Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 121, No. 2. Whole No. 738, February 2003

The Hunchback and the Stammerer by Edward Marston

Under his real name, Keith Miles, Edward Marston has already contributed several stories to EQMM. Like other work published under the Marston byline, this new story is historical, though it is set much earlier than the Elizabethan novels usually associated with the name. The sixth book in the Marston series featuring Elizabethan stage manager Nicholas Bracewell came out last August. Look for The Bawdy Basket (St. Martin’s).

The monastery of Saint Gall, 883.

My name is Notker, the St-St-St-St-ammerer.

Have no fear, my friends. I jest with you. Though my tongue betrays me whenever I open my mouth, my pen is as fluent as the stream that flows beside our monastery. Here I sit, old, weary, and toothless, shivering in this inhospitable place where I have lived out my days. The Benedictine house of Saint Gall is in the upland valley of the Steinach, in the German Swiss canton of Saint Gallen. It is bleak and remote. We suffer all the privations enjoined by the founder of the Order, and I, of course, your humble narrator, suffer the additional burden imposed upon me at birth. A stammer can cause endless amusement among those who can speak without impediment, but it is a heavy cross to bear for the stammerer himself.

Monks are capable of great cruelty. They tease me incessantly. My nickname is N-N-N-Notker even though that particular consonant is one over which I never stumble. Labials are my real enemies. My lips tremble at the very thought of them. But nothing terrorizes me more than the letter S. Ask me to tell you about saints such as Simeon Stylites or Simplicius or the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and I will hiss embarrassingly at you for hours on end. Like others who were born to stammer, I have learned to choose my words with care or, on occasion, to express myself in ways that require no speech at all. That is why I am drawn to tell this hitherto unpublished story about Carolus Magnus, the Emperor Charlemagne. It features a man not unlike myself in younger days: naive, devout, and deeply loyal to his ordained ruler. An unlikely hero, perhaps, but one who deserves praise. How many of you realize that Charlemagne’s life was once saved by a monk with a pronounced stammer?

We also serve who only stand and bite our tongue.

Charlemagne is remembered primarily as a military leader, as a supreme general who fought over fifty campaigns in the course of his long life. Danes, Slavs, Saxons, Avars, Dalmatians, Lombards, and Spaniards alike found it impossible to resist the inexorable extension of his empire. Yet he was impelled by no mere lust for glory. Behind the recurring wars was a holy purpose. He strove to defend the Christianity of the West against the enemies who threatened it on all sides and, in the wake of his victories, he was able to promote the most wondrous renaissance of learning.

Charlemagne’s renowned Palace School in Aachen was a haven for the finest scribes, teachers, scholars, and illuminators of manuscripts. No scriptorium before or since has ever rivaled the quality and quantity of the work that was published and disseminated from the Carolingian capital. Only one achievement was greater than the establishment of the Palace School and that was Charlemagne’s choice of the man who was its head.

His name was Alcuin but his master called him by an affectionate nickname.

“Greetings, Albinus.”

“Welcome to the School, mighty King.”

“It seems busier than ever,” said Charlemagne, looking around the scriptorium with satisfaction. “Or are your scholars merely trying to impress me?”

“What you see now is what you would see on any day that you cared to visit us,” said Alcuin proudly, indicating the rows of monks bent diligently over their work. “I impose stern discipline. It is the only way to ensure that our high standards are maintained. Lazy scholars have no place here.”

“How does it compare with York?”

“Very favorably.”

“In what way?”

“The most obvious,” replied Alcuin. “When I began copying and editing texts in York Cathedral all those years ago, we never had more than three or four scribes at work. Here, as you see,” he went on, waving a skeletal arm, “we have almost four dozen. This year we expect to produce over two hundred and fifty books.”

“Excellent!”

“Much of the credit must go to you.”

“Me?” said Charlemagne with a chuckle. “A man who cannot even write?”

“You appreciate the importance of books.”

“What I appreciate is the genius of a certain Albinus.”

Alcuin gave a weary smile. “My remaining hair is silver rather than white.”

“You will always be Albinus to me.”

“And you, my Imperial Highness, will always be King David to me.”

