Night Blooming

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Alcuin rode up to Rakoczy. “You have impressed Great Karl—not an easy thing to do.”

  “It wasn’t my intention,” said Rakoczy, looking down at the dead bear.

  “Don’t tell him that,” Alcuin recommended as he began to restore order to his missi dominici and the rest of his escort.

  Rakoczy nodded his acknowledgment as he once again took his place in the group, all the while listening to the fading hoof-beats of Karl-lo-Magne and his huntsmen.

  TEXT OF A LETTER FROM FRATRE BERAHTRAM TO THE COMES GOSBERT.

  To the most illustrious Comes Gosbert, currently attending on King Karl-lo-Magne at Aachen, the most respectful greetings of Fratre Berahtram of Sant’ Zaccharius monastery near Sachenwasser.

  Great Illustre, I make bold to send this to you, in the hope that I may recommend myself to your service. I have been a monk since the age of seven, and my Abbott will tell you that I have carried out my duties and submitted myself to the Rule in an exemplary fashion. I have learned to read Scripture in Latin and Greek, and I am able to frame letters in Latin, Greek, Frankish, and the vulgate of Longobardia. Also, I have been taught to draw and interpret maps, which may add to my usefulness.

  I will not dissemble: though I am a poor monk, with no family to prosecute my interests, I still seek to achieve a good place for myself in the Church, and to that end I hope one day to become a Bishop. Working for you would increase my notice, and would make it more likely that the King would secure such an appointment for me. Many worthy monks have hoped that their reputations would be enough to advance them, but they are still at their labors, with no likelihood of change.

  If I could place myself in your service, my Abbott, Rokinard, your cousin, believes I might find the avenue to the goal I seek. Therefore I have dispatched this to you, along with samples of my writing and translating so that you and your clerks might decide if I have enough to offer you.

  I pray God sends you to know the right,

  Fratre Berahtram

  At Sant’ Zaccharius, the 10th day

  of November in the 796th Year of Salvation

  by the Pope’s calendar

  Chapter Five

  IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT when the banquet finally came to an end. Karl-lo-Magne rose from his elevated chair and lifted his cup one more time, his threadbare velvet mantellum glistening where the light from the braziers struck the gold thread shot through it. “God send you safe sleep and salvation,” he intoned, and drank a single mouthful; unlike most of his court, the King was rarely drunk, and never at such large and volatile gatherings as this one, which was to mark the beginning of the Holy Days of Nativity, and which was a solemn occasion at Court: Bishops and Bellatori, scholars and Illustri, Comesi and Magnati gathered together for the feast at the dark of the year at the behest of Karl-lo-Magne, who wanted his vassals to renew their oaths of fealty on the Holy Nativity that also began the Pope’s New Year. “Thank you for your attendance. The slaves will light you to your beds.” Obediently the courtiers got to their feet—some more steadily than others—and made their way toward the several doors that gave onto the dining hall, where slaves with rush-lights stood; other slaves began the tedious chore of cleaning up the debris left behind, one of them being bold enough to mutter a profanity under his breath.

  Outside a cold wind slapped at the buildings, dispersing the smoke from the myriad chimney-pots toward the stars in the south. Guardsmen patrolled the walls and manned the gates, wrapped in mantella lined in fur, and shivered still. The shouts of the guests calling for rush-lights and slaves echoed along the stone corridors; from the chapel came the droning prayers of Nocturnes.

  “Rakoczy,” said the King as he caught up with the foreigner on the gallery above the main courtyard, “I didn’t see you eating tonight.”

  The foreigner set his stride to suit Karl-lo-Magne’s, although he did this as inconspicuously as possible, not an easy thing with such a disparity of height. “As I told you, Optime, I eat in private. Among my people anything else is … insulting.” He pulled his black wool, ermine-lined mantellum more tightly around him. “I mean you no disrespect.”

  “No doubt the custom prevents poisoning,” said Karl-lo-Magne, nodding to himself. “You also had none of the wine.”

  Rakoczy reverenced the King. “Your pardon, Optime: I do not drink wine.”

