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

told my companions to wait where they were, handed the reins of my horse to Clovis and walked alone towards the small house.
    I have no idea how long I stood in the semidarkness of the single small room within the four stone walls, but it was long enough for my son to grow concerned and come looking for me. The sound of his voice calling me brought me back to awareness, but even so I made no response until he pulled the door open and stood there, peering in at me.
    "Father? Are you well?"
    I sighed then, I remember, surprised by the effort it required, and turned to gaze at him, hovering there on the threshold, unsure whether he should enter. Looking out at him from the dimness of the interior, it seemed to me that he shone with a peculiar brilliance, his sodden cape glittering strangely in the pale light cast by the watery late-afternoon sun that had emerged from a break in the clouds. Two of his friends stood a few paces behind him, still closely wrapped in their foul-weather cloaks, watching tensely.
    "I'm well enough," I answered and told him to come inside, alone, and close the door. As he obeyed, I said the first thing that had come into my mind, and my tone was chill, even to my own ears. "Pharus and Lars, behind you—they were still wrapped in their cloaks when you opened the door. And you, your hands are empty."
    He stood blinking at me in the dimness, too surprised by my words even to look about him. I gave him no time to respond. "I thought I had trained you better than that. Why did you come to the door?"
    His lips moved several times before he could frame his words. "I—You had been in here a long time. I thought—"
    "No, Clovis, you did not think. You came because you were concerned for me. Concerned that something might have befallen me. And what if something had? What if I had surprised an enemy in here and had been killed? You opened that door with no blade in your hand. That could have been the death of you, too. And Pharus and Lars might have died before they could even throw back their cloaks, let alone draw their swords. That kind of carelessness invites death."
    He stared at me for long moments, biting his lower lip gently, then nodded. "You're right, Father."
    "I know I am. Now look about you, now that you are here. This is what we came to find."
    His guileless face registered renewed surprise, and I watched his eyes scan the tiny room, noting how they passed across the dusty bed and then wavered before snapping back to what he thought he had seen. I heard the sibilant hiss as he sucked in a shocked, sharp breath that stuck in his throat.
    The figure on the cot, beneath the rumpled, dust-coated bedding of animal skins, had been dead for a long time. There was no way to tell how long, but all signs of putrefaction had long since dried up and withered into dust, leaving only a skeleton partially covered with scraps of dried skin. The vault of the rib cage was barely discernible beneath the coverings, and the hair that had once adorned the skull had fallen free and now lay scattered in wispy clumps like silken, ash white cobwebs. Clovis swallowed hard and licked his lips, vainly trying to moisten them, then looked sideways at me.
    "Did you expect . . . this?"
    I answered him without removing my gaze from the bald dome of the partly covered skull. "I had hoped otherwise, but I feel no surprise. He was an old man even when I last saw him, and that was nigh on twenty-five years ago. Had he lived until now, he would have been more than eighty years old." I stepped towards the bed, avoiding the two large bundles that lay between it and me, and knelt on one knee, bending forward to remove the bear skin that covered the lower part of the skull, and as I lifted it to bare the smooth, almost toothless jaws, my mind supplied a memory of the face that had once covered these grinning bones. "Farewell, old friend," I whispered, and covered his head completely. "We will bury you decently now."
    "Who was he,