by Tim Severin
I dragged myself over the rocks, away from the Vascons. I had no idea how far I had the strength to go, and there was no reason that the Vascons would let me escape. But the urge for survival was powerful. I gritted my teeth against the pain and stumbled forward. Twice I tripped and fell on to my knees and, weirdly, an image of Hroudland’s roan stallion came to my mind. I saw the animal, stunned by the slingstone, getting back on its feet. I forced myself to do the same. In the darkness all around me I imagined the shapes and blurred outlines of people and grotesque creatures. One of them was my brother’s fetch. He was seated on a rock ahead of me and I longed for him to come forward and help me. But all he did was watch me in brooding silence as if to chide me for ignoring his warning that I should trust my enemies and beware my friends. Then my legs gave way one last time, and I sank to the ground in a dead faint.
Chapter Twenty
MY SHOULDER WAS ON FIRE. A hand pulled away my eye patch and something wet pressed on my forehead. I opened both eyes and struggled to concentrate on the crooked figure stooping over me. In the thin light of dawn, Osric was using his moistened head cloth to dab my face. I wondered if I was wandering in my wits.
‘Here, Sigwulf, drink,’ he urged. He held a leather water flask against my lips. I sipped and my choking cough produced an agonizing spasm of pain in my shoulder. I was back in the real world. We were still on the mountain roadway, but alone.
‘Where are the others? Where’s Hroudland . . . and Berenger?’ I asked, struggling to connect Osric dressed in Saracen robes with what I remembered from the previous evening.
‘Nothing can bring them back,’ he said. ‘Wali Husayn sent me.’ Osric squatted down on his heels so he could look me directly in the face. ‘The wali asked the Vascons not to harm you. He still values your friendship.’
I winced as yet another stab of pain clawed my shoulder. Osric gently pulled open the rent in my brunia and checked where the Vascon spearhead had pierced my flesh.
‘In the heat of battle it was difficult for every Vascon to remember the wali’s instructions,’ he observed.
‘So the Vascons were fighting on behalf of the wali?’ I mumbled. Every bone and muscle in my body ached.
Osric shook his head.
‘They fought for themselves. After Pamplona, they wanted revenge.’
I remembered the skirmishing Saracens who had tracked the army’s withdrawal from Zaragoza. They would have been providing the Vascons with daily reports of the army’s progress.
‘Try to get to your feet,’ said Osric.
Looking past him, I saw two horses standing patiently. The Vascons must have told him that I had been seen abandoning my comrades, and Osric had brought a spare mount with him.
He put his arm around me and eased me to my feet.
‘I have a message from Wali Husayn to deliver in person to Carolus. On the way I’ll deal with that injury,’ he said. Carefully he hoisted me up on to one horse, mounted the other and began to lead me along the track, heading over the pass.
We crossed the watershed and were descending the far side when we met the first of the Frankish outriders coming towards us along the track. They raised a halloo of triumph seeing a lone Saracen and spurred into a gallop. But when they saw that Osric was leading a wounded man wearing a brunia, they reined in.
‘I’m bringing this man for medical help,’ Osric called out.
‘And who might you be?’ enquired the patrol leader. He was bull-necked and beefy, with an accent from somewhere on the Rhine. He was eyeing Osric with suspicion. In his fine, white cotton gown, it was difficult to recognize Osric as a former slave. He had the manner and bearing of a Saracen of rank.
‘I come as an envoy, with a message to your king from the Wali of Zaragoza,’ said Osric smoothly.
‘And you?’ asked the Frank, examining me. His slight hesitation when he met my gaze reminded me that I had lost my eye patch.
‘Sigwulf, companion to Count Hroudland.’
The cavalryman frowned.
‘A rider came through to us in the middle of the night, sent by Count Anselm. Said the rearguard had been attacked and needed help.’
‘Any help will be too late,’ I answered wearily. ‘Count Hroudland, Count Anselm and all their men are dead.’
The Frank looked shocked. I guessed that the fate of the treasure chests was going through his mind. They held the bulk of the army’s loot.
