The Lance Thrower cc-8

by Jack Whyte

  I could almost feel the tension in the air as everyone waited to see how I would respond to this last insult, but I merely bowed my head very slightly and answered him again in tones of mild civility.

  “Nor will I answer you, asked thus. My name is my own and I have no intention of divulging it to a nameless brigand on the road simply because he has a posy of pretty blossoms as sweet as he is to back him up in his prancing and posturing.” I watched their uniform reaction of amazed disbelief as my words registered in their minds and I continued before any of them could find his voice.

  “As to where I have come from, you know that already, or you should, had you a brain with which to think and take note.” I pointed backward over my shoulder, then flipped my hand forward to point toward the far side of the stream. “I came from back there, I’m going over there, and you are in my way. Now stand aside and let me pass.”

  My challenger smiled now and his entire face was transformed into radiance, but he shook his head slowly from side to side. “No,” he said, “I feel no overwhelming need to move aside; no urgency. I fear you may have to bludgeon your way past me—unless, of course, you would prefer to lead your horse across, farther downstream.”

  “Bludgeon my way? Against all seven of you?”

  “Why not? These are our lands and you do not belong in them. Do you mislike the odds?”

  “That depends upon how you intend to fight me, fellow—to the death, with you afoot and me mounted, then so be it. I’ll kill all seven of you, using these.” I reached back and touched the bundle of spears that hung behind my shoulder.

  My tormentor laughed. “You have only four of them and there are nine of us, not seven.”

  I had forgotten the other two men I had seen earlier, and that made me angry at myself, but before I could respond in any way a voice spoke from my right, where the two from the riverbank had approached me unseen and, even worse, unsuspected.

  “That’s enough, Bedwyr. Let the man go on his way.”

  The man called Bedwyr swung his head to face the newcomer, his face registering astonishment and protest. “But, Magister, we can’t let him ride by without a toll of some kind.”

  “Of course you can. Besides, I think he might have the advantage between the two of you.”

  Bedwyr’s expression changed from protest to outrage. “What advantage, Magister, other than the horse? If he fights me on foot, face-to-face, I’ll crush him.”

  I turned my head to look at the man they called “Magister,” the title of respect by which, as a student, I had addressed Tiberias Cato and my other teachers and which meant, in my understanding, a person who was teacher and patron combined. Here in Britain, however, to these young men, it clearly had another, additional connotation, one that denoted respect, clearly, but also entailed a deference and a recognition of authority. To my complete astonishment, I saw that he appeared to be no older than the man Bedwyr, but he was huge, and although he wore no signs of rank or any other rating, his physical presence stamped him unmistakably as a leader.

  He was taller than I by a good handsbreadth, I estimated, and he was wider-shouldered, broad of back, and massive through the chest. His hair was dark brown, shot through with wide bands of a lighter, golden color, and his eyes were unlike any I had ever seen, the irises golden yellow, flecked with black. He was standing close by my side, gazing up at me as curiously as I was staring down at him, and when his gaze met mine he nodded to me, his expression grave but civil, and I saw a hint of something stirring in his eyes just before he spoke again, something that I thought might have been humor, although I had no reason to expect anything of the kind. When he did speak, however, it was to the man Bedwyr, although his eyes never left mine.

  “But if he fights you afoot, Beddo, then win or lose, he will tell us nothing about these strange-looking spears of his, and while that might sit well with you, it would please me not at all. Those things look to me to be more than they seem at first glance. I suspect their like might never have been seen, here in Britain. Am I correct, Stranger? Is this a new weapon?”

  I shook my head. “No, it is a very old weapon, but your suspicion is correct. There is none like it in Britain—or in Gaul for that matter.”

  His eyebrows rose in polite disbelief. “Do you tell me so? Then where do they come from?”

  I waved a hand casually, indicating the horizon. “From far away … a world away from here. They were made in a land a full year’s journey eastward from the Empire’s eastern border.”

