Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank

by Whyte, Jack

  "Well," I continued, floundering. "I know not if I can find the proper words . . . but I think it is important that I try to say what I wish to say, if only to clear the air and allow myself to think logically." I took a breath and thrust straight ahead. "May I ask you, Master Merlyn, whether Bishop Germanus mentioned me by name in the letter I brought to you?"

  Merlyn slowly raised his hand and scratched delicately and deliberately at his chin with the nail of his little finger. "Yes, he did. But why would you ask me that? The content of that letter is my concern alone."

  "It is, sir, I know. But I must ask you to be patient with me and extend me your forbearance, if you will, no matter how ill mannered or clumsy I may appear to be in this . . . I have been asking myself for some time now why Bishop Germanus chose to involve me in these affairs when he could very easily have sent one of his own priests to deliver letters for him. He had no shortage of young priests at his disposal and they cross the seas on God's business all the time, so why would he pick me and send me off to a foreign land with no idea of what I must do once I have carried out my task for him? He had a purpose in mind for me, of that I am sure, but he told me nothing of what it might be. And now you tell me he is dead and that confounds me, for I know not what to do now, or where I should go. My mentor is dead. My task, as far as I know, is completed. And I have no clear indication, mental or otherwise, of what I should do next. I feel. . . abandoned, I suppose . . . cut off from all certainty.

  "I have an unfinished task in Gaul, where the man who slew my parents and my grandfather yet rules in a kingdom that is rightfully mine, but although I intend to return there someday and claim his head in vengeance, I feel no burning urge to rush off and do it now. Part of me wishes to believe that my place is here, at this time, and yet I have no sense of . . . place—no sense of what awaits me or of what I should be doing next. I will meet the King soon, and that particular question may be resolved, but still I know nothing of what Germanus planned for me, if he planned anything. And so I must ask you more, and beg your understanding and indulgence. Did the bishop speak of me specifically? And if so, pray, what did he say?"

  Merlyn grimaced, sucking breath between his teeth, then shook his head and blew out a great breath. "Damnation, Master Clothar," he said, "you come upon me with this request at the worst time, because while I can answer you truthfully, I cannot tell you what you want to know.

  "I have told you that he named you in his letter to me. But he has also enjoined me to be careful in what I say, to you or about you, until I have read everything that he has sent me. Don't ask me why, boy, because I simply do not know why, and I will not until I have had time to read all this."

  "He told you to tell me nothing of what he has to say of me?"

  "He told me to say nothing until I have learned everything there is to learn about you."

  "But what is there to learn that you do not already know?" I bit down on my anger yet again. "No, Master Merlyn. That makes no sense at all, because it makes too much of me, and for no adequate reason. Bishop Germanus was my mentor, but he was mentor to many others, too, all of them more worthy of his time and attention than I was. His interest in me, from the outset, was an obligation. He had been a close friend of my parents and my foster parents, too, and he had stood as godfather for me at my baptism, after the death of my parents and long before he became a bishop. So when I grew old enough, he took me into his school as a pupil. My father was a king, and he served in the legions with Germanus. But he is a dead king, almost seventeen years in his grave. He was murdered soon after I was born, and his lands usurped by his murderer, and in order to protect me and guard my identity after my father's death, I was raised in secrecy by my uncle Ban, King of Benwick, in southern Gaul. That is my life, in its entirety. There is no more to learn."

  Merlyn shrugged. "Apparently that is not so. Perhaps you yourself do not know all that there is to know."

