Dodo took the dregs of his wine and put down his cup, wiping the last bitter-sharp taste from his lips with the back of his hand. His eyes hardened, steely dark under the grey-black hair. “There is no doubt that what you say is true,” he smoldered.
“Yes,” said Alpaida, “first slander, now murder against our house, brother. What else must we endure? What can I do, a mere woman, if you remain silent and unmoved?”
“No longer,” said Dodo. “The murder of Gallus and Rivaldus will be avenged—I swear it. Bishop or no, I will not be so aggrieved. Nor will I countenance his presence here in our ancestral holding, where he fattens himself at his villa. Yes, you speak it well, sister. He holds forth there so that he might better endear the peasantry by his smile and his soft blessings and his oh so pious preaching. Yet his real intent is to install himself in these lands as future warden and liege lord here. I see it plainly now, and I will not abide it!”
Alpaida rushed to her brother, embracing him. “I knew you would defend our family. I knew I could count on you, dear Dodo, first above all others. My son Charles is away where he wars in Frisia, or else he would surely stand with you in this.”
“Yet it is no small matter,” said Dodo. “It must be done quietly, away from Lambert’s devoted clan.”
“Tonight!” Alpaida urged. “Lambert has returned to his villa. On the morrow he will journey south, and some say it is to Plectrude he is bound. She will undoubtedly move him to undertake even more outrageous slanders and affronts. He will denounce me formally, before God and in the presence of the Bishop Hubert of Maastricht as well. Plectrude has put this in his mind, and darkened his heart against us.”
“Then I will run the man through,” said Dodo, “And I will silence this would be saint and usurper once and for all. Let him become a martyr first, if sainthood is his claim. I will take three retainers, that should be more than enough. We will ride south and come upon Lambert in his sleep, this very night, and he will not live to see the dawn and run off to Plectrude on the morrow. This I swear…”
Dodo did not linger, and resolved to set himself upon the old Roman road at dusk and time his journey so as to come upon Lambert’s villa in the middle of the night. He had it said that he was bound for Echternach so that tongues would not wag. But as he mounted his horse and rode to the outskirts of the small settlement he noticed the beast was clearly hobbled with a bad hoof. His sergeant of arms noted a livery nearby, and he dismounted, leading his horse into the stall where a man hammered loudly, shaping metal at a crude iron anvil.
“Good day, sir,” said the blacksmith when he saw Dodo. “Oh, my lord Dodo! Your pardon, sir. I was so intent with my hammer that I did not hear your approach. How may I serve you, my lord?”
“My horse has come up lame, even as I must make my way now to Echternach. Will you have a look?”
“Of course, my lord.” The Blacksmith was quick to set down his hammer and tongs, pulling off this leather gloves. He went to the horse where it was now tethered in the stall and immediately saw that the beast was favoring his right rear leg. He stilled the animal, feeding the horse an apple he took from a sturdy wood basket, then looked at the hoof, muttering to himself as much as the horse as he worked.
“Why, he is unshod, Lord,” he said at last. “He must have thrown his shoe and then took a granite stone in his hoof to make matters worse. It is not serious. I can have it out in a minute or two and easily remedy the situation by fitting a new shoe.”
“I am in some haste,” said Dodo. “How long will this take?”
“Not long, my lord. An hour at best.”
“That long? Have you no other horses stabled here? I would just as easily leave this beast and take another if it would speed me on my way. The weather looks foul and does not promise an easy ride if I linger here.”
“Alas, lord, my livestock is mostly afield, bringing in harvest ahead of the rain you speak of. And my only other worthy mount was sold not an hour ago to a woman on the road, with two companions. You will not want that old plow horse. He gestured to the only beast in the stable.”
“A woman? On a day like this?”
“Yes lord, strange she was, yet amiable. Perhaps she was a nun. Spoke in the old Roman tongue, yet she paid well for the horse, so I gave it no further thought.”
Dodo wondered who the woman was, most likely a baroness or wife of land holder returning from Maastricht with her retainers. Well enough.
“Then shoe the horse, man, and be quick about it, will you!”
“My lord,” the blacksmith proffered a respectful nod, and was quick to his stocks, selecting a shoe he judged the correct size for the horse, yet noting it needed just a little work before he could make the fit.
He threw another log on his forge oven, the dark smoke billowing up into the graying sky. Soon the sound of his hammer fell hard on the heated shoe, ringing against the cold metal anvil beneath it with each heavy blow.
Dodo chafed like a restless horse himself. He wanted to be well on his way by now, down the stone tiled Roman road that would lead him south to Bishop Lambert’s villa. The sound of the hammer seemed to deepen his mood with every blow, kindling a vague disquiet in his heart. It resounded in the enclose space of the livery, ringing sharply on the cold air of the early evening, and it seemed to mark him in some way. He began to feel that every eye was upon him, and every ear would heed that sound—that it would ring like a church bell, raising alarm and warning throughout the land.
A feeling of guilt enshrouded him for a moment, causing him to look up and down the road, as if saints and legions were mustering at one end or another, yet the way was empty. The sun fell through darkening drifts of cloud to the west, tingeing their bottoms with blood red as the light faded. He breathed in the evening air, smelling mutton roasting for a late meal at a nearby farmstead.
The hammer rose and fell, beating hard on the anvil, and then one last heavy blow sang out, and faded into silence. The Blacksmith had satisfied himself that the shoe would now be a perfect fit, and he cooled it in a bucket of cold water, the steam hissing up and strangely bothering Dodo again, as if the voice of some recriminating detractor had come to make accusation against him.
Twenty minutes later it was cool to the touch and the smith had the shoe securely mounted on Dodo’s steed. “Well enough, sir,” he said.
Dodo thanked the man as his sergeant handed the smith a coin in payment. Then the four men took to their mounts and trotted out into the gloaming light, the sound of their hooves falling darkly on the cold stone tiles as they rode.
Dodo was in the van, and not a moment later he looked and spied two figures, standing close by a low tree stump at the edge of the road. It was an odd place for someone to be at this hour, and his mood soured when he looked closer and saw they wore the plain brown woolen cassocks of monks.
“Damn clergy,” he said to himself. In Lambert’s keep, most certainly, he thought. Always about, like so many lice infecting the land now. He made for them, a disdainful look on his face as he pulled up short, stopping his party abruptly. He eyed them with a suspicious glance, adjusting the fit of his leather gloves as he spoke.
“Dark night coming,” he said. “Are you not late for Matins, monks?”
The two men gave him a sheepish look, obviously cowed by his sudden interest and commanding presence. “What? Have you nothing to say to me? Then get off this road, you slovenly piglets. Get off to some nice warm fire and say your prayers well this night. A storm is coming.”