Anvil of God

by J. Boyce Gleason

  When he next spoke, the edge returned to his voice, but with sadness and exhaustion. “So you can see why your presence here offers me such opportunity. I always meant to return you to your father,” he said. “But my intention was that he would find you somewhat … damaged.”

  His eyes held hers, challenging her to denounce him. Then his shoulders slumped, and his head bowed. Bradius sheathed his knife. Turning to Auguste, he said, “Bind her.” Looking at Trudi, he said, “Your pendant has saved you tonight, Hiltrude, daughter of Charles. Tomorrow, however, will decide tomorrow.”

  ***

  Sunni’s carriage didn’t slow down when it passed the entrance to the villa at Quierzy. Gripho laughed as the servants who lined the road watched in confusion as her carriage passed by. Somewhat comically, he bowed to them from his horse, enjoying the baffled looks he received as he and the Bavarian host followed.

  Many hours later, they arrived at Laon. Although the defensive fortifications of the ancient Roman city were sound, it was the land that made attacking the city formidable. Laon stood atop a high ridge that looked down over a wide and open plain. The steep incline leading up to the city made attack extremely difficult, if not impossible. The hill was so steep that its one road had to loop back and forth upon itself, repeatedly, to permit ascent.

  It took the better part of an hour for them to make the long trek up the road to the city gates. When they arrived, the gates were open, and the Compte de Laon stood waiting their arrival. Several dozen Neustrian nobles, grinning broadly, stood with him inside the gates.

  Samson scrambled down to place a small step beside Sunni’s carriage, and Odilo dismounted to open her door and to offer her his hand as she descended.

  “You are most welcome, mistress,” the Compte said. “All the preparations for the family villa have been made per your instructions. And,” he looked to the nobles surrounding him, “your other … guests have arrived as expected.”

  Sunni swept into the gathering, thanking the Compte and allowing him to kiss her hand. She greeted the nobles individually and warmly by name, thanking them for coming to her assistance. No one paid the slightest attention to Gripho, and it irked him.

  “And the Thuringians?” Sunni asked of the nobles gathered. “Where are the Thuringians?”

  “Here, milady!” a shout came from the interior courtyard. A dozen more nobles rode forward and dismounted just inside the gate. A robust man with long gray hair and a sweeping mustache led them. He strode forward with a confident gait, although it was somewhat encumbered by a limp favoring his right leg.

  “Heden,” Sunni said, hugging the older man. “I knew you would come.”

  “I wouldn’t miss this for the world,” the big man said. “I am sorry for your loss, Sunni. I know that you loved him.” He motioned two younger boys forward. “You know my sons, Petr and Bart.” Gripho estimated that the two boys were twelve and thirteen. The younger of the two, Petr, looked weak.

  “Of course,” Sunni said, kissing them three times on alternate cheeks. “You both look so much like your mother.” At this, all three fell silent. Sunni looked to Heden. “Something happened to Hilda?”

  “She took ill,” he said. “Couldn’t keep down her food. There was nothing anyone could do. We buried her months ago but grieve for her still.”

  “You poor boys,” Sunni said, hugging them. “Well, there’s plenty to do here to keep you from your grief. Gripho will see to that.” Sunni turned to look to him. Gripho looked away.

  Heden next turned to Odilo. “May honor strengthen your sword, Bavarian.”

  “And may truth guide its way.” Odilo bowed in return.

  “I suppose all this is your doing,” Heden said, clasping his arm.

  “Some of it,” Odilo said. “Charles’s death leaves much to question. I just wanted to help offer a few answers.”

  “Will you stay here in Laon with us?”

  “No,” Odilo said. “I’m going to solidify the lands to the east. I want Carloman and Pippin to know that a challenge to Gripho would meet with great resistance.”

  “Are you sure such a direct confrontation is wise? Carloman won’t abide a pagan uprising.”

  “He’ll be alone, Heden. Pippin and Carloman will be alone in a world where every part of the kingdom is a threat. They can’t fight us all.”

