The Lance Thrower

II

CHULDERIC

EVEN THOUGH I HAD GONE to sleep filled with excitement and wonder mere hours earlier and had slept right through until midmorning, I awoke feeling angry, confused, and resentful, my mind reeling with half-remembered statements and hazy, maddeningly elusive images of some of the things King Ban had described to me. My old nurse, Ludda, had been waiting for me to wake up—the Lady Vivienne had told her of my late night and of the King’s decision that I should be allowed to sleep late—and as soon as she heard me moving about she brought me a breakfast of ground oats, savory seeds, and crushed nuts, all roasted dry and bound together with honey from the King’s beehives. I was in no mood to eat, however—nor, for that matter, to be courteous or civil—and so I finished dressing and stormed out without acknowledging either her or the food she had prepared for me. I had a momentary twinge of guilt over my ill manners as I ran down the stairs from my quarters, but I thrust it aside easily, consoling myself with the thought that I had every right to be self-concerned today, since no one else appeared to have been truly concerned for me prior to the day before. Had anyone really cared about my welfare, I told myself, they would have told me the truth about myself much earlier and not left me to go blithely on my way, filled with foolish thoughts of belonging here.

By the time I reached the outer yard, having scowled my displeasure at everyone I met between my sleeping chamber and there, I had worked myself into a truly unpleasant frame of mind filled with self-pity, bafflement, hurt feelings, and shapeless, threatening fears—all of them completely without justification. I reached the gates to the outer bastion, but then I broke into a run and swung directly to my left to head toward the stables, although I had no idea what I might do there, and as I reached the dark entryway, I almost ran full tilt into a figure emerging from the darkness. It was Clodio, the strange but loyal man who had been Ban’s lifelong friend and had consistently refused all advancement except his current and permanent post as Commander of the Castle Guard. He reached out and grasped me by the right shoulder, digging his fingers in hard and bringing me up short, almost in midstep.

“Ah, there you are! I’ve been looking for you. Where are you running to, so fast? Is someone chasing you?”

He sounded quite pleasant and not at all put out by our near collision, but I was in no frame of mind to tolerate pleasantness, especially from one of the group who had conspired to keep me in ignorance of my real identity. I pulled myself loose from his grasp and thrust his arm away from me.

“Leave me alone. And stand out of my way.”

Clodio’s head jerked in shock and his eyebrows rose high on his forehead. “Stand out of your way?” His face quirked in what almost became a smile. “Since when did you start ordering your father’s officers around?”

“Since I found out he’s not my father and he has been deceiving me—and you’re no better than he is, because you knew, too. My father was a real king, and you know it, and I’m his son. So stand aside and let me pass.”

I knew that what I had said went beyond insolence and far beyond ingratitude to King Ban, but even as I spoke the words I took a malicious satisfaction in mouthing such things. Clodio, however, merely stood looking at me, his eyes narrowed in concentration, and then, after what seemed like a long time to me, he nodded, once, abruptly.

“I heard you. But are you really sure you want me to step aside?”

“Yes, I—” But he had already held up a warning palm.

“Before you answer, consider this, my young kingling. If I step aside, at your command, it will only be to give myself purchase to swing my boot properly at your kingly little arse as you pass by me, and I’ll kick it so far up toward your shoulders that you’ll be a hunchback for the rest of your life … . Now, I’ll ask you again. Are you sure you want me to step aside?”

There was not a trace of humor in his eyes or in his voice, and so I knew I had to draw his fangs. I pulled myself up to my full height and put all the disdain I could muster into my tone.

“You will stand aside, and you will not dare to lay hands on me. I am the son—the firstborn son—of a king.”

Clodio turned his back on me, his hands on his hips, and slowly completed a full turn, his head tilted back to look at the sky and his feet taking high but tiny steps, almost marching in place but turning very slowly and incrementally until he faced me again, and as he did so I heard him blow air loudly and rhythmically from his lips, in time with his footsteps. As he came back face-to-face with me, however, he grasped my tunic in both hands, on either side of my chest, and hoisted me effortlessly into the air, to where he could stare directly at me, eye to eye, from a distance of less than a handspan, and when he spoke next, even though he spoke very quietly, I felt the flutter of his breath against my face.

“You are the orphaned son of a dead and landless king who was once a fine man and much loved by everyone who knew him. But he is gone now, long since dead, and the lands he ruled are hundreds of miles from here, governed now by the man who killed him and usurped his title and his holdings. You are still a boy—a mere child, ten years old—and you have nothing … no prospects, no wealth, no hopes at all, other than those for which you are beholden to King Ban. Do you hear what I am saying, boy? I knew your father, and I was proud to know him. I knew your mother, too, although no more than by sight, but she was the most beautiful lady I ever saw, more beautiful even than her sister, the Lady Vivienne.” He shook me gently, tilting me from side to side and never taking his eyes off me. “I thought to have known you now, for years, but what I’m hearing spilling from your lips today is unlike anything I would ever have believed you capable of saying.”

He paused, then brought me even closer to his face, so that I could see the individual hairs on his cheeks and the scar at the end of his nose where he had once been bitten in a fight. “Do you know how far your feet are off the ground as I hold you here, Clothar son of Childebertus? I could throw you like a pebble, and leave you lying where you fell. But here is a promise I will make to you freely. If I ever, ever hear you speaking of your uncle Ban like that again, I’ll strip off your breeches and flog you with my belt until you bleed. Is that clear?” He shook me again, a single, violent jerk. “Is it?”

I nodded my head, suddenly overcome with shame and struggling to hold back hot tears. Clodio continued to hold me. “Good,” he said. “Let’s hope I never have to do that. Now, it’s obvious that you’ve only recently found out about what happened to you as a babe in arms, and I suppose that could be seen as grounds for being angry. Before I put you down, however, I have one more thing to tell you. Are you listening?”

I was, but I was also beginning to grow astonished at the ease with which this man was holding me aloft. He showed no sign of strain at all. His breathing was easy and his voice relaxed. “Yes,” I said through the lump in my throat, while nodding for emphasis. “I’m listening.”

“Then listen well. I want to tell you something about your father. His soldiers and his people worshipped him. Do you know why? I do. I know why. Some people might give you a hundred other reasons, and they would all be true, to some extent … . He was tall and strong and good to look upon. He had a pleasant nature and laughed easily. He had a beautiful wife and generous, loving friends. But none of these things explain why he was so much loved. But this one reason that I know, this one thing alone, explains it, and the explanation is very simple, yet very profound: your father treated all people with dignity and truthfulness.

“That may not sound like much to you, at the age of ten, but it is an awe-inspiring thing, almost impossible for ordinary men to achieve. And yet your father lived his entire life behaving that way. He never lied; he never looked down on anyone as being lesser than himself; he never treated anyone badly, unless that person had behaved badly and merited punishment. Your father never had an unkind word or an insult for, or about, anyone who had not earned them. Childebertus of Ganis would never have spoken to me, or to anyone else, the way you did here today. Bear that in mind. If you are going to announce yourself to be your father’s son, then be true to his memory and to his honor. Be worthy of his name.

“Now, I am growing tired, so I am going to put you down, but when I do, you will stand there and wait until I have finished what I have to say to you. Are we agreed?”

I nodded, wordlessly this time, and he lowered me to the ground.

“So be it.” He stood squinting down at me now, plucking at his lower lip, his right elbow resting on his left fist. “Do you have any of that poison left in you? If you do, this is the place to spit it out, because I’ve heard it now and I won’t be too disgusted to hear more of the same … disappointed, perhaps, but not disgusted. Have you more to say?”

“No, sir.” The words emerged as a husky rasp.

“Good. Then we will treat this little episode as a bad dream, and neither one of us will mention it again, to anyone. Agreed?”

I cleared my throat. “Agreed.”

“Bene. I have been looking for you. That’s why I was in the stables. Chulderic asked me to keep an eye open for you and to send you to the old oak tree on the riverbank when I found you. That was about an hour ago, perhaps half an hour more than that, so he might be there now, waiting for you, or he might not. If he is not, then you are to wait for him. Why are you not in school today?”

I told him about my all-night session with King Ban, and he listened closely, nodding his head from time to time.

“Well,” he said when I had finished, “I can see now why you were so upset. Understandable, I suppose, that you would react badly to having your whole life exposed suddenly and unexpectedly as being different from what you had believed. But there’s no reason to flog yourself over it. You see that now, don’t you? Good. Now you’d better go and find Chulderic. You know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting, by anyone. And if you value your life, don’t use that tone of voice you used with me and don’t tell him you’re a king’s firstborn son and that he must now show you respect. He’ll puke all over you and then beat you senseless. Respect, you will soon learn, is something that has no price. You can’t buy it and it’s a thing you’ll never get by demanding it. You have to earn respect, boy, from one man at a time, and you can’t cheat in any way while you’re about it. You’ll see, someday, because you’ll earn it yourself and you’ll pay it willingly to others. Now go on, get out of here and find Chulderic.”

I had much to think about, although from an entirely different perspective now, as I made my way from the stables to the huge old oak that spread out over the placid, muddy waters of the deep stream that wound through the valley and formed part of the defenses in front of our castle. I set out still smarting from the shame that had swept over me as I caught the rough edge of Clodio’s tongue, but as I walked, my understanding of what had happened began to settle into a new appreciation, one that had been there all along but had been overwhelmed by my delayed reaction to all that I had learned the previous day and night, so that by the time I reached the riverside I felt far better than I had felt since wakening that morning.

Chulderic was not there when I arrived and so I made myself comfortable on the lowest bough of the great tree, my back braced firmly against its bole, then set myself again to reviewing the events and disclosures of the previous night.

“I saw your father sitting like that once.” I jumped, startled to hear Chulderic’s voice so close to me. I had been so deeply involved in my thoughts that I had not seen him approach. “But he was higher up, hidden among the leaves, waiting to jump down on a party of raiders as they rode underneath. He was sitting the same way, though, hands clasping his left knee, just like you now, and his right leg stretched out along the branch.”

I swung to face him, flushing guiltily as I prepared to scramble down from my perch, shamed to have been caught slacking when I should have been at my lessons.

“No, stay where you are.”

I froze, caught awkwardly in the act of turning my back to him, my belly against the tree limb as I spread my hands against the rough bark, ready to push myself out and away. Carefully, I eased my body around to where I could see him again, and he made a flapping motion with his upturned palm.

“Stay up there for now. Stay as you were, otherwise I’ll have to look down at you.”

Moving awkwardly and in danger of falling, I cautiously hoisted myself up to where I could regain my secure perch against the bole of the tree, and only after I was firmly seated did I dare to look over again to where he sat astride a tall, black horse, looking back at me. He had not sounded angry, and now it seemed to me he did not even look angry, and a sense of wonder began to stir in me. He had always been a stern, unsmiling, and demanding taskmaster, this dour old soldier, and I would never have suspected that he could be as soft-spoken as anyone else. And yet here he was, addressing me courteously without either scowling frown or rough-edged tongue.

“The King has told me that you knew my father, Magister.” The sense of the words was strange to my ears, and stranger still was my boldness in speaking to him directly without invitation. Magister was the term all of us boys used in addressing Chulderic, and it was a term of respect, as well as an accurate description of his rank. He was Master-at-Arms to King Ban and as such, in times of peace, his duties included acting as our instructor—we being the young men and boys who would eventually, God willing, become the commanders of the armies of Benwick. Chulderic was our tutor and our trainer in the crafts of war that we studied constantly. He knew everything concerning weapons and warfare and honor and the ways of officers and warriors, and we depended upon him entirely for enlightenment and guidance.

There were twelve of us in the boys’ corps at that time, ranging in age from eight through sixteen, and there was no implication, in our calling him Magister, that we might all be slaves to his mastery … except that, of course, we were, utterly and abjectly. Chulderic was not a man to defy, to deny, or to challenge. His discipline was renowned, and none of us would ever have dared to question it or to rebel against it. He was merciless, demanding, and implacable in his expectations and pitilessly critical of all our efforts to do well and to win his praise. And yet sometimes he would relent, and would bark or grunt an unintelligible sound that was his only indication that one of us might have—might have—achieved a barely acceptable standard in something we had attempted. But now here he was, speaking to me in a quiet voice like a normal man.

He had swung his horse to face me as I addressed him and for a moment I quailed, expecting him to rebuke me for impertinence, but he merely looked at me with a peculiar expression, then nodded, almost imperceptibly.

“We could not tell you, before now. You were too young to know such things. They were too dangerous for you to know because, being a child, you would have asked a thousand questions and prattled to anyone who would listen, and sooner or later word would have reached the wrong ears.” He scratched at his beard with his fingertips, then tucked in his chin and peered down along his nose, stretching a single long white hair out to where he could see the end of it. “Hmm,” he grunted, and then twisted the offending hair around his finger and jerked it out by its roots. “More and more of those in there, nowadays.”

I had no way of knowing if he had meant me to hear that, but I was stricken with awe to see this unexpected aspect of a man who had terrified me for years, and yet all I could think to do then and there was look more closely at his beard. It was black and long, neatly trimmed at the ends and very straight, with little curl to it. But I could see white strands among the black, now that he had drawn my attention to them.

“I knew him longer than I’ve known you,” he continued. “And I’ve known you all your life, since the day you were born. He was my friend, your father, as well as being my employer.”

