The Scourge of God

“The fool, Zerco. He’s disappeared.” Of course! The jester had not just help nurse the Roman in his hut, the pair had become conspirators. Not until they lived together had Jonas shown the boldness to set fire to Attila’s palace. How much of what happened had been the fool’s idea?

“And something even stranger, Skilla. The Greek Eudoxius has disappeared, too.”

“Eudoxius! He’s no friend of Zerco.”

“Or of the Roman. Unless he’s been playing a double game.”

Skilla thought. “Or they have taken him prisoner.”

“Perhaps as a hostage,” Tatos said, “or for the Romans to torture.”

“It’s clear, then. They’re riding for Zerco’s old master, the Roman general Aetius. So we ride toward news of Aetius, too. Anyone who sees them will remember a dwarf, a woman, a Roman, and a Greek doctor. They might as well be a traveling circus.”

Our quartet of fugitives rode ever deeper into the barbarian world. Zerco’s plan was to travel a great arc into Germania, going first northwest and then southwest, striking the Danube again somewhere between Vindobona in the east and Boioduram to the west. He said we would cross the river into the relative safety of Noricum, that province north of the Alps still partly under Roman control. From there we could learn the whereabouts of Aetius or go on to Italy.

The chance of discovery by roving patrols of Huns or Germans forced us from the main tracks and required us to move slowly. We rested during the middle of the increasingly short days as autumn advanced, but rode into the night and rose again before dawn, as stealthy as hunted deer. Fortunately, we were away from major rivers or trading routes and settlement was sparse. Log huts crouched in clearings amid forest as old as time, the smoke of cooking fires curling away into thick ground mists. Trunks were as fat as towers, their limbs the outstretched hands of giants. Leaves rained down, and the days were growing cloudy and cold.

The world was growing darker.

This was country different than I had ever seen before, different even than the mountains we’d crossed to get to Attila. It was dim in the forest and hard to tell direction. Shapes moved in the night, and occasionally we saw the moonlit gleam of animal eyes, of which kind I cannot say. The air was always chill and damp, and our reluctance to light a fire, because of its revealing smoke, made our meals cold and cheerless. My only consolation was that I believed the Huns would like this pathway even less, given their love of open sky and rolling grassland.

I could have ridden faster by myself, I suppose, but it would have been with a sorrowful recklessness likely to get me caught. The elation I’d expected from fleeing Attila’s camp had instead become sadness at the loss of Ilana. In this somber mood, the company of the dwarf and his wife was a comfort, relieving me of having to make the decisions of where to go. They were gentle at my remote and troubled manner-only much later would I think to thank them-and Julia, who had come from such country, instructed us in the ways of camping. Zerco tried to explain the intricacies of imperial politics to me. So many kings, so many alliances, so many treacheries! Animosities reaching back two and three hundred years! The sword, perhaps, would help temporarily unite them.

The kidnapped Eudoxius, in contrast, was a misery as company. The Greek, once his gag was removed, was tireless in complaining not just about his capture but also about the weather, the food, the route, the hard ground at night, and the companionship. “I consort with kings, not jesters,” he ranted. “I am on a mission to free a captive world. I am Pericles! I am Spartacus! I am Gideon! I can hear the pursuing hoofbeats now! Listen, you’ve sealed your own doom by capturing me!”

“Listen?” Zerco replied. “How can we not? You’re louder than a mule and twice the trouble, and your braying makes just as much sense.”

“Let me go and I’ll trouble you no more.”

“Slit your throat and you’ll trouble us no more! You are gabbling your way toward a bright red necklace, believe me!”

“Let’s do it now,” I suggested irritably.

“He’s met Gaiseric,” the dwarf replied wearily. “That’s what Aetius will be interested in. Trust me, he’s worth all his noise.”

Zerco knew more than I suspected. His fool’s antics had allowed him to be ignored like a dog during some of the Hun councils, and he’d learned much about the location of barbarian tribes, favored routes to the west, and where provisions might be bought or stolen. Riding like a stocky child in front of his wife, his head cushioned pleasingly against her breasts, he led us by the map he’d formed in his mind.

At an unmarked crossroads or at the hovel of a sutler where we might buy food, he’d clamber down and leave us waiting while he played the mysterious and misshapen pilgrim.

Eventually he’d waddle back with information and bread.

“This way,” he’d announce confidently. Then we’d be on our way again. Never seen was the great sword that was swaddled in rags and slung across my back.