‘Who are you?’ demanded the bearded man aggressively. He spoke in good Frankish.
‘Sigwulf, a royal servant,’ I answered.
The man narrowed his eyes.
‘Royal? Don’t waste my time!’ he growled.
I knew that I made an unimpressive spectacle, with a patch on one eye, travel-stained and unwashed.
‘I am on my way to see Margrave Hroudland,’ I said.
‘And is the margrave expecting you?’ jeered my interrogator.
I was feeling grouchy and hungover, and lost my temper.
‘No, he is not,’ I snapped, ‘but he will be very pleased to see me, and I shall make it my business to report on your conduct.’
My sharp manner penetrated the man’s disbelief. He gave me a calculating look.
‘What do you want to see the margrave about?’ he asked, a little less derisively.
‘I’m bringing him a book.’ Once again I slid the Book of Dreams out of the satchel.
The display had its effect. The man might have never seen a book before, but he knew that they were rare and valuable.
‘Very well, you come with me and tell your story to the head steward,’ he said.
He looked past me at Gallmau who had both hands full, holding back the two dogs that were eager to attack the stranger.
‘Where’s Maonirn?’ he asked.
Gullmau stared back stonily without replying.
‘He doesn’t speak Frankish,’ I said. ‘He’s a fisherman from the coast.’
‘Smuggler, too, if he keeps company with Maonirn. I expect that grease bucket slipped off to the moors when he heard us coming. No chance to find him now.’
He turned on his heel and I followed him out of the cottage and past the waiting men at arms.
I had encountered a bailiff, as it turned out. He had planned to arrest Maonirn, a known rogue, for the theft of some cattle. Instead he brought me before the head steward of the local landowner. He, in turn, was persuaded as to my honest character and provided me with a pony and directions to the town Hroudland had chosen for his headquarters as Margrave of the Breton March.
It was not much of a place.
A few hundred modest houses clustered on the floor of a shallow valley where the river made a loop around a low hill. The dwellings were a depressing sight under a dull winter sky, with their drab walls of mud and wattle, and roof thatch of grey reeds. There was a watermill on the river bank, a scattering of leafless orchards and vegetable patches, and a log palisade to enclose the hilltop. Just visible above this palisade was the roof of a great hall. The miserable weather was keeping the townsfolk indoors, and the only activity was in what looked like a soldiers’ camp on the water meadows. Tents had been set up in orderly lines, smoke was rising from cooking fires, and numbers of armed men were moving about.
It had taken me two full days to ride there and I guided my tired pony through the town’s muddy, deserted streets and headed straight for the gate in the palisade. It stood open and I rode in without being challenged. There I halted, overcome by a reminder of the past.
Hroudland’s great hall recalled my memories of my father’s house, the home I had grown up in, except that it was much, much larger and intended to impress the visitor. The ridge of its enormous roof stood two-storeys high. The roof itself was covered with thousands upon thousands of wooden shakes and sloped down to side walls of heavy planks set upright and closely fitted. Every vertical surface had been brightly painted. Red and white squares alternated with diamond shapes in green and blue. There were stripes and whorls. Flowers, animal shapes, and human grotesques had been carved into the projecting ends of the beams and cross timbers and the door surrounds. These carvings, too, were picked out in vivid colours: orange, purple and yellow. Flags flew from poles at each corner of the building, and a long banner with a picture of a bull’s head hung down above the double entrance doors. It was a spectacle of unrestrained and gaudy ostentation.
There was much bustle around the building. An impatient-looking foreman was supervising a team of workmen as they unloaded trestle tables and benches from a cart, and then carried them indoors. Servants were wheeling out barrows heaped with cinders and soiled rushes; others were taking in bundles of fresh reeds. A man on a ladder was topping up the oil in the metal cressets attached to the huge doorposts.
‘Where’s Count Hroudland?’ I asked a porter. He was shouldering a yoke from which hung two water buckets and was on his way towards what looked like the kitchen building attached to the side of the great hall. Smoke was rising from its double chimney.
‘You’ll not find him here. He’s down by the army camp.’
I turned my pony and rode back down the slope towards the water meadows. I was scarcely halfway there when I heard a sound that made my heart lift: a full-throated whoop of triumph. It was the yell that my friend let loose every time he scored a direct hit with javelin or lance, and it came from my right, just beyond the soldiers’ tents. I kicked my pony into a faster walk and a moment later emerged onto a familiar scene. A couple of dozen cavalry men were fighting a mock battle. Watched by a ring of spectators, the opposing sides were a milling mob of armoured men on horseback chopping and thrusting with wooden swords and blunt lances, deflecting blows with their shields. I spotted Hroudland at once. He was riding his roan stallion with the distinctive white patches and he had a cluster of black feathers fastened to his helmet. A closer look showed that several of the other riders were wearing black feathers while their opponents sported sprigs of green leaves. Above the hoarse shouts, the thud of blows and the general grunting tussle of horses and riders, I again heard Hroudland’s triumphant cry. He had barged forward with the roan, knocked his opponent’s horse off balance, and then delivered a downward blow to the man’s head. As I watched, he thrust his shield into his opponent’s face so that he toppled backwards out of his saddle and crashed to the ground.
Hroudland straightened up and looked around, seeking his next victim. His eye fell on me where I sat on my pony looking over the heads of the spectators. His face lit up with a broad smile. Ignoring the chaos around him he spurred his stallion through the fighting and came towards me at a lumbering trot. The crowd in front of me scattered, dodging the great hooves as the horse came to a halt.
‘Patch! Welcome home!’ the count shouted. He was out of breath, the sweat pouring down his face. He tossed aside his wooden sword, slung his shield on to his back, dropped the reins and swung himself out of the saddle. I dismounted from my pony. Hroudland came forward, threw his arms around me and swept me up in a powerful bear hug. I was crushed uncomfortably against his chain-mail shirt, and had to duck to avoid the rim of his helmet.
‘It’s good to see you!’ he said.
I became aware that another horse and rider had joined us. Looking up, I saw Berenger’s cheerful face grinning down at me. He had taken off his helmet and his curly hair was plastered with sweat.
‘Patch, where did you spring from?’ he called down.
I disentangled myself from the count’s embrace.
‘From Hispania by way of the Bay of the Vascons,’ I said. ‘I’ve important news.’
Hroudland’s unattended stallion was edging sideways, tossing its head and irritably stamping the soft ground. The nearest onlookers were scrambling back out of the way.
‘Patch, I’ll see you up at the great hall later,’ said the count, hurriedly stepping back to gather up the reins. ‘You could not have come at a better time. There’s to be a banquet. My seneschal will look after you.’ He vaulted easily up into the saddle. Someone handed back his wooden sword and he waved it above his head in salute, and then plunged back into the fray, Berenger riding at his side.