“Your employer?” I was no longer afraid, my apprehension swept away completely by his suddenly revealed humanity. “You mean you worked for him?”

“Aye, I did. Does that surprise you? I worked for him gladly. I was his Master-at-Arms long before I came here to join King Ban.”

“But the King said he was in the army with you, and that you first met my father there, too, when he joined you fresh from Rome.”

Chulderic nodded, deeply and slowly. “That is true, we all met in the army, and we grew close over the next ten years. Mind you, I was no more than a common soldier in those days, only newly appointed to command a single squadron, whereas the three of them—Ban, your father, and latterly Germanus—were all field officers. But they chose to trust me and my judgment, for reasons of their own, and I somehow became their confidant, their messenger whenever they had need of one. But the day came, as such days always must, when we left the armies, all four of us at the same time, because we had fulfilled all our obligations. Our campaign was finished and our work was done and we were finally freed to go home. They were free to go home, I should say. I had no home to go back to. Your father knew that, and so he invited me to ride with him and be his man, in return for my board and keep and a parcel of land to call my own, an undisputed place to lay my head at day’s end. Sounded to me as though I wouldn’t find a better offer, and I never did.”

“Did you know my father when he lived in Rome?”

He shook his head. “No, I did not. He had done his stint in Rome before he joined us, and I know he was glad to get away from it.”

“What did he say about it?”

“I can barely remember, it has been so long, but it will come back to me if I take time to think.” His chin tilted upward as he gazed at me with narrowed eyes. “Jump down now and run to the stables. Pick yourself a horse and come back here as quickly as you can. King Ban would have me tell you what I know about your father and mother, all of it in one day, and so I will, but I will be able to do it more easily if we ride. I never was a man for sitting indoors and talking. I need fresh, blowing air to keep my head clear when I am thinking. Go you now.”

I ran like the wind all the way to the stables, where I quickly found the senior groom and told him why I needed a horse. I picked out my favorite, a black gelding almost as tall as the one Chulderic rode, and saddled it quickly, tightening the girth securely before I swung myself up onto the big animal’s back. Then, mounted, I sat for a few moments inhaling the odors of the stable before I nodded to the groom to open the door, and I listened, as I rode out, to the sounds my horse’s hooves made on the floor of packed earth and straw. I remember quite clearly the sensations of stretched tension and thrilling excitement that filled my chest that day as I rode back to where the Master-at-Arms was waiting. He watched me approach and kicked his horse into motion as I drew near him. For a while we rode in silence, side by side, as we walked our mounts among and between the buildings outside the walls of King Ban’s castle.

As soon as we had passed the last of the houses, Chulderic kicked his horse to a canter, then to a lope, and finally into a gallop, and I kept close to him, barely half a length behind him and to his left, exulting in the surging power of the big animal between my knees and the way the wind ruffled my hair. We did not gallop far, however, before he pulled back on his reins and slowed to a canter, saying there was no point in overtaxing the animals.

The path he had chosen stretched upward, rising gently and consistently over the course of two miles to the crest of a ridge that ended in a high cliff and offered a breathtaking view of the lake hundreds of feet below. As we approached the summit and the steepest part of the climb, we dismounted and led our horses, but they were both panting as hard as we were when we reached the top and stopped, overlooking the vista before us.

“Now that is a sight worth beholding,” Chulderic said. “Large enough to be a sea, yet still a lake of fresh water.”

He looked about him, then dropped his horse’s reins on the ground and went to sit on an old log that some previous visitor had dragged close to the edge of the cliff.

“Come. Sit.”

I did as he bade me, and for a while we sat staring at the view and waiting for our breathing to return to normal.

“Your father joined the army on his sixteenth birthday, did you know that?” I shook my head. “Aye, well, he did. That’s the traditional age for boys to become soldiers, as you know. Has been for hundreds of years, stretching right back to the earliest days of Rome, when every soldier was a farmer and every farmer was a soldier. But it doesn’t happen much today, at least not among the wealthy.”

I said nothing, and he continued after only a brief pause. “Your grandfather Jacobus was wealthy—your father’s father, that is. He was from Britain, a lawyer. Traveled to Rome to study there, and then remained to practice his craft, at which he was apparently very good—one of the best in the city, I’ve been told. He could easily have arranged to keep his son at home and out of the army, had he so wished. But he didn’t. He let the boy go when he wanted to, and was quite content to do so. Strange relationship between those two, for father and son: they liked each other—loved each other might not even be too strong a way to put it. You don’t see that too often among civilized people. Everyone likes to talk about the tightness of family bonds and the obligations of blood relationships and kindred, but it’s all lip service, nine times out of ten.

“Anyway, your father had always wanted to be a soldier, ever since he had grown big enough to make a hero out of one of his cousins, Medroc, another migrant Briton. Medroc was a senior officer in the Household Guard, the Emperor’s personal bodyguard, and Honorius himself thought very highly of him, trusting him as he trusted few others. From the way your father spoke of him, time and time again, Medroc must have been a sight to behold in his golden parade armor—enameled sky blue insets in cuirass, helmet, and greaves, a high horsehair crest on the helmet, dyed sky blue to match the enamel insets, and a military cloak of sky blue cloth, trimmed with gold edges. I would have enjoyed seeing that myself. I’ve heard of the finery of the Household Guard, but I never saw any of them.”

“But you came from Rome, Magister. How could you not have seen them?”

He pursed his lips as he looked at me, one eyebrow rising high on his forehead. “Because they were in Constantinople with the. Emperor when I was in Rome, that’s how. Rome hasn’t really been the Imperial City since the time of Constantine, and that was more than a hundred years ago, as near as spitting. The Roman garrison troops in my day—I mean the permanent troops who never left the city—were famed, and still are, for the ornate richness of their uniforms and armor. They made ordinary troops like us look like beggars, even in our parade uniforms. But the Household Guard were the elite troops of the entire Empire, handpicked from the best of the best for their size, appearance, and prowess, and privileged as no others ever were. Their blue-and-gold uniforms were legendary.

“From the first time your father set eyes on Medroc in his fine plumage, he dreamed of someday becoming one of the Emperor’s Guard. The lad’s career was clearly laid out, all the way from basic training under Cousin Medroc’s watchful eye, to a solid and rewarding position as an officer in the Household Guard, thanks to his family’s influence. It was all cut-and-dried and carefully arranged.”

He looked at me, making sure that I was listening closely before continuing. “But there’s a lesson there, lad, concerning your father and his cousin that you should keep in mind from this time on: the trouble with things that are too neatly cut-and-dried is that they often break when a strong wind comes up, because they’re too dry to bend. Your father had been in the Household Guard for less than a year, still a snotty-nosed trainee recruit, when Medroc got himself killed during a garrison mutiny in the far south of Gaul, near the border with Iberia.”

“Iberia? What was he doing there? Was he traveling with the Emperor?”

“No, but he was traveling for the Emperor, carrying urgent dispatches from Honorius himself to the legate commanding in southern Gaul, and he arrived in a mountain town along his route just in time to get himself and his men safely bedded down for the night and soundly to sleep before the garrison mutinied. The garrison commander, who from all later reports was a complete pig, was assassinated in the darkest hour of the night, along with all his officers, and Medroc awoke shortly after that to find himself being dragged out of bed. He was a witness to their mutiny, and they knew him to be a loyal and trusted officer of the Emperor, because they opened and read the dispatches he was carrying. They killed him right there, probably before he really understood what was happening to him. Of the twenty troopers in his escort, two were lucky enough to escape that night and survived to raise the alarm. So that was the end of Cousin Medroc, and of your father’s dreams of an illustrious career in the personal service of the Emperor.

“Medroc’s death went unnoticed for a long time, as far as I can tell, lost sight of in the confusion and upheaval of the campaign against the mutineers. It was a hard campaign, too. I remember it because it was my first. I had been in the army for several years by then, but that was the first time I had ever been called upon to fight, and it was the only time I ever had to fight against our own, Roman soldiers just like us. We had no idea what had driven them to mutiny, or if, under the same conditions, we might have been tempted to join them. Fighting them was not a pleasant experience, from that viewpoint alone.

“But besides that, the success of the mutiny from the outset had attracted malcontents and deserters from all over southern Gaul, so that what had started out as a town garrison with an arguably legitimate grievance soon grew to something else entirely, approaching the size of an army … a rabble, certainly, but strong in numbers. Strong enough to defeat the first few units sent out to contain them and put the mutiny down. They won those opening actions easily, because the men sent out against them underestimated almost everything about them. But those early, easy victories were the worst things that could have happened to them. They grew too confident after that. They honestly thought they could win in mutiny, the damn fools—even proclaimed one of their own as Emperor just before we brought them to battle after six weeks of floundering around in mud and rain. That was it. We killed every last one of them, one way or another. Them that survived the fighting died the way mutineers always die, some of them flogged to death, some hanged, and others beheaded. The four ringleaders, soon identified by turncoats desperate to save their own lives, were crucified … the only modern army crucifixions I’ve ever heard of.”

Chulderic fell silent after that, and I had the good sense to say nothing and simply wait for him to start talking again.

“At any rate,” he began, finally, “by the time the dust settled after all that, the faithful Medroc had been forgotten, long since replaced by some other talented and brilliant young man who doubtless looked just as fine in his parade armor, and Medroc’s protégé, young Childebertus, had become just another faceless trainee with no influence and not even seniority to protect him. It didn’t take him long to discover that his relationship with Medroc had been resented by more than a few of his fellows, and his life within the Household Guard became very unpleasant very quickly.

“A call went out around that time for volunteers for a new, highly mobile cavalry force to be stationed on the Rhine river, where the difficulty of keeping invaders out had not grown easier in three hundred years. The new force was to be an elite one, and well paid, to compensate for the danger and hardship involved in what they had to do. Your father had always loved horses and was a natural cavalryman. He recognized salvation when he saw it, and he became one of the very first applicants for the new force. Within months of that he was here in Gaul, transferred out of the Emperor’s Guard and into the new cavalry division. That’s where he met me and the King, although Ban was only Ban of Benwick at that time.” He broke off and looked at me again, his brow creased in thought. “Did Ban already tell you all this?”

I nodded. “Yes, Magister … some of it, anyway.”

“Then what the blazes did he want me to talk to you about if you already know what I’m supposed to tell you?” This was more like the Chulderic I knew, snappish and impatient with anything he saw as being trivial or time wasting, but he said no more after that first outburst, and I dared to speak up once more.

“About how my parents died, Magister—I asked the King last night to tell me and he would not, because he had not been there to see it for himself. But he told me you had witnessed all of it, and he said you were far more able than he to tell me the truth of what happened.”

“Hmm.” There was no sign of impatience in the old man now. He stuck out his lower lip and gazed into the distance across the lake. “He was wrong, then. I was nearby, but I was not there. Had I been there, I would not be here today.” He straightened his back and stood up. “Come, ride with me again while I try to find words for you.”

Chulderic and, I remounted and made our way down the slope, veering more and more to the left as we descended, so that by the time we regained level ground we were far from where we had begun our climb to the summit. Once again we rode in silence, traversing a landscape of grassland scattered with clumps of scrub willows, alder, and hawthorn while Chulderic searched his mind for memories he could describe. And then, without sign or warning, he began again.

“We had barely left the army life behind us when Childebertus first met your mother. I remember that clearly. It must have been within the first few weeks of our liberty.

“We were on the road home, I remember, but we were barely out of the German territories, headed south toward Benwick and moving at our own pace, still full of the heady feelings of freedom after so many years of regimentation and routine, and Ban had just finished telling us a story that none of us believed. He told us he had been betrothed, years earlier and at his father’s insistence, to an unknown woman. We thought he was gulling us, trying to hoodwink us for his own ends, and when we pressed him for more details, calling him a liar and a lout—which we could do because we were his friends—he admitted that he had been thirteen and she a mere infant at the time. But he swore he had never even seen her, so he could not say if she had one head or two, and we all had a good laugh over his foolishness. He could see we were still unconvinced, nevertheless, and so he told us she was the daughter of one of his father’s oldest allies, a king called Garth of Ganis, who ruled over a federation of clans among the Salians, the northern Franks, in the rich lands to the south of the Rhine delta. Her name was Vivienne of Ganis, and he swore to us that before leaving home to come on this campaign, he had renewed his pledge to marry her, sight unseen and for the good of his people, when he returned victorious from the wars. Well, he was returning now, he said, and curious to see what kind of burden he had been saddled with to please his father, and so he was going to visit her father’s place, Ganis, on the way south, since we would be riding close by it, to the eastward.

“Well, we were his friends, so we were not gentle with him when he told us about that. In fact we roasted him for a long time as we rode southward, but when we drew close to where he was to leave us, we decided we should all accompany him to inspect this mysterious intended bride. We proposed it in jest, but instead of being angry, Ban made it plain he was glad that we would be with him when the time came for him to step forward and identify himself to his future wife and her father.” Chulderic paused and smiled. “With us around him, it would be obvious that he was being truthful in saying he was on his way home from the wars and had stopped only to pay his respects to his father’s old friend in passing, and there would have been no question of his simply dropping by to examine his betrothed. Mind you, had the lady turned out to be less than beautiful, Ban would have been forewarned and able to conduct himself appropriately thereafter, in terms of the speed with which he might rush to take up his solemn marriage duties.

