The Legend of Broken

by Caleb Carr

  “can only be the Halap-stahla” Gibbon writes, “Again, the peculiar formulation of the names of the rites of punishment and execution in Broken frustrate almost every attempt we can make to determine their origins. Whether the Halap in Halap-stahla has any basis in some early Germanic variation of halbe, itself a variation, in certain German dialects, of halb, or ‘half,’ or if it is derived from the Gothic halba, which shares the same meaning, or from some other term entirely undiscovered, we cannot answer with certainty—although it seems at least possible, given the ‘halving’ nature of the mutilation.”

  warriors will meet once more Gibbon writes, “In stating that many if not most of the tribes of the region surrounding Broken shared the faith that fallen warriors went on, in the afterlife, to a great hall where perpetual carousing and other indulgences were on offer, Arnem (and the tale’s narrator) spoke more truly—and presciently—than they likely knew, for it was not merely, or even especially, in Germany that this belief had taken root, by this time, and would become elaborated in centuries to come: Most schoolboys of our day are familiar with Valhalla, the Norse version of this myth; but, in truth, the idea pervaded many northern European ‘barbarian’ faiths, and not a few Eastern tribes, as well. On the other hand, there were also warrior cultures of the time that had little or no faith in an afterlife (for one example, consult the Beowulf Manuscript acquired several decades ago from Sir Robert Cotton during the founding of the British Museum), and which therefore placed all the more emphasis on a man’s achievements in this life, thinking that such was the only way to keep one’s name and spirit alive after death.”

  the feet of which During this period, it was common for European working classes to wear cloth pants that extended all the way down to encase even the toes, much like modern-day children’s pajamas with “feet,” to which these older garments have often been compared. Such covering obviated the need for “foot stockings,” or socks, but were often more vulnerable to wear and tear. —C.C.

  “the Lord God of the Lumun-jani” Gibbon writes, “This is the first ambiguous reference to Christianity in the text. By the seventh or eighth century, nearly all the barbarian tribes, with the exceptions of a few small clans in discrete domains [including, evidently, Broken], had adopted what was by then the long-established state religion of Rome; and, as at least a few of the Bane must have come into contact with missionaries of that faith and other representatives of Rome—probably during their trading sessions in the Broken town of Daurawah—we can reasonably conclude that both Broken’s subjects and the Bane knew the general story of Jesus Christ, including the crucifixion, which is the subject of the Bane forager’s allusion, here.” Stated more graphically than Gibbon was apparently willing to do, we can assume that Heldo-Bah is declaring that Welferek’s being pinned to a tree with knives in a vaguely outstretched position resembles the most infamous ritual punishment inflicted on so many slaves and criminals by the Roman Empire. This underscores the point of how fluid the religious situation during the Barbarian Age was: as Gibbon says, Heldo-Bah would have been most likely to come across a crucifix in the Broken trading center of Daurawah, which the narrator has already spoken of his having visited. The fact that Gibbon let this remark go with only an explanatory comment was almost certainly a fruitless effort to keep Burke from reacting to the story in precisely the manner that he ultimately did. —C.C.

  patterns of profound complexity Again, we tend, today, to take the many uses that glass serves for granted; but if we remember that most of the tribes and kingdoms surrounding Broken had either lost the ability to create window glass, or, as in the case of nomadic tribes like the Huns, had never had any need for it, we can begin to get an idea of how little the narrator is exaggerating, here: light, in its various forms, was more than simply a source of illumination, during the period of Broken’s existence, and could, when cleverly manipulated, inspire faith in one’s deity and confidence in the wisdom of one’s leaders. Oxmontrot would indeed have seen this process at work (in a number of ways) if he had been a mercenary in the employ of both the western and the eastern parts of the Roman Empire; and it is small wonder that he would have placed such emphasis on preserving and advancing the art of glassmaking in the kingdom that he founded. —C.C.

