Anvil of God

by J. Boyce Gleason

  Rage filled her. With her left hand, she drew her short sword from the scabbard in her saddle. She drove her horse at Monty’s assailant. A howl of anger screamed from her throat. Monty was falling off his horse, and the Bavarian was struggling to withdraw his sword. With a lurch, the knight yanked backward to free his blade.

  Her horse plowed into his, throwing her headlong into the knight, knocking him to the ground. Trudi landed on top of him and rolled to her left to find her feet. Pain coursed through her body. Her shoulder was on fire, the wound reopened. Having dropped her sword, she fought through the pain to pick it up. The knight, too, had risen to his feet. Recognizing her, his eyes went wide with shock.

  “Stop this!” she shouted at him. He looked at her, hesitating. A grunt escaped his lips. He dropped his eyes. Trudi’s followed. The point of a sword protruded from his stomach. His knees buckled. He fell forward. Behind him stood Ansel, his sword red to the hilt.

  “What are you doing?” Trudi screamed.

  “Taking you back.”

  “Bastard!” Trudi cried as she threw herself at him. “I’m not going back!” With one arm in a sling, she had little balance or momentum, and her blade felt awkward in her left hand. Her swing was clumsy, a wide descending arc, much as if she were chopping down a tree. Ansel blocked it with ease. When her sword met his, whatever held her shoulder together gave way. Blood coursed down her side.

  “I don’t have time for this,” Ansel said and punched her in the face. Trudi went down. Stunned, she sat on the ground and watched as Ansel turned his attention to the remaining combatants. She realized he would be too late to save Brand.

  Already bloodied and exhausted, Brand was stalked by Hans and Juergen. With mustered rage, he screamed and rushed Hans in an attempt to narrow the odds. The German parried, spun to his right, and inverted his sword. With his back to Brand, he pulled his blade downward, driving it underneath his arm and into Brand’s upper body.

  Juergen stepped forward to finish it. He swung his blade in a high arc and severed Brand’s head from his neck.

  Then Ansel was there. Attacking Hans from behind with a massive overhand blow, he nearly split the German in two.

  Trudi stared in horror at the blood and viscera around her. Brand’s head lay several feet from his body. She vomited.

  Only Juergen and Ansel remained. The two knights circled each other cautiously. Each tested the other, feinting to gauge reaction and speed.

  “You must stop,” Trudi pleaded, using her sword to regain her feet. The pain in her head was overwhelming. She had trouble seeing.

  Compared to the noise of the recent combat, the road was now strangely quiet. All Trudi could hear was their breathing. She tried to move toward them, but she hurt too much. She was behind Ansel, her right side covered in blood. She leaned her upper body toward the pain and cradled her right arm in her left.

  “I won’t go with you, Ansel,” she said. “I’m going with Juergen.”

  “No …” He breathed in huge gasps. “Carloman … orders.”

  “I won’t go.” She fell to her knees. The action surprised her.

  It also surprised Ansel. As he turned his head toward her, Juergen took advantage, thrusting his sword to render Ansel’s left arm useless. Ansel, however, had heard him move. Instead of turning back into the blow, he spun left. He wound up behind Juergen’s extended frame. He slammed his left elbow into the Bavarian’s face.

  Juergen went down.

  Ansel stood over him, the point of his sword at the Bavarian’s neck.

  “Ansel, no,” Trudi moaned, struggling to stay conscious.

  “I yield,” the Bavarian said.

  Ansel hesitated, hovering over him, his eyes wild.

  “I yield,” Juergen repeated, this time urgently.

  With a guttural roar, Ansel pushed the point of his sword through his opponent’s neck until it caught on his spine. Struggling against the obstacle, Ansel threw his full weight behind the hilt, driving the blade downward until the bone snapped beneath him and his sword sank into the softness of the earth.

