The room was dark, but it was not still. Bishop Turpin lay in a tumble across the simple bed with a homespun blanket pulled up about his ears, and his snoring rattled the cup on the table nearby.
Someone rapped on the door, and he snorted, stuttered, and coughed. He rolled over to bury his head deeper in the thin feather pillow. After a pause, his snores once again resumed their rollicking rhythm.
The knock was repeated, this time more forcefully.
Turpin mumbled unintelligibly. He rolled from the bed, rubbing his eyes and scratching at his woolen nightclothes. Another knock came, rattling the cup more than had his snores.
Turpin shook his head and found his voice. “I’m coming!” He took a drink from the cup and slammed it down. “Can’t you give a man a moment to clear the cobwebs?”
The royal chapel was usually quiet at this time of night, save for the occasions when Charles sought the Lord at the candlelit altar. Turpin entered still dressed in his bed robes, searching the shadows for something, anything, to drink.
“Oh, I’m in need, that is certain,” he grumbled, tugging on his priestly vestments. Roland and Aude followed him into the chapel, their hands clenched tightly together. Turpin waved them to the altar where they knelt down together.
Aude whispered to Roland, “Our commitment is for God and us. Please, it would kill my father in his sickbed if he thought he failed to drive a bargain on his daughter’s dowry.”
Roland squeezed her hand in his. “Of course. But someone should be here.”
“Someone?” Aude asked.
Oliver stepped into the light then, waving off the page escorting him when he saw what was unfolding at the foot of the altar.
“Hello. What’s this?” he said, color rising to his cheeks. He pulled out his dagger as he crossed the floor to them.
Roland raised both hands and spoke quickly. “I wouldn’t betray her trust, my friend! Or yours—that’s why we’re here!” Oliver hesitated for a heartbeat. Roland took the pause as a chance to drive onward. “She knows everything that makes even you blush when I tell it, but still she’d have me. Before God, I love her. I promise to love no other!”
Oliver searched Roland’s face for falsehood. “Is this true?” Oliver asked his sister at last. “Do you love him? Will you accept him?”
“Yes,” she said with a smile. “I do—with all my heart. I will. And now you’ll be together in battle …”
“And united in our love for you,” he finished for her. He tossed the dagger to the floor and placed his hands in hers, and Roland clasped his own hands around theirs.
Turpin dabbed at his eyes with a corner of his nightshirt. Then he opened a worn old vellum Bible, held it up to the candlelight, and squinted at the hand-scrawled print.
“Not much call for this sort of thing on the battlefield,” he mumbled. He straightened, tugged at his bishop’s accoutrements, and then began.
“We are gathered here in the sight of God and His angels, to see this man and this woman united in holy matrimony …”
Not all chapels that served the faithful and the sinner in Aachen were adorned in gold leaf and exotic silks. Some could be—only very generously—described as humble.
At one such ramshackle edifice, Pepin crept through the graveyard, stepping carefully past crude markers to a shadowed chapel door. He tugged at the latch and pushed the door open. The inside was shrouded in stygian darkness, forcing Pepin had to feel his way to the broken-down confessional. His heart filled his throat as he opened the door and sat on the stool.
It was one thing to dream of being king and quite another to realize the act of becoming one. He longed to be unbridled from the ancient Frank customs that split households, estates, and entire kingdoms between sons when a father passed on. A quaint tradition for backwater homesteads in a much simpler time, he supposed—but tradition was no way to run a kingdom beset on all sides by enemies. So here he was to firmly take his fate into his own hands. He pulled the curtain closed then leaned close to the fretted wooden panel at his elbow.
“Forgive me, Father,” Pepin said dutifully, “for I am about to sin.”
The agent, shrouded by his cowl, opened the small door in the panel and passed Pepin an amber bottle. “Yes, well, my master wishes you Godspeed.”
“I’m not sure God fills my sails at the moment,” Pepin admitted. “When this is over, though, I’ll build Him a fine monastery and set my brother to watch over it.”
He stood up, pushing open the confessional door, and stalked from the chapel before his sickly knees could buckle. Pulling his cloak tightly about his body, he hurried through the cemetery and quickly rounded the yard to the thoroughfare in front. Stepping out to the street, he nearly collided with Demetrius. But the Greek hopped to the side, allowing the prince to continue on.
“Good evening, my prince!” Demetrius said with a slight bow.
“Yes, my apologies, Ambassador,” Pepin said, pulling his hood up.
“It’s not safe for you to wander alone on the streets,” Demetrius called after him. “Shall I escort you?”
Pepin waved a hand dismissively. “I’m safe enough. Good evening to you.”
He continued down the street.
Demetrius glanced at the decrepit chapel. Just then a hooded figure exited by the side door and rushed through the graveyard.