“But as it turned out, there was no need for such caution. King Garth made us welcome and sent for the Lady Vivienne, bidding her come and meet her betrothed. Well,” Chulderic turned in his saddle and looked sideways at me, “everyone knows how that turned out.” He hawked deeply and spat, and I looked at him in dismay, thinking it a reaction to his memory of the meeting and what it had led to, but his face was serene.

“What we did not know,” he continued, “because no one had ever thought to tell Ban, was that his lady had a sister—a twin sister, whose name was Elaine.”

At the mention of my mother’s name, even though I had been expecting it, my skin rose up in gooseflesh and the hairs on the nape of my neck bristled.

“She wasn’t there when we arrived, and we saw no sign of her for the whole week of our visit, because she had gone to be with her father’s elder sister, who lived some distance away and was ailing. Vivienne was to have accompanied her, but had fallen sick herself, and so had remained at home with her father, which was fortunate for Ban. When he found out that his wife-to-be had a twin sister, however, it seemed only natural for him to ask if the two were identical, but he was told no, they were exact opposites in appearance, and being Ban, he took that to mean that the other twin must be unattractive, as the opposite of the lovely Vivienne. We did, too, in all justice.

“During that week we were entertained like kings, and Ban and Vivienne grew dizzy with love of each other. By the end of the week, Ban had sworn to return and wed her as soon as he could stir his own father to attend the nuptials, and all of us had grown confident that he and she would make a perfect pairing.

“But then, on the day before we were to leave, the other sister, Elaine, returned home, and Childebertus was lost from the moment he set eyes on her. It was absolutely true, what Ban had been told: she was the very opposite of her twin in appearance. Her hair was raven black, instead of Vivienne’s spun gold; her skin was dusky olive, instead of lily white; her eyes were dark, deep blue, much like yours, instead of sparkling green. In all things like that the two of them were as different as could be, but the truth was that the Lady Elaine was even more beautiful than her sister, a thing that none of us would have thought possible before we saw her.”

“How old was she then, Magister?”

“It seems to me she was seventeen at that time, and had been betrothed almost at the same time as her sister—within a matter of months—but to a much older man than Ban, a close neighbor and trusted friend of her father. This man, whose name was Gundevald, was greatly famed as a warrior, we were told, and had ridden off to join the Imperial Armies two years earlier, leading his own men. He had not been heard from since, but was expected to return soon, since the wars had ended, for a spell at least.”

Again Chulderic fell silent for a while. “Within an hour of first setting eyes on the Lady Elaine I found myself thinking it was fortunate that we were to leave the following day, for that young woman, betrothed elsewhere or not, could not turn her eyes away from Childebertus, that night in her father’s hall. She claimed all of his attention, too, and a blind man could have seen it would be dangerous to leave the two of them alone together for any length of time.”

“Why so, Magister?”

Chulderic jerked up straighter, plainly astonished by the question, but then he remembered who had asked it, and simply waved his free hand, as though dismissing my enquiry. “Because she was betrothed—sworn and dedicated to another. Betrothal is a solemn promise, legally undertaken, to wed someone, Clothar. It cannot be discarded lightly. A man who forswears a betrothal insults, defies, and challenges his betrothed’s entire clan, and by extension of that, any man who knowingly seduces and suborns another man’s betrothed commits an act of war against both sides of the marriage contract. The woman is not deemed to be at fault in such things, being a mere woman; the man, the contract breaker, bears the fault, and draws all the wrath upon his own head.

“In this case, the Lady Elaine was already committed to Gundevald, but it was plain for anyone to see that she would have run off that very night with Childebertus had he encouraged her in any way. Fortunately, he did not, and we left the following morning without incident, or so I thought at first.

“In fact, he had made an assignation with the young woman while the rest of us were all asleep, and they had passed several hours alone together. It was the height of stupidity, and it very nearly brought us all to disgrace. What actually transpired between the two of them I know not, but had they been discovered in their tryst, there would have been a butcher’s bill to pay, for all of us.”

He paused, evidently thinking back, and then sniffed. “I had thought he looked very pleased with himself when we were getting ready to depart that morning, and I wondered why he should be so cheerful when the rest of us were feeling sorry for ourselves, having to be up and on the road so early in the day. The answer was obvious: he had not been to bed at all that night and was still wide-awake and full of vigor when it came time for us to leave. The rest of us, on the other hand, had slept for a few hours—far from sufficient for our needs, after having drunk long and deeply the night before—and so had had to drag ourselves unrested and unhappy from our beds. I overheard him talking to Ban, later that day, about Elaine, raving about her beauty and her wit, and although he actually said nothing about it, that was when I knew, in my gut, where he had been the night before. I could hear it in your father’s voice that afternoon and see it in the way he carried himself … he was cocky, full of himself, walking on air. But it was a fool’s risk he took that night, no matter how deeply in love he thought he was and no matter how cleanly he managed his folly. He knew better than to behave as he had. He was a man of seven and twenty at the time, with a duty to consider the welfare of his friends and not set them at hazard.”

“Did you confront him with your knowledge, Magister?”

Chulderic jerked his head to one side, hard. “No, I did not. Told myself I had no proof and that no harm had come of whatever he did that night. But I went around for weeks afterward waiting for something to come of it and expecting to be pursued and challenged. It took me a long time to wipe the incident from my mind. It was the only willfully selfish, inconsiderate, and stupid thing I ever knew your father to be guilty of, and I don’t think even he realized the risk he had taken or the scope of what he had done.”

“And did anything … happen?”

“No, nothing at all, as things turned out, and we reached Benwick safely without either Ban or Germanus becoming aware of what Childebertus had done. I was the only one who knew, and I did not let on I knew anything. Life went on, and Germanus rode directly homeward to Auxerre before we reached the bounds of Benwick’s lands, and your father and I settled down to live in Benwick with Ban. Be careful here. Mind your eyes.”

Our surroundings had changed; the open space through which we had been riding earlier had been swallowed up by encroaching brush, much of it a thorny shrub that rose above the height of a mounted man and was armed with long and vicious spikes that could shred exposed skin or pierce an eyeball. I had become aware of the thorns and the danger they posed just before Chulderic drew my attention to them, and for a short time after that we rode in silence, giving all our attention to the path we were following. At one point, the growth surrounding us was so thick that we had to ride one behind the other, holding our arms up in front of our faces for protection against the wicked thorns, but that was the worst of it, and from then on the growth thinned rapidly until we were riding through glades again.

We came to a stream that was completely concealed from the path we were on by a thick screen of bushes, and we noticed it only because the noise it made in its rocky bed was loud enough to reach our ears. We soon found a way through the barrier of brush that separated us from it, and as we emerged on the other side Chulderic drew rein and sat staring at the rushing water for a while before pulling his mount’s head around to the right and kicking the animal into motion again, allowing it to pick its own way along the bank.

“I know this river,” he said, “but I’ve never seen this part of it. And yet I was close to here last night. I think we’re downstream from where I crossed, so we’ll probably find the spot … . That visit to Ganis marked a turning point in all our lives, for nothing was ever the same after it.”

The transition from observation to reminiscence was so smooth that I almost failed to recognize it, but Chulderic was already unaware of my presence and heedless of any need for time and logic in what he was thinking and saying.

“Ban was wild with impatience to be wed, now that he had met his bride-to-be, and he spent the entire journey homeward to Benwick making plans to sweep up his father and transport him and his senior advisers back to Ganis as quickly as possible for the wedding. But as soon as we arrived in Benwick it was plain to see that there would be no wedding in Ganis that year.

“Ban the Bald was no longer the lusty, swaggering King of six years earlier—the last time that his son had seen him. He had fallen from a horse more than a year before our return and had aged grotesquely since then. He was so greatly changed, in fact, that Ban himself said later he would not have recognized the old man, had he met him anywhere other than in his own home. I was there when he first saw his father on that occasion, and I saw how badly it affected him. It frightened him, probably more than anything else in his life had until that time, because it showed him that no man, not even his own formidable father, is invincible or immortal.

“The fall had shattered the bone in the King’s right thigh, driving the splintered end out through the flesh, and despite the efforts of his Roman-trained surgeons, the wound had festered and would not heal, and so the King had not walked since the day he fell, more than a year earlier. And that inability to walk had brought the old King close to death, because it had robbed him of all bodily strength, since he could no longer fight or ride or even train to keep himself in condition.

“I had never met the King, but I had heard great things about him, and nothing I had heard prepared me for the man I actually saw. He looked to me, an outsider, to be on the very edge of death when we arrived, and in fact he was dead within two months of our return. It was as though he had kept himself alive only to see his son safely returned, and from the moment he saw Ban and assured himself that all was well with him, he simply lay back and allowed death to take him. So what had begun for Ban as a triumphal return home ended in a grief-filled vigil as he waited for his father’s life to end.

“We buried the old man at the far end of summer, just as the first tinges of gold began to appear among the leaves of the forest that surrounded the castle, and we installed his son Ban as King of Benwick in his father’s stead within a month of that. Then, for a period of months following his assumption of the kingship, throughout the entire winter of that year, Ban struggled mightily to reestablish the harmonious flow of government that had begun to break down during his father’s long illness.

“Of course, he had also sent word of his father’s condition back to King Garth in Ganis as soon as he had arrived home, so everyone in Ganis knew that the wedding feast would be postponed. In the beginning, spurred by false hopes, the talk was of a brief postponement until such time as King Ban was back in control of himself, but that changed swiftly as his condition worsened steadily, and it was soon known in Ganis that the old King would never return there. By the spring of the following year, however, the old King’s death and the changes it entailed had all been absorbed and accommodated, and the marriage of Ban and Vivienne had been firmly arranged for the autumn of that year.

“Your father had much to do with that, encouraging Ban constantly, from the moment of his father’s burial and his own accession to the throne of Benwick, to waste no time in returning to Ganis and claiming his bride. The marriage, and the presence of a Queen in Benwick, Childebertus maintained, would work greatly to the new King’s advantage, giving his rule an appearance of permanence.” Chulderic paused, appearing to consider what he had just said. “All of which was very true, and excellent counsel,” he continued eventually, “but hardly unselfish, since Childebertus knew he could not see Elaine again until Ban returned to Ganis. As Ban’s closest friend, he would be the King’s witness at the ceremony, as Elaine would be her sister’s, and so the two of them would meet again, legitimately, at the wedding of their friends. But his chances of spending time with her, even then, grew daily less as the time for the return of her betrothed, Gundevald, drew ever closer. That time was already long overdue, and your father was almost wild with impatience to return and see Elaine again before his rival could return to claim his bride. Childebertus would be content to settle for that, since he knew it was the very best he could expect.

“And so they met again, in due time, this pair of lovers not-to-be, and still Gundevald had not returned from his campaigning. By that time, however, mere concern over Gundevald’s late return was being replaced by grave misgivings.”

Chulderic’s attention was caught now by something else, something low and dun colored and immobile, out of place on the edge of the stream ahead of us, and he was already spurring his horse toward it. I kicked my own horse forward, following him until he dismounted beside the body of a young buck, less than two years old. It lay half in and half out of the water, its head, complete with immature antlers, almost completely submerged.

“Throw me your rope.”

I did as he ordered, scooping the tightly coiled circle of plaited leather from where it hung from a thong by my knee and lobbing it into his outstretched hand. As he worked to unravel it, shaking out the tight-wound coils with both hands, I watched his eyes move constantly, taking note of everything there was to see in the clearing on the bank, from the dead animal itself to the grass around the area where it lay, and the fringe of bushes that screened the clearing, concealing it from view from any distance greater than ten paces.

Finally, apparently satisfied with what he had seen, he stepped ankle-deep into the stream and looped one end of the rope around one of the deer’s haunches, tying it securely before throwing the other end to me.

“Here,” he growled. “Loop this around your saddle horn and pull this thing up onto the bank, clear of the water.”

My horse made short work of the haul, and moments later I had dismounted and stood looking down at the deer with Chulderic.

“Might have been a natural death,” he murmured, more to himself than to me.

I shook my head. “I don’t know, Magister. It’s an awfully young buck.”

“Aye, it is. But youth is no great protection against death. There’s no sign of any human cause that I can see—not even a wound. But whatever caused it, the beast is newly dead … within the day, anyway. I passed by here last night, just before dark, and there was no sign of it then. Look, you can see the marks my horse made, crossing the stream there.” Sure enough, the marks were unmistakable, and they passed within half a score of paces of where we had found the carcass. Chulderic was still looking about him. “Well, at least it’s clear of the water,” he continued. “That’s what’s important. No point in leaving it to pollute the whole stream. I’ll send someone to bury it later, or at least to drag it away from the water, to where it’ll do no harm.”

“I can do that, Magister,” I said, waving the rope I had begun to coil again.

“No, that’s no job for you—not today. You have more important matters to attend to today.” He moved away, to where his horse had begun cropping contentedly at a drift of lush grass, and raised one foot to the stirrup, but before he remounted he twisted back to face me, speaking over his shoulder as he steadied himself on one leg with both hands braced against his saddle. “You didn’t expect to see that today, did you?”

I blinked at him, not knowing what he meant. “To see what, Magister?”

“Death, lad.” He grasped and heaved, hauling himself back up into the saddle, where he looked at me again, one eyebrow raised high. “Death in the middle of a fine afternoon.”

“Oh. No, I didn’t.”

