by Whyte, Jack
"But then my ancestor began to grow aware that something other was occurring here. This place is bowl-shaped, it transpired, and he watched and paid close attention as the waters rose and rose until the bowl was full."
"So how long did that take?" It was the first time I had spoken since Elmo arrived, and he looked up at me.
"When my grandsire was the age his grandsire Elmo had been at the start of it all. Our family has paid great attention to the happenings in the place now for nigh on a hundred years, and few things happen here that we are unaware of.
"No one can tell why the waters ceased to rise. They simply stopped one day and rose no farther. A balance of some kind was reached . . . a leveling. The waters are still sweet and fresh, so the torrent is still flowing strongly enough to keep the currents stirring and to avert stagnation, and there is sufficient drainage, obviously, to maintain the level of the waters without loss."
"So how are we to cross it? I presume we are to cross it? I see no boats, but you must have some close by."
"None large enough for horses." The man smiled at me and his entire face was transformed. "We will walk." His smile widened at the look on my face. "The spine, Lord Clothar. The spine I've been talking about is still there, below the surface. We will follow it. That is why I am here—to guide you. You will have to dismount, though, and lead your horses, for the way is narrow in some places. Follow the man ahead of you precisely and feel your way with caution, making sure each foot is firmly set before placing your weight on it. The water on either side of the spine is deep, but we'll be close enough together that, if one of you does fall in, we'll be able to pull you out again. But I am sure I do not have to explain the folly of trying at any time to make your way across the spine without my guidance." He avoided looking at any of us as he said that, but there was no mistaking the tenor of the warning. "Now, Lord Clothar, if you will follow me with your friend Ursus behind you, the others have crossed before and know the procedure."
Having said that, he turned away and waited to hear me splashing into the water at his back before he moved off into the waters ahead of us. I glanced once at Ursus, and followed my guide, preparing to concentrate completely on where he was leading me and to trust utterly in his own knowledge of the pathway across the open waters.
As I walked close behind my guide, fighting the urge to throw my arms around him and hang on from time to time, I found myself thinking about where we were and what was happening, and my thoughts were whirling as J made my cautious way across the mere. There was water all around us, but we were already more than halfway across and I could see where the trees turned green again up ahead of us, marking the start of dry land again. I stopped and turned to look back the way we had come, and in front of me Elmo stopped moving immediately.
"What is it?" he asked me.
"Nothing, I'm merely looking back. There's absolutely no sign of the route we've followed to get here, and no indication of how we'll progress from here to reach the end of the crossing."
I turned back to find him looking at me and smiling slightly. "Does that surprise you, Lord Clothar? Or do the people in the north leave marks in the water when they pass through it?"
I took the jibe in the spirit in which I thought it was intended and smiled, letting the thought of being insulted glide away from me. "No. Forgive me, Elmo, I was but thinking aloud, about our circumstances. My— the Queen of Benwick lies ahead of us, under your care, and this may be the only spot within her own lands where she is safe. She would not be safe in her own house today, not with her dead husband's firstborn son behaving like a mad dog as he is. But here she is beyond reach of all who might seek to harm her. And you alone hold the key to her safety, because of your knowledge of this pathway through the waters."
"Well, not alone. My brother Theo knows the way across as well as I do. But then Theo is seldom here, whereas I live close by." He looked over my shoulder to the men at my back. "We should keep moving. Our friends back there are at our mercy when we stop thus, for they cannot simply go around us and continue on their own." He began walking again, speaking back over his shoulder. "You were talking about the Queen's safety but you sounded as though you harbour some doubt. In what regard?"
"Accessibility. It's obvious no one can come in here without knowing the way, but is that surmountable? Is there any other way a determined man—or army, for that matter—might penetrate the refuge where you have the Queen?"
