The Scourge of God

That night I brushed my mount down, checked her hooves, and went back to the baggage train to fetch oats I had packed in Constantinople. “A Hun can’t feed what he can’t grow,” I murmured as she ate. “His horse can’t draw on strength it doesn’t have.”

Skilla boasted of the day’s victory to the others around our fire that night. “Tomorrow, he promises me two gold coins! By the time we reach Attila, I’ll be rich!”

“Today we ran your race,” I said. “Tomorrow we run mine. Not a sprint but endurance: whoever goes farthest between sunrise and sunset.”

“That’s a fool’s race, Roman. A Hun can cover a hundred miles in a day.”

“In your country. Let’s see it in mine.” So Skilla and I set out at dawn, the others in the party making their own bets and cheering us as we departed, joking about the frisky foolishness of young men. The Rhodope Mountains were to the left and Philippopolis ahead. There I first encountered Attila’s destruction. We skirted the devastated city at mid-morning; and while Skilla scarcely glanced at it, I was stunned at the extent of the ruin. The roofless me-tropolis looked like a torn honeycomb, open to the rains.

Grass grew in the streets, and only a few priests and shep-herds resided around a church the barbarians had somehow spared. The surrounding fields had gone to weeds, and the few villagers peered from huts like kittens from a den.

I had to beat the Huns who had done this.

The road crossed the Hebrus River on an arched stone bridge, crudely repaired by the locals, and became rougher, side hilling along the river’s valley. With the rising terrain, my confidence grew. Still we kept within sight of each other: sometimes the Hun riding ahead, and sometimes my determined mount passing him. Neither of us stopped for lunch, eating in the saddle. In the early afternoon we crossed the river again and then the land began to steepen as the road climbed toward the Pass of Succi.

Skilla cursed at the grade.

His lighter pony could keep an easy pace on level ground.

On a slope its gait was less even and the horse’s lighter muscles and lungs began to strain. My mare was bigger in relation to her rider, her lungs giving her a reserve of air and her oats giving her a store of energy. As we climbed, the Hun’s gelding began to slip behind. When it lost sight of Diana, it slowed even more.

The sun was setting over a sea of blue mountains when I reined in at the crest of the pass. The rest of the party wouldn’t make it this far today and it would be cold to wait for them at the summit, but I didn’t care. I had ridden a smarter race.

Skilla finally came up at dusk, his horse looking ragged, as morose in defeat as he was jubilant in victory. “If not for the mountains, I would have beaten you.”

“If not for the sea, I could walk to Crete.” I held out my hand. “Two solidi, Hun. Now you must pay tribute to me.” It was such a bold insult that for a moment Skilla seemed ready to balk. Yet the Huns had their own sense of fairness, part of which was acknowledgment of debt. Grudgingly, the Hun handed over the coins. “Tomorrow again?”

“No. We’ll get too far ahead of the others and kill our horses.” I tossed a coin back. “We each won one day. Now we’re even.” It seemed the diplomatic thing to do.

The Hun contemplated the coin for a moment, embarrassed at the charity, and then cocked his arm and hurled it away into the dark.

“A good race, Roman.” He tried to smile but it was a grimace. “Someday, perhaps, we will race for real, and then-

no matter how long your lead-I will catch you and kill you.”

VI

THE NEW KING OF CARTHAGE

How far the fight for justice has taken me, thought the Greek doctor Eudoxius.

It was dazzling noon at conquered Carthage on the shore of North Africa, and the rebel physician found himself in a world of bizarre color. Marble and stucco shimmered like snow. Arcades and antechambers were hollows of dark shadow. The Mediterranean was as blue as the cloak of the Virgin, and the sands shone as blond as a Saxon’s hair. So different from the hues of Gaul and Hunuguri! How odd to come to this capital that had been destroyed by the Roman Republic so many centuries ago, rebuilt by the Roman Empire, and now captured and occupied by Vandals-a people who had originated in gray lands of snow and fog. Down from the cold the tribe had come, carving like a knife through the Western Empire for decade after decade. Finally they marched through Hispana to the Pillars of Hercules and learned to be sailors, and then they seized the warm and fecund granary of Africa, the capital of which was Carthage.

The Vandals, once disdained as hapless barbarians, now rested their boots on the throat of Rome.