Bradius moved into the street and took his stance. He held the sword before him, the blade right to left across his body. Aistulf strolled casually in front of Bradius and took his position. He didn’t bother to raise his blade. Instead, he left its point resting idly on the ground. Aistulf bowed to Bradius, waited for him to nod in return, and attacked.
Bradius had never fought a man so quick with a blade. He fell back immediately and parried. Twice they engaged. Twice Bradius retreated. On the next assault, Aistulf’s blade caught Bradius on the shoulder. Aistulf backed up a step to let Bradius recover and then attacked again. Bradius continued to retreat before the onslaught, desperately looking for some advantage. He found none.
Aistulf attacked, paused, and then attacked again. It didn’t take long for Bradius to realize that Aistulf was mocking him. The prince was trying to drive home the point that he was by far the better swordsman. Aistulf stalked him relentlessly, skillfully, and never left Bradius an opening.
Once, after their blades caught above Bradius’s head, Bradius tried to kick the Lombard in the groin. Aistulf deftly blocked the blow with his thigh. Bradius tried to take advantage of his imbalance by charging Aistulf in an attempt to knock him to the ground. The Lombard casually sidestepped Bradius and sent him reeling with a kick to the side of his knee.
Bradius recovered and, with an effort, resumed his stance. Sweat was streaming down his face and into his eyes. His chest was heaving. Aistulf, by comparison, had yet to break a sweat and was breathing easily. Hopelessness began to creep up Bradius’s spine. He couldn’t beat Aistulf, even if he were lucky.
Aistulf smiled, as if he had fought a hundred men who had been forced to come to the same conclusion. Anger seethed inside Bradius. As Aistulf parried his next blow, Bradius slammed his forehead into the Lombard’s face. Aistulf stepped back stunned. Bradius launched a furious attack and poured his rage into every blow. Now it was Aistulf’s turn to retreat. The fury of each blow forced the Lombard prince to stagger. Bradius pursued, seizing every opportunity to attack.
Bradius spun left, kicking at Aistulf’s knee. Aistulf spun as well and caught Bradius in the chest. Bradius backed away, his lungs heaving for air, and again took his stance. Aistulf wiped the blood away from his face.
This time, when Bradius attacked, Aistulf caught every blow. It was the same for the next attack. Bradius realized that Aistulf was exhausting his rage intentionally. The prince parried methodically, purposefully. And when Bradius’s anger began to fade, he would have little left to fight with except fear.
His arms began to tire. He had trouble returning to his stance and holding his sword high. A crowd had formed around them in the street, and Aistulf began to play to them, smiling after each of Bradius’s attacks, deflecting every blow, and strutting like a cock before he attacked. In the end, Bradius could do little more than keep his blade between himself and Aistulf.
A change came over Aistulf’s eyes. It wasn’t anger or hate. Bradius wasn’t sure, but he thought it looked like boredom.
With a flourish, Aistulf spun to his left, forcing Bradius to turn with him, and after three quick blows, sent Bradius’s sword flying from his hands. Aistulf lunged forward and pierced Bradius through the chest. Bradius stared down at the blade, almost relieved that the battle was over. He sank to his knees. With another flourish, Aistulf withdrew his sword, spun, and struck again. This time, the blow was aimed at Bradius’s head.
The blow missed. Bradius had collapsed to the ground as the blade fell. He lay on his side, blood spreading in a pool beside him. He could no longer move. The pain in his chest was immense. It felt as if the sword was still in him. He looked up at Aistulf. The Lombard stood above him, the point of his blade at his throat.
“You’re very good,” Bradius said to the prince, blood bubbling from his mouth.
Aistulf smiled and saluted him with his sword.
This is what it is to die, he thought. How useless my life has been. He thought of Trudi and was ashamed he could no longer help her. Then, like a vision, a familiar face appeared in the crowd. A man long dead. No. it was just the wine merchant he had visited. But he had the face of a man once loyal to him. Once, long ago. Darkness closed in on Bradius, and he could not tell if the man was real or a ghost. “Take care of her,” Bradius said before his eyes rolled back into his head.