  "About myself! That is iniquitous," I said, my anger spilling over. "Am I now to believe that I am unworthy to know some truth about myself—some arcane secret that no one thinks me capable of handling? Germanus himself told me nothing of what the letters contained regarding me before he sent me off to spend a year and more wandering through this land carrying his wallet. And now, having done so in all obedience and to the best of my ability, I feel slighted and insulted . . . deemed unworthy of trust, even with knowledge of myself." Raising my voice to Merlyn Britannicus this way, this man I did not know but had every reason to treat with the utmost respect, appalled me, outraging every tenet of behaviour with which I had been raised and leaving me with a sinking feeling of imminent remorse. But I had no way of stopping now. "Master Merlyn," I continued, the bit between my teeth, "I know I have never done anything to earn, or to deserve, such treatment, and that makes me deeply angry, because I am utterly at a loss to understand why it happened, and that ignorance, that not knowing, is the most perplexing and infuriating thing about this whole situation."

  Merlyn rose fluidly to his feet, betraying no sign of any of the damage he had sustained from being burned in Carthac's fire. "Very well, so be it," he said, enunciating his words precisely and slowly. "This much I will promise you. I will tell you whatever is said about you in these documents, so be it I judge the information to be harmless to you. The only proviso I will add to that, having said it, is that I will pass along nothing that Germanus might ask me specifically, for whatever reason, to conceal from you. I say that because I cannot imagine him doing such a thing and then blithely sending you off to deliver the material to me in person. That kind of information only applies in situations that involve heinous crimes and shameful secrets, and Germanus himself clearly respected and admired you when he chose you for this task. He would never dream of using you so cruelly, so I believe you may set your mind at rest on that concern. Will that suffice?"

  I nodded, mollified by his straightforwardness. "Thank you, Lord Merlyn, it will."

  "Good. But now I really must take leave of you. I have much to do, as you know, and there are other matters claiming my attention before I can be free to apply myself to our affairs." He waved a thumb towards the door at his back. "I will have young Mark escort you back to the quarters assigned to you and your three friends, and you and I will talk at more length tomorrow, once I have mastered what you brought to me." We exchanged nods of farewell, and he pulled his hood firmly forward to conceal his face again, then swept out, limping only very slightly.

  Left alone in the room, I glanced down at the cup I held in my hands and was surprised to find it empty. I had no recollection of drinking its contents. I was still angry, too, although in the face of Merlyn's courtesy and consideration I could not quite tell myself why that should be so. And then the answer came to me. Despite all his charm and courtesy, Merlyn had nonetheless committed himself only to telling me what he considered harmless to me. Any request from Germanus that specific information be kept from me, for whatever reason, would be sacrosanct in Merlyn's eyes.

  The anger boiling inside me grew stronger and I stormed out of the room, headed for the bright afternoon sunlight and spoiling for a fight with someone—anyone at all.

  2

  It was probably fortunate that I encountered no one in my distempered journey from Merlyn's quarters to my own, for my anger continued to build, demanding an outlet. It was probably equally providential, when I think of it, that when I arrived back at the accommodations assigned to us, neither Perceval nor Tristan were there and I could not even find young Bors. My only options were therefore to remain alone or to go in search of them. I had paid little attention to the weather as I stalked from Merlyn's place, but now that I had time to look about me I had to admit, albeit grumpily and with reluctance, that this was a perfect day on which to be walking and breathing deeply, savoring the scents of the world. It was one of those long, warm late-summer afternoons that are so universally seductive and alluring, beguiling normally responsible people into deserting their appointed tasks
and wasting their time instead on self-indulgent frivolity. At that moment, on that afternoon, having found no one on whom I could vent my anger, I was perfectly open to, and in exactly the right frame of mind for, temptations of that kind. I was in no mood to do anything constructive. Besides, I thought, if I went walking I might find someone I could provoke into a fight.

  Bors had leaned my two quivers of throwing spears upright, as he always did, against the wall in one of the back corners of our quarters, and the long, needle-pointed metal heads gleamed dully in the afternoon light that filtered into the room. I stood in the doorway, looking at them and thinking that it had been far too long since I last practiced, and shortly after that I found myself striding towards the stables, a small bundle of four spears tied with thongs and dangling behind my right shoulder.

