Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant

by Severin, Tim

  ‘What happened to you?’ he asked as I sank down on a bench facing him.

  I told him of the unprovoked assault and described the two men. ‘I think they were previously guards for the dealer in precious stones, the man who had his premises a little way along the street.’

  I watched him closely for signs of guilt but he only tugged at an earlobe as he considered his reply. ‘You could well be right.’

  ‘Do you know anything about the dealer?’

  He sat back with a sour smile. ‘I make it a policy to stay clear of him. His line is in gems and fine ornaments. If he thought I was infringing on his trade by doing more than changing money and handling broken silver, he would try to put me out of business.’

  ‘Would he set his men on me because I’m with you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Only a madman would carry a commercial rivalry that far.’

  ‘Surely you don’t believe they tried to kill me because they thought I practise black magic!’

  ‘No, though it’s common knowledge that Ingvar caught two gyrfalcons in the same trap when you were with him. Everyone says that’s not natural.’ He paused and gave me a look of shrewd calculation. ‘What about King Offa? You told me that he had a grudge against you.’

  ‘How would he have found out that I’m in Kaupang?’ I said.

  ‘Of course he has his agents here, though I wouldn’t know who they are, or want to,’ Redwald answered. ‘I don’t pry into King Offa’s affairs. My trade with Mercia is too valuable . . .’ His voice tailed away, and a heavy silence hung in the air between us. ‘There’s a coincidence, though. If your identification is correct, one of the attackers came to see me last week. He wanted money changed.’

  Redwald reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small soft leather pouch. ‘Northmen trust gold coins even less than silver ones. They get rid of them as quickly as possible.’

  He untied the little pouch and shook the contents on the table, a mix of half a dozen gold coins of varying thickness, shape and size.

  He picked up one of the coins and handed it to me. ‘Take a look.’

  The coin was the size of my thumbnail. It was recently minted so the markings were clear. I recognized the wavy lines of Saracen writing.

  ‘That was one of the coins that your mysterious attacker – if we have the right man – wanted me to change into silver,’ Redwald said.

  I turned the coin slowly in my fingers. ‘Advance payment for a murder?’

  ‘Possibly. Equally, it might have been his gambling winnings or part of his legitimate wages from the jeweller, though the latter would have been very generous.’

  Unwisely I took a deep breath and winced as I felt the stab of pain from my wound. ‘I’ll get Osric to translate the writing after he’s bandaged the gash in my side. If we know where the coin comes from, that might tell us who was behind the attack.’

  ‘You don’t have to ask Osric. Turn the coin over and read what it says,’ said Redwald.

  I did so. Among the Saracen symbols was an inscription in Roman letters: ‘Offa Rex’.

  ‘This is Offa’s coinage?’ I said, puzzled. ‘Why the Saracen writing?’

  Redwald leaned back on his chair and I recognized the look that he had on his face when he was about to impart one of the secrets of his trade. ‘A couple of years ago, Offa decided to issue a coin in gold, not his usual silver. He wanted to expand Mercia’s trade with Hispania. Having a coin that the Saracen recognized would make payments easier. So his mint master took his mould from a genuine Saracen coin, a gold dinar, and changed a single detail – inserting Offa’s name.’

  ‘So those cut-throats were Offa’s hirelings.’ The thought that Offa had not forgotten my existence and was prepared to have me killed made my stomach twist.

  ‘Not so fast,’ warned Redwald. He slid a second gold coin across the table towards me. ‘This was another coin your knife-wielding friend wanted me to change for silver.’

  This coin bore a cross on one side, and two stylized heads on the other. Both wore crowns, one with long pendants hanging almost to the shoulders. I looked up at Redwald questioningly. ‘Where does this one come from?’

  ‘Constantinople. That’s a Byzantine solidus.’ Redwald raised an eyebrow. ‘The figure on the left is the young Basileus Constantine.’

  ‘And the one with the dangling decorations?’

  ‘His mother, Irene. She acts as regent. Can you think of any reason why someone in Constantinople wants you done away with?’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘Just in case they try again, I think we should bring forward the date of our departure from Kaupang. I seem to remember that I gave my word to deliver you and your friends safely back to Dorestad . . . and that’s when I’ll be paid my bonus.’

  At that moment Osric limped into the room. He made me stand up and peel off my tunic so that he could examine the wound. As he cleaned the gash with a rag soaked in rainwater, I reflected to myself that either Redwald was innocent of my attempted murder or he was a most ingenious liar. He had provided me with two suspects. The first was King Offa whose agents had hired the killers to rid their master of a longstanding nuisance. The second was the basileus in Constantinople. As Osric had pointed out, the Emperor of the Greeks had reason to wreck Carolus’s mission to the caliph.

