“I found it beautiful and intriguing.”
“It is a bit exotic, don’t you think?”
“Around your neck, it is definitely exotic. Such pendants are rare in these parts.”
“So I’ve heard.” She laughed.
“May I ask how you came by it?”
“It was a gift from Sunni. She said it might catch your eye.”
“I am always drawn to exotic beauty. It is a weakness of mine. Such beauty has power. But power,” he paused, “often has consequences.”
“I am learning about power,” she said. “Would you like to see it again?” she asked with a direct look.
“Very much so.”
“Then I will wear it for you tonight at the roasting party.”
“I am honored at your generosity.” He bowed.
He was still amazed that Trudi would give herself over to pagan ritual. But he could not dismiss her offer to wear the pagan fertility charm tonight. And he could not have made it clearer that there could be consequences. She had brushed it off without a thought. His eyes searched out Sunnichild. When they found her, she simply smiled and flashed him a hand signal that said, All is arranged.
The path forked southward, and the party turned into the wood. At Odilo’s signal, knights fanned out in a V shape, ten men on each side. They marched forward, banging their shields to flush the boar out from the brush and funnel him into a killing zone, where the knights on either side of the V would hurl their spears at the charging beast.
Much larger than its brother, the pig, the boar is a killing machine with sharp tusks and a ferocious charge. The most dangerous spot on the field was at the bottom of the V. Should the flanking knights miss their mark, the bottom of the V would meet the rushing animal head on. Not only was the animal harder to hit from this angle, the consequences for a miss could be deadly.
As was the tradition for hunt leaders, Odilo and Trudi took the position at the bottom of the V. Sunnichild moved outside the formation alongside two knights Odilo had assigned to ensure her safety.
The hunters pressed forward, spears out and eyes wary. Occasionally, they beat their spears against their shields. Half an hour turned into an hour. An hour turned into two. No boar charged out of the wood. No one threw a spear. And still they marched.
The morning came to an end, and the party had nothing to show for its effort. Odilo called a halt and ordered a meal served of cheese, cold meat, and wine. A few knights grumbled over the choice of hunting ground, and Odilo laughed.
“Enough complaining. Remember you could have been at the prayer breakfast!” he called. Everyone laughed and nodded in agreement.
When the meal ended, they took up the flanking V formation again and again headed south, away from the river. The knights banged their shields and plodded through the wood, their heads swiveling from side to side. As before, they walked without incident, relaxing over time as the thought of a charging boar grew remote in their minds.
Without warning, one crashed into their midst. A few hearty throws were made, and the beast fell with a spear protruding from its neck. Shaking its head to lose the spear, the boar regained its feet and charged the nearest knight. More spears flew. All missed their mark. As the boar kept on unchecked, a knight raised his spear and plunged it into the boar’s back, throwing all his weight into the blow. The boar’s momentum lifted him off his feet, and the beast crashed into him, tearing a gash in his thigh.
Odilo watched the knight attempt to rise, only to fall back to the ground beside the fallen animal. Blood soaked his leg. Knights on either side bent to his aid, applying bandages and a tourniquet. One or two dragged the animal away to be field dressed, and several bent to retrieve their thrown spears. Most leaned on their spears to watch those tending to the fallen knight.
No one saw the second beast charge. It, too, followed the path of the V, although this time no shields were banged, and no spears were thrown. The large animal crashed through the wood unchecked, heading directly for Odilo and Trudi. They, like everyone else, had been watching the fallen knight and remained unaware of the danger until the boar lunged at them.
Without a word, Odilo stepped to the right. Trudi spun away to her left. Then, in a fluid motion, their arms lifted and fell together, impaling the beast between them. It twisted under their spears, thrashing wildly as neither blow was a killing stroke. Odilo leaned down on the shaft of his spear, trying to drive its point further into the animal’s shoulder. As he pushed into the animal, it surged forward in an attempt to gore his leg. Trudi, having lost hold of her spear, drew her sword. The blade flashed above her head. She brought it down on the beast’s neck with both hands, severing its head in one stroke.