“No, and you never will … . Even in war, when there’s danger all around you and the enemy is close and you know someone’s going to die at any moment, it’s always unexpected when it actually happens.” He pulled on his reins, making his horse snort and snuffle as it stamped its feet and sidled around to face me. “What about the deer?”

He had lost me again. “What about it, Magister? It was just a dead deer, lying in a stream.”

“Aye, that’s right, that’s what it was. But how did it die? When? Why?”

This distraction from his narrative was trying my patience. “Forgive me, Magister,” I said, “but I cannot think those things are significant. The only thing that matters is that the animal is dead.”

He nodded his head sagely, his lips turned sharply downward in what looked like a pout. “Aye,” he murmured, so quietly that I could barely hear him, “that’s how it always is, lad. Bear that in mind. The fact of the death always outweighs the reasons for it. I have come to believe that more and more as I grow older … .”

I was frowning at him, beginning to feel concern over the way his attention was drifting and changing, but almost as though he had noticed my misgivings, he blinked and shook his head slightly, then looked about him, easing himself around in the saddle as he considered where we were.

“Let’s go now,” he growled eventually. “We’ll head over that way, to the north, and then circle back to the south until we hit the trail we came in on. We should be back at home in less than an hour. What was I talking about before we found this carcass?”

I kicked my horse forward and followed him through the screen of saplings and bushes we had penetrated earlier. Then, once we were back on the main pathway, broad enough to accommodate us side by side, I kicked gently until we were even with Chulderic’s mount.

“The wedding.”

“Aye, well, listen closely and learn. Garth of Ganis was no fool, and no one would ever accuse him of being indecisive. He saw the strong attraction between his daughter Elaine and the young warrior Childebertus—as did everyone else in Ganis—when Ban’s party first arrived, and he watched it flower rapidly during the gaiety and excitement of the week preceding the nuptial ceremony. Fortunately, he had no awareness that the pair had met before, on Ban’s first visit—that escapade had somehow managed to escape his attention—but he could see at a glance what was happening this time, and he was having none of it. He set some trusted men to watch the pair closely day and night, exhorting them to make sure that the two young people never had a moment alone together. But Garth, being a man, knew it was only a matter of time, as the young people’s attraction to each other grew and fed upon itself. He did not distrust his daughter, but he was well aware that she was an impressionable young girl, barely more than a child, and that the buck prancing around her was a seasoned campaigner, a decade older than she, experienced in life and good to look upon. He decided to put an end to their liaison immediately after the wedding, before anything could come of their intensifying attraction.

“On the day of the wedding, Garth watched Elaine, barely paying attention to the bride and her new husband in his concern over his unmarried daughter. He had increasing difficulty in concealing his anger as he saw how eye contact between Elaine and her admirer had given way to touching, their hands constantly hovering close to each other’s so that their fingers were seldom untwined, even though the clasping was always brief and cautious and, they believed, hidden from the eyes of others.

“That night, the night of the wedding feast, the King made sure his daughter’s nurse would have company in her chambers—a collection of visiting children of all ages to keep her awake and thereby ensure that Elaine remained safely where she ought to be, in her own quarters. At the same time, he invited Childebertus to sit among his personal guests at dinner, and took great satisfaction in watching the young man’s discomfort as he sought vainly for some way of making his escape. Each time young Childebertus rose to his feet, the King would speak to him directly, drawing him back into the general conversation and making it impossible for him to leave without being ill mannered and obvious.

“The morning after the festivities, Garth rose up early and went straight to speak to Ban as soon as the new husband showed his face. He told his new son-in-law what he had seen going on between his daughter and Childebertus and what he intended to do about it. He then summoned Childebertus to him privately and confronted the unsuspecting warrior with the realities of his situation and the dire punishment he faced if he should bring disgrace, shame, or embarrassment to Garth or any of his kinsfolk, and most particularly his daughter Elaine, who was betrothed to another.

“Childebertus listened, and then succumbed to a surge of nobility that he was to regret deeply. He admitted openly and freely that he had fallen deeply in love with the King’s beautiful daughter, but swore he had done nothing and never would do anything that might cause Elaine to suffer pain, grief, or shame in the eyes of her family or anyone else. He offered to leave Garth’s lands at once, and swore by his honor and his love for Elaine never to return. Very noble, passionate, and full of self-sacrifice, all of which add up to great foolishness. But the King had been listening closely and he believed every word of your father’s protestations. He thanked Childebertus for his tact and understanding, then gratefully and graciously accepted his offer to leave Ganis immediately, granting him the remainder of that day to make his farewells to everyone except Elaine, and promising that he would personally send him on his way the next morning with no hint of shame or scandal attached to his honor. True to his word, as Childebertus was preparing to depart the following day, Garth gifted him with a magnificent horse and all the trappings to go with it, in token of his gratitude and his appreciation as the bride’s father.

“Your father thanked the King for his generous gift, then rode away, straight backed and stiff shouldered, filled with rage at himself, he told me later, for his stupidity in offering to leave. He had not even had an opportunity to speak with Elaine, to tell her what had happened. She loved him, he knew, as he loved her, and her father had promised to tell her what he had done, but Childebertus would never forgive himself, he thought, for denying their love to both of them in what he now recognized as a moment of foolish enthusiasm.”

“He rode away alone, then? Why didn’t you go with him, for company on the road?”

“I would have, had I been there, but I was in Benwick at that time, acting as Ban’s deputy during his absence.”

“Well …” I was almost spluttering, outraged by the injustice of what had been done to my father. “Had he no friends to ride with him? Did King Ban not object to his being sent away alone?”

“Aye, he did. Ban was angry and upset when he first heard that your father would leave the next day. His anger sprang out of his loyalty to your father, for whom he felt responsible, as well as from his own awareness that he himself could not accompany his friend—not now that he had a wife to take back to his own home, with all her belongings and her personal attendants. None of those, he knew, would be ready to leave for another week, at least, and he himself could not leave without them. So he demanded that Childebertus select an escort from among Ban’s own men, to ride with him—Ban had brought an unusually large force with him to Ganis, more for display than for real safety, and could easily afford to send a large number of them with his friend to protect him. But your father was still feeling noble then, determined to suffer and endure the agonies of his self-hatred and contempt in seclusion. So, yes, he rode off alone.”

“What happened then … Magister?” I almost addressed him as an equal, but I caught myself in time to add the respectful acknowledgment of his rank. He did not notice, however, and answered my question without hesitation.

“Ban sent an escort after him, regardless of your father’s wishes, but Childebertus must have seen them coming behind him, because he vanished before they could make contact with him and they could find no trace of him from then on. They eventually returned to Ganis, to report their failure to Ban, and he was not happy with them. But there was nothing to be done.”

“But that can’t be all, Magister! There must be more. How could my father ever have wed my mother, having sworn by his honor never to see her again? Did he forswear himself?”

Chulderic smiled now, amused at my panic. “Easy, boy, calm down. Your father’s honor was never in question. King Garth himself absolved him of his promise. I told you the old man was neither foolish nor indecisive. Exactly a month after the wedding, on the very day that Ban and his new wife left King Garth’s lands to return to Benwick, Garth received word, in the form of a written report from an imperial legate, that Gundevald of Stone Vale was dead, killed in battle months earlier when his force was surrounded and wiped out by an overwhelming concentration of Ostrogoths whose existence in that part of the world had been unsuspected until that encounter.”

I had been listening avidly, because I knew Gundevald must have died somehow—otherwise, how could my father and my mother have wed?—and this confirmation of my own judgment pleased me greatly.

“Well, those were the worst tidings King Garth could have received. He knew that Ban, his new son-in-law, was an able man and a valiant fighter and would have made a fine consort to Vivienne, had she ever become Queen of Ganis, but he had always known, too, that such a thing would never be, because it had never been intended. Vivienne would go with Ban to his home in Benwick, hundreds of miles to the south and east, where he already had a people of his own to rule.

“At the time of the pair’s betrothal, you see, almost two decades earlier, Garth had been in the prime of his manhood, with a fertile and loving wife who, to that point, had given him three fine, healthy sons and twin daughters. Full of a young man’s belief in his own invincibility and flushed with his pride of fatherhood, Garth had foreseen no need then to fret over his own future. The marriage of his daughter to the son of his old friend Ban the Bald had been arranged purely to strengthen the ties between Ganis and his friend and ally, Ban the Bald of Benwick. Since that time, however, Garth had lost his beloved wife, who had died in childbirth along with her infant. He had never remarried, but had kept himself surrounded by women of all ages, using all of them shamelessly to help him look after and care for his children, and most particularly his three sons.

“And then, late in his life and within the space of two years, all three of his sons had been taken from him—one crushed in a fall from a horse, the youngest swept away and lost forever in a flooded river later in the same year, and the eldest and most promising, Dion, devoured by the spotted fever. Suddenly Garth was alone, with only one unwed daughter left to succeed him, and his enemies were as aware as he that Garth of Ganis was no longer as mighty as he once had been.

“That knowledge was the reason for Garth’s promising his daughter to Gundevald of Stone Vale in the first place. He was very concerned about protecting his kingdom and his people, but he was equally concerned about protecting his unwed daughter. The Salian Franks have very strongly held ideas about women succeeding and taking possession of family holdings. They don’t like that at all and they’ve been trying for years to put a stop to it. They want a dead man’s holdings to pass to another male; if not a son, then the nearest male relative. Garth was long-headed when it came to things like that. He could not have foreseen what would happen to his sons, but he was clear thinking enough to ensure that even in the worst imaginable circumstances, his daughter would not end up penniless and disinherited as a helpless woman in a man’s world. He saw it as his duty to protect her against the day when he could not be there to see to it himself. Gundevald, like Ban the Bald of Benwick, had been a valued friend of Garth’s for years. His lands of Stone Vale bordered Garth’s own holding, and although they were neither as fertile nor as extensive as King Garth’s Ganis, they were more rugged, easier to defend, and they abutted Ganis on two sides.

“Furthermore, Gundevald was the last of his family, the sole survivor of a long line of successful and enterprising merchants whose ventures, operating mainly out of Massilia, the oldest port of southern Gaul, had covered every part of the Empire for more than two hundred years. By an accident of birth and the attrition of the few remaining heirs of his natural family, Gundevald had become the sole inheritor of a private trading empire so complex and diversified that he could never possibly spend all of his wealth. And his immense wealth enabled him to enjoy a personal power that few men could wield. He counted himself a friend of the Emperor, Honorius, and thanks to the Emperor’s blessing, Gundevald commanded his own private army, maintaining it out of his own coffers and placing it at the disposal of Honorius in time of war.

“Garth knew there were some people who thought it less than fortunate that Gundevald was almost twice Elaine’s age and so had little youth and less beauty with which to sway or win a young girl’s heart, but he knew, too, that Gundevald would make a fine, strong, and dutiful husband for his only remaining unwed daughter, and a powerful protector for her lands and her people once Garth was gone. But now Gundevald was dead, and Elaine was almost nineteen, having spent three full years waiting for him to return and marry her.

“Now, as soon as he had received and accepted the word of Gundevald’s death, the King also accepted the realities that had changed the world around him. Gundevald’s holdings of Stone Vale, which Garth had hoped to use for the defense of Ganis, were now in jeopardy, for Gundevald had left no sons to succeed him and his power and possessions would inevitably pass to whomever among his followers was strong enough to claim and hold them. That, by itself, placed Ganis at hazard, since Garth had no knowledge of who would seize the rule in Stone Vale next, and no way of divining whether that person might be friend or foe to Ganis.

“And so King Garth of Ganis thought long and deeply, then made a swift decision and sent out mounted couriers to overtake Ban’s party on the road. Ban’s cavalcade, containing all of his wife’s prized possessions in an entire train of enormous wagons, was ponderous and ungainly, and it had set out only that morning, moving very slowly, which meant it would still be well within Ganis lands when Garth’s messengers reached it. He sent word that the cavalcade should make camp and await the return of Ban and Vivienne, who were to return immediately to him.

“By the time the pair arrived back at the King’s Hall, wondering what was going on, Garth was ready for them and greeted them with a barrage of questions that kept them both reeling, off balance, and in absolute ignorance of his motives. This friend of Ban’s, he demanded to know, the one he had sent home, the fellow Childebertus, was he trustworthy? He nodded at Ban’s angry response, which he had expected, then pressed on: was he a man of means then, this Childebertus … did he have wealth?

“Sufficient for his needs and more than he could ever use, he was told. His father, a very wealthy and famous lawyer, had died in Rome several years before and had left all of his possessions to Childebertus, his only son. Those possessions consisted mainly of the monies and portable goods—gemstones and jewels, and gold and silver, both coins and bullion—taken as fees during a lifetime of working on behalf of wealthy clients. In addition to those funds, however, the lawyer Jacobus had also left his son enormous quantities of valuable real estate, most of it rental property generating revenue in the city of Rome and in the new Imperial City of Constantinople, all of it shrewdly purchased throughout the old man’s life and now held in trust for Childebertus by his father’s closest and most trusted friends and colleagues.

“The King muttered approval when he heard that. He said he would need large resources if he were to protect Ganis and its people in the future.