  I paid no visible heed to any of them, but I was aware of people noticing the spears as I passed by, for the weapons were extremely unusual and most of the people crowding the open spaces and narrow walkways I traversed were soldiers and warriors, conditioned to examine other people's weaponry. No one made any comment on my spears, however, and I saddled up my horse and made my way out of the gates.

  Below me at the foot of Camulod's hill, as was normal at this time of the year, the enormous drilling ground was almost completely obscured by the clouds of dust stirred up by the ceaseless circling and maneuvering of the riders training there. I avoided the place, purely because there were too many people down there, and steered my horse well clear of the swirling dust clouds, angling it towards the woods that lined the outer edge of the approach road to the fortress. Once in the green-hued shade among the trees, I began to ride around the base of Camulod's hill, following a route I recalled from my first visit. About a mile back there, I knew, behind the hilltop fort, there was a gently sloping meadow, bisected by a wide, deep brook that was bridged by a trio of well-matched logs supporting a deck of heavy planking, and slightly downstream from the bridge was a hole that was full of fine trout and deep enough to swim in. My intention was to go directly to the meadow, spend some time there practicing my throwing, both from horseback and afoot, and then perhaps to spear a fat trout and cook and eat it immediately. To that end, I had gone first to the cookhouse, where I procured a loaf of fresh bread and a twist of salt before heading for the stables.

  Alas, the entire countryside was swarming with men—Arthur Pendragon's victorious armies, freshly returned from their victory over Horsa's Danes—and there was no avoiding them. I hoped at first to simply ride beyond them into something at least approaching solitude, but it was not to be. There were too many people around to permit anything close to privacy.

  As I penetrated deeper and deeper into the woodlands and drew farther and farther away from the fortress on the hilltop, I found myself becoming increasingly resentful of the persistent presence of others around me. Most of them were men, but no army in history has ever failed to attract its share of women. There were enough camp followers scattered throughout the teeming throngs to keep everyone at a high pitch of excitement, for one reason and another. Fully three times I made my way towards spots that appeared to be deserted, only to find them occupied by lovers in varying stages of undress and coupling.

  Other activities were going on, too. In one spot, some enterprising soul had set up a game in which men threw horseshoes at a pair of iron spikes hammered into the ground some twenty paces apart from each other. The object of the game appeared to be to land each horseshoe as close as possible to the spike. I was unsurprised to see that, as usual among armies of any kind, large amounts of money were changing hands among the onlookers. Intrigued in spite of my foul humor, I watched the play for nigh on half an hour and saw only one man achieve the highest points by dropping his horseshoe cleanly over the spike, to the uproarious delight of those who had bet on him.

  In another spot, a clearing in the woods, I came upon a number of men throwing knives and axes at a range of targets and from varying distances, and several of these fellows followed me with hostile, watchful eyes as I rode through. There was no gambling taking place there that I could see, and it seemed to me that everyone involved was taking the entire exercise very seriously. I looked directly at one of the participants in passing, a tall, dark-haired fellow who looked as though he would be happy to fight any casual foe that life might throw at him, but he ignored my truculence, following me with an unblinking gaze as sullen as my own.

  As soon as I realized he would not fight me merely for looking at him, I looked away and kept moving, for I knew exactly who and what he represented: that brotherhood of veterans in every army who have survived everything they encountered and have learned to trust and rely upon their own close comrades and no one else. I had shared that comradeship of veterans myself, during Gunthar's War, and I knew from experience how powerful a bond it forms. But somehow, and I now saw that my expectations had been foolish, I had not expected to find its like in Britain.

  Now that I had become aware of this phenomenon among Pendragon's armies, however, I found myself watching for similar instances as I rode on, and I found no lack of them. But what surprised me most, as I paid closer attention to the men I passed, was that I began to fancy I could gauge a man's war experience merely from the way he reacted to my presence. The more I saw, the more I became convinced that I was right and that the true veterans, the hardened cote of this army that was all around me, were a highly distinctive group, easily identifiable despite the countless human differences between each man and his neighbors.

