Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank (81 page)

The first, ridiculous idea that sprang into my mind upon seeing him was that here was some kind of lion man. I had seen two caged lions, in a traveling entertainment that had visited the Bishop's School in my second year there, and they had impressed me greatly with their quiet dignity, their strength and their coloring. Stretched out in the dusty afternoon sunlight on the floor of his cage, and surrounded by chattering, gesticulating boys, the old male, dusky, dusty and stoic, had crouched motionless, ignoring everyone and everything, his eyes closed in disdain as he contemplated some other reality far removed from where he lay.

Something about Merlyn Britannicus had immediately reminded me of that old lion—perhaps the coloring, I thought at first, but then it struck me that it was the man's face that had prompted the memory. Merlyn Britannicus's face was
leonine,
and that had to do with the curiously roughened quality of his features. His nose was broad and spatulate, beginning between his brows, where it appeared to have thickened and grown flatter, and that general impression of additional and
recent
thickening persisted all the way down to his mouth, where even his upper lip showed signs of thickening, rather than swelling.

All of these thoughts and impressions flashed through my mind in the space of a moment, but I turned my eyes away quickly when I became aware that my host was watching me watching
him.
What I did not know, and would not learn for many more years, was that this leonine appearance, caused by a thickening and coarsening of the facial skin, is a primary mark of mid-stage leprosy.

I was thinking hard about what I hoped to gain from this meeting, but it was plain to me, even as I prepared to ask my own questions of him, that he would tell me little or nothing of what I wanted to know until he had heard all he wanted to hear from me. He sat watching me gravely from the opposite side of the fireplace in his personal quarters behind the Great Hall of Camulod, and the fire in the iron basket had died down to embers, wisps of smoke wafting up between us. There was not much light in the room, though the sun was shining brightly outside, and he sat between me and the only window, effectively placing himself in silhouette. Merlyn Britannicus of Camulod, soldier and warrior, philosopher and leader and, most recently by all accounts, sorcerer and warlock, sat waiting patiently for me to tell him all about something that mattered greatly to him but which barely signified with me at all. I had absolutely no interest in visiting the subject he was most curious about, because I had been living with the outcome of it for months past. I did recognize, however, that I had no option but to get on with it.

"Very well, Master Merlyn," I said, successfully stifling a sigh. "Let me start from the beginning.

"We set out to find you last year and it was already late autumn by the time we left Auxerre. Bishop Germanus had set out for Italia before that, to meet with the Pope and the other bishops, but before he left he gave me lengthy and explicit instructions about coming here and finding you, and he made it very clear to me that there was an urgency governing my mission to bring you his word."

From that point I went on to tell him about our entire voyage: our landing at Glevum, our arrival in Camulod, and finding Bishop Enos in Verulamium.

"Bishop Enos had his men out looking for you," I said in conclusion, "but it took a long, long time to locate you, since you apparently had no slightest wish to be found."

Now Merlyn shrugged. "Why should I? The wars were ended and our home was safe again for the first time in years. I had been deeply involved in much of what had happened and had lost too many close friends and loved ones during the conflict without ever having time to grieve over any of their deaths. I felt then that it was time for
me
to withdraw, as far away as possible from everything, and be by myself for a while.

"Besides, in addition to my mourning, I had other matters to think about and decisions of some import to conclude, none of which would have been made easier by having other people around me. Had I expected or anticipated your arrival I would, of course, have returned earlier than I did, but Germanus had assured me that he would be coming in person this year and I took him absolutely at his word, never imagining that he might have superior orders that would preclude his coming here."

I nodded, accepting the truth of that. "Well, it seems it was our fate to remain in Verulamium to endure what everyone has assured me was the longest, harshest and most brutal winter anyone can remember."

"That is true. I have never witnessed anything comparable to it. We had one like it many years ago, when I was young, and it killed many of the oldest and least healthful of our people here in Camulod, including my great-aunt Luceiia Britannicus. But even that winter, brutal as it was, was shorter and less savage than this one just past. Coming from Gaul, it must have been an unpleasant surprise for you."

