Flavius Aetius Twilight of Empire

By Jose Gomez-Rivera

Flavius Aetius: Twilight of Empire

The story of Flavius Aetius: The Last Conqueror continues in this sequel bringing to life in sweeping color and romance the last years of the Western Roman Empire. It focuses on the remarkable relationship of Empress Galla Placida and the last great Roman General Flavius Aetius. This turbulent relationship, which this historical romance sets squarely as a dramatic and star crossed love affair with the fate of Empire riding on it, frames the history of Rome in the throes of decline, but still flickering its thousand-year light on Europe, keeping the encroaching darkness at bay.

The brilliance of the protagonists, who faced down the threats of Alaric, coups, religious conflicts, and Attila, is detailed in a sweeping tale of Rome, fighting for its last gasps of air. Characters such as Honorius, Stilicho, St. Augustine, Alaric, and others fill the panoply and splendor of a dying empire, and the two individuals who struggled, as they saw it, to maintain their world, even sacrificing their love to achieve that end. Aetius and Galla are portrayed as passionate lovers caught in the maelstrom of power and drawn to oppose each other over policy and events, although always in love. Passion and love underscore historical events and the fictional relationship of these two historical characters.
It is a full blooded tale that moves through history and romance, blending both in a comprehensive tale of a world in transition and the people whose efforts held the deluge at bay and transformed the very process of change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 4, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503535749

Jose Gomez-Rivera

JOSE GOMEZ-RIVERA is an Adjunct Professor of History at Rutgers University. He is a History Teacher at Science Park High School in Newark NJ. He has taught at the John C. Whitehead School of International Studies. Professor Gomez-Rivera has served as the Director of International Trade for the State of New Jersey. He has also served as a Diplomat for the United States in Colombia, Chile and Venezuela. Professor Gomez-Rivera holds a PhD in History and a JD from NYU. He also has an MA in Educational Administration from St Peters in New Jersey. He is married to Maria Antonia and has three sons, Jose, Lorenz and Alex. This book is dedicated to all his students past and present.

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Copyright © 2015 by Jose Gomez-Rivera.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2015900852

ISBN:      Hardcover       978-1-5035-3575-6

                Softcover         978-1-5035-3576-3

                eBook              978-1-5035-3574-9

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Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The HYPERLINK http://www.zondervan.com/ Zondervan Corporation.

Rev. date: 02/03/2015

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CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

CHAPTER XXVII

CHAPTER XXVIII

CHAPTER XXIX

CHAPTER XXX

CHAPTER XXXI

CHAPTER XXXII

CHAPTER XXXIII

CHAPTER XXXIV

CHAPTER XXXV

CHAPTER XXXVI

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

T HE YELLOWED PARCHMENT unfolded with the terrifying news. Lord Stilicho is dead. Aetius looked at his uncle and handed him the scroll.

The writing on the weathered scroll told the tale. Gallian’s eyes widened as the enormity of the events unfolded. The half Vandal praetorian prefect, master militium and—since the great and bloody victory over the barbarian hordes in the Alps—master officium in the Imperial Consistory was no more. The powerful official had managed to bring together the most powerful military and civil positions in the Roman Empire, a unique achievement that had not been achieved since the previous century, as emperors had jealously divided civil administration from armed command. Accordingly, Stilicho held the empire in the palm of his hand, but had always wanted more. He was a shrewd judge of talented men; after all, did he not recruit the young Flavius Aetius and his powerful uncle to his war banner? Stilicho, however, had overplayed his hand. Seeking to place his offspring in the line of imperial succession, the Vandal’s acumen failed to grasp the hubris in his reach. Emperor Honorius, master of the Western Roman Empire, a capricious and mercurial ruler who Stilicho pretended to control while struck with unaccustomed decisiveness, demonstrated all the hallmarks of court duplicity.

Stilicho had dared the last great taboo in the empire: the almost universally held belief and demand that the imperial line could not—must not—be tarnished by the infusion of barbarian blood. Stilicho was part Vandal and, therefore, a barbarian. Germanic blood had, without doubt, coursed through the veins of Roman society long before, as a consequence of the diversity and needs of the imperial polity. Roman elites, generals, and senators had married northern barbarians for centuries. The imperial dynasties, however, were the last refuge of Roman ethnic prejudices, not easily dismissed in Rome and stubbornly resisting any challenge.

