Chulderic and, I remounted and made our way down the slope, veering more and more to the left as we descended, so that by the time we regained level ground we were far from where we had begun our climb to the summit. Once again we rode in silence, traversing a landscape of grassland scattered with clumps of scrub willows, alder, and hawthorn while Chulderic searched his mind for memories he could describe. And then, without sign or warning, he began again.
“We had barely left the army life behind us when Childebertus first met your mother. I remember that clearly. It must have been within the first few weeks of our liberty.
“We were on the road home, I remember, but we were barely out of the German territories, headed south toward Benwick and moving at our own pace, still full of the heady feelings of freedom after so many years of regimentation and routine, and Ban had just finished telling us a story that none of us believed. He told us he had been betrothed, years earlier and at his father’s insistence, to an unknown woman. We thought he was gulling us, trying to hoodwink us for his own ends, and when we pressed him for more details, calling him a liar and a lout—which we could do because we were his friends—he admitted that he had been thirteen and she a mere infant at the time. But he swore he had never even seen her, so he could not say if she had one head or two, and we all had a good laugh over his foolishness. He could see we were still unconvinced, nevertheless, and so he told us she was the daughter of one of his father’s oldest allies, a king called Garth of Ganis, who ruled over a federation of clans among the Salians, the northern Franks, in the rich lands to the south of the Rhine delta. Her name was Vivienne of Ganis, and he swore to us that before leaving home to come on this campaign, he had renewed his pledge to marry her, sight unseen and for the good of his people, when he returned victorious from the wars. Well, he was returning now, he said, and curious to see what kind of burden he had been saddled with to please his father, and so he was going to visit her father’s place, Ganis, on the way south, since we would be riding close by it, to the eastward.
“Well, we were his friends, so we were not gentle with him when he told us about that. In fact we roasted him for a long time as we rode southward, but when we drew close to where he was to leave us, we decided we should all accompany him to inspect this mysterious intended bride. We proposed it in jest, but instead of being angry, Ban made it plain he was glad that we would be with him when the time came for him to step forward and identify himself to his future wife and her father.” Chulderic paused and smiled. “With us around him, it would be obvious that he was being truthful in saying he was on his way home from the wars and had stopped only to pay his respects to his father’s old friend in passing, and there would have been no question of his simply dropping by to examine his betrothed. Mind you, had the lady turned out to be less than beautiful, Ban would have been forewarned and able to conduct himself appropriately thereafter, in terms of the speed with which he might rush to take up his solemn marriage duties.
“But as it turned out, there was no need for such caution. King Garth made us welcome and sent for the Lady Vivienne, bidding her come and meet her betrothed. Well,” Chulderic turned in his saddle and looked sideways at me, “everyone knows how that turned out.” He hawked deeply and spat, and I looked at him in dismay, thinking it a reaction to his memory of the meeting and what it had led to, but his face was serene.
“What we did not know,” he continued, “because no one had ever thought to tell Ban, was that his lady had a sister—a twin sister, whose name was Elaine.”
At the mention of my mother’s name, even though I had been expecting it, my skin rose up in gooseflesh and the hairs on the nape of my neck bristled.
“She wasn’t there when we arrived, and we saw no sign of her for the whole week of our visit, because she had gone to be with her father’s elder sister, who lived some distance away and was ailing. Vivienne was to have accompanied her, but had fallen sick herself, and so had remained at home with her father, which was fortunate for Ban. When he found out that his wife-to-be had a twin sister, however, it seemed only natural for him to ask if the two were identical, but he was told no, they were exact opposites in appearance, and being Ban, he took that to mean that the other twin must be unattractive, as the opposite of the lovely Vivienne. We did, too, in all justice.
“During that week we were entertained like kings, and Ban and Vivienne grew dizzy with love of each other. By the end of the week, Ban had sworn to return and wed her as soon as he could stir his own father to attend the nuptials, and all of us had grown confident that he and she would make a perfect pairing.
“But then, on the day before we were to leave, the other sister, Elaine, returned home, and Childebertus was lost from the moment he set eyes on her. It was absolutely true, what Ban had been told: she was the very opposite of her twin in appearance. Her hair was raven black, instead of Vivienne’s spun gold; her skin was dusky olive, instead of lily white; her eyes were dark, deep blue, much like yours, instead of sparkling green. In all things like that the two of them were as different as could be, but the truth was that the Lady Elaine was even more beautiful than her sister, a thing that none of us would have thought possible before we saw her.”
“How old was she then, Magister?”
“It seems to me she was seventeen at that time, and had been betrothed almost at the same time as her sister—within a matter of months—but to a much older man than Ban, a close neighbor and trusted friend of her father. This man, whose name was Gundevald, was greatly famed as a warrior, we were told, and had ridden off to join the Imperial Armies two years earlier, leading his own men. He had not been heard from since, but was expected to return soon, since the wars had ended, for a spell at least.”
Again Chulderic fell silent for a while. “Within an hour of first setting eyes on the Lady Elaine I found myself thinking it was fortunate that we were to leave the following day, for that young woman, betrothed elsewhere or not, could not turn her eyes away from Childebertus, that night in her father’s hall. She claimed all of his attention, too, and a blind man could have seen it would be dangerous to leave the two of them alone together for any length of time.”
“Why so, Magister?”
Chulderic jerked up straighter, plainly astonished by the question, but then he remembered who had asked it, and simply waved his free hand, as though dismissing my enquiry. “Because she was betrothed—sworn and dedicated to another. Betrothal is a solemn promise, legally undertaken, to wed someone, Clothar. It cannot be discarded lightly. A man who forswears a betrothal insults, defies, and challenges his betrothed’s entire clan, and by extension of that, any man who knowingly seduces and suborns another man’s betrothed commits an act of war against both sides of the marriage contract. The woman is not deemed to be at fault in such things, being a mere woman; the man, the contract breaker, bears the fault, and draws all the wrath upon his own head.
“In this case, the Lady Elaine was already committed to Gundevald, but it was plain for anyone to see that she would have run off that very night with Childebertus had he encouraged her in any way. Fortunately, he did not, and we left the following morning without incident, or so I thought at first.
“In fact, he had made an assignation with the young woman while the rest of us were all asleep, and they had passed several hours alone together. It was the height of stupidity, and it very nearly brought us all to disgrace. What actually transpired between the two of them I know not, but had they been discovered in their tryst, there would have been a butcher’s bill to pay, for all of us.”