  I racked my brains trying to understand how the Greeks could have known why Carolus had sent me to Kaupang. The Khazars could not yet have carried back their report to Constantinople. Then I recalled Osric’s other warning: the Greeks have their spies everywhere. Their sources at Carolus’s court could have alerted the basileus even before Osric and I left Aachen.

  *

  Redwald lost no time in preparing for us to leave Kaupang. He sold off the rest of his wine cheaply and arranged for the remaining quern stones to be left with a local factor. On the morning before the cog was due to set sail, I went with Walo to fetch the three white gyrfalcons and the eagle. They had been left in the care of Gorm, and the bird dealer’s son had already picked the stitches from the eyelids of the more recently captured birds so that they could see, and had been gentling them so that they were easy to handle.

  Gorm himself helped us carry the birds down to the cog where she lay against the jetty. Climbing down into the ship’s hold, we found two of Redwald’s sailors slinging a long wooden bar by ropes from the deck beams. It was a travelling perch.

  While Gorm and I looked on, Walo wrapped sacking around the wooden bar so that the falcons’ talons could get a firm grip.

  ‘Here, you can’t do that!’ shouted one of the sailors. Walo had picked up a length of light rope, and was hacking it into short lengths with the knife he used for cutting up the ice bears’ food.

  ‘Let him be,’ said Gorm sharply. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’

  Walo had begun rigging the lengths of cord so that they dangled beside the perch.

  ‘What are those for?’ I asked the bird dealer.

  ‘So the birds can reach out and get a grip on the cords with their beaks when the ship rolls,’ Gorm explained. He turned to Walo. ‘How about you staying on in Kaupang? I could use a really good assistant.’

  To my alarm Walo’s moon face went pale, and his half-closed eyes began to glisten with tears. He shook his head violently and looked at me pleadingly. He was frightened of being abandoned.

  ‘That’s all right, Walo,’ I reassured him. ‘I need you to look after the ice bears. You can remain with Osric and me.’

  Walo mumbled something, and I had to ask him to repeat what he had said. ‘The bears have no names,’ he muttered.

  Gorm hastened to make up for his blunder. ‘Sigwulf, I think that Walo believes that you were going to leave the ice bears behind because you hadn’t given them any names.’

  My mind went blank and I looked at the bird dealer. ‘What do you suggest?’

  He chuckled. ‘My son has been calling them Modi and Madi these past few days. Maybe that fits.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ I had never heard ei
ther name.

  ‘They’re gods, sons of Thor. Modi means “angry”, Madi means “strong”.’

  I looked across at Walo. ‘Will those names suit?’ I asked.

  He brightened and gave me a shy nod.

  ‘Then it’s time we got Modi and Madi down to the ship,’ I told him.

  He reached inside his shirt and pulled out his deerhorn pipe that hung on a leather thong around his neck. ‘They will follow me here,’ he said.

  I was lost for words. The two animals were no longer the feeble, sickly creatures that had arrived in Kaupang. They were larger and heavier, active and quick, and they enjoyed mock fighting. Rearing up on their hind legs, they battled and growled, seizing their opponent’s neck or limb in their formidable jaws and twisting and tugging. It required little imagination to picture the danger if they ever got loose.

  Gorm came to my rescue. ‘I’ve got a better idea, Walo. We’ll bring them to the ship on a sledge.’

  And that was how it was accomplished. Redwald’s sailors built a double-size sledge on top of which they constructed a sturdy cage. It had to be large enough to contain both bears at the same time because Walo assured us that the animals would become distressed and unpredictable if separated. He himself sat inside the cage with the bears while they were moved in case they needed calming. After much coaxing we harnessed four terrified horses to the sledge. Then all of us – Gorm and his son, Redwald, Osric, Ingvar the bird catcher, Osric and myself – hauled on drag ropes and we set out for the dock. Our progress along Kaupang’s rutted and pot-holed street, even with the bears securely caged, caused uproar. Merchants shuttered their shops while we passed, stallholders evacuated their stands, and only the most curious of their customers remained to gawk at us. Every step of the way we were accompanied by a horde of wildly excited dogs, snapping, snarling and barking.

  We reached the jetty where Redwald’s crew waited until the top of the tide, then slid the entire contraption across and onto the cog’s deck where it was fastened down with strong ropes. While this was being done, I was concluding a last-minute purchase with Ingvar’s help. Among the pack of curs attracted by the commotion of our departure were several dogs with short fox-like faces beneath high-set triangular ears. Of medium size, they were stocky and active and had curly tails. They gave an impression of sharp intelligence and it occurred to me that if their thick coats of short dense fur were washed and cleaned, they would be off-white. Like everything else in Kaupang, they were for sale.

  Thus we loaded five dirty and quarrelsome dogs as extra cargo. The rest of the pack lined the beach in a noisy frenzy as the gap widened between ship and shore, and we left Kaupang to the same sound as our arrival – the barking of dogs.

