Attila by Ross Laidlaw Page A

galley, its sail embroidered with Gunderic’s personal symbol, a charging boar, was moving into the harbour; the vessels blocking the entrance rowed back hastily, to give clear passage.
    Ignoring this, Gaiseric called for torches to be lit and thrown inside the church. The men were about to comply when Gunderic, a commanding figure with yellow hair swinging about his shoulders, strode into the square followed by his retinue.
    â€˜Hold!’ he roared. ‘Have I not said, brother, we must befriend the Romans, not give them cause to hate us? If we intend to live among them, we should remember that.’
    â€˜Better they should fear us – brother,’ replied Gaiseric with studied insolence. Taking a flaming brand from one of his men, he tossed it through an unshuttered window high up in the wall. Within seconds, smoke began to gush out; mingled with screams, loud crackling issued from the building. The screaming rose in intensity as flames leapt from the roof and shot from the windows.
    Gunderic’s face whitened with anger. ‘I came to tell you, brother,’ he said, raising his voice above the roar of the flames, ‘that the Romans have appealed to us for help. The Count of Africa has sent an envoy. He asks that we join forces with him to resist the Emperor.’
    In Gaiseric’s cunning mind, a train of thought began to run. Africa. Here might lie the fulfilment of his own and his people’s destiny.
    In the Vandal camp that night, he approached an ancient crone, skilled in the preparation of salves. And poisons.
    Â 
    1 Cartagena
    2 On 31 December 406.

EIGHT
    Could any other name but that of barbarian, which signifies savagery, cruelty and terror, fit them [the Vandals] so well?
    Victor of Vita,
History of African Persecution
, after 484
    â€˜It grows dark, old friend, yet surely at latest it can only be the eighth hour.’ Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, scourge of heretics, the foremost intellect and most influential churchman of the West, raised his wasted head from the pillow of his sick-bed, and gazed at the Count of Africa with a puzzled smile.
    Looking through the window of the upper room, Boniface pretended to scan the sky: it was a brilliant blue without a speck of cloud. Beyond the walls of Hippo Regius (so named because it had once been the capital of Numidian kinglets), he could see the Vandals sweltering in the August heat to build yet another of their versions of a siege tower. Like all its predecessors, it was a hopeless construction, destined to fall apart under a few well-aimed shots from one of the
ballistae
mounted on the ramparts.
    â€˜It’s the sand-wind, Aurelius,’ replied Boniface; the hot south wind could at times obscure the sun with whirling veils of sand. Dread clutched at his heart. It had come, then. Death was stalking the room, about to take from him his dearest friend and only source of comfort in this dreadful time. He thought, with guilt and horror, of the consequences of his appeal for help to Gunderic, King of the Vandals.
    In the midst of preparations to mobilize assistance, Gunderic had died suddenly, of a mysterious sickness. His half-brother Gaiseric had assumed the kingship and, with a fleet of captured Roman vessels and ships eagerly donated by their ‘hosts’ in Hispania, had transported the entire tribe across the narrow strip of water between the Pillars of Hercules. 1 Once in Africa, however, instead of coming to Boniface’s aid the Vandals under their terribleleader had rampaged eastwards, wreaking havoc and destruction, their numbers swelled by Moorish rebels, slaves, and Donatists – these last a numerous and savagely persecuted sect spearheaded by gangs of Rome-hating ruffians.
    Paralysed by remorse, bereft of the decisive brilliance that had once enabled him to crush the Moors, the Count of Africa had mounted but a faltering resistance – and had seen his troops scattered by the triumphant invaders.