Tim Severin - The Book of Dreams

Berenger and I followed, and as we crested the rise I pulled my mount to a halt and looked on in amazement. I knew now why my comrades always seemed so confident of the success of the Frankish army.

Along the bottom of the next valley crawled a huge serpent. It was formed of ox-drawn vehicles, creeping forward in a long line. There must have been four or five hundred of them. Most were substantial two-wheeled carts, though a few of the larger ones had four wheels similar to Arnulf’s eel wagon. All were tented and drawn by two animals, their drovers walking beside them or riding on bench seats in front of the canopies. Even from a distance I could hear the squealing and groaning of the huge solid wheels turning on wooden axles, and hear the occasional crack of a whip. Out on the flanks of the column were parties of foragers stripping the countryside of any vegetation that might provide food for the draught animals. Closer to us a great herd of cattle meandered along, eating every blade of grass or green leaf in its path.

‘Everything the army needs is down there,’ Berenger called out to me proudly. He waved his arm towards the wagons. ‘Tents, spare weapons, grain, cooking pots, trenching tools. That cattle herd is a moving larder of fresh meat.’

‘Where’s the king himself?’ I asked.

He pointed. At the head of the column, in the far distance, was a dark swarm of horsemen, the main body of the army. I could just make out some flapping banners and the occasional glint of sunlight reflected from a shield or spear point.

‘Sloppy of them not to have posted a rearguard,’ observed Hroudland tartly, interrupting us. He spurred his horse down the slope to join the army, and Berenger and I cantered along behind him.

We overtook the column and rode along beside it. Now I could hear the deep grunting breaths of the draught animals, saliva dripping from their mouths as they plodded forward. We came level with a company of infantry, tramping along stolidly, one of many such companies dotted along the column. This group were husky, well-built men, who shouldered short-handled axes. Their sergeant, a craggy figure with cropped hair and a great beak of a broken nose shouted out a question at us in a strange hoarse voice, in a language none of us could understand.

‘They’ll be some of Anseis’s Burgundians,’ Berenger explained. ‘Carolus has summoned troops from all over the kingdom. Each man is obliged to serve under arms for up to sixty days a year.’

‘Do they fight only with those axes?’

‘Their shields and spears will be somewhere in the wagons along with the rest of their gear. There’s no point in carrying an extra burden on the march.’

Ahead of us one of the ox carts pulled out of line. The right hand wheel was wobbling and it looked as if an axle pin had come loose.

Someone, a wheelwright probably, jumped off an ox wagon. Tools in hand, he was already on his way to repair the stranded cart. It appeared that the column was self-repairing.

‘What happens when the column needs to cross a river?’ I asked.

‘If there’s no bridge strong or big enough to take so many vehicles, the scouts find a ford. Provided the oxen can keep their footing, the army moves forward. Nothing should get wet. The carts and wagons are built like boats, to keep out river water as well as rain.’

I noticed that the wooden sides of the nearest cart were sealed with pitch, and the cover was made of greased leather. Nevertheless, something was missing. It was only after Berenger and I had ridden the entire length of the column and were approaching the mass of cavalry up ahead that I identified the flaw. Among all the hundreds of supply wagons and carts, mobile smithies and workshops of the army on the move, there was not a single large siege engine. If Carolus met with resistance from the walled cities of Hispania, he risked failure.

I thought of voicing my concern to Hroudland, but he had gone ahead to catch up with the leaders, and by the time I had a chance to speak to him privately, too much had happened to make me think that my opinion would be taken seriously.

In mid-afternoon the army halted on open ground. Nearby was a lake where the horses and oxen were led to be watered. The ox carts and wagons were parked in orderly lines, the infantry and cavalry set up their tents, camp fires were lit, and cattle selected from the accompanying herd were slaughtered and butchered. Soon so much smoke rose into the air from the cooking fires that a stranger would have thought he had stumbled on a small town.

Hroudland went to report to the official in charge of the practical arrangements for the campaign, a man named Eggihard who held the title of seneschal to the king. Meanwhile Berenger and I set off in search of the other paladins. We found them drinking wine and lounging around a camp fire close to an enormous square pavilion, striped in red, gold and blue with the royal standard flying from the centre pole. Several paladins I remembered from the winter in Aachen were there — Anseis of Burgundy, handsome and swaggering Engeler, and Gerer, Gerin’s friend. Old Gerard was missing and I was saddened to be told that he had never fully recovered from the poison he had eaten at the banquet. His agonizing stomach cramps had returned and his new doctor had advised him to chew laurel leaves, swallow the juice and then lay the wet leaves on his stomach. This treatment had been no more help than the prayers of the attendant priests, and a winter chill took him off while he was still in a weakened state.

Guiltily I wondered if I had been selfish to have taken Osric with me on the mission to Zaragoza. If Osric had stayed behind, perhaps his medical skill would have saved the old man. Now, even if I had wished to return the Book of Dreams, it was impossible.

‘Patch, Berenger! I want you to hear our orders from the king.’ Hroudland was standing at the entrance to the royal pavilion and summoning us. All thoughts of Gerard vanished from my mind. Inside the tent I might come face to face with Ganelon and he was a man best avoided. I had not seen him since he had gone off to Barcelona with Gerin. Even if Ganelon was not responsible for the attack by the Vascon slinger in the mountains and the earlier attempts on my life, he would see me as a threat to his plan to discredit Hroudland as a traitor in the pay of the Wali of Zaragoza.

So I stepped cautiously into the royal pavilion. The interior was more spacious than most houses. I caught a whiff of some sort of incense, and I guessed that the royal chaplain had recently been conducting a service inside. The evening light filtering through the canvas was strong enough to show a heavy curtain of purple velvet partitioned off the far end. Beyond it, I presumed, were the king’s private quarters. The rest of the pavilion was arranged as a council room. Wooden boards had been laid to make a temporary floor. In one corner two clerks sat at a portable desk with parchment and pens. A travelling throne of gilded, carved wood stood on a low plinth, and the centre of the room was entirely taken up by a familiar object — the great tile map that I had last seen in the Aachen chancery. It had been reassembled on trestle tables.

A dozen senior officers and court officials were already standing around the map, talking quietly among themselves. My heart was in my mouth as I scanned their faces, looking for Ganelon. But he was not there, nor among the outer circle of lesser attendants and advisors. I quietly joined them just as the velvet curtain was abruptly pulled aside and the king strode into the room. Carolus was bare-headed and dressed in his usual workday clothing, brown woollen tunic and hose with cross garters of plain leather, and he wore no badges of rank. Outside the tent one might have mistaken him for a common soldier; tall but unremarkable.