The massive crossing of the Rhine a year before by Germanic hordes had sealed Stilicho’s fate. The frozen river had allowed hordes of Alans, Alemmani, Vandals, and eastern Goths to cross the littoral frontier. They moved toward the very heartland of the Western Roman Empire without opposition. Stilicho attempted to use the barbarian wave as yet another point of leverage to advance his own dynastic ambitions, arguing that he was the irreplaceable man, but then failed to stem the barbarian tide. This massive invasion of barbarian confederations pushed forward by the unrelenting pressure of the bloodthirsty ferocity of the Huns turned the Roman elite against the Master Militium and gave Honorius the opening he had been waiting for. Everyone suspected Stilicho of complicity in the crossing. Why not? they asked. Stilicho had, after all, married his daughter to Honorius, seeking to join the house of Theodosius. Romans murmured that the man was seeking to turn over the Western Empire to those of his blood. Are there not Vandals among those entering the imperial lands? Stilicho, they said, will use these men to hold us hostage.

Roman eyes had always looked to the north in fear and dread. Roman memories stretched back to four centuries before the Christian era, when blond Celts tugged at elder Roman beards and set the eternal city ablaze in a murderous orgy and rapine assault. The empire allowed northern tribes to settle within the empire during the unhappy reign of Emperor Valens, who fell on the catastrophic field of Adrianople fighting the barbarian Goths—who had pleaded to cross the Danube and settle in Roman lands a few years before. Even after Gratian and the more formidable Spanish bear, Theodosius restored order and the Goths stayed, at times chastened and at others fierce. Goths entered Roman service, but as allied nations. Their kings were given official Roman offices. They hungered for Roman recognition and acceptance, but they ruled great masses of Germanic peoples held together by tales of heroes and the power of royal dynasties.

Goths seldom served the empire individually. Barbarian armies joined imperial forces as distinct and semi-independent forces, claiming Roman status but disdaining any absorption into the empire. Romans grudgingly accepted the barbarian levies, but northern types—with their foul beer and disgusting butter, shocking light eyes, lack of culture, and heretical Arrianism—set in place and cemented Roman distaste. The Goths chafed at Roman airs and used their powerful leverage with imperial administrators to demand an ever-greater place in the empire. Their need, as soldiers defending the empire from increasing threats from constantly emerging barbarian and Persian threats, broke down much of the legal obstacles set down to divide Roman from barbarian. Other Germanic alliances followed the Goths as Roman need increased, so that by the reign of Honorius, only the imperial bloodline was beyond barbarian touch. The transformation of the Roman monarchy from a quasi-republican military dictatorship to a divine right absolutism with Eastern and unabashedly theocratic character set the dynasty above all, creating a sacredness that surrounded the imperial family and filled Romans of most classes with reverence.

Since the time of Diocletian, who had saved the Roman Empire from dissolution, the emperors ruled as domini, sacred authority vested in their persons by the deity. Diocletian had raised the role and character of the emperor to a height of authority and divine legitimacy that scrapped the veil of republicanism laid down by Augustus so many centuries before. Augustus had ruled as first citizen of the empire; Diocletian and his heirs would reign as divinely ordained lords. Romans retained some republican terms and misty symbols of the past, but law required absolute obedience to an emperor that could not be looked upon and demanded prostration.

Constantine had cemented the new type of monarchy by allying himself with a triumphant and supremely organized Christian Church, although with care not to alienate pagans. Constantine, however, intervened in Christian doctrine and showered powerful bishops with imperial largesse to establish authority on the rock-hard buttresses of the church. Constantine and his heirs raised the throne to unreachable heights, from where the emperors looked down.

The Catholic Church, itself, had an ambiguous relationship with the Roman emperor. It was early on the junior political partner, subject to imperial largesse and use. The church accepted much of the imperial claims to divinely ordained legitimacy and held itself in abeyance as Constantine consolidated a political ideology where the emperor was raised to the status of apostolic successor. As the decades passed, however, the Church was seen by the aristocratic foes of the emperor, whose ancestors dominated the old Roman Senate and the Republic but had fallen to Gaius Julius Caesar—and his even more brilliant nephew, Augustus—while, as a vehicle capable of politically challenging the emperors, Caesar gave birth to the empire.

It had taken time, but the ecclesiastical service and the offices of the Catholic Church were filled with the heirs of the old Roman aristocracy, as most of the disposed elite sent their sons to appropriate new roles in the key centers of the emerging religious monolith. Roman families soon filled the bishophrics and the metropolitan sees that controlled the church. With these, the church began to siphon power away from the imperial administration and bureaucracy, which they had taken over. Roman governors stepped into the seat of bishops throughout the empire and, in time, were becoming the only effective institutional alternative to the imperial system. Holding administration, wealth, and the doctrinal arguments supporting its authority, the Catholic Church was rising in the Western Roman Empire. Nonetheless, even the ecclesiastical leadership opposed any mixing of barbarian blood with the anointed dynasty.

