Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant

by Severin, Tim

  At that moment Ohthere gave an annoyed grunt. He was gazing over my shoulder. ‘What’s that idiot doing!’ he growled.

  Alarmed, I swung round on my heel.

  It was Walo. We had left him standing beside the bear cage and had failed to keep an eye on him. He had unfastened the heavy door to the cage, opened it, and was crawling inside on his hands and knees.

  ‘He’ll get himself killed,’ I blurted, and started forward. But Ohthere’s grip on my wrist stopped me. ‘Don’t rush and don’t shout. It’ll only upset them. We need to get close enough to speak to your man quietly and tell him to back out.’

  He glanced at Redwald. ‘The fewer the better. Best you stay here.’

  Slowly and deliberately Ohthere and I began to walk towards the cage. Walo was fully inside now, crouched on all fours, facing towards the two ice bears. To my dismay I saw that both animals had raised their heads and were staring at him. The gap between them and Walo was no more than four or five feet.

  ‘I suspected he wasn’t quite right in the head,’ Ohthere muttered.

  Walo had turned his back on the bears and was pulling the door shut behind him. I was appalled to see him then put an arm out through the bars and push in place the peg that served as a catch. He was now locked in with them.

  ‘At least they can’t escape, whatever happens,’ Ohthere said quietly.

  Just then there was a low growl close to my right knee. My heart flew into my mouth. One of the scavenger curs had come between us, hackles raised, and with a continuous, rumbling deep in its throat was keeping pace with us.

  Ohthere’s hand shot down. He grabbed the dog by the neck, squeezed fiercely, and the growl suddenly choked off. We halted while Ohthere bent down, placed his other hand around the dog’s throat, tightened his grip and held it until the dog’s frantic thrashing stopped. Calmly he laid its corpse on the ground.

  Meanwhile Walo had made himself comfortable. He was sitting inside the cage with his back against the bars, facing the ice bears. They were still lying on the ground, but were fully alert, heads up, their black eyes fixed on the intruder.

  I was about to creep forward but Ohthere warned quietly, ‘Better keep our distance.’

  Walo had pulled something from his pocket, and was holding it to his lips. A moment later I heard the same four notes he had played in the farmyard back in Frankia, softly repeated.

  First one bear, then the other, rose slowly to its feet. But they did not approach him.

  Unperturbed, Walo kept playing. I was aware that beside me Ohthere had turned and gestured urgently at Redwald to stay back.

  After a little while Walo put the whistle back in his pocket. Then he began to crawl on all fours towards the two bears, sliding the trenchers across the ground in front of him.

  When he was very close, well within reach of the slashing claws, he halted. He crouched even lower, his face almost on the earth, and stretching out his arms, pushed the two trenchers sideways, away from one another.

  ‘He’s making sure the bears don’t quarrel over their food,’ said Ohthere, barely whispering.

  Walo straightened up, sat back on his heels and waited. For several moments nothing happened. Then both ice bears padded forward a step or two, lowered their muzzles and sniffed the offering. Another pause, and finally both bears began to feed on the blubber.

  I breathed a sigh of relief, expecting Walo to leave the cage. Instead, to my astonishment, he crawled even further forward until he was right between the animals, then he turned and sat cross-legged. Out came his deerhorn pipe and he started playing his simple melody again. On either side of him, the two young bears gulped down their food.

  Redwald tentatively came forward to join us and I overheard Ohthere make a comment to Redwald. He spoke in hushed tones, and it took me a moment to understand him. The word he used for a bear was one that I had not heard since I was a lad. My own Saxon people consider the bear to be a creature with mystical powers, so they often refer to it with respect and indirectly, not as a bear, but as a beowulf. Now Redwald had used the same word, saying that if he had not seen it with his own eyes, he would never have believed that anyone could tame the beowulf. The hairs on the back of my neck rose in prickles: beowulf means ‘bee wolf’.

  In front of me was my dream in Aachen – Walo seated between wolves and covered with swarming bees. According to Artimedorus, if bees appeared in a dream with a farmer, they foretold the successful outcome of an endeavour. For all others, it was an omen of death.

