The Book of Dreams(70)

There was much bustle around the building. An impatient-looking foreman was supervising a team of workmen as they unloaded trestle tables and benches from a cart, and then carried them indoors. Servants were wheeling out barrows heaped with cinders and soiled rushes; others were taking in bundles of fresh reeds. A man on a ladder was topping up the oil in the metal cressets attached to the huge doorposts.

‘Where’s Count Hroudland?’ I asked a porter. He was shouldering a yoke from which hung two water buckets and was on his way towards what looked like the kitchen building attached to the side of the great hall. Smoke was rising from its double chimney.

‘You’ll not find him here. He’s down by the army camp.’

I turned my pony and rode back down the slope towards the water meadows. I was scarcely halfway there when I heard a sound that made my heart lift: a full-throated whoop of triumph. It was the yell that my friend let loose every time he scored a direct hit with javelin or lance, and it came from my right, just beyond the soldiers’ tents. I kicked my pony into a faster walk and a moment later emerged onto a familiar scene. A couple of dozen cavalry men were fighting a mock battle. Watched by a ring of spectators, the opposing sides were a milling mob of armoured men on horseback chopping and thrusting with wooden swords and blunt lances, deflecting blows with their shields. I spotted Hroudland at once. He was riding his roan stallion with the distinctive white patches and he had a cluster of black feathers fastened to his helmet. A closer look showed that several of the other riders were wearing black feathers while their opponents sported sprigs of green leaves. Above the hoarse shouts, the thud of blows and the general grunting tussle of horses and riders, I again heard Hroudland’s triumphant cry. He had barged forward with the roan, knocked his opponent’s horse off balance, and then delivered a downward blow to the man’s head. As I watched, he thrust his shield into his opponent’s face so that he toppled backwards out of his saddle and crashed to the ground.

Hroudland straightened up and looked around, seeking his next victim. His eye fell on me where I sat on my pony looking over the heads of the spectators. His face lit up with a broad smile. Ignoring the chaos around him he spurred his stallion through the fighting and came towards me at a lumbering trot. The crowd in front of me scattered, dodging the great hooves as the horse came to a halt.

‘Patch! Welcome home!’ the count shouted. He was out of breath, the sweat pouring down his face. He tossed aside his wooden sword, slung his shield on to his back, dropped the reins and swung himself out of the saddle. I dismounted from my pony. Hroudland came forward, threw his arms around me and swept me up in a powerful bear hug. I was crushed uncomfortably against his chain-mail shirt, and had to duck to avoid the rim of his helmet.

‘It’s good to see you!’ he said.

I became aware that another horse and rider had joined us. Looking up, I saw Berenger’s cheerful face grinning down at me. He had taken off his helmet and his curly hair was plastered with sweat.

‘Patch, where did you spring from?’ he called down.

I disentangled myself from the count’s embrace.

‘From Hispania by way of the Bay of the Vascons,’ I said. ‘I’ve important news.’

Hroudland’s unattended stallion was edging sideways, tossing its head and irritably stamping the soft ground. The nearest onlookers were scrambling back out of the way.

‘Patch, I’ll see you up at the great hall later,’ said the count, hurriedly stepping back to gather up the reins. ‘You could not have come at a better time. There’s to be a banquet. My seneschal will look after you.’ He vaulted easily up into the saddle. Someone handed back his wooden sword and he waved it above his head in salute, and then plunged back into the fray, Berenger riding at his side.

*

Hroudland’s seneschal made no attempt to conceal his irritation at being distracted from the preparations for the banquet. He bawled at a groom to take my pony to the stables, then beckoned to a lad loitering nearby and told him gruffly to show me to the margrave’s personal quarters. There he was to hand me over to the margrave’s manservant. I followed the youngster into the great hall. The interior was as resplendent as the outside of the building. Painted in stripes of white and red, Hroudland’s household colours, a double line of wooden pillars, each thicker than a man’s waist, soared upward as piers for the great roof. Bolted to each pillar were brackets for dozens of torches. Although it was scarcely noon, many of these lamps were already lit, and their flames made the shadows dance and flicker in the rafters high above us. The trestle tables and benches I had seen earlier were already erected in the spaces between the pillars, and there were enough to accommodate more than a hundred guests. A team of servants was setting out wooden trenchers and glass beakers. The kindling in the fire pit was well alight, and the blaze had spread into the stack of fresh logs. I smelled pine smoke and somewhere in the background was the sound of a musician tuning up a stringed instrument. My guide took me the length of the great hall and past the high table, still bare except for a fine, linen table cloth. I presumed that the more valuable tableware would be brought out later. At the far end of the hall I was shown through a heavy door into what amounted to a large arms store. The walls of mortared stone had narrow slits for windows. Cressets added to the weak light, which shone on racks of spears and javelins, war axes and iron bound chests. Along one wall was a display of shields. All of them were painted with the margrave’s red and white.