by Severin, Tim
‘And pay you handsomely?’ I suggested.
‘Of course. I’m a Frisian. I never miss a chance to turn a profit.’
‘Yet you don’t seem to have sold many of the quern stones.’
He waved dismissively. ‘They have their uses. Everyone knows that Redwald brings a cargo of wine to Kaupang each year as well as quern stones. So when they see the display, they know there’s a decent drink nearby. It avoids open competition with the other taverns.’
‘Is Walo with Osric on your ship?’
‘You’ll find both of them next door. I’ve rented half that building.’
It was one of the long boat-shaped structures with a turf roof and, when I entered, I found that wooden partitions divided the interior into a line of rooms, each with its own door, all firmly closed. The first one I looked into contained an array of barrels and crates. I recognized the wine that had been Redwald’s cargo. The next was a drinking den, with several rough-looking customers seated on benches with their cups and tankards. They gave me a less-than-welcoming reception as I peered in. I closed the door hastily and went to investigate the next room that proved to be much smaller, with a single table and a couple of stools. Walo and Osric were bent over the table, sorting through a pile of fresh plant leaves.
‘Walo, I’ve seen the ice bears. You’re doing a splendid job,’ I congratulated him.
Walo bobbed his head and grinned happily.
‘How did you get on with the trapper?’ Osric asked.
I told him about the two white gyrfalcons and described the sliver of unicorn’s horn that decorated Ingvar’s knife.
‘I’ve got something to show you,’ said Osric. He glanced at Walo. ‘Can you find somewhere to put these leaves so they dry in the sun?’
‘What are those?’ I asked my friend as Walo carefully gathered up the leaves.
‘Black horehound is your Saxon name for the plant. Chewing the leaves staves off sea sickness.’
I waited until Walo had left the room and was about to ask Osric why he had left our silver unguarded, when my friend forestalled me.
‘Hear me out, Sigwulf,’ he said flatly. ‘The silver’s in safe keeping . . . what’s left of it. The only times I’ve been off the ship were when I knew Redwald was safely in town, and it’s just as well that I came ashore.’
He held my gaze, his dark eyes troubled. ‘I had a chance to talk with one of those Khazar slave traders while you’ve been away.’
‘Is there something wrong?’
‘There could be.’ Osric lowered his voice. ‘The Byzantines won’t be pleased when they learn about our mission to Baghdad. The Khazar confirmed that the basileus in Constantinople is at war with the caliph. It’s an all-out conflict, Christian against Saracen.’
I recalled that the caliph styled himself Commander of the Faithful. ‘Do you think they will try to disrupt our mission?’
‘The basileus would prefer Carolus to despatch troops to help him fight his battles, not send exotic animals as presents to the foe.’
‘Maybe Constantinople won’t find out what we are about,’ I said.
My friend shook his head. ‘Not a chance. The Greeks place their spies everywhere. No one pays more for gathering intelligence on their neighbours. I wouldn’t be surprised if they allowed the Khazars to travel to Kaupang on condition that they brought back information for them.’
‘But the slave traders don’t know why we’ve come to Kaupang.’
‘I’m afraid they do. I as good as told them.’
I was shocked. Osric and I had agreed to keep our mission a secret. We would explain our presence in Kaupang only to those who, like Ohthere and Gorm, could supply white animals. By being discreet, we should avoid coming to the attention of King Offa who was sure to have his informers at the market. I opened my mouth to ask Osric why he had been so reckless, when he held up a hand and cut me short. ‘I think you will agree it was worthwhile.’
My friend reached under the table and brought out a long, thin package wrapped in heavy purple velvet cloth and secured with a cord of crimson silk. ‘I mentioned to the Saracen that I had originally studied to be a doctor. He said he had acquired an item likely to be of great interest to a medical man.’
‘Sounds as though he was trying to sell you something.’
‘He was, and I was sufficiently intrigued to ask him to show me what he was talking about.’
I waited for Osric to continue. His slim brown fingers were untying the knots in the silk cord. Slipping off the binding, he set the package on the table and gently unrolled the square of velvet to display what it contained.