  From a safe distance we watched until the bears had eaten their fill. Only after they had curled up and fallen into a contented sleep did Walo cease playing his pipe. Then he unfastened the cage door and crawled out to rejoin us. He seemed completely unconcerned, as if nothing unusual had happened.

  ‘I’d like to hire him to look after the bears. What’s his name?’ Ohthere said to me.

  ‘Walo. His father was King Carolus’s chief verderer.’

  Redwald gave me a warning look, making it clear that I was to hold my tongue. Addressing Ohthere, he said, ‘Walo is not for hire. Sigwulf has already offered to buy your two bears. But they will surely die if Walo does not feed them. In which case, the best price you will get for them is the value of their pelts.’

  I kept my expression neutral. By now I knew Redwald well enough to recognize when the Frisian was about to drive a bargain.

  ‘Ohthere, I suggest we make a deal,’ Redwald continued. ‘Walo stays on with you, looking after the bears until it’s time for me to take my ship back to Dorestad. In return you will receive a payment midway between the bears’ value alive and the price you would get for their skins.’

  Ohthere considered for a long moment. ‘On one condition – if the bears die before it is time for shipment, then it is Walo’s fault, and I still get my money.’

  ‘Agreed!’ said Redwald. Turning to me, he said briskly, ‘This is a good moment to sort out with Gorm how we obtain the additional white gyrfalcon he says he can supply.’

  Leaving Osric to explain to Walo his new duties, Redwald and I went across the road to where Gorm and his son were watching over the line of birds of prey standing on their blocks.

  ‘I have a reliable supplier who specializes in gyrfalcons,’ Gorm told us. ‘He usually brings at least one white gyrfalcon for the Kaupang market, but this year he is delayed. I don’t know the reason, and I can’t spare someone to go to find out, or bring back the birds he has caught.’

  ‘What about sending your son?’ suggested Redwald.

  The bird dealer stooped and picked up the half-eaten body of a mouse where it had fallen on the ground beside a perch block. He held it out towards one of the merlins. The fierce beak snapped the bloody morsel from his fingers. ‘Rolf’s too young. The trapper won’t trust valuable birds to a boy.’

  ‘How far away does this trapper live?’ I asked.

  Gorm scratched his chin. ‘His name’s Ingvar and he’s probably still in the high country where he does his trapping. That’s a three-day ride from here.’

  Gorm’s skinny son was shifting anxiously from foot to foot. I caught his eye, and saw how eager he was to prove himself.

  ‘If this Ingvar really does have a white gyrfalcon, I’m willing to accompany your son and fetch it,’ I said.

  I must have sounded too keen because Redwald immediately put in, ‘You’ll have to lower the bird’s price if Sigwulf goes to such trouble.’

  Fortunately, Gorm accepted Redwald’s argument and after only a small amount of haggling it was agreed that Gorm’s son and I would ride to seek out the elusive trapper and bring back any birds he had caught. Osric had come across to join me and, stepping aside for a moment to confer, we quickly came to the conclusion that it was best if he stayed aboard ship to safeguard our silver hoard while I was away. In the meantime Ohthere could take in Walo so the lad could tend the ice bears. That would leave Redwald free to get on with his business in the market.

  ‘The sooner we start out, th
e better,’ I called out, turning back to Gorm, and almost immediately regretted my enthusiasm when young Rolf went off at a run, and within minutes reappeared dragging our mounts by their rope bridles. They were two of the small shaggy breed that we had seen pulling a sledge up from the landing beach. There were no stirrups and once seated in the plain leather saddle, my dangling feet nearly touched the ground. I wondered if the diminutive animals were capable of carrying us far inland.

