Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

King Ban was Christian, too, of course, as were we all, his sons and daughters. But even at the age of ten I knew that Ban’s was a nominal Christianity, held and observed more to please his wife than to save his soul. Left to himself and living his life as King Ban of Benwick, nominal vassal to what-ever subemperor might be in power at any given time, my father was a responsible warrior king first, an administrative imperial official next, and a working Christian last and least.

As these thoughts of my father filled my mind the door opened again and he stepped out halfway, looking at me with one eyebrow raised. “Come,” he said, and stepped back inside, holding the door open for me to follow him. I entered the long, lamp-lit hallway that I had not seen in the time that had elapsed—more than two years now—since my eighth birthday, when I had been ritually deemed too old to share my mother’s bed any longer and old enough to be able to fend for myself among my elder siblings. It had been a form of banishment, but one which every boy endured when he turned eight, and therefore it had been bearable. Now the warm, familiar atmosphere washed over me and I stood there, blinking, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dimness. My father moved ahead of me and walked directly toward the brightness spilling from the room at the far end, and I trailed behind him, glancing at each of the doors on my right as I passed.

The first, I knew, concealed a deep, narrow storeroom lined with shelves, and the second led to the family’s private bathhouse. I also knew that behind that door, at the end of a short, narrow passageway, hung double floor-to-ceiling curtains of heavily waxed cloth that contained the steam and moisture from the baths and prevented it from spilling out into the passageway. The next room was my parents’ sleeping chamber, containing an enormous bed, framed in dark, richly polished wood and surrounded by curtains of the finest, most diaphanous cloth made by the nomads of Asia Minor. My mother would be in there, I assumed, but the thought had barely entered my head when I saw her instead peering anxiously toward me from the room my father had just entered, the family room at the end of the hallway. This spacious room was the heart of their private quarters, and it was filled now with the evening light that shone through the hundreds of small, translucent rectangles of colorless glass in the high, arched windows in the outer wall. There were six hundred of these glass panels—I had counted them many times—all uniform in size and held in place by a mesh of lead strips, and they were the wonder of all our land. People marveled at them, I knew, because I had often heard them speaking of their beauty and speculating on the cost of them. They were unimpressive from the outside, looking up at them, but the light that poured through them during the day transformed the room’s interior in a manner that seemed magical.

As I stepped into the room, I lost awareness of all else as my attention became focused instantly on my mother’s distress. Her face looked gaunt and distraught, her eyes deep set and haunted, but she did not appear to be angry with me, and I felt an instant of selfish relief. She seemed afraid, more than anything else, and that frightened me in turn, for I could not imagine what kind of terror might have frightened her here, in her own castle, with her husband by her side and his warriors all around us.

“Mother?” I said, beginning to ask her what was wrong, but the moment I uttered the word she rushed to me and drew me into the kind of enveloping embrace she had not shared with me since I had entered training as a warrior. Her hand clasped behind my head and drew me to her bosom and her other arm wrapped about my back, pulling me close, so that I felt the womanly softness of her body as I had never been aware of it before, and as she held me I felt her shuddering with grief and heard her anguished sobs above my head. Mystified, I did not know what to do or how to respond and so I simply stood there, letting her crush me to her until I felt my father’s hand gripping my shoulder, pulling me away. As I obeyed and stepped back, I saw that he was grasping both of us, one in each hand, prizing us apart.

“Enough, Vivienne,” he said, and his voice was gentle. “The boy’s unhurt. A few scrapes, no more than that. Nothing that will not heal and disappear within the week.” I saw him wince, as though in pain himself, as he uttered the last words, and I understood immediately that he wished he had not said them. My mother groaned and swung away from his now gentle grasp, catching her breath in her throat and turning her back on both of us. My father-looked from her to me and shook his head tightly in what I recognized, even at ten years of age, as frustration with the behavior of women.

“Sit down,” he said to me, pointing to one of the room’s large padded armchairs, and then he slipped his arm about my mother’s waist and murmured something to her that I could not hear. She sniffed and fumbled for the kerchief in her sleeve and then, wiping her eyes, she permitted him to lead her to a couch, where she sat staring at me for long moments until fresh tears welled up into her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.

“Vivienne.” There was a warning tone to my father’s voice, and she looked up to where he stood beside her, watching her.

“Must we, Ban?” Her voice was plaintive, beseeching him.

“Yes, we must. Now.”

Both of them turned their eyes on me then, and I spoke through the panic that had been building in my breast since this strange behavior began. “What is it, Father? Mother, what’s the matter, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Nothing is wrong, Clothar—not in the way you mean.” My father perched on the arm of Mother’s couch and leaned slightly to rest one hand lightly on her shoulder, his thumb moving soothingly against her neck. “I said something to you earlier today, when you first came to me, about your age. You were ten, I said, more than halfway along toward manhood. Do you remember?”

I nodded.

“And then I asked you if you thought you would ever make a decent man.” He was looking intently at me now. “I had never doubted that you would, until I heard that report from Chulderic today, and your explanation satisfied any doubt I had then. You will be a fine man when you are grown, and you are growing quickly. You have the makings of a warrior and a king, both. Any father would be proud to have you as a son.”

He glanced down to where his thumb still stroked his wife’s neck, comforting her. My mother had stopped weeping and sat gazing at me, and I frowned in puzzlement at what my father had said—not about his pride but about my having the makings of a king. I was the youngest of five sons, with little chance of ever becoming King of Benwick, and I had known and accepted that all my life. Mine would be a warrior’s life, but not a king’s.

“This fool, Frotto … Your mother told me earlier today, while you were at the baths with Lorio, that you came to her three years ago, when he first began taunting you. She told you then he was lying, but she said nothing to me at the time, thinking it was no more than a boys’ spat and would pass.” He glanced sideways at my mother, who showed no reaction but stared steadfastly at me. “I am not displeased over that. I might have said and done the same things, at that time, had I been faced with the dilemma you presented to her. You were left to deal with Frotto’s bullying for three years, but that’s a normal thing that all boys have to undergo, in one form or another.”

I felt myself frowning at him now. He saw my confusion and rose to his feet, sighing deeply and expelling the air noisily through pursed lips. “Damnation, boy, you understand nothing of what I’m saying, do you?” He did not expect an answer and moved away, pacing the length of the floor three times before he spoke again, and by the time he did, nameless terrors were clawing at my guts.