The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  We found no trace of Lorco’s turmae in Lugdunum. No one had heard of him or from him since he and his party passed through on the way north a month earlier. And so Ursus delivered a formal report to the military authorities, describing all that had happened, to the best of our limited knowledge, and left another written missive with the commander of the garrison for delivery to Duke Lorco when he arrived. That done, Ursus and I ate in the garrison refectory that night and slept soundly for eight hours in one of the barracks rooms before striking out again at dawn along the broad, straight highway that followed the Rhone river to the lake called Genava in the ancient territories of Cisalpine Gaul.

  We rode with the river on our right, and at first we had no shortage of companions along the route, teamsters with laden wagons, and self-sufficient pedestrians, and an occasional string of laden mules led by handlers as taciturn as the creatures they led. But as we traveled farther and farther beyond the protection of the military headquarters, our traveling companions reached their various destinations in hamlets and small towns and villa farms and left us to travel on without them, until eventually we were alone again on the open road. We no longer had any need to hunt for food, which pleased us both, for once Ursus had established his identity and his membership in Duke Lorco’s squadrons, he had been able to draw some of his unpaid stipend from the offices of the military paymaster in Lugdunum. With those funds he had immediately gone looking for a commodious tent of hand-sewn leather panels to replace the one he had lost in the ambush by the river. I was most impressed with the workmanship I could see in the tent’s finish, but Ursus waved a hand dismissively, saying it was nowhere near as large or as fine as the one he had lost. Then, having bought the tent, he also bought a horse to carry it, for the thing was much too large to carry on the horse he had inherited from Lorco. I watched closely, but said nothing while he negotiated with the horse trader, but I was satisfied that he had acquitted himself well and had bought a fine, strong animal.

  From the horse dealer’s premises, we next made our way to the armories, where he replenished his supply of arrows and purchased a bow and another quiver full of arrows for me before taking me on an expedition to purchase rations for the ensuing week, and now our saddlebags were filled with provisions: fresh crusty loaves of heavy, rich brown bread; several kinds of dried and salted meat and fish; four rounds of cheese, two soft and new, and two hard and dry; a flask of the garlic-enriched fish oil that had been beloved of Roman soldiers for countless hundreds of years, together with a vial of thick, aromatic black vinegar and even two earthen jars of salty, fat green olives preserved in their own oil. We were men of wealth on this portion of our journey, at least when it came to eating.

  On the afternoon of our second day out of Lugdunum it threatened to rain heavily on us and we could see no signs of any rift in the thick-piled banks of cloud that had swept in upon us from the north, so we decided we would rather make camp early and sit warm and dry in our new leather tent than press on for no good reason and endure the deluge.

  We picked a spot in the open, about a hundred paces from the roadside and close to the river, in the shelter of a huge dead tree that would provide us with all the firewood we might need. It took us almost an hour to pitch the tent to Ursus’s liking, since this was the first time we had tried it and every tent ever made has its own quirks and peculiarities. By the time we had it up and ready to use, my hands were sore and bruised from struggling with stiff new abrasive and unyielding ropes. As soon as that task was done, I went gathering ferns for our bedding, no great hardship compared to pitching the tent because, as close as we were to the water, ferns grew in lush profusion among the trees on the riverbank.

  By the time I had brought back four enormous double loads of fresh green bedding, Ursus had built a healthy fire that he felt confident would burn throughout the coming storm, and we settled in to eat and wait for the storm to break. We ate well that night, and the storm held off until we had eaten our fill and seen to our horses’ needs for the night. We could hear thunder rolling in the distance and so knew that the storm was out there, but no rain fell for a long time and we saw no signs of lightning throughout the time the sun set and night fell. I fell asleep almost before it grew completely dark, and Ursus was already snoring by that time, and I slept soundly through the earliest stages of the breaking storm.