I nodded. "My young assistant, Bors, had never seen snow before. He comes from Iberia, to the southeast of Gaul on the shores of the Middle Sea, where he was born and bred to an unvarying climate of high heat and desert sunshine. He was thrilled by the first snow here, the newness of it, but that wore off quickly and left only the fact of a winter such as he had never imagined. The first two months of snow and ice and chill almost killed him. He wore more clothing during that time than any other three men in our group, and it required great effort at any time of day to prize him away from the fireside to do his daily tasks. He may never overcome his distaste for Britain's climate now."

Merlyn smiled. "Some of our own people feel the same way, and they were born here. A single trip to Africa, or to any of the warmer climes to the southward, can spoil a person forever afterwards in their expectations of Britain. And after the winter had passed, you had to wait for your friend to heal?"

"We did, and were frustrated by the knowledge of time wasted. And then one night, in the blackest hours of the middle watch, Bishop Germanus came and sat on the edge of my cot. I knew he was there and I could see him clearly despite the darkness. I even felt his weight pulling my cot to one side as he sat down, and yet I could see myself as well, asleep on my cot and completely unaware of him. He reached down and shook me by the shoulder, but I was deeply asleep and merely sought to turn away from his grasp. He shook me again, and then a third time, whispering my name urgently, as though he wished not to be overheard by anyone else. It seemed to me I was standing apart, by the top of the bed, looking down at both of them—Germanus growing impatient with my unconsciousness and me, refusing to awaken. I remember wondering how the sleeping figure that was me could possibly be so unaware of what was going on, and then it came to me that I had been astir before dawn the previous day and had worked in the stables with Bors, almost without stopping, from then until I fell into bed late that night.

"Eventually, however, Germanus took my left hand and dug the point of his thumbnail into the very base of mine. That woke me up, quickly. I came up out of darkness snarling, aware of the pain in my hand and preparing to defend myself, only to find Germanus's hand flat against my chest, pushing me down as he called my name again, bidding me wake up. Then, when he was satisfied I was awake and aware of him, but before I could even think to question him about his being there, he spoke to me.

" 'Clothar,' he said, 'listen to me. Listen closely, for I have but little time. You must find Merlyn Britannicus, quickly. That is the only reason now for you to be in Britain. Find Merlyn. Give him the information that you carry from me. Go, now, and do as I bid you.' And then he placed his outstretched hand over my eyes and sent me back to sleep, and the part of me that stood as witness watched him rise and walk out of the tent. And even although he had carried no light, the tent darkened into blackness as he passed out through the flaps. In the blackness that remained then I grew dizzy and fell into I know not what. But I awoke the next morning with every detail of the dream brilliantly clear in my mind and went searching for Bishop Enos immediately."

The man across from me, whom I still could not regard as the Merlyn Britannicus I had envisioned, nodded his head slowly, sucking his upper lip down into his mouth to where he could grasp and nibble it between his teeth. "Hmm," he mused, "that is what Enos told me in his letter, although he lacked the details you have just supplied. Tell me." He fixed me with a sharp gaze. "Do you believe the visitation really happened? You have already said that it was no more than a dream, and yet you acted upon it. You left Verulamium and came west. What do you really believe?"

I answered cautiously but firmly, choosing my words with great care. "I believed it at the time. I believed it was, as you say, a visitation, a vision of some kind. I had no understanding of what I had seen, or dreamed, or imagined, or of how it came to pass, and all the logic of my training told me that such things are quite impossible. And yet our faith teaches us to believe in miracles, and I have no difficulty in believing in those things when they involve holy and devout people in extraordinary circumstances." I stopped and searched for words to express what I wanted to say next. "There are many stories told in Gaul of miracles performed by Germanus. Were you aware of that?"

"No," he said. "I did not know that, but it hardly surprises me. Is it true?"

