“Please, only if you’re done,” Roland said.
The two holy men stammered an inarticulate response and left the knight to his meditations.
Roland sank to his knees, burying his head in his hands.
“I begin here, Lord. I just pray you will guide me along this path.”
Weariness bore heavily on his shoulders. He hadn’t slept well the night before amid the groans of the wounded and the maimed that drifted through the thin canvas walls of the tent he shared with Oliver. Robbed of sleep, he had crept from the tent to labor with the camp surgeons. The earliest rays of dawn had found him covered in dark stains and still seeking out his men.
Now, with this moment of peace, he recalled a long-ago day when as a lad of nine or ten he’d burst from the stables in a flurry of sobs and tears. A stable boy tending his father’s steed had just taunted him about the preparations for the spring campaign to Italy that would leave the youth with the other children. He ran to the courtyard where William directed the marchmen. Roland remembered him a giant standing head and shoulders above those he commanded, exuding boundless energy in his preparations for war. He was Apollo in the sky of his youthful son. It did not matter that he was the right hand of the king and, as champion, the right hand of God himself, for to Roland, William held a much simpler title—that of father.
Seeing the outburst, he caught his son by the arm and knelt down to meet the lad’s eye.
“What is it, boy?” William asked, brushing tears from Roland’s cheeks.
The lad puffed out his chest and straightened up, a young soldier bucking up under inspection of his commanding officer. But that wasn’t all William saw in Roland’s eyes.
“You’re sending me to the vale to page. And then you leave too. Why must you leave me?”
“Well,” said William, a man known for his few words, “it’s my duty.”
“But it will be such a long time!” Roland sniffled. “Who will take care of Mother?”
William smiled then, no longer the champion but the husband and father. “Sometimes we are asked to do hard things. Even your mother will miss both of us while we are away. But our calling is to serve. And Charles is God’s anointed, so we are engaged in a cause for our family, the march, and the kingdom.”
Roland clutched his father, burying his face against his chest, arms straining to encompass the whole of the man. “Then take me! Don’t send me away. I can fight! Father, tell God I will serve Charles! Just take me with you!”
“This is not your time, son,” William said, kissing the lad on the cheek. “Nor is it my place to tell God what He should do. Your chance will come, I promise. You will serve Charles.”
Roland pushed away from his father’s embrace. “But when? I can use a sword. You know I can!”
William laughed and ruffled the lad’s hair. “Yes, I do, and I still have the bruises to prove it. God will show you when it is time. And when that moment comes, you must not just use the sword. You must be the sword. You must be the sword of God.”
“My lord!” The voice broke into Roland’s thoughts, and he lifted his head, blinking in the light that had grown since he knelt. A squire panted nearby, waving his hand toward the camp. “My lord, Oliver has sent for you. You must come now. You must hurry back to camp!”
Roland jumped to his feet and rushed through the Frank encampment to the march’s enclave, all the way dodging men who stepped in his path to congratulate him on his new office. His breath clouded in the chill morning air, leaving a trail of mist in his wake. When he approached his square of tents, he could see Ganelon flanked by his personal escort. The count of Tournai emphatically gestured with his hands while he stomped back and forth before the assembled troopers. Kennick stood at their head, shoulders back and head high, bearing the harangue in stoic silence. Unoccupied soldiers started to gather at a safe distance to watch.
“You disobeyed your liege lord!” Ganelon’s voice rang out.
Oliver placed himself between the grizzled veteran and the red-faced count.
“The heir of the march entered harm’s way,” Kennick responded evenly. “I knew my lord would want him protected.”
“Protected from his own foolishness!” Ganelon fumed. “I commanded that none leave the march!”
Roland pushed through a knot of onlookers to Kennick’s side. “What game is this?” he snarled. “This man did both you and the king a great service!”
