Saxon: The Book of Dreams (Saxon 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

of her, the cog was drifting helplessly away into the distance, the small figures of her crew gathered on deck trying
to raise sail.
    I took the oars from Osric and he showed me how to slide them through two rope loops to hold them in place as I settled on the bench and made ready to row.
    ‘Which way?’ I asked.
    He pointed. I could see only the waves around us. Then the rowing boat rose on the crest of a large wave, and far in the distance I saw a low grey line. It had to be the coast of Frankia.
    I turned to my task and took a pull at the water. One oar dug into the sea, the other waved in the air. I nearly fell off my bench. Rowing a boat at sea was not going to be easy.
    Osric had found a wooden implement that looked like a grain shovel with a short handle. He began using it to scoop loose water from the bottom of the boat and back into the sea. He paused for a
moment and reached inside his shirt. He pulled out a purse that I recognized had belonged to the captain of the cog, and passed it across to me. As I took it, I opened my mouth, about to thank him
for saving our lives, when I saw that my words were not needed. Osric was doing something which I had not seen since the day my brother drowned, a death for which he had blamed himself.
    Osric was smiling.

Chapter Three

    W E CAME ASHORE ON a beach of round, smooth grey stones. Two urchins stood up to
their knees in the shallows and watched me clumsily row the last few yards. The boys had been gathering shellfish and cautiously retreated as I climbed out of the little boat. The land swayed
slightly as I walked towards the boys with a smile fixed on my face.
    ‘Can you take us to your homes?’ I asked.
    They looked at me blankly. Without a word, they turned and ran, the stones clattering under their bare feet as they disappeared over the dunes at the back of the beach.
    Osric and I picked our baggage out of the boat and began to trudge after them. With an afterthought, I stopped.
    ‘Let me have that pack for a moment,’ I said. He took off the pack and I searched among the garments that I had managed to save from my home: shirts and underclothes; a pair of spare
shoes and a rolled-up cloak; an extra tunic and sandals for Osric; an embroidered belt; leggings. There was nothing else. I used the captain’s dagger to trim a strip of cloth off an old shirt
and wrapped it around my head, covering one eye. At home everyone had known about the colour of my eyes, but now I was among strangers and it would be best to leave it to others to suppose that the
bandage concealed an empty socket.
    Osric looked on and said nothing. He closed the pack and swung it on his back, and together we resumed our journey. We crested the slope and, a short distance away, hurrying towards us across an
expanse of boggy ground thick with reeds was one of the two lads we had seen on the beach. He was accompanied by a man dressed in the long brown robe of a priest.
    They halted in front of us, barring our way. The priest was an old man, so bony and shrunken with age that his threadbare gown hung loose upon him. His face was deeply lined and only a few wisps
of grey hair surrounded his tonsure. He regarded us with a mixture of curiosity and mild suspicion. He had lost most of his teeth so he mumbled as he spoke. It hardly mattered. I did not understand
what he was saying, only that he was asking a question, and his tone was not hostile.
    ‘We would welcome your help,’ I said in Latin.
    He looked at me in surprise, as I did not have the appearance of someone with an education.
    ‘The lad tells me that you came out of a small boat,’ he said, switching to the same language.
    ‘We’re travelling to the court of the Frankish king,’ I replied.
    Again he looked surprised.
    ‘I supposed you are shipwrecked mariners or perhaps pilgrims. We sometimes see pilgrims from across the water, on their way to Rome.’
    ‘We had to abandon ship,’ I lied.
    I was met with a puzzled