Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank (85 page)

They were well matched, the fighting pair. Both were of medium height, wide shouldered and heavily muscled, their bare forearms taut 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 backwards leap and grounded his weapon, shouting something I failed to understand. Every eye in the place turned towards me as I brought my mount to a halt, watching the group carefully albeit avoiding eye contact with any of them.

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, but now they had raised themselves on their elbows to look over at me. 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 and rode forward slowly, angling him towards 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 towards me, but suddenly they were all moving, perhaps in response to some signal unseen by me, and so fluid was their movement that I quickly found myself facing an entire 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. I took note that three of them were smiling but I 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 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 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?"

I felt all apprehension suddenly leave me. I had been spoiling 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 the same kind of unit pride 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 combat shaping up here would be single combat, one against one.

I glanced over to a patch of close-cropped turf on the riverbank. Heavy spears had been arranged in two pyramids there, and helmets, cuirasses, greaves and a number of swords and axes had been neatly 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, 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 bullying passing strangers? You and I obviously come from different places, with different definitions of goodwill."

"Aye, we do, and I can hear the country clodhopper in your voice. Where, in God's name, did you learn to speak Latin like that?"

Again I shrugged, refusing to rise to his bait. "In a place far removed from here, a place where anyone as surly and ungracious as you appear to be would be tied and left outside on a cold night to feed the wolves."

He blinked, but he rallied quickly enough. "You are in Camulod now, fellow. We mislike foul-tongued Outlanders here. You should be praying to whatever gods you own to help you out of here in one whole piece."

"I have a God—the one, true God, as much yours as mine—and I had been thanking Him for leading me to this fair Camulod, until this place and this meeting. Now, having found that you are here, too, I find that the awareness of your presence kills my appetite for the place."

I saw his face flush at that and knew that I had penetrated his defenses, and when he spoke again his voice was heavy with truculence. "Ride away, little man. I've told you once already and will not do so again. Ride back to where you came from, or find another path across the stream, it matters naught to me. But you will not cross here, and if you move to try it, we'll have you down off that pretty horse before you can put spurs to him. I asked you who you are and you have not yet answered me."

I sat straight on my horse, staring down at him and nibbling at my upper lip, and he and all his companions stood gazing up at me in silence, awaiting my response. The fellow who had spoken was, I guessed, close to me in age, perhaps a year or two my senior but no more than that. He was tall, too, but no taller than I was, and he lacked my breadth of shoulders. Had I been offered my pick of them to fight, he was the one I would have chosen instinctively, perhaps because he was so fair of face that I suspected he might take care to avoid disfigurement in any fight that was less than deadly serious— yet I had no doubt at all that he would be formidable when the die was cast and real fighting broke out.

I could almost feel the tension in the air as everyone waited to see how I would respond to this last insult, but I merely bowed my head very slightly and answered again in tones of mild civility. "Nor will I answer you, asked thus. My name is my own and I have no intention of divulging it to a nameless brigand on the road simply because he has a posy of pretty blossoms as sweet as he is to back him up in his prancing and posturing." I watched their uniform reaction of amazed disbelief as my words registered in their minds and I continued before any of them could find his voice.

"As to where I have come from, you know that already, or you should, had you a brain with which to think and take note." I pointed backwards over my shoulder, then pointed towards the far side of the stream. "I came from there, I'm going there, and you are in my way. Now stand aside and let me pass."

My challenger smiled now and his face was transformed into radiance, but he shook his head slowly from side to side. "No," he said, "I feel no overwhelming need to move aside—no
urgency.
I fear you may have to bludgeon your way past me— unless, of course, you would prefer to lead your horse across, farther downstream."

"Bludgeon
my way? Against all seven of you?"

"Why not? These are our lands and you do not belong in them. Do you mislike the odds?"

"That depends upon how you intend to fight
me, fellow
—to the death, with you afoot and me mounted, then so be it. I'll kill all seven of you, using these." I reached back and touched the bundle of spears that hung behind my shoulder.

My tormentor laughed. "You have only four of them, and there are
nine
of us, not seven."

I had forgotten the other two men, and that made me angry at myself, but before I could respond a voice spoke from my right, where the two from the riverbank had approached me unseen and, even worse, unsuspected.

"That's enough, Bedwyr. Let the man go on his way."

The man called Bedwyr swung his head to face the newcomer. "But, Magister, we can't let him ride by without a toll of some kind."

"Of course you can. Besides, I think he might have the advantage between the two of you."

Bedwyr's expression changed from protest to outrage. "What advantage, Magister, other than the horse? If he fights me on foot, face to face, I'll crush him."

