The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  The truth was, of course, that of the twenty-two Spartans in our current year, only eleven possessed the skills and the prowess that would be required to emerge as victor. The remaining eleven possessed skills and abilities directed more toward generating higher standards of clerical and scholastic excellence. It had become the tradition among the Spartans that each Warrior, as the more physically inclined students were called—they were selected by Tiberias Cato and his staff for their athletic and equestrian prowess—would be assigned one or more Scholars as partners for the year. The unit thus formed would become a team, competing together against the other teams in the class, but also performing together when it came to the supervisory duties and responsibilities incumbent upon the Spartans as senior students. There had been eighteen Spartans in the previous year’s class, and of those only six had been real Warriors, and so that class had been split into six teams each of three students. This year, by contrast, we were evenly split into pairs, eleven Warriors and Scholars respectively. My Scholar was Dominic Tara, the smallest and the youngest, but also the most brilliantly gifted student in the class in both mathematics and geography, the areas wherein I was weakest.

  Dominic came looking for me soon after Cato’s announcement and found me talking with two of my closest friends, Stephan Lorco and Quintus Milo, who, as his name suggested, was the youngest of five brothers, all of whom had attended the Bishop’s School. Dominic’s face was set in a very peculiar expression and he was moving strangely. I stopped whatever I was saying.

  “Dom, what’s wrong?” I asked him. “You look as though you’ve discovered something terrifying.”

  He said nothing, but looked at me with that peculiar wide-eyed expression and shook his head.

  Dom was the only member of the Spartans who was called by his given name. Everyone else in the school, and certainly among the Spartans, was either known simply by his family name—Lorco and Milo were two of those—or by a descriptive nickname. I cannot remember now why Dom should have been different from everyone else in that respect, but I suspect it had to do with his age and his tiny size—he reminded most of us of smaller brothers we had left at home, and we tended to treat him more tolerantly and gently as a result of that.

  “Dom?” I repeated, raising my voice to capture his attention, but he shook his head again, disregarding both me and Milo, and spoke to Lorco.

  “I’m to summon you to the Chancellor,” he said.

  The smile vanished instantly from Lorco’s face. A summons to the Chancellor was never issued lightly, nor was it treated as anything less than disastrous. Brother Ansel, the Chancellor, was first deputy to Bishop Germanus and was charged with the daily running and discipline of the school whenever the bishop had to go away, which occurred with some regularity. There was little doubt that he was an able administrator, but he was also a man utterly devoid of both humor and mercy. Ansel had become famed for the intolerance and inflexibility of his views and for the ferocity of his punishments. None of us were sure if Germanus was aware of Ansel’s other side, and of course, no one rushed to inform him that his deputy was preternaturally cruel and remorseless, and every student in the school behaved with extreme caution whenever the bishop went away.

  Lorco’s face had drained of all color as he tried to think of what crime he must stand charged.

  “No, it’s not that,” Dom continued, looking quickly from Lorco to Milo and then to me, seeing the effect his words had had on all of us and trying to reassure us with flapping hands. He turned hurriedly back to Lorco. “It’s nothing bad … at least, I don’t think it is … . He’s not after you … I believe it’s your father.”

  Death. The word, unspoken, clanged loudly in all our minds. The only time anyone ever seemed to speak of parents here was when word arrived that one or another of them had died unexpectedly.

  “Wha—” Lorco had to cough to clear his throat. “What about my father?”

  “He’s here, I think. In the school.”

  That was even more startling than the summons to the Chancellor. “My father?” The disbelief in Lorco’s voice would have been laughable at any other time. “You’re mad. My father’s more than five hundred miles from here, probably in Hispania, pacifying the Iberians.”

  Dom merely threw up his hands, palms outward. “I don’t know, then. Perhaps I’m wrong. But there’s a strange man in with the Chancellor, someone I’ve never seen before, and he looks like a soldier, and I know your father is a soldier. I went in to do some transcription for Brother Marcus in the vestibule beside the bishop’s day room and I heard old Ansel talking to someone, so I peeked through an open door and saw this man. I couldn’t hear much of what they were saying, but what I could hear sounded boring. I didn’t pay any attention to them at all after that, to tell the truth, until I heard your name being mentioned. And I’m pretty sure I. heard the man say something about his son. A little while after that the door opened and old Ansel stuck his head out and sent me to fetch you.”

  Lorco looked at me, his eyes wide, and I shrugged. “Better get going,” I told him. “It’s not wise to keep old Ansel waiting, and besides, Dom might be right. If he is, and your father’s here, that’s good, is it not?”

  In truth, I was not sure whether it was good or not. We boys, as the stoic Spartans we were supposed to be, seldom spoke among ourselves about our homes or our parents, and the reason for that was more self-defense than reticence. When you were as completely immersed as we were in a life that offered ample hardship and few comforts, it became foolish to endanger what little equanimity you possessed by dwelling on memories of home and family and the softnesses and luxuries you could find there.

