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Serials - parts and parts.

Countdown to Armageddon, Episode Four

Written by Edward M. Lerner

Illustrated by Dean Spencer

ON THE METZ-REIMS ROAD, FRANCIA, 730

The straight, one-edged scramasax clanged against Harry’s own sword, once, twice, three times. He felt the jolts all the way to his shoulder. His fingers grasping the hilt tingled, dangerously numb. He fell back under the vicious assault, parrying clumsily. Somewhere behind him, he remembered, was a large boulder. He was trapped. He lowered his blade and charged.

The Frank easily swept aside the feeble attack. With an understated elegance too quick for Harry to fully appreciate, the warrior slid his point through Harry’s defense and pinked him in the right biceps. Sweat burned in the fresh scratch.

“Better.” Sigismund wiped his blade on a handful of leaves and returned it to its scabbard. Siggie was the one warrior in the group escorting the merchants who approached Harry’s height. “Soon you’ll last long enough not to embarrass whoever kills you.”

“It’s a start. Again tomorrow after dinner?”

Sigismund snorted. “Anything rather than sit, eh? I saw how you two sit your horses.”

Terrence, who had recovered from his own earlier practice, grumbled under his breath—in English—about people too obtuse to invent stirrups. He bore his own scratches from the hotheaded but likeable Frank. He switched into his increasingly fluent Frankish. “I suppose you expect a story now.”

Sigismund shrugged. “It can wait. Harry paid for tonight’s lesson by teaching me some new chess tricks. I think I’ll go win some money.” The warrior wandered off toward the campfire, humming tunelessly.

Now that he was no longer being chased around the clearing, Harry began to feel the twilight chill. He pulled his flannel shirt back on over his undershirt, then sat cautiously on the boulder he had just been so desperate to avoid.

“A denarus for your thoughts.”

Harry pondered. “Keep your denarus. Get me some Bengay. His arm twinged with every button he manipulated.

Terrence sighed. “You think too small. How about a hot-water bottle? An electric heating pad? A warm bath?

“Chocolate bars, mattresses, and cold beer.”

“Two out of three.”

“I keep forgetting you’re a Brit. How can you drink it warm?”

“How can you drink it cold?”

“And toilet paper.”

“Oh God, yes,” Terrence said. “You win.” Laughter and good-natured cursing wafted their way from the now-roaring campfire, around which had gathered their companions on the road west. “Let’s see what’s for dinner.”

The road fare was what they had come to expect—and loathe. Coarse bread, always. Grilled game, usually prepared with lots of onion and garlic. Dried vegetables. They washed everything down with bad wine. While the meal was prepared, Harry won another profitable game of chess. He played on his own set—Romulfus had refused to reclaim his board and pieces.

With only their cloaks to wrap around themselves as bedding, no one was especially eager for sleep. Terrence told his nightly story, another installment from the wildly popular retelling of Gulliver’s Travels. He was up to the Houyhnhnms, intelligent horses who domesticated wild people. The very notion kept the Franks hooting with laughter, and they bellowed like children at every whinnylike repetition of the gentle creatures’ names.

Terrence finished, and a merchant who had joined the travelers at the last town hollered his approval louder than anyone. When the cheers finally died down, the newcomer rose to his feet. “A good tale, stranger. I look forward to hearing more of it.

“I am Lothar. My family has long prided itself on its skill in storytelling. If you do not mind the competition, I will also relate a history.”

With a smile at the shouts of encouragement from the company, Lothar began. “Men of Francia all know of our great ruler. Do you know that his family is destined to rule? Do you know that luck rides always with his family?”

Harry glanced at Terrence, who shrugged. Historian that he was, Terrence had no idea where this was going.

“Everyone knows that Neustria and Austrasia were not ruled always by one man. That union resulted from the great victory won by our leader’s father, Pippin of Herstal, on the field of battle at Tertry. But Pippin was not born in the palace. Over many years, through battles and strife, the Pippinids fought on.” By the dancing light and shadow from the campfire, Lothar studied the rapt faces of the crowd. “And in all of those years, the Pippinids never doubted.

“Do you know why?”

