As his little one began to feed, she opened her eyes. For the first time, father and daughter locked on each other’s gaze, his eyes glossy with tears of joy, her eyes, a burning yellow.

  8

  The Sacking

  of Paris

  A week had passed since the Romans had set sail. They had navigated the river from Paris to Le Havre then crossed the narrow waters between the content and Britannia. Attila sat in his tent southeast of the great city of the Franks, a people who had looked down on his tribe of Huns.

  There was an animosity that fueled him. Together with his hatred of Uther and his ire against Arthur, he fumed, marinating in the acid of his own bile. It had also been a week since his trusted aid General Bishkar had traveled in pursuit of the Romans. Attila was certain that he was already dead. He was not supposed to be gone for that long. Attila needed him to lead the charge against the Franks which was not as easy as Attila had thought or hoped for.

  The last battle had left its mark. A three-inch pole had found its way into his back and pierced his right shoulder blade. He doused the pain in extra-strength ale. His half suffered state and half inebriated state was unusual for the battle-hardened king.

  The wound had been cleaned and stitched. Even though the discomfort was significant he still had use of his arm and no infection seemed to prevail. How could it? There was enough alcohol in him to disable an entire army. The alcohol also helped keep his blood clean, although it did contaminate his mind when it got to be too much.

  “Lispania!” He shouted. “Send Lispania to my tent.”

  “Yes, sire,” his valet replied and went about to fulfill his king’s wishes.

  It wasn’t too long before the commander of the forward troops entered the king’s tent and bent his knee while bowing his head.

  “Sire, how may I serve?”

  Lispania, a man born in the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire, had fled because he had killed his father, stood slave to the King of the Huns since his capture not long ago. He was intelligent in his assessment and brutal in his execution. He had been in the second tier army where they were given a chance to share in the bounty of the raids and he had proven himself in that position. Gradually climbing the ranks of command, he now had a hundred men under him—all expendables, but he handled them with such ferocity and intelligence that Bishkar had seen it fit to increase his rewards and was considering giving him command of an entire company.

  “Why do you think we have not been able to penetrate the Franks? Why has it been so difficult and time-consuming?” Attila asked.

  “In my humble opinion, sire, the Franks cannot be beaten in a head-on battle. They have a strategy that seems to have worked well against us.”

  “And what is that strategy?” Attila, curious to know, asked.

  “It is their pride in protecting their land and king. It is their identity of being Franks. Every villager, from bakers to carpenters, will drop their spatulas and hammers to come to the aid of their military. And they will do it at a moment’s notice.”

  “How do we overcome that?” Attila asked, seeing the power in that.

  “We have to mount a sneak attack on them and cut off their confidence and pride. Demoralize them. The Franks are a very proud people. If you manage to break their spirit, you will gain an advantage. Most of your men fight for you because they are told to. All the Franks fight because they defend their home.”

  Attila stared at the scrawny man. He looked like nothing, Attila thought. If he sat by the side of the road, the surrounding scene would befall his look, that of a beggar. Yet, his assessment was correct, Attila realized.

  “Mount a plan of attack as you have just said and return to my tent before the night is over,” Attila commanded.

  “Yes, sire.”

  “One more thing,” Attila turned to the man as he glared at him from the corner of his eyes. “What news of Bishkar amongst the troops?”

  “The men think that he died,” Lispania said with relish.

  “How?”

  “The ship he had taken to follow the Romans never returned. Its owner has put a bounty for information of who may have stolen it or for information on what had happened to it.”

  Attila had not heard this news prior to that moment. The battles against the Franks had consumed all his time. But coming upon this information now told him that the possibility that the vessel had sunk was real. There was no reason for the trireme to not make it back to Paris. It was after all their daily routine. Besides, this was a mission against the Pendragons. If Adolphus himself had fallen at the hand of Arthur, it was not surprising that so would Bishkar.

  “Now you have no general, sire.”

  “I shall continue to be my own general for now. When the time comes I will replace Bishkar, but not until I see his body,” Attila replied, feeling a sense of loss that was unusual. Attila was a hard man to read. Adolphus had come close to understanding the inner workings of this outwardly brutal man. So had Bishkar. But Lispania had a very wrong impression about him, and what was worse, he had come to think that emulating the side of him that was vile was better than emulating the side of Attila that valued loyalty.

  His sadness at the loss of Adolphus and now with the possible loss of Bishkar was attributed to their loyalty that had been proven over time and across life-threatening action.

  Attila’s unwillingness to elevate anyone to Bishkar’s position was his reciprocity of Bishkar’s loyalty.

  ***

  Ten days now stood between the last time Attila had seen his general and his current stance. The night was clear but moonless and the cold winds of the north had stayed distant. The clear night gave him sight into the distant vales that surrounded the mighty Sequena River, the night he now stood at the head of the men that he had readied to execute an attack that Lispania had formulated.

