Historical Books by Vaughn Heppner:
THE ARK CHRONICLES
People of the Ark
People of the Flood
People of Babel
People of the Tower
OTHER HISTORICAL NOVELS
The Sword of Carthage
The Rogue Knight
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The Great Pagan Army
by Vaughn Heppner
Copyright © 2010 by the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without permission in writing from the author.
HISTORICAL NOTE
In the late ninth century A.D., Europe sank into the depths of the Dark Ages. A hundred years earlier, Charlemagne had through hard fighting wrestled with the gloom. He had fought it with incorruptible court inspectors—the missi, his eyes and ears—and with something known ever since as the Carolingian renaissance. Its chief gift was Carolingian miniscule, writing with lower case letters. Until then scribes had only possessed CAPITAL LETTERS with which to pen their parchments.
Charlemagne named his far-ranging conquests Christendom, and the Pope crowned him Emperor on Christmas Day, 800 A.D. His son Louis the Pious climbed the throne after him, and then the dream began to crumble. Louis cared more for prayers and monasteries than ruling and fighting. Louis’s sons rebelled, and during the latter end of his reign began the bloody civil wars. The Franks of his day—of ancient German origin—divided a man’s inheritance equally among his sons. Thus the empire of Charlemagne handed down to Louis was split into three parts for his three sons. The strife between them was continual, but two battles in particular decimated the Frank hosts: Fontenay in 841 and Andernach in 876.
The charm of Charlemagne’s ruling descendants thereby lost much of their luster. King battled brother and nephew his royal uncle, as the divisions continually shifted depending on fortunes of war, marriage or treachery. The glitter of the Carolingian renaissance faded. Worse, the barons, the lords of the soil, turned their allegiance less to the kings who changed like the wind and more toward the local count or duke. These barons led hard lives, ruling in the backwoods over brutish serfs and coarse pig herders. (In Western Europe then with its truly vast forests, everyplace was distant from everywhere else.) The baron’s home was a wooden-walled villa, and the grandest city numbered souls in the several thousands. The real fighting men lived with the baron as retainers, eating at his board, or as vassals watching over hardscrabble farms only a few leagues away. They, like him, rode a noble steed—their only claim to nobility in this early medieval age. In a land where every ham or iron-edged hoe was carefully tallied as part of a man’s wealth, the outfitting of a miles—as a knight was known in Carolingian times—proved extraordinarily expensive. In terms of a milk cow (the basic measurement of wealth) a knight’s helmet cost six cows, his mail-coat twelve cows, his sword and scabbard seven, leg greaves six, lance and shield two and his stallion twelve cows. For the price of forty-five cows, an entire village’s output of large animals, one fighting man gained his arms and armament.
In all the fractured empire, there were only several thousand such knights. Nor were they like King Arthur’s legendary cavaliers. The Frank miles didn’t couch a heavy lance or wear plate armor. He wielded the Carolingian spear: a lance used in a cut and thrust style. It was almost a parrying, fencing type of fighting. The lance had a long spearhead with sharp edges for slashing and lugs lower down like those on a boar spear. The lugs acted like the quillons of a sword-hilt, not to stop the spearhead from penetrating too far, but to fence with in their unusual manner.
The civil wars brought misery. The Vikings from the north brought despair. In Charlemagne’s waning days, a few flea-infested longships raided the coasts, but when the Emperor threatened to invade Denmark in retaliation, the Vikings there cut off the head of their king and sought peace with dread Charlemagne. Things changed under Louis the Pious and never got better. Louis’s sons rebelled and no one had time to worry about a few raiders, so the Vikings went unpunished. Success bred courage and courage inspired boldness. By the time Charlemagne’s grandsons woke up to their danger, the Vikings had learned to raid with fleets and marshal into armies. They were able to face all but the largest Frank host.
The worst of these Vikings were the berserks. They were a warrior cult of Odin, the god of Death and Battle. Berserks wore wolf or bearskins and trained themselves to fight in a wild frenzy. These sworn brotherhoods often grouped themselves into companies known as a Twelve. They held the Viking standard for valor and were men of awful brutality.
