by Tim Severin
He released his grip and stepped back as a body servant silently appeared behind him and settled a cloak across his shoulders. Then he turned and strode away, passing in front of the line of lanterns, the cloak swirling out behind him, as he went back inside the house. His grey-haired steward materialized out of the darkness and led me back to my own rooms. This time he did not lock the door behind me.
That night, perhaps not surprisingly, I dreamed of a snake. It was my first real dream since leaving Aachen. In my dream I was seated on a rock on a barren mountainside and dressed only in my loose Saracen gown. I was icy cold but dared not stand up. A poisonous brown snake, as thick as my wrist, lay curled in my lap. I felt its weight through the gown. The slightest movement would rouse it. Some distance away Hroudland stood talking with Husayn and Governor Suleyman of Barcelona. I wanted to call out to them, seek their help, but then the snake would strike. I sat, fearing the slightest movement.
It was at that point in my dream that I became half awake. I was stretched out on a couch where I had lain down to rest after returning from my meal with the wali. Something was indeed lying across my thighs. I thought I felt it stir, and the hair on the back of my neck rose in terror. I lay still, struggling to control my panic. After what seemed like an age, I took a shallow breath and gathered my strength. I tensed and then, in one terrified move, I sprang to my feet, flinging aside whatever was lying across me.
I was fully awake now, standing upright and shivering with fright. The room was in total darkness and I had no idea of the time. I stood stock still, listening for the sound of something slithering on the floor. I heard nothing. Gradually I calmed down and told myself that it had been a nightmare. After some moments I stooped and gingerly felt around the floor, still fearful. My fingers closed on a roll of cotton sheet. It had wrapped around me as I tossed and turned.
It took me a long time to get back to sleep, and it was well past dawn when I awoke. Daylight was flooding in through the high windows. Snatches of birdsong came from the direction of the central courtyard. I rose and went into the marbled washroom to splash water on my face. Osric was waiting for me in the adjacent room and I saw that breakfast had been delivered — a flat loaf of bread, some fruit and a jug of sherbet. I mumbled a greeting and went straight to the low desk where I had left my translation of the Oneirokritikon. I sat down on the floor cushion and began to skim through the text until I found the section on animals and their significance in dreams. It was a strange assortment of creatures. Mice, tapeworms, crickets, moles, owls, bats — as far as I could make out, they were listed in no particular order. Eventually I came to the page that dealt with snakes. The book left me in no doubt.
To dream of a snake was a sure portent of impending treachery.
With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I looked up. Osric was standing beside the uneaten food, waiting for me to speak, his dark eyes troubled.
‘Ganelon plans to destroy Hroudland,’ I began, and told him what I had learned the previous evening and my nightmare.
He heard me out in silence.
‘Do you remember what time of night you dreamed?’ he asked, once I’d finished.
‘No. It was pitch dark,’ I said.
‘Then the treachery will not occur for some time yet. What happened to the snake?’
It was such an odd question that I was taken aback.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘The Book of Dreams tells us that the snake’s behaviour is important.’
In my anxiety about the meaning of the dream, I had forgotten that, according to the Oneirokritikon, if the snake wrapped itself around the dreamer’s leg, then he would be the victim of treachery. If the snake moved away, it meant that someone else would be betrayed.
‘In my dream the snake was lying on me, curled up. Nothing more,’ I said.
‘Then you are not to be the victim. And it might not be Count Hroudland either,’ Osric said.
‘I’m going to warn Hroudland anyway. The wali is making arrangements for me to travel to join him. He says I can go by sea.’
‘Let’s hope that this time we don’t sail with a crew of pirates.’
‘Osric, you don’t have to go with me,’ I said slowly.
He looked at me as if he had not heard me properly. Choosing my words carefully, I told him what I had arranged with the wali and that there was a place for him in Zaragoza.
‘You can decide whether to stay or not. It is up to you,’ I said. ‘Whatever happens, you will not be a slave. If you travel with me, it will be as a free man.’
