The Book of Dreams(17)

I didn’t know what he was talking about. I fumbled for an answer.

‘The skin around your left eye is lighter where the sun has not touched. Yet you are wearing the patch on the other eye,’ he explained without a trace of irony.

I felt myself flush with embarrassment and glanced across at the priest, Alcuin. He was standing with his hands concealed in his sleeves, looking imperturbable.

‘It would be a courtesy if you removed your eye patch,’ Alcuin suggested.

Reluctantly I reached up and removed the leather cover to my right eye. I remembered how Offa had recoiled.

This time it was very different.

The big man in front of me stared at me closely for several moments.

‘Interesting,’ he said finally. ‘We are told that Alexander of Macedon had just the same condition. His eyes were of different colours. It was a mark of his uniqueness.’ Ignoring Osric, he turned to the priest. ‘We welcome this young man. Find him a place with the paladins and see that he gets fresh clothing.’

It was clear that we had been dismissed, and the priest bowed. Tactfully, I did the same, and the three of us left the room. As the door closed behind us, I remembered Offa’s letter still in my satchel.

‘I forgot to give the chamberlain the letter that King Offa prepared for King Carolus,’ I said to the priest.

The priest raised an eyebrow.

‘That wasn’t the chamberlain. That was Carolus himself, properly known as King of the Franks and Lombards and Patrician of the Romans.’

I was mortified that I had failed to recognize the most powerful ruler in the west.

‘But he was dressed so plainly . . .’ I stammered.

‘He loathes wearing costly or fashionable clothing,’ said the priest. ‘Almost as much as he detests being idle. It drives him to distraction. Most of his councillors are using this rain as an excuse to take the day off so he has little to do. I thought he would find your presence a brief diversion.’

I reached into my satchel for the now water-stained parchment.

‘Then shouldn’t I leave this letter with his secretariat.’

‘I’ll deal with it,’ said the priest taking it from me. ‘Incidentally, I come from Northumberland myself. I’m one of the king’s advisers.’

‘Thank you for all your assistance. I hope I will have the chance of meeting you again,’ I said.

Alcuin smiled thinly.

‘You will. Another of my duties is to drum some learning into the heads of royal “guests” like yourself. King Carolus cannot abide idleness in others, any more than in himself.’

I readjusted my eye patch over my left eye.

‘I hope the king will not object if I continue to wear this.’

The priest shrugged.

‘As you wish.’

He escorted us back to the entrance hall and spoke to one of the guards.

‘Have one of your men show this young lord to the quarters for royal guests, and then take his slave to the stores to fetch suitable clothing for him.’

A gust of wind drove the rain horizontally into our faces as we emerged into the open. Osric and I followed the soldier as he ran for the lee of the unfinished meeting hall, then led us around a corner of the building. My eye patch made me blind on my left side and, in trying to keep up with him, I blundered into a massive stone block standing waist high in my path. I was about to step around it when something made me look up. A chill ran down my spine. The stone block was the pedestal of a remarkable statue. It was a bronze horse, twice life size. Every detail was precise – the flaring nostrils, one hoof raised, the arched neck. On its back a rider wore the same short military tunic and heavy military boots I had dreamed of and he was making the same gesture with his arm. The only difference from my dream was the rider’s face. This time he did not look down at me, but stared straight ahead, and it was rain which trickled down from his sightless eyes, not blood.





Chapter Five




FROM THE OUTSIDE, THE QUARTERS where the paladins or royal ‘guests’ were housed could have been mistaken for an army barracks. A long, low barn of a building, it was located at the far side of the palace precinct. The guardsman left me at the threshold and went off with Osric to the royal stores. Eager to get out of the rain, I eased open the heavy door and slipped inside. I was in a room that stretched the full length of the building. Watery-grey light filtered in through a row of small windows. Tables and benches filled the spaces between the double rows of posts holding up the timber roof. The walls were lined by sleeping booths. There were damp areas on the earth floor where the thatch had failed. A fire trench held cold cinders and ash. The place not only looked like a barracks but had the same smell and fug.