“What’s this?” Demetrius muttered under his breath. He fell in a fair distance behind the man and started following him through the dark streets.
Roland and Aude stood facing each other before the simple bed in the champion’s chambers, the room bathed in the subtle glow of winter moonlight. They kissed, and in that kiss Roland discovered something in himself.
He pulled back his lips and looked into her eyes as her lips parted invitingly.
“Oh, my beautiful wife,” he whispered, fully intoxicated with her. “I will always love you, beyond my last breath and into the eternities.”
Aude stretched on her tiptoes to reach his lips once more. “And I you, my husband. The knight of all my dreams …”
Roland traced her face with his fingers, caressing each curve of her cheekbones. “Are you happy?” he asked. “Even if we didn’t have a public spectacle for a wedding?”
She laughed in a throaty manner. “To the depths of my soul. And you?”
Roland began tugging at her bodice. “More than I have ever known.”
Their clothes fell in a rumpled heap to the floor as the two tumbled to the bed.
Servants checked the red-hot braziers to ensure the king’s room remained warm through the night. One fluffed the royal pillows, another drew the curtains, and still another turned down the blanket and sheets. Through the nightly ritual, Charles sat at his desk, his tired, red-rimmed eyes scanning endless manuscript pages. He scratched out letters in the margins with an ink quill that blotted at annoyingly random intervals.
Naimon stood next to the desk holding another sheaf of vellum documents, an urgent look on his face even though the hour was late. “Sire, these need to be signed as well.”
Charles pushed the documents to the side.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a yawn. “Writing my name over and over again is so taxing. Call up my wine. I’ll finish this in the morning.”
Naimon bowed professionally, and quickly gathered up the scattered documents. He hurried from the room with the bundle at arm’s length, fearful that still-wet ink would stain his fine robes.
Demetrius hurried to keep up with the cloaked man while remaining unnoticed. It was a task made all the more difficult by the scarcity of people about at this hour, not to mention the man’s expert dodging between carriages, back-alley vagrants, and stray dogs. When they crossed into the less savory sections of the city, Demetrius found himself forced further into the shadows.
The Greek suspected that any one of the ruffians and cutpurses lazing about would likely recognize his quarry’s face if confronted. Demetrius picked up the pace, closing the distance between them, but the man scurried along faster. Throwing all caution to the wind, he rushed to cut the man off before he could bolt down an alley, but the man dodged again and broke into a loping run. They were sprinting now, hopping over the clutter of trash, crates, and barrels. Then the man looked over his shoulder and tripped on his cloak. With a cry, Demetrius was upon him, bearing him down to the frozen ground.
“I see you have time for me after all, my friend!” the Greek huffed, drawing out his dagger and pressing it hard to the man’s throat.
“And I’m in need of drink and a warm bed! Now let me go. Here, take my money. It’s not much.”
Demetrius grabbed the man’s arm—his hand bore a dagger instead of a purse. The Greek smashed the man’s knuckles against the ground, over and over again until the weapon clattered away.
“That’s an awfully slim ‘purse,’” he said. “Now quickly, it’s news I require—news of princes and dark deeds!”
The man chewed up dirt as he spoke. “Princes? You think I rub elbows with royalty? You’re daft!”
“Am I now?” Demetrius whispered as he drew the dagger’s edge along the man’s throat, a line of crimson springing up on his skin. “Princes and paupers. I wonder what they do worshiping together. By the time this is through, we’ll know who’s daft.”
He pressed the dagger point under the man’s chin.
“Now, you were saying? Quickly, man, before we test the knife’s edge yet a little deeper.”
The steward, his gray locks a riot of tangles, shuffled down the hall bearing a tray with a precariously teetering cup threatening to tumble with each of his steps. Of course, he wasn’t so much worried about the cup spilling—he’d done this nightly for the better part of fifteen years. No, he was much more worried about not getting the wine there quickly enough, for the king dearly loved his drink before his other nocturnal activities. The steward was a religious man, and he shuddered at the thought of the things that went on behind those closed doors. To him the king revealed a paradox of passions and intentions, most of them rightly ordered—others, not so much. He nearly dropped his charge when Pepin stepped from a doorway ahead of him.
“Oh, sire,” the steward said, rebalancing the cup with a hand. “My apologies. I could have run you over!”
Pepin raised a hand. “No apologies needed, good man. I’m going to my father’s chambers. I’ll take that.”
“But …” the man stammered. Yet the look in Pepin’s eyes would brook no argument. “As you wish, sire.” He handed Pepin the tray and hurried back the way he’d come.
Pepin continued down the hallway to the royal chambers. Geoffrey of Anjou waited there, clad in his mail coat with his sword riding at his side in a worn scabbard.
“Is all in place?” Pepin asked.
“At your command, sire” Anjou said with a wolfish gin.
