The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  “Let’s go now,” he growled eventually. “We’ll head over that way, to the north, and then circle back to the south until we hit the trail we came in on. We should be back at home in less than an hour. What was I talking about before we found this carcass?”

  I kicked my horse forward and followed him through the screen of saplings and bushes we had penetrated earlier. Then, once we were back on the main pathway, broad enough to accommodate us side by side, I kicked gently until we were even with Chulderic’s mount.

  “The wedding.”

  “Aye, well, listen closely and learn. Garth of Ganis was no fool, and no one would ever accuse him of being indecisive. He saw the strong attraction between his daughter Elaine and the young warrior Childebertus—as did everyone else in Ganis—when Ban’s party first arrived, and he watched it flower rapidly during the gaiety and excitement of the week preceding the nuptial ceremony. Fortunately, he had no awareness that the pair had met before, on Ban’s first visit—that escapade had somehow managed to escape his attention—but he could see at a glance what was happening this time, and he was having none of it. He set some trusted men to watch the pair closely day and night, exhorting them to make sure that the two young people never had a moment alone together. But Garth, being a man, knew it was only a matter of time, as the young people’s attraction to each other grew and fed upon itself. He did not distrust his daughter, but he was well aware that she was an impressionable young girl, barely more than a child, and that the buck prancing around her was a seasoned campaigner, a decade older than she, experienced in life and good to look upon. He decided to put an end to their liaison immediately after the wedding, before anything could come of their intensifying attraction.

  “On the day of the wedding, Garth watched Elaine, barely paying attention to the bride and her new husband in his concern over his unmarried daughter. He had increasing difficulty in concealing his anger as he saw how eye contact between Elaine and her admirer had given way to touching, their hands constantly hovering close to each other’s so that their fingers were seldom untwined, even though the clasping was always brief and cautious and, they believed, hidden from the eyes of others.

  “That night, the night of the wedding feast, the King made sure his daughter’s nurse would have company in her chambers—a collection of visiting children of all ages to keep her awake and thereby ensure that Elaine remained safely where she ought to be, in her own quarters. At the same time, he invited Childebertus to sit among his personal guests at dinner, and took great satisfaction in watching the young man’s discomfort as he sought vainly for some way of making his escape. Each time young Childebertus rose to his feet, the King would speak to him directly, drawing him back into the general conversation and making it impossible for him to leave without being ill mannered and obvious.

  “The morning after the festivities, Garth rose up early and went straight to speak to Ban as soon as the new husband showed his face. He told his new son-in-law what he had seen going on between his daughter and Childebertus and what he intended to do about it. He then summoned Childebertus to him privately and confronted the unsuspecting warrior with the realities of his situation and the dire punishment he faced if he should bring disgrace, shame, or embarrassment to Garth or any of his kinsfolk, and most particularly his daughter Elaine, who was betrothed to another.

  “Childebertus listened, and then succumbed to a surge of nobility that he was to regret deeply. He admitted openly and freely that he had fallen deeply in love with the King’s beautiful daughter, but swore he had done nothing and never would do anything that might cause Elaine to suffer pain, grief, or shame in the eyes of her family or anyone else. He offered to leave Garth’s lands at once, and swore by his honor and his love for Elaine never to return. Very noble, passionate, and full of self-sacrifice, all of which add up to great foolishness. But the King had been listening closely and he believed every word of your father’s protestations. He thanked Childebertus for his tact and understanding, then gratefully and graciously accepted his offer to leave Ganis immediately, granting him the remainder of that day to make his farewells to everyone except Elaine, and promising that he would personally send him on his way the next morning with no hint of shame or scandal attached to his honor. True to his word, as Childebertus was preparing to depart the following day, Garth gifted him with a magnificent horse and all the trappings to go with it, in token of his gratitude and his appreciation as the bride’s father.

  “Your father thanked the King for his generous gift, then rode away, straight backed and stiff shouldered, filled with rage at himself, he told me later, for his stupidity in offering to leave. He had not even had an opportunity to speak with Elaine, to tell her what had happened. She loved him, he knew, as he loved her, and her father had promised to tell her what he had done, but Childebertus would never forgive himself, he thought, for denying their love to both of them in what he now recognized as a moment of foolish enthusiasm.”

