wearing armour?’ I asked.
‘With the right arrow head, seventy paces is also your killing range.’
That settled it. A thrown javelin might hit the target at twenty paces, but I would demonstrate how my arrows could empty a saddle at three times the distance.
‘Then I want you to teach me,’ I said to Osric.
‘You will have to be patient.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘And for once you will find your eye patch is a help. You aim with the right eye only.’
So I became Osric’s pupil. While my more energetic companions wrestled, lifted weights, competed in races on foot while wearing armour, or held swimming contests, I would slip away and
practise my archery. Osric showed me the correct stance when I drew the bow, how to control my breathing, allow for the wind, time my release. He explained the exercises to strengthen the muscles
in my back and arms, and insisted on hour after hour of target practice. I enjoyed it all, and Osric was no more than honest when he said that I was a natural archer. By the time the leaves began
to turn, I was close to achieving the standard he expected – sending arrow after arrow into a target as broad as a man’s torso, at seventy paces. I was still on foot, for he said that
shooting from horseback would come later.
*
King Carolus required that once a week all the paladins received formal instruction in a topic of his choosing. Like reluctant school children we assembled in the entrance porch
of the royal chancery. It was temporarily housed in an annex of the great unfinished church and through the open doorway we could glimpse the earnest-looking monks and scribes. Some were at their
desks, heads down and hunched over documents. Others stood in little groups conferring, while a secretary with a stylus took notes on a wax tablet. Porters and messengers bustled past us with
expressions that told us we were standing in the way of what really mattered in the kingdom.
One day it was Alcuin himself who emerged to tell us that our topic for the day was to be geography.
Beside me Berenger muttered, ‘Thank the Lord! I feared it would be theology.’
Alcuin pretended not to have heard.
‘I will detain you only a few minutes, but it will be long enough to demonstrate that geography has its uses in war as in peace,’ he said coolly. He gave no hint that he already knew
me, and he brought us into the chancery and led us directly to a broad trestle table covered with biscuit-coloured tiles of baked clay laid side by side like the squares on a games board.
I studied what was scratched on them – the names of towns, rivers, provinces. I was looking at a great map of the kingdom of the Franks and the neighbouring lands, a portable map
ingeniously made so it could be dismantled and reassembled wherever it was needed.
‘We use this for planning, both civil and military,’ Alcuin was saying. He walked round the table to its far side. ‘Here, for example, is Byzantium, the capital of the Eastern
Emperor. Over there,’ he waved his hand, ‘is the northern sea.’
I recalled the model of the palace I had seen in the king’s chambers. There had been no documents or written material in his room. It occurred to me that Carolus could neither read nor
write, and that this map of tiles was as much for his benefit as for the clerks in the chancery.
Alcuin reached into a small wooden box and produced a number of figurines, miniatures of men, horses and oxen.
‘What sort of child’s toys are those?’ interrupted Anseis rudely.
Alcuin remained unflustered.
‘Do you play tafl?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘In that game you calculate which of your opponent’s squares are vulnerable and which squares hold threats?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Then think of this map in the same way. It tells you who lies beyond your immediate neighbour, and with whom you should form alliances.’
Anseis snorted with disdain.
‘I don’t need that map to tell me what I already
‘With the right arrow head, seventy paces is also your killing range.’
That settled it. A thrown javelin might hit the target at twenty paces, but I would demonstrate how my arrows could empty a saddle at three times the distance.
‘Then I want you to teach me,’ I said to Osric.
‘You will have to be patient.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘And for once you will find your eye patch is a help. You aim with the right eye only.’
So I became Osric’s pupil. While my more energetic companions wrestled, lifted weights, competed in races on foot while wearing armour, or held swimming contests, I would slip away and
practise my archery. Osric showed me the correct stance when I drew the bow, how to control my breathing, allow for the wind, time my release. He explained the exercises to strengthen the muscles
in my back and arms, and insisted on hour after hour of target practice. I enjoyed it all, and Osric was no more than honest when he said that I was a natural archer. By the time the leaves began
to turn, I was close to achieving the standard he expected – sending arrow after arrow into a target as broad as a man’s torso, at seventy paces. I was still on foot, for he said that
shooting from horseback would come later.
*
King Carolus required that once a week all the paladins received formal instruction in a topic of his choosing. Like reluctant school children we assembled in the entrance porch
of the royal chancery. It was temporarily housed in an annex of the great unfinished church and through the open doorway we could glimpse the earnest-looking monks and scribes. Some were at their
desks, heads down and hunched over documents. Others stood in little groups conferring, while a secretary with a stylus took notes on a wax tablet. Porters and messengers bustled past us with
expressions that told us we were standing in the way of what really mattered in the kingdom.
One day it was Alcuin himself who emerged to tell us that our topic for the day was to be geography.
Beside me Berenger muttered, ‘Thank the Lord! I feared it would be theology.’
Alcuin pretended not to have heard.
‘I will detain you only a few minutes, but it will be long enough to demonstrate that geography has its uses in war as in peace,’ he said coolly. He gave no hint that he already knew
me, and he brought us into the chancery and led us directly to a broad trestle table covered with biscuit-coloured tiles of baked clay laid side by side like the squares on a games board.
I studied what was scratched on them – the names of towns, rivers, provinces. I was looking at a great map of the kingdom of the Franks and the neighbouring lands, a portable map
ingeniously made so it could be dismantled and reassembled wherever it was needed.
‘We use this for planning, both civil and military,’ Alcuin was saying. He walked round the table to its far side. ‘Here, for example, is Byzantium, the capital of the Eastern
Emperor. Over there,’ he waved his hand, ‘is the northern sea.’
I recalled the model of the palace I had seen in the king’s chambers. There had been no documents or written material in his room. It occurred to me that Carolus could neither read nor
write, and that this map of tiles was as much for his benefit as for the clerks in the chancery.
Alcuin reached into a small wooden box and produced a number of figurines, miniatures of men, horses and oxen.
‘What sort of child’s toys are those?’ interrupted Anseis rudely.
Alcuin remained unflustered.
‘Do you play tafl?’ he asked.
‘Of course.’
‘In that game you calculate which of your opponent’s squares are vulnerable and which squares hold threats?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Then think of this map in the same way. It tells you who lies beyond your immediate neighbour, and with whom you should form alliances.’
Anseis snorted with disdain.
‘I don’t need that map to tell me what I already
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