The Pope's Assassin

by Tim Severin

  For a couple of heartbeats, all was still; there was absolute silence through the huge basilica. Then from the immense audience came a great shout: ‘To Carolus, the most pious Augustus, crowned by God, to our great and pacific emperor, life and victory!’

  Three times the crowd repeated the acclamation, and when the cheering died away, I knew why Carolus had come to the basilica wearing purple boots. They were the symbol and privilege of an emperor. The King of the Franks had been crowned as Holy Roman Emperor.

  *

  ‘It was all a sham,’ I commented to Paul later that afternoon after we had got back to his house.

  My friend chuckled. ‘What do you mean, a sham – the coronation of an emperor or the attack on Pope Leo?’

  We were back in the library, the same room where I had first asked him to help investigate the assault on Pope Leo. Beorthric was nowhere to be seen, and I supposed he had gone to his own quarters to lie down and rest.

  ‘Both,’ I said.

  ‘A matter of politics, my friend, but you did give me a bad scare this morning. I really did believe there was a last-minute threat from the Beneventans.’ The former Nomenculator was in a noticeably good mood, relaxed and smiling.

  I pressed on. ‘The allegations against Leo were true: he was diverting money from the Church treasury, selling Church appointments, lining his own pocket in every way he could, and Albinus was helping him.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Paul over his shoulder. He had gone to the wall where he stored his scrolls and was reaching up to the topmost shelf. ‘Nearly everyone who gets to sit on St Peter’s Chair seeks to enrich himself. You saw that when you visited the Church of Saints Stephen and Sylvester. That palazzo was a bonus a pope awarded to his own family.’

  ‘And Campulus and Paschal had also been dipping into Church coffers, even under Pope Adrian beforehand. Am I right?’

  Paul pulled down a couple of scrolls and laid them on the table. He turned to face me. ‘Yes. Campulus and Paschal expected everything to continue as before when Leo became Pope. They still held their senior positions in the Vatican, and for a while the money flowed. Then Albinus took over, and their share gradually dwindled.’

  ‘So they set up that attack on him to frighten Leo into continuing with the arrangement.’

  ‘Again, Sigwulf, you are correct. It was a falling-out amongst thieves.’

  ‘And a chance for Carolus to bring the Pope to heel just like one of his hunting hounds.’

  Paul grinned. ‘Alcuin always said that you were a sharp one. When did you realize?’

  ‘After we found that Avar gold in Albinus’s house, I asked myself why Carolus had sent such a large amount of the Avar Hoard to Rome if the Church was so obviously corrupt. Perhaps someone wanted to see if it was stolen, by whom, and where it went.’

  ‘Quite a leap of the imagination,’ said Paul.

  ‘Not really. A gold vessel decorated with a pagan warrior is an odd choice for a gift to the Christian Church. But it is unique and far easier to trace than gold coins.’

  ‘Indeed, Albinus obliged us by stealing it,’ Paul agreed.

  I drew a deep breath. ‘Which means, my friend, that you were involved in this charade all along, right from the beginning. That was the real sham.’

  A slight smile played around Paul’s lips. ‘Now that we have Carolus crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor for many centuries, I am happy to admit my role.’

  ‘And would I be wrong in thinking that Alcuin was part of the plot too? He recommended me to Archbishop Arno.’

  Paul chuckled. ‘Before you work out the details for yourself and perhaps get them askew, perhaps I should explain.’

  ‘Please go on.’

  ‘It was largely Alcuin’s idea: he had come to the conclusion that the complaints made against Leo were justified. Leo was corrupt and immoral. But to expose him risked doing huge damage to the Church. It would be better to use Leo’s immorality for a higher purpose.’

  ‘Like establishing Carolus as a new Holy Roman Emperor – ruler of the Western world under God.’

