The Last Wife of Attila the Hun Read online

  “But you must tell him—” I began to plead.

  Edeco stood up. “I will tell him nothing on your behalf.”

  To my horror, I found that I was more distressed to see that he was leaving than I had been to learn that Attila had invented a new story to explain how he had come by the war sword. Edeco’s coming into my hut with Attila’s fabrication on his lips was the first unexpected thing that had occurred in many days. Prior to it, there had only been the meals and the riding of the guard, and in between, brief intervals of slumber, so that I did not know where one day left off and the next began. “Please stay,” I said weakly.

  Edeco looked down on me. A smile appeared on his face and he lowered himself again.

  I looked away, ashamed now to have petitioned my enemy. Then I recalled that part of my purpose in coming to Pannonia was to deceive my enemies just so. I had lived for so long alone in the dark that this recollection came as a surprise. I brightened a little and taxed my mind to think of something to say to him now that I could justify such conference. “This story,” I said at last, “will it be sung now in Attila’s hall along with the others?”

  “Sung? How so? What others?” Edeco asked. He looked annoyed.

  I was amazed. “Do the Huns not sing of their ancestors? Of the wars they fought? Of their conflicts and struggles since the beginning?”

  Edeco shrugged. “We have one song only. It is a song of praise for Attila.”

  “I thought all peoples—” I began.

  “The Huns were nomads until they came to Pannonia,” Edeco interrupted. “Why should anyone want to hear a song about that?”

  “Oh, but Edeco,” I cried. “The Huns deprive themselves there. Why, to hear the songs of your ancestors played out for you… My brother Gunner—” I stopped myself short and stared at him.

  He nodded, almost imperceptibly. Then he smiled.

  “Of course,” I went on hastily, “this Gunner was not my real brother. My real brothers are dead, as I told you. I hardly remember them. This Gunner I am thinking of, the one who sang so beautifully of the Thuets coming down from the cold countries, was the son of the leader of a tribe with which I once stayed for a time. Now let me see. Were they Vandals? Alans? Aye, gods, I cannot remember.”

  Edeco’s damaged palm came up between us to silence me. Beyond it, I saw that his pert smile was still set on his face. “You cannot remember what tribe, Ildico? It surprises me that you would remember the man but not the tribe he hailed from. And yet you must have been very close to this Gunner to have called him brother.”

  I lurched forward and, forcing myself to smile, I grabbed Edeco’s hand as it was descending. “Ah, Edeco, it was a long time ago. The mind plays tricks with distant memories, making some clear while others fade entirely. And as for my calling the man my brother, let me assure you: on Thuet lands it is no uncommon thing to speak of a good friend that way, even when he is not one’s brother in blood.” It occurred to me suddenly that my gesture seemed more an appeal than the playful rebuke I had meant it to seem. I dropped his hand at once.

  Edeco smiled. Then, taking up the taper, he got to his feet again.

  * * *

  At first I dwelled on my blunder so intently that I drove myself as near to despair as I had ever been. But gradually I came to see that I would give myself away, and thus my brothers, entirely if I did not find the means to improve my state. Attila had the sword, and the sword was cursed; I had only to keep myself alert and wait. In the meantime, I added more skins to those that already lined the walls of my hut—for the nights were becoming colder—and I reviewed the words that had passed between Edeco and me during our meeting. I came to believe that it would not matter, in the end, that I had disclosed my brother’s name. I came also to understand my desire for my enemy’s company—and to forgive myself for it. Our meeting had gone badly, but at least my mind was alive now, with reflections, speculations, and notions concerning the future. What did it matter that I was not free to come and go? I was free, at least, to contemplate how I would one day reveal the true story of the war sword. And, as it had been confirmed that Attila truly valued the thing and intended to put it to use, how far off could that day be? It would make him bold and greedy, as it had made Sigurd bold and greedy, and thereby, likewise, ensure his destruction.

