The Pope's Assassin

by Tim Severin

  ‘The khagan is demanding to know where we were picked up and what we were doing when we were taken prisoner.’

  As the questioning continued, I studied the Avar ruler. He had a surprisingly boyish face, round and slightly chubby, with a lighter complexion than his attendants. I put his age at somewhere between thirty and forty, and he was unremarkable in every way, being of middling height and build, with small, almost feminine hands. Nor was he wearing any symbols of his rank except, perhaps, for a round fur cap made from some glossy pelt. I would never have singled him out from the rest of the company but for the fact that he was the only seated person in the room.

  The patrol leader was reaching into my saddlebag. He pulled out my money belt and held it up for the khagan to inspect. The khagan waved at him to bring the belt forward, felt its weight, poked a finger into the slit that I had made, and extracted a gold coin. Then he looked up, straight at me. Now I understood why he was khagan. His dark brown eyes held a casual cruelty that I had never witnessed before. The hair on my forearms and the back of my neck prickled with fear.

  ‘Speak,’ he said coldly. With a shock I realized that he had addressed me in heavily accented Frankish.

  ‘I was bringing the coins to be melted down into ornaments,’ I croaked. My throat had gone dry.

  There was a long moment of silence as the khagan looked at me, sizing me up. I stumbled on. ‘The quality of your Avar craftsmen is renowned,’ I blurted. Even as I spoke I sensed that my words had no meaning for the khagan. He knew only a smattering of Frankish and had used a Frankish word so that he could show off to his attendants. I had an uncomfortable feeling that if I said anything more, I risked making him appear ignorant in their eyes. My voice trailed off.

  One of his councillors was a Frankish speaker and he provided a quick translation of what I had said. The khagan lifted his chin a fraction, continued to stare at me, then abruptly tossed the money belt back towards the patrol leader, just far enough for him to lunge forward and catch it in mid-air.

  The khagan spoke. There was no mistaking that his statement was hostile.

  ‘The great khagan says you are a great liar,’ said the interpreter. ‘He says you brought the gold to pay his enemies to do him harm.’

  ‘That is not so,’ I protested.

  The interpreter did not bother to translate.

  The khagan turned his attention back to the patrol leader who was now holding out the slender bundle of parchment pages that I had brought with me from Paderborn. I tried anxiously to remember what I had written on them. It was very little. There were only a few notes I had made while looking around the Ring and trying to identify where the Avar treasure had been buried. The rest of the pages were blank. The khagan took the parchment sheets and began turning them over one by one. He checked each side so slowly that I wondered if he knew how to read his own language, let alone the Latin I had used to take my notes. I told myself that even if someone translated the Latin for the khagan’s benefit, everything that I had written was harmless. I relaxed.

  Then I remembered the page on which I had drawn the runic letters incised on the base of the warrior flagon. It was the Avar goldsmith’s mark that I had shown to Kunimund. Unexpectedly, I felt my spirits rise. Perhaps this was the moment when I would learn more about the warrior jug, something useful to add to the report I was preparing for Bishop Arno. The khagan reached that page and paused. He frowned as he puzzled over the letters, then murmured something that sounded like ‘Zoltan’.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ I whispered to Beorthric, standing half a pace behind me.

  ‘Seems to be a name.’

  The khagan went on turning the pages. All of a sudden he stopped and inside me something went very cold. The room was filled with tension. His attendants and councillors were gazing at him, half expectant, half fearful. The khagan studied the page in his hand, then turned his gaze on me. There was a dark, angry expression on his chubby face. He no longer looked youthful, only dangerous and unstable.

  He held up the parchment sheet so that I could see what was written there, then spat out what had to be a furious accusation.

  ‘He says we’re spies,’ muttered Beorthric.

  Drawn on the page were the simple sketches that I had made at the Ring. Even if the Avar leader was illiterate, he was able to recognize the distinctive outline of the great palisade.

  The khagan’s youthful face was taut with rage. His voice rose to a shout with his next accusation.

  ‘He says that the gold you brought was payment for a traitor called Zoltan,’ translated Beorthric. ‘He swears that he will track him down and make sure he suffers a painful death.’