  Fortunately, Lorco’s face broke into a wide, toothy grin as soon as I asked the question. “Better than good,” he said. “It’s unbelievable. If my Tata’s really here, we’ll all have some fun. You’ll like him, I promise you.”

  It turned out to be true. The man with Brother Ansel was Lorco’s father, Phillipus Lorco, another former legate who had soldiered under Germanus’s command and now held the military title and rank of dux, or duke. As Duke Lorco, he was now the imperial governor of a huge territory in the southwest of Gaul that included the entire mountainous region separating Gaul from Hispania, but in his time with the legions, even before the advent of Germanus, he had won great acclaim and successes coordinating and conducting hard-fought, relentless campaigns against the Burgundian tribes who had been invading south-central Gaul and spreading havoc there for nigh on a hundred years.

  He was now here in Auxerre, it transpired, because he had been urgently summoned by Germanus’s military successors to attend a gathering of imperial strategists in the fortress at Treves, Germanus’s own former base and still the military headquarters at that time for all of Gaul. The purpose of this extraordinary assembly was to coordinate a campaign against the ever-bellicose Burgundians, who were once again threatening to break out of the territories they had now occupied for decades, this time to engulf the entire southwest, of Gaul. Duke Lorco’s contribution to the planning and prosecution of the campaign had been deemed both invaluable and a sine qua non of success.

  Faced with a journey of several hundreds of miles north to Treves from his home base in the ancient fortified town of Carcasso in the south, and aware that the most direct route to his destination would take him within a hundred miles of Auxerre, where his eldest son, Stephan, was in school and prospering, the Duke had allowed himself sufficient time in advance of the gathering to visit his old friend and commander Germanus, his primary purpose to arrange to take his son back home with him to Carcasso when the boy’s schooling was completed and the Duke’s own duties in Treves were concluded.

  It turned out that the bishop was not in Auxerre for his arrival but was expected to arrive back in Auxerre the following day. In the meantime, the senior Lorco had three days to spend in Auxerre before striking out for Treves, and Brother Ansel had magnanimously permitted him to renew his acquaintance with his s
on.

  I had the privilege of meeting Duke Lorco that same afternoon, when he came with his son to be introduced to me and Milo as Lorco’s closest friends. He was a friendly, affable man with an easy manner and a charming disposition that stirred a fleeting spasm of resentment in me at the thought of how fortunate Lorco was to have a living father. The sensations caused me to flush with guilt and shame at what I judged to be disloyalty to my adoptive parents in Genava, and with those feelings came an abrupt awareness of how much I missed them and how greatly I wanted to see them again. I would give anything to see my stepfather’s face again I thought then, and with the notion, Ban of Benwick stood before me in my mind, gazing at me with that raised eyebrow of his and smiling his slightly crooked grin.

  Those feelings passed and left me feeling content as I stood beside Milo, watching Lorco leave the school with his father. They would dine together privately that evening in the Duke’s quarters in the nearby mansio, the local hostelry maintained by the imperial civil service for the accommodation of couriers and others traveling on official affairs. Whether Lorco would return to the school that night at all was something that remained to be seen, although I hoped that he might not. He was so obviously happy and proud to see his father and to have had the opportunity to introduce him to us, his friends, that I felt he deserved to be allowed to spend every moment that he could in his father’s company. The mere occurrence of such a thing—a student remaining out of the school overnight—was unusual enough to cause all kinds of talk among the other students, and for once the boys talked as they never had before about the places they came from and about their loved ones. More than a few tears were shed without much effort being made to hide them, so that there was a subdued atmosphere in the dormitories at curfew that night that was almost palpable, despite the countering excitement over the coming day’s activities and the promised competition.

  It was midafternoon and the celebrations at the school were already well under way when Bishop Germanus arrived, without fanfare, at the exercise grounds attached to the school’s extensive stables. All activities ceased, and a respectful silence hung over the assembled students. I watched my mentor as he dismounted from the pony he rode that day and walked, alone as always, slowly toward the raised reviewing stand at the far end of the open-air arena where most of the afternoon’s contests and events were talking place, then mounted the dais to join the assembled tutors, staff, and visitors.

  As I watched the bishop on this occasion, however, something in the way he moved brought the realization home to me, for the first time ever, that Germanus of Auxerre was an old man. I saw something different and bothersome in him that day, something intangible and yet unnervingly suggestive of a lack of healthiness, although it appeared and disappeared so fleetingly that I was able to convince myself that I had imagined it. It may have been the way he walked the few steps from dismounting from the pony to the start of the stairs rising to the stand. The day had been fine, on the whole, but a heavy shower of rain had fallen half an hour earlier and muddied the ground underfoot, making it treacherous, and just before the bishop reached the first of the steps to the dais he paused, a very brief hesitation, and reached, unsteadily it seemed to me, for the support of the handrail. It happened, I saw it, and the unwelcome burden of a new anx-iety descended upon my head and shoulders.