The merchant held his audience in the palm of his hand. “I will tell you why. None of you grew up in the town of Metz through which you so recently passed. Pippin of whom we speak was not the first of his line. Pippin, like all men, had a father, and he, too, had a father. And so it was that Pippin’s grandfather was also named Pippin. And that Pippin married a daughter of Bishop Arnulf of Metz.

“Who, you ask? Bishop Arnulf? Yes, you are right, he who became Saint Arnulf. The Pippinids descend also from Saint Arnulf. And the line of Arnulf is destined to rule.”

Somewhere deep in the woods, a wolf howled. Resin crackled and popped in the campfire. No man made a sound.

Finally, Lothar continued. “Know then that Bishop Arnulf chose to test his destiny. One day, beside the great river Seine, Arnulf plucked his seal ring from his finger. Arnulf called out to all that he would cast the ring into the river, ‘for if it comes back to me, then it shall be a sign that I shall rule over men.’ And hurl it into the swirling, flowing waters he did.

“Men said that Arnulf was mad, for who would so cast off his seal ring? Years passed, and the ring, of course, was not seen. Through it all, however, Arnulf kept faith.

“One evening, perhaps on a crisp, clear night such as this, Arnulf sat down to dinner. As on so many nights before and since, a fine river fish had been prepared for his meal. His servant sliced open the fish and, in front of the whole household, out rolled the seal ring so long ago thrown into the river.

“And so, God had given Arnulf the sign he sought. In our day, as in Arnulf’s, it is clear that the descendants of Arnulf shall rule men.”

After a moment of silence, the traveling company shouted out their approval. By popular acclamation, Lothar won tonight’s storytelling. Terrence shrugged and bought the first round of congratulatory beer. Wasn’t it obvious that old Arnulf had slipped into the kitchen to tuck a duplicate ring into supper?

Still, professional jealousy was unbecoming. “A fine tale, Lothar, and one that I shall remember. I have one question, though. If this ring is such good fortune, what happened to it?”

Lothar stared in disbelief. “Surely everyone knows that, just as everyone knows about the luck of the Arnulfings. The applause was for my telling of the tale, not for any novelty in it.”

For neither the first nor the last time in these surroundings, Terrence answered, “I am a stranger here.”

Lothar studied the jongleur’s face. Finding no mockery there, he relented. “Pippin of Herstal, the victor at Tertry, left behind three grandsons as his heirs. Plectrude, his widow, was to rule as regent until the children came of age. But Pippin and Plectrude had had a son before their marriage. Their bastard son had outlasted the issue of their marriage, and he raised an army to fight both his mother and the invading Frisians.

“Surely you now know the answer to your question.”

Terrence’s reference collection was many centuries inaccessible; he could only shake his head. He could not keep straight the Franks’ unending dynastic battles.

“Pippin’s surviving son was a great warrior and a brilliant leader. He now holds, without rival, the palaces in both Neustria and Austrasia.”

“The king of Francia?” Harry guessed.

“Bah.” Lothar spat in disgust. “The kings of Francia are worthless do-nothings. Everyone of the line of Merovechus has been useless since King Dagobert, in Arnulf’s own day. Certainly not the king. I speak of Karl, of course, the major domus (mayor of the palace). The ring of good fortune sits proudly upon the finger of Karl, Pippin’s son.”

And with the mention of Karl, the weight of the ages returned squarely to Harry’s and Terrence’s weary shoulders. For the current mayor of the palace, he whom the French would someday claim as Karl Martel, Charles the Hammer, was the victor of the onrushing battle at Tours.

Or he was supposed to be. . .

****

To their surprise, Harry and Terrence were still with the merchant company when it arrived at Reims. No one in the primitive agricultural settlements along the way reacted to Terrence’s description of Faisel. No one admitted to knowledge of anything out of the ordinary since the first earthquake.

They resigned themselves to the simplistic Plan B: Head for Tours. The immediate question was when. During the arduous trip from Metz, they came to value the wisdom of Gregory’s advice that they travel within a larger group.

No one was more pleased than Terrence when, just before nightfall, an actual town came into sight. “Who the hell ever thought to domesticate horses? My rear end is petrified.”

Harry laughed. “You’ll have time here to rest. Fredegar and his boys”—the chief merchants—“won’t be going anywhere for a while. They’ve got a wagon full of Italian bronze bowls left to move, and several sets of millstones. About all that they expect to sell quickly are the Greek olive oil and swords.”