  I snapped awake sometime in the middle of the night, my eyes full of the remembered flare of a burst of brilliant light, and my breast shocked near to death with the concussion of a single massive, booming explosion. I sprang upright, leaping from the softness of my bed to land on my feet, glaring blindly about me and trying to tell myself that I was not afraid. I had no memory of drawing the sword that filled my hand and no awareness of where I was or what was happening. All I knew was I was in pitch darkness and something terrifying had happened. But then I heard the solid, steady roar of heavy rain on the leather panels just above my head, and my memory returned.

  I sucked in air, hard, and tried to calm the thumping in my chest, but it was still pitch black in the tent, and that, combined with the fury of the storm, was frightening, despite the fact that I now knew where I was. Another flare of lightning lit the tent, followed after a moment by a rolling crack of thunder, far different from the one that had brought me leaping from my sleep. Even as the lightning flared and flickered out again I thought I saw something moving at the door of the tent. I opened my mouth to call out to Ursus, and then heard the sound of a heavy blow and muffled curses.

  Without giving myself a moment’s pause to listen again and be sure, lest I lose my nerve, I threw myself toward the front of the tent just as another lightning flash showed me the flaps hanging open. I had closed them myself when I went to bed, and Ursus had already been asleep. I leaped forward and pushed through the flaps to where I could see movement, a struggle of some kind, taking place ahead of me. Ursus, I knew, and someone else. I called his name and moved forward, raising my sword and trying with my free hand to clear the streaming rainwater from my eyes as my feet slipped and slid in the muddy grass, and then I saw more movement looming close beside me, and before I could begin to turn something, someone, hit me hard across the head and I went down.

  Whatever it was that had struck me, it was not metal, and at first I thought it had done me no grievous harm. I felt the wetness of long, sodden grass against my cheek and I rubbed my face in it gratefully before rolling away. No one was pursuing me, I could see, but that could change at any moment. I took a deep breath and tried to rise to my feet, but my head blazed immediately with pain and I barely managed to struggle to my knees. I made one more effort to stand and fell instead, to support myself on all fours while the rain hammered down on me. Appalled at my own weakness, I stared into the blackness and saw Ursus, his back against a tree again, facing a group of crouching figures. Lightning flared again, and in the darkness that followed it I saw six figures lit in the blackness of my mind. I knew then that Ursus was a dead man, for I was utterly incapable of rising to my feet, let alone of rushing to help him.

  “Alive, damn you! I want this whoreson alive!” The voice seemed impossibly familiar to me. Through the pounding of my head I tried to remember where I had heard it before, but the roaring in my ears was growing louder and suddenly I found myself facedown in the grass, my mouth open in a puddle of mud. I grunted and spat and tried to roll over, to get my face away from the threat of drowning.

  When I opened my eyes again the rain had stopped and I was in great pain and still lying on the grass. I tried then to roll again, but I could not. I couldn’t move, and the effort of trying was unendurable, but I gradually became aware of what was causing my immobility: I was on my knees, but face down on the grass, and someone had thrust a stick of some kind across my back, locking it in place with my elbows and then tying my wrists tightly across my belly. The ends of the stick, protruding on each side of me, made it impossible for me to roll to either side. I found that I could turn my head, however, p
roviding I moved it very slowly, and so I worked painfully until I could see what lay on the other side of me. It was Ursus, and he was unconscious, bleeding profusely from what looked like a deep wound on his scalp. He was very close to me and his arms had been tied the same way as mine, allowing me to see that the stick securing his elbows was a spear shaft, which made it likely that mine was, too. But who were the people who had attacked us, and why had their leader wanted to take Ursus, and presumably me, too, alive?

  Before I could even start to puzzle over an answer, I heard movement on the other side of me and turned my head slowly and carefully back to see what was there. The soaked logs of our fire, which had not survived the storm after all, lay directly in front of me now, blocking my vision, and the sour stench of wet ash filled my nostrils. But beyond the soaked heap of the ashes in the fire pit, two figures came into view. Looming high above me and ludicrously distorted by the angle of my vision, they moved forward and stood gazing down at Ursus, ignoring me. Both men wore heavy iron helmets with full face flaps that hid their features and both wore heavy military-style cloaks, but neither the helmets nor the cloaks looked Roman, although I could not have said why.

