After the festivities had worn beyond the twilight, Demetrius caught Roland’s eye from his place further down the table. The diplomat nodded discreetly toward the door, then waited a few moments before politely excusing himself to make his way there, all the while laughing and bantering with friends and comrades from his many years’ service for the emperor of the Romans among the Franks.
Roland drank another cup and listened to the count of Poitiers regale the group with stories of his most recent boar hunt—an encounter with a fearsome beast that had left a wicked tooth buried deep in the count’s thigh. The man even stood and dropped his trousers to show one and all the puckered scar. Roland roared with laughter with the rest and congratulated him for his kill. Then he quietly made an excuse to the king and took his leave out a door opposite of the one Demetrius exited.
The revelry echoed in the surrounding corridor as Roland circled the hall until he reached the shadowed corner where Demetrius stood waiting. The two men clasped hands. There was a third person with him.
“This is the young man I told you about,” Demetrius said, his voice low and deliberate. “His family is from near the Saxon March. Julian, this is Lord Roland.”
Roland clasped the youth on the shoulder and, as was his habit, looked him in the eyes.
“This is dangerous business that you will be tasked to do,” he warned.
Julian’s brown eyes returned the look without faltering.
“Sir,” Julian replied, “I’ve lived on the frontier my whole life. Each new day is greeted as a miracle in my house.”
Roland nodded. “Very good. But this job will be subtle. Watchful.”
“As it pleases you, my lord,” the youth agreed.
Roland smiled, squeezing Julian’s shoulder again.
“Yes, you’ll do fine. Keep your wits about you. There’s a noble who travels with the northern levies. I am to know everything he does, who he associates with, what he says. Understood?”
“Most clearly, my lord,” the youth beamed.
AOI
The following morning, the column of steel-clad cavalry clattered from the keep’s gates onto the muddy track and turned toward Roncevaux. Roland and Oliver rode at the head, followed by Otun, Turpin, and Demetrius. Above them, the rippling wolf banner of the champion marked the path for the following bandons where captains and sergeants ranged the ranks to maintain strict martial order. It was well known that Roland required precise discipline among his men, hearkening back to the days when Romans and Germans had served together in Rome’s storied legions. Within the troop, the marchmen, headed by Kennick on his stocky steed, formed their own cohesive unit bolstered by the Danes and Saxons serving among them.
As the lead elements approached a curve in the road, they spied gnarled oak trees where the Saragossan raiders swung by their necks among the limbs. Crows danced and squawked in the branches, fighting over bits of flesh and gristle. Roland spurred Veillantif toward the bodies. Otun, riding up behind, scratched at his bristly red beard.
“Crows mark our path,” he grumbled. “Odin has interest in our doings.”
Turpin crossed himself with a dramatic flourish. “I for one don’t want some pagan god’s birdies along for this ride!”
Without a word, Roland cantered back to his place at the head of the vanguard that snaked under the frowning Pyrenees, making for the distant shadows of Roncevaux.
CHAPTER 14
Chasing Secrets
The apothecary shop lay at the end of a dirty track that passed for a street in this poor section of Aachen, a neighborhood as far from the fineries of court as one could get. Merchants scurried along with one wary hand on their purses and the other on long knives at their belts. A few street vendors called out to the sparse pedestrians, pitching scrawny bits of hot meat and chunks of stale bread—all that could be spared in these lean times, for foodstuffs were diverted to support the troops both in the Saxon March and massing in southern Francia. Tattered homespun rags were the norm among those who scrounged through the goods for sale, some hoping to afford a scrap, others eager to pocket something without exchanging coin.
Aude walked quickly, lifting her skirts to her ankles to avoid the dark puddles while she scanned the signboards swinging idly overhead. A pace or two behind her shuffled her escort, Jerome, a kindly soul of sixty winters. His lean, craggy face surveyed their surroundings with cloudy eyes while his gnarled fingers nervously clenched a worn sword hilt tucked beneath his cloak. As a vale man, he was sworn to keep the lady safe, but it had been an age since he’d been tasked to use the weapon in anger.
A burly ruffian strode into Aude’s path. Jerome closed the distance to shield her, but the man merely laughed and slurred, “Your search is over, lady! I’ve a satisfaction for you!”
Aude adroitly sidestepped him and kept walking. The brute stopped and watched her pass then noticed Jerome eyeing him and made a rude gesture before stumbling on up the street. Jerome harrumphed at his back and turned to fall dutifully into step behind Aude, who already rushed up the apothecary’s steps.
A small doorbell rang a cheerful peal that seemed out of place in the dark interior. Herbs hung from the rafters, making the shop appear lost in the undergrowth of a mossy forest. Fragrant smells twitched her nose. At the back of the shop was a large table covered with pestles of crushed leaves and braziers steaming with bubbling pots. Behind it sat a thin man with a bald head fringed by gray locks tumbling about his ears. He squinted over his work while his spidery hands deftly measured powders, mixed potions, and filled small bottles sitting in rows along the table’s edge. As she approached, Aude noticed that each bottle bore a singular apothecary mark.
She stopped before the table and waited. The shopkeeper did not look up. She politely cleared her throat, folded her hands together, and waited yet a little more.