  “He rode away alone, then? Why didn’t you go with him, for company on the road?”

  “I would have, had I been there, but I was in Benwick at that time, acting as Ban’s deputy during his absence.”

  “Well …” I was almost spluttering, outraged by the injustice of what had been done to my father. “Had he no friends to ride with him? Did King Ban not object to his being sent away alone?”

  “Aye, he did. Ban was angry and upset when he first heard that your father would leave the next day. His anger sprang out of his loyalty to your father, for whom he felt responsible, as well as from his own awareness that he himself could not accompany his friend—not now that he had a wife to take back to his own home, with all her belongings and her personal attendants. None of those, he knew, would be ready to leave for another week, at least, and he himself could not leave without them. So he demanded that Childebertus select an escort from among Ban’s own men, to ride with him—Ban had brought an unusually large force with him to Ganis, more for display than for real safety, and could easily afford to send a large number of them with his friend to protect him. But your father was still feeling noble then, determined to suffer and endure the agonies of his self-hatred and contempt in seclusion. So, yes, he rode off alone.”

  “What happened then … Magister?” I almost addressed him as an equal, but I caught myself in time to add the respectful acknowledgment of his rank. He did not notice, however, and answered my question without hesitation.

  “Ban sent an escort after him, regardless of your father’s wishes, but Childebertus must have seen them coming behind him, because he vanished before they could make contact with him and they could find no trace of him from then on. They eventually returned to Ganis, to report their failure to Ban, and he was not happy with them. But there was nothing to be done.”

  “But that can’t be all, Magister! There must be more. How could my father ever have wed my mother, having sworn by his honor never to see her again? Did he forswear himself?”

  Chulderic smiled now, amused at my panic. “Easy, boy, calm down. Your father’s honor was never in question. King Garth himself absolved him of his promise. I told you the old man was neither foolish nor indecisive. Exactly a month after the wedding, on the very day that Ban and his new wife left King Garth’s lands to return to Benwick, Garth received word, in the form of a written report from an imperial legate, that Gundevald of Stone Vale was dead, killed in battle months earlier when his force was surrounded and wiped out by an overwhelming concentration of Ostrogoths whose existence in that part of the world had been unsuspected until that encounter.”

  I had been listening avidly, because I knew Gundevald must have died somehow—otherwise, how could my father and my mother have wed?—and this confirmation of my own judgment pleased me greatly.

  “Well, those were the worst tidings King Garth could have received. He knew that Ban, his new son-in-law, was an able man and a valiant fighter and would have made a fine consort to Vivienne, had she ever bec
ome Queen of Ganis, but he had always known, too, that such a thing would never be, because it had never been intended. Vivienne would go with Ban to his home in Benwick, hundreds of miles to the south and east, where he already had a people of his own to rule.

  “At the time of the pair’s betrothal, you see, almost two decades earlier, Garth had been in the prime of his manhood, with a fertile and loving wife who, to that point, had given him three fine, healthy sons and twin daughters. Full of a young man’s belief in his own invincibility and flushed with his pride of fatherhood, Garth had foreseen no need then to fret over his own future. The marriage of his daughter to the son of his old friend Ban the Bald had been arranged purely to strengthen the ties between Ganis and his friend and ally, Ban the Bald of Benwick. Since that time, however, Garth had lost his beloved wife, who had died in childbirth along with her infant. He had never remarried, but had kept himself surrounded by women of all ages, using all of them shamelessly to help him look after and care for his children, and most particularly his three sons.

  “And then, late in his life and within the space of two years, all three of his sons had been taken from him—one crushed in a fall from a horse, the youngest swept away and lost forever in a flooded river later in the same year, and the eldest and most promising, Dion, devoured by the spotted fever. Suddenly Garth was alone, with only one unwed daughter left to succeed him, and his enemies were as aware as he that Garth of Ganis was no longer as mighty as he once had been.

