The Sword of Attila (24 page)

AD
451

 

 

Flavius and Macrobius stood with their horses in the courtyard of the monastery at Châlons, once the villa of a wealthy Gallic nobleman with Roman tastes but after the conversion of Constantine given over to the Church as a house of God. The monks had offered it as a headquarters to Aetius in the expectation that they would lead him in prayer before battle, but he had brusquely swept them aside, cleared out the main rooms as accommodation for his staff and set up his operations room in the convocation hall, once the atrium of the villa. They were still moving in, bullock carts bringing all of the clerical equipment of Aetius' secretarial and logistics staff, and Flavius knew that they were going to have to be patient before they had a chance to see the general himself.

He thought back over the events that had led them here, and realized that they had been on campaign now for nearly three months. It had been almost two years since he and Macrobius had arrived exhausted back in Rome after their escape from Attila, having parted ways with Arturus and Erecan in the southern Alps and watched them ride west towards the Atlantic shore and Britain. Erecan's Hun bodyguards Optila and Thrastilla had come south and entered Aetius' service as his bodyguards when he was in Ravenna, an appointment engineered by Aetius so that they could be his eyes and ears in the court. What he had discovered there had dismayed him, but it came as no surprise. The eunuch Heraclius had encouraged Honoria, Valentinian's increasingly deranged sister, to pursue a fixation on Attila with an offer of marriage, an embarrassment for Aetius which became worse when Valentinian himself became involved, sending his own emissary to refute the marriage and protest at the dowry Honoria had offered of half the western empire.

Rather than remaining safely caged in Ravenna, the lunatics had flown the nest, but they had only been released as a ploy by Heraclius to undermine Aetius' plans. The farce of the western Roman emperor's sole contact with Attila during a time of crisis and build-up to war being about his patently insane sister had convinced Attila of a fundamental weakness in the empire, something that made him foreshorten his own plans for conquest. For months afterwards everything had hung in the balance, Aetius becoming increasingly desperate to shore up his allies and create new alliances, with the spectre of Visigoth refusal hanging over everything. But finally the work of Pelagius in persuading the clergy of Gaul to push for an alliance had paid off, and Theodoric had come on board in the nick of time.

Flavius remembered the gauntlet he had thrown Attila, the invitation to battle. Then, it had been a way of occupying time, a provocation more amusing to Attila than the platitudes and attempts at appeasement that he was used to receiving from other emissaries, but now it had a prophetic air to it, with all of the events of the last two years leading inexorably towards a showdown. All of the planning and expectation and fear had come to a head three months before when Attila had come bursting out of his homeland, reaching Gaul and taking Aurelianum before heading north towards the rolling grasslands of the Catalaunian Plains. Some thought that the arrival of Aetius and the
comitatenses
had driven Attila out of the city on an unruly flight towards northern Gaul, and it suited Aetius for them to think so. But Flavius knew the truth. He remembered what he had offered Attila, when they had talked that day in his stronghold in the steppes:
a battleground of your own choice.
Attila had not fled, but he was leading them on, drawing them to a place where the two armies could meet in the contest of his dreams, the mother of all battles.

Flavius had last seen Pelagius four months earlier when Pelagius had handed him the sword, having kept it in secret since Flavius had passed it to him for safekeeping after his escape from the court of Attila; now Flavius carried it day and night swathed in the same old cassock he had worn on their adventure up the Danube. Pelagius too had been on his way to Britain, his work for Aetius done. Flavius had remembered Arturus' parting words below the Alps, an invitation for him to join him as well in Britain, if Rome became too dangerous and soldiering for the empire had become too thankless a task; it was something that had been on Flavius' mind over the last days as he contemplated what the future might hold in terms of Roman service for Macrobius and the surviving men of his
numerus,
all of them here today geared for the coming battle that for any of them could be their last.

He reached up and twisted his thin leather necklace that he had worn constantly since Una had given it to him on the beach two years before, feeling the lump of polished blackstone that was hanging below. It was as if touching it stopped him from worrying about her, made him simply remember the warmth of her presence, took his mind from the voyage she had undertaken and the dangers and uncertainties that she must have faced on the way. Macrobius, the grizzled bachelor, had always told him that soldiering and long-term relationships were doomed never to work together, but it still did not make the parting any easier or help him when he lay awake at night wondering whether he should have done things differently. He let go of the stone and squinted up at the sky. Soldiering at least had the benefit of keeping your mind on practical issues of the moment, and right now he needed to ensure that he was primed and ready to give Aetius the best possible advice on Attila's likely tactical plan. It might be the last task of any consequence that he ever carried out in the service of Rome, but it was a daunting responsibility as well as something that he was determined to do to the best of his ability.

And still he wondered about Attila. How had he reacted when he realized that his sacred sword was missing? It was impossible to know; there had been no reliable intelligence from the Hun court since their departure. The death of Bleda would have been a blow – he had been a volatile, mercurial man with a savage temper, but an experienced adviser in war and Attila's own brother; yet violent death was commonplace in the Hun court, and others would be there to replace him. Flavius had felt a chill of doubt course through him when he had first heard word of the Hun army rolling west three months ago – something that surely could not have happened had Attila lost his own confidence and that of his people in him. Flavius had steeled himself not to think of these things again until the time was right. The sword was a weapon of war, a symbol that could sway the outcome of a battle, and if it had the power that was claimed of it, then it was in battle that the test would lie, the proof that their mission had been worth the lives of Uago and others who had fallen along the way.

