Melun, Paris, November 790
Queen Mother Bertrada was dying, her time among the world of the living dwindling rapidly. She had first fallen seriously ill back in June, so ill her retainers had worried she might pass there and then. But the Queen Mother was strong, and beat the first wave of her illness. But she knew she had not beaten the Reaper then.
“I am old and my time is near,” she had said. “I shall not live out the year.” Those closest to her in her network had dismissed her, protested that she was strong and healthy, and would doubtless live another decade. She smiled at these hopeful assertions, knowing they would not prove true, for everyone could see she had thinned and become more physically frail in the months to come, though her mind did not go. Nobody was surprised by this, Bertrada’s mind had always been her sharpest ornament.
By October, she fell ill again, around about the time of Karloman’s new treaty with the Moors, and then by November, she was permanently bed-ridden once more, and the court only waited to see if she would linger long enough to see her son and grandson return.
She was still lingering when they arrived to the funerary mood at Melun, but only just.
“She’ll see you, but she’s weak,” Brother Anselm told the Emperor and Prince Pepin. “Don’t take too long, but… do say your goodbyes.”
“I’ll go then,” Karloman replied, his voice sounding constricted, thick with more emotion than Pepin had ever heard from him.
“No sire,” Anselm shook his head, “she wanted to see the Prince first.”
Karloman looked shocked, opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again.
“I suppose I can’t gainsay what she wants. Go on then Pepin,” he told his son.
Curious, Pepin advanced into his grandmother’s sick-room. The low smell was what struck him first, the smell of ointments and various fragrances applied to the room, though whether for the comfort of patient or physician he did not know.
“The smell of death,” the voice croaked from the sickbed. “Don’t think I don’t have senses as sharp as yours boy.” It was his grandmother, but her voice was scratchy, weak.
He advanced on her. The old woman lying prone on the bed. Her face had withered in the months he’d been gone. She no longer had the strength to stand, and when she grabbed his wrist, her grip was slack and weak. But her face remained alert, her eyes fierce and alight. She was lucid, he had no doubt.
“Have you won? They told me but little.”
Pepin swallowed, then nodded.
“A triumph, grandmother. Total triumph.”
“Good,” a wracking cough erupted from her lips. “Your father can be relied upon on the battlefield and it’s arts, if nothing else.”
“Pepin,” she croaked urgently, gesturing him weakly to draw closer. “All my life, you understand…” she coughed again, swallowed, and started again. “All my life… the Empire… It was your grandfather’s wish. All I did, I did for him. For his kingdom. His dream… Once your father goes, it’ll pass to you. You must carry it on. Promise me.”
“I shall carry it on.” Pepin replied quietly, of that he had no doubt now, a quiet confidence flooded his being, this old woman had always believed in him, protected him, and supported his choices, even when both he or his father had been unsure. He would not let her down. “Your husband’s dream shall be realised Grandmother, I swear it.”
“You’re a good lad.” She cracked a smile through thin, strained lips. “Not like your father. He was always trouble. A terror, and Karl…” she coughed again, shook her head. “It was never meant to be his you see, your father thought.” She coughed again, shook her head violently. “But you, if you succeed him, perhaps it was worth it in the end…”
The door opened, the Anselm rushed in, “I must treat your cough again lady,” he replied, shooing Pepin out of the way. “You must see the Emperor once I’m done.”
Realising that was his cue to leave, Pepin stood and gazed one last time at the frail old woman whom he now understood had been such a major part of his father’s successes. “Thank you.” He whispered, in a low voice he wasn’t sure she could hear. He then left the room, closing the door behind him.
He and his father stood for several long painful minutes then, in utterly closed silence. Pepin had never seen his father in such pent-up turmoil. Even when he had been furious at his son’s defiance over his choice of bride, he had never been as agitated. Only his son, who by now knew him as well as anybody, could see how Herculean an effort it was for him to keep his turmoil from showing on his face.
