Chapter IX: Orleans—her Saint and Her Siege

The day after the interview of Baithene and Ethne with the monk, they left Tours, and rowed up the river in a small boat to Orleans. It was fresh life to Baithene to take his place at an oar, to feel delivered from the passive condition of following Eleazar about, interpreting bargains he detested, and picking up fragments of the talk around him in the streets. As he pulled up against the stream, straining every muscle in the contest with wind and water, he felt a man again, and something of a king.

The little boat made good way under his vigorous strokes. But at one point they ran some risk of being seized to act as a ferry-boat for a troop of fugitives, women and children, who were crowded together on the bank on the north side of the river.

“Have mercy on us, have mercy,” they cried, “and carry us across.”

Baithene laid up his oars for a moment and paused. Eleazar with violent gestures urged him forward, but having the power for the moment in his own hands, Baithene gave no heed, but still waited to listen.

They soon gathered that these were fugitives from the Huns, who were rapidly sweeping down on Aquitaine from the north. Their village had been burnt; they had friends in Aquitaine, and were seeking safety by putting the Loire between them and the foe. Miriam’s heart softened at once. Baithene thought the women and children might be ferried over in three or four crossings, while the few men among them must swim. This was accomplished, and the little rescued company, kneeling on the southern bank, showered benedictions on them as they again pulled up the river.

They had to halt twice for the night, and they took care to make their halting-places on the southern shore. On the third evening they reached Orleans.

The voyage had been a great rest and happiness to Ethne. The beauty of the wooded hills clothed with trees, many of them new to her—chestnuts, maples, and poplars; the vineyards with their promise of grapes, and the cultivated fields, delighted her. Here and there also in the cliffs under which they passed were arched doors of caves, which she imagined might be cells of holy hermits or monks like Martin.

When they came to Orleans they found the city in a tumult of apprehension. The walls were carefully guarded, and also the approaches by the river. Soldiers in Roman armour stopped them at the landing-place and forbade them to disembark.

“We do not want any more helpless people to guard or any more hungry mouths to feed,” they said.

It was an anxious moment; if they were turned back there was no other place of refuge. But suddenly Ethne remembered the letter the monk of Tours had given them for Anianus the Bishop. She reminded Baithene, and they told Miriam and Eleazar, who had heard the name of Anianus, and eagerly caught at this means of escape. They handed the tablet to the officer of the guard, and after a little further parley he agreed to let them land, and to have them conducted to the Bishop. Eleazar remained on the quay in charge of his precious merchandise. It was a reversal of relations for Ethne and Baithene to become the patrons and protectors of Eleazar and Miriam.

The Bishop was, as was so often the case in those tumultuous times, also the secular ruler (at all events in the moment of danger), and in a sense the military commander, as well as the spiritual head of the city; the representative of the only organization out of the ancient Roman world of law and order which remained substantially standing.

The name of Anianus was their passport everywhere. When after some delay they were admitted to his presence, it was a matter of no small difficulty, in many ways, to explain their complicated relation to each other and to the world in general. Captive princes or nobles of any kind from Ireland had something of a mythical sound, as if they had dropped out of fairyland, or some old legend, or some far-off fabled Atlantis. That these high-born captives should be also Christians was still more perplexing, the fact of Patrick’s mission having scarcely yet penetrated to Orleans. To expect Ethne or Baithene to define what kind of Christians they were was quite hopeless, they being in blissful ignorance of all heresies and schisms, Eastern or Western, Pelagian, Arian, Nestorian, Eutychian, or Manichean. Then came the other side of the perplexity, their being purchased by a Jew. An Edict of Theodosius had indeed many years before recognized an essential distinction between Jews and Pagans, and had decreed that the Jewish worship was to be respected, and that the Jewish synagogues were not to be destroyed. But that a Jew should own a Catholic Christian as a slave was a questionable thing. Slavery indeed, altogether, was to the Christian Church a questionable right, indeed essentially an unquestionable wrong. But according to Roman law, as an actual fact, it had to be admitted. Not long before, in Gaul, a free woman taken captive and made a slave, though the injustice was admitted, had to be left in bondage. Manumission had always been frequent among the Romans; the redemption of slaves and captives was a constant form of charitable work in the Church; but in the present distress there were no funds at hand for ransom, and, moreover, it must have seemed doubtful whether it would be any gain to these young friendless foreigners, especially to the fair young Irish maiden, to turn them adrift free and unprotected into the world of bloodshed and disorder, of violence and wickedness of every kind around them.

After much kindly consideration, it was decided that quarters should be assigned to the four, and that the question of freedom or slavery should be left in abeyance. But to Baithene’s great joy the condition was added, that no idle hands could be tolerated in the city, threatened as it was with siege and assault from the fierce hordes of Attila, who were fast advancing to cross the Loire, and make a raid on the kingdom of the Visigoths in Aquitaine.