The hunters were stunned into silence. Blood spewed over Trudi’s legs and pooled at her feet. With a visceral shout, Odilo swept Trudi into his arms. Then setting her down, he raised her hand high above their heads. The knights cheered and banged their spears against their shields. Odilo bowed theatrically to Trudi, and the cheers grew louder.
He had never seen a woman wield a sword like that. Her strength and speed surprised him. She laughed, embarrassed at the applause, and he found it oddly compelling that she could be both strong and vulnerable. He studied the lines of her face and the curl of her hair. He took in the fullness of her lips and the light in her eyes. She was powerful, he realized unexpectedly, and quite beautiful.
One of the hunters stepped forward and put his foot on the animal’s carcass to remove Odilo’s spear. Liberating it, he shoved the tip into the base of the boar’s neck. With a shout of defiance, he lifted the boar’s head high above Odilo and Trudi in celebration. Blood rained down over both of them.
***
After the morning rain ended, Pippin and Bertrada rode from the villa with a basket for lunch and made their way to their favorite hiding place. She could not have been happier. Pippin had been gone four months fighting Charles’s war in the south. At twenty-seven, he was, thankfully, his own man and had refused to attend the prayer breakfast. It was, she told herself, her turn. And at nineteen, she wasn’t getting any younger.
Just off the north road, the path meandered to the right and grew difficult in its disrepair. Over time, the two had made it more difficult by moving logs and boulders onto it to discourage passersby.
Farther along, the path forked. The left climbed up craggy terrain, and the right worked its way downhill to an abandoned house. Pippin had told her that twenty or thirty year ago it had been a groundskeeper’s home. Its roof had partially caved in, and its walls were full of holes.
As usual, they took the path to the left. Once over the rocky hill, the path angled sharply down and threaded through the woods to a small stream, measuring about fifty hands across. The stream led to a bed of boulders that formed a small waterfall that filled a natural pool.
Once across the stream, Pippin tethered the horses, grabbed the lunch basket from her hand, and they scampered down the path to where the boulders sheltered the pool. Without a word, Pippin stripped naked and dove in, surfacing after a moment in the middle of the pool with a shout at the water’s cold. He whipped his head to clear the hair from his eyes and leaned back in the water. He smiled at her.
Bertrada laughed. “You look like a Spartan!” she called.
He laughed and surface dived into the water. She saw his buttocks lift out of the water and giggled, knowing he was showing it to her on purpose. At the other end of the pool, he surfaced again and began to climb the rocks up to the waterfall. He was tall, like most of Charles’s kin. The warrior training he had undergone for twenty years defined his body. His shoulders and arms were knotted with muscles. His chest and back were scarred and bruised from battle. One scar in particular stood out. A diagonal slash from his right shoulder down to the middle of his back, the scar was ghost white, irregular, and constantly reminded her of his mortality.
Although his ascent was meant, she was sure, to further display his backside, Bertie had to laugh as his f
laccid penis and hanging stones flopped helplessly with each step of his climb. Of all his features, she liked his hindquarters the best.
Pippin gained the top of the falls, spread his arms wide, and fell forward. Bertie caught her breath as he plunged head-first toward the rocks. He kept his cross-like posture until just before he landed, when he tucked his body and flipped right side up to land in the pool just beyond the boulders.
He came up laughing. Bertie’s stomach relaxed, but her laugh was nervous. He swam to the edge and splashed her.
“Okay, okay, you silly oaf. Don’t get my clothes wet.”
In moments, she was naked, diving in beside him, screaming at the cold just as he had. Then she was in his arms, feeling their bodies slip against each other. His kiss, too, was wet and slippery as she entwined her legs around him.
She loved being with him. She loved the tautness of his body and the pure strength of him. Their kisses became more passionate, and she grew hungry for him. When he moved to thrust into her, she raised her hips to his.
