John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“Why, Charles Martel, of course. The Hammer! He earned that name right here in this battle. Good, old Charles. He established the fiefdom system, trading land for loyalty and pledge of arms, raised a fairly professional army, and he had been squeezing the wealthy church lands and monasteries for money and resources as well. In fact, that’s what brought the Moors north. This was just a raid at first, possibly to avenge their losses of against Odo earlier, and to punish him for allying himself with a rival Islamic warlord, a local Berber called Manuza. Odo had married away his daughter to him seeking to mend fences. As Manuza had a stronghold in the Pyrenees, he served as a breakwater against the Umayyad Caliph, so Odo could settle that front and turn his attention to Charles in the north.”

“Who was the Caliph?” asked Paul.

“Zoom in on the time line… There,” the professor pointed. “Abdul Rahman. Yes, it’s all coming back now. Manuza is eliminated, probably assassinated, and Abdul’s invasion across the Pyrenees followed right after that. I guess he was out for a little payback against Odo, but also to fatten up on plunder as well.”

“He was settling all the family business.” Paul put things in terms the Godfather might best understand.

“Quite so,” said Nordhausen. “The Moors overran Navarre, then stormed up through Aquitaine to Bordeaux, taking that city as well. Odo tried to stop them and was soundly defeated. But Charles Martel was a man of considerable military skill—one of the great strategists of his day I suppose. You know the military history.”

“Right,” said Paul. “I tend to think he had more will power than military prowess, but the end result was the same. I don’t really know much that happened before, but I remember this battle now. The Moors had the finest heavy cavalry in the world at the time. It was their premier weapon in the attack, the forerunner of the European knights. But the use of the stirrup was not widely adapted in Europe yet, a nifty invention that allowed horsemen to wield heavy weapons and still maintain some control over their mounts. So at this time most European armies were mainly composed of infantry forces, with a few light horsemen in support.”

“Well, this is it then,” said Nordhausen. “Is there anything amiss prior to this time on the Meridian?”

Paul quickly zoomed back out and they saw that the lines on the chart remained solid, deep green. He checked politics, sciences, arts, all good.“The battle of Tours,” Paul said softly. “I think we found our crisis point. They’re targeting this event. Probably trying to change the outcome of this battle.”

Kelly was back, a distressed look on his face. Paul thought to ask him how the call to Maeve went, then decided to let that be still for the moment. Kelly had been through a lot tonight, and things were likely to get very stressful as the morning progressed.

“You OK?” he asked.

Kelly nodded. “What have we got?” He composed himself and gestured at the screen, eager to get a look at the Golem report.

“You’re not going to believe this,” Paul started.

They told him what they had found and Kelly’s eyes lit up with sudden recognition. “Hamza and I just had a conversation about this period a few days ago! In fact, that was the segment of the history he had his men working on all week.”

He told them how he would come to the chamber of records and play devil’s advocate as Hamza supervised the carving. “They were real busy,” he said. “Messengers were coming and going all the time. I know they must have had the history on computers in their day, but they were making damn sure this permanent record was being carved and preserved. These people are serious about this shit, Paul. In fact…” He held up a finger, remembering something Hamza had said.

“Hamza and I disagreed on the recounting of this very battle. He seemed to think the Moors lost because of some other reason, not the military prowess of Charles. Paul, do you know anything more about it?”

Paul had been a student of military history for over twenty-five years, and often passed the time designing conflict simulations of famous historical battles. “Richard Berg put out a design on this battle and I played that a few times,” said Paul. “Charles stole a march on old Abdul, who was advancing rather heedlessly after his crushing victory over Odo earlier that year. His men had split into several raiding columns and were plundering the countryside. His supply trains were also well behind him. Warned by Odo, Charles quickly assembled his army and marched south, avoiding the main roads so as to remain undiscovered. Then he chose the ground, there between those two rivers, I remember it now. He had a slight elevation advantage, and cover of a nearby woodland area. He drew his men up in a square, a tight Phalanx to defend against the enemy heavy cavalry, behind their shieldwall, and he stolidly blocked the road to Tours, and the Abbey of St. Martin.

“When Abdul Rahman arrived he was surprised on two counts. First, he did not expect to meet any further organized resistance after defeating Odo, and second, his enemy had chosen the ground, and the time of battle, both obvious advantages. Abdul may have been brash, but he wasn’t stupid. He wisely decided to wait, refusing to attack while he bought time to gather his raiding columns and bring up the main body of his army. Attack too soon in this battle as the Moors and you really get hammered by the Franks.”

“But he got hammered anyway,” said Kelly.

“Well,” Paul thought deeply about it. “The professor here is going to have to do some digging on this in the RAM Bank but, if I’m not mistaken, it was a near run thing. No European infantry had ever really stood up to this kind of heavy cavalry when it was properly mobilized on attack. Odo prevailed ten years earlier because the cavalry was not used effectively and never got a chance to concentrate against him.”

He ran his hand through his thick brown hair, recalling the history as best he could. “This time Abdul Rahman waited to assemble his scattered units, a full six days, and then sent his heavy horsemen against the Franks on the seventh day. Charles won the waiting game. He had prompted his enemy to attack him on ground of his own choosing, but that cavalry was a formidable force. At one point they broke through the ranks of the shieldwall, aiming to kill Charles, but his most loyal troops fought fanatically to save him, barely stopping the charge. The accounts of the battle are sketchy at this point, but in my simulations the Moors regroup and reassemble for another charge. They eventually best the Frankish infantry, putting them to route late on the first day of the battle. But that’s not what happened in the history we know.”

“Right,” said Kelly, reading from the RAM Bank now. “All hell breaks loose. Abdul Rahman gets embroiled in the fighting and he is killed by the Franks. The Moors retreat in dismay and pull out under cover of darkness that night. Charles, the Hammer, has his victory and a new name.”

Nordhausen was quick to a terminal, calling up references on the battle. ‘Then was he first called “Martel,” for as a hammer of iron, of steel, and of every other metal, even so he dashed; and smote in the battle all his enemies.’— That’s from the Chronicle of St. Denis.”

The professor leaned back, thinking. “So this marks the high water mark of Islamic incursions into Europe,” he said. “A few dissent, though most historians agree that if Charles had been defeated decisively here, as Paul seems to think is possible, then there would have been no significant military opposition to the Muslim incursion into France. Some scholars argue that Abdul Rahman was never intending to push any farther, only to pillage the riches of the Abbey of Saint Martin of Tours, and state that this was merely a raid for plunder. The abbey was one of the most significant cultural and religious centers in Europe at this time. Its loss would have been broadly symbolic of what would likely have happened to the rest of Gaul. And this raid was already a thousand miles north of Gibraltar! A victory here would have probably seen the invaders winter in Tours or Poitiers and renew their advances in the spring, possibly reinforced from Spain. Unopposed, it’s my belief that they would have just kept on coming. And look at the damn screen, gentlemen.” He finished, folding his arms.