  ‘Exactly. Carolus had already sent a good portion of the Avar Hoard to Leo’s predecessor, Pope Adrian, as a gift for the Church. Now Alcuin suggested sending some of the finest pieces like the warrior flagon that Carolus had been keeping for himself. It was bait, knowing that Leo and his cronies were likely to steal it for themselves. If it could then be proved that they were thieves, they could be offered a choice: either be exposed or agree to crown Carolus as emperor.’

  I shook my head in wonder. ‘So when Leo was attacked and fled to Carolus, looking for help, he was putting his head into the lion’s mouth.’

  Paul had gone back to the shelves, carrying a low stool which he set down. ‘It was too good an opportunity to miss,’ he said to me over his shoulder. ‘Alcuin suggested sending you to Rome while Leo was out of the city. He thinks highly of your ability.’

  He hitched up his gown, hopped up onto the stool, and reached to the back of the shelf. ‘When you had identified exactly who was involved, Archbishop Arno would take over.’

  ‘And now that Arno has sent Campulus and Paschal into exile, it means they’ll no longer be able to put their sticky fingers into the papal treasure.’

  ‘Then we have something to celebrate,’ Paul announced. He had found what he wanted to take from the back of the shelf. He turned to face me. In his hand was the elegant gold chalice with the exquisite fluting that we had removed from Albinus’s house. I had forgotten all about it.

  ‘Shouldn’t it be returned to the papal treasury?’ I asked.

  ‘All in good time,’ he answered. ‘This isn’t Avar workmanship. It’s a superb Roman copy of a Greek original. I can make a good case that I bought it from a local dealer here in Rome. One day I’ll donate it to the Church and be thanked for it. Until then I will enjoy it.’

  As he twirled the chalice, admiring it, I was reminded of an unsolved mystery that had led to my captivity amongst the Avars. ‘Do you remember those runic letters on the base of the golden flagon, the maker’s mark? Apparently, they spelled out the word Zoltan. I never found out whether he was still alive.’

  Paul stopped spinning the chalice. ‘Is that what the writing meant? Who told you that?’

  ‘The Khagan of the Avars, Kaiam himself. He read the letters that I had copied down. I had carried them with me into Avaria.’ Into my head came a vivid memory of the khagan seated on his wooden throne and surrounded by his obsequious attendants, as he puzzled over the scrap of paper, and pronounced Zoltan’s name.

  ‘I wonder if he knew what he was talking about,’ said Paul slowly.

  ‘No one questioned him. His courtiers were all too terrified of him. He was a hot-tempered, dangerous tyrant. He ripped up the paper in a rage.’

  Paul sucked in his cheeks. He was deep in thought. ‘Do you remember that Avar gold buckle that the thief Gavino had in his possession, the one he stole from Albinus’s house?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘While you were away on your travels to Avaria, I took it to a dealer in exotic jewellery to see if he could tell me anything more about it. He confirmed that indeed it was Avar workmanship and he told me that the Avar craftsman who made the buckle would have described it as “zolto”. It means yellow, but is also the word used for precious gold.’

  He tapped a finger on the rim of the chalice to emphasize the point he was making. ‘“Zoltan” was not a maker’s mark at all. It was badly written and meant to read “zolto”, an assay mark, if you will, to indicate that it was made of solid gold. No wonder you failed to find the mysterious goldsmith.’

  Dumbfounded, I stared at him, thinking that if this simple fact had been known earlier, perhaps I would have avoided much of my suffering at the hands of Kaiam and his people and several Avars unlucky enough to have the Zoltan name would have survived the khagan’s hunt for traitors.

  Paul was too pleased with himself to note my reaction. The side of his face twitched in a
n enormous wink which could have been deliberate or might have been involuntary.

  ‘With Paschal no longer in charge of the papal secretariat,’ he said, ‘I doubt anyone will bother to trouble me about the return of this villa to papal ownership.’

  I would have voiced my resentment at being constantly manipulated had not Paul forestalled me. ‘I’m thinking about Beorthric,’ he added. ‘Now that we have Leo under control, I’m sure he will agree if Arno suggests that he establishes a proper papal guard. I wouldn’t be surprised if Beorthric isn’t appointed as its first commander. And what will you do, Sigwulf?’