  One of the two men hawked and spat on the ground. “This has to be him. He fits the description and he’s the only one we found in a day of searching.”

  “What about the other one?”

  “What about him? He’s an accomplice and he’ll share the other’s fate. But I want to get them back as quickly as possible. Looks as though the rain’s passed by, so let’s get on the road. Call the others and make them ready. Four men to accompany these two. Ropes around their necks and let them walk, or run if they have to. They’re lucky I don’t hang them. Whoresons.” He sneezed, and then cursed loudly, reaching up to pull the helmet from his head with one hand while he wiped his mouth and nostrils with the back of the other, and as a shaft of moonlight lit his face I recognized him.

  “Chulderic?” My lips formed the word, but no sound emerged. I stretched my neck and spat to clear my mouth before trying again. This time I tried harder, however, determined that he should hear me, and his name came out as a shout.

  “Chulderic, is that you?”

  I saw the amazement and consternation that swept his face as he jerked his head around to look down at me, his eyebrows drawing together into a single bar.

  “What in … ? Who are you, to call me by my name, whoreson?” He was gazing straight into my face but clearly did not know me.

  “Chulderic, it’s me, Clothar, son of—Ban!” On the very point of blurting out my true father’s name, I remembered all the dire warnings I had ever heard about the dangers involved in that, and changed the words on my lips. “Clothar of Benwick!”

  He stood stunned, peering at me open mouthed, incapable of moving, yet weaving slightly on his feet as though he might pitch forward and fall down.

  “What did you say?” he asked after what seemed like a long time, and then he took a step and did fall forward, landing on one knee beside the fire and bending forward to grasp my face and turn it to where he could see it more clearly. “Clothar? Is that … ? By the white bull of Mithras, it is you. How come you here, boy?” He looked up at his companion and barked, “Get him up out of there and cut him free.” The man moved swiftly to obey, lifting me gently to my feet and then cutting firmly at the ropes binding my wrists across my belly before removing the spear from across my back.

  “I’m on my way home,” I said as the ropes fell away from my wrists and before the pain of returning circulation had time to strike. “To King Ban, with messages from Bishop Germanus. My friend here is Ursus, who has been guarding me along the way. Cut him loose, please.”

  “Urs—?” Chulderic glanced from me to my unconscious companion and then back to me again. “This is a friend of yours? The bowman? Is he a Roman? Can you vouch for him?”

  Now I spoke through gritted teeth as I tried to deny the agony in my wrists and ankles, and I had little patience with what I saw as Chulderic’s obtuseness. “For what? Of course I can vouch for him, but I don’t know what you want. Nor do I know if he’s a Roman. All I do know is that he’s a good man.”

  “Ah, so you don’t know him that well … . Has he been with you all day long?”

  “Aye, he has, and all day yesterday, too, since we left the garrison at Lugdunum. He has not been out of my sight for nigh on three weeks. Why are you asking me these questions? What do you think he has done?”

  “He has nigh murdered King Ban, boy. That is what he’s done.”

  “Balls!” The expletive came naturally to my lips and Chulderic did not even blink at it. “Ursus has been riding by my side since we left Lugdunum yesterday at dawn. I told you that. We have not even stopped to hunt since then. We camped at the twenty-fourth mile marker last night and traveled on today until the storm began to build, late in the afternoon. We made camp, right here, to wait out the storm.” I stopped then, realizing what the old man had said about King Ban. “Is the King dead?”

  “No. I said he was nigh murdered, not killed dead. He lies about five miles from here, in an armed camp. Someone shot him yesterday, from afar—a sneaking, cowardly attack that almost succeeded but fell short.”