Elmo shook his head. "Not without growing wings like a bird, to let him fly . . ." He paused for a few moments and thought about what he had just said, then held up a hand and wiggled it back and forth. "Well, that may not be completely true. If a man is determined enough, he can usually find a way to get what he wants. It is conceivable, I suppose, that die-hard assault could reach us in the valley by coming over the top of the hills, but I really believe it would hardly be possible. These hills are high and rugged, and when God made them, He built them upright out of huge, flat, sometimes knife-edge-thin slabs of stone, then tilted them all sideways and fixed them in place just before they fell over of their own weight. Our little valley lies at the center of that piece of His creation, and the hills all around it slant steeply away from it in all directions, so that anyone approaching from the outside has to struggle constantly to climb unscalable, sharp- edged cliffs that are all tilted towards him and overhang each other in endless ridges, each with its own dangers and threats. I have been there in those hills, Lord Clothar, and it is not a pleasant place to be. I went there of my own free will, as an act of penance, and it is no exaggeration to say that I was truly penitent when I emerged, and that there were times when I genuinely thought I would never emerge at all, but would die in there, in some hidden spot unknown to man."
I was staring at the back of his head, marveling at his fluent ease with words, but his reference to penance took me by surprise.
"Why would you do an act of penance?"
He did not even bother to turn around. "Because I am a sinner. Sinners are required to do penance."
"You sound like a bishop."
"Aye, well I'm not, but I am a priest, and my bishop's name is Erigon. He is my teacher."
"Erigon? My teacher's name is Germanus. He is a bishop, too."
That stopped him dead in his tracks, and he turned slowly to face me, his eyes wide. "Germanus? Of Auxerre?"
"Aye, that's him."
His eyes grew even wider. "You know the blessed Germanus?"
"I know Bishop Germanus of Auxerre." I was careful to keep my voice neutral. I had heard others speak of Germanus as "the Blessed" but I had never known any of the school's staff or residents to speak of him that way, and I had certainly never seen or heard the bishop himself make any reference to such a thing, so the sentiment, as much as the tone of voice in which it was uttered, made me feel slightly ill at ease. "He is my mentor. I meet with him regularly, at least once every week or two. He knew my parents when he was young, before he became a bishop, and he is still a close friend of King Ban and Queen Vivienne. I have attended his school in Auxerre for almost six years now."
"Have you, now? You are a very fortunate young man." Elmo shook his head in apparent wonder and turned again to resume walking. By the time we reached the other shore he had told me everything he knew and admired about Germanus, and listening to him this time I did not feel the slightest discomfort.
Soon we were at the edge of the water with solid ground ahead of us, and I could see people moving among the trees in the distance. Towering rock walls swept up on either side of us here, and gazing up at them, I was awestruck to realize that they had been invisible from the big meadow on the other side of the water, completely concealed by the topography and the cloaking effect of distance and the density of trees on the hillsides. I turned to say something about that to one of the others but as I did so I heard a shout of welcome, and suddenly we were surrounded by the men who now occupied what I had already begun to think of as the secret valley.
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sp; BRACH AND SAMSON
1
When we arrived in the tiny encampment within the cleft in the rocks, we made our way directly to find my aunt Vivienne, but there were two guards posted outside the tent she and her women occupied and they waved us away as we approached, their demeanor indicating unmistakably that they took their responsibility for their Queen's peace and safety very seriously. One of the two told us the Queen was asleep and that her physician had ordered that she was not to be disturbed.
I was relieved to be able to accept the decree without demur, because I was deeply reluctant to awaken her with tidings she did not need to hear immediately, and so I sought out my cousin Brach, knowing we needed to discuss the situation now in force.
No one seemed to know where he was, but the place was very small and eventually I found him beyond the camp site, bathing in the water of one of three deep, spring-fed pools in the middle of the small valley. The mere sight of him astonished me. The youngest of Ban's four sons by Vivienne, Brach was the one who had changed most to my eyes in the years that had elapsed since last we saw each other.