Charlemagne gave another chuckle. His own nickname delighted him. It was an honor to be compared to such a commanding figure from the Old Testament. King David was a courageous soldier, a shrewd politician, a fond husband and father, a lover of beauty, poetry, and music. Believing himself to be in the same mould, Charlemagne was not blind to the fact that he, like David before him, also had an impressive retinue of concubines. It was something about which Alcuin ventured to tease him.

The contrast between the two men could not have been sharper. Charlemagne was tall, well-built, and powerful. He had a natural authority and a dignified bearing. His eyes were unusually large and set either side of a prominent nose. There was a worldliness about him that made others feel desperately provincial. Alcuin, on the other hand, was an ascetic, a native of Northumbria who had dedicated himself to learning at an early age and who had grown up within the hallowed walls of York Cathedral. The fair skin and white hair of a typical Anglo-Saxon had earned him the nickname of Albinus. Slight of build, he was a quiet, resolute, conscientious man who had distinguished himself as a scholar, teacher, and poet. Whatever reservations he might have about the darker sides of Charlemagne’s private life were kept to himself. At the Palace School, he had been given an opportunity that every scholar in Christendom would envy.

“Are you happy here, Albinus?” asked Charlemagne.

“Sublimely so, David.”

“Then why do I sense a note of wistfulness?”

“Wistfulness?” repeated Alcuin.

“Yes,” said Charlemagne, studying him carefully. “I noticed it as soon as I came in. It is as if your body is here in Aachen but your mind is somewhere else.”

“I am sorry if I give that impression.”

“Do you still pine for York?”

“No, David.”

“Are you sure? I would not blame you if you did.”

“I still think of York,” admitted Alcuin. “It holds many dear memories for me. When you were gracious enough to let me return there, I was filled with contentment, but I do not yearn to spend the last of my days in York. That chapter in my life is ended.”

“Will you remain here in Aachen?”

“That is for my lord and master to decide.”

“I would not hold you here against your will.”

“My heart and mind belong to the Palace School for the moment,” said Alcuin, not yet ready to confess that his real ambition was to become abbot of Tours. “But, if we are looking to the future,” he continued, deftly turning attention away from himself, “we ought also to consider your own.”

“Soldiers have no future, Albinus. The next battle could be my last.”

“Then it behooves you to think about a successor.”

“My eldest son, Charles.”

“Not necessarily.”

Charlemagne tensed. “You doubt his qualities?”

“Not at all, great King. All your sons are worthy of their illustrious father. What I beg leave to doubt is whether Charles will outlive you.”

“Yes,” sighed the other, “he is prone to recklessness on the battlefield. But he has fought bravely and deserves to take my throne in the fullness of time.” He saw the glint in Alcuin’s eye. “You know something, Albinus.”

“Do I?”

“You can see into the future.”

“Hardly.”

“Your predictions are invariably correct.”

“They are simply wild guesses.”

“Wild but accurate.”

Alcuin shrugged his shoulders. “Place no reliance on me, David.”

“I place every reliance on you,” said Charlemagne. “Look what you have achieved here. Your learning is beyond compare, your counsel always sage. So tell me, Albinus,” he pressed, taking a step closer, “who will succeed me?”

“Do you really wish to know?”

“I insist.”

“Then I will give you my prediction,” said Alciun. “It is Lewis.”

Charlemagne gaped at him. “Lewis?”

“The youngest of your sons.”

“Not Charles or even Pepin?”

“No,” said Alcuin.

“But Lewis is so pious.”

“Piety is not out of place on an imperial throne.”

“Only soldiers can build and hold together an empire.”

“Nevertheless,” said Alcuin with quiet conviction, “Lewis will be your successor.”

The prophecy troubled Charlemagne. Though he was soon preoccupied with affairs of state, he never forgot the gentle confidence with which Alcuin had spoken. Could his friend be mistaken for once, or did Charlemagne have to accept that two of his beloved sons would die before he did? It was unsettling. Charlemagne was no ordinary father. Determined to give his children a proper training in the liberal arts, he insisted that his daughters should be educated alongside his three sons. While their brothers were taught to ride in the Frankish fashion, to bear arms, and to hunt, the girls learned to spin, weave, and acquire every womanly accomplishment so that they would not fritter away their time in idleness.

