“With whom?” said Charlemagne, lifting him to his feet. “With whom?”
“Calm down, Father.”
“How can I remain calm in the face of such an allegation?”
“It is more than an allegation,” urged Pepin. “It cost Werinbert his life.”
“And what did the wretch hear?”
“Something that I could not even imagine to be true at first.”
“Tell me.”
“The leader of the conspiracy is one of your own sons.”
Charlemagne was torn between shock and incredulity, stunned by the revelation yet unable to accept it. His sons were his closest friends, trusted allies of his heart from whom nothing was hidden. It was impossible that one of them should turn against him.
“Werinbert did not secure a name,” Pepin went on. “But he was left in no doubt that it was from your own flesh and blood that danger would come. The men were boasting about it. ‘Poor blind Charlemagne!’ one of them said. ‘He does not realise that he is nurturing a viper in his bosom. Force is power. Like father, like son.’ Those are the very words that were spoken.”
“Werinbert was lying to you,” asserted Charlemagne.
“He was telling the truth, Father. Dying men have no cause to lie.”
“My sons revere me.”
“I know that I do,” said Pepin firmly. “And so should they.”
“Yet one of them is preparing to lift his hand against me? No, it is inconceivable.”
“Therein lies its chance of success. Because you do not fear attack from that quarter, you have no defense against it. Your sons have ready access to you. They know your movements. Who better to direct assassins against you?”
“Stop!” yelled Charlemagne. “I’ll hear no more.”
“Let me and my men protect you, Father.”
“There is no need.”
“We will shield you against the Devil himself.”
“None of my children would dare to strike at me, Pepin.”
“I hope and pray that that is true,” said the hunchback with burning sincerity. “But I felt that I had to tell you what Werinbert overheard. His information has always been reliable in the past, and I see no reason to distrust it now. Your life is in danger, Father. I offer you a secret bodyguard that will ward off any assault. Accept that offer,” he argued. “One of your sons means to kill you.”
Worried by Alcuin’s prediction, Charlemagne was alarmed by the warning from Pepin the Hunchback. When he was left alone to reflect on what he had heard, he wondered if the words of the two men might not be in some way linked. Was the master of the Palace School telling him the same thing as his bastard? The distraught father agonized for hours on end. Of his three sons, Charles had least cause to enter a conspiracy. He was the acknowledged heir and would succeed in due course. Why kill his way to a throne that was his by right? It was perverse.
Pepin, the second son, whose legitimacy was attested by a powerful physique that set him apart from his namesake, the hunchback, was another unlikely assassin. He had led Frankish armies against the Huns and the Avars. His father had made him King of Italy, and Pepin was thrilled with his beautiful kingdom. Charles, too, of course, was a dashing warrior who commanded armies in Bohemia and Lunenberg. If it was Pepin who conspired to kill his own father, he would have to remove Charles as well because his elder brother stood between him and the throne.
Charlemagne’s mind was tormented by Alcuin’s prophecy. According to the saintly old scholar, Lewis would succeed his father. Yet he was the most peace-loving of all three sons. As the appointed King of Aquitaine, he was more concerned with ruling by Christian example than with anything else. For him to succeed to the throne, a father and two elder brothers had first to be removed. Was it possible that Lewis could contemplate the assassination of the three people he loved most in the world? His conscience would never permit such hideous thoughts.
And yet he, in Alcuin’s opinion, was the designated heir. How could that be? Charlemagne wrestled with the question. Was there some bizarre agreement between all three brothers to kill their father in order to place Lewis on the throne? His piety would make the youngest son the most acceptable to the Pope. Charlemagne liked to portray himself as the defender of Christianity but there were many, even in the Vatican, who considered him to be no more than a holy barbarian.
“Dear God!” he said to himself. “Pope Leo!”
It was a timely reminder that piety was no guarantee of civilized behavior. Pope Leo III had been attacked by the citizens of Rome, true Catholics to a man, who tried to blind their pontiff and cut out his tongue. Fleeing to Charlemagne’s camp at Paderborn, he had sought solace and help. The following year, Charlemagne entered Rome and set the Pope back in power. Almost exactly a month later, on Christmas Day, 800, Leo III crowned him Emperor and Augustus in St. Peter’s Cathedral. Behind the pomp and magnificence of the occasion lay the ugly fact that the Pope had once been expelled by the very people who were, in effect, his own children.
If rough hands could be laid upon a Pope, why should an emperor be spared? If the spiritual leader of Christendom could be arraigned, among other things, for keeping mistresses, then Charlemagne himself was bound to be condemned for the same reason. Alcuin might tease him about his many concubines, but he still disapproved of them. Lewis had never been able to accept his father’s random promiscuity. Was he intent on replacing a sinful emperor with a devout Christian? How and when would he strike?
Charlemagne swung between disbelief and apprehension. His heart told him that none of his three sons would plot against him, but his mind was less certain. The son who demanded the closest scrutiny was Pepin the Hunchback. Why had he brought the grim tidings and how seriously should they be taken? Charlemagne was bound to wonder if his bastard was activated by envy of his half-brothers, legitimate offspring who had no physical defects and who enjoyed great power in their own right. At the same time, he had been moved by the patent reluctance with which the hunchback had imparted the news. Pepin did not want to accuse any of them of plotting against their father. And what did he stand to gain by making a false allegation?
It was time to act. Charlemagne dispatched spies of his own to make discreet inquiries. Reports seemed to justify the hunchback’s warning. Werinbert, a man in his service, had indeed died that very day of terrible injuries. Charles, the eldest son, had mysteriously disappeared from Ratisbon. His brother, Pepin, King of Italy, had also quit the town without warning, his excuse being that he was travelling to Rome for an audience with the Pope. Most disturbing of all was the fact that Lewis, the pious King of Aquitaine, had sent word that he was on his way to Ratisbon. Why? Fear took a stronger grip on Charlemagne. As he weighed all three sons in the balance, he found each one of them wanting and asked himself if Pepin the Hunchback might yet turn out to be the most upright of his progeny.
As night began to fall, his fears were intensified. Charlemagne needed help from the one person in whom he had total faith, but Alcuin was far away in Aachen.
“Albinus!” cried the emperor. “What am I to do?”
The five conspirators met in St. Peter’s Church at the heart of Ratisbon. Most of them were Frankish nobles, men of high position who each nursed a grievance against their emperor. In the flickering candlelight, their faces were hard and determined. Their plans were discussed in the shadow of the huge golden crucifix.
“When will we strike?” asked one.
“Tomorrow,” decided their leader.
“Where?”
“Here in the church.”
A third man had scruples. “On hallowed ground?” he said with alarm.
“Yes,” replied the leader. “It is the one place where he will be at our mercy.”