“Who would need large resources? Ban asked, making it plain that he had no idea of what was going on here. Childebertus would, Garth replied, as if that were the most obvious thing in the world. If he was to wed Elaine, he must elect to live here in Ganis, working with Garth at first in governing and strengthening the domain, then serving as his wife’s consort when she became Queen once Garth was dead. Gundevald was dead—had been for months. Garth repeated the report he had received and dismissed the dead man with a wave of his hand. The thing to do now, he told Ban, was to consolidate his affairs in Ganis before the wars broke out in Stone Vale.

“Ban asked Garth why he himself was not moving to take command in Gundevald’s stead, but Garth’s only response to that was a quick shake of the head. No point to that, he said. He did not have the strength at his back nowadays, he said, and couldn’t hope to win a serious struggle against the organized leaders of Gundevald’s army.

“What army? Ban asked. It might be true that they had all been killed with Gundevald.

“Not all of them, Garth answered. That was impossible.

“Not so, Ban responded, equally forceful. It might seem impossible, but it might just as easily be true. And what if it was true? What if Gundevald’s defeat at the hands of the Ostrogoths had been so completely crushing that none of his commanders had survived? No army can survive, deprived of its command officers; leaderless, the rank and file were nothing more than a rabble who would dissipate and vanish within days, hunting for food and sustenance for themselves. Or what if the defeat had been less severe, yet sufficiently so that those who had survived now had not enough organized strength to take and hold Gundevald’s place in Stone Vale? Should Garth not move at least to occupy the territories as a precaution, in self-defense?

“That stopped the old King short. He had not considered that possibility. Perhaps he should move in, he growled after a while. All the more reason, then, to wed Elaine to Childebertus and have the young man here to work by his side as soon as could be. He wanted Ban to ride immediately, in haste, to bring back Childebertus as quickly as possible.

“He might not come at all now, was Ban’s response, for although he knew that Childebertus would crawl over burning coals to reach Elaine, he nonetheless felt the need to make the old man suffer briefly before giving in to him. Garth had given the poor fellow ample reason to refuse to come again, he pointed out.

“Of course he would come! The King’s answer was immediate and confident. He had done nothing to insult Childebertus personally, he said—indeed, he had gone out of his way to show his appreciation and goodwill with the gift horse. Besides, everything was different now. If Childebertus wished to wed his daughter, Garth would look kindly on his suit, provided Childebertus would agree to remain in Ganis and pledge himself and his resources to support the King, standing with Garth and his people against any who might come against them in the aftermath of Gundevald’s death.

“Less than an hour after that, Ban was on the road home to Benwick.”

“And was my father glad to hear Ban’s tidings?”

Chulderic peered sideways at me. “What do you think? He was wild with delight. As soon as he heard what Ban had come to tell him, he sent for me. We were going back to Ganis at once, he told me, as quickly as we could, and we would live there from now on. I would be his Master-at-Arms there, he promised me then, in complete charge of the entire force of men he would be raising immediately to take with him.

“Before we left for Ganis, your father sat down and wrote a letter to Germanus in Auxerre, explaining what was happening and where he was going and why, and telling the legate that we would be extending our northward journey to swing wide of our route and call in at Auxerre in passing. He then asked the noble legate to mediate for him in the matter of the legacy left him by his late father, by contacting the various people involved as custodians of his wealth and requesting that they sell everything that could be sold, as quickly and as prudently as possible, and that they forward the funds in care of Germanus in Auxerre. In the meantime, he hoped Germanus might arrange to advance him some money against future revenues and that he would also agree to use those funds and his military contacts to conscript a force of not less than one hundred men, all cavalry, and more if he could find qualified men in sufficient numbers, and have them ready to accompany us when we left Auxerre to ride on to Ganis.

“Your father had no idea then of how much money was involved in his father’s legacy, and I doubt if he ever really came to grips with his own sudden wealth. Germanus told me later that the expenses he incurred on behalf of your grandfather Garth and the fortification of Ganis involved enormous sums, paid for, in the main, by what was realized in the first few years from massive sales of his properties in Rome and Constantinople. Much of that money was shipped directly from Rome to Gaul by sea, then made its way from the coast to Auxerre, and from there to Ganis, in wagon loads disguised as normal military goods being transported under escort. Your father kept the money in his own treasury after that, and used it as he needed it, to purchase arms and men and horses and the like. I remember, though, when I first heard about it—the amounts involved, I mean—the number of wooden chests of gold coin and silver ingots and jewels and the way they were transported clear across Gaul in ordinary wagons, I was flabbergasted. I simply could not visualize the bulk of the treasure.”

I sat blinking at that, entranced by the image he had conjured, trying in vain to imagine the size and amount of treasure involved and to see it, in my mind’s eye, filling the vast underground chamber of my father’s treasury, awash in a sea of gold and brilliant colors as the flickering light of torches reflected from the heaps of gold and jewels.

“What happened to it, Magister, all that money?”

“Clodas took it, along with everything else.”

“Clodas. Someday I will kill Clodas of Ganis.”

“Aye, mayhap you will. No one will blame you, I know that. He owes you more than one life. Besides, his treasury is yours by right.”

I felt myself frowning now. “Clodas of Ganis. The King said Clodas wasn’t always known by that name. But last night King Ban called you Chulderic of Ganis. Is that correct? Is that truly where you are from?”

The Master-at-Arms barked deep in his throat, and it might have been a laugh, although it might as easily have been a cough. “No, lad. I’m from Ostia, the port of Rome,” he growled. “I had never heard of Ganis until Ban mentioned it, and I didn’t get that name until I came here with you, ten years ago. Chulderic’s a common name in these parts and there were already four Chulderics here when I arrived. Each of them was known by the name of the place he came from, and one of them was already from Ostia, another from Rome. So I became Chulderic of Ganis.”

“What did you do in Ostia, Magister?”

“What did I do in Ostia?” He made a formless, grunting sound deep in his chest. “No one has ever asked me that before. What did I do in Ostia? I should know, I was there for years … . I survived, I suppose, and that, considering who I was and where I found myself, was an achievement. I grew up there, fighting for every scrap of food I ate and fighting even harder simply to live when there was nothing to eat … . I was an orphan and a thief, forced to live by my wits, and they served me well, since I am still here to speak of it. I had no family … and no memories of anyone, from my earliest days … . I lived on the streets, alone, sleeping in doorways most of the time, for as long as I can remember, and the one vision I had that kept me alive throughout that entire time was an image of myself as a soldier. I don’t know how or when it began, but I grew up dreaming of being a soldier—not a mere warrior, mark you, but a uniformed Roman soldier, a legionary—because soldiers, to me, were always self-sufficient and dependent upon no man for their food. They were tall and strong and confident, and they had fine weapons and they were clean and wore warm clothing and well-made armor and everyone knew who they were and what they were. I never met a single one, mind you, who showed me any kindness, but somehow, among them all, they saved my life.

“I was fourteen when I first tried to enlist, and they laughed at me because I was a small, undernourished, and skinny fourteen. I was so furious that I wept. I tried seven more times after that—seven times in two years—and they turned me away each time. But then they took me in the next time, on my ninth attempt, with no hesitation. I suppose I had grown old enough by then to look my age.”

He glanced across to where I sat watching him, and sniffed. “Now I’m a Master-at-Arms, so who would guess I ever was a thief?”

There was nothing I could say to that, and I only had the vaguest suspicion that there might be a grin hiding underneath his scowl, so I sat mute for a spell, then changed the topic.

“Why did Clodas of Ganis kill my parents, Magister, and how was he able to do so?”

Chulderic stiffened as though I had slapped him, and then his shoulders slumped forward. “Why and how are two different matters, boy. I’ve been thinking of that, and wondering about it, for ten years now. He killed them because they were there and they had what he wanted. This is a creature born to kill, this Clodas. He is depraved … evil. And yet he hides the evil effortlessly, with an almost supernatural ability to dissemble, to appear to be what he is not. Easy for me now to say what I know to be true, that he is without a man’s emotions, empty of mercy or compassion, incapable of love or sympathy or sorrow. But this was not the face he showed to us who thought we were his friends. From us, he concealed every inkling of his true nature—from us men, at least, because I seem to recall that most women disliked him and distrusted him instinctively. I suppose that makes men more gullible and foolish than women. It’s certainly true that he was able to gull all of us who knew him. Jesu! It makes me sick when I recall how much we trusted him … and honored him, for that matter. But then, truth to tell, none of us could even imagine the depths of treachery and depravity that existed within him while he was making us all love and admire him.”

The old man stared out across the scene in front of us. “Believe me, lad, he was a piece of work … the kind of man to make you doubt every notion you ever had of what is admirable or honorable or worthy of trust.

“How did he do it? Within the six months following your father’s arrival, he and King Garth visited every town, every fort, and every settlement, no matter how poor or insignificant, in the Ganis federation, and that is how your father first met Clodas, on one of those journeys. In those days, Clodas was not known to anyone as Clodas of Ganis. If anything, he would have been Clodas of Rich Vale, but even that would have been ludicrous. His station was far more humble back then. His father, Dagobert, was the chief magistrate and nominal ruler of the district called Rich Vale, one of the larger fiefs of Ganis which lay far to the southeast of Garth’s own lands. But Dagobert was an administrative ruler, more of a public official than a leader in any military sense. He was also some kind of cousin to King Garth, a relative by blood, but I know not how close, although I believe someone once told me that Garth’s grandsire had been a brother to Dagobert’s grandmother, or perhaps his great-grandmother.

“When Childebertus first met Clodas and his people, there was no slightest sign from any of them that they might all one day disagree. Clodas represented his father that day, for Dagobert had fallen gravely ill and would later die of his illness. Clodas presented himself as a loyal kinsman and ally of King Garth, and welcomed him and your father warmly as honored guests, extending all the hospitality of his father’s hall to the King’s party. Your grandfather was Clodas’s King, and took the welcome as no more than his due, barely aware of anything other than the formality of the occasion. Your father, on the other hand, being the man he was, accepted Clodas’s hospitality in the spirit in which he believed it was being offered. It would never have crossed his mind to doubt the truthfulness or the intent of his host. And Clodas took great pains to ingratiate himself with both his visitors.

“Less than a month after returning home to Ganis, they received the word of Dagobert’s death, and of Clodas’s elevation to his father’s rank and holdings, and a month or so after that, they returned to Rich Vale to pay their respects to Clodas, to ratify him as his father’s successor, and to commiserate with him over the death of his father. It was at that time that they first began discussing how the garrison at Rich Vale could be strengthened, to their mutual advantage. King Garth, using the combined resources of his regal title and your father’s money, with Childebertus’s full blessing in the latter, offered to quintuple the strength of Rich Vale’s resident forces, which had so far been a mere token presence, providing that Clodas himself would undertake to command his own garrison thereafter, with suitable assistance from Ganis, and to build sufficient housing for his new recruits. Clodas agreed, and it was arranged that a new muster of mercenaries would report to Clodas’s command the following spring.

“Well, the new muster arrived, on time and as promised, and from that moment onward the die was cast. Clodas began training his command to serve his own ends. He was his own master, in all respects, and he arranged his affairs accordingly and in complete secrecy. Even the senior officers supplied by Garth suspected nothing, for their tasks were straightforward—to drill and supervise the training of the newly mustered mercenaries until they were battle ready. It was no great feat on Clodas’s part to conceal the fact that when his troops were battle ready, they would be ready to attack their own allies.”

“May I ask you something, Magister?”

“Of course.”

“What did he do to my mother? Before her death, I mean. What did he do to her?”

“What d’you mean? He did nothing to her. If he had actually done something, we would have taken care of it then and there, and what transpired would never have happened as it did.”

“But he must have done something, Magister. The King told me that he changed from the moment he first set eyes on her. How could anyone have known that? How could King Ban identify the time and place if nothing happened to mark it?”

The skin across Chulderic’s cheeks seemed to tighten and he gazed at me fiercely, his eyes narrowing with what I took to be anger. He started to say something but caught his breath and stopped himself, turning his head away abruptly and tilting his chin up as he stared away into the distance. Then he swung back to face me, releasing his breath noisily. “Damnation, boy, I wish you were older. You’re too damn young to know about the politics of men and women … and that is as it should be.”

I had absolutely no idea what he meant, but I schooled my face to remain blank and nodded knowingly.

“It was your mother who first noticed that there was something wrong about Clodas. None of us noticed anything, but then, we were only men. Your mother, with her woman’s instincts, detested him from the first moment she met him, although she said nothing for a long time afterward. She sensed something in his attitude that was offensive, and she felt it down deep in her gut. She felt it in the way he looked at her, and in the tone of his voice when he spoke to her. In the months that followed, she heard her husband speak of him often, but she said nothing, merely avoiding the man and hoping that your father’s business with him would soon be done.

“But then Clodas confronted her again, appearing unexpectedly one day when she was alone in the household, your father off on a hunting trip and me with him. Nobody knows what was said on that occasion, but there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that Clodas had offended the Queen. She called her guards, and she defied him openly in front of them, forbidding him, upon pain of banishment, ever to return to Ganis while her husband was away from home. Then she had him marched out of her gates and sent on his way back to Rich Vale. Everyone who was there heard her clearly. A public rebuke was probably not the cleverest thing she could have done to a proud and self-absorbed man, no matter what the provocation he provided, but she reacted as she saw fit at the time.

“What he said to her that day she would never discuss, not even with your father, but she called Clodas high-handed and self-serving and noxiously full of self-love, and she told her husband to beware of him and to trust him in nothing.

