by Jack Whyte
King Ban was Christian, too, of course, as were we all, his sons and daughters. But even at the age of ten I knew that Ban’s was a nominal Christianity, held and observed more to please his wife than to save his soul. Left to himself and living his life as King Ban of Benwick, nominal vassal to what-ever subemperor might be in power at any given time, my father was a responsible warrior king first, an administrative imperial official next, and a working Christian last and least.
As these thoughts of my father filled my mind the door opened again and he stepped out halfway, looking at me with one eyebrow raised. “Come,” he said, and stepped back inside, holding the door open for me to follow him. I entered the long, lamp-lit hallway that I had not seen in the time that had elapsed—more than two years now—since my eighth birthday, when I had been ritually deemed too old to share my mother’s bed any longer and old enough to be able to fend for myself among my elder siblings. It had been a form of banishment, but one which every boy endured when he turned eight, and therefore it had been bearable. Now the warm, familiar atmosphere washed over me and I stood there, blinking, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. My father moved ahead of me and walked directly toward the brightness spilling from the room at the far end, and I trailed behind him, glancing at each of the doors on my right as I passed.
The first, I knew, concealed a deep, narrow storeroom lined with shelves, and the second led to the family’s private bathhouse. I also knew that behind that door, at the end of a short, narrow passageway, hung double floor-to-ceiling curtains of heavily waxed cloth that contained the steam and moisture from the baths and prevented it from spilling out into the passageway. The next room was my parents’ sleeping chamber, containing an enormous bed, framed in dark, richly polished wood and surrounded by curtains of the finest, most diaphanous cloth made by the nomads of Asia Minor. My mother would be in there, I assumed, but the thought had barely entered my head when I saw her instead peering anxiously toward me from the room my father had just entered, the family room at the end of the hallway. This spacious room was the heart of their private quarters, and it was filled now with the evening light that shone through the hundreds of small, translucent rectangles of colorless glass in the high, arched windows in the outer wall. There were six hundred of these glass panels—I had counted them many times—all uniform in size and held in place by a mesh of lead strips, and they were the wonder of all our land. People marveled at them, I knew, because I had often heard them speaking of their beauty and speculating on the cost of them. They were unimpressive from the outside, looking up at them, but the light that poured through them during the day transformed the room’s interior in a manner that seemed magical.
As I stepped into the room, I lost awareness of all else as my attention became focused instantly on my mother’s distress. Her face looked gaunt and distraught, her eyes deep set and haunted, but she did not appear to be angry with me, and I felt an instant of selfish relief. She seemed afraid, more than anything else, and that frightened me in turn, for I could not imagine what kind of terror might have frightened her here, in her own castle, with her husband by her side and his warriors all around us.
“Mother?” I said, beginning to ask her what was wrong, but the moment I uttered the word she rushed to me and drew me into the kind of enveloping embrace she had not shared with me since I had entered training as a warrior. Her hand clasped behind my head and drew me to her bosom and her other arm wrapped about my back, pulling me close, so that I felt the womanly softness of her body as I had never been aware of it before, and as she held me I felt her shuddering with grief and heard her anguished sobs above my head. Mystified, I did not know what to do or how to respond and so I simply stood there, letting her crush me to her until I felt my father’s hand gripping my shoulder, pulling me away. As I obeyed and stepped back, I saw that he was grasping both of us, one in each hand, prizing us apart.
“Enough, Vivienne,” he said, and his voice was gentle. “The boy’s unhurt. A few scrapes, no more than that. Nothing that will not heal and disappear within the week.” I saw him wince, as though in pain himself, as he uttered the last words, and I understood immediately that he wished he had not said them. My mother groaned and swung away from his now gentle grasp, catching her breath in her throat and turning her back on both of us. My father-looked from her to me and shook his head tightly in what I recognized, even at ten years of age, as frustration with the behavior of women.
“Sit down,” he said to me, pointing to one of the room’s large padded armchairs, and then he slipped his arm about my mother’s waist and murmured something to her that I could not hear. She sniffed and fumbled for the kerchief in her sleeve and then, wiping her eyes, she permitted him to lead her to a couch, where she sat staring at me for long moments until fresh tears welled up into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
“Vivienne.” There was a warning tone to my father’s voice, and she looked up to where he stood beside her, watching her.
“Must we, Ban?” Her voice was plaintive, beseeching him.
“Yes, we must. Now.”
Both of them turned their eyes on me then, and I spoke through the panic that had been building in my breast since this strange behavior began. “What is it, Father? Mother, what’s the matter, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. Nothing is wrong, Clothar—not in the way you mean.” My father perched on the arm of Mother’s couch and leaned slightly to rest one hand lightly on her shoulder, his thumb moving soothingly against her neck. “I said something to you earlier today, when you first came to me, about your age. You were ten, I said, more than halfway along toward manhood. Do you remember?”
I nodded.
“And then I asked you if you thought you would ever make a decent man.” He was looking intently at me now. “I had never doubted that you would, until I heard that report from Chulderic today, and your explanation satisfied any doubt I had then. You will be a fine man when you are grown, and you are growing quickly. You have the makings of a warrior and a king, both. Any father would be proud to have you as a son.”