A complete unicorn horn.
I felt something tighten in my chest, and for several moments was lost for words. The horn was exactly as depicted on the brow of the unicorn in Carolus’s bestiary. Two inches thick at the base, it was the length of my outstretched arm and tapered to a fine point, the twisting spiral impossible to mistake.
My hand shook as I reached forward and picked it up. It was a little lighter than I would have expected, and the same faded yellowish-creamy colour as on the haft of Ingvar’s knife.
‘Where did the slaver get it?’ I asked, my voice husky with shock. The material felt more like ivory than horn.
‘He wouldn’t tell me directly, only that it was in trade. I suspect that he was lying. Slavers will raid remote villages to grab their victims, and they take the chance to pillage the settlements. I think this is plunder.’
I ran my fingers along the length of the horn, feeling the twist of the spiral glide beneath my touch. ‘Why would it be of value to a doctor?’
‘Items of great rarity are often considered to have medical value. For example, pearls are ground to powder and taken with a herbal infusion as a treatment for convulsions.’
‘Did the Khazar know that it is a unicorn’s horn?’
‘He wasn’t sure what it was. Only that it was something very unusual.’
I passed the horn back to my friend. ‘What did you tell him it was worth?’
‘I tried to avoid giving a value, but then he said he was thinking of offering it to one of Kaupang’s dealers in precious stones and jewellery.’
‘So you bought it.’
My friend treated me to one of his thin-lipped smiles. ‘It was expensive – twelve hundred silver denarii.’
‘The cost is not important,’ I assured him. ‘It would have been a disaster if we had lost the horn. Besides, by the time Redwald has finished haggling with Ohthere and Gorm over the price of the bears and the falcons, he’ll have saved us at least that much.’
‘The Khazar insisted on being paid at once,’ Osric explained. ‘I had to use our coins from the Aachen mint. That’s how the slaver worked out that we must be agents for Carolus himself. He as much as told me so.’
He began to roll the horn back inside the velvet cover. ‘The Khazars know we’ve purchased white bears, and are buying up any white gyrfalcons that are for sale. They’ll be wondering what Carolus wants these animals for. If they also know that white is the imperial colour in Baghdad, they’ll be stupid not to have made the connection between Carolus and the caliph.’
I was so elated at having proof of the unicorn’s existence that only now I thought to ask Osric what he had meant when he said the unused portion of our silver hoard was in safe keeping.
‘I handed the last few coin bags over to Redwald,’ he answered calmly. ‘He’s put them in that secret cubby hole aboard his ship.’
I stared at him. ‘Was that wise?’
Osric was unperturbed. ‘Ohthere was pressing to be paid for the ice bears, and by the time he had a down payment and the Khazar got his coin, less than a third remains.’
A faint shadow of doubt clouded my satisfaction. I wondered if we were putting too much trust in the shipmaster. Even a third of Carolus’s original funds was a temptation for someone sufficiently unscrupulous.
*
Freed of the necessity to mount guard over our silv
er hoard, Osric and I redoubled our efforts to obtain clues as to where the unicorn itself might be found. We could not interrogate the Khazars because they packed up and left Kaupang abruptly, less than a day after selling the unicorn horn to Osric. So instead we split up and worked the market, asking traders and their customers, sailors down by the landing place; anyone who looked as though they might provide us with information. We were met with blank looks, humorous and sometimes ribald inventions and – as often as not – outright laughter. If we had picked up the slightest hint about where the unicorn lived we would have travelled there immediately, but with each passing day there were fewer people to answer our questions. Midsummer’s day was the highpoint of Kaupang’s annual market and soon afterwards a number of traders began shutting up shop and heading home. The fine weather also left us. Mornings that dawned full of bright sunny promise turned into afternoons when masses of close-packed clouds sailed overhead and a chill west wind rattled the canvas covers on the remaining stalls. The gusts brought sudden, heavy showers. When it rained, Walo usually stayed with his ice bears, and Osric and I would take shelter in the building where Redwald had rented rooms.
