The Silver Horn Echoes

by Michael Eging

  Accompanied by a small party of his companions, Roland rode into the palace grounds, bypassing the celebrations erupting around them on the garden paths so recently vacated by Marsilion. In a small side courtyard, Karim met them with brief words of greeting and led them to a grim, squat building connected to the rear quarters of the emir’s residence. Thick iron bars garnished its stark windows. A soldier awaited them with jangling keys, selected one for the outer portal, and turned the lock.

  Roland crowded past him even though the door protested with a groan. Kennick, Oliver, and Otun followed him through, Otun ducking his head to avoid leaving his brains smeared on a rafter.

  “This is the first we’ve been in here since cleaning out the Saragossan scum,” Karim spat and stepped through after them.

  A rushing stench from the darkness enveloped them, causing them to cover their noses with their sleeves. The soldier lit torches and handed them out before leading them further down into the pits beneath.

  The main stairway was crude stone, the edges rounded and worn, creating a treacherous pathway into the pit. Roland and his companions cautiously followed the soldier deep into the earth where at the bottom a narrow corridor opened to a series of dark cells, many of the doors ajar. The search party spread out, calling for survivors. But rather than joyous responses, they found only brutalized, butchered bodies flung into the moldering straw inside the cells. After a thorough search of each cell, the men gathered near another door at the far end of the corridor. The soldier who accompanied them fumbled through the keys until he found one to spring the primitive lock.

  Beyond lay another dark staircase descending into a pool of blackness, drips of water leaking in from the sewers and plumbing above. This time the steps were slick and narrow, and the men crept downward much more slowly before once more placing their feet on smooth flooring. Again they swept through empty cells where their guttering torches revealed only mildewed straw and scurrying rats. Roland scanned the cellblock, cursing that their search was in vain, when Kennick emerged from a rough-hewn doorway at the dark far end, covering his nose and mouth with his hand.

  “More?” Roland asked.

  Kennick nodded. “Slaughtered these too.”

  “Our sources said there were men here—live men,” Roland said.

  Otun tested a last closed door, but it wouldn’t budge. He heaved his massive shoulder into it, causing the hinges to groan and the wood to crack. The Dane redoubled his effort, muscles straining and back leveraging against it. With a scream, the hinges burst apart, and Otun stumbled past the sagging door. He reappeared a moment later and waved to the jail master, pinching his nose against the reek. The guard handed him a smoky torch that the Dane waved in front of him before stepping into the moldy straw and whatever else lay beyond.

  “Over here!” he called out. “Here! Two live!”

  From the depths of the cell staggered two emaciated men, pale skin covering their bones nearly without the benefit of flesh. One of them, garments in rags, shuffled into the torchlight. His scraggly-bearded face was covered in fleabites and matted, lice-infested hair that was the same color as the darkness. The other crouched just outside the circle of light, skeletal hands thrown up to cover his eyes from the brightness. Roland handed off his torch and offered the first captive a hand. But instead of taking it, the man reached for the crucifix around the knight’s neck.

  “Christian men?” he croaked, his words heavily accented.

  “Good God,” Oliver whispered.

  “Yes,” Roland replied. “Men of Charles, king of Francia and emperor in Rome. You are Greeks?”

  The man pressed the holy symbol firmly to his lips. After a moment, he said, “I am Leo. This is John. We served on a warship. Ambushed by pirates …” His voice cracked from disuse. He cleared his throat with difficulty, and Oliver handed him a water flask. The man gulped some down, handed it off to his companion, and continued.

  “After the battle, our ship sank near the Gates of Herakles. We were picked up by the caliph’s men.” He forced a smile, exposing shattered teeth. “You can imagine, he had a few questions for us to be sure. But in the end, he sent us along to Saragossa, fearing the empire would attempt our rescue.”

  “Why would the empire mount a rescue for just two men?” Roland pressed.

  Leo helped John to stand, and the Franks saw for the first time the man’s twisted fingers, a painful symbol of the Saragossans’ questioning. In the wavering torchlight, a wicked glint reflected in John’s eyes.