Though his sons were encouraged to marry, Charlemagne kept his daughters within his own household, arguing that he could not live without them. For such beautiful and spirited girls, this was bound to lead to extreme frustration and they relieved it by clandestine romances within the Court. Unlike his youngest son, none of his daughters could be accused of excessive piety.

The prediction about his successor haunted the family man. It was in Ratisbon that it took on a frightening immediacy. Charlemagne was returning from his war against the Slavs. Situated on the River Danube, Ratisbon was a pleasant town near the eastern rim of his empire. Its palace was a secure fortress where Charlemagne could refresh and restore himself in the wake of another triumph. But he was not allowed to relax for long. When he had been there only a few days, he had an unexpected visitor.

“I must speak with you, Father.”

“My ears are always open to you, my son.”

“That is why I came.”

“You have a request to make?”

“No, Father.”

“Then how may I help you, Pepin?”

“By heeding my warning.”

“Warning?” echoed Charlemagne.

“They mean to kill you.”

Pepin the Hunchback was one of Charlemagne’s many illegitimate children. His mother was called Himiltrude and she was a favored occupant of the royal bed. Whether it was out of love or pity, I do not know, but when Himiltrude brought the misshapen child of his lust into the world, Charlemagne felt constrained to bless it with the name of his own celebrated father, Pepin the Short, the first Carolingian King of the Franks.

Pepin the Hunchback was also short, twisted by Nature into a complicated knot that no midwife could even begin to untie. Despite his physical defects, however, the boy grew up to be able, intelligent, and proud of his birthright. During his childhood, he enjoyed the routine mockery of his playmates with surprising equanimity. Hunchbacks are stammerers made manifest. It is as if their bodies are permanently locked in hesitation between the womb and the world, not knowing whether to remain curled up in perpetuity or to straighten their backs into manhood.

Charlemagne had a sneaking fondness for Pepin the Hunchback. His handsome face resembled that of his mother so closely that it took Charlemagne’s breath away. Was that cruel hump a judgment on the two lovers? The notion always caused a pang. If his bastard brought a warning, Charlemagne was ready to listen to it but it was important to display no fear.

“So they mean to kill me, do they?” he said with a grin. “This is old news, Pepin. They have been trying to murder me from the day I came to the throne.”

“I am talking of a new plot, Father,” said the hunchback.

“Who is it this time — Saxons or Danes?”

“Neither.”

“Slavs, then?”

“No, Father.”

“Then who?”

“Frankish conspirators.”

“Never!” exclaimed Charlemagne.

“I would not speak out without evidence.”

“My own people would not betray me.”

“They have tried to do so in the past,” said Pepin.

It was a painful reminder. Charlemagne bit back a reply. Plots had been hatched against him throughout his reign but they were usually inspired by agents of foreign powers. Intrigue at Court had brought treachery nearer home, and it had been a sobering experience for Charlemagne. When the conspirators were exposed, he had ordered their execution, but he could never feel entirely safe again in Aachen. Doubling his bodyguard, he took more precautions than ever. As he considered the last plot against him, he recalled that Pepin the Hunchback had been instrumental in revealing that as well. His bastard was perhaps the best bodyguard of them all.

“Who are these men?” demanded Charlemagne.

“One moment, Father,” said the hunchback solemnly. “Before I speak, I must exact a promise from you. What I am about to say may cause you distress. It will certainly be met with disbelief. Promise me that you will hear me out.”

“Of course.”

“No matter how angry you may feel?”

“Why should I be angry?”

“Any father would be in your position.”

Charlemagne bridled. “What do you mean?”

“You see?” asked Pepin ruefully. “Your eye is aflame. You are roused already. How can I tell my tale when I know that you will rage and interrupt? Father,” he said, kneeling down in front of him, “I am an unwilling messenger. I hate the tidings that I bring. Only concern for your safety makes me pass them on.”

“Well?”

Pepin glanced over his shoulder. They were alone in a private room at the palace but he feared that someone might be listening outside the door. He lowered his voice to a whisper. Charlemagne did his best to rein in his temper.