Roman, both Christians and pagans, stared aghast as the imperial bloodline was accosted by barbarian desires. Alaric, King of the Goths, had the audacity to seek a marriage between his burly Arian brother and the imperial princess Galla Placida. Theodosius’ daughter and sister to Honorius, Galla Placida was the imperial jewel. Rome would not see it in the possession of dirty barbarian hands. Alaric, nevertheless, clamored for the alliance and had long swords and heavy spears to back his demands. Honorius, who at once needed and feared Alaric, looked desperately for an answer to satisfy both Rome and his dangerous barbarian federates.

Stilicho, the power behind the imperial throne, found it. He bought the Goths with other means, offering Alaric large tracts of eastern lands, Roman acknowledgement of a federate state on the new lands, and stipends in exchange for giving up on the demands for an imperial marriage along with military support. Galla was then engaged to Constantius of Britannia, who had led forces east to help defeat Radagasius and his hordes. Constantine was the scion of a noble Roman family without the taint of barbarian blood—and a Catholic. Stilicho defeated Radagasius in the snow-pocketed mountains in bloody combat and emerged triumphant as the most powerful man in the Empire. His allies were in control of the two most important prefectures of the Western Roman Empire, as Gallian and Aetius—along with Marcus Pelagius and a new rising African commander Boniface—took up their new duties in Gaul and Africa, respectively. Additionally, he had bought the loyalty of Alaric and his people in granting them Illyrian lands claimed by Emperor Arcadius, the sick and feeble ruler of the Eastern Empire, in Constantinople.

But Stilicho was dead. Just a few years after reaching new heights of power, Stilicho lay murdered. His blood trickled along the polished mosaic floor, pooling away from the body as life melted. Stilicho had foolishly aimed at the throne, disregarding advice given by his allies and friends. He paid for it with his life. The carefully worded message that Aetius read over again to Gallian did not mention murder, but the knowing look each man gave deciphered the meaning and its implicit warning.

Stilicho had, indeed, been murdered, and in doing so, Honorius had set the events in motion. The rabid hatred etched in his grimaced face spilled out from dark eyes as he fixed his attention on his favorite pets, the clucking imperial chickens. It would be so much easier to rule over mindless animals, thought Honorius. He watched as a group of cackling hens chased off a despondent black rooster while abandoned chicks pecked away at loose and strewn kernels of corn. The emperor smiled and then pointed a bejeweled finger at the rooster and the besieged hen. Put those two together, feed them, but don’t let them out until they mate. Several sandaled eunuchs rushed to obey the emperor’s command.

Honorius moved with unusual purpose as he set the trap in place. He sent envoys to General Ardabarius, the prefect Anthemius (the real power in the Eastern Roman Empire and Constantinople), and, only after, to his brother Emperor Arcadius. These men were to suggest that Stilicho had lost Honorius’ favor and that his elimination would not elicit a hostile—or any—response from Mediolanum, where the Roman emperor had resided since the last great northern crisis. They suggested that the court would acquiesce to a restoration of Illyricum to Constantinople, but only after Stilicho was removed. Both the Eastern emperor and his trusted general took the bait immediately. Stilicho had, after all, wrested Illyria away from the East. Perhaps Illyria might return to the East with Stilicho out of the picture.

~ ~ ~

Ardabarius urged Emperor Arcadius to act.

This Vandal has been a thorn in our side, sire. Fury filled his voice, as he felt the humiliating sting of Stilicho’s scourge. Illyria is ours. It is part of your inheritance, my dominus, but this man seized it. He looked into the weak dying eyes of Theodosius’ son Arcadius and decided there was little or nothing of the old giant in the man he now served. Anthemius, the praetorian prefect in charge of the city of Constantinople, along with the Augusta Eudoxia, having given birth to an heir, really ruled in the east. It is lucky for the east that Arcadius, the bloodless prig, doesn’t rule. The thought crossed the mind of the grizzled general. At least his wife had some iron and Anthemius was, at least, capable—better than that eunuch Eutropius.

