by Angus Donald
The three of them chorused their assent.
‘In which case, your request is hereby granted,’ said the king. ‘Bishop Livinus’s people will furnish you with a map, coin for your expenses, and whatever equipment and stores you may need. I also desire you to depart on your mission as soon as possible. Now… is there anything else?’
‘No, sire,’ said Bjarki. He was feeling dizzy with sudden relief.
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ said Tor. ‘Whatever happened to old Paulinus?’
It was Livinus who answered her: ‘Father Paulinus has decided that his talents lie in another direction. He has taken up the simple life of a travelling apostle, a missionary, bringing the light of the True Faith to the benighted heathen in Moravia. He will be gone for some years, alas, ministering to the savage pagan hordes. But our loss is surely a gain for the souls of Moravia.’
Chapter Twenty
A night to remember
They travelled by river. Firstly heading upstream, broadly southwards along the River Rhenus, being poled along in a flat-bottomed barge. The weather was inclement and a constant drizzle made sitting in the open barge a trial.
Bjarki shivered and snuggled further into his furs. His buttocks ached from sitting on the pine boards for so many hours, but he did not want to rise from what little warmth he had managed to gather in his wet furs and find some padding for his behind. Captain Otto had succumbed to a cold and was sweating and moaning in a swaddle of blankets in the cabin near the stern.
Tor was standing erect at the prow of the boat, clad in leather breeches, boots and jerkin and with a fine green woollen travelling cloak around her narrow shoulders, which along with new weapons – a good sword apiece and several hand axes, some money and a good deal of dry stores – had been provided by Livinus. She discovered that she never tired of watching the steeply wooded hills of Francia drift by on the eastern side of the barge.
To the south, beyond a range of hills, were the uplands of Swabia, one of the first provinces to have been conquered by the Franks and joined to their heartlands of Austrasia and Neustria more than two hundred years ago.
It was the third day of travel and her mood had steadily improved since they had left the confines of the longhouse and the city of Aachen. She was now almost joyful and relished the feeling of motion, even at the snail’s pace produced by the two powerful pole-men, heaving away at either ends of the narrow barge. She couldn’t contain a swelling sense of escape from danger combined with the pleasurable promise of novelty and fresh adventures ahead.
Bjarki was not nearly so content. He was bored and uncomfortable. He was also perturbed by the sudden change in attitude in Karolus. The king, once so open and friendly, had seemed cold and distant at the audience in the council hall and had not summoned Bjarki for a farewell conversation, nor sent him any kind of message of encouragement, before their departure. The great man was doubtless very busy ruling the world, of course, but Bjarki could not help but feel that he had been slighted. Summarily dismissed.
On the morning of the fourth day, Captain Otto threw off his head cold and his warm sleeping blankets, rose before dawn and tried to persuade Bjarki and Tor to join him in his morning devotions. Tor refused abruptly.
‘We shall all need the help of Almighty God in the task before us,’ said Otto. ‘And the danger of death is not inconsiderable. It would be better for us to be at peace with our Heavenly Father, I would think, just in case…’
Bjarki demurred. He still did not entirely understand this strange new Christian religion. But it seemed to him that he would rather have hammer-wielding Thor on his side in a fight with a monster, or battle-wise Odin, than the new god he had been introduced to so recently. The stories he had heard about Jesus seemed to be about avoiding violence, turning the other cheek.
But he was curious, and he did not wish to offend the little man, so he sat quietly next to Otto as the captain knelt on the gunwale lifted his voice in prayer. ‘Pater noster,’ chanted Otto as the red lip of the sun peeked over the distant mountains, ‘qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…’
When he had finished his prayers, Bjarki watched Captain Otto closely. The man seemed serene as he washed his hands and face and went into the small cabin aft to have his breakfast. Otto even seemed to have a soft inner glow about him that reminded Bjarki of the Mikelgothi praying in the Groves.