Ganelon pointed a finger at Kennick then swept that same hand over the marchmen. “And broke his oath, stepson! This man holds rank! He bears trust for all these men. For that there must be account! Do you hear me? He will receive seventy-five lashes and shall consider himself lucky. I pray when you are count in the march they will have learned to not be so surly!”
“You’ve no cause!” Roland stood his ground. “I gave the order in the face of new information that you couldn’t have known about.”
“I have every cause,” Ganelon snarled back. “I hold Breton March under Charles’s own writ. My word is law until I am relieved.”
“And not a day too soon!”
“And yet today my will be done!” Ganelon snapped.
Gothard stepped forward, smugly directing Tournai men to take Kennick and drag him to a nearby hitching post. Armed men blocked Roland. Marchmen rumbled with displeasure. A threat of blood hung in the air.
Ganelon’s men stripped Kennick to the waist and stretched him on the post. A heavily muscled trooper tugged a knotted whip from his belt and snapped it with a crack.
“Wait!” Roland shouted. He lunged into the cluster of troopers between him and Kennick, dropping one with a blow across the jaw and twisting past the others. Marchmen surged toward Ganelon, but Roland spun back and held up a warning hand. “Hold!” They stumbled to a halt, confusion on their faces.
Roland snapped back to Ganelon once more. “For Christ’s sake, if this man is to be punished for coming to my aid, punish me instead!”
Ganelon drew himself up, a shrewd look on his face. “Intriguing—the champion of the realm torn under the lash for a broken vow? No man may strike the champion and go without retribution from the king himself.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “But this is my right and my justice. Not even Charles can fault the exercise of my duty. This man must bear the weight of his own crime!”
Roland threw his body before the lash, and Ganelon’s man pulled the whip short.
“My lord,” Kennick growled to Roland, “you must not. My honor requires this. I broke my word. By God, I’d break it a hundred times over to fight by your side. But break it I did. We can choose our actions. But we must accept the consequences.”
“Kennick—” Roland began.
“I always pay my debts, boy.”
“Father, he stops you from discharging your duty!” Gothard whined. “This cannot be tolerated!”
Roland straightened and snatched the whip from Ganelon’s man.
“This man is mine,” he shouted. Then he raised his voice above the growing discontent among the marchmen. “This man is mine! Be still, marchmen! I command you to stand down!” Roland lifted the whip and waved it at Ganelon’s face. Behind him courtiers and nobles gravitated to the commotion. “This man will be mine when I am confirmed in my inheritance. As such, I demand the right to punish him. No man will exact punishment on any of my men but me!”
The marchmen pounded the ground with their feet, affirmation that they stood with William’s son. Ganelon’s face darkened, his brows knitting together while the bystanders grew in number and crowded closer.
“Carry out the punishment, and honor is satisfied,” he growled.
Roland faced Kennick’s back and hefted the whip, the knotted length falling about his feet. By his own hand, the leather lashed across Kennick’s flesh, each stroke tearing a raw mark. Gothard loudly barked a grim count with satisfaction. The vet
eran clenched his jaws as his skin was flayed over and over. In time his knees buckled, but he struggled to regain his feet and to keep his already scarred body erect. His eyes stared ahead at his men, no cry escaping his lips.
Ganelon stood with arms folded and grim, watching with wicked contentment the blood spattering the air. Many of the crowd turned away from the gore before the whip fell for the last time and Roland dropped it to the ground. A breathless groan accompanied Roland when he rushed to cut Kennick loose. The veteran collapsed into his arms, and the marchmen broke ranks, surrounding their own in an iron embrace.
CHAPTER 6
Saragossa’s Heart
In distant Saragossa, preparations for war continued to the rhythm of drums and horns. Beneath the martial staccato, the emir’s troops assembled for inspection before the city’s dun-colored walls. Marsilion reclined in his typical fashion beneath a silk parasol near the parade grounds, sipping a chilled drink while the sun beat down on the nobles who sweated uncomfortably beside him.
