Anvil of Fate (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  “I have no real idea yet,” said the Abbot, “but at the very least I can put a watch on Odo and assure his safety tonight. The Assassins got that name for a reason, eh? If they come round to this same line of reasoning, and key on Odo as the Primary Lever, then they may be desperate enough to take bold and direct action. After all, his sons are already living and he does nothing of any further significance in the years ahead. If what you suggest is true, however, eliminating him now could decide the outcome of the battle. This is the consummate moment of his life where this one choice decides all. The stakes are enormous! So I have little time to waste now. I must put every man I have on this.”

  He started for the door, tugging at the sleeve of the professor’s cassock. “And your candle is burning low as well.” He pointed a fat finger at the professor, smiling wanly.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re going back soon,” Emmerich gestured to the candle. “See where it burns low? Your retraction scheme will initiate soon. In fact, I think it best we make our way back to the reception room. I will have to carry on here without you, but I must tell you that your intervention here could be absolutely decisive. I am much in your debt, professor.”

  “But what will you do?”

  “Oh, let me think of something. In the extreme, if I receive no further instructions from Research, I will send monks to Odo where he lies in wait, and have it said that Abdul Rahman has brought the Duke’s Daughter with him to this place, she who was given in marriage to Manuza. We will whisper that she is kept in a harem, with other slaves, violated and shamed in the Saracen camp. If that doesn’t light a fire under the man, and compel him to initiate his raid, then nothing will.”

  “Good idea,” said the professor. “And we still have the Arch running, at least I hope we do. We have the computers to sift the history as well. Can you give me the exact space-time coordinates of this place—of that box, for example. And we will do what we can back home. Perhaps we can send through a message that could be of further assistance.”

  “You are too kind,” said the Abbot. “But you already have the coordinates—it’s what brought you here, my good man. That spot will do nicely should you discover anything more. In the meantime, I must warn you as well. Be wary! Be stealthy! The enemy is everywhere. Their agents and assassins stalk all the Meridians of Time as well—even in your day. Once safe in a Nexus, you have little to fear, but absent that, you are at grave risk as well.”

  “I see,” said Nordhausen when they had returned to the reception hall. He looked for his place on the carpet, arranging his cassock as before to prepare for the retraction shift.” It was not long in coming.

  “Go with God,” he heard the Abbot say and the eerie tingling sensation and feather lightness of being swept over him.

  A moment later he was gone.

  Part X

  Outcomes & Consequences

  “Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.”

  —William Jennings Bryan

  Chapter 28

  The Old Roman Road, Early Morning, Oct. 25th, 732 A.D.

  The Emir reined his gray Arabian, standing beside his master the Wali, where he sat on his mount surveying the long columns of horsemen on the road. “We should not come here,” he said pointing to the lay of the land ahead. “It is a narrow place, where these two rivers meet ahead. We have scouted them and, though they are not wide and may be forded, their banks are steep, and grown over with thicket and wood. When battle is joined our horsemen will not be able to cross in a timely manner.”

  He was Abdul Samah, who’s name meant ‘Servant of the Eternal,’ but today he was the servant of the new governor and Wali of all these newly conquered lands, commander of this the vast army that moved now on the road, Abdul Rahman.

  The Wali did not seem concerned. “We will not be here long,” he said calmly. “It is only a byway to the city beyond. Thither I am bound, to the abbey the Christians dote over, just as you advise.“

  You should have taken it yesterday,” the Emir pointed ahead with his leather riding crop.

  “What? With the Berbers? Would I let them make off with such a prize? The heavy horse were not yet formed and ready. It was best that we wait until all my five Khamis have answered the call and I may then make the fist that will smash the infidel here, once and for all. Besides,” he pointed to the woodland ahead. “This forest affords us good cover for our encampment.”

  The Wali surveyed his tents from where they covered the rolling fields just off the road. The camp occupied a large clearing, on a low rise, surrounded by dense woods and thickets of heather that should give it good protection. He would post a few skirmishers there to keep eyes on the woodland, but now his gaze was drawn further north where a gray mist still hung over the land on the chilled morning airs.

  He was Abdul Rahman Ibn Abd al-Ghafiqi, from the proud tribal federation of the Kalbs, and new governor, and protector of al-Andalus, that land called Hispania by the infidels. The guardianship and authority were given unto him, though he gathered his many Emirs, listening to their wise council, and paid them the respect they were due as lords of their tribes.

  Yet the grey one, Abdul Samah, had harried him unduly, he thought. The Emir had chafed in the saddle ever since they came to the abbey the heathen clergy had dedicated to their Saint Hilary to the south, wherein they hid much gold and finery. He had bristled under his charcoal brows and insisted that it be burned, even after his soldiers had long since gutted the place, carrying off everything of value they could find. One such prize they wisely brought to the Wali, a gilded chair embedded with gold and many jewels.

  “This must be the seat of power,” he said. “Where the wrongly guided saint held forth in his administrations. Send it back,” the Emir had whispered. “Make it tribute to the Sultan of the African realms, and he will look kindly upon you.”

