Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

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

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

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

They were well matched, the fighting pair, neither one possessing any apparent physical advantage over the other. Both were of medium height, wide shouldered and heavily muscled, their bare forearms taut and tight with the tension and strain of controlling their whirling weapons. They circled each other as they fought, leaning forward on the balls of their feet and grinning ferally, their friendship as apparent in their faces as was the iron determination in each of them to win this bout. The man facing me as I emerged from the trees was the first one to. see me, and as soon as he did he took a backward leap and grounded his weapon, shouting something I failed to understand. And at that point, as is only natural, every eye in the place was turned toward me as I brought my mount to a halt, eyeing the group carefully.

There were nine of them, I could see now. Two had been lounging on the bank of the stream, my view of them obscured by a low-lying clump of heather or gorse, but now they had raised themselves on their elbows to look over at me. I ignored them after that first glance, avoiding eye contact with any of the group as I looked around again. Something white flashed from a dark place on the far side of the stream, and as I squinted in that direction my eyes adjusted to the light and the distance and I made out the shapes of several horses—nine of them, I presumed—hobbled in the shade of a clump of hawthorns. All of them were saddled, indicating that their owners were on their way to some other destination and had merely stopped here to rest for a time.

I nudged my horse gently with my spurs to start him moving again and then rode forward slowly, angling him toward the bridge. But I knew I would not pass unchallenged this time, for none of these people’s clothes were shabbier than mine. No one man among them made any overtly threatening move or betrayed any kind of hostility toward me, but suddenly they were all moving, perhaps in response to some signal unseen by me, and so fluid was their motion, so precise and instinctual, that I quickly found myself facing an unbroken line of them, seven men shoulder to shoulder across the front of the bridge.

I kept moving, guiding my mount with my knees until a mere ten paces separated me from the line of warriors, all of whom stood facing me. Three of them were smiling. I took note of that but drew little pleasure from it, since the likeliest reason for their smiles was anticipation of the pleasure they were about to take in thrashing me. Of the four who were not smiling, two were frowning and the other two had blank, expressionless faces from which wary eyes watched me intently. It was one of the latter two who spoke to me first, his tone of voice as expressionless as his face.

“Come now, fellow, how offensive need you be? Who are you and where have you come from?”

I saw two of his companions move their heads to look at him. The others kept their eyes on me. I merely shrugged my shoulders, answering him calmly but ignoring the matter of my name.

“I had no thought of being offensive. I am merely passing through.”

“Well, pass through at some other place, you inconsiderate lout. Can you not see that you are disturbing our leisure, trespassing upon our goodwill?”

Listening to his words I felt all apprehension drain away from me, to be replaced by the familiar tingling of prefight tension. I had been waiting for one of them to speak to me, to say something that would allow me to form a judgment, and this man’s words, offensive as his tone might be, had the double effect of removing my uncertainty and committing me to a course of action. I had been looking for a fight since the moment I left Merlyn’s quarters, but I had no intention of getting myself killed and thus had been looking for a safe fight, an outlet for my frustration. I knew now that I had found what I was seeking.

None of these people facing me bore me genuine ill will. Had it been otherwise they would not have spoken at all, outnumbering me as heavily as they did. They would simply have acted, and I would be dead or unconscious. But now I knew that what I was facing here was a modified form of the same kind of pride in belonging that I had been watching among the common soldiers. These young men were all officers, all leaders, sharing and enjoying one another’s strength and companionship in a place of safety. My presence among them, as an unexpected newcomer of their own stature, afforded them an opportunity for sport, at no cost, and I was sure they would not consider swarming me. The test of strength that was shaping up here would be single combat, one against one.

I glanced over to where discarded armor was piled neatly on a patch of close-cropped turf on the riverbank. Heavy spears had been arranged in two pyramids, and pieces of armor and weaponry—helmets, cuirasses, greaves, and a number of swords and axes—had been propped against them when their owners had stripped down to their tunics to rest and enjoy the sun. Now I looked back to my challenger, staring at him with one eyebrow raised in wry amusement that I hoped would provoke him.

“Goodwill, say you? You lay claim to goodwill, behaving this way, accosting and harrying passing strangers? You and I obviously come from different places, with different definitions of goodwill.”