The Great Pagan Army

by Vaughn Heppner

  Meanwhile on the redoubt, Robert whooped as he waved his bloody sword. “Let’s charge their camp! Let’s slaughter these pagan pigs!”

  Odo wiped sweat out of his eyes. In the distance, Northmen bellowed with rage as they hurried out of their encampment. Other Danes at their redoubts hissed arrows toward them and shouted for the onagers.

  “Sound the horn!” Odo shouted. The boy beside him blasted until his cheeks turned red. “Listen to me!” Odo shouted. “Listen to me. We slaughtered these heathens. Now back to the city and bar the gates. We’ll fight this our way, not theirs. And before we’re done every Dane will know the folly of setting siege to our beloved Paris.”

  47.

  February gave way to March as snow flurries changed into rain. The onagers thudded throughout, hailing stones, rotten flesh and flaming cloth-balls into the city. The Danes turned captured springalds on the battlements, hiding them behind mantelets. A javelin pierced Sir Arnulf’s shoulder on March 10. The barber bled him, examined the shattered bones and shook his head. The stubborn knight lingered on for fifteen more days, raving in the end, accepting no water as he panted like a dog. Men said the Northmen smeared poison on their weapons for the wound had turned black as charcoal and oozed green pus.

  Danish warbands departed on forays inland, searching for food and loot. They surprised several wooden-walled villas, sacking them. The rest of the barons who had held out in the wider region now fled for cities with stouter walls as the circle of desolation continued to grow. Unfortunately, the Northmen surprised and sacked Charenton only several miles upstream of Paris. The Danes had stormed the main gate, disguised as refugees. They roved south as far overland as Chartres on the Eure River, catching a caravan of merchants, ransoming the richest and hanging the others.

  Word of their ferocious deeds trickled into the city through carrier pigeons. Danish chieftains soon took to riding around the city with falcons perched on their forearms. Many on the walls observed the unequal aerial duels as hawks tore into the defenseless pigeons. One determined pigeon, however, ducked the strike of a silver-streaked goshawk and then sped as if his tail feathers were on fire. He swooped over the city merlons as archers and javelin-throwers showered the following goshawk with rocks, driving the predator away. The pigeon’s note bore glad tidings.

  Duke Henry rides with his knights. Expect aid near the end of March. It was marked with Count Herkenger’s lance signet.

  There was talk of another sally, but Bishop Gozlin refused permission. Mounted Northmen now patrolled daily, while nearer the walls other Danes dug horse-traps.

  A week later, the Sea King assembled the host on the north bank. Sweating carters had moved all the onagers from their various locales around the city and massed them here against the Merchant Quarter. At noon, the kettledrums thundered. Horns blared. The onagers filled the air with stones, and springald javelins hissed at those on the battlements. The Danish archers crept forward behind shield-men, and for two quivers full per bowmen, they engaged the Frankish javelin-throwers. Then the great horde rushed the land wall.

  Count Odo had denuded the walls of South Town and most of the Cite. He risked being weak elsewhere so they were strong here. Over two hundred Northmen died crawling up the ladders. Others perished trading fierce sword-strokes on the battlements. Unfortunately, too many Franks suffered. Count Odo had a nasty gash in his arm where an axe had kissed mail. Robert’s neck seeped angrily where an onager-stone had grazed.

  After counting the wounded, Ebolus said, “We cannot face many more such attacks.”

  Four days later, however, three-quarters of the Great Army marched northeast. The remaining quarter was more than enough to maintain the siege. Out of Paris’s original two hundred knights, only a handful was free of scabs or wounds. Too many lay abed or in their graves, or they limped and bore painful wounds that made putting on armor a grim task.

  On the moonless night of March 28, a hooded man hammered at the north gate. A guard on the battlements threw down a torch at the man’s feet as Frankish bowmen took aim.

  The man doffed his hood, shouting, “It is I, Count Herkenger! I bear tidings from Duke Henry.”

  As the alarm pealed from the Danish redoubts, guards unbolted the postern gate and dragged Herkenger within. He held immediate conference with Bishop Gozlin and later that night with Count Odo in his study.

