Chulderic saw where Samson’s eyes were directed and spoke first to that. “That one is Ursus, a mercenary and a bowman. We thought for a time he might have been the one who shot your father.”
Samson shook his head again, a short, sharp negative. “No, we found that one. He died before we could question him, but the arrows in his quiver were identical to the one that shot my father, so we know it was him.” He glanced next at me, his eyes sweeping me from crown to toe. “And this one?”
“That’s your brother. Clothar.”
Samson recoiled slightly, in shock and surprise, his eyebrows shooting up toward his hairline, but then his face broke into a grin of recognition. “By the Christus! Clothar? It is you! Welcome, Cousin.” He stepped forward immediately and threw his arms about me, giving me no time to register surprise at his awareness of our true relationship, and as I embraced him I recognized the well-remembered scent that always hung about his person, a clean, vigorous smell of light, fresh sweat mixed with something else, a fragrance reminiscent somehow, utterly illogically, of wild strawberries. He pushed me away again, holding me at arm’s length while his laughing eyes gazed into mine, gauging my height and width. “By all the old gods, Chulderic,.he has grown up, our little tad, has he not?”
Chulderic grunted but made no other reply and Samson’s expression sobered. “I could wish you had come at a better time, Brother, for our father—and he is that to both of us, although differently—is sorely hurt and like to die.” I saw Chulderic stiffen from the corner of my eye and Samson released me and stepped away, speaking now to the old man, his words blunt and unyielding. “What, Chulderic? What would you have me say? That the King is but slightly scratched and will be sound tomorrow? Our Leader the King has been struck down by a war arrow—an iron-headed arrow with fluted, extended barbs designed to do maximum damage to anything it strikes. I do not like the sound of that, or the reality of it, any more than you do, but it would be folly to deny it or make light of it. He is my father, a man, not a god. We must accept that and plan accordingly.”
Chulderic nodded. “Aye, we must, of course. Has word been sent to your mother?”
“Aye, it has, and to Gunthar and the others.”
Hearing Samson say those words, I had a sudden image of Gunthar’s face, wearing its habitual sneering look of condescension, and I wondered whether time had improved his disposition.
Samson had already moved away to hold back the tent flaps and permit Chulderic and me to enter, but I stopped him with an upraised arm, and he lowered the flaps again and stood looking at me, one eyebrow quirked slightly in expectation. I glanced from Chulderic to Ursus and then, keeping my voice low, I asked the question that was filling my mind.
“Forgive me for asking now, Samson, but it is important. How long have you known that we are cousins?”
The outer edge of his lip twitched in what might have been the beginnings of a smile, but may also have been a slight tic of annoyance. He nodded his head, a single gesture of acknowledgment. “We found out years ago,” he said. “Shortly after you went off to school with the bishop. We were curious about why you should go there and not us, and I suppose we were too curious, because father and mother sat us down one night and told us about who you really are, then swore us all to secrecy. So we know who you are, but we have kept the knowledge secret among ourselves.” He hesitated, and then the smile broke out on his lips. “You’re wondering about Gunthar, are you not? Thinking he would make profit from that knowledge were it his to hold?” I nodded, wordless, and Samson shook his head. “He knows nothing. He was nowhere close to Benwick when the matter arose, and you may be sure that none of us went trotting to inform him. No, your secret is safe, Cousin.”
I inclined my head to him, as courteously as I could. “Thank you for that,” I said quietly. “Now I should like to see the King, if I may.”
Samson made no response to that other than to raise the entrance flaps again to permit us to enter the King’s tent. He himself remained outside and I noticed that Ursus made no move to join us, probably aware that he would be denied entry. I caught Ursus’s eye and nodded slightly to him before I stooped to follow Chulderic into King Ban’s tent.
It was dark in there, the strengthening daylight failing yet to penetrate the thick leather panels of the tent, and what light there was came from the flickering flames of a quartet of lamps suspended from poles around the King’s bed. The bed itself was heaped surprisingly high with coverings, but then I realized that they were draped over a construction of some kind that covered the King’s upper body and had been built to retain warmth while protecting his injuries from the weight of the coverings. A tall, austere-looking man whom I assumed to be the surgeon Sakander sat erect at the head of the bed, close by the King’s side, radiating an aura of intent watchfulness. His eyes were already fastened on Chulderic by the time I entered behind the old warrior and he paid me no attention at all. There were other people in the spacious tent, three that I counted among the shadows as my eyes began adjusting to the darkness, but as we approached the King’s bed Sakander waved one hand and they all left immediately.
“How is he?” This was Chulderic, growling at Sakander.
“How would you be, given the same affliction?” The surgeon’s voice was deep and level in tone, his diction precise and utterly lacking in the pompous affectation assumed by so many of his colleagues. He spoke to Chulderic as to an equal, and I had little doubt that the two of them were friends of long standing. “He is near death and I am powerless to help him. This was a freakish wound, the like of which I’ve never seen before, but the unlikelihood of it does nothing to lessen its gravity.”
“Hmm.” Chulderic gazed down to where his friend the King lay sleeping. As though he knew Chulderic would say no more, the surgeon continued speaking.
“Whoever the bowman was, he must have had the strength of a demon, for the arrowhead struck hard and sank deep, dislodging solid bone. It pierced the hollow of the shoulder socket beneath his upraised arm, deflected off the ball of the bone, I suspect, and then again, sideways and inward from the angled plate of his shoulder blade. From there it sliced through flesh and muscle, turning all the time because of the curvature of the arrowhead blades, until it struck his spine, lodging solidly this time, perhaps between two of the vertebrae.”
He paused, then cleared his throat before going on. “That is what I suspect, but I have no way of proving or disproving it, short of killing him by cutting into him and mutilating him further, digging for the arrowhead. But we have other arrowheads that illustrate the problem facing us. See for yourself.”
He indicated a table opposite him, where lay four war arrows, all identical to each other. “Those came from the same quiver as the one that shot down the King. They are identical in the fletching, as you can see, and in the shaping and weight of the warheads. No reason to suspect that the one in the King’s wound should be any different.”
I looked carefully at the four arrows, seeing the bright yellow feathers with which they had been fletched, and as I did so Chulderic picked one up, holding it close to his eyes to examine the heavy iron head. I leaned closer to him to share his appraisal. The thing was a work of art, made by a master craftsman and comprising three razor-sharp, wedge-shaped blades of thin, tempered metal cunningly welded into a lethal tapering triple-edged point. At the broadest end of each blade the metal had been flared and twisted out of true to form wickedly curving barbs that, once set in a wound, would be impossible to remove without destroying all the flesh surrounding the entry channel. The very sight of the curved barbs made me wince and grind my teeth, imagining the bite of their entry.