An expression that wavered between reluctance and elation passed across Osric’s face.
‘I had not expected this,’ he said huskily.
‘You saved my life, if you remember.’
‘Yesterday you said you would need my help more than ever before.’ Osric put up a hand to massage the side of his damaged neck. It was a habit of his to knead the muscles there while he was thinking. I had forgotten how accustomed I was to his small gestures.
‘Will you manage on your own?’ he asked.
‘Osric, three days ago I killed a man. I put an arrow right through him. Afterwards I would have preferred he lived a little longer, but only so I could beat some information out of him. I’m tougher now than when I left home, more cynical and suspicious. I will be on my guard.’
His eyes searched my face as he considered his reply.
‘Very well. I will stay here in Zaragoza,’ he said finally.
I reached across the floor to pull my saddlebags to me and rummaged inside them until I had found what I needed.
‘Osric, can you write in Frankish script?’ I asked.
‘My father made me learn it. I expect I could just about manage, though I’d be very slow,’ he said.
‘Speed won’t matter,’ I told him. ‘If you find out anything more about Ganelon’s plot, you must write and let me know. You will need this.’ I held up the little box containing the Caesar’s Wheel.
He limped across and took it from me.
‘I had wondered what this contained,’ he said, lifting the lid and glancing inside.
‘It’s a device for writing in code. I’ll show you how it works. If I’m going back to Frankia, I don’t need the wheel any more. I can report in person,’ I told him.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘I’ve been gathering information for Alcuin,’ I confessed.
He closed the lid and slipped the box inside his sleeve without comment. I felt guilty that I had not confided in him earlier that I was a spy. Worse, I realized that I had not given Osric the complete liberty I had intended. I still took it for granted that he would help me if he could.
Chapter Fourteen
I spent the sea journey to the Breton March lying on a pile of nets in the dank, foul-smelling hold of a Vascon fishing boat. The vessel pitched and rolled, and every time a wave crashed on deck above me the water dripped down through the deck planks. In the whirling darkness I dry-retched until I wished I would die.
The wali had warned that the voyage would be uncomfortable but he had understated the case.
‘The mountain Vascons are tough,’ he’d said, ‘but for sheer hardiness they are exceeded by the sea Vascons. They’ll set out from port in any weather if there’s profit in the trip.’ He should have added that he had paid the crew handsomely because the Bay of the Vascons, which we had to cross, is notorious for sudden storms and raging seas.
Husayn also arranged my travel across the Vascon lands which bordered Zaragoza. The guide who brought me to the ship took me through Pamplona, the region’s capital. The place showed all the scars of a fought-over frontier town with a battered city wall, stumps of broken towers like damaged teeth, and gates that had been repaired time and again. Conscientiously I made notes of these facts because I still regarded myself as a spy for Alcuin.
At voyage’s end, the Vascon fishermen set me ashore, wrapped in a sodden cloak, in a small, unnamed a
nd deserted inlet on the Breton shore. They explained with gestures that I was to walk along the beach and around a headland to my left. It was a damp, drizzly morning, less than an hour after daybreak. Curtains of heavy mist drifted in from the sea, coating everything on land with a glistening wet sheen. Despite the dreary surroundings, I was very thankful to be finally off the ship, which hoisted sail and disappeared into the mist. I waited until the ground stopped tilting and swaying beneath me and then I set out in the direction they had indicated, slipping and sliding on the shingle, clutching the satchel, which contained the original Book of Dreams, my translation, and the purse of silver dinars the wali had pressed on me. All my other possessions, including my bow and sword, I had left behind with Osric and I had made him a present of the bay gelding.
I trudged round the headland, and there, immediately ahead of me, was a line of small boats hauled up on the shore and left upside down on wooden rollers to keep the rain out. Beyond them stood a row of fisherman’s shacks.
‘Piv oc’h?’ said a voice suspiciously.