It was on such an afternoon that I decided not to wait to be drenched by a downpour from a bank of smoke-coloured clouds moving in rapidly from the sea. Already there were rumbles of distant thunder, and a curtain of heavy rain trailed below the storm’s underbelly. Hurrying my steps, I reached the building ahead of Osric. The drinking den was crowded and several of the clients smelled of wet manure, so I made my way to the smaller room where Osric and Walo had checked their horehound leaves. I stood by the small window, looking out and waiting for my friend. The light dimmed as the storm swept in, and the rain began to come down in a solid cascade, splashing up from great puddles in the rough ground behind the building. I jumped as a flash of lightning lit the sky at no great distance, rapidly followed by an enormous crash of thunder. I came to the conclusion that Osric had got out of the downpour elsewhere so was surprised to hear the door of the little room open behind me. I turned to greet him, but the two men who entered were strangers.
‘Shouldn’t last long,’ I commented cheerfully. I tried to recall where I had seen them before. They were both thickset, rather jowly men dressed in plain, unremarkable clothes. The shoulders of their jackets were only speckled with raindrops so they must have ducked in to shelter just before the cloudburst. The taller one had a heavy, rather stupid-looking face that emphasized his hulking menace. His colleague was even less attractive, with a bull neck and deep-set black eyes that looked as if they had been poked in his pudding-like head with the point of a charred stick.
Neither man responded directly to my greeting. They edged further into the little room, then the taller one closed the door behind him, leaned against it, and folded his arms.
‘Odd-eyes aren’t welcome in this town,’ said Pudding Head nastily. Another crash of thunder drowned the rest of his words.
‘What do you mean by that?’ I asked. It was a feeble response as I tried to work out why the men wanted to pick a quarrel.
Pudding Head moved closer. ‘A seidrmann brings bad luck.’
‘I may have odd eyes, as you call them, but I’m no seidrmann.’
He laughed coarsely. ‘Then why do you keep company with a cripple who looks as if he came from Niflheim and a moonstruck idiot servant?’
Niflheim was the home of the dead. Osric’s dark skin must have seemed outlandish to these yokels.
‘I’m not a magician,’ I repeated, a tight knot of fear gathering in my stomach. Belatedly I recognized the two men. They were the same pair of guards that I had seen from time to time outside the jewellery shop. The jeweller himself had closed up and departed from Kaupang a week earlier so I wondered who now employed them or whether the two men were acting on their own. I could only suppose that they were planning to rob me. I looked for a means of escape. The window behind me was too small, and the ruffian at the door was too burly.
The heart of the thunderstorm was now right over Kaupang. Outside, the torrential rain fell in a steady roar. Peal after peal of thunder shook the building. The air suddenly felt chilly, though that was not what made me shiver. Pudding Face pulled out a knife. The two men were not here to frighten me or even to beat me up. They intended to kill me.
I had long since returned to Redwald the sailor’s knife he had loaned me, and now my only weapon was the knife I used for cutting up food, a blade just four inches long. I pulled it from my belt as I backed away towards the window and saw the look of disdain in the hard, black eyes of my attacker.
I had fought in pitched battles, on foot and on horseback, and with sword and shield. But being trapped in a small room by a pair of cut-throat killers was outside my experience.
Pudding Head was circling to my left, my exposed side, his knife held low in front of him. He jabbed it towards me menacingly. I jumped back out of range, then realized that he was intent on driving me round the little room in a circle, until my back was to his colleague Stupid Face. There I would be clasped in those thick arms and held while his companion put the blade into a fatal spot.
I backed away further, felt the edge of a stool against my knee, and – not taking my eyes off the knife man – picked it up to use as a shield. Pudding Head took a half-pace forward, his expression cold and calculating.
I bellowed for help, shouting at the top of my lungs. With sudden desperation I knew there was little hope of being heard over the crash of thunder and the drumming of the rain and, even if I was, my cries might well be mistaken for a noisy brawl in the nearby drinking den.
