There, where I have passed, the grass will never grow again.
-Attila the Hun
“Why does Gary have so many sons, mommy?” Flavia asked.
The troops marched from the road to the guardhouse at a brisk pace, their armor gleaming in the pale tentacles of sunshine that lazily flopped and unfurled between the grey clouds and suicidal snowflakes – plummeting to the ground with a sickening yet childish glee. One splattered atop Flavia’s nose. She giggled. She sneezed. She forgot her question and began swatting at the snowflakes like they were bumblebees – like spring had come back once more.
“Stay away from my nose!” Flavia squealed as she swatted.
Attica smiled – momentarily forgetting the harsh reality of winter, of her husband’s elongated absence, of the sick child lying in his bed inside her home, spitting up blood. Her smile faded as her hand fell to the hilt of her dagger without the influence of her mind.
The chilling winds careened through the interwoven branches of trees and patched stone roofs with the awkward tenacity of a clumsy goose. Attica slowly removed her hand from the smooth hilt of her dagger. Every sound constituted a threat. Every whisper of wind, every subtle scrape of a boot, every child’s giggle somehow suggested violence – for some reason every noise wanted her family dead. Perhaps the snow itself was the culprit – winter the mastermind – behind her unwinding psyche. An enemy could obscure himself easily enough under the frosty embrace of winter’s discharge, becoming a part of the very landscape until he chose to strike –
Something struck her foot – prompting Attica to yank her dagger violently from its sheath – her fingers seething for blood – just to find the innocent culprit – Flavia had taken to scraping a snow angel into the delicate blanket of frost that winter had lain upon the land. Her eyes were closed – she giggled. She did not notice her mother’s outstretched arm.
Attica placed her dagger back in its home and returned her attention to the city. Barbarians patrolled the walls lazily, more interested in looking at their own feet than out at the landscape beyond the suggested safety of the stacked stone. Their chieftain had equipped them with sturdy pikes and flimsy buckler shields. They must have known deep down that they were not prepared for any enemy with such outdated weapons.
“Salona is not their home,” Attica whispered to herself. “They are no better than cheap mercenaries – they have nothing to fight for.”
Attica knew all too well that the wall was fragile and would not deliver on its promise of protection from the unwashed hordes. Snow had filled the empty spaces where chipped stone ought to have sat. The guard towers stationed every half mile along the wall were dilapidated at best, rusted and rotten – offering more danger to the city than protection – they threatened to collapse at any moment. The giant wooden gate, reinforced with hardened steel, offered the most ease to the conscience as the horde had never been able to even dent it – but it would amount to nothing if the walls surrounding it were to crumble.
The city inside the walls offered similarly gaunt comfort. Many homes had collapsed or were in denial concerning their inevitable collapse – victims of incendiary onager volleys. Those who were not busy burying their dead seemed as vibrant as their broken homes – they wore their protruding ribs like jewelry, adorning the tattered rags which they referred to as clothing. Despite the snow, most did not wear sandals, causing their tender soles to flush with a royal purple hue. They had given up – and those who held some semblance of maddening hope found themselves constantly preoccupied with thoughts of the enemy – untrained hands waiting with bated breath for a chance to fling themselves at the horde – hoping to smother the death mongers as their souls fled their bodies.
“They have attacked before and we have repelled them,” Gnaeus had told her. “Do not worry my love, the horde shall never make its way past these walls.”
Attica and her husband, Gnaeus, had grown up together. They lived on opposite sides of a cobblestone street within Salona, back when the city had some semblance of Roman civility, where they would exchange flirtatious glances before the thought of romance had yet begun to plague their innocent minds. During her tenth year, Gnaeus tackled an agitated dog who had cornered Attica in an alleyway. During her twelfth year, Gnaeus taught her how to spar – unbeknownst to her parents. During her fifteenth year she punched Gauis Laetorius in the nose, two years their senior, when he called Gnaeus’ mother a fata cana. At eighteen they were married before Christ – at nineteen she was with child – and now at twenty-nine –
A horrible throng of coughs interrupted her thoughts. Many children coughed, Attica noted, like her son. This sickness was truly peculiar – it arrived with the horde. It was the most severe in Constantinople but had made its way to her doorstep. It started with headaches, coughing, and fever – but eventually led to the formation of boils, vomiting, and in its final stages – before death – caused the fingers and toes shrivel and turn a unholy shade of ebony black. As the sun dipped below the horizon in the distance, the increasingly dark sky reminded her of the many discarded toes she had seen strewn about alleyways and doctors’ medicine bags alike. Luckily, her son only had the cough. Justinian’s Plague, they had come to call it.
The pained sounds of a skirmish suddenly drew her mind away from the plague. Two dirty, mucky children sparred with sweating icicles on the periphery of Attica’s vision. The first, Varro son of Scipio, fought sloppily. He swung his blade like a midwife slings afterbirth from the back porch – his jabs and swipes meant nothing – no passion accompanied his childish yelps and screams as Claudius son of Brutus utilized every careless thrust. Claudius racked his opponent’s ribs with his blade as if they were the strings of a harp – accompanied each time by the sweet music of Varro’s deserved yelps. Claudius grew tired of the scuffle – however – bringing his blade suddenly and decisively down upon his opponent’s head, sending him sprawling on the ground, defeated.
