“The look of fear and trepidation on Clarice’s face was almost instantly replaced with one of sublime fulfillment, as she realized it was her fantasy lover in the flesh. Without any forethought or hesitation, she ran to him in total abandon. Upon reaching his stirruped boot, Rinaldo reached down and swooped her up behind him.
Aboard Bayard, the two riders raced across the track. Reaching the outer rail, Bayard sailed over it effortlessly. Rinaldo urged Bayard on in pursuit of his brothers with Clarice hugging herself to him from Behind. Her head was pressed hard against his back and the strength of her embrace made the young paladin’s heart soar as they disappeared into the forest.
Charlemagne had watched the whole escapade unfold right before his eyes and was stricken with a hot rage. “It’s them! I know that damned horse! It was Bayard! How the devil they managed to turn up here is beyond me!”
In this action-packed, first book of his follow-on trilogy to his first trilogy, “The Song of Charlemagne”, Mr. Motter introduces the reader to the courts of Bavaria, Denmark, Constantinople, Pamplona, Asturias and Cordoba. And the perfidy that ensued in all of them due to the power void created by Charlemagne’s defeat of the Lombard King, Desidarius. One eventually comes to realize that the ensuing actions of almost every royal court in the eighth century’s Western World afterward keyed on the French court of Charles the Great, “Charlemagne”.
Following the exploits of the four brothers of 8th century fame sung about in the 11th century by French “Jongleurs” (Troubadours) one may begin to wonder if Alexander Dumas (who was French and would have known of the Chanson de Geste about Lord Aymon’s sons) may well have fashioned his tale of “The Three Musketeers” (who were in fact really “four” – Athos, Porthos, Aramis and D’ Artagnon) after these very brothers. Or, indeed, that Shakespeare himself knew the history of the 8th century’s Danish Court and fashioned his “Hamlet” after its actual skullduggery! Sometimes, “The Truth” really is, “Stranger than fiction”!
