The Huns were no different.
Their marriages were polygamous, given the surplus of women due to the ravages of war, with harems the reward for battlefield success. There were also concubines who lived in a social twilight between legitimacy and slavery and who sometimes wielded more influence over their vain masters than a legal wife. Battle death, divorce, remarriages, and adultery were so common that the packs of children who ran screaming through the camp seemed to belong to everyone and no one, and seemed as happy in this state as wolf cubs.
The Huns indulged their children and taught them horsemanship with the same earnestness that we Romans taught rhetoric or history; but they would also cuff them with the gruffness of she-bears or hurl them into the river to make a point. Privation was expected as a part of life, and practiced for with fasts, withheld water, long swims, the scorch of fire, or the prick of thorns. Wrestling was encouraged, and archery required. For boys there was no higher honor than to endure more pain than your companions, no greater delight than surprising an enemy, and no goal more important than blooding yourself in battle. Girls were taught that they could bear even more agony than men and that every fiber of their being must be dedicated to making more babies who would someday make still more war.
My guide to this martial society was Zerco, the dwarf seeming to enjoy watching the teasing and torture the children inflicted on one another, perhaps because it reminded him of the torment given people his size. “Anagai there has learned to hold his breath longer than anyone because he’s smallest and the others hold him under the Tisza,” the dwarf explained. “Bochas tried to drown him, but Anagai learned to wring the bigger boy’s balls, so now Bochas is more careful. Sandil lost an eye in a rock fight, and Tatos can’t shoot after breaking his arm, so he’s catching arrows with his shield. They boast about their bruises. The meanest they make their leaders.”
I was toughening myself. The journey alone had developed my muscles to an unprecedented degree, and here in Hunuguri there were no books. Composition of my notes took only a fraction of the day. Accordingly, I set about hardening myself like a Hun. I galloped over the treeless plain on my mare, Diana, improving my horsemanship.
And, as Zerco had advised, I dug out my heavy Roman weapons and began to practice earnestly. It made a strange sight for the Huns. My spatha, or cavalry sword, was heavier than the curved Hun blades, and my chain armor was heavier and hotter than their leather and bone lamellar armor. Above all, my oval shield was like a house wall compared to the small round wicker shields of the horsemen.
Sometimes Huns came to cross blades for practice and, if I could not match their quickness, neither could they break easily past my shield. They banged on me like on a turtle. I fought several to a standstill, and their initial jeers turned to grudging respect. “Getting at you is like getting at a fox in its den!”
The senator didn’t like this. “We’re an embassy, Alabanda,” Maximinus complained. “We’re here to befriend the Hun, not fence with him.”
“This is what Hun friends do,” I told him as I caught my breath.
“It’s undignified for a diplomat to fight like a common soldier.”
“Fighting is all the dignity they believe in.”
Meanwhile, Skilla’s intervention had only increased my interest in Ilana. I learned that he had been orphaned in the wars, taken in by his uncle Edeco, and had been promised Ilana by Attila himself once he had sufficiently proved his mettle in battle. In the meantime, she served Suecca. Had she agreed to this fate? He claimed that he’d saved her life, and she admitted that her acceptance of presents and protection signaled acquiescence. Yet his generosity also embarrassed her, and it was clear she felt trapped.
I wished I had something to match him, but I’d brought no gifts of my own. Certainly she was a striking woman, with an obvious interest in me as a possible rescuer. Yet she was wary of being seen with me, and I wasn’t sure if her interest went beyond my potential utility as a path to freedom.
I tabulated her movements, learning to cross paths with her when she emerged from Edeco’s household on errands, and she learned to expect me. She walked in a way that made me think of her body even when she was in the plainest and most shapeless clothes, and she smiled encouragingly at me even while seeming reluctant to linger. She knew we most want what we can’t have.
“Don’t submit to that Hun,” I told her in hurried moments. I liked the way her eyes shone as she looked to me as a savior, even while I wondered if I could ever actually help her—I had no money—or if she was using me.
“I’ve asked Suecca to keep Skilla away,” she said. “She’s disgusted at my ingratitude and Edeco is amused. These Huns view resistance as a challenge. I’m worried, Jonas.
Skilla is getting impatient. I need to get away from this camp.”
“I don’t know if Edeco would agree to let you go.”
“Maybe when your embassy negotiates and favors are being exchanged. Talk to your senator.”
“Not yet.” I knew her rescue would not make sense to anybody but me. I grasped her hand, even this slight contact thrilling me. “Soon Bigilas will return and opportunity will arise,” I promised recklessly. “I’m determined to take you with us.”
“Please, my life will be at an end if you don’t.”
And then Bigilas came back.
The son of Bigilas was a boy of eleven, dark haired and wide-eyed, who rode into camp with mouth open and spine tingling. How could he not gape at this horde of Huns whom Roman boys had exaggerated to mythic proportions? Young Crixus was proud that his father was playing so pivotal a role. He, Crixus, was the guarantee of honesty between the two sides! That his father had seemed troubled and distant on their journey north did not particularly surprise the boy: Bigilas had always been too self-absorbed to be either a proper father or good companion, but he moved with the greats and promised they would someday be rich. How many sons could say that?
When word of Bigilas’s return reached Attila, the king invited us Romans to attend him that evening. Despite his proclaimed patience, Maximinus was relieved. We’d been confined to Attila’s camp for weeks.
Once again the king of the Huns was on his dais, but this time there were far fewer retainers in his hall. Instead, there were a dozen heavily armed guards and Edeco, Skilla, and Onegesh: the Huns who had accompanied us.
Trying to ignore the Hun soldiers, I told myself that perhaps this smaller group was an encouraging sign. Here was private and serious negotiation, not diplomatic ritual and show. Yet I couldn’t help but feel greater unease than when I’d first come to the Hun camp, for I’d learned too much about Attila. His charisma was matched by his tyranny, and the humbleness of his attire masked the arrogance of ambition.
“I hope he’s in good humor,” I whispered to Rusticius.
“Surely he wishes to conclude things as we do.”
“You’ve had enough Hun hospitality?”
“Edeco has never forgiven me for standing up for us and speaking back during our journey, and I’ve felt his ire in the mood of his followers. They call me the Westerner, as if fundamentally different because I come from Italy. They watch me as if I’m on exhibit.”
“I think they’re just curious about peoples they’ve yet to enslave.”
Torches threw a wavering light over the scarred faces of Attila’s retainers. The king’s deep-set eyes seemed to have burrowed even farther into his head than I remembered, rotating to look at this figure or that like creatures peering from protective burrows. His odd, ugly, and impassive face made him difficult to read and, as usual, there was not a hint of a smile. This seemed unsurprising. I’d attended Hun justice councils where quarreling tribesmen took rival complaints; and Attila always adjudicated without emotion, his judgments harsh, strange, quick, and yet curiously fitting his grim people and his own stoic visage. Each judgment day he sat bareheaded in the bright sunlight of his compound courtyard, the quarreling or petitioning parties let in by turn. They would be peppered with hard questions, cut off if they protested too long, and then sent away with a decision from which there was no appeal.