Clovis Converts After Tolbiac Battle

The shield wall buckled under the Alemanni charge. My arm burned from holding the rim steady while the man on my right took an axe between the eyes and dropped. Blood slicked the grass at Tolbiac. We had marched two days to reach them, and now the sun sat high enough to show every gap in our line.

Clovis fought ten paces ahead. His helmet crest marked him clear. He called on the old gods with every swing, yet the Alemanni pressed harder. Their king shouted somewhere in the press, and each time he did our men gave ground. I heard the rip of mail as a spear found the man behind me. The line was thinning.

We had left our dead along the track the day before. No time to burn them. Clotilde had sent word from the rear camp that morning that the king must turn to her God or lose everything. He had laughed and ridden on. Now the laughter was gone from his face.

An Alemanni wedge split our center. I stepped into the hole and took a blow on the shoulder that numbed the whole side. Clovis saw the break. He raised his sword, looked past the helmets toward the sky, and spoke loud enough for the nearest men to hear. He offered service to the God Clotilde served if that God would give him the field. The words left his mouth and hung there while another man fell at his feet.

The next charge from our side carried farther than the last. The Alemanni shields lifted as if a wind had struck them. Their king went down under three Frankish spears. I saw his standard tilt and vanish. Men who had been shouting his name a moment before began to back away. The fear moved through them like a sickness. They turned and ran toward the trees. We followed until our legs would not carry us farther.

By evening the field belonged to us. The Alemanni who remained knelt and swore tribute. Their dead lay thicker than ours. I counted seven of my own shield-brothers before the light failed. Clovis walked among the wounded, saying nothing of the vow. He only ordered the camp moved closer to the river so the horses could drink.

We rode back into Frankland three days later. The dust of the march coated every man the same color. Clovis kept his own counsel until the gates of Rheims. There he found Clotilde waiting in the palace yard. She listened while he told her what he had spoken on the field. Her face changed only once, when he repeated the name of the God. She sent a rider for Bishop Remi before the king had finished washing the road from his hands.

Remi came at once. He had not entered the palace freely since Clovis took the throne. Now he stood before the king without hesitation and began to speak of the cross. Clovis listened through the afternoon. He asked few questions. At the end he said he would test the hearts of his chieftains before he asked them to follow. Remi agreed that force would only breed false oaths.

The assembly met in the open space before the palace. Men came from every village within two days’ ride. Clovis stood on the steps and told them the old gods had not answered at Tolbiac. He said the God he now followed had given the victory. Some shifted where they stood. Others nodded. One by one they answered that they would leave the old names behind. No one raised a hand against the decision.