  Perhaps some part of the reason that I was able to view the future in a different light was that I now had light. Though Edeco had taken his taper away with him when he departed, he must have seen my eyes stray after it, for the following morning, when the Hun woman came with my meal, she brought a taper with her, and then another when she returned again in the evening. Furthermore, my meals, as Attila had promised, continued to be adequate, and the Roman wine, which I had grown to like for its sleep-inducing properties, was brought regularly. And, too, Edeco began to come occasionally to escort me to the bathhouse.

  A pattern was taciturnly established. Out in the village, on the way to the bathhouse, Edeco rode and I walked before him with my head bent, like the humble prisoner he would have me appear. Then, in the bathhouse, perhaps in gratitude for my resignation, Edeco kept his head turned and feigned to be concerned with some other matter. And he appeared again at the door of my hut sometimes in the evenings, saying that he had come to be certain that I was not wanting for anything.

  Not for a moment did I imagine that his kindnesses were connected to anything other than his ambition to extract some further information from me. But I also saw, as the days passed, that Edeco took some pleasure in our meetings, and I resolved to use his tolerance of me to my advantage.

  At first, our discussions were competitions: Edeco probed for details concerning my motives in coming to Pannonia. I attempted to shift the conversation back to Attila and the war sword, for I longed to have some confirmation that its power was beginning to work. When I eventually came to see that Edeco would tell me nothing of Attila’s present disposition, I began to ask Edeco questions about Attila’s past. By then, Edeco, who had likewise grown bored with his line of questioning, was happy enough to describe Attila’s feats, which I feigned to admire (though no more than I thought would appear credible under the circumstances), hoping that one day he would slip, as I had, and say more than he intended. He did not mention Gunner again, and my fear that he might yet do so eventually passed when I saw how easy it was to get him to speak about himself.

  Edeco was one of Attila’s three personal guards, the others being Berichus, a Hun, and Orestes, a Roman. How cunning on Attila’s part, I mused when I learned this, that he should choose a Hun, a Thuet, and a Roman to attend him. Clearly, he feared insubordination, and thus, by having one guard to represent each of the factions from which it might come, he hoped to avert it. I learned, too, that Edeco was born to Skirians, who, like the more numerous Ostrogoths, had come under Hun dominion early on, when the Huns had first come to Pannonia. As Hun subjects, they quickly adopted Hun customs, such as deforming the faces of their sons so that they would learn to endure pain. Like other Thuet peoples, the Skirians had always been skilled farmers. Since the Huns themselves had no knowledge of farming, and no desire to learn it, the Skirians and Ostrogoths took on the task of providing the Huns with food and wool. And of course, they also provided men for the Hun armies.

  Most of the Skirians took Hun wives to prove their loyalty. But Edeco, who boasted that his loyalty had never been a concern, chanced to be attracted to a woman from his ancestral tribe. This was when he was still very young, and though a member of the Hun army, not yet a personal guard. He and his young Thuet wife produced two sons, Humulf and Odoacer. Just after Odoacer’s birth, there was an uprising among the Skirians, and though Edeco’s wife had no part in it, she was killed inadvertently when the Huns put it down. It was to appease Edeco for this grave error that Rua (who was the Hun leader at the time) took him into personal service. And Edeco was appeased. When Rua died, his nephews, Bleda and Attila,
kept Edeco on, but it was Attila who loved Edeco most, and when Bleda died (Edeco could not be led to say that Attila killed him, though that was the way I had heard it back on Burgundian lands), Edeco served Attila alone. He then had much to do with convincing Attila that, unlike the previous Hun leaders, his name would become immortal. And in return for his loyalty and his love, Attila granted Edeco every kindness, including much gold and the second highest rank among his men. Only Onegesius, a Hun and the owner of the great palisade wherein the bathhouse was located, ranked higher.

