Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

‘And what’s that?’ Adelaide scoffed.

‘The loss of an eye means the loss of a member of the family,’ I said quietly.

That caught their attention. The two sisters looked hard at me.

‘What member of the family?’ asked Bertha. Her voice was flinty, but there was a trace of fear.

I was committed now, and could not draw back.

‘A parent or a child.’

‘Well, both the king’s mother and father are already deceased,’ said Adelaide. Her eyes were alert with interest.

‘And does your Greek offer any further details?’ Bertha asked slowly.

‘You will have to tell me which eye was missing in your father’s dream.’

‘The right one.’

I smothered a sigh of relief.

‘According to Artimedorus, the loss of the right eye means that the dreamer will lose a son.’

No sooner had the words left my mouth than I regretted them. I pictured the royal family seated at their table at the banquet. There had been only one son — Pepin. He was the heir, yet he was illegitimate, the offspring of a concubine. Both sisters in front of me were daughters of legal marriage.

I tried to hide my thoughts, keeping my face blank. But I noticed that the two sisters exchanged a quick, meaningful glance.

Then Adelaide said brightly, ‘We are forgetting our manners.’ She went to a side table, removed the glass stopper from a flask of wine and poured me a drink. ‘Here, Sigwulf, you need something to warm you up before you go out into the cold again.’

It was clear that my audience with the royal sisters was at an end.

My thoughts were in turmoil as I left the royal residence. I had a queasy feeling that I was teetering on the edge of palace politics, a very dangerous area. What I had said about the king losing a son had struck a chord with both sisters. Yet nothing I had heard about Pepin led me to believe he was near death. I had not laid eyes on him for some time and he had not been with the royal hunting party, but that was not surprising in light of his physical attributes.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I did not look where I was putting my feet. All of a sudden I skidded, flailing wildly to keep my balance.

‘Look where you’re going!’

A building foreman, wrapped up in a heavy sheepskin coat, was waving at me to get out of the way. Behind him a squad of labourers were advancing in a line, tipping buckets of water on to the frozen ground. As the water spread it was freezing into a sheet of ice.

‘Keep off if you don’t want to break your neck!’ bellowed the foreman.

His men were creating a smooth, slick pathway from the unfinished great hall. Behind them was another gang of men. They were hauling on ropes attached to a crude sledge. On it stood the great metal horse and rider which had shocked me on my first day. They were sliding their load along the ice.

I went across to the foreman.

‘Where will the statue eventually be placed?’ I enquired.

‘Search me,’ was his gruff reply. ‘Right now the master mason wants it out of his way. Says it interferes with his brick hoists where it is.’

The foreman wiped a drip hanging from the end of his nose and turned round to yell more instructions to his men.

I continued on to the chancery where Osric was still engrossed in the Oneirokritikon. I asked him whether Artimedorus had written anything about seeing bronze statues in a dream.

He searched the pages of the book.

‘According to him, a large bronze statute is a good sign as it symbolizes wealth. On the other hand, if the dream statue is truly enormous that portends extraordinary dangers.’

‘What about a statue of a horse and rider?’

‘I haven’t come across anything like that. Artimedorus does say that a man who dreams of riding a well-schooled and obedient horse will have friends and family to support him throughout his life.’

‘I’m sure he also provides a more bleak interpretation,’ I said.

Osric gave a thin smile.

‘If a poor woman dreams that she is riding a horse through a city street, he says it means she will become a prostitute.’

I sat down at my desk and took up my pen, but before I started on Osric’s dictation I told him what had been said during my visit to Bertha and Adelaide.

‘As far as I know, Pepin’s in good health. Yet one interpretation of the dream is that the king will lose his son,’ I concluded.

Osric glanced towards the door to make sure that we would not be overheard.

‘Master, as I mentioned earlier, slaves and servants gossip. Pepin has not been formally declared as the heir to the king. There are important men around him who fear that if the king has another son, Pepin will be passed over.’

‘Because the king never married his mother?’ I said.

‘Precisely. These so-called friends of Pepin are encouraging him to seize the throne before it is too late.’

A chill ran through me. Should Pepin be plotting to seize the throne, and his scheme was discovered, he was almost certain to be put to death. Before that, there would be uproar within the royal family, accusations and counter-accusations as to who knew about the plot, and who was involved. Any outsider who might provide information would be questioned. If Bertha or her sister breathed a word of what I had said about their brother’s doubtful future, I would be under suspicion of knowing about Pepin’s plan and not warning the authorities. They would want details from me, extracted on the rack if necessary. I had already experienced the lengths to which a ruler would go to protect his position against rivals. My blunder with Bertha and her sister meant that King Offa was far from the only threat to my survival.

I found myself wishing that I had never told Bertha about the Book of Dreams.

Gerard mended very slowly. For his convalescence he was moved to a house within the town, the property of a rich contractor. I went there to tell him about the poison mushroom Osric had identified, and found the old man sitting up in bed, a marten fur cloak wrapped around his shoulders. His face looked strained and pale under the thick felt hat that hid his white hair. But Gerard was hardier than his frail appearance suggested. His eyes were bright with intelligence.

‘So that’s what nearly did for the two of us,’ he said after I had explained.

‘Osric came across it growing in the forest.’

The old man snorted.

‘The kitchen is staffed with fools.’

‘I’ve been wondering if it was more than an accident,’ I said cautiously.

He shot me a glance from under bushy eyebrows.

‘You think it was put into the pottage deliberately?’

‘The thought had occurred to me, but I don’t know who might want to injure me.’

He smiled grimly.

‘In other words you believe that I have enemies.’

‘I meant no offence,’ I apologized. ‘But if you do, it is best if you and I were aware of them.’

A thin, blotched hand emerged from under the cloak to scratch his chin.

‘Everyone acquires enemies sooner or later.’

It was my turn to draw an inference.

‘I don’t believe I’ve been here long enough to merit them.’

‘What about enemies you left behind. They could have a long reach.’

I thought about King Offa and my turncoat uncle.

‘I’m much too insignificant,’ I concluded.

‘Less and less so,’ he replied. ‘I gather you made quite a stir at the hunt and that a certain princess thinks highly of you.’

I avoided the old man’s sly gaze. It seemed that servants were not the only ones to gossip.

‘Hroudland thinks I was poisoned as a means of getting at him.’

Gerard considered my suggestion.

‘That’s possible. Everyone has noticed that you and Hroudland are very close. He is the king’s nephew and could be the target for ambitious rivals.’ Abruptly he changed the subject. ‘Did your servant Osric manage to translate any of that book I gave you?’ he asked.