He did not answer my question directly but said, ‘Many of Artorius’s best men went looking for this Graal. Yet only a couple of them ever laid eyes on this mysterious object.’
‘I don’t see what this has got to do with our expedition to Hispania,’ I said to him. I was beginning to believe that Hroudland had spent far too many evenings swilling wine with his friends and boasting of exploits past and future.
He turned to face me and I saw that he was in complete earnest.
‘The Breton bards say this mysterious Graal is kept in a heavily guarded castle, a place difficult to reach because it is surrounded on all sides by mountains. They make it sound as if the castle is somewhere in the south.’
I had to scoff.
‘If you’re thinking that the Graal is to be found among the mountains on the way to Hispania, let me tell you there are few forests in that region. It’s a bleak and barren place where someone nearly knocked out my brains with a sling stone.’
Hroudland was not to be deflected.
‘A little danger won’t deter me from looking for the Graal there, no more than it stopped me from riding into the forest of Broceliande.’
I sighed with exasperation.
‘And what will you do, if you lay hands on this Graal? It could turn out to be like the little bronze cup, something you could buy for a penny in a market.’
The look Hroudland gave me was almost triumphant.
‘Don’t you see, Patch? It doesn’t matter whether this Graal is made of gold or brass or even wood. Imagine how the Bretons would respect the man who returned this treasure to them!’
I had to stop myself from shaking my head despairingly. Once Hroudland fastened on an idea, he was impossible to reason with.
‘And if there is no Graal and the whole thing is a myth?’
Sensing my misgivings, Hroudland laughed.
‘In that case this expedition is still my chance for a new beginning. As I’ve said before, I will serve with such distinction that when we have conquered our Saracen opponents, my uncle Carolus will make me Margrave of the new Spanish March.’ He leaned across from his horse and cuffed me affectionately across the head. ‘And then, Patch, you will come with me as my close advisor, and enjoy the sunshine instead of the Breton drizzle.’
He clapped his heels to the side of his horse and broke into a canter, clods of earth flying up from his horse’s hooves.
*
A week later we found ourselves looking down into a ruined valley. It was as if a great wind of destruction had swept across the land. Hedges and thickets were smashed into tatters. The young crops in the fields trampled and ruined. The ground was all torn up and wrecked. Not a tree or sapling was left standing in the coppices, and their stumps showed fresh axe marks. It was a truly dismal spectacle and I was astonished when Berenger gave a whoop of delight.
He began humming to himself as we rode side by side down the slope and into the scene of devastation.
‘What happened here?’ I asked.
‘An army,’ he retorted with a grin. ‘The ground will soon recover. Look at all that manure.’
Indeed there were piles of dung dotted here and there, as well as an ugly spew of rubbish – discarded sacking, traces of cooking fires, chicken feathers, gnawed bones, a broken earthenware pot, a split shoe that someone had tossed away. I pulled my horse aside before he stepped into what was obviously a pile of human excrement. It took me another moment to realize that all this squalor lay in a broad swathe leading along the bottom of the valley.
Hroudland was riding a little distance ahead of us. He swivelled in his saddle and called back, ‘Come on! They must be just over that hill crest!’ He put his horse into a fast trot and began to ascend the far slope.
Berenger and I followed, and as we crested the rise I pulled my mount to a halt and looked on in amazement. I knew now why my comrades always seemed so confident of the success of the Frankish army.
Along the bottom of the next valley crawled a huge serpent. It was formed of ox-drawn vehicles, creeping forward in a long line. There must have been four or five hundred of them. Most were substantial two-wheeled carts, though a few of the larger ones had four wheels similar to Arnulf’s eel wagon. All were tented and drawn by two animals, their drovers walking beside them or riding on bench seats in front of the canopies. Even from a distance I could hear the squealing and groaning of the huge solid wheels turning on wooden axles, and hear the occasional crack of a whip. Out on the flanks of the column were parties of foragers stripping the countryside of any vegetation that might provide food for the draught animals. Closer to us a great herd of cattle meandered along, eating every blade of grass or green leaf in its path.