I shrugged. "It's true that there are stories told of it. Whether or not there is truth in the stories is beyond me. But people over there speak of him as being saintly, and I truly believe he is. He himself, however, will have nothing to do with such tales. He has sworn to me in person that there is no substance to any of those reports. He says that people merely perceive what they wish to perceive and will bend truth and facts to suit their own requirements. I asked him once, when he was in full flight over this, if he was denying the existence of miracles, and of course he was not. He corrected me immediately and with great passion on that. But what he was denying—and he was adamant on this—was his
personal
ability to perform miracles or to contribute to anything that might ever be described in any way as being miraculous.

"I continued to believe, throughout the months that followed my dream, that contrary to logic and to all the laws of probability and possibility, Bishop Germanus came into my tent that night and spoke to me. I believed it happened. And I believed he had come there to tell me I had to come here, seeking you. And thus, I suppose I believed I had experienced a miracle. It was a wonderful sensation, although almost frightening, for as long as it lasted."

"And do you no longer believe it was a miracle?" Merlyn was looking at me now through narrowed eyes, and I shrugged dismissively in response.

"How can I, now that I know the truth? Miracles are
miraculous,
Master Merlyn. They are supernatural occurrences originated and performed by God Himself, often through human intermediaries. They are ungovernable and inexplicable under the laws or the expectations of mankind—Bishop Germanus's own words. That says to me, by extension, that they must therefore be incapable of error. If that visitation had been truly miraculous—had Germanus somehow found, or been divinely granted, the ability to travel mentally and incorporeally to Britain for the sole purpose of visiting me in my sleep—then how could he not have known that the coronation ceremony, which was his primary concern, would take place in Verulamium and not in Camulod?

"My dream of Germanus sent me off across Britain seeking you
after
you had already made extensive preparations to have everything take place in Verulamium, for all the best and most logical and obvious of reasons. Your letter to Enos, outlining your wishes in what was to take place within his jurisdiction, as well as describing all the arrangements that you had already set in motion long before then, must have arrived in Verulamium within mere days of my departure. In other words, your letter had been written and sent off to Enos, and all your arrangements had been decided upon and their organization delegated to those responsible for them, long before I had my miraculous dream.
Ergo et igitur,
as my old teacher Cato would have said, there can be no talk of miracles in this, because a Germanus possessed of miraculous powers would have
known
what you proposed to do, and would have been aware of everything you had arranged. He would not have dispatched me on such a worthless chase as the one I have been pursuing ever since then."

Merlyn had been sitting with an elbow on the arm of his chair, supporting his chin on his hand as he gazed at me and listened to my rant. Now he sat up straighter, releasing a deep, pent-up breath. "Is that really what you think Germanus did? Do you honestly believe he would send you off on a worthless chase?"

"No, Master Merlyn, not at all. What I believe
now
is that I had a vivid dream that night, and because the details of it remained with me the next morning—which is unusual in itself— I chose to allow myself to become obsessed with what I had dreamt. All the foolishness that has followed since then has been my own fault, attributable to my own overheated imagination and to nothing else."

He sat looking at me, unblinking, for a count of ten heartbeats, then grunted deep in his chest. "Hmm. So you believe that everything you have done since leaving Verulamium has been futile, a waste of time."

It was more a statement than a question, but I felt myself rearing back in surprise. "How could it be otherwise? Our pursuit of you, sir, achieved nothing but disappointment and ever-increasing frustration. Acting on the single trustworthy report we had received about where you might be found—a report from a wandering priest who had not known we were seeking you—I traveled directly from Verulamium to Caerdyff, in Cambria. I arrived there to find that you had departed more than a month earlier, to travel west along the coast to the Pendragon stronghold at Carmarthen. I followed you then to Carmarthen, by road, only to find that you had long since left there, too, again by sea, accompanied this time by the Pendragon clan chiefs and their warriors, to sail across the river estuary to Glevum, on your way home to Camulod. But that departure, I discovered, had occurred even before our original arrival in
Caerdyff,
and so our entire journey to Carmarthen had been futile and we were already more than a month—almost two months, in fact—behind you.