The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  “So,” he said finally, his eyes fixed now on mine. “You are Clothar, son of Childebertus and Elaine.” I waited, not knowing how to respond and not quite daring to glance at my foster parents for guidance. Then slowly Germanus held out his right hand, palm up and fingers extended, and I stepped forward and stretched out my own, palm downward. His long fingers closed around mine, warm and supple, yet callused as though from long, hard work. Still looking deep into my eyes, he smiled and nodded. “I knew your grandfather Jacob, you know, in Constantinople. He was a friend of mine, a very good friend, although he was far more than twice my age. He came from Britain. Jacobus was his Roman name, but everyone called him Jacob. He was a lawyer, and so was I, although he was a famous arbitrator with a lifetime of triumphs behind him by then and I was just starting my career. This was long before I met your father—almost a full decade earlier, as a matter of fact. I was honored that he chose to befriend me, for his own reasons, and I still am.” He nodded again, still smiling. “I didn’t meet your father until we were both in the army. You father was a junior officer, and I was his commanding legate, so had I not known Jacob as well as I did, and then discovered almost by accident that your father was his son, the two of us might never have met, let alone become close friends.”

  He stared at me steadily for a time, then rested an elbow on the back of his left fist and ran the tip of an index finger down the length of his cheek, a gesture with which I was to become familiar over the next decade, knowing it as an indicator that the bishop was thinking deeply, remembering or considering. “I never knew your father when he was your age, but I can see him in you, as you are. Your grandfather, Jacob would have been proud to see you standing there, the image of his own son.” He was silent then, looking at me still, pouting slightly so that his lower lip protruded against the tip of his finger. It was clear that he was thinking, but still I could not judge from his expression what kind of thoughts were going through his head.

  “You are to come with me when I leave here,” he said then, “to be a student in my school in Auxerre. Does that cause you concern?” I managed to shake my head, but could not have spoken had my life depended on it. “You are sure about that, are you not?” I nodded. He turned back to my parents, cocking his head. “You didn’t tell me he is mute.”

  Ban laughed aloud, and even Vivienne smiled. “Oh, he’s no mute, believe me,” Ban said. “He may be awed by you, for the time being, but that will wear off, and when he finds his tongue again you may end up wishing he were mute indeed.”

  The bishop turned to me again, an expression in his eyes that might have contained a hint of humor. “Will I?” he asked me. “Are you really that loud? I find that hard to credit. Mind you, your father was known to raise his voice from time to time. Come, sit with us. We have things to talk about before we go down to dine, and once there, there will be too many others talking for us to hear ourselves. Sit, and let me tell you what lies in store for you at Auxerre.”

  I took the chair he indicated, across from him and between the King and Queen, and for a short time everyone spoke in generalities, as people do when they meet after having been years apart, questing to find topics that will neither strain nor test the relationship they had once known together. Finally, Queen Vivienne asked the bishop the question that turned the conversation toward me.

  “What will you teach Clothar, up there in Auxerre, that he will not have touched upon here in Benwick?”

  Germanus grinned. “Probably little, if not nothing. The concerns and the materials of education are unchanging—reading and writing, logic, debate, philosophy, science, polemic, and geography … but the focus of everything will be different, if you can understand what that means.”

  The Queen smiled. “I understand completely. You are referring to the scope of things.”

  “Exactly so, my Lady, simply because of the size of the school and the number of pupils. We have wonderful teachers, most of whom I hired myself after lengthy observation.” He turned to me. “I wonder … I had better make it clear to you from the outset, Clothar, that although you will be in my charge, I will not be your personal teacher. Did you know that, or did you think you would be under my constant attention?”

  Still unwilling to trust my tongue, I merely shook my head again, and he grunted, deep in his throat. “Aye,” he said. “Well, that is the way of it. I’ll be your confessor, and I will keep a close eye on you and on all your activities, serving as your parents’ deputy in a double capacity—on behalf of your real parents, who were my friends, and of your foster parents here, who are no less parents and who remain my friends. You and I will meet privately at least once every week to discuss your progress and your life and anything else demanding our attention, but your actual teaching will be at the hands of others, all of them better tutors than I could ever be. I have my pastoral work, as Bishop of Auxerre, and that, I fear, often consumes more time than I have to spend.” He sniffed, thrusting out his lower lip again. “Do you know anything about our school?”

  I knew a nod would not serve as a response this time and so I coughed to clear my throat. “No, sir.”

  The bishop nodded and looked at King Ban and from him to the Lady Vivienne. “And what about you two?”

  Ban slowly shook his head.

  “There is no reason you should, I suppose. Auxerre is a long way from here … . But I confess I am disappointed that the fame of our school has failed to penetrate this far.”

  “Enlighten us, then, dear Germanus—” The Queen stopped short. “Oh, forgive me. Should I be calling you by another name, now that you are a bishop?”

  Germanus laughed. “Absolutely not! Call me Germanus as you always have. That’s who I am and nothing about me has changed simply because I am become a bishop. Titles are for others. Among friends as old as us, names never change.”

  The Queen bowed her head, acknowledging the courtesy. “Thank you. Now tell us about this school of yours.”