  “That knowledge was the reason for Garth’s promising his daughter to Gundevald of Stone Vale in the first place. He was very concerned about protecting his kingdom and his people, but he was equally concerned about protecting his unwed daughter. The Salian Franks have very strongly held ideas about women succeeding and taking possession of family holdings. They don’t like that at all and they’ve been trying for years to put a stop to it. They want a dead man’s holdings to pass to another male; if not a son, then the nearest male relative. Garth was long-headed when it came to things like that. He could not have foreseen what would happen to his sons, but he was clear thinking enough to ensure that even in the worst imaginable circumstances, his daughter would not end up penniless and disinherited as a helpless woman in a man’s world. He saw it as his duty to protect her against the day when he could not be there to see to it himself. Gundevald, like Ban the Bald of Benwick, had been a valued friend of Garth’s for years. His lands of Stone Vale bordered Garth’s own holding, and although they were neither as fertile nor as extensive as King Garth’s Ganis, they were more rugged, easier to defend, and they abutted Ganis on two sides.

  “Furthermore, Gundevald was the last of his family, the sole survivor of a long line of successful and enterprising merchants whose ventures, operating mainly out of Massilia, the oldest port of southern Gaul, had covered every part of the Empire for more than two hundred years. By an accident of birth and the attrition of the few remaining heirs of his natural family, Gundevald had become the sole inheritor of a private trading empire so complex and diversified that he could never possibly spend all of his wealth. And his immense wealth enabled him to enjoy a personal power that few men could wield. He counted himself a friend of the Emperor, Honorius, and thanks to the Emperor’s blessing, Gundevald commanded his own private army, maintaining it out of his own coffers and placing it at the disposal of Honorius in time of war.

  “Garth knew there were some people who thought it less than fortunate that Gundevald was almost twice Elaine’s age and so had little youth and less beauty with which to sway or win a young girl’s heart, but he knew, too, that Gundevald would make a fine, strong, and dutiful husband for his only remaining unwed daughter, and a powerful protector for her lands and her people once Garth was gone. But now Gundevald was dead, and Elaine was almost nineteen, having spent three full years waiting for him to return and marry her.

  “Now, as soon as he had received and accepted the word of Gundevald’s death, the King also accepted the realities that had changed the world around him. Gundevald’s holdings of Stone Vale, which Garth had hoped to use for the defense of Ganis, were now in jeopardy, for Gundevald had left no sons to succeed him and his power and possessions would inevitably pass to whomever among his followers was strong enough to claim and hold them. That, by itself, placed Ganis at hazard, since Garth had no knowledge of who would seize the rule in Stone Vale next, and no way of divining whether that person might be friend or foe to Ganis.

  “And so King Garth of Ganis thought long and deeply, then made a swift decision and sent out mounted couriers to overtake Ban’s party on the road. Ban’s cavalcade, containing all of his wife’s prized possessions in an entire train of enormous wagons, was ponderous and ungainly, and it had set out only that morning, moving very slowly, which meant it would still be well within Ganis lands when Garth’s messengers reached it. He sent word that the cavalcade should make camp and await the return of Ban and Vivienne, who were to return immediately to him.

  “By the time the pair arrived back at the King’s Hall, wondering what was going on, Garth was ready for them and greeted them with a barrage of questions that kept them both reeling, off balance, and in absolute ignorance of his motives. This friend of Ban’s, he demanded to know, the one he had sent home, the fellow Childebertus, was he trustworthy? He nodded at Ban’s angry response, which he had expected, then pressed on: was he a man of means then, this Childebertus … did he have wealth?

  “Sufficient for his needs and more than he could ever use, he was told. His father, a very wealthy and famous lawyer, had died in Rome several years before and had left all of his possessions to Childebertus, his only son. Those possessions consisted mainly of the monies and portable goods—gemstones and jewels, and gold and silver, both coins and bullion—taken as fees during a lifetime of working on behalf of wealthy clients. In addition to those funds, however, the lawyer Jacobus had also left his son enormous quantities of valuable real estate, most of it rental property generating revenue in the city of Rome and in the new Imperial City of Constantinople, all of it shrewdly purchased throughout the old man’s life and now held in trust for Childebertus by his father’s closest and most trusted friends and colleagues.

