It was written.
Chapter 29
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.
Charles stood with his chieftains and retainers when the main attack finally came, his deep voice shoring up the will of his soldiers, his heavy battle axe always at the ready. Odo had been right, he thought. All the day long they have been playing with me here, rushing and feinting, and pricking my lines with their arrows. Now comes the charge he warned me of. Now come the heavy horsemen of Islam in a mighty charge. But we will stand as a wall of ice, cold and impenetrable, and we will not give way.
When the enemy cavalry surged against his shieldwall, the long broadswords of his hardened infantry flashed and hewed, killing horse and man alike. Horses reared, nostrils flared and eyes wide with the terror of battle, their iron shod hooves beating upon the helmets of the Frankish soldiers. And down they crashed, when pierced with iron, yet others pressed behind them and leapt in the clash and din of battle. Many fell, on both sides in the chaos of those moments, but always Charles urged his men on, sending in reserves where he held them fast behind the front line. And when the enemy horsemen would fall back to reform and charge again, they would find new shields planted in the loamy soil of that bloodied hillock, and new hearts opposed.
Again and again the Saracen horsemen came, until Charles looked out, wide-eyed, and saw a greater mass of armored cavalry bearing down upon his shieldwall, a sea of lances, surging forward like a great wave. They smashed through the outer wall and forged a deep wedge in his lines, bearing down on the place where he stood with his chieftains. And in all the chaos of the battle he had given no thought to Odo, the sulking Duke of Aquitaine where he waited on the far left flank, his light horsemen well concealed by the thick woods and brush. But now, as the Saracen horde plunged its lance deep into the heart of the Frankish defense, with eyes glazed and chastening alarm pulsing in his chest, Charles waved his frantic order, and sounded horns to call in this last reserve.
His chieftains fought like demons, closing ranks around their captain and lord, and Charles himself was drawn into the fray, his heavy axe rising and falling as he struck down one dark warrior after another, but still they came, bent on taking his life and ending the battle with this final surge of arms.
Off in the woodlands Odo had been chafing like a willful beast, brooding as he waited on the word of the Bastard Charles. He endured the long morning, held in check, watching with dismay as the Berbers harried Charles’ men with their archery. It was happening now as it had played out earlier this same year on the River Garonne. Charles the mighty, Charles the usurper, Charles the lord and master, who held him at bay, taking many daughters and children from his province of Aquitaine as hostages… Charles the coward.
We shall see, he thought. When hard pressed, in the thick of battle; when the day grows old with blood and smoke, Charles will summon me at long last… But I will not answer, he smiled, for I will not be here!
Odo listened to the sound of battle, the distant shouts of men at arms, the neigh of horses and the sharp clashing of iron on shields and helms. Three times, he had been tempted to take up his mount, the strong brown charger he had found at Tours when he arrived there, days ago. He still kept the old gray Arabian that had carried him here at hand, having forged an unaccountable bond with the beast. The Arabian was too old to carry the Duke into battle, but he tethered him near, walking over to him from time to time and stroking his mane and neck with soft words.
“You are old and spent, and tied up here, even as I am,” he said. “Yet I may have one last ride yet, ere this sun is gone.”
The battle was going just as he expected it might. The Berbers had been rushing in, firing their damnable arrows, hurling hard stones from their slings, and fleeing like the cowards they were. They were taunting the Franks, teasing them, trying to provoke them, as a man might poke a stick at a bear at bay. But Charles was adamant. He would not come down off his hill where he stood, and he stubbornly held his men back behind the line of their shieldwall.
Odo paced restlessly about as the afternoon wore on. His wounded eye still pained him, but it was nothing compared to the dint in his honor, and the nobility of his house. The longer he waited, unsummoned, the more he broiled with resentment. “Why do I serve this bastard?” he said aloud. “I should leave him to his obstinate ways and flee now to salvage what I may of my homelands.”
Indeed, many of his captains urged him to do exactly that. “You will never again see those taken by Charles alive,” they told him. “You are but a pawn to Charles now, and it is unseemly that you are thus debased, when all of Gaul should bow its head in thanks that it was by your endeavor the Saracens are challenged here this day.”
Hearing this, a man stepped from the shadows of the wood, wearing the cassock of a monk. “They are heathen,” he agreed. “They have spoiled all the land, burned the abbeys and holy places, and the good lord Odo has stoutly shielded the abbey of Saint Martin while Charles dallied on the road. And he has suffered the worst of their misdeeds—even to the giving over of his daughter Lampegie to their brothels and harems.”
“What is this you have said?” Odo drew his short sword and raised his heavy arm over the monk.
“Forgive me, Lord, but this is what comes to us from men who have late escaped from the enemy camp! Three men, taken as slaves, crept away in the dark last night, and fled to the abbey you so ably defended yesterday, and there they spoke it that Abdul Rahman has brought many other captives hither from his conquests, and that among them Lampegie may be found, given to the harems of his Emirs! Strike me down, but as God is my witness, this I speak truly.”
Odo stayed his hand, his eyes agleam with inner fire. It would satisfy his anger to kill this monk, yet he was merely a messenger. The enemy was elsewhere, and if what he said were true, it was one last grain of sand that set off the avalanche of wrath in his mind. It was not that he held any great love for the woman the monk spoke of, else why would he have given her to the heathen Manuza in the first place? No, but it was a point of honor. It was not seemly that she would be used this way, and yet one more insult he must endure. Now, with this spoken aloud, the eyes of his men would be on him with hidden shame as the sun fell and they listened to the brave Franks under Charles struggling and dying on the hillock above.