When Death Birds Fly

5

“The Franks, a strong, violent people, who had remained loyal to their Germanic weapon, the light, single-edged Francisca [Frankiska] or missile-ax, was still far from being united. Clovis, a minor king of the Salian Franks of Tournoi, was obliged to resort to killing his rivals before being eliminated himself, and had to take advantage of every chance he could get.”

– Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History

“Wheels turn beside wheels, within wheels, and all do their work whilst only a few grind one on the other.”

– Athaninus

The boarhounds bayed clamourously and the thicket burst open. There, snorting, stood the quarry on his four cloven hooves, one ear torn to a scarlet rag. Scarlet dripped too from below his mouth, and that blood was not his. One hound at least would never hunt again.

Even in his summer coat, the boar was big. For a heartbeat or twain he glared before him from tiny eyes. Then he charged. His sharp little feet hurled up bits of forest mould.

“Ha!” grunted the young man in leather vest and leggings the colour of aging copper. Coolly, he grounded the butt of his heavy spear and guided the broad point just under the brute’s chest as it hurtled at him-so!

A slamming impact jarred him to the heels as the boar impaled itself. Eyes like little red coals glared into a pair pale as winter ice. Froth from the champing tushes fell on the young hunter’s hands. It was pink froth. He smelled it, felt the beast’s breath, its rage.

Its foaming tushes gleamed white as ivory. The larger two, drawing the eye by their size and curve, were harmless. They existed only to hone the short straight pair, the killing pair, and this the hunter well knew. Braced and straining, he held his spear-haft with strong big hands.

Madly, the beast thrust against the spear. Without the stout crosspiece just behind the spearhead to hold it, the enraged boar had charged up the impaling shaft to rip the bowels out of its slayer and die atop him.

One last shuddering attempt the beast made, and fell dead.

The young man drew a nasal breath of mingled relief and satisfaction. He maintained his grip on the spear-haft whilst he backed a pace, warily. Tall and rawboned he was, with ruddy skin and yellow hair flowing loose and long. Grace was not one of his qualities. He moved with a loose-jointed gangle on feet too large-as were his hands. His long face with its drooping moustaches had an equine look. Yet was he known for his strength, and it took a bold man to meet the stare of his eyes. His name was Clovis, and he was quite young, and he was a king.

Other men rushed into the glade now, with a crackling of acorn-hulls underfoot. First among them were his cousins, Ragnachar and Ricchar, brother-kings of Cambrai. Their hunting party followed. Chararic, also a king and Clovis’s cousin, hung tardily back in his red-barred green vest. That was like Chararic. Clovis’s pale eyes narrowed with the suspicion that came so naturally when a man belonged to the Frankish royal family.

Had it been chance that he’d found himself isolated, and had to deal with the boar alone? Much could happen tragically to mar a day’s, hunting!

Aye, and especially had it been planned…

“Oh, bravely done, my lord!”

“A worthy bit of work, cousin!”

Ignoring the shower of congratulations, Clovis accepted a wine-flask from the hands of a man he trusted. The youthful king swigged deeply. Rays of the late afternoon sunlight that slanted through the glade gilded his yellow moustaches and fell vividly on the blood of the slain boar. All around the Franks and their dead quarry-and the whining, still excited dogs-stretched a vast tangle of oak and birch and beech, threaded by game trails but impenetrable else. This was the forest called Arduenna Silva in the Latin so many still spoke and wrote; a fine place to hunt. It was also a fine place for the insuring of privacy whiles one conferred with one’s cousins.

That night, in a leather tent erected by servants in those Ardenne Woods, Clovis did so. Lamplight brought a ripe wheaten sheen to the hair they all wore long and flowing as a mark of royal rank. Lamplight wavered on the faces, too, of the four kings. Somehow it accentuated faults and weaknesses.

The shifty eyes of straight-browed Chararic seemed less trustworthy than ever. The signs of debauch were marked in Ragnachar’s heavy features; although he had yet his youth, with strength and energy, that jowly king was going quickly and badly to seed. His brother Ricchar was less fond of wining and wenching and eating, more steady-and duller. He followed where Ragnachar led, and Clovis was convinced that the latter thought with his gut and his genitals.

Nothing of weakness showed in the face of young King Clovis. If faults there were, such as cruelty, treachery and ruthlessness, they were not the sort of faults that held a man back from the path of ambition. Twenty years old, Clovis had been a king for a quarter of his life. He dominated the group.

“Ha, that boar-sticking of yours today!” Ragnachar cried with a wagging of his jowls. “Glad am I that I saw it! Now I cannot let you have all the honour, cousin. If luck sends us a bear or a wild bull, it is mine!” He ducked his chin, doubling it, and emitted a sound that was part hiccough and part belch.

