The Pope's Assassin

by Tim Severin

  ‘Thank you for what you did for me today.’

  For a moment I failed to understand his words. I was too startled. Beorthric had addressed me in Saxon, my mother tongue. He spoke it like a native. When I had first met him in Paderborn, I had guessed he came from Saxony. But he had concealed the fact and always insisted on speaking to me in Frankish. I wondered what had made him change his mind.

  ‘Nikephorus arranged it,’ he said. ‘You were right in thinking he wasn’t happy about Kajd’s cosying up to Carolus. He knew about it almost from the start.’

  It hit me like a blow that he was referring to the attack on the embassy. I sat up. ‘How did he get to know?’ I began, then stopped. The answer was obvious. ‘You told him.’

  ‘He pays extremely well.’

  ‘So you knew that we would be attacked?’

  ‘Yes, but not where. I was beginning to think that it would never happen.’

  ‘So who attacked us?’

  ‘I think they were Slavs. They’re moving into the area that the Avars abandoned when they withdrew from the Ring. Nikephorus keeps in touch with all the incomers – whether Slavs or Bulgars or another tribe, it doesn’t matter – he gives them gold and uses them.’

  He was still speaking to me in Saxon. I shook my head trying to clear it. ‘How long has Nikephorus been paying you?’

  ‘Ever since I moved in with that Avar noblewoman as her partner. In the beginning he paid me for the scraps of information I passed on. Later I acted as his go-between.’

  ‘So that was how you knew about the plot to kill Kaiam,’ I said slowly. I was beginning to grasp the extent of Beorthric’s involvement in the murder. ‘I noticed how you refilled the golden skull that day in the assembly. It was to make him drunk.’

  ‘That was Nikephorus’s suggestion. From the moment he arrived in Kaiam’s capital he had been encouraging Kajd to do away with Kaiam and become khagan himself.’

  I recalled Nikephorus himself telling me that he preferred to see the Avars kept in turmoil. If they were too busy fighting amongst themselves, they were unable to launch any attacks on Constantinople. The Poison Dwarf must have been alarmed by the unintended consequence of his scheme when Kajd decided to open negotiations with Carolus.

  ‘No wonder he arranged to have our embassy ambushed,’ I said. ‘A peace treaty between Kajd and Carolus isn’t in the best interests of Constantinople. I’m lucky to be alive.’

  The Saxon let out a long sigh. There was bitterness in it. ‘You’re wrong there. You may think that I am a mercenary, ready to take anyone’s gold. But I wouldn’t have allowed you to be killed.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ I commented sourly. ‘I presume that is why you told me to ride away from the ambush.’

  ‘Sigwulf, let me explain.’ There was a pleading note to Beorthric’s voice. It was almost as unexpected as hearing him speaking Saxon. ‘Nikephorus knows that he can only delay a pact between Kajd and Carolus. It will happen sooner or later; another embassy will be sent. He has a deeper, more serious plan.’

  There was a long silence while Beorthric gathered his thoughts. ‘I was to help you escape from the ambush. Not the other way around. Later, I was to have re-joined you, taken the credit for rescuing you, and gained your trust.’

  By now I was completely baffled. ‘But that makes no sense. The last time I spoke with Nikephorus he insinuated that you had betrayed me by arranging with Kunimund to hand me over to the Avars.’

  There was just enough starlight to see the Saxon’s mouth set in a grim line. ‘Nikephorus plays with people. That’s the sort of misinformation he deals in. It keeps his victims off-balance. I’ve seen it dozens of times.’

  ‘And what about our mission to obtain the warrior flagon? Nikephorus is fully aware that Archbishop Arno sent us. I told him.’

  ‘Nikephorus sees this whole business of the Avar gold and the warrior flagon as an opportunity. If he can find out why the gold flagon is so important to Archbishop Arno, he gets an insight into the plans of Carolus and his councillors.’

