‘Perhaps we should leave the cup where we found it,’ I said, trying hard not to sound craven. ‘It may be nothing more than superstition, but the cup was there for a purpose.’
But Hroudland ignored my feeble protest. He turned on his heel and headed back down the way we had come. I started to follow him, but before I left the glade I turned for one last look, and stopped with a jolt.
My brother’s fetch was standing by the stone, watching me silently.
A chill came over me. Hroudland had made a terrible error. The cup should remain where we had found it. For a long moment my brother just stood there and I could find neither anger nor reproach in his face, only regret. Then I heard Hroudland call my name, shouting that we should hurry if we were to get back to the great hall before dark. I had no wish to be left alone in that ominous, supernatural place, so I dropped my gaze and stumbled away, fearful that what I had allowed to happen would have calamitous results, yet knowing that nothing I could say would deflect Hroudland from his chosen course. What had happened at the fountain of Barenton was another step along the path that Fate had chosen for him.
It was only when our little group was back on the main road that I had the chance to ask Hroudland the question that had been troubling me.
‘Why did we go to the trouble of visiting the fountain?’ I asked. ‘What’s so important about disproving an ancient folk tale?’
We were riding at a brisk trot. Hroudland pulled on the reins to slow his horse to a walk so that he did not have to shout. He threw a glance over his shoulder to make sure our escort was out of earshot.
‘As Warden of the Breton March it is my duty to defend the frontier and maintain the king’s authority,’ he said.
‘What has that got to do with a tale told by a blind bard?’
My friend’s face clouded for a moment.
‘The Bretons expect the Franks to be driven from this land.’
I laughed out loud.
‘By whom? They can only dream.’
‘That is precisely my problem — their dreams.’
I looked at him in surprise. I had never told him about the Oneirokritikon or my own dreams. But he had something else in mind.
‘Patch, the Bretons await the return of a war leader who will restore their independence. As long as they think like that, the March is not secure.’
‘What’s the name of this saviour warrior?’ I enquired with more than a hint of disbelief.
‘They know him as Artorius.’
Something stirred in my memory, something that I had heard as a child. My teacher had spoken of an Artorius, a king who had led the resistance against my own people when they first came to settle in Britain.
‘If it’s the same person I’m thinking of, you don’t need to worry,’ I said. ‘Artorius has been dead for a couple of hundred years.’
Hroudland threw me a sharp glance.
‘What do you know about him?’
‘He fought my Saxon ancestors and was mortally wounded in battle. His followers set his corpse adrift in a boat.’
Hroudland’s mouth was set in a grim line.
‘Exactly the same story is told here. Bretons and Britons share a common history. They claim that the boat drifted on to our coast and Artorius was buried with a great boulder as his tombstone, a stone like the one we saw by the fountain. They say he will rise and lead them to victory.’
I had to chuckle.
‘That can’t please their Christian priests. It’s too much like their own story about their risen saviour.’
Hroudland frowned at me. He was impatient that I would not take him seriously.
‘You’re wrong. The priests are adding fuel to the fire. They’ve begun using this Artorius as an example of a good Christian ruler. They say he did good deeds and encouraged his very best men to track down the holiest relics from the time of Christ himself.’
‘And did they find any?’
The count reached into his saddlebag, drew out the cup he had stolen from the fountain and held it up.
‘If they did, maybe they looked something like this.’
At last I understood.
‘So you went to the fountain intending to discredit the stories about Artorius. You knew that there would be neither a gem-studded stone nor a golden cup. They were as fanciful as the legend of Yvain himself, and as he was supposed to be one of Artorius’s men, then he and his lord were both make-believe.’
Hroudland casually tossed the cup into the air and caught it again. ‘You hoped to show that the gem-studded stone and golden cup did not exist. Yvain was one of his men.’
‘And I found that the famous gold cup is nothing but a small, bronze beaker. I think I’ll put it on display in the great hall or I might even drink from it at my next banquet. That will make both the priests and the pagan stone-worshippers think again about the truth in the wonderful adventure of Yvain.’
‘What about the strange shower of rain, and the flock of birds?’
He shrugged.
‘There are natural explanations for both of them, but neither you nor I need mention them.’
I was silent for several moments as I thought over his reply.
‘And if the story had been true? If we had found a cup of gold and a stone studded with gems?’
He showed his teeth in a wolfish grin.
‘That would have been even better. I would have prised out the gems with my knife and brought them and the gold cup back with me as plunder. As I said, I need the money badly.’
He spurred his horse into a canter, cramming the bronze cup back into his saddlebag.
Chapter Fifteen
Next morning, having risen early and feeling in need of fresh air, I climbed the wooden ladder to the lookout platform on the palisade surrounding the great hall. The day had dawned cold and clear, and a shallow bank of fog pooled in the valley floor below me, obscuring the soldiers’ camp. Judging by the noise, the camp had grown in size in the short time that Hroudland and I were away investigating the fountain. From the fog rose a medley of sounds: shouted commands, ribald laughter, axes chopping into wood, the distinctive ring of a blacksmith’s hammer on an anvil, the neighing of many horses. Shivering in the chill, I descended the ladder and fetched myself a breakfast of hot milk and bread from the kitchen beside the great hall. Then, loaf in hand, I strolled down the slope to get a closer view of the preparations for the expedition to Hispania.
Where the ground levelled out, I found myself walking between dimly seen rows of army tents. They stood empty, their door flaps fastened open and I could see the baggage of the occupants whom I supposed were now out and about on their duties. Occasionally the ghostly figure of a man appeared on foot leading a saddleless horse on halter, only to disappear into the mist without a word of greeting. When the smell of manure grew overpowering I knew I had reached the horse lines. The picket ropes to which the animals were tethered hung slack, but somewhere in the mist, a handful of horses was still being groomed. I heard the impatient stamping of hooves, the occasional vibrating fart of a horse breaking wind and the soothing sounds made by unseen ostlers, whistling between their teeth or murmuring soft nonsense as they attended to their animals. Finally I came to the river bank where the ground was churned to deep mud by the animals brought there to drink.
Here I turned to my left, intending to walk upriver. Before I had gone a couple of hundred paces a breeze sprang up and began to clear away the fog in slow-moving tendrils. I discovered that I had ventured on to a broad open expanse of turf and mud — the cavalry training ground. Men on foot were gathered in groups of about twenty, holding their horses’ reins while they listened to instructors. Compared to the escort of smart troopers that had greeted Wali Husayn when we had reached Zaragoza, the men were very scruffy. They wore an assortment of helmets and mailcoats, no two of them alike, and their mounts were shaggy in their winter coats.