Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

When I awoke a second time, it was to find that I had been washed and dressed in a clean bed gown. Osric was gone, but Alcuin was sitting patiently on a stool, his face grave.

I looked about me. I was lying in a small, plainly furnished room. Daylight entered through a window in the whitewashed walls.

‘Where am I?’ I asked.

‘The king’s house, a room where the crown couriers rest between trips.’

‘What happened?’

‘You ate something which made you so violently sick that you were brought here, the nearest place.’ The priest folded his hands in his lap. ‘Perhaps it was a food which you were not accustomed to. There were times when it was thought you might die. Prayers were said for you.’

I detected a hesitation in his voice.

‘Was anyone else taken ill?’ I asked.

‘The old man, Gerard of Roussillon, suffers the same symptoms, but they began some hours later. He managed to get back to his own bed. He breathes with difficulty and is getting weaker.’

I remembered Osric dosing me.

‘My slave Osric must treat him with the same medicine he gave me. It seems to have been effective.’

‘As could have been our prayers,’ Alcuin reminded me quietly, but he agreed to my request and got to his feet. ‘When you are strong enough, you will be able to return to your own quarters.’

No sooner had he left the room than a worried-looking Count Hroudland and Berenger appeared in the doorway. I managed to raise my head and greet them. Hroudland’s face lit up with relief.

‘Patch, it’s good to see you awake,’ said Hroudland. ‘There were times when we thought you were finished.’ He came across to my bed and laid a hand on my brow. ‘The fever has broken, thank God.’

‘Fallen on your feet again, Patch,’ Berenger said, his usual jaunty self. ‘Convalescing in the royal household.’ He grinned. ‘I always knew that banquet food was bad, but I had no idea quite how awful it could be.’

I smiled weakly. My stomach felt as though a horse had kicked me in the gut.

‘Get well quickly, Patch,’ Berenger continued. ‘There’s to be a grand hunt in two weeks’ time, the first of the season. You wouldn’t want to miss that.’

Hroudland was pacing up and down the room, looking agitated.

‘Patch, do you have any idea what could have poisoned you?’ he asked.

I shook my head. I could remember eating smoked eel, pig meat with dumplings, and then some of the chicken and vegetable pottage.

‘Perhaps it was something I drank,’ I said.

‘All of us enjoyed Anseis’s wine, yet only you and Gerard are sick.’

‘What are you trying to tell me?’

Hroudland chose his words carefully.

‘That someone may have harmed you deliberately.’

It took me a moment to grasp his meaning.

‘Are you saying that someone tried to poison me? Why would they want to do that?’ I was astonished.

He hesitated.

‘You are known to be my close friend. It could have a warning aimed at me, or simply an act to hurt me.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘The king has said that he will appoint me to the next important post that falls vacant. Others seek that post for themselves. They see me as an obstacle to their own ambitions.’

I thought back to Alcuin’s opaque warning about dangers lurking in the court.

‘That seems a very vague threat,’ I said.

‘Then there’s Ganelon.’

It took me a moment to realize whom he was talking about.

‘You mean your stepfather?’

‘He loathes me. The feeling is mutual. He thinks I’m trying to turn my mother against him. He’ll lose much of his wealth and power if she divorces him.’

I recalled how the man in the yellow jerkin had watched me during the banquet. But surely it was impossible that Ganelon would have been able to carry out a deliberate poisoning so quickly. Also I found it difficult to believe that that a family feud could be so bitter that it would extend to murder. I told myself that my illness was probably an accident and I would be more careful what I ate in future. First, though, I would check with Osric. He had known how to cure me, so he might know what had harmed me.

Berenger had started to tell a bawdy joke when the door opened and my fourth visitor of the day swept in, someone so completely unexpected that I goggled: it was Princess Bertha.

Berenger immediately broke off his tale and bowed.

‘We were just leaving, your highness,’ he said smoothly. At the same time he treated Hroudland to a meaningful glance. The two of them made for the door and, just as they were leaving, I was startled to see Berenger turn round and, behind the princess’s back, wink.

I had still not got over my surprise when the princess said, ‘I am so pleased to see that you are recovering.’

She was looking lovely in a pale-blue gown of some soft, clinging material gathered at the waist with a thin silver belt. Her long yellow plaits hung free as when I had first seen her, though now the amber necklace was missing.

‘It is kind of you to come to see me,’ I mumbled.

‘You told the story of Troilus so beautifully. My father says you are a natural storyteller.’

The princess’s voice was husky and musical, and she had the same direct manner of speaking as her father. She walked over and sat down beside my bed on the stool that Alcuin had used. A hint of rose perfume reached me. She smoothed the front of her gown over her bosom.

‘His regular bard is furious.’

Briefly I wondered if he had been furious enough to warn me off with something poisonous in my food.

‘Sigwulf is a nice name. It’s a pity that everyone calls you Patch.’

I wondered how she came to know this detail, but already she was reaching to remove my eye bandage.

‘That should be more comfortable.’

I felt vulnerable without the eye patch, almost naked. Then I remembered that she had been in the room when her father had commented on my different-coloured eyes.

Now she was looking at me with great interest, searching my face. She was so close I could see that her own eyes, which I had thought were blue, verged on grey like her father’s. The lashes were as blonde as her hair, the eyelids faintly freckled. Her broad well-shaped brow, fair skin and straight nose made her very attractive in the way the Franks admired. I found myself trying to decide whether she had used berry juice to add colour to her lips.

She sat looking at me without speaking. I kept my head turned towards her, scarcely daring to breathe. I wanted the moment to last as long as possible so that I could absorb exactly how she looked and would be able to recall it in every detail. She radiated a gentle warmth and softness that was overwhelming. I was captivated and hesitant, afraid to say anything, fearful of making a mistake, yet hoping that somehow she would read my thoughts.

With a confident, graceful movement she reached out one hand and touched a finger to beside my right eye, then my left.

‘You are a very remarkable person,’ she said.

I could not ignore the physical contact. I reached up and took the outstretched hand, opened the fingers and kissed her palm. This time there was the scent of oil of almonds.

Without a word, she rose to her feet, crossed to the door and put in place the little wooden wedge that locked the latch. In another two paces she had returned to my bedside. She undid her silver belt and peeled back the shoulders of her gown and let it fall to the floor. All that remained was a loose undershift, and she slid out of it with the same fluid movement that brought her beneath the blanket beside me. She was facing me, and I wrapped my arms around her and felt the soft pressure of those magnificent naked breasts. Her arms gathered me in, and after a long hungry kiss, I felt her hands removing my bed gown.