  The older man frowned. “Their father certainly did.”

  6

  Sunni

  The horizon was black. Sunni waited patiently on the villa’s broad balcony. Wearing only a long blue robe that fell to the floor, she faced east. A hint of crimson touched the darkness, framing the landforms at the end of the world. With each passing minute, it pushed back the night. Gold followed red, and still Sunni waited. At last, a spear of light crested the horizon and spread across the broad plain below, casting long shadows over the landscape.

  From her pocket, Sunni pulled a small bag of herbs, untied the string that cinched it, and dipped in three fingers to draw out a pinch of the crushed leaves. She tossed them over the balcony. A small breeze picked up the herbs and dispersed them into the air below.

  “We share in your bounty,” she said quietly. “As we share in all life. I bless the earth from which all things come.”

  Footsteps sounded behind her, and she instinctively clutched the bag to her chest. When she turned, she found Samson shuffling toward her down the length of the balcony. He bowed and looked out over the balcony to the north. The plain spread out below them in breathtaking colors and stark shadows. Gold and red hues splashed green and brown groundcover. The plain was vast and flat and stretched to every horizon. The only objects to snag the eye were a swath of trees and brush that invaded the valley from the northeast.

  “You’re late,” Sunni said.

  “I am.” Samson nodded, his white hair tangled and swirling in all directions at once. From his pocket, he produced his own bag of herbs and quickly performed the same ritual that Sunni had just completed.

  When he finished, the two watched in silence as the morning sun banished shadows across the valley. Sunni enjoyed being with Samson. He radiated confidence and surety. She would have kept him in service even if he had not been a lore master.

  He had revealed his calling to her in Paris several days after Charles’s funeral. He was from Alemannia and had spent his life moving from town to town to heal local peasants, divine their future, and teach them the lore of their faith. For the past ten years, he traveled with a sibyl, a female lore master known for her visions and portents.

  Two months earlier, they had slaughtered a goat in a foretelling and dipped their hands into the animal’s blood to draw the runes of power. The sibyl had recoiled from the liquid as if she touched fire. She shook from head to foot. Then, in the rune stones, they foresaw the death of a Christian king in the west. The sibyl declared that Samson’s destiny was linked to the man’s widow. The next morning, Samson started his journey west. When he heard of Charles’s death, he came to find Sunni.

  Samson did not know what kind of help he could offer her. He just insisted that he was destined to be here with her. She had taken him in service and was glad of her decision. Through all the turmoil of the past weeks, he was the one person she knew who didn’t have a political or personal agenda. She enjoyed his company. He was comfortable.

  A wretched scream startled them from the courtyard below. Sunni’s heart leapt, and her face flushed. It was the cry of a woman, wounded and angry. Frantically they searched the shadows. “There!” Sunni barked, pointing out a cat stalking a tall tree in the corner of the courtyard.

  Hissing, it arched its back and raced toward the tree. It leapt and scrambled up the trunk, clamoring toward the lowest branch. Its claws scratched furiously against the smooth bark, trying to catch hold. Just as it came near its goal, a flurry of wings descended from the tree to beat the cat around its head and shoulders. The feline lost its grip and fell back to the ground. It let out another wretched scream to match the first the
y had heard. The bird flew back to its nest, high in the tree, chirping protectively into the morning air over her nestling. The cat renewed its hissing, arched its back, and circled the tree once again.

  “An omen,” Samson said.

  Sunni nodded. “I hate cats.”

  After a moment, she pointed toward the southwestern horizon of the plain below them. “If Carloman comes, he will come from there. He will bring as many as will follow, thinking to cow us into submission with the size of his host. He will use numbers to hide his fear. He won’t be thinking about how to feed so many mouths during a siege.”

  She shook her head. “Charles would never have allowed Theudoald to bully him. He would never have let his thoughts be guided by the Church. Few people understood that Charles used Boniface as much as the bishop used him. Unfortunately, Carloman believes whatever the man says. In the end, Carloman’s religion will blind him. He will tell himself that he is doing the Lord’s work.”