  ‘I’ll report back for duty as a miles with Carolus’s household troops,’ I told him, trying to sound positive. ‘It won’t be long before the king – I mean our new emperor – will be travelling north, back to his own capital. I’ll be glad to be away from all the complications of politics in Rome.’

  Paul’s blotchy face broke into a knowing grin. ‘As you pass through Milan, you should pay a visit to Saint Ambrose’s shrine. He was the one who said, “Si fueris Romae, Romano vivitio more, si feuris alibi, vivito sicut ibi.”’

  It took me a moment to do the translation in my head: ‘When in Rome, do as Romans do, and if you are somewhere else, live as the people do there.’ It left me with a feeling of vague unease. The calculating manner in which Carolus had made himself Emperor of the Western world showed that he and his advisors were capable of cunning, ruthlessness and deception. I had a premonition that this was not the last time they would employ me as an agent of their ambition.

  Historical Note

  The two main events in Sigwulf’s story did take place: on 23 April, AD 799, Pope Leo was viciously attacked and beaten up in a Roman street outside the church of Saints Stephen and Sylvester. The motive and identity of the plotters behind the attack remain obscure, though two high officials of the Church administration, Campulus and Paschal, were later identified as being involved. Following the attack, Pope Leo fled to the court of Charlemagne – or Carolus – the King of the Franks at Paderborn, seeking his help. Charlemagne gave Leo his support and sent him back to Rome with a military escort. He also despatched Arno, the Bishop of Salzburg, with other Frankish churchmen, to conduct an inquiry into the ongoing unrest within the Church in Rome. Eighteen months later, Charlemagne himself arrived in Rome, claiming he was there to put an end to the discord. Soon afterwards, on Christmas Day 800, Pope Leo crowned him as Holy Roman Emperor in St Peter’s Basilica. Historians have long differed as to whether the coronation was a ploy by Pope Leo to show that the emperor owed his position to the Church or it was Charlemagne’s deliberate acquisition of supreme authority.

  Charlemagne did donate part of the Avar Hoard to the Roman Church, though the finer objects in the great ‘Avar Hoard’ captured by Charlemagne’s troops seem to have been melted down for their value as precious metal. A solid gold Avar ‘warrior flagon’ of the period is on display in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The figure depicted on its surface has been dubbed ‘The Triumphant Prince’ or ‘The Horseman from the East’ and shows a horseman in heavy chain mail and helmet which resemble armour from Persia. His face has been described as having a mix of European and Mongol-like features, while the captive he is dragging along by the hair, half running, half walking beside his horse, looks much more European, as does the face of the severed human head attached to the rear of the saddle of the victorious rider.

  The Old Turkic script, which Sigwulf has difficulty in reading on the base of the Avar flagon, was used by the Avars in the eighth century. It is strikingly similar in shape and style to futhark or rune writing of Northern Europe, and is sometimes described as runiform, though most scholars believe that it evolved in central Asia and there is no link between the two alphabets.

  The Avars, a semi-nomadic people, pose one of the great mysteries of central European history. For 250 years, their khaganate, or confederation of tribes, dominated much of the Danube basin. They created no permanent structures and left no written records. Even the precise location of their famous stronghold, the ‘Ring’, with its massive wooden palisade, has not been traced beyond doubt. What little is known about them mostly comes from the archaeological examination of their graves containing their skeletons, horse goods, weapons and simple domestic implements – and from the Byzantine chroniclers who describe their alarming raids across the border and threats to Constantinople. Their khaganate collapsed with astonishing swiftness, probably through internal squabbling though this too has never been fully explained. In a single generation the Avar khaganate vanished so utterly that there is a Russian proverb for complete and sudden oblivion that goes: ‘They perished like the Avars, and left neither progeny nor heir.’