“Claudius!” his father screamed, removing himself from the butcher’s hut a few yards away.
He grabbed his son by the collar and dragged him out of sight. Claudius’ father was the town’s potter. Claudius was to follow in this tradition. Varro, who continued to lay face-down in the snow, was the son of a soldier – he was meant to follow in this tradition.
“This is why Rome shall fall.” Attica whispered to herself.
“Did you say something, mommy?” Flavia asked.
Attica turned her attention to the angel clasped tightly to her right leg like a leech. Her auburn hair wrapped around her structured, strong snowflake face like the mighty limbs of an elder oak. Her cheeks jutted from her face like her father’s cavalry shield – steel had found its way into the child’s bones. The voice that flowed past her chapped cherry lips could have been the Aegean Sea surging against the ancient shores of Greece – violent yet somehow innocent – harsh yet somehow lulling. And despite the apparent shortage of food, the girl maintained her noble stature – her shoulders did not bow – her back remained erect – her noble face did not lose its authoritative fullness. Her deep blue eyes – lapis lazuli – carved deeply into the faded, crusted-mud eyes of her mother.
“Mommy was just talking to herself.” Attica replied.
Flavia frowned, not content with her mother’s answer. She abandoned her battle with the snowflakes – they fell upon her in an unwashed horde.
“When will daddy be back?” she asked.
“Soon.” Attica answered. “He is off with Varro’s father and all the other soldiers in the legion, they are making sure we are safe.”
“Why didn’t Gary’s sons go with them?” Flavia said after a brief pause, gesturing to the bustling soldiers, remembering her question.
“Garrison, not Gary’s son,” Attica replied. “Bad men are coming from the North, remember? The emperor sent these soldiers to form a garrison force here – to protect us from the bad men here while good men like daddy and the other soldiers in the legion go to fight the bad men elsewhere.”
Flavia watched the soldiers as they trekked through the snow towards the guard tower and nodded.
“But why did they send all of Gary’s sons? Won’t he miss them?” she asked.
“There is no Gary,” Attica replied. “These are foederati – they’re – barbarians. They aren’t Roman. But times are hard, you know that. A lot of Roman soldiers have – been lost. We need all the help we can get.”
Flavia caught a snowflake on her palm.
“They died.” Flavia stated decisively.
“They did.” Attica replied.
“The Horde killed them.”
“Yes.” Attica answered.
Attica stared into her daughter’s deep, well-like eyes. Only in her tenth year, yet her innocence had fled with the summer. A child born in another time – in another land – would have no knowledge of death – of its cold certainty. Flavia simply shrugged at the thought – death being as simple and necessary as the melting of the snowflake atop her palm.
“They could kill daddy too, you know,” she continued. “And then us. And then the emperor. And then Roma.”
Attica ran her hands through Flavia’s wavy locks, thick like olive branches.
“They won’t,” Attica replied. “Christ will protect us.”
“He hasn’t protected any of us so far.”
“The Huns have taken a great deal from us,” Attica said, gripping Flavia’s shoulders tightly. “But do not let them take your faith as well. Christ will deliver – I have as much faith in Him as I have love for you.”
Flavia smirked and playfully poked her mother’s nose, made pink by the cold.
A scream suddenly rang out in the distance, however, followed by the majestic bellow of a trumpet – bringing Attica to her feet. A brief moment of silence ensued – followed immediately by overwhelming panic and a stampede of footsteps.
“Daddy’s back!” Flavia announced.
“What did they say?” Attica exclaimed, removing herself from the line to the butcher’s hut. “What’s happening?”
No one responded but everyone rushed past her – screaming and shoving as they pushed towards their homes. The trumpet did not move Varro, however, he continued to lay face-down in the snow, deathly still. Attica grasped Flavia’s tiny palm with one hand while securing the other on the hilt of her dagger and began carving through the throng of people pushing past her desperately. In the distance she watched as the giant wooden gate cracked open just slightly – large enough for a single man to pass through.
“They only let in one man?” Attica said to herself. “That can’t be – there were thousands of men in that legion . . .”
Attica plucked Flavia from the ground and held the child in her arms, using her to shove her way through the horde of fleeing Romans. Flavia yelped as her skinny legs knocked aside rampaging peasants and noblemen alike – she held onto her mother for dear life.
“Everything is fine,” she assured herself. “Don’t panic.”
Once she had finally surfaced above the disorderly mob, Attica found herself on the main cobblestone road that lead to the main gate, only half a mile to the North. Not knowing what to expect, Attica placed her daughter in a small alleyway between two crumbling houses.
“Stay here.” Attica whimpered.
Flavia nodded.
Attica turned from her daughter and began walking slowly down the cobblestone, marred by dirty, mud-colored snow and black toes – she heard screaming down the road, at the gate – she began to run, sliding along the slush and stone, stumbling desperately towards the gate – more screaming – her legs burned against the bitter cold of the air as she raced down the road – still more screaming – something didn’t sit right in her gut – with every step she felt ever more mortified – Apollo please, save us – she chastised herself for her shameful closeted paganism.
