Saxon: The Book of Dreams (Saxon 1)

by Tim Severin

  He led the way deeper into the town. The citizens were all indoors, shutters closed against the sheeting rain. Stray mongrels and pigs scavenged in the miry side lanes and flooded ditches. The closer we came to the new palace the more substantial were the houses. I assumed they belonged to wealthy merchants and members of the royal entourage. Occasionally a servant or a slave on some errand darted between the houses, dodging the spouts of water gushing from the roofs and gutters. Drenched, we slogged on until we had entered on the royal precinct. It was a vast building site. Materials lay everywhere: heaps of timber; piles of cut stone; stack upon stack of bricks. Here at last was some activity. Under long, low shelters and out of the rain carpenters were shaping huge beams with saw and adze. Men heated and hammered metal in a dozen smithies, stonemasons carved and split, and smoke oozed from an odd-shaped building which, to judge by the great heap of clay beside it, was a brick kiln. We passed a makeshift roof under which a team of men was walking round and round a circular pit, pushing on a heavy beam. Glancing into the pit I saw that paddles attached to the beam were mixing a sludge of what looked like grey-brown porridge and realized they were mixing vast quantities of mortar.

  As we trudged past them, the function of several different, half-finished structures became apparent. A massive rectangular building had the same proportions as my father’s mead hall. I guessed it would become some sort of grand meeting chamber. Beyond it a large octagonal building was taking shape and was well advanced. The arched framing of its roof was in place and formed the skeleton of a great dome I guessed was destined to be a royal church. I also made out the foundations and lower walls for what would be a long arcade. It was not just the size and scale of the structures that amazed me: I had never seen bricks used in this way. At home we built our walls with wood and clay and capped them with thatched or tile roofs that had to be replaced regularly. Here the monumental walls were being put together with thousands upon thousands of sturdy rust-coloured bricks with an occasional course of cut stone. Any observer would know that the buildings were intended to endure forever.

  Arnulf guided his two oxen through the churned-up mud towards a cluster of older buildings. Shortly before reaching them, he halted his beasts.

  ‘This is where our roads part,’ he said in his usual blunt manner. ‘I report to the seneschal’s office,’ he paused briefly. ‘And thank you for your help on the journey. I doubt we will meet again.’

  He walked away to stand beside his oxen, clicked his tongue and the wagon creaked off through the mire. I was sorry to lose his company for he had proved to be an honest man, and had been patient in allowing Osric and myself to use him as our teacher so that we could learn to speak the Frankish tongue. Quite a few of its words were similar to my Saxon speech, and Osric and I had practised together so that we already had a good working knowledge and were improving daily. My last glimpse of Arnulf was the tip of his wand waving above the eel tank, more like a fishing rod than ever.

  Osric and I were left standing alone in the rain, and I took the chance to switch my eye patch from one eye to the other. I had discovered that if I left the same eye covered for too long, I had difficulty in seeing with it afterwards.

  The nearest shelter was the porch of the part-finished octagonal building I had noted earlier. I ran across and removed my sodden cloak, trying to avoid dripping water on a couple of priests already loitering there.

  ‘Could you tell me where I might find the office of the court chamberlain?’ I asked.

  The taller of the priests, a gaunt man in his fifties with a freckled complexion and a high forehead, gave me a sharp look.

  ‘Where are you from, young man?’ he asked in a precise, deliberate voice that matched his scholarly appearance.

  I explained how King Offa had despatched me to the Frankish court.

  ‘I thought I recognized the accent, though your Latin is more than adequate. I see you’ve brought your weather with you.’ The priest drew his gown more tightly around him and peered up at the leaden sky. ‘It looks as if this rain’s set in for the rest of the day.’

  ‘I’m hoping to report my arrival to the chamberlain’s office,’ I reminded him.

  He grimaced.

  ‘You’ll find the government at a standstill. The rain has kept everyone away, and the floods. The fords are impassable and the current in the river runs too strongly for the ferries.’

