Chapter One: Charles the Hammer
We are the lucky ones. I had to keep telling myself that, as the icy rain pelted us like shards of glass, and the wagon kept catching and sinking into the muddy filth that squelched beneath my boots. We could have been rounded up and killed. We could have had our possessions taken. We are the lucky ones.
No one seemed to know where we were going, or how long it would take to get there, but I suppose that didn't really matter, as long as we escaped Frankia, and Charles Martel's men. Of the two cart horses we had taken to pull our belongings only one, Helga, was still strong enough to pull the wagon, and so only my younger brother Ike was allowed to perch on the back while the rest of us trudged alongside.
It was the third day of travel when we reached the end of Frankia and the beginning of Germania, at least according to my father we had, since we reached a vast forest. Germania was almost entirely covered in forest, apparently, as the people were so barbaric that they hadn't ever cleared much land for agriculture.
"Stay close through the woods." My father ordered, as the trees began to tower us in long shadows. "It's not a safe place for a small group like us, so keep your wits about you."
"Watch out for the wolves," My mother added unnecessarily.
"Sheila!" Father interjected, before whispering something in her ear about 'scaring the children'.
With that fool-proof advice he slapped Helga's side, and we rolled on between the boughs of the great oaks and into the darkness they cradled.
"Are there many wolves, Kyle?" My brother asked as I dragged my feet behind the group.
"How am I supposed to know?" I replied, perhaps a little bitterly, adding a murmur about how I was sure we'd be fine. Of course I knew no such thing.
"Why do we have to run?" He asked, shivering a little as the night crept upon us.
"You know why, Ike." He was incredibly bright, and I'd explained this possibility to him before so I wasn't in the mood to go over it all again.
"Because Charles Martel doesn't like Jews?" He replied tentatively.
"Exactly." The word turned to steam in the cold air as they passed my lips. "And the King does whatever Charles Martel tells him to." I spat after uttering that man's name.
"But what if we stayed, and fought, or hid, or something?"
"There's too few of us," My father interjected, trying to end the conversation. "Besides, our people are used to being forced to migrate over distances much greater than this – you know that."
Ike nodded glumly. "But that was for the Holy Land. I don't like Germania."
My father shushed him and motioned me to move faster. In the distance a wolf gave a chilling howl.
"Me neither." I muttered.
That night Helga collapsed, and we had to make camp where she fell, in the middle of the dense, seemingly endless darkness of the woods. No fire, because that would attract the wolves. No cured meat either, because the smell would attract the wolves. We just lay under blankets, silent apart from the creaking of our frozen bones. The stars that normally guided and lit the way for travellers were hidden behind the mesh of leaves.
Father tried to feed and water Helga, but in the morning she was cold and stiff. I hated her unblinking stare.
"We can only bring absolute essentials with us on foot." Mother announced, throwing clothes and food into bags.
"What about my books?" I asked, looking longingly at the work that had made up my eight years of education. "I don't mind carrying the extra weight."
"Out of the question." She replied, handing me a bundle of clothes. "You may not need them where we're going anyway." The possibility of that ripped through me like an arrow through flesh.
"But I said I would carry them myself!"
"And I said no. Now move, Kyle." With that our procession moved again, through the unchanging scenery of this wasteland that the pagans called home. We were coming to junctions in the dirt track, and father just seemed to be deciding on the spot which was the right way to go.
I blamed him for it all. A part of me still does. He was a moneylender back home, something the Christians weren't allowed to do, and they hated him for making money at. If he had done an honest job perhaps we could have stayed somehow.
In the evening we came to a junction that split in three directions. Unusually though, there was a tree in the middle of the road, its winding branches stripped of bark and writing carved into the wood. I craned my neck and read three very Germanic place names: Tefelberg, Helfenstrom, Weimas. We were a long way from home now.
After some deliberation we headed towards 'Weimas', I'm sure for no reason in particular. The noise of the wolves seemed to be getting ever closer, which convinced me that they were stalking us, or even worse we were walking right into a den.
"We need to get out of the woods tonight, I don't want to have to camp here another night." Father said, the growls now too loud to pretend he couldn't hear them.