  “So prudent,” Karl-lo-Magne marveled. “Would that more of my Court shared your aversion.” He strolled along, seemingly content to remain in Rakoczy’s company a while. As they reached the junction of two corridors, he halted and turned to the foreigner. “You have been here six weeks—time enough to have formed an opinion. What do you think of Aachen?”

  “It is a most impressive place,” said Rakoczy, knowing this was the answer the King sought.

  “But not the most impressive you have seen,” Karl-lo-Magne remarked a bit too casually.

  Rakoczy had seen pyramids and temples, palaces and China’s Great Wall, Rome at its most glorious and the pantheon of Athens when Socrates taught there, the stupas of Burma and the ruins of Carthage. He considered his answer carefully. “In this part of the world, only the mountains are grander.”

  Karl-lo-Magne tapped his nose. “A very canny response. You are a fellow to reckon with.” Mulling this over, he went a short distance in silence; as he reached the end of the gallery, he stopped. “Now that you have seen my Court here, are you content to remain at Tours, or would you be willing to take up your work for me, to assist me in all I may need of such a learned man as you are?”

  “Optime, a most gracious offer,” Rakoczy said carefully, “but it was Bishop Alcuin who summoned me, and I believe my first obligation must be to him.”

  “Alcuin is my most trusted advisor. As such, he would be the first to recommend that I avail myself of the most useful men in Franksland. He will not refuse my request if I ask him to send you to me. He knows that I make no frivolous demands.” Karl-lo-Magne said it confidently, almost smugly.

  Rakoczy could not keep from a wry smile. “You are fortunate indeed to be secure in the devotion of your subjects.”

  “It is because I have done much to aid them all, and they are grateful,” said Karl-lo-Magne, so complacently that Rakoczy knew the King had not noticed the irony in his remark. “I have claimed half the world, and all those loyal to me have been enriched by it. It is not the last of what I shall do, and my faithful know that as well.”

  “More spoils?” Rakoczy suggested, his amusement masking a somber intent.

  “That is the least of it. I can offer more holdings, and greater advancements.” His stern tone warned Rakoczy that the King would not countenance more such observations from him.

  “You have done much,” Rakoczy echoed carefully.

  “As much as the Great Khan?” Karl-lo-Magne challenged.

  “The present Emperor of China holds sway over vast lands, but he himself did not subdue them: that was accomplished many generations ago, by ancestors he holds in the same high regard you hold the Saints and Martyrs.” Rakoczy put the tips of his fingers together. “At least, that is my understanding. Others may give different accounts.”

  “Ah!” Karl-lo-Magne exclaimed. “Then you do allow for differences in reports.”

  “That I do; what sensible man does not?” said Rakoczy, whose long centuries of experience had taught him that there was little worthwhile in disputing varying accounts of events. “So must you, to continue to expand your borders as you do, for I would suppose you have often been told that advance and conquest were impossible, and yet you have done both. Anyone who seeks to go beyond old limits must question accounts.”

  “Another Canny answer,” Karl-lo-Magne approved. “You are a most scrupulous man, Magnatus.”

  “Surely you comprehend the need for that,” said Rakoczy, his manner deferential.

  “I have long known the worth of such meticulousness,” said the King. “And to value it more with every passing year.”

  Rakoczy ducked hi
s head as a sign of respect. “Every passing year, you add to your accomplishments.” It was a courtesy to say so, and both of them knew it.

  “Yet I am growing older and I must set my seal firmly if all I have done is to last beyond me,” Karl-lo-Magne grumbled. “There are men at Court who come to enrich themselves and who hope to reap a fine harvest when I die. They think to put an end to the might of my family, to usurp the power I will rightly bestow on my sons. This isn’t going to happen.”

  “No, Optime,” said Rakoczy.

  “How can you know my concerns? You have no children and your family is lost. Nor are you ancient yet—your hair is still dark and you walk with strong legs and a straight back—but you have been about the world. You have seen more than most of those around me, and you have straggled to preserve yourself in faraway climes, as you yourself admit.”

  Rakoczy wondered what Karl-lo-Magne intended, and supposed the King was once again thinking aloud. “It is true that I have traveled far.”

