Andrew Offutt: When Death Birds Fly

“’Tis a proper night we chose!” Cormac muttered. “We can move openly through the streets, achieve Sigebert’s death and escape with ease in this madness-if we survive. The gods know our chances seem better than aforenow.”

He descended. In the smaller of the house’s two courtyards, he found Wulfhere frowning at a Gallo-Roman boy to whose arm clung a girl perhaps four years younger than his ten or eleven. Was understandable, with two dozen waraccoutered Danes hemming her in.

“See what’s come avisiting, Cormac!” Wulfhere said. “They fled the rioting… sought a place to hide, this one says.” He jerked a thumb at the boy. “We were just wondering what to do with them.”

Cormac bent a slit-eyed, intimidating stare on the boy. In Latin, he demanded, “By what is this upheaval caused?”

The boy stammered. “Mercy, mighty lord! I… I do not understand.”

“No? It’s mad this city of yours has gone, with rioting: fighting and arson. Any fool can see that. It’s the why of it I want. Either ye can tell me, or not-and the more ye can tell me, lad, the less inclined we are to do harm on ye.”

More boldly then, the boy asked, “Will ye let my sister be?”

Cormac was impressed with the courage of that, in these circumstances. Even so, he did not allow his grim features to soften. Barely glancing at the terrified girl, he said, “She’s too young for ravishing. Besides, it’s bigger, harder quarry I’m concerned with this night. Now speak while my patience lasts.”

“I will, lord! There-there’s been war with the Franks. Our king, Syagrius, has been d-defeated. The shouting in the street says he’s come home. He’s here now, with his army! Some are for him and some think to submit to the Frankish king, Clovis. As ye say sir, the city has gone mad. Be merciful-this is all I know.”

“Ye’ve no knowledge of what Count Bicrus has done about it?”

“Lord, I have heard a dozen things rumored, ere we were separated from our family. Some say he has turned against the king! Others say that he is dead and the other, uh, officials divided-and others that he stands for the king. I cannot say which is true, lord.”

“Likely not. Now attend: we will do no harm on ye. By my advice, ye’ll be hiding yonder, in what was kitchen and larders. All solid stone, with easy access to the courtyard. An this house takes fire, ye’ll not be burned, or trapped to suffocate in the smoke either. There be hidey-holes, too, where no looters ought to find ye, supposing any trouble in this disused shell of a place, as I think they will not. Understand me?”

“Yes, lord!”

“Good. Keep together and quiet, and I hope soon ye are with your family. My friends and I depart now.”

And, after Cormac had told his companions of the exchange, they did leave the place, on their dark errand. Boy and girl watched them tramp away through the courtyard. Both were amazed that such terrible men had not slain them out of hand for the mere sport of it. That wore away enough for them to become sensible children. They hid where Cormac had recommended.

Making a path through the congested streets of Nantes was not easy, even for armoured men with shields and swords or axes. Once the company stopped while Cormac gave listen to a fat man haranguing a crowd. He spoke in favour of King Syagrius, and cursed Count Bicrus for fleeing the city in manner cowardly. Mac Art listened but briefly ere he was convinced that this jiggle-belly knew no more than the boy they had queried-and, while unlike the boy, would never be so honest as to admit his ignorance. Cormac gestured and he and his men pressed on. They were peculiarly his, now, with Wulfhere so obviously and pitifully weakened.

Because they knew Nantes well and Sigebert’s manse had belonged to the customs inspector they’d formerly dealt with, Cormac and Wulfhere were able to find the place. No happiness was on them to find it locked and barred. The place appeared deserted.

“I’ll wager One-ear’s not here,” Wulfhere growled. “That one will have declared for whichever side he thinks apt to win, and be active somehow.”

“True for you, Wulf,” Cormac agreed nodding. “Still, there must be servants, a housekeeper; a few guards at least, for us to be questioning.”

“That pig Lucanor may be here!” Knud snapped. Hopefully.

None stayed them as they broke in. Sadly, neither Lucanor nor his master was to be found. Sigebert had left not so much as a guard or two. Belike he deemed it too petty a precaution, with a kingdom’s fate in the balance-and his own shining future. Yet it was as Cormac suggested: a few servants remained, and the formidable housekeeper, Austrechilda. She knew far more.

Austrechilda was stubborn. Two men had to hold her face in a bowl of water to make her speak. Even then it appeared that she might rather drown than divulge what she knew. A tribute to her character, mayhap-or to Sigebert’s ability to inspire fear. Cathula had told mac Art of Austrechilda. Not until she had come up for the sixth time, snorting and choking and blowing water through her nose, did she decide that talking was preferable to dying now, though Sigebert might have to be faced later.

“He-he-” she gasped. “-he’s at the manse of Count Bicrus. Some days agone… he and the municipal-curia and the… bishop, declared support for the Franks. What’s become of the Count I know not. It’s- ulp! ulp! in my mind that he-he’s dead. Now the city is divided… and my lord Sigebert sits in the Count’s manse, whilst the forces he has raised battle Sy-Syagrius and his men.”

Cormac swallowed and digested that while he demanded, at once: “What of Lucanor Antiochus? It’s a fleshy-faced man I speak of, with a thin blade of a nose, and airs about him. Where might he be found?”

“With-the lord Sigebert.” Austrechilda quaked into a long fit of coughing. “She may sit,” Cormac told the Danes who held her. To Wulfhere: “This makes sense, I’m thinking.

Wulfhere nodded. “Dark plots and treason, with Sigebert in the midst of it. Aye. An he’s against this king, I be for Syagrius!”

“Away out of here then, to the Count’s rath!”

That manse stood nearby, close to the forum and basilica. Lurid firelight made the great square almost as bright as it had. been ere sunset, for several buildings were ablaze. Towering flames created great lamps. The square was choked with men, all revealed in that evil light of orange and yellow. Armoured horsemen rode down foot soldiers or smote them with sword and mace, while they were being speared or sworded in their turn. In adjacent streets and alleys, other foot soldiers seemed to be fighting on the side of the mounted men: Syagrius’s. The city was indeed divided.

“Blood of the gods! It’s little difference our two dozen men will make, in that butcher’s yard!” Cormac looked around, his eyes invisible within their slits. “Aye… best we place ourselves on some rooftop, choose targets for arrows, and shout ‘Syagrius!’ as our battle-cry. Peradventure in a while we shall be able to essay more without getting ourselves killed for naught.”

Men looked at him who’d become General Cormac, and at Wulfhere who coughed in a sudden eddy of smoke. “Aye,” the giant said, and his eyes watered.

The Danes implemented the plan swifttly with out standing on ceremony. They chose the building whose roof looked best for their purpose, and they forced a way into it. A horseman actually struck at Halfdan, who ducked and gave no return stroke. The horse bore that surprised Goth on by, while the scalemailed men vanished into the building. They gained the roof by the simple expedient of breaking a large hole in the tiles. Between fire and Wulfhere’s ax, the roofs of Nantes were suffering much this night. Soon they’d found a place to stand and aim: a small terraced roof-garden that they might have reached less forcefully had there been less haste on them.