  *

  I had misjudged them. They set off at a scampering gait – half trot, half run – that was ideally suited to the difficult terrain. Rolf led the way confidently and I had only to let my little mount follow him at the same jolting pace as it dodged and weaved around the bushes and boulders along a trail no wider than a footpath. Our route was directly away from the sea and our progress was impressive, though at times I felt my spine was being rattled out of shape. For the first few miles the land was level, a mixture of sour bogland with stands of willow and alder, and tussocky rough pasture. We saw scarcely a dozen houses – basic cabins with log walls, a turf roof, a shed or two, and a small fenced enclosure for sheep or scrawny cattle. We spent our first night at the furthest of them where the landholder’s wife recognized Rolf. She gave us a place to sleep in the hay shed, and provided a meal of hard cheese, bread and milk, together with a satchel of the same provisions for our onward journey. Her husband was away at Kaupang market, she said.

  The next morning the track veered more to the north-west and began to climb, gradually at first, then more and more steeply, winding its way up the ragged flank of a mountain range. Our ponies scrambled up the slopes with the agility of goats, their unshod hooves finding footing on the loose surface of stones and gravel. We left behind the bright sunshine of the coast and before long the grey of an overcast sky matched the sombre colours of the landscape. We were climbing into a wide, bleak landscape of rock and scree where stunted plants clung to tiny patches of thin soil. Ahead of us always loomed the mountains, the very highest peaks streaked with the last traces of the winter snow. Occasionally we crossed rivulets where ribbons of clear water trickled between the rounded stones, and we stopped and allowed our ponies to drink. I saw little wildlife apart from flocks of small, darting birds and several ravens, hovering like black rags in the breeze. Once, less than fifty paces away, I glimpsed a fox slinking away behind a boulder. Rolf spoke hardly at all, either from shyness or because he found my Saxon difficult to understand, even though it was close enough to his own tongue for us to agree on practical details. He never hesitated in our direction and appeared to know his way even when the last vestiges of a track petered out and we were riding across a rock-strewn wilderness.

  We passed the second night of our ride in a lonely hut built entirely of stones ingeniously laid one upon the other in a single spiral course so that it made a cone shape and did not need a roof. The hut, if I understood Rolf correctly, belonged to the bird trapper we were seeking. It was empty except for some mouldering deerskins in one corner, a wooden stool with a broken leg, and the charred remains of a fire beneath the blackened smoke hole. Rolf had brought two small bags of oats for our horses and, once they had fed, staked them out on a rope long enough to let them pick and nibble at the mosses and tiny plants that grew among the rocks. Our own supper was the last of the cheese and bread.

  The following morning was distinctly chilly and I was glad to get a fire going, using dried wood that I found stacked behind the hut. I was painfully saddle sore, the inside of my knees bruised and my buttocks tender. So I was glad when Rolf announced, ‘Today, Ingvar.’

  We rode on, the landscape growing ever more barren until, shortly after midday, we were entering a high valley sheltered on both sides by mountain ridges. Another stone hut similar to the first one stood close beside a small stream, and this time it was in use. Two small horses, penned into a small enclosure, whinnied a greeting as we approached and I saw clothes draped to dry over a low rock wall. But there was no sign of Ingvar himself.

  A hanging length of sacking closed the entry to the hut, and after we had tethered our ponies I followed Rolf inside, bending double under the single large flat lintel stone. There were no windows, and barely enough light to see by. The place smelled of wood smoke and soot. It was clean and sparsely furnished – a single stool, a couple of sheepskins pushed against one wall to serve as a bed, some bags hung on pegs, and a large black iron pot on a tripod. The pot contained three inches of cold, congealed stew. A length of fishing net lay on the bare earth floor just inside the doorway. The mesh was small, only suitable for catching sprats. I was puzzled why anyone would need fishing net in the mountains. The little streams we had passed were too shallow and stony to net for fish and we were very far from the sea.

  ‘Where do you think Ingvar’s got to?’ I asked the boy.

  He rolled his eyes expressively and shrugged.

  ‘Maybe we should go looking for him,’ I suggested.

  He shook his head. ‘We wait.’

  I left the hut to look around for clues as to what might have happened to the mysterious bird catcher. Not far away was another shelter scarcely larger than a pigsty, with side walls of rock and a flimsy roof made by scraps of worn canvas thrown over some branches.

