Saxon: The Book of Dreams (Saxon 1) (18 page)

‘And does your Greek offer any further details?’ Bertha asked slowly.

‘You will have to tell me which eye was missing in your father’s dream.’

‘The right one.’

I smothered a sigh of relief.

‘According to Artimedorus, the loss of the right eye means that the dreamer will lose a son.’

No sooner had the words left my mouth than I regretted them. I pictured the royal family seated at their table at the banquet. There had been only one son – Pepin. He was the heir, yet he
was illegitimate, the offspring of a concubine. Both sisters in front of me were daughters of legal marriage.

I tried to hide my thoughts, keeping my face blank. But I noticed that the two sisters exchanged a quick, meaningful glance.

Then Adelaide said brightly, ‘We are forgetting our manners.’ She went to a side table, removed the glass stopper from a flask of wine and poured me a drink. ‘Here, Sigwulf,
you need something to warm you up before you go out into the cold again.’

It was clear that my audience with the royal sisters was at an end.

*

My thoughts were in turmoil as I left the royal residence. I had a queasy feeling that I was teetering on the edge of palace politics, a very dangerous area. What I had said
about the king losing a son had struck a chord with both sisters. Yet nothing I had heard about Pepin led me to believe he was near death. I had not laid eyes on him for some time and he had not
been with the royal hunting party, but that was not surprising in light of his physical attributes.

I was so engrossed in my thoughts that I did not look where I was putting my feet. All of a sudden I skidded, flailing wildly to keep my balance.

‘Look where you’re going!’

A building foreman, wrapped up in a heavy sheepskin coat, was waving at me to get out of the way. Behind him a squad of labourers were advancing in a line, tipping buckets of water on to the
frozen ground. As the water spread it was freezing into a sheet of ice.

‘Keep off if you don’t want to break your neck!’ bellowed the foreman.

His men were creating a smooth, slick pathway from the unfinished great hall. Behind them was another gang of men. They were hauling on ropes attached to a crude sledge. On it stood the great
metal horse and rider which had shocked me on my first day. They were sliding their load along the ice.

I went across to the foreman.

‘Where will the statue eventually be placed?’ I enquired.

‘Search me,’ was his gruff reply. ‘Right now the master mason wants it out of his way. Says it interferes with his brick hoists where it is.’

The foreman wiped a drip hanging from the end of his nose and turned round to yell more instructions to his men.

I continued on to the chancery where Osric was still engrossed in the Oneirokritikon. I asked him whether Artimedorus had written anything about seeing bronze statues in a dream.

He searched the pages of the book.

‘According to him, a large bronze statute is a good sign as it symbolizes wealth. On the other hand, if the dream statue is truly enormous that portends extraordinary dangers.’

‘What about a statue of a horse and rider?’

‘I haven’t come across anything like that. Artimedorus does say that a man who dreams of riding a well-schooled and obedient horse will have friends and family to support him
throughout his life.’

‘I’m sure he also provides a more bleak interpretation,’ I said.

Osric gave a thin smile.

‘If a poor woman dreams that she is riding a horse through a city street, he says it means she will become a prostitute.’

I sat down at my desk and took up my pen, but before I started on Osric’s dictation I told him what had been said during my visit to Bertha and Adelaide.

‘As far as I know, Pepin’s in good health. Yet one interpretation of the dream is that the king will lose his son,’ I concluded.

Osric glanced towards the door to make sure that we would not be overheard.

‘Master, as I mentioned earlier, slaves and servants gossip. Pepin has not been formally declared as the heir to the king. There are important men around him who fear that if the king has
another son, Pepin will be passed over.’

‘Because the king never married his mother?’ I said.

‘Precisely. These so-called friends of Pepin are encouraging him to seize the throne before it is too late.’

A chill ran through me. Should Pepin be plotting to seize the throne, and his scheme was discovered, he was almost certain to be put to death. Before that, there would be uproar within the royal
family, accusations and counter-accusations as to who knew about the plot, and who was involved. Any outsider who might provide information would be questioned. If Bertha or her sister breathed a
word of what I had said about their brother’s doubtful future, I would be under suspicion of knowing about Pepin’s plan and not warning the authorities. They would want details from me,
extracted on the rack if necessary. I had already experienced the lengths to which a ruler would go to protect his position against rivals. My blunder with Bertha and her sister meant that King
Offa was far from the only threat to my survival.

I found myself wishing that I had never told Bertha about the Book of Dreams.

*

Gerard mended very slowly. For his convalescence he was moved to a house within the town, the property of a rich contractor. I went there to tell him about the poison mushroom
Osric had identified, and found the old man sitting up in bed, a marten fur cloak wrapped around his shoulders. His face looked strained and pale under the thick felt hat that hid his white hair.
But Gerard was hardier than his frail appearance suggested. His eyes were bright with intelligence.

‘So that’s what nearly did for the two of us,’ he said after I had explained.

‘Osric came across it growing in the forest.’

The old man snorted.

‘The kitchen is staffed with fools.’

‘I’ve been wondering if it was more than an accident,’ I said cautiously.

He shot me a glance from under bushy eyebrows.

‘You think it was put into the pottage deliberately?’

‘The thought had occurred to me, but I don’t know who might want to injure me.’

He smiled grimly.

‘In other words you believe that I have enemies.’

‘I meant no offence,’ I apologized. ‘But if you do, it is best if you and I were aware of them.’

A thin, blotched hand emerged from under the cloak to scratch his chin.

‘Everyone acquires enemies sooner or later.’

It was my turn to draw an inference.

‘I don’t believe I’ve been here long enough to merit them.’

‘What about enemies you left behind. They could have a long reach.’

I thought about King Offa and my turncoat uncle.