  Trudi groaned. Ansel dropped his arms. His upper body sagged forward until his hands rested on his knees. From Trudi’s position on the ground, Ansel’s sword stood like a sentinel against the sweetness of the morning sun. Other than Ansel, it was the only thing left standing. He didn’t pull it from the Bavarian. After several moments, Ansel groaned and pulled himself erect. Stepping slowly over Juergen’s body, Ansel turned to find her. She could not move.

  Like a nightmare, he came for her, a gargantuan, his entire body covered in blood. Whatever strength she had left in her had drained away with Juergen’s life. She slipped into darkness just as Ansel bent to touch her. She began to scream.

  ***

  “Easy, Trudi. You’ve been through a lot.”

  The voice sounded familiar and sincere. She opened her eyes, but the room was too dark to see. She tried to rise. Hands lifted her into a sitting position. Lightheaded, she swayed slightly. She found she was not in a room at all, but a tunnel. It took a moment for it to register, but she remembered Bertrada had spoken of places like this. Built in the time of the Romans, the tunnels were often a refuge for bandits and lovers seeking privacy. A small fire burned nearby, its smoke filtering into the upper reaches.

  “Here.” A hand appeared in front of her face with a small block of cheese. “Try to eat this.”

  She froze. Bradius.

  With a groan, she turned to confirm her suspicion. He sat next to her by the fire, wine in hand. Seeing her discomfort, he raised his cup in mock salute and took a drink.

  She searched her wrists and ankles for bindings. There were none. But when she moved, the blanket dropped away. Save for a new bandage wrapped around her shoulder, she was naked. Trudi snatched the blanket to her chin and turned on her captor.

  “What have you done?” she asked. Tears stung her eyes. “What have you done?”

  His eyes widened at her outburst and then squinted with understanding. “My apologies, milady. I suppose that’s what you’d expect from someone like me.”

  “You’re a pig.”

  “You have nothing to fear from me.” He was both wounded and angry. “In fact, a ‘thank you’ might be appropriate. If not for me, you’d still be in the care of that blood-soaked behemoth who captured you.”

  “Ansel?”

  “You know him?” Bradius looked surprised.

  “They were friends … he was my friend,” she said.

  Bradius grunted in disbelief.

  She wanted to argue but was too tired and had too many questions. What happened to Ansel? Why was she naked? She didn’t know whom or what to trust.

  “My clothes?” she asked.

  “Beside you.” Bradius pointed. The undergarments had been washed and laid to dry by the fire. “They were soiled and bloody. There wasn’t much I could do other than rinse them. You had such a fever you kept sweating through them. Eventually, I got tired of cleaning them, so …” He motioned to the blanket.

  “How long have I been here?” she asked.

  “Two days.”

  Trudi groaned.

  Bradius threw another log onto the fire. Several sparks lifted skyward and winked out into the darkness. “I found six bodies and an equal number of horses on the southern road.” Visions of the Bavarians battling Brand jumped into her mind. She saw Bradius watching for her reaction. “There was … a lot of blood,” he said.

  “Two horses had left a trail going away from the fight, heading north. Blood marked the tracks. You weren’t among the dead, so I followed the living. The tracks turned off the road and stopped at a clearing near a pool of water created by two fallen trees. That’s where I found you and the behemoth.”

  “Ansel.” Trudi’s throat grew tight.

  “You,” Bradius said, “were unconscious and almost as bloody as he was. Worse, you were shivering and moaning incoherently. The big knight finally recognized that you weren’t well and starte
d to panic. He walked to his horse, then back to you, then back to his horse. He bent down and touched your face. He looked like he was going to cry. He called for someone named Monty. Then picked you up and took you down to the pool of water.” Bradius looked up and turned his eyes on her.

  “He took off your clothes, Trudi, to check for wounds. But there was so much blood, he laid you in the water and began to wash it away. Then,” Bradius hesitated, “then his hands touched your breasts.”

  Trudi blushed, dread seeping into her.

