The Great Pagan Army

by Vaughn Heppner

  ***

  They had tied the wolf’s hind leg to a tree. He snarled, bared his fangs and his hackles rose as Heming inched toward him.

  “You must rush in!” cried a berserk.

  “Hush,” Bjorn said. “This is his kill. He must do it as Odin wills.”

  Sweat slicked Heming’s palm. The knife felt slippery in his grip. Those fangs gleamed and the beast snarled and snapped. Heming crept forward. Then he lunged and tried to grab a fistful of fur. The wolf was quicker than he expected. It leaped away. Heming stumbled. The wolf leaped in. Teeth ripped his cheek. Heming howled and thrust deep. The wolf whimpered. Heming roared, picked up the creature and slamming it bodily against the tree. It snarled again, and the two of them bit and clawed until Heming shoved his forearm deep into the wolf’s jaws. It bit down, but Heming kept his arm wedged against the wolf’s jaws as he gasped the hilt, drew and plunged the knife repeatedly.

  …When the wolf died, and as the berserks closed in, Heming panted, dripped blood and sawed into the warm creature. His face felt afire and his left forearm was numb. He tore out the pulsating heart. It quivered in his hand, so wet and slippery and so hot. He wasn’t sure what he felt: crazy, euphoric to be alive, joyous at victory. He sank his teeth into the warm flesh and ripped off a hunk. He almost gagged. He chewed, swallowed and amazed himself by taking another bite. He felt faint, nauseous and yet—he slurped the beast’s blood and took a third tear out of its wet heart. He laughed. He felt different, giddy, as if the power of the creature, this beast, entered him and swelled his limbs, his chest with strength.

  The berserks around him shouted and raised their weapons.

  “He is Ulfhednar!”

  “He is a wolfcoat!”

  “Odin has favored him with a beauty scar!”

  Berserks laughed.

  “He is one of us,” Grimar said.

  Heming swayed, and he threw back his head and howled. Did he do it to please them or did he truly exude in his victory. He didn’t know, and howled a second time, no longer caring about reasons.

  21.

  Peter’s second attempt at rescuing Willelda came after a week of reaching Paris. The city was in turmoil. Fleeing serfs entered the gates as if they had reached the New Jerusalem of God. The Bishop’s men organized these wandering souls and put them to work building walls or digging ditches. More and more people piled into Paris. Women wailed over those who had perished. Some men stared glumly into oblivion or bartered their last possessions for strong ale. Numbers increased until many slept in the streets or huddled under the walls. Finally, the Bishop issued a proclamation, and his men sent the weak, sick and useless south towards Tours. The rest toiled like ants, and some of those scurried elsewhere.

  Guilt tormented Peter. Anguish ate at his soul. In the dark of night, he envisioned Willelda raped and ravished by Northmen. He almost heard her cries and believed she called for him to rescue her. He spoke with the Count.

  “Soon, soon,” the Count said. “Now isn’t yet the moment. I have spoken with the Bishop, however, concerning you. He will interview you and see if there is a place in his scriptorium. Then you will smuggle the book and begin copying.”

  Peter prayed on his knees that entire night. He suspected Count Odo’s word concerning Willelda. So he begged God for aid, he begged Jesus Christ and His mother Mary, and he begged Saint Genevieve, Saint Germain and Saint Martin. In the morning, not realizing he looked wild-eyed and crazed, he sought tough, desperate men on the streets. He meant to rescue Willelda himself, and in three days, he found seven others with similar desires for their kith and kin.

  They slipped out of Paris two nights later, armed in a desultory fashion with knives, clubs and sharp sticks. Peter bore his axe and by his fervency and superior rank led them. He bid them pray for God’s aid, and each night he crept alone to pray as the Lord Jesus had in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of His betrayal. Thus, Peter survived the Northmen’s ambush on the fourth morning. Instead of constant and fervent prayer like Jesus, he had fallen asleep like Peter, James and John. He heard shrieks and unholy screams and believed that he dreamed of that awful night at the abbey. Then he bounded to his feet, bewildered and confused and in the midst of a forest. He finally grabbed his axe and crawled wormlike toward the others, but his caution and terror made it such a slow creep that by the time he reached the glade the Northmen had departed.