  *

  A note on the title of this book: The word ‘assassin’ was unknown in Europe in the age of Charlemagne. Very likely it entered the language at the time of the Crusades. But it seemed so appropriate for the title of this book of Sigwulf’s adventures that I decided to ignore the anachronism.

  The first book in Tim Severin’s

  thrilling historical adventure series set in Saxon times

  VOLUME ONE

  The Book of Dreams

  A haunting premonition. A deadly betrayal.

  Frankia 780AD: Sigwulf, a minor Saxon prince, is saved from execution after his family is slaughtered by the ruthless King Offa of Mercia. Sigwulf is exiled to the Frankish court of King Carolus, the future Charlemagne.

  He gains the friendship of some – Count Hroudland, Carolus’s powerful and ambitious nephew, but – mysteriously – several attempts are made on Sigwulf’s life. When he obtains a Book of Dreams, a rare text giving understanding to their meaning, he attracts the attention of Carolus himself. But the Book proves to be a slippery guide in a world of treachery and double dealing. Sent into Spain to spy on the Saracens, Sigwulf becomes caught between loyalties; either he honours his debt to new friends among the Saracens, or he serves his patron Count Hroudland in his quest for glory, gold and even the Grail itself . . .

  The second book in Tim Severin’s

  thrilling historical adventure series set in Saxon times

  VOLUME TWO

  The Emperor’s Elephant

  A perilous journey. A treacherous promise.

  Sigwulf, a Saxon prince exiled to the court of Carolus, King of the Franks, is summoned by the royal advisor Alcuin of York. Carolus has received magnificent gifts from the Caliph of Baghdad and is determined to send back presents that will be equally sensational. White is the royal colour of Baghdad so the most important gifts will be rare white animals from the Northlands.

  Having proved himself as a royal agent to Moorish Spain, Sigwulf has been chosen to obtain the creatures. He must find white gyrfalcons and two white polar bears, and – as Carolus has seen its picture in a book of beasts – a unicorn.

  He and his companions travel far into the north. Though they obtain some of the animals, they quickly realize that not all are even real. Setting out for Baghdad with their menagerie, they encounter danger after danger until it seems that someone is trying to wreck their mission – with each stage of the long journey bringing a new and unexpected peril . . .

  SAXON: The Pope’s Assassin

  TIM SEVERIN, explorer, filmmaker and lecturer, has retraced the storied journeys of Saint Brendan the Navigator, Sindbad the Sailor, Jason and the Argonauts, Ulysses, Genghis Khan and Robinson Crusoe. His books about these expeditions are classics of exploration and travel.

  He made his historical-fiction debut with the hugely successful Viking series, followed by the Pirate and Saxon series. This novel returns to the Saxon series, and the world of Sigwulf.

  Visit Tim’s website to find out more about his books and expeditions:

  www.timseverin.net

  Follow Tim on Facebook:

  facebook.com/TimSeverinAuthor

  Also by Tim Severin

  NON-FICTION

  The Brendan Voyage

  The
Sindbad Voyage

  The Jason Voyage

  The Ulysses Voyage

  Crusader

  In Search of Genghis Khan

  The China Voyage

  The Spice Island Voyage

  In Search of Moby Dick

  Seeking Robinson Crusoe

  FICTION

  Viking: Odinn’s Child

  Viking: Sworn Brother

  Viking: King’s Man

  Pirate: Corsair

  Pirate: Buccaneer

  Pirate: Sea Robber

  Pirate: Privateer

  Saxon: The Book of Dreams

  Saxon: The Emperor’s Elephant

  First published 2015 by Macmillan

  This electronic edition published 2016 by Pan Books

  an imprint of Pan Macmillan

  20 New Wharf Road, London N1 3RR

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-4472-6222-0

  Copyright © Tim Severin 2015

  Sword © Valentino Sani / Trevillion Images

  Helmet, and figures on horseback © Stephen

  Mulcahey / Arcangel Images

  The right of Tim Severin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Pan Macmillan does not have any control over, or any responsibility for, any author or third-party websites referred to in or on this book.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.