  The bishop’s face grew sober. “It is a school in the tradition of the ancients, where boys are taught the things they need to know in order to be good men, accepting duty and responsibility.”

  “What kind of boys attend this school of yours? Are they all the sons of wealthy men?”

  Germanus smiled at the Queen, but in answering her he spoke to both of them. “No, not at all, although many of them are. Ours is a school for boys, my Lady, not necessarily rich boys. The prime entrance requirement to our ranks is intellect. We are looking to train minds and encourage learning for learning’s sake. Our world is changing rapidly nowadays, my friends, and many of the old, time-honored ways of doing things are being forgotten and abandoned. And it pains me to say it, but high among those.things ranks the education of our children. Education has fallen out of favor, the need for it seemingly eclipsed by the catastrophes and cataclysms shaking the very foundations of the Empire. In a disintegrating world, people are thinking, there is little need for education.”

  “Think you the world is coming to an end?” This question from King Ban made my eyes snap wide open. The notion of World’s End is a Christian one and Ban was no Christian, and yet here he was, asking the bishop for reassurance.

  Germanus shook his head. “Are you referring to the return of the Christ in the Final Judgment? I think not. Not yet. The Scriptures tell us that the Second Coming lies ahead of us, but they also indicate that much requires to be done before it comes upon us. At least, that is what I believe. The Empire may be facing its end and that would not surprise me, but not the world, I think. Mind you, I may be wrong. No man may know the mind of God and it is blasphemous to presume to do so. But it is the possibility that the world might survive that causes me such great concern over the education of our children. And so we believe—we being the elders and bishops of the Church—that we court disaster if we allow our children to run wild. If we fail to teach them how to read and write and use their minds as God intended, then they and our entire world will fall back into Godless sa
vagery. And so we maintain schools.”

  “To train clerics for the Church.” The Queen’s voice was gentle, no hint of censure to be found in it, but Germanus caught the inference.

  “Of course,” he agreed. “But not exclusively. The world needs more than clerics. It needs leaders—educated, Christian leaders.”

  “And soldiers.” This was Ban.

  “Aye, indeed, soldiers, too.” The bishop’s gaze returned to me. “The King tells me you have the makings of a cavalry soldier. We will build on that. Tiberias Cato, one of our brethren, served with me in the army and saved my life on numerous occasions simply because he is a magnificent horseman—the finest natural rider I have ever known. He, too, knew your father, although not, perhaps, your mother. Cato will supervise your training as a horseman and a cavalryman—I know you know the two are not necessarily the same.” His pause was barely perceptible. “You do know that, do you not?”

  I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

  “And do you know the difference?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent. What is it?”

  “You can be a horseman without being a cavalryman, but you cannot be a cavalryman without being a horseman.”

  “Absolutely. Good lad. Anyway, Tiberias Cato was a doughty fighter in his time and now he is a marvelously gifted teacher and trainer, but he is more horse than human at times. He will be responsible for your overall development in military things. There will be others working with you, too, in the various disciplines, but Tiberias will be your primary trainer. He will take whatever talents you possess for horsemanship and polish them until they dazzle even you.

  “Apart from that—and it is probably sinful of me to prioritize in such a manner, but the soldier in me frequently fights with the bishop—apart from that, you will study all the other subjects that a well-tutored young man should know. You will learn the rudiments of Greek, sufficient for some of your reading, but for the most part you will be taught in Latin. You will have training in logic, debate and polemics, philosophy, mathematics and geometry, geography, and the basic elements of imperial law. Also, you will be living among priests and clerics, and so you will behave for the most part as they do, adhering to the Order of Saint Benedict and observing the prayers and ceremonies he has decreed as being proper for a devout man of any age. You will eat well, three times a day, and in return for your food and lodgings, you will be expected to share the tasks of keeping the school clean and its students well fed. That means you will scrub floors, whitewash walls, wash clothes, grow and gather food, prepare it, and serve it to your fellows.”

  He stopped, frowning at me as he watched my reactions to his words, and then his face broke once again into a wide, friendly grin. “But not all of those at once, I promise you. Each of those tasks will fall to you no more than once a month, for one day at a time. We have cooks and gardeners and carpenters and masons who work full time at their various crafts. You, as a student, will be seconded from time to time to assist them, and that means performing the dirty, heavy work most of the time. So you will be required to work and work hard, but the requirements are not brutal and you will have plenty of time to study and to rest between spells of duty.”

  He sat gazing at me for long moments, and then he said, “Do you have any questions to ask of me?”

  “Yes, sir. What … what should I call you?”

