For the White Christ: A Story of the Days of Charlemagne

by Robert Ames Bennet

It might be that they would first catch sight of the rider in the distance, attracted by the sun-rays glittering on his mail and helmet. Then he would be rushing upon them, and they would draw aside to see him pass. Scarcely a glance would they have as horse and rider dashed by; but it was a glance not soon to be forgotten,--the rider, with the sun glinting on his war-gear and jewelled sword, staring eagerly ahead along the road; the red mare, with outstretched head and trumpet nostrils, sweeping over the ground with long, easy strides.

But not all saw the king's messenger so. Now and then Olvir leaped from the small Arab saddle and ran beside Zora, lightly as a deer, his hand upon her withers. The change rested both mare and rider, and slackened the pace but little. A hunter who could boast of having run down the grey wolf afoot in fair chase was not apt to lag in the pace with a hand on his horse. Another aid to Zora was the fair condition of the main route across the rich province. Before the king had marched south, the counts of Aquitania, spurred to unwonted activity by the prospect of his coming, had put both highroad and bridges in moderately good repair.

So it chanced that, shortly before sunset, Olvir halted for the night at a monastery a round ninety miles from where he had mounted at dawn. The sight of the warlike rider as he rode through their gates brought the black-robed Benedictines flocking about him with hospitable greetings; and when Olvir showed the king's signet, the abbot himself sought the privilege of kissing the royal ring.

But Olvir declined the wassail-feast with which the silk-clad priest would have honored him. Instead, he groomed Zora with his own hands, and, having eaten as plain and scanty a meal as he had doled out for the mare, he withdrew at once to a common bed in the hospice.

Dawn found Zora munching the last of her measure of barley from the stone manger, while her master, his hunger already satisfied by a share of the porter's breakfast, paced up and down the monastery court to rid himself of the stiffness yet lingering in his joints. At the first ray of sunrise, master and mare were passing out through the gates, leaving the porter to mumble his blessing over the handful of silver pennies which had fallen from the rider's hand.

The morning was yet early when, without stopping, Olvir rode past beneath the turreted walls of Poitiers, and noon found the red mare racing over the plains of Touraine. From both Otkar and Roland, Olvir had heard the tale of the fateful battle in which the Hammer of the Franks had shattered the victorious hordes of Saracen invaders. Only forty-six years had passed since that terrible slaughter of the Moslemah, and as Zora coursed along the smooth highway which stretched across the wide scene of the struggle, her rider's glance rested on luxuriant fields where the serfs yet ploughed up fragments of outland war-gear from the blood-drenched soil.

The young Northman was, however, less impressed by the thought of the great battle than by the grand monuments of the ancient Roman occupancy,--the lofty towers and walls, massive arched bridges and aqueducts which, where uninjured by man, still stood about the land, huge and uncrumbling after centuries of use. Often as Otkar had described to him the buildings of the old Romans, Olvir found himself staring at them in no little astonishment and wonder. His learning, however, spared him the awe which would have been felt by his simpler countrymen or the forest-dwelling Saxons, among whom the mighty stone burgs and aqueducts were commonly regarded as the works of giants.

The interest of the king's messenger was at last drawn from these Roman structures to the rapidly increasing numbers of wayfarers, journeying like himself to the north. Every class of society was represented, from counts and mitred bishops, travelling with princely retinues, to wretched poor folk, forced into a life of wandering and beggary by the ever-increasing oppression of brutal lords.

In the well-tilled fields which bordered the highway, Olvir could see numbers of toiling husbandmen, part of the fifteen thousand and odd serfs owned by the Abbey of Saint Martin. Here was Christianity exemplified,--the priests of the rueful White Christ sitting in purple and cloth of gold, while their fellowmen sweated and slaved to bring them wealth! The thought filled Olvir with such loathing that when he crossed the Cher and approached Tours, in the thick of the crowd, it was all he could do to bring himself to accept the hospitality of the famous abbey. Nor was his aversion to his monkish hosts lessened when the almoner, overflowing with pride for his monastery, insisted upon showing the king's messenger all the treasures of the church and shrine.

The gold-wrought hangings and the screens of brass and precious metals, the silver candelabra and the gemmed images, at first half dazzled the unaccustomed eyes of the Northman. But while those black eyes glistened with wonder and admiration of so many precious and beautiful things, the lip beneath curled in scorn of the manner in which the hoard had been gathered, and of the images, to which devout worshippers were offering praise and adoration, alike sanctioned and commended by the Bishop of Rome.