"What horrible days these are! It would not be any more dangerous to travel in a hostile country."
"Oh, Kervan, if you could see the ravages of the conquest! Ruins everywhere, fresh and old ones. Our former Gallic roads and highways, so beautifully wide and carefully kept, with their relays of post horses and inns, are now all wild and heaps of ruins. Communication, once so easy from one end of Gaul to the other, is now wholly broken up. In one place the road breaks off because it crosses over the domain of some Frankish seigneur or of some abbey; at another place the bridges have been broken down by some armed band, that, being closely pursued, sought to protect its retreat. Thus we were compelled to make wide detours in order to arrive at our journey's end. Several nights were spent on the open fields. We were at times compelled to fell trees near the banks of a river and build a raft to effect a crossing, there being none other practicable.
"Upon my arrival in Tours, I learned that King Clotaire was there gathering troops in order to march in person against his son Chram, who had just crossed Touraine and was moving in the direction of the frontiers of Brittany. I thought the chances favorable to finish my journey in safety. I followed in the wake of the royal troops, which consisted of leudes and soldiers, the latter of whom were furnished to the King by the beneficiary seigneurs, and also of impressed colonists. When the King's army put itself in march, I followed. Alas, Kervan! The enemy's forces themselves could not have been more merciless towards the people than were the royal troops. Upon their arrival in a town the Franks would drive the residents from their houses, they would then take possession, consume the provisions, beat the men, outrage the women, and destroy everything that they could not carry with them. Clotaire joined his troops with his bodyguard at Nantes. It was there that I saw the monster for the first time. He wore a long blood-colored dalmatica embroidered in gold; over the costly vestment he had a hooded fur jacket, with the hood half drawn over his forehead. From under his coif his eyes glistened like those of a wild cat. The King's cadaverous visage was set in long locks of grey hair that reached almost to his waist. He rode a large war steed, black of coat and caparisoned in red. At his left rode his constable; at his right the bishop of Nantes.
"Being left with only a few troops, Chram had fled before the superior forces of his father. His plan was to enter Brittany. But he found Kando on guard at the frontier."
"Kando is one of the bravest and alertest warriors of Armorica."
"Accompanied by his worthy friend Spatachair—the Lion of Poitiers, the renegade Gaul of whom mention is made in the written narrative that I delivered to you, died insane—Chram proceeded to Kando's camp and proposed to him that he join his Breton troops to the Franks in order to make head against his father, Clotaire.
" 'I am always delighted to see the Franks cutting one another's throats,' Kando answered Chram; 'nevertheless the horror that your parricidal projects inspire me with is such that, although your father himself is a monster after your own kind, I refuse to enter into any alliance with you. My own troops are enough to fight Clotaire if he should take it into his head to invade our territory, which, until now no Frank has attempted with impunity.'
"Feeling at least certain of Kando's neutrality, but nevertheless crowded into a corner at the frontier of Armorica, Chram now stood at bay and prepared for a desperate combat on the morrow. He imagined that if the worst were to befall him, his escape would in any event be certain, seeing that he had taken the precaution of keeping a vessel ready to embark in near the little port of Croisik.
"I had arrived safely at the boundary of Brittany; I cared little for the issue of the impending battle. I had met two Bretons by accident near Nantes. The two Armoricans were bound for Vannes. From that city to the sacred stones of Karnak I knew the distance was short. We three departed before sunrise on the morning of the battle that Clotaire was to deliver against his son. In order to shorten our route and also to avoid finding ourselves entangled in the pending melee, we walked to the seashore intending to proceed to the bay of Morbihan.
"We had walked a good portion of the day, and were skirting the shore in the neighborhood of the port of Croisik when we noticed a fisherman's hut raised against a projecting rock. We turned towards it, intending to rest a few hours, when, to my great astonishment I saw near the hut several traveling mules and richly caparisoned horses in charge of some slaves. Three of the animals, one of which was a palfrey, bore women's saddles."