The Celtic Gaul were fat and the Sugambrians, driven out from their black forests by hunger, were thin. West of the Rhenus, the Gaul, with their rich farmland, had produced a bountiful crop for themselves, and, more importantly, for their powerful overlords, the Romans. These subdued Gaul, with their subdued Gallic towns each had a storehouse that, at harvest’s end, would be stuffed from corner to corner with millet, wheat, or barley, awaiting the Roman tax collectors to come and take away their share to feed the hungry legions that occupied the region. Berengar was bent on getting to the stores first. He was seven years old that autumn and had convinced himself he was already a man. His old father, Adalbern, which meant noble bear, had done nothing but confirm Berengar’s budding supposition when he told the boy to come along on the raid for plunder and food. Even now, as the two Sugambrians, father and son, rode horses at the fore of a raiding force of two thousand men, Berengar felt as if it was he alone who commanded these warriors. His army had been assembled from all the tribes’ villages within a three day ride and eagerly marched into the heart of Gaul on spindly legs.
