by Whyte, Jack
"But yet another kind of monster walks among us, sharing our daily lives and giving us no sign, until it is too late, that they are deeply different from us." He turned his head to look at me. "Clodas is one of those, and they are almost impossible to guard against."
"Why, Father?"
The word father sounded alien in my mind as I spoke it, but I used it because at that moment I could think of no other name to call him. Uncle would have seemed ridiculous.
"Because they are so different from the ruck of ordinary, honest men. They take the trust on which we live and turn it into poison."
"I don't understand."
"That does not surprise me. Trust is not. . . it's not something we think about very often, but we depend on it for everything worthwhile. We all deal in trust, Clothar—people's lives are founded on trust. D'you understand that?"
"I think so."
"It's true. We form our own opinions of the folk we live among, the friends and neighbors and companions and soldiers with whom we share our lives, and we trust them to behave in certain ways—as they do us—with honesty and dignity and respect for themselves and for their neighbors. And based upon that trust, that mutuality of trust and common interests, we make laws and rules to govern how we all live with one another. But these monsters I speak of now, monsters like Clodas, are governed by no laws, no rules. They are predators, wild beasts who prey upon honest, ordinary men as victims—perceiving them and treating them as weaklings and helpless fools created solely to fulfill their needs. They have—they know—no honesty, these creatures. Worse, they have no understanding of what honesty is, and that, alone, makes them dangerous to all who cross their paths. They see no worth in trust, because they themselves have no belief in it. It is alien to their nature, and therefore they exploit the trust of other people as a fatal flaw.
"By far the worst part of such beings, however, is that they quickly learn to keep their true natures hidden from the eyes and knowledge of others. They learn to ape the manners and behaviour of others unlike themselves, behaving outwardly as they believe others think they ought to behave, and concealing their own monstrousness. Their entire existence is a lie. They deal in a kind of treachery that ordinary men cannot imagine, and that treachery grants them a power against which no one else can be prepared."
His words chilled me, because as he spoke them I found myself, without warning, seeing my brother Gunthar in my mind instead of the faceless Clodas who was no more than a name to me, albeit a name I had already begun to hate. The King's voice had grown quieter as he spilled all of this out, and when he had finished he sat frowning into the flames, his eyes fixed on some far-distant recollection. I remember wondering whether he was thinking about the treachery of Clodas or whether he, like me, might be aware of another, similar monster, closer to home and even more troublesome to his peace. I waited again for him to continue, but this time he showed no signs of having anything to add and so eventually I prompted him, clearing my throat three times before he noticed.
"What? There's a question in your eyes."
"You said they have a power no one else is prepared for. What kind of power is that?"
"The power to deceive. And to betray."
I blinked at him. "But anyone can deceive anyone else."
'True," he conceded without hesitation. He looked away briefly and inhaled sharply before turning quickly back. "You can deceive someone without betraying him, Clothar. Deceit is usually self- serving, but it need not be harmful to others. Betrayal, on the other hand, is always harmful. And when someone who has gained a high position of trust betrays that trust as Clodas did, its effect has the power of a hard-swung axe, smashing through everything it encounters because there are no barriers, no armour or defenses, to stop it. Clodas was your father's blood kin, his first cousin. His mother and your grandfather were brother and sister. He destroyed your family and part of mine because he had placed himself in a position from which no one expected treachery, and until he struck no one had ever suspected that he might. His betrayal was monstrous, a crime no normal person could have imagined . . . your father least of all."
He emptied his mug at one gulp and I sipped at my own, surprised to find that I had drunk most of it and what was left was almost cold. The King rose to his feet and pulled the iron poker from the fire. It was bright yellow, whitening towards the tip. He tapped it against the side of the iron fire basket, then held it out to one side and crossed to the table where the pitchers sat. He plunged it into first one and then the other, sending clouds of fragrant steam billowing across the room.
"Bring the mugs."
I did as I was bidden, then returned to the hearth to add more fuel to the fire, thinking about all the King had said. He rejoined me moments later, bringing my drink with him, and when we were seated again I asked him the question foremost in my mind.
"Do you really think Clodas would send men to kill me, Father?"
His eyes narrowed. "Without a doubt, if he suspected you were still alive. Not because you are a harmless boy, but because you will soon be a man. So we can take no risks in that matter. None at all. Bear that in mind above all else and say nothing of this to anyone. Not to anyone. We have no control over the way tales spread. One word leads to another and the information spreads like ripples on a pond."
"But you said he is five hundred miles away."
"Aye, he is, but that changes nothing about the risk. You have five more years to go before you reach full manhood, and much could happen before then. I can protect you against an invading army, but no one could defend you against a hired, faceless murderer acting alone. So by keeping your mouth shut, you might save your own life."
I fell silent again, then remembered something else. "You said no one—and least of all my father—could have imagined Clodas's crime before it was committed. What did you mean by that . . . that he was least of all?"