‘Very well,’ he said after a moment’s pause. ‘You two may go forward. I’ll have one of my men keep an eye on you. The king turned back when Count Anselm’s request for help arrived. He’s anxious for news of his nephew.’
He rode on with his patrol and we continued on our way. It was going to be another blisteringly hot day, and the trooper who accompanied us kept glancing sideways at us. He was eager to know what had happened but I was too tired and hurting too much to satisfy his curiosity. I had decided that Carolus should be the first to hear a full account of how his favourite nephew had died.
After a while we began to overtake the laggards of the army’s main column. Groups of bedraggled men on foot mingled with camp followers plodding behind the slower supply carts. They looked to be in low spirits already, and I wondered how they would greet the news of the loss of the treasure carts. Osric enquired if any of the vehicles carried medical stores, and eventually a friendly storekeeper provided him with vinegar, needle and thread, and bandages. Osric sat me down on the roadside and unlaced my brunia.
‘Hold still a moment, this will hurt,’ he warned. I closed my eyes and there was a painful tug as he peeled something from my skin. I thought he was removing my undershirt but when I opened my eyes I saw he had in his hands the blood-soaked wreckage of the Book of Dreams.
Osric gave a grim smile.
‘It caused you enough trouble so it’s only fair that it probably saved your life. It deflected the Vascon spear away from your vital organs. Then staunched the worst of the bleeding.’ He tossed the soggy pages aside and leaned forward to examine my shoulder closely. ‘The gash is deep but not wide. I’ll clean it, and then sew the lips of the wound together. It will hurt, but it’s best done before it putrefies. You’ll feel better afterwards.’
He was right. The stitching was agony and the thread he had been given was old and rotten. It broke several times. Eventually he plucked a hair from the tail of one of our horses and used that after soaking it in vinegar.
‘Can’t we save even a few pages?’ I asked as I got back on my feet, stifling a gasp of pain.
He stooped down and picked up the gory mess that had been our translation of the Book of Dreams.
‘Maybe we can salvage one or two pages, but I doubt it,’ he said. ‘We’ll check later.’ He wrapped the fragments in a cloth and placed them in his saddle bag. ‘What happened to the original?’
‘I left it on one of the treasure carts. It’ll be with the loot taken by the Vascons.’
Osric shrugged.
‘Then it’s probably in Husayn’s hands.’
I felt a sense of relief.
‘I’m glad. Old Gerard obtained the Oneirokritikon from the Saracens as war loot in the first place.’
There was genuine affection in Osric’s voice as he said, ‘You and I are going to have to stick together if we want to try to remember what Artimedorus wrote.’
*
We rode on, the discomfort in my shoulder now an insistent, very painful throb beneath the bandages. The sun beat down, giving me a headache to add to my woes. The various units of the retreating army were moving slowly along the road, strung out in clumps, and we had to work our way past them with the help of our escorting trooper. He shouted at people to move aside, and was frequently cursed or ignored. Osric was treated to hostile glances and sometimes spat at. By mid-afternoon I was doubtful that I could continue much further. I was swaying in the saddle, dizzy and weak.
‘I have to stop and rest,’ I told Osric. We were passing a roadside halt where a long stone trough prov
ided a watering place for travellers and their animals. Thankfully the soldiers had not wrecked the place. Water was too precious in such a baked and barren land.
‘We can pause here until the sun drops. As soon as the air cools down, we should push on and try to reach the king wherever he is camped,’ he said, turning aside his horse.
I dismounted with a groan and walked unsteadily to sit on a large flat stone near the water trough. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the pain from my shoulder. In the distance there was the creak of cart wheels, the tramp of feet, the voices of groups of soldiers passing by. Much closer and more soothing was the sound of water trickling down the wooden pipe which brought the water from a distant mountain spring. It served as a balm for my senses, and I must have drifted off into a semi-stupor for the next thing I was aware of was the clatter of many horses’ hooves.