The last-mentioned items were of exceptional quality—not an unusual emphasis in a martial society. Short days ago, they had watched in fascination as a Metz swordsmith crafted a scramasax from bars of several different irons and steels. His pattern-welding technique gave the weapons incredible flexibility—they could be bent almost double, then spring back perfectly straight—just like in some Errol Flynn swashbuckler. The Frankish scabbards were lovingly decorated in exquisite gold-and-garnet cloisonné work. While the two friends hadn’t scrimped on their own weapons purchases, their scabbard selections were far more utilitarian.

“Let ’em take a few days,” Terrence grumbled. “Even sleeping on a heap of straw will be an improvement.”

Harry laughed again. “Fine. Maybe I can find some suckers while you rest. Our new friends won’t bet on chess anymore. I’m almost reduced to introducing ticktacktoe.”

The group split in Reims. A few went to check out the town market despite the fading light; on impulse, Terrence joined them, hoping to earn a few tips with his stories. Harry went with several others to the monastery to arrange lodging. Traveling with the merchants, it turned out, had an unexpected fringe benefit: eligibility for the fireplace-equipped main guest quarters.

The market here flourished in the happy confluence of Roman roads from six separate directions; hosting the royal palace didn’t hurt, either. Many merchants were already in residence; the roly-poly local abbot introduced Harry and his companions around. Another group had come just that morning from Soissons, a short way up the road that ran northwest, apparently all the way to what only Harry and Terrence considered the English Channel.

“Care for a game?”

Sigebald, leader of the newly arrived merchants, had just completed a chess match and was looking for another opponent. The merchant’s leather board was badly scuffed; it had seen much use. Harry told himself not to be overconfident. “Certainly.”

As usual, Harry won quickly. Centuries of chess lore far outweighed his limited experience with this era’s version of the game. Versions. Chess had only recently been introduced to Western Europe by the invading Arabs and, he had discovered, the European game was still evolving. Almost everyone in Fredegar’s troupe had a preferred hometown version.

As he did with every new challenger, Harry had carefully reviewed his opponent’s set of chess rules for regional quirks. Would Harry mind using Septimanian rules? They sped up the game. “No problem.” At Harry’s urging, the merchant discussed his travels as they played. Septimania, it seemed, lay to the southwest: what Harry thought of as the French Riviera.

Sigebald was a boastful player—and a sore loser. Losing by his own rules, which he had apparently assumed would give him an edge, only made him madder. When it came time to pay up, he slammed his coins on the table. “Your two solidi, and be damned to you.”

“Not so fast, my friend.”

Harry looked up in surprise. He hadn’t noticed Terrence, Sigismund, and the others return from the market. One hand resting on his dagger hilt, Sigismund gestured with his other at the money. “Give my friend another coin, or pay in real gold.” In answer to Harry’s look of confusion, the warrior said, “Pick one up and bite it.”

Harry did, and damn near broke a tooth. There isn’t anything new under the sun, he thought: eighth-century inflation. He studied the coin closely. “I’ll have to remember that face.”

Sigebald slung down another debased solidus and went off to sulk among his men.

“Wait.” The irate merchant paused and turned; Harry tossed him back a coin. “Your new Septimanian rules were worth it.” Sigebald strode away, mollified.

“Why the bloody hell did you do that?” Terrence demanded in English. “You normally squeeze a pence thin enough to shave with. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were a Scot.”

“But the Septimanian chess rules were worth the money to me, in fact far more than a solidus. They do speed up the game. For example, the Minister and the Bishop can move completely across the board. There’s a shortcut move that involves the King jumping over the Castle. Pawns can move two squares on their first turn.”

“Who cares what blooming rules they. . . ?”

“You’re missing the point,” Harry interrupted. “It seems that eighth-century chess in Septimania follows rules that won’t exist until the seventeenth century.

“I think we ought to visit the Riviera.”

SOUTH OF ORLEANS, 730

Lupus circled in confusion, sniffing at the ground here, pawing it there.

Bertchramm feared the worst, for the great hunting dog was his last hope. He had lost all trace of the fleeing Saracen raiders more than a day earlier.