The King shrugged, dipping his head. He drank again, then clasped both hands around his cup. "I have never known anyone like your father, Clothar. He was my best and dearest friend, closer to me than anyone else has ever been or could ever be today, and yet the two of us were totally unlike each other. We saw things differently, thought differently, and responded differently—often very differently—to the same things. In this case, I would never have trusted Clodas the way your father did. I had met the man, although only once. But with some people, once is enough. I disliked and distrusted him on sight, without reason. He set my teeth on edge and made me feel suspicious, even although I had no reason to suspect him of anything at the time."
"Did you tell my father that?"
"Aye, and he laughed at me and called me an old woman, reading omens and portents where there were none to be read. Clodas was his cousin, he said, a loyal chieftain and a fine warrior. His deeds spoke for him, your father said, and they were many and worthy. He would put no credence in my doubts. I wasn't surprised, but nor was I offended. He and I had differed on such things in the past—probably more times than we agreed, if truth be told—and so I shut my mouth and said no more. But when Chulderic brought me word of what had happened, it only confirmed that I had been right from the beginning, and by then it was far too late and useless to seek any comfort in thinking that."
"What was he like, my father?"
"What was he like?" He twisted in his seat and looked at me more closely than he had before, scanning my face. "He was much like you, to look at—or you will be much like him, when you are grown. Same eyes, same hair, same mouth, I suspect, once your face fills out. You'll certainly have his nose when you reach manhood, although yours will be straighter. I do not normally pay attention to such things, but even I can see you resemble him far more than you do your mother. Her hair was glossy black, like crow feathers, and in bright light it sometimes looked almost blue, like the sky at night. Yours is not quite black—it's more like your father's, dark, deep brown, and your skin is dark, like his. Your mother's skin was very fair."
"That'
s how Frotto's mother knew I am not really your son. I'm too dark skinned."
"Nonsense. She knew because Vivienne had not been with child—you can't hide that—and you were suddenly here. It's true our boys are all tow-headed like me, but that counts for naught."
I bowed my head, afraid that what I had to say next might anger him. "If it please you, Sire, I asked you what my father was like, and you told me how he looked, but what I really meant was, what manner of man was he?"
"Hmm." His mouth quirked upward, but not in a smile. I could see him nibbling at the inside of his cheek. "I know not how I can answer that . . . He was the kind of man who turned heads everywhere he went. He had . . . he had a certain way about him that told everyone, without a word being spoken, that here was someone to note and admire—not because he was comely to look upon, although he was that, too, but because he filled a room with his presence and he . . . he seemed to glow with authority and promise."
'Tell me about him, if it please you."
"I suppose if I ask you what you would like to know, you'll say everything." He was smiling again and I nodded. "Aye, well, let's see what comes to mind." A log collapsed in the brazier and sent up an explosion of sparks, some of which swirled outwards, one of them landing on the King's leggings. He flicked the tiny ember to the floor, then rose to his feet again. He picked up another length of fresh wood and used it to poke the fire down before he thrust it deep into the heart of the flames. "He wasn't a Frank, you know, not really, although his mother was. That's how he got his Frankish name, Childebertus."
"Chillbirtoos," I repeated, savoring the sound of it.
"Aye. You're three-quarters Frank yourself, through your grandmother and your mother, but the other fourth is all your father's blood."
That stunned me, for I had never thought of myself as being anything other than a Frank. "What was he, then?"
"He was a Gael, from Britain. Remember, I met him in the army, when I was with the legions. He came to us from Rome, as a recruit, and had been living there for most of his life, but he was born in Britain. By the time we left the legions, his father, Jacobus, had died, and so he had no reason to return to Rome. He came here to Gaul with me instead and met your mother shortly after that, when I began to pay court to her sister."
"A Gael . . ." There was something wondrous in the sound of that.
"Aye, but there was more to him than that, according to his father's account. I never met your grandsire Jacobus, and Childebertus never spoke about him much, but Germanus told me more about your family, years later. He had come to know your grandfather in Rome, where they were both lawyers, and it was Jacobus who later introduced Germanus to the woman who would become his wife. She was a kinswoman of the Emperor Honorius, so that in marrying her, Germanus himself formed some kind of kinship with the Emperor. They became friends, too. It was Honorius himself who convinced Germanus, after the death of his wife, that he should give up the law and become a soldier. But that's Germanus's story, not your father's.
"What Germanus told me was that your father's family could trace their paternity, the bloodline of their fathers, directly back through twenty generations to the province of Judea, to the time of the Christ himself and beyond that. That seemed unbelievable to me when I heard about it, but Germanus said it was a solemn matter of great family pride and he had no doubt of the truth of it."
I had no interest in that story, for my mind had fastened on the place-name he had mentioned. "Judea?" The name was strange to me. "Is it in Britain?"
"No, nowhere near it."
"But I thought the Gaels all came from Britain."
"No, that's not so, either. Many are from northern Gaul . . . Gaul, Gael, it's the same basic word. But Judea is the land where Jesus, the Christus, was born."
"That was Galilee."
"No, Galilee was the region he lived in, just as this place we live in now, Genava, is a region of Gaul. The Scriptures tell us Jesus was born in a place called Bethlehem, but he lived in the town of Nazareth. All three—Galilee, Nazareth and Bethlehem—are in Judea. The people who live there call themselves Jews."
