The Great Pagan Army Page 18

There, perched twenty feet higher than the approaching host waited Odo, Robert, Wulf and their men. They peered past merlons (the raised, saw-toothed pieces of stone battlement. Crenels were the names for the openings). Each man studied the approaching enemy. Too many also glanced around. On this tower stood only a few knights, a few soldiers with mail shirts and good Frankish swords. Too many wore quilted tunics in place of mail and hefted hatchets or spears. Everyone gripped a big wooden shield, most of those riveted with a strip of iron around the rim. Shields seldom lasted a battle. Scuta vendentes, shield sellers, accompanied most hosts. There were no shields sellers in Paris, however.

  “Saint Germain stands with us!” shouted chubby Abbot Ebolus.

  Petrified blacksmiths and carpenters, most armed with javelins, peered hopefully at the armored abbot. The knights had already received his blessings. Ebolus wore a round iron cap and with his puffy features looked like a beetle. He held a shield like everyone else and clutched a lead mace. Canon law forbade Churchmen to shed blood. Ebolus would only break bones and crush flesh. He waved the mace in benediction as he shouted further blessings: “Throw hard! Spit the Northmen on your spears! You’ll send them to hell this day! The cursed pagans will feel the breath of Saint Germain and wilt in the fires of damnation. I bless you in the name of God. Strike hard. Kill the Northmen. God demands their blood!”

  Greasy fear roiled in Odo. The tower was too low and isolated from the rest of Paris’s defenses. They were on the same bank as the Merchant Quarter, both it and the Petit Pont Tower stood on the north bank of the river. However, there was empty land between the walled western portion of the Merchant Quarter and this lone tower. His gaze swept over the advancing Northmen. They stretched across the plain. Some marched toward the Merchant Quarter. More marched here. Their stride was sure. They had no hesitation. Thousands of marauders glared at the tower, barbarians without mercy, men who stuffed their foes into great iron cauldrons and cooked them alive to honor Odin. These approaching warriors were sackers of cities, the leaders well versed in the art of siege and storm. The list of Frankland’s looted towns and villas contained some of the largest and best defended.

  “Are we fools?” Odo whispered to Robert. When no reply was forthcoming, he stared at his brother.

  Big Robert wore shiny mail and his new-style helmet with its nose-guard. Robert’s eyes flickered over the host as if counting numbers. Then, with the sliding sound of steel, Robert drew his sword. “Even Northmen can’t jump over walls, brother. It’s good to remember that.”

  The abbot squeezed between them. His chubby face was pale and sweaty. His breath stank and the flabby flesh under his chin wobbled as he spoke. “I never realized there was so many and so well armored. Look at all the mail suits.”

  Odo did, and he noticed that longships nosed toward the Petit Pont. Armed Parisians lined that bridge. The bridge was directly south of their tower. He hoped the bridge defenders kept safely behind their wooden battlements. Each dragon held trained bowmen, and the Danes were noted archers.

  “We need a miracle,” Ebolus whispered.

  Odo silently agreed, but much of war was heart! He turned to the abbot. “King Louis the Third defeated these sea rovers at Saucourt, what, five years ago.”

  “King Louis is dead,” Ebolus muttered.

  “Do you know the song of Saucourt?” Odo asked. Poets had written a cantilene of the famous battle.

  “I do,” Ebolus said.

  “Then sing it!” Odo said.

  It took a moment, but then Ebolus nodded. The flesh under his chin wobbled. He cleared his throat and broke into song about a king of West Frankland who had handed these pagans a defeat, one of their very few.

  Odo snarled at the men. “Sing, damn you! Sing!” He joined Ebolus, belting out the song.

  The abbot had a good voice, a trained one, one used to loud proclamations. Robert sang, so did Wulf. Blacksmiths sang. They all sang: a manly bellow against fear, against the terror in their hearts and the weakness in their limbs. Robert shook his fist at the Northmen.

  Horns blew from that pagan host. It began on one end and blared toward the other where the army faced the Merchant Quarter. At perhaps thrice the distance from the tower that an archer could shoot an arrow, the great horde halted. Misty breath trickled skyward. Banners snapped in the breeze. Danes slammed their shields edge-first against the hard earth. It was an ominous sound. Horns blew a lower note. The host split. Half shuffled left in a clatter of gear and shields, the other half right. They created a mighty lane. Up it, men dragged small-wheeled platforms.