‘I’m much too insignificant,’ I concluded.

‘Less and less so,’ he replied. ‘I gather you made quite a stir at the hunt and that a certain princess thinks highly of you.’

I avoided the old man’s sly gaze. It seemed that servants were not the only ones to gossip.

‘Hroudland thinks I was poisoned as a means of getting at him.’

Gerard considered my suggestion.

‘That’s possible. Everyone has noticed that you and Hroudland are very close. He is the king’s nephew and could be the target for ambitious rivals.’ Abruptly he changed
the subject. ‘Did your servant Osric manage to translate any of that book I gave you?’ he asked.

‘He’s about halfway through. It’s not a leech book. It’s about how to understand the meaning of dreams,’ I answered.

‘Does it contain any truth?’

I decided to take Gerard into my confidence. The old man was wise in the ways of palace politics. Maybe he could suggest how I could deal with the consequences should Bertha and her sister speak
to others about my interpretation of their father’s dream.

‘I’ve put it to the test, but it’s too early for any result.’ I told him how I had used the book to interpret the king’s dream of losing the sight of one eye.

Gerard sat very still, his face grave.

‘If your interpretation is accurate, that book is more powerful than any sword.’

‘Double-edged, then. Every dream has more than one explanation, and I’ll need to learn how to choose the right one.’

When the old man next spoke, he was deadly serious.

‘Patch, if the dream book is genuine, others will want to get their hands on it. The more you learn how to use it, the more danger you will be in.’

P
ROOF
OF
THE
DREAM
BOOK
’
S
accuracy came in mid-January when Bertha asked me to explain another of her father’s dreams. The winter, though intensely cold, had brought very little snow to interrupt the king’s
favourite sport. Day after day he was away at hunting camp, returning to Aachen briefly to attend to affairs of state. In his absences I had spent several more nights with Bertha for I was far too
besotted with her to pay any heed to the sly comments of Oton and the others. But on this occasion I was summoned in mid-morning and arrived to find her sister with her in the same reception room
as before. Both women were dressed against the cold in long gowns of heavy velvet, the bands of embroidery at the neckline almost hidden beneath short fur capes.

‘Last night the king dreamed of a strange horse,’ Bertha informed me.

I had a momentary qualm, recalling my own vision of the bronze horse, its rider weeping blood. Her next words reassured me.

‘It was a beautiful animal, a glossy, dark chestnut with white blaze on its nose. It had neither saddle nor bridle. Yet it was not wild, for its coat and mane were brushed and well cared
for.’

‘And what happened?’

‘The horse came walking quietly towards where he was standing, and turned in through the gate of a paddock. My father was intrigued. He did not recognize the horse and he had no idea who
owned such a magnificent creature.’ She looked at me expectantly. ‘What does your dream book have to say about that?’

I relaxed. The appearance of a riderless horse was one of the visions that the author of the Oneirokritikon had dealt with.

‘Your father’s dream means that he will receive a visitor, a person of importance. The more splendid the horse, the more powerful the visitor.’

Adelaide was as sceptical as before. She gave a sigh of exasperation.

‘Bertha, I don’t know why you pay any attention to this nonsense. Of course the king will have an important visitor. He receives important visitors all the time, whether from
Byzantium or Rome or a hundred other places.’

I had to defend myself.

‘But this visitor will arrive when he is not expected and the outcome could be far-reaching.’

Adelaide did not bother to conceal her disbelief.

‘And when will this mysterious visitor grace our presence?’ she asked. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

‘When did your father have this dream?’

‘Last night, as Bertha just told you.’

I ignored her rudeness.

‘That is not what I meant. Did the king have this dream last night soon after he retired, or in the middle of the night? The timing is all-important.’

‘In the morning, shortly before he woke. He told us about it at breakfast,’ snapped Adelaide.

‘Then the visitor will arrive very soon, in the next day or two,’ I said firmly.

‘Why couldn’t you say when the earlier dream would be fulfilled?’ Adelaide asked caustically. ‘The dream of my father losing an eye?’

‘Because I had not yet come across the passage in the book that deals with the timing of dreams and their fulfilment,’ I said.

‘And now what can you add?’ Adelaide demanded.

‘The earlier in the night one has a dream, the longer it will take to come true,’ I said.

Adelaide turned to her sister, and again I detected that air of conspiracy between the two sisters.

‘Did the king mention at what time he had the dream?’ I asked.

Bertha thought for a moment.

‘I think it was soon after he retired to bed.’

Adelaide swung back to face me.

‘How much longer could it be before the king loses a son?’

I did not like the ambitious look in her eyes.

‘According to the book, the longest time between a dream and its fulfilment is twenty years.’

Her lip curled in disbelief.

‘So no one would be around to see it come true.’

I held my ground.

‘If you remember, Joseph dreamed of seven years of plenty in Egypt, followed by seven years of famine. So it was fully fourteen years between the dream and when the final year of
near-starvation came about.’

She glared at me angrily, and then strode out of the room.

‘Let’s hope your interpretation of my father’s latest dream is correct,’ said Bertha. She was looking nervous, fearful of her older sister. ‘Otherwise Adelaide may
no longer keep our secret.’

*

The very next morning the stone masons and bricklayers on the scaffolding of the great hall stood gaping down at a foreign-looking cavalcade of strangers riding into the royal
precinct. It was a Saracen embassy from Hispania. The newcomers had thrown open their heavy sheepskin riding coats to reveal long flowing gowns and broad silver-studded belts. Their heads were
wrapped in great white turbans that contrasted with their dark skins and thick, immaculately barbered black beards. Two musicians preceded them blowing wind instruments of wood that looked like
reed pipes and made an unearthly wailing sound.