Doesn’t Vigilas know Attila’s authority comes from the sword of Mars himself? How could he do what he did if he were not a god? And so on, with every sign of coming violence, until Maximinus and Priscus
turned the conversation to other matters and by their friendly manner calmed their anger
with post-prandial gifts of silk and pearls.

But tensions remain. Orestes (not in on the plot) is still resentful at being left out of the supper with Edika, Vigilas and Chrysaphius back in Constantinople. He complains to Maximinus, who takes the matter up with Vigilas, who tells Edika, who is appalled that things have come to such a pass. Edika is cross with Vigilas, and Orestes is cross with Edika, and now the Huns and the Romans are cross with each other. Vigilas knows Edika plans to kill Attila, Edika has his own plans that he has told no-one. And the senior Romans, Maximinus and Rusticius, don’t know the half of it yet. Where will it all end?

The sight of Naissus brings them all up short. It’s a wreck, pretty much as the Huns left it two years before: the walls half rubble, hardly anyone around, the Christian hostels acting as hospitals for the sick. Between the tumbledown walls and the river, where the Huns built the pontoon bridge for their siege machines,
is a litter of bones. Aghast at the desolation, they ride on in silence.

Not far beyond is a military camp where they spend the night. Here the Hun fugitives are being held – but not the seventeen promised in the emperor’s letter; only five.

Next day they depart for the Danube, with the fugitives in tow, literally – all tied together. They are heading on north-west, aiming to cross the river at Margus, 120 kilometres and at least four, maybe five days’ journey away. The road is unfamiliar to Priscus. All day they plod on, through forests, up and down hills, and on and on as darkness falls. They find themselves
in a thickly shaded place, where the path takes many twists and turns and detours
. There’s nothing for it but to struggle on by flickering torchlight, hoping they are still going north-west. But then, saddle-sore, footsore and exhausted, they see the sky lightening straight ahead of them. The sun, a Roman shouts from the shadows – it’s rising in the wrong place! It’s a portent! You can imagine the response from the front. That’s the
east
, you idiot. It’s just this winding road. We’ll be fine.

On then through a forested plain, always north-west on the single road, until by chance they come across a contingent of Huns. The Huns have just crossed the Danube to prepare the way for Attila himself, who is going to come hunting in his newly acquired forests, not just for fun and for meat, but as a means of training his troops in unfamiliar territory. Not far beyond is the river, and a mass of Huns with dug-out canoes who have been acting as ferrymen for their soldiers, probably with rafts for horses and wagons.

On the other side, they travel on for another couple of hours before being told by their Hun guides to wait while Edika’s attendants go to Attila to announce the new arrivals. Late that evening, while they are dining in their tents, the Hun attendants gallop back with the news that all is ready. Next day, late in the afternoon, they arrive at Attila’s camp – wagons and circular tents by the score, line upon line flowing across the billowing, open pasture of what is today the Serbian province of Vojvodina. Maximinus wants to pitch his own tent on the hillside, but that is forbidden, because it would place the Romans’ tents higher than Attila’s.

With the tents erected in a suitably low and submissive spot, a delegation of senior Huns led by Orestes and Scottas come to ask what the Romans want exactly. Consternation and an exchange of glances between the Romans. ‘The emperor has ordered us to speak to Attila, and to no-one else,’ Maximinus tells them.

Scottas, brother of Attila’s second-in-command Onegesius, and number three in the Hun hierarchy, speaks up (Onegesius himself being away among the Akatziri, imposing Attila’s elder son, Ellac, as their new king). The Romans had better understand that it’s Attila himself who is asking. No Hun would make such a demand on his own account.

Maximinus stands upon protocol, with which, as he points out, the Huns should be familiar, having come on so many embassies to Constantinople. ‘
It is not the rule for ambassadors that they should wrangle through others over the purpose of their mission. We deserve equal treatment
.
If we do not receive it, we will not tell the purpose of the embassy
.’

An unnerving pause. The Huns leave with Edika, and return again without him, to thumb their noses at Maximinus by announcing that Edika has just told Attila the Romans’ purpose (at least, their
official
purpose; the unofficial purpose is still a secret known only to Edika and Vigilas). And Attila is not interested in anything more they have to say. So there. Now the Romans can go home.

There’s nothing to be done. The despondent Romans are packing up when Vigilas, who must see that his hidden mission has suddenly become impossible, becomes desperate. He is the key to the assassination plot; it’ll be up to him to fetch the gold, and he stands to lose a substantial reward if it fails. They can’t just leave, without achieving anything, he blurts out. Better to lie, say we’ve got other things to discuss, and stay rather than tell the truth and go! ‘
If I had been able to speak to Attila, I should easily have persuaded him to set aside his differences with the Romans. I became friendly with him on Anatolius’ embassy
.’