The path began to narrow, and the trees either side of us still seemed impenetrably dense. Even with the cold air to keep us alert it was hard to stay focused, with tiredness and hunger taking its toll. Somewhere near us a branch snapped, and I imagined the heavy paw that must have broken it. I muttered a prayer and asked God to watch over us.
Suddenly a deer burst from the trees and across the path in front of us, running with a panicked determination that only comes with the threat of imminent death. I grabbed Ike and pulled him behind me, bracing myself though I wasn't sure what for – I couldn't fight one wolf, let alone a pack, and I certainly couldn't outrun them.
The forest was alive with commotion now, branches shaking and birds squawking warning cries into the frosty night. A wolf pounded into the road, followed by two more, and they stopped dead when they saw us standing there, the smell of our fear so obviously potent that they lost the scent of the deer they were chasing. For a while they just stared at us, panting, their fur clumped and wet.
"Felix!" A man's shout rang out through the trees, startling us all.
I was looking around to see the source, until Ike shouted "Dogs!" happily, and approached one. Before I could react he'd reached down and started petting the animal, which was tilting its head to expose the part of its neck it most wanted scratched. They were just dogs. Even better, hunting dogs meant there were people following, and all we had to do was wait.
Before long we heard voices approaching, and suddenly I was nervous. I had never met a pagan before, and all we learnt about them was normally either about how they converted to Christianity, or how barbaric they were. Apart from that my Christian teachers didn't seem to care much about them at all. The dogs stood watching us as the footsteps approached, guarding us as if we were an excellent find that they couldn't wait for their owners to see.
A handful of figures moved out slowly onto the road, watching us with suspicious eyes. One came to stand behind the dogs, patting it on the head slowly. They were enormous, tall and broad-shouldered, making my own father look like he was from another species entirely, a ganglier, frailer kind. They all had long, dark hair, either tied up at the back or just hanging down, and great beards like the nobles in Frankia used to wear.
"I'm sorry we disturbed your hunt." My father said eventually, speaking slowly as if he was talking to a child, making me cringe inwardly.
"Do not worry." The man petting the dog said, his voice not quite as booming or coarse as I expected, and the Germanic dialect was only slightly different from our own. "Why are you travelling through our lands?"
"We are fleeing France…" my father replied, choosing not to elaborate any further on the topic.
"Not safe." The pagan muttered, gesturing to the forest around him. "In such a small group, with children. Very unwise."
"We had no choice."
"Well, we are finished for today, it's too dark. Follow." With that he whistled, and the dogs raced ahead down the road.
I heard mother mutter something about how rude it was that they weren't helping a lady carry her belongings, but fortunately none of our new pagan friends seemed to hear. They lead us down the path, taking a turn when the road split, and soon the trees began to thin.
"I am Randolph." The man leading us said, staring intently and waiting for my father to follow his example.
"Ah, I'm Gerald, this is my wife Sheila, and these two are Kyle and Ike."
"Well, an enemy of Frankia is usually a friend of Hessia." The man smiled, showing a slightly incomplete set of teeth.
A stream splashed carelessly somewhere near, and I saw smoke billowing up from a gap in the trees. It was almost pitch black now, so we were moving slowly, whilst they strode casually alongside as if they were confident that the forest would simply clear a path in front of them.
In a small clearing we came upon a group of huts, dimly visible in the light of a half moon. The worn track led to the center of the town, past a couple of small fields scattered with bleating sheep. I don't think I was prepared for it to be so very different from home, and the large town of Dijon with its churches and schools. On all sides the forest and hills surrounded this enclave, a tiny spot of human life in the great darkness.
In the middle of the town a fire was being stoked by a group of boys, who were laughing and drinking from a horn of some kind. A black-haired boy was wrestling the horn free from the grasp of a large, overweight one, but stopped as soon as he saw us approach. There was a deathly silence, and he stared right at me as we walked past, the reflection of the fire dancing in his large, suspicious eyes.
"Is this where we're going to live now?" Ike whispered into my ear, moving closer alongside me as he spoke.
"No," I replied quickly, thinking back to everything I had already left behind to get here.
"It can't be." I repeated, though I'm not sure that Ike even heard. I'm not sure that it mattered if he did, or if those words were just between me and God.