My lord, Stilicho has robbed you of your father’s legacy, has thwarted his wishes, and sits, a Vandal, near the imperial throne, Ardabarius blurted, barely restraining his seething hatred. Your illustrious brother, the Augustus Honorius, recognizes the man’s wantonness and seeks your assistance. Dominus, act now and save the dynasty.

Prefect Anthemius nodded. It would be easier to rule directly, he mused, but the formalities of imperial rule required Arcadius’ acquiescence. He was prepared to observe the formalities, however. Time-consuming as they seemed, they held the empire together.

The tall prefect bowed low before the Augustus. The heavy velvet cape drawn around his powerful body rustled with his turn. Anthemius’ gloved hand cut the empty air and gestured with courtly effortlessness that hinted at mastery over classical rhetoric.

Dominus,—the deep grey eyes flickered as they rose slightly below the emperor’s own—we had little choice but to agree when Stilicho took Illyria. Peace was made on his terms. We had little choice. Anthemius’ voice deepened and stressed the obvious impotence of confronting Stilicho over the provinces. He dared to humiliate and control the sons of the late Great Emperor and Dominus Theodosius, your illustrious father.

Anthemius knew he was treading dangerously close to humiliating Arcadius himself by reminding the emperor so clearly of it, but he was confident in being able to manage it. The empress was, in the last instance, his safety net. Eudoxia was not only Arcadius’ wife, but also the mother of the next Augustus. She was determined to guarantee her son’s succession and knew that only Anthemius was capable of seeing it through. Her son had to rule as the second Theodosius and, by the deathly pallor of the current emperor’s face, it might not be very long now and the prefect would be needed. Eudoxia backed Anthemius with formidable tenacity and would continue to do so. Anthemius continued.

Our lord in Heaven, the blessed Christ, he said, lifting his voice. The Heavenly Father has turned his ire on this Vandal and lifted the veil from your brother’s eyes, may he be protected, and my lord Honorius has requested assistance from his elder and guiding brother. The prefect was sure to emphasize the relationship between the two emperors. Arcadius hates his mad brother, he thought. Anthemius knew that family relations within the Theodosian clan were frigid during the best of times and otherwise positively murderous. Nevertheless, he observed the pretense of a loving family and unified imperial dynasty. Dominus, you must help your brother in this matter. All you have to do is assent. Your servants, we will do the rest. There, Arcadius, it is as simple as I can make it.

~ ~ ~

Honorius sat in the gilded throne. He pulled the heavy purple cloak over his shoulders. Mediolanum was frigid in early spring, when the winds moved down from the mountain ranges and slipped into the city. The large imperial hall hummed with the currents racing under and through doors.

Put more logs into the fires, Honorius commanded. Servants rushed around to comply. He had ordered his wife, Stilicho’s daughter, Thermantia, into a convent and the death of Eucherius, Stilicho’s son, as he thought of the dead and his newfound independence. Only Stilicho’s wife, his cousin Serena, escaped his carefully laid plans, but she wouldn’t be able to cause much trouble. The emperor slumped back into the massive throne, almost disappearing into the folds of his gold-bordered cloak. A great green jewel broach captured the golden flames of the newly stoked fires.

Honorius motioned to a liveried eunuch. The man moved forward slowly, folds of fat making any movement uncomfortable, and pressed a scroll into his master’s outstretched hand, never once raising his eyes from the alabaster and gold-flecked marble floor. The emperor’s eyes moved quickly over the writing. He looked up. Who delivered this? Honorius’ voice was extraordinarily clear. Before he had a chance to repeat himself, the eunuch again came forward and prostrated himself.

The messengers are being fed, Dominus.

Bring them to me, let them attend in private. Honorius was warmed for the first time that day. Arcadius was dying. He would not last long, but Eudoxia and Anthemius had agreed to his plan. Stilicho would die. In exchange, Honorius agreed to return Illyria and assist in evicting Alaric and his Goths. The two halves of the empire together would plow the Goths into the earth, Honorius thought gleefully. Stilicho dead and my Galla still in court.

Finally with a real chance to rule and be happy, the emperor smiled.

CHAPTER I

S TILICHO WAS BLINDED by power, Gallian offered. His gnarled but still powerful fingers tapped the massive worn oak of the large table. He didn’t see the knife in the darkness, or the emperor’s seething hatred. Men see what they want and they can see the fault in others before personal errors. He held the scroll, but didn’t open it.

Aetius had read enough. Stilicho thought he was untouchable and, in Rome, not even emperor or Pope is unreachable.

