Chaco: Aquitania (part 1)
Feeling reckless with pre-trip exhiliration, so going ahead and posting first part of 1st chapter....
Chapter the First-Aquitania
Under the calendar of the Christian religion it was Anno Domini Nostri Jesu Christi 762. Methos was reasonably comfortably situated in Aquitania[1], where Childeric III, also known as the Idiot, had been shipped off to a monastery by the most powerful Mayor of the Palace who was now known as King Pippin the Short. Thus was the Merovingian dynasty ended. Some things never changed, especially the intrigues of power brokers.
It was as a soldier of the Imperial Army of the Roman Empire that Methos had first become acquainted with this province It was really all the fault of Iulius Valerius Maiorianus who led the Legions against the Franks in the mid 400’s. He’d liked Majorian when they served together in Gaul. Now he liked the way he tried to help the poor and stem the petty corruption.[2] So, fool that he was, he had agreed to be Emporer Majorian’s magister militum per Gallias in what turned out to be the waning days of the Empire. Not suprisingly, it had all turned out badly. Majorian had only survived the political intrigues of Rome for a few short years. Aegidius, as Methos was known then, managed to hold on for a few more years, but he had been forced to disappear from Soissons after dying in public in 464. He had left his adopted son, Syagrius to succed him, but Syragrius had suffered defeat and murder with no Rome to back him.
Methos had stayed in the general area, wanting to stay in easy reach of the weapons manufactory he had set up when he was magister. [3] His current wife had been a bit shocked at his glee and drunken celebration when Pippin had sent off the last murderous Merovingian to a monastery. Revenge was sweet that day. He was currently married to wife number fifty-six, whom he had wooed from her father, a wealthy merchant, because of both his gold and his reputation as a learned man. In this lifetime Methos was engaged in one of his preferred occupations: scribe. Even in these barbarous times there was always work for a man who could write a grammatically correct epistle in Latin.[4]
Soissons was the town where Pippin had come to be crowned and where
Methos once again made his home. He rather liked it: not too cold, people not too nosy. And far, far away from Kronos. It was now, with the deterioration of the roads, about a three day’s walk or two days by horse from the religious center of Paris, where his immortal friend Darius lived.[5] Twice a year Methos made the pilgrimage to Paris to visit his friend and see what immortal news might have come Darius’ way. He generally made one of his trips in March, before the majority of travelers were about. His wife always fussed that he was either going to catch his death out in the nasty spring weather, or that he would meet his end beset upon by brigands. Of course she had no idea that he wasn’t going to catch his death from any mortal ague, or that he rather enjoyed the opportunity to hone his fighting skills by clearing the highway of any brigands foolish enough to confront him.
He stretched and moaned as he dismounted and handed over the reins of his horse to the stable boy. He was stiff and tired after two solid days on horseback in the nasty early spring weather. He stood in front of the hospice and basilica of Darius’ residence, Saint Julien le Pauvre. He was almost looking forward to one of Darius’ strange herbal teas, as long as it was hot.
As he approached the Basilica he felt Darius’ buzz even before he saw his smiling face standing in the portal of the Basilica.
[1] Aquitania was the name for the Merovingian kingdom that included parts of France, Germany and Belgium. Where Methos was had been Gaul under the Romans, and would one day be in the country of France.
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majorian
[3] There was an imperial arms manufactory in Soissons which the Franks used around 470 to defeat one of the invading Germanic tribes.
[4] After the fall of the Roman Empire there was a drastic change for the worse in Latin grammar.
[5] St Julien le Pauvre was in existence by this time, definitely by 580. Thanks to Carmel for posting the link to that great St. Julien’s site!