Anvil of Fate (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  “Unfortunately, the site migrated north after the Assassins found a way to spare Lambert, and very near the Abbey here. Abdul Rahman did not approach via the old Roman road. So if you shifted there you would have seen nothing of interest. But all that has changed again after your intervention! At least that is what I am told through messages we have received in recent weeks. The battle will now be fought at Moussais, just south of this place on the road to Poitiers, on the eve of Ramadan, as our historians agree. If Mr. Dorland were to go and have a look now he would be right on target. Your interventions haven’t resolved the issue entirely yet, but you’ve given it a firm nudge in the right direction.” He smiled. “Anything that keeps those heathens from these hallowed walls is a most welcome reprieve. But what you have told me is very enlightening… Those who drink the wind? I don’t understand. What do you make of it?”

  “Arabian horses,” said Nordhausen, “or at least a generic reference to horses. Note these three recurring symbols…” He explained the function of a cartouche, the indication of the name Kuhaylan with its meaning as one of the five primary breeds of Arabian horses.

  The Abbot thought hard for a time, clearly impressed by the new information he was receiving. “And this last line?”

  “It reads: ‘For the unseen one that comes in the dusk shall unseat all....” Robert concluded, folding his arms. “Given the earlier references to horses, I thought that might refer to Dodo on the night he was to kill the Bishop Lambert. Then I came to believe it was a reference to Maeve, riding at dusk to secure that steed and make her intervention, or even to Paul sneaking in to deal with Grimwald.”

  “Steed? Our researchers do not mention this.”

  “We made some assumptions,” said Robert. “Call them educated guesses, but they seemed reasonable at the time. The Chronicles placed Dodo at a banquet in a citadel on the day he was to murder Lambert at his villa in Leodium. We reasoned that citadel had to be at Heristal.”

  “Heristal? Well, it has been reinforced in places, but there are no real substantial fortifications there that could deter any determined assault. But that aside, your assumption was correct. The Lady Alpaida was holding forth there that year, and we had Agents in Place listening in on that banquet, but we were comforted that Dodo was determined to avenge the wrongs against his family. Oh, a whisper here and a rumor there helped in that. Stirring the pot, as it were.”

  “Well,” the professor went on, “we asked ourselves how the other side could deter Dodo and fixated on a line from an Arabic source about a mishap he had on the road. Our thought was that he was injured in a fall from a horse—a willful beast described in that chronicle. It was said this horse could be known by his eye, and the fire of his hooves, and Maeve believe this referred to this particular breed of Arabian horse. Since the hieroglyphics mention the name Kuhaylan in places,“ he pointed, “we went looking for that horse.”

  “Ingenious!” said the Abbot, “But Dodo’s mishap was that his horse came up lame on the road and he was delayed—at least before Ms. Lindford made her intervention. If your source was Arabic, all the rest of that story was probably fabricated by the writer, a fable to cast mythic light on the event, or possibly even deliberate disinformation seeded in the history by the other side. We believe the Assassins had something to do with enfeebling that horse, however, but that doesn’t make for much of a tale.”

  “Well we assumed he would look for another mount,” said Nordhausen. “And we thought this temperamental Arabian might fill the bill nicely, suspiciously planted at a roadside farm by our adversaries, and the loose twine mentioned on the stela would be the rein on that horse.”

  “Splendid!” said the Abbot, “but we scoured that road for any sign of mischief, and could not seem to locate anything that could possibly become a viable Pushpoint. We did suspect something was amiss on one of the farms near Lambert’s Villa. There was an uncharacteristic gathering of horses there, and we could not see that the farmer had sufficient wealth to afford them. Perhaps they were trying to round up anything Dodo could have secured as an alternate mount. As it reads now, Dodo did manage to find another horse. It was a simple solution for us. We just put a man on that road with a horse for him, and got him merrily on his way again. As a counter operation, our adversaries were planning to warn Lambert directly, and bring him fresh horses to make good his escape. That was risky, but it would have worked if not for Ms. Linford.”

  “Yes, it seems we were wrong about Dodo,” said Robert. “Mr. Dorland and I returned to check on variations and could see no significant change after Maeve secured the horse in question. The push point wasn’t there… and so the meaning of that last line still escapes me… For the unseen one that comes in the dusk shall unseat all.... We thought this might refer to Dodo, coming to Lambert’s villa after dark that night, yet apparently not.”

