“Speak,” he begged. “Please. We both know I abandoned you to seek my own pleasure. I never thought it would be for the last time.”
The shadows clung to his father’s face. His ethereal lips parted. “All we are given is a limited number of breaths, Roland. It is what we do with them that fills the songs sung of us.”
“And what song shall they sing of me? That I left my father when he needed me? And now you have returned to—to torment me, to call me to account and demand repayment. I don’t want this, Father. I’m afraid of what I will find. What it will do to Mother. Her child is his. If I prove the deed, Baldwin will be fatherless and Mother will be a widow once more.” He stood and paced the floor. “Is there a purpose, Father? Justice, of course, but the price …”
William’s ghost was immovable.
A draft from the chimney brushed through from the hearth, filling his senses with the smell of wine and ash. He inhaled deeply until it passed, and when he looked back, his father’s shade was gone. He staggered, exhausted, onto the bed, looking up at the dark ceiling, despairing and hopeless.
And then sleep consumed him.
CHAPTER 9
Knight of Swords
Church bells pealed rollicking notes that echoed above the snow-covered city. Nobles and commoners flocked together toward the sound with cloaks pulled up to their ears and their hands buried in woolen mittens. Though some could afford fur-lined boots, many simply covered their feet in worn rags. The swelling crowd poured into the city to celebrate the day the champion Roland would be vested in his patrimony and inherit the lands of his late father William—putting an end to Ganelon’s conservatorship. As well, in the grand tradition of the court, Oliver would be confirmed to his own lands and titles in place of his ailing father.
People bottlenecked at the cathedral doors, jostling and stomping to gain access to the interior. From deep within the choir voiced a haunting deep-throated hymn. Beyond the imposing tympanum over the doorway, dominated by Christ and his saints, the vaulted interior stretched to a glorious altar where light from the high clerestory windows illuminated the square-checked masonry designed by Muslim craftsmen as a gift to the great king in Aachen. The altar was draped in Charles’s imperial colors, a riot of crimson and gold surrounding the imperial eagle of the Romans and Franks, and upon the altar lay two bared swords alongside scabbards fitted with the finest metalwork Frank armories could turn out. These were the storied blades Durendal and Halteclare—each representing royal favor and, some believed, divine interest.
A hush fell across the crowds when the first of the royal carriages clattered up to the steps outside. Troops pushed through the massive doors to part the straggling masses so the royal family could enter the building. There was a breathless pause as carriage doors opened and closed, leather springs creaked and horses stamped, until finally Charles, followed by his children, appeared in the archway. The crowd drew breath to cheer, but he held up his hand for silence to preserve the solemnity. He then waved reassuringly to the throngs and began his somber procession.
The people knelt before the king as he slowly walked to the altar. Bishop Turpin, in his finest vestments, waited before the altar to greet his monarch. When Charles paused at the first step, the bishop raised his worn shepherd’s staff in blessing to all the assembly and addressed them with a commanding voice.
“God grant strength to our noble king, the sword of God upon the earth, even Charles, protector of the realm and the holy church—crowned and ordained at the hands of the bishop of Rome as imperator of the Romans. Brother to Nicephorus, the Roman Augustus in Constantinople. We give thanks for thee and ask God to continue to bless thee with wisdom and grace.”
Charles ascended the rest of the steps. His family fanned out behind him, and the spectators rose to their feet for a better view.
Roland and Oliver entered the nave from a side door, clad in armor polished to a high sheen over brilliant white linen gambesons and shining black leather boots, as befitted the occasion. As they marched in step to the altar, Roland allowed himself a quick glance across the celebrants. Near the surcoats of the marchmen, he saw Gisela leaning on her nursemaid. His eyes paused on Aude next to her, her face luminous. Her eyes met his and she smiled across the distance. After a mere heartbeat, he lost sight of her behind the intervening crowds.
