Yet, bitter as was his disappointment, Karl took up the renewal of the war with unflinching resolve to bend the stiff-necked heathen to his will. Riders were sent flying with the arrow-bode to all parts of the kingdom, while the king and his war-counts set about the planning of a campaign in the North greater than any that had ever gone before.
By the end of April the first of the war-levies had gathered at Cologne, where they were to be joined by the king. The first of May had been fixed as the day for the start, and on the evening before, all the high counts sat down to a farewell supper with the royal family. It was only the king's customary meal of four dishes and the roast, yet the occasion gave to it a distinction lacked by many a state feast.
Among the greater number of the guests the talk was all of the coming warfare,--of the long marches through the forests and over the broad heaths of Saxon Land; of possible battles, and the certain speedy overthrow of Wittikind. The gay Franks, many of whom were to find bloody death-beds under the Saxon beeches or in the yellow gorse, jested away the fears of their fair benchmates, and boasted how they would return, covered with glory and laden with the loot of the heathen.
But while most of the guests spent the meal-time in jests and boasting, there were a few who had little desire for merriment. Karl himself, though far other than disheartened that he was on the eve of the death-grapple with the fiercest and most stubborn of his many foes, was in no mood for gaiety. Had not the ravaging of the Saxons been enough to sober his thoughts, there were rumors of fresh plots against him at the court of Duke Tassilo of Bavaria, while old Barnard, his uncle, had sent word from Italy of renewed attempts by Adelchis the Lombard to obtain a fleet and host at Constantinople from the Empress Irene.
But the king was affected most of all by the coming separation from his wife and children. Though it was intended that they should rejoin him in Saxon Land so soon as the full gathering of the Frankish host safeguarded the mark from Saxon raiders, his affection would not suffer him to part from his family without great reluctance.
"'Go, Olvir!' muttered the king, thickly; 'go--before I forget that I once loved you.'" (Page [467])
Saddened as were Karl and Hildegarde by the thought of parting, their grief could not compare with that of Olvir and his little princess. Though the king left love behind, before him he saw glory and power; and even Hildegarde could look forward with pleasure to the success of her dear lord. Olvir, however, in leaving love, left all that he held dear. The expected battles, which lured on so many others with their promise of blood-stained honors, meant no more to him than an unwilling rendering of his duty to the king.
"God grant, dear heart, that we meet the Saxons at once!" he burst out after a long silence. "A single great battle may shatter their war-earl's power, and end the bloody strife. With Wittikind crushed, the most stubborn of the forest-folk may well give up the struggle as hopeless."
"If only they might bend to our Lord Christ without so much as one battle!" sighed Rothada.