  “You mean the arrow fell short?”

  “No, boy, the attempt fell short, of complete success. The arrow struck the King beneath his upraised arm as he stood up in his stirrups to rally his men, and it struck deep and high into his chest, its point deflected upward by the armpit rim of his cuirass. The wound is grievous, but it might not yet be fatal. The next few days will tell, and he is surrounded by physicians and the surgeon Sakander, the best there is. If anyone can save him, Sakander will.”

  “And you think Ursus did this thing, in my company?”

  “We have a description of him, Clothar. He was seen. A tall man, dressed in black and well armored, carrying a bow.”

  “And riding a high black horse?”

  “What? No. We heard no tale of any horse. The killer was afoot.”

  “Well someone has mistaken Ursus for someone else. He is tall, and he wears black and has good armor and a bow, but he also rides a magnificent horse, the twin to mine. Both are close by here, hobbled in good pasture with a third animal, a packhorse, about a hundred paces along the riverbank there. Did you not check them?”

  The old man frowned. “Not in the dark, no. We came up on your tent under cover of the storm because one of our scouts had seen you late in the evening, before the storm broke. But he said nothing of horses.” He turned again to his companion and indicated Ursus. “Do as he says, Jonas. Cut him free. We’ve obviously made an error here. Master Clothar, as you’ve heard, is King Ban’s nephew.”

  I felt myself frowning so hard that my face was starting to ache. The vision of my uncle as I had last seen him hovered in front of my eyes.

  “What is the King doing here, Chulderic, so far from Genava?”

  The old man looked at me in surprise, astonished that I should even have to ask such a foolish question. “He is being the King, fighting for his people and their safety. The entire countryside is crawling with two-legged vermin—Alamanni and the accursed Burgundians—all seeking what they call ‘room to live.’ We’ve been killing them as quickly as we can, and in the biggest numbers we can find, for nigh on three months now. They must breed like rats, the whoresons, because the more of them we kill, it seems, the more of them spill out of sewers and noisome craters in the earth. And they are outraged, crying to Rome for help against our ravages! Can you believe such shit? They want us to hold up our hands and step aside and let them take over our homes without a word of protest. Oh, it’s been going on for a hundred years now, especially with the Alamanni, you know that. But now the whoreson Burgundians are causing us more grief than the damned Alamanni ever have.”

  He paused, and for a moment I thought he was finished, but he was merely rallying his forces, gathering his strength, and nurturing his outrage and disgust.

&nbs
p; “And they have imperial backing, it appears, whoreson supporters at some rarified level of government who maintain that Empire—and tell me, pray, what Empire that might be? Tell me that!—Empire, they say, could not survive without their wondrous aid. Burgundian aid! They are being given title to lands around Genava—other people’s lands—as a reward for what is described as ‘faithful and unstinting service in Imperial Wars’! Have you ever heard such rabid filth? What about us, who live here and have fought and died for the whoreson Empire forever, without thought of asking for special privilege or dispensation? Would it ever have occurred to us to ask Rome’s blessing upon our actions had we decided we have a right to usurp and dispossess our neighbors? Sweet Jesus crucified!”

  I had been waiting for a pause in his tirade and I leaped in before he could begin again. “I need to see King Ban, Chulderic. Will you take us there?”

  He nodded, but his eyes still lingered suspiciously on Ursus, who had not moved since being cut free and showed no sign of returning to consciousness. “Aye,” he growled. “I will. But we had best see to your friend here. He should have come to his senses ere now.”

  He was right, and I knelt quickly by Ursus, shaking his shoulder and calling him by name. Fortunately, he heard me on my first attempt and came awake slowly, groaning as he reached up to cradle his head, but then he remembered what had been happening before he fell and he snapped awake, pushing himself up until he was sitting, staring up at Chulderic. I offered him my arm and pulled him up to his feet, and then I made the introductions and told him what had happened.