Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

‘Surely Yvain took with him the golden cup? It was his prize,’ Hroudland called out rudely. I had not realized quite how drunk he was.

The skald broke off his recital, offended by the interruption.

Hroudland turned to me, his face flushed.

‘That’s what would have happened at the siege of Troy, wouldn’t it, Patch? To the victor the spoils.’

‘It’s a legend, a fantasy,’ I said, trying to humour him and calm him down.

‘No, my lord, it is how it happened,’ the lad behind us spoke up.

Surprised by his boldness, I turned round to get a good look at him. He was standing with his hands clenched at his side, looking pale and upset.

‘Nonsense,’ snapped Hroudland. He was ready to pick an argument, even with a youngster. ‘The entire yarn is a fabrication.’

‘The fountain is there. You can see for yourself. At Barenton in the forest of Broceliande,’ insisted the lad.

I feared that Hroudland was drunk enough to hit the boy so I waved the youngster away. He turned on his heel and stalked back to his father, his back stiff with anger.

Hroudland’s mood had plummeted. He was aggressive and angry. He picked up his goblet unsteadily and took a long fumbling drink. A trickle of wine ran down his chin. Then he slammed the goblet down and slurred truculently, ‘Patch, tomorrow you and I will search out that fountain and prove there is no magic to it.’

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that the bard had risen from his stool, and he and his son were leaving the hall. The song had not been a success.

Next morning I hoped that Hroudland would have forgotten the episode. But a servant came to the guest chamber where I spent the night and woke me just after dawn to say that the margrave was waiting for me at the stables. Leaving aside my borrowed finery, I pulled on my travelling clothes and joined Hroudland. He seemed little affected by the evening’s carousing and I wondered if he had grown so accustomed to regular drinking bouts that he no longer suffered from hangovers.

‘Patch, I’m told that the magic fountain is no more than a three-hour ride from here,’ my friend said brightly. ‘We can get there and back in daylight.’

A stable-hand led forward two sturdy riding horses, and we rode out of the palisade gate, followed by an escort of four mounted troopers. The morning was dank and misty and beads of condensation glistened on my horse’s mane as we made our way down the hill and through the streets of the little town, deserted except for an occasional thin cur scavenging for scraps.

‘You have no idea how glad I am that soon we will be off to war in Hispania,’ Hroudland confided to me as we rode side by side.

‘In search of glory?’ I asked mockingly.

He turned a serious face towards me.

‘I need money badly. You’d be shocked to know how costly it is to maintain a great hall and its entire staff.’

I could have pointed out that he could save money by not being so lavish, but instead said, ‘I thought the local taxes provided funds for your office as Warden of the March.’

‘Nothing like enough.’

‘Then you should ask the king to relieve you of your post. Go back to court.’

Hroudland shook his head.

‘That would be to admit failure. In any case, being Warden of the March has given me a taste of what it is like to make my own decisions.’

‘So it’s plunder rather than renown that you want from Hispania.’

‘I hope to win both,’ he answered bluntly.

We made good progress along a rutted highway, which took us across low round hills covered with scrubby woodland. The only travellers we saw were on foot, walking between the small hamlets. Often they would deliberately leave the road, vanishing into the bushes, avoiding us. Eventually we overtook a family of father and mother and three small children trudging slowly along. One of our escorts spoke enough Breton to glean from them that the fountain at Barenton lay some distance off to our right.

The low cloud was thinning and a watery sun had begun to show itself as we left the main road and turned into an area of true forest. The ancient oaks intermingled with beech reminded me of the place the mysterious archer had tried to kill me while out hunting with the king. But here the trees were less majestic; they were gnarled and stunted, and the space between their thick, mossy trunks was choked with undergrowth. Little by little, the track narrowed until it became no more than a footpath, and the branches above the height of a man’s head reached out and scratched our faces as we pushed our horses forward.

‘Can’t be much further now,’ said Hroudland, finally dismounting when progress on horseback became too difficult. He handed the reins to our escort and told them to wait. Stiffly I got down from my horse and followed the count as he strode briskly onward. The forest smelled of earth and wet leaves, and — oddly — there was no sound of wildlife, no birdsong, not even the faint rustling of a breeze in the stagnant, still air. It was eerie, and I grew uneasy.

Hroudland did not appear to notice the silence. He drew his sword and, when the path became very overgrown, slashed back the undergrowth.

‘If the legend was true, this is where we should encounter an ugly giant,’ he joked to me over his shoulder. ‘Someone to show us on our way.’

But we saw no one, though I thought I detected the occasional faint trace of a footprint on the muddy track we were following.

Eventually, just as I was about to suggest that we turn back, we emerged into a clearing. It was no more than twenty paces across and open to the sky. It had the serene, tranquil air of an ancient place. In the centre stood a great upright stone. The boulder was similar to the menhirs I had seen on the moors in the mist, but here it stood alone, its rough grey sides speckled with pale circular patches of lichen growth. Close to the foot of the boulder was a shallow pool, little more than a large puddle. In the stillness of the glade the only movement was a faint ripple disturbing the water’s surface. A spring was bubbling out of the ground. My spine prickled.

‘This must be the place,’ said Hroudland confidently. He sheathed his sword and looked around at the bushes. ‘But I don’t see a golden cup hanging from a branch.’

He crossed to the stone and examined it more closely. ‘Nor is it studded with gems,’ he added with a derisive snort. ‘Another fable.’

I walked across to join him. A small trickle of water overflowed from the pool and drained out of the glade to where it was soon lost under some bushes. Something caught my eye, a small shadow under the surface of the rill, a dark patch that came and went as the water washed over it. I leaned in closer. Lying on its side, submerged in the water, was a metal beaker. Reaching in, I picked it up tentatively. I knew instinctively that it was extremely old. It was the size and shape of a small tankard or a large cup without a handle. I shook off the drops of water and turned it this way and that, searching for distinguishing marks in the dull surface. The cup was made seamlessly from a single sheet of metal, without joints or rivets; there were only patterns of dots, pecked into the surface with a pointed instrument. They swirled around it in mysterious whorls.

‘What have you got there?’ demanded Hroudland. He strode across, taking the cup from my grasp. ‘Probably a drinking cup dropped here by a woodsman.’

‘My guess is that it’s bronze,’ I said.

My friend pulled out a dagger from his belt and scratched the surface of the cup with the tip of the blade. It left no mark.

‘It’s not Yvain’s cup of gold, that’s for sure. Far too hard.’

He grinned at me mischievously.

‘Let’s see if it will work its magic as it did for Yvain.’