Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank by Jack Whyte Read Free Book Online Page B

Caesar, and three hundred years had passed since he ruled Rome.
    I looked at the old man, deeply perplexed. "Who gave you these to hold for me? Merlyn?"
    He shook his head. "The King." The old man's voice was barely audible but filled with awe and reverence. "Arthur, the Riothamus himself, may God's light shine on him forever. He stayed with us the night before he left for Camlann, where they killed him. 'Declan,' he said to me, 'the Frank will come back someday. When he does, give him these, from me, and bid him give them to his son.'" He cocked his head. "I never thought to see your face again, but he was right. You came. And now I have done as he wished." He glanced down at the spurs in my hands. "I have never touched those. His were the last hands to hold them. Do you have a son?"
    My throat had closed as though gripped in an iron fist, and I had to swallow before I could respond. "Aye," I said, my voice rasping. "I have three."
    "Your firstborn, then, he must have meant."
    "He did. But my firstborn was a daughter."
    "Well, then, let her hold them for her son."
    "She has one. His name is Tristan."
    He cleared his throat. "Aye, well, they are for him, then. Is he worthy of them?"
    I pictured my grandson's open, shining face with its strangely brilliant, gold-flecked eyes. "Oh, aye," I breathed. "More than worthy, I think. He possesses many of the characteristics of the Tristan in whose honour he was named, even if he is of different blood. He will wear these spurs well, when he is grown."
    "Good. Then may he wear them with honour. Now we had better go outside again, before your back is locked into that stoop forever."
    The next afternoon, as the shores of Gaul came into our view again, I caught my son Clovis staring at me with a strange expression on his face. He quickly looked away when he caught me regarding him. I went to sit beside him on the rower's bench he occupied.
    "Something is on your mind," I said, keeping my voice low. "Bothering you. What is it?"
    He looked wide eyed at me. "What d'you mean, Father?"
    "Just what I said. Three times now I have caught you gazing at me as though I were suddenly a stranger, so I want to know what you are wondering about."
    "I'm not wondering about anything, Father. Not really."
    I sighed. "Clovis, you know me well enough to know that I keep little from you and I seldom react with anger to a straightforward question. So humor me, if you will, and tell me what you're thinking. Or ask me the question plainly on your mind."
    He sat staring off into the distance, watching the distant coast rise and fall with the swell of the waves, and then he muttered something indistinct.
    "What? I didn't hear that. Speak up."
    His face flushed. "I said I was wondering who you really are."
    "What?" I laughed aloud. "I'm your father. What kind of a question is that?"
    "Aye, sir, you are my father, and I thought I knew you, but now I am unsure."
    He would not look at me, so I reached out and poked him in the ribs. "How so? What are you trying to say?"
    He turned, finally, and looked me in the eye. "You have two names I never knew before, Father—two names I've never heard. Hastatus, and the Frank. And now I find myself wondering how many more you have, yet unrevealed. The old man yesterday recognized you and said, 'You are the Frank.' Not simply a Frank, any old Frank as we all are, but the Frank. The name held great significance for him."
    I could see the hurt and bafflement in his eyes and had a sudden insight into his distress, seeing how important it must be to him that he should know me better than he did, to understand the impulses that drove me and to know why I had dragged him and his friends on this long journey for no more reward than some piles of parchment and a tight-wrapped box left waiting for me in an isolated, alien place where those who had once known me did so by names other than those my loved ones knew at home. And as I stared at him, the immensity of all he wished to know