Sorting through a pile of diced herbs, he finally glanced up at her with an impatient tic in his left cheek.
“Yes, may I help you?” His Frankish bore a noticeable accent, like the priests from Italy in Charles’s court.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Aude began, a little tartly.
He waved a hand.
“No, no, you are not disturbing me,” he said, but his eyes didn’t seem to agree with his words. “What may I do for you?”
She pulled a folded cloth from her pocket, opening it to remove the bottle Gisela had entrusted to her.
“Would you be able to tell me what’s in this?” she asked.
He pushed aside his handful of leaves, slipped on a calfskin glove, and took the vial from her.
“What was this used for?” He examined the contents against the dim light then scrutinized the mark on the roughcast glass.
“Oh, I can’t say for sure,” Aude replied. “It was found in the personal effects of a late friend.”
He narrowed his eyelids, and his thin lips turned downward.
“Well, I’ve not sent something like this through my doors.” He tapped the bottle, causing the liquid to dance inside. “The mark looks to have originated in Roma, or perhaps Constantinople. You’d do better searching those places to find who filled this. See the letter there?” He traced the mark. “I’m not a student of Greek. You need someone familiar with that language to learn about this little bottle.” He twisted out the tiny stopper and sniffed at it judiciously. “Yes, this is something I’ve not seen in my work.”
He handed it back and smiled.
Aude carefully folded the bottle in her kerchief and tucked it away again. “Thank you for your help, good sir.”
“Of course, of course,” he said, as if he had done her a favor. “And now, is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked with a more genuine smile. “A tincture for the moon, or maybe a potion for someone special?”
Back in the palace, Aude hurried alone to her chamber. Beneath the folds of her skir
ts, her boots were caked with the mud of Aachen’s streets and left blotches trailing behind her on the stone floor. If she could just reach her room before being noticed, but a voice called her name and chilled her blood.
“Aude! Aude! Where have you been?”
She paused but for a moment to offer Berta the proper respect due to Charles’s daughter. The princess smiled, puffing and waving her hands to accentuate the effort needed to catch up.
“I thought you’d been taken prisoner and spirited away from the palace!” The princess laughed, stretching on her tiptoes to give Aude a friendly embrace. She linked her arm in Aude’s and pulled her down the hall, as if they had intended all along to meet up here and continue onward.
“Oh, no, no.” Aude forced a friendly smile, feeling a bit guilty about being annoyed, for she truly had affection for Berta. “I can assure you that it was nothing more adventurous than seeking a trinket to send home to my mother. She has been shut in so awfully long with Father being sick, you know.”
Berta flashed a radiant, childlike smile. “We should send your mother something more than a bauble. I’m sure there are wares coming in even as we speak from the Orient. Why, I saw some bracelets from Constantinople that are just to die for!”
Aude steered the bubbling princess around a court scholar who barely looked up from the stack of vellum in his hands.
“How thoughtful, my dear,” Aude replied. “But my mother, well, she likes very simple things.”
No sooner had the words escaped her lips than Berta began reciting the names of merchants, tradesmen, and small craftsmen who would be able to supply a wealth of simple things to inspect on a moment’s demand. It was clear that all of Aachen could be at their disposal to find the right gift. And while they were at it, they could secure something for Berta’s own dear father who was deeply missed at court.
Aude continued to smile, though the pleasantry did not extend to her eyes, for her mind was far from the conversation. Because of her love, Gisela’s burden had become her own.
“… And we could take a coach to see Emile. You remember him, the Greek trader who ventures beyond the frigid north and brings back those fabulous stones that look like frozen drops of honey. As the tale goes, the ancient gods saw the honey trickle from their ladles while they brewed golden mead. They thought each drop so beautiful that they enchanted it to form amber. Oh, I am just so taken when I see those liquid stones …”
When the two young women swept down the hallway, a spidery figure appeared from behind a column, stopping to watch. Petras’s bare head glistened in the light, and his hawkish nose lent a predatory air to his intense gaze. His eyes dropped to the mud track on the stone floor.
“And where have we been today, daughter of the Vale?” he whispered to himself.
CHAPTER 15
Ambush
Frank soldiers stretched through the pass, riding two abreast while their horses picked through the craggy reaches of the Pyrenees. Scouts ranged beyond the head of the column, scanning the trail for activity from the mountain denizens who eked out a meager existence squeezed between the caliphate to the south and the Franks to the north. Horns trilled from outlying positions, and Roland directed reinforcements forward. Soon the concussion of clattering arms echoed through the stony pass, quickly escalating to the human sounds of men locked in battle. Roland turned in the saddle and signaled to Kennick. That began a chain of orders shouted down the column of marchmen. Soldiers dismounted and readied weapons while Roland spurred Veillantif forward to take a position in the front ranks. Together they surged forward in a tight company, their footfalls echoing with a heavy solidity that drowned out the distant cries of men dying.
Karim and Saleem rode alongside Demetrius and watched the deployment with interest. After a long pause, they could hear the screams of hill folk who suddenly realized they no longer faced lightly armored scouts but rather the fully equipped and well-disciplined marchmen.
