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

him, for if he even suspected that you live he would send men to kill you, and he would not stop until you were dead, because fatherless boys grow up to be men capable of seeking vengeance for their fathers' murders."
    I thought for a moment, then asked, "Who is this man, Father?"
    "His name is Clodas. Clodas of Ganis. At least, that's what he calls himself now and will for a few more years, unless God smites him dead in the meantime. But he was no more than plain Clodas, a minor chief among your father's clans, before he set eyes upon your mother and began his scheming. In the end, he slew both your parents and your grandfather and usurped your grandfather's holdings, stealing his very name."
    "But why didn't you fight him, kill him, take revenge on him?" In my ten-year-old eyes, Ban of Benwick was omnipotent and invincible in war. I found it incredible that he should not have exacted vengeance long ago on the slayer of his friends and family.
    His mouth twisted wryly before he glanced from me to his wife and back. "A fair question, I suppose. And one that I have often asked myself, even knowing all the answers. I couldn't, Clothar. That's the only answer I can give you. I could not, for many reasons, none of which might make any sense to you today."
    "Why not? Because I'm just a boy?"
    He shrugged and almost smiled, but then he sobered. "Aye. That's right."
    "But you've just told me I'm to be a man, from this day on. It's time to grow up, you said, and face the truth . . . to leave childhood behind and face the world of men. Isn't that what you said? Tell me, then, as a man."
    He inhaled deeply, straightening his back, then blew the air from between pursed lips. "Very well, as a man, then. I had my hands full here when all this happened, and the news came but slowly to us. We heard nothing about it for months—more than half a year. It was only when Chulderic arrived the following summer, bringing you and your nurse, that we found out what had occurred."
    "Ludda came with me? She is from Ganis, too?"
    "No, not Ludda. Your first nurse died. She was sick with a fever from the journey when she arrived and she died within a few days. Ludda came to us after that, because she had lost her own child at birth and had milk, so she could feed you."
    "How old was I?"
    "Young—not yet a year."
    I thought about that, then dismissed it. "You said you couldn't fight this man Clodas because your hands were full. Full of what?"
    He half grinned at my unconscious humor. "Many things," he said with a shrug, "and most of them like sand, threatening to run through my lingers and be scattered on the winds no matter what I did. I had a war to fight, first and foremost. The Alamanni were threatening to wipe us out, and my father was newly dead, killed fighting them. I had to take his place or see our home and our people go down into ruin and destruction."
    I nodded gravely, trying to impress him with my understanding, for I knew the truth of what he said from my own lessons. The man whom I had always thought of as my grandfather until that day, King Ban the Bald, had been the first true king of Benwick, awarded the title by the Emperor Theodosius in recognition of thirty years of loyal service to the Empire. He had ruled Benwick well for twenty-five years after that and had fallen in battle against the Alamanni, at seventy years of age, the year before I was born.
    Before becoming a kingdom, Benwick had merely been a territory settled by our people. Frankish tribes had swept into Gaul years earlier from the north and east, overcoming all opposition to become the predominant people in most of the ancient Gaulish lands that lay west of the Alps, with the exception of the central and south-western territories held by the Burgundians. The rulers of Benwick were from a far-wandered clan of the tribes of Franks known as the Ripuarians, who had drifted southward in large numbers from the Germanic regions of the Rhine River over the course of more than a