The mastiff settled to the ground with an unhappy whine. As though awaiting Lupus’s signal, the men began to grumble. They had abandoned hope days ago.

“Shut your cowardly mouths.” Bertchramm’s insult brought stunned silence. Before anyone spoke, he spun his mount to face the men. “Those murderous devils have slaughtered our friends like so many sheep, mutilated the bodies, profaned our sacred places. They killed my brother. As Christ is my witness, I will go on after these butchers, alone if I must.”

Most of the warriors had the decency to be chastened. Most. “But we have lost the trail. How can we go on?”

The warlord locked eyes with Childewald. “They are Saracens. They will have a camp to the south, toward or in Iberia. For eight days now we have followed their trail south.”

And without another word, Bertchramm led the way—south.

SOUTH OF REIMS, 730

The roaring campfire warmed half of Terrence’s aching body. His back was as cold as ever. He pulled the blue Frankish cape more tightly around himself. “I won at sword practice. That means that you make dinner.”

Harry said, “I tripped over a damned tree root. Damn lucky for you.”

“When we’re attacked by highwaymen, and you fall over your big feet, do you suppose you can call a time-out? I always thought that a foolish faith in Marquis of Queensberry rules was a peculiarly English failing.”

“Ah, hell.” Harry got up and began searching through their supplies. “I’ll get my revenge when you eat my cooking.”

It was their third night in the wilderness since splitting off from Fredegar’s troop. Sigismund had called them ten types of idiot for going alone. Terrence almost wished that he’d had the vocabulary to fully appreciate the tongue-lashing. Remembering the insults might have kept him warmer during the long ride.

He worried with a fingernail at a piece of gristle firmly lodged between his teeth. It had been the bane of his existence for two days. “I wish I had some dental floss.”

Bowen was still angry about having to cook. “Oh, quit your griping. For everything I miss, there’s something I’m glad to be away from.”

Terrence took the dare. “Indoor plumbing.”

“Commercials for diarrhea medicine.”

“Matches.”

“Cigar smoke.”

“Shaving cream, aspirin, and pizza.”

“Traffic jams, air pollution, and McAlpo,” Harry shot straight back.

“Wristwatches.”

“Alarm clocks.”

“Telephones.”

“Telephones.” They looked at each other and laughed.

Harry rejoined the contest. “Okay, switch. iPods.”

“Ghetto blasters.”

“Electric lights.”

“Woman’s lib.”

Terrence knew instantly that he’d put his foot in his mouth up to the hip. The silence stretched awkwardly. He came round the fire and squeezed Harry’s shoulder. “Sorry. No one ever accused me of tact.”

Harry’s expression was miserable even by the flickering firelight. “I really miss her, Terrence. Really.”

“I know.”

“Did I ever tell you how we met?”

All Terrence could do to help was listen. “No, you haven’t. I’d like to hear.”

URBANA, ILLINOIS (USA), 1986

The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences teemed with beautiful women, but the unvarnished, unliberated truth was that few of them frequented the science corner of the Quadrangle. The “hard sciences” and engineering were—alas—still basically male preserves. This Saturday morning, like so many others, found Harry trolling the Student Union for a date.

The Union basement had a small gallery that showcased student art. The exhibit area was crowded this morning—whether for the quality of the exhibit or because of lousy weather, he couldn’t immediately say. A vivacious blonde near the door caught his eye. Was it her tight jeans or the perky, bouncing ponytail that so caught his fancy? No, Harry decided: It was her sheer ebullience.

She had a crammed backpack slung over one shoulder; a hard-cover poetry text peeked out from under the flap. You didn’t have to be a rocket scientist: probable English major.

“Mind if I join you?” She gave him a strange look, but nodded. They ambled through the hall, pausing at some of the paintings. She seemed hesitant to comment on anything. To maintain a conversation, Harry found himself critiquing most of the works. “I know what I like. . . and that isn’t it.” Oh, he was in fine form. “That one goes to show that once you hit bottom, you can still move sideways.”

They wound up, eventually, in front of a cubist nude. The figure had a sickly yellow cast with a blue undertone. “Self-portrait.” Harry tapped the small title pinned beside the painting, and made a face. “I’d sure hate to meet the model for that.”

