The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  “Your father had no idea then of how much money was involved in his father’s legacy, and I doubt if he ever really came to grips with his own sudden wealth. Germanus told me later that the expenses he incurred on behalf of your grandfather Garth and the fortification of Ganis involved enormous sums, paid for, in the main, by what was realized in the first few years from massive sales of his properties in Rome and Constantinople. Much of that money was shipped directly from Rome to Gaul by sea, then made its way from the coast to Auxerre, and from there to Ganis, in wagon loads disguised as normal military goods being transported under escort. Your father kept the money in his own treasury after that, and used it as he needed it, to purchase arms and men and horses and the like. I remember, though, when I first heard about it—the amounts involved, I mean—the number of wooden chests of gold coin and silver ingots and jewels and the way they were transported clear across Gaul in ordinary wagons, I was flabbergasted. I simply could not visualize the bulk of the treasure.”

  I sat blinking at that, entranced by the image he had conjured, trying in vain to imagine the size and amount of treasure involved and to see it, in my mind’s eye, filling the vast underground chamber of my father’s treasury, awash in a sea of gold and brilliant colors as the flickering light of torches reflected from the heaps of gold and jewels.

  “What happened to it, Magister, all that money?”

  “Clodas took it, along with everything else.”

  “Clodas. Someday I will kill Clodas of Ganis.”

  “Aye, mayhap you will. No one will blame you, I know that. He owes you more than one life. Besides, his treasury is yours by right.”

  I felt myself frowning now. “Clodas of Ganis. The King said Clodas wasn’t always known by that name. But last night King Ban called you Chulderic of Ganis. Is that correct? Is that truly where you are from?”

  The Master-at-Arms barked deep in his throat, and it might have been a laugh, although it might as easily have been a cough. “No, lad. I’m from Ostia, the port of Rome,” he growled. “I had never heard of Ganis until Ban mentioned it, and I didn’t get that name until I came here with you, ten years ago. Chulderic’s a common name in these parts and there were already four Chulderics here when I arrived. Each of them was known by the name of the place he came from, and one of them was already from Ostia, another from Rome. So I became Chulderic of Ganis.”

  “What did you do in Ostia, Magister?”

  “What did I do in Ostia?” He made a formless, grunting sound deep in his chest. “No one has ever asked me that before. What did I do in Ostia? I should know, I was there for years … . I survived, I suppose, and that, considering who I was and where I found myself, was an achievement. I grew up there, fighting for every scrap of food I ate and fighting even harder simply to live when there was nothing to eat … . I was an orphan and a thief, forced to live by my wits, and they served me well, since I am still here to speak of it. I had no family … and no memories of anyone, from my earliest days … . I lived on the streets, alone, sleeping in doorways most of the time, for as long as I can remember, and the one vision I had that kept me alive throughout that entire time was an image of myself as a soldier. I don’t know how or when it began, but I grew up dreaming of being a soldier—not a mere warrior, mark you, but a uniformed Roman soldier, a legionary—because soldiers, to me, were always self-sufficient and dependent upon no man for their food. They were tall and strong and confident, and they had fine weapons and they were clean and wore warm clothing and well-made armor and everyone knew who they were and what they were. I never met a single one, mind you, who showed me any kindness, but somehow, among them all, they saved my life.

  “I was fourteen when I first tried to enlist, and they laughed at me because I was a small, undernourished, and skinny fourteen. I was so furious that I wept. I tried seven more times after that—seven times in two years—and they turned me away each time. But then they took me in the next time, on my ninth attempt, with no hesitation. I suppose I had grown old enough by then to look my age.”

  He glanced across to where I sat watching him, and sniffed. “Now I’m a Master-at-Arms, so who would guess I ever was a thief?”

  There was nothing I could say to that, and I only had the vaguest suspicion that there might be a grin hiding underneath his scowl, so I sat mute for a spell, then changed the topic.

  “Why did Clodas of Ganis kill my parents, Magister, and how was he able to do so?”

  Chulderic stiffened as though I had slapped him, and then his shoulders slumped forward. “Why and how are two different matters, boy. I’ve been thinking of that, and wondering about it, for ten years now. He killed them because they were there and they had what he wanted. This is a creature born to kill, this Clodas. He is depraved … evil. And yet he hides the evil effortlessly, with an almost supernatural ability to dissemble, to appear to be what he is not. Easy for me now to say what I know to be true, that he is without a man’s emotions, empty of mercy or compassion, incapable of love or sympathy or sorrow. But this was not the face he showed to us who thought we were his friends. From us, he concealed every inkling of his true nature—from us men, at least, because I seem to recall that most women disliked him and distrusted him instinctively. I suppose that makes men more gullible and foolish than women. It’s certainly true that he was able to gull all of us who knew him. Jesu! It makes me sick when I recall how much we trusted him … and honored him, for that matter. But then, truth to tell, none of us could even imagine the depths of treachery and depravity that existed within him while he was making us all love and admire him.”