  The Abbott’s eyes were grave, but a light of excitement flickered in them, and he smiled. “Those who drink the wind… You say this is a reference to horses? Cavalry! Could this be so?”

  “Yes,” said Nordhausen, “we made that correlation as well, but considered it no more than an admonishment to Abdul Rahman to keep a firm hold on his horsemen.”

  “Such advice may be sound,” said the Abbot, “but Abdul Rahman will not be reading the rubbing here before us, even if he had knowledge of this writing. It was meant for the eyes of the Assassins, our enemies operating here in this milieu. It was great good fortune that we were able to secure it. So if guidance of this nature is to have any bearing on the outcome, it would have to mean the Assassins have a man placed very close to Abdul Rahman—an advisor perhaps.”

  A sudden thought came to Nordhausen and he raised a finger. “No!” he beamed with excitement now. “Not his horsemen! It had to be the Frankish cavalry. Yes, it makes perfect sense now. Perfect sense!”

  “I beg your pardon?” The Abbot was obviously eager to learn what the professor was thinking.

  “I’m sorry,” Robert apologized. “But don’t you know the history? You don’t know what happened in this battle?”asked Nordhausen.

  “Well…” The Abbot looked at him, hesitating, considering something before he spoke. “You may as well know,” he breathed. “We’ve lost communication with our primary Arch facility in the future. The messages we’ve been receiving of late have come from our hidden site, and they do not have a complete record of events there. The last message we received was very cryptic, and obviously written in great haste. It contained just two words, the last heavily underlined—not Charles, it read.” He reached into his pocket and showed the professor the message, scrawled in a very loose hand on old parchment. “Now what do you make of that?”

  “Of course!” Robert’s eyes widened as he recalled all Paul had told him of this battle and fragments of the research began to assemble to an image in his mind.

  “Well I can tell you what happens—or at least what’s supposed to happen on the Prime Meridian.”

  He immediately had the Abbot’s undivided attention. “Do go on, dear professor,” he said.

  “We thought it all had to do with Charles as well, the Hammer of God, eh? That’s what all the interventions were aimed at, weren’t they? The Assassins were trying to prevent the ascension of Charles as Mayor of the Palace. That’s why they wanted to spare Lambert and Grimwald,” he smiled.

  “Well, now here’s a perfect illustration of the fact that history is written by the victors. Good old Charles Martel, the Hammer. Oh, he hammered upon his foes relentlessly, there’s no question about that. But the moniker is a bit of a misnomer when it comes to this battle as I see it now. He was more the anvil here than the hammer. The core of his most hardened soldiery stood as an implacable phalanx of steel behind their shieldwall, and it was Abdul Rahman who was hammering, all the long day against that anvil of fate. And his heavy cavalry were going to eventually break through, on this day or on the morrow. Our Mr. Dorland is certain of that. Charles commanded the infantry…” his eyes seemed
to be searching as he spoke, looking for bits and pieces in narratives of old books that had come down through the ages, books that he doted over and loved so very much. And from the vault of his memory a line emerged, rearing up like a wayward stallion.

  “…With Christ’s help he overturned their tents!”

  The Abbot looked at him, a question in his eyes.

  “Well…” said Robert, smiling broadly as he looked at the hieroglyphics on the rubbing. “I think I know what happened now.”

  Chapter 26

  The Duke Odo of Aquitaine ~ The year 732

  Odo clasped his hands over bloodied ears and lamented the wail of those unfortunate enough to remain in the city. Bordeaux was on fire this night, for brave though they were, his men could not hold back the Saracen horde that now came pouring over the high mountains to the south, a raging tide of Islam.

  It was the second time they had come. Years ago, he faced the Moors alone when they had crossed the high passes in the east and invaded his lands, stubbornly fighting for his honor and the homesteads his family had held for decades past. The Ishmaelites first came to Toulouse in the year 721, laboring over the mountains and coming to Septimania, where they held the city of Narbonne as stronghold on the Mediterranean coast. Then up the road through Carcassonne they came, burning and looting every farm and town, and drawing behind them their massive engines of war. For this was holy Jihad, the coming of Islam in earnest to all the lands now held by a loose confederation of squabbling tribes and clans living in the shadow of the old Roman empire.