  The eastern part of the city had remained on alert for the invading Huns and heads of households from all over Paris had traveled to the eastern front to help in its fortification.

  Instead of taking them there, Lispania had planned to move the Huns to the western part of the river where only women and children remained while their men had traveled east. The northeastern extent of Paris was where the river snaked south for a brief moment on its travel to the estuary. A full day’s march had easily and surreptitiously repositioned the bulk of the attacking force to the side of Paris where King Merovech had not anticipated an attack would spring.

  Lispania’s plan was brilliant. He devised the use of the stars and aided the timing of the attack to be coordinated in such a way that it would distract the Franks and help magnify the surprise attack, thereby getting a foothold within the city.

  At the precise moment when Regulus, the brightest star in the Lion Constellation, arrived at its zenith, the expendables stationed on the eastern front began their raucous attacks on the Franks who were holding the line. The expendables were not meant to survive it and served their purpose this time not by weakening the force of the enemy, but by distracting them enough that they would not hear the cries of their countrymen and women in the west.

  When the attack was over and every single expendable had been slain, the Franks celebrated. Just as Lispania had anticipated. But by that point, the cries in the west had risen to a fever pitch and been snuffed out by the ferocity of the attacking barbarians. Women and children were slaughtered and burned, belongings were pillaged, and a foothold gained.

  The smell of burning wood as houses collapsed into embers, reached the husbands, brothers, and sons who fought valiantly in the west. But it was too late. Soon they smelt the despicable odor of scorched flesh and hair as they watched the western sky glow beyond the horizon.

  An emptiness displaced the momentary jubilee they experienced as the men mounted their horses and quickened their pace as they raced to the east. They arrived to find the Huns in possession of Frank land, now impenetrable. King Merovech was angry, but he was also demoralized. For almost the last fortnight, the French had beaten back the assault of the Huns with such ease that they had become complacent in their attitude and cavalier in the seriousness of the threat. The sudden change of tides had the exact effect that Lispania had predicted. They were demoralized. But the job was not done.

  Before the pain and pride of losing their home subsided, the second blow needed to be dealt. To this effect, the Huns mounted the third wave on the east while the militias of Parisians sobbed over their loss in the west. A second attack now pummeled the few men that remained in the west. It was like a warm knife cutting through butter as the catapults that had been retired for the last few days were now returned to duty. They bombarded the city with the hay and tarballs of fire that set the land in the middle of the city ablaze. With the men in the east unable to come to the west and the men in the west unable to retreat to the east, the Franks had been split in half while the Huns had the full strength of their attacking force on both sides. After the night of relentless attacks, King Merovech surrendered.

  It took only two weeks for the city of Paris to fall into the hands of Attila the Hun and he did so with a man who had been raised from the depths of the expendables. After the year that he had experienced, the losses he had realized, and the personal sacrifices he had made, the victory over Paris served as a prize that would be worthy of the history books, at least in the mind of the barbarian king.

  When the smoke had cleared after five days of burning and the blood of war that had spilled now washed away by the tears of the women and children, or dried by the late spring sun, Attila took his place in the palace on Ile de la Cite, the island that formed the center of the Parisian life, located in the middle of the Sequena River.

  The riches of the Merovingian king now in the hands of Attila, along with the promises to supply troops by the villages outside Paris, he now found himself wealthier than he had ever been and at the head of an army that would exceed the kinds of numbers he had commanded in the past.

  A week after the victory, Attila lay in his bed that once belonged to the deposed Merovech and he considered his fate. He now had the overwhelming army to be able to conquer any part of Europe. But only one ambition really stood in front of his eyes. He wanted to capture the Pendragons.

  Once that was done, he would turn his sights on the weak empire, Rome.

  “Lispania,” he shouted once more, just as he used to in the tent cities he used to sleep in.

  This time, his valet was far away and many doors blocked the sound of his hoarse voice. Looking by the side of his bed he found the ropes that rang the bell outside and pulled on them. His valet appeared, having been startled by the tolling of the large bell that was connected to the rope.

  “Yes, sire?”

  “Bring me Lispania,” Attila ordered.

  “Yes, sire.”

  Lispania appeared in no time and bowed to his king. In his eyes, Attila could see the fire of ambition and the greed that wished for a reward. It was, after all, his plan and execution that netted the barbarians the finest city in Europe.

  9

  Dinner

  It had been three days since they had landed on the new land and Arthur had galloped off to the south. Vipsanius longed to see his friend and general and worried that something may have befallen him. The sadness that had come to settle on his countenance alleviated as he sought permission to enter Uther’s tent.

  “My lord, I have good news,” he said.

  “Come Vipsanius, what news do you bring me?” Uther asked as Igraine stood confidently beside her husband. Something vexed her but it was not Arthur’s three-day absence in a new land. It was new only to him. She knew of this land well and she knew the man he had gone to see.