I had heard of the Jews, but I had thought they all lived in a place called Jerusalem. I knew nothing more about them, or what being a Jew entailed, except that I had been told long before, by my earliest tutor, that the Jews had used the Roman law to crucify the Christ and were therefore guilty of the Blood of the Lamb. The words still rang in my mind, and although I had never understood their meaning, the condemnation they contained had sounded grim and unforgivable. This sudden revelation that my father might have shared that guilt appalled me. "My father was a Jew?"
"No, he was a Christian. Well, by his ancestral blood and descent he was Jewish, I suppose, but by belief he was a Christian. One of the most sincere Christians I ever met. It can be confusing, all this talk of Jewish creed and Jewish blood, but I've seen enough spilt blood to know that it's all red—doesn't matter who it comes from. It's impossible to distinguish the shed blood of a black Nubian from that of a blond Northerner or a flat-faced, brown- skinned Hun. I don't even know who my own grandfather's grand- sire was, let alone where he came from, and I don't care. I know where I belong, and that's enough for me. But according to your own family historians—and they took great care of their clan's history—your father's ancestors have been Christians for four hundred years, and numbered among the very first followers of the Creed."
"Are they small people, the Jews?"
The King smiled, perhaps at me, perhaps at a memory. "You mean in size? No, not if they resemble your father. He was taller than me, by the width of his fist, and broader across the shoulders. He was a big lad, Childebertus. But he was half Frank, half Gael, remember. Most of his Judean traits, if ever there were any, might have been bred out of his clan long since. He was dark of skin, as you are, but no darker than many a Roman I've met born and bred in Italia, so I can't judge by that.
"But Judea is a desert land with a fierce sun, from what I've heard, so the people there must be dark skinned, and they probably dress differently because of the heat in their homeland. Here in our land, however, wearing the same clothes we wear, who would know how to tell them apart from others? You'll meet some folk who'll tell you that the Jews are accursed, because they crucified the Savior. That might be true, might not. I prefer to make no judgments on it. And I know, that when it comes to God and godly matters, there will always be people who claim to have exclusive access to God's ear and wishes. Well, let them all make their judgments without involving me. They will, anyway. What I know is that my dearest friend, the finest man I ever knew, took pride in his Jewish descent and was taught to revere the memory of his Judean forefathers. So why should I believe what others mutter when I have my own memories to prove that they are wrong?"
I sat rapt, absorbing his every word and believing, and a sudden question came to me. "Why did you say my nose will be straighter than my father's?"
Suddenly his grin was wolfish. "Because his was bent, broken in a brawl."
"Were you there?'
King Ban of Benwick laughed. "In the thick of it. I saw the blow that did the damage, a flying fist. I was flat on my back between your father's feet and he was defending me when someone—I didn't see who it was—smacked him from the side. A wide, fast, looping swing from a clenched fist—almost ripped his head off. I saw the punch land and the blood fly and poor Childebertus went sideways, head over heels. I tried to go to him, but I couldn't stand up. So I stayed on my hands and knees until my head stopped spinning, and by that time things had begun to settle down. Tavern brawls seldom last long. They're undisciplined, and they tire people out quickly because everyone is drunk. Anyway, by the time I got to him, still on all fours, your father was sitting up, trying to stanch the bleeding. He bled like a throat-cut pig—I can still remember it—and his nose was twisted right across his face, from left to right. We tried to straighten it—myself and a few others—but we didn't get it quite right, and it set crooked. That
was the real start of our friendship."
"You were drunk? You?" I was awestruck, barely able to believe what I was hearing, but the King had no thought in his mind now of his dignity, enjoying the recollection of his tale too much.
"We were all drunk that night. We had just come back that afternoon from a long ten-day patrol in which we'd lost two men during a freak storm, when we were near to drowning in torrential rain. It happened four days into our patrol and to this day I have never seen anything to equal it. We were blinded by it, deep among the trees. The light simply vanished—went from day to night before we could adjust to it—and our horses were terrified by the lightning and the noise. We were, too, for that matter.
"Anyway, we could see nothing and lightning was striking all around us, huge trees splitting and exploding into flames. It was absolute chaos, but we couldn't stop, not there. We had to keep moving, hoping to find a clearing where we could dismount and calm the horses.
"Instead, we found a big raiding party that had crossed from the northern Outlands on the other side of the Rhine. We rode right into the middle of them without seeing them, and I doubt if they saw us, either, until we were among them. They were sheltering, too, hundreds of them, among the trees and bushes. We had to fight our way out of there, outnumbered by at least five to one, but they were afoot and we were mounted. We were lucky, nonetheless. Things might easily have gone much worse for us. We were in heavy forest and the underbrush was thick. Our horses couldn't make headway, let alone maneuver, and they were fetlock-deep in mud. If the raiders had been able to surround us completely we would all have died there. Fortunately they were as surprised as we were, and equally hampered by the storm and the darkness. But two of our men went down before we could ride clear of them."