The tapping stopped as Gallian filled a large goblet with the ruby wine of his beloved Burdigala. He drank the aromatic wine deeply and waited for the honey fire to fill his barrel chest. Never make a decision without drinking, Aetius. Gallian smiled. Aetius knew, however, that his maternal uncle was nervous.

It clears your mind, and our strong Gallic wine strengthens your resolve, my boy, Gallian went on. He feared for Aetius. Stilicho, obsessed with his own power and stature, was Aetius’ patron and his own. The man had raised his nephew to the prefecture and protected him. Honorius hated Aetius. Stilicho and his authority stood between the emperor’s revenge and his nephew. Without Stilicho, who could turn Honorius’ vileness? Gallian realized that they had to move fast.

You must leave, the older man urged. His voice was calm but commanding. Take Sigisvult and Valerius with you and go to Rua and the Huns. Yes, the Huns would protect him. Rua, Lord of the Huns, was as loyal to Aetius as anyone, and Gallian included himself in that thought. The aging Hun ruler looked on Aetius as another nephew, along with Bleda and the hawk-faced Attila. Rua’s Huns had come to their aid more than once, saving the day and their skins. Even Attila, with bottomless pride and ambition, respected Aetius. No easy thing, thought Gallian. There is a Hun to contend with, he mused. Good thing he is—for the time being—on our side.

And you must leave quickly, Gallian added, pressing the issue. His voice lowered to a whisper, although he and Aetius were alone. Honorius will want to settle all outstanding accounts now, and that means he will come after you. He paused, but only for the briefest of moments. You’ll only be safe from his overly long reach with the Huns in upper Moesia. Honorius can’t get to you there. He, like everyone around him, fears Rua and his Huns. Gallian allowed himself the slightest smile, as he thought how Attila and the Huns terrified Romans even when they had come to serve the Empire. Hell’s blood, boy, everyone is afraid of those mounted devils.

Aetius understood his uncle was right. Honorius would strike and the emperor was unlikely to miss. Stilicho was immensely powerful, wealthy and well-guarded, but was dead. The Vandal general had held the Empire in the palm of his hand. Yet, Honorius had brought him down. Stilicho had overplayed his hand in giving his enemies a cause to coalesce around. He had failed to measure his demands and, in reaching for the imperial purple, Stilicho united those who destroyed him. Aetius knew full well the power and danger of reaching for the imperial dynasty. Stilicho, himself, had warned of the consequences of such an act, particularly for someone not of full Roman birth. But there it was—the half Vandal virtual ruler of the Roman Empire now lay dead because he forgot his own advice.

We shouldn’t underestimate the extent of Honorius’ hatred or his ability to conspire, Gallian said. Trying to get his nephew’s acknowledgment of the gravity facing them, he barely paused. Honorius set the trap well and waited years as it folded coils around a man, who ruled the Empire and outplayed many in Rome, Mediolanum, and Constantinople.

Aetius quietly agreed with his uncle. Honorius was a dangerous viper, and demonstrated it in bringing down Stilicho that he knew when and how to strike.

Honorius must have received Arcadius’ assent before that living carcass gave up the spirit. Anthemius must be the glue that held the thing together. Gallian savored the wine before proceeding. Wiping scarlet flecks from his frosty well-tended beard, the senior Gallic prefect betrayed a grudging admiration for his Eastern counterpart, the praetorian prefect of Constantinople.

Anthemius is another one to watch. He holds the East now. Arcadius never has, but Rufinus, Eutropius and, finally, Eudoxia between have struggled for supremacy, with the empress finally winning out with the assistance of the current prefect. All of the eunuchs and pretenders are dead. Theodosius II will wear the diadem, but Anthemius stands supreme in Constantinople. Gallian let slip another grin, mixing respect with concern as he pondered Anthemius’ role in Stilicho’s downfall. He waited and had his revenge on Stilicho. Anthemius negotiated the transfer of Illyria to the West. Stilicho gained the province at the expense of a deadly enemy and, ultimately, his death. Success, if absolute, often holds the very seeds of destruction. Yes, that’s what sealed Stilicho’s downfall, he thought. Illyria was his doom, as it made him the obvious target.

Gallian looked into Aetius’ deep eyes. Stilicho forgot this. Enemies always coalesce against the one who is strongest. Jackals and hyenas bring down the lion, usually after he makes the kill. Learn from nature, boy. You will never go wrong. Always aim for balance, as it allows you to divide existing enemies. He who rises alone to the summit becomes a tempting target. In life, Flavius, we must make enemies, but what most don’t realize is that they shouldn’t always have to be enemies. Sometimes, Aetius, we need enemies to save us from our friends. Gallian stressed his words. He wanted to impress his nephew with their value.

