A WEEK LATER, AND far into the journey to Hun Land, Hagan could still not quite believe he had agreed to come along.
One of his objections had been that it would make him a deserter. The punishments for desertion in the Roman Army were brutal and could, if his officer stuck to the letter of the law, result in Hagan being beaten to death by his fellow soldiers in front of the rest of his unit.
Zerco had explained that Hagan did not need to worry about that as they were travelling under the orders of the Magister Militum, General Aetius. Zerco was very popular with the Hun nobility, who thought he was hilarious, though Attila had always hated him. Attila had requested Zerco be returned to his court so he could be the entertainment at his wedding feast. Zerco was not happy with this but Aetius had agreed.
Why the Magister Militum would do that, Hagan could not work out, and said so.
‘Aetius thinks it will appease Attila in some way,’ Zerco had explained. ‘He thinks that by accommodating Attila’s demands then the Huns will leave Aetius alone long enough for Rome to rebuild sufficient strength to fight them off. What a fool the man is. If you feed a wolf scraps of meat it won’t make it leave your sheep alone. And I am the scrap of meat in this instance.’
The little man looked so miserable Hagan could not help feeling pity for him. He was returning to a life of pampering, yes, but at the price of constant ridicule and degradation. Nevertheless, Hagan wondered if that was Aetius’s real reasoning. Did he know what Wodnas was planning? Was he in fact behind Wodnas’ plan?
Needless to say, Wodnas kept tight-lipped. Regardless of his reasoning, Aetius knew of the journey, and so ostensibly Hagan was to go as an escort to ensure Zerco made it to the court of Attila.
The Lady Freya had not come with them, saying she was returning to Geneva to ensure her father Forsetti and the other Aesir were ready to leave quickly in case Wodnas’ plan failed and Attila sought vengeance. Before they parted, however, she had handed her blue glass bottle to Wodnas, who placed it in one of the pack ponies’ saddlebags.
Gunderic was travelling from Geneva separately and was to meet them at Attila’s palace, which suited Hagan fine. That was one reunion Hagan was not looking forward to. Wodnas had assured him he would make sure of his safety but Hagan was still wary.
They had sailed across the Mare Hadriaticum, this time heading east. When they landed at Dyrrhachium they took the Via Egnatia through the dusty plains of Macedonia for two days then went north, leaving the relatively easy travelling of the Imperial road for dirt tracks and navigation by reckoning the sun. Here there were no mansiones or stabula, and they had to sleep out in the open in leather sleeping bags under whatever makeshift shelter they could build.
When they reached Naissus they began to see signs that they were travelling in the wake of Attila’s army.
Hagan had never been there before, but it was clear Naissus was – or rather had been – a thriving city of considerable size.
‘This was a major city at the edge of the Eastern Roman Empire, ruled from Constantinople,’ Wodnas said. ‘The last time I was here it was a teeming hive of commerce and life. Now look at it!’
The city was deserted. Its gates were broken, the houses, churches and shops ransacked. Eventually they came upon a church in the centre of the town where the sound of voices made them approach with caution. Peering in through the door they made out people lying on makeshift beds on the floor. Sweat glistened on their ghastly pale, gaunt faces. A couple of priests tended them.
Seeing the men at the door, one of the priests approached, then stopped.
‘I won’t come any closer,’ he said. ‘These people have an infectious sickness.’
Hagan and Wodnas exchanged glances.
‘What happened to the city?’ Wodnas said. ‘Where is everyone?’
‘The Huns attacked us,’ the priest said. ‘They destroyed everything. Those they didn’t kill have run away. These sick people were the only survivors and they will not last much longer.’
‘Let’s leave this place,’ Zerco said. ‘The last thing we need is to catch plague.’
After resting for the night in a deserted building, they set off again in the morning. There was a meadow outside the city that led to the banks of a river. It was littered with the bones of maybe a thousand dead men and horses. They must have been killed in Attila’s first assault, or perhaps even in previous raids by the Huns, for the bones were picked completely clean, dislocated and scattered all over the ground. Grass was growing around and through them.
There was, however, still a decent road running north from Naissus. It was a military road, built for soldiers to get quickly from Constantinople to the borders of the Eastern Empire. That border had now retreated considerably south. As evidence of this, the next day they came upon an outpost fort of the Eastern Empire.
Again it had been attacked and burned, but this time there was no sign of any bodies. The walls were crumbling and it looked like the place had been derelict for some time, perhaps many years.
The company proceeded north on the road but had to turn off it as it turned north-east and they went north-west. Both Zerco and Wodnas were familiar with the route. Zerco had travelled through this countryside many times, both with Aspar, the Magister Militum of the Eastern Empire, and when he was Bleda the Hun’s jester. Wodnas explained that they were not far from where his former kingdom had been in southern Scythia, before it was overrun by the Huns.
They travelled down a wooded valley, following a winding, circuitous path. Sometimes the path was so twisting and the sides of the valley so high it seemed like they were heading the wrong way, as it appeared the sun was in the east rather than the west, but it turned out to be just an illusion caused by the wild, rugged terrain.
After another few days’ travel they emerged overlooking a wide wooded plain. Before they descended to it they could see the wide blue waters of the Danube far ahead, weaving its way through the trees like a huge serpent.
