‘King Offa may yet arrange to have me done away with. What would you do then?’
‘That will be for fate to decide,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Right now I’m looking forward to reaching Aachen and seeing if what I’ve heard about King Carolus is true.’
‘What have you been told?’
‘He has strange habits. He doesn’t keep normal hours, takes naps in the afternoon, wanders about his palace unescorted and wearing normal everyday clothes, nothing to mark him out as being the king, sometimes even summons his council meetings in the dead of night.’
‘It sounds as though you’ve been talking to his servants.’
‘Abbot Walo was several years as an official in the palace administration. When he was appointed to the monastery, he brought his butler and cook with him. They enjoy talking about their time in royal service.’
‘Is that just gossip or did they meet Carolus in person?’
‘The butler claims he met the king once, in a corridor very late at night. Carolus stopped him and asked him a lot of questions about the palace staff, who did what, and where they were from. He apparently likes to know everything that is going on. His staff is in awe of him.’
I thought about Osric’s reply. My father had been respected at a distance by his people. King Offa’s subjects feared their overlord. King Carolus sounded like no monarch I had ever heard about.
‘About the royal family? What are they like?’
‘Carolus has an illegitimate son who, it is widely believed, will inherit the throne.’
Again that sounded unusual. Kings normally did not recognize bastard children.
‘Doesn’t he have anyone closer to him?’
‘He’s a lusty monarch, and has had several concubines and sired several children, most of them girls.’
There was something about the way Osric made the last remark that made me look at him questioningly.
He allowed himself the sliver of a smile.
‘I was told he likes to keep the girls very close. But that’s just gossip.’
With that enigmatic remark, Osric rose to his feet. Arnulf had started his oxen on their steady plodding advance along the highway, heading west.
We met other wayfarers along the road — beggars, itinerant craftsmen, pedlars trudging from hamlet to hamlet, their packs crammed with everything small and portable from knives to needles. Dirge-like songs in the distance warned of the approach of bands of pilgrims on their way to a shrine. On market days there were farm carts laden with produce, children running alongside, live chickens dangling upside down, pigs trussed and squealing in the back. Everyone overtook us if they were travelling in the same direction except for those on crutches or with toddlers in hand. Horsemen swore at us. They shouted at us to clear the road. Arnulf ignored them, and they were forced to find a way around us. As they drew level, his angry scowl and the ugly blotch on his face was enough to deter them from complaining further.
Only once did Arnulf turn his wagon aside for other road users. A small party of mounted men came towards us, ordinary looking except that they had a small escort of soldiers. Arnulf promptly veered his wagon to one side, and they rode on past, stony-faced. Then a hundred yards down the road, one of them turned his horse and came back to us. He was a young man, a clerk perhaps. He reined in and asked Arnulf a series of questions — how long he had been on the road, where he was from, where he was going and how much he had paid at the last three toll points. His answers seemed to satisfy the young man who had given a curt nod and trotted off to rejoin his companions.
‘Who was that?’ I asked. I had never seen Arnulf so respectful.
‘King’s commissioners,’ he said. ‘Sent out with royal orders and the power to demand explanations. They poke and pry, making sure that the kingdom is running smoothly.’
‘Why do they have an armed guard?’
‘For show. No one would dare interfere with them.’
‘Are we near Aachen then?’
‘This forest is the king’s hunting preserve.’
It was a lonely, gloomy place, mile after mile of dense woodland. Evening was coming on and as the light faded I had an uneasy feeling that someone was tracking us from within the forest margin. But whenever I looked, I saw nothing. I mentioned my worries to Arnulf but he only grunted. Eventually we found a clearing where we could halt for the night. It was not worth lighting a fire, so we ate a meal of cold ham and bread provided by the last monastery kitchen, and lay down to sleep under the wagon. The two oxen, obedient as well-trained dogs, ate their forage and then sank down on their knees to rest.
Sometime later a faint scratching sound woke me. I raised myself on one elbow and peered out. A bright moon in a cloudless sky gave enough light to cast shadows. Everything seemed normal. I could make out the bulky outlines of the two oxen, and I heard the faint sound of chewing cud followed by the deep rumble of an animal gut. Beyond the beasts was the black margin of the forest, and somewhere deep in the forest an owl hooted. I sank down and lay quietly, wondering if I had been woken by the sound of a rat or fox investigating our provisions. Abruptly there came a stifled yelp. Two dark figures dropped on the ground beside the wagon and silently ran off into the dark woods. I scrambled to my feet. Looking up at the eel tank, I saw the lid was ajar. My shout woke Arnulf and Osric, and they joined me in time to see the first serpent shape slither out of the tank.
Arnulf let out an oath.
‘Get the lid back on before we lose the lot!’
I reached out to haul myself up on the wagon. In the darkness my hand landed on something wet and slime-covered. It twisted away like a slippery muscular rope. I fought to overcome my revulsion. Putting my foot on the axle hub to use it as a step, I was knocked off-balance by the weight of a large eel which flung itself down the side of the wagon and struck me in the chest. It disappeared into the darkness, snaking rapidly across the ground. I gritted my teeth and swung myself up until I was standing next to the tank. I pressed down hard on the lid, trying to force it shut. It would not close: an eel was trapped halfway. It thrashed in panic, flailing against my arm and gripped itself around my wrist. Then Arnulf was beside me. He had the wooden mallet he used for securing the axle pins. He hit out, striking the escaping eel which twisted clear and was gone. I felt the lid drop into place and dull tremors as more eels attempted to force their way out. Arnulf had located the wedge that the thieves had removed and hammered it fiercely back in place.
‘Bastard thieves must have given themselves a bad fright,’ he said as he finished. He gave me an odd look. I realized that my eye patch had slipped in the excitement. He could see that both my eyes appeared normal. Fortunately it was too dark to make out any colours.
‘I never knew that eels could move so fast,’ I mumbled, turning my head aside.
He spat over the side of the wagon.
‘They go mad when they know that rain is coming.’
It seemed an odd thing to say on such a fine clear night, but the next morning a grey-black line of thunder clouds was massing on the western horizon as Arnulf harnessed the oxen. The clouds spread rapidly, blotting out the sun, and the light dimmed though it was not yet noon. All around us the forest waited in baleful silence until we heard a moaning sound in the far distance. A savage wind came tearing through the trees. The leading gusts ripped off leaves and sent them swirling through the air in a mad dance. A lone raven flashed past, helpless in the gale and was whirled out of sight. Soon the upper branches of the trees were bending and twisting as the main weight of the storm raced across them. There was a random cracking and snapping as twigs, then thick branches, broke free and came spinning to the ground. A long-dead and enormous oak, gnarled and its heart already rotten, leaned sideways until the roots gave way. Then it came crashing down with a thump that shook the ground, half blocking the roadway and prising a massive clump of brown earth, the size of a small cottage. Within the wind’s howl was a drumming noise, and finally the rain arrived. Heavy rain drops rattled on the ground; puddles appeared in an instant and joined together. Rivulets of yellow-brown water raced down the slope and turned into churning streams.