I turned to look at the man they called Magister, the title by which I addressed Tiberias Cato and my other teachers and which meant, in my understanding, a person who was teacher and patron combined. To my utter astonishment, he appeared to be no older than the man Bedwyr, but he was huge, and he wore no signs of rank or any other rating other than his physical presence, which stamped him unmistakably as a leader. He was taller than I by a good handsbreadth, I estimated, and he was wide shouldered, broad of back and massive through the chest. His hair was dark brown, shot through with wide bands of a lighter golden color, and his eyes were unlike any I had ever seen, the irises golden yellow, flecked with black. He was close by my side, looking up at me as curiously. He nodded to me, his expression grave, but I saw a hint of something in his eyes just before he spoke again, something that might have been humor. He spoke again to the man Bedwyr, although his eyes never left mine.

"But if he fights you afoot, Beddo, then win or lose, he will tell us nothing about these strange-looking weapons he carries, and while that might sit well with you, it would please me not at all. Those spears look to me to be more than they appear to be at first glance. I suspect they might be an entirely new weapon. Am I correct, stranger? Is this a new weapon?"

I shook my head. "No, it is a very old weapon, but there are none like it in Britain—or in Gaul, for that matter."

His eyebrows rose in polite disbelief. "Do you tell me so? Then where do they come from?"

"From far away . . . far from here. They were made in a land a full year's journey eastward from the Empire's eastern border."

His eyebrows had come down, and they stayed down at this additional piece of information, but his eyes narrowed as he studied me, assessing whether or not I was bluffing him. "A year's journey beyond the
eastern
borders? That seems unbelievable."

I shrugged. "Believe it or not, as you will, it is the truth. The man who brought them back from there is my old teacher. His name is Tiberias Cato."

The big man was looking now at the spears. "What kind of wood are those shafts made from?"

"A kind that does not grow within the Empire. It is called bambu and is very light and very hard. We know nothing like it."

When it became clear to him that I was going to say nothing more, he nodded. "I see. You have nothing more to say on the topic. So be it then. But I fear, in light of that, that you will have to fight and best our Bedwyr here before you can proceed."

I looked over to where the man Bedwyr stood glaring at me and shook my head slowly. "No, I think not. There will be no fight between your bully Beddo and me."

"Why not?" There was genuine surprise in the Magister's voice.

"Why should I?" I rejoined, turning back to him. "What have I to gain by fighting him? Bruises do not seem like worthwhile gains to me, nor does the prospect of providing entertainment for the rest of your crew—particularly when I have the option of refusing both choices."

Bedwyr spoke up then. "If you win you can go on across the bridge."

I looked at him sidelong. "The water in the brook is barely fetlock deep for the most part and I can make my way across anywhere, without fighting, as you pointed out."

"Are you afraid to fight, then?"

"No, sir, I am not afraid to fight. I simply choose not to fight you, and I do not do so out of fear." I turned back to the Magister. "I will fight
you,
however, upon the clear understanding that when I win I will be allowed to go on my way without further trouble."

There was a chorus of gasps at that, and sounds of growing outrage, but the Magister laughed aloud and quelled them all by the simple expedient of raising his hand. Then, when the noise had died down, he spoke to me again, his hand still upraised, enjoining silence from his men. He was smiling at me openly now.

"Let me feed you back your own medicine. Why should I fight you and run the risk of injury when I can order any of my men to do it for me?"

"Because you are their leader—their Magister—and I am challenging you directly. Besides, if they attack me, singly or in any other way, you will never learn anything more about my wonderful spears."

His grin grew wider. "What is to stop us from simply depriving you of them now? It would be no great feat, with eight of my men against you alone. I would not even have to be involved."

"Very true, and there is nothing to stop you doing it, if that is what you wish. But even when you have them in your hands you will know nothing of them, or of what they were designed for, or of how to use them. I have only four of them, and you could never duplicate them."

"Never? That sounds like bluster to me. What do you mean, we could
never
duplicate them? Wait! Of course, the shafts . . .
bamboo,
you said?" He fell silent for a few moments, then resumed. "You said that if we attacked you we would learn nothing of the spears. That implies, then, that if I myself agree to fight you we might learn something of them. Am I correct?"

"You are. That is what I meant."

"Dismount, then, but I hope you have strong bones and a hard head." He turned to his men. "Who has the training swords? Bring them forward."

There were mutterings and mumbles among the others, but they quickly stilled as I leaped down from my horse and hung my thin bundle of spears from a hook on my saddle before moving to face their leader, who stood waiting for me with a long, heavy practice sword in each hand, extending them towards me hilt first. He was even larger, seen from this level, than I had thought at first, fully half a head taller than me, broader in the shoulders and longer of arm and leg. An intimidating adversary.