  To the north, in Neustria, the New Lands, the Franks quarreled over the succession of Pippin, lately dead in the year 714. Charles the Bastard struggled to usurp the throne, while Pippin’s cunning widow, Plectrude, schemed to forestall him and seat instead her grandson Theodwald. To the east, in the land called Austrasia, the lords of many tribes became embroiled in this battle. And while they quarreled with one another the menace of Islam reared up like a great wave, casting its dark shadow over the mountains to the south. They were a fearsome race, Arabs, Berbers, Saracens, Moors, yet the empire they had forged now stretched from old Persia through the lands of the Turks, the Levant, old Egypt and all across north Africa. In the year 711 they had crossed the Straits of Gibraltar on borrowed ships and, in seven short years, had thrown down Roderick and destroyed the Visigothic Christian Kingdom of Hispania. Now, as they came over the mountains in force, they rode upon steeds of incomparable virtue, their warriors heavily armored, their banners snapping proudly in the wind. Against this leading edge of fearsome strength and power, the ragged bands and tribes of Gaul seemed primitive by comparison.

  Odo held sway in Aquitaine, on the land of his ancestors, and it was his to feel the first blow of the enemy, here at Toulouse. When he first gazed upon the throng of enemy soldiers packed tightly among their siege engines, their horses chafing in the dim, smoky twilight, he could not imagine how he could possibly prevail against such a host. But the enemy had been heedless and full of pride. They had foolishly come between the city and the River Garonne, thinking the strength of the land was fast behind the walls of Toulouse. But Odo had come down from Aquitaine, with every sword and horseman he could gather, and with stealth and guile he sought to strike at the enemy where they were tightly massed in that narrow place.

  Fortune was with him that day! Heavily mustered before the battlements of the city, intent to hammer upon the walls with their mighty siege engines, they were taken by surprise when Odo’s wild horsemen came riding, wielding long swords and axes soon wet with the blood of the enemy. A panic ensued, and thousands of the Saracens died, trampled by their own horsemen in the close quarters between the river and the city. The heavy armored cavalry of the Moors, a marvel to behold, could not form or maneuver, and Odo cut through the ranks of Saracen infantry like a scythe, carrying all before him. As they routed, they carried away the heavy horse of the enemy with them in a great panic.

  The victory he won that day was never sung in the odes and chronicles of the wise, he brooded. It was he who had dared to strike the Ishmaelites, and turn back the invading horde. It was he who had spared the lands the wrath of Islam, though his name was never sung.

  But he cared not for glory. He did not fight for the quarrelsome northmen of Neustria and Austrasia. He did not fight for Christendom, nor for popes clinging to the Holy See in Italy, nor for any notion that his was a culture and a way of life that must surely be preserved. Quite the contrary. The existence his people endured in the dark age that had befallen the West after Rome fell, was far inferior to the splendid and opulent reach of the Umayyad empire. No, Odo fought only for his honor, his family, his brothers and sons, and the land he would stubbornly defend against all comers, Aquitaine.

  His victory had won him a measure of peace, but soon the contentious lords of Neustria had ended their quarrel with the ascension of the Bastard Charles as Mayor of the Palace. Now they came to his land, thinking to bring it under their thumb as well, and though Odo was better endowed with brawn than wit, he nonetheless could see in these incursions the harbinger of his own doom. How could he stand watch on his southern borders, wary of the Moors, while his strength was also drawn into conflict with Neustria to the north?

  So it was that he schemed to make a truce, in the manner in which warring kingdoms so often reached accommodation. While the Caliph in Hispania sat in the opulence of Cordoba, his far flung Emirs were headstrong, much like Odo himself. To one of these men, Manuza, he gave his daughter in marriage, unmindful of the lamentations of priests, saints and clerics who condemned the marriage as an unholy alliance with the minions of Satan. It may have been such, but Odo was only concerned with his own wellbeing, and that of his family. The marriage promised to neutralize his foe to the south, and more, to create a new alliance in the middle ground between Neustria and Hispania. But when Abdul Rahman came to the Caliphate in Cordoba, he soon plotted to unweave the fabric of Odo’s cloth, and the loose twine which he pulled upon was Manuza.