  “Secrets,” he said, placing a swollen finger to his mouth.

  Where the original Roman walls of old Barcelona butted up against the palace, an ancient building still smoldered—the smoke but another smudge like so many that continued to rise above the city. Within, the ground was thick with broken rafters and ash. Soldiers diligently searched through the rubble alongside Sulayman’s courtiers and Charles’s friars. Charles and Sulayman stood nearby watching their progress, Aldatrude with them and dressed in filmy silk.

  A courtier shouted from deep in the ruin, suddenly careless of the soot and grime streaking his expensive robes. He disappeared into a stack of stone and wood that teetered in delicate balance like a house of cards. A breathless moment later, the man struggled back into view, his arms wrapped tightly around a scorched bundle. In his excitement, he caught his foot on a broken rafter and spilled gracelessly into the ash. His comrades rushed to help gather his burden, but he righted himself, cheeks reddened beneath the soot smudges, and snatched back his prize. He skittered over the rubble to Sulayman and Charles, fell to one knee, and lifted his find for their examination.

  Charles deferred to Sulayman to open the sooty canvas. The emir gingerly tugged the corners open, exposing a codex of bound vellum pages beneath his trembling fingers.

  “What is it?” Charles asked, leaning over Sulayman’s shoulder, the anticipation on his face growing.

  Sulayman simply beamed with delight.

  Aldatrude pushed a loose stand of hair from her face as she read the letters on the cover of the volume. “Father!” Aldatrude exclaimed. “It’s the great scholar Aristotle!”

  “You can read this?” Sulayman asked, clearly pleased.

  “Oh, yes,” she said, lowering her eyes demurely. “Father encouraged me to learn Latin and Greek. And this—this is De Anima! Scholars at Father’s court believed no copies still existed.”

  “Indeed, I had feared this one lost as well after that bastard Marsilion had the run of the palace,” Sulayman grumbled.

  Charles took the document from Sulayman, opening the cover with reverent care and scanning an inner page.

  “I wish to God I were better with my own letters,” the king murmured, his eyes roving the page, intoxicated at each flourish, swoop, and curve of the Greek letters.

  “My friend,” said Sulayman, “let this be my gift to you. For my family, my people, and my city. I wish there were more we could do to show our gratitude.”

  Charles shook his head. “No.” He took Sulayman’s hand in his, placing it on the book. “This is a treasure for all our people. It’s not something I can ask of you or take from your city.” He swept the site with his eyes. “But we can recover these and set our scribes to copying that we might preserve them. We will learn together, my friend.”

  Sulayman embraced the Frank king. “Excellent! Then let us get started!”

  CHAPTER 17

  Maneuvers

  Far to the north, a warm damp wind rustled massive oaks and whispered of rain.

  The great hall of Sigurd, king of the Saxons, was an oversized rough-hewn log house in the center of a motte-and-bailey fort surrounded by wood-framed walls filled with dirt. Along upper ramparts stood a palisade of sharpened stakes. Through the open gates rode a small party of mud-covered travelers, followed by a rumbling coach and wagon. Guards wearing heavy mail hauberks and bearing long spears
stopped the strangers at the gatehouse. Passengers presented their bona fides with urgency, and after a cursory examination, the guards waved them through, directing them across the muddy yard to the hall. A runner sprinted ahead of them to seek out the king.

  Inside the great hall, warriors lounged on long, split-timber benches while dogs snarled at their feet and wrestled over scraps of meat among the filthy rushes covering the earthen floor. Beyond the scampering serving girls and toppled cups of ale, King Sigurd slouched in a large, elaborately carved wooden chair. A bear of a man, he rubbed at his paunch that told of too many years feasting behind the Saxon shield wall and too few seasons in front of it. He stuffed a handful of berries into a maw framed by a dark beard stained with juice and littered with crumbs and bones from the feast. The arrival of the messenger elicited only an absent nod. Then the messenger whispered unwelcome tidings in his ear.

