by Tim Severin
He waved a chubby hand towards the bench by the table.
‘Take a seat. It’s a long walk from the coast, and you must be tired. I’ll get something for you and Gallmau to eat and drink.’
He waddled out of the room and I went across to the bench, removed my cloak and sat down heavily. It was true. I was exhausted. I was also aware of Gallmau’s interest in my satchel so I placed it on the bench beside me, trying not to make it obvious that I was keeping it very close.
Gallmau removed his dripping hat and took his seat on a stool opposite me.
We sat in strained silence, waiting for our host to return. Surreptitiously I scanned the room hoping to see some sign of another person living in the house — a wife, children. There was nothing. The fat man lived by himself, and I began to wonder if I should get up and leave while I still could. I was alone, a stranger in an unknown house and an easy target for a robbery, if not worse. Yet I had not seen anyone else in the hamlet as we arrived, and I knew that country people were clannish. There was no certainty that I would find a better reception elsewhere.
The fat man came back into the room. He was carrying three scuffed, leather tankards in one hand, and in the other a large earthenware jug. He put them down on the scarred table top and, wheezing slightly, pulled up a stool and sat down. His flabby bulk overflowed the stool. He tipped a stream of some pale straw-coloured liquid from the jug into each of our tankards. I sniffed it suspiciously. It smelled of apples, pears and honey. A quick taste confirmed that it was mead mixed with fermented apple and pear juice, something that had been my father’s favourite. I took a long draught. It had been months since I had tasted strong drink. The tiny bubbles tickled the back of my throat as I swallowed. The sweet heady liquid was delicious.
The fat man was eyeing me speculatively. He reminded me of a large boar inspecting its next meal. He put down his tankard and licked his lips, about to speak. I forestalled him.
‘Those big boulders up on the moor, what are they?’ I began.
He blinked.
‘Menhirs, the long stones.’ He sounded as if he did not want to talk about them.
‘Who put them there?’
‘No one knows. They’ve always been there.’
‘And do they have a purpose?’ I asked.
He shrugged fleshy, round shoulders.
‘Some believe that they are grave markers of giants.’
‘Not only giants,’ I said in a solemn voice. He looked at me curiously. I took another drink from my tankard and set it down carefully on the table. I had not eaten all day and could sense the strong drink taking effect. My tongue felt slightly thick and I knew I was already getting tipsy.
‘I saw my twin brother at the menhirs this afternoon,’ I said.
His piggy eyes opened wide in surprise.
‘Your brother?’ he asked.
‘He walked with us for a while. The dogs saw him.’ I nodded towards the two animals now asleep in front of the fire.
The fat man muttered something to Gallmau who shook his head, then looked flustered and ill at ease.
‘Are you sure it was your brother?’ asked the fat man.
‘Of course. I haven’t seen him for more than a week. He doesn’t visit me that often,’ I said, trying to sound casual.
The fat man’s eyes flicked towards the satchel.
‘Are you not a Christian?’ he asked.
I belched softly. Judging by the aftertaste, the mead had been brewed with clover honey.
‘My being a Christian has nothing to do with it. My brother visits me as often as he wishes,’ I said. ‘He drowned when we were youngsters.’
The fat man’s eyes darted nervously around the room. A bead of sweat broke out on his scalp.
‘Will he call on us tonight?’ he asked.
I shrugged.
‘Who knows.’
My host got up from his stool.
‘Then we must not be found wanting,’ he muttered, and shuffled his way out of the room.
In a short while he came back with four wooden plates, a loaf of stale-looking bread and some cheese, and an extra tankard. He set four places on the table, and we began to eat. Each time there was a sound outside, both my companions started. We hurried through our meal, and when I had finished, I drained my third tankard of the cider-mead and reached up and removed my eye patch. Then I turned to face my companions, staring straight at them for a long moment, unblinking so they could not help but notice the mismatched colours of my eyes.
‘Leave my brother’s place at the table as it is,’ I said, ‘in case he joins us later.’