Nevertheless, I kept yelling and yelling, thrusting the stool at Pudding Head’s head making him step back.
He waited his moment, then suddenly reached out with his free hand and grabbed the stool, and used it to propel himself forward. I tried to dodge his knife, but he was too quick. I felt a sharp burning sensation as the blade cut me, on my right side, sliding off a rib.
I yelped from fear and pain. He had not let go of the stool, and for a moment we wrestled together, each trying to tug the stool from the other. My initial surge of energy was ebbing rapidly. I would either drop the stool or be forced backward within range of Stupid Face guarding the door.
I shouted again for help, and the cry had scarcely left my throat when there was a great splintering and smashing of wood. The man with his back against the door was propelled head first into the room as someone shoulder-charged the door from the passageway outside, carrying away its hinges.
Ohthere. He burst in, carrying the same heavy stick that he had used to fend off the dogs from the bear cage. He wielded it as a cudgel. Before Stupid Face could recover his balance, Ohthere drove the blunt end of the stick hard into his stomach. The man doubled up with a grunt. Ohthere then stepped across to where I was fending off Pudding Head and brought his stick down with a resounding crack on the hand that held the knife. I made the mistake of letting go the stool, and Pudding Face had the wit to swing it at Ohthere, who failed to duck in time. The edge of the stool caught him on the side of his head and he staggered back. Taking advantage of the moment, both attackers turned and bolted for the door.
I was too exhausted to do more than take jagged gasps of breath and press my hand against my wounded side, feeling blood.
‘How badly are you hurt?’ asked Ohthere.
‘Nothing fatal,’ I managed to answer. Then, dizzy and in shock, I staggered to the stool that lay on the floor, righted it, and sat down. ‘Who were they? They were trying to kill me . . .’
Ohthere was rubbing the side of his head. ‘I’ve no idea. But they’ll have made themselves scarce by now.’
‘Should we report the incident?’
‘There’s no one to report to. The only law in Kaupang is the one you take into your own hands. If you can track them down, you could take revenge. But if they are the jarl’s men, it’s a waste of time. They’ll have his protection.’
I noticed that Ohther
e’s clothes were soaking wet. ‘It was lucky you came by, despite the rain. Otherwise I’d have been done for.’
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘A little damp won’t stop me from calling on Redwald to arrange the final payment for the bears. I heard shouts and recognized your voice.’
‘I got a good look at the two men. Perhaps Redwald knows where to track them down,’ I said.
I got up from the stool and hobbled out of the building, leaning on Ohthere’s arm. The rainstorm had eased as rapidly as it had started. The last few raindrops were flicking down, and the ground outside was muddy slop. Just before we reached the door to Redwald’s office, I turned to Ohthere. ‘Could you find Osric for me? He’s good at dealing with wounds.’
‘Of course. I left him at my place, with Walo.’
While Ohthere squelched off, I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts: Northmen rarely killed those whom they believed to have magical powers. They feared retribution from the Otherworld. If there was a different motive for the attack, someone must have known that I was by myself, sheltering from the rainstorm. Immediately Redwald sprang to mind. The shipmaster, I recalled, had identified to me the same two brutes when they were on guard outside the jeweller’s shop. Redwald’s office was just a few steps away. He could have spoken with the two would-be assassins in the adjacent drinking den to tell them that the moment was right. Redwald already had his hands on what remained of our silver hoard aboard his ship. If he killed me, all that would remain would be to dispose of Osric, perhaps on the voyage back to Dorestad. With us out of the way Redwald could also claim his commission from Carolus’s mews master for bringing back the gyrfalcons, and probably get a reward for obtaining the ice bears as well.
I limped into the shipmaster’s office, alert to his reaction when he saw that I was alive.
Redwald was seated alone at his changing table, leaning forward and concentrating, and he ignored my arrival. He was placing matching weights into the two pans of his moneyer’s weighing scales to check the balance. When he looked up and saw blood on my shirt, he made a sucking sound through his teeth.