  a marble initiation font Gibbon writes, “The use of the words ‘marble initiation font’ may be taken by Christians less informed than yourself [that is, than Edmund Burke] as ‘proof’ that the Kafran religion was nothing more than a polluted form of their own faith; and, of course, certain similarities do exist. But, they are minor; and the more important aspect of the Kafrans’ use of ‘fonts’ and ‘altars’ is its reinforcement of the fact that, among the barbarian tribes of Europe during the Dark Ages, religion was in a state of near-constant turmoil and adaptation, a condition that saw Christians borrowing rites, holy days, and customs from pagans—and, more to the point (although far less popularly recognized), pagans doing the same with regard to Christianity. Thus, we can no more cite the existence of an ‘initiation font’ within the High Temple of Kafra as evidence of Christian influence than we can say that the original baptismal practices of early Christians were adapted from the ‘blood-baptisms’ of more than a few barbarian tribes, at least some of which took place in just such fonts and receptacles, which were often located in temples.” Gibbon, although attempting again to be tactful, cannot entirely suppress his own passionate feelings on the subject. Still, given his personal agnosticism and Edmund Burke’s repeated and public defenses of the Christian faith (even, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, of Catholic Christianity), the above statement is an admirable if unsuccessful attempt at restraint. —C.C.

  A small, circular piece of brass It should surprise no one to learn that the metalworkers of Broken, as well as those of the Bane, were capable of producing such alloys as brass, bronze, and steel (although the Bane were, of course, laboring with far less advanced equipment than was available in Broken, and therefore were unable, up to the time of these events, to achieve the kind of alloys that were available to their enemies). The mountains of the area, as has been noted several times, are rich in all the ores necessary to produce these important materials, or rather, they were, at the time: again, the originally plentiful deposits were exhausted relatively early in the Industrial Age. —C.C.

  “Atta Pass” Gibbon would have been unable to do more than guess at the full meaning of this name, which is perhaps why it goes unnoted by him. Now, however, we can reliably translate atta as one of many Gothic terms for “father,” this one in the sense of “forefather”—but it may also have been intended, in the case of such an important and deadly physical location as this mountain pass, to carry a religious interpretation; and, while any reference to a masculine deity may at first make us think of Kafra, the state of religious flux that dominated Europe (even, to some extent, in and around Broken) at the time poses intriguing alternative interpretations, and suggestions of the Christian “Father” who is more familiar to us today—and whose faith was spreading throughout the Germanic tribes. —C.C.

  “dwarfish exiles” Obviously, given the repeated explanations of the Bane’s height as having not been, in the main, a result of dwarfism, references on the part of anyone in Broken—especially Lord Baster-kin—to “misshapen dwarves” must be taken as a slur. They also offer consistent reinforcement of the fact that the Bane were not de facto dwarves, at least in the main: had they been, “dwarf-ish” would hardly have been such a common insult used in reference to them. We return, then, to the notion of “miniature” human beings, as well as the more likely question of genetic adaptation. —C.C.

  “the Varisians … with their longboats” Gibbon writes, “Once again, we must consider the words Frankesh and Varisian to be, like Torganian, mere phonetic approximations: the first for ‘Franks,’ or more precisely, the ‘Frankish,’ tribes who, as I have said, may already have driven the Torganians (‘Thuringians’) from the region south of Broken. Varisian, mea
nwhile, is clearly another such approximation, this one for ‘Frisian,’ a northern tribe notorious for their sea and river raiding.”

  “our enemies” It is important to understand that this discussion of torture, while it may seem anachronistic, is anything but, if one understands the history of warfare in any sort of detail. The torture of enemy combatants and noncombatants, and the question of whether any useful information gleaned by such methods outweighs the risk to the soldiers and people of the torturing side, is hardly unique to our own era: it is, in fact, at least as old as the Roman Empire, where it was debated in much the same fashion as it is today. The arguments have resurfaced regularly throughout Western history ever since; and we should therefore not be surprised to find it cropping up in these pages. Indeed, Gibbon himself is so familiar with it, apparently, that he does not even deem it worthy of mention. —C.C.