  The old man stared out across the scene in front of us. “Believe me, lad, he was a piece of work … the kind of man to make you doubt every notion you ever had of what is admirable or honorable or worthy of trust.

  “How did he do it? Within the six months following your father’s arrival, he and King Garth visited every town, every fort, and every settlement, no matter how poor or insignificant, in the Ganis federation, and that is how your father first met Clodas, on one of those journeys. In those days, Clodas was not known to anyone as Clodas of Ganis. If anything, he would have been Clodas of Rich Vale, but even that would have been ludicrous. His station was far more humble back then. His father, Dagobert, was the chief magistrate and nominal ruler of the district called Rich Vale, one of the larger fiefs of Ganis which lay far to the southeast of Garth’s own lands. But Dagobert was an administrative ruler, more of a public official than a leader in any military sense. He was also some kind of cousin to King Garth, a relative by blood, but I know not how close, although I believe someone once told me that Garth’s grandsire had been a brother to Dagobert’s grandmother, or perhaps his great-grandmother.

  “When Childebertus first met Clodas and his people, there was no slightest sign from any of them that they might all one day disagree. Clodas represented his father that day, for Dagobert had fallen gravely ill and would later die of his illness. Clodas presented himself as a loyal kinsman and ally of King Garth, and welcomed him and your father warmly as honored guests, extending all the hospitality of his father’s hall to the King’s party. Your grandfather was Clodas’s King, and took the welcome as no more than his due, barely aware of anything other than the formality of the occasion. Your father, on the other hand, being the man he was, accepted Clodas’s hospitality in the spirit in which he believed it was being offered. It would never have crossed his mind to doubt the truthfulness or the intent of his host. And Clodas took great pains to ingratiate himself with both his visitors.

  “Less than a month after returning home to Ganis, they received the word of Dagobert’s death, and of Clodas’s elevation to his father’s rank and holdings, and a month or so after that, they returned to Rich Vale to pay their respects to Clodas, to ratify him as his father’s successor, and to commiserate with him over the death of his father. It was at that time that they first began discussing how the garrison at Rich Vale could be strengthened, to their mu
tual advantage. King Garth, using the combined resources of his regal title and your father’s money, with Childebertus’s full blessing in the latter, offered to quintuple the strength of Rich Vale’s resident forces, which had so far been a mere token presence, providing that Clodas himself would undertake to command his own garrison thereafter, with suitable assistance from Ganis, and to build sufficient housing for his new recruits. Clodas agreed, and it was arranged that a new muster of mercenaries would report to Clodas’s command the following spring.

  “Well, the new muster arrived, on time and as promised, and from that moment onward the die was cast. Clodas began training his command to serve his own ends. He was his own master, in all respects, and he arranged his affairs accordingly and in complete secrecy. Even the senior officers supplied by Garth suspected nothing, for their tasks were straightforward—to drill and supervise the training of the newly mustered mercenaries until they were battle ready. It was no great feat on Clodas’s part to conceal the fact that when his troops were battle ready, they would be ready to attack their own allies.”

  “May I ask you something, Magister?”

  “Of course.”

  “What did he do to my mother? Before her death, I mean. What did he do to her?”

  “What d’you mean? He did nothing to her. If he had actually done something, we would have taken care of it then and there, and what transpired would never have happened as it did.”

  “But he must have done something, Magister. The King told me that he changed from the moment he first set eyes on her. How could anyone have known that? How could King Ban identify the time and place if nothing happened to mark it?”

  The skin across Chulderic’s cheeks seemed to tighten and he gazed at me fiercely, his eyes narrowing with what I took to be anger. He started to say something but caught his breath and stopped himself, turning his head away abruptly and tilting his chin up as he stared away into the distance. Then he swung back to face me, releasing his breath noisily. “Damnation, boy, I wish you were older. You’re too damn young to know about the politics of men and women … and that is as it should be.”

  I had absolutely no idea what he meant, but I schooled my face to remain blank and nodded knowingly.

  “It was your mother who first noticed that there was something wrong about Clodas. None of us noticed anything, but then, we were only men. Your mother, with her woman’s instincts, detested him from the first moment she met him, although she said nothing for a long time afterward. She sensed something in his attitude that was offensive, and she felt it down deep in her gut. She felt it in the way he looked at her, and in the tone of his voice when he spoke to her. In the months that followed, she heard her husband speak of him often, but she said nothing, merely avoiding the man and hoping that your father’s business with him would soon be done.

  “But then Clodas confronted her again, appearing unexpectedly one day when she was alone in the household, your father off on a hunting trip and me with him. Nobody knows what was said on that occasion, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Clodas had offended the Queen. She called her guards, and she defied him openly in front of them, forbidding him, upon pain of banishment, ever to return to Ganis while her husband was away from home. Then she had him marched out of her gates and sent on his way back to Rich Vale. Everyone who was there heard her clearly. A public rebuke was probably not the cleverest thing she could have done to a proud and self-absorbed man, no matter what the provocation he provided, but she reacted as she saw fit at the time.

