Overcome with curiosity I picked up the hunting horn to look at it more closely. The horn was lighter than its size suggested. The carver had hollowed out the interior so that the instrument sounded the note he wanted. The ivory was delightful to the touch, cool and smooth yet not slippery. The mouthpiece and the band around the open end of the horn were both of silver. Wonderingly I turned the horn over in my hand to examine the carvings. They ran almost the full length with an area left clear for the huntsman’s grip. There were hunting scenes, which formed a continuous story along its length. Near the silver mouthpiece a trio of mounted huntsmen were riding among trees. Further along the horn they were attacked by a shaggy cat-like beast. I suspected it to be a lion, though I had never seen one. The creature had leaped on the hindquarters of a hunter’s horse and sunk its claws and teeth in the animal’s hindquarters. In the next scene a hunter had put his arrow into the beast’s chest. The great cat was reared up and arching with pain.
I kept turning the horn in my hand following the story of the hunt until I reached the end of the tale close to the silver rim. I froze in shock.
The final scene showed a lone huntsman. He was no longer mounted. His dead horse lay nearby. He stood with one foot on a rock, his head thrown back, and a hunting horn to his lips. But I knew for certain he was not sounding the note to announce the successful end of the chase. He was blowing on the horn, calling desperately for help. He was the huntsman Carolus had seen in his dream, the nightmare his daughters had described to me.
I stood there, dumbstruck, until someone took the hunting horn from my grasp and in a delighted tone said, ‘The tooth of an oliphant!’
It was Hroudland. A moment later he put the horn to his lips and was trying to blow a practice note. He failed. The horn made a low sad sound, half moan, half growl. It was the noise of air rushing out, expelled uselessly.
The hair rose on the back of my neck. I had heard that sound once before. It was on the day that Hroudland had rescued me from the Saracen troopers after they had dropped my horse with an arrow. It was the last sound my horse had uttered as she lay on the ground, her final groan.
I spent the next few hours like a man stunned. I never saw Wali Husayn. He did come to see us at his treasury and must have relied on Osric’s clever guidance on how to deal with the unwanted visitors to his city. Hroudland, by contrast, was childishly eager to complete the ransom arrangements. He lusted after the magnificent hunting horn for himself and he knew that his uncle the king would be delighted to receive the priceless crystal salver. The immense amount of silver coin was enough to be shared out with the army and keep the other nobles happy.
So in late afternoon, the ransom accepted, we rode back to the main gate of Zaragoza accompanied by a score of Vascon muleteers leading their pack animals loaded with the ransom of silver coin. As I had anticipated, my gelding, bow and sword had been returned to me. Husayn wanted no reminder of my former presence, and I had found the animal tied to the tail of one of the horse-drawn wagons that carried the remainder of the ransom. The great iron-plated gates were dragged open and we waited there, under the archway. Out from the distant line of orchards, Berenger appeared on horseback. He was holding the lead rein of the horse on which sat Suleyman, the Wali of Barcelona. As the two men approached us, Suleyman was staring straight ahead. He looked a broken man, tired and withdrawn. He passed me close enough for me to reach out to touch him, and as he did so he deliberately lowered his eyes and gazed down at his horse’s mane. I wondered if he knew of my role in arranging his ransom, and wished that I could tell him that I felt ashamed. Carolus’s grand adventure of Hispania had been reduced to a grubby exercise in banditry.
At a nod from Hroudland, Berenger released the lead rein. The humiliated Wali of Barcelona rode on into the city, and our heavily laden little procession began to make its way slowly towards the Frankish camp. It would soon be dusk and I looked back over my shoulder, thinking that Osric or even Husayn had come to greet the ransomed wali. But there was no one to be seen beneath the archway except the soldiers hauling shut the two heavy gates. They closed with a solid thud, and there was the sound of a heavy crossbar dropping into place. The gates would open when our Vascon muleteers returned with their unloaded pack animals, but against me Zaragoza was sealed tight.
I had one more thing to do. As soon as we got back to the Frankish camp, I went directly to the tent that I shared with Gerin and the other paladins. There, I took out my copy of the Book of Dreams. I leafed through the pages, searching for a passage that I remembered from happier times when Osric and I had sat in Wali Husayn’s guest rooms working together on the translation.
It did not take me long to find what I was looking for. The author of the Book of Dreams had an explanation for a dream about trumpets. They were symbols for man himself because air had to pass through them just as a man requires air to pass through his lungs if he is to live. And when the air is totally expelled, a trumpet falls silent, just as a man expires with his final breath.
I put down the Book of Dreams and stared unseeingly at the walls of tent. A trumpet and a hunting horn were alike. Was I now able to glimpse the future in day-to day events as well as in my dreams? If so, when Hroudland took the oliphant hunting horn from my hand and blew that false dying note, he had announced his own impending death.
Chapter Eighteen
I had no time to brood. Someone was shouting my name. I peered out of the tent flap, expecting I was being called to supervise the unloading of the ransom from the mule train and its transfer into the army’s ox carts, but the royal messenger who had been sent to fetch me announced that I was to attend the count. The matter was urgent.
‘The bad news came while you were away,’ the messenger told me as he waited for me to put away the Oneirokritikon safely. ‘The Saxons have assembled a huge raiding force in the northern forests and are threatening to invade across the Rhine. The king has called a meeting of the army council.’
As we hurried through the gathering dark I wondered why I should be needed at such a high level conference. I entered the royal pavilion to find it lit by clusters of candles on tall, metal stands. The air in the tent was stifling, and there was a tense atmosphere among the dozen or so people gathered around the map table. One of them was Carolus, and beside him was Hroudland. To my relief there was no sign of Ganelon.
Hroudland saw me enter and beckoned to me to approach.
‘The king wants to know about the route you took through the mountains when you first came to Zaragoza,’ Hroudland told me.
I felt the colour rising in my face.
‘Alcuin asked me to make notes,’ I stammered, ‘but I never got round to sending them to him. I don’t have them with me now.’
The king ignored my embarrassment.
‘Tell me what you can remember.’
I swallowed nervously.
‘The road is very narrow in places but an army would be able to use it.’
‘Show me exactly where the route goes.’ Carolus was briskly efficient.
I reached out to touch the map, and then checked myself. The rough tiles had once pricked my finger and drawn blood.
‘From this side the road climbs through the foothills in easy stages. There’s a narrow pass just here.’ My finger was quivering slightly as I pointed out the exact route. ‘Once you’re over the pass, the descent on the far slope is awkward but should present little difficulty.’
‘Is the track passable for ox carts?’ Eggihard the seneschal asked. I recalled that he was in charge of supplies and stores.