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

look.
    ‘There has been no storm.’
    ‘A fire on board,’ I invented hastily. ‘The cook was careless. The other passengers and crew got away in another boat. If you could set us on our way, I would be
grateful.’
    The old priest hesitated, looking uncertain.
    ‘Carolus, our king, could be in any of a dozen places. He has no fixed residence.’
    It was my turn to be taken aback. I had imagined the great ruler of the Franks to be living in a splendid palace in a settled capital, not wandering from place to place like a nomad. Life would
be more difficult if Osric and I had to go searching his vast kingdom to catch up with him.
    ‘But most likely he is at Aachen in this season,’ said the priest. ‘He is engaged in building works there, an extraordinary project I understand.’
    ‘Then perhaps you could tell me the best way there, and how far we must travel,’ I said.
    ‘What about your boat? Will you be leaving it behind?’
    I guessed that the priest considered a small boat to be an item of considerable value.
    ‘I will be glad if you accept the boat as a thankgift. I have no further use for it,’ I said magnanimously.
    The priest glanced at Osric standing crookedly a pace behind me.
    ‘You will need the permission of my abbot if you and your companion are to go any further.’
    He spoke a few words to the boy. Doubtless he was telling him to go to the beach and secure the boat before it drifted off for the lad scampered away over the dunes.
    ‘Come with me!’ he said, ‘There’s a village nearby where you can rest. Tomorrow we will go on to the monastery and meet the abbot.’
    We squelched along the footpath which wound through the reed beds. The priest led the way, splashing through the puddles. The ragged hem of his gown was dark and sodden. We skirted several large
ponds, their dark brown water still and silent. I shivered at the memory of my brother’s death.
    ‘My name is Lothar,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘You were fortunate that I was in the area when you arrived, or no one would have understood you – they speak their own
local dialect. The village belongs to my monastery and is a very poor place. The families live by fishing and by collecting whatever is cast up along the shoreline.’
    From his tone of voice I gathered that he was still not fully convinced that Osric and I were genuine castaways.
    ‘I didn’t see any fishing harbour,’ I said.
    ‘The coast here is too exposed to heavy winter storms. The villagers keep their boats in a river mouth nearby, and in bad weather they net the inland ponds.’ He could no longer
restrain his curiosity. ‘Where did you learn to speak Latin so well?’
    ‘My father arranged for a priest to teach me.’ I did not say that the priest had been on the run. Bertwald was being pursued by the Church for theft and had arrived with his mistress
in tow, a wild-looking slattern with a dramatic bush of wiry, auburn hair. My father, who believed in the Old Ways, took pleasure in giving shelter to a renegade from a religion for which he had no
use. Bertwald had stayed with us for nearly ten years, with little to do except breed children and instruct me, his only pupil. Together he and Osric had been the two great influences of my growing
up and I was only just beginning to appreciate how good a teacher Bertwald had been. Besides Latin, he had taught me how to read and write and even some grammar and logic. When he was drunk he
would boast about the importance of the foundation to which he had once belonged. He’d claimed it had its own school and a library with fifty books. But in the end his loose talk undid him.
One of our local Christians betrayed him to his former bishop and he had left as hastily as he had arrived.
    We reached the fishing village, a huddle of small huts thatched with reeds. There were nets everywhere. They were heaped outside doors, draped over roofs, stretched between posts to dry, and
strung out at a convenient height