  I wondered whether I should turn round and try to catch up with Arnulf. He should have reached the royal kitchens by now, and at least there would be hot food there.

  Osric limped across to join us. He looked woebegone, splatters of yellow mud on his tunic. He seemed to have shrivelled.

  ‘You’ve done well to get this far,’ observed the priest, eyeing us, ‘one with difficulty seeing, the other walking.’ He seemed to make up his mind about something. ‘If you will follow me . . .’

  He set out across the sea of mud towards a substantial two-storey house, one of a handful of newly completed buildings. It stood alongside the great half-finished meeting hall, and two sentries armed with heavy eight-foot long spears guarded the entrance. They seemed to know our guide for they saluted him, banging the hafts of their spears on the ground which sent a spray of rain dripping from the rims of their iron helmets. He led us inside, and then up a staircase. The place had the atmosphere of a private residence rather than any office. Two more guards were stationed each side of a large double door where he knocked. A voice called to us to enter and we stepped into a spacious, plainly furnished room. In the centre was a broad table on which stood a clay model of the palace as it would look when completed. Nearby were a number of low stools and a tall upright wooden chair which reminded me of my father’s high seat in the mead hall. On the walls were a few rather faded hangings depicting hunting scenes. The only colourful item in the room was a large cross, exquisitely carved and gilded and placed at one end of the room on a low plinth.

  At the window with his back to us stood a tall, thick-set man gazing moodily at the rain. He had an arm around the shoulders of a young woman.

  ‘What is it, Alcuin?’ the man asked, turning to inspect us. He stood well over six feet and everything about him was on a similar, rather daunting scale. A big round head sat on a thick neck. He had a prominent nose, large grey eyes, and, though he held himself straight, his stomach protruded slightly. I judged him to be about fifty years old, for the hair at his temples was turning white. His most striking feature was his moustache. Long and luxuriant and blonde, it hung down a good six inches each side of his mouth and was carefully groomed. The two hairy strands provided an unexpectedly close match to the two long, blonde braids of the much younger woman at his side. Glancing between them, I concluded that they were father and daughter, not lovers as I had first suspected.

  ‘Two travellers who I thought might interest you,’ said our guide.

  The big man gazed down at me. He was soberly dressed in everyday Frankish indoor costume of a long, dark-brown belted tunic over grey woollen trousers. His wool socks had leather soles in place of shoes, and were held up by strips of cloth wrapped around his legs. He wore no jewellery, though the young woman had a showy necklace of polished amber pieces, each the size of a pigeon’s egg. She had her father’s sturdy build which, thanks to her belt with its gold filigree, gave her a voluptuous figure, wide-hipped and full-breasted.

  ‘What is your name?’ the big man asked me. His voice was surprisingly high-pitched for such a big man.

  ‘Sigwulf,’ I replied, ‘and this is my slave, Osric.’

  ‘They are just arrived, sent by Offa, the king of the English,’ explained the priest.

  Intelligent grey eyes searched my face.

  ‘I see you had good weather during your travels. You have a deep tan.’

  ‘Until three days ago we enjoyed nothing but sunshine.’

  ‘And the sunlight hurts your eyes?’

  ‘An imperfection from birth I prefer to keep covered,’ I answered cautiousl
y.

  ‘A strange imperfection. It seems to shift from one eye to the other.’

  I didn’t know what he was talking about. I fumbled for an answer.

  ‘The skin around your left eye is lighter where the sun has not touched. Yet you are wearing the patch on the other eye,’ he explained without a trace of irony.

  I felt myself flush with embarrassment and glanced across at the priest, Alcuin. He was standing with his hands concealed in his sleeves, looking imperturbable.

  ‘It would be a courtesy if you removed your eye patch,’ Alcuin suggested.

  Reluctantly I reached up and removed the leather cover to my right eye. I remembered how Offa had recoiled.

  This time it was very different.

  The big man in front of me stared at me closely for several moments.

