The Bastard of Colonia
Set between 692 and 695, this book portrays the childhood of Charlemagne’s grandfather, Charles Martel. Taken from the forest into which he and his mother have been banished, Charles moves to Colonia (Cologne) at the age of seven. There he finds he is the bastard son of Pepin of Herstal, Mayor of the Palace, and the cousin of Prince Clovis, the brutal Merovingian prince. Growing up amidst the rivalries of Pepin’s court, he is introduced to warrior culture by his older half-brothers. By the time Charles is nine, Clovis is king, and unexplained raids are challenging Pepin’s authority. The book follows Charles’s adventures as he follows Pepin’s army to defeat the raiders.
Hayes’s background as an historical-drama screenwriter supports Charles’s saga with marvelously visual scenes. One of the best of these is set in Colonia’s Roman amphitheater, which Charles enters to prove to other boys that it isn’t haunted. A terrifying challenge makes the others flee, but Charles faces the “ghost,” only to find a soldier in Roman armor: Syagrius, who has come to find Charles’s father, because he believes Pepin has abducted his granddaughters—an accusation that begins the army’s search for the true raiders. An old soldier knowledgeable in Roman fighting techniques, Syagrius recognizes Charles’s talents and becomes his tutor.
Against the carefully researched background of a warrior society living in the shadow of lost Roman tactics and architecture, Hayes develops the precocious Charles’s character. Literate, loyal, brave and affectionate, Charles also has a barbaric ferocity surpassing even that of Pepin and his two older sons. Hayes skillfully portrays Charles’s gradual loss of his loving nature as he survives by using the savage intelligence that will later make him the greatest general of his generation. The saga would make a wonderful movie.