He and Oliver approached the altar where Charles stood flanked by his sons. The companions dropped to their knees, Roland before Charles, and Oliver to his friend’s right. They bowed their heads and raised their hands, palms pressed together in supplication. Charles placed his hands around Oliver’s and then around Roland’s accepting their gesture of fealty.
Turpin blessed the act and then spoke to the two young knights.
“Roland son of William of Breton March. Oliver son of Quintus of Vale Runer. Do you take upon yourselves the burdens of the enemies of your king, pledging to uphold his interests and protect the realm?”
The knights bowed their heads in deference to their king and said, in unison, “Yes.”
Turpin turned, lifted Durendal from the altar, and handed it to Pepin, who in turn handed it to his father. Charles took the sword by the hilt and touched Roland on the shoulders with the blade.
“Roland. Durendal was the sword of your father, William—a holy weapon. With it, I confer upon you your rights and privileges as his son and name you count of the Breton March, and a peer of the realm. I leave you with this charge, to use the sword to strike hard, as did your father before you, for God and your king.”
Roland took the weapon from Charles and the scabbard from Pepin, sheathing the blade quietly. Louis then passed Halteclare to his father’s hands. Charles touched Oliver on the shoulders with the blade in a like manner as he had Roland.
“Oliver. This is my sword Halteclare, a symbol of our esteem. With it I confer upon you the rights and privileges of the count of Vale Runer and name you a peer of the realm, as requested by your father, Quintus, in his illness. I leave you with the same charge, to strike hard for God and your king.”
Oliver accepted the weapon.
“Arise, Roland, count of Breton March, and Oliver, count of Vale Runer.”
From deep in the crowd, Otun raised his fist to the vaulted ceiling. “Roland and Oliver!” he shouted. “The gods fear their names!”
The stalwart men of the Breton March cried out approval of the Dane. Their voices shook the clerestory windows, echoing through the doors and ringing through Aachen’s frosty streets.
Charles shook his head and leaned over to Roland with a knowing grin. “Remind that one that he is now a Christian man,” he whispered.
Oliver laughed. “Sire, the last time he tried, the Dane nearly bit off his ear!”
In time the many well-wishers satisfied themselves of the need to offer congratulations, sage advice, or both and straggled out of the cathedral doors, leaving Roland and Oliver to wander through the cathedral to a grotto built into the side of the wide nave. There they tossed their brocade surcoats to the cold tile floor and flopped down for a welcome respite. The winter sun broke through the gray clouds and touched the cathedral’s interior with angels’ fingers of light. In its beams both knights examined their swords, marveling over the craftsmanship, the intricate hilts, and even the balance of the weapons in their hands. For Roland, holding the sword of his father brought a certain tangible comfort that could not be found in the elusive and troubled visions that haunted his sleep.
“Can you believe it?” Oliver said, his voice low. “Today felt like a dream somehow. Why, only yesterday we were at the Vale, just children playing silly games.”
Roland nodded absently as he leaned back against the wall and laid Durendal’s steel length across his lap. “I don’t know,” he mused. “I’ve waited so long for this, wished so intently that it would happen, that now it is finally here—I don’t really feel anything.” He paused, brow fu
rrowed. “Not as much as I would think, anyway. I mean—it seems a natural thing, not something special like I expected.” He shook himself. “Now the silly games are gone, and we’re men grown. Soon we’ll be off to another war, just as our fathers before us, and our grandfathers before them. When will it end, do you suppose? I wonder if wars will ever end.”
Oliver lowered his weapon, his blue eyes fixed on his friend for a moment.
“I suppose it will end for us when we’ve completed our mission,” he said.
Roland nodded and offered Oliver a grim smile.
“I suppose then we’ll be laying cold on an altar somewhere.”
Oliver scrambled to his knees.
“But if I must fight, I want to fight at your side.” He held Halteclare before him as a martial crucifix. “Before God, I swear to you my eternal friendship!”
Roland took a knee facing Oliver and raised Durendal into a mirror of his friend’s devotion.
“As do I to you,” he whispered.