  ‘Interesting,’ he said finally. ‘We are told that Alexander of Macedon had just the same condition. His eyes were of different colours. It was a mark of his uniqueness.’ Ignoring Osric, he turned to the priest. ‘We welcome this young man. Find him a place with the paladins and see that he gets fresh clothing.’

  It was clear that we had been dismissed, and the priest bowed. Tactfully, I did the same, and the three of us left the room. As the door closed behind us, I remembered Offa’s letter still in my satchel.

  ‘I forgot to give the chamberlain the letter that King Offa prepared for King Carolus,’ I said to the priest.

  The priest raised an eyebrow.

  ‘That wasn’t the chamberlain. That was Carolus himself, properly known as King of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans.’

  I was mortified that I had failed to recognize the most powerful ruler in the west.

  ‘But he was dressed so plainly . . .’ I stammered.

  ‘He loathes wearing costly or fashionable clothing,’ said the priest. ‘Almost as much as he detests being idle. It drives him to distraction. Most of his councillors are using this rain as an excuse to take the day off so he has little to do. I thought he would find your presence a brief diversion.’

  I reached into my satchel for the now water-stained parchment.

  ‘Then shouldn’t I leave this letter with his secretariat.’

  ‘I’ll deal with it,’ said the priest taking it from me. ‘Incidentally, I come from Northumberland myself. I’m one of the king’s advisers.’

  ‘Thank you for all your assistance. I hope I will have the chance of meeting you again,’ I said.

  Alcuin smiled thinly.

  ‘You will. Another of my duties is to drum some learning into the heads of royal “guests” like yourself. King Carolus cannot abide idleness in others, any more than in himself.’

  I readjusted my eye patch over my left eye.

  ‘I hope the king will not object if I continue to wear this.’

  The priest shrugged.

  ‘As you wish.’

  He escorted us back to the entrance hall and spoke to one of the guards.

  ‘Have one of your men show this young lord to the quarters for royal guests, and then take his slave to the stores to fetch suitable clothing for him.’

  A gust of wind drove the rain horizontally into our faces as we emerged into the open. Osric and I followed the soldier as he ran for the lee of the unfinished meeting hall, then led us around a corner of the building. My eye patch made me blind on my left side and, in trying to keep up with him, I blundered into a massive stone block standing waist high in my path. I was about to step around it when something made me look up. A chill ran down my spine. The stone block was the pedestal of a remarkable statue. It was a bronze horse, twice life size. Every detail was precise – the flaring nostrils, one hoof raised, the arched neck. On its back a rider wore the same short military tunic and heavy military boots I had dreamed of and he was making the same gesture with his arm. The only difference from my dream was the rider’s face. This time he did not look down at me, but stared straight ahead, and it was rain which trickled down from his sightless eyes, not blood.

  Chapter Five

  FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE QUARTERS where the paladins or royal ‘guests’ were housed could have been mistaken for an army barracks. A long, low barn of a building, it was located at the far side of the palace precinct. The guardsman left me at the threshold and went off with Osric to the royal stores. Eager to get out of the rain, I eased open the heavy door and slipped inside. I was in a room that stretched the full length of the building. Watery-grey light filtered in through a row of small windows. Tables and benches filled the spaces between the double rows of posts holding up the timber roof. The walls were lined by sleeping booths. There were damp areas on the earth floor where the thatch had failed. A fire trench held cold cinders and ash. The place not only looked like a barracks but had the same smell and fug.

  A dozen or more men were idling away their time on a rainy day. Most were about the same age or a few years older than me and I took particular note of one shaggy fellow, off by himself to one side. He was seated on a wooden stool and moodily whittling a piece of wood. A much older white-haired man was playing a board game against a dashing-looking opponent whose skin was almost as dark as Osric’s. The others were seated at the central table, leather bottles, drinking horns, cups and bowls in front of them.

  ‘Hello, Patch,’ said one of them, noticing me hesitating in the doorway. He had curly chestnut hair and an open, smiling face. ‘Come to join the palace companions?’

  ‘As King Carolus wishes,’ I replied, hoping my Frankish, learned from Arnulf, was not too rustic to be understood.

