Syagrius leaped clear as his own horse crashed headlong. Its thrashing hooves brained a Frank who thought to take the Roman commander’s head. Syagrius’s sword, washed with blood and streaming blood, bit through the temple of a glaring savage and into his brain-pan. The fierce eyes glazed and the long-hafted ax fell.
Dismounted among his foes, his shield somehow lost in the fall, Syagrius accepted that he was a dead man. It did not seem to matter. Naught mattered, save taking as many of these barbarian swine as he could into the next world with him. He struck out ragingly. A sword broke on his blood-smeared cuirass and he opened the belly of the Frank responsible.
“My lord! My lord!”
The deep-throated yell announced the arrival of a score of horsemen. Their leader bashed out Frankish brains with his mace even as he shouted. His other hand gripped the rein of a riderless horse. Blinking, shaking sweat from his eyes, Syagrius recognized his aide, Bessas the Goth. Too, he saw that for this instant he stood alone. The battle had eddied around him, in one of those unpredictable and constant freaks of war. Seizing the saddle, he mounted.
Syagrius well knew that but for Bessas’s most timely arrival, he must have died. Yet there was no time to thank the Goth. Syagrius looked about him, and even his strong heart was chilled.
Death!
Nothing but death. Mangled forms and reeking gore.
How many survived, of his splendid cavalry? One man in four? One in five? the foot legions had moved forward in phalanx, and the Franks were breaking those formations, swarming about them, dragging and hacking men down without recking the cost. Even as Syagrius saw them and watched, the limatani faltered. In a moment more they were in full flight.
The Franks, Syagrius had said, can better us in one respect only: Numbers. He had forgotten their half-insane ferocity, or underestimated it. Who could believe this rage to slaughter, this willingness to die?
A Roman could. “God!” he said hoarsely. Then, to Bessas, “Help me rally the horsemen remaining. The Frankish losses have been terrible too. We can reach the city… hold it against them…”
Bessas shook his head. “We couldn’t hold the city now, sir. Let them have it! We can only go there and die. We can ride to the western districts and raise fresh levies. Sir.”
Syagrius blinked. “Aye,” he said slowly. “Aye! We’d no time to raise forces from those regions; the Franks moved too quickly-but now we will have. The barbarians will waste much time in… looting.” He ground his teeth at that thought. He had said it though; it was as good as done. He accepted. “The best man in those parts is that Bicrus, Comes over Nantes. With his backing I can raise all the country from Nantes to Orleans and march north again. Aye, Bessas! Naught will replace what we have lost here… but the Franks cannot replace their losses either, and they are frightful. Nor can they raise a new army, for the bloody barbarians are outside their own country!”
He did not add that they must move swiftly, ere the municipal counts in the north made formal submission to Clovis. He did not add that all hope now hinged on the strength and loyalty of Bicrus, whose example would be required to prevent the bickering counts of the west from doing likewise. Hope was slight enow without such words to dampen it the more. The Lord of Death reigned.
“To Nantes then, sir?”
“To Nantes,” Syagrius said, with a fire of decision that burned away his weariness even while his sword-arm commenced to tremble. “As swiftly as may be! Aye-and in Nantes there is a small errand to be accomplished apart from our main business, now I think on’t. I sent Sigebert of Metz there, to take up the post of chief customs assessor because I had my suspicions of him. Suspicions! Holy Savior! Now I see that he suborned the Franks in my army! That snake prepared them to desert to Clovis and Ragnachar! Need I tell you what is to be done with him when we find him, old friend?”
Bessas spat emphatically. “Nay sir. Ye have no need to tell me, sir.”
“Well horse-it’s Rome you carry now. Fly!”
By sunset, Syagrius and Bessas were riding for the Seine at the head of a grim band of three hundred men. Just over half of them led spare mounts. All were bone-weary from battle and carried such provisions as they had managed to snatch.
Miles behind them, swooping strutting ravens were glutted until they could only just hop. Staring eyeballs vanished down avian gullets in their thousands. Clovis and Ragnachar were utterly victorious. Yet of the twenty thousand men they had led south, barely eight thousand survived to march to the gates of Soissons.
20
The surface of the black glass mirror swirled smokily, then cleared to its normal vitreous sheen. Lucanor laid it flat on the table and sighed deeply. Sigebert, looking over his shoulder, had seen naught in that surface save the vaguest of moving shapes. They might well have been shadows of his own fancy. Yet they had aroused in him a strange unease.
Lucanor sighed again as he emerged from his far-seeing trance, and Sigebert barked “Well?” because he could restrain himself no longer.
“Victory,” the mage answered. “Utter victory for Frankdom. Syagrius met the host of Clovis and Ragnachar north of the city. His army inflicted fearful losses-and was itself all but annihilated.”
“Ahhh,” Sigebert breathed. Then, suspicously, he added, “But is it truly so? How may I know?”
“I have said so,” Lucanor was so injudicious as to say. “Believe it or not, as you please. I saw. Syagrius has survived the battle and escaped the field. He rides for Nantes at this moment, with some three hundred of his Gothic cavalry. They will camp in the open tonight, I daresay. Having fought a hard battle, so that most of them bear wounds, ’tis unlikely they can continue at their utmost speed. Nor is a Gothic war-horse the swiftest of beasts, especially when it carries a fully armoured man. Yet Syagrius will not waste time. ’Tis a journey of some-what?-two hundred and fifty Romish miles as the raven flies. More, by road. Methinks he cannot arrive in much less than seven days.”
“Hmm. Remounts?”
“They lead some two hundred spare horses. That is another thing-sir; they will have to find forage for so many animals.”
“Not difficult at this season, and them constantly moving on. Syagrius can requisition what he wants. He may have met utter defeat, but it will take time for the stupid Gallo-Romans to accustom themselves to the idea!”
Frowning, the scarfaced Frank considered. Syagrius and his band must surely rest each night of their journey. Was high summer; there had been little cloud, less rain, and the ground was dry and firm. So, then. Allow them to cover… forty miles in a day. As Lucanor said, seven or eight days seemed about right. Sigebert promptly allowed a safe margin, and gave himself but five days to prepare.
Still, first things first. This time Lucanor had impressed him. Not being an utter fool, however, Sigebert knew that the Antiochite hated him. He considered. Suppose Clovis’s schemes had somehow gone awry? Was there not a possibility that Lucanor might seek to conceal the news for reasons of his own? Suppose the Romans had gained victory and Lucanor was lying… Sigebert’s eyes brightened. His merry smile of anticipation imparted a hideous twist to the scars on his cheek.
“Shall we see how your story resists a little pain?” He drew his dagger.