  Odo poured wine as Gerold set out bread, cheese and roasted pigeon. Pale Count Herkenger quaffed the wine but ignored the food. He had a grim, stitched cut on the left side of his face that seeped a clear fluid. It was a souvenir from a Northman’s axe, and as Herkenger spoke softly so as not to pull at the stitches, he gingerly blotted the wound with a handkerchief. Alone and on foot, and running feverish, he had slipped past the Northmen.

  When Odo mentioned the heroism of such a feat, Count Herkenger waved it away. “I gave you my word,” he said.

  “Duke Henry has an army then?”

  “A small host,” whispered Herkenger. “He didn’t believe me when I said that thousands of Northmen besieged Paris. He asked how it was possible then that the Sea King hadn’t taken Paris if thousands attacked. He spoke of the old Count Odo, not the cunning war-leader that you have become.”

  Odo shifted uncomfortably at such praise.

  “Several days ago, however, Sigfred marched upon us and the Duke became a believer. We had superior cavalry of course but Duke Henry knew better than to accept battle. So he marched his footmen hard, trying to maneuver the Sea King farther away from Paris. The Danes were cleverer than that. I could have told his lordship so, but he considers himself more cunning than Northmen. Now he says that he must retreat.”

  “What?” Odo said, with anguish tearing at him.

  Herkenger leaned forward. “When Duke Henry learned of my plan to come here he asked me to bear you a message. He’s amazed that we—you in particular—have held out for so long.”

  “Will he tell the Emperor that?” Odo asked, as he tried to mask his anguish.

  “No. He will tell the Emperor quite the opposite. He will tell him that his Majesty can sweep these Northmen if he simply shows himself. According to the Duke, the Emperor will then marshal a huge host. Emperor Charles fears the Northmen. They terrify him. He’ll never appear if he thinks the Danes might harm him.”

  Odo struck his desk. “Then we must hold on until the Emperor arrives.”

  Herkenger blotted his cheek, glancing at the handkerchief. “Can you hold on?”

  “I will never surrender. You taught me that.”

  Herkenger grew uneasy. “I am Bishop Gozlin’s nephew, but I don’t believe I betray him when I say that he does not believe you can hold out much longer. Too many men have grown ill, and the food supplies are running out. Men despair and wonder where the Northmen will next break into. My uncle speaks of sparing the city from ruthless razing and rapine.” Herkenger gingerly placed the handkerchief against his cheek. “He has sent messengers to Sigfred, asking for terms.”

  Odo sat back, stunned. He opened his mouth and then bit back his words. He should have foreseen this. Abbot Gozlin was an old man and by all the accounts sick and growing feebler. The siege was a terrible strain on everyone. He looked up, noticing Herkenger studying him. “Tell me truthfully,” Odo said. “Will the Emperor come?”

  “I cannot say. This however I have learned. Archbishop Fulk of Rheims believes that if Paris falls so all Neustria will fall. Your stand here, that fact that so few knights have held back thousands of Northmen, has emboldened and heartened the Archbishop. He has sent letters and heralds to the Neustrian barons, trying to stir them. Some of them have petitioned the Emperor. Duke Henry told me that the Emperor knows men say he cares not for West Frankland. Thus, Charles must do something to show men otherwise. Fulk and the bravest barons beat the drums of war and that has unnerved his Majesty.”

  “Isn’t the Emperor in Italy pressuring the Pope?”

  “He made it no farther than Pavia,” Herkenger said. “Rioters
there laid hands on his sacrosanct person. He has since retreated north, and now Neustrian messengers find him amiable to their pleas.”

  “But what good is any of this if Gozlin opens the gates to Sigfred?”

  Count Herkenger frowned. “We have fought long and hard, done more than anyone thought we could, but what if my uncle is right and Paris can no longer hold out?”

  48.

  Deep in the shadows of a shed, Heming and Willelda tangled in the furs. It had been two weeks since Sigfred sent Duke Henry running. The Sea King had brought the host back before Paris, and word was that Bishop Gozlin was ready to surrender the city. With her dirty fingernails, Willelda raked Heming’s back. He growled like a wolf, using her. Neither saw Bjorn duck through the door, stop and stare at them.

  “Heming,” rumbled Bjorn.

