“What did you tell him?”

“That I had been looking for signs of the Roman occupation force in this district. I carried conviction because, wherever I go in Europe, I’m alert to signs of Roman garrisons. Wherever they camped, they always dug in, and the structure of the place is virtually the same from England to Syria. This was Pannonia, a Roman possession until the Huns arrived.”

“And that satisfied him?” Remi asked.

“He’s a madman and nothing satisfies madness. He wants Attila the Hun’s burial goods. The man thinks he’s an heir of Attila the Hun. If he’s not a literal descendant, he’s certainly a spiritual one, and what he’s searching for is a big thing here. In Hungary, people still name boys Attila. And here we are on the southern plain, where Attila made his stronghold.”

Remi said, “I may not be remembering clearly, but isn’t the treasure supposed to be the coffins themselves?”

“Yes, that’s part of it,” said Albrecht. “Supposedly there’s an iron casket, and inside it a silver one, and inside it one made of solid gold. But they were supposed to be filled with the jeweled crowns and weapons and ornaments that belonged to all the kings and nobles and bishops that Attila defeated. That would make quite a pile.”

“The story sounds like quite a pile,” said Sam. “A pile of—”

“Sam!” said Remi.

“Sam’s probably right,” said Albrecht. “The only contemporary account we have of Attila’s death is from Priscus, the Eastern Roman Empire’s ambassador to the Huns. He describes the mourning and funeral, but mentions no treasure. The treasure is first described by Jordanes eighty years later. He was from one of the barbarian groups, possibly the Ostrogoths. People have searched for the treasure for fifteen hundred years and found nothing.”

Albrecht sat in silence for a moment. “But Arpad Bako is not going to be put off or discouraged by odds or reason. He’s convinced he’s destined to find Attila’s tomb. And he’s obsessed with stopping anyone else from finding it.”

“Let’s step back and look at this from his perspective,” said Remi. “Is there any chance at all that what you found might relate to the tomb in some way?”

“I’ve just begun, but I doubt it,” said Albrecht. “It’s true that the carbon date of the remains is around 450 C.E. and Attila died in 453. And a battle here at the center of the Huns’ territory may well have had to do with his death. What happened after the death of Attila was chaos. His three sons all had their own factions, and Attila’s generals had their own kingdoms and armies. There could have been unrecorded battles among any of them.” He shrugged. “All I can say for sure so far is that these casualties were not Romans. They didn’t have the Romans’ superb armor, nor did they carry the gladius, the short, wide-bladed stabbing sword, or the scuta, the big shield that Roman soldiers put together to form a wall against an enemy charge.”