  ‘And where are you from?’

  ‘King Offa of the English sent me.’

  ‘Isn’t that where that curmudgeon Alcuin comes from?’ asked his companion, a chubby, soft-looking individual with melancholy brown eyes.

  ‘He’s from further north,’ I said.

  ‘Stop blathering, Oton, it’s your turn,’ snapped a man I judged to be approaching middle age. His thick, black eyebrows over deep-set eyes made him look fierce and short-tempered, an impression enhanced by his impatient tone.

  The man called Oton nodded towards an empty place at the table.

  ‘Patch, take a seat. Pay no heed to Anseis here. He’s a thick-skulled Burgundian, and they don’t have much by way of manners.’

  ‘Oton, you’re keeping us waiting,’ growled Anseis.

  I sat down at the table. Oton closed his eyes for a moment’s thought, then opened them and declaimed:

  ‘I saw a beast whose stomach swelled behind him, fat and bloated.

  A strong servant tended to him, and filled his stomach with what came from afar, then travelled through his eye.

  He gives life to others but does not die. New strength revives in his stomach.

  And he breathes again . . .’

  Oton looked around the table.

  ‘What did I see?’ he asked, and I realized the company were amusing themselves by posing riddles. It had been the same in my father’s mead hall after a banquet.

  There was a long silence.

  ‘Come on, you lot. It’s easy enough,’ urged Oton.

  ‘A stomach swelling behind him,’ murmured the cheerful young man with the curly hair. He raised himself slightly off his bench and let out a long, deliberate fart. ‘Is that a clue?’

  ‘Berenger, you’re disgusting,’ said Oton.

  ‘A bellows, that’s what you saw,’ said the dark-skinned man who had been playing the board game.

  ‘Correct. Your turn, Engeler,’ said Berenger.

  Engeler took a moment to smooth down his long, glossy, black hair and adjust the cuffs of his expensive silk shirt. I guessed that he was someone whom women found attractive, and he knew it. He posed his riddle:

  ‘A queer thing hangs down beside a man’s thigh, hidden by his clothes.

  It has a hole in its head, and is stiff and strong, and its firmness brings a reward.

  When the man pulls up his clothing, he wants the head of that hanging thing
to poke the hole that it fits and has often filled before.’

  Berenger guffawed.

  ‘Trust you to be thinking of sex,’ he said.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Engeler with mock seriousness. ‘It’s you who has a dirty mind. There’s nothing lewd about my riddle.’

  I knew the answer but held my tongue.

  ‘The solution is “a key’’,’ said Engeler with a grin. ‘Now have a go at this next one, Berenger, and try to keep your thoughts pure.’ He paused, and then began:

  ‘A certain something swells in its pouch, grows, and stands erect, lifting its covering.

  A proud bride lays hands on that boneless marvel, the king’s daughter covered that swollen object with clothing . . .

  What is it?’

  Berenger sat silent.

  Engeler had a sly twinkle in his eye.

  ‘Anyone know?’ He turned to me. ‘How about you, Patch?’

  ‘Dough,’ I said quietly.

  There was a moment’s silence. I could almost hear the others wondering what to make of me.

  ‘So Patch, now it’s your turn,’ said Oton.

  I thought back to father’s drinking sessions and dredged up one of his favourite puzzles, and said:

  ‘Four strange creatures travel together, their tracks were very swart.

  Each mark very black. The bird ’s support moves swiftly, through the air, underwater.

  The diligent warrior works without stopping, directing the four over the beaten gold.’

  I sat back on my bench and waited for the solution.

  ‘A horse and wagon,’ volunteered Engeler.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Something to do with a dragon flying through the air, diving underwater,’ was Oton’s suggestion.

  Again I shook my head.

  ‘Give us a clue,’ said Berenger.

  Unexpectedly, the shaggy-looking fellow spoke up. He put aside the piece of wood he was carving and said, ‘You use words to describe things without saying what they are.’ He spoke in a heavy, deliberate way.