  I knew at once that it was futile to try to explain away the drawings and the rune-scratched name. The khagan was beside himself with anger. He turned back to the piece of paper with the goldsmith’s marks and his jaw clenched as he began ripping it to tiny shreds as if already tearing the man limb from limb. Then he flung the scraps aside with a gesture of disgust before launching into his next pronouncement. It did not require a word of his language to know he was giving orders for something unpleasant to be done to us. Guards stepped forward, ready to remove us from the chamber. At that moment Beorthric intervened. He addressed the khagan directly, in Avar. The khagan had been leaning across to speak to one of his councillors. Now his head snapped round and he listened until Beorthric had finished speaking. Then he must have countermanded his earlier instructions for I felt a slight slackening in the grip of the guard who had me by the elbow.

  ‘What was all that about?’ I demanded of Beorthric as we were hustled up the steps leading back to the antechamber.

  ‘The khagan had given orders for both of us to be taken outside and strangled. It’s their punishment for spies,’ he replied. ‘I pointed out to him that you would be more valuable if kept alive, as a hostage against whoever sent you, and to confront this Zoltan when he is identified.’

  It took me a moment to react. ‘And what about you? Aren’t you a spy as well?’

  He bared his teeth in a bleak smile. ‘I told him that I don’t know how to read or write. So I had no idea what was in your notes. Nor did I know about the money belt because you always kept it hidden. I claimed that you hired me only because I speak Avarish.’

  I was stunned. ‘And he believed you?’

  ‘Enough to save you from being garrotted with a bowstring.’

  ‘So what’s going to happen to me?’

  ‘The Avars don’t allow useless mouths, particularly in winter when food is going to be short. I expect you’ll be put to work.’

  ‘As a slave?’

  He shrugged. ‘You’ll be better off than some unfortunate who has the name of Zoltan.’

  By now the guards had bundled us through the antechamber of the khagan’s residence and out into the muddy square. I stood there for a moment, badly disoriented, not knowing whether Beorthric had deliberately abandoned me to save himself or whether he had genuinely prevented my execution.

  It was dusk, and the wind had dropped and the rain was turning to snow. Large soft flakes were floating down silently from a smoke-coloured sky. One of the guards cut the leather thong binding Beorthric’s wrists. Mine were left in place. Leaving Beorthric, two of the guards marched me across the mire and down a narrow footpath between the wooden houses. My thoughts were in such turmoil that I took no notice of where we were going. Within minutes the snow had increased to a white swirling mass and my escort quickened their pace, until eventually we halted outside a house scarcely larger than a shed. The door of weathered planks was firmly shut but after some shouting and banging, it creaked open to reveal the figure of an old woman, a blanket drawn around her shoulders. A few stringy grey hairs escaped from under the dark shawl framing a wrinkled face. Despite her advanced years and the fact that she stood no taller than my shoulder, she was fully capable of making her irritation known. She looked up at my guards through watery eyes and scolded them in a thin voice full of
phlegm.

  They stood meekly until a fit of coughing gave them their chance to push me forward with a few words of explanation. One of the men pulled out a knife to slice through my bonds, but a claw-like hand shot out and knocked the blade aside. There was an angry command, and my escort sheepishly unpicked the knots. As soon as this was done, the same hand snatched away the undamaged length of leather thong. The other hand gripped me by the wrist and pulled me in through the doorway. Both my guards turned on their heels and tramped away into the growing blizzard.

  *

  During the hours of darkness the temperature plummeted. Though it was only early September, a freak blizzard had arrived in Avaria. By daybreak a snow bank, a couple of feet deep, made it difficult to force open the door. That was after the old lady had handed me the empty water bucket for the first time and gestured that I was to descend the slope to the river, fill the bucket and return. Outside everything was white, and the cold was so fierce that it hurt to fill one’s lungs with air. I came back chilled to the bone; my hands were blue, and I was shivering uncontrollably. I knew that the clothes I had brought with me were utterly inadequate for the coming winter.