Meanwhile, what of Edika? He is keeping a low profile, embarrassed at his minor betrayal of the Romans, and in a bind. He has divulged the official purpose of the visit, but that’s not the half of it. He also knows its real purpose, and is afraid that Orestes will tell Attila that he and Vigilas dined alone with the dreadful and duplicitous Chrysaphius, and what would Attila make of that? Especially as he, Edika, is a foreigner, and dispensable. He spends the night in an agony of indecision
– to tell or not to tell? To betray or to remain loyal? – fearing that, whatever he does, he’s doomed.

Next morning, the tents are packed, the horses already moving off, when Priscus sees how depressed Maximinus is. The sight goads Priscus into making one more try. He beckons Rusticius, the Hun-speaking businessman, who must be equally depressed at the imminent failure of his commercial plans, and leads him over to Scottas. ‘Tell him that he will receive many presents if he can get Maximinus an interview with Attila.’ Rusticius passes this on. ‘And another thing – tell him he will also benefit his brother Onegesius, because if he ever comes to settle outstanding matters with us, he too will receive great gifts. I’m sure he will be very grateful.’ Scottas is listening carefully. Priscus looks him in the eye. ‘We hear you too have influence with Attila. Perhaps you would like to prove it?’

‘Be assured’, says Scottas, ‘that I speak and act on
an equal basis with my brother
.’ He mounts, and gallops off to Attila’s tent.

Priscus returns to his two colleagues, who are lying downcast on the grass, and jolts them with his news. Get up! Get the pack animals back here! Prepare gifts! Work out your speeches! In seconds, despair turns to shouts of joy and thanks to Priscus, their saviour. Then a flurry of anxiety: how will they address Attila? How exactly will they present him with their gifts?

Priscus is not aware of anything that’s going on back at Attila’s tent, so we must guess. Perhaps it is Scottas’ arrival that precipitates the crisis. Perhaps Edika sees
Scottas gallop up, and his imagination works overtime. Attila guesses something – Vigilas is going to be tortured to reveal all – he, Edika, will appear as a traitor, unless— He can’t afford to wait, he must move now to prove his loyalty. As Scottas leaves with the news that Attila will, after all, see the Romans, Edika begs an audience . . . and tells Attila all about the plot as proposed by the eunuch Chrysaphius, confessing that he himself is supposed to be the assassin, to be financed with the gold that Vigilas is supposed to collect.

Meanwhile, Scottas has arrived back at the Roman tents, where the Romans are ready.

They thread their way through the lines uphill to the grand tent surrounded by guards.

The door is opened (for no doubt the king’s tent has a wooden door, as Mongol
gers
do today).

They enter.

What is it like in there? Priscus does not say anything about a richly carpeted floor, a central brazier, a table crowded with little shamanic figures, the crowd of guards, attendants and secretaries, because his attention is wholly taken with the sight of Attila himself, the unsmiling, scary little man sitting on a
wooden chair
, which is also a
throne
, which implies solid, carved arms and a high back.

This is their first view of the man who has so devastated the Balkans and terrified the rulers of the eastern empire these last ten years. It is at this point that Priscus describes him in the words that survive secondhand in the account left by the Gothic historian
Jordanes, the words quoted in the previous chapter painting a portrait of the little man with the haughty gait, the small eyes darting here and there, the broad chest, the large head, the thin beard flecked with grey, the snub nose, the bad complexion, and in behaviour that surprising combination of self-restraint, graciousness and supreme self-confidence.

He certainly has every reason for confidence at this moment, because he now knows about the plot, and can afford to play cat-and-mouse with the Romans.

Maximinus steps forward and hands Attila the emperor’s scroll. ‘The Emperor’, he says, through Vigilas, ‘prays
that Your Majesty and his followers are safe and well
.’

‘You will have what you wish for me,’ Attila replies coldly. Then he turns to Vigilas as interpreter and tears into him. How dare he, the shameless beast, appear at all – a moment to savour, this, because Attila might have accused him then and there of planning regicide – when, according to the last treaty,
no ambassadors should come to him before all the fugitives had been surrendered
!

Vigilas stutters that all the fugitives
have
been surrendered. There are no others . . .

‘Silence! Shameless effrontery! I would have you impaled and fed to the birds, if it did not infringe the rights of ambassadors. There are many fugitives among the Romans! Secretaries: the names!’

And so, their bowels turning to water, Vigilas, Priscus and the rest must listen as scrolls are selected and unrolled, the grim silence broken by the rustle of papyrus. Then come the names. ‘Seventeen’ the
emperor had mentioned; five were picked up outside Naissus; and here, scroll after scroll, are listed all those known to have fled across the border over past years – since the time Aetius’ son, Carpilio, was a hostage – traitors all, carefully noted by the secretariat – scores, hundreds perhaps, who knows how many? Who was counting? Certainly not the Romans.

Silence at last, and Attila speaks.

He will have the fugitives, if only because he could not have Huns fighting with the Romans in the event of war. Not that they are any use to the Romans, of course.
For what city or fortress had been saved by them after he had set out to capture it?
Not one. Vigilas would leave immediately with a Hun, Eslas, to demand the lot of them. Only then, Priscus implies, would it be possible to discuss the ransom to be paid for the Roman prisoners held by Attila. If the Romans would not comply, it would be war.