Andrew Offutt - When Death Birds Fly

For a brief while there he had triumphed. The Basques had been eager to do all that he wished. Had he been content to leave its execution to them… had he not used sorcery to lend them an aspect of ghoulish terror that somehow had not frozen the marrow of those damned Danes after all…

Past, past and done. Nor was Lucanor capable of further sorcery now. He dared not risk the exhaustion such would entail.

So Lucanor traveled north as the lowliest peasant traveled, footsore in the dust and heat of summer and by no means sure he would reach his destination without succumbing to illness-or having his throat cut by robbers so ill-advised as to accost a man with nothing.

His self-pity increased as he walked.

His face worked and worked, and his high opinion of himself returned. He bethought him of Sigebert of Nantes; Sigebert One-ear, and Lucanor’s face worked. A German. A loutish barbarian was that one, under his polished manners, and a pretentious man, in truth was Sigebert. Far from so civilized as Lucanor thought himself-or so wise.

Still… Lucanor was forced to make an admission, even to his arrogant self. The Frank is a crafty planner. The two of us should make a team for the reckoning with. Walking alone in his filthy robe , Lucanor nodded sagely. Aye!

If only my legs and this left calf and my stomach hold out. If only I can reach the fellow…

“The Franks, a strong, violent people, who had remained loyal to their Germanic weapon, the light, single-edged Francisca [Frankiska] or missile-ax, was still far from being united. Clovis, a minor king of the Salian Franks of Tournoi, was obliged to resort to killing his rivals before being eliminated himself, and had to take advantage of every chance he could get.”

– Larousse Encyclopedia of Ancient and Medieval History

“Wheels turn beside wheels, within wheels, and all do their work whilst only a few grind one on the other.”

– Athaninus

The boarhounds bayed clamourously and the thicket burst open. There, snorting, stood the quarry on his four cloven hooves, one ear torn to a scarlet rag. Scarlet dripped too from below his mouth, and that blood was not his. One hound at least would never hunt again.

Even in his summer coat, the boar was big. For a heartbeat or twain he glared before him from tiny eyes. Then he charged. His sharp little feet hurled up bits of forest mould.

“Ha!” grunted the young man in leather vest and leggings the colour of aging copper. Coolly, he grounded the butt of his heavy spear and guided the broad point just under the brute’s chest as it hurtled at him- so!

A slamming impact jarred him to the heels as the boar impaled itself. Eyes like little red coals glared into a pair pale as winter ice. Froth from the champing tushes fell on the young hunter’s hands. It was pink froth. He smelled it, felt the beast’s breath, its rage.

Its foaming tushes gleamed white as ivory. The larger two, drawing the eye by their size and curve, were harmless. They existed only to hone the short straight pair, the killing pair, and this the hunter well knew. Braced and straining, he held his spear-haft with strong big hands.

Madly, the beast thrust against the spear. Without the stout crosspiece just behind the spearhead to hold it, the enraged boar had charged up the impaling shaft to rip the bowels out of its slayer and die atop him.

One last shuddering attempt the beast made, and fell dead.

The young man drew a nasal breath of mingled relief and satisfaction. He maintained his grip on the spear-haft whilst he backed a pace, warily. Tall and rawboned he was, with ruddy skin and yellow hair flowing loose and long. Grace was not one of his qualities. He moved with a loose-jointed gangle on feet too large-as were his hands. His long face with its drooping moustaches had an equine look. Yet was he known for his strength, and it took a bold man to meet the stare of his eyes. His name was Clovis, and he was quite young, and he was a king.

Other men rushed into the glade now, with a crackling of acorn-hulls underfoot. First among them were his cousins, Ragnachar and Ricchar, brother-kings of Cambrai. Their hunting party followed. Chararic, also a king and Clovis’s cousin, hung tardily back in his red-barred green vest. That was like Chararic. Clovis’s pale eyes narrowed with the suspicion that came so naturally when a man belonged to the Frankish royal family.

Had it been chance that he’d found himself isolated, and had to deal with the boar alone? Much could happen tragically to mar a day’s, hunting!

Aye, and especially had it been planned…

“Oh, bravely done, my lord!”

“A worthy bit of work, cousin!”

Ignoring the shower of congratulations, Clovis accepted a wine-flask from the hands of a man he trusted. The youthful king swigged deeply. Rays of the late afternoon sunlight that slanted through the glade gilded his yellow moustaches and fell vividly on the blood of the slain boar. All around the Franks and their dead quarry-and the whining, still excited dogs-stretched a vast tangle of oak and birch and beech, threaded by game trails but impenetrable else. This was the forest called Arduenna Silva in the Latin so many still spoke and wrote; a fine place to hunt. It was also a fine place for the insuring of privacy whiles one conferred with one’s cousins.

That night, in a leather tent erected by servants in those Ardenne Woods, Clovis did so. Lamplight brought a ripe wheaten sheen to the hair they all wore long and flowing as a mark of royal rank. Lamplight wavered on the faces, too, of the four kings. Somehow it accentuated faults and weaknesses.

The shifty eyes of straight-browed Chararic seemed less trustworthy than ever. The signs of debauch were marked in Ragnachar’s heavy features; although he had yet his youth, with strength and energy, that jowly king was going quickly and badly to seed. His brother Ricchar was less fond of wining and wenching and eating, more steady-and duller. He followed where Ragnachar led, and Clovis was convinced that the latter thought with his gut and his genitals.

Nothing of weakness showed in the face of young King Clovis. If faults there were, such as cruelty, treachery and ruthlessness, they were not the sort of faults that held a man back from the path of ambition. Twenty years old, Clovis had been a king for a quarter of his life. He dominated the group.

“Ha, that boar-sticking of yours today!” Ragnachar cried with a wagging of his jowls. “Glad am I that I saw it! Now I cannot let you have all the honour, cousin. If luck sends us a bear or a wild bull, it is mine!” He ducked his chin, doubling it, and emitted a sound that was part hiccough and part belch.

Clovis shrugged. “Boars are well enow, cousin. It pleases me to leave bears to you! Have them and welcome, and have too the wild bulls! As for me-it is a stag I would hunt.” His voice became low and intense and his round pale eyes pierced. “A stag of Rome, d’you hear me? A royal stag with twelve tines to his crest… and by name Syagrius.”

Syagrius…

The name rustled about the tent. Officially he was their lord, the last consul of Roman Gaul, successor to Aetius and Aegidius, his father. Gothic barbarians ruled south of the Loire, Celtic Britons in Armorica that was Little Britain or Brittany. Only the realm of Syagrius remained Roman in more than name. To such had shrunk Empire.

Chararic blurted, “War?”

“War!” Clovis echoed, almost in a whisper that held ten times more drama than would a shout. “War, my lords. War against the Roman king, Syagrius! I put my battle-host in motion ere the moon is new again. Are you with me?”