  But Abdul Rahman would not hear this counsel. “No,” he said, drawing his sword. “I will not suffer the Sultan to sit where the heathen once took his repose!”

  He struck the chair a hard blow, and then, removing his sword, bid his men to shatter it in many pieces, distributing all the jeweled fragments to the many captains of his army. This seemed only fitting.

  The Ansar companions and Sabaha helpers of the Prophet had shown the way in earlier years, and he was a faithful disciple now, one of the elite Tabi’un, a religious aristocracy that guided the vast Umayyad empire that now covered half the known world. And rightly guided he was, for he was fast with the sons of Umar, the second ‘Rightly Guided Caliph.’ But he was not given this post simply because of his heritage, but rather for his piety, skill, fairness, bravery and the great bond he had forged with the soldiers of Islam, who favored him over all other pretenders.

  As soon as he had taken the position, he immediately began to plan the campaign he was now pursuing with great valor and energy. The heathen lord, Odo of Aquitaine, had sullied the honor of the tribes by marrying his illegitimate daughter to one of his Emirs, Manuza, the fool and the betrayer. And so Abdul Rahman had gone east to punish Manuza first, satisfied at last when he received news that he had thrown himself from a high cliff and perished. Having his head, and the heathen bitch he had taken as wife, he would send these to the Caliph in Damascus as evidence of his industry here. That matter closed, the governor had traveled to Pamplona to survey the muster of his armies. Berber tribes, Arabs and Bedouins from the desert, stout men of the Atlas mountains, all gathered there, along with the Moors of the Catalan region, and joined by his incomparable horsemen, heavily armored and mounted on fierce Arabian steeds.

  In a few short months he had crossed the high western passes into the land of the Basques, with whom he had reached accommodation through careful diplomatic maneuvers the previous year. His engines of war he sent by sea, from Taragona to Narbonne, for these he could not take through the high passes. They would be safe at Narbonne on
the coast of the Middle Sea until he called for them later in the year.

  His aim now was to scour the land, bleed it of wealth and treasure for his armies, and assure himself that no further opposition could be mounted by the Franks. He had little doubt that they would cower in the few walled cities he might find. In time he would return to savage them all, but for now he swept north like a scouring wind, sweeping all before him.

  The Duke of Aquitaine had thought to give battle before the city of Bordeaux. It was this same man who had surprised and defeated the clumsy advances of the Emir Al Samh some ten years earlier, and it was fitting the Emir should perish for his ignorance, there before the gates of Toulouse. But Abdul Rahman was no fool, and he would not repeat the mistakes of his predecessors. When the enemy sought to bar the way at the River Garonne, he fell upon him like a hammer, surging across the river shallows and smashing through the ranks of Odo’s men with his fierce, unstoppable cavalry.

  The heathen was brave, but overmatched, and his men endured a fearsome slaughter there, until the river ran red with their blood. He had little doubt that Odo lay dead upon the field, but would waste no time to search the mounds of heathen corpses for him. Bordeaux would be sacked for the pleasure of his soldiery, and the promise of much more lay ahead in the rich, wooded lands of the Franks.

  The ruthless advance of his columns followed soon after, burning farms, hamlets, and especially the places where heathen clergy would build. In this the grey one, Abdul Samah, had a firm hand. He had insisted that every monastery, abbey, church or basilica must laid waste and destroyed, the hidden wealth and treasure they held taken as plunder. These sites would be replaced in due course with the elegant architecture of mosque and minaret, he had argued. Soon the call of the Muezzin would summon the faithful to prayer, but they would not stand around their altars in their crude stone churches, Instead they would bend in submission, their heads pointed south to Mecca, and so it would be.

  Abdul Rahman had consented, for was he not the sword of Islam? The work of the hammer and sword, was his now, hewing down the heathen places so that the true faith might root itself, and the words of the Prophet be spoken all throughout this land. For there was no God but God, and Allah was his name.

  Throughout the summer, he let his men forage and feast off the land, fattening their bellies and filling their wagons with booty. In time, as the leaves began to turn, he came to the city of Poitiers, destroying the basilica and the small surrounding settlement that lay outside its walls. Then he moved on, bypassing the city, for his siege engines were still far to the south, and he would not storm the walls until he had secured the border lands further north.

  Rumors of another general at large in the land came to him, a man called Charles, of which little was known. For months now, since he defeated Odo and his army in the south, there had been no opposition to speak of on his march. Yet now it was said the clans of the Franks were gathering under the banner of this man Charles, and it was rumored that he was skilled in the arts of war, and fierce in battle as well.

  No matter. All this he would see with his own eyes, for he meant to ride north, destroying one precious abbey after another, until this man showed himself. If the Christians would not fight to preserve their own mosques, then they were little more than dogs, wolves, barbarians.

  He assembled his army again and pushed north, over the River Vienne and into the narrow belt of farmsteads and woodland traversed by the old Roman Road. Scouts and raiders sent to locate the Abbey of St. Martin returned, saying that many horsemen scoured the lands there, and still more, tall, fell men of the north, were seen on the roads coming down from Orleans. The Grey one urged him to strike quickly, sending in his heavy horse to overrun the place before a defense could be made there. But Abdul Rahman was not hasty, nor would he allow his army to advance in many far-flung columns in the face of a gathering enemy threat. His men were heavily burdened with pillage, their carts and wagons strung out along all the roads to the south.