“That put your father in a vise, right there, because he had already committed himself, publicly, to trusting Clodas in matters of both import and consequence, and to withdraw that trust purely on the unsubstantiated opinion of his newlywed wife would have caused Childebertus much embarrassment. And yet his wife’s opinion was of great value in his eyes and in his heart. He knew she would never lie to him and he could not say the same about Clodas. Had your mother told us what really happened between her and Clodas that afternoon, of course, that might have been the end of all of it, then and there, and your parents might still be alive today. But she held her peace, and thereby tied your father’s hands, and that led to tragedy.

“I’ve been thinking about it now for years, wondering why I didn’t cut the serpent down myself, simply for causing me to try to imagine what he might have said or done, or even tried to do. But that’s a fool’s task, because I did nothing. Nor did anyone else. She was stubborn, Elaine of Ganis, and she kept her secret, no doubt for what she thought were excellent reasons.

“Afterward, both of them behaved in a very civilized manner to each other, knowing that everyone was watching them and waiting for some sign of hostility, and eventually the tension eased and seemed to die away completely. Then, a full year and more after the upheaval, the Lady Elaine announced herself to be with child, and from that moment the priorities of all of Ganis changed visibly. Everyone breathed more easily. Clodas had long since withdrawn into Rich Vale to tend to his own affairs, and your father spent most of his spare time with his wife, anxious to be with her as much as possible while she was carrying you … . That situation, an appearance of peace, lasted for a whole year, from the end of one summer through the beginning of the next.”

In the silence that followed, a skylark broke into song and spiraled upward, its miraculous voice defying comparison with the size of its tiny body, and I listened to it distractedly as I waited for Chulderic to resume speaking. But the silence extended until I grew concerned that he would say no more, and finally I could wait no longer.

“And then what happened, Magister?”

“Everything, at once.” It was as though he had been waiting for me to ask, because his voice betrayed no surprise at my question. “The world fell apart in the space of one afternoon, and the calamity was over almost before anyone realized it had begun.”

“But you knew.”

“Aye, I did. At least I was among the first to learn of it.” I realized afterward that Chulderic might have construed my comment as an accusation, but his response was instantaneous, a straightforward acknowledgment of truth. “But I was too late even then to stop any of it. As his Master-at-Arms, I should have been there by your father’s side, to guard his back and see to his welfare, but no, I was miles away, playing the fool with a woman while my best friend was being murdered—the man who had given me everything I owned and who had entrusted me with his life and his family’s safety.”

Although I was still only a child of ten, even I could see that this confession was a bitter and heartfelt one, wrung out from a deep well of pain, and I felt sorrow for the powerful Master-at-Arms. I resisted the urge to say anything, however, fearful that I might say exactly the wrong thing and offend him without wishing to.

“I was in love, you see … or I thought I was. You were about six weeks old at that time, perhaps eight weeks, and your mother was in fine health again. She had fed you from her own breasts for the first month of your life, but then something happened and her milk dried up—don’t ask me what it was; I have no knowledge or understanding of such things. But the upshot of it all was that a wet nurse had to be found—a woman who had lost a child of her own and had milk to feed a starving babe whose own mother could not give him suck.

“They found two, both of them, by sheer coincidence, recent widows. One was called Antonia, a comely little thing, young and well bred of solid Roman stock. Her elderly husband had been a landowner and some kind of local magistrate. The other was called Sabina, a widowed woman from Ganis. Both lived within a day’s journey of your grandfather’s castle, both had lost their babies in childbirth, and both were in milk. Antonia had a fragile air about her, but Sabina was all woman, beautiful and self-assured and sultry looking. Sabina was also closely connected to some of the senior Salian chieftains—her dead husband, a warrior called Merofled, had been one of Clodas’s closest friends—so the matter of the politics had to be considered in the choice.

“In the event, your father went to see Sabina, took one look at her, and declared her to be suitable. None of us were surprised at the choice, because the woman was simply too beautiful to ignore … .” He lapsed into silence, thinking back to what he could remember of that time, then sighed sharply, snapping himself back to the present.

“Anyway, I was with your father that day, as I always was, and he gave me the task of bringing Sabina back to Ganis immediately, to meet your mother. By the time we had ridden the eighteen miles from where Sabina lived to where your mother was, I had already fallen deeply in love with her … she was the most beautiful creature I had ever seen, more beautiful than a week-old fawn or a well-trained falcon … and to my eyes, at least, ten times lovelier than your mother, who had been until then the loveliest woman I had ever known. When I first met her—Sabina, I mean—she was in mourning for her lost child, but it was plain to see that her grief could not conceal her pleasant nature, and despite her loss she went out of her way to be charming and friendly toward me. She was no longer mourning her husband, however, and she managed to make that clear from the outset. By that time, she told me, Merofled had been dead for many months, and I had the distinct impression she was angry with him, if anything, for leaving her as he had.

“Be that as it may, your mother both liked her and needed her, and so she made Sabina welcome. All of Sabina’s love and attention was lavished upon you, and of course that seemed to banish her grief, so that she soon became herself again. That transformation completely overwhelmed me. I became her slave.”

I glanced sideways at him. “You said you were playing the fool with her when my father was killed, Magister. Is it always foolish to love someone?”

His eyes narrowed to slits, but instead of snarling at me, he slowly wrinkled his nose as though he could smell something rotting close by. “No …” His voice faded away into silence. “No,” he grunted again, drawing the word out this time until it was almost a growl. “No, it is not foolish to love someone, but believe me, boy, it is sheer madness of the worst kind to permit love for a woman to come between you and your sworn duty. And it is punishable folly when you allow love for an unknown woman to seduce you from your sworn trust. I was guilty of all of that, and my punishment has been justified.”

I blinked at him in surprise. “What punishment, Magister? How were you punished?”

“By being left alive, boy. In all the years that have passed since that time no day has gone by without my remembering my guilt over that afternoon and what I allowed to happen.”

“What did happen?” I was incapable of masking the frustration in my voice.

“I went riding in the woods, with you and your nurse, instead of doing what I was supposed to do, which was to protect your father. It was a beautiful summer’s day after two weeks of rain, and your mother had finally returned to full health. She and your father had spent little time together since your birth and, since the kingdom was at peace and all was tranquil, your father had deemed it an ideal time to spend some time with you and your mother.

“He arranged a small hunting party, a score or so of friends, men and women both, and a small body of servants to look after them. I was in charge of the handpicked squadron of guards, as always, but on that occasion I was in conflict with your father’s own wishes. My first priority was always his security—and his family’s, of course—and normally he was content with that. But this occasion, Childebertus told me, speaking as a friend, was for sheer pleasure for himself and your mother, and he did not wish it to be spoiled for her by the constant and oppressive presence of a host of guards. I was not happy about that, but there was nothing I could do to change it.

“We left King Garth’s castle in the middle of the week, intending to spend three or perhaps four nights by the river in the greenwood, depending upon the weather, and it was soon evident that we would remain for all four nights, because the weather was perfect. We hunted all day the first day out, and killed sufficient meat to keep us amply fed for the entire period. Then, on the second day, we fished in the river, and while we were less successful there, we yet caught enough fine trout to feed us well.

“On the third day, which started out fiercely hot early in the morning, your father and mother decided to remain in camp, close by the river’s edge, and they wanted no company, so they sent everyone off to find things to do for the day. Not even I could stay behind, your father said. I argued with him, knowing he was wrong, but he was determined and even more stubborn than I was. Since the day they were wed, he told me, he and your mother had scarcely spent a moment alone together. There were always people around, and he was sick and tired of it, so this one, solitary day, he was prepared to flout all the rules of conduct, to offend anyone who cared to take offense, and to spend some time absolutely alone with his wife. He knew I would refuse to remove his guards entirely, but he insisted that for this one day they should be removed to no less than twice the normal distance they maintained from the encampment.

“And so it was. I posted the guards personally, almost doubling the number of men because the perimeter expanded as they spread outward from the center of the encampment. Even so, by the time they were all stationed the protective ring around the encampment was a fragile one, at best. And then when I returned to inform your father that I had done as he wished, he ordered me, too, away, insisting that I spend the day with you and your Frankish nurse, Sabina, protecting both of you. He knew I was taken with her. I was unhappy with the laxity he had created among his own people, but I must admit I was lulled by his sense of well-being, and I’ve told myself a thousand times that no sane person could have anticipated treachery and murderous hatred on the scale of what took place that afternoon.

“But the fact remains that I was more than willing to wander off into the forest with Sabina and you. I carried you in my arms as we went and she walked close beside me—close enough to touch me as she walked and for me to smell the clean, fresh scent of her. She had dismissed the young man—no more than a boy, really—who was always with her, setting him free for the day and promising that she would be almost as safe with me as she always was with him, and he had gone scampering off on his own somewhere.

“Had I known where he was scampering to, I would have cut the legs from under him before he took a step. The whoreson ran straight to Clodas, who was calmly awaiting word, a few mere miles away, that the guards had been relaxed, that I had been removed from the scene, and that he could attack at will. The entire episode had been prearranged, months earlier, and all of us had been manipulated into participating.”

“But—” I was unable to absorb what he had just said.

“Aye, but! How could such a thing be possible? How could it be achieved, and who would be sufficiently cynical to arrange it? The answers came quickly enough, once the damage was done—one observation leading to another like swaths of scythe-cut corn in a reaper’s windrow.

“Our guards went down quickly, but some of them held out long enough to raise an alarm. I was about a mile away from the encampment when I heard what I thought was a shout and then a blast on a horn, quickly cut short. On another occasion I might have paid it little heed, but I was ill at ease that afternoon. I started running toward the sound, holding my sheathed sword high and free of my running legs as I went and abandoning you and the nurse Sabina on the instant, despite the sounds of her voice crying to me. By the time I had covered half a mile I was beginning to flag, for I was used to riding, not running, but by that time, too, I was hearing the sounds of men’s raised voices ahead of me where there should have been none: And then I heard hoofbeats coming directly toward me through a dense copse of bushes and I crouched behind the trunk of tree, hoping that the rider would break cover close enough for me to bring him down. He did, and I was able to grab his reins and unseat him. I was about to stab him but I recognized him as one of my own men, a Panonian mercenary called Fallo, who had been with us for years.

“He had a dagger drawn when I attacked him, and he almost killed me before he recognized me, but we were both falling at the time and instead of sticking me in the chest, his blade glanced off my cross-belt and carved a deep trench underneath my left arm. I bled like a pig and we had to scramble to stop the bleeding, for he had hit a large vein, but while he was tending to me he told me all he had seen.

“Childebertus was dead. That was the main thing Fallo had to tell me. No doubt of it; he said. He had seen the King die with his own eyes. The guards had been overwhelmed in silence, for the most part, struck down by arrows from a distance, but some of the arrows—one of them aimed at Fallo—had missed their marks and the alarm was raised. By then the enemy was already charging into the encampment in force, thundering hard on the heels of the volley of arrows, a solid body of horsemen designed to ride down and obliterate anyone left standing. Fallo and three others that he knew of had fallen back to the encampment, managing to keep ahead of the enemy, and it was as he ran toward the center of the camp that Fallo saw Childebertus at the entrance of his tent, half-naked and clutching a sword and shield.

“Before he could even shout a warning, Fallo saw a horseman dressed entirely in black gallop out from between two tents and bear down on your father, the horse’s shoulder striking him and hurling him backward, to hit and rebound from the side of his own tent then fall over a guy rope and sprawl on his face, his sword jarred from his hand. Clearly stunned by the force of the fall, your father then started to struggle to his knees, but the figure in black was already leaping down from his horse, swinging a heavy one-handed ax over his head. Fallo was still ten paces distant when the rider buried his ax between the kneeling King’s shoulders. Your father died then and there, but his killer worked the ax head free and then tried to sever his head, moving around him to the side and starting to take careful aim with his upraised weapon. He didn’t even see Fallo coming, and by the time he noticed him he was too late to escape. It was his head, not your father’s, that fell from its trunk. And even as he killed the man, Fallo recognized him.”

Chulderic stopped abruptly, his jaw set, and reined in his horse, staring through narrowed eyes into some scene that was forever closed to me.

“It frightened him at first, he said, to recognize the whoreson because the fellow was supposed to be already dead, killed a year earlier. The man was Merofled, who had once been Clodas’s closest crony and husband of the supposedly widowed Sabina. Fallo had struck off his head with one wild sword blow, and although he knew not how, he sensed nonetheless that this man’s identity was important and should be witnessed. But even as he scrambled to pick up the severed head he was attacked by other newcomers and almost died there beside your father. He forgot about Merofled’s head then and concentrated instead on saving his own. First two, then five assailants surrounded him, but he managed to cut his way out of the circle and escape, aided by the fact that several of his attackers quit fighting him to join another group who had entered the central tent and captured your mother. Unable to help her—he told me she had been surrounded by more than a dozen men, and I believed him—Fallo stole one of their horses, but in fighting to mount it he had to leave behind his sword when it stuck fast in the body of the last man he killed.”

Chulderic kicked his horse into motion again. “So, there it was, the entire conundrum in a nutshell, although I could not see it even then. As Fallo spoke the words that bared it all, the connection between Merofled and his ‘widowed’ wife passed over my head, leaving no impression. I was stunned by everything he had told me … stunned, I will admit, into something approaching mindlessness. When I heard Fallo’s description of what he had seen, the horror of what he was telling me left me fighting to draw breath, as empty inside as though my guts had been scooped right out. The sudden knowledge of these brutal deaths—your father’s and your mother’s—hit me as a personal judgment and condemnation. It was a crippling, punishing confirmation of my own worst fears and it was simply too much to absorb at one time.