  I learned something too about Attila’s wives and children—or rather, sons, for though other Huns might father daughters, Attila had his own killed as soon as they were born. Those of his wives who produced girl babies in succession were likewise killed, or, if Attila favored them, sent to live in exile beyond the city gates. It was one of Edeco’s tasks to go among the silk tents of Attila’s wives and choose for the master, when he could not make up his mind himself, the one with whom he would sleep on a given night. Since Attila’s wives had no other task than to keep themselves comely for their common husband, they were all anxious to be chosen, and there was much jealously among them.

  So too was there jealously among Attila’s sons, so much so that a guard had to be assigned to them to keep them from killing one another. But there was only one among them, a youngster called Ernac, whose demise would have actually distressed Attila. According to Attila’s best-loved soothsayer, there would come a time, after Attila’s death, when the Huns would grow weak, but this Ernac would know the way to make them strong again. And thus Ernac had his own personal guard to protect him from his brothers.

  I had occasion to make very good use of this information one day when Edeco was escorting me to the bathhouse. As we were going through the village, we passed a group of boys—some Hun, some Thuet, some part and part—who were making a game of tormenting a poor marmot who had apparently wandered too far from its tunnel. The boys, many of whom had sticks, had formed a circle around the thing, and each time it tried to escape, one of the boys drove it back again. Just beyond the circle of boys, a guard sat watching from his horse. Edeco touched my shoulder with his riding whip and commanded me to halt in a loud voice such as one uses to speak to a subordinate. Then he bent over his horse and whispered in my ear, “Can you guess which boy is Attila’s beloved Ernac?”

  “That is easy enough,” I replied. “It is the one from whom the guard’s eyes never stray.” We both looked at Ernac. He had left the fringe of the circle for its center and was, it seemed, attempting to skewer the marmot on his stick.

  “Perhaps I tell you more than you should know,” Edeco mused.

  I dared to glance at him and found him smiling. Then he went to bring up his horse so that we could continue on our way. But a sudden notion caused me to cry out, “Perhaps you will not mind then if I tell you more than you should know. There is one among these boys who is destined for greatness, but it is not Attila’s Ernac.” Before he could react to my sedition, I pointed a finger. “See that one there? The tall boy who stands somewhat apart looking as if he would like to join the others but looking, too, as if he is loathe to hurt the thing unnecessarily?”

  Edeco’s eyes hardened. I went on quickly. “I saw a face such as his, but older, one night in the flame of my candle. He was marching, leading a band of men. But the men he led were not Huns. They were Thuets. I sensed that they were marching on the Roman Empire, but my vision withered before I could be certain.”

  Edeco squinted his eyes and lifted one hand from his horse’s reins. But his hand stayed motionless in the air and his gaze, which drifted from me to something beyond me, became unfocused. Finally, he touched my back with his riding whip and cried, “Get along, woman.”

  Of course I knew the boy was Edeco’s own Odoacer. A few days earlier, some of the same boys had been playing near the western palisade, which is to say not far from my hut. I heard them laughing and calling to one another. Since no one ever ventured so far from the heart of the village, I drew the curtain and peeked out. My guard had ridden off to admonish the mischief-makers, and thus I was free, for a moment, to observe. When the boys saw the guard approaching, most of them scattered immediately. But one of them, a Hun, stayed put and called out, “Odoacer,” as if in warning. Then a head popped up over one of the small knolls between my hut and the palisade, and I knew it must belong to Edeco’s son. The Hun boy, meanwhile, ran toward the guard, calling out some vapid explanation as he went. When he saw that Odoacer had cleared the knoll, he ended his explanation abruptly and ran after him.