Blancandrin, unwilling to show any sign of discomfort within his dark armor, approached the emir’s canvas pavilion from amid the ranks of troops and prostrated himself. Marsilion let him remain in the dust for a moment while he visibly accounted the strength of units passing before him. Finally there was a break between battalions, and he motioned distractedly for the general to stand.
“Speak,” Marsilion ordered, sipping his drink and wiping stray liquid from his beard. His eyes darted after a fly racing for the edge of his cup. He swatted it away.
Blancandrin cleared his throat to refocus his lord’s attention. “Our scouts have returned from Barcelona,” the general reported. “We’ve sufficient arms to keep Sulayman caged within the city, but we will be hard-pressed north of the Pyrenees. And the caliph …” his voice trailed to silence.
“What of His Eminence?” the emir eagerly asked. “What aid does he promise us?”
Blancandrin ground his teeth as he glanced to where Honorius stood among the nobles, resplendent in his impeccable armor, decorative eagles glistening in the midday sunlight. His painted-on smile seemed oblivious to the heat.
“The caliph has not committed men,” Blancandrin said. He silently prayed for an opportunity to remove the Byzantine’s head from his shoulders before the emir led the army, and the entire city, down the road to ruin. “Instead, at the ambassador’s request,” he nodded deferentially in Honorius’s direction, “he’s sent us Greek prisoners. Broken men in chains! My emir, what we need are soldiers!”
Marsilion flashed his general a diplomatic smile. “Calm yourself. Our other allies have committed troops. Look—” He gestured across the plumed and armored formations ranged before them. Though pennants hung still on the windless day, only rarely rippling when a rider fidgeted or a foot soldier dared swipe at a fly, they presented an impressive vista of deadly might. “See the splendor of the tribesmen from Morocco! See the Algerian lancers!”
“Yes, my emir,” Blancandrin acknowledged. “Enough for Barcelona. But not to hold even a few steps into Francia.”
The emir drained his cup and handed it off to a waiting youth. “Nevertheless, we will send war parties to the north. Prepare the army to cross the mountains, once we dispose of Barcelona.” He stood and stepped out from under the canvas into the blinding sun, drawing close to his general.
Blancandrin bowed. “As you command, Emir.”
“We must have more information on Frank movements, Blancandrin. Perhaps we will find a weakness we can exploit?” Marsilion flashed a genuine smile this time, placing a hand on the other man’s shoulder. “Do your best, old friend. I will send to the caliph again. And I’ll beg for his support if I must. I’ve also thought there may yet be some in the east who have interest in our doings. I’ll petition them as well. But mark me, ours is the greater glory for redeeming the honor of our dead. Tours will not be forgotten!”
Marsilion returned his attention to the troopers, but his thoughts were far afield, lingering on a bygone defeat at the hands of Charles Martel those many years ago and the grandeur that would be regained by the grandson of him slain on that bloody field deep in the heart of Francia.
CHAPTER 7
Reunions
All of Aachen turned out to witness Charles the Great’s triumphal return—nobles, merchants, and commoners alike jostled and elbowed for a place along the muddy street. They crowded against armed soldiers for a better look at the processional that squeezed into the narrow lanes. Not since the liberation of Rome from the Lombards had the city turned out in such riotous numbers. Roland rode in a place of honor just behind the royal entourage among a troop of his men. Otun marched on foot alongside him, sporting a fierce grin and bearing high the standard of the crimson wolf rampant on its white field. The banner snapped viciously in advance of the marchmen and blond- and red-bearded Danes that marched in formation in their wake. Rabble and nobles alike roared their approval when Bishop Turpin lifted his war hammer, calling in a raucous voice to young women leaning out of upper windows, spilling cleavage in defiance of the critical glares of their disapproving matrons.
“Good Bishop,” Oliver laughed, waving at the same enticing faces framed in tumbled locks, “it seems you’ve been away too long!”
“Yes, far too long,” the cleric mused with a round-cheeked smile. “Now home to warm the flock with plenty of drink and tales of the summer campaign!”