  the Lenthess-steyn Gibbon writes: “I must repeat, would that we had sufficient knowledge of the Broken dialect to comprehend the meaning of every phrase, particularly some of the most obscure yet revealing. One such is this place where the healers among the Bane, who appear to have been skilled in the use of herbs and the extracts of forest plants, did their noble and comforting work, and also, apparently, achieved advances in the knowledge of anatomy that religious superstition prevented in more ‘advanced’ societies and tribes—Galen himself [the father of Roman and, many believe, Western medicine] would have envied their freedom, in this regard!” Gibbon’s frustration over the lack of a precise translation perhaps prevented him from reasoning out the strange but appropriate meaning of the title of these caves. The phrase Lenthess-steyn can be pieced together from Gothic, Old High German, and Middle German (the usual mixture of the Broken dialect in its later phases): it seems to translate as “the Soft Stones,” implying caves in which the aged, the ill, or the wounded either recovered or had their journey to the Lunar afterlife eased, or “softened.”—C.C.

  effective in battle Before proceeding with any detailed discussion of the armor, helmets, and swords employed by the Bane and the army of Broken, one scholarly fact (best argued by Ewart Oakeshott in his Dark Age Warrior) must be reiterated, particularly regarding this region of northern Europe during the period under consideration: there are no definitive sources on the subject of just what “Dark Age warriors” employed for armor and helmets (and precious little concerning their manufacture and use of swords), and we must therefore judge largely by what we read in individual accounts—of which the Broken Manuscript is one of the most elaborate. Hence, we can infer, in this instance, that the presence of scale armor among the Bane is further evidence that Oxmontrot likely fought for the Roman armies of the eastern empire, as well as the western, since such “scale mail” was preferred by the formidable Byzantine (or Eastern Roman) armies. However, while the armorers of Broken appear to have been able to reproduce effective examples of this alternative to chain mail (an alternative that offered greater protection but limited range of motion), the Bane were apparently less able to do so. They likely had some quality examples (captured or stolen from Broken soldiers), but, as the narrator says, their craftsmen simply could not yet work in such detail, largely because of the quality of their iron—which, although about to improve, limited them to merely a few such suits, probably used more often for show than for combat. —C.C.

  the iron itself Again, the Bane were not, at this point, able to produce steel of a high enough grade to make the manufacture of truly quality blades and helmets possible, although they would soon gain the capacity to do so. This subject will be discussed in greater detail later in the story itself, but it does not spoil that story—and, more important, it is necessary—to note here that their swords were either of low-carbon steel, or steel laminated onto simple iron cores, as was common in barbarian Europe. Their helmets, meanwhile, were based very generally on those of the Broken army, which appear to have been within the family of Germanic adaptations of Roman helmets (and known collectively, as has already been discussed, as the Spangenhelm design) which included roughly conical or rounded helmets onto which were riveted or welded segments to cover the nose, cheeks, and sometimes the lower neck. The hinges in such designs were almost universally leather, save in the case of the highest-ranking soldiers, who could afford metal hinges. Without the latter two features, the Bane would have been left with something closer to the Norman helmet, a simple one-piece, conical design with a fixed nose guard as an organic extension, not a component: a sound enough protection, if the steel was of sufficient grade, which the Bane’s was not—a condition that was, again, about to be altered. —C.C.

  “Ashkatar” Here is a name that appears to have vanished completely, along with the society that gave it birth; and the best estimates of those experts consulted is that Ashkatar was an approximation, in the Broken dialect, of some altered or corrupted form of Augustus, the imperial name of Octavian Caesar, the famed architect of the Roman Empire during the bridging of the B.C. and A.D. eras. If so, this would indicate that Ashkatar’s ancestors had once been people of importance, perhaps quite close to Oxmontrot, for it would have been the Mad King and his fellow mercenaries who would have heard the story of Augustus during their years of campaigning for Rome. —C.C.

