The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  “Clodas must have heard of this, and connected it with her belief that you had survived his plotting. He did not know you had survived, in fact, but he knew your mother believed you had, and so he told her you had been slain that same afternoon when your father died; that your nurse Sabina had arranged the trap and led them into it.

  “Your mother refused to believe that Sabina would be capable of killing you, after having suckled you for months, and of course Clodas could not present Sabina to prove it one way or the other. But three days later, he had one of his creatures present your mother with the dirt-encrusted corpse of an infant that had been butchered and left in a shallow grave for days. It was the same age as you and had your coloring, but otherwise it was not identifiable. Apparently the mere sight of it was sufficient, however, to unhinge your mother’s mind, and she hanged herself that same night, with the cord from one of her robes.

  “Even Clodas’s own were disgusted by that piece of work. No one knew who the child had been or where he came from, and many of them thought it truly was Elaine’s own child, but it was common knowledge among some of Clodas’s troops that the word had come down to find a suitable child and use it a-purpose.

  “That was the night before I heard the tale whispered around a campfire, and the talk was all of Clodas’s anger after she was found dead. They said that he was livid with anger, but that no one had dared to ask him why he was so surprised, after what he had done to the hapless woman. Anyway, his fury was ungovernable, and he had all of her guards executed within an hour of hearing the report of her death, even those who had not been on duty that night. He then rode off, still raging, with a small group of his closest cronies and did not return that night. I waited two more days, but he still had not returned and there was no way of knowing when he might even be expected.

  “That evening I went back to Antonia and told her everything I had discovered. She listened carefully, asked several questions mainly concerning you, then made arrangements to have another woman take care of feeding the infant she had previously adopted. Then she volunteered to accompany me back to Benwick, nursing you along the way. I felt greatly honored by her commitment to you, an unknown orphan, and accepted her offer immediately.

  “Sadly, however, the journey from Ganis to Benwick grew into an odyssey of many months, much of the time spent avoiding wandering bands of brigands and marauders. Antonia barely survived it. She fell ill along the way and died shortly after we arrived safely in Benwick.”

  I interrupted him with a comment that had just sprung into my mind. “So all the women in your story died.”

  “What did you say?” Chulderic reined in his horse and sat blinking at me in what I took to be astonishment, but then his eyebrows rose even higher than they had been and he began to nod his head, hesitantly at first and then with more conviction. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, by God, you’re right. They did, all of them. I’ve never realized that before. Never even thought of it. They all died.”

  We rode without speaking after that, each of us with his own thoughts, and soon we were back on the outskirts of the castle lands. With what I have always thought of since then as the resilience of youth, I felt no desire to ask any more questions about my parents’ death. I had asked, and I had been told, and I felt satisfied that I now knew the truth, but I felt no grief. How could I? I had never known Childebertus and his beautiful wife. They were mere names to me; people in a tale. I was fully aware, nevertheless, that the tale involved me and that I had an obligation to bring their murderer to justice.

  I knew, too, that when I finally brought him to justice, the kingdom of Ganis that Clodas now ruled would become mine, by right of blood and birthright, but I was not yet concerned about that.

  One more question remained to be asked of Chulderic, and I broached it as we approached the castle walls. “Magister Chulderic?”

  It was the first time either one of us had spoken in almost half an hour, and the Master-at-Arms turned his head toward me and cocked one eyebrow. “Aye?”

  “What can you tell me of Germanus?”

  “Germanus, is it? Know him well, do you? Most people nowadays call him Bishop Germanus. Those of us who have known him long enough call him General Germanus, or simply the General. No one else that I know calls him plain Germanus. Where did you gain that right?”

  “Pardon me.” I was duly abashed. “I did not mean to sound disrespectful. It’s just that my father says I am to go away with him, to Auxerre, to study. I have never been away from home and I had never heard of Bishop Germanus until last night, so I hoped you might tell me what you know about him.”