When I left for Auxerre as a ten-year-old, Brach had been fifteen and, everyone agreed, a big lad for his age. As I gazed at him now as he strode naked from the water and began to towel himself dry, it was more than plain to see that in the years since then he had not stopped growing. Always thickly padded with muscle and heavily set on long, strong, clean-lined legs, he had expanded enormously until now, at the age of one and twenty, he was gigantic, composed of layer upon layer of corded muscle with nary a trace of fat to be seen on any part of him. His arms and thighs were immense, and his chest was so sculpted, his pectoral and abdominal muscles so distinctly pronounced and perfectly shaped, that it looked as if he wore an officer's dress-uniform cuirass of richly worked leather, ornately carved and tanned to resemble human skin.
I saw him frown when he first noticed me walking towards him. He would have no doubt that I was a friend, since only friends could find their way into this place, but I knew he was trying to place me, wondering who I was and where I had come from. I wondered how long it would take him to know me, or if I would have to tell him who I was. But as I drew within ten paces of him I saw recognition dawn in his eyes and his entire face broke into a great smile of welcome as he threw open his arms and leaped towards me, forgetting the fact that he was completely naked. He hugged me to his bare chest with the strength of a bear and practically crushed my ribs before letting me go. When I stepped back from him, he nodded his head, still smiling, and I realized he had not said a single word, and only then did I remember that that single attribute, his taciturnity, was the thing I had admired most about him when I was a child. I reached out, still grinning, and poked the massive biceps of his left arm with one fingertip.
"You've grown big, Brach. How did you do that?"
His laughter was immense, a deep, booming roll of pleasure, but still he said nothing. Instead, he picked up the towel he had dropped and began to dry himself thoroughly. Then, when he felt comfortable again, he wrapped himself in the folds of the towel and dragged his fingers through the tangles of his long, brown hair.
"I'm happy to see you well, Cousin Clothar," he said. "And big. You grew, too. Why are you here and not in school?"
The last time he and I had spoken, Brach had addressed me as Brother. Now, six years later, everything had changed. I shrugged.
"School is over, Cousin, and Bishop Germanus sent me home with letters for the King."
His face darkened. "You've heard?"
"Aye, more than you."
"What does that mean, more than me?" He glanced about him. "Come, walk with me back to my tent and tell me."
"No." I held up a hand to stop him. "Better I should tell you now, with no one close by to hear. The King is dead, Brach." I saw the sudden pain that flared in his eyes and again I raised my hand to him as though to silence him, although I knew he would not speak. He kept his eyes square on mine then, remaining motionless as I went on to tell him how Ursus and I had been brought to Ban's encampment, and how Ban had made his pronouncement in favour of Samson.
Brach stood in silence until he had absorbed what I had said, then he walked three paces to the nearest tree, where he seated himself on the grass and leaned back against the trunk before wiggling his fingers to indicate that I should keep talking. He listened intently until I finished the story of how we had set off in pursuit of Beddoc and ended up here in this hidden valley, and when I had finally done and had nothing more to say he remained thoughtful. At length, however, he sucked air noisily between his teeth—a trait he shared with at least one of his elder brothers—and swayed effortlessly to his feet.
"Gunthar should have been killed long ere now," he said. "I had thought about doing it myself, several times, but then I told myself he was my brother and my thoughts were unworthy. I was a fool to listen to myself. He's a mad dog and I knew it a long time ago. I was right to think of killing him."
"No, Brach. You could not have killed him and lived with yourself thereafter."
He looked me straight in the eye, and every vestige of warmth had gone from his voice when he replied, "I should have accepted the burden gladly. Now Theuderic is dead at his hands and he was ten times the man Gunthar could ever be, even were he not crazed.
Now he threatens not only me and Samson, he threatens our mother!" He stopped, evidently with an exercise of will. "Now, what of you? What will you do? You can't stay here or he'll kill you, too, if he can. I swear on my mother's eyes, he's a rabid animal. Will you return to Auxerre?"