“There was a man called Werinbert,” began Pepin, hand on his father’s arm. “He was a creature of mine, an unlovely fellow but a cunning intelligencer. It was he who first caught wind of the plot, but he was discovered by the conspirators when he eavesdropped on them. They attacked him without mercy. Werinbert was left for dead. Fortunately, I got to him while there was still a specter of life in him.”

“What did he tell you?”

“Everything that he had overheard.”

“Go on.”

“You are to be killed here in Ratisbon.”

“By whom?”

“A group of Frankish nobles.”

“Give me names, Pepin,” ordered Charlemagne. “Unmask the villains.”

“I wish that I could, but Werinbert, alas, was not able to identify any of those he overheard. He had no time,” explained Pepin. “What he did do, however, was to get a clear idea who is behind the conspiracy.”

“Speak his name. He will be arrested at once.”

The hunchback sighed. “It is not as simple as that, Father.”

“Why not?”

“This is where you must hold back your anger. When you learn what Werinbert told me, you will be furious. You will refuse to believe that it is even possible and I will be tainted for having brought you such disturbing news. Believe me,” said Pepin with tears in his eyes, “the revelation hurt me deeply as well. It hurt me and disgusted me. After all, I, too, have blood ties with him.”

“With whom?” said Charlemagne, lifting him to his feet. “With whom?”

“Calm down, Father.”

“How can I remain calm in the face of such an allegation?”

“It is more than an allegation,” urged Pepin. “It cost Werinbert his life.”

“And what did the wretch hear?”

“Something that I could not even imagine to be true at first.”

“Tell me.”

“The leader of the conspiracy is one of your own sons.”

Charlemagne was torn between shock and incredulity, stunned by the revelation yet unable to accept it. His sons were his closest friends, trusted allies of his heart from whom nothing was hidden. It was impossible that one of them should turn against him.

“Werinbert did not secure a name,” Pepin went on. “But he was left in no doubt that it was from your own flesh and blood that danger would come. The men were boasting about it. ‘Poor blind Charlemagne!’ one of them said. ‘He does not realise that he is nurturing a viper in his bosom. Force is power. Like father, like son.’ Those are the very words that were spoken.”

“Werinbert was lying to you,” asserted Charlemagne.

“He was telling the truth, Father. Dying men have no cause to lie.”

“My sons revere me.”

“I know that I do,” said Pepin firmly. “And so should they.”

“Yet one of them is preparing to lift his hand against me? No, it is inconceivable.”

“Therein lies its chance of success. Because you do not fear attack from that quarter, you have no defense against it. Your sons have ready access to you. They know your movements. Who better to direct assassins against you?”

“Stop!” yelled Charlemagne. “I’ll hear no more.”

“Let me and my men protect you, Father.”

“There is no need.”

“We will shield you against the Devil himself.”

“None of my children would dare to strike at me, Pepin.”

“I hope and pray that that is true,” said the hunchback with burning sincerity. “But I felt that I had to tell you what Werinbert overheard. His information has always been reliable in the past, and I see no reason to distrust it now. Your life is in danger, Father. I offer you a secret bodyguard that will ward off any assault. Accept that offer,” he argued. “One of your sons means to kill you.”

Worried by Alcuin’s prediction, Charlemagne was alarmed by the warning from Pepin the Hunchback. When he was left alone to reflect on what he had heard, he wondered if the words of the two men might not be in some way linked. Was the master of the Palace School telling him the same thing as his bastard? The distraught father agonized for hours on end. Of his three sons, Charles had least cause to enter a conspiracy. He was the acknowledged heir and would succeed in due course. Why kill his way to a throne that was his by right? It was perverse.

Pepin, the second son, whose legitimacy was attested by a powerful physique that set him apart from his namesake, the hunchback, was another unlikely assassin. He had led Frankish armies against the Huns and the Avars. His father had made him King of Italy, and Pepin was thrilled with his beautiful kingdom. Charles, too, of course, was a dashing warrior who commanded armies in Bohemia and Lunenberg. If it was Pepin who conspired to kill his own father, he would have to remove Charles as well because his elder brother stood between him and the throne.