* * *
It took them five long, boring days to reach the top of the River Rhenus, whereupon the three of them hired a mule at the Frankish town of Strasburg, packed up their gear, and set off across high country on rough muddy tracks, heading southeast for the village of Esginga, high in the hills that loomed above them. Esginga was on one of the headwaters of the mighty Donau – the very long river that would take them all the way east to Regensburg.
Three days of brisk walking in the fresh mountain air, beside the over-laden mule, appeared to be a tonic for Otto, who seemed filled with cheerful energy and regaled them with many tales of the royal progress he’d taken part in under Pepin the Short as a youthful new recruit to the Auxilla.
‘It was a very different scara, back in those days,’ he said as they laboured up a steep zig-zagging stretch of rough road; the blue sky crowned by snowy peaks far to the south. ‘Truly elite. Captain Marcellus was in charge then, and he was a right tartar. He’s a count in eastern Neustria now, of course, and an old man. But he was a fearsome fellow when I first joined the Auxilla. And we had over a hundred troopers on the strength then. Parade every morning at dawn, and God help you if you weren’t as neat as a pin, with your arms and armour polished and shining like a mirror.’
Apparently unaware of the damning comparison he was drawing with the condition of his own Auxilla, Captain Otto continued: ‘And the progress itself was a sight to see. The king took five whole scarae with him on the march – fifteen hundred men, not counting the Auxilla – four scarae of Red Cloaks, and one of his black-cloaked Scholares. It was a show of strength, you see, he was showing the provinces that he was a man to be respected, even feared – that’s always the problem for Frankish kings, the far-flung territories get ideas above their station, start thinking they could do much better on their own. And in those days, Thuringia was only half-pacified, a new acquisition, the western part wrested only a few months earlier from the Moravian clans after several hard-fought battles on the marches. That’s why Pepin brought so many men with him. To overawe the rebellious locals.’
‘How many men does he have in total,’ asked Bjarki. ‘Does anyone know?’
‘Of course someone knows. The king’s chancellor is responsible for every soldier in the army, the clerks of the royal household under him arrange pay and rations for the whole lot, and keep records for every single trooper. There are twenty-eight scarae in all – but only a few of them are in Aachen, most are scattered in garrisons all across Francia from Aquitaine to Thuringia, from the warm vineyards of Gascony to chilly shores of Frisia. And, apart from the king’s scarae, every vassal, every duke, bishop and count must bring his liegemen when the bannum is called. Every year there is a great muster – the Marchfeld. Karolus can call on thousands of fighting men from all his many territories, if he chooses. And he’s going to need an awful lot of them in the spring – or whenever he chooses to take on the armies of the powerful Lombard princes on the other side of those Alps.
Otto waved vaguely at the impossibly white peaks to their south.
‘In total, His Majesty has nearly a hundred thousand men he can call on – and that doesn’t count all the clerks and servants and dog’s bodies who toil daily in the palaces, in the cities and in smaller local towns. You might bear that in mind, Bjarki, if you wonder why the king has so little time for you!’
Bjarki was beginning to wish he had kept his mouth shut about his feelings of neglect. The numbers were staggering – a hundred thousand Red Cloaks! The full strength of the North, if every man and woman capable of bearing arms could somehow be mustered, was no more than one
tenth of that. What were he and Tor thinking to challenge such impossible might?
* * *
At Esginga, they engaged the services of a striking river-captain called Master Bohemus, a strapping fellow whose antecedents came to Francia from Libya, with gleaming dark eyes, skin like old leather and a voice that could be heard across the grey waters of the Donau in a thunderstorm. A day later, they found themselves scooting down the wide river in his twenty-foot, clinker-built dragon-ship, the one big square sail drum-taut above them.
Bjarki and Tor conferred under Master Bohemus’s striped awning in the evening after a fine supper of pork stew with bread and fresh butter.
‘In your opinion, Master Bohemus, how long will it take us to get to Regensburg?’ asked Tor. She seemed to have taken a liking to the dark boat captain and was treating him with, for her, an unprecedented level of respect.
‘In this wind? And barring fuck-ups? Three days, maybe less.’