In the late ninth century and in a space of a few years, one Carolingian king after another died, until the last one standing was Charles the Fat, an epileptic, cowardly great-grandson of Charlemagne. Under an accident of history, the empire came together again in a shadowy imitation of the old glory. In came together with impotent mockery, for a mighty host of Vikings—‘the Great Pagan Army’ as the monkish chroniclers called it—rampaged across Western Europe. Barbarism advanced with the Northmen and ignorance spread in their wake. This was the heyday of the Vikings, of blood eagles carved into captives, of burning monasteries and butchered monks, and of treasures gained and lost by the red-haired reavers of the sea. It was also the day of a new Frankish knight, a son of Count Robert the Strong. Robert had died on a battlefield on September 15, 866 while trying to stem the unbeatable Northmen. The fatherless son grew to manhood in a terror-stricken world, vowing vengeance.
This is the story of what he achieved on the walls of Paris, and how a bishop’s illegitimate daughter, a monk and an ancient Roman book helped the young knight spare civilization.
“…The Northmen ceased not to take Christian people captive and to kill them, and to destroy churches and houses and burn villages. Through all the streets lay bodies of the clergy, of laymen, nobles, and others, of women, children, and suckling babes. There was no road nor place where the dead did not lie; and all who saw Christian people slaughtered were filled with sorrow and despair.”
-- The Annals of Saint Vaast, 884
1.
The moon glittered in the night sky as Peter the Monk slunk along the path. He stopped often, listened as careful as a fox and watched with frightened eyes.
Soon Peter crouched before the abbot’s stone house. He tested the latch. He’d heard others say that after lauds the abbot often forgot to bar his door. The hinges creaked as Peter opened it. He froze, his heart thumped. From within came the abbot’s snores. Peter swallowed and pressed his mouth against the door-jam. He spat at the cursed metal, spat until the creaks stopped. Then he eased open the door, slipped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust.
He ghosted toward the bed and knocked his shins against a low table. He froze again, but the abbot’s lips kept blubbering. By fingertip, Peter discovered the belt of keys on the table. He had fretted all day where they might be. He clutched the keys so they wouldn’t clink. He eased onto his hands and knees. He was a long, bony man. He reached under the bed and touched a pine box. His heart pounded as he slid the treasury-box out. Once clear of the bed, he carried the box across the room and set it down with a soft thump. Sweat stained his eyes as he began testing keys. On the third try, one went all the way in.
A click made the sleeping abbot smack his lips. Peter counted to fifty before he pried off the lock, somehow found spit to lubricate the hinges and opened the lid. He grinned and felt to the right and to the
left. He felt at the front and at the rear. He pressed his palm into the box. Finally, he turned the box upside down. Not a coin dropped out.
For several heartbeats, Peter sat numbly. Then he wondered if this was mercy from God, keeping him from theft. In a daze, he closed the lid with a thump. He locked it with a click. He carried the box, knelt and—maybe this was the wrong box. He set it aside and reached under the bed. He blinked in surprise as he touched a leather scabbard. It held a sword.
Abbots weren’t supposed to have swords. Oh, maybe a few bishops commanded armed hosts, but they seldom wielded blades. Clergy used a club or mace and thereby avoided the rule against shedding blood. A good sword took over two hundred hours forging by a skilled swordsmith using three hundredweights of charcoal. Iron and steel rods were twisted and folded—pattern-welded—repeatedly. Then a swordsmith plunged the iron countless times into a furnace. The smith returned it red-hot to an avail and beat it into its proper shape and deadliness. The softer, inner iron gave a sword the ability to withstand the constant clash of battle without shattering like glass. The edges and point of harder steel gave it the sinister keenness, the ferocious ability to cut at a touch. A cutler affixed the hilt. This sword had a short crossbar guard, a straight grip of bone and a small, slightly swelling pommel.
