A hairy red giant of a Vandal lieutenant summoned Eudoxius inside for his audience, so he left the blinding courtyard for the cool darkness of its throne room. At first he could barely see, smelling instead the animal rankness of a crude barbarian court. There was the sweat of rarely washed bodies; the stink of the discarded food that the slovenly Vandals could not bring themselves to clean away; the thick incense Gaiseric burned to mask the smells; the tang of sword oil; and the musk of public, shameless sex. Gaiseric’s captains were sprawled on heaps of stolen carpets and lion skins. Their women lolled with them, some as pale as snow and others as black as ebony, curled like satiated cats, many with breasts and hips bare and one, snoring, with her legs splayed so obscenely that Eudoxius could scarcely believe these savages had converted even to the heretical Arian creed. Of course, Arians were false Christians, believing the Son inferior to the Father, but worse than this they prayed indifferently while slaying with ferocious intent, mixing Christian creed with pagan superstition. They were, in sum, savages, as apt to quail at thunder as they were to charge a Roman battle line. But these crude warriors were the necessary means to his noble end. His scheme was to let legionary and barbarian destroy each other in a single great battle until none were left, and then build after the slaughter.
Taking breath through his mouth to avoid the smell, Eudoxius made his way to the dim end of the hall.
“You come from Attila.” It was Gaiseric, sixty years old now but still tall and powerful, seated on a gilded throne. His hair and beard were like a lion’s mane, and his arms had the thickness of a bear’s. The Vandal king sat upright and watchful. There were no women at his side. Two guards flanked him instead, one a Nubian and the other a pale and tattooed Pict. Gaiseric himself peered with bright, piercing blue eyes as out of place in this climate as ice. How far his people had marched! The Vandal king wore silver chain mail over captured Roman linens, as if expecting an attack at any moment, and a circlet of gold rested on his brow. A dagger was on his belt and a long sword and spear leaned on the wall behind him. He’d been lame since being thrown from a horse as a youth, and his lack of mobility and a life of enemies had made him cautious of attack.
Eudoxius bowed, his robes a curtain around his feet and his gray beard brushing his chest, gesturing with his hand at waist level in the manner of the East. “I come from your Hun brothers, great Gaiseric.”
“The Huns are not my brothers.”
“Aren’t they?” Eudoxius boldly came closer. “Don’t both of your kingdoms fight Rome? Are not both of your treasur-ies hungry for its gold? And is the accession of Attila and your own capture of Carthage not a sign from God, or all the gods, that the time has come for the world to be ruled anew?
I have come with Attila’s blessing, Gaiseric, to inquire about an alliance. The West has yet to feel Attila’s wrath, but he is tempted by the opportunities there. Aetius is a formidable enemy, but only if he has one battle to fight at a time. Were Attila to attack Gaul at the same time the Vandals attacked Italy from the south, no Roman combination could stand before us.”
Gaiseric brooded quietly for a while, considering the vast geographies that would be involved. “That is an ambitious plan.”
“It is a logical plan. Rome prevails only by fighting the tribes and nations of the barbarians separately or by shrewdly pitting one against the other. The ministers in Ravenna laugh at how they manipulate their enemies, Gaiseric. I am of their world, and I have seen it. But were Hun and Vandal to march together, with Gepid and Scuri, Pict and Berber, then perhaps the man I see before me would be the next emperor.”
This discussion was made in the earshot of Gaiseric’s followers, in the open manner of barbarians who insisted on hearing a plan before following it. These final words made his lieutenants shout and hoot in agreement, banging goblets and daggers against the marble floors and roaring at the idea of ultimate triumph. Their king as emperor of Rome! But Gaiseric himself was quiet, his eyes probing, careful not to promise too much.
“I as emperor, or Attila?”
“Co-emperors, perhaps, on the model of the Romans.”
“Humph.” Gaiseric’s fingers tapped on the arm of his throne. “Why is it you who have come with this proposition, physician? Why aren’t you out lancing boils or brewing potions?”
“I’ve fought Aetius and his minions in eastern Gaul and seen poor men, whose only hope was to be free, slain by Roman tyranny. I barely escaped with my life and sought refuge with Attila, but I’ve never forgotten my people. Am I a mere doctor? Yes, but I minister to men’s health by being their political champion as well as their physician. My role is to see that you and Attila understand how your interests coincide with all good men.”
“You have a smooth tongue. Yet this Aetius is your enemy, not mine.”
Here Eudoxius nodded, having anticipated this very objection. “As Theodoric and the Visigoths are your enemies, not mine.”
Now the Vandals fell silent, as if a cloud had passed before the sun. Romans were targets, sheep to be harvested.
But the rival Visigoths who had settled in southwestern Gaul were a deeper and more menacing opponent, a barbarian power as dangerous as their own. Here was rivalry that went back generations, two Germanic tribes with a long history of feuds. It was to a Visigoth that the Roman empress Placidia had once been wed, and it was the Visigoths who haughtily claimed to be more civilized as a result: as if they were better than the Vandals!
At one point King Gaiseric tried to heal the breach by having his son marry King Theodoric’s daughter, to join the tribes with blood. But when the Roman emperor Valentinian later offered the boy his own daughter instead—clearly a more important and prestigious marriage—Gaiseric had tried to send the Vandal bride, a princess named Berta, back to her father in Gaul.
It was then that trouble truly started. The haughty Visigoths had refused to countenance the divorce of their already married Berta to make room for a new Roman wife.
But the Roman princess, a Christian, wouldn’t agree to polygamy. Visigothic refusal had been followed by recriminations, and recriminations by insult, and finally in a burst of drunken fury Gaiseric himself had slit the nose and ears of Berta and sent her in humiliation back to her father. Ever since, his dreams had been tormented by the possible vengeance of Theodoric: War with the Visigoths was what he feared above all else. “Do not mention those pig droppings in my court,” he now growled uneasily.
“It is the land of the Visigoths that Attila covets,” Eudoxius said. “It is Theodoric who is the only hope of Aetius.
Pledge yourself to this war, Gaiseric, and your most hated enemy becomes Attila’s enemy. Pledge yourself against Rome, and the Huns march against Theodoric. Even if he does not destroy the Visigoths Attila will surely wound them. Meanwhile, you can have Italy. But before Attila can march he must know you will distract the Romans in the south. That is the alliance that will benefit us all.”