The Sword of Attila (9 page)

The captain cast off and the galley edged away from the quayside, the oarsmen having sat down on the benches and flexed themselves in preparation for the task to come. Those few of the
numerus
who were still fit and able had taken a place alongside them at the oars, and the rest were sprawled along the central deck and in the bows. A Greek
iatros,
a physician who had been among the few civilians to leave with them, was already leaning over the first of them, his bronze scalpel poised to scrape away pulverized flesh and his sponge soaked with seawater to cleanse the wound. The girl with the curly hair stood up to help, but was pulled violently down by the bishop and made to massage his neck. The captain bellowed an order, and the first sweep of the oars took the galley out into the centre of the harbour and towards the narrow passage on the eastern side that led through the city wall to the open sea. The sounds of the conquerors were echoing across the city: yelled orders, the occasional word in a guttural language heard clear across the still morning air, the baying and barking of the dogs. The Romans had embarked with little time to spare, and Flavius knew that they would not be free until they had passed under the line of the city wall and out of range of any Vandal archers who might have reached the harbour gates in time.

The oars swept again, and the captain leaned on the steering oar to point the galley towards the passage. Flavius made his way among his men to the bows where Arturus was sitting, and knelt alongside. He was still running on adrenalin, and he felt jittery, his eyes darting everywhere looking for the enemy, as he turned and peered anxiously at the constriction ahead where he knew they would be most vulnerable. One of the men pointed back towards the acropolis of the city. ‘You can see them now. On the platform.'

Flavius shaded his eyes and peered. The soldier was right. There was a stream of men along the edge of the massive masonry platform that rose above the city, the site of the old Punic temple to Ba'al Hammon and now a great basilican church. He could see one man standing apart, hands on his hips, staring out over the harbour and the sea, as if towards Rome itself. At that moment Flavius knew that he was looking at Gaiseric, that he was seeing a barbarian king for the first time. He felt a chill course through him, and he gripped the thwarts of the ship, staring hard, thinking no longer of the events of the last hours but instead of the months and years ahead, of the shape that men like Gaiseric would give to the empire that Flavius was sworn to defend.

‘Now is the time to see Carthage burn,' the soldier muttered.

Arturus tightened the straps of his saddlebag to keep the contents dry, the first drops of backsplash from the oars having reached them. ‘We may see fires, but they will be bonfires of victory, not fires of destruction,' he said. ‘Just as the Christians in Rome converted basilicas to churches and the Colosseum to an altar to God, so Gaiseric and his chieftains will not destroy Carthage but will convert the palaces and villas to their own mead halls. The great monuments of Rome will survive, but you should not be deluded. They will be mere skeletons, like the bleached bones of long-dead warriors on the battlefield, unless Rome regroups and reacts to the threat with force of arms far greater than anything that has been put against the barbarians yet.'

The captain barked an order, and the oarsmen pulled hard and then retracted their oars, holding them close to the gunwales as they slid into the gloom of the passageway. The sides were shadowy, indiscernible, the ancient blocks of masonry barely distinguishable from the living rock itself, while above them the towering form of the city walls was barely visible in the haze of sunlight. It was as if Carthage were already receding into history, ghostly, diaphanous, ready to be reclaimed by the silt and the marshland that had been there when the Phoenicians had pulled up their first galley on the shoreline, before Rome had even been born. Flavius turned to Arturus, remembering what he had just said. ‘And what is it that we soldiers of Rome must do?'

Arturus himself seemed part of the shadowland, his beard and long hair caught in the strange semi-light of the passageway as he sat upright in the bows like some mythical king. He put his hand on his saddlebag and spoke quietly. ‘I will answer by telling you what I intend to do with these books. As a boy in Britain before the arrival of the Saxons I was educated in Greek and Latin, and after my escape the soldiers placed me in a monastery in Gaul until I was old enough to join the army. I left when I was sixteen, but from the monks I had already learned of Augustine. After my years with the
foederati
and then as a mercenary to the barbarian kings I found much in his service that suited me. I had become sickened by killing, not hardened to it. The City of God seemed a better place than any city men could create. But then I saw how the weak men who ruled Rome began to see in the City of God an excuse for turning away from crisis, from the strategy and planning that were needed to counter the barbarian threat.'

‘If the City of God is all that matters, why bother with earthly affairs?'

You have seen it for yourself, Flavius. Men – emperors – could use the teachings of Augustine as an excuse for living lives of indolence and pleasure. And then Augustine began to preach against free will, to claim that men could not influence their own destiny. The excuse was even stronger. If men's lives are preordained, why bother debating strategy? After two years with Augustine in Hippo Regius I had begun to hear the call of my homeland, to remember the vow I had made as a boy to return to Britain and fight for my people. Word had come of a mounting resistance to the Saxon invaders in the hills and valleys of the West, of a resistance led by people and their elected captains. The teachings of Augustine no longer seemed to have a place in my vision of my destiny. I had become a secret heretic long before I left his service.'

‘You determined to return to Britain.'

‘That was my mission when you first saw me. The advance of the Vandals and the fall of Hippo Regius had released me from my obligation to Augustine, and coming to Carthage was the first leg on my trip home. I will fulfil my oath to Augustine. I will protect his work and take it to Italy, but not to Rome or Ravenna. I will take it to the monastery of Monte Cassino south of Neapolis, where I will entrust it to a monk of my own order among the brethren who will tell nobody and will keep it locked away in that mountain fastness.'

‘Where it will gather dust, and not be read.'