  I crouched down and peered into the small entrance. There was a rustling of feathers. I thrust my head further inside and when my eyes had got used to the near-darkness I saw a pole rigged across the width of the shack. Attached to the pole by a leather strap around its foot was a huge bird: dark, hunched and motionless. It was a mountain eagle, far larger than a gyrfalcon. I was both impressed and disappointed. An eagle was not what I had come to find, but to have captured such a magnificent bird of prey was an achievement. I heard rustling again. It came from the ground on my right, from what looked like a chicken coop made of wooden slats. Unable to restrain my curiosity I reached in and dragged the coop out into the light where I could see it better. Inside were a score of very ordinary pigeons. I sat back on my heels, baffled. It made no sense that someone should take the trouble to go deep into the mountains to trap pigeons that could be caught much more easily near any farm.

  Rolf was calling to me, and I returned to find that he had taken down one of the hanging bags and found stale bread and tear-shaped chunks of smoked meat, dark with a reddish purple tinge. We were very hungry so while the ponies drank at the little stream, we sat down on nearby rocks and began to eat. The meat, though a little tough, was delicious. It was with the third or fourth bite that I realized that the chunks, the size of a plum, were the smoked breasts of a small bird. Rolf did not know the bird’s name, only that it lived beside the sea. Like the fishing net, it was another Ingvar mystery.

  The man himself appeared some hours later as the sun was dropping behind the mountains. Rolf spotted him first, a distant figure making his way down the slope of the mountain ridge, a small sack in his hand. As Ingvar reached the level ground and came walking towards us, I was overwhelmed by the eerie sensation that I was about to encounter someone I had met before. It was akin to the moment when I understood my dream of Walo and two wolves. But this time I was seeing a double: Vulfard, Walo’s father, had returned from the bottom of the aurochs’ pitfall, alive and unharmed. He and the bird trapper were uncannily similar in height and build and manner. Both were tough and wiry and had the same quick, light step, holding them very straight. Ingvar’s complexion was perhaps a little darker, but he had the same alert, foxy expression that I had seen on Vulfard’s face. I found myself looking for a cap with a feather, just like Vulfard’s, but Ingvar was bareheaded. Only when Ingvar was right in front of me did I see that where Vulfard’s eyes had been light brown flecked with yellow, Ingvar’s were a dark brown and they slanted above much higher cheekbones in the same narrow face. Something that Redwald had said to me earlier as we walked through the crowds in Kaupang’s market place told me that these facial features were signs that one of Ingvar’s parents was a native Finna.

  ‘You
are welcome,’ he said in a clear, sharp voice. I was relieved to hear that his speech was easy to understand.

  ‘Gorm suggested that we come to find you. He missed you at Kaupang’s market,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll come to Kaupang as soon as I’m ready,’ the trapper answered.

  ‘Do you know when that will be?’

  ‘Maybe this week,’ he answered. The sack he was still holding moved slightly. Something alive was inside. ‘After I have washed, we will eat, then talk.’ Without another word he turned and walked away towards the shed where I had seen the captive eagle.

  A little while later as the light was fading, Ingvar brought out the iron pot and the tripod from his hut, lit a fire, and reheated the stew. He added onions from a bag, some herbs, and a dozen more of dried breasts of the unidentified little bird.

  ‘Rolf tells me that this is from a sea bird,’ I commented. The hot meat was even more succulent than it had been when cold.

  ‘I don’t know its name in your language. We call it a lundi. In flight it flutters its wings like a bat and, in summer, the beak is striped like a rainbow.’

  He sounded like Ohthere with his liking for whale blubber, and I tried to recall if this bizarre-sounding bird had been pictured in Carolus’s bestiary. But I could not remember seeing it there.

  Ingvar leaned forward and stirred the stew with a stick. ‘In the nesting season I travel to the coast and net the birds in the cliffs. Their flesh keeps well, is nourishing and light to carry, and is ideal for when I am in the mountains.’

  ‘Is that why you have a fishing net?’ I asked.

  ‘That net is for a different purpose.’

  ‘Gorm told me that you can supply him with white gyrfalcons.’

  The trapper studied my face, his expression serious. ‘Is that why you have taken the trouble to find me in the mountains?’