The Damned Read online

  Attila grunted in approval. The custom for men who failed was not only to lose their lives but also those of their families.

  Gently he eased his old friend's mind. "They shall be well cared for and honored. Your sons, when they are of age, shall become Hetmen and Cur-quans and trained along with those of my own blood. The tribes shall be told that you came to me voluntarily and demanded that I take your life in recompense for your failure to provide properly for them and for your bad council in coming to Gaul at this time. Such an act will be respected and honored. No touch of shame shall reach your family. On this you have my sworn oath."

  Ongeth lowered his face back to the floor. "Thank you for, your kindness, Lord. When do you wish my head?"

  Ongesh remained, his face to the carpet. He didn't see Attila raise his fingers and signal to the shadows. A figure stepped forward, swinging with a two handed, heavy, thick bladed sword. The head of Ongesh rolled free from its trunk to rest at his feet, eyes looking blankly into those of his friend and master.

  Attila sipped his wine. "Now, old. friend, now." He ordered the executioner to remove the body. He was, after all, not a cruel man. This way Ongesh died without giving him time to think about it and perhaps do something foolish as men are prone to do when faced with their own termination. Yes, this was much kinder than having him publicly executed.

  He regretted his loss, but Ch'ing was right as usual. The times he had chosen to go against his advice had usually cost him.

  Ch'ing had served him well over the years with his advice. It was he who told him that a body with two heads will always be at odds with itself. Shortly after that he had killed his brother Bleda.

  He knew Ch'ing had been a councilor to the court of the Emperor of the Eastern Chin but had to leave the court for reasons he never spoke of. Attila had quickly learned the little man had a reason for everything he did and said. He knew that Ch'ing served him for his own purposes and that was the way it should be. A man who does not seek power is fit only to be used by those that do. They could be of greater value than those who give only blind obedience if you understood them. But one day the little man would be right one too many times...

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was disappointing to them that they were not able to follow after the Huns, but they had been too badly hurt themselves to continue and they didn't have the same impetus that the retreating Huns did. And there would still be mopping up operations to take care of for the next few days. In the woods there would be some survivors that got separated from the main force.

  Casca took his men back to Orleans, bringing the wagons of the Huns with him, bearing their wounded and whatever goods had been left in the wagons, which were considerable. And in the Huns' main camp outside Orleans, magistrates had counted and weighed over two thousand pounds of gold and five of silver.

  When Aetius's troops re-entered the walls, it was as heroes. The news of the defeat of Attila and his army brought the entire population out into the streets.

  Casca was content to leave most of the glory to Commitus who rode at the head of the column. Once they were inside, he broke away and went to his house, where he lay down and slept the deep rest of the soul weary.

  The pounding in his mind was distant but insistent. It would not stop; it kept pulling him up out of the dark where he wanted to be. At last he gave in and opened one eye, then forced the other to do likewise. Grumbling, he rose, covered his naked, scarred body with a thin coverlet of cotton, and stumbled to the door. He felt like he had a hangover of the first order. He slid the bar back and swung open the door. The sudden burst of bright sunshine from the outside momentarily blinded him. He squeezed his lids shut, then opened them more slowly to focus on the person disturbing his rest. Words were already coming out of his mouth before his vision cleared enough to make out that he was talking to a woman.

  "What, by the waterlogged gonads of Neptune, is it now? Can't a man even get a few hours of damned sleep without some stupid…" At that point his eyes fully focused on the small, dainty figure standing in front of him. Her face was dominated by the largest pair of eyes he had ever seen – dark brown eyes that were so deep a man could drown in them. Her face was framed by a wealth of rich auburn hair that hung in waves to her shoulders.

  He coughed, embarrassed. This was a lady of quality. "Forgive me, domina, I didn't expect one such as you to be beating on my door."

  The voice that snapped back at him had enough poison in it to kill an Egyptian cobra. "Your door, you vulgar savage. This is my home. Where is my family?"

  Casca gathered his thoughts, shook his head to clear away the cobwebs. "Your family? Oh yes, certainly. Please come in." She pushed past him, followed by a stocky figure he hadn't noticed before standing out of sight at the edge of the doorway. Janus, her servant, gave him a dirty look as he followed his mistress inside. He was very protective of his young charge and thought of her as his own. Janus had been her tutor and confidante for most of her life.

  Casca moved out of the way of the small balding man, nearly tripping over his own feet in the process. The girl turned her attention to him again. "I am Sylvia Rhea. Now where is my family? And who or what are you?"

  Casca remembered the bodies he had buried in the garden at the rear of the house when he had moved in. Haltingly, he tried to find the right words but knew there would not be any that would make the telling any easier.

  "I am Longinus, a soldier. I wish there was some other way to tell you this, but there isn't ..."

  Sylvia stopped him. From his tone, she already knew what he was going to say. "My family is dead?" The voice was very tiny, almost a child's.

  He nodded his head. "All of them." He watched the tears welling up in her eyes. "All that were here. When I came to this house, I found three people a man with gray hair and a mole on his cheek, a woman and another young girl. I buried them in the garden." He answered what would have been her next question before she spoke. "It was plague. I am sorry, Domina Sylvia, there was nothing that I could do. They were already dead and had been so for several days."