  Guards tugged open the doors to admit a solitary figure. Honorius swept into the hall in his golden imperial armor, its rich crimson brocade cloak snapping from his shoulders over tall calfskin boots. In his hand he carried an ornate walking staff that thumped against the dirt in time with his paces. He kicked aside a hound and strode through the tables to stop before Sigurd’s chair.

  Sigurd braced himself against the arm of his chair and rose on unsteady legs.

  “Horrid specter!” he roared, spittle and seeds flying from his lips. “Have you come to torment me with more promises? Your last assurances crumbled on the field when the Danes broke and left my men to be slaughtered!”

  Over their cups, the Saxon warriors marked the unfriendly exchange between their king and this gilded emissary from beyond the Middle Sea with wary interest. Honorius signaled back to the open doors. Exotically dressed servants entered, bearing a heavy wooden chest between them. They halted before the king and, with a coordinated heave, dropped the chest to the floor. Sweeping his hand in an adroit flourish of a practiced showman, Honorius struck off the lock with his walking staff and threw open the lid, revealing a mound of gold imperial byzants.

  “Sire, the great king of Miklagaard offers you assurances of his favor,” Honorius purred, his voice dripping with diplomatic honey. “He knows you wish to relocate your people beyond the Rhine, safe from the depredations of the savage Avars. He desires to help.”

  Sigurd’s eyes filled with the glint of the gold. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, forgetting for a moment the berries smashed in his fingers. But then his eyes narrowed in suspicion. “This is a trick! A mad scheme for us to bleed doing Roman dirty work! The Franks lie in wait for us along the banks of the river, ready to attack if we but breathe!”

  “There are some, this is true,” Honorius conceded. “But nothing of worth can be had without sacrifice.”

  “Easy enough for you to say, Roman! But I lost many good men. Their widows and children still weep for them!”

  “I have a secret for you, great king.” Honorius grinned, eyes sweeping the flea-bitten rabble that gnawed at bones and swilled sour beer. “What you have seen beyond the river is not Charles’s entire strength. Your brave warriors will easily overpower them.”

  “Still there are enough to slow us until the rest of his knights fall upon us!”

  “Sire, you know as well as I that Charles’s main forces are occupied far to the south with the Saracens.”

  Sigurd drew himself up and teetered forward to stand toe to toe with the Byzantine. “They will break the Saracens before the month is out, and then they shall be free. Free to come against us and destroy us as we lay stretched out on the far side of the river with women and children and nowhere to shelter!”

  Honorius met Sigurd’s glare with aplomb. “What if you had time to dig in?” He glanced around at the warriors representing a handful of Sigurd’s many illegitimate sons. “Time to seek other allies for help?”

  Sigurd snorted. “That would take a winter!”

  “We could give you that.”

  “How? How will you keep Charles in Iberia for the rest of the season? He has only Saragossa left before him.”

  “We deal with many in the southern lands. Keeping Charles ensnared can be managed.”

  Sigurd studied Honorius carefully, but the Greek offered no other signs on his face.

  “Managed? You gamble dangerously with my people’s lives.”

  “Is it any less a gamble to leave them here, with the threat facing you from the east? How long before the Avars turn their horsemen on the Saxon people?”

  Sigurd fumed and wavered. His eyes darted about the room to his vassals, who waited for his answer.

  Honorius bowed slightly, placing his hand over his heart to soothe his words. “I swear, King. Charles won’t have the strength to keep you from jumping a cow fence—or from taking leisure within the very gates of Aachen herself.”

  Sigurd searched for the deceit in Honorius’s face. He looked then at the chest, spilling bright yellow light as if it shone of its own accord.

  A wicked grin crept onto the Saxon king’s pockmarked face, exposing feral, yellowed teeth.

  AOI

  The exhausted, rain-lashed Frank courier rode into Barcelona under a pale moon, barely able to keep astride his heaving mount. For seven days and nights he had ridden as hard, crossing fifty leagues of the eastern verge of the Pyrenees where their foothills reached down to the sea, stopping for nothing short of Armageddon.

