They remounted and drove their horses up onto the long barrow. The King held his right arm up over the mound, and in a low keening voice repeated a part of the great Hunnish prayer for the burial of the dead.

Then they heeled their horses and rode forward, down the steep slope of the grave-mound and towards the quietly smoking camp of the Huns.

Nearing the camp, Attila reined in his horse and his two men stopped beside him.

He turned to Chanat. ‘He was buried without his horses, without his wives or his slavegirls.’ His voice grew in intensity. ‘Without one gold ring for his journey.’

Chanat could not look him in the eye.

‘Speak,’ rasped Attila.

With a look of pain, Chanat said softly, ‘Oh, do not ask me, Tanjou. Do not ask me about the dead.’

Attila looked to the far horizon. As if he would cut the throat of the horizon itself. Then they rode on.

2

THE BURNING TENT

The Hun camp lay near a bend of the wide River Dnieper, which by the Greeks is called the Borysthenes. Its headwaters rise far to the north among the frozen mountains, and even at the end of the burning summer it still flows wide and serene through the grasslands towards the Euxine Sea. There the Huns had lazed all summer long, drying and salting perch, feasting on the great sturgeon of the river, shooting wildfowl, and hunting the plump grass-fed saiga antelope as they came down to the water at dusk to drink. Once the summer had been the season for war and the winter for peace. Now it was a long time since the Huns had been at war, even with their tribal neighbours, and peace lasted all the long year round.

At the entrance to the huge sprawl of the camp, the watchmen looked uncertainly at Chanat and his new companions.