Without asking, I stretched myself out on the bench, with my satchel as a pillow and allowed myself to drift off to sleep, confident that neither of them would dare harm someone who bore the Devil’s mark and was the twin brother of a fetch.
A low growling awoke me, followed by a thud as a heavy boot kicked the front door, making it rattle in its frame.
‘Wake up you tub of lard,’ shouted a voice.
I sat up. I was still on the bench and had spent a quiet night. My brother’s wooden plate and tankard sat on the table untouched.
The boot thumped into the door again. Gallmau was climbing to his feet from where he had been sleeping on the floor. The two dogs were barking furiously and dancing round the door, which shook to another heavy blow. The fat man was nowhere to be seen.
I put on my eye patch and went across to the door and pulled it open. Outside stood a thick-set, scowling man with a short, neatly trimmed beard and the weather-beaten skin of someone who spent his days in the open air. Behind him I saw two men-at-arms with spears. Further down the street, the faces of villagers were peering out from their front doors.
‘Who are you?’ demanded the bearded man aggressively. He spoke in good Frankish.
‘Sigwulf, a royal servant,’ I answered.
The man narrowed his eyes.
‘Royal? Don’t waste my time!’ he growled.
I knew that I made an unimpressive spectacle, with a patch on one eye, travel-stained and unwashed.
‘I am on my way to see Margrave Hroudland,’ I said.
‘And is the margrave expecting you?’ jeered my interrogator.
I was feeling grouchy and hungover, and lost my temper.
‘No, he is not,’ I snapped, ‘but he will be very pleased to see me, and I shall make it my business to report on your conduct.’
My sharp manner penetrated the man’s disbelief. He gave me a calculating look.
‘What do you want to see the margrave about?’ he asked, a little less derisively.
‘I’m bringing him a book.’ Once again I slid the Book of Dreams out of the satchel.
The display had its effect. The man might have never seen a book before, but he knew that they were rare and valuable.
‘Very well, you come with me and tell your story to the head steward,’ he said.
He looked past me at Gallmau who had both hands full, holding back the two dogs that were eager to attack the stranger.
‘Where’s Maonirn?’ he asked.
Gullmau stared back stonily without replying.
‘He doesn’t speak Frankish,’ I said. ‘He’s a fisherman from the coast.’
‘Smuggler, too, if he keeps company with Maonirn. I expect that grease bucket slipped off to the moors when he heard us coming. No chance to find him now.’
He turned on his heel and I followed him out of the cottage and past the waiting men at arms.
I had encountered a bailiff, as it turned out. He had planned to arrest Maonirn, a known rogue, for the theft of some cattle. Instead he brought me before the head steward of the local landowner. He, in turn, was persuaded as to my honest character and provided me with a pony and directions to the town Hroudland had chosen for his headquarters as Margrave of the Breton March.
It was not much of a place.
A few hundred modest houses clustered on the floor of a shallow valley where the river made a loop
around a low hill. The dwellings were a depressing sight under a dull winter sky, with their drab walls of mud and wattle, and roof thatch of grey reeds. There was a watermill on the river bank, a scattering of leafless orchards and vegetable patches, and a log palisade to enclose the hilltop. Just visible above this palisade was the roof of a great hall. The miserable weather was keeping the townsfolk indoors, and the only activity was in what looked like a soldiers’ camp on the water meadows. Tents had been set up in orderly lines, smoke was rising from cooking fires, and numbers of armed men were moving about.
It had taken me two full days to ride there and I guided my tired pony through the town’s muddy, deserted streets and headed straight for the gate in the palisade. It stood open and I rode in without being challenged. There I halted, overcome by a reminder of the past.