It took most of the next day to get to the mighty river. Hagan had been wondering for most of the way how they might get across. From a distance there had been no sign of a bridge. However when they arrived he found he should not have worried.
Both banks were littered with hundreds of boats. Someone had cut down many of the surrounding trees, sawing the trunks in half lengthways and hollowing them out. There were huge heaps of wood shavings and stripped branches piled on the riverside. Countless feet and hooves had churned the ground to mud that was pocked with footprints still, perhaps weeks now since they had been made.
‘This was how Attila got his army across the river,’ Wodnas said. ‘And how he got them back again.’
‘They took their horses in these too?’ Hagan said.
‘The horses swam alongside,’ Wodnas said. ‘As will ours.’
They unburdened the pack ponies and loaded their saddlebags into one of the abandoned makeshift boats. Then, holding the reins of the horses as they waded then swam along behind, they rowed the boat to the other side of the wide, fast-flowing Danube.
When they grounded on the far bank, Wodnas stepped out and looked around.
‘We are now in Hun Land,’ he said.
‘This was once your kingdom?’ Hagan said, as he clambered out of the boat himself.
‘Part of it was,’ Wodnas said. ‘My kingdom was over to the east, towards those mountains. It was once part of Roman Dacia before my people arrived. They called it Trans-Sylvania, the land beyond the forest.’
Hagan looked and saw a line of high, craggy mountains in the distance, visible because of the broad river and the trees that had been felled.
The woods and area seemed deserted, but the party reasoned that Attila’s army had only recently passed through the area. Such a body of men could strip it of everything useful, from food to provisions, for their own ends, so it might be some time before the locals returned.
As they resumed their journey they did begin to come upon villages. Hagan noticed that the inhabitants seemed a strange mixture of peoples. Some looked like Greeks, others Goths, Scythians and Dacians. Their dress and language was also a strange mixture of different cultures. Both Wodnas and Zerco were able to converse in the local dialect, which meant the company was able to buy fresh provisions, a welcome relief from the dried food they had been living off for some time.
There were also Huns, of course, but they were fewer in number. They were the chiefs and governors of the villages, the judges and the warriors, and they always had the largest houses in the villages, usually protected behind a palisade or enclosure. They had conquered this land, and now they ruled it.
Everyone was welcoming enough to the travellers and they were not robbed or swindled, but Hagan could not help notice that soon after they left each village a horseman would come galloping out of it, overtaking them on the path they were on and riding on ahead.
‘They are warning Attila of our presence,’ Wodnas said. ‘Or at least that there are strangers in the country.’
‘Attila must command considerable respect,’ Hagan commented.
‘They fear him,’ Wodnas said. ‘No one wants to be the village head man who did not report the presence of foreigners when others did. It would bring suspicion – and punishment.’
The journey continued for seven more days. The company crossed three more large rivers, this time using ferries provided by the locals. The forests thinned out and they passed lakes and meadows. At night they camped and if they were lucky ate fish caught in a river or bread made from millet they had bought from the locals. The wine they had brought ran out and they had to make do with a local drink made from barley that tasted bitter and made the head swim a little. Wodnas, who until then Hagan had only ever seen drinking wine, found it particularly unpleasant.
At night they sat around the campfire, chatting and drinking the bitter barley wine. Wodnas entertained them with tales of his astonishing travels. There seemed very few places in the known world the old man had not been to.
After another day of travel, as evening drew on, the wide plain opened up and there was a large settlement on it beside a winding river.
‘That’s where Attila’s palace is,’ Wodnas said.
‘Where is his army?’ Hagan wondered. The surrounding fields were flattened and stripped of undergrowth, the grass dead or stripped to mud. There were all the signs that a large army had camped there.
‘He will have sent them home,’ Wodnas said. ‘The plague made him retreat from Italia. To the plague, a large band of men all camped together is like a bowl for proving bread in, or a dry heath when a wildfire starts. If they are scattered there is less chance of them spreading it among themselves.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Zerco said.
‘He’ll still have plenty of warriors around him, don’t worry about that,’ Wodnas said.
‘So what now?’ Hagan said.
‘Give me a moment,’ Wodnas said. ‘I need to think.’
He walked a little way off until he found a tree stump which he sat on. He turned his back to the others, though they could still see him take his satchel off, set it on his knees and unlatch it.
‘You see what he’s doing?’ Zerco said in a low voice. ‘He’s talking to that bag he carries.’
‘I’ve seen him do it a few times before,’ Hagan said. ‘He does it whenever he tries to make decisions.’
Zerco made a twirling gesture with his forefinger beside his temple.
‘I just hope he hasn’t lost his mind,’ he said. ‘He’s leading us on this quest and I’d hate to think our destinies were in the hands of a madman.’
After a time the old man closed his bag, slung it over his shoulder and stood up. Then he returned to the others.
‘Well?’ Hagan said.
‘We should go and announce our arrival,’ Wodnas said. ‘We need to try to discern what Gunhild’s real purpose is. Perhaps now feels she has made a mistake and this is a cry for help, a veiled plea to be rescued. She might be able to aid us in getting the poison into Attila’s drink. Or perhaps she really is going to marry him, and during the revels after the ceremony the opportunity might arise to somehow get Freya’s poison into his wine.’
‘Or perhaps they will just have us put to death as soon as we arrive,’ Hagan said.
‘True,’ Wodnas said. ‘But we will never know if we stay here.’