"No, I'm staying here to fight with you. I've been well trained in warfare these past six years, as both a cavalryman and an officer, so if you will have me, I'll attach myself to your troops and you can judge me for yourself and use me as you see fit. Does that sound fair? And I have Ursus with me, too, who is worth five men— hunter, warrior, fighter, mercenary, and loyal and true as the day is long. Someone in the family has to bring about Gunthar's end, and since it is already too late for that person to be Theuderic, I will make a perfectly acceptable substitute."
"Fine. Accepted. But what do we do now? When will Chulderic and Samson reach home?"
"Today, perhaps tomorrow. But what happens when they arrive depends on Gunthar. I left ahead of them to overtake Beddoc and bring word of the King's death to the castle, to you and Theuderic and your mother at the same time as to Gunthar, but none of us foresaw the possibility of finding the castle all but abandoned. Chulderic and Samson would have made their way homeward, expecting me to have carried out my task and informed everyone of the King's death at the same time, permitting no advantage to Gunthar. By now, however, Gunthar might well have returned to the castle and taken possession of it. If he has, then he has already met Beddoc and knows that the King is dead and that he dispossessed Gunthar before he died. And if that is the case, Gunthar will throw any remaining caution to the winds. He will be prepared to go down to his death fighting.
"Now, if he already holds the castle, then Chulderic and Samson are stuck outside, with nowhere near sufficient men to lay siege to the place. The truth is that there are not enough men in all of Benwick to lay siege to Ban's castle. Our friends then will have no place to go, and there are too many of them to come here. This place is formidable but it couldn't accommodate a hundred people, let alone five hundred. How many are here now, two score?"
"Aye, somewhere in that region. Chulderic and Samson have five hundred between them, and then there are another four hundred in the east, the remains of Theuderic's force."
"How many men can Gunthar muster?"
"Probably about the same as us, according to the last information I received. About a thousand. But that was a month ago, perhaps longer, so the numbers may have changed by now. He had a thousand then only because there were no more available for hire, according to my sources among his people. He may have added others since that time. I simply don't know. However, we have the edge on him in horsemen. Th
e largest part of his force is made up of foot soldiers—infantry and all mercenaries, mainly Alamanni, with a few contingents of Burgundians."
"Alamanni and Burgundians . . . ?" I had been on the point of asking if Gunthar had gone mad, but of course he had. In his need to secure his own kingship, he would care nothing for where his fighting men came from or who they were. He would hire mercenaries from anywhere that he could find them. And that made me think on something else.
"Where is his money springing from? How can he afford to pay mercenaries?"
Brach twisted his face into what might have been a smile, but was utterly lacking in amusement. "Nobody knows. There are rumours. They seem unbelievable, but I'm inclined to think they could be true. Tales of theft on an enormous scale. One tells of a coterie of pederasts who lived together in a villa near Lugdunum about six years ago, just when you were going off to school. All elderly, all wealthy and all depraved . . . what else would you expect of pederasts? Anyway, they could afford to indulge themselves in their degeneracy, bringing in traveling entertainers from all over the empire. One night, they were all killed in their beds, fifteen to twenty of them plus all their servants, and the entire villa was emptied of its treasures. People spoke of tracks a handspan deep, left in bone-dry ground by the wheels of heavily laden wagons.
'Then there was the incident of the talents of gold. Two entire talents of gold bullion, in bars, all stamped with the head of the Emperor Honorius and escorted by an entire cohort of Imperial Household Guards on its way from Carcasso to Massilia, to await shipment to the imperial treasury in Constantinople. Three years ago. They had barely traveled thirty miles, two days into a five-day journey, when they were attacked at night and wiped out . . . all of them . . . and the gold vanished, never to be found again."
"You think Gunthar was responsible for those things?"
Brach shrugged his massive shoulders. "Someone arranged those robberies and carried them out successfully, and whoever it was, he had access to enormous resources in men and logistics. Think for a moment about what would be involved not merely in attacking but in overwhelming and annihilating a full cohort of Imperial Household Guards engaged upon the personal affairs of the Emperor . . . and then add the additional difficulties of stealing and transporting two talents of solid gold—box upon box upon box of gold bars—and making them simply vanish without trace, permanently.