Hroudland’s great hall recalled my memories of my father’s house, the home I had grown up in, except that it was much, much larger and intended to impress the visitor. The ridge of its enormous roof stood two-storeys high. The roof itself was covered with thousands upon thousands of wooden shakes and sloped down to side walls of heavy planks set upright and closely fitted. Every vertical surface had been brightly painted. Red and white squares alternated with diamond shapes in green and blue. There were stripes and whorls. Flowers, animal shapes, and human grotesques had been carved into the projecting ends of the beams and cross timbers and the door surrounds. These carvings, too, were picked out in vivid colours: orange, purple and yellow. Flags flew from poles at each corner of the building, and a long banner with a picture of a bull’s head hung down above the double entrance doors. It was a spectacle of unrestrained and gaudy ostentation.
There was much bustle around the building. An impatient-looking foreman was supervising a team of workmen as they unloaded trestle tables and benches from a cart, and then carried them indoors. Servants were wheeling out barrows heaped with cinders and soiled rushes; others were taking in bundles of fresh reeds. A man on a ladder was topping up the oil in the metal cressets attached to the huge doorposts.
‘Where’s Count Hroudland?’ I asked a porter. He was shouldering a yoke from which hung two water buckets and was on his way towards what looked like the kitchen building attached to the side of the great hall. Smoke was rising from its double chimney.
‘You’ll not find him here. He’s down by the army camp.’
I turned my pony and rode back down the slope towards the water meadows. I was scarcely halfway there when I heard a sound that made my heart lift: a full-throated whoop of triumph. It was the yell that my friend let loose every time he scored a direct hit with javelin or lance, and it came from my right, just beyond the soldiers’ tents. I kicked my pony into a faster walk and a moment later emerged onto a familiar scene. A couple of dozen cavalry men were fighting a mock battle. Watched by a ring of spectators, the opposing sides were a milling mob of armoured men on horseback chopping and thrusting with wooden swords and blunt lances, deflecting blows with their shields. I spotted Hroudland at once. He was riding his roan stallion with the distinctive white patches and he had a cluster of black feathers fastened to his helmet. A closer look showed that several of the other riders were wearing black feathers while their opponents sported sprigs of green leaves. Above the hoarse shouts, the thud of blows and the general grunting tussle of horses and riders, I again heard Hroudland’s triumphant cry. He had barged forward with the roan, knocked his opponent’s horse off balance, and then delivered a downward blow to the man’s head. As I watched, he thrust his shield into his opponent’s face so that he toppled backwards out of his saddle and crashed to the ground.
Hroudland straightened up and looked around, seeking his next victim. His eye fell on me where I sat on my pony looking over the heads of the spectators. His face lit up with a broad smile. Ignoring the chaos around him he spurred his stallion through the fighting and came towards me at a lumbering trot. The crowd in front of me scattered, dodging the great hooves as the horse came to a halt.
‘Patch! Welcome home!’ the count shouted. He was out of breath, the sweat pouring down his face. He tossed aside his wooden sword, slung his shield on to his back, dropped the reins and swung himself out of the saddle. I dismounted from my pony. Hroudland came forward, threw his arms around me and swept me up in a powerful bear hug. I was crushed uncomfortably against his chain-mail shirt, and had to duck to avoid the rim of his helmet.
‘It’s good to see you!’ he said.
I became aware that another horse and rider had joined us. Looking up, I saw Berenger’s cheerful face grinning down at me. He had taken off his helmet and his curly hair was plastered with sweat.
‘Patch, where did you spring from?’ he called down.
I disentangled myself from the count’s embrace.
‘From Hispania by way of the Bay of the Vascons,’ I said. ‘I’ve important news.’
Hroudland’s unattended stallion was edging sideways, tossing its head and irritably stamping the soft ground. The nearest onlookers were scrambling back out of the way.
‘Patch, I’ll see you up at the great hall later,’ said the count, hurriedly stepping back to gather up the reins. ‘You could not have come at a better time. There’s to be a banquet. My seneschal will look after you.’ He vaulted easily up into the saddle. Someone handed back his wooden sword and he waved it above his head in salute, and then plunged back into the fray, Berenger riding at his side.
