Alaric marched south again for Messina, his eyes on the rich pickings of Sicily just across the straits. But the weather was by then turning rough, with late summer and early autumn storms, and rising Sirius presiding as always over the season of storms that sailors have dreaded since man first presumed to travel in Neptune’s realm. And that very night, after a fine banquet in his palatial tent, cooked for him by his boasted new Roman chef, Alaric was suddenly taken ill with some mysterious form of poisoning, and died. His chef had in fact been a gift from the household of Princess Galla Placidia herself…
The unfortunate creator of the banquet was put to death, just to be on the safe side. And Alaric was given a burial fit for a conqueror and king. His generals, with massive slave labour from the neighbouring townships, diverted the River Busentius from the walls of Consentia, buried their lamented king in a triple casket in the muddy riverbed, then returned the river to its course. All those who had worked on the burial were slain, and to this day the exact place of Alaric’s burial has not been discovered. Doubtless it never will be.
To unanimous acclaim, Alaric’s capable, vigorous, taciturn younger brother, Athawulf, was made king in his stead. And the Gothic nation, abandoning its dreams of conquering Sicily, which seemed to them fore-damned, returned northwards to Rome. And there, to general astonishment, and not a little sardonic laughter, it was soon announced to the populace of the city, and to the Gothic nation, that King Athawulf, as a sign of the new concord that now existed between the Gothic and Roman peoples, would take as his bride the beautiful Princess Galla Placidia, sister to Emperor Honorius, and a spotless virgin of only twenty-two summers.
9
Throughout these tumultuous days for Rome – her last days, so it seemed – the Palatine Guard continued to hunt for the barbarian boy with the slanting eyes and the blue, scarred, tattooed cheeks, on his arduous flight through the ruins of Italy.
The boy fought on, hunted all the way.
His ancient mule died under him so he stole a horse. He rode that horse to death in a single day, and the next sunrise he stole another. He could cover a hundred miles between dawn and dusk, or as often by night, riding through the dense woods of the Italian mountains, only coming down into the more populous valleys to steal. He survived through anarchy and war, fighting sometimes like a cornered animal against vagrants or bandits or deserter soldiers with lust or cruelty in their eyes. He fought, cheated and lied his way through the flames of Roman devastation, and with every victory that he won he grew stronger. He was happier in those desperate weeks than he had ever been during the years of boredom and bitterness in the safe and perfumed courts of Rome.
He had always before him the prospect of his own country: the beloved, windy plains of Scythia, the broad, winding rivers and the vast, dense pine forests, the tents of black felt and the wagons where his people encamped. The boar hunts, the wolf hunts, the blue skies of summer and the terrible snow-bound winters. And he rode with a happy heart, through the chaos and ruins of Italy, heading north, back to his tribal homeland. Nothing could destroy him. Not lightning, not bandits, not street bullies, not hunger or thirst, not summer sun or winter snow, not even great Rome itself. He was one with his father Astur and with the immortal gods of heaven, and when he killed he felt he could create as easily and with as much pleasure as he destroyed. For that is the way of the unknown and changeful gods.
He did not always travel alone. One chill autumn morning he awoke to find, to his annoyance, that a crook-backed old man had crept into the woodland glade where he had camped without his hearing. The ancient stranger was stooped over his camp-fire, piled afresh with dry twigs, and was blowing new life into it through his bony, liver-spotted hands.
The old man eyed the boy impassively as he scrambled from his blankets and reached for his sword. He was bearded and his face, with its beaked nose and deep-set eyes, was grim and without humour. When he spoke his voice was a hoarse rasp from disuse, as is the way with hermits and solitaries.
‘No need for a sword, boy. Not in these Latter Days.’
Attila laid his sword aside uncertainly, and approached the stranger. ‘Your name?’ he demanded.
‘A servant of the servants of God.’
‘That’s not a name.’
The old man said irritably, looking back at the fire, ‘John, then, if thou must. Unworthy as I am to share a name with the fourth evangelist.’ He crossed himself. ‘Now give me food.’
‘I have none.’
‘Thou liest.’
The boy was becoming irritated in turn. ‘I do not lie.’
‘And what are those markings on thy face? Those unChristian daubings that stain thy visage in the manner of the most wretched and unhallowed of barbarians?’
Attila touched his fingertips to his cheeks. ‘My birth-tattoos,’ he said, ‘cut by my mother ten days to the hour from the day my birth-cord was cut. After ten days had passed, it was known that the gods would not call me back to the Everlasting Blue Sky.’
The old man looked at him with dawning horror. At last he sprang to his feet and seized the boy’s arms in his skinny, claw-like fingers. His eyes were rheumy and watery with age. ‘The Lord God of Israel save thee, and all the apostles save thee, and all the saints save thee, and the Mother of God intercede for thee, and save thee as a brand plucked from the burning! For thou art in mortal danger of eternal hell-fire!’ He threw his head back and cried to heaven, ‘O Lord, have mercy on this Christless and unshriven soul!’
The boy shook the madman free with some effort, for his grip was like that of a hawk on its prey. ‘I have no need of your Christ,’ he retorted.
Holy John reeled back as if from a blow, and put his hands to his ears.
‘Astur my father sees all and judges all. I am not afraid of the day of his judgement of me.’
‘What is this new diabolical name? What is this daemon?’ cried Holy John, his voice becoming hysterical. ‘Surely there are more daemons in the earth than there are birds in the sky! Oh, save us! Name him not in my presence, for to name a daemon is to summon him!’ Once again, he seized Attila, this time by the hem of his ragged tunic. Attila eyed him with something approaching disgust, and let him rant. ‘There is a she-daemon of similar name, worshipped in Syria with the foulest and most depraved rites known to man or beast, in the Groves of Ashta-Oh, but I dare not speak her name. Her eyes burn like the fires of Gehenna, and on her front she has an hundred breasts.’
‘Astur is the name of the god of my people,’ said the boy coldly, ‘and if you insult him you insult me and my people and the thirty generations of my ancestors who sprang from his seed.’
‘Boy, thou dost not understand!’ howled Holy John. ‘Thy ancestors burn in hell, every one of them, even as we dally on this accursed mountainside. And thou thyself art in mortal danger of burning likewise.’
Attila spoke very slowly, his eyes never leaving Holy John’s contorted face. ‘You are telling me,’ he said, ‘that my mother, who died when I was still an infant at her breast, now burns for ever in your eternal Christian hell?’