THE ROYAL HOUSE OF FRANCE - outriders poetry project

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© 2009 Max Wickert
member of the house of France, but of the son of a strumpet and a huntsman. This being what they
wrote, the two brothers began to seek Bertha’s and Charlot’s death. One day, Bertha was giving
birth to a girl child. Her door was never closed against them, since Bertha had reared them like her
own children ever since she returned with King Pepin. Now Lanfroy saw the food and either seized
it or carried it as if he were one of the queen’s servants and poisoned that portion of it that he
believed or knew to be Bertha’s favorite dish, so that she died of that poison three days after. The
doctors said that she had been poisoned and Pepin had three of her chambermaid’s burnt alive, who
were blamed for the act. (Lanfroy and Ulric seemed more eager than any others to avenge Bertha.)
There was deep mourning for Bertha throughout France and Hungary. Pepin had the newborn girl
baptized and for the love of her mother named her Bertha the Second. She later became Roland’s
mother.
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One year after Bertha’s death, the two bastards Lanfroy and Ulric were talking together about the
rule of France, as those of Maganza had advised them. Lanfroy said: “After Pepin’s death the rule
will not come down to us, but to Charlot. Therefore it would be better for us to kill both Pepin and
Charlot. But first let us send word to Gryphon and the rest of the Maganza clan that they may
muster an army and aid us.” The sent letters to Gryphon and he put himself in readiness. The two
brothers, at a given signal, entered Pepin’s bedchamber and found him asleep and alone. With
daggers in both hands, they began to strike at him. Pepin started up and tried to flee, but they struck
him to the ground in the middle of the room. Charlot came running to the chamber door and saw
the two murderous patricides killing his father and saying to him: “And in this same manner will we
deal with Charlot, since you wanted to make him our ruler.” When Charlot heard these words and
saw the bloody daggers, he fled and God helped him, so that they did not see him. He fled from