A man dressed in a shapeless knee-length smock and a broad brim hat stepped out from behind one of the boats. He was short and broad shouldered. On his feet he wore thick wooden clogs. ‘Piv oc’h?’ he repeated, staring at me. He had eyes the same dull colour as the pebbles on the beach, and his face showed a week’s stubble. Drops of rain hung on his hat brim and ran in trickles off his smock. I realized that all his garments had been soaked in fish oil.
‘I am trying to get to the headquarters of Margrave Hroudland,’ I said in Latin.
The man regarded me warily, suspicion mingling with distaste showing on his face. I was not understood.
‘Penaos oc’h deuet?’ he said.
‘A Vascon vessel set me ashore, around that headland,’ I explained uselessly, pointing back toward the cliff.
The man jerked his head for me to follow him and led me towards the largest of the huts. He pushed open the rain-streaked plank door, and I found myself inside a single, cramped room, dark and smelling of wood smoke, dirt and fish. A woman, her tangled hair streaked with grey and wearing a grimy shawl, was seated on a stool before the hearth and stirring the contents of an iron pot. Three young children — all boys — looked at me curiously, their eyes teary and red-rimmed from smoke. They were barefoot and their clothes were little more than rags, though they looked sturdy and well-nourished.
The man spoke briefly in his own language to the woman. I presumed she was his wife. She rose to her feet and wiped her hands on her heavy skirt. I noticed a small wooden cross threaded on a leather lace around her neck.
‘My husband asks who are you and where are you from?’ she asked in Frankish, speaking slowly and with a heavy accent.
I chose to distort the truth.
‘I serve Alcuin of Aachen. He sent me to obtain a most holy book from the Saracens. I am bringing it to him for the new royal chapel.’ I unlaced my satchel and pulled out the Book of Dreams, handling it with great reverence.
The woman eyed the volume respectfully and crossed herself, though I noticed that her husband was more interested in trying to see what else was in the satchel.
‘I would be grateful for a guide and horses to take me as far as the headquarters of Margrave Hroudland. I can pay.’
A glint of avarice competed with the veneration.
‘How much?’ the woman asked.
I groped in the satchel, keeping the flap half-closed, until my fingers found the wali’s purse. I extracted three silver dinars and held them out on the palm of my hand. Like the stab of a heron’s beak, the woman’s hand darted out and scooped up the coins. She looked at them closely and for a moment I feared that the sight of the Arab script on them would make her suspicious. However, she dropped them into a pocket in her skirt.
‘My man will show you the way on foot. His name is Gallmau. We have no horses,’ she said flatly. She gave her husband his instructions, and then turned back to stirring the pot, ignoring everything else except to snap at her oldest boy when he made as if to accompany us.
I followed Gallmau out of the hut and into the fine, penetrating rain that had replaced the earlier drizzle. The breeze had also picked up. Small, white-capped waves were now rolling in and breaking along the beach where the boats were drawn up. I guessed that Gallmau would not be losing any fishing that day. He picked up a stout wooden staff that had been propped against his hut, and called to two small shaggy brown dogs crouched in the lee of a pile of driftwood. They jumped up and bounded over, their ears flopping. Gallmau started up the muddy path that led inland along the rocky course of a small stream that flowed down from the high ground behind the village. Ahead, the two dogs scampered enthusiastically, splattering mud, as indifferent as their master to the wet weather.
I followed, pulling up the hood of my cloak. The rain had soaked through the cloth and was dripping down my neck and under my collar. Fortunately I had acquired stout new boots of greased leather while in Zaragoza and, while not watertight, they kept out most of the water as we tramped our way through the puddles.
We walked steadily uphill for at least an hour, following the line of a narrow glen until the track brought us out onto level moorland. Huddled inside my hood, I paid little attention to our surroundings. When I did raise my eyes, it was to note that we had climbed to where the mist had turned to low cloud and was even thicker. I could see no more than thirty paces in any direction, a bleak vista of rock, heather and low scrub. Everything was dripping wet. I presumed that there was only one track leading inland, and wondered just how far we would have to go before we reached the next settlement. It was useless to ask Gallmau. He spoke only his own language and showed no interest in trying to communicate with me. Also, I was growing increasingly uneasy about being on the moor alone with him. He could easily knock me down with his heavy staff, steal my money and disappear into the mist.