  None of the party lived. The blood and gore splattered on the trees made Peter sick. He violently shook, and he realized that his sins had slaughtered these poor fellows. Somehow, he had to win God’s favor. If he were to rescue Willelda, or see her rescued, he had to devise some other plan then tramping through the woods. Why would God help a fornicator?

  Could he trust Count Odo to keep his word? He didn’t know, but he surely didn’t want to lead any more men to slaughter. Thus, he picked up his axe and stumbled back to Paris, sick at what Willelda must be enduring.

  22.

  The abbey’s subterranean cellar was cold, damp and full of bulky wine casks. In the midst of them and in a circle of dim, flickering light Peter hunched on a stool, with a slanted board perched on his knees. He rubbed bleary eyes, dipped his quill into ink and scratched across the parchment. The words didn’t march in a straight line but slanted downward, and letters blotted. He was too tired, too cold and it was midnight. Nevertheless, he wrote:

  It is asserted by those who have made the profession their study that an army is exposed to more danger on marches than in battles. In an engagement the men are properly armed, they see their enemies before them and come prepared to fight. But on a march the soldier is less on his guard, has not his arms always ready and is thrown into disorder by a sudden attack or ambuscade. A general, therefore, cannot be too careful and diligent in taking necessary precautions to prevent a surprise on the march and in making proper dispositions to repulse the enemy, in case of such accident, without loss.

  Peter wiped the tip, set down the quill and laid aside the Bishop’s De Re Militari. At intermittent times, he had slaved in this dank cellar. Fear of discovery had given him stomach cramps, and after weeks of constant letter writing and copying books, his fingers ached. Tonight, his vision refused to focus.

  He touched the military book. Several key lines had lodged in his mind. He, therefore, who aspires to peace should prepare for war. Frankland might have peace if it waged war better than the Northmen. Another line was, Victory in war does not depend entirely upon numbers or mere courage; only skill and discipline will insure it. His favorite was, Few men are born brave; many become so through care and force of discipline.

  He yawned so wide that his jaw popped. It startled him. He scowled. Just sitting here was a foolish waste of time. He must either write or retire. Yet to hand the Count a mere paragraph… He drew a breath and by the oil lamp’s wick squinted at the next page. He scratched:

  In the first place, he should have an exact description of the country that is the seat of war, in which the distances of places specified by the number of miles, the nature of the roads, the shortest routes, by-roads…

  ***

  In the gray light of morning, Peter hurried through the slushy, narrow streets. Dark clouds billowed in the late October sky, while wind banged a shutter and a pig squealed as a man booted it out of his way.

  Paris had shrunk since Roman times and returned to its muddy roots. The heart of the ‘city’ was the mid-stream isle: the Ill de la Cite. Until a month ago, there had been fishermen shanties near the west shore. A wall stood there now. The isle was a thousand strides by two hundred, and crowded with timber buildings built alongside the Roman remains. Many of the Bishop’s vassals lived here. There were also granaries and storehouses for wheat, barley, rye, ham, wine and untold gallons of beer. There was a cathedral and the Church of Saint Etienne, built on the holy ground of Notre-Dame over four hundred years ago in the time of Clovis I. He had made Paris his capital in 506. In the late 700’s, Charlemagne had moved the capital to
Aachen in East Frankland. Since then the city had fared badly. On March 28, 845, forty years ago, Ragnar Hairy-Breeches had sacked it. Repairs began the day he sailed away. The present Bishop had a mint for coining deniers, and a market square where serfs brought their goods. Two main bridges linked the isle with the two banks. There was also a smaller, third bridge at the northwest end of the isle.

  The larger north section of the city held merchant-houses, butcher-yards, smithies and taverns, and a multitude of serf and slaves’ huts. Beyond the Merchant Quarter’s land-walls were four roads. Each road or trail entered the vast forest that lined the northern edge of Paris’s soggy ground. The smaller south city (South Town) held a sliver of homes and more Church granaries. Outside the southern walls and on higher ground stood the abbeys of Saint Genevieve and Saint-Germain-des-Pres, two of the holiest shrines in Frankland and two of the richest.