Saleem shook his head, concern on his face when he leaned over to Demetrius. “These Franks scurry about like ants. We waste time chasing shadows when we should be on to fighting Saragossa.”
Demetrius smiled indulgently.
“But that’s not the task for this company,” he replied, waving his hand to indicate the vanguard as a body.
His answer piqued Karim’s attention. “What do you mean, not the task?”
Demetrius laughed. “It’s very simple, my friends,” he said. “Roland is under orders to ensure the king’s safe passage. He’ll remove every threat to meet this obligation—including the mountains themselves.”
Horns called again. Frank units rushed past the three men, this time with Bishop Turpin riding at their head.
“No time for chattering!” the cleric called out, a grin illuminating his face. He raised his hammer for the fight.
Demetrius drew his own long-bladed spatha, his genial smile becoming a mischievous grin that mirrored the bishop’s, then hefted the weapon in his hand.
“My friends, that’s why I love the Franks,” he said. “Back in the empire, bureaucrats talk and talk until our enemies die of old age!”
He chased after Turpin to join in the skirmish with the mountain folk. Karim and Saleem shrugged at each other and spurred their mounts to catch up.
The sun fled to the west and cast hungry shadows along the foothills when Roland emerged from Roncevaux with the vanguard flooding out of the pass behind him. He surveyed the plain below, scattered with green from the early-spring rains. The air was crisp and cool. Soon enough Iberia would be gripped in summer heat sure to choke the Franks with dust in their preparations to grapple with Saragossa.
A Frank outrider carefully picked his way back up the rutted track toward them. Dirt clotted his horse’s sweat-soaked hide.
“My lord Roland!” he shouted.
Roland wiped sweat from his brow and raised his hand in greeting.
“You’ve news?”
“Yes.” The rider pointed across the plain to a column of rising dust. “Barcelona lies yonder with his army.”
Roland stood up in his stirrups for a better look, but the twilight was stretching into night. “How many men did he bring?”
The scout shook his head, disappointment displayed across his face. “His numbers … well, they are not many, my lord.”
“Show me,” Roland ordered, waving his companions forward. They thundered down the slope in the scout’s wake toward the dusty camp of Barcelona.
Guards, topped with conical helmets, stopped the Frank party with a challenge before identifying them and allowing them to ride on toward the camp’s center. The place was a riot of soldiers, supplies, and wounded. Out of a large tent mobbed by bandaged wretches, a surgeon hauled a slopping bucket to tip crimson waste into a trench. He looked up at the passing Franks, his face a mask of exhaustion and his clothes covered in dark stains.
“Seems the siege of Barcelona is over and the war’s begun without us,” Oliver said.
“A fine observation,” Turpin growled. “But rest assured, there’s plenty of this war left for us.”
Guards led them into the center to a large opulent tent and ducked inside while Roland and his comrades dismounted and waited. News of the Franks’ arrival rippled through the camp, and Barcelona’s men paused their half-hearted tasks to watch them with weary eyes.
The guards returned a moment later with a courtier dressed in a fine coat of exotic material. He stepped lightly through the blood and dust in calfskin boots then stopped before Roland and bowed politely.
“You’ve come from Charles?” he asked.
“Yes,” Roland affirmed. “We’re here to see the emir.”
The man examined the Franks, scrunching his nose and squinting into the deepening dark, but upon recognizing Karim, his face brightened. “Please, please come this way!” he said. “You’re a welcome sight!”
/> The guards deferentially pulled the tent flaps open to admit the delegation. Roland ducked his head beneath the fine canvas and stepped onto a thick rug that softened the ground beneath his feet. The appointments were exotic and finely crafted from the emir’s own palace in Barcelona. The whole was scattered about with weapons that magnified the emir’s martial status. A thin layer of dust from the flight across Iberia dulled the sheen of the precious metals—hands were too scarce in the chaos outside to spare for polishing and cleaning. The emir’s servants scuttled about, some with bloodied surgical tools, others with buckets of fresh water or clean bandages that would be spent all too quickly trying to stem the loss of life and limb. A physician gestured for Roland to proceed through a silk divider at the far end of the tent.
He and the others ducked through once more and entered into the presence of the emir of Barcelona, who lay stretched across cushions, surrounded by physicians. Sulayman raised his hand weakly, though the spark in his observant eyes remained bright. He groaned when a physician pierced the flesh of his calf with a needle, pulling together the skin to seal up a wound with deft stitches. Another attendant poured wine over it and then bound the wound with fresh linen.
“My son!” Sulayman whispered, struggling to sit upright in the bed. “My heart is pleased to see you alive and well. And, my friends, welcome, welcome!”
Karim rushed past Roland to steady his father, gently pressing the emir back into the cushions.
“Allah be praised you live, Father!” he said. “But you should rest.”
Sulayman nodded. “I fear I’m not myself at the moment.”
“Emir,” Roland said, “we bring you greetings from Charles. We are his vanguard.”
The emir’s face brightened, and he strained to sit up again. But Karim kept a gentle hand on his shoulder.
“Praise Allah,” he whispered. “I feared my brother would be distracted by his Saxon problem for another season.”
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