"We are colonists and slaves. We formerly owned and cultivated the parcels of land that the son of Clovis newly joined as benefices to the salic and military domains that the Frankish count Neroweg previously held from his father by the right of conquest."
"Did the count, accordingly, strip you of your fields and houses?"
"Would to heaven, dear hermit, that he had done so!"
"Your answer is strange!"
"The count, on the contrary, left the fields to us, and he even added two hundred acres to them, the accursed man! The two hundred acres belonged to my friend and neighbor Fereol, who fled out of fear for the Franks."
"Your property is doubled, friend, and yet you complain!"
"Indeed I complain! Is it that you do not know what is going on in Gaul? This is what the count said to me: 'My glorious King has made me count of this country, and, besides, he has given me as a benefice, which I hope will become hereditary as my military lands, all these domains, including the cattle, houses and people upon them. You will cultivate for me the fields that belong to you; I shall join several new parcels to them; you will be my colonist and your laborers my slaves; all of you will work for me and my leudes; you will furnish them as well as myself with all that we shall need. You shall help my mason and carpenter slaves in the building of a new burg that I shall have erected after the Germanic fashion. It is to be large, commodious and properly fortified, and it is to be located in the center of an old Roman camp that I discovered nearby. Your horses and cattle having become mine will haul the stones and logs of wood that are too heavy for men to carry. Besides that you shall pay me a hundred gold sous annually, ten of which I shall give to the King when I annually render him homage for the lands that I hold.' 'A hundred gold sous!' I cried. 'My lands, jointly with those of my neighbor Fereol, will not yield such a sum year in and year out! How do you expect me to pay you a hundred gold sous, besides feeding you, your leudes and your retinues, and keeping myself, my family and my laborers, now your slaves, alive?' Threatening me with his club, the count answered me saying: 'I shall have my hundred gold sous every year—if you fail, I shall have my leudes cut off your feet and hands—' "
"Poor man!" observed the hermit sadly. "And like so many others you consented to the servitude? You accepted the hard conditions?"
"What else was I to do? How could I resist the count and his leudes? I only had a few laborers, and to them the priests preached submission to the conquerors, who, sword in hand, say to us: 'The fields of your fathers, fructified by their labors and yours, are now ours—you shall cultivate them for us.' What were we to do? Resist? It was impossible! Flee? That would be to rush into slavery in some other region, seeing that all the provinces are equally invaded by the Franks. I had a young wife—both servitude and a wandering life frightened me more for her sake than for mine—moreover, I was attached to the region and the fields on which I was born. The thought was unbearable to me of having to cultivate those very fields for another, and yet I preferred not to leave them. Myself and my laborers resigned ourselves to shocking misery, to incessant toil! Such was the life we led for many a year. By dint of hard work and privations I succeeded in supplying the wants of Neroweg and his leudes, and of making my lands yield from seventy to eighty gold sous a year. Twice did the count put me to the torture in order to force me to give him the hundred gold sous that he demanded of me. I did not own one denier outside of the moneys that I paid him. My torture and subsequent long physical pain was all the comfort that he had for his cruelty."
"And did the thought never occur to you," asked Ronan, "of choosing some fine dark night to set the burg on fire?"