John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“Damn!” Paul swore. “OK… Robert, you get on the RAM Bank history console. Kelly, you stay with the Golem variation data. We’ve got to find out what happened here—and fast!”

Dodo tooka long draught from his chalice, swirling the deep purple wine about in his cup when he had finished. “A pox on Lambert,” he said. “And all his family.” He was dining in the citadel at Heristal, where his sister Alpaida had begged him to come and hear her complaints.

“You see this now, brother, as I have said it all along,” said Alpaida. “Is it not enough that he commissioned the death of your domestics, trumping up false charges to cover his fell deed? He had it said they pilfered church property! He made them out as common thieves—an insult to our family, even as he slanders me at every turn as well. I am made out to be a harlot and whelp of Satan in his eyes, and he is keen to say it to any who will listen.”

She was a young woman, her hair falling in two long gold braids that framed her high red cheeks beneath sharp blue eyes. Well shaped, hardy and strong in limb, it was no mystery how she had soon drawn Pippin’s eye at court, and come to find herself in his bedchamber shortly thereafter. But her virtues went beyond the shape of her rump or bosom, resting also on the fact that her family held extensive holdings in the provinces to the east. These rich lands, and the profits they generated, were well received by Pippin when he formally took her as consort, promising much more in a marriage that would be arranged in due course.

But such arrangements were often complex and bitter affairs, particularly while Pippin still remained wed to Plectrude. The dark haired woman was aging now, supplanted by the youth and fire of Alpaida in the bedroom chamber, but nonetheless a prominent figure at court and one full ready to challenge any pretension to the heritage she envisioned for her two sons by Pippin.

Her first had passed an untimely death, stricken down by illness, and Alpaida knew that Plectrude now placed all her hopes on her second son, Grimwald. And why not? He was fully grown, a swarthy dark haired man at arms, and the natural and legitimate heir to Pippin’s seat as Mayor of the Palace. Plectrude had every right to assert his ascendancy to the seat of Mayor, though she had embittered the airs of court with willful and direct attacks against any and all who she perceived to be threats to Grimwald and her family lineage.

The unwed consort, Alpaida, had been first and foremost on her list in this vile effort, and she spared no effort to shame her, diminish her, and make her out to be a common harlot. In this Plectrude had lately enlisted the support of the church itself!

“Do you not see it, brother?” Alpaida said sullenly. “She has now poisoned the ear of the Bishop himself. Why else would he be so quick to denounce me, and shame me as he does?”

“He fancies himself a saint in the making,” said Dodo. “This is obvious to see. He labors up and down the river, from Heristal to Maastricht, preaching his gospel, showing his face in every farm and hamlet, dropping off monks and churchmen like turds in his wake, the better to fertilize the ground he thinks to sanctify with the tread of his foot.”

“Yet he was quick to take up residence at the Roman villa, like all churchmen, lining his pockets with gold as much as piety.”

“Indeed,” Dodo agreed. “Yet what can be done about him, sister? Can you not gain the favor of Pippin himself in this matter?”

“I have argued it endlessly with him, but even as I bend one ear, Plectrude bends the other. He is pulled this way and that, and can come to no mind of his own in the matter. Yet Plectrude is certainly of one mind on the subject, the sultry scheming witch that she is! The Bishop Lambert is a kinsman to her family. We should have foreseen this! It is only the beginning, brother. Do you think Lambert seated his pious rump at that villa simply for his comfort there? No! In doing so he has set himself squarely in the midst of our own family lands. No doubt he will soon covet these as well. The charges brought against your cousins Gallus and Rivaldus were false. Their murder was but a ploy, an excuse to further entrench himself in our province, and lay claim to these lands as well. So does he diminish our holdings as a means of hobbling us and silencing our voice at court. It is plain to see! Plectrude fears my son Charles, and so she stops at nothing now to dishonor me. Lambert is her tool in this.”

“Does he not risk much by denouncing you so openly?” said Dodo. “Is Pippin not man enough to restrain him? He has slandered you, that is plain, and in so doing he sullies the honor of Pippin himself.”

“He can do nothing while Plectrude enfolds him in her gown and whispers of Grimwald and warns of strong willed rivals who would seek his lands and titles. So does she poison his mind against my son Charles. She makes him to be a brigand! She has it said he is heedless and wanton, and that his hand is more often on the sword because he has no skill to govern, and so must he beat upon his rivals to achieve any purpose. It is all in one. Do you see it now? Plectrude and the Bishop Lambert conspire together!”

Dodo took the dregs of his wine and put down his cup, wiping the last bitter-sharp taste from his lips with the back of his hand. His eyes hardened, steely dark under the grey-black hair. “There is no doubt that what you say is true,” he smoldered.

“Yes,” said Alpaida, “first slander, now murder against our house, brother. What else must we endure? What can I do, a mere woman, if you remain silent and unmoved?”

“No longer,” said Dodo. “The murder of Gallus and Rivaldus will be avenged—I swear it. Bishop or no, I will not be so aggrieved. Nor will I countenance his presence here in our ancestral holding, where he fattens himself at his villa. Yes, you speak it well, sister. He holds forth there so that he might better endear the peasantry by his smile and his soft blessings and his oh so pious preaching. Yet his real intent is to install himself in these lands as future warden and liege lord here. I see it plainly now, and I will not abide it!”

Alpaida rushed to her brother, embracing him. “I knew you would defend our family. I knew I could count on you, dear Dodo, first above all others. My son Charles is away where he wars in Frisia, or else he would surely stand with you in this.”

“Yet it is no small matter,” said Dodo. “It must be done quietly, away from Lambert’s devoted clan.”

“Tonight!” Alpaida urged. “Lambert has returned to his villa. On the morrow he will journey south, and some say it is to Plectrude he is bound. She will undoubtedly move him to undertake even more outrageous slanders and affronts. He will denounce me formally, before God and in the presence of the Bishop Hubert of Maastricht as well. Plectrude has put this in his mind, and darkened his heart against us.”

“Then I will run the man through,” said Dodo, “And I will silence this would be saint and usurper once and for all. Let him become a martyr first, if sainthood is his claim. I will take three retainers, that should be more than enough. We will ride south and come upon Lambert in his sleep, this very night, and he will not live to see the dawn and run off to Plectrude on the morrow. This I swear…”

Dododid not linger, and resolved to set himself upon the old Roman road at dusk and time his journey so as to come upon Lambert’s villa in the middle of the night. He had it said that he was bound for Echternach so that tongues would not wag. But as he mounted his horse and rode to the outskirts of the small settlement he noticed the beast was clearly hobbled with a bad hoof. His sergeant of arms noted a livery nearby, and he dismounted, leading his horse into the stall where a man hammered loudly, shaping metal at a crude iron anvil.