Andrew Offutt: When Death Birds Fly

“Yes. I suppose it is out of place in a humble customs assessor! Well, my lord, while I was highly placed at the court of Soissons, I was an agent for King Clovis. Aye, even in those days. Softly, I say! Hear me out! I myself prevailed upon the commanders of the Frankish soldiery to desert to Clovis when the battle was joined. Misfortunately, Syagrius began to suspect me, and sent me here to take up the minor post I now hold. Since Clovis has conquered, I can look to hold a higher place in the world again-not before time, in my opinion!”

He chuckled, enjoying himself. “You see that my goodwill as well as my king’s will be worth the having. Act wisely, and you can be one of the few Roman counts to retain his position. You will probably better it, an you deliver Syagrius up as a captive.”

Bicrus seethed. Before him sat a fouler traitor then he had dreamed could befoul his city. That he should invite Bicrus into his dirty schemes with the air of one who conferred some immense favour was not to be borne! It should not be borne!

The count’s face crimsoned. “You swine!” he roared. “I’ll crucify you-no, by Heaven, I’ll keep you prisoner for my Lord Syagrius to have the satisfaction of passing that sentence, when he arrives! Guards! Ho, guards-”

“Idiot!” Sigebert snapped. With no further talk, in two long lithe movements, he closed with Count Bicrus and drove a dagger into his throat.

So swift, so ruthless and so wholly unexpected was the deed that even the trained soldier of Rome was taken by surprise. He choked horribly, lifting a hand to the dagger-hilt protruding from the side of his neck. He hadn’t even known Sigebert carried one.

Sigebert watched him fall across the table, and thence to the floor. Rome kicked and clawed in his death agonies, attempting to drag himself to the door. His struggles seemed to go on forever. Even Sigebert was appalled, though he did find the sight fascinating. He couldn’t take his gaze from the stricken man.

“Guards!” Bicrus croaked.

Was his last word ere he shuddered and died on the tiled floor. He’d left a trail of dark blood across the room. It continued now to stain his clothes and spread over the tiles.

The guard opened the door. He was one of Sigebert’s Franks.

“Gods!” he said in awe, at sight of the corpse. Then he remembered himself. “All’s well, sir. The house is in our hands. These town-soldiers couldn’t guard a rabbit hutch. Why, we talked them down. Didn’t even have to kill anybody,” he added with some disappointment.

“Excellent,” Sigebert said. “Have two reliable men clean the blood and hide this body where nobody will see it for a while. Once that’s done, I’ll convene the municipal curia , or as many members of that august body as I can reach. My Lord the Bishop of Nantes must be summoned, too. Without the late Bicrus to stiffen their backbones, methinks they will see reason.”

“Not if they know who daggered him, sir,” the warrior reminded with the freedom of a barbarian.

Sigebert let it pass. “That is why,” he said gently, “I wish his body concealed for the present, and naught said. I shall inform the bishop and curiales that, when my poor lord Count heard of my lord Clovis’s victory, he promptly fled the city and has gone I know not where. You would argue further?”

“No sir. That’s to say-with respect, sir-” The warrior’s words seemed to lodge in his throat under Sigebert’s limpid hazel stare. “Will they believe that, knowing Count Bicrus?”

“Of course not! However, I can persuade them it is to their advantage to feign belief. An they assume the Count has indeed turned craven, they will more readily excuse doing so themselves. I’ll wager that ere they leave this chamber, they will have convinced themselves it is true.” Sigebert smiled until the warrior did. “Now do as I bade you concerning our late friend here! He’s hardly ornamental. His presence disturbs me. And return me my dagger afterward-cleaned.”

Later the warrior repeated those words to his companions, when they had carried out Sigebert’s orders. “Aye! Just that way he said it, with the Count’s body on the floor between us. And return me my dagger afterward-cleaned. He might ha’ been saying, ‘Have food brought me in an hour!’ By the gods! It’s in my mind that he’s right when he claims the city officials will decide it be safest to believe him!”

The man was not smiling; Sigebert, at that moment, was. Bicrus had proved stubborn; Bicrus had been efficiently removed. Sigebert had not deemed it advisable to tell him of Clovis’s promise to make Sigebert One-ear the Count of Nantes. He would, however, tell these others. Should they think to unite against him and his half-hundred men, they could whelm the Franks easily. Still, Sigebert hardly thought they would dare. Not once they knew they would have to answer to Clovis for it afterward!

Aye! By nightfall, I shall in effect be Count of Nantes! Ere the month was out, he would possess that title and authority in law, and be in high favour with the new lord of the kingdom as well. That, or he would be a rotting corpse…

It depended on the outcome of the session he had convened. Sigebert believed it would go his way. Even so, there was doubt enow to make his villainous heart beat high with the excitement of the gamble. It daunted him not. Unlike Lucanor, Sigebert One-ear had at least the courage of his own evil.

Five weeks had passed since that fateful Midsummer’s Eve. The month of July was ending and sickles flashed bright in the fields as the peasantry, men and women alike, cut the heads of grain. These would be threshed and stored. Later the stalks would be scythed down for straw, and finally the gleaners would pick through the dusty stubble. These harvest weeks were a time of hard, hot work.

A pretty peasant girl in patched, dun-colored skirt drove a flock of geese along the road toward the frowning city gates. Her goal was the market within. Three ox-drawn wains followed her at their usual plodding pace. Indeed, these seemed to move more slowly than most such wagons, the yokel drivers hardly troubling to employ their long ox-goads. Mayhap they were half asleep from the heat. Mayhap they wished to remain behind the girl with her flock, for she was more than pretty enow to distract the attention of the guards at the gate.

They were chaffing her bawdily, one fumbling after her breasts, as the great wooden wheels rumbled by. The wench’s geese scattered, gossiping in annoyance. She swore with as much authority as either guard could have done. One of these drew himself up on the rim of each cart in turn and gave the contents a casual glance.

“Wool for market,” he told his companion, who did not appear greatly concerned. Neither of them so much as spoke to the ox-drivers. They were too interested in the wench, who was interested in naught save getting her flock of geese under control again, and passing through the city gate unraped. Was fortunate for her the guards happened to have an immediate superior who was strict about such matters-while his men were on duty, anyhow.

The oxen plodded; the carts creaked. Somehow they missed their way in the narrow, winding streets of Nantes. Instead of the market-place, they came to halt in the weed-grown courtyard of a deserted house.

“Nobody about,” one of the drivers grunted.

Another rattled on the side of each cart in turn with his ox-goad. The fleeces upsurged and parted. Bearded Danes in tunics burst out of the wool, gulping the sweet light air. The suffocating heat under the fleeces had turned their faces black-purple and they sweated rivers. Aye, and fleeces had been packed under and around them as well, lest the guards should go so far as to open the wagons’ tail-boards. This they had endured all down the long straight approach to the city’s gate, beneath the sun of high summer in Gaul.