The old man had lost none of his insight. Aetius looked at his uncle. His mother’s brother weathered the years like a mighty oak out of the forest. The gnarled limbs and extended muscles, now covered by slowly spreading translucent skin, attested to the ravages of long days in the saddle and war. His acumen, however, was as sharp as ever. Aetius could see his uncle’s eyes moving rapidly along with his thoughts, dissecting the situation perfectly.

Stilicho’s hubris brought him down. Honorius saw it and struck. Anthemius backed the attack. The Imperial Consistory and whoever is named master militium, along with the chamberlain, are going to have to pay a territorial debt. Gallian spoke with unquestioned certainty. Illyria is going back to Constantinople, and that is the key to it all. Aetius listened with admiration, waiting for his uncle to explain that last comment. It was not long in coming.

Gallian finally emptied his goblet with one gulp, savoring each drop as it brought that honey fire into his chest. Honorius knows that Illyria had to go back to Constantinople in order to murder Stilicho. Stilicho gave the province to Alaric and his people. Stilicho was killed, forcing Alaric to attack the culprit and assert his claim to the province. In order to do this, Alaric must look to the east and lead his Goths against Constantinople; after all, Theodosius II—not Honorius—will rule Illyria. Gallian was drawing up the essence of his argument, but he paused and walked to the heavy table.

Don’t you see? he asked rhetorically, knowing that Flavius Aetius was following every detail. Perhaps, Gallian mused, he is even anticipating me. The older man refilled his goblet. Honorius needs to return Illyria in order to turn the Goths away from the West and hurl them against Constantinople. He drank once more, enjoying both the wine and his words. Alaric will attack whoever holds Illyria in order to vindicate his title to the land. The Goths must also avenge their patron and Alaric can easily fulfill that obligation by moving east. He will kill two birds with one stone.

Aetius saw the logic of the argument. Alaric was duty bound to avenge Stilicho, and his armies had to force recognition of Goth control over Illyria. Honorius had played it perfectly by getting Constantinople’s agreement in exchange for the province. Alaric had to move against Constantinople. Aetius also realized that Honorius would not assist the East against Alaric, but rather claim he didn’t have sufficient resources and was also hard pressed in Hispania and Gaul. Anthemius may have been betting on Western assistance. Aetius was sure it wouldn’t come.

Yes, my uncle, Honorius played the game well, even though Stilicho ignored some basic lessons, Aetius acknowledged. He’ll want his hands free to settle accounts with everyone, including me. Aetius was absolutely certain of that. Honorius would like us out of the way, Galla at court, and Constantine permanently holding Britannia. With Stilicho gone and the Goths fighting in the east, he will move. Aetius could not bear the thought of Galla Placida at the imperial court. He couldn’t think of her belonging to Constantine, although she had been promised. He could only think of her in his arms. His body and soul hungered for her, felt ill at the emptiness of longing. It was, however, left unspoken even in the company of his uncle.

Yes, and this time, it won’t take years to strike, Gallian rejoined. Honorius will give back Illyria, Alaric will move, and then the Augustus must settle accounts. We cannot wait. Gallian finished another goblet. He put the jewel-fastened vessel down on the table with the gold flagon. You must leave.

Aetius understood his uncle to mean that he was staying behind. I’ll go with you to Rua. The king of the Huns loves you like a brother. He will protect us both. Honorius fears the Huns. He won’t dare to move against Moesia. Uncle, we will all be safe in Rua’s camp. Aetius knew that everything he said was true. The Huns, under Rua, were the feared lords of Moesia. Honorius did not have the men or courage to seek vengeance there. Nevertheless, Aetius also knew that Gallian would not leave Gaul.

My place is here in Burdigala, in Gaul. You are Gaudentius’ son. Rua owes you a blood debt. He was close to your father. They were bound as brothers under the Hun gods. He will protect you without flinching, even if his people balk at drawing the ire of the Augustus in Mediolanum. Aetius could guess what was coming next. Rua will also protect me, but there is only friendship there. Yes, we have shed blood together and saved each other on more than one occasion, but that is a personal bond. It is one of individual honor, but doesn’t commit his people to my service. Gallian smiled and put his hand on Aetius’ muscled shoulder.

"You know the Huns. They will want payment to stand against Honorius in my defense. Rua, as king of the Huns, bound his people to fight for Gaudentius