  Peter sidestepped the rush of hogs—lean, hairy beasts—as they snorted and shuffled past. The smallest had a ripped ear, with trickles of blood. The pigs constantly fought. The owners of these hogs penned them in at night and let him out at daybreak. The beasts scoured the crowded city in search of refuge and offal to devour.

  A raindrop plunked Peter’s nose while another struck his ear. He threw up his hood and tucked the parchments deeper into his sleeve.

  By the rules of Saint Benedict, monks weren’t supposed to go anywhere alone. Fortunately, monks and priests overran Paris. Men of God overran most of Frankland’s towns. Trade had long ago dwindled. The populations (as considered from Roman times) had greatly fallen; most people had to eke out an existence as serfs, tilling the soil for food. The counts, barons and their retainers, descendants of the barbarians who had overrun the old Roman Empire, preferred their rude country estates to city life. Thus, the only authority and reason for the towns resided in the Church. In Roman times, the center of a diocese, the place where a bishop or archbishop lived and oversaw his church flocks, had been in the major towns. Thus, as the merchants, craftsmen and governors exited the urban sites (most became serfs) it left the Churchmen and those who kept them fed, clothed and protected.

  In these terrible times, the Church was the most structured and disciplined body, its priests the most dedicated and educated people. The barons of Frankland gave lip service to the empire and had then proceeded to carve out for themselves their own private domains. They were secure in the might of their armed retainers. They knew that the Carolingian kings had neither the ability nor the means to rein them into line. Ever since the middle-half of Louis the Pious’ reign (he had been Charlemagne’s son) the Carolingian offspring had squabbled and committed armed strife as each tried to wrest a section of the empire for his own. Thus, they begat the murderous civil wars. As each Carolingian vied for power, he had courted and pampered the barons whose knights he needed in his army.

  Peter lowered his head as the clouds rumbled. A door banged open. Men stumbled out. They held mallets and shovels, and grumbled as they peered at the sky and then trudged off.

  Peter didn’t see the man who grabbed him by the elbow. He struggled, and the parchments plopped into a puddle. Peter cried out, wrenched his arm free and plucked the parchments out of the water, shaking them and rubbing them against his habit.

  A familiar chuckle whipped up his head. Black teeth showed in a nasty leer.

  “Lupus!”

  The stocky Lotharingian wore an oiled leather cloak and hat. Raindrops pooled on his shoulders and ran in beads until they dripped from his cloak. He was no longer barefoot, but wore rough sandals, with the straps wound around his leggings. Lupus pulled him under a wooden portico and onto a split-board walkway.

  “Lupus, what—”

  “Have you been trying to avoid me?”

  “What? Certainly not,” Peter said.

  “I left word at the abbey. Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Yes, of course. I meant to locate you. It’s simply—”

  “You’re a liar, Irish. You’ve been avoiding me.” Lupus spit into the muddy street. “Do you know they have me building their damn walls?”

  “Please. You mustn’t curse when you’re talking to me.”

  Lupus laughed and jabbed a thick finger into Peter’s ribs. “The sorcerer is telling me not to curse. I like that.”

  Peter glanced about. The wooden house… it had been converted into a barracks, if he recalled correctly. It had belonged to old Count Welf. A sodden serf across the street pricked his oxen with a goad. The two-wheeled cart squelched through the mud as it carried stones. Between them, Odo and Gozlin had 200 real fighting men, much too few against the thousands in the Great Pagan Army, thus, the desperate need for strong walls.

  “I wish you would keep your opinions to yourself,” Peter whispered.

  “I bet you do, and that’s what I want to talk to you about.”

  Peter rolled the parchments and slipped them into his sleeve. “I really must go. I have an important errand.”

  Lupus gripped his elbow. “You’d better listen to me first…” He leaned near and breathed in an onion-ale odor: “Sorcerer.”

  Peter hesitated. He didn’t like the Lotharingian’s leer, the superstitious foolishness. “I’m listening.”

  “I ain’t a wall builder, and I ain’t any fool. Paris is going to fall sooner than later. We both know that.”

