Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

Germanus laughed. “Absolutely not! Call me Germanus as you always have. That’s who I am and nothing about me has changed simply because I am become a bishop. Titles are for others. Among friends as old as us, names never change.”

The Queen bowed her head, acknowledging the courtesy. “Thank you. Now tell us about this school of yours.”

The bishop’s face grew sober. “It is a school in the tradition of the ancients, where boys are taught the things they need to know in order to be good men, accepting duty and responsibility.”

“What kind of boys attend this school of yours? Are they all the sons of wealthy men?”

Germanus smiled at the Queen, but in answering her he spoke to both of them. “No, not at all, although many of them are. Ours is a school for boys, my Lady, not necessarily rich boys. The prime entrance requirement to our ranks is intellect. We are looking to train minds and encourage learning for learning’s sake. Our world is changing rapidly nowadays, my friends, and many of the old, time-honored ways of doing things are being forgotten and abandoned. And it pains me to say it, but high among those.things ranks the education of our children. Education has fallen out of favor, the need for it seemingly eclipsed by the catastrophes and cataclysms shaking the very foundations of the Empire. In a disintegrating world, people are thinking, there is little need for education.”

“Think you the world is coming to an end?” This question from King Ban made my eyes snap wide open. The notion of World’s End is a Christian one and Ban was no Christian, and yet here he was, asking the bishop for reassurance.

Germanus shook his head. “Are you referring to the return of the Christ in the Final Judgment? I think not. Not yet. The Scriptures tell us that the Second Coming lies ahead of us, but they also indicate that much requires to be done before it comes upon us. At least, that is what I believe. The Empire may be facing its end and that would not surprise me, but not the world, I think. Mind you, I may be wrong. No man may know the mind of God and it is blasphemous to presume to do so. But it is the possibility that the world might survive that causes me such great concern over the education of our children. And so we believe—we being the elders and bishops of the Church—that we court disaster if we allow our children to run wild. If we fail to teach them how to read and write and use their minds as God intended, then they and our entire world will fall back into Godless savagery. And so we maintain schools.”

“To train clerics for the Church.” The Queen’s voice was gentle, no hint of censure to be found in it, but Germanus caught the inference.

“Of course,” he agreed. “But not exclusively. The world needs more than clerics. It needs leaders—educated, Christian leaders.”

“And soldiers.” This was Ban.

“Aye, indeed, soldiers, too.” The bishop’s gaze returned to me. “The King tells me you have the makings of a cavalry soldier. We will build on that. Tiberias Cato, one of our brethren, served with me in the army and saved my life on numerous occasions simply because he is a magnificent horseman—the finest natural rider I have ever known. He, too, knew your father, although not, perhaps, your mother. Cato will supervise your training as a horseman and a cavalryman—I know you know the two are not necessarily the same.” His pause was barely perceptible. “You do know that, do you not?”

I swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“And do you know the difference?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. What is it?”

“You can be a horseman without being a cavalryman, but you cannot be a cavalryman without being a horseman.”

“Absolutely. Good lad. Anyway, Tiberias Cato was a doughty fighter in his time and now he is a marvelously gifted teacher and trainer, but he is more horse than human at times. He will be responsible for your overall development in military things. There will be others working with you, too, in the various disciplines, but Tiberias will be your primary trainer. He will take whatever talents you possess for horsemanship and polish them until they dazzle even you.

“Apart from that—and it is probably sinful of me to prioritize in such a manner, but the soldier in me frequently fights with the bishop—apart from that, you will study all the other subjects that a well-tutored young man should know. You will learn the rudiments of Greek, sufficient for some of your reading, but for the most part you will be taught in Latin. You will have training in logic, debate and polemics, philosophy, mathematics and geometry, geography, and the basic elements of imperial law. Also, you will be living among priests and clerics, and so you will behave for the most part as they do, adhering to the Order of Saint Benedict and observing the prayers and ceremonies he has decreed as being proper for a devout man of any age. You will eat well, three times a day, and in return for your food and lodgings, you will be expected to share the tasks of keeping the school clean and its students well fed. That means you will scrub floors, whitewash walls, wash clothes, grow and gather food, prepare it, and serve it to your fellows.”

He stopped, frowning at me as he watched my reactions to his words, and then his face broke once again into a wide, friendly grin. “But not all of those at once, I promise you. Each of those tasks will fall to you no more than once a month, for one day at a time. We have cooks and gardeners and carpenters and masons who work full time at their various crafts. You, as a student, will be seconded from time to time to assist them, and that means performing the dirty, heavy work most of the time. So you will be required to work and work hard, but the requirements are not brutal and you will have plenty of time to study and to rest between spells of duty.”

He sat gazing at me for long moments, and then he said, “Do you have any questions to ask of me?”

“Yes, sir. What … what should I call you?”

He barked a short, deep laugh. “Hah! Straight to the point, and a good question. You’ll call me what all your fellows call me: Father Germanus. That’s the simplest and most effective name we have been able to come up with, and it has taken us some time to arrive at it. I am no longer an active army officer, so General and Legate are invalid, and I have a personal dislike for the term Bishop used as a name. ‘Magister’ is another term I dislike, because it bears too many overtones of army life, which is notoriously impious and ungodly. Then there is a movement among some of the Church’s adherents nowadays, particularly in the east, toward equality in which all members of a clerical community address each other as Brother. We have a number of men in our community whose use of the title Brother is highly appropriate. These are laymen, devout and pious beyond question, who choose to live lives of service to God and to conduct that service in our community, but they have taken no vows and have not been consecrated to the priesthood. They are Brethren in the Christ and I honor them highly. For a time, I even considered adopting Brother as my title, too, but the truth is that to those who attend my school I am both teacher and superior, and I have no desire to be anything as egalitarian as a brother.” He paused and smiled again. “As a bishop, I am the pastor and father of my flock, and as mentor and governor to a school full of boys, I am, ipso facto, a fatherly figure. So, like everyone else, you will call me Father Germanus. Have I explained that clearly?”

“Yes, Father Germanus.”

For the following half hour, the three adults moved on to speak of other things and I spoke not another word, although I missed nothing of what was being said. Soon, however, we were summoned to dinner by the King’s Chancellor, formally dressed in honor of the bishop’s visit, and I was banished to sit among the lesser family members in the body of the hall. I made sure to seat myself on the side of the table that permitted me an uninterrupted view of the King and Queen and their guest, however, and I barely took my eyes off my new guardian until they rose again to leave.