I was plodding along, head down and looking where I was putting my feet when all of a sudden the two dogs rushed away from the footpath. They were barking excitedly, doubtless chasing a rabbit or a hare. Gallmau roared at them so fiercely to come to heel that I glanced up to see the reason for his anger. The sight that greeted me made my skin prickle. Our way lay between two rows of huge grey stones. They were set at intervals, some fifteen paces apart, and a little way back from the track. Each stone was its natural shape, a massive boulder longer than it was broad and weighing many tons. It must have taken unimaginable labour to drag each one of them into its right place. Then, by some feat of ingenuity, they had been tilted and set on end so that they resembled gigantic tombstones. In the half-light of the overcast day they were eerie and mysterious, as if not of this world.
Gallmau treated them with great respect. After the two dogs had returned obediently to their master, he used the tip of his staff to mark some sort of shape in the turf, before bowing his head and dropping down to one knee as though to pay homage to the great stones.
The mist grew even denser as we proceeded, until I could barely make out the looming shape of the nearest stone on either side. As we moved through this silent, opaque world I became aware that we were not alone. Someone had joined us. It was just a fleeting impression at first, a shadowy figure a short distance ahead of Gallmau, someone walking along the path in the same direction as us. The figure was indistinct, appearing and then disappearing as the thickness of the mist varied. Gallmau was striding along ahead of me and the track was too narrow for me to overtake him to investigate. Besides, I had no wish to intercept the stranger. Only after several minutes did I realize there was something familiar about our new companion. He was dressed like me, in a long cloak. He had the hood pulled up so I could see only his general shape. It was the manner of his walking and the way he held his shoulders that was familiar. Finally I realized who it was: my twin brother. His fetch was travelling with us, leading the way. I wondered if Gallmau could also see him, but the fisherman gave no sign of it. Only the two dogs reacted. They ran forwar
d along the path and I watched them investigate the distant wraith, sniffing at its heels, wagging their tails, and then padding back to their master. The confidence of the dogs reassured me. I knew I could not attract my brother’s attention. The otherworld pays no heed to mortals, and if he wished to speak to me, he would do so. Yet I half-hoped that he would stop and turn to greet me. But he kept walking forward through the mist, and I tramped along behind him, strangely comforted by his presence. I was certain that as long as my twin brother was with me on my journey, no harm would come to me.
After some hours the path finally began to descend. We left the high moorland and emerged from the worst of the mist. About that time my brother’s fetch vanished. He disappeared in much the same manner as he had first arrived, showing himself indistinctly for a few moments, then vanishing, only to reappear for another brief glimpse. When he did not show himself for several long minutes, I knew that I would not see him again that day.
We had reached a fold in the land, which sheltered a hamlet of a dozen small cottages. The two dogs ran ahead of us, straight to one of the buildings, and scratched at the door. A voice called out and when Gallmau answered, the door was opened by a bald, very overweight man of middle age. He had a round head, a neck that spilled over his collar in folds of fat, and his small sharp eyes looked as if they had been set in a pudding. His gaze travelled slowly over me, and then to Gallmau before he gestured at us to enter. We stepped into a room starkly furnished with a wooden table, a bench and three stools. There was a door to an inner room, a fire burning in the hearth and several farm tools propped in a corner. Gallmau’s two dogs promptly ran to the hearth and lay down on the earth floor as if they owned the place. Soon the room filled with the smell of drying dog.
Gallmau spoke briefly to the fat man, who then turned to me.
‘You travel to the king’s palace at Aachen?’ he enquired. He spoke far better Frankish than Gallmau’s wife.
‘I carry a sacred book for the library of the new chapel,’ I said. I was uneasy. Something about the fat man made me distrust him.