A soldier wearing the insignia of a tribune came out of the entrance to meet them, Flavius having announced their arrival to one of the
milites
guarding the courtyard, who had then gone in to inform Aetius. The tribune saluted and gestured, and Flavius nodded in return. He let his horse finish drinking from the bucket he had been holding in front of it, and passed the bridle to Macrobius. It had been a long, hot journey, and watering the animals and the men would be a priority for the coming day. He took off his sword belt and handed that as well to Macrobius, leaving him to seek food and drink, and then picked his way among the piles of horse droppings in the courtyard and followed the tribune inside.

Aetius was standing at the head of the room contemplating a charred wooden cross that the monks believed was one of the very crosses of the crucifixion set up on the hill of Calvary on the day of Christ's judgement. Five other men stood around the table in front of him: Thorismud and two other Goths on one side, and on the other the two Roman
magistri
of the
comitatenses
armies that were present in the field, Flavius Aspar and Gaius Petronius Anagastus. Aetius saw his nephew entering and, stepping down from the altar, went over to the head of the table. ‘This council of war is convened. The two
comitatenses
commanders you all know. Flavius Aetius, my nephew, is a tribune who has ridden with Attila. Theodoric is not able to be present.'

Thorismud turned to the Roman commanders. ‘My father and brother are walking among our men. It is the tradition of kings on the eve of battle, to be followed by a feast in the mead hall for the King and his captains, and around the campfires for the men. Oxen for the men and boar and deer for the king have been brought in for slaughter and roasted in preparation. I am here at this council to represent my father, along with my cousins Radagaisus and Thiudimer.'

Aetius unrolled a soft vellum sheet that was lying on the table, and the two generals weighed down the ends with drinking cups. It was a map, the course of the rivers clearly marked in black, the disposition of the armies as blocks in other colours. The convention was instantly familiar to Flavius from map-making classes in the
schola militarum
in Rome almost fifteen years before; it brought to mind the last time he had been with Thorismud poring over a map like this, studying the Battle of Adrianople and the tactics of the Goths in defeating the Romans on that fateful day almost seventy years before. Aetius pointed out the features on the map as he spoke. ‘This was prepared in the past few hours by my
fabri,
and is based on their own survey as well as on the reports of the scouts from the reconnaissance
numerus.
You can see the river Aube, trending north and defining the west side of the battlefield, and to the south the point where it joins with the river Seine. The triangle of land created by that intersection is a potential killing ground if an army were to be trapped there by another pressing down from the north-east. Otherwise, the topography comprises low-lying, undulating plains, with a ridge in the middle bisecting the battlefield, and to the east open rolling countryside.'

Aspar tapped the map. ‘Our army is to the west of that ridge with the river behind us, the Hun army to the east with open land beyond. Other than the one place where the river Aube can be forded, we have no escape route.'

Aetius gave him a grim look. ‘Then we must fight to the death.'

‘Ave, magister militus.'

‘What of the terrain?' Flavius asked. ‘Where my centurion Macrobius and I have just ridden, the ground was very hard, almost like rock.'

‘It has not rained for weeks,' Aetius replied. ‘There will be no mud to contend with, though the hard ground will pose other problems. It will become slippery where it pools with blood.'

‘That is how it will be after I and my men have fought there,' the Goth Radagaisus said, his voice guttural and his Latin heavily accented. ‘A place slippery with Hun blood.'

Aetius carried on. ‘The only trees are along the line of the river. The fields are planted with wheat, but it is not high enough to provide cover. There is a stream running through the centre of the battlefield below our side of the ridge, fed by a spring, but the ditch is narrow enough for a man to leap across. There are no particular advantages to either side of this landscape from a tactical viewpoint, except that ridge that rises to a height of fifty to seventy feet above the floodplain. It's not much, but whoever holds it might be able to dominate the battlefield.'

‘What of the dispositions of the troops?' Flavius asked.

‘My scouts tells me that the Huns are concentrated with their wagons immediately beyond that ridge, with Valamer and his Ostrogoths to the north and Ardaric and his Gepids to the south. On our side, the
comitatenses
are ranged to the north and the Visigoths to the south, with the centre of the line opposite the Huns divided equally between Romans and Visigoths.'

‘That division was not necessary,' Aspar grumbled. ‘My
comitatenses
alone could hold the line against the Huns.'

Aetius glared at him. ‘Your faith in your men is commendable,
magister,
but you have not been ranged against a Hun army like this before. The Roman
milites
are more skilled as archers than the Visigoths, but the Visigoths are better at single combat. We cannot afford a Hun breakthrough in the centre of the line and we must strengthen it to our maximum advantage, regardless of the sensitivities of the commanders. If that means
comitatenses
share the task with Visigoths, then so be it.'

‘We have agreed to another compromise,' Thorismud said, looking at the two Roman commanders. ‘We wished the main flank of our Visigoth army to confront the Ostrogoths to the north, but my father Theodoric agreed that instead we should face the Gepids to the south, and leave the Ostrogoths for the
comitatenses.
'

‘Your father may once have been my mortal enemy, but he is a wise and experienced general,' Aetius said. ‘The blood feuds you doubtless have with your Ostrogoth cousins may stiffen your resolve against them, but blood feuds have no place in war. One chieftain may divert his men in order to encounter a particularly reviled cousin, whereas another might avoid a group with whom he has kinship ties and no animosity. To have placed your army opposite the Ostrogoths as some of your Visigoth chieftains wished could have created inconsistency in the line, whereas against the Gepids you can fight as one force.'