  “What he said to her that day she would never discuss, not even with your father, but she called Clodas high-handed and self-serving and noxiously full of self-love, and she told her husband to beware of him and to trust him in nothing.

  “That put your father in a vise, right there, because he had already committed himself, publicly, to trusting Clodas in matters of both import and consequence, and to withdraw that trust purely on the unsubstantiated opinion of his newlywed wife would have caused Childebertus much embarrassment. And yet his wife’s opinion was of great value in his eyes and in his heart. He knew she would never lie to him and he could not say the same about Clodas. Had your mother told us what really happened between her and Clodas that afternoon, of course, that might have been the end of all of it, then and there, and your parents might still be alive today. But she held her peace, and thereby tied your father’s hands, and that led to tragedy.

  “I’ve been thinking about it now for years, wondering why I didn’t cut the serpent down myself, simply for causing me to try to imagine what he might have said or done, or even tried to do. But that’s a fool’s task, because I did nothing. Nor did anyone else. She was stubborn, Elaine of Ganis, and she kept her secret, no doubt for what she thought were excellent reasons.

  “Afterward, both of them behaved in a very civilized manner to each other, knowing that everyone was watching them and waiting for some sign of hostility, and eventually the tension eased and seemed to die away completely. Then, a full year and more after the upheaval, the Lady Elaine announced herself to be with child, and from that moment the priorities of all of Ganis changed visibly. Everyone breathed more easily. Clodas had long since withdrawn into Rich Vale to tend to his own affairs, and your father spent most of his spare time with his wife, anxious to be with her as much as possible while she was carrying you … . That situation, an appearance of peace, lasted for a whole year, from the end of one summer through the beginning of the next.”

  In the silence that followed, a skylark broke into song and spiraled upward, its miraculous voice defying comparison with the size of its tiny body, and I listened to it distractedly as I waited for Chulderic to resume speaking. But the silence extended until I grew concerned that he would say no more, and finally I could wait no longer.

  “And then what happened, Magister?”

  “Everything, at once.” It was as though he had been waiting for me to ask, because his voice betrayed no surprise at my question. “The world fell apart in the space of one afternoon, and the calamity was over almost before anyone realized it had begun.”

  “But you knew.”

  “Aye, I did. At least I was among the first to learn of it.” I realized afterward that Chulderic might have construed my comment as an accusation, but his response was instantaneous, a straightforward acknowledgment of truth. “But I was too late even then to stop any of it. As his Master-at-Arms, I should have been there by your father’s side, to guard his back and see to his welfare, but no, I was miles away, playing the fool with a woman while my best friend was being murdered—the man who had given me everything I owned and who had entrusted me with his life and his family’s safety.”

  Although I was still only a child of ten, even I could see that this confession was a bitter and heartfelt one, wrung out from a deep well of pain, and I felt sorrow for the powerful Master-at-Arms. I resisted the urge to say anything, however, fearful that I might say exactly the wrong thing and offend him without wishing to.

  “I was in love, you see … or I thought I was. You were about six weeks old at that time, perhaps eight weeks, and your mother was in fine health again. She had fed you from her own breasts for the first month of your life, but then something happened and her milk dried up—don’t ask me what it was; I have no knowledge or understanding of such things. But the upshot of it all was that a wet nurse had to be found—a woman who had lost a child of her own and had milk to feed a starving babe whose own mother could not give him suck.

  “They found two, both of them, by sheer coincidence, recent widows. One was called Antonia, a comely little thing, young and well bred of solid Roman stock. Her elderly husband had been a landowner and some kind of local magistrate. The other was called Sabina, a widowed woman from Ganis. Both lived within a day’s journey of your grandfather’s castle, both had lost their babies in childbirth, and both were in milk. Antonia had a fragile air about her, but Sabina was all woman, beautiful and self-assured and su
ltry looking. Sabina was also closely connected to some of the senior Salian chieftains—her dead husband, a warrior called Merofled, had been one of Clodas’s closest friends—so the matter of the politics had to be considered in the choice.

  “In the event, your father went to see Sabina, took one look at her, and declared her to be suitable. None of us were surprised at the choice, because the woman was simply too beautiful to ignore … .” He lapsed into silence, thinking back to what he could remember of that time, then sighed sharply, snapping himself back to the present.

  “Anyway, I was with your father that day, as I always was, and he gave me the task of bringing Sabina back to Ganis immediately, to meet your mother. By the time we had ridden the eighteen miles from where Sabina lived to where your mother was, I had already fallen deeply in love with her … she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, more beautiful than a week-old fawn or a well-trained falcon … and to my eyes, at least, ten times lovelier than your mother, who had been until then the loveliest woman I had ever known. When I first met her—Sabina, I mean—she was in mourning for her lost child, but it was plain to see that her grief could not conceal her pleasant nature, and despite her loss she went out of her way to be charming and friendly toward me. She was no longer mourning her husband, however, and she managed to make that clear from the outset. By that time, she told me, Merofled had been dead for many months, and I had the distinct impression she was angry with him, if anything, for leaving her as he had.