He glanced down to where his thumb still stroked his wife’s neck, comforting her. My mother had stopped weeping and sat gazing at me, and I frowned in puzzlement at what my father had said—not about his pride but about my having the makings of a king. I was the youngest of five sons, with little chance of ever becoming King of Benwick, and I had known and accepted that all my life. Mine would be a warrior’s life, but not a king’s.
“This fool, Frotto … Your mother told me earlier today, while you were at the baths with Lorio, that you came to her three years ago, when he first began taunting you. She told you then he was lying, but she said nothing to me at the time, thinking it was no more than a boys’ spat and would pass.” He glanced sideways at my mother, who showed no reaction but stared steadfastly at me. “I am not displeased over that. I might have said and done the same things, at that time, had I been faced with the dilemma you presented to her. You were left to deal with Frotto’s bullying for three years, but that’s a normal thing that all boys have to undergo, in one form or another.”
I felt myself frowning at him now. He saw my confusion and rose to his feet, sighing deeply and expelling the air noisily through pursed lips. “Damnation, boy, you understand nothing of what I’m saying, do you?” He did not expect an answer and moved away, pacing the length of the floor three times before he spoke again, and by the time he did, nameless terrors were clawing at my guts.
He approached and stood directly in front of my chair, holding out his right hand palm downward in the ancient, imperious gesture that demanded fealty and obedience. I leaned forward and took his hand in both my own, feeling the calluses of his weapons-hardened palm.
“Time for truth, boy. Time to grow up, to leave childhood behind and face the world of men. Do you fear me?”
I shook my head, wide-eyed. “No, Father.”
“Do you doubt my love for you as a son?”
> “No.”
“Good, so we are as one on that. In all respects save one, you are my son, and I am proud of you.”
“What?” My question emerged almost as a bleat, betraying all my sudden fears and consternation, and he turned his hand, grasping both of mine tightly but not painfully.
“Frotto is a fool, Clothar—a loudmouthed, mindless, empty-headed fool who gabbles about things he neither knows nor understands. But he is not completely wrong, and I will not lie to you. Most of his mouthings are mangled, foolish, ignorant noises, almost completely untrue in all respects, yet nonetheless, when all is said and done, even in his wrongness he is correct, and I should have his idiot tongue cut out.” His fingers tightened on mine. “I am not your father, nor is your mother your true mother. Your real father and mother died many years ago, murdered when you were a tiny child, still suckling at your nurse’s breast.”
I know I must have cried out, because the Lady Vivienne sprang to her feet and rushed to kneel beside me, and as her arms closed around me, pulling me close again, King Ban released my hand and moved away. I was vaguely conscious of the stiff set of his back and shoulders as he went, but I have no other recollection of how I actually felt. All I can recall is a reeling numbness, a yawning emptiness, and a deep-seated, aching coldness in my chest and belly.
“Vivienne! Leave him and sit down. This has to be finished quickly, the needless pain of it. There will be time to comfort him later, once he is ready for comfort. Right now he needs to hear the truth, to take away the strength of Frotto’s lies. Step away, if you love him.”
She did as she was bidden, slowly, leaving me to huddle in the depths of my large chair.
“Clothar? Clothar!”
I looked up again at the man who had been my father all my life and now was not. I saw the familiar size and strength of him and the unusual severity in his face, but all I could think was that he was not what he appeared to be. He was not my father. I was not his son.
“Listen carefully to what I say. Listen to me, and put all thoughts of what Frotto said out of your mind. What I will tell you now is the truth, the only truth. Do you understand me? Do you?” He watched for my nod, and then perched himself on one corner of the large table by the wall opposite my chair. This was a favorite position for him, in any room, braced on one long, rigid leg and sitting with his back straight and his head erect, his other leg crooked over the table’s corner; it allowed him to look down upon anyone seated elsewhere, or to gaze eye to eye with standing men from a position of authoritative comfort.
“I know you feel betrayed by both of us. I can see it in your face. You think your life has been a lie and that we have gulled you. Well, that’s not true, and the quicker you accept that, the sooner you’ll reach manhood. The only thing we have concealed from you is the truth of your identity—of who you really are—and that was for your own protection.”
His words were echoing in the hollow emptiness of my mind, but I could understand them, if not their full meaning. He spoke of protecting me, but from what, or from whom? The only threat I had known until then had stemmed from Frotto, and no one had protected me from him. I wanted to challenge the King on that, but I did not know where or how to begin, and he was already speaking again.
“You are high-born, boy, of bloodlines nobler and far older than mine. The truth of that is demonstrable, and the time has come for you to know about it. You were your father’s firstborn son and the sole heir to his kingdom. You would have died for that alone, slain like your parents, had your father’s murderer known where to find you. But he did not know where you were—nor was he even certain that you remained alive. And no one here, except my most trusted warriors, Clodio and Chulderic, knew where you came from. That kept you safe.