“Very good,” Pepin said. “And when this business is done, remind me to purge the serving staff. They could be complicit to murder, you know.”
Roland sat up and rubbed his eyes with a balled fist. Something hit the door, and he started. He threw the wool covers over Aude’s slender form then slid to the side of the bed, grabbed his trousers, and stepped into them. The stone beneath his feet was cold as he padded across to the door.
He drew back the latch and pushed it open.
“What is the meaning of—?” The words froze in his throat. An armed warrior knelt over the prone form of Roland’s squire. His mailed fist dripped red. The soldier looked up and gestured to unseen comrades who with rough hands shoved the door open wide.
Aude sat up and screamed.
Several armed men forced their way in, reaching for Roland. But he danced back into the shadows then leaped across the bed and his wife. He grabbed Durendal and tossed aside the scabbard.
A sergeant, wearing Anjou’s colors, stepped into the room behind the others.
“Kill him!” he growled. Three soldiers advanced.
Durendal flashed in the waning moonlight, a wraith in the hands of a shadow. Aude pressed herself against the wall, reaching for her own dagger in an end table as her husband drove headlong into the guards. Men groaned and cursed when the sword bit. One sank to the ground, grasping at his throat. Steel grated against steel, Durendal ever quick in the hands of the champion, sliding from guard to ward to whistling cuts as if possessed, until the blade blurred in the shadows and another soldier fell, the point sprouting from the man’s neck.
“Roland!” Aude called. He spared a glance back—one of Anjou’s men teetered on the bed, right arm dripping blood from the bite of Aude’s dagger.
Roland swung the sword in a mighty arc, and the blade severed the man’s head from his neck. Blood sprayed across the sheets as the corpse fell in a tangle. Roland returned his attention to the door. Only the sergeant remained standing.
Roland lunged.
Steel and flesh collided. The sergeant cut at Roland, following with a mailed fist. A grunt escaped Roland’s lips when sturdy knuckles connected with his ribs, but he drove the man back into the doorway until he slipped in the pool of the squire’s blood. The sergeant was unbalanced for only a heartbeat, but it was one heartbeat too long. Roland wrapped him in his arms and drove him back into the sitting room.
The sergeant tripped backward over a chair and struck the wall behind. His ribs cracked from the impact, and Roland followed by hammering Durendal’s pommel up into the man’s jaw, shattering bone and teeth. The sergeant gagged and kicked. He fumbled for his belt but instead found Roland’s hand clamped about his wrist. With a deft switch of his grip on the sword, the champion rammed the blade up the man’s groin under his mail coat. The sergeant sagged, gurgling on broken teeth and blood.
Roland spat on the corpse.
Aude stood nearby, pressed against the wall and covered in blood, eyes wide. Roland pressed a hand to her cheek.
“Don’t leave our rooms,” he said, more gruffly than he intended. He sucked air through his teeth at a pinch of pain in his ribs. “I’ll send someone. I promise.”
Aude forced a brave smile. “Go. You must see to the king.”
Roland bent and, with a foot on the corpse’s chest, yanked Durendal free.
Charles maintained a simple field-altar next to his bed for personal worship. The small crucifix was rough-hewn from olive wood imported from the Holy Land itself, and the tiny beeswax candles surrounding it guttered with the slightest disturbance—this time Pepin pushing open the door bearing the cup of wine in his hands. Charles looked up from where he knelt in his night robes.
“Ah, my son. To what do I owe this visit?”
Pepin set the tray on the desk and lifted the cup in his hands. “Does a son really need a reason to serve his father?”
Charles smiled as he reached for the offered drink. “Words I would expect more from Louis. But I thank you.”
“I am nothing if not a dutiful son,” Pepin replied with a smile.
Throughout the palace, heavily armed men wearing green surcoats blazoned with the red rose of Anjou rushed to secure positions within the corridors and along the walls. The royal guards mustered out to stop the flood of intruding steel, but many were brutally cut down before they could gather in sufficient strength to resist the interlopers. The coup became a slaughter.
Outside the walls, Demetrius could hear the sounds of struggle as he dragged his ragged prisoner to an alley overlooking the palace gates where a handful of royal guards faced Anjou’s overwhelming companies. Behind the Greek came the steady tromp, tromp, tromping of boots—this time the marchmen, emerging from the shadows with Oliver, Otun, and Kennick leading them. Their mail coats and weapons flashed in the winter’s moonlight.
One of Roland’s squires crept from the shadows.
“My lords!” he said. “Roland is already inside the palace!”
“What is this?” Oliver asked sternly. “We came as fast as we could muster out!”
“Pepin has moved against Charles,” Demetrius reported. “And Anjou supports his cause.”
By the distant gate, they could see Anjou’s men butchering the guards, their blood running in dark streams from the entrance. The southerners finished the last of the defenders and started closing the ironbound portal.