Should he steal the sword and give it to Lupus? Peter recalled copying the Capitulary of Boulogne, first written during Charlemagne’s reign. It has been decreed that no bishop, or abbot, or abbess or rector or custodian of a church whatsoever is to presume to give or to sell a coat of mail or a sword to any outsider without our permission; he may bestow these only on his own vassals.
Peter left the sword, pushed the box back and knit his brow. It was impossible that the abbey had nothing, wasn’t it? He opened cupboards. He slid books off a shelf and checked in back. He opened the books. He had heard of a priest who had hollowed out a Bible and hidden gold crosses there. This was ridiculous. Ah! He had an idea. He crossed the room, and as he did, a horn wailed in the darkness. As the note died, shouts erupted.
“What was that?” the abbot mumbled from his bed.
The horn wailed again. Torchlight flooded through the unlatched door. Outside—
The abbey’s three-legged hound burst out of the apple grove. The mangy dog raced close to the earth, its tail tucked between its legs. An arrow arced lazily out of the grove and seemed to pick up speed. It pierced the hound. The hound bayed wretchedly and tumbled onto the dirt.
The hound’s master, the night watchman, stumbled out of the grove. Blood soaked his side. The night watchman stared white-eyed as he shouted, “Northmen! The Northmen are here!” A horn wailed from the grove. The sound was closer than before. The night watchman twisted back in terror.
Out of the grove lumbered a monstrous pagan. Behind him, torches blazed. Sword-iron scraped from a wooden scabbard. “ODIN!” the giant Northman roared. His face was more bristling beard than flesh. He had massive bones, huge hands and blubbery size like a whale. He lumbered. The iron rings of his mail jangled at each ponderous step.
The night watchman tripped, sprawled and scrambled back onto his feet—but not fast enough. Despite his bulk, the giant Northman moved nimbly. As the night watchman regained his feet, the blade crunched into his back. The watchman screamed, clawed the air.
“Peter?” the abbot said. “What’s happening?”
In the numbness of the moment, as more Northmen spilled out of the grove, Peter noticed that he stood in the path of the torchlight. His thin shoulders slumped. “The Northmen, Father. They’ve found our valley.”
The abbot jumped out of bed. He was a scrawny old man. “Shut the door, Peter! Bar it!”
Outside, the giant pagan wretched free his sword. It dripped with gore. He pointed the sword at Peter. That froze Peter’s guts, made his thighs weak.
Torches crackled in Northmen fists as they filed out of the woods. They had bestial features. A youthful archer raised a bow. He yanked the string to his beardless cheek and squinted down the length of the arrow. The bow twanged. The arrow flashed!
Peter couldn’t move as the arrow streaked toward him. With the feeling of ice, the arrow creased Peter’s cheek, whipped his head that way.
Northmen, fierce pagans with spears, swords and long-handled axes, roared their barbarous speech. In the torchlight, they looked like demons vomited from the pit, their mail ablaze with sulfur.
It’s just reflected torchlight, Peter told himself.
Northmen banged their swords against huge shields. It made a terrible din. The youthful archer grimaced, notched another arrow and drew a second bead.
The sting of pain across his cheek woke Peter from his terror. He leaped with a shout, slammed the door shut, grabbed the lumber piece and slid it into iron brackets. A thwack from the other side told him the youth had shot the second arrow.
“Don’t seek martyrdom,” the abbot said, who shouldered Peter aside.
In the gloom, Peter tried to make out the old man. The abbot held the scabbard and gave Peter a baleful grin. Footsteps thudded outside. A heavy body crashed against the door. Peter sprang rabbit-like across the room. The abbot whipped the scabbard off the sword. Door wood splintered at a second crash.
“Crawl out a rear window, Peter. Go! Run and warn the villagers.”
The third crash brought a yelp out of Peter. He fumbled with the latch and threw open the back shutter. A looming pagan grinned in the moonlight and lifted a huge axe. Peter slammed and latched the shutter as the axe whistled. Wood splinters pierced his palm. Peter staggered into the middle of the room as tears welled in his eyes. A fourth crash at the door and the hinges groaned.