  ‘And he suspects that Carolus is preparing some sort of masterstroke that may be against the interests of Constantinople?’

  ‘That’s exactly what he thinks.’

  I recalled my own suspicions of Arno and his reasons for wanting to get his hands on the warrior flagon. I also remembered the evening in Paderborn when I suggested that the attack on Pope Leo had not been an attempt to kill him. Arno had as good as dismissed me on the spot. He had been hiding something.

  ‘Then Nikephorus will be disappointed,’ I told Beorthric. ‘Neither of us will ever get to know why the warrior flagon is so important. Once I hand it over to Arno, that will be the end of the matter.’

  ‘You misjudge Nikephorus. He believes that what we are doing also allows him to place his agent close to Arno and the others who advise Carolus.’

  ‘His agent—’ I began, then stopped. ‘You’re still his agent.’

  ‘Or his informer, if you prefer that description. That’s how Nikephorus sees me, and why I was told to gain your complete trust by “rescuing” you from the ambush.’

  I sat shocked. I had been utterly wrong to think that Beorthric had been taken prisoner when I saw him after the fight. The men standing close to him were not his guards, but in charge of the horses.

  ‘That wound of yours. How did that happen?’ I asked

  ‘Nikephorus hadn’t given the men who attacked us a precise description of who his agent was. It took a bit of swordplay before I cleared enough space to be able to identify myself.’ He gave a mirthless laugh. ‘It cost one of them his life.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

  Beorthric reached down and must have picked up a twig from the grass. There was a slight snap as he fiddled with it. ‘It’s something I decided less than an hour ago.’

  ‘You’re speaking in riddles.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘It’s a matter of loyalty.’

  ‘Loyalty to me? Surely not.’ I knew I sounded sarcastic and I meant it.

  He took his time in replying. The twig snapped several more times as Beorthric broke it into smaller and smaller pieces. I sensed that he was about to expose something deep within his feelings. Finally, he spoke, ‘Sigwulf, there comes a time when one has to decide where to place one’s trust.’

  I could not stop myself from remarking, ‘Real trust, I hope, not something arranged through deceit.’

  There was a sudden movement in the darkness as he flung aside the broken twigs angrily. ‘I admit I sold my services, first to Carolus, then to Nikephorus. Afterwards, with both of them, I witnessed too many acts of treachery and double-dealing.’

  ‘You should have thought about that earlier.’ I saw no reason to be sympathetic.

  Beorthric ploughed on, speaking as much to himself as to me. ‘This winter I thought a lot about where my life was headed. It was a bad prospect. Then today you rode back, risking your own life because you believed you had to save me.’

  I said nothing, waiting for him to go on. His next words made matters no clearer. ‘When Kaiam was murdered, his family and clansmen came forward to claim his body and give him a proper burial. They stood by him.’

  At last the truth sank into my muzzy brain. Beorthric had decided to place his trust in me because we shared a distant common ancestry. We were both Saxons. My decision to go back and help him had touched upon what he believed to be an ancient bond between us. Despite my misgivings, I felt more than a twinge of sympathy.

  ‘I had just turned sixteen when I was made an outcast,’ I told him, ‘I was sent into exile by a vindictive warlord as a wineleas guma.’

  There was a low grunt of understanding. Throughout the Saxon world wineleas guma describes a ‘friendless man’.

  ‘But I’ve managed to find a way, thanks to those who became my friends or were willing to assist me, and partly to luck,’ I added. ‘My origins, neither tribe nor clan, had nothing to do with it.’

 
Beorthric’s voice had been starting to go husky with emotion. Now he cleared his throat. ‘Sigwulf, you live by your intelligence. I sell my fighting skills. We are very different. For me the values of the Avars make good sense.’

  Despite my misgivings I could not ignore the sincerity in his words. ‘If our roles had been reversed, and I had been held captive by the Slavs, would you have ridden back to help me?’ I asked.

  ‘Now I would.’