  He passed his missive onto the sentries at the gate and was led away to bed and drink.

  The sentry sergeant read the dispatch and went pale. He stepped into a side chamber to wake the officer on duty.

  “What is it, Sergeant?” the man asked groggily. He snapped fully awake a moment later.

  “Carcassonne, sir. Saragossa has taken Carcassonne!”

  CHAPTER 18

  Secrets

  Carcassonne

  The walled city was the southernmost Frank stronghold and last outpost before Saracen Iberia—founded by the Romans in the long-ago days of the Caesars. A bustling port despite being forty miles from the Middle Sea, it lay alongside the River Atax where rafts of goods from seaside Narbonne passed on through merchants to the interior of Francia in an endless stream. Silks, religious totems, spices, and displaced souls from the incessant wars in the east found a market in Carcassonne.

  Carcassonne was lifeblood to Charles’s southern vassals.

  News of Marsilion’s near-effortless occupation of the city sent shockwaves through Charles’s armies. While they had busied themselves with refortifying Barcelona, the emir of Saragossa had managed to slip an army around them to secure the port. An impressive strategic move placed troops behind mighty walls on Frankish soil. Charles had been forced to pack up his armies and, with his champion in the lead, march north, spending precious weeks of the summer to prevent Marsilion from twisting the knife now thrust in his back.

  And here they were, the bannermen of King Charles, camped once more against another set of walls, and things were not going well.

  Carcassonne’s dun-colored fortifications, ringed about with a deep moat and punctuated by massive towers, loomed over ironbound gates that defied Charles’s advance yet another time. Soldiers straggled back to the lines, beaten, bruised, and broken.

  Behind screens of brush and twigs, their comrades ventured forth to secure the wounded stragglers and the dead. Roland himself hefted a soldier, dripping gore across his shoulder. The blood ran down his surcoat to drip onto his feet while he trudged past catapults that bucked like the devil’s own drumline, hurling massive stones against walls that only shrugged off the affront.

  Demetrius ducked from one screen to the next, calling many of the soldiers by name. In these weeks in their company he had enjoyed more than a few friendly cups by their campfires while regaling them with wild stories of Eastern mystics who lived atop stone pillars in the desert, or of missionaries trekki
ng the frozen north to bring the Gospel to distant heathens.

  “Demetrius!” Roland deposited his wounded trooper at the surgeon’s bustling tent and chased after the Greek.

  The ambassador stopped and waited for him to catch up, a neutral look spreading across his usually congenial face.

  “I’m sorry to keep asking, my friend,” Roland said, wiping the sweat and blood from his face with the back of his hand. “But I must know—will they help us?”

  Demetrius chewed his lip, averting his eyes toward the city that had defied wave after wave of assaults—a city that held no allies within it to throw open the gates. Most of those who would aid them lay smoldering in trenches inside the walls, the smoke still a smudge against the blue sky.

  “You know I have no instructions from my government on this,” he said. “John and Leo bear knowledge vital to the security of the empire. Our navies keep the sea-lanes free for Christian commerce, and the knowledge they possess is critical to that effort. It is the empire’s single best advantage. If our enemies gained access to that secret—well, the commandeering of our trade routes could lead to the fall of Constantinople itself.”

  “Of course,” Roland said. “I freely give you my word that the secret will remain their own. But as Saint Michael is my witness, it serves neither Francia nor Constantinople to see our armies broken before this city.”

  Demetrius rubbed at his chin and finally nodded. “Then I suggest you ask them to make the weapon, for they operate under neither your command nor mine.”

  A simple weathered canvas stretched between two poles constituted the tent billeting the Greek prisoners since their rescue. Roland opened the flap. Inside, Leo and John stretched across their blankets, devouring hard biscuits and tough chunks of meat. Occasionally they paused to converse softly in their native Greek.

  “Oh, come in.” Leo shifted to Latin, his words faltering but clear.

  Roland threw the flap up over the roof and ducked inside. The sunlight streamed into the tent behind him, and the men threw pale hands before their faces.