  “Well, lad, I can’t. I know you are to go away with him when he comes, and I know you’ll miss your home at first. But you won’t pine for long and you will never regret meeting General Germanus. He is probably the finest man I ever met, including your father, but I only say that because your father died before he could achieve the things he wanted to achieve. The General, on the other hand, has had far more time to do what he has done, and he has done it all wondrously.

  “Your father and Ban and the General were friends, but it began with your father and General Germanus. You see, they were all patrician … you know what that means? It’s all a matter of birth and breeding, who you are and where you were born, wealth and manners and education. I was a simple soldier, as I told you earlier, privileged to be included among their number, but I was never completely at ease with them, off duty.

  “Germanus, he was five or six years older than me, and rich as an emperor. His family was an ancient and honored clan in northern Gaul, and Germanus was married to a cousin of the Emperor Honorius himself. He had been trained for a military career but he’d felt called to study law and he’d ended up as a successful lawyer in Rome. Honorius changed all that when he ordered him to take up soldiering … well, he asked him, really, according to Germanus, but who’s going to say no to an Emperor? Anyway, he needed someone to look after his interests back in Germanus’s home territories in Gaul, and he thought his friend Germanus was the very man for the job. Germanus’s young wife had died, along with her infant, in childbirth, and Germanus was so distraught, his friends were afraid he might lock himself away from the world. Army was the best thing that could have happened to him.

  “So just bear in mind he’s a bishop, but he’s also a warrior, and one of the best, so he’ll train your body and your fighting skills as well as he’ll train your mind. Here, we’re back and I have matters to attend to. Is there anything else you want to ask before I leave you?”

  I shook my head, knowing I would never again walk in terror of the Master-at-Arms. I would respect him more than ever after today, but having seen beneath the grim facade he wore habitually, I would never again fear him. “No, Magister,” I told him, and thanked him for his patience and forbearance that afternoon.

  He nodded courteously and wished me well in Auxerre, after which he turned and rode away, making his way to the castle stables. I watched him until he rounded the edge of the curtain wall fronting the main gates, and I did not set eyes on him again for six more years.

  III

  FATHER GERMANUS

  IT HAS BEEN a matter of astonishment to me throughout my adult life that, having spent no more than half a day in the company of Chulderic, King Ban’s Master-at-Arms, I can recall everything he said to me, practically verbatim, and yet when it comes to speaking of my great tutor and mentor Germanus, the renowned Bishop of Auxerre, I often find myself ready to gnash my teeth with fury and frustration because I can remember so little with any clarity. Certainly I can remember incidents, and when I push myself toward recalling those in detail I can sometimes remember the surrounding circumstances quite accurately, but overall I have no sense of any flow of time in those recollections, as though my years with the bishop comprised no more than a series of unconnected incidents. I am aware of a series of lacunae in my memory—holes and spaces and missing parts that prevent me from having any solid conviction of w
holeness in my relationship with the saintly bishop.

  Saintly is not an inappropriate word to use in describing Germanus of Auxerre, for before he ever came into my life, men and women were already speaking in awe of his sanctity, his holiness and goodness. It was public knowledge that early in his first years as Bishop of Auxerre he had cast out demons from a man who had stolen large amounts of money, and in the process of the exorcism had forced the demon to divulge the place where the hoard was concealed—these events had taken place openly and were witnessed by many people, and the results had been indisputable. Ever since that time, the bishop had been besieged by people seeking cures for illnesses and possession, and he had performed many miracles on behalf of his flock. I was not surprised, then, that within months of his death people had already begun speaking of him as Saint Germanus. Whether or not the bishop truly was a saint, however, I find myself unqualified to judge, precisely because it was Germanus himself who taught me never to presume to make moral judgments, since those were the sole property of God to make or unmake.

  I am content to remember him as my mentor, my teacher, and my guide, and latterly my friend. I have never known a time when I did not have cause to be grateful for the example he set me, the lessons he taught me, and the principles he instilled in me. The man I grew to become could never have existed or behaved as he did had it not been for the direct influence of Germanus of Auxerre. And that conviction, that certitude that he shaped and molded me to be what I was and what I am today, is the major reason why I find it so galling that I can remember so little of our time together.