  His eyebrows had come down, and they stayed down at this additional piece of information, but his eyes narrowed as he gazed at me, assessing whether or not I was bluffing him. “A year’s journey beyond the Empire’s eastern borders? That seems unbelievable.”

  I shrugged. “Believe it or not, as you will, it is the truth. The man who brought them back from there is my old teacher. His name is Tiberias Cato.”

  The big man was staring now at the spears. “What kind of wood are those shafts made from?”

  “A kind that does not grow within the known world of the Empire. It is called bamboo and is very light and very hard. We know nothing like it.”

  He waited, watching my eyes, and then, when it became clear that I was going to say nothing more, he nodded his head. “I see. You have nothing more to say on the topic. So be it then. But I fear, in light of that, that you will have to fight and best our Bedwyr here before you can proceed.”

  I looked over to where the man Bedwyr stood glaring at me and shook my head slowly. “No, I think not. There will be no fight between your bully Beddo and me.”

  “Why not?” There was genuine surprise in the Magister’s voice.

  “Why should I fight him?” I rejoined, turning back to him. “What have I to gain from it? Bruises do not seem like worthwhile rewards to me, nor does the prospect of providing entertainment for the rest of your crew—particularly when I have the option of refusing to do both.”

  Bedwyr spoke up then. “If you win you can go on across the bridge.”

  I looked at him again, sidelong. “The water in the brook is barely fetlock deep for the most part and I can make my way across anywhere, without fighting, as you pointed out.”

  “Are you afraid to fight, then?”

  “No, sir, I am not afraid to fight. I simply choose not to fight you, and I do not do so out of fear.” I turned back to look again at the Magister. “I will fight you, however, upon the clear understanding that when I win I will be allowed to go on my way without further trouble.”

  There was a chorus of gasps at that, and sounds of growing outrage, but the Magister laughed aloud and quelled them all by the simple expedient of raising his hand. Then, when the noise had died down, he spoke to me again, his hand still upraised, enjoining silence from his men. He was smiling at me openly now, his teeth even and startlingly white between wide lips.

  “Let me feed you back your own medicine now. Why should I fight you and run the risk of injury, when I can order any of my men to do it for me?”

  I was ready for him, however, and answered him almost before he had finished speaking. “Because you are their leader—their Magister—and I am challenging you directly. Besides, if they attack me, singly or in any other way, you will never learn anything more about my wonderful spears.”

  His grin grew wider. “What is to stop us from simply depriving you of them now? It would be no great feat, with eight of my men against you alone. I would not even have to be involved.”

  “Very true,” I agreed, finding it easy to smile back at this man. “And there really is nothing to prevent you doing as you wish, if that is what you wish. But even when you have the weapons in your hands you will know nothing of them, or of what they were designed for, or of how to use them. I have only four of them, and you could never duplicate them.”

  “Never? That sounds like bluster to me. What do you mean we could never duplicate them? Wait! Wait … Of course, the shafts … bamboo, you said?” He fell silen
t for a few moments, then resumed. “A few moments ago you said .that if we attacked you we would learn nothing of the spears. That implies, then, that if I myself agree to fight you we might learn something of them. Am I correct?”

  “You are. That is what I meant.”

  “Dismount then, and let’s try a bout, but I hope you have strong bones and a hard head.” He turned toward his men. “Who has the training swords? Bring them forward.”

  There were mutterings and mumbles among the others, but they quickly stilled as I leaped down from my horse and hung my thin bundle of spears from a hook on my saddle before moving to face their leader, who stood waiting for me with a longsword made of heavy, wooden dowel in each hand, extending them toward me hilt first. He was even larger, seen from this level, than I had thought at first, fully half a head taller than me, broader in the shoulders and longer of arm and leg. An intimidating adversary.

  “These are our standard training swords,” he said, quietly. “They are made from ash wood, so they have resilience, as well as strength and weight. Choose whichever one pleases you more.”