  At the time I made little of my discovery, except to think that I might mention the incident to Edeco so as to flatter him by telling him that I found his boy comely. It was not until we stopped to spy on Ernac that I realized that I might put my knowledge to a greater use. And even then, I had no idea what I would say about Odoacer until I found myself saying it. It was almost as if my prophecy were a true one after all and had come to me entirely unbidden, as prophecies do to those who have the Sight. Now I was quite pleased with myself. After my first meeting with Edeco, I had never again spoken of myself as a valkyria. Such a contention coming from so enfeebled a woman, I had thought, would only make Edeco laugh. But I was not so enfeebled anymore. The ease that Edeco took in my presence of late assured me that he might yet tell me something that would serve my purpose. And, too, Edeco’s constant need to prove his allegiance to Attila to me had something of the opposite effect. There was a chink there, and through it I thought I discerned some deep-rooted, perhaps unconscious, Thuet loyalty in the man. Was it not possible that just as I had chosen to feign love for Edeco so that, somehow, someday, my people might prosper by it, that Edeco had chosen to feign love for Attila so that he and his sons might likewise prosper? We are free only to choose our limitations, he had said. But his reaction to my invented prophecy, his looking off into the distance with his brow furrowed and his eyes as hard as stones, seemed to indicate that he was not beyond envisioning something more. My words had been nothing less than treasonous, and yet Edeco had not spurned me for saying them—an act of treason in itself.

  * * *

  One evening Edeco came to my hut in a particularly good mood, and I dared to say to him that I should like to know something of the Hun language, some simple words that would enable me to thank the Hun serving women who brought my meals. Edeco looked at me suspiciously at first, but I laughed and exclaimed, “Oh, Edeco, what harm can it do for me to speak a word or two of kindness to other women? Even in the bathhouse, where my face is now familiar, there are times when I should like to exchange a word or two with my attendants. I have no desire to become fluent. Indeed, I do not have the capacity for it.”

  “Only a few then,” Edeco relented. And thus he taught me the Hunnish words for please and thank you and some others to say by way of greeting. But in our conversations thereafter, when I asked him in a casual manner for the word for this or that object or idea, Edeco continued to oblige. I would repeat the word once, and then quickly turn our conversation back to where it had been. But after Edeco’s departure, I would repeat the new word over and over again, until it was committed to memory and stored away with all the others I had learned from him, available for some use in the future—though what I could not guess.

  I also learned from Edeco that the Romans had a written language, which was not used, as were runes, to cast spells or alter events, but only to make record of them. It was bitter cold the night that Edeco brought this information. We had divided the skins up between us and were taking turns holding our hands over the taper to keep them warm as we conversed. We had been talking about the Roman wine and its warming properties, and Edeco had added, “The truth, Ildico, is that the Romans have many such skills which we Huns would like to lay our hands on.”

  I cut him off, saying, “Aye, building skills and law and—”

  “And writing, yes.” And when he saw by my l
ook that I had no idea what he was talking about, he laughed and explained.

  I was not much moved at first, especially when Edeco admitted that the lines the Romans made, characters or letters, had no magical significance. But Edeco seemed determined to convince me otherwise. “Think of it, Ildico,” he cried. “You spoke once of tribal songs, sung to commemorate one’s ancestors. But should a tribe be wiped out, by famine or war, those songs, too, would cease to exist. The written song, on the other hand, would remain long after, unless the tribe was wiped out by fire, for others to find and sing.”

  I laughed. “Who would bother to seek out such a thing among the remains of the dead?”

  “No one, perhaps. I used the songs only as an example. There are many other ways in which writing has been useful to the Romans.”

  “Name them.”

  Edeco’s eyes twinkled. “I shall, my ignorant friend.” He studied his hands in the candlelight. “Here’s one—laws. The Romans set all their laws down in writing.”

  “And how is that better than setting down one’s laws in spoken words?”

  “Have you never heard of a situation where a man professes not to have heard the law on this or that matter? If laws are written, no man who can read can claim such ignorance.”

  “Name more.”

  Edeco’s eyes wandered and returned again. “Their wealth, the number of gold coins they have accumulated. The leaders have every man in every village say what they have, and then it is recorded. Then, when the time comes to collect taxes, the leaders know exactly what to expect. And messages! Written messages are sent as a matter of course.”

  I laughed again. “Where I come from, messages are sent easily enough. A good rider on a fast horse is all that is necessary, Edeco.”

  Edeco shook his finger at me. “Aye, but you miss the point. Suppose I had some message for Attila alone—”

  “Why, then you would go to him yourself.”