“Bah. You talk a great victory, cousin; but I think not.”
“Enough,” Clovis said, showing his impatience. “My lord Chararic, you have answered us so that we are left in no doubt. Let it be so.”
Something in the younger man’s pale, deadly eyes and whetstone voice froze King Chararic to his treacherous soul. Instinct told him-too late-that here sat his master in double-dealing, in war, and indeed in all things; here was one who would remove him the moment it was convenient. What made Chararic so certain of this he could not have said. He knew. Clovis had uttered no threat, veiled or open. He had simply looked at his craftiest cousin. And Chararic was hideously sure. A death sentence had just been passed.
Feeling a sudden urgent need of wine, Chararic poured himself a tot with an unsteady hand.
“We waste time,” Clovis said, softly, so softly; butter sliding along the whetstone. Somehow, Chararic had been excluded from further talk. “My lords, we must raise our forces, combine them and march as soon as may be. Who shall lead them?”
’Why, the three of us jointly!” Ragnachar said. “Are we to arm a host and then give it to you to use as you please? Ha! Would you do such a thing for us?”
“I would not,” Clovis said grimly. “Nor was I proposing that you should. It is my dearest wish that one of you accompany me to this war, and lead his own warriors. Aye. Both, however, were neither needful nor wise. One should remain at home and guard the kingdom.”
His meaning was clear. Clovis did not trust Chararic, were he left unwatched behind their backs to be at the making of mischief. Likely he did not trust his allies overmuch either, and wished to separate them. Besides, the twenty-year-old king of five years had shrewdly guessed that Ragnachar did not altogether trust his own brother Ricchar. In that case Ragnachar would be certain to bring to war every able-bodied man, lest Ricchar prepare for him a stronger triumphal welcome than he wanted. When one was a Frankish king, one did not leave a knife even in the hand of a brother while one turned one’s back.
They talked.
Clovis used all his harsh powers of persuasion to get his way, and had it at last. Ragnachar agreed to leave Ricchar in charge of Cambrai, whilst he and Clovis led their combined forces against the Roman kingdom.
They parted next day in bright sunlight of no boding. Watching Chararic and his hunting party take their own road, Ragnachar smiled bleakly.
“We had better win our war, cousin,” he told Clovis. “I’ll not relish having ’hararic at our backs, an we should fail.” He scratched the back of his scalp, under his mass of corn-hued hair.
“Failure is not part of our plan,” Clovis said. “We will succeed-and even then, we will be better off without yon snake-eyed daggerman. When we return in the splendour of victory, my lord cousin, I will see to that myself.”
“You seem very sure of winning,” Ricchar grunted, and received hard looks from Clovis and his brother. He traded them glower for glower. “I should be pleased to know why.” And never for Chararic.
“Why, you sluggard? Are we not Franks?”
“Easy, Ragnachar,” Clovis advised, with a tiny smile. “Ricchar may be more subtle than you grant, for there are other reasons why I be sure of victory.”
The two brothers stared at the young king.
“I’ve had spies at the court of Soissons for some time,” Clovis said with a completely open face. “One master agent in particular. Think you I rose one bright dawn and said, ‘Would be a fine thing were I and my kinsmen to conquer Soissons! I shall put the matter to them and discover whether they agree!’“
Despite his slowness of thought, Ricchar was not easily swayed from a point. “This agent of yours…”
“A courtier. He has worked with great care to suborn the men who lead the Frankish auxiliaries in Syagrius’s army. I chose him well! He has been discreet and successful. When Syagrius marches against us, my lord cousins, his Frankish contingents will desert him and fight with us, which is fitting. You will see why I had no wish to talk of this whilst Chararic was with us, and him uncommitted.”
Ricchar considered that, and smiled broadly. “Good! Good!”
“There is more,” Clovis said coolly, hardly basking in this praise. “Know ye the Bishop of Reims?”
“I have met the man,” Ragnachar said, looking intent while he scratched his outer thigh.
“As have I. So too has my spy. My lord Bishop is a most practical churchman who also desires my conversion to his god. On my spy’s advice, I made him offers in the guise of interest in his faith, to gain some notion of how he might respond to conquest. No fool he! He sees as surely as I that the Roman kingdom cannot last many years longer, and that we are the most likely ones to seize it. I can get along with him. Will be needful, you know. We can conquer the Roman kingdom methinks, but lacking the Church’s aid, cousins, we should find it difficult to hold.”
Ragnachar laughed shortly. “And shall we make submission in name to the Emperor at Constantinople?”
“Aye,” Clovis said most seriously indeed, “and mayhap receive the cloak and purple robe each, proclaiming us consul. Why not?”
There was one whelming reason why not. In each man’s mind was a picture of himself as Consul of Gaul officially and king in fact, and no thought of sharing the honour. What was more, each of them knew that the other thought thus.
Ricchar asked, “What of this spy of yours now?”
The younger king’s eyes narrowed. “One cannot be sure,” he admitted slowly. “I believe Syagrius began to wonder about him. Not suspect him; merely wonder. Had it been more than that, Syagrius would surely have had him slain rather than sending him from the court. The fellow was given a post in Metz, and he’d no choice save to accept it. It is there he now abides. I have heard that he met with misfortune at the hands of robbers, but his hurts were not mortal. I shall reward him for his services after we have conquered Soissons.”
This rang true because for the most part it was true. Clovis had lied only about the city to which his agent had been dispatched by the Roman king. Was Nantes, not Metz, and the post he had been given there was that of customs assessor for the district. The wight’s name was Sigebert. Misfortune had been his indeed, although many said it was richly deserved, and now referred to him as Sigebert One-ear. He had been so unwise as to lay trap and cross swords with the pirates Wulfhere the red-beard and Cormac mac Art.
Sigebert’s fate had been maiming and disfigurement at the hands of one of their men, Clovis had been informed, and he remembered.
Sigebert, too, remembered.
Yet none of this really mattered to Clovis or Chlovis or Chlodwig or Hlovis or-Roman-style-Chlodovechus, King of the Salian Franks. It mattered to Sigebert, and to the two pirates. Even now the fact was drawing Wulfhere and his black haired, blue eyed Gaelic partner to the grimy fringes of Clovis’s plan to conquer Soissons.
6
“The withdrawal of Rome from what had been Empire left a vacuum in the world. Pirates rushed to fill it.”
– Ricart of Lyons
Tricky and hard to navigate were the coasts of Armorica, now called Lesser Britain or Brittany. Many a granite reef lurked offshore and the tides could be deadlier than any sea monsters invented by human minds. Dwellers in Armorica must of necessity be superb seamen, or not go to sea at all.
Raven came along those coasts in full daylight and weather clear as a child’s eyes. The ship’s blue-and-green sail was a broad banner above gentle waves.
“Show a white shield at the masthead, Halfdan,” Wulfhere ordered. “Else these Celts be like to shudder and faint at sight of us.”
“Ye will not, o’course, be saying such a thing to their faces,” Cormac said. “The time’s ill chosen to provoke a slaughter.”
“Ah, nag me not, Wolf! ’Tis not as if these runaways from Saxon invaders be your own people-Britons out of Britain are they, all. And them calling themselves corsairs and squabbling like gulls over the scraps we leave! ’Tis pitiful-but I’ll spare your feelings. Mayhap there be pig-farmers amongst ’em, eh? Eh? Kindred souls!” And Wulfhere laughed.