  “His hands snapped back as if they’d been burned. He cursed and shouted something about ‘witches’ and ‘Satan’ and thrashed around in the water.” Bradius’s voice grew quiet, his eyes sober. “Once he started to touch you, he couldn’t stop.” Trudi began to withdraw into herself. She felt very small. Bradius paused and stared into the fire as if weighing whether or not to go on. When he finally spoke, his voice was low and full of revulsion. “He stood over you, untied his pantaloons, and stroked himself.”

  Her stomach knotted, and she felt sick. She looked up at Bradius imploringly.

  “That’s as far as he got,” Bradius said, answering her unasked question. “I took advantage of his preoccupation and drew my sword. He was quite unprepared.”

  “Did you kill him?” she asked.

  “No.”

  Emotions roiled within her, raw, conflicting, and unanswered. She began to cry. She wept for the loss of Monty and Brand and for the violence of their deaths. She wept for their childhood together and the sweetness of its innocence. But she could not weep for Ansel. She felt the humiliation she had suffered at his hands strike her heart like a hammer.

  “Where is he now?”

  “I left him tied to a tree just off the southern road. I doubt that he will trouble you again.”

  “You don’t know him,” she said. “If he’s not dead, he won’t stop. As soon as he’s free, he’ll come looking for me again.”

  “He might need some time to recover,” Bradius said. He drew out a small, round ball from his vest pocket. He tossed it to Trudi. It landed on the fold of her blanket. An eyeball. “What is your Christian saying?” he asked. “If thine eye offend thee …?”

  To her surprise, this didn’t repulse Trudi. Instead, she felt satisfied.

  “It was either that or his testicle,” Bradius said.

  Trudi picked the eye up and examined it. “You can save the testicle for later.”

  There was something still unanswered. “Why were you following me?”

  Bradius blushed. It was only for a moment, but Trudi was sure that she had seen it. He rose to his feet, indignant and offended. “Milady, I committed myself to your service. I pledged tribute and fidelity. I don’t take such vows lightly.” Seeing the confused look on her face, he added, “On my life, I pledged.” The bravado was gone. His voice betrayed anxiety.

  “But I released you to go.”

  He looked away. When his eyes returned to her, there was old pain deep within them. “And where do I have left to go?” he asked.

  Slowly, Trudi nodded her head. With her left hand, she cinched the blanket under her arm, picked up the eyeball, and tossed it back to him.

  “I guess sometimes it pays for a lady to have a champion,” she said.

  He tilted his head in a slight bow, relieved by her acceptance.

  “We’ve got other problems,” he said. “Someone else is chasing you. They look Roman. There are a lot of them on the road, and they stop everyone, asking for information about someone who looks suspiciously like you.”

  “Aistulf,” Trudi said, her eyes welling. Her detachment was gone. “We have to get out of here.”

  “It won’t be easy. We’ll need to stay off the main road. There is a ‘village road’ that goes overland between towns. We won’t move as fast, but it’s less likely that we’ll be watched. If you’re strong enough, we can leave in the morning.”

  Trudi nodded and pulled the blanket to her chin. “I need to get dressed,” she said.

  Bradius stood. “If you’d like to bathe first,” he said, smiling and wrinkling his nose, “and I suggest you consider it, there’s a stream nearby. Otherwise, I will leave you to your dressing.”

  “No, a bath sounds about right.” She laughed.

  Bradius helped her to stand. She kept the blanket around her while he carried her clothes. When they reached the stream, he helped her into the water and then turned his back while she exorcised herself of dried blood. It had found its way into every crevice of her flesh. She scooped sand from the bed of the stream to scrub her skin. She found a spot to lie back into the water and submerged her head. Her hair was tangled and knotted. She raked her fingers through it, knowing it was useless. When she surfaced, she felt renewed. Although still weak, she had lost the queasiness and lightheaded feeling that had plagued her since she awoke.

  When she came out of the water, Bradius’s back was still toward her, and the blanket lay folded by the shore. Her clothes were stained beyond recognition. When she finished dressing, she tapped Bradius on the shoulder, and they made their way back to the tunnel.

  “Thank you for not watching,” she said.

  “Oh, I snuck a look,” he said.