  Willelda glanced up, with fear on her face. Heming grabbed a fistful of her hair and turned her back to him.

  “Heming.”

  “I’m busy,” Heming said.

  Massive shoulders hunched. The other berserks in the shed glanced up from where they sharpened their weapons. Bjorn strode toward Heming and lashed out with his booted foot. Willelda mewled in pain. Like a wet cat, she scrambled out from under Heming and shivered in the corner.

  Heming rolled onto his shoulder, looking up.

  “Grab your axe,” Bjorn said.

  Heming’s face was lean and remote, perspiring. Ever since Grimar’s death, he brooded more often and deeply, and drank far too much.

  “Count Odo plies his tricks,” growled Bjorn. “He bargains with the Sea King.”

  No interest flickered in Heming’s eerie eyes. He had grown stranger, and the others around him noticed. They he said had become like the Fenris wolf, a ravenous beast, unpredictable and moody.

  The left knee creaked as Bjorn crouched low. Maybe he sensed this growth in Heming, his increased deadliness. Since Grimar’s passing, the berserk champion had called on Heming more and more often. Bjorn now said, “The Sea King has become restless. Spring approaches and he wishes to leave this burg. The Trickster has now promised him silver if we’ll leave.”

  Many in camp referred to Count Odo as ‘the Trickster’, likening him to cunning Loki.

  Something in Heming stirred. “You said the Bishop would give us the city.”

  Bjorn nodded. “The Churchman trembles at the thought of us pillaging his people. He is old and sick. His manhood is shriveled.” Bjorn blew snot onto the floorboards, and he glanced at Willelda. “But the Churchman bargains hard. He wants this or that assurance. Worse, Sigfred has grown tired of the siege. All this bargaining wearies him.”

  “I’m weary of the siege,” Heming said.

  “We all are,” rumbled Bjorn. “And by his sorcery, Count Odo divines our restlessness. He knows that Paris has become like Asgard to us. Thus we must help the Churchman by ambushing the Trickster and thereby keeping him from offering Sigfred too much Danegeld.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” muttered Heming. “It might anger Sigfred.”

  Bjorn’s beady eyes narrowed. He reexamined Willelda. “Why haven’t you throttled her like I said?”

  “Because she pleases me,” Heming said.

  “You spend too much time with her. She steals your vigor. You must kill her. Better yet, sacrifice her to Odin.”

  Heming sat up as Willelda shrank deeper into the corner. Heming grabbed his she-troll, standing as Bjorn stood, unconcerned that he wore no clothes. “I will only kill her when I’m ready,” Heming said.

  Bjorn’s wide nostrils flared. The others in the shed grew tense. Then Bjorn’s beady eyes glittered. He grinned like a beast. “Women are always trouble.” He strode for the door. “Throw on a cloak and follow me, Ivarsson. We have blood to spill.”

  ***

  Robert clanked into the gloom of the stables. He wore mail, helmet and sword and carried a shield. He marched past hurrying grooms, past hay, manure and the mingled odors of horse sweat and urine.

  Odo cinched his saddle and patted the warm stallion, his muscled war-mount. He had been expecting this.

  Robert stopped before him. “Let me go with you,” he said.

  Odo looked upon his brother. Robert was so as their father had been, big and broad-shouldered. He was the very image of a Frank knight. Everything about him was brawny. Why, even his moustache was thick under his hefty nose. Robert matched the Danes size for size, muscles for muscles and with a love of brutal fighting. Their father Robert the Strong had been all that and also hardheaded and willful. His brother Robert was only like that when swinging a sword or wielding a lance. At the head a charge or while sweeping the battlements of enemy, Robert had no peer. But put him in charge of a county or dukedom and he was likely to spend all his time hunting stag.

  “What if the Danes spring a trap on you?” Robert said.

  “I’ve considered that of course,” Odo said. “But Sigfred has given me his word of honor that I may come and go in peace.”

  “His word,” Robert said, puckering his lips, spitting upon straw. “I give you that for his word. I overheard a groom saying that Sigfred isn’t even talking to you. He sends out Valgard Skull-splitter to speak.” Robert shook his head. “I smell a trap, brother.”

  “I’ve talked with them before this,” Odo said.