  The singing died away. Ebolus stretched his neck for a better look. “What are those?”

  No one had an answer, although Odo had a suspicion.

  The wheels were solid wood, about the diameter of a dinner plate. The heavy wooden construction of windlass, short, upright beams and ropes clattered and clanked. Four men apiece dragged each platform. The men puffed and strained. The platforms had long wooden handles, solid wooden uprights and a padded crossbar. Another wooden bar with a cup or leather spoon on the end had ropes attached to it.

  “Onagers,” Odo whispered. The charcoal-burner had spoken of these machines, catapults. He counted thirty-seven. The men dragged them ahead of the mighty array. Then a strange warrior trotted out of the host, following the onagers. The warrior (if that’s what he was) had stumpy legs, a dwarf in height but with wide shoulders made all the bigger by his shortness. He wore glittering mail, a shimmering blue-silk cape that seemed liquid like water as it fluttered. It was shorter than an ordinary cape, no doubt, so it wouldn’t drag on the ground. The dwarfish giant—those shoulders seemed much too large for so short a man and his forearms were massive—wore an open-faced helm crested with horsehair. Instead of a sword or axe, he gripped an ivory baton. He bellowed. His voice was amazingly loud. With that baton, he pointed here and there. For a moment then he squinted at the tower and then yelled and pointed again. He sited each onager and arrayed them in a long line. He studied the tower once more and then put a finger into his bearded mouth and held up that gnarled digit. He whirled round, shouted and made each team drag their catapults thirty feet nearer.

  From reading Vegetius, Odo had expected bigger machines than these. The Roman writer had spoken about catapults able to hurl 300-pound rocks. The cup-holders of those onagers looked capable of holding fist-sized stones, nothing larger. Odo couldn’t understand how these could possibly batter down their tower.

  “They’re busy enough,” muttered Ebolus.

  The onager crewmen grasped the long handles and pulled down, drawing them level with the ground. That wound ropes attached to a roll bar that pulled down the catapult’s middle arm: the throwing arm. Back and forth, the crewmen levered the twin handles and inch-by-inch the throwing arm descended, until it too was parallel with the ground. From a basket, one of the crew withdrew an object and set it in the leather cup. Then the crew turned and raised their arms.

  The squat, brilliantly dressed dwarf (Odo and the others would come to know him as the Siege Master) pointed his baton at an onager crew. A man there yanked a lever. The throwing arm whipped up and crashed to a halt against the padded crossbeam. That caused the rear of the machine to lift up, to buck as it were. Long ago, that motion had given the mechanical device its name: onager or ‘wild ass.’ The wild onager kicked its rear hooves when angry or upset, and in Roman myths, the beast kicked stones at its enemies when it did this. Up now out of the throwing arm’s leather cup or spoon, flew a fist-sized rock.

  “Look out!” Odo shouted.

  The stone flew fast, and as everyone ducked behind the battlement, it sailed harmlessly overhead. Now one after another the other machines threw their rocks, each onager ‘kicking’ as the firing arm thudded against the crossbeam. Each crew carefully watched its projectile. The Siege Master seemed to watch them all. Some rocks cracked against the tower. The fist-sized stones splintered. Bits of dust and gravely chips flaked from the tower. Other onager-stones flew
overhead. One landed among the defenders and hit a blacksmith in the chest. He grunted painfully as he flopped onto the plank flooring.

  “Use your shields!” Odo shouted. “These stones are deadly.”

  The onager crews didn’t ratchet-down their firing arms. Instead, some crews dragged their machines closer toward the tower. Others pulled them farther back.

  “They’re adjusting for range,” Odo said as he peaked over the battlement.

  When the crews seemed ready—each team threw their arms into the air and faced the Siege Master—Odo expected another demonstration. Instead, the squat Siege Master with his stumpy legs trotted to where Sigfred the Sea King watched.

  The Sea King was the veritable image of a barbarian god of war: tall, black-bearded and stern, with a large spear in his grip. He spoke with chieftains and jarls. They glittered with silver, gold and shiny mail armor and polished helmets. Sigfred nodded. One of the jarls blew a horn.