  I was completely unprepared for the revelation and I rejected it even as it occurred to me. I can distinctly remember the anger I felt at myself at that moment for even thinking such a thought—entertaining the very notion of his mortality. But unsought and unexpected as it was, it disconcerted me to the point of causing a strong spasm of anxiety in my breast.

  No one else noticed, I am quite sure of that, because Germanus reached the top of the stairs to the dais and strode directly along the front row of seats, his bearing utterly regal and resolute, to where Duke Lorco had risen to greet him. The two men embraced as old friends do and exchanged a few pleasantries before Germanus excused himself and turned to bless the gathering before sending Tiberias Cato the signal to continue with the proceedings his arrival had interrupted. That done, he sat down in the vacant seat by Duke Lorco’s side and both men talked animatedly for a while before settling back to watch the competition, which was now approaching the final stages.

  I had been doing well in the competition until then and was quietly confident that I was ahead of the field on points. I had been in excellent form in the preliminary events, all of which involved athletic activities on foot: running, jumping, and wrestling, and the fighting drills, which included mock combat with clubs, swords, and heavy spears, as well as archery and lance throwing.

  I had won the running events easily, to no one’s surprise. I had grown a handsbreadth during the summer of my third year at the school, which had inspired much jesting and also my nickname, Legs. But Lorco had challenged me seriously on the broad jump, and I had been on the point of giving up, convinced that I could not possibly match his final, inspired leap, when I saw Tiberias Cato watching me, a troubled, meditative look on his face. I knew Cato had no time for anyone who ever quit ahead of being beaten in anything, and I did not want him ever to think such a thing of me, so I rallied and gritted my teeth for one last, all-out attempt. Somehow I managed to fly out and land precisely where Lorco had landed, destroying his mark in the process and making it impossible to discern whether one of us had outdistanced the other. The judges shook their heads and consulted the notations they had made earlier and muttered among themselves for a long time before they called the event a draw.

  I had then fought my way more than adequately through the range of fighting drills, too, emerging unbeaten from all but the last category, the lance-throwing event, where my closest rivals were Milo and Gaius Balbus, the boy I liked least of all the Spartans. Balbus was taller than I was, and slightly heavier, the largest student in our class, and although I could beat him easily in most events, including swords and heavy spears, he was the only student who could throw a javelin consistently farther than I could. Fortunately for me, however, he could not throw with anything approaching my accuracy, and that displeased him greatly, since accuracy gained more points than distance. I seldom had difficulty in upsetting him sufficiently to make him lose his temper, and with it his judgment, whenever we competed. He was quick to anger and viciously savage with his tongue when he was angry, which was the reason I found it easy to dislike him, for he had stung me and all of my friends too often with his waspish, sarcastic ill-humor.

  On this particular morning, however, Balbus had aligned himself alongside Milo, who was throwing very well, consistently, and with impressive accuracy. Balbus had paced himself deliberately and precisely, concentrating fiercely and modeling his performance and his rhythm and tempo on Milo’s and ignoring me and my performance completely. It worked well for him, and by the start of the last round of throws—five casts each at the torso of a man-size target thirty paces distant—he and I had both scored sixteen hits out of a possible twenty-five.

  The rules of the competition were simple, but the degree of difficulty escalated hugely with each round of five casts. The initial targets, wooden cut-out figures of men, were set up twenty paces from the throwing line, and the whitewashed scoring area extended from the line of the hips up to the head and included the arms—a relatively easy mark. After each round of five casts, however, new targets were placed two paces farther away from the throwing line and the scoring area was reduced in size, the arms and head being among the first to go, until by the last round the casts were thirty paces long and the scoring area was a wrist-to-elbow-length square on the target’s chest.

  Going into that last round, Milo was one point ahead of both of us. He had scored eighteen hits, his best score ever and a school record for twenty-five casts. It may have been the lengthy duration of the event—thirty casts of an infantryman’s lancea, the ancient, thonged javelin used so effectively by the Roman armies for hundreds of years, exacts a terrible toll on the t
hrowing muscles—but Milo missed the scoring area of the target with all five of his final casts, although all five hit the wooden target somewhere, and he ended up with eighteen points out of a possible thirty. I hit three out of five to beat Milo’s score by one, but Balbus, in a display of unsuspected virtuosity that shook and humbled me, hit solidly with all five casts and emerged with yet another record: twenty-one hits out of thirty casts.

  It was purely coincidental that the bishop arrived just shortly before we were to progress to the riding events, most of which were designed to test advanced riding skills and the formal, correct, and precise handling of animals in restrictive and difficult situations. Several of the equestrian contests, however—and the most difficult, according to some people—involved grueling tests of both horse and rider in events that measured stamina and endurance, as opposed to precision and obedience. The most brutally demanding of those were point-to-point races over planned routes, and fiendishly difficult obstacle courses that had to be negotiated within stringent, close-to-impossible time constraints.

  This was the area in which I felt most confident—far more so even than in the foot-racing events. I did not feel even slightly presumptuous when I told myself that no one among my classmates could come close to me in anything having to do with horses and horsemanship.