The Book of Dreams(74)
We made good progress along a rutted highway, which took us across low round hills covered with scrubby woodland. The only travellers we saw were on foot, walking between the small hamlets. Often they would deliberately leave the road, vanishing into the bushes, avoiding us. Eventually we overtook a family of father and mother and three small children trudging slowly along. One of our escorts spoke enough Breton to glean from them that the fountain at Barenton lay some distance off to our right.
The low cloud was thinning and a watery sun had begun to show itself as we left the main road and turned into an area of true forest. The ancient oaks intermingled with beech reminded me of the place the mysterious archer had tried to kill me while out hunting with the king. But here the trees were less majestic; they were gnarled and stunted, and the space between their thick, mossy trunks was choked with undergrowth. Little by little, the track narrowed until it became no more than a footpath, and the branches above the height of a man’s head reached out and scratched our faces as we pushed our horses forward.
‘Can’t be much further now,’ said Hroudland, finally dismounting when progress on horseback became too difficult. He handed the reins to our escort and told them to wait. Stiffly I got down from my horse and followed the count as he strode briskly onward. The forest smelled of earth and wet leaves, and – oddly – there was no sound of wildlife, no birdsong, not even the faint rustling of a breeze in the stagnant, still air. It was eerie, and I grew uneasy.
Hroudland did not appear to notice the silence. He drew his sword and, when the path became very overgrown, slashed back the undergrowth.
‘If the legend was true, this is where we should encounter an ugly giant,’ he joked to me over his shoulder. ‘Someone to show us on our way.’
But we saw no one, though I thought I detected the occasional faint trace of a footprint on the muddy track we were following.
Eventually, just as I was about to suggest that we turn back, we emerged into a clearing. It was no more than twenty paces across and open to the sky. It had the serene, tranquil air of an ancient place. In the centre stood a great upright stone. The boulder was similar to the menhirs I had seen on the moors in the mist, but here it stood alone, its rough grey sides speckled with pale circular patches of lichen growth. Close to the foot of the boulder was a shallow pool, little more than a large puddle. In the stillness of the glade the only movement was a faint ripple disturbing the water’s surface. A spring was bubbling out of the ground. My spine prickled.
‘This must be the place,’ said Hroudland confidently. He sheathed his sword and looked around at the bushes. ‘But I don’t see a golden cup hanging from a branch.’
He crossed to the stone and examined it more closely. ‘Nor is it studded with gems,’ he added with a derisive snort. ‘Another fable.’
I walked across to join him. A small trickle of water overflowed from the pool and drained out of the glade to where it was soon lost under some bushes. Something caught my eye, a small shadow under the surface of the rill, a dark patch that came and went as the water washed over it. I leaned in closer. Lying on its side, submerged in the water, was a metal beaker. Reaching in, I picked it up tentatively. I knew instinctively that it was extremely old. It was the size and shape of a small tankard or a large cup without a handle. I shook off the drops of water and turned it this way and that, searching for distinguishing marks in the dull surface. The cup was made seamlessly from a single sheet of metal, without joints or rivets; there were only patterns of dots, pecked into the surface with a pointed instrument. They swirled around it in mysterious whorls.
‘What have you got there?’ demanded Hroudland. He strode across, taking the cup from my grasp. ‘Probably a drinking cup dropped here by a woodsman.’
‘My guess is that it’s bronze,’ I said.
My friend pulled out a dagger from his belt and scratched the surface of the cup with the tip of the blade. It left no mark.
‘It’s not Yvain’s cup of gold, that’s for sure. Far too hard.’
He grinned at me mischievously.
‘Let’s see if it will work its magic as it did for Yvain.’
Hroudland knelt down by the little pool and filled the cup with water. Walking across to the great boulder, he tossed the contents over the grey rock, stood back, and looked up at a sky still covered with its thin veil of cloud through which the disc of the sun could just be seen.
Nothing happened. The forest around us remained completely still and silent, the air pressed down on us, heavy and clammy.
‘There you are, Patch,’ Hroudland declared. ‘It can’t even summon up a storm.’