Clovis shrugged. “Boars are well enow, cousin. It pleases me to leave bears to you! Have them and welcome, and have too the wild bulls! As for me-it is a stag I would hunt.” His voice became low and intense and his round pale eyes pierced. “A stag of Rome, d’you hear me? A royal stag with twelve tines to his crest… and by name Syagrius.”

Syagrius…

The name rustled about the tent. Officially he was their lord, the last consul of Roman Gaul, successor to Aetius and Aegidius, his father. Gothic barbarians ruled south of the Loire, Celtic Britons in Armorica that was Little Britain or Brittany. Only the realm of Syagrius remained Roman in more than name. To such had shrunk Empire.

Chararic blurted, “War?”

“War!” Clovis echoed, almost in a whisper that held ten times more drama than would a shout. “War, my lords. War against the Roman king, Syagrius! I put my battle-host in motion ere the moon is new again. Are you with me?”

As swiftly and bluntly as that, it was put to them. The Frank Clovis meant to move on and overthrow the last Roman ruler; to end what Roman Julius had begun 500 years agone. They gazed upon him, and the lamplight danced on eyes of grey and blue.

Ragnachar of Cambrai grinned. “I awaited this. The time is ripe. As for the Roman kingdom… it is falling-ripe! It wants only knocking from the tired old tree. None of us could take it alone. In concert, though-I am with you, cousin.”

Ricchar spoke not, but inclined his head in agreement.

Chararic, eyes shifting and hooded, scratched nervously in his armpit. “This is rash talk. Syagrius is the Emperor’s man.”

Clovis snorted. “The Emperor! Zeno rules afar, in Constantinople! He can do naught here. If we do not take Soissons, some others will, and leave us with empty hands. I say strike now.”

“And I say nay! The Goths would welcome the excuse to crush us in the Emperor’s name and he’d give them his sanction with a joyful heart. I shall have no part in this.”

Now it was Ragnachar’s turn to snort, while Clovis stared, looking implacably grim. Ricchar remained silent and seemingly impassive.

All three knew well that Chararic was not so pitifully timid as he wished them to believe. The Goths under their present weakling monarch were no threat. Chararic knew that. Emperor Zeno could send his distant subordinate no aid that mattered. Chararic knew that. No; Chararic’s real motives were plain. He wanted his cousins to take the risks of waging war, and bear the losses. Were they defeated, and did the Roman King Syagrius drive them back into Frankish domains, Chararic would be waiting to complete their destruction, to his own lasting profit. Should they win-

“Think again, Chararic,” Clovis said softly. “Think of the loot of Soissons! Think of the glory we four will share.” His eyes stared hard.

Stubbornly Chararic shook his head. “You will break your strength on Syagrius’s legions, and the earth will cover you, Clovis.”

Ricchar spoke at last. “Syagrius’s legions!” he mocked. “Standstill fighters! We will mince his horsemen, and then our axes will smash his legions flat and trample them!”

“Bah. You talk a great victory, cousin; but I think not.”

“Enough,” Clovis said, showing his impatience. “My lord Chararic, you have answered us so that we are left in no doubt. Let it be so.”

Something in the younger man’s pale, deadly eyes and whetstone voice froze King Chararic to his treacherous soul. Instinct told him-too late-that here sat his master in double-dealing, in war, and indeed in all things; here was one who would remove him the moment it was convenient. What made Chararic so certain of this he could not have said. He knew. Clovis had uttered no threat, veiled or open. He had simply looked at his craftiest cousin. And Chararic was hideously sure. A death sentence had just been passed.

Feeling a sudden urgent need of wine, Chararic poured himself a tot with an unsteady hand.

“We waste time,” Clovis said, softly, so softly; butter sliding along the whetstone. Somehow, Chararic had been excluded from further talk. “My lords, we must raise our forces, combine them and march as soon as may be. Who shall lead them?”

’Why, the three of us jointly!” Ragnachar said. “Are we to arm a host and then give it to you to use as you please? Ha! Would you do such a thing for us?”

“I would not,” Clovis said grimly. “Nor was I proposing that you should. It is my dearest wish that one of you accompany me to this war, and lead his own warriors. Aye. Both, however, were neither needful nor wise. One should remain at home and guard the kingdom.”

His meaning was clear. Clovis did not trust Chararic, were he left unwatched behind their backs to be at the making of mischief. Likely he did not trust his allies overmuch either, and wished to separate them. Besides, the twenty-year-old king of five years had shrewdly guessed that Ragnachar did not altogether trust his own brother Ricchar. In that case Ragnachar would be certain to bring to war every able-bodied man, lest Ricchar prepare for him a stronger triumphal welcome than he wanted. When one was a Frankish king, one did not leave a knife even in the hand of a brother while one turned one’s back.