“It did not occur to me at all then, for example, that your mother might have survived the capture that Fallo had described to me. And it certainly hadn’t yet come to me that the attackers were Clodas’s men—how, before it actually occurred, could such a monstrosity even have been conceivable? Certainly, when Fallo spoke Merofled’s name, my mind tried to form some kind of explanation for his unexpected presence—I remember thinking that the reports of his death must have been in error; he must have been captured and not killed, and thereafter been held hostage to some monstrous threat.

“I had some addled notion in my head, I remember, that the attackers were some kind of Outlanders, some ragtag invading force of barbarian adventurers from the far north, beyond the Rhine. I had half-formed visions in my mind of towheaded, blond-bearded savages carrying enormous axes and heavy shields. But then I remembered that Fallo had only seen one ax, a single-handed ax, wielded by Merofled, who was no Outlander. Even then, I realized later, stunned and disoriented as I was, I was beginning, deep in my mind, to sense the presence of evil.

“The deep wound in my arm from Fallo’s dagger was not making my problems any less difficult. The bleeding finally stopped, however, thanks to the pressure of the wadded bandage Fallo had strapped around my arm using one of my several belts. He was in better condition than I was, so I rode and he led me back cautiously toward our former encampment. I was fretting at his caution, but it proved worthwhile, for there were large numbers of enemy troops among the woods. Fortunately, they were all leaving, and there was that air of flattened calm about them that affects all of us after the terror of heavy fighting. We stopped and concealed ourselves in a dense thicket within a quarter mile of the camp and remained there for almost half an hour, watching as the last of them drifted away into the woods, heading northward. I had been watching those of them who had approached us, but none had come close enough for me to examine closely, and yet there was something that I felt I should be seeing, something that was plainly there but was eluding me. It was annoying, like the buzzing of an insect in the night, clearly heard but unseen.

“When they were all safely gone, we ventured out and made our way into the camp, where we found your father’s headless body, but no sign at all of your mother the Queen. We searched high and low, hoping to find her safely hidden somewhere in the surrounding area, but in the end we found no trace of her and were left wondering what had become of her.

“Whoever these attackers were, they had taken your father’s head as a trophy, for his was the only corpse that had been mutilated that way. His and Merofled’s, if Fallo was to be believed. But there was no sign of Merofled on the killing field, other than a great outpouring of blood at the spot where Fallo said he had struck off the butcher’s head, and the man in whose body Fallo had left his sword had vanished, too. All of the bodies of the enemy fallen had been removed, in fact, the dead as well as the wounded, and only a few slaughtered defenders and two dead horses remained sprawled in the clearing that had housed the camp. Our dead, and the far-flung ring of perimeter guards, had fallen where they stood and fought. I sat light-headed and reeling in my saddle, blinking at the sights that surrounded me, aware that something was wrong but unable to identify what it was. It was Fallo who finally defined it.

“‘They took all their dead,’ he pointed out to me. ‘Everything. Weapons, gear, trappings from the horses. Everything.’ I remember agreeing with him and being aware that I was swaying drunkenly, and my tongue was threatening not to do my bidding, so I articulated my words very precisely. ‘Why would they do that, think you?’

“‘To hide who they are. They don’t want anyone to know who did this.’

“That sobered me slightly, making me concentrate more closely. ‘Who are they, then?’

“Fallo looked at me as though I were dull-witted. ‘They’re Clodas’s people,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you recognize them?’

“I remember I scoffed at him, unable or unwilling to really appreciate what he was saying.

“‘Then why was Merofled there?’ he demanded. ‘Clodas’s strong right arm. Where has he been hiding for the past year? Those were his men. Did you not see their uniforms? Black tunics and black leather; no insignia. That’s Merofled’s mercenaries.’

“Suddenly, crushingly, I saw the truth of what he was telling me and everything fell into place. Merofled’s ‘death’ had been no more than a subterfuge to prepare the way for his grieving widow to be introduced into Childebertus’s household and into Elaine’s trust. No one, of course, could have known in advance that Elaine’s milk would dry up; the fact that it had, I quickly realized, was merely a fortunate bonus from the viewpoint of the plotters. They had spent long hours plotting their designs and must have laid careful plans to have Sabina’s baby ‘die’ and then be cared for by someone else for long enough to leave its mother free and piteously qualified to assist Elaine with her still-living child. Sabina’s child, then, was yet alive today, as had been her husband, which meant that Sabina was a treacherous, duplicitous whore, set in place to betray the entire household that had welcomed her into their lives, and specifically instructed to lure and seduce me away from the path of my duty, thereby leaving the way free for murderers and rapists to glut themselves in this orgy of slaughter.

“How easy had it been for her to influence the family, given the compassion they had felt for her and the position of total trust they had accorded her? Hers had been the voice goading Childebertus to spend some time alone with his wife and son, and she had used her seductive wiles on me to bring me to acceptance of many things that I would never otherwise have countenanced, all of which had made her foul task easier. And now Childebertus and Elaine were dead and you, their son, were gone, stolen away, if not killed, by the person who had engineered this entire catastrophe.

“Within moments I was riding Fallo’s horse hard back to where I had left you and the woman, more than a mile away. Every vestige of weakness and sickness had disappeared from me and I rode like a man possessed by demons, thinking as I went that you were already dead, for I saw nothing strange in the thought of Sabina killing you out of hand—the callousness with which she had arranged the death of your parents made the additional killing of a mere brat insignificant. So convinced was I that she had killed you that I heard myself wailing as I went, aware that it was me making the noise, but that it did not sound like me. I had yelled to Fallo to find another horse and follow me, but I didn’t know if he would and in truth he was the least of my concerns.

“My horse broke from the woods into the open meadow where I had left you both and I headed it directly for the place where I had last seen you, hoping, I suppose, to find some traces of your presence there, some spoor that I could follow. And there you were, alive and alone in the grass, tightly wrapped in your swaddling clothes, your face twisted as you howled out your outrage at being left abandoned and unable to move. I almost fell from the saddle, leaping down, and I did fall flat on my face when I bent over to try to pick you up. So for a time I simply lay there beside you, listening to you scream and thinking it the sweetest music I might ever hear.”

The muffled sounds of our horses’ hooves seemed very loud after that, neither of us having anything further to say, but while I found myself intrigued by the thought of Chulderic finding a baby’s screams enjoyable, I drew no pleasure from thinking of myself as a screaming infant. And so I rode head down and waited, while counting twice from one to twenty, for him to resume his tale. When he did not, I kneed my mount slightly closer to him.

“What about Sabina, Magister? Where had she gone? Did you ever see her again?”

“Oh yes, and far sooner than she had thought to be seen. She had worn a brilliant yellow scarf that day, when we set out to walk, and I had admired it greatly. Now, when I finally sat up and took you in my arms to try to soothe you, I saw it in the distance—a flash of brilliant yellow in a clump of brambles. It was obvious at first glance that Sabina had lost it without being aware of it, because it hung motionless among the thorns and it blazed like a beacon, showing which way she had gone, so I went to collect it, taking you with me.

“I reached the spot without difficulty, but the ground there, on which the brambles grew, was wet and muddy, almost a swamp, and it was immediately plain to me that Sabina had lost her scarf in falling. There were clear marks where her feet had slipped on the treacherous path and the unmistakable imprint where her body had landed in the mud. She had scrambled to her feet, leaving distinct handprints where she had pushed herself upright, and had then begun to run, the spaces between her footprints almost twice as far apart as they had been before she had lost her balance.

“Curious about why she should suddenly start to run at that particular point, I followed the track she had taken, walking for about four hundred paces until the path began to drop down the hillside into a little valley, and suddenly there she was, leaning against one of a cluster of three boulders in a depression about fifty paces below me, by the side of the track. Fortunately, you had long since stopped crying, probably lulled by the movement of my carrying you, so I stopped as soon as she came into view, and stood there on tiptoe, looking down at her. There was something urgent and anxious about the way she was standing, rising tensely every now and then to peer along the track leading downward to her right, and I realized that she must be waiting for her husband, Merofled, to come and find her. I was immediately swept by a surge of anger and revulsion, and a strong desire to confront her, and so I began to look for a place to set you down. I knew there was no need to hurry, since Merofled would not be coming, and so I began to retrace my steps, and as I walked and searched I saw Fallo and someone else approaching me on horseback. I moved quickly then, waving them to silence as they drew near. The newcomer was Quentin, another of Germanus’s veterans, and I signaled them to dismount and quickly told them what I intended to do.

“Sabina did not hear us approach until I spoke to her, and then she leapt like a frightened deer and tried to run, but Quentin was ready for her and tripped her, bringing her down hard before she could go five paces. He and Fallo then pulled her up again, holding one arm each, and brought her back to face me. To her credit, little though it was, she made no attempt to plead or to placate me; she knew by looking at my face that I knew what she had done. When I told her of Merofled’s real death at Fallo’s hand, however, every trace of color drained from her face and she would have fallen had the two men flanking her not held her up. I realized then that she had loved her husband and the knowledge that she could truly have a capacity for love and yet be capable of the crime she had committed that day hardened me inside even more than I had been.

“I asked her directly why, having murdered your father and mother, she had left you alive, but then I answered the question myself because the truth had just come to me: she had not killed you, but she had left you to die. Her response to that astonished me, however, because it was emphatic and obviously genuine. Your mother’s death, she told me, was a nonsense, talk fit only for a fool. No one sought her death and it had no value to anyone. The most important aspect of all that had taken place this day had been the specific requirement to protect Elaine of Ganis. Capturing her alive had been the entire purpose of this venture. Clodas had coveted the woman since he first set eyes on her, she said, and had convinced himself he would make a far better consort for Elaine, Queen of Ganis, than would her wealthy, gullible fool of a husband, Outlander that he was. The plot that evolved thereafter had centered upon a clean and clear-cut intent: to separate Childebertus from his supporters and kill him swiftly and efficiently, along with his child … the sex of the child had been unknown while the plot was taking shape and was of no importance. What was important was that Elaine should be free of encumbrances from her past life when her abductors took her to Clodas, who would protect and console her and see to her safety thereafter. I swear to you, I listened to her talk and wondered whether she was mad and Clodas was mad, or whether it was I who had lost my sanity.

“But then I stopped thinking such thoughts and questioned her more thoroughly, seeking the truth, incredible as it might be to hear.

“Sabina’s pregnancy had been fortuitous, occurring at the same time as Elaine’s, and it was that coincidence that had precipitated the basic idea behind the entire plot. Clodas and Merofled had conceived the plan and had persuaded Sabina to work with them. Clodas had pointed out to her that the rewards would be great, with Merofled benefiting greatly by the takeover of Childebertus’s cavalry, and he had guaranteed her that her own child would be well looked after during the few months when she would be away from him.

“Everything had gone according to plan, she told me, except that at the final moment, when it came time to kill the child, she had not been able to. She had grown too fond of you. And so she had left you in the meadow, alive for the time being and with, she believed, a good chance of being found and rescued. But your mother, she swore, was very definitely not dead.

“By the time she finished talking I was gazing at her open-mouthed, appalled at the depth and scope of her self-delusion. Did she—and Clodas, for that matter—honestly imagine that Elaine of Ganis would ever be grateful for the murder of her husband and their son? They would have to be insane to think such a thing. And what about Elaine’s father, King Garth? Was Clodas stupid enough to think that Garth of Ganis would not react to these atrocities with a war of total vengeance?

“I remember her expression grew sullen at the mention of Garth’s name and I felt my stomach suddenly grow heavy. Garth was already dealt with, she said, although she had had no part in that aspect of the arrangements and had no knowledge of how his death might have been brought about. She knew only that he was marked to die as part of this day’s activities. If Elaine was to be Queen of Ganis—as she would be upon the death of her father—Clodas would be King, by right of conquest as well as by right of being wed to the Queen. And once the old man was dead, Elaine’s attitude to Clodas would make no whit of difference to anything. They would be wed, by force if need be, and thereafter she would be his.

“Hearing the indifferent tone of the woman’s words, the soulless knell of their disinterest, I turned my back on her and gazed up to the hilltop from where I had first seen her hiding down here, and then I told her what was in my mind. I did not look at her again as I spoke, but I knew she heard every word I uttered.

“I told her that there were laws in Ganis, and in Gaul, to deal with people like her and the atrocious acts that they committed and conspired to cause. I told her that she deserved to be tried and sentenced by the proper regal authorities. And I told her, too, that in the absence of such authorities—an absence caused by her personal actions and intent—she was therefore being tried and duly condemned to death, in accordance with the law, by the next level of power within the State, that power being the military, represented by me as Master-at-Arms of the Kingdom of Ganis. I then turned to face her and nodded to her guards, who had been waiting for my signal.

“Fallo and Quentin forced her to her knees, and then, while Quentin held her arms stretched stiffly at her back, her wrists twisted and locked to prevent her struggling, Fallo undid her long hair and pulled it out in front of her, gripping the tresses firmly in both hands and pulling forward and down, hard, to stretch out her neck. Only then did she begin to believe what I had told her, and her voice grew ever more frantic as she pleaded with me, offering to give me everything a man could desire of a woman … everything I had dreamed of before but would never yearn for again.”