  “Bishop Gozlin feels otherwise.”

  “Maybe, but that don’t mean damn. He’ll soon lie in the gutter with his guts ripped out same as everyone else. Trouble is they aren’t letting common folk leave; least not those with strong backs like me. They’re setting us to work because they don’t like to dirty their lily-white hands. Now you and I had a pact, remember?”

  “I’ve kept my bargain,” Peter said.

  “What? Getting into a walled city?”

  Peter nodded.

  “Then you’re willing to be trapped like a goat? We have to go farther, remember. That was the plan.”

  “We have to stop the Northmen somewhere. We can’t let them plunder all Frankland. Surely you can see that.”

  “Bah! That ain’t up to us. That’s the Count’s concern, the Bishop and his like. They have to worry about their silver and gold. We just have our miserable skins. All you’re really thinking about is that hussy. Somehow, you think… I don’t know. What do you think, Irish?”

  “That you’d get to the point,” Peter said.

  The leer turned nasty. “Everyone thinks you’re the axe-wielding monk. Some stories have you lopping off heads.”

  “I didn’t spread those stories.”

  “Now, now, don’t get upset. People love tall tales; and the longer they’re told the taller they get. The thing is I found someone who would like to settle an old score with you.”

  Peter was perplexed.

  “This person blames you for the loss of their village, says your black hand killed everyone there.”

  “What?” Peter said.

  “You do remember Ermentrude, yes?”

  “She survived?” Peter said.

  “I talked to her yesterday,” Lupus said. “We swapped tales. Now I didn’t tell her you’re here, but she blames you for the Northmen finding their hiding place.”

  “That’s not logical.”

  Lupus shrugged. “I’m not saying she can do anything to you, but an angry, vengeful Ermentrude might find a way.”

  Peter hunched his shoulders. Ermentrude… he scowled. “If you’re so certain the Northmen will sack Paris,” he said, “why not just slip out? You’re nimble enough.”

  “They’ve been whipping serfs for that and talking about chopping off heads. If I go, it has to be certain. Now you have authority. You could get us out.”

  Peter bobbed his head to mollify the man. He wondered if God had put Lupus on him, if he was part of the curse for his sins. Would one more white lie really add to those? “Maybe you’re right, Lupus. We should leave. But I need time to get us passes.”

  Lupus eyed him hard. “
A week,” he growled. “More than that is folly. I don’t like the smell of the wind. There’s Northmen on it.” With that, Lupus jammed his hat tighter and hurried into the rain.

  23.

  Huge Gerold, the Keeper of the House, answered the rap of Peter’s knuckles. “What do you want?”

  “A word with Count Odo,” Peter said.

  “Wait in here.”

  Peter stepped out of the drizzle and into the atrium as Gerold shuffled off. The floor was tiled, and small alcoves in the wall held vases, a wooden Virgin Mary cradling the Christ Child and statuettes of saints.

  A noise, a metal jangle alerted Peter. Three knights in mail shirts swaggered in. Noble-born pride lit their blue eyes and cocksure grins. They were thickly muscled from a lifetime of training and moved like old Roman athletes. They wore swords, expensive, noble weapons kept in carefully oiled scabbards lined with fur. The biggest had a square, rugged face with a shock of wild brown hair, a thick mustache and a callus on the bridge of his nose. He seemed like a friendly bear-hound: big, rambling, without guile, but with the feel or sense that in the presence of an enemy he would become teeth and fury and hurl himself upon his hereditary foe.

  At the sight of Peter, the big knight’s grin broke into a smile. “It’s the axe-monk!”

  “The monk who slaughtered Northmen?” asked Wulf. He was shorter, with a thicker neck but longer, ropy-muscled arms. His lank hair was pure blond and his mustache an invisible wisp.

  “I’m Peter, milord.” He spoke to the bigger knight. “I just happened to be carrying an axe when the Count found me. Are you his brother Robert?”

  The big knight shambled near, his thick fingers scratching his hair-tousled head. “You’re skinny! Your hands are bony. I’ve seen the axe. How did you ever slay Northmen with it?”