  He barked a short, deep laugh. “Hah! Straight to the point, and a good question. You’ll call me what all your fellows call me: Father Germanus. That’s the simplest and most effective name we have been able to come up with, and it has taken us some time to arrive at it. I am no longer an active army officer, so General and Legate are invalid, and I have a personal dislike for the term Bishop used as a name. ‘Magister’ is another term I dislike, because it bears too many overtones of army life, which is notoriously impious and ungodly. Then there is a movement among some of the Church’s adherents nowadays, particularly in the east, toward equality in which all members of a clerical community address each other as Brother. We have a number of men in our community whose use of the title Brother is highly appropriate. These are laymen, devout and pious beyond question, who choose to live lives of service to God and to conduct that service in our community, but they have taken no vows and have not been consecrated to the priesthood. They are Brethren in the Christ and I honor them highly. For a time, I even considered adopting Brother as my title, too, but the truth is that to those who attend my school I am both teacher and superior, and I have no desire to be anything as egalitarian as a brother.” He paused and smiled again. “As a bishop, I am the pastor and father of my flock, and as mentor and governor to a school full of boys, I am, ipso facto, a fatherly figure. So, like everyone else, you will call me Father Germanus. Have I explained that clearly?”

  “Yes, Father Germanus.”

  For the following half hour, the three adults moved on to speak of other things and I spoke not another word, although I missed nothing of what was being said. Soon, however, we were summoned to dinner by the King’s Chancellor, formally dressed in honor of the bishop’s visit, and I was banished to sit among the lesser family members in the body of the hall. I made sure to seat myself on the side of the table that permitted me an uninterrupted view of the King and Queen and their guest, however, and I barely took my eyes off my new guardian until they rose again to leave.

  I spent the next morning preparing to take my leave of my family and friends, and the time passed by in a blink, so that it was suddenly past noon and I was standing outside the main gates of Ban’s castle, holding my horse’s reins and awaiting the signal to mount. My belongings were all safely packed and stowed in one of the three wagons in our train, and I had made all my farewells to those I loved, including my old nurse Ludda, Allisan the head cook, who had doted on me since my infancy, and Queen Vivienne herself. All three partings had wrung tears from me and as I stood there waiting for the signal that would send us on our way, I was highly aware of the reddened rims around my eyes and agonizingly and increasingly conscious of the fact that I had no slightest desire to go with Bishop Germanus, or to live in his renowned school among strangers. Benwick Castle was the only home I had ever known and already, standing outside its main gates with all my belongings and gazing up the walls, I was missing it unendurably. From this day forth I would become an alien, an outsider living in a strange land far to the north and west. My friends here would soon forget me as they grew up without me and I knew, deep in my soul, that I would never be able to return, because I had once heard King Ban say to someone that there is no going back. Once you move beyond a thing or a place, you outgrow it and you can never return and find satisfaction there again. That thought terrified me with the vision of all I would be losing by this departure, and my aunt Vivienne’s face sprang into my mind, her lips quivering slightly in a tremulous, deeply regretful smile. And suddenly I felt my traitorous lower lip begin to tremble in exactly the way it had when I was little and preparing to burst into tears. I gritted my teeth fiercely and sucked a great, deep breath, swallowing hard and looking away from familiar faces up on the walls, forcing myself to think about the physical journey ahead of us and trying to visualize the unknown territories through which we would be passing. But of course that was impossible and so I finally turned my back altogether on the crowd and stood glaring off into the distance, hoping that no one would come to ask why I was doing that, because as soon as anyone did, he would see the tears streaming down my cheeks.

  Finally there came a noise and a restless stirring at the gates and I swung around again, scrubbing at my tears with my sleeve and just in time to see the crowd of onlookers parting to permit the King and Queen to emerge with Germanus. And at once I forgot all that had been in my mind as my eyes fastened upon my new guardian. There was nothing bishoply about his appearance on this occasion, either. He wore a military style tunic of rich brown and white fabric, kilted above his knees, and sturdy, heavy riding boots with spurs. He
wore a heavy cloak of plain brown cloth, too, fastened across his chest with a bronze chain and thrown back over his shoulders. He was bareheaded and he carried no weapons, but no one setting eyes on him would ever have mistaken him for anything other than a soldier, and seeing him, my heart leaped and felt suddenly lighter within me and I was able to smile and wave to where King Ban and Queen Vivienne were both watching me. The Queen blew a kiss to me and the King lifted his clenched fist to his left breast in salute, and I bowed my head in acknowledgment, to both of them. Then the king raised his arm in a signal and a trumpeter on the walls above us blew a salute in response, and we swung away, turning our backs on Benwick and riding—I, at least—into a new, unknown, and consequently frightening world.

  I adapted to my new life with all the resilience of any ten-year-old boy, accepting everything that came my way, no matter how new or strange, and adjusting immediately to whatever demands or requirements it entailed. Everything that occurred after we left Benwick was new and alien to some extent, and so I quickly learned to catalogue and categorize each event almost as it occurred, assessing, absorbing, and accepting the results, for better or for worse, as part of the way things now were, and I threw myself wholeheartedly into every element of the wondrous adventure that my life had become.

  All my life, until arriving in Germanus’s new school—the Bishop’s School, everyone called it—I had regarded King Ban’s castle in Benwick as the pinnacle of privileged living. Here in Auxerre, however, I found that the sumptuous luxury of Germanus’s family home beggared description. No matter that Germanus himself was now a pauper, having ceded his houses, wealth, and all other possessions to the Church; he yet lived in his own former home as bishop and custodian for the Church, and his beloved school, which he considered his life’s work and his greatest endeavor for the glory of God, was housed in another of his family’s former dwellings, close to his own house and scarcely less luxurious.