He paused, biting gently at his upper lip, then turned his eyes on me again, and I could see him taking in my size and, I realized later, my age. “You have no idea of what I mean, boy, but you soon will … aye, soon enough you will.” He lapsed into silence again, his gaze sliding away from me to stare, unfocused, at something only he could see.

“My sword was a spatha, a long, slender cavalry sword, as you know, intended for stabbing. But I kept it razor sharp and a woman has a very thin neck compared to a man’s. She died as her husband had died, her head severed with one blow.”

I had been expecting something of the kind, but nevertheless I was left feeling breathless when he spoke the words, perhaps because of the matter-of-fact way in which he delivered them. As I stared at him, I could feel my eyes growing round with incredulity and what I can only think of now as consternation.

“You killed her, with your own hands? But you said you loved her! How could you do that, if you loved her?”

“I said I fell in love with her. That is a very different thing from loving her, boy. A boy will love his mother and his grandmother, his aunts and all his sisters, but the feelings that he feels for all of them will be nothing to the feelings he endures when he falls in love with a woman. Falling in love and loving someone are not at all the same. That, too, you will learn someday. But even as you are now, at ten years old, think you I should have spared her?”

That question left me open-mouthed, silenced between the need to scream out yes! and the realization that we were discussing the woman responsible for my mother’s death. I was unaware of speaking but I must have whispered something of what was going through my mind, because Chulderic answered me.

“No, not responsible, not completely. It was Clodas who was responsible from the outset—his malevolent envy gave birth to the idea—but he could not have achieved what he did without Sabina. She didn’t handle any sharpened weapons that day, but the lethal honey of her coaxing words to both your parents had been more venomous than any poisoned blade could ever have been, and her deliberate seduction of me, undermining my sense of duty and propriety and enabling me to be false to my own code, was malicious and premeditated. And so I killed her without compunction.”

I sat silent, absorbing that, then nodded. “That was just. But what about my grandfather, King Garth?”

Chulderic shook his head, as though dismissing my question. “The woman was right. Garth was already dead, that same morning. The previous night, while Merofled was moving into striking range of where we were camped, Clodas himself had arrived at King Garth’s door, accompanied by an escort of his mercenaries, telling Garth that he was on his way to visit a cousin who lived in a neighboring territory to the north of Garth’s own lands. Garth took him in and made him and his escort welcome without demur or question, secure in the knowledge that Clodas’s father, Dagobert, had been one of his oldest and dearest friends. During the night Clodas’s people rose up in the darkness and one group killed the old king while he slept, overwhelming his guards easily, since none of them expected any danger. And while they were attending to King Garth, others of their number were busy slaughtering the King’s strongest leaders, all of this planned and practiced, with nothing left to chance, so that come morning there was no one left alive who might have rallied the forces of Ganis to withstand the usurper. It was done and over with. Clodas was King of Ganis before the outrage was visited upon your parents later that same day.

“I refused to believe what the woman had told me, hoping against hope that something might have served to warn and therefore save Garth and his people, and so I set out with Fallo, Quentin, and some others we had found to ride to warn the King of what had happened, and I had you with me, carefully wrapped and tied into a saddlebag that was strapped across my shoulders. But before we had traveled halfway, the word met us coming from Ganis. The King was dead; Clodas had claimed the throne; his army, far larger than the mercenary force your father had provided the previous spring, had moved into Ganis early that morning in overwhelming numbers; everything was chaos and the King’s leaderless army had been disarmed and rendered useless.

“I immediately pulled our little party off the road. We had nowhere to go that might be safe for us, and none of us was of the type that would consider surrendering to Clodas. Besides, we had a nursing infant with us and no way to feed him. Much as I hated having to take the time to do so, I rode apart from the others and sat down alone to concentrate on what we should do next. Your life and safety was my first priority, above and beyond all other considerations. My negligence had made you an orphan, I believed, for I did not know yet that your mother had survived. Now you were the only living remnant of your family’s blood, and I knew my immortal salvation depended upon my keeping you alive, to grow to manhood and claim vengeance for your parents’ deaths. I had never been more than a nominal Christian until that point, but I became devout thereafter, for a while, believing that I had to expiate my sin of negligence.”

“So what did you do, Magister?”

“D’you remember my mentioning Antonia, the other Roman woman who had lost her baby?”

I nodded, wondering what she could have to do with any of this, and he grunted. “Aye, well, I remembered her, too, and I went searching for her, hoping that she might still be in milk, for months had elapsed since I last saw her. She was not difficult to find, for she yet lived in the same house, and she was still producing milk like a brood cow, for she had taken in another baby, younger than you, whose mother had died at the birthing. She remembered me, and when I told her what had transpired with you she volunteered immediately to take you into care. I left you with her and rode off to see what might be done about Clodas and his treachery.”

“Did you fight him?”

“Fight him? I could not draw within a mile of him. He was surrounded by his own people, all of them heavily armed and far more vigilant than I had ever seen before in such a large body of men. Their lord and master had just committed a series of heinous sins, including regicide and the mass slaughter of people who had shown him nothing but kindness. It was reasonable to assume that someone would come seeking vengeance and redress sooner or later, and that the avengers might come from any direction, and so the new ‘King’ had let it be known that he would be openhanded in rewarding any who identified such trouble in advance of its occurrence. Naturally, every man in his army and not a few of Garth’s former people were anxious to qualify for such rewards.

“I had to split my group asunder, to take their chances each man for himself, for had anyone seen us together and failed to recognize us as allies, or, God forbid, had seen and recognized us as Childebertus’s men, we would all have died instantly.

“I remained in Clodas’s camp for more than a week, asking questions, learning little and watching what was going on, and as the days passed I grew more and more discouraged. I discovered that your mother was, in fact, alive but was being kept under constant guard. Clodas, I was told, took pains to visit her twice each day, morning and afternoon, between sessions of governing. That information surprised me, for it had not occurred to me that Clodas might actually seek to govern Garth’s kingdom, but as I watched the comings and goings of the various identifiable officials thereafter, I found myself admitting, however reluctantly, that Clodas was far more of an organizer and administrator than I would ever have believed before that time. By the end of ten days I was forced to accept that I was powerless, as things stood, to do anything to revenge myself on Clodas—I had been entertaining fantasies of sneaking into his quarters and waking him up, making sure he knew who I was and why he was about to die, and then slitting his throat. I was equally incapable of doing anything to help your mother in her captivity, for my face was too well known for me to risk discovery trying to approach the quarters where she was being held.

“That’s when I decided to ride south to Benwick and enlist Ban’s aid in rescuing your mother. But then, before I could leave, your mother took her own life. They told her you were dead, and presented her with evidence of what they said, and that took all the will to live away from her.”

“What kind of evidence?” What, I wondered, could Clodas have said or done to convince my mother of my death while I was yet alive? Such is the innocence of extreme youth.

“The foulest kind,” Chulderic replied. “False evidence. She had been grieving deeply for your father, I was told by my informants. I had made a few good contacts during my stay among Clodas’s forces and had ample access to information, but none of it was straightforward. My informants, apart from being the enemy, were not close associates of Clodas but simple soldiers, with all the limitations that entails.

“From their conversations I knew that Clodas’s prisoner had been prepared to suffer and wait, as long as she believed her son was safe and alive. She believed, too, that Ban of Benwick, her sister’s husband, would ride to her rescue. That would take time, she knew, but she was so confident that he would come that she made no secret of it, warning everyone what would happen to them when her brother-in-law came to Ganis.

“Clodas must have heard of this, and connected it with her belief that you had survived his plotting. He did not know you had survived, in fact, but he knew your mother believed you had, and so he told her you had been slain that same afternoon when your father died; that your nurse Sabina had arranged the trap and led them into it.

“Your mother refused to believe that Sabina would be capable of killing you, after having suckled you for months, and of course Clodas could not present Sabina to prove it one way or the other. But three days later, he had one of his creatures present your mother with the dirt-encrusted corpse of an infant that had been butchered and left in a shallow grave for days. It was the same age as you and had your coloring, but otherwise it was not identifiable. Apparently the mere sight of it was sufficient, however, to unhinge your mother’s mind, and she hanged herself that same night, with the cord from one of her robes.

“Even Clodas’s own were disgusted by that piece of work. No one knew who the child had been or where he came from, and many of them thought it truly was Elaine’s own child, but it was common knowledge among some of Clodas’s troops that the word had come down to find a suitable child and use it a-purpose.

“That was the night before I heard the tale whispered around a campfire, and the talk was all of Clodas’s anger after she was found dead. They said that he was livid with anger, but that no one had dared to ask him why he was so surprised, after what he had done to the hapless woman. Anyway, his fury was ungovernable, and he had all of her guards executed within an hour of hearing the report of her death, even those who had not been on duty that night. He then rode off, still raging, with a small group of his closest cronies and did not return that night. I waited two more days, but he still had not returned and there was no way of knowing when he might even be expected.

“That evening I went back to Antonia and told her everything I had discovered. She listened carefully, asked several questions mainly concerning you, then made arrangements to have another woman take care of feeding the infant she had previously adopted. Then she volunteered to accompany me back to Benwick, nursing you along the way. I felt greatly honored by her commitment to you, an unknown orphan, and accepted her offer immediately.

“Sadly, however, the journey from Ganis to Benwick grew into an odyssey of many months, much of the time spent avoiding wandering bands of brigands and marauders. Antonia barely survived it. She fell ill along the way and died shortly after we arrived safely in Benwick.”

I interrupted him with a comment that had just sprung into my mind. “So all the women in your story died.”

“What did you say?” Chulderic reined in his horse and sat blinking at me in what I took to be astonishment, but then his eyebrows rose even higher than they had been and he began to nod his head, hesitantly at first and then with more conviction. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, by God, you’re right. They did, all of them. I’ve never realized that before. Never even thought of it. They all died.”

We rode without speaking after that, each of us with his own thoughts, and soon we were back on the outskirts of the castle lands. With what I have always thought of since then as the resilience of youth, I felt no desire to ask any more questions about my parents’ death. I had asked, and I had been told, and I felt satisfied that I now knew the truth, but I felt no grief. How could I? I had never known Childebertus and his beautiful wife. They were mere names to me; people in a tale. I was fully aware, nevertheless, that the tale involved me and that I had an obligation to bring their murderer to justice.

I knew, too, that when I finally brought him to justice, the kingdom of Ganis that Clodas now ruled would become mine, by right of blood and birthright, but I was not yet concerned about that.

One more question remained to be asked of Chulderic, and I broached it as we approached the castle walls. “Magister Chulderic?”

It was the first time either one of us had spoken in almost half an hour, and the Master-at-Arms turned his head toward me and cocked one eyebrow. “Aye?”

“What can you tell me of Germanus?”

“Germanus, is it? Know him well, do you? Most people nowadays call him Bishop Germanus. Those of us who have known him long enough call him General Germanus, or simply the General. No one else that I know calls him plain Germanus. Where did you gain that right?”

“Pardon me.” I was duly abashed. “I did not mean to sound disrespectful. It’s just that my father says I am to go away with him, to Auxerre, to study. I have never been away from home and I had never heard of Bishop Germanus until last night, so I hoped you might tell me what you know about him.”

“Well, lad, I can’t. I know you are to go away with him when he comes, and I know you’ll miss your home at first. But you won’t pine for long and you will never regret meeting General Germanus. He is probably the finest man I ever met, including your father, but I only say that because your father died before he could achieve the things he wanted to achieve. The General, on the other hand, has had far more time to do what he has done, and he has done it all wondrously.

“Your father and Ban and the General were friends, but it began with your father and General Germanus. You see, they were all patrician … you know what that means? It’s all a matter of birth and breeding, who you are and where you were born, wealth and manners and education. I was a simple soldier, as I told you earlier, privileged to be included among their number, but I was never completely at ease with them, off duty.

“Germanus, he was five or six years older than me, and rich as an emperor. His family was an ancient and honored clan in northern Gaul, and Germanus was married to a cousin of the Emperor Honorius himself. He had been trained for a military career but he’d felt called to study law and he’d ended up as a successful lawyer in Rome. Honorius changed all that when he ordered him to take up soldiering … well, he asked him, really, according to Germanus, but who’s going to say no to an Emperor? Anyway, he needed someone to look after his interests back in Germanus’s home territories in Gaul, and he thought his friend Germanus was the very man for the job. Germanus’s young wife had died, along with her infant, in childbirth, and Germanus was so distraught, his friends were afraid he might lock himself away from the world. Army was the best thing that could have happened to him.

“So just bear in mind he’s a bishop, but he’s also a warrior, and one of the best, so he’ll train your body and your fighting skills as well as he’ll train your mind. Here, we’re back and I have matters to attend to. Is there anything else you want to ask before I leave you?”

I shook my head, knowing I would never again walk in terror of the Master-at-Arms. I would respect him more than ever after today, but having seen beneath the grim facade he wore habitually, I would never again fear him. “No, Magister,” I told him, and thanked him for his patience and forbearance that afternoon.

He nodded courteously and wished me well in Auxerre, after which he turned and rode away, making his way to the castle stables. I watched him until he rounded the edge of the curtain wall fronting the main gates, and I did not set eyes on him again for six more years.