Jack Whyte - The Lance Thrower

“I’m Clothar, cousin to Lord Brach,” I said to the sergeant. “He forgot to tell me your name.”

The sergeant dipped his head. “I’m Shonni. I’m to ride with you.”

“Aye, I know. Well then, let’s ride, because I want to be at Castle Genava before noon.”

It was only after we had kicked our mounts to a gallop that I realized I had openly named my real relationship to Brach, and with that came the additional awareness that I could do so openly from this time on without fear of betrayal by anyone. King Ban was dead and I was a warrior now, my childhood long since lost behind me. My name was Clothar and no one with whom I rode really cared who my relatives might be. The only credentials I required now were my fighting skills.

A very short time later, it seemed to me, we rode around the shoulder of a hillside and saw, as Brach had predicted, two towering trees in the distance, their upswept branches giving them the slender, delicate-seeming gracefulness that marked them unmistakably as poplars. A few moments later, we came in sight of the shepherd’s hut where Ursus’s path would finally diverge from mine. We drew rein, he and I, when we reached the tiny building, and I offered him my hand, bidding him farewell. When I tried to release him, however, he clung to my hand, looking at me in a way I had never seen before.

“Perceval,” he said.

“What?”

“Perceval. It’s my name, my real name. I never use it nowadays.” He let go of my hand.

“Why not? It’s a fine name.”

“I know it is, and it’s well known in the country I came from. Too well known. It was my father’s name—might still be, for all I know. Dead or alive, my father’s condition matters nothing to me. He was a wealthy man, and powerful, my father Perceval … chief of all his people.”

“But …” I hesitated, suddenly confused. “You said your grandfather was a shepherd. How could his son be a chief?”

Ursus laughed aloud. “No, that was my mother’s father. And he was a landowner who raised sheep, not a mere shepherd. He built the hut you saw, but only for his own satisfaction, not because he had to. Most people have two grandfathers, Clothar, don’t you? My other grandfather—my father’s father—was far more powerful and far less pleasant, and he was chief of his people. Some even called him King. And when he died, they called his son Perceval, my father, King in his place. I never did, though. My father and I did not see things from the same viewpoint, ever. Where I saw white, he saw black. Even to our names … . I was Perceval and so was he, but he pronounced his name as Parsifal … to differentiate himself from me, you see. We did not love each other. So much did we not love each other in fact that when I left home I changed my name, not wanting others to know, or even guess that I might be the Perceval who was my father’s son. I killed a bear one day, a big and bad old bear that had turned man-eater and was terrorizing a village where I had stopped for a time. I went hunting for it with my bow and managed to kill it. The villagers were awestruck and gave me the name of Bear-killer. I shortened it to Bear—Ursus—and decided it suited me well. It’s what I’ve called myself ever since, and that’s been nigh on a score of years.”

I felt myself smiling, slightly bemused. “So why do you tell me this now? Am I supposed to stop thinking of you as Ursus now that you’re leaving?”

“No, not at all.” He glanced down at himself, checking the few possessions that hung on either side of his saddle, then took a firm grip on his reins, preparing to ride off. On the point of digging in his spurs, however, he looked at me again and pursed his lips, allowing his chin to sink down onto his chest. “You’re a good man, Clothar,” he said. “Better than many another twice your age that I’ve met in my travels. I have enjoyed riding with you and I regret having to leave, but we’ve discussed that. One thing, however, I would like you to recall and understand when I am gone.” He paused, and I sat watching him, waiting. “There is no Ursus,” he resumed eventually. “Ursus is but a mask behind which my true face, my true identity, lies hidden. I go through life meeting people in the hundreds, perhaps thousands, and of all who have known me as Ursus, I have only made myself known as Perceval to two.

“One of those was a woman, and I was to be wed to her some years ago … ten years ago, in truth. She lived in a small town along the southern coast, where people made their living catching fish. I met her when I was stationed for a while in Massilia, which was close by—I was a regular legionary in those days. She was beautiful, and we loved each other from the start, right from the first time we met. But before we could be wed she was violated in a pirate raid one afternoon and it later turned out that she had become pregnant.”

He fell silent, and for a time I thought he would say no more, but then he continued. “There was no question of the babe’s being mine. She and I had never known each other and she had been virgin. I was hurt by what had been done to her, but I was never angry at her for it. How can you blame the ground for being in the way when the rain falls? So, we decided, we would proceed and be married and we would raise the child whose father could have been any one of five or six men. I went campaigning soon after that, against the same pirates, and you can be sure I was anticipating catching up to them. They had been raiding all along the coast and had finally succeeded in drawing down the wrath of the military governor of Massilia. We were to be wed at the end of the campaign, but winter came late that year and the campaign dragged on, so that by the time I made my way back to Massilia and to her, she had run her term and died giving birth to the pirate’s child. Her name was Maria, and to her, I was Perceval.”

He sniffed, but it was not a tearful sniff, more a snort of determination. “You are the second one I’ve told my name to. Remember me as Ursus if you wish—that’s all you’ve ever known me as. But think of me, too, from time to time, as your friend Perceval. Farewell.”

We embraced once again, awkwardly, mounted as we were, and then he rode away and I watched him until he vanished over a distant rise in the road. Only then, when I was sure he had gone, .did I turn myself back toward my own route, where I could see Shonni the sergeant sitting his mount waiting for me halfway between me and the two big trees. I touched my spurs to my mount’s flanks, bringing him up into an easy lope that devoured the distance to where Shonni had already kicked his own horse into motion again, and we rode in silence, side by side, our ears and eyes attuned constantly to whatever might come to us from the five scouts who rode ahead of us and on our flanks. I have no idea what Shonni was thinking of as we rode briskly along the road to Genava’s shores, but my own thoughts were full of my friend Perceval.

We took Castle Genava at the start of things without great difficulty, losing only one man in the process. I had arrived back before the walls alone, leaving my six-man escort concealed among the trees at my back, and I was challenged immediately by a vigilant guard on the walls who was most evidently not one of Clodio’s group of aged veterans. I waved up at the fellow without urgency, merely acknowledging his challenge and slowing my mount from a canter to a walk as I did so. On the tall staff above the man’s head, where Ban’s banner had hung when I was last there, Gunthar’s colors now flaunted his defiance to the world. Looking about me as I allowed my horse to approach the walls at a walk, I could see no signs to indicate that Chulderic and Samson had been there, and when I was convinced of that I raked my mount’s flanks with my spurs and sent him into a dead run, swerving him tightly around and back toward the safety of the trees. Surprisingly, no one made any attempt to shoot at me as I rode off.