His new acquaintance smiled sweetly. “I’m afraid it’s too late.”

As Harry stammered foolishly, the woman—he still, stupidly, didn’t know her name—grasped his elbow. Towing him to the gallery exit, she asked him out for coffee. She favored him with a smile so bright as to be almost blinding. “Anyone this dull-witted deserves to be cherished. What are the chances you’ll live long enough to reproduce?”

That was the moment Harry decided this was the woman he would marry. How else could he prove her wrong?

SOUTH OF REIMS, 730

Careless conversation drifted through the trees. Ahmad signaled to a scout to join him, then urged his steed forward with a slight pressure of his heels. Together they slipped through the forest toward the unexpected sounds.

Soon the odor of smoke also drew them forward. He sniffed incredulously: The fools were burning aromatic pine. What simpletons were these, so to announce their presence? The wind flicked a corner of his burnoose into Ahmad’s face; he brushed it aside impatiently.

The Berber warrior slid from his mount and wrapped its reins around a branch. Silent as a djinn, he moved through the trees. Approaching from downwind, his own scent masked by the campfire smoke, only a carelessly placed step could give him away. He made no such mistake.

Jabir crept up beside him. The strangers prattled away; there was no danger of them overhearing a whisper. Still, Ahmad had not survived years of war by taking unnecessary chances. With hand signals, he directed the scout to return with two handfuls of men.

Ahmad studied the strangers while he waited. The setting combined the mundane and the inexplicable. The men wore Firanji (Frankish) cloaks over unfamiliar garments. The saddles, weapons, and gear by the two tethered horses could have come from any settlement within a month’s march. The men’s hair was uncommonly short, not even reaching to their shoulders. Their speech, at least, offered no ambiguity. It bore no relation to anything Ahmad had ever heard, on either side of the great sea.

By the time Jabir returned, gesturing that the encirclement was complete, Ahmad had made up his mind. He raised his hands to his mouth and hooted like an owl. The strangers were to be taken alive.

Gamal had a great interest in the unusual.

NEAR THE FRANCIA/AQUITAINIA BORDER, 730

Wisps of smoke rose from the ruined shell of a building. Bertchramm cautiously approached, francisca in hand. He trembled with the need to split Saracen heads with his ax. The cooling cinders that crunched beneath his boots mocked him: The devils he sought remained far ahead.

A weeping monk preceded him. Brother Lodovic had been on solitary retreat when the attack came. His howls of grief upon returning had echoed through the forest, summoning the questing Franks. Now he led the warriors into the pitiful remains of his monastery.

Bertchramm paused, letting his eyes adjust to the dimness. The monks had been brutally slaughtered. Corpses lay everywhere; gore fouled the walls. The simple wooden altar in the small basilica had been knocked over and smashed; it bore the marks of horses’ hooves. The bastards had even ridden their horses into the chapel.

In a shadowed corner, Brother Lodovic implored them wordlessly to the cellar crypt. Bertchramm returned the francisca to his belt. He followed the sobbing monk down the winding stairs. Surely nothing could be worse than what he had seen on this hunt.

He was wrong.

Every casket had been dumped out. Broken skeletons and rotting bodies lay everywhere. His eyes jumped eagerly to a golden crucifix, an object of incongruous beauty in this scene of horror. Then his eyes followed the length of the cross downward, downward, downward—until it plunged through the grinning skull of a skeleton.

NORTHERN AQUITAINIA, 730

The trek must be coming to an end.

In their first days of captivity, the fierce Arab and Berber warriors had beaten Harry and Terrence for making any sound, even an unmuffled cough or sneeze. Now their captors chatted, entirely at ease. Something in what seemed to Terrence a trackless wilderness must have denoted a border, a sign of safe haven. The Arabic in which they spoke so volubly told him nothing.

“Let me do the talking,” Terrence warned.

Ahmad, the leader, scowled at Terrence but said nothing. When he chose, Ahmad spoke passable, if broken, Frankish.

Harry didn’t question the whispered advice; he remained numb from the shock of their capture. His protestations that they were mere jongleurs, traveling entertainers, had been met with a sneer and a pointed glance at their swords.

Shortly after Terrence’s hissed entreaty, an avian trill sounded from ahead. Ahmad raised his hands and