‘Where it will await a more contemplative age, an age when men can reflect on God and the path to Heaven without letting it interfere with the battle for a kingdom of men on earth.'

‘And your order?'

Arturus paused. ‘I cannot speak its name. We are outlawed in Rome. It is an order that comes from my own people and believes that men can shape their own destiny. Battles are won by soldiers, not by priests. And it is kings who conduct the affairs of men on earth, not God.'

Macrobius came up from where he had been helping the Greek doctor and sat down heavily beside Arturus, ‘I saw you slay two of the Alans and take on the first wave of Vandals. A fighting monk,' he said grudgingly. ‘I grant you that, though whether or not your story holds any water I cannot judge.'

Arturus reached under his cassock and drew out his sword. Macrobius stiffened, and Arturus put his other hand on the centurion's shoulder, smiling. ‘Fear not, my friend. It is just that I have noticed that your tribune Flavius Aetius is missing his sword. He dropped it trying to save a man, an action that in days past would have won him the
corona civilis.
Before that I saw him confront an Alan with that sword, struggling with its length. Mine will be better for him. It's shorter, designed for thrusting. May it serve you well, Flavius, as it did my legionary ancestors in Britain.'

He handed Flavius the
gladius,
its blade dull red with dried blood, the tip showing fresh dings and dents from the fight. Flavius turned it over in his hands, weighing it. ‘And you?' he asked Arturus. ‘Can a heretic British monk fight with his bare hands?'

Arturus folded back his cassock. ‘I have fulfilled my vow of
wergild
for the murder of my cousin by Gaiseric. I have taken blood from his army, and the score is settled. A new sword will be forged for me in Britain, a sword for a new era, a new kingdom. But your kingdom remains the empire of Rome, and for you the sword of the legionaries still holds power. There will be war ahead.'

‘Gaiseric will cross the Mediterranean.'

Arturus nodded. ‘When he goes north from here and takes Sicily, the last breadbasket of Rome will be gone. With no handouts of grain, the people of Rome will run riot and the slaves will rise in revolt, just as they did when the Goths ravaged the city a generation ago. The navy of Rome must be prepared to take on this new threat. But there is worse to come, something we have spoken of before. All warriors of Rome must gird themselves against a new darkness on the horizon, a darkness sweeping in from the steppe-lands beyond the Danube, a new leader who has arisen from among the Huns. I clashed with him once, when the Gothic master I served took his bodyguard with him to their wooden citadel in a fold in the steppes to the east of the Danube. We fought in their duelling arena, and I won. But he was a youth then, the birth scars on his cheeks barely calloused over. He is now a man, toughened by war, ruthless and driven by ambition, his eye set on the western empire of Rome.'

‘You speak of a son of Mundiuk,' Macrobius growled. ‘They say he is named after the ancient sword of the Hun kings. They call him Attila.'

The galley slid silently under the city walls, the momentum from the last oar sweep still driving it forward, and then they were out in the blinding sunlight on the open ocean, the waves slapping against the bows and the full force of the north-easterly wind bearing down on them. The captain bellowed, the rowers extended their oars and the kettle drum in the stern began to resonate, the giant black-skinned drummer giving a beat each time the oars struck the water. The pace increased as they rounded the promontory and the captain heaved the steering oar to set course for Rome. A sheet of spray came over the bows and drenched them, a welcome cleansing after the dust of the city. Flavius used the water to wipe clean the blade of the
gladius,
sliding it into the empty scabbard beneath his cloak. As soon as he could he would take some olive oil from the ship's cook, to keep it from rusting.

He saw Arturus watching him, nodded and then braced himself as the galley began to rise and fall with the heave of the sea. He remembered the old coin he had found on the quayside and took it out of his pouch, holding it up to the sunlight. It was silver, but it had lost its glint, the metal covered by the patina of the ages. On the other side from the goddess he could just make out two horsemen and a small dog, and beneath them the single word
ROMA
. He remembered the freshly minted gold coins that he had distributed to the men of the
numerus
before the battle, the head of the emperor Valentinian on one side, stolid, thick-necked, and on the other side the emperor in armour with his foot on the snake holding the orb and the cross. He knew that the silver coin dated from ancient times, from the time of great victories and conquests, of generals like Scipio and Caesar whom they believed they could never emulate. Yet at this moment, with the adrenalin of battle still in his veins, the coin seemed spectral, like the walls they had just passed through, the colour sucked out of it, a thing of the past. He thought about what Arturus had said. If Rome were to survive as more than just a relic, she needed to plan ahead. Those coins of Valentinian seemed to say that, resplendent in gold, the images drawing on the strength of tradition but looking forward; here was an emperor in the venerated armour of the legionaries yet holding down a new enemy and raising the symbols of a new religion, of a new world order that could shape Rome for the future. He only hoped that the image of the emperor would not be belied by reality, something few could judge who had not been allowed into the emperor's increasingly remote inner court in the palaces of Ravenna and Milan.

The bishop was already being seasick over the stern of the galley, and the girl with the curly hair was watching him, her attention rapt, waiting to see what he would do with the coin. He thought for a moment, and then tossed the old silver coin far out to sea, back to join the detritus of history where it belonged. Now was the time for the soldiers of Rome to grasp their sword hilts and face a new enemy, not to wallow in the lost glories of the past. He stared at the girl, and then looked back at his men. His wound throbbed and he ached in every bone in his body, but the spray had invigorated him. He would take his place among the rowers as soon as the first man tired. It was going to be a long haul home.

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