To my annoyance I heard the riders turn in towards where I sat. The noise came very close, and then ceased. Resolutely I continued to sit with my eyes closed, making it plain that I did not wish to be disturbed. One set of horse’s hooves came right up to me. A shadow blocked the sunlight and I sensed the animal looming above me. I heard a loud, deep snuffle. Finally, very reluctantly, I opened my eyes.
I was looking directly into the gaping nostrils of a broad-chested war horse. It was standing over me, so close that if the creature had taken another step it would have trodden me under its vast hoof. Beyond the massive animal, I found myself locking eyes with Carolus himself. Dusty from the road and dressed in plain travelling clothes, the king was gazing down, his expression careworn and impatient. Behind him his retinue was drawn up in a circle.
Alarmed, I scrambled to my feet. But my legs failed me, and I sank to my knees, startling the great war horse. Trained to battle, it raised one hoof and would have struck me down if the king had not pulled on the reins and made the stallion step back a pace. I picked myself up and made an unsteady bow.
‘The young man who interprets dreams,’ Carolus said.
‘Your Majesty,’ I blurted.
‘Shouldn’t you be with my nephew? I hear that the rearguard is in trouble.’ He spoke in that unmistakable high-pitched voice, and his words rattled around inside my skull.
I swallowed hard and managed to croak, ‘Your Majesty, the news is bad.’
His eyes narrowed as he regarded me closely. For a long moment he sat on his great horse, taking in the extent of my exhausted condition, the bandaged wound, my state of near collapse. Abruptly he turned to his attendants.
‘Clear the area! I need to speak with this man in private. And set up an awning so I am out of this cursed sun.’
There was a jingle of harness as the royal party wheeled about. A groom ran up and held the war horse’s head while Carolus dismounted, then led the great animal away. A line of guards took up position along the roadside to prevent anyone intruding, and I saw them hustle Osric away. Within minutes a small open-sided tent had been erected from a bundle of canvas and poles carried on a pack pony, and stools, benches and a travelling chair appeared. Two servants held me up, one on each side, as I walked unsteadily to where the king had taken his place seated in the shade.
Carolus subjected me to a long, brooding stare. Then, seeing that I was swaying on my feet, he added, ‘You may sit.’
Gratefully I sank down on a stool.
‘Tell me what you know about my nephew,’ he commanded as soon as the two servants were out of earshot.
‘Count Hroudland is . . . dead, Your Majesty,’ I said. ‘He and Count Anselm and Eggihard died defending the rearguard of your army.’
‘When and where did this happen?’
‘Yesterday, just short of the mountain pass. The rearguard was ambushed and badly outnumbered.’
‘By whom?’ The question was delivered in a flat voice.
I told him about the Vascons, and all that had happened from the moment we had been ambushed. I omitted any details about the foray to find the rumoured Graal. I did not want to give the king any indication that Hroudland might have been irresponsible.
When I finished my description of the catastrophe, the king sat very still.
‘Strange,’ he said quietly. ‘Last night, just as I was falling asleep, I thought I heard the sound of a horn. Not once, but several times, far in the distance.’
‘The battle took place half a day’s ride from here, Your Majesty. No sound could carry that far,’ I said.
He gave me a strange look.
‘Maybe I was already asleep and dreaming,’ he said. ‘You would understand that.’
I was too exhausted to make any reply.
‘I should have paid more attention to the rearguard,’ Carolus continued, as if speaking to himself. ‘It was my mistake to let them lag so far behind.’
My moment had come.
‘They were betrayed,’ I said.
His head came up sharply and he stared at me.
‘How do you mean “betrayed”?’
‘The enemy knew when and where to ambush the rearguard, the size and number of its troops.’
He drew his eyebrows together in a scowl.
‘Have you any proof?’
I pointed to Osric standing at a distance behind the cordon of soldiers.
‘That man can tell you. He is an envoy from the Wali of Zaragoza.’
‘A conniving Saracen,’ muttered Carolus, but he beckoned to the soldiers. ‘Bring that fellow over here.’
The guards searched Osric for hidden weapons, and then led him to the little tent. Once again the king’s memory for people astonished me.