  Squads of Northmen detached themselves from the host. Each eight-man team carried a long, heavy ladder. Four hefted it on their right shoulder and four opposite men carried the ladder on their left shoulder. Each of the eight held a shield and had a sword or beard-axe slung over his back. Odo noted that what might have been a clumsy operation—eight men wrestling a heavy ladder as well as their huge round shields—was anything but that. The groups marched as one. They didn’t jostle around, bump the ladder against their shields or shout and yell at each other. A horn blared twice. The ladder teams began jogging. To Odo’s amazement, none of the carriers missed a stride. Then he heard them. It was in the Norse tongue so he couldn’t understand the words, but the teams obviously ran in rhythm to a singsong chant.

  A loud horn blared for several long seconds.

  The eight-man squads halted, and one after another laid their ladders down on the snowy ground. It was smoothly done, impressive. These weren’t yokels hitched to the ladders. These weren’t simple brutes, courageous madmen, but seasoned wall-assaulters. They knew how to work together, had obviously trained long hours, maybe trained as hard as a swordsman or lancer. When rocks and arrows fell around them, groups such as these would not lose their heads and panic. There would be no one man lifting the ladder one direction and another elsewhere. Even hand-over-hand propelling the ladder upward and placing it just so, as death and terror rained upon them… such a feat took coordination and skillful teamwork. Then to know who should go up first and who was supposed to hold the ladder… Odo understood the meaning of this little demonstration. By the mutters and grumbles around him he realized that so did his men!

  The display wasn’t over.

  Now bowmen marched into position. One company flanked right of the ladder teams and the other left. Beside each archer walked a shield-man. Odo nodded. Shield-men protected the Danish archers from his bowmen, the few that he had, and from the many more javelin throwers. There were fifty or so Danish bowmen in each company. Those men also looked competent. They had leather bow-cases and ornate arrow-holders. They readied their bows with that comfortable ease men have when they know their weapons, were intimate with them.

  Then for a time nothing occurred. The bowmen, onager crews, ladder teams and the mighty host waited. The thousands of Northmen watched. Finally, the section of the host closest the Merchant Quarter created a new lane. Up it marched more reavers shouldering ladders and more archers. There was three times what faced the Petit Pont Tower. There were even more platforms, fifty onagers, but these lacked wheels. The crews over there didn’t wind their windlasses, didn’t ratchet down the throwing arms and didn’t test the range. Odo thought that strange.

  “Why do they wait?” cried a Frank.

  “Because they fear our God!” Abbot Ebolus shouted. “They fear hellfire and destruction.”

  Odo wasn’t so sure.

  On the river, more longships began to mass before the Petit Pont. The forward part of each dragon seethed with men, with archers, no doubt. They would surely pelt the men guarding the bridge.

  Then a tonsured messenger clambered out the trapdoor of the tower. The young man steamed misty breath as he looked around. “Abbot Ebolus,” called the messenger, “you must come quickly. And bring half Count Odo’s men with you.”

  “What’s this?” Odo said, scowling.

  The young man didn’t wilt. He was a deacon of Paris. He pointed at the Northmen massed before the Merchant Quarter. “Look at all those catapults, milord, and those archers. It’s clear the main attack will fall there. Bishop Gozlin bid me gather more men from here. ‘The raiders here are feint,’ he said.”

  “A feint?” Odo said. He considered swiftly. Then he shook his head. “Tell Gozlin that until those onager-men before the Merchant Quarter test the range that we don’t even know if those are catapults or decoys. Bishop Gozlin may be facing the feint, not we. Besides, it’s foolish to tire out our men by running back and forth. We have made our dispositions. Now we wait and fight it out with what we have.”

  “Milord—”

  At that moment, Sigfred lifted his spear, and a shout sounded from the mighty host.

  Odo’s gut clenched. He noticed that many of the men around him flinched.

  Instead of blaring horns and a bull-throated roar from thousand of reavers as they rushed forward, a lone man strode out of the Sea King’s company. The man wore a golden cloak and he unfurled a white flag, which he waved back and forth. He strode past the onager crews, past the ladder squads and closer to the tower than the archers.

