Timestruck (40 page)

Part of the fun of writing historical fiction
lies in the opportunity to combine actual events with make-believe
characters. Gina, Dominick and his people at Feldbruck, Lady
Adalhaid, Hiltrude, and Father Guntram are all fictional
characters. However, the plot against Charles and the trial that
followed its discovery did occur in the year A.D. 792, for the
reasons Pepin explains to Dominick.

The plotters were overheard by Deacon
Fardulf, as I describe, though he did not have the help of a Gina
or a Dominick, and after the traitors abused him, he was forced to
make his way unprotected to the palace to reveal what he had
learned. Fardulf’s loyalty was well rewarded by Charles, who from
then on kept a watchful eye on the deacon’s progress through the
Church hierarchy.

Every historian who mentions Charles’s fourth
wife, Fastrada, speaks of her incredible beauty. No one has
anything good to say of her character. The Frankish queens of this
period were in charge of the treasury, and they ruled the land
while their husbands were away fighting wars. Fastrada’s misuse of
the power entrusted to her was so outrageous that I actually toned
down her character for this book, to make her more believable. The
lady was addicted to intrigue, with most of her schemes aimed at
ruining anyone who dared to cross her. There is no question that
she loathed Pepin Hunchback and tried to convince Charles to have
him sentenced to death at the treason trial.

Charles had always been an overindulgent
husband to Fastrada. He even remained at home with her for several
years, rather than touring his lands or waging war along the
borders of Francia, as he usually did in the summer seasons. But
something
happened between them during or shortly after
Pepin’s trial. It is tempting to speculate, as I do in this book,
that Charles had reached the limit of his patience with his
temperamental, bloody-minded wife, but didn’t want to divorce her,
because a divorce would create problems with the Church, which was
at that time tightening the rules on marriage and divorce.

Whatever the truth of his marital
circumstances, before the end of that summer Charles was on the
move, traveling around Francia as the king was expected to do, and
he left Fastrada behind. From then on he seldom visited her. Two
years later, in A.D. 794, when Fastrada fell ill and died, Charles
was not with her. He did provide a funeral suitable for a queen and
buried her at the Church of St. Alban at Mainz.

Three months after Fastrada’s death, Charles
married his fifth and final wife, Luitgarde. According to the
historians, she was a sweet, gentle noblewoman who quickly restored
the loving family relationships and domestic harmony that Charles
found necessary for his happiness.

As for Pepin Hunchback, he lived on quietly
in the monastery at Prum for twenty years after his trial, until he
died a natural death.