Fall of Rome A Novel of a World Lost

Chapter 1 The stars had long since turned their course in the late-autumn night's sky, and dawn itself would not be long in breaking; yet the massive camp on the Hunnish plain was lit as in broad daylight, with such quantities of torches and bonfires as would have done credit even to Constantinople. The brightness of the city-camp was matched by the noisomeness of its inhabitants, for every man, woman, and child, every dog, housebound fowl, and domesticated plains pony, every slave and master, every Hun and exiled Goth and German, were lifting their voices and spirits in celebration. Their songs resonated across the plain, and the dung fires reflected red off the low-hanging smoke, creating a hazy glow that could be seen for miles across the expanse of waving, summer-dry grass. A party of mounted Hunnish officers, thirty in all, thundered in from the plain, past the grinning Goth sentries who raised half-depleted skins of kamon, their barley beverage, in mocking salute to the dusty riders. They pounded through the dirt-packed streets, scarcely deigning to look down from their foaming mounts, for their fierce expressions and hurried pace were sufficient warning for bystanders to clear the way. From all sides, drunken faces leered at them in the flickering light. Horns, whistles, and wordless shouts greeted the riders' arrival, and hands grasped at their soft doeskin boots, welcoming them to the festivities or pushing against them in the jostling. The horsemen's leader looked about in distaste, not at the poverty and filth the city exuded, but at the signs of wealth: the dandified young men meandering drunkenly, fingers burdened with rings and shoulders heavy with the fine silken fabrics by which they aped the fashions of those they conquered; the thin-shanked European and Arabian horses the Goth officers rode, rather than the homely yet reliable steppe ponies the Huns had bred for generations; the chalices of metal from which many of the celebrants guzzled imported wine, rather than the wooden bowls from which the elders sipped humble airag, the Huns' traditional beverage of fermented mares' milk. The leader, a middle-aged Hun of broad shoulders and uncommon height and physical strength for his race, frowned in disapproval. It was a culture gone soft, a people who valued shiny baubles over sturdy horses, drunkenness over conquest, Gothic frivolities over Hunnish austerity. Attila, he reflected, had made himself conqueror of Asia and sovereign of the scattered Hunnish clans, and of many unruly European tribes as well; but the price he had paid for this unity of purpose, this assimilation, was perhaps one the mighty king had not anticipated. The group of riders forced their way through the throng to the wood-palisade gates of the palace. There, the sentries were Hunnish, of more reliable and sober countenance; they glanced at the riders' impassive faces, ordered them to halt, and dispatched a runner to the inner compound. The horsemen slumped into the relaxed position they adopted when dozing on their mounts. Despite their seeming ease, however, their eyes remained wary, peering out from beneath the low-wrought rims of their battered iron helmets. Their leader slid off his panting horse, landing with catlike grace and unstrapping his helmet before even touching the ground. Without setting aside his quiver and war bow, he shifted impatiently on his heels, peering past the palace guards into the flickering shadows, where snoring bodies littered the courtyard and doorways like so many casualties of a battle. Across the courtyard, a heavyset Germanic officer, armor glowing dully in the torchlight, emerged from the wooden palace doors and swaggered toward them. He shouldered through the drunken revelers, shaking his mane of reddish hair back over his shoulders, jutting his chin toFord, Michael Curtis is the author of 'Fall of Rome A Novel of a World Lost', published 2007 under ISBN 9780312333621 and ISBN 0312333625.