They clasped hands through the crossing of their swords. When they released their grip, Roland examined Durendal more closely, no longer a lad admiring his father’s weapon but rather as a man holding the very tool that would serve him the remainder of his life.
“Such workmanship,” he observed. “You know, they say Durendal’s blade served Hector, champion of Troy. And see here, in the reliquary?” He turned the pommel to Oliver so his friend could examine it as well. “I’m told that the bones of St. Peter reside there.”
“A holy weapon, indeed,” Oliver replied. “A weapon that will rally men to its cause and serve its champion well. And bring swift justice.”
Roland lowered the sword. “I fear I’m not worthy. Can it really bring swift justice, even when I think murderous thoughts?”
Oliver frowned. “There is no one more worthy of this sword. Why do you doubt yourself so?”
“I wish you could understand,” Roland said.
“Why don’t you just start with trusting me?” Oliver encouraged.
“My father, he was recovering here in Aachen, you know, surrounded by faithless friends. But I didn’t see it—I didn’t look hard enough.”
“Go on,” Oliver coaxed him.
“He was getting better. I—I spent the night drinking. I was addle-headed. I chased after some girl from Burgundy. You know me—I pursued my own pleasure. When he died, he died without me, choking on his own vomit, with only Ganelon at his side. I wish to God I had absolute proof of the man’s treachery.”
“You know,” Oliver noted, “Turpin used to tell us to give our burdens to the Lord. Sometimes it’s just not for us to bear.”
Roland leaned back against the wall, his eyes rising to the shadows of the grotto.
“I must bear this. I was stupid and thoughtless. But I must avenge my father.”
“Trust God,” Oliver urged. “He will reveal the truth.”
“You sound like my father.” Roland laughed.
“Then I am honored indeed.” Oliver scrambled to his feet and offered Roland a hand. “Come, there are banquets in our honor—or so I’m told. And I am starving!”
As the night wore on, the street crowds thinned as revelers drifted into the various feasts to sate appetites for food, drink, and companionship, and workers and servants found their way home to their beds in exhaustion. Saleem stepped outside the palace gates onto the empty paving stones and pulled his cloak up about his neck. He wrinkled his nose. Aachen seemed to lay in a perpetual stink from the mix of slops tipped from citizens’ windows and cattle dung from beasts carting goods through the streets. He walked carefully to the middle of the way and gave each direction a long look. He’d had enough of meetings in cramped rooms with unwashed illiterates who nodded sagely at written reports they couldn’t decipher without the priests who stuck their noses into everything. Now was his time to explore what lay beyond the palace walls.
To his left lay the cathedral, and the merchant quarter beyond. But when he set upon that direction, he saw a familiar figure emerge from the palace. Roland had a determined look upon his young face, which instantly piqued Saleem’s curiosity. Despite his simple gray cloak, the champion stood out from the other rustics with his confident step and his wild blond hair tousled about his shoulders. Whatever was on his mind seemed to occupy his entire attention, and he did not appear to notice Saleem falling into step behind him.
Roland strode past the cathedral to the shops further down the street. A few yet remained open, trying to catch the last straggling customers of the early evening, and Roland stopped at one well-appointed establishment. He knocked at the door then stepped inside. Saleem paused for a long moment, adjusting his cloak while he considered his next move. To follow him in would certainly be a breach in propriety. He walked past the door.
He stopped and laughed at his own childishness. There was little else to do tonight, and he was curious. He strode to the merchant’s steps then thrust the door open and stepped inside.
Roland and the balding shopkeeper looked up from a table strewn with glinting finery.
“Hello,” Saleem said with a hint of habitual condescension. “It was cold outside. I thought I’d found shelter.”
Roland’s face suggested nothing of his interests here, so Saleem stepped uninvited toward the silken-draped table. Atop the cloth were laid out pieces of jewelry, some the squarish Frank style silver and gold; a few more elaborate things imported from the east, Ravenna or Constantinople; and one necklace in particular displaying a small finely cut ruby surrounded by a delicate silver filigree.