  Chapter Six

  FRANKIA

  *

  FREQUENT SWIGS OF black horehound leaves steeped in hot water helped Walo find his sea legs on the southward voyage. Thanks to him, all our animals were in good health when our ship turned into the estuary of the great river we had left three months before. From there, Redwald worked the tides, anchoring during the ebb and riding the flood to bring us upriver by easy stages to Dorestad. In the last week of July, the cog tied up to a staithe in her homeport and I found a royal courier waiting for me as we docked. His instructions were to escort me to Aachen with all speed. Any white animals we had collected were to be trans-shipped and to proceed upriver by barge on the first stage of their journey to distant Baghdad. It seemed that the mission to the caliph was to go ahead.

  Leaving Osric and Walo in charge of the animals, I said a hurried farewell to Redwald, interrupting him as he stood at the foot of the mast, supervising his crew unlace the great sail from its spar, ready to carry it ashore. I had already offered to deliver the captive eagle to the palace mews master on his behalf. But he had declined gruffly, saying that I was not a Frisian so he could not trust me to drive a hard enough bargain over the price.

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ I said.

  He tilted his head to one side and gave me a knowing look. ‘You had your doubts about me, didn’t you?’ he said.

  I felt my face go red. ‘That’s right. But you’ve done as you promised, and brought us back safe. I want to thank you.’

  He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘That was just good business. I seem to remember that I was promised a bonus if you and all the animals got here in good condition. I’ll settle up with Osric and he can pay me from the rest of your silver hoard.’

  He reached into an inner pocket, produced a small coin, and held it out to me.

  ‘You’d forgotten about your share from the sale of the Rhenish wine,’ he said.

  The coin was the dinar with Arab script and Offa’s name, the same gold coin that my attacker had asked Redwald to change for silver.

  ‘That’s too much,’ I said. ‘Besides, I bought the wine with funds from the royal treasury. You should credit them with any profit.’

  ‘I’ll haggle with the treasury in my own time.’ He pressed the coin into my hand.

  I had no wish to be rude so I slipped the dinar into my money belt. ‘I’ll spend it in Baghdad when my mission is over,’ I told him.

  ‘That coin will be a useful reminder,’ he said.

  ‘A reminder of what?’

  He made a wry face. ‘That money has a very long reach.’

  *

  Aachen had altered while I had been away. Summer was the building season, and the royal precinct resounded to the constant tapping of hammers as teams of tilers crawled over the vast roof of the future banqueting hall. The web of scaffolding had been dismantled from the façade of the basilica and re-erected around the treasury. The arcade leading to Carolus’s private quarters was no longer an untidy muddle of bricks and paving slabs. Several houses on the fringes of the precinct had been torn down to make extra space for the royal building programme, and there was a new stable block I could not remember seeing previously. There was no time to take in any further details because my escort whisked me straight to the royal apartments and handed me over to the major domo, a plump, watchful man whose sharp eyes immediately took in the suspicious-looking package in my hand. It was early afternoon, a time when I knew the king liked to take a nap. Yet the major domo waved aside the guard who wished to check whether what I was holding was some sort of weapon and immediately brought me up the familiar broad staircase leading to the royal apartments. Without knocking, he eased open the door to the king’s private audience room and slipped inside.

  A few minutes later he reappeared and held the door ajar. ‘The king will see you now.’

  It was the same audience chamber as before, though in daylight it seemed even more spacious and airy than when candle-lit. Carolus was alone in the room. His slightly dishevelled appearance suggested that he had only just got up, and the silk cover of the couch he used as a day bed was rumpled. He yawned and stretched before addressing me, looking down from his great height.

  ‘I’m told that you’ve brought back two ice bears,’ he said.

  I was reminded that the king’s long and successful reign depended partly on his excellent intelligence system that brought news from all parts of the kingdom.

  ‘Two ice bears, three gyrfalcons, five dogs, Your Majesty – and all of them white,’ I replied.

  ‘Dogs?’ Carolus grunted irritably. It seemed that being disturbed during his afternoon nap left him out of sorts. ‘I didn’t ask for dogs.’

  ‘They were available so I purchased them with surplus funds. I apologize if this went beyond my instructions,’ I said apologetically.

  ‘Any good for the chase?’ the king demanded.

  He was passionate about his hunting, and I suspected that he was thinking of putting the dogs into the royal kennels.

  ‘I’ve been told that these dogs make excellent guard dogs and can pull sledges. But I heard nothing about hunting,’ I answered tactfully.

  ‘Not a lot of sledges in Baghdad,’ grumbled the king, ‘but I suppose we should add them to the
list.’ Carolus’s gaze sharpened. ‘What about the unicorn? Did you bring one back?’

  I