Oliver snatched a flower that drifted from the hand of a bright-faced girl, her bodice revealing spring and promise. “I’m afraid it will take more than ale and stories to warm them!”
Both men laughed, their voices pleasantly lost in the cacophony of the moment.
Far above the celebrations, in a richly appointed room of the palace, Charles’s willowy daughter Aldatrude examined bolts of Greek silk from a merchant just returned from the Orient. Her blonde locks fell loose about her lovely pouting face, and a hand rested upon her hip in a nettled pose. Silks and expensive linens clung to her form, accentuating each of her quick movements. Her sister Berta, shorter and darker with round, flushed features, feigned interest and waited for the inevitable outburst of temper and the lash of Aldatrude’s sharp tongue.
Forgotten in the deliberations, Aude, Oliver’s sister, wandered to the nearby window. Where Roland’s companion was dark haired, she bore their mother’s golden tresses that framed high cheekbones highlighted with a faint scattering of freckles and features that bore the stamp of ancient, even Celtic blood. Oh, and she was bored with the talk of baubles and trinkets, trinkets and baubles—on and on without end, the women of the court possessing nothing more to fill their chatter or their minds. They had all waited, for hours it seemed, for the army to snake past their window. But there was only one company in all the mass of troops in which she had an interest. She squinted through the spider web of autumn frost covering the glass and rubbed at it with her slender fingers. Out of habit, her other hand brushed back a golden strand of hair and tucked it behind her ear.
At last the procession appeared in the warren of streets below. From her vantage point, she saw resplendent guards clad in crimson and gold turn the corner and march with precise martial dignity. The crowd continued to press closer, and troopers pushed back with spears and shields. Charles’s expansive personal retinue followed and flowed toward the palace, brave banners rippling in the crisp late autumn sunlight. She whispered to herself as she recognized each one, from the crimson boar of Aquitaine to the golden stag of Anjou. Above them all floated the great Roman eagle, gold, black, and scarlet, under which rode Charles himself with his sons and heirs, Louis and Pepin.
“They’re home,” she barely dared breathe, her fingers rising to her lips. “Here they come!”
She threw open the window as the other women, suddenly galvanized by her words, dropped the exotic wares and flocked to the casement. Just then the wolf of Breton March rode into view, and she caught her breath.
Next to Roland, Oliver appeared as well, riding with his companion. “Oh, he’s changed so much,” she whispered as the two princesses crowded her to one side to see their father and brothers.
“Who’s changed?” asked Berta, frantically squeezing for a place at the casement and waving for all her audience below. “Oliver?”
Aude lowered her hand. “Oh, yes. My brother has become a man.”
Aldatrude’s shrewd eyes darted between Aude and the marchmen. She tugged her sister from the window. “Why, indeed he has. As have my own brothers, Pepin and Louis. I almost missed Oliver among that rabble. Are those the marchmen? It looks like they leashed some unruly Danes and Saxons as part of their wolf pack.” She examined the troopers more closely. “Look, there’s Roland! He rides in a place of honor—I hear he acquitted himself well in the victory over the Saxons.” She gathered Aude’s hand in hers. “A fine catch for some noble family, don’t you think? A kissing cousin to the king’s family, so to speak.”
Aude lowered her eyes. “Oh, I wouldn’t know, my lady. Such things aren’t for me to venture.”
“Indeed,” Aldatrude mused. She leaned out to catch Roland’s eye.
Oliver waved to the window where the women of court fluttered hands and handkerchiefs in greeting.
Roland followed his friend’s gesture and caught a fleeting glance of Aude before Aldatrude and Berta crowded her completely out.
Ever astute, Pepin reined his steed back a pace to fall in line with Roland, smiling and tossing an occasional coin to bystanders who scrambled for the rare bit of hard currency.
“You’ve a following at court, cousin,” he said, nodding toward the royal welcome above that was blooming into a spectacle of sisters scrapping for attention before the citizenry.
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