  Karl-lo-Magne made up his mind, saying with certainty, “I will rely upon you to tell me what your experience has taught.” He regarded the foreigner with narrowed eyes.

  “Then perhaps I should tell you I am older than I appear,” said Rakoczy, and added, “As to advising you, you may not like what I say.”

  “But I will listen. You may be certain of that. And I will not upbraid you so long as you are honest. So many of my courtiers protest their honesty, but they lie with full deliberation.” Karl-lo-Magne scowled down at his feet, wrapped now in heavy sheepskin tibialia that were held in place by the straps on his brodequins. “I would ask you to err on the side of truth.”

  “Truth? If I do, will you believe me?” Rakoczy inquired. “I am not a Frank, and that could create uncertainty in your mind.”

  Karl-lo-Magne laughed hugely. “So!” He clapped his big, hard hand on Rakoczy’s shoulder. “I like you, foreigner. I know you for a courageous fellow—killing that bear with your sword!—and not given to idle boasting. Your conduct is beyond reproach—I could wish that more of my own courtiers behaved as well as you do. You have asked me for no advancement, although I have offered you distinction. If you are greedy or false, you have concealed it well.”

  “I have gold enough to meet my needs, and I am a stranger here; it would be folly to betray your hospitality,” said Rakoczy, watching the King out of the tail of his eye.

  “Gold!” Karl-lo-Magne scoffed. “Shiny trinkets and festive clothing and crucifixes are made from it, and the Greeks love it as a starving man loves fat geese. Here, our wealth is silver. Still, gold is useful in its way.” He cocked his head. “Enough gold. A curious remark. What is enough gold? Can you tell me?” He stopped beside a torch-bracket in the wall, where a pitch-soaked branch was burning. “How have you determined enough?”

  “Enough is sufficient for me to live well at cost to no other man for at least five years,” Rakoczy said, glad it was essentially the truth. “I have brought that much with me.”

  “Do you not think it’s risky to admit so much to me? I might order all of it confiscated.” The light in his bright-blue eyes suggested that he was considering just such an action.

  Rakoczy gave a calculatedly brash answer. “You would do it if I carried silver. Gold, as you say, is for Greeks, and other foreigners. The Church is fond of gold.”

  “And I must deal with them all. Byzantium may think me a barbarian chieftain, but they have a high regard for any gold I may have, and they do not scorn my silver. They offer their gold to me at un-Christian rates, thinking to embarrass me. It is they who are shamed. No man who worships the Risen Christ should demand so much from those who share his faith.” He had been pulling at his beard immediately beneath his lower lip, recalling past insults from the Byzantines. With a shake of his head he recalled himself. “Still, you are—as you say—a foreigner, and what you have can be useful to me.” His glance toward Rakoczy was speculative.

  Taking advantage of the moment, Rakoczy said, “I will gladly pay you in gold for two or three fiscs, in the place you choose. You will have gold, which you can use to deal with Byzantium; I will be able to make my way in the world from what the fiscs produce.” It was a bargain beneficial to Karl-lo-Magne, and both men knew it.

  “Very well. I will authorize four contiguous fiscs to your usage. I will choose them in a place that isn’t too remote from Aachen so you may attend upon me when I am resident here. For that you will have to supply me with one mounted soldier, with all his equipment, and provide for his maintenance. In addition to the money for the use of the fiscs, of course.” Karl-lo-Magne smiled broadly, revealing a few missing teeth.

  “Of course,” Rakoczy agreed, relieved. He reverenced the King. “It will be my honor. You will have me at your call whenever it suits you, and I will not be a charge upon you.”

  “Truly,” Karl-lo-Magne said, his eyes hardening. “Some of my Potenti will not like this.”

  “Because I am a foreigner?” Rakoczy suggested.

  “That, and other things.” Karl-lo-Magne was becoming caught up in imagined complications. “You do not know how jealous some of my kinsmen can be.”

  “It is true I am a foreigner without blood relatives in this land,” Rakoczy said in agreement. “No feuds compel me to be any man’s enemy; my father and uncles are long dead; my mother as well; no brothers seek to lay claim to what I am granted; I have no sons to provide a share of my property upon my death, no daughters or orphaned sisters requiring dowries. Surely this must mitigate my foreignness a little.”