  “I am a herald!” the Dane shouted. He was tall, smooth-skinned and had a deep, carrying voice. He spoke accented Frankish. “I am the herald of Sigfred the Sea King. I desire to parley with the men on the tower.”

  Odo shook his head, and almost shouted a reply, when Ebolus said, “Let us hear him out.”

  “Aye,” Robert said. “I wonder what he wants.”

  Odo frowned. Vegetius warned against parleys with the enemy. One of the fundamentals of siege warfare was sapping the other side’s morale. Many a siege had been lost when a disgruntled or frightened man opened a gate for the enemy. Whether he did it out of fear of death or avarice for gold made no difference. What mattered was the act.

  Before Odo could convince the others, however, the herald began a loud harangue:

  “Sigfred knows that you are followers of the White Christ. He knows that you are lovers of peace. He knows that war is a brutal struggle. Axes fall. Gore rains out of shattered skulls. Spears thrust like rutting boars, gutting their foes. Entrails spill out. It is a terrible thing. Men scream and weep as they stare at their mutilated bodies. The clangor of war, of bloodshed and battle is like the shrieks of souls in Niflheim. Come now, be honest, men of Paris. Is it not far better to forgo such awful struggles? Is it not better to plow your fields, to take your axe and hew wood for your family? Do you truly wish to face men such as these assembled before you? These fierce warbands crushed Duke Hugh’s knights at the bridge of Pitres. They stormed into Rouen. They slaughtered the Emperor’s soldiers that he sent to the woods of Louvain. Oh, men of Paris, your former King Carloman searched his treasure houses for these warbands. He paid these warbands 12,000 pounds of silver, begging them to leave his realm, and they did, until the Norns snipped the thread of your King’s life and absolved these warriors of the oath. Men of Paris, these warriors of Sigfred the Sea King, of Valgard Skull-splitter, Mad Hastein and Thorvald the Tall and others equally famed have sacked countless cities. Because your former countrymen strove against these champions, their bodies lie broken on a hundred gory fields. Their women are slaves and their children belong to others. O men of Paris…”

  Odo leaned against Ebolus. “Tell him if he speaks further we will shoot him down like a dog. Look! He frightens our militiamen with his words.”

  Ebolus glanced around the tower and nodded astutely. Ebolus slipped off his shield and set it against the battlement. Then he put his puffy hands onto the merlons and roared out, “Silence, you spawn of Satan! Your cunning
words are from the pit of hell. God will give you into our hands. Saint Germain and Saint Genevieve guard our hearths. Saint Denis rides with the invisible armies of Heaven, watching over us. Aid from Heaven will help us sweep you pagans, you goat-sacrificing heathens into the sea. Turn to God while you can. Fall onto your knees and beg the All Mighty for mercy. Repent and pay back all those you have despoiled and mayhap our Lord Jesus Christ will write your names in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Otherwise, you and this host, this brood of Satan, will writhe in torments for eternity in the awful lake of burning sulfur!”

  “We don’t fear your god!” the herald roared. “Send out a champion. Come: face Bjorn the Berserk with your one-eyed knight; the one called Arnulf. He is a big man, if small of heart. He fled from Bjorn once already, leaving us a thousand wine butts. Let him call on this god of yours while Bjorn wars in the name of Odin! You Churchmen are always—”

  Odo ripped a javelin from a carpenter. He hefted it over his shoulder. “Go!” he shouted, “or we will give your corpse to this Bjorn to gnaw. We know these berserks are animals, like cannibals. Speak again and you will surely die.”

  The herald lofted the white flag. “I speak under the flag of truce.”

  “The truce is over!” Odo shouted.

  “Then you reject Sigfred’s offer of peace? You condemn your people to slaughter, to—”

  “Dart-men!” Odo shouted.

  Half a dozen javelineers stepped up.

  “Aim!” Odo shouted.

  “So be it!” the herald shouted. There was no fear on his face. He was obviously a brave man. “I go, and I take the opportunity of peace with me.”

  Thereupon the herald furled the white flag, rolling it around his pole. Then he reversed the pole, holding the cloth-end down, and marched back to the waiting host, to the jarls and chieftains around the Sea King. The herald spoke. Sigfred gazed upon the tower, and the mighty warlord of the Great Pagan Army once more lifted his spear.

  33.