Charlemagne’s mind was tormented by Alcuin’s prophecy. According to the saintly old scholar, Lewis would succeed his father. Yet he was the most peace-loving of all three sons. As the appointed King of Aquitaine, he was more concerned with ruling by Christian example than with anything else. For him to succeed to the throne, a father and two elder brothers had first to be removed. Was it possible that Lewis could contemplate the assassination of the three people he loved most in the world? His conscience would never permit such hideous thoughts.

And yet he, in Alcuin’s opinion, was the designated heir. How could that be? Charlemagne wrestled with the question. Was there some bizarre agreement between all three brothers to kill their father in order to place Lewis on the throne? His piety would make the youngest son the most acceptable to the Pope. Charlemagne liked to portray himself as the defender of Christianity but there were many, even in the Vatican, who considered him to be no more than a holy barbarian.

“Dear God!” he said to himself. “Pope Leo!”

It was a timely reminder that piety was no guarantee of civilized behavior. Pope Leo III had been attacked by the citizens of Rome, true Catholics to a man, who tried to blind their pontiff and cut out his tongue. Fleeing to Charlemagne’s camp at Paderborn, he had sought solace and help. The following year, Charlemagne entered Rome and set the Pope back in power. Almost exactly a month later, on Christmas Day, 800, Leo III crowned him Emperor and Augustus in St. Peter’s Cathedral. Behind the pomp and magnificence of the occasion lay the ugly fact that the Pope had once been expelled by the very people who were, in effect, his own children.

If rough hands could be laid upon a Pope, why should an emperor be spared? If the spiritual leader of Christendom could be arraigned, among other things, for keeping mistresses, then Charlemagne himself was bound to be condemned for the same reason. Alcuin might tease him about his many concubines, but he still disapproved of them. Lewis had never been able to accept his father’s random promiscuity. Was he intent on replacing a sinful emperor with a devout Christian? How and when would he strike?

Charlemagne swung between disbelief and apprehension. His heart told him that none of his three sons would plot against him, but his mind was less certain. The son who demanded the closest scrutiny was Pepin the Hunchback. Why had he brought the grim tidings and how seriously should they be taken? Charlemagne was bound to wonder if his bastard was activated by envy of his half-brothers, legitimate offspring who had no physical defects and who enjoyed great power in their own right. At the same time, he had been moved by the patent reluctance with which the hunchback had imparted the news. Pepin did not want to accuse any of them of plotting against their father. And what did he stand to gain by making a false allegation?

It was time to act. Charlemagne dispatched spies of his own to make discreet inquiries. Reports seemed to justify the hunchback’s warning. Werinbert, a man in his service, had indeed died that very day of terrible injuries. Charles, the eldest son, had mysteriously disappeared from Ratisbon. His brother, Pepin, King of Italy, had also quit the town without warning, his excuse being that he was travelling to Rome for an audience with the Pope. Most disturbing of all was the fact that Lewis, the pious King of Aquitaine, had sent word that he was on his way to Ratisbon. Why? Fear took a stronger grip on Charlemagne. As he weighed all three sons in the balance, he found each one of them wanting and asked himself if Pepin the Hunchback might yet turn out to be the most upright of his progeny.

As night began to fall, his fears were intensified. Charlemagne needed help from the one person in whom he had total faith, but Alcuin was far away in Aachen.

“Albinus!” cried the emperor. “What am I to do?”

The five conspirators met in St. Peter’s Church at the heart of Ratisbon. Most of them were Frankish nobles, men of high position who each nursed a grievance against their emperor. In the flickering candlelight, their faces were hard and determined. Their plans were discussed in the shadow of the huge golden crucifix.

“When will we strike?” asked one.

“Tomorrow,” decided their leader.

“Where?”

“Here in the church.”

A third man had scruples. “On hallowed ground?” he said with alarm.

“Yes,” replied the leader. “It is the one place where he will be at our mercy.”

“That may be,” agreed the other, “but it will hardly gain us God’s blessing.”