  Sylvia was in a mild state of shock. The news of her family's death was not completely unexpected; but it was still hard to hear the words that they were really gone, all of them. It was unfair. God could have at least let one of them live.

  Casca excused himself and went to his room to change. Ile had nothing there but his blood stained tunic and armor. The armor he left off, but wished there was something he could do about the dark marks on his tunic. In a corner of the room, he went through his saddle bags and found a thin blue cloak that, while well worn, at least didn't have the marks of death on it. Covering his shoulder with it, he pulled it over to conceal most of the stains.

  When he returned, Sylvia had herself under a tight rein. "Now, where is my family?" she commanded. Casca, as meek as a lamb, led her to the rear of the house and the garden. Sylvia watched the broad back in front of her. Why is he here and who is he? She didn't know whether to be angry at him or not.

  In the garden between flowering bushes and under the shade of two giant poplar trees, she saw three mounds of raised earth; on their graves were blooming flowers.

  Casca coughed self-consciously when she asked about the flowers and who had planted them there. "I did, domina. It seemed the thing to do and no one else came here. All the people of the city were afraid of the plague."

  Tears welled up and over her lids to run down her face, but there were no cries of grief. Pain of this kind was personal and private. She would let her feelings go when she was alone, not in front of a man she didn't know.

  There was a nice quality about him, though. His appearance was a little frightening the muscled neck and scarred arms. She looked closer at his face and wondered about the scar there. But in his face she saw no brutality, only something behind the eyes that said he too had known the pain she felt now.

  "Thank you for the flowers. That was a kind thing to do. But I would appreciate it if you would leave me alone now.
" She knelt down by the graves. "Tell me who is under which of these places." She couldn't bring herself to say graves.

  Casca called them out in order ... father, mother, daughter... then turned to leave her to her grief. It was always embarrassing to watch another's pain when you couldn't do anything to help.

  He returned to his room to gather his things together. He would have to leave now. Her servant stayed by the door watching to make sure he didn't take anything that belonged to the house.

  By the time he had gathered his few possessions and was ready to go, Sylvia had come back inside. She looked at him questioningly. "You're leaving?"

  He nodded. "Yes, now that you are here, I think it would be best if I found somewhere else to stay. But I would like to know how you got here so fast. The city was only secured yesterday."

  She looked at him as if he were a fool. "Yesterday? It has been three days since Commitus returned from defeating the savages." Three days! He had been asleep for three days. Well, what did it matter?

  He only said an embarrassed, "Oh! I didn't know I had slept so long." He took his gear and moved to the door, opening it. "If there is anything I can ever do for you, I would consider it an honor for you to call on me. Any place and time. Perhaps there is some way I can repay you for the use of your home. Remember my name is Casca Longinus; you can find me at the military barracks."

  She merely nodded her head. He left her there looking small, frightened and lonely. The door closed behind him and he was in the street.

  He looked up at the sky. From the shadows, it was still a few hours until nightfall. In his sack was his armor and a couple of changes of clothing that needed a washing. The streets were busy; several caravans of carts bearing foodstuffs passed him. Obviously, supplies were coming into the city at a good rate as no one was trying to steal anything from the carts. It was a good sign of normality returning. He did see many houses boarded up, most of them probably victims of the same plague that killed the family of Sylvia.

  It took about half an hour to walk the two miles to the military barracks where he called to a young junior centurion and ordered him to find him a room. The young handsome officer looked very smart in expensive armor that hadn't any marks of battle on it. But from the way the young man moved and the glint in his eye, Casca figured that would probably change before very long.

  He took Casca's sack and led him down a hall in the stone building that served as the legion's facility. He opened a door into a fair sized room of about fifteen feet square with a desk chair and sleeping couch. The youngster stated that the room had belonged to an officer who had been killed.

  Casca checked it over. There was nothing left in the wooden closet or elsewhere. The room had been cleaned out. Tossing his bundle of dirty clothes at the centurion, he grumbled, "Have someone clean these and bring them back to me in the morning." He was saluted and left alone.

  He had an orderly bring him water to wash in and some food, nothing fancy, just a portion of boiled millet and stewed pig. Chewing slowly, he let the food find its way into his gut with the least amount of protest.

  The girl refused to leave his mind; her large eyes kept peering at him. Well, he thought, she's nothing to me, just another pretty face that I will never see again. I have no business even thinking about another woman. All I can give them is grief and do myself no good in the process.

  He lay down on the cot, trying to think about what he should do next, but he was restless. His thoughts of the girl didn't help. Finally he gave it up and belted on his sword to go back out on the streets. Before leaving, the young centurion, who was officer of the day, told him to be careful. There were still a large number of looters roaming the streets after dark.

  Casca asked him about what measures were being taken by the legionnaires to provide security. The boy responded with, "There just aren't enough of us left to patrol everywhere. We have caught over fifty and they have been executed. After a while we'll have their numbers thinned out so we can handle them better."

  Casca asked, "What do you mean there aren't enough of you to deal with the situation?"