  “Dowries,” Karl-lo-Magne muttered, glowering down the dark corridor beyond the glare of the torchlight. “The fate of a man with daughters. Sons are bad enough—the clever ones may be treacherous, the foolish ones are tools of treacherous men—but daughters! Let no man have daughters, lest he give away all his holdings to provide for daughters, whose husbands will turn them against you and try to seize more than you have already given. Females are the very devil for a man with territory and wealth.” He coughed suddenly, as if he had just realized he had spoken aloud: he had never allowed his own daughters to marry, and now Rakoczy had a fair idea why.

  “I may have disadvantages, Optime, but I also am unencumbered,” Rakoczy said at his most mild.

  “Yes. Yes.” Karl-lo-Magne continued to stare at the torch, his gaze on something far away.

  “And I am capable of doing your will without creating difficulties in obligations,” he went on.

  Karl-lo-Magne nodded slowly. “At the Resurrection Mass, before all my Court I will grant you the fiscs—contiguous, near Aachen—for a year, without let or lien upon them in return for your gift of two Roman measures of gold from your stores. If at the end of that time I am satisfied that you have not brought any claims against me, and that you have kept your Word, and provided me with an equipped fighting man, I will extend your tenancy for five years, for eight Roman measures of gold. If you remain in Franksland beyond that time, we will treat again of the matter.”

  “Optime is most gracious,” said Rakoczy, reverencing him again.

  “Optime is nothing of the sort,” Karl-lo-Magne growled, but his blue eyes glinted with pleasure. “You have skills and knowledge I must have if I am to press eastward.” He held up his hand. “Say nothing of what we discuss to anyone, not even your Confessor, for surely he must inform his Bishop of anything you reveal, and the Bishop will impart his knowledge to the Pope.”

  “You and His Holiness are allies,” Rakoczy reminded the King.

  “Of course we are; of course.” He blinked twice, recalling himself to his present situation. “But a prudent man must always keep certain things to himself.”

  “Does the Pope not want you to expand your holdings to the east?”

  “He wants the Moors gone from Hispania, and he doesn’t want to give the Greeks anything to complain of; the Papal Court is riddled with spies for Constantinople, and everything the Pope says is heard by the Patriarch. It would please the Patriarch
to be able to depose the Pope and put his own clerics on Sant’ Pier’s Seat. More than that, Byzantium has intentions for Wendish lands as much as I do, and on Moravia, if they can subdue the Avars long enough to get there.” He glared at Rakoczy. “That you must not repeat.”

  “I will not,” Rakoczy assured him; he had decided that Karl-lo-Magne was testing him, telling him fairly important things that could be traced back to him if they became known.

  “About the Wends,” said Karl-lo-Magne in a speculative voice. “Do you think they are strong enough to put up a defense against me?”

  “Whether they are or not, they will not let you into their territory unchallenged,” said Rakoczy. “As you must know already.”

  Karl-lo-Magne nodded. “Yes. I have some sense of this.” He stretched suddenly, and his shadow all but blotted out the light from the torch. “But, as you have said, there are more ways to view any report than simply on its own merits.”

  Rakoczy managed a one-sided smile. “I have my own again.”

  “You would do well to remember that, and to hold what I say in high regard, more than my other courtiers, for they have established themselves in my affection,” said the King, almost preening. “Another thing: I have also noticed that you keep no woman, or boy, for your pleasure.” He said it so nonchalantly that Rakoczy was immediately on guard.

  “I am a foreigner and new to your Court,” said Rakoczy with an inclination of his head. “You have made me welcome, but I am not one of you, nor will I ever be. This does not commend me to those seeking alliance.” He said nothing of the women he had visited in their sleep, taking what he needed and leaving a sweet, sensual dream behind.

  Karl-lo-Magne chuckled. “Adroit. You’re very adroit.” He made a gesture. “There are widows at my Court, women whose husbands bound them to them in life and death. They cannot marry again, or they will lose all support granted to them. If one of them should please you, I would be willing to countenance the union, short of permitting marriage.”