That evening, therefore, the four were established in rooms near the walls of the city, with a sense of freedom for Ethne and Baithene greater than they had felt since they had been swept away from their home. The reversal of relations between the captives and their purchaser, though at first exceedingly displeasing to Eleazar, proved, thanks to the tender pity of Miriam, and the sweet serviceableness of Ethne, a bond of union; Baithene also being naturally ready to render in a princely way twice as much service as he would have done by constraint. Eleazar himself, moreover, was much softened when he saw that their honour was more to be trusted than the security of bonds.

The stipulation imposed on Baithene was no child’s play. Very soon the flames of burning villages were to be seen from the walls; then came troops of fugitives flying to take refuge in the country beyond the river, the citizens not daring to extend their hospitality to helpless, hungry strangers, who might not only find the walls of Orleans no shelter for themselves, but make the defence hopeless for all.

Night and day the walls had to be manned and guarded, and the fortifications strengthened as far as possible. Excursions had to be made into the neighbouring country to gather in fruits and corn and cattle while yet there was time to save anything from the plundering of the savage hosts. Thus between carrying stones for building, convoying expeditions for foraging, and guarding the walls, Baithene had little time at home, and was well content with such morsels of food or moments of broken sleep as could be snatched at intervals during his labours. The habits of command and direction, the training of hand and eye in chase, or foray, or skirmish among the clans at home, had given him faculties for military service which were soon recognized. He had a quickness in seeing and seizing opportunities, and a dash of daring courage which delighted the Roman officers, whilst to him the training in the Roman discipline was of the highest price.

Nearer and nearer drew the fierce nation of warriors and plunderers, numbered by hundreds of thousands. By their mere presence they would have eaten up the land like a cloud of locusts; and they came not as mere locusts devouring in order to live, but as a predatory army fearfully organized to destroy; bent on carrying away all the plunder they could, and also on leaving behind all the devastation they could; ravaging not merely to impoverish Gaul, but through impoverishing Gaul to ruin Rome.

Soon the fires of the burnt villages and towns smouldered and died out; and instead came the outposts of the terrible horde itself. Troops of Tartar horsemen dashed up to the walls of the city; little beardless brown men with long black hair, man and horse apparently grown into one, the riders waving their spears as they stood on the backs of their horses, or stooping underneath to pick up some dropped weapon; the man apparently an integral development of the horse, the horse not so much ridden as inspired and possessed by the man. Baithene, gazing at them for the first time from the walls, in the dusk of the evening, could not wonder at the rumours that they were not human at all, but the offspring of witches and demons. From time to time through the darkness came an unearthly combined yell, like the howl of a wild beast or malignant demon; and he crossed himself, thought of the exorcism in the baptismal service, and repeated his renunciation of the devil from the bottom of his heart. He had to watch through that night, and early in the first flush of the morning he saw that the horizon was dim with a great cloud of dust, whilst in the distance, through the silence of the dawn, was heard the grinding of huge wagon-wheels, with all the tumult of the movement of a vast multitude.

Slowly the huge host gathered in from all sides, until the confused hum and murmur began to define itself into various sounds—the creaking of wheels, the cracking of whips, the lowing of oxen, the neighing of horses, the harsh voices of men, the shrill voices of women, even the wailing of babes; and through all the deep under-hum of an enormous mass of human beings in motion. The hearts of the men on the walls quailed with a weird terror; for through all came the unfamiliar cadences of wild foreign speech, with a sense that this living mass which was closing in around them with deadly purpose, to plunder and kill, to burn and to destroy, was pouring forth from the unknown boundless spaces of savage wildernesses, an interminable tide of destruction swelling up as from some unfathomable abyss of hell.

A preternatural terror hung over these hordes, but more especially around Attila himself, the Scourge of God, the ally of demons, who was known now to be in their midst, directing the devastations with the deadliest skill of destruction, practised in ravaging the fairest lands into deserts, and in razing the stateliest cities into ruin so utter as never to be repaired. With a frightful faculty of appropriating from the civilization he sought to destroy just the very elements which enabled him to destroy it, from the courts of Ravenna and Constantinople he had learnt the art of conquering by dividing. And at this moment the chief anxiety in Orleans was the doubt whether he might not have succeeded by his cunning in breaking the alliance between Theodoric, King of the Visigoths, and the great General Aetius, who had promised Bishop Anianus some weeks before in his palace at Arles to relieve the city with the combined forces of Goth and Roman, at the latest, by the fourteenth of June. Attila was too shrewd to attempt to substitute Roman discipline and methods of warfare for the dash and fury of the charges and wheelings of his wild horsemen. But he had learnt something of the art of besieging from his foes, from the captives of the cities he had ruined; and in the dusk of the morning they saw the huge battering-rams being drawn up to the walls.