Tor exchanged a glance with Bjarki. This was good news. Captain Otto was already fast asleep on a pile of old sailcloth beside the steering oar.
‘Whisper is you’re hunting the monster of Eggeldorf,’ said Bohemus.
‘How do you know that?’ Bjarki was astonished.
‘Word travels fast on water. Two bold heroes from the North, they said. Folk of unusual powers, they said. Wizards, not to put too fine a point on it. You don’t look much like wizards, to my eye, meaning no offence.’
‘We’re not wizards,’ said Tor. ‘Just ordinary folk with a bit of steel in our spines. That’s all. We aim to make a name for ourselves.’
‘I tug my lock to you, nevertheless,’ said Bohemus. ‘That Eggeldorf creature, whatever it is, has the whole o’ the Donau talking, and the stories get wilder and wilder. Some folk say it can fly. Though that’s news to me.’
‘You’ve seen it?’ Tor sat up straight on her stool. ‘You saw the fiend?’
‘Not I. My cousin Jubal down in Regensburg, he claims he saw it once on the bank, eyes glowing like flame, fangs of steel. Not flying, though.’
Tor subsided a little. ‘What did your kinsman say it looked like?’
‘It was dusk, my cousin said, and all he could make out was a huge black shape, vast, bigger than a small house, and the eyes, glowing like coals in the gloom, and it was feeding on something by the river, a dead body of some kind. It gave a mighty roar when he saw Jubal in his little skiff; my cousin said it shook the Heavens themselves. He just put his craft about and skedaddled for the middle of the stream. The creature didn’t care to swim after him, or so it seems. It didn’t attempt to fly after him neither.’
Bjarki gave Tor a slightly nervous look. ‘So it can’t fly,’ she said, nodding. ‘That’s good. Then it won’t be able to escape from us too easily.’
Regensburg, when they arrived there on the afternoon of the third day, was something of an anticlimax. Otto had informed them that it was the easternmost city of Francia, perched on the northern lip of the independent Duchy of Bavaria, which was ruled by Duke Tassilo, an old ally of Karolus.
Tor remembered Father Livinus telling her that it boasted a royal palace. When they disembarked at the dock on the south side of the river Donau, and bid goodbye to cheery Master Bohemus, Tor craned her neck to look for something as magnificent as Aachen’s council hall and palace complex.
She was disappointed. The walled heart of Regensburg was only about twice the size of the castrum they had fought at in Thursby six months before. A square fortress of sharpened pine logs with high guard towers at the corners and a massive stone building in the centre of its courtyard with a great circular window made of coloured glass high up on the eastern walls.
Admittedly, the castrum or palace or fortress or whatever it was looked like a tough bastion to conquer if the Moravian hordes ever came spilling out of the surrounding forests to attack them. But it was nothing compared to the beauty of Aachen. This was the edge of Karolus’s realm, Tor realised; the frontier, with all the roughness, dirt and danger that the word entailed.
Around the square fortress walls of the so-called palace, the town of Regensburg sprawled outwards along the southern bank of the Donau, on either side of a stone bridge that crossed its wide grey waters and carried a road north, deep into the forests of Thuringia. Eggeldorf and its monster lay about a dozen miles up that unpaved road.
The town was low, squalid, cold and unwelcoming. As they humped their belongings off Bohemus’s craft and on to the slimy wooden quay, predatory eyes watched them intently. A gang of four tough-looking young men in plain tunics, with cropped hair, and all with daggers at their belts, watched them pile their belongings on the platform, occasionally murmuring among themselves but never taking their eyes off the labouring newcomers.
Tor bristled at their unabashed staring.
She dumped the bundle of heavy hunting spears she had been carrying on the wooden deck, loosened the seax in its sheath on her belt, squared her shoulders and… suddenly found Bjarki standing foursquare in her path.
‘They’re doing us no harm,’ he said. ‘Just looking. But, if you like, I’ll go over to them, have a little chat and see if I can find out what they want.’