  “The King muttered approval when he heard that. He said he would need large resources if he were to protect Ganis and its people in the future.

  “Who would need large resources? Ban asked, making it plain that he had no idea of what was going on here. Childebertus would, Garth replied, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. If he was to wed Elaine, he must elect to live here in Ganis, working with Garth at first in governing and strengthening the domain, then serving as his wife’s consort when she became Queen once Garth was dead. Gundevald was dead—had been for months. Garth repeated the report he had received and dismissed the dead man with a wave of his hand. The thing to do now, he told Ban, was to consolidate his affairs in Ganis before the wars broke out in Stone Vale.

  “Ban asked Garth why he himself was not moving to take command in Gundevald’s stead, but Garth’s only response to that was a quick shake of the head. No point to that, he said. He did not have the strength at his back nowadays, he said, and couldn’t hope to win a serious struggle against the organized leaders of Gundevald’s army.

  “What army? Ban asked. It might be true that they had all been killed with Gundevald.

  “Not all of them, Garth answered. That was impossible.

  “Not so, Ban responded, equally forceful. It might seem impossible, but it might just as easily be true. And what if it was true? What if Gundevald’s defeat at the hands of the Ostrogoths had been so completely crushing that none of his commanders had survived? No army can survive, deprived of its command officers; leaderless, the rank and file were nothing more than a rabble who would dissipate and vanish within days, hunting for food and sustenance for themselves. Or what if the defeat had been less severe, yet sufficiently so that those who had survived now had not enough organized streng
th to take and hold Gundevald’s place in Stone Vale? Should Garth not move at least to occupy the territories as a precaution, in self-defense?

  “That stopped the old King short. He had not considered that possibility. Perhaps he should move in, he growled after a while. All the more reason, then, to wed Elaine to Childebertus and have the young man here to work by his side as soon as could be. He wanted Ban to ride immediately, in haste, to bring back Childebertus as quickly as possible.

  “He might not come at all now, was Ban’s response, for although he knew that Childebertus would crawl over burning coals to reach Elaine, he nonetheless felt the need to make the old man suffer briefly before giving in to him. Garth had given the poor fellow ample reason to refuse to come again, he pointed out.

  “Of course he would come! The King’s answer was immediate and confident. He had done nothing to insult Childebertus personally, he said—indeed, he had gone out of his way to show his appreciation and goodwill with the gift horse. Besides, everything was different now. If Childebertus wished to wed his daughter, Garth would look kindly on his suit, provided Childebertus would agree to remain in Ganis and pledge himself and his resources to support the King, standing with Garth and his people against any who might come against them in the aftermath of Gundevald’s death.

  “Less than an hour after that, Ban was on the road home to Benwick.”

  “And was my father glad to hear Ban’s tidings?”

  Chulderic peered sideways at me. “What do you think? He was wild with delight. As soon as he heard what Ban had come to tell him, he sent for me. We were going back to Ganis at once, he told me, as quickly as we could, and we would live there from now on. I would be his Master-at-Arms there, he promised me then, in complete charge of the entire force of men he would be raising immediately to take with him.

  “Before we left for Ganis, your father sat down and wrote a letter to Germanus in Auxerre, explaining what was happening and where he was going and why, and telling the legate that we would be extending our northward journey to swing wide of our route and call in at Auxerre in passing. He then asked the noble legate to mediate for him in the matter of the legacy left him by his late father, by contacting the various people involved as custodians of his wealth and requesting that they sell everything that could be sold, as quickly and as prudently as possible, and that they forward the funds in care of Germanus in Auxerre. In the meantime, he hoped Germanus might arrange to advance him some money against future revenues and that he would also agree to use those funds and his military contacts to conscript a force of not less than one hundred men, all cavalry, and more if he could find qualified men in sufficient numbers, and have them ready to accompany us when we left Auxerre to ride on to Ganis.