Anselm emerged then, and nodded for Karloman to enter…’
The Emperor entered his mother’s sick room with more trepidation then he had faced any battlefield. What would it look like? What was he to say? The man who ended more lives than most men ever would found himself utterly paralysed with indecision at what to say or do at the natural occurrence of such a thing to one he knew so well.
And of his mother? What to say? What was she to him? Traitor? Mother? Guide? Mentor? Protector? Spymaster? Cause of trouble or political salvation? All of these? None of them? How then to reconcile this complex feeling when she lay here, prone on her death.
He approached her though, the frailness of her look shooking him visibly for a moment.
“I have returned Mother,” he said, kneeling down beside her with a tenderness that surprised even him.
“I heard of your victory,” she replied, through cracked lips. “It was fortunate you returned in time.” She gave a short cough, but less violent and wracking than the ones she had before Anselm had entered the room. “I have left instructions. You’ll need a new spymaster. I trust you’ll do what you want to do anyway, but I left written instructions in my chambers, my replacement, and a few other suggestions. Whether you heed them is your business”
“Have I ever not heeded your advice on such matters?” Karloman asked, unable to escape a note of resentment from entering his tone. “I have always tried to treat you with respect and honour in my service.”
She coughed slightly, gazing at him serenely for a moment. “I suppose you have a lot you want to say. You never forgave me for siding against you.” She gestured weakly to herself with one hand. “You have no more time left. What you wish to say, say it now.”
But Karloman did not take the bait, he sighed, an unfathomable sadness entering his face. “Must we be rancorous mother? Even now? Must this be my last memory of you?”
“No…” she coughed, “It should not be. But many last memories are not what they should be,” she replied, gazing at him.
A flash of anger.
Karl, he thought,
It always comes back to Karl. The start of it, my original sin. Her original failing, and we have resented each other for it ever since. “We should not allow the past to blight the end.”
“It is already blighted, what was cannot be changed, nor restored.” She replied, voice seeming clearer now. “And you made that choice long ago.”
“Have you no kind word for me? Even now?” Karloman’s tone sounded plaintive, even pleading. “After all this time, can you not let go?”
“I cannot let go the death of a son. My son.” She replied. “I have served you, aided you, guided you, protected your Empire and your heir for years yes, but not for you.”
“For father, yes, I know. His vision of a united and strong Frankish realm.”
“Always for your father, and for Francia.” She replied. “if not for that, you wouldn’t have lived a year after killing Karl.”
“You wish it had been reversed,” Karloman said cautiously, only now giving voice to his deepest insecurity, the feeling he knew his mother must feel, but he’d never dared to admit till now. “You wish Karl had triumphed, and not I. You wish he had won.” His tone was surprisingly calm, and he felt no great rancour at this realization.
She nodded, now gasping slightly. “Yes. I had wished… he was the eldest. It should have been him I guided.” She coughed. “You did well, in spite of it… but it was never meant to be.”
“Nothing is meant to be Mother,” Karloman replied softly, and for once with no bitterness in his tone. “Men make their own lives, and their own deaths. Karl made his, and I have made mine. It is my greatest regret to be sure, but I do not apologize for my victory.”
“Nor would I, in your place,” she admitted. “But a woman’s love for her sons should not be blighted, and you blighted mine for you on that day.”
He did not even flinch. “I know,” he replied. “I wish it were otherwise, but it’s too late for regret.” He shifted himself into a more comfortable position. He knew now she would not give him anymore than that. She would not break now and pretend what she did not feel. His mother would not go to her grave professing love for her only remaining son, no matter the comfort it might have brought him to hear those words. Or to hear “Well done, Karl couldn’t have done it better.” She never could, and never would give him that. Even with all his accomplishments, and after all those years, his brother was always the first son…
She did not believe in illusions, and comfort of that nature would have been an illusion she delivered for the sake of a final kindness. Kindness too, was not his mother’s strong suit, especially not to him.
“Do you have anything more to say to me?” he asked, hoping in spite of that realisation that, for once, she might show him one final mercy.