“Where better to kill a devil than in the Lord’s own house? What kind of prayers can this monster offer up when he kneels before the altar? Does he ask forgiveness for the hanging of four and a half thousand Saxons in one day at Verden? Does he seek divine approval for the way he betrays his marriage vows? Does he apologize for the wickedness with which he has treated us? No, my friends,” said their leader. “It is not humility that puts him on his knees but exultation. I am closer to him than any of you and I have seen the true Charlemagne. My father, our Christian emperor, our so-called defender of the faith, is no more than a gloating tyrant. He must die.”

There was general agreement. Objections to the venue for the assassination were soon dropped. It only remained to work out the final details. Each man was anxious to wield the fateful dagger. When everything was finally settled, the conspirators were about to depart. Their leader, however, was circumspect.

“First, let us search the church,” he ordered.

“But there is nobody here,” said one of his companions. “The place is empty.”

“That is how it appears, but we must make certain. Dangerous words have been spoken in here tonight. If nobody has overheard us, then my father’s life is forfeit. If, however, somebody is lurking in here,” warned the leader, wagging a finger, “then our own lives are at risk. Search thoroughly, my friends.”

They did as he told them and conducted a careful search of the entire church. Candles were used to illumine the darkest corners. The leader’s caution was wise. From beneath an altar in the Lady Chapel, they plucked the shivering figure of a young cleric. His name was Stracholf the Stammerer and he had never stammered so violently in his entire life. Though they beat him soundly, they could get no comprehensible words out of him. One of the men held a dagger to the young man’s throat.

“Stop!” said the leader. “Do not kill him.”

“It is the only way to ensure his silence,” insisted the other.

“We do not want more blood on our hands than is necessary. To slay a tyrant is one thing; to murder a holy man is quite another. I will not condone it. Besides,” said the leader, “there is a much simpler way to keep that mouth of his shut.”

Stracholf was dragged across to the Bible that lay open on the lectern. The cleric was ordered to place his hand on Holy Writ while an oath was dictated to him. He was ordered to swear that he would reveal nothing of what he had heard. Terrified to resist them, Stracholf could not get out the two words that would appease them.

“I s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s...”

“Swear, man!” yelled the leader.

“I s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s...”

“Swear!”

The dagger was held once more against his throat to cut through his stammer.

“I s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-swear!” gasped Stracholf.

Then he collapsed in a dead faint.

Charlemagne had no sleep that night. Spurning the comfort of a woman, he retired to his bedchamber alone. Seven doors stood between him and the outside world, but that thought did not console him. A hundred doors would not keep out a son bent on killing him. If there really was a plot, he decided, then it had to be the work of his youngest son, Lewis. The King of Aquitaine was, in the considered opinion of Alcuin, the one who would succeed to his father’s throne. Piety was a capacious cloak for ambition. Lewis would certainly envisage himself as a far worthier defender of the faith. He would not be the only ruler to seize power by assassinating a wicked father. Complete exoneration would surely follow. Charlemagne was shocked to realise that he had broken the bond so completely between father and son. Lewis might be guilty but he himself was not free from blame.

He was still writhing on his bed with remorse when he heard the laughter from the adjoining room. The womenfolk sounded as if they were playing some kind of game. Shrieks of mirth and uncontrollable giggling found their way through Charlemagne’s door. He went to investigate. The queen and his daughters occupied the neighboring room, attended by their maids. All of them seemed to be involved in the commotion. When he flung open the door, Charlemagne was confronted by the strangest of sights. Laughing and giggling, the womenfolk were flitting about the room, pulling up their garments to cover their faces, pretending to hide in corners or behind curtains.

The object of their amusement was a pale, thin, frightened young cleric, wearing no more than a linen surplice. He was hardly a threat to the virtue of the ladies present, yet they were behaving as if he had come to take his pleasure at will. Puce with embarrassment, the newcomer stood in the middle of the room and quaked visibly.

“Be quiet!” roared Charlemagne. “Who is this man?”

“He is unable to tell us,” said one of the women, setting off the cachinnation once more. “The poor fellow cannot even s-s-s-s-s-say his own n-n-n-n-n-n-name.”