  The statement was so flat and definite that I found myself believing him.

  ‘Then let us leave it there,’ I said warily. ‘We’ll find Arno and hand over the warrior flagon.’

  I was about to settle back down to sleep when it occurred to me to ask, ‘If Nikephorus is paying you to act as his spy, how were you to pass on the information you learned?’

  ‘Nikephorus said that someone would contact me.’

  ‘No idea who that would be?’

  ‘None. Nikephorus stressed that my contact would decide on the value of the information and act.’

  It took a few heartbeats for the meaning of his words to sink in. ‘That sounds very much as if it could lead to another plot. Like the one that removed Kaiam as khagan.’

  Beorthric’s silence told me that he agreed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ROME – MAY AD 800

  Archbishop Arno had installed himself in the Lateran Palace. Compared to Rome’s down-at-heel buildings, Pope Leo’s official residence was in remarkably good condition. A team of masons and stone polishers was putting the finishing touches to a lavish new wing that added a grand banqueting hall, its gable wall faced in alternating bands of russet and white marble. At the opposite end of the palace a labouring gang was unloading bricks from a cart and stacking them ready to hoist up to where a section of the parapet was being refurbished. The square in front of the palace had been re-laid with fresh paving slabs, and the copper sheeting on the sloping roof of St John’s Basilica that loomed in the background had been neatly patched.

  Beorthric and I had left our hired horses at a stable after riding into the city soon after dawn, and walked up the gentle slope of the Caelian Hill intending to meet Archbishop Arno. It was more than a month since we had crossed the Donau and re-entered Carolus’s domain. We had paid a visit to the field headquarters of the new Margrave of the Avarian March and I had spoken to him about Kajd’s wish for a peace treaty. But I had chosen to reveal nothing about the warrior flagon I carried with me. Instinct told me that I should place it directly into Arno’s hands, and I told the margrave that my immediate duty was to report to the archbishop. He was to be found in Rome, I was informed. He had stayed on there after accompanying Pope Leo back from Paderborn, and was still conducting his inquiries into the disgraceful attack on the Holy Father.

  ‘No expense being spared,’ Beorthric commented, watching two gilders, father and son by the look of them, apply gold leaf to the letters in a rubric carved in the marble above the entrance to the new banqueting hall.

  ‘Probably paying the bills with some of the Avar Hoard that Carolus sent,’ I answered. The saddlebag with the warrior flagon was slung over my shoulder. The heat of the spring sunshine had warmed the leather and I could distinctly smell the horse sweat. Tactfully, I had left the stallion and his splendid harness to the new margrave, asking him only for enough money to pay our expenses on the road to Rome.

  The palace was certainly impressive. I counted more than thirty windows in the long brick façade and there were three separate entrances, each with its own portico, through which bustled priests and papal messengers. In their long black gowns, they reminded me of diligent ants entering and leaving their colony. The central doorway appeared to be the main one, so we made our way to where half a dozen armed men were loitering outside. With their tanned complexions and big-boned hands holding short pikes, they looked more like farmers than city-dwellers. They wore no uniform but were identified with black armbands tied around their upper arms. They stopped us from entering and one of them, apparently their leader, as he also wore a black sash, demanded to know who we were, and whom we wished to see.

  ‘Archbishop Arno of Salzburg,’ I replied. ‘My name is Sigwulf, and my companion is Beorthric.’

  ‘Is the archbishop expecting you?’ The question was abrupt.

  ‘If you send a message to the archbishop, he will receive us.’

  ‘Wait here.’

  After a suspicious glance directed at Beorthric, Black Sash despatched one of his men inside.

  ‘Who are that lot?’ Beorthric asked me as we withdrew out of earshot.

  ‘The Pope’s militia. I think they call themselves the Family of Saint Peter. They act as his bodyguards,’ I said.

  ‘If that’s the best the Pope can do, then he doesn’t have much protection.’