  She sighed again. “If he comes, it will be because he thinks himself weak. He doesn’t realize how much power he has.”

  ***

  Heden circled the ancient city atop the ridge. He ordered walls reinforced, holes patched. He had soldiers build pointed impediments outside the walls to slow the advance of attacking troops and had trenches dug on the north side of the walls to trap attackers within arrow range. Inside the walls, he inspected fallback positions and had rocks and tar and buckets of water carried up to stash behind the ramparts. Earlier, he had sent Petr and Bart with Gripho to gather stores from the city to support the newly garrisoned troops. They would need food, water, bandages, but most of all bodies. They needed help to defend the city. Heden had told the boys to bring him as many able-bodied men as they could muster. He sent several soldiers with them to help with the requisition.

  His men, along with the Neustrians, drilled in the courtyards, preparing for siege. The women cut up cloth for bandages. They polished armor. The blacksmiths sharpened weapons, and young boys trained to carry water, arrows, and spears up the stairs of the ramparts.

  Heden was not surprised Sunni had sent for him. In fact, he had expected as much as soon as he had heard the news about Charles. She would need a champion to protect her son’s interests and to lead her allies. She would need someone she could trust. She had many who could fill that role, including Odilo, but she had only one who had been betrothed to her.

  It had been many years since Charles had spirited Sunni away from Heden. They had been in love long before the Hammer had fallen on Bavaria. Heden had showered her with gifts, and she delighted in his attentions, always teasing him about his age and stoking his fire with innuendo. Her presence overwhelmed him. He was besotted, unabashedly besotted, and she knew it. He had courted her, wooed her, and won her. Had her cousins not made such a mess of things, Charles would never have intervened, and Sunni would have been his.

  While he had understood the political realities at the time, he rebelled against her decision. He ranted at her intransigence and threatened to steal her away in the dead of night. In the end, he could do nothing. Charles had already broken much of his hold on Thuringia, and Heden was impotent against the military strength of the Austrasians. He was also impotent in the face of Sunni’s decision to leave him. In the wake of her departure, Heden’s life grew very dark.

  Returning to his stronghold in Würzburg, Heden let himself be swept into the inertia of his old life. He took a wife, Hilda, a good woman of thirty who loved him and bore him two sons. But his affections never matched hers. He kept Sunni’s place in his heart, intact, sacred. For years, he spent his days ruling what was left of his native Thuringia, raising his children, caring for his family, and dreaming of a woman he could not have.

  One night, Sunni arrived at his palace. Only nineteen and on her way home to Bavaria to visit her family, she asked to spend a few days resting and enjoying his company. She had come alone with a small retinue of soldiers, handmaidens, and one lone priest to see to her “continuing religious instruction.”

  It was in May on a night of pagan revelry, when fires were lit in the fields and the people combined their fertility with that of the earth. Great poles were sunk into the ground by the fires, and women of childbearing years took hold of ribbons tied to the top of the poles and danced in the firelight. The men danced in the opposite direction in a circle around them, singing a rhythmic chant. As the women circled the pole, their ribbons grew short, and the circle of men closed on them. When at last the ribbons were wound completely around the pole, the women stopped and turned to face the circle of men.

  In such a way, they would pair off. If there were more women than men, or men than women, the group would divide in threes to accommodate. All would make a mad dash to the fields within the light of the bonfires to add their fertility to that of the fields. Pagans called this rite “communion,” much to the frustration of the Church priests.

  Arriving on such a night, Sunni’s intentions could not have been more obvious. She was asking to join them at the fires. Although it was rare for a Duc and his wife to participate in such ceremonies, it was well regarded among the peasants when they did. Nobles often attended, sometimes to officiate and sometimes to participate, but always disguised by a mask to avoid later questions about progeny. Heden turned to his wife, raising his eyebrows, and waited for her decision.

  “It seems we’re to make a time of it,” Hilda said, smiling as she ushered them into the house. The lone priest followed them into the house with a confused look on his face.

