I came to an abrupt halt, unable to take another step. A strange prickling sensation had come over me, paralysing me from head to toe. Unaware of what was happening, Berenger and Hroudland walked away, leaving me behind. I remained rooted to the spot, unable to take my eyes off the war horse until a hand touched me on the elbow and I turned to see a messenger, dressed in royal livery. He was looking at me strangely, and I heard his words through a haze. He repeated them.
‘Follow me, please. The king wants to speak with you.’
I was so numb with shock that until my boots were echoing on the wooden flooring I did not realize that I had been led back inside the royal pavilion. A small group of courtiers was in the outer chamber and they eyed me curiously as I was taken straight past them and handed over to an attendant. He peeked in through the velvet curtain, and then held it aside just far enough for me to slip into Carolus’s private quarters. As I entered I caught a whiff of roast flesh.
The king was eating a late meal. Seated at a plain wooden table, he was gnawing the stringy flesh from the leg of a partially dismembered goose carcass. A manservant was hovering nearby with a jug of water and a napkin over his arm, ready to wash the grease off the royal fingers. The inevitable clerk lurked in a corner, wax tablet in hand, ready to take down notes. Otherwise the king was alone.
He gnawed a strip of meat from the bone. His teeth were big and strong, a match for his great size. When he raised his face towards me, I again saw the grey, watchful eyes. A morsel of food was trapped in his moustache.
‘Have you anything to report?’ he asked, not unkindly but with a simple directness.
My mind was in a whirl. The face of the king and the image of the man on the horse crying blood were overlapping as if in a waking nightmare. I blinked hard, feeling confused and nauseous.
‘Well, what have you to say?’ The tone was harder now. Carolus did not like to waste time.
‘Your Majesty, I returned from Hispania some two months ago, by sea. I have been with Count Hroudland,’ I stammered.
‘I know that,’ Carolus snapped. ‘Did you learn anything among the Saracens? Did you dream among them?’
Desperately I thought back to all that happened when I was with Husayn. All I could remember was the horrible dream of the snake lying across my lap.
‘Just once, Your Majesty. I dreamed of treachery.’
The king pointed the half-chewed goose bone at me as though it was a sceptre.
‘Tell me.’
I described my dream and how I had consulted the Book of Dreams to interpret its meaning.
Carolus listened in silence.
‘This happened when you were staying with Wali Husayn in Zaragoza?’ he asked when I finished.
I nodded.
‘Thank you. I shall be on my guard.’
I began to edge away towards the curtain. I was still deeply disturbed by my vision of the king on horseback, crying blood. I knew I should not speak about it, at least not until I knew what it might mean.
‘One moment!’ he commanded suddenly.
I froze, wondering if he was about to cross-examine me.
‘My nephew is headstrong. If there’s to be any fighting in Hispania, he’ll be in the thick of it.’ It was a flat statement of fact.
‘I am sure he will acquit himself nobly, Your Majesty,’ I answered diplomatically.
‘And you? Do you know how to wield a sword as well as you can manage a bow?’
It seemed that Carolus had not forgotten the day I killed two royal stags. I thought it wiser to say nothing and waited for his next remark.
‘I am very fond of my nephew. I hope that you and your companions among my paladins will see to it that his enthusiasm does not lead him astray.’
I bowed my head obediently. The king had already reached out and was twisting the second leg off the goose carcass. It was clear that my interview was over, and I slipped gratefully out of the room.
Hroudland’s poor opinion of Eggihard’s military leadership was to bring near-disaster on the western army and on me in particular. When we entered the foothills of the mountains marking the border with Hispania, the count persuaded Eggihard that a detachment of picked cavalry should scout in front of the main column. Naturally Hroudland put himself at the head of this detachment. He took Berenger, Anseis, Gerin and me with him, in effect creating his own roving command. His motive became clear within days. Simply put, our advance unit had first choice of any plunder that lay in the army’s path. We ranged across the countryside and helped ourselves to any valuables in the towns and villages. We met little or no resistance from our victims, and each evening gathered at our chosen campsite and piled up the booty we had found that day. Though the booty was meagre it reminded me of the scene when King Offa’s troops had sacked my father’s great hall. So, whenever possible, I waived my share of any loot. My comrades thought I was behaving strangely. To them the chance for plunder was a powerful reason to go to war, and Hroudland had an impatient, hungry look as he presided over the division of the spoils. He always kept a tenth for himself declaring that his expenses as Margrave of the Breton March had left him in debt.
Understandably the villagers and townsfolk were glad to see the back of us when we moved on. Quite how unpopular we made ourselves was made evident to me one bright day in mid-May. By then we were advancing around the end of the mountains, with their foothills to our left. That morning, as our unit prepared to fan out across the countryside, Hroudland asked me to take a couple of troopers and investigate a low range of hills in the distance. He believed there might be a rich village hidden somewhere in that direction.
I rode off as instructed, the two cavalrymen trotting behind me. We were so accustomed to lack of resistance that all three of us left behind our cumbersome lances and shields. Our only weapons were our cavalry swords and daggers. Very quickly we left the cultivated land and came into an area where the soil was too poor to sustain anything but thin, scrubby grass and clumps of small thorny trees. We came across an occasional cattle byre built of dry branches but saw neither cattle nor people, and resigned ourselves to a long ride as the hills were some distance away. Gradually the land sloped upward and, riding along reins slack, we allowed our horses to go at their own pace. By midday it was uncomfortably hot in the sunshine and when we stopped to water the horses at a small pool of tepid water I removed my brunia, the leather jacket covered with metal scales worn by every cavalryman, and tied it to my saddle. I had already taken off my metal helmet. The two troopers did the same.
We remounted and jogged along, following the faint trace of a path through the bushes. We reached the hills themselves and the land closed in around us as the path led higher. Here the ground was bare of vegetation, and the track grew more and more stony, twisting and turning around the spurs of the hills. After some time, one of the troopers called out to me that his horse had gone lame. The animal had stepped on a sharp stone; the sole of the hoof was bleeding. We were deep in the hills and I told the trooper to turn round and begin walking his horse back to where we had watered before. His companion and I would continue ahead for another hour and if we found nothing, as seemed likely, we would turn back and rejoin him.