Bjarki turned and ambled over to the men, a friendly smile on his face.
‘Hail, good citizens,’ he said. ‘We are strangers in this country, new-come to your beautiful town. We mean no disrespect but how would you like to earn a coin? We seek accommodation, if you can recommend a good place – clean, inexpensive – and help in carrying our baggage there.’
The four men looked at Bjarki, looked at the sheer size of him, and at Tor who was standing slightly behind him, leaning on a hunting spear. One of them muttered something unintelligible and all four of them peeled away, slouching off down the road, only one man casting a backward glance at the two figures, one slender, one huge, silhouetted against the river on the quay.
‘They seemed very nice,’ said Tor. ‘I wonder if all the folk hereabouts are as welcoming.’
Although they had letters of introduction that would allow them to demand accommodation inside the walls of the Regensburg fortress, Tor had argued that they should not alert the authorities to their presence in this grim frontier town until they had accomplished their mission. Tor feared that if they engaged with the local commander, he might forbid them to go after the monster of Eggeldorf or, worse, send large numbers of troops to accompany them when they went off to kill the creature and so dilute their glory.
If they were to make a name for themselves, she said, they had to do this alone. There would be plenty of time to feast and drink and accept the admiration of the Regensburg garrison after the matter had been settled satisfactorily. Bjarki agreed with her logic – fewer fighters, more glory – although he privately thought that having a company of heavily armed Red Cloaks to back them up against this foul fiend would not be all that terrible.
Captain Otto, however, was utterly bewildered by their refusal to enter the high walls of Frankish officialdom.
‘We are on a mission for the king himself,’ he said. ‘We would be treated with honour. Why choose, instead, to spend the night in this hole?’
The Red Hart was indeed a hole. To be precise, a shit-hole.
Bjarki had parted with three silver pennies and secured the top room of this ramshackle two-storey inn a hundred yards south of the river, a stone’s throw to the west of the fortress. For that steep price, the landlord also promised to include supper and plenty of freshly brewed ale.
The room they were given smelled strongly of urine, which seemed to be mostly coming from the one huge straw-filled mattress that occupied almost all of the tiny space. One of the previous occupants, Captain Otto observed with a chuckle, seemed to have suffered badly from incontinence.
‘I wouldn’t say suffered from,’ replied Tor, wrinkling her pretty nose. ‘More like revelled in.’
They leaned the soggy mattress up against the wall to dry and decided to bed down after supper on the woode
n floor. They had enough blankets and furs with them to take the worst of the sting out of the bare boards.
‘We all need to get used to sleeping on the hard ground anyway,’ said Otto piously. ‘There won’t be any comfy beds in the deep forest!’
They trooped down the stairs a little while later to the large, smoky, low-ceilinged common room, where a fire was burning in the long central hearth trough. The room held several small tables with stools, one long communal table with long benches, and a wooden counter across one side of the room behind which a beefy maiden bustled with foaming jugs and horns of sweet freshly brewed ale. Tor led them to a table at the back of the room.
The food the landlord brought them was predictably foul – cold, greasy sausages that seemed to be mainly composed of gristle, long-boiled cabbage that smelled like a midden, a loaf of stone-hard bread. But the ale was good.
They ate joylessly, finishing the ale jug quickly and calling for another.
It was a little after sunset and the inn began to fill with folk who had completed their days’ labour and were seeking food and drink before bed.
Tor watched the door idly as it banged open again and again, admitting a gust of rain and wind and the latest weary Regensburger looking for his supper. The customers took their places at tables in the large room and called for the pot boy to bring them sustenance, or stood by the long, wooden counter that ran across the right-hand side of the common room.
One of the men who came in caught her eye. He was middle-sized, with cropped dark hair, and a plain tunic and cloak. His boots, she noted, were heavy and well worn. He was one of the men who had watched them unload their belongings on the quay. He came into the common room, went up to the counter but instead of ordering ale or meat, he turned his back on the server behind the wooden shelf and casually surveyed the whole room.