‘Haven’t I seen that limp before,’ he demanded as Osric stood before him.
‘He was my servant in Aachen,’ I intervened. ‘Now he is a free man and in the service of Wali Husayn of Zaragoza.’
‘I’m told that my rearguard was betrayed.’ There was an undertone of menace in the king’s statement.
‘That is what Wali Husayn has instructed me to inform you.’ Osric managed to be respectful yet very sure of himself.
‘Why would the wali want to do that?’ growled the king.
‘He wishes to re-establish good relations with Your Majesty.’
Carolus gazed at Osric thoughtfully.
‘So this is some sort of peace offering?’
‘That is correct,’ said Osric.
‘Is he prepared to identify the traitor?’
Osric nodded.
Carolus turned his shrewd grey eyes on me. There was no warmth in the look he gave me, only calculation.
‘Do you know who betrayed my nephew?’
I shook my head.
‘I only know that we stood no chance.’
Carolus’s voice took on an edge that was chilling.
‘Name this traitor,’ he demanded of Osric.
‘He is one of your inner council, a man called Ganelon,’ Osric replied. ‘He has been supplying information to my master for months.’
*
Osric and I had discussed this moment while he was stitching up my shoulder wound. It was then, to distract me from the needle’s pain, he had told me why Wali Husayn had sent him as an envoy to Carolus.
‘The wali intends to destroy Ganelon. He holds him responsible for what went wrong with the plan to invite Carolus into Hispania.’
I had sucked in my breath, stifling a yelp as the needle pierced my flesh.
‘I remember when you met Hroudland and me outside the walls of Zaragoza,’ I’d said, ‘and refused us entry to the city. At that time you told Hroudland that it was Ganelon who persuaded the king to turn on his ally, the Wali of Barcelona, and make him a prisoner.’
‘And later? Did you see the look on Wali Suleyman’s face when he rode into Zaragoza after Husayn had paid his ransom?’
‘He looked crushed. I felt very sorry for him.’
‘He was deeply ashamed. When Wali Husayn greeted him, he drew back from his embrace. Since then Suleyman has scarcely emerged from his living quarters.’ Osric h
ad given a grunt of annoyance. The cotton thread had snapped again. I’d felt the loose end slither through my skin as he’d pulled it free of the stitch hole. ‘Saracens value family honour. Wali Husayn and Wali Suleyman are brothers-in-law. To humiliate one is to humiliate the other.’
‘So Husayn seeks to avenge his brother-in-law’s dishonour?’
‘Already he’s recovered much of the ransom he paid. That was his agreement with the Vascons, and it makes things somewhat easier between himself and his brother-in-law.’
‘Is that why Husayn agreed so easily to the payment of such a huge ransom?’ I’d asked.
Osric hadn’t answered, and instead re-threaded the needle, this time with the horse hair. Finally he’d said, ‘He was already planning how to get the money back. His spies would have told him that the Franks would soon have retreated over the mountains. That meant passing through Vascon territory. When we stayed overnight with that Vascon shepherd, he told us himself that he was on good terms with the Vascons.’
‘So now it remains for him to destroy Ganelon. Just how will he do that?’
‘With your help we dispose of Ganelon using the same weapon he plotted to use against Hroudland.’
I had forgotten the note that Ganelon had asked Husayn to sign, that had promised a payment of five hundred dinars, with me as the named person to collect the money but without an eventual recipient named. Ganelon had planned to accuse Hroudland of selling out to the Saracens and produce the note as evidence.
My friend’s brown eyes had searched my face.
‘Sigwulf, it will mean lying to Carolus.’
I had hesitated.
‘I’m not sure I want to get mixed up in this. Hroudland and Ganelon hated one another. But now Hroudland is dead and I have no quarrel with Ganelon. There was a time when I believed he was trying to have me killed to get at Hroudland through me. But this wasn’t true.’
‘You have a different score to settle with Ganelon.’
I’d looked at my friend questioningly.
‘Have you thought what would have happened to you if Ganelon’s plot against Hroudland had succeeded?’ he’d asked softly.