They talked.

Clovis used all his harsh powers of persuasion to get his way, and had it at last. Ragnachar agreed to leave Ricchar in charge of Cambrai, whilst he and Clovis led their combined forces against the Roman kingdom.

They parted next day in bright sunlight of no boding. Watching Chararic and his hunting party take their own road, Ragnachar smiled bleakly.

“We had better win our war, cousin,” he told Clovis. “I’ll not relish having ’hararic at our backs, an we should fail.” He scratched the back of his scalp, under his mass of corn-hued hair.

“Failure is not part of our plan,” Clovis said. “We will succeed-and even then, we will be better off without yon snake-eyed daggerman. When we return in the splendour of victory, my lord cousin, I will see to that myself.”

“You seem very sure of winning,” Ricchar grunted, and received hard looks from Clovis and his brother. He traded them glower for glower. “I should be pleased to know why.” And never for Chararic.

“Why, you sluggard? Are we not Franks?”

“Easy, Ragnachar,” Clovis advised, with a tiny smile. “Ricchar may be more subtle than you grant, for there are other reasons why I be sure of victory.”

The two brothers stared at the young king.

“I’ve had spies at the court of Soissons for some time,” Clovis said with a completely open face. “One master agent in particular. Think you I rose one bright dawn and said, ‘Would be a fine thing were I and my kinsmen to conquer Soissons! I shall put the matter to them and discover whether they agree!’“

Despite his slowness of thought, Ricchar was not easily swayed from a point. “This agent of yours…”

“A courtier. He has worked with great care to suborn the men who lead the Frankish auxiliaries in Syagrius’s army. I chose him well! He has been discreet and successful. When Syagrius marches against us, my lord cousins, his Frankish contingents will desert him and fight with us, which is fitting. You will see why I had no wish to talk of this whilst Chararic was with us, and him uncommitted.”

Ricchar considered that, and smiled broadly. “Good! Good!”

“There is more,” Clovis said coolly, hardly basking in this praise. “Know ye the Bishop of Reims?”

“I have met the man,” Ragnachar said, looking intent while he scratched his outer thigh.

“As have I. So too has my spy. My lord Bishop is a most practical churchman who also desires my conversion to his god. On my spy’s advice, I made him offers in the guise of interest in his faith, to gain some notion of how he might respond to conquest. No fool he! He sees as surely as I that the Roman kingdom cannot last many years longer, and that we are the most likely ones to seize it. I can get along with him. Will be needful, you know. We can conquer the Roman kingdom methinks, but lacking the Church’s aid, cousins, we should find it difficult to hold.”

Ragnachar laughed shortly. “And shall we make submission in name to the Emperor at Constantinople?”

“Aye,” Clovis said most seriously indeed, “and mayhap receive the cloak and purple robe each, proclaiming us consul. Why not?”

There was one whelming reason why not. In each man’s mind was a picture of himself as Consul of Gaul officially and king in fact, and no thought of sharing the honour. What was more, each of them knew that the other thought thus.

Ricchar asked, “What of this spy of yours now?”

The younger king’s eyes narrowed. “One cannot be sure,” he admitted slowly. “I believe Syagrius began to wonder about him. Not suspect him; merely wonder. Had it been more than that, Syagrius would surely have had him slain rather than sending him from the court. The fellow was given a post in Metz, and he’d no choice save to accept it. It is there he now abides. I have heard that he met with misfortune at the hands of robbers, but his hurts were not mortal. I shall reward him for his services after we have conquered Soissons.”

This rang true because for the most part it was true. Clovis had lied only about the city to which his agent had been dispatched by the Roman king. Was Nantes, not Metz, and the post he had been given there was that of customs assessor for the district. The wight’s name was Sigebert. Misfortune had been his indeed, although many said it was richly deserved, and now referred to him as Sigebert One-ear. He had been so unwise as to lay trap and cross swords with the pirates Wulfhere the red-beard and Cormac mac Art.

Sigebert’s fate had been maiming and disfigurement at the hands of one of their men, Clovis had been informed, and he remembered.

Sigebert, too, remembered.

Yet none of this really mattered to Clovis or Chlovis or Chlodwig or Hlovis or-Roman-style-Chlodovechus, King of the Salian Franks. It mattered to Sigebert, and to the two pirates. Even now the fact was drawing Wulfhere and his black haired, blue eyed Gaelic partner to the grimy fringes of Clovis’s plan to conquer Soissons.