The following summer, however, Odo’s greatest nemesis returned, only this time the Saracen horde took the westernmost passes over the mountains, surprising Odo, who had gathered his army to watch the eastern passes, and the Road to Toulouse, where Manuza had once held them safe as his ally and father-in-law. Through Bayonne they came, then up through Dax to Bordeaux. It was here, again on the River Garonne, that Odo sought to stay their advance. Years ago, he had righteously spilled the blood of the Saracens where this same river flowed east to Toulouse. Now he sought to hold the line again here in the west at Bordeaux, only this time the foe he faced was beyond his strength to impede.
Abdul Rahman had come with a mighty host. All the Emirs of Andalus had joined with him, and his hardened legion of swarthy Saracens swept all before them. Odo formed his men on the banks of the river, their shieldwall at the water’s edge where the enemy sought to cross. He fought as Charles had done when he bested Odo the previous year. So Odo, weakened and with no means of matching the marvelous Moorish cavalry, had stood like an anvil on the River Garonne, and he was hammered to near death by the fierce might of Abdul Rahman. So great was the slaughter of his loyals, that the river was said to run red with the blood of Odo’s men for days after, and none could count the dead.
Barely escaping, with only his chosen comitatus guards at hand, Odo fled to a low hill overlooking Bordeaux, his eye and ears bloodied by the hacking swords of his enemy. There, wounded but alive, he listened to the wail of Bordeaux as it burned in the night, and he wept.
It was a miracle that Odo escaped at all that night. Unhorsed, with few retainers left to guard him, he made his way on foot through the dusky woods, hoping to confound pursuit by hiding himself in the forest. A pack of wolves took up the scent of his blood, and they stalked him warily as he labored up the hill and into a glen where he came upon a small farm site.
There, tethered to a post, he found an old plow horse, a pale stallion that was near the end of life, as Odo was himself. The horse shied away when Odo came, smelling blood and fear. But Odo sang to him, noting the dark circle around the horse’s eye. “Thine eye is bruised and blackened as is mine, he whispered. And we are both old warriors, long past our prime.”
Odo stroked the short cropped mane of the horse, feeling the strength that still burgeoned in the horses shoulders. “Oh no,” he whispered. “You were never meant for the harness and plow. It was yours to run and roam free!” He untethered the horse, calming the beast as he made ready to mount.
“Carry me this night,” he breathed. “I beg of you, for these legs can run no further…”
Odo did not know it then, but the horse he had found was once a young and willful beast, even as he was, and was the very steed Maeve had come upon, 27 long years ago, at a small farm on the road between Heristal and Leodium. Kuhaylan had bolted off into the night when Maeve had dismounted quickly, slapping his hind quarters in farewell. He had run free, for many years thereafter until, in time, he had been caught and harnessed by men again, and driven into service as a war horse. Over the years he had seen many battles, and heard the deep throated cries of many riders, the din of swords falling on many helms. Yet, like all old warriors, he grew weary, his strength slowly ebbing away, and he was put out to pasture, fated to spend the remainder of his days as an old plow horse. Yet this night he was a warrior once again. This night his nostrils flared wide with the smell of fresh blood, and he heard again the jangle of sword and iron studded leather; felt the firm, steady pressure of Odo’s greaves in his flanks.
So it was that Odo was able to make his way north through his family lands, riding on the old Roman road that led to Poitiers. He had little doubt that the Saracen horde would soon be at his back. I was a fool, he thought. I should never have given battle in the manner of Charles.
Yet it was north to the Franks that he rode now, for he had no choice but to throw himself upon the mercy of Charles the Bastard, and beg him to bring his men at arms to the battle that would surely decide the fate of every kingdom and fiefdom in all these lands.
Odo rode north in the night, as fast as Kuhaylan could take him. As he went, a few men gathered to his side, joining the elite core of his comitatus, and word was sent out before him that great peril was riding at his heels. Messengers reached Charles, again warring with rival Frisian lords to the east, intent on bringing all under his heel.
When he first heard the news Charles did not seem overly concerned. The year before, other riders came with news that yet another Saracen fleet had come to land at Narbonne, and that these men now unloaded siege engines and other machines of war. Their outriders had already come up the coast of the Middle Sea to Nimes and Avignon, and raided north up the Rhone valley as well to Lyon, and further, to Chalons. Yet Charles ignored them, being more concerned with potential rivals in Austrasia and Frisia to the north. Not even when the old Roman center of Autun fell would he bestir himself to intervene. Then, having sufficient booty and captives for their harems and slave labor, the Arabs migrated south again for the winter.
Odo bristled over the fact that Charles had dared to cross the Lyon River and attack his lands, using his alliance in marriage with Manuza as a pretext. This while he left the whole of Burgundy and Septimania prostrate before the Muslim raiders! And now, in the year 732, they had returned in force.
The summer was red with fire and blood in all of Gaul while the thick, raiding columns of Abdul Rahman pressed farther north, yet no other army of the Franks came to challenge them. Odo thought to make a stand at Poitiers, thinking to buy time until Charles could come, but with just a few thousand light horsemen, he wisely decided to fall back on Tours and wait.
The summer gave way to the cold winds of autumn while the Moors looted and pillaged all the lands to the south. Odo chafed restlessly at Tours, his bruised eye long in healing, his pride wounded even more so. He could do nothing on his own, and he brooded, until word finally came to him that the Saracens had come at last to Poitiers, burning the great basilica of Saint Hilary, which lay outside its fortified walls. The priests and monks had begged him to fight, but he knew he had not the strength to contest the foe until Charles came.
“I will not waste the last of my horsemen to save your altars,” he raged. “When Charles comes, then we will fight and settle the matter once and for all.”
And that night Charles finally came, leading the strength of his battle hardened heavy men at arms, and many levies he had gathered from the provinces of Austrasia and Neustria. Odo was summoned to the council of war at his camp near Ballan-Miré, and he meant to tell all he knew of this fearsome enemy host and, in so doing, decide the outcome of the battle that would soon be fought. But Charles the Bastard was proud, and would not hear him.
“If the enemy has so many horsemen, as you say, then we cannot hope to array ourselves on the field in open order,” Charles had said. “He will be too fast, and too quick to turn our flanks.”
“But if we can strike them in a narrow place, as I did at Toulouse,” said Odo, “then we may press them back upon their own ranks and trample them beneath our feet! It is only by such guile that we may prevail here, Charles. So we must find a place where our flanks may be well protected. The rivers to the south, not far from here, will serve that purpose well. The ruin of the old Roman mansio is in that area. There is an abandoned amphitheatre, and a tower. Let us make as if to stand there, but give back, as in much dismay. Then, when our enemy advances, ever compressed in the place where the waters meet, I shall strike him from the rear with all our horsemen, as I did at Toulouse!”