It was the combination of the mechanical weight of a vast multitude, a host not of men but of nations, of the wild swiftness and unexpectedness of their assaults, reckless of peril as a troop of wild beasts, with the preternatural terror of the unknown spaces from which they issued, and the unknown powers of darkness from which they were said to have sprung, that made the approach of these Huns so paralyzing. And in Attila himself the terror was concentrated. The terror of his name and the weight of his rule, if that could be called rule which was a disorganization of all existing order, were known from the borders of China and the great Tartar desert through Hungary to Constantinople, and to the coasts of northernmost Scandinavia. Thus these demon armies had for the moment a Satanic Majesty, a Prince of the power of the air, before whose crafts and assaults the feeble diplomacy of Constantinople and Ravenna was as the innocent cunning of a child.

As the end of Baithene’s watch was drawing near he heard a yell from the advancing host, which seemed a cry of welcome and triumph; and, straining his eyes, he caught sight of a multitude of horsemen whirling round a central point like a whirlpool. There were frantic cries from many of these Tartar horsemen; there was a wheeling and rushing to and fro of the nimble little horses, a waving of spears, a flaunting of rude banners, a metallic clashing of cymbals and shields. And through the still morning air the sound of one terrible name was borne to the besieged in countless shrill tones of exultation—“Attila! Attila!” The besieged repeated it to each other in hoarse murmurs and whispers, as those who think they see some gruesome preternatural phantoms in the dark. “Attila! Attila! the darling of the devil, the Scourge of God.”

The hour for relieving guard had arrived; silently the wearied men left the walls.

Baithene was angry with himself for the presentiments of evil which seemed to reduce him to the resignation of dull despair. But as they came near the cathedral, the little band of soldiers met a procession of white-robed priests, heading a multitude eagerly thronging to the church. He entered with them, and knelt in the stillness amidst the throng of silent worshippers.

Then came the solemnity of the daily Eucharist. Not lamentations and litanies, but hymns of joy and thanksgiving, in the sonorous Latin which was the common tongue, in some measure understood by all. _Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonæ voluntatis._ “We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we give thanks to Thee for Thy great glory, O God, Heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.

“O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesu Christ, Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Thou Who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer; Thou Who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us; for Thou only art holy, Thou only art the Lord, Thou only art most high, O Jesu Christ, with the glory of God the Father.”

And afterwards the great hymn of perpetual festival. “It is very meet, right, and our bounden duty that we should at all times and in all places give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, Holy Father, Almighty, Everlasting God, through Christ our Lord, through Whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty, Whom the Dominations adore, before Whom the Powers tremble, the Heavens and all the Powers therein, Whom the Blessed Seraphim with mutual exultation celebrate; with Whom we also would pray that Thou shouldst command our voices to take part, with humble confession, saying, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Sabaoth, Heaven and earth are full of Thy glory; Hosanna in the highest; Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

And as he listened, the mighty host of the barbarians, and the little company of the besieged, seemed to dwindle into a mere ship’s company on a stormy sea, whilst all around him were the open heavens with their victorious multitudes before the Throne. Whatever the result of this present conflict might be, the victory along the whole line was sure, the victory of good, of God, of the Lamb that was slain, of the Redeeming Lord conquering and to conquer. With a heart full of peace and courage he knelt at the close of the service, when the aged, white-haired Bishop, shepherd and father of the people, came forward and raised his hand in benediction. He lingered some time in the silence after the voices ceased, when a gentle hand was laid on his shoulder, and looking up he saw the radiant face of his sister, and the soft grey eyes, luminous with the joy and trust within. Then together they left the church and returned to Eleazar’s rooms.

“The church is never shut day nor night,” she said; “every hour without ceasing prayers go up to God to relieve the city.”

“The succour ought to be here soon indeed,” said Baithene, “if the city is to be saved.”

After that the brother and sister had little opportunity of speaking to each other for many weeks. Baithene was on the ramparts; whilst Ethne was with another army of succour organized by the Bishop within the city—a band of devoted women who took the wounded into places of shelter, dressed their wounds, and did all they could to relieve the starvation and misery all around.

All these weeks the terrible struggle went on, by assault, blockade, starvation. The battering-rams were drawn up to the walls; but these in the untrained hands of the Huns were more than matched by the catapults and fiery missiles thrown by the trained soldiers of the Roman garrison.

It was the arrows of the Huns, shot with unerring aim from their huge bows, which did the deadliest damage, clearing the walls of the defenders, as they fell one by one smitten to death. It was at the risk of life that the Bishop and his clergy came up on the ramparts, with chant of litanies, and bearing sacred relics, to reanimate the garrison.

More than five weeks had passed since Bishop Anianus had seen the General Aetius in the palace at Arles, and obtained a promise of speedy succour. The fourteenth of June, the day he promised at the latest to bring the relieving forces, was fast approaching, and the courage and hope of the besieged were failing. Not a few began to murmur against the Bishop, and to hint that he had deceived them with promises of imaginary succour. About the tenth or eleventh of June the bright sunshine was clouded over by a fearful storm. For three days the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, heavy clouds darkened all the land, a tempest of rain and hail poured down, the battle of the elements giving a respite for the time to the battle with the barbarian host.

At last the sun broke forth again, only proving a signal for the renewal of the deadly strife. Once more Bishop Anianus sent forth a messenger to the Roman general, with the appeal, “If ye come not to-day it will be too late.”

The soldier never reappeared. Then it was rumoured that the Bishop himself had gone forth to negotiate with Attila, and had returned with the message that Attila would accept nothing but absolute surrender. Then came a tumult of despair, a crashing of walls, a dashing open of gates. There were countless contradictory rumours as to how it all happened; but one thing was certain, the gates were open, and the city was laid bare to her foes. The Huns were pouring in on that day, which was to have been the day of deliverance, in overwhelming numbers, with the fury of a savage host little accustomed to delay, and destitute of mercy; massacring unresisting women and children, sparing none and nothing except for the purposes of pillage or slavery.

Yet still the Bishop and the clergy, with many of the people, filled the cathedral, and poured forth prayers in their anguish to God, the aged Bishop prostrate before the altar, and bathing the steps with his tears.

It was said that at that last hour the aged Bishop sent forth a messenger from the cathedral to the walls, saying, “Look forth from the ramparts and see if God’s mercy will yet succour us.” The messenger came back and said he beheld no man. But still the Bishop commanded the people, “Pray in faith; the Lord will deliver you to-day.”

They went on praying. Again the aged voice they had trusted so long rose and bade one of them mount the walls and look out again. No help was seen approaching.

For the third time the Bishop said, “If ye pray in faith the Lord will yet be at hand to help you speedily!”

Then with weeping and loud lamentations they implored the mercy of the Lord. And when that prayer of agony had arisen, once more, for the third time, the old man bade them go to the wall and look. And back to that weeping multitude, waiting in breathless silence, came at last the glad tidings, “We saw from afar as it were a cloud rising out of the ground.”

And the Bishop said, “_It is the help of God_.”

Then through the city, from the top of the tower, resounded the cry, “_The Romans! the Romans!_” Aetius and King Theodoric with their troops dashed up to the gates; there was an encounter outside the walls; the Huns were defeated; the Roman and Gothic army poured into the city, and there were deadly encounters in every street.

Victory remained with the relieving force. Gradually the fierce brown men from the East were driven out of the gates; the whole army of Attila was thrown into disorder, and made a hasty retreat through the land they had ravaged into a wilderness, knowing well the deadly vengeance that awaited them from every fragment of the towns and villages they had ruined and despoiled.

Bishop Anianus did not forget mercy even in this moment of rescue and triumph. Many a fallen foe among the Huns was saved by his intercession, even in the city they had so nearly brought to destruction.

Baithene came eagerly into the Jew’s lodging to share the joy of deliverance with Ethne; but to his dismay she was not there. It was some little time before he found her in one of the streets, kneeling beside a dying boy left behind by the Huns, leaning the poor ugly brown head on her knee, moistening the parched lips with water, chafing the cold, quivering hands. “Brother,” she said softly, “it might have been thee!”

The death-pallor was on the lips, and soon the quivering limbs lay rigid on the ground beside them.

Then, looking up, the two saw a young Roman on horseback, with his eyes fixed on them. He had been watching Ethne for some minutes in silence. Ethne, raising her eyes to his, said, “Bishop Anianus told us to do what we could even for a wounded enemy.”

There was a glow of sympathy in his face as he replied—

“Pardon me, lady! I was thinking it was just what my own mother and sister in Rome would have done.” And with a gesture of reverence he rode on.

But that night in his dreams there came to Marius a vision of the fair kind face of the maiden with the soft dark-grey eyes, and the poor brown head of the dying Hun on her knee.

Could it have been a dim, prophetic vision of another siege of Orleans, and another Maid of Orleans, seeing a wounded Englishman dying by the roadside, alighting from her horse, and, like a tender sister, holding his head on her knee to the last? Or was it only the remembrance stamped into his heart of the young Irish maiden?