“Oh, I will.” Aistulf wiped his blade on Bradius’s coat. “Throw him in the river,” Aistulf said to his men. “And find the girl.”
15
Betrayal and Sacrifice
Sunni would have given anything to see Carloman’s face when he awoke to find the gap in the wall repaired. It didn’t take him long, however, to renew his barrage. She wondered how much time Heden’s gambit would buy. Almost a week had passed, and the pounding had been relentless.
Until that morning, she found the silence threatening. She and Heden climbed the rampart to investigate. Gripho, Bart, and Samson followed.
Four workmen were erecting a structure outside Carloman’s shield wall. In full view of the city, they sunk a large cylindrical post deep into the ground. A perpendicular wooden beam was affixed to it, supported by two shorter boards for strength. They attached a pulley from one side of the beam with a thick rope threaded through it. A hangman’s loop dangled from one end. They had requested a parley with Carloman. This was his response.
“It’s for Petr,” Heden said. His voice sounded ancient.
“Bastard!” Sunni seethed. “How can he be so harsh? Petr is just a boy.”
“He was old enough to attempt destroying the catapult,” Heden said.
“It was little more than a prank,” Sunni argued, throwing a glance at Gripho.
“Only because they didn’t succeed,” Heden said.
“Why wouldn’t Carloman parley?” Gripho asked.
“He wants to make a point,” Heden said.
“And what point is that?”
“That the time for talking is over.”
One of the workmen inserted an arm through the hangman’s loop, and two of his coworkers pulled on the other end of the rope. Sunni shuddered as they drew him aloft. She looked to Heden. He stood apart from them, stoic, regal. She was humbled by his strength and devastated by what it must cost him.
Satisfied that the gallows were sound, the workmen lowered their comrade to the ground and signaled to the siege wall. Within moments, horns blared, the gate opened, and Carloman rode out, flanked by two knights. Each carried a banner. One was Carloman’s red banner with the lion of St. Mark. The other was the banner of the Knights in Christ, a simple red field with a white cross. Together, they rode to the gallows. The knights took positions on opposite sides of the gallows while Carloman planted his horse directly before it, placing himself between the noose and his audience inside the city. He looked up at them expectantly.
Gripho began to pace, limping as he went. Bart stood at the wall, staring at the scene below. Samson moved downwind of them and began marking his face with a black paste.
A priest dressed in white came through the gate on foot. With him was a dark-haired boy. A full head shorter than the priest, he looked like he was there as an afterthought.
“That’s Petr,” Heden said, his voice hollow. “I can tell by his walk.”
“Oh, Carloman,” Sunni whispered. “Don’t do this.”
As Petr came into view, Sunni could see he had been bathed. His hair was combed, and he wore new clothes. His face was deathly white. His hands were bound in front of him. He had been crying.
When the boy saw Heden on the rampart, he collapsed to the ground.
“Father!” he cried. “Father!”
Carloman never looked at the boy.
“Father!”
The priest lifted Petr by the arm and dragged him to the gallows. Petr struggled against the priest, futilely turning to look back at the rampart. “Please, Father!”
Sunni was aghast. How had it come to this? Her lover stood beside her on the rampart,
his hands gripping stone shards, impotent to respond to his son’s cries. His face was hard, but his eyes were filled with pain. He twitched every time Petr called for him. Sunni’s breath caught in her throat. She choked back a sob.
The priest signaled for one of the workmen to lower the rope. As the stout cord descended from the cross beam, the priest pulled it over the boy’s head.
“Father! Father!” Petr screamed.
Heden’s face crumpled. His head fell back, and a howl filled with pain and impotent fury erupted from him. “Petr!”
Hearing him, the boy tried to struggle against the priest, but the rope held him. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” he wailed pitifully. “I didn’t mean it. Father!”
“Oh, my son,” Heden whispered.