“But you are a king’s son. Your birthright and standing are the same as those of Gunthar, my firstborn. So you will be a king someday, although not here in Benwick. When you are old enough and strong enough to claim your own and take your vengeance for your parents’ blood, I, or your brother Gunthar if he is king by then, will assist you in claiming what is yours by right of blood and birth, and the man you must strike down will know who you are and why he is being destroyed.” He had my full attention now; I could feel my own eyes wide upon his. He knew I wanted to speak, and he nodded. “What is it?”
I had to swallow before I could make any sounds. Even then, however, in my extreme youth and in the shock of having my entire world reshaped, there was a doubt in my mind. It was not a doubt about my father’s truthfulness—even now I think of him as the father of my boyhood—but rather of his blindness concerning the nature of his firstborn son, for I knew with complete conviction that Gunthar, son of Ban and future king of Benwick, would be no source of help to me, ever. Gunthar was simply not an amiable or accommodating person. Even at ten years old I knew better than to trust him in anything, and I had grave misgivings, shared with my other brothers, about his sanity. We joked about it among ourselves, but none of us believed that he was normal in his mind. Gunthar’s was a cold, calculating mind well matched to an emotionless, distrustful personality that considered his own welfare and his personal advantage first and foremost in all things. But there were times when he could also be terrifyingly irrational, and at those times you could practically smell the threat of rabid violence in him. None of us had ever voiced the thought aloud, but none of us doubted, either, that Gunthar would kill us without a thought if we provoked him far enough.
I thrust those thoughts aside, dismissing them as unimportant, and condensed all my newfound pain, my wonderings and curiosity, and my sudden, soul-deep longings into one simple question.
“My father … my real father … . Who was he?”
“His name was Childebertus. He was my closest friend for many years, though he was much younger than me. We served in the legions together, long ago, during the reign of Honorius, just after the death of Stilicho, and your father was no more than a lad when first we met—a bright, sparkling lad, only seven years older than you are now. I was his first commanding officer, but he was talented and won promotions quickly. He grew level with me quickly, then went on to outrank me. He was a brilliant soldier.”
Chillbirtoos, I thought, repeating the name in my mind as he had pronounced it. My father was Chillbirtoos, a brilliant soldier. The skin on my arms rose up in gooseflesh, but the King was still talking.
“We became close, he and I, over the ten years that followed, brothers in arms, closer than blood brothers—him and me and one other friend who outranked both of us and commanded an entire army group. And then, one day about twelve years ago, your father and I met and married twin sisters—the Lady Vivienne, here, and your own mother, the Lady Elaine, both daughters of King Garth of Ganis.” He stopped suddenly, then waved his hand toward his wife in an unmistakable order for her to hold her peace. He kept his eyes fixed on mine. “Stand up.”
I rose to my feet obediently.
“Would you ever call my wife a whore?”
The question stunned me, and I felt my face blaze with a sudden rush of blood and shame at the awfulness of what he had asked me. I did not dare to look at the Lady Vivienne, nor had I words to answer him, so I merely shook my head, blushing harder than ever.
“What does that mean, that mum show? Answer my question.”
“No! I never would. Never.”
“I thought not. But yet you called her sister one—your own dead mother whom you never knew.”
My humiliation was complete. I lowered my head in an attempt to hide the hot tears that blurred my sight.
I heard him moving, rising from his perch and coming toward me, and then I felt his rough hand grasp my chin, not ungently, and lift my head to where I could see him peering into my watery eyes. I blinked hard, trying to clear my vision and look back at him defiantly, but I knew nothing of defiance then, and he had no thought of seeing any.
“Frotto lied, boy, because he is a fool and knows no better. You are more man, a
t ten years old, than he will ever be. But a man must quickly learn to recognize the truth when he hears it, and to know the difference between truth and lies. Hear the truth now, from me, witnessed by my wife who is your mother’s sister. What you have heard about your mother is a malicious lie, spread by this Frotto’s mother, who is even more stupid than her witless son. She worked here once, when you were newly arrived, and we cast her out for lying and for clumsy thievery. Her tattling afterward was the result of that—malicious gossip bred of sullen resentment, nothing more.
“Your mother was Elaine of Ganis and she loved you. She loved your father, Childebertus, who was my friend, even more. She and your father both died because of an evil man—she by her own hand—and you yourself survived only by good fortune and the bravery of the same man who set you to work on the stones today, Chulderic of Ganis. He brought you here to us, and here you have remained. Apart from Chulderic and ourselves, and Clodio, who led Chulderic to us when he first arrived, no one here knows who you really are, including Frotto’s vindictive mother. You became our son because you were already dear to us as the child of those we had loved and lost. And you will remain our son for as long as you wish to do so. Do you understand what I have told you?”
I nodded, half blinded by, but now uncaring of, the tears that streamed down my face. He nodded back at me and sucked in a great, deep breath through his nostrils. “Aye, well, that’s good. So be it. And so be it that you never think another thought of your mother having abandoned you. She bought your life with her own and died in your defense. Don’t ever forget that.”