Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

With the prospect of real fighting in Hispania ahead of me, I did as Hroudland suggested: I devoted all my energy to becoming a skilful mounted warrior. There was no time to think of anything else. I pushed aside any thoughts of making contact with Bertha, for I was still wary of palace politics in Aachen. Besides, I suspected that she had long ago found other lovers. I was now the margrave’s man and I owed him my duty, and that meant following him unquestioningly wherever he might lead. After six weeks’ practice with lance and borrowed sword I was fit to accompany the margrave’s cavalry when they set out to join the main invasion force. We struck camp two weeks after the equinox and made an impressive spectacle, the mounted column splashing across the ford at the edge of the training ground in the pale spring sunshine. Hroudland himself took the lead, a stylish figure in a scarlet riding cloak trimmed with marten fur, bareheaded, with his long blonde hair falling to his shoulders. Immediately behind him came his standard bearer holding the staff with the bull’s head banner. Then followed the rest of his entourage — household servants in red and white livery, a groom leading the roan war horse, his councillors and his confidants, of which I was one.

Our supply carts had gone ahead and we followed them southward in easy stages. We were travelling across pleasant wooded countryside, the trees were bursting into leaf and the underbrush was full of small, flitting, rustling creatures and birdsong. The air had a rich, loamy smell of new growth and, except for the occasional heavy rain shower during the first week, the weather was kind to us. Day after day, the sun shone from a clear, pale-blue sky, disappearing only briefly behind the legions of puffy, white clouds that sailed overhead on a westerly wind, their shadows racing across our path and then over the open landscape to our left.

Frequently Hroudland invited me to ride beside him, in full view of the rest of the company, cementing my reputation as his close friend.

‘I’m not sorry to be leaving the Breton land,’ he confided to me on the fourth day of our journey. The road was taking us through a birch forest on the edge of a heathland. The greyish-white bark on the trees reminded me of my stay in Zaragoza. The bark was the same colour as the sheets of unknown writing material I had found in wali Husayn’s guest chamber.

‘Does the winter weather depress you?’ I asked.

‘That and the people. They keep their feelings so shuttered. I’d like to have their loyalty, not just have their sullen obedience. You never know what they are thinking.’ He nodded towards the forest around us. ‘Those birch trees, for example. To me, as a Frank, they are trees full of bright life, hope for the future. But, to the Breton, the birch is a tree that grows in the land of the dead.’

‘My father once told me that the birch is a symbol of a new beginning, a cleansing of the past. Perhaps that is what you need,’ I said.

Hroudland suddenly became very serious.

‘Patch, if I have anything to do with it, this new campaign will indeed provide me with a fresh start.’

I stole a quick sideways glance. His face was clouded.

‘What do you mean?’ I asked.

‘Remember our excursion to the forest of Broceliande to investigate the story of Yvain and the fountain and how it ended?’

‘The cup of gold turned out to be made of bronze. I saw it recently with the other tableware in your great hall.’

‘What if we had found a real gold cup?’

‘As I recall, you proposed to have it melted down and added to your treasury.’

‘But supposing the cup had been something of such extraordinary value that no one would ever think of destroying it.’

‘Now you are talking in riddles,’ I said to him.

‘Those Breton bards are always singing about something called a Graal, some sort of a bowl or a platter. It was the most precious object known to their mystical king Artorius.’

‘And what happened to it?’ I asked.

He did not answer my question directly but said, ‘Many of Artorius’s best men went looking for this Graal. Yet only a couple of them ever laid eyes on this mysterious object.’

‘I don’t see what this has got to do with our expedition to Hispania,’ I said to him. I was beginning to believe that Hroudland had spent far too many evenings swilling wine with his friends and boasting of exploits past and future.

He turned to face me and I saw that he was in complete earnest.

‘The Breton bards say this mysterious Graal is kept in a heavily guarded castle, a place difficult to reach because it is surrounded on all sides by mountains. They make it sound as if the castle is somewhere in the south.’

I had to scoff.

‘If you’re thinking that the Graal is to be found among the mountains on the way to Hispania, let me tell you there are few forests in that region. It’s a bleak and barren place where someone nearly knocked out my brains with a sling stone.’

Hroudland was not to be deflected.

‘A little danger won’t deter me from looking for the Graal there, no more than it stopped me from riding into the forest of Broceliande.’

I sighed with exasperation.

‘And what will you do, if you lay hands on this Graal? It could turn out to be like the little bronze cup, something you could buy for a penny in a market.’

The look Hroudland gave me was almost triumphant.

‘Don’t you see, Patch? It doesn’t matter whether this Graal is made of gold or brass or even wood. Imagine how the Bretons would respect the man who returned this treasure to them!’

I had to stop myself from shaking my head despairingly. Once Hroudland fastened on an idea, he was impossible to reason with.

‘And if there is no Graal and the whole thing is a myth?’

Sensing my misgivings, Hroudland laughed.

‘In that case this expedition is still my chance for a new beginning. As I’ve said before, I will serve with such distinction that when we have conquered our Saracen opponents, my uncle Carolus will make me Margrave of the new Spanish March.’ He leaned across from his horse and cuffed me affectionately across the head. ‘And then, Patch, you will come with me as my close advisor, and enjoy the sunshine instead of the Breton drizzle.’

He clapped his heels to the side of his horse and broke into a canter, clods of earth flying up from his horse’s hooves.

A week later we found ourselves looking down into a ruined valley. It was as if a great wind of destruction had swept across the land. Hedges and thickets were smashed into tatters. The young crops in the fields trampled and ruined. The ground was all torn up and wrecked. Not a tree or sapling was left standing in the coppices, and their stumps showed fresh axe marks. It was a truly dismal spectacle and I was astonished when Berenger gave a whoop of delight.

He began humming to himself as we rode side by side down the slope and into the scene of devastation.

‘What happened here?’ I asked.

‘An army,’ he retorted with a grin. ‘The ground will soon recover. Look at all that manure.’

Indeed there were piles of dung dotted here and there, as well as an ugly spew of rubbish — discarded sacking, traces of cooking fires, chicken feathers, gnawed bones, a broken earthenware pot, a split shoe that someone had tossed away. I pulled my horse aside before he stepped into what was obviously a pile of human excrement. It took me another moment to realize that all this squalor lay in a broad swathe leading along the bottom of the valley.

Hroudland was riding a little distance ahead of us. He swivelled in his saddle and called back, ‘Come on! They must be just over that hill crest!’ He put his horse into a fast trot and began to ascend the far slope.