Samson, his face marked with paint, faced the sun, spread his arms wide, and lifted his staff high in his right hand. “I call Ansuz, the Ash,” he incanted, “the World Tree and Tree of Life.”
“The ash which binds us,” Sunni answered softly.
“Father!” Petr shrieked as the priest tightened the noose and stepped back. At his signal, the two workmen pulled as one until the rope found resistance.
Heden stood tall and still on the rampart as tears coursed down his cheeks. Seeing him, Petr stopped his struggle. He, too, stood up straight, and although he wept, he mirrored his father’s dignity. Their eyes locked, and they spoke no more words. With a mighty heave, the workmen hauled Petr off the ground by his neck. The boy’s small body twisted. His legs flailed. He tried to grasp the rope with his bound hands. When he failed at this, he stretched his arms toward his father. The workman tied their end of the rope to the main post. Petr’s face turned red and then blue.
“Yggdrasil, you who link all the worlds of creation,” Samson said.
“You are the source of human kind,” Sunni answered.
Carloman raised his hand, and the two workmen took hold of the rope above where it had been tied and pulled the struggling boy high off the ground.
“Take your divine breath from this boy.”
“Take him to Utgart, the land of the dead.”
Carloman’s hand fell. The workmen let go of the rope and Petr’s body fell. The cord snapped taut, breaking the boy’s neck. He hung limply at the end of the rope as it swung in small circles above the ground.
“He has known little joy and much sorrow.”
“Let his soul find peace and his body renew the earth.”
Heden’s body jumped involuntarily when Petr’s neck snapped. Sunni reached out her hand to sooth him, but instead her touch pierced what was left of his composure. The huge man she had come to rely on for strength wept openly in long racking sobs that shook his body. He hurled wordless howls of rage over the rampart until his body was exhausted. Bending under the weight of his sorrow, Heden fell to one knee, still holding the wall with his two hands. Bart ran to him, and Heden folded his only living son into the hugeness of his arms. He rocked the boy there, shaking his head back and forth, his mouth forming words but without sound.
In a rage, he was up again, his arm on Bart’s shoulder, “Carloman,” he screamed. “Carloman!”
Carloman sat calmly on his horse, staring up at Heden’s grief. For just a moment, Sunni thought she saw a flicker of doubt touch her stepson’s face. But Carloman turned away, leading his knights back through the siege wall gates, their red and white banners held high in the air. The priest and the workmen followed.
“Bastard,” Sunni whispered and then wept. She wept for the death of Charles’s family. She wept for the suffering she had caused Heden. She wept for the sweet boy who swung at the end of the rope below them, knowing he had been too gentle for such a violent fate.
Samson took a small pouch from his coat and poured its contents into the palm of his hand. Holding it aloft, he let a fine dust drift into the wind.
The catapults started anew.
***
All told, filling the breach had given them ten days. They had used the time well. Wounds were dressed, dead were buried, and defenses reinforced. But Petr’s death had taken a horrible toll. A moment after he died, the city’s will diminished. The stones slamming against the outer walls had become a death knell.
The catapults had reopened the breach at dusk. Carloman was expected to renew his attack that morning.
Heden was up. Sunni was not. She lay coiled around her pillow, the blankets tucked up under her chin. Heden had just returned from the latrine and was sitting at the end of the bed. Sunni could see only the outline of him. His elbows were on his knees, and his head was in his hands. He had not moved in a long time.
“Can you beat him?” Sunni asked.
The room was still dark, but an early light had begun to seep into the room through the small spaces around the door and windows.
“Can you beat Carloman?”
When he responded, his voice sounded ancient and hollow. “Yes,” he said.
“How?”
“The only way to win a siege is by making the price of victory too high.”
“He had six thousand men. How many will he sacrifice?”
“It takes four times as many men to take a castle as it does to defend one. Carloman already has lost a third of his men. Every day we survive is a victory. Every day improves our odds. With the losses he has incurred, he is already wondering if this siege has been worthy of its cost. The only thing we don’t know is what price is too high for Carloman to pay.”