“I have said goodbye to Gisela,” she croaked, “My affairs are in order.” She continued, “But will you remain with me, until it is done?”
You would ask of me a kindness at your end while not doing me a kindness yourself. What son wants to hear his mother pass with no word of comfort or love? Or even appreciation for his completion of her life’s work? I have done just as well as Karl would have, just as well as Father did whatever you may think, you old monster. But you will not concede even that, not even now.
But he swallowed his anger and nodded affirmatively. “Of course.”
She lingered for a few more moments before sleeping into a sleep, and from that sleep, gradually drifted away into death. She muttered a few words in fits and starts in the gateway between waking and sleeping. “Karl,” was the last strangled word she cried before she was still.
He did not know how many hours exactly he remained, but night became day and night again before Bertrada de Laon had finally passed from the earth, her son, the Emperor of the Franks and Romans, still by her side.
“She is gone, sire.” Brother Anselm’s voice was quiet, and his small hand on the Emperor’s shoulder was comforting, gentle. “She is with God now.”
And with father, and brother. Now she is truly home with the ones she loved. She had waited years for that moment, I realise now.
Rest easy mother. You loved me but little, but you were the only one I had.
Was he truly alone now? Only Gisela was left from the days of his childhood. Their faces swam before his vision for a moment, Pepin, his father, so strong and tall. Karl, laughing and broad-shouldered, slapping him heartily on the back while they played as children while he glowered. Gisela at play, his mother watching on. All gone now, either dead or onto their own lives.
But as his past faded away, Karloman’s future emerged behind him, Pepin spoke first.
“Shall we ring the bells and summon the Chaplain?” his son asked.
Dry-eyed, Karloman gave a stiff nod. “Aye, it’s time.”
Bertrada passed on November 3rd, 790. Emperor Karloman gave brisk instructions for the arrangements for the Queen Mother’s funeral, and then swiftly went back to his own chambers. Locking himself in. Pepin, slightly bewildered, went and found his wife in his own chambers.
“She’s gone then?” Elodie asked?
“Aye, she’s gone,” Pepin replied grimly, smiling at the sight of his pretty wife in spite of the sadness he felt. “But she spoke to us one last time, I think that was what she wanted.”
Elodie nodded, “She was such a presence, though she always made me a little nervous.” She shivered involuntarily, “Father too actually. He said everyone at court was scared of her, that while she guarded your father, none could manage to harm him.”
“Father’s not so brittle that he’ll fall apart without her,” Pepin replied, “He’ll go on, he always does.”
“I hope so,” she replied, “It is good to see you husband,”
“And you dear wife,” he smiled, and embraced her. “Now how about we catch up on what we missed while the duty of campaigning called?” he asked, with a wicked smile…
November 790-August 791.
The death of Queen Mother Bertrada produced immediate changes at court. Within days of her funerary procession, Emperor Karloman followed her recommendation for her replacement as Spymaster. A controversial choice, but Karloman followed it, Shalom of Salingadaii, one of her most capable and fierce spies. That he was Jewish was beside the point, in Karloman’s view, he commanded the loyalty of his mother’s spies, and had her blessing to succeed her in her post.
Many others in council disagreed, gazing at the new Spymaster with suspicion during their council meets. Karloman did not mind, a Spymaster who frightened and unnerved was a successful Spymaster. While nobody could ever replace Bertrada, he had little doubt that Shalom would fill her post as effectively as anyone could.
Karloman’s attentions did not linger long on his new Spymaster however, diplomacy had drawn his attention further south. The Duke of Benevento had sent an embassage in December of 790, requesting the Emperor’s help. The matter was delicate, Empress Eirene, bolstered by her political victories over the Iconoclasts, and a successful military campaign over the Bulgars, was pressing now on his borders as well. Sandwiched between the Western Emperor to the north and the Eastern Empress, he could not afford to allow his realm to fall under attack. But the situation was delicate, if Karloman moved to protect the Duke, he risked offending Eirene and the Eastern Empire. But he would not pass up an opportunity to integrate Benevento into the Empire, especially without the need for a war.