But he couldn’t get the rhythm right. He struggled in the water to keep his balance on the rocky floor of the pool. She laughed at his ineptness, and eventually he laughed with her. He let her lie back in the water. She floated away, drifting off his erection, letting the water’s coldness fill her. After a moment, she stood and walked toward him. With her eyes half closed, she kissed him and gently pressed herself to him.
Smiling, she gripped him in her right hand and walked to the edge of the pool, pulling him along by his hardness. She climbed out of the pool without letting go of him and lay back against a large boulder warmed by the morning sun.
He kissed her, and his fingers invaded the warm wetness between her legs, and he buried them deep inside her. She groaned, and he drew her hands over her head and pinned them against the rock. Using his right hand, he lifted her left leg and slipped inside her.
She gasped as his thrusts slammed her against the boulder. He leaned back to allow her to adjust her pelvis. She wrapped her legs around him, and he sank into her again. Arching her back, she heard him groan. She looked at him with half-closed eyes and moaned, “Oh, Pippin.”
Now he was groaning with every stroke, and she felt him full and ready to burst.
“Come into me,” she said.
His semen exploded into her. She squeezed her legs with the spasm of his release and kissed him lightly as his body relaxed.
Afterward, they splashed in the pool, playfully touching and kissing each other. When they had cooled off, Bertrada circled her legs around him, this time to hold herself afloat while they talked.
“I just can’t get enough of you,” she told him.
“That’s what they all say.”
“Pig!” She splashed him.
“Bertie,” he said, suddenly serious, “this is all I want. You and me, here, now, like this. I can’t stand to be away from you. All throughout the campaign, I dreamt of you, of being here with you, of being inside you.”
“And the women of Provence?” she asked.
He splashed her.
“Will your father mind that you missed the prayer breakfast and the hunt?”
“They don’t care if I show up or not. They only need me when there’s fighting—then I’m important. All the ceremony and secret meetings aren’t for me.”
“But won’t you, too, be mayor?”
“You watch.” He looked at her in earnest. “When they split the kingdom—and they will—I’ll get the short end of it. I’ll get all the fighting and none of the wealth. Carloman will get all the wealth and none of the fighting.”
“And Gripho?”
“Gripho will get nothing. Charles will set him up nicely with a county, at most with Bavaria, to ensure that he is a landed nobleman. But Gripho’s too young to be mayor. And by the time he is old enough to take on more responsibility, Carloman’s son, Drogo, also will be of age, and Carloman won’t let Gripho surpass him.”
“None of it matters, my love, as long as we get to be together.” Bertie released her legs and stood to embrace him. The conversation had taken him someplace else, someplace away from her. His body was tense and rigid. Putting one leg behind his knee, she shoved him down into the water. Spluttering, he came up for air, and she leapt upon him, driving all her weight down on his shoulders to dunk him again under the water.
This time he rolled under her weight, using her momentum against her. Finding his feet first, he had more control and dragged her from the water with both hands. Playfully, she squealed in fear.
“What are you going to do to me?” She smiled suggestively. “As I recall, you still have some work to do.”
He dunked her.
***
Gripho, in full armor, knelt alone at the altar rail while Boniface droned on in Latin. Burning incense wafted across the chapel, nauseating him. He was seven hours into a fast that would end at noon on the next day when Charles knighted him. Boniface said there would be prayers every six hours. As if Gripho wasn’t bored enough.
Of course, Carloman was there, along with thirty of his Knights in Christ, dressed in their red and white vestments. After the midnight prayers, only a few would bother to remain. Gripho couldn’t wait until they left him alone.
Sunni had told him that the fast and the mass were unavoidable.
What Gripho couldn’t understand was why Sunni had allowed it. Wasn’t she Charles’s wife? Couldn’t she have interceded? He hated this. All she had said was his time would come and to be patient. They must think of him as Christian for him to succeed.