Peter fell at the abbot’s feet. “Please, Father, I don’t want to die.”
The old man patted Peter’s head. “I absolve you of your sins, my son. Now scoot aside and give me room.”
A fifth crash tore the door off its frame. Like a tree, it thumped onto the floor, followed by a stumbling Northman. The abbot shouted. His blade took the Northman in the neck, the sound like that of a butcher hacking pork. The pagan crashed onto his knees. The abbot raised his bloody sword as two huge warriors rushed in. The first, the blubbery giant, used the iron boss in the middle of his shield, swinging it. The abbot stumbled backward at the blow. The second Northman also struck with his shield. The abbot’s sword clattered onto the floor. The giant bashed with his shield again. The abbot crumpled at his feet. Peter expected them to hack the dear old man into gory chunks. Instead, as the abbot raised his torso, the blubbery giant kicked the abbot in the head. The old man slumped onto the floorboards.
Peter’s stomached twisted. Bile rose in his throat. What did a blade feel like shoved into your belly? The Northman on the floor, the one with the cut neck, stirred. Peter trembled in terror. Could pagans raise men from the dead? The neck-cut Northman pushed up and climbed to his feet as bright red blood spurted and soaked into his mail links. Peter’s stomach lurched. Demons, they were demons.
The youth, the tall archer, ran into the room. He wore no mail but had a leathery tunic. A strange amulet of a hammer with painted eyes flopped on his chest. The blubbery giant—he had lines in his skin and broken veins around his nose. Gray colored his shaggy beard. His bloodshot eyes held power. The gory sword rose, the point aimed at the hollow of Peter’s throat. Grunts and slurry sounds spewed past the giant’s lips.
The lean archer blushed. The neck-cut Northman—how could any man survive a slash to the neck that poured such a copious amount of blood? That warrior mumbled angrily. Each pagan eyed Peter so he shivered in fear.
The blubbery old giant raised his hairy eyebrows. Curiosity lit the leathery face. He slurred words, a question by its tone.
Peter scrambled to his feet and bumped against the wall. The Northmen followed. Clink, clink, clink. The giant pointed a massive finger in Peter’s face and spoke his barbarous words again. Despairing, Peter nodded. The terrible giant squinted and examined Peter’s face. The giant Northman tilted
his head and that cocked his helmet. He spoke again.
Peter worked his throat. What did this monster ask?
The giant Northman grinned through his vast, sweaty beard. He was missing teeth. He spoke more impatient sounding.
“Help me, sweet Jesus,” Peter whispered. “Save me Mother Mary.”
The giant Northman listened. The neck-bleeder spoke harshly. The youthful archer shook his head. The blubbery giant spoke one word and handed the youth his sword. Then the giant glared at Peter and uttered his question.
“I don’t understand you,” Peter said. “Please, don’t kill me.”
The giant pointed at Peter’s face and roared the barbarous question. From outside came screams, hideous sounds filled with pain. Peter trembled.
The neck-cut reaver spoke. The blubbery giant of a Northman shook his head. The bleeder muttered and wiped his neck. He showed the giant Northman his bloody hand.
Peter edged toward the door. He refused to look at the door. But if he could—
The blubbery old giant struck. For all his size, he was nimble. He sank a massive fist into Peter’s gut. Peter crumpled onto the floor, vomiting. Another reaver pushed him onto his stomach and pressed a knee against his back. The youthful archer took out a length of rope and tied Peter’s wrists behind his back. The giant stepped on Peter’s head, pushed his cheek against the floorboard. The question came again.
“Damn you!” Peter shouted. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”
The giant Northman grunted as he bent onto one knee. He wove huge fingers into Peter’s tonsured hair and jerked up his head. The Northman squinted, wheezing, blowing his reeking breath into Peter’s face. The giant spoke new words, not questions, a pronouncement perhaps. The giant grinned. It spread deep lines across his leathery face.
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