“Damn!” Kennick growled. “We’ll need more men if we have to force the gates!”
“And Roland is alone in there,” Demetrius reminded them.
A wicked smile formed on Otun’s lips. “Now’s the time for blood!”
Oliver lofted Halteclare over his head. “All right, then. As one!” he commanded. “In tight formation. We’ll drive the gate open!”
The marchmen formed up smartly, locking their shields in Roman style. On Oliver’s signal, they charged the gate.
Charles lifted the cup from the tray and rose, arthritic knees making him a bit unsteady at first, but he recovered quickly and navigated into a nearby chair.
“Have you thought about my request?” Pepin asked, leaning in close. “I am the eldest. I can hold the realm together. Advance your legacy. Please, Father, God would not want you to go to your rest and allow this, His kingdom, to descend into civil war and chaos!”
“I cannot abandon your brother,” Charles murmured with a hint of sadness in his voice. He had argued round and round too often with Pepin on this issue. “I will take care of my children. Frank law and tradition are preeminent in this matter.”
“But your entire reign breaks with tradition!” Pepin said, his voice rising. “You war against the encroaching darkness of tradition and ignorance by translating the ancients’ law and philosophy. You’ve instituted higher learning, brought together the finest Christian, Muslim, and Jew scholars. Father, name me your heir. I swear by all that is holy and sacred that I will keep your dream alive. The Frank kingdom will be the light on the hill!”
Charles shook his head, his face drawn and tired. “As with any father, my children are my legacy. My kingdom, on the other hand, is a legacy to all Franks, no matter if each of you governs a piece of the whole. Now please, I am tired, my son.”
Pepin bowed deeply. “Of course, Father.”
Charles lifted the cup. Before the wine could pass his lips, Roland crashed through the door and stumbled in. In his hand, Durendal dripped blood.
“My king,” he said breathlessly with a bow, though still moving forward to close the distance. “Cousin,” he nodded at Pepin.
Pepin shuffled to block Roland’s approach.
“What is this, Champion?” Pepin snapped. “You’ve interrupted the only time I’ve had with my father in days.”
Roland bent to his knee and lowered his head to the king.
“Sire, there is a threat to your life!”
Charles leaned forward in his chair, setting the cup on the table beside him.
“Tell me,” he said.
“What threat?” Pepin challenged. “How can there be danger to him in his own house?”
Roland pointed at the cup sitting near Charles’s hand. He glared unrepentantly at Pepin.
“Would the betrayer dare to take up the cup?” he challenged.
The color drained from Pepin’s face. “You’re insane! Father, he accuses me!”
Charles leaned forward, his brows knit together. “You tread dangerously, Champion.”
Roland took a step toward the cup, his hands spread before him, blade turned away.
“If all is as it should be, then drink,” he baited the prince.
“He’s mad, Father. Probably murdered your guards to get in!” Pepin snarled. “I’ll have him removed. Then we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
Roland brushed past the prince, lunging for the cup. He grabbed it and lifted it to his mouth. “If you do not drink, then I will! You will stand condemned by my last breath—”
Before Roland could taste the cup, Geoffrey burst through the door. His face was flushed, and blood stained his fine garments.
“Anjou?” Charles stood. “What have you done?”
“You?” Roland spat. “I supported your cause! Charles committed to defend the south for you!”
Anjou laughed. “Why should I trust you? You being champion is an insult to your betters, and Charles was mad to have chosen you!”
Roland set the cup down on a table, hefted Durendal in his hand, and raised the long steel blade to guard.
“You’re a traitor!” he said, accusation dripping from his voice.
Geoffrey launched at him, the keen edge of his weapon whistling through the air. Roland sprang forward into the attack, jarring the downward cut to a stop by slamming his own blade into Geoffrey’s cross guard, then snatching the stalled weapon and ripping it out of the count’s hands. Geoffrey desperately clamped his hands around Roland’s throat, but his grip slackened and failed when Roland’s blade sprouted bloody from his back. The count of Anjou wheezed and spat blood into Roland’s face.
“Go to hell,” Roland growled.
Oliver burst into the room, Demetrius on his heels dragging the man he’d captured in his wake. Oliver skidded across the bloody stone to place himself between Pepin and Charles. Demetrius hurled his prisoner to the floor, tossing a few of the man’s fingers after him.
“Apologies, Your Majesty,” Demetrius said with a bow. “I see we’re not too late.”
Pepin could not help but glance fearfully at the cup on the table.
Marchmen crowded into the room, many half-dressed and lightly armed. Before they could react, the prisoner lunged for the cup and thrust his face into the drink, draining it. Waving his bloody hands, he fell to the floor cackling madly—but he would spill no more secrets. He expired as the marchmen hauled his corpse to its feet.