Something in Heden’s voice unnerved Sunni. She stretched her hand across the mattress to touch his back. He didn’t move. She unwound herself from her pillow and moved languidly to him, encircling him with her arms. She spread her chest across his back and buried her face in the crook of his neck.
“What do you mean?”
“Many more will die today.” Heden stared off into the darkness, and an odd silence fell between them. He had spoken little since Petr’s execution. Sunni had tried in small ways to comfort him, reassuring Heden more with her touch than her words. But there was no time for her following Petr’s death. Her lover had immersed himself in the preparations for the coming battle.
He had spent every day at the wall pushing the men to prepare for the attack. He ran his captains through detailed strategies to cover every contingency. He ordered more reinforcements and stocks brought to the wall. The men moved quickly and assuredly to do his bidding, but they were unnerved by his presence. The luster in Heden’s voice was gone. The humor that had buoyed the men through every day of the siege had disappeared. His eyes were hollow.
He was very far away even when he lay next to her in bed. She broke their silence. And when she did, her voice was trembling. “You must promise me something,” she said. Heden didn’t respond. Sunni started again, hesitated, and then said firmly, “You must promise me something.”
“What is it that you want?”
“Promise me that you won’t kill Drogo.”
For the first time that morning, Heden turned to face her. “Will he be on the field of battle? Will he carry a sword? Will he attack defenders of the city?”
Sunni grabbed his shoulders and looked deep into his eyes, trying to find the gentle man she knew to be somewhere inside the cold warrior before her. “Don’t seek him out, Heden. Don’t order him killed. Don’t become the murderer of children. Carloman is a monster. Don’t let him make you one.” Her eyes pleaded but brooked no compromise.
“Soldiers die. Drogo is not immune,” Heden said.
“Not by your hand. He’s not to die at your hand.”
“Why do you think he killed Petr?” Heden stood. “What military value did he hold? Carloman murdered my son to make the price of victory too high. Drogo is his only heir. He is worth a thousand men to him. Two thousand! It may be the only price Carloman won’t be willing to pay.”
“I’m not willing to pay it either.”
Heden stared at her with hollow eyes. “I cannot make you such a promise, Sunni. And you have no right to a
sk it of me. Not after Petr.”
“He is my grandson.”
“Not by blood.”
“Nonetheless, he is mine.”
Heden turned from her. “There is a chance that we may prevail, but it is a small one. Many will die.”
“What would you have me do?” Sunni asked.
“I came here for you, not for Gripho. Tell your son to abdicate.”
“Gripho will never agree to renounce his rights to succession.”
Heden sighed and shook his head. “And there is no help coming?”
“The note Odilo sent by carrier pigeon said he was raising armies to fight Carloman in the east. He’s not coming.”
After a long time, Heden nodded. “Each day we survive, Carloman will have to decide whether another day is worth the price. So must you. It is a game of attrition. Our soldiers and his. I will give you another day. Consider it a betrothal gift.”
Sunni tried to smile but could not. Her eyes brimmed with tears. They heard one of the men shout outside the villa.
“You had best help me get ready,” he said. “It’s well past dawn. I can hear the men taking their positions.”
Sunni rose from the bed and opened a cabinet from which she drew fresh bandages to rebind his wounds. She took off Heden’s undergarments and unwound the stained bandages that lay beneath. She probed each of his wounds gently, looking for decay, and spread a fresh poultice on each before rebinding them.
“Tightly,” he said as she wrapped the wound at his side. She complied, ensuring that nothing she bound would give way during battle. Completing this, she helped him with his chemise, his pantaloons, his chain mail, his belt, and his chest plate.
When he reached for his sword and scabbard, however, something about it alarmed her. Her face grew hot, and her breath grew short. Her heart hammered in her chest. Panic snaked down her spine.
“Wait,” she said, stopping him, her hand flat against his chest. He looked at her with hardened eyes. Her gaze held him to her. “Heden,” she said, her voice catching. “My love—”
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