  “You are a pig,” she said, shoving him. The effort, however, brought a twinge of pain from her shoulder. Seeing her wince, Bradius reached for her.

  “I’ll need to change your bandage,” he said. “It will come off more easily now that it’s wet.”

  Back at the cave, she pulled her shirt off her shoulder, and Bradius moved behind her to unwind the bandage. The action required her to expose part of her breast to him, but she was too tired to argue the point. He set the bandage aside and began to probe her shoulder. She felt a tugging sensation. Bradius threw something into the fire. She felt it again, and again he threw it into the fire.

  “What was that?” she asked.

  “Maggots. They speed the healing.” He reached into his bag and produced dozens of writhing slugs. Trudi recoiled, but Bradius held her. He spread the maggots across her wound and strapped a new bandage into place. She felt them squirm in her wound.

  “I am truly sorry for this, Trudi,” he said. “You took this blow for me.”

  “Just don’t make me do it again,” she said.

  He started to laugh. “Now you need something to eat and rest. We’ll see if you can travel in the morning.” He gave her more cheese and some bread. She took a sip from his cup of wine to wash it down. Looking over the brim at him, she surveyed his disheveled clothes and demeanor. She raised the cup to him in toast.

  “To my newest champion,” she said, “as surprising as that is. You delivered me from Ansel and have my eternal thanks.”

  He bowed to her, clearly pleased, and helped her to lie back down beside the fire. Replenishing his cup, he sat against the wall. The fire was hot. She felt surprisingly safe, and within moments fell fast asleep.

  ***

  “Village road” was a misnomer. What they traveled was more a footpath between peasant communities than anything else. They rode through rolling fields of wheat and barley, passed through pastures for cattle and sheep. Bradius insisted that they keep up a good pace to put as much distance between them and Reims as possible. They slept in barns and grain houses or in the shelter of trees. They moved through village after village making good progress, hampered only by Trudi’s periodic need for rest and sustenance.

  Bradius insisted that she pack her armor away. He pointed out that she could hardly fight in her condition and that a woman warrior would certainly draw attention. They stopped at one of the larger villages to find clothes for her.

  Several people referred them to a matronly seamstress, who at first seemed reluctant to help until Trudi nearly fainted. When she uncovered Trudi’s wound, the woman fussed over her young patron like a long-lost niece. She insisted that Trudi take a hot bath with soap and water and helped her dress with cooing noises that Trudi found oddly reassuring.

&n
bsp; There were no new clothes, of course. But with some effort, the woman produced a pair of soft leather boots and a clean and sturdy peasant dress with small white flowers painted on its collar. Trudi also acquired a brown cloak that would be useful in warding off the morning chill. It had the added advantage of covering her shoulders and arms so she could hide her sling. When Trudi emerged from the woman’s cottage, Bradius seemed surprised by her appearance.

  “Much better,” he said, stammering. “I hadn’t known …”

  “What?”

  “It’s just that …” He looked away. “I’ve become used to the armor-wearing ‘Hiltrude, daughter of Charles.’ I wasn’t prepared for a young woman wearing a dress named Trudi. It’s just a surprise, that’s all.”

  “A good surprise or a bad one?”

  “Well, a good one, I suppose.”

  “You suppose?” Trudi laughed, enjoying his awkwardness. It took a moment for her mirth to infect him, and then he, too, started to laugh.

  “Are you the ones they’s looking for?” The question took them both by surprise. Trudi stepped back from their questioner, blushing. He was a tall, gangly man with graying hair and a heavy stubble that covered his neck and chin. He leaned casually against the post where their horses were tethered. His eyes, however, were anything but casual. They swept over the two of them, noting Bradius’s armor and Trudi’s blush.

  “They’s said they’s to be two of you, man and woman.” He chewed on the end of a root and took that moment to spit out its pieces.

  “Who was asking?” Bradius countered.

  “Soldiers. Not like you, though. Had armored skirts. Sounded strange.”

  “No one’s looking for us,” Trudi said.