Camulod Chronicles Book 8 - Clothar the Frank Read Online Free PDF

weight of the thing would drag the man's shield down, making it useless. The hasta, on the other hand, was a fighting spear, designed to be held by its wielder. Nowadays the lancearius uses a light throwing spear, a javelin. I used to be very good at throwing them myself, and that's how I got the name. It's a long story and someday I'll tell you about it.
    "In the meantime I want to read this, and I would like to be alone while I do it, so take those tools from the corner there, if you would, and set your friends to digging a grave as close to the lakeside as may be, yet far enough above the waterline to overlook the scene and remain dry. Select the site yourself. But tell no one who we will bury there." I raised a pointing finger to him and lowered my voice. "I mean that, Clovis. I need you to be discreet in this. No mention of Merlyn's name. Say only that we found a dead man here, long dead—no hint of who he is or might have been." He nodded, and I inclined my head, accepting his agreement. "Good. We'll lay him down above this little lake of his and pray for him, then let him rest in solitude and dignity. But if any one of our companions should even guess at who lies here, word will get out, inevitably, and my old friend's rest might be disturbed at some future time by idle fortune seekers . . . although God knows there's little in the way of fortune to be found in this place. Go now, and when you've found the best spot you can find, come back and tell me before you start them digging."
    He looked at me for a moment longer and then collected an old, rusted mattock and a spade from where they had sat unused for years, festooned with cobwebs.
    When I was alone again I looked about me one more time, scanning the small room's few contents and furnishings. Merlyn's life here had been spartan. Two ancient cloaks hung from pegs behind the door, and the only other item in the place, apart from bed, table and a single chair, was a battered wooden chest, a footlocker, at the end of the bed. I opened it and found it held nothing more than a few folded old garments. I lowered the lid gently and then sat on it while I slid my thumb along the flap that edged the letter that bore my name, hearing the dried wax of its seal crack and fall to the floor. There were five sheets inside, written in the wavering scrawl of an old man's hand. I held them up to catch the light from the small window and I began to read.

Hasta:
Greetings, dear friend. I hope you will read these words someday and think on me with kindness.
I have lost track of time. Strange now, for me even to think of that after so many years. When I was young, time was the most important and demanding element in life. But then things changed when the world and all I knew in it fell into Chaos. Since then I have been alone, and time has no significance to one in perpetual solitude. The days pass unremarked and become months, then years, and one thinks more of seasons than of days. New snow, or green buds, mark the passage of the years, and one year is much like another. Only now, when the need to think of time has returned to me with thoughts of you, do I realize that I have no knowledge of where or when I am, or of how long I have been in this same, empty place. When last I thought of it, I had been here, pursuing my task, for a decade and a half. But I lost track of such things soon after that, when I fell ill of a fevered wound dealt me by a visiting bear. I spent I know not how long a time after that in some nether world, from which I returned eventually, alive but weak and confused. Since then, I have not bothered to attempt to mark the passage of time.
You may be dead by now, even as I write these words. Or perhaps you are grown too old to journey here to find the things I leave for you. I do not know, so I can only write and hope it is not so. I know that I am very old—older than I had ever thought to be. The sight of my hand, writing, shrunk to a claw and covered with