  Engrossed in this new and intriguing train of thought, I eventually lost all awareness of where I was and what I was about. I rode by one group of veteran spearmen, all of them wearing what came nigh to being a uniform of drab green tunics with bright yellow blazons at their left shoulders, and I put my theory to the test by approaching very close to them, almost to within touching distance.

  The silence that fell over them at my approach was profound. I counted a score and a half of them before one of them finally looked up and saw that I was bearing directly down on them. He frowned and cleared his throat but no words emerged from his mouth. The expression on his face, however, made words unnecessary, and heads began to turn towards me more and more quickly, until thirty pairs of eyes were glaring at me in outrage, their owners shocked into silence by the suddenness and effrontery of my approach.

  I had identified the group leaders some time earlier, and now I nodded gravely in acknowledgment and greeting to the one I deemed to be the senior of three. Showing no sign of curiosity and making no eye contact with anyone lest it spark a challenge, I rode steadily through their midst, and they moved grudgingly but wordlessly to grant me passage.

  When I had passed safely beyond them I made no attempt to look back, for I could feel the burn of their collective gaze in the center of my back. I did, however, permit myself to smile then, knowing that it was only my appearance that had saved me from being dragged off my horse and thrashed for my presumption. The fact that I was in this place at all, riding among them, meant that I must be an ally of some stripe, but that would have mattered not a whit had any of those men decided that I needed to be taught a lesson in good manners and decorum.

  There was sufficient foreignness about my appearance, however, to have given them pause; not only was I mounted but I was superbly mounted, on a magnificent and richly caparisoned horse, and although I wore none of my wondrous armour, the clothing I wore, I knew, spoke loudly of wealth and privilege—loudly enough to suggest unmistakably that I might be someone with a great deal of power, whom it were better not to offend or accost.

  I rode then for a short time through a lightly wooded area where I encountered no one. It was the first time I had been free of the sight and sounds of people since leaving the fort, and for some time I was not even aware of the change. But eventually I relaxed so that I nearly slouched in the saddle, allowing my horse to pick his way forward at his own speed. When he carried me to the edge of a pleasant and fast
-flowing brook, I considered dismounting and simply lying on the grassy bank for a while, listening to the sounds of the swift-moving stream, but as I reined in, preparing to swing my leg over his back and slide to the ground, I heard the sudden, familiar rhythmic clacking of heavy, hard-swung wooden dowels spring up nearby. Someone was practicing sword play, and the rapid, stuttering tempo of the blows told me that the people involved were experts. Instead of dismounting, I pulled my horse around and walked him towards the sounds.

  I saw seven of them as I emerged from the trees surrounding the meadow where they were and recognized the place as my original destination. I had reached it almost by accident, but I saw at a glance that my memory of it had been accurate. There lay the bridge of logs covered with crosswise planking, and on the far side of the stream the gently sloping sward was dotted with copses and clumps of low trees, mainly hawthorn and elder. I saw now that the seven men were all young, strong and vigorous warriors whose clothing, like my own, declared them to be well-born and privileged in all they did. Two of them were fighting skillfully with training swords of heavy wooden dowel similar to those I had used since my earliest days at the Bishop's School. These swords, however, were longer and heavier than those we had used in Gaul, although neither of the two opponents seemed the slightest bit inconvenienced by the extra length and weight.

  They were well matched, the fighting pair. Both were of medium height, wide shouldered and heavily muscled, their bare forearms taut with the tension and strain of controlling their whirling weapons. They circled each other as they fought, leaning forward on the balls of their feet and grinning ferally, their friendship as apparent in their faces as was the iron determination in each of them to win this bout. The man facing me as I emerged from the trees was the first one to see me, and as soon as he did he took a backwards leap and grounded his weapon, shouting something I failed to understand. Every eye in the place turned towards me as I brought my mount to a halt, watching the group carefully albeit avoiding eye contact with any of them.