  Germanus grew to be a constant in my life, the dominating force behind my mental and physical growth for the seven years that followed Chulderic’s single day of tuition and enlightenment, and as in the lives of all growing boys, the majority of the mundane events and ordinary, undistinguished times in those seven years have long since been forgotten, leaving only the high points and grand events to be remembered.

  As King Ban had told me he would, Germanus arrived at our gates within the month, accompanied by a small retinue, and on the night of his arrival, before dinner, King Ban summoned me to his private quarters to meet my new guardian. As I made my way to the King’s chambers, I visualized some kind of wizened cleric, stooped with piety and learning, long-bearded and wearing a high, pointed hat. It was only long months later that I realized I had been visualizing a sorcerer, the image dredged up from some half-forgotten memory of someone else’s story told over a fire on a winter’s night. The reality was radically different

  “Aha, there you are. Over here, if you please.” The Lady Vivienne had just emerged from her own chamber as I entered the long suite of rooms she shared with the King, and I changed direction slightly in response to her summons, smiling and holding out my hands for the inspection I knew was coming. Smiling gently back at me, she took my hands in her own and held me out and away from her at arms’ length as she examined my appearance. Then she turned my hands over and inspected my palms before turning them back and peering closely at my fingernails, after which she released my hands and reached out to hook one finger into the front of my tunic and pull me toward her as she leaned forward to sniff at me, wrinkling her nose delicately as she did so. Then, when she had satisfied herself that I had bathed that day and was fit to present to an important guest, she nodded and ruffled my hair fondly. “You look remarkably fine, young man, clean and respectable. Are you ready to meet Bishop Germanus?”

  I nodded, feeling my heart beating hard with excitement in anticipation of meeting the great man, but smiling back at her still, aware as I always was in those days of the change that had taken place in our attitudes, each to the other, since the acknowledgment that we were not mother and son, but aunt and nephew. Somehow, and quite inexplicably as far as I was concerned—and very surprisingly, too, looking back on it nowadays, since I was only ten years old at the time and demonstrating a very mature self-awareness for my age—our relationship had changed for the better within a matter of days of that admission. We had always been close and affectionate with each other in the past, but now that our true relationship had been revealed and accepted, each of us had altered our treatment and our awareness of the other very slightly and indefinably, offering and demonstrating a degree of friendliness—I could think of no other word to define it better—that had not been there in former days. The first few days after my unexpected epiphany had been painful for both of us, with neither one of us knowing what the other was thinking or expecting, and throughout those days, each time I met her, the Lady Vivienne’s eyes had been red and swollen from weeping, as, to tell the truth, had been my own. But that time had passed swiftly enough, and at the end of it she and I felt possibly more comfortable with each other than we ever had before. Once she saw that I had not grown to hate her for her necessary deceit, my aunt—although as forewarned I continued to call her Mother—had become more open and more demonstrative in her concerns for me, and in return I had taken pains to let her be aware of my unaltered love for her. Now, as these thoughts flitted through my mind, she caught a trace of them somehow and frowned at me, her face betraying slight perplexity.

  “What’s wrong, Clothar? You’re not afraid, are you? Of meeting him?”

  I shook my head immediately. “No, Mother, not at all. I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I heard about him.”

  “Then what were you thinking a moment ago? You looked almost … distressed.”

  “No,” I said and again shook my head in an emphatic negative. “Truly. I was merely thinking about all that has happened recently, but I’m not distressed at all. Can we go in now?”

  She reached out and stroked my cheek gently with the back of her fingers, her eyes narrowing as she gazed intently into mine, and then she, too, nodded and tapped my cheek twice, very softly and tenderly, before crooking her finger in a sign for me to follow her as she turned away and walked ahead of me, leading me into the room where King Ban sat talking with Bishop Germanus. I followed her wordlessly, my nostrils still pleasantly aware of the perfume I had picked up from her when she leaned forward to sniff at me.