  At dinner, Sunni provided Hilda with a small vial for the priest’s wine. After he nodded off and was put to bed, the threesome dashed off for the fields. The Duc and his lady were robed for the ceremonial benefit of the peasants, and Sunni’s face was painted for anonymity.

  Sunni danced with the peasant women and reveled in the light of the fire. Heden and Hilda “officiated” over the ceremonies and lit the bonfire to the cheers of the locals. But when the chanting stopped, and the couples moved into the light between the fire and the night, Sunni found Heden and Hilda. She came to them naked, her painted face reflecting the ever-changing firelight. She did not rush to them but luxuriated in the effect she was having on them. When she reached Heden, she took from him his robe and stepped back to look at him in the moonlight. Her hand touched him lightly on the shoulder and traced a line down his chest, across his stomach and down to the hardness between his legs.

  Without letting him go, Sunni turned to Hilda and kissed her lightly on the mouth. She kissed her again, this time hungrily, and the two Thuringians folded Sunni between them, losing themselves in her passion.

  She never again returned to Thuringia. But that one time had been enough for Heden. He kept the joy of that night in his heart and lived for years in the comfort of his family’s arms.

  When it came, Hilda’s death hurt him terribly. He wept when he closed and kissed her eyelids. He wept as her body was lowered into the ground. And although his boys needed a father then, more than ever, Heden lost himself in the blackness of his mind and mourned the passing of his second great love. He drank. He ignored his children. He ignored his duties.

  The darkness kept him until the news of Charles’s death woke him from his melancholia. Looking into the mirror, he saw a shadow of his former self. He bathed, shaved his beard, combed his great mustache, ate a great meal, and went to find his children. Three days later, word came from Sunnichild. “Meet me in Laon,” was all the message had said. Heden donned his armor.

  Now he stood on the battlements filled with purpose. His blood quickened in anticipation of battle, and his heart pounded at the thought of Sunnichild. The puissance of life had returned to him ten-fold. And as with all men afforded a second chance, he had the vigor of a man half his age. He lorded over preparations for the siege, whipping the ancient city into readiness. Let Charles’s whelp show his face here, Heden thought. I won’t let her go again.

  * * *

  When Heden had
ordered him to go with Bart and a troop of soldiers into the city to requisition men and supplies, Gripho bridled at the command. He didn’t like taking orders from Heden. And he didn’t like his mother deferring to the old bastard either. Am I not the mayor? Shouldn’t I be in command? Yet he accepted the role eagerly. At least I get to do something important.

  If asked, everyone in Laon would acknowledge Gripho’s title, yet the power of the office eluded him. Even the Bavarian nobles who supported him deferred to Heden when it came to defending the city. Gripho wanted to stab someone. At least he could lord it over Bart and Petr. Whatever indignities he suffered at Heden’s hand, Gripho would redouble on the man’s children. That gave him some solace.

  But he had to admit that he liked Bart. The boy would be a good lieutenant and, once his father was out of the way, a valuable ally. But the younger brother, Petr, was a weakling. That one would be more comfortable hiding behind a woman’s skirts than riding with men into battle.

  Gripho led the men into the city, barking orders and admonishing the men to look sharp. He enjoyed being in command. It was a job he felt born to do. He took them into a broad square in the oldest and most affluent part of the city. Large homes, some two stories high, surrounded a well-kept park on three sides of the square. A large church and its cemetery occupied the fourth. Bells were ringing the hour, and Gripho noted the late-arriving parishioners making their way through the large open doors of the church.

  “Hah!” Gripho kicked his horse. “I think we’ve just found a whole troop.”

  He led the soldiers to the front of the church and urged his horse up the short flight of steps to its doors. Although an acolyte had begun to close them, the boy stopped when he saw Gripho’s approach. Gripho rode past him and into the church. The rest of the men on horseback followed.

  Gripho made his way to the altar where a furious priest awaited him.

  “How dare you defile a house of God!” the priest demanded. “We have begun His holy mass.”