So for now, he was Christian. He prayed. He stood at the appropriate times and knelt at the appropriate times. He looked pious when Boniface turned to face the congregation and looked serious when he did the readings.
But he hated the stink of incense.
When Boniface and the others left, Carloman approached him at the altar rail and knelt beside him. He urged Gripho to reconsider his decision against being a Knight in Christ. “In time, you could lead them,” he said. “In time, they would become a force that knows no geography.”
Gripho pretended to be deep in prayer.
“Think about it.” Carloman left, his knights with him.
As soon as he was sure he was alone, Gripho stood, took off his armor to the waist, and found his food cache beneath a pew in the back of the chapel. He decided that when he became a knight, he would tell Carloman to go fuck himself. Pippin, on the other hand, might have to wait. Pippin might beat him till he shat himself.
If I become mayor, everything will change. I won’t need the Church. I won’t need their ceremonies. I will just rule. As a son of Charles, I will have it all. Of course, I’ll have to fight Carloman and Pippin, but by that time, I’ll have others to help me. With a little imagination, it shouldn’t be too hard. He wondered what his mother had planned. Sunni always had a plan. But why she wasn’t letting him in on it?
When Gripho finished his bread and cheese, he sipped some wine and returned his cache back to its place under the pew. Then he climbed the altar steps to sit in the priest’s chair. Once seated, he leaned back and farted. “That, at least,” he said aloud, “smells better than the incense.”
***
A score of bonfires circled the reunited hunting parties. Spitted boars and flanks of venison turned slowly over the flames while the revelers whetted their appetite on bread, cheese, and wine.
Waifar had speared the largest boar. The knights from Provence and Alemannia had killed the greatest number, so they, too, would receive a prize. News of Odilo’s boar being beheaded only served to increase Trudi’s reputation. She and Odilo had cleaned themselves up before the roast, but dried blood still streaked their garments. Trudi found herself surrounded by nobles, each toasting her bravery and skill.
Odilo sought out Hunoald, Godefred, Ateni, and Radbod. Without Charles or his sons in attendance, he could meet openly with each of the nobles without raising any concerns. Sunni complimented him on his
day and teased him about the evening ahead. He queried her about how and where Trudi’s rite would happen, but Sunni gave no details. He would have to wait and see what the night would bring.
Most of the knights were well on their way to drunkenness. Finally the roasts were done, and the knights tore into the animals. Ateni of Provence insisted on using a knife while most of the guests simply pulled the meat off with their hands.
Odilo sought out Trudi and Sunnichild to share the boar the two had killed earlier. Someone had stuck the boar’s head on a pole behind Trudi’s seat.
“To a worthy opponent.” Odilo raised his cup, toasting the beast.
“To a worthy opponent,” Trudi echoed.
They spent the evening learning more of each other. Trudi explained her years in training with the knights. Odilo told her of his youth in Bavaria, how he had fought with his uncle against Grimoald, how Charles had intervened.
As the fires waned, the revelers either passed out on the ground or made their way back to the chateau. Sunnichild rose to excuse herself and kissed the two of them. She whispered something into Trudi’s ear and disappeared into the night with her two armed escorts.
Trudi waited until Sunni was well out of sight before asking him to escort her back to the chateau. When they had left the glow of the campfires, she reached out to grasp his hand. She led him toward the chateau for a short distance and then turned westward across the lawn to a path that appeared out of the moonlight. It was easy to follow because the grass had been worn down by cartwheels. Two parallel strips of earth pointed their way into the woods. Without warning, Trudi pulled him off the path, through the trees, onto a smaller pathway. From the sound of water in the distance, he tried to determine where he was in relation to the chateau.
“How do you know where to go?” he asked.
“Shhh.”
He let her lead. His excitement, the darkness, her hand, the secret path—it made his heart pound. He felt foolish. He had been through this before. He knew the ritual. She should be nervous, not him. But while she looked calm, he could not quell the hammering in his chest.
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