That night, perhaps not surprisingly, I dreamed of a snake. It was my first real dream since leaving Aachen. In my dream I was seated on a rock on a barren mountainside and dressed only in my loose Saracen gown. I was icy cold but dared not stand up. A poisonous brown snake, as thick as my wrist, lay curled in my lap. I felt its weight through the gown. The slightest movement would rouse it. Some distance away Hroudland stood talking with Husayn and Governor Suleyman of Barcelona. I wanted to call out to them, seek their help, but then the snake would strike. I sat, fearing the slightest movement.
It was at that point in my dream that I became half awake. I was stretched out on a couch where I had lain down to rest after returning from my meal with the wali. Something was indeed lying across my thighs. I thought I felt it stir, and the hair on the back of my neck rose in terror. I lay still, struggling to control my panic. After what seemed like an age, I took a shallow breath and gathered my strength. I tensed and then, in one terrified move, I sprang to my feet, flinging aside whatever was lying across me.
I was fully awake now, standing upright and shivering with fright. The room was in total darkness and I had no idea of the time. I stood stock still, listening for the sound of something slithering on the floor. I heard nothing. Gradually I calmed down and told myself that it had been a nightmare. After some moments I stooped and gingerly felt around the floor, still fearful. My fingers closed on a roll of cotton sheet. It had wrapped around me as I tossed and turned.
It took me a long time to get back to sleep, and it was well past dawn when I awoke. Daylight was flooding in through the high windows. Snatches of birdsong came from the direction of the central courtyard. I rose and went into the marbled washroom to splash water on my face. Osric was waiting for me in the adjacent room and I saw that breakfast had been delivered — a flat loaf of bread, some fruit and a jug of sherbet. I mumbled a greeting and went straight to the low desk where I had left my translation of the Oneirokritikon. I sat down on the floor cushion and began to skim through the text until I found the section on animals and their significance in dreams. It was a strange assortment of creatures. Mice, tapeworms, crickets, moles, owls, bats — as far as I could make out, they were listed in no particular order. Eventually I came to the page that dealt with snakes. The book left me in no doubt.
To dream of a snake was a sure portent of impending treachery.
With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I looked up. Osric was standing beside the uneaten food, waiting for me to speak, his dark eyes troubled.
‘Ganelon plans to destroy Hroudland,’ I began, and told him what I had learned the previous evening and my nightmare.
He heard me out in silence.
‘Do you remember what time of night you dreamed?’ he asked, once I’d finished.
‘No. It was pitch dark,’ I said.
‘Then the treachery will not occur for some time yet. What happened to the snake?’
It was such an odd question that I was taken aback.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘The Book of Dreams tells us that the snake’s behaviour is important.’
In my anxiety about the meaning of the dream, I had forgotten that, according to the Oneirokritikon, if the snake wrapped itself around the dreamer’s leg, then he would be the victim of treachery. If the snake moved away, it meant that someone else would be betrayed.
‘In my dream the snake was lying on me, curled up. Nothing more,’ I said.
‘Then you are not to be the victim. And it might not be Count Hroudland either,’ Osric said.
‘I’m going to warn Hroudland anyway. The wali is making arrangements for me to travel to join him. He says I can go by sea.’
‘Let’s hope that this time we don’t sail with a crew of pirates.’
‘Osric, you don’t have to go with me,’ I said slowly.
He looked at me as if he had not heard me properly. Choosing my words carefully, I told him what I had arranged with the wali and that there was a place for him in Zaragoza.
‘You can decide whether to stay or not. It is up to you,’ I said. ‘Whatever happens, you will not be a slave. If you travel with me, it will be as a free man.’
An expression that wavered between reluctance and elation passed across Osric’s face.
‘I had not expected this,’ he said huskily.
‘You saved my life, if you remember.’
‘Yesterday you said you would need my help more than ever before.’ Osric put up a hand to massage the side of his damaged neck. It was a habit of his to knead the muscles there while he was thinking. I had forgotten how accustomed I was to his small gestures.
‘Will you manage on your own?’ he asked.
‘Osric, three days ago I killed a man. I put an arrow right through him. Afterwards I would have preferred he lived a little longer, but only so I could beat some information out of him. I’m tougher now than when I left home, more cynical and suspicious. I will be on my guard.’
His eyes searched my face as he considered his reply.
‘Very well. I will stay here in Zaragoza,’ he said finally.
I reached across the floor to pull my saddlebags to me and rummaged inside them until I had found what I needed.
‘Osric, can you write in Frankish script?’ I asked.
‘My father made me learn it. I expect I could just about manage, though I’d be very slow,’ he said.
‘Speed won’t matter,’ I told him. ‘If you find out anything more about Ganelon’s plot, you must write and let me know. You will need this.’ I held up the little box containing the Caesar’s Wheel.
He limped across and took it from me.
‘I had wondered what this contained,’ he said, lifting the lid and glancing inside.
‘It’s a device for writing in code. I’ll show you how it works. If I’m going back to Frankia, I don’t need the wheel any more. I can report in person,’ I told him.
He raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘I’ve been gathering information for Alcuin,’ I confessed.
He closed the lid and slipped the box inside his sleeve without comment. I felt guilty that I had not confided in him earlier that I was a spy. Worse, I realized that I had not given Osric the complete liberty I had intended. I still took it for granted that he would help me if he could.
Chapter Fourteen
I spent the sea journey to the Breton March lying on a pile of nets in the dank, foul-smelling hold of a Vascon fishing boat. The vessel pitched and rolled, and every time a wave crashed on deck above me the water dripped down through the deck planks. In the whirling darkness I dry-retched until I wished I would die.
The wali had warned that the voyage would be uncomfortable but he had understated the case.
‘The mountain Vascons are tough,’ he’d said, ‘but for sheer hardiness they are exceeded by the sea Vascons. They’ll set out from port in any weather if there’s profit in the trip.’ He should have added that he had paid the crew handsomely because the Bay of the Vascons, which we had to cross, is notorious for sudden storms and raging seas.
Husayn also arranged my travel across the Vascon lands which bordered Zaragoza. The guide who brought me to the ship took me through Pamplona, the region’s capital. The place showed all the scars of a fought-over frontier town with a battered city wall, stumps of broken towers like damaged teeth, and gates that had been repaired time and again. Conscientiously I made notes of these facts because I still regarded myself as a spy for Alcuin.
At voyage’s end, the Vascon fishermen set me ashore, wrapped in a sodden cloak, in a small, unnamed and deserted inlet on the Breton shore. They explained with gestures that I was to walk along the beach and around a headland to my left. It was a damp, drizzly morning, less than an hour after daybreak. Curtains of heavy mist drifted in from the sea, coating everything on land with a glistening wet sheen. Despite the dreary surroundings, I was very thankful to be finally off the ship, which hoisted sail and disappeared into the mist. I waited until the ground stopped tilting and swaying beneath me and then I set out in the direction they had indicated, slipping and sliding on the shingle, clutching the satchel, which contained the original Book of Dreams, my translation, and the purse of silver dinars the wali had pressed on me. All my other possessions, including my bow and sword, I had left behind with Osric and I had made him a present of the bay gelding.