“From Damascus?” Saleem asked, pointing to it.
“Why—why, yes,” the shopkeeper replied, surprised.
Roland lifted up the bauble and examined it against the light. “You recognize it?”
“Recognize it?” Saleem laughed. “Jewels, gold, and silver links—maybe even the silk that covers this table? Such things are rarely found on the battlefield as soldiers fleece the pockets of the dead.” He offered Roland a knowing wink. “I learned from merchants plying the middle seas from northern Africa to the Levant. This style is exceptional.”
Roland cleared his throat and put the necklace down. He examined other adornments until his eyes fell on a pendant of amber set in northern silver on a necklace of spun links.
“You’ve good taste, my lord,” the shopkeeper said. He smiled as he leaned conspiratorially closer to the knight. “Fit for a very noble lady, indeed.”
“I don’t know.” Roland put it back and plucked up the ruby again, holding its gleaming crimson close to the lamp.
“This is for a woman then?” Saleem was surprised. From what he had seen of Roland in their time together, to be this much out of sorts simply for buying a girl a trinket seemed odd. “This woman? She is of good birth, I suppose?”
Roland lowered the necklace, considering it as he spoke. “She is. From one of Francia’s noblest houses.”
The champion is smitten. Knowing this small secret of Roland’s soul gave him an unexpected fragment of peace he had not felt in some time. While a boy growing up in Marsilion’s house, he had been an intimate to the plots and maneuverings of his family. But here, Saleem remained a stranger to their alliances, their motivations, or their desires. “Not that birth matters,” he quipped conversationally. “Women of all sorts to warm the bed, far less costly, can be found. And on the battlefield, a soldier’s right is far cheaper.”
Roland bounced the ruby against his palm. “There is none that compare. Some bonds are forged stronger than those of blood and lust.”
“Bonds? Lust?” Saleem chuckled. “Lust is the only bond. Trust me on this, my friend. I stand before you a product of lust and passing fancy. It is that passing fancy that rearranges the order of hearth and home, as well as great kingdoms.”
Roland shook his head and clutched the necklace in his hand.
When he spoke, his voice was more sure. “I’ve had my fill of such things.”
Saleem slapped Roland on the back, a calculated gesture to regain his footing in the game. “As have I! As have I, my friend!” Feeling expansive, he threw his arm around the shopkeeper’s shoulders, smelling the man’s foul breath as he leaned closer. “So, let’s talk about the price. I’m sure we can make a fair deal.”
Later that night, Pepin slipped from the palace with a dark cloak wrapped about his slender frame that couldn’t quite mask his limp. The prince made the most of the moon’s shadows to remain obscured from prying eyes, of which he was certain there were many. A royal wandering the streets without escort would attract the attention of noble and commoner alike. Since his destination was unfitting to one of his royal station, the prince opted for as much anonymity as he could coax from the night’s darkness.
After cutting through alleys and backtracking through closed-up markets, Pepin ended up in a mean section of shops and warehouses, near a ramshackle tavern with a boar stuck on a pike for its emblem. Across from the faded sign was the alley he sought, a dark crevasse between the buildings. His hand dropped to the long, wicked dagger hung from his belt, his fingers nervously clenching the hilt. He carefully stepped into the alley between piles of trash and refuse until the way terminated in an overgrown courtyard within another cluster of equally run-down buildings.
Rats scuttled around his feet. A flutter in the shadows across the open space caught Pepin’s eyes.
A man stepped forward, barely into the moonlight, likewise clad in a dark cloak and boots, his hood pulled down past his nose to cover his features. He held up a gloved hand, indicating for the prince to stop where he was.
“I came as Herwig said,” he said in a muted voice. “You haven’t been followed?”
“Of course not,” Pepin stated flatly. “Princes in the kingdom practice walking unseen.”
“So you say. But I’ve seen princes lose body parts for their lack of precautions.” He lowered his hand and crossed the yard to stand close by. His voice dropped even lower. “What is it you require of my patrons?”
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