  ‘In theory, a man of the Church doesn’t need protection,’ I said.

  The Saxon allowed himself a derisive snort.

  After a few minutes the messenger returned with a young lad dressed in brightly coloured and expensive clothes cut in the latest style. I supposed he was one of the youngsters whose aristocratic Roman families placed them in papal service as the first step on a lucrative and influential career.

  ‘The archbishop says he will receive the man called Sigwulf.’

  Leaving Beorthric to wait outside, I followed the youngster into the building. Passing through a lobby, we turned right and proceeded down a long corridor, the heels of my guide’s smart scarlet shoes rapping on the tiled floor. The passageway was lined with doors, and where they stood open, I caught a glimpse of clerks and scribes at work, bent over their desks. The palace sheltered a vast sprawling bureaucracy of functionaries and office-holders, as well as the members of the Pope’s private household staff.

  We made another right turn, came into an antechamber, and then I was escorted into a large, high-ceilinged room where tall windows gave a view over the city. The furnishings were simple but refined: a crucifix of enamel and silver on an immaculately whitewashed wall, book shelves of dark, fine-grained wood, matching carved chairs with embroidered cushions, and a mosaic floor. The place smelled of beeswax. Seated behind a broad-topped desk very different to the rough campaign table when I had last seen him was Archbishop Arno. Dressed in a fine planeta, the long clerical gown, he looked more of a priest than when I had previously seen him. He had shaved off his beard but his jowls were left shadowed with dark stubble, and with his blunt-fingered hands and barrel chest there was still a strong resemblance to a sturdy bricklayer.

  ‘I didn’t expect to see you again,’ was his curt greeting. He scowled at the lad. ‘Go away, close the door, and make sure we are not disturbed.’

  He waited till we were alone in the room, then turned his bleak gaze on me. ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  I opened the flap of the satchel, produced the Avar warrior flagon, and laid it on the desk in front of him.

  Arno looked at it for several heartbeats, his expression unreadable. Then he picked it up, and held it up to the light so that he could examine the image of the warrior prince more closely.

  Apparently he was satisfied, for he put the flagon back on the table, and – still without expression – announced, ‘If you had brought it to me earlier, it would have been some use.’

  I felt a surge of resentment. The thought that I had endured a miserable winter as Faranak’s serf for so little thanks, made me angry.

  The archbishop looked at me under heavy brows. ‘I’m nearly done with the culprits for the theft. They still deny direct responsibility, but the panel of investigators will find them guilty.’

  He was talking about Campulus and Paschal, the two senior members of the papal hierarchy who had organized the assault on the Pope.

  The archbishop picked up the flagon again and examined the decoration a second time. ‘Still, this may come in useful at a later stage.’

  To my chagrin he did not even ask how I had managed to obtain the warrior flagon and, in my disgruntled mood,
I saw no reason to tell him that it was the twin of the one I had been sent to find. Nor did it seem to matter. Apparently, now the flagon was in his possession, he wanted no discussion on the subject.

  ‘There is something you should know,’ I said, struggling not to let my irritation show. I was being treated like an errand boy.

  ‘And what is that?’ he sounded distracted, almost bored. He had not even asked me to be seated.

  ‘You remember the mercenary soldier you sent with me to Avaria?’

  ‘His name is Beorthric, if I recall correctly.’

  ‘He has been recruited by the Greek envoy to the Avar khagan.’

  ‘I’m sure his loyalty has its price.’ Arno’s attention turned towards a pile of documents lying on the desk beside him. He reached out and picked up the nearest one. He made it clear that he wanted to put an end to our brief meeting.

  ‘Beorthric was instructed to find out why you want that flagon so badly, and then pass that information on to a Byzantine agent here in Rome.’

  That shook him.

  The archbishop’s hand stopped in mid-air. He slowly returned the document to the pile and carefully placed both hands, thick fingers interlaced, on the desk in front of him.