  I reached out and took one in each hand, hefting them and feeling for balance and weight. “They are heavier than I am used to, and much longer.”

  “Aye, they are half again as long in the blade as a spatha. Do you normally use a spatha?”

  “I do.”

  “We don’t, in Camulod. Our swords are longer—stronger, too. Hence the heavier weight of these, based on the principle that a training weapon should be twice the weight of a real one. Will this be too much for you?”

  I looked him straight in the eye and managed a smile for him, then crouched into the fighting stance and began the circling dance of the blade fighter half a step before he did the same. Before we had made half a revolution, the others had surrounded us, silent but watchful, plainly expecting to see their leader teach me a lesson in short order. I felt the difference in the practice sword immediately and straightened slightly, realizing that the increased length and weight of the weapon would call for a different technique in handling the thing. It felt utterly alien in my grasp, cumbersome and ungainly, but I noticed, too, that the hilt was twice as long as the hilt on my spatha, and that told me that that the swords these people wielded could be gripped with both hands and swung ferociously.

  My opponent immediately taught me something else about these weapons, because he held his in both hands, one on the hilt in the normal grip, and the other cradling the heavy end so that he held the weapon horizontally as he moved opposite me, assessing my capabilities. I could have told him I had none with such an ungainly weapon, but I knew he would arrive at that conclusion unaided, within a very short time. Prior to that, however, I would watch and hope to learn how to survive this encounter without disgracing myself. I began by holding my weapon the way he was holding his.

  Decades have passed since that day but I can still recall it clearly and with ease, and the clearest recollection I have is the easy half smile on my adversary’s face, the supreme confidence expressed in his every move and the crouching grace with which he faced me. I knew that the weapon I was holding was going to hinder me, but I found myself taking encouragement from the way it nestled in my hands. And when he opened his attack by springing toward me, changing his grip swiftly to grasp the hilt in both hands and bring a mighty overhead blow down on me, I was ready for him. I could have jumped backward or to either side to avoid the blow, because I saw it coming from the outset, but I chose to step into him instead, raising my weapon high in both hands to meet and absorb his blow before it could develop full momentum.

  From that moment of first impact, when his sword hit mine, I lost all awareness of any newness or strangeness in my weapon and I fought as Tiberias Cato had taught me to fight, using all his tricks. Inside the big man’s guard as I was, . I turned and rammed my elbow into the soft, vulnerable spot beneath the join of his ribs. He grunted heavily and staggered backward and as he went reeling I spun again and slashed hard at his left knee. He managed to block the blow with a downthrust blade and then exploded into a catlike leap that won him enough distance to leave him safe for a few moments. And then the fight began in earnest.

  The exhilaration of combat and the thirst for victory combined to increase my focus and my concentration, so that all my normal fighting skills seemed enhanced and I adjusted quickly and completely to my new sword, manipulating it at times as though it were a spear with a solid, heavy shaft.

  We fought long and hard, neither of us able to gain a lasting advantage over the other. When he attacked me, hacking and slashing ferociously, I would back away, fending off his blows and concentrating wholly on absorbing and avoiding his ferocity until the moment when I felt the vigor of his charge begin to wane. Then it became my turn to pursue him. Back and forth we went, time after time, the entire meadow echoing with the hard, dry clattering of blade against blade. We lost awareness, right at the outset, of the people watching us. We had no time for others. Our entire attention was focused upon each other because we both knew, within moments of our first clash, that we were equally matched despite his greater size and reach, and that this fight would go to the first man fortunate enough to land a solid blow. And each of us intended to be that man. But on and on it went, advance and retreat, neither of us able to land that solid blow and both of us growing more and more fatigued with every passing moment.

  There came a time, and I had known it must come soon, when I began to feel, and to believe, that I was incapable of lifting my weapon above my head one more time. But he attacked again, hewing wickedly at my flanks, and one of his blows, a lateral slash, knocked aside my guardian blade and hit me at midthigh.