  In the year 731, when the upstart usurper Charles came to Odo’s lands to subdue him, the brawny chieftain rightfully called upon his in-laws to the south to come to his aid, but Manuza was said to be taken with a fit, fearful of the power and guile of Abdul Rahman, and in short order, Manuza was dead.

  Odo stood alone against the assembled might of Charles, who had come in anger, bent on breaking Odo’s alliance with the Moors. In this Abdul Rahman was his unknowing ally. By striking down Manuza, Odo was isolated and defeated by Charles. He was soon a gelded and embittered warlord who suffered the humiliation of being forced to kneel before the Neustrian Mayor, and ignominiously pledge his fealty.

  So it was that his strength was bled white by Charles, though Odo festered and chafed at the reins the Mayor had bridled him with. He remained a willful and unruly beast, secretly plotting to regain his independence and find yet another way to free himself from Charles domination.

  The following summer, however, Odo’s greatest nemesis returned, only this time the Saracen horde took the westernmost passes over the mountains, surprising Odo, who had gathered his army to watch the eastern passes, and the Road to Toulouse, where Manuza had once held them safe as his ally and father-in-law. Through Bayonne they came, then up through Dax to Bordeaux. It was here, again on the River Garonne, that Odo sought to stay their advance. Years ago, he had righteously spilled the blood of the Saracens where this same river flowed east to Toulouse. Now he sought to hold the line again here in the west at Bordeaux, only this time the foe he faced was beyond his strength to impede.

  Abdul Rahman had come with a mighty host. All the Emirs of Andalus had joined with him, and his hardened legion of swarthy Saracens swept all before them. Odo formed his men on the banks of the river, their shieldwall at the water’s edge where the enemy sought to cross. He fought as Charles had done when he bested Odo the previous year. So Odo, weakened and with no means of matching the marvelous Moorish cavalry, had stood like an anvil on the River Garonn
e, and he was hammered to near death by the fierce might of Abdul Rahman. So great was the slaughter of his loyals, that the river was said to run red with the blood of Odo’s men for days after, and none could count the dead.

  Barely escaping, with only his chosen comitatus guards at hand, Odo fled to a low hill overlooking Bordeaux, his eye and ears bloodied by the hacking swords of his enemy. There, wounded but alive, he listened to the wail of Bordeaux as it burned in the night, and he wept.

  It was a miracle that Odo escaped at all that night. Unhorsed, with few retainers left to guard him, he made his way on foot through the dusky woods, hoping to confound pursuit by hiding himself in the forest. A pack of wolves took up the scent of his blood, and they stalked him warily as he labored up the hill and into a glen where he came upon a small farm site.

  There, tethered to a post, he found an old plow horse, a pale stallion that was near the end of life, as Odo was himself. The horse shied away when Odo came, smelling blood and fear. But Odo sang to him, noting the dark circle around the horse’s eye. “Thine eye is bruised and blackened as is mine, he whispered. And we are both old warriors, long past our prime.”

  Odo stroked the short cropped mane of the horse, feeling the strength that still burgeoned in the horses shoulders. “Oh no,” he whispered. “You were never meant for the harness and plow. It was yours to run and roam free!” He untethered the horse, calming the beast as he made ready to mount.

  “Carry me this night,” he breathed. “I beg of you, for these legs can run no further…”

  Odo did not know it then, but the horse he had found was once a young and willful beast, even as he was, and was the very steed Maeve had come upon, 27 long years ago, at a small farm on the road between Heristal and Leodium. Kuhaylan had bolted off into the night when Maeve had dismounted quickly, slapping his hind quarters in farewell. He had run free, for many years thereafter until, in time, he had been caught and harnessed by men again, and driven into service as a war horse. Over the years he had seen many battles, and heard the deep throated cries of many riders, the din of swords falling on many helms. Yet, like all old warriors, he grew weary, his strength slowly ebbing away, and he was put out to pasture, fated to spend the remainder of his days as an old plow horse. Yet this night he was a warrior once again. This night his nostrils flared wide with the smell of fresh blood, and he heard again the jangle of sword and iron studded leather; felt the firm, steady pressure of Odo’s greaves in his flanks.