Hroudland’s seneschal made no attempt to conceal his irritation at being distracted from the preparations for the banquet. He bawled at a groom to take my pony to the stables, then beckoned to a lad loitering nearby and told him gruffly to show me to the margrave’s personal quarters. There he was to hand me over to the margrave’s manservant. I followed the youngster into the great hall. The interior was as resplendent as the outside of the building. Painted in stripes of white and red, Hroudland’s household colours, a double line of wooden pillars, each thicker than a man’s waist, soared upward as piers for the great roof. Bolted to each pillar were brackets for dozens of torches. Although it was scarcely noon, many of these lamps were already lit, and their flames made the shadows dance and flicker in the rafters high above us. The trestle tables and benches I had seen earlier were already erected in the spaces between the pillars, and there were enough to accommodate more than a hundred guests. A team of servants was setting out wooden trenchers and glass beakers. The kindling in the fire pit was well alight, and the blaze had spread into the stack of fresh logs. I smelled pine smoke and somewhere in the background was the sound of a musician tuning up a stringed instrument. My guide took me the length of the great hall and past the high table, still bare except for a fine, linen table cloth. I presumed that the more valuable tableware would be brought out later. At the far end of the hall I was shown through a heavy door into what amounted to a large arms store. The walls of mortared stone had narrow slits for windows. Cressets added to the weak light, which shone on racks of spears and javelins, war axes and iron bound chests. Along one wall was a display of shields. All of them were painted with the margrave’s red and white.
My young guide led me on and up a wooden staircase that brought us into an upper room furnished for comfortable living. There were rugs on the floor, and wall hangings embroidered with scenes from the chase and the classical tales. To my surprise I noticed that one of the wall hangings depicted the siege of Troy. I recognized the figures of Troilus and Achilles, whose story I had told in the presence of Carolus at the banquet where I was poisoned. Ironwork braziers kept out the chill and damp, and there was a large and comfortable-looking bed with a mattress, as well as the usual stools and chairs. Here the windows were glazed and larger than on the ground floor, allowing in extra daylight. Nevertheless racks of expensive wax candles, some of them scented, were already burning. I found myself wondering how Hroudland could afford such luxury.
A manservant took me in charge and, after a condescending appraisal of what I was wearing
, drew back a curtain to an alcove. Expensive clothes hung on pegs. There were fine shirts of silk and linen, jackets and leggings, fur-trimmed cloaks, tunics with silver and gold thread woven into the fabric, a selection of fashionable hats and bonnets. Lower down, shelves displayed an array of footwear; boots, slippers and shoes of all colours and styles. I was told that I could select whatever clothes I wanted, and that hot water would be brought up from the kitchens so I could wash and change.
The count himself arrived two hours later. I heard his footsteps thudding on the wooden stair and a moment later he came bounding into the room, his face flecked with mud and his eyes alive with energy.
‘Patch, Patch! It’s been far too long!’ he exclaimed, and I received another exuberant bear hug. Then he held me at arm’s length and gazed into my face. ‘You’re tanned and look well. Hispania must have suited you.’
‘Being Warden of the March has suited you. Your great hall is magnificent,’ I complimented him.
He pulled a face.
‘It’s to make up for this miserable climate and its equally miserable people. You have no idea what it is like to live among such sullen, dour blockheads. They don’t know the meaning of what it is to enjoy oneself. We have to create our own amusements.’ He brightened. ‘But tonight there’ll be good food and conversation and my steward will provide some decent wine. Also, I’ve arranged a special entertainment for you.’
His words tumbled out at such a pace and with so much fervour that I examined my friend more closely. I noticed the slight bags under his eyes and the broken veins on his face. He seemed overwrought and anxious. It was not how I remembered him. I wondered if Hroudland had been living a little too lavishly.
‘I abandoned my mission to Hispania because I have to warn you of a plot against you,’ I began.
But the count had already turned away, almost as though he was unable to keep still. He strode across to the bed and pulled off his shirt. His body was still as slim and athletic as before, the muscles sculpted under the pale skin. If my friend had been indulging in too much fine living, it had not affected his physique. The manservant reappeared with a basin of water, which he placed on a stand, and Hroudland began to wash his face and arms.