  It was not a killing blow, for my own weapon had countered it and absorbed most of its strength, but had we been using real weapons it would have cut me deeply and been the end of me. As it was, I felt the crushing impact and my mind transported me instantly to Gaul where, three years earlier, I had been kicked in the same place, and with much the same force, by a horse. Then, as on this occasion, there was no pain, and I knew this time I would feel none until later. For the time being, however, my entire leg was numb. I could move on it without falling if I did so with great care, but I could not feel it at all.

  Knowing he had hit me hard, my opponent held back instead of rushing in to finish me, and in doing so he gave the initiative back to me. I took full advantage of it, using a two handed grip to unleash a rain of blows, pushing him inex orably backward with a fierce but unsustainable attack. knew I was using the last of my reserves of strength but I ha gone beyond caring. I knew that I would be finished the mo ment my attack began to falter, but I was determined to go down fighting. And then, in jumping backward to avoid crippling slash, my opponent caught his heel on somethin uneven and fell heavily, landing hard on his backside an losing his blade in the process.

  It was my victory. All I had to do was step forward an place the end of my weapon against his chest. Instead—an to this day I do not know why I did it, although I am glad did—I transferred my weapon to my left hand, grounded it and then stepped forward, offering him my right hand to pul himself up.

  Only when he was standing facing me again, his righ hand still holding mine and his left gripping my shoulder did I realize that he was breathing every bit as laboriously I was. He finally sucked in one great, deep breath and held i for long moments before expelling it again, and when h spoke his voice was close to normal.

  “That was well fought, sir Gaul, and it was a task I woul not care to undertake again today or any other day. Yo are …” He paused, searching for a word. “Formidable. Yes that describes you. Formidable. Now that you have thrash me, will you permit me to ask who are you and whence yo come, and who taught you to fight like that?”

  He released my hand and waved away one of his men wh was trying to attract his attention, and I knew that he gen uinely wanted to hear my answers. I nodded my head. “M name is Clothar,” I said, looking him in the eye
and seein the black flecks in the tawny gold of his irises. “And I am nc a Gaul. I am a Frank, from southern Gaul. A Salian F reared among Ripuarians in the south.” I saw the blanknes in his eyes immediately and knew he had no idea what I wa talking about, so I held up my hand quickly, palm outwarc to indicate that I was aware of his incomprehension.

  “There are two kinds of Franks in Gaul,” I said then. “Two clans, if you like. Both drifted down into Gaul from Germania during the past hundred years and more, and each came from a different region. The clan who call themselves Ripuarians kept moving southward and settled in southeastern Gaul, and the others, who call themselves Salian Franks, settled the northern and northeastern territories. The tale of how I came to be raised among Ripuarians far from my own home is a long one and of little import here. But I was sent here to Britain, accompanied by two of my friends more than a year ago by my patron and mentor, Bishop Germanus, late of the town of Auxerre, in central Gaul. My task was to carry letters and documents from the Bishop to Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod. Sadly, the bishop is now dead, but I have completed the task he set for me.”

  The entire group was listening to me now, but I kept my eyes on the man they called Magister. “As for the fighting,” I added, smiling slightly, “I learned that thanks to the Bishop, too. He was an Imperial Legate before he was a bishop, strange as that might seem … but then Germanus was a wondrous man. He was a close friend of the Emperor Honorius, too, married to one of the Imperial cousins … and he served victoriously as Supreme Commander of the Armies of Gaul in the wars against the Burgundians right up until he retired and joined the Church. So he knew well the value of training and discipline, both military and religious. I spent six years as a student at the school he founded in Auxerre for boys. They call it the Bishop’s School, and the stable master there, Tiberias Cato, is a former cavalryman who served under Germanus when he was Legate. It was Tiberias Cato who taught me to ride and to fight, and it was he who, as a much younger man, brought those spears back from the other Empire in the distant east. And now I am here in Camulod awaiting the return of Arthur the Riothamus.”