  I knew the man with King Ban had to be Germanus the moment I set eyes on him because there was no one else in the room, and that was very unusual. Whenever King Ban entertained guests there were always other people around—advisers and military personnel and other dignitaries—to share the burden of amusing and engaging the visitor and to act as cushions between king and guests on those few occasions when the situation grew strained, difficult, or tiresome. No such situation, I knew, could possibly arise with Germanus, an old and much loved friend.

  Ban heard us as soon as the doors swung open and he rose to his feet to greet us. His guest rose at the same time, and my first impressions of him were confusing. He was nowhere near as tall as Ban, nor was he quite as broad across the shoulders, and he was far, far older than the King, yet he struck me immediately as being by far the larger of the two men. It would be years before I encountered the concept of presence as it applied to some people, but even though I had no notion of what it was when I first saw Germanus of Auxerre, I was awestricken by my immediate awareness that here was someone larger than life. Rising to his feet beside the King, he seemed to loom over Ban, though he was neither as large as Ban was nor as magnificently dressed. He simply radiated appeal, filling the room with it and demanding the attention of anyone and everyone who entered.

  He certainly claimed all my attention from the moment I set eyes on him, and I watched in open-mouthed admiration as he strode across the room to greet the Lady Vivienne, his face beaming in a wide-mouthed grin of sheer pleasure. He had no time for me at that moment; all his attention was focused tightly upon his hostess, whom he had not seen, I gathered, since his arrival. As I stared, amazed, he threw his arms about her and hugged her in a very unbishoply manner—that word, which sprang newborn into my mind as I watched him, has remained in my vocabulary ever since. Effortlessly, and despite his adva
nced age, he lifted her clear of the ground and spun her around, kissing her soundly on both cheeks as he told her how happy he was to see her again after so long a time. He then placed her firmly back on her feet and did much the same thing to her as she had done to me mere moments earlier: he held her out at arm’s length, her fingertips in his, in order to examine her from head to toe, and then proceeded to heap compliments and blandishments upon every aspect of her appearance, from her gown and veil to her complexion and hair. The Queen preened with pleasure and her husband the King stood smiling like a man besotted.

  But then it was over, suddenly, before I was ready, and he had somehow guided Queen Vivienne into a deep chair and turned the full force of his gaze upon me. I can still recall the sensation of falling that filled me as those eyes met mine; it was akin to the sensation you experience when swinging widely on a hanging rope, far out over water that is deep and still beneath you. Germanus looked at me, and all the gaiety and humor faded from his face to be replaced by an expression I could not decipher. I could almost feel the weight of his scrutiny as his eyes moved up and down and across my body, and in a vain attempt to disguise the effect it was having on me I busied myself in looking back at him, absorbing the details of his appearance.

  He was dressed completely in white, which did not surprise me, white being the color of purity and sanctity, according to my stepmother, the Queen. It seemed appropriate to me, in my ten-year-old wisdom, that God’s bishop should be dressed in white. The high, pointed hat I had expected was nowhere to be seen, however, and I was observant enough to be able to tell from the condition of the bishop’s hair that he had not been wearing a hat at all: it was thick and curly, on the white edge of silvery gray, and he wore it cropped short in the military fashion. He was clean shaven that particular day, although I was to see him bearded as often as not in the years that lay ahead, and his skin was darkened to the color of old bronze by the summer sun. He wore some kind of heavy woolen stole across his shoulders, its ends trailing in front of him and held loosely in place by the bend of his elbows, and beneath that his entire body was encased from neck to ankles in a long, plain robe of heavy white cloth, belted at the waist with a thick length of white silken rope and otherwise completely unadorned. Beneath the hem of that long white garment, however, revealed as he spun around holding the Queen, I had seen heavy, black, thick-soled military boots.