John Schettler - Anvil of Fate

“Good day, sir,” said the blacksmith when he saw Dodo. “Oh, my lord Dodo! Your pardon, sir. I was so intent with my hammer that I did not hear your approach. How may I serve you, my lord?”

“My horse has come up lame, even as I must make my way now to Echternach. Will you have a look?”

“Of course, my lord.” The Blacksmith was quick to set down his hammer and tongs, pulling off this leather gloves. He went to the horse where it was now tethered in the stall and immediately saw that the beast was favoring his right rear leg. He stilled the animal, feeding the horse an apple he took from a sturdy wood basket, then looked at the hoof, muttering to himself as much as the horse as he worked.

“Why, he is unshod, Lord,” he said at last. “He must have thrown his shoe and then took a granite stone in his hoof to make matters worse. It is not serious. I can have it out in a minute or two and easily remedy the situation by fitting a new shoe.”

“I am in some haste,” said Dodo. “How long will this take?”

“Not long, my lord. An hour at best.”

“That long? Have you no other horses stabled here? I would just as easily leave this beast and take another if it would speed me on my way. The weather looks foul and does not promise an easy ride if I linger here.”

“Alas, lord, my livestock is mostly afield, bringing in harvest ahead of the rain you speak of. And my only other worthy mount was sold not an hour ago to a woman on the road, with two companions. You will not want that old plow horse. He gestured to the only beast in the stable.”

“A woman? On a day like this?”

“Yes lord, strange she was, yet amiable. Perhaps she was a nun. Spoke in the old Roman tongue, yet she paid well for the horse, so I gave it no further thought.”

Dodo wondered who the woman was, most likely a baroness or wife of land holder returning from Maastricht with her retainers. Well enough.

“Then shoe the horse, man, and be quick about it, will you!”

“My lord,” the blacksmith proffered a respectful nod, and was quick to his stocks, selecting a shoe he judged the correct size for the horse, yet noting it needed just a little work before he could make the fit.

He threw another log on his forge oven, the dark smoke billowing up into the graying sky. Soon the sound of his hammer fell hard on the heated shoe, ringing against the cold metal anvil beneath it with each heavy blow.

Dodo chafed like a restless horse himself. He wanted to be well on his way by now, down the stone tiled Roman road that would lead him south to Bishop Lambert’s villa. The sound of the hammer seemed to deepen his mood with every blow, kindling a vague disquiet in his heart. It resounded in the enclose space of the livery, ringing sharply on the cold air of the early evening, and it seemed to mark him in some way. He began to feel that every eye was upon him, and every ear would heed that sound—that it would ring like a church bell, raising alarm and warning throughout the land.

A feeling of guilt enshrouded him for a moment, causing him to look up and down the road, as if saints and legions were mustering at one end or another, yet the way was empty. The sun fell through darkening drifts of cloud to the west, tingeing their bottoms with blood red as the light faded. He breathed in the evening air, smelling mutton roasting for a late meal at a nearby farmstead.

The hammer rose and fell, beating hard on the anvil, and then one last heavy blow sang out, and faded into silence. The Blacksmith had satisfied himself that the shoe would now be a perfect fit, and he cooled it in a bucket of cold water, the steam hissing up and strangely bothering Dodo again, as if the voice of some recriminating detractor had come to make accusation against him.

Twenty minutes later it was cool to the touch and the smith had the shoe securely mounted on Dodo’s steed. “Well enough, sir,” he said.

Dodo thanked the man as his sergeant handed the smith a coin in payment. Then the four men took to their mounts and trotted out into the gloaming light, the sound of their hooves falling darkly on the cold stone tiles as they rode.

Dodo was in the van, and not a moment later he looked and spied two figures, standing close by a low tree stump at the edge of the road. It was an odd place for someone to be at this hour, and his mood soured when he looked closer and saw they wore the plain brown woolen cassocks of monks.

“Damn clergy,” he said to himself. In Lambert’s keep, most certainly, he thought. Always about, like so many lice infecting the land now. He made for them, a disdainful look on his face as he pulled up short, stopping his party abruptly. He eyed them with a suspicious glance, adjusting the fit of his leather gloves as he spoke.

“Dark night coming,” he said. “Are you not late for Matins, monks?”

The two men gave him a sheepish look, obviously cowed by his sudden interest and commanding presence. “What? Have you nothing to say to me? Then get off this road, you slovenly piglets. Get off to some nice warm fire and say your prayers well this night. A storm is coming.”

He smiled darkly at the two men, and then clucked, nudging his horse to ride on. The sergeant spat at them as they rode by and the four men cantered away, their riding capes fluttering out behind them on the cold air, four shadows darkening the night as they went.

Kelly cleared his throatand spoke next. “Dodo’s plot fails,” he said flatly. “Or at least the way it looks to be shaping up now. In this history Lambert hounds Alpaida and condemns the infidelity of Pippin, but he isn’t killed at his villa by Alpaida’s brother Dodo in 705. The plot fails when Dodo meets with a mishap on the road. Lambert, alerted to the danger, mitigates his censure somewhat, but goes on to be an influential bishop, strongly supporting Plectrude and her son Grimwald when he takes the throne in 714. You see, he isn’t assassinated that year either, because Lambert lives . The bishop never becomes a martyr.”

“Hence there is no shrine and no chapel for him to visit on the way to his father’s bedside,” said Maeve.

“And no place to be piously at prayer when a javelin goes through your heart.” Nordhausen put a fine point on the issue. “The place where Grimwald was to have had his rendezvous with death never existed!”

“And the foiled plot against Lambert must have galvanized Plectrude’s clan, and put them on guard,” said Kelly.

“The soup is thickening,” said Paul. “It seems our adversaries, the Assassins as we call them, had to prevent these two murders in order to forestall the ascendency of Charles. How ironic.”

“Right,” said Kelly. “So in the altered history old Odo gets his ass kicked by Abdul Rahman and instead of appealing to Charles, he has to go to Grimwald.”

“The fate of all Western history is now in the hands of Grimwald, and not Charles,” Nordhausen said in a low voice.

“The battle of Tours is fought under his command,” Kelly continued. “He fails to choose his ground well, as Charles did. The Moorish columns are still scattered, some as far north as the Abbey of St. Martin at Tours. Instead of ignoring the city and marching south to confront the Moors main body closer to Poitiers, as Charles did, Grimwald tries to come to the aid of Tours. That’s why there was nothing going on at the site where you manifested, Paul. The battle was fought somewhere else. He takes the bait, as it were, and is engaged with one of the Arab light raiding columns near the abbey when Abdul Rahman shows up with his main body.”

“And all the heavy cavalry,” said Paul. “What’s the date?”