  It took me the rest of that day to work out that I had been given as a present to the old lady. Her name was Faranak and, as I later learned, she was the childless widow of the khagan’s favourite uncle. By Avar custom, his nephew had the duty of looking after her. The khagan had already provided her with the small house for her winter accommodation and was sending regular deliveries of food. Now he had supplied her with a menial servant.

  *

  Faranak’s dwelling was a smaller, shabbier version of the khagan’s audience chamber. The earth floor of the single room was sunk below ground level and a tiny fire pit kept it warm. My servant’s duties were repetitive but undemanding. I was expected to tend the fire and prepare meals over the embers. Faranak had lost most of her teeth and ate very sparingly, so cooking amounted to boiling up a few handfuls of millet or some other grain into a gruel. If available, I added some dried fruit or shreds of meat. Afterwards, I scrubbed out the single metal pot, removed ash and cinders from the hearth, and replenished the supply of fuel from the woodpile behind the little house. I was also expected to sweep the floor of beaten earth and generally keep the room tidy. Washing clothes was not called for and, as far as I was aware, the old lady never changed her garments. Like many old people, Faranak never threw anything away. The dark corners of her little room were heaped with items she refused to get rid of. The unfortunate consequence was that her house was infested with fleas and lice, and never before had I found myself itching and scratching so much. The low door at the back of the cabin led to a latrine pit dug inside a tiny lean-to built against the rear wall, so the daily trip to the river for water was almost the only time I was permitted to venture any distance from the little house. If I wandered too far, her neighbours shouted at me angrily. Faranak herself saw almost no visitors.

  Naturally, I kept a look out for Beorthric whenever I went outside. I needed to talk with him and try to find out what might happen next. Once or twice I thought I recognized him in the distance, but he had disappeared by the time I reached the spot where I thought I had seen him.

  It was mid-winter before I got a definite sighting of him. That morning, Faranak surprised me by hobbling to the door of the house and beckoning to me to follow. Normally, she wore no jewellery or ornaments of any kind, but she had looped several strings of brightly coloured beads around her scrawny neck and was wearing a pair of gold earrings set with purple gemstones. Vaguely aware that something unusual was going on, I hurried to join her out on the footpath. It was one of those rare days when the winter sun, shining from a clear blue sky, overcame the numbing cold, and the entire settlement seemed to have come alive. A stream of people, both men and women and some older children, was making its way in the direction of the khagan’s residence. Underfoot it was slippery with hard-packed snow and ice, and Faranak held on to my arm as we accompanied the crowd. When we reached the open space in front of the khagan’s headquarters, it was already thronged with people muffled up against the cold. They jostled together, shoulder to shoulder, stamping their boots to warm their feet. Their breath caused a slight fog to form above their heads. Despite her frailty, Faranak pushed her way forward with scant regard for niceties. The crowd parted to allow her through, perhaps because she was a close relative to the khagan, and I found myself standing beside her in the front rank. An open space, some twenty paces across, had been left in the middle of the crowd. In the centre, stood a scarecrow figure. A man was dressed in a tent-like shirt that reached to his ankles. The hem was shredded into rags, and the garment was sewn all over with dozens of loose ribbons and strips of leather that swayed and fluttered as he moved. Tied to the ribbons were dozens upon dozens of trinkets: bells, amulets, pebbles, fragments of bone, feathers. A leather bag hung from a cord around his neck, and he had large, loose slippers on his feet. His conical leather cap was painted white and sprouted a cluster of feathers. His face was only visible from the mouth downward. The rest was obscured by a thick dangling fringe of short strips of coloured cloth and strings of beads.

  It was an Avar sorcerer.

  I glanced towards the spectators on the far side of the circle. The khagan was there, standing in the front rank, half a pace in advance of his councillors. Without knowing quite why, my attention was drawn to another Avar, well dressed in costly furs and much closer to me. The ugliness of the man marked him out. He was broad shouldered and squat with short legs and long, powerful arms. Under his hat of marten fur his face was blotched and marred with pock marks. With his wide mouth he reminded me of a toad.

  A sharp rap, the sound of wood on wood, brought my attention back to the ragged scarecrow. The sorcerer was using a small round shield as a drum, striking it with a short, crooked baton. The low muttering of the crowd died away.