  “Yes, while several steps from a gate, with the wall bristling with javelin throwers. I don’t understand why you have to ride out halfway to a redoubt.”

  “Exactly because of all those javelin throwers,” Odo said. “I want to speak privately, without Gozlin’s ears hearing my words. He has his spies and I have mine.”

  “You know what I think about that,” Robert said. “We should hang Gozlin as a traitor.”

  “Robert, Robert, don’t you realize that that would wilt the last of our Parisians’ courage. They have grown lean and hungry while standing up to the Northmen, and now pestilence sweeps through the city. They dread the Northmen. They dread the fall of a berserker’s axe as the city burns under pillage. Gozlin has stiffened their courage. He has given them bravery. He has paraded the relics before them and preached the courage of God. If we were to hang Gozlin now, then everyone in Paris would believe that the saints had turned their backs on us. No, we must dicker with care. We must use guile. I cannot afford to lose Gozlin’s precious gift that he’s given the people.”

  “I think you had something to do with that,” growled Robert. “It was your training of them, your captaincy that has thwarted the Danes time and again.”

  “Whatever the case may be, I’m gaining time with this parley and hopefully forestalling Gozlin. I can’t pay these Danes enough to leave. Why, only two years ago, King Carloman paid them twelve thousands pounds of silver to leave the kingdom. I have no more than seventy pounds to give them.”

  “How much time can you gain from all this?” Robert asked.

  Odo put his good foot into a stirrup and heaved himself into the saddle, taking up the reins. The warhorse snorted, shaking his big head. There were twenty big stallions left in the city. The others had been butchered for meat, and to save enough fodder to feed these twenty. It had been a painful decision, one that had almost brought mutiny from his knights. Odo considered it his toughest moment, when he had forced his will over theirs and possibly through it had saved the twenty stallions for a time like this. Every day grooms walked the horses up and down the city lanes in order to keep them toned. Odo had believed it wiser to have twenty fit and well-fed stallions than a herd of half-starved ones.

  “Are you waiting for the Emperor to arrive?” asked Robert. “Is that what this is about?”

  From high upon the warhorse, Odo gave his brother a false smile. He knew he couldn’t gain that much time. No, he delayed, hoping for Gozlin’s death. It would never do to tell anyone else that, however. He believed that to win the siege he must gain sole control of the city. He’d had his one moment of weakness. It plagued his conscience. ‘Never again’, had become his personal oath. If
both the north bank and the south bank were lost, he would hole up in the Cite and fight on, alone if he had too. He would never surrender.

  Robert grasped the stallion’s bridle. “Let me go with you. No one will be faster than me in spotting treachery, and drawing my sword and fighting our way free.”

  Five other knights mounted up. Each bore a long, Frankish lance, with a foot of razor-sharp steel on the end and lugs underneath that.

  “Hurry,” Odo told his brother, deciding that if he died Robert could not carry on the siege against Gozlin’s wishes. Better to have Robert with him and fight his way free, if it came to that. Even Sea Kings had been known to break their sworn word.

  Thus it was, some time later, that the only gate of South Town creaked open far enough to emit a horse and rider. Six knights filed through. Six Frank warriors in helmet, mail, shield and spurs urged their mighty steeds onto the plain before the city. The stallions snorted, pawing the ground. Each obviously desired to run, to stretch his powerful legs. Odo’s steed lifted his hooves high. Like the well-trained mount he was, the stallion yearned to fight and gallop, to clamp his yellowed teeth into the flesh of a foe.

  The plain was an illusion, Odo knew. Many horse-traps lay here, pits covered with grass mats. He guided his eager steed toward the nearest redoubt, a block of earth and wood. From that redoubt now marched six big Danes. They, too, wore helm, mail, shield and sword. Each wore an expensive cloak and gloves. The leader, a massive Northman, Valgard Skull-splitter, wore a ceremonial horned helmet and a bright scarlet cloak to match his outrageous red beard.

  Odo breathed deeply. He tried to appear at ease, but his gaze flickered everywhere. Did the Danes try to ambush him? Would these six attempt to draw their swords and attack? “Keep alert,” he whispered. “If I say ‘by Saint Germain’ then spur your stallions and fight your way free. Kill anyone in your way.”