  twelve-year-old Dalin The collection goes seemingly unnoticed by Gibbon, in all likelihood because they only offered him more frustration. Even today, one remains obscure: Dalin, which may or may not be some dialectal interpretation of the Gothic term for “share,” and may have been given to the boy at his mother’s urging precisely because of the child’s remarkable physical (and, apparently, behavioral) resemblance to his father, even at birth. We can be more sure, however, that the remaining names reflect either a general trend toward modern Germanic names in the kingdom of Broken, or a conscious effort by Sixt to emphasize his own heritage over Isadora’s apparently Gothic background (the Gothic tribes were, of course, “Germanic” in the broad barbarian and early medieval sense of the word, whereas “modern Germanic names” refers to those appellations belonging quite distinctly to the languages and dialects that would one day meld to form modern German): Anje is a variation of Anna, Dagobert a fairly common medieval combination of the terms for “good” and “gleaming” (and the name of one of the great Merovingian Frankish kings, just before the period during which the Manuscript’s tale is almost certainly set, and possibly, therefore, borrowed by the worldly Arnem from those same Franks), while Gelie is a derivative of Angelika. The remaining name, Golo, seems to be some kind of variation on or nickname for “Gottfried.” It is still in use—as, indeed, are many of these names, in some form or another—but Dalin remains a riddle without a definite solution. —C.C.

  two large, crow-like birds of Isadora’s clasp, Gibbon writes, “Without doubt, we are faced, here, with a representation of Odin, patriarch (or ‘All-father’) of the Norse gods, who traded one of his eyes for wisdom, and was attended by two ravens, one representing Thought, the other Memory. What is of particular interest is the fact that, while we now think of this mythology as quaint, it was quite vibrant, during the period that Broken existed, and was such a threat to the Kafran faith (as it was to monotheism generally) that those who worshipped the Norse gods were declared to be, not wayward primitives, but doomed heretics, in Broken—just as they were by the early Christian church.” Once again, Gibbon reveals his fascination with other-than-Christian faiths, although worship of the Norse gods can hardly have been considered a “cult” or “mystery” religion—whereas (ironically) the Kafran faith does indeed fit the mold of either a cult or one of what are known as the “mystery faiths”. —C.C.

  “Nuen” The name of the Arnem children’s nurse and, later, governess is ignored by Gibbon, scholarly works on Eastern history and culture being relatively few, in his time, and many if not most of those relying on the work of ancient historians. Presuming Nuen to be an ancestor of the modern Nuan—which, in Chinese, is intended to connote warmth and geniality—may seem a logical con
clusion, save that the connection between the Huns (almost certainly the people from whom this woman emerged) and the Chinese has long since been effectively dismissed; and even the Huns’ relation to the Xiongnu (or, in the older form, the Hsiung-nu), a tribe of nomads that occupied northern and northeastern Asia (an area that included much of Manchuria, Mongolia, and the Chinese province of Xinjiang) and may have given rise to some of the similarly restless peoples that sprang out of those regions, is a relationship that, while once considered likely, has recently come to be deeply questioned and in some cases dismissed. Thus the Chinese background of the name is unlikely, but we have few theories to take its place; and so we are forced, like Gibbon, to simply accept the name—although with greater, if therefore more frustrating, awareness of just why we must. —C.C.

  breck Further evidence, if any is needed, that Isadora’s ancestors were indeed Goths who interbred, over time, with other, “newer” Germanic tribes: the word that we know as “brook” winds its way back through most of the related languages of the region—German, Dutch, Middle English, and Old English—until its earliest ancestor is found in the Gothic brukjan. The diminishment of the Gothic influence, added to the Old High German vowel shift and the few peculiarities of the Broken dialect that we can speak of with confidence, more than explain the specific form encountered here. —C.C.

  Gisa The name of Isadora’s guardian and teacher, the woman who raised her following the robbery and murder of her parents, is another tantalizing clue to the pattern of religious and social evolution in both Broken and northern Germany generally: although identified as an Old High German name, Gisa’s precise meaning has been lost. We can, however, fairly safely assume both that it was a shortened form of the Germanic Gisela, which connotes both “hostage” and “tribute,” and that it was therefore probably not her original name. Thus, given her activities, was this woman of Nordic extraction perhaps sold into servitude in Broken after being taken as a slave by some unknown armed force or band? And, if she was indeed a “hostage,” was she a person of some importance in her northern homeland? Many such hostages during this era (as today, in parts of the developing world) were never redeemed—a fact that would explain both her bitterness and her indoctrination of Isadora into what was, in Broken, considered a heretical cult, but which was already an established religion in the region, and perhaps a major one; certainly, it was one that would undergo an enormous revival when it was reasserted by the Nordic tribes, many of which blended it with various interpretations and narrative chapters of Christianity. —C.C.