Stracholf flung himself at the emperor’s feet and looked up at him. Words might befuddle Charlemagne, but he could read despair in a man’s eyes. Only something of great importance could have brought the cleric to him. Rebuking his womenfolk with a stare, he took the hapless visitor into his own chamber and shut the door behind them.

Stracholf stammered incoherently.

“Slowly, my friend,” said Charlemagne, holding up a palm. “Let your tongue catch up with the words before you try to utter them.”

It was sound advice, but Stracholf was in no state to accept it. The emperor’s life was in danger, and that fact robbed him of articulate speech. His oath had been discarded. Imposed by force, it had no real power to bind him, and he had made his way to the palace to raise the alarm. Unfortunately, he got no further than the adjoining room where the women had ridiculed the matching defects of his virginity and his stammer. Stracholf had at last been admitted to Charlemagne’s presence. Tears of gratitude coursed down his cheeks. The emperor wanted an explanation.

“Why have you come?” he asked.

With his tongue in open revolt, Stracholf made a series of vivid gestures.

“You bring a warning?” said Charlemagne.

The cleric nodded. Robbed of speech and seeing the futility of writing down words that could not be read, he went into an elaborate mime. He crossed to the table on which a small crucifix stood and knelt before it in prayer. Then he lay beneath the table as if about to go to sleep. A hand to his ear, he sat up to listen.

Charlemagne was quick to understand. “You were sleeping in church when you heard something?” he said. Stracholf nodded. “Was it to do with me?”

Nodding once more, the cleric got to his feet and pretended to draw a dagger from its sheath. When Charlemagne was threatened with the invisible weapon, he stumbled back a few paces. This mute individual was repeating the warning he had already received from someone else. Conspirators had been plotting inside the church. Tensing himself, Charlemagne asked the question that had dogged him all evening.

“Which of my sons was involved?” he demanded.

Stracholf picked up one of the pillows from the bed and stuffed it up the back of his surplice, bending over until his body threw a grotesque shadow upon the wall. The emperor put a hand to his mouth in horror.

“Pepin the Hunchback!”

Stracholf nodded and tossed the pillow back onto the bed.

“Who else conspired with him?” Stracholf held up four fingers. “Four of them? Could you pick them out for me?” An affirmative nod was given. “Thank you,” said Charlemagne with a mixture of gratitude and sadness. “You have saved your emperor, but deprived him of a son whom he once loved and trusted. My women-folk will be justly chastened when they hear what you have done.” He put a hand on the other’s shoulder. “What is your name, my friend? Can you tell me?”

“Yes, your Imperial Highness,” said the cleric boldly. “It is Stracholf.”

And for the first time in his life, he spoke without a stammer.

Justice was swift and brutal. Pepin the Hunchback was arrested. Identified by Stracholf, the other conspirators were quickly rounded up. Summary execution ensued for them but Pepin’s life was spared. In warning his father that his life was threatened by one of his sons, he had, in a sense, been telling the truth, but only in order to win Charlemagne’s confidence. Instead of coming from his legitimate offspring, the threat arose from a bastard with the ill-omened name of Pepin. To establish credence, he had even hacked his own man, the innocent Werinbert, to death. The hunchback was exiled to the poorest and most austere place in the entire empire, in short, to this very Monastery of Saint Gall where I have penned this history.

There is an ironic footnote. Because it is so cold in this God-forsaken place, Pepin the Hunchback, bitten hard by the fangs of winter, spoke through chattering teeth and ended up as a fully fledged stammerer. Whereas I, Notker the Stammerer, spent so much time bent over my table as I wrote his story down that I acquired a hunchback of my own.

Don’t you think that is s-s-s-s-s-s-ignificant?

Copyright © 2002 by Edward Marston.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Notker was writing seventy years after the death of Pepin the Hunchback but much of his account has some truth in it. Charlemagne was betrayed by his illegitimate son and the plot was unmasked by a stammering cleric, though not perhaps in the way envisaged here. Alcuin’s prediction was accurate. The two eldest sons predeceased Charlemagne. Pepin, King of Italy, died in 810. Charles died the following year. Charlemagne himself died in 814 and was succeeded by Lewis the Pious, who ruled until his death in 840. Alcuin of York had already ended his days in the way that he hoped — as abbot of Tours.