But the delicacy of the situation was such that Karloman insisted that a price be extracted, he would not protect Benevento without an oath of allegiance sworn by the Duke, who would receive hefty concessions and largely autonomous rule over his territories in exchange. In the initial round of negotiations, the Duke’s embassage refused, but later re-offered under the same terms… with an added caveat that a marriage with the Imperial family be sealed. Ildris Gausian, the Duke’s youngest nephew, was wedded to Princess Gaudildis, Karloman’s second child and Pepin’s first sister. This was the price the Duke extracted from Karloman for agreement. Realising this opportunity, the Emperor accepted the offer, and the Duke swore his fealty. Eirene’s protests, though loud, were muffled by the fact that she could not afford to alienate the Emperor when he had offered to support her campaigns against the Bulgars, and that, by the time she heard of it, Benevento was already publicly under the protection of the Carolingians. Thus the dispute between the West and East did not escalate, though it was the first notable dip in relations since Eirene’s second ascension to the throne.
Thus Benevento swiftly passed into the lands of the Empire, and Karloman’s reach now extended into southern Italy. This was followed up by the birth of two new additions to the Imperial Family, Renaud, the first son of Crown Prince Pepin, was born in 790, shortly after the return from Spain, and Maurice, the second son of the Crown Prince, barely a year later. The Prince was obviously besotted, and even the Emperor seemed curiously attached to the young boys who now formed an integral part of the plans for the future of the Carolingian dynasty. At last, if something untoward would happen to Pepin, life, and the Empire, would carry on. Framberta, Karloman’s middle daughter, had now wedded Guntrum, the second son of Grifo Karling, Karloman’s cousin, the King of Bavaria. Grifo’s loss of Bavarian lands to Bohemian Pagans had angered many of his own lords, and thus he sought to tie himself closer to the Emperor for protection. And finally, little Framberta, barely fourteen and only now close to of age, was still engaged to wed Froilo, the King of Asturias.
The Carolingian Renaissance: the 790s and beyond: Dr Rene Schrer,
Some of Carloman’s reforms had begun to take greater effect now, but it was the cultural changes, known to history as “The Carolingian Renaissance” that most began to be visible during this period. Carloman’s educational and infrastructural and military reforms were one thing, but those unleashed cultural and social changes that were neither anticipated nor planned. New cultural fashions sprung up, and the Frankish language became more recognisably “Frenchified” in coming decades, moving away from it’s Germanic roots. Here, historians begin to identify the first beginnings of a “French” culture distinct from the “Frankish” one that Carolingian rulers had been of before. This cultural shift would take decades, but it began in the 790s, and lasted until the end of the following century, and future Carolingian monarchs of all stripes would focus far more on their newer French leanings than their older Frankish ones, seeing in the new culture a syncretic blend that would help them more easily assimilate and rule over a vast, multi-ethnic and multi-lingual Empire.
In addition, the new roads allowed better and further trade while the new monasteries the Emperor had commissioned had become centres of both learning and preservation of cultural and literary works of merit, which the Emperor would often commission monks to copy by hand. He promoted literacy among the governing classes of the Empire, and within two generations it had gone from a rarity for a nobleman to read or write to being the norm for at least the aristocracy and clergy (though of course, these reforms did not have effect among the merchant or peasant classes, among whom illiteracy was widespread and remained so for centuries). Legal reforms also had begun to bring about a common legal code for much of Western Europe now for the first time since the downfall of the Western Roman Empire.
While the effects of Carloman’s wars and his conquests are well-known, it is these cultural and social changes that were institutionalised, as well as legal codes, that would prove the most dramatic, and long-term effects of his reign. Even long into the future, Carolingian cultural and legal reforms were forming the basis of entire Kingdom’s court cultures
OOC: Thanks for reading. Will have another post up in a couple of days
