Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

My mind tried to process this incomprehensible development. Finally I found my tongue and heard my own question emerge as a bleat. “But why, Samson? To what end?”

My cousin glanced at me and then began to walk, quickly, beckoning me to follow him. “To what end? What about self-interest, will that serve as an end? Beddoc is ostensibly one of my lieutenants, but that is purely nominal and born of political necessity. The truth is that he is one of Gunthar’s four closest henchmen. Always has been, since they were boys. I’ve been watching him ever since my father made his announcement deposing Gunthar as his heir and naming me in his stead, and you may be sure I’ve been watching very closely. Had Gunthar become king in Benwick, Beddoc would have become perhaps his strongest lieutenant and supporter, secure in one of the king’s fortresses as a reward for ongoing loyalty and support. That’s what he sees in his own mind, and that’s what he seeks to protect now.”

“By deserting, you mean? How so?”

“How not? He is scampering to warn my brother Gunthar of what has happened, and the knowledge is making me sick. I should have known he would do that. The gods all know I’ve known him long enough! I should have anticipated his reaction and posted guards discreetly to watch his every move. The King’s decree formally making me his heir was public enough to stand as law, but no one at home will know of it yet. As soon as the King was wounded, and never anticipating any of what was to transpire on this matter of the succession, I sent off a messenger to bear the tidings home, but Gunthar knew nothing of the King’s decree thereafter. When Beddoc reaches him with his news, my brother will simply announce the King’s death and assume the kingship, and once the crown is on his head, validly or otherwise, it will require the strength of Jupiter himself to take it back from him. Gunthar is no weakling and he has no fear. My brother will not be governed by the normal, civil rules that should apply in such a case. ‘Honor thy father’ has little appeal to one such as Gunthar when the honoring involves abandoning a claim to kingship. He lacks only sufficient strength to back his will. Beddoc has much to gain by warning him and pledging all his men to bolster Gunthar’s strength. And understand me clearly, Gunthar will need all the strength he can muster if he is going to try to withstand me and defy the King’s wishes.”

“What of your other brothers?”

“Theuderic and Brach will stand with me. Gunthar has never done anything to endear himself to either one of them. Nor would he be willing to share any part of what he thinks to gain with either one.”

“And the Lady Vivienne?”

“What think you, that Mother would go against her husband’s wishes after all these years?”

“No.”

“No, indeed. I suspect that my father’s decision, long-postponed as it was, sprang from my mother’s doubts. The King was always something blind to Gunthar’s faults. Mind you, Gunthar leaned backward close to the falling point to disguise those faults from Father’s awareness; it was the rest of us who had to bear the brunt of them. But still, even when he came face-to-face with the worst of them, our father would always seek and find some reason to explain why this and that were so extreme and why Gunthar might claim provocation in the face of circumstance. It was tedious for the rest of us, but we soon learned to live with it. Mother, however, could always see through Gunthar and was unimpressed by the King’s excuses. And as Gunthar grew older, she grew increasingly less pleased with how he was—how he is .”

“So you are saying your mother influenced your father?”

Samson laughed, a single, booming bark that held no trace of humor. “Influenced him? Aye, completely! In everything he ever did. Of course she influenced him. How could she fail to? Mother is nothing if not direct, and we all know she is the strongest person in our lives. But in this particular instance, concerning Gunthar and his fitness to be king, aye, she has worked for years to change his mind.”

“And you believe she was right to do so?”

“I do. Gunthar as king defies imagination. Don’t you think she was right?”

“Yet you made no mention of that to Chulderic a few days ago when you discussed this very matter of the King’s unwillingness to change his provisions regarding Gunthar.”

He nodded. “True. I did not. I knew it and Chulderic knew it, but until the King spoke clearly on the matter of his final choice it would have been disloyal for either one of us to speak of it. Here we are.”

We were in front of Chulderic’s tent, and it was the center of a beehive of activity, with people running hither and yon, all of them shouting to each other to make themselves heard. I grasped Samson by the elbow, tugging him back before he could duck between the tied-back flaps.

“What? Come inside, we have but little time.”

“No, wait, Samson. What will you do now, about Beddoc?”

He frowned. “Follow him, hope to catch him, but he has a long start.”

“How long?”

“Perhaps an entire night watch: three hours.”

“Is he on foot?”

“He’s on a horse, but all his men are afoot, aye.”

“And have you already dispatched men to follow him?”

“Aye, as soon as we discovered he had gone. But they’re afoot, too. They’ll not catch him, unless he falls sick or dies.”

“And when will you leave?”

“Not until we have attended to my father’s funeral rites.”

“You think that wise? Why not leave now, as quickly as you can, and take the King’s body with you? He won’t suffer by being kept intact for another day or two and he will feel no pain now on the road. And if you leave now you’ll be but hours behind Beddoc, instead of a full day, and Gunthar will have that much less time to decide what he will do.”

Samson stared at me intently, his brows furrowed as he reviewed what I had said, and then he gave a terse nod. “You’re right. That makes sense. Chulderic?” He shouted over his shoulder, preparing to swing away, but I stopped him yet again.

“Let me go now, with Ursus.”

He peered at me. “Go where? What—?”

“To Genava! We have fast horses, Ursus and I, bred for stamina. Beddoc’s people are all afoot. We can overtake them by nightfall. How far are we from Genava, forty miles? We can be there by tomorrow, before noon, ten miles and more ahead of Beddoc.”

His eyes narrowed as he grasped what I was saying, and then his fingers fastened on my shoulder. He pulled me into the tent with him, shouting again for Chulderic, and within the hour Ursus and I were riding again toward Genava and whatever might await us there.

I could never have imagined what lay ahead of me as I followed Ursus out of King Ban’s last encampment that day. The weather was foul when we set out and it remained foul for the duration of our journey—indeed, the rain was to persist in varying intensity for three entire weeks—and events and ramifications to those events were to occur within that time that I was simply unequipped to envision, let alone anticipate.

Riding through the driving rain that first morning, I would not have believed, had anyone suggested such a thing, that I might even come close to forgetting or forsaking the last promise I had made to King Ban, to return to Germanus in Auxerre. My faith was still strong in those opening days of what I would come to remember as Gunthar’s War, and there was no room yet in my soul for self-doubts or for questioning the values I had been taught throughout my life. My beloved aunt, Vivienne of Ganis, awaited me at the end of my journey, less than forty miles distant, and I could scarcely wait to set my eyes upon her again.