  Instead he wisely decided to call back his raiding Berbers, the light horse of al Andalus, and draw up his troops in the traditional manner. He would make the fist of five Khamis, each a division at arms, with one to lead the way up this uncertain road, his Berber cavalry and many mounted archers. Following them, three parts of his army would make up the main body, the heavy horsemen that had carried all before them. And his lighter infantry he would leave behind, close by the long columns of wagons and supplies, guarding the families of his proud warriors, and their well deserved plunder.

  So it was that he came to the undulating land between the Rivers Vienne and Clain and sought out suitable ground for the making of his camp. The enemy was clearly at hand, but had not yet shown his full strength. Both opposing armies had been at arms for many days now, the outriders on either side harrying one another in short, inconclusive skirmishes, but Abdul Rahman could sense that some greater force had come down from Orleans and the lands north, and he knew he had found the general so many had spoken of in these last weeks, Charles, the Mayor of the Palace of Neustria, and the last Christian Lord who might have any hope of defending the Frankish kingdoms.

  His scouts and foragers learned yet another thing, that the Duke Odo of Aquitaine was here as well! Somehow he had escaped the carnage of the River Garonne, undoubtedly to flee here and seek aid from these others. It angered him to think that this man still remained a thorn in the side of Islam, for even in defeat, broken, his lands and holdings long since overrun, Odo had somehow managed to be the harbinger that gathered all these forces here together, compressed between the swift flowing waters of two rivers.

  He breathed deeply as the dawn rose, smelling the wood fires of many camps, and knowing that this would be a fateful day. Yet the gray Emir at his side remained restless and worried.

  “I do not like this place,” he fretted. “We should fight on open ground, where our horsemen might shift and wheel about as they might, and strike upon the enemy flank and rear. And our men are too much burdened with the spoils of conquest. We should have left these far behind, well guarded, and not brought these things so near at hand where they might tempt our enemies. And the wives and families have no place here either. They are a great and troublesome distraction.”

  “You fret like a woman,” said the Wali. “The camp is well hidden. I will leave the tribal militias there, and it will be well guarded.”

  When messengers came with the news that the way ahead was now barred and strongly defended, Abdul Rahman rode himself to look upon his foe. There he saw where they had arrayed themselves in the same manner as before, right astride the road he must take to the city of Tours, with a long wall of shields on a low rise. One flank, he saw, was very near the river Clain on his left, where the steep wooded banks would prevent any turning movement by his more mobile horsemen. The other flank was anchored flush against the thick woodlands that screened his own encampment from enemy eyes. And he noted that, even if he drove them from their line of defense, there was yet another woodland to the rear where his scouts had seen old Roman ruins, and a small stone tower.

  This man Charles had chosen good ground, he thought. He was a master of defense, a hard iron anvil, and waited with patience behind the tall shields of his soldiery. Perhaps he might compel him to come down off his hill, by pricking him all the long day with arrows. He would soon test the mettle of this new general, and see what he was made of.

  His jaw set, eyes darkening under his thin black brows, Abdul Rahman vowed that no man would live to flee through that distant wood behind the Frankish lines. The Emir’s counsel may have been wise, for the lay of the land would not allow him to turn the flanks of the enemy here. Instead he would harass them with the archers and slingers of his vanguard, testing their strength, then, at a time of his choosing, he would unleash the three Khamis of his main body, the well armored professional soldiers that had come from Syria and even as far away as Arabia, and he would ride the heathens down. All this was clear in his mind no
w as he surveyed the scene before him.

  It was written.

  Chapter 29

  The Battle of Tours, October 25th, 732 A.D.

  Abdul Rahman watched, all that morning, hearing the hoarse shouts of the Frankish chieftains as they exhorted their soldiers to stand firm while he rained one volley after another upon them. His light Berbers rushed in, stopping to fire and then dancing away, beyond the reach of the great broad swords and heavy battle axes of the enemy. On occasion he sent in mounted infantry to engage the Franks as well, but they were not able to make any impression on their heavy ranks, well protected as they were behind their shieldwall.

  All day he bled them, punishing them for the insolence they showed him in barring his way forward. He worked it like a skilled blacksmith might beat upon the hard metal of a sword. Then, as the afternoon wore on, he judged it time for the final blow. He would take the sword and slay his foe.

  Horn calls sounded as he summoned his heavy horse, leading them forward. He held them fast for a time, their long lances jabbing at the smoky sky; their armor and jeweled helms glinting in the waning sunlight. Then he set them loose. They would ride, like rolling thunder, into the narrowing gap between the river and the woods where Charles and his Franks stood stubbornly behind their shieldwall. Then they would fling their lighter javelins as one more hail of iron upon the enemy before the powerful charge of the lancers came crashing against the enemy line. Here at last the hammer of Islam would fall upon the anvil of fate, and the awful sound would ring down the hollows of Time itself, forever.