A short story by Tim Eveland, pitching Caesar against Charlemagne in a poetic narrative. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Medieverse blog! Caesar vs. Charlemagne: The Missing Chapter in Caesar’s Commentaries Gaius Julius Caesar left Rome for Gaul in 58 BC as proconsul. Th’ history we hold dear tells us
FLAP, FLAP WENT the webbed feet of a mother duck up a muddy, arrow-riddled bogside. The planets and stars of the midnight sky rendered the mud a dark, dark blue, but the bog itself was a pit of silky blackness sucking the starlight away.
Quacking desperately, the mother duck pronked back down the slope in fright as a score of screaming horsemen completed a circuit around the bog. Lost in the black water, a train of yellow ducklings answered her with frantic chirps, kicking through the thickness toward her voice. Looming high above them all was a crooked siege tower filled with anguished men. Like a shipwreck on Hell’s shore, the tower was groaning and creaking, taking volley after volley of arrows and bolts from distant castle walls.
This is a poem I kept from one of my many unpublished fantasy stories. He stormed out from his castle Harry after hassle Yearned to win so badly Sortie after sally The siege did cost him dearly During one great battle He called out from his courser Yelling O so
A wench was wandering down a wynd when a pauper begging for pence stopped her to broach of the Bird of Wellimgale. The wench surmised it a tact to finagle her, but when the pauper told how the Bird would grant her any wish if she kissed it, she allowed herself to be waylaid by his words. He explained how the Bird lived on a precipice that jutted from an enormous bluff. Then he confided in whispers about a secret crystal-laden tunnel that wormed through the ground to meet it.