Priscus left the vast encampment at dawn the next morning with his train of a hundred fifty donkeys loaded with supplies and a few precious articles hidden among them—his written account of his mission to the barbarians, his personal books, a few souvenirs from barbarian friends. He also took with him the teenage bride-widow Ildico, whom he had promised to return to her parents in the Germanic territories when passage could be arranged.
When they were a day’s journey from the barbarian encampment, he walked beside Ildico’s donkey and talked with her. “See, child? I told you it was all perfectly safe. Once the barbarians were persuaded there was no poison, you and I could hardly be poisoners.”
“I heard they made you drink the wine. Why are you alive?”
“The poison has to be given over time before it will cause bleeding and keep the blood from clotting. I’ve been giving it to Attila for weeks. Enough had to build up in his body so your final dose would make him bleed to death. But think more pleasant thoughts. You’ll be very rich soon.”
“Keep any gold that’s coming to me,” she said. “I did it for my people that he killed. Just get me home.”
“The Emperor will want to send you home with a reward. What you and I did has probably saved the Empire from destruction.”
“I don’t care about the Empire.”
He walked on ahead, thinking. He had done everything perfectly—gathered the sweet clover himself, patiently aged it to let it turn moldy, and then used it to make a poison that couldn’t be detected and caused a death which looked like a disease. As he walked he composed parts of his account of his time with the Huns. He would describe it all—his mission four years ago with Maximinus, when the assassination plan was blamed on the interpreter Vigilas, the actions of the barbarians, the personality of their supreme leader.
He would, of course, leave out the particulars of the High King’s death. Every trick not explained remains fresh for reuse. The Western Empire in Rome would be overwhelmed by its enemies before much longer. Its legions couldn’t keep fighting off wave after wave of barbarians, each group more numerous and savage than the last. It was a simple game of numbers. The subtler methods of the Eastern Empire obliterated numbers—the Emperor had sent just one man to end the threat from the Huns, hadn’t he? The Eastern Empire would live for another thousand years.
Ildico certainly was a beautiful young woman, he thought. The slim, graceful figure, the milky skin, and the golden hair were very appealing. In a way, having her for himself would make his quiet triumph over the great Attila complete. But no, he thought. That was exactly the sort of thing an emissary from Rome would do.
OFF GRAND ISLE, LOUISIANA
2012 C.E.
REMI FARGO HOVERED IN THE WARM WATER OF THE Gulf of Mexico, barely moving her fins as she worked. She finished filling her net bag with jagged pieces of a clay pot that had been nearly buried in the sand. She estimated that the original pot, as it had been over a thousand years ago, was about ten inches wide and four inches deep, and she thought she probably had gathered all of its fragments. She didn’t want to risk scratching the smooth finish of the pot by putting anything else in the net bag. She looked up at the shape of the boat’s hull, a dark phantom sitting sixty feet above her on the silvery underside of the water’s surface. She exhaled, and the bubbles issued from her mouthpiece, then ascended, shiny globules shimmering up toward the light.