Christ took His revenge – she was moving too fast – the sludge took control of her sandals – she fell to the cobblestone, wracking her elbows against the sharp stone, tearing deep wells in her skin as she bounced her skull off of the road – blurring her vision and unleashing a ringing bell inside her ears. She was sure it wasn’t real, as the cathedral had collapsed during the last attack. She groaned. She felt blood in her hair before she raised her fingers to confirm its presence.
When the smoke had finally cleared from her eyes, she turned towards the gate.
The first thing she saw was her husband’s horse, Hannibal, nudging a body lying motionless on the cobblestone. Several foederati surrounded the body, nudging it gingerly. Attica froze. The blood stopped gushing from her head and elbows. For a moment, even her heart ceased to beat. The snow stopped falling. Her wounds sank into the background. She rose to her feet. She began to cry.
“Gnaeus?” she called as she ran.
One of the barbarians caught sight of her and stood, extending his palm towards her.
“Stop!” he shouted in his foreign tongue.
Attica barreled through him, however, throwing her shoulder into his chest, denting his flimsy armor and sending him into the pavement. She tripped as she passed him, however, reducing her to her knees beside the motionless body.
“At – Attica?” the body murmured.
“Gnaeus – is that – you?” Attica whispered.
“The Huns – they’re coming.” Gnaeus replied.
The horde had kept most of Attica’s husband for themselves. His right leg was missing below the knee, as was his left arm below the elbow. Gnaeus’ regal and structured face, that which he had passed down to their goddess of a daughter, had been mauled beyond recognition – the skin now a mixture of charcoal black and scarlet wine as if he had spontaneously contracted the plague. The grimy beard which Attica had so often demanded be shaved was charred and only half-present, revealing singed skin underneath. His elite heavy armor had been torn to shreds – skewered by flaming arrows, some of which still burned inside him. A pool of blood steadily formed beneath him.
“I look like a broken wine bowl!” he coughed.
Attica and Gnaeus shared a pained laugh.
“They killed most of us, routed a contingent of foederati cavalry – but – I don’t know where they went – might as well be dead. I held out for as long as I could – but – there are so many. They’re coming here next.”
“Close the gate!” a guard suddenly shouted from the wall. “We’ve got movement!”
“It’s the Huns!” Attica shouted between tears. “They murdered the whole legion!”
The guards ran for the gate mechanism and began yanking levers desperately.
“Gnaeus – please don’t go.” Attica said, stroking the marred face of her fading husband.
“Take Hannibal – and go,” Gnaeus replied. “There is nothing for you or the children here. Head for Rome. You will be safe there.”
Gnaeus began coughing like his son, spitting blood from between his teeth.
“I . . . I . . .” he began to say. “There – there’s no light.”
His neck suddenly became slack and his eyes emptied with the rest of his body – he was gone.
Attica buried her head in her husband’s chest and began sobbing. She could feel Hannibal’s hot breath on the back of her neck. He grew anxious – he could sense the approach of the Hunnic horses.
“The gate won’t close!” a guard suddenly shouted. “The mechanism is stuck! How many do you see?”
“A few thousand – at least,” the guard atop the wall stuttered. “Fall back. Fall back to the city center! That’s where we’ll make our stand!”
The foederati needed no further encouragement. They quickly abandoned their posts and fled the wall. Some even threw their weapons as they departed. They had no intention of dying for the helpless Romans. A guard grabbed Attica by the shoulder and tried to pry her away from the body as he passed – but to no avail.
“If you don’t stop mourning him, soon your children will be mourning you both!” the guard shouted before retreating with his companions.
Attica lifted her head from the corpse as the thundering sound of a thousand charging horses filled the emptiness that surrounded her. It sounded as if the gods of Olympus had resurfaced and were marching in an Earth-shaking parade. Hannibal whinnied behind her and nudged her head with his snout.
The thunder of the horses grew ever louder.
Attica looked into the blank eyes of her husband one last time before relieving him of his sword and rising to her feet.
“I love you, Gnaeus,” she sobbed. “We will survive for you.”
Attica wiped her eyes and turned her attention to Hannibal, the horse of metal, covered from snout to hoof in the most finely-forged steel chainmail to be found in the rapidly-aging Roman Empire. Together, Gnaeus and Hannibal were Cataphractarii, elite heavy shock cavalry that posed a threat to the bitterest enemy of the empire – excluding the Huns, perhaps.
The widow pulled herself atop Hannibal and situated herself in the saddle with the grace of an Amazonian war chief. She yanked on the reigns and urged Hannibal forward, away from her husband’s corpse, growing sour behind her. Only a few paces down the road, Attica lurched forward as the city wall exploded behind her, sending chunks of stone and scalding ash flying all around. Hannibal reared onto his hind legs as the city began to crumble around him, whinnying at the chaos.
Attica guided the traumatized horse back to the ground and urged him forward yet again, away from her husband’s corpse and the blood-curdling war cries of the ever-approaching Huns and towards the spot where she hoped that she would find her daughter.
~
To be continued . . .