  Her lack of happiness was about something more severe. Something more sinister had made itself known and she was unable to see its real intentions. That made things even worse in her mind as she tried repeatedly to peel back the screens of obscurity and see the true intention of the man that called himself Bulanid Mehmet.

  But still, the news that her only son was on the horizon, galloping home, brought peace to her heart and a smile to her face. She turned away, exiting the tent through the rear entrance, and made her way to the rear of the tent that connected to a courtyard that led to the servants’ tents.

  “Misha, prepare the pheasants and the ox that the men rounded up yesterday. I want to have dinner prepared and served before the noon hour. It is to be a family affair and no one else is to be invited. Is this clear?” She said, nodding to her servant requiring her to follow along and nod as well.

  There was a method to her ways. She wanted to make sure that her husband did not invite his new best friend to the meal. She wanted to have a chance for the family to speak as a family as her view of the future told her that the days of the familial bond as it had been in Rome, were numbered.

  She returned to the tent where Vipsanius was just about to leave. Uther was in the middle of giving him instruction to allow a new tent complex to be built.

  “Who is that for?” Igraine asked.

  “For Bulanid, my love,” Uther explained.

  “You are allowing him a tent within the family circle?” She asked, surprised both at his decision to undertake such an action and his decision not to consult her as he had always done in the past.

  “Why, my dear?” she asked, orchestrating her patience to match the occasion.

  “He is a lost soul, my love. He not only deserves comfort for all that had been taken away from him, but he also deserves a family.”

  “What about our family? What have we done to deserve the punishment of having our family diluted in this way?” Igraine asked in a blunt manner that made Vipsanius recoil in discomfort and Uther crease his brows in nascent anger.

  “Do not think that I am obligated to seek your counsel just because I have done so in the past, Igraine,” he said, raising his voice in a manner that neither Igraine and Vipsanius had ever witnessed.

  “You are not obligated by any rule or commandment, but you have made it so by precedent. You have acted in such a manner all your life and made it canon. Now you cease to follow that canon and I deserve to know why. You mistake my question as an admonition of your action. That is your doing, not mine, my lord,” Igraine answered, using a salutation in place of her usual term of endearment. Both facts were not lost on the men in the tent.

  To make matters worse, the look in her eyes, structure of her countenance, and the posture of her stance all spoke of disappointment and pain. Anger only masked it like a tarp over an unfinished sculpture.

  “My lady, my lord, I take my leave. I will have Arthur here the moment he arrives. He surely does not know which tent belongs to his parents,” Vipsanius interjected, his intention to find a reason to leave and perhaps try to break the trail the conversation had taken.

  “Yes, Vipsanius. Bring Arthur directly here. We are to dine shortly. The servants are preparing dinner and it will be served before noon. I do not want this tent disturbed, or our time interrupted. Is that understood?” Igraine insisted. The message was for Vipsanius to place guards outside the tent with strict orders to not be disturbed. This included Bulanid. It was also a message for her husband who seemed to have become enraptured by the presence of this foreigner with ill intentions.

  Vipsanius nodded and left the tent. His heart weighed heavy at the development. He was beginning to dislike the new land they had occupied. He moved swiftly to his horse and signaled the lieutenant at his post to come to him while he headed for his steed.

  “Place guards around the Pendragon complex. No one, without exception, is to enter the perimeter. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Commander,” the young lieutenant replied and proceeded to round up the men necessary to make it happen.

  Vipsanius, for his part, moved swiftly, mounted his horse, and rode toward Arthur who had already covered half the distance since he was seen by the lookouts.

  Back in the tent, silence dominated the cold space between husband and wife until Uther saw fit to break the silence.

  “How dare you speak to me in that way in front of a soldier?” he began, his eyes red from the fury in his heart.

  “We are no longer in Rome, my lord,” she answered, once again stressing the lack of warmth between them. Igraine was driven by disappointment, not malice. Each time she had referred to her husband in terms of love, she had meant it. It was not out of practice or habit, nor obligation. He was certainly dear to her and that was what she expressed. Her anger blocked them at this point from feeling any affection, thus the lack of any term that described that.

  ***

  The two riders met in the plains that rose gradually to the ridge towards the encampment of the Romans, sprawled across the landscape. In three days, hundreds of tents had been built, and the land began to look like a tent city more than it did a hamlet or a village.

  “Vipsanius, my brother, how is everything?”

  Vipsanius had chosen to leave the friction between Arthur’s parents out of the report to his lord for now. Other matters needed to be resolved and communicated before he reached his family’s tent.

  “My lord, where have you been? Are you well?” he asked, concerned with the state of things.

  “Yes, Vipsanius. All is well. In fact, it is better than can be hoped for. I look forward to seeing my parents. It has been a long time since we have been together as a family.”

  “Yes, my lord. But you need to know a few things before you arrive at your family’s tent and I pray we can slow down a little while I bring you news of all that has happened in three days.”

  “Can’t we talk when we get back?”

  “No, my lord. It is important I have your ear now.”

 

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