  The sorcerer began to rotate on the same spot, revolving slowly, the hanging ribbons and scraps of his garment swirling out. He kept hitting the shield with a regular, rapid beat, then began to wail. It was a high-pitched sound, rising and falling, sometimes from the back of his throat, sometimes from high up in his nose. He repeated the same phrase over and over again as he spun round and round, the skirt of his long shirt flying out. Then, after a slight stumble, he began to trot around the circle of onlookers, almost within touching distance of us. Each time he passed, the crowd swayed back. At random he would stop and thrust his intimidating face with its drool-streaked chin close into the front rank of the onlookers. When he did this close to where Faranak and I were standing, I was impressed that the old lady stood her ground and did not flinch. After several circuits the sorcerer began speed up, beating his shield more rapidly. Soon he was wagging his head from side to side, like a runner in the last stages of exhaustion. As he passed, I heard the gasping intake of breath between his eerie wails.

  Finally, he turned back into the middle of the circle, came to a halt, let drop the drumstick and shield on the hard-packed snow, and raised his arms to the sky. Then he threw back his head and let out a long, grating shriek that echoed over the silent crowd.

  Lowering his arms, he turned to face the khagan. Reaching into a cloth bag that hung around his neck he took out an object that glinted gold in the sun. Walking across to the khagan he placed it in the man’s outstretched hands. I was close enough to see what it was: a human skull, gold plated.

  In front of me Faranak let out a small hiss of satisfaction.

  Some instinct made me glance towards the toad-like man to my left. He was watching the khagan and his face was set in a cold, vicious mask. He was keeping his hatred under tight control, and it was costing him a great effort. With a sudden lurch in my guts I realized that I knew almost nothing about the people amongst whom I was held captive, least of all about their feuds and rivalries.

  The ceremony was over, and people were preparing to go back to their homes. That was when I saw Beorthric. H
e was standing at the back of the crowd, a little to my right, and perhaps twenty paces away. He was half a head taller than those immediately around him and wearing some sort of hooded cloak. But his pale face with its blond moustache and beard was unmistakable. Our eyes locked. For a long moment he held my gaze, his expression unreadable. I caught my breath, willing him to acknowledge my presence. Then his eyes slid away and he looked off to one side, deliberately ignoring me. A moment later he was walking off, leaving me bewildered, disappointed and angry.

  Chapter Eleven

  BEORTHRIC’S REBUFF jolted me. It made me confront the uncomfortable truth that I was deluding myself by hoping that the big Saxon somehow held the key to ending my captivity. My misreading of the situation meant that I had allowed myself to be far too passive. If I did not take action, the routine drudgery as Faranak’s serf and my poor diet would eventually reduce me to such a state of apathy that I was likely to remain a prisoner until Kaiam decided I was no longer worth keeping alive. In short, it was essential to get away from Kaiam’s clutches, even if it meant turning my back on Beorthric.

  I began to plan my escape.

  I needed a horse, and preferably a remount as well. My daily trips to the river had shown me that the Avars kept a few horses close at hand even in winter and right in the heart of the settlement. I supposed that these animals were their favourites, and on the rare sunny days I saw them being exercised out on the river flats, usually ridden bareback by youngsters. A stone’s throw away from Faranak’s house and surrounded by a mud wall was the home of a well-to-do Avar. One bitterly cold morning, as I was on my back from collecting a bucket of water, I noticed that the front gate of wooden planks had been left open. There was no one about, so I stepped aside from my usual path, still with my bucket in hand, and peeked in. The house itself was the usual single-storey wooden building and surrounded by an untidy cluster of sheds, lean-tos, piles of firewood and a parked waggon. Over to one side of the yard was a small square building of mud bricks. The snow had melted from the roof, and in the still air a faint haze of steam oozed from the thatch. I guessed that the building was a winter stable, and the body heat of several horses was causing the steam. My guess was confirmed by the sight of horse droppings and soiled straw thrown onto a nearby midden heap, and a hay pile protected by a canvas sheet.