  The centurion pointed at the inner barracks; most of the bunks showed no signs of occupancy. "Aetius has taken over fifty percent of the able bodied men with him. We have nothing but a skeleton force left, and the praetor has most of them on the walls still watching for Attila and his hordes to come back."

  Casca left the centurion to his duties. He didn't like the sound of looters, those human vermin who fed on other's misery. But they always came like flies; wherever there was death, they would appear as if by magic. It had always been so and he imagined it would always be.

  He let his feet take him where they wanted, not really knowing the streets well enough to make a decision. He wandered until dark fell. There were no torches lit to illuminate the dark narrow streets, but he could hear sounds behind shuttered windows and voices talking. Men arguing with wives. Children being told to shut up and go to sleep. The familiar sounds of civilization.

  The streets were rapidly emptying. The good folks were locked up in their houses for the night. Most of them still had the look that only extended hunger can give. Soon the only sounds he heard were those of his boots on the stone streets. A city that lives in fear has a feel to it that is unique. It's not anything you can touch or see, but there is a quality to the atmosphere, a tenseness that hangs on through the night.

  He gripped the handle of his sword a little tighter. One of the few good things about a city that's been under siege is that its rat population is diminished once the inhabitants get over their food prejudices... He saw, or thought he saw, only a couple of the rodents.

  Only once did he see a three man patrol of legionnaires on the streets and they acted like the last thing they wanted to do was meet up with any looters. He didn't blame them they would probably be outnumbered. He identified himself to them, received their salute, and they went on their way, leaving him to the darkness.

  The narrowness of the streets made the night seem even darker, even though there was a full moon whose rays darted in thin shafts between the structures, illuminating a pile of rubble here or child's toy there, where it had been dropped and forgotten.

  Several times he heard noises that weren't those of the tiny scuffling feet of rats; other vermin were on the streets this night. He moved over to the sides of the buildings, staying in the shadows where the moonbeams couldn't touch him. He felt a chill and turned around; the building he was in front of had a familiar look to it.

  It took a moment for him to recognize it in the dark. It was the home of Sylvia. Somehow his subconscious had brought him back to this place. He thought for a moment about knocking on the door, trying to think of some excuse that would justify his being there but gave it up. He turned away and moved on down the street away from the home of the girl with the haunting eyes.

  He got three doors down when he stopped. His feet just didn't want to take him any farther. He wished he had a drink, but if there was a tavern open, he wouldn't know how to find it, and there wasn't anyone out that he could ask.....

  Casca resigned himself to being a little tense and sat down on the curb, his back against a wall, just watching the cold rays of the moonbeams as the orb slowly traveled over his head. He pulled his thin cloak about his shoulders. Though there was no chill to the warm night air, he felt as if there ought to be one. A light wind overhead rustled the leaves, blowing several off to float gently down to the street.

  It wouldn't be much longer before all the leaves began to fall and another winter would be coming. He wondered where he would be then. He reclined against the baked bricks of a house and closed his eyes, letting the quiet of the night sink into him. It felt good just sitting, but he had a vague uneasiness that kept him from fully relaxing.

  A sound of heavy steps snapped his eyes open. He cocked his head to listen. Nothing for a moment, then he heard it again. A tingling ran up his spine to the small hair on the nape of the neck. He rose, sli
d his sword from its scabbard, and tried to fix the sound.

  He moved around to the side of the house, stopped in the dark of the shadows and listened once more, holding his breath to hear better. He heard a grunt and a muffled curse, a sliding noise, then one more. Moving on, down the back of the houses, in the gloom, he saw a dark figure pulling another up over a wall. Doing a mental count of the houses he had passed, he knew they were going over the garden wall of Sylvia's home.

  Silently he followed after them, when they dropped over the top into what he knew was the garden. He waited a moment, then did the same, easing himself over belly first. Making the smallest possible figure in the dark, he let himself down silently onto the grass. He was just a couple of steps away from the graves of Sylvia's family. He strained his eyes looking for the men. He couldn't see them, but he knew there was only one way for them to get into the house without having to climb up to the second floor and that was through the atrium door. He headed there, walking carefully.

  The door was open and he knew they were inside. Sliding in sideways he stopped, listening for footsteps or the sound of their breathing. Moving to where the stairs led up to the second floor and the upper bedrooms, he hunched down in a darkened corner where the moonlight couldn't reach. It was pitch black. He waited, knowing that sooner or later the looters would have to come to him after they finished checking out the rest of the bottom floor and found there was nothing there worth taking.

  He was right. It was only a few minutes before the shuffling of their feet and a muffled curse, as one of them bumped his hip on the sharp corner of a table, came to him. They knew that there was someone in the house from the food they had found in the kitchen. Their steps came closer. He set his sword down by his feet and took the wide bladed dagger from his belt. It was better for close work in the dark. There! He saw a darker form. He waited until it passed him. The man in front was going up on the stairs on tiptoe; the other had a club in his hand. He presumed the man in front had some sort of weapon, but he waited until the trailing man was just at an arm's reach away, then moved when the leading man was nearly at the top of the stairs.