Another super-obscure CJ story, a very early one (story of the story is at the end). 

Enjoy. 

Attila the Nun
C.J. Cherryh, GOH
BYOB-Con 7, June 3-5, 1977
Published in [fanzine] Spang Blah 15, Autumn 1977, Hotel President KC. MO.   

Attila the Nun

It was a vision, actually: the Hunnish hordes had hacked and hewn their way from Loyang to Leipzig to Byzantium to Buda and Pest, and specifically to the nunnery of Our Lady of Perpetual Hope, wherein our Hunnish heroes horribly harried the neighborhood and generally annoyed the pious sisters. Screaming and shreiking, the holy sisters fled the face of the frightening foragers, all save one, deaf sister Ghiselbertine, who, hoeing the cabbages, stood heedless of the Hunnish harrying. round her the Hunnish horde hastened, howling and hailing her, but Ghiselbertine failed to notice them. Now Attila, the Hunnish leader, was sore amazed by this behavior, and dismounted to question the heroine, when Ghiselbertine took a mighty swipe at a dandelion and smote Attila full on his head. 

The Huns were horrified and hied hence, but Attila, smitten with a sudden and stunning vision, was carried into the nunnery, where four weeks he recuperated from Ghiselbertine's unintended backswing. And daily convinced by means of the pious example of the good ladies, Attila actively attended services and acquired religion.  

Unfortunately not a word of latin could he comprehend, but he, in his newfound piety, had discarded his Hunnish habit and habituated himself to the nunnery. In effect, Attila advanced avidly through the novitiate and the pious sisters, apprehensive of offending him, eventually promoted him to abbess. Now Attila's Huns returned, sheepishly seeking their supposedly slaughtered leader, only to find him hale and well and zealously immersed in his new religion. The pious sisters eagerly urged him hence, and Attila, understanding himself now evangelically commissioned, launched out across Europe in an excess of missionary zeal. Hacking and hewing their way thru dale and vale, Sister Attila and his Hunnish horde swept thru village after village, converting and pillaging all the inhabitants thereof - until he set his sights on Italy. History recordeth how the Pope himself met the Hunnish horde at the border and hampered them from harrying further. 

Actually the Pope, horrified at the Hunnish habits, ordered Sister Attila to hie himself hence to a nunnery and to take his horde with him...so Attila gratefully retired to Buda and Pest (hence HUNgary) and raised cabbages under Ghiselbertine's pious guidance, while the Hunnish horde discarded their former habits Nun was complained of thereafter.

 ****************(In their infinite wisdom the '77 BYOBCON committee set up a poctsard story auction, the proceeds going to help keep the concom out of the red and in Beam's Choice. With the help of Bob Tucker, who came up with many of the topics, the concom had six of the attending pros dip their money hand into the pile of topics and draw one.
They drew: Attila the nun - C.J. Cherryh;
a Yngni, who is not a louse - John M. Ford;
a starship captain with astrophobia - Lee Killough;
barbarian enters a city and applies for welfare - Gary Phillips;
mankind evolved from bacteria left by a member of an alien race - Tom Reamy;
a man & a woman on a planet together, but they can't remove their space suits - Carl Sherrell.

Knowing a good thing when I see it, I asked and received permission from authors & purchasers to print the stories. However, an orc in human form by the name of Mark Crandall vanished with Carl Sherrell's poctsard story, after buying it, & never sent it to me. So you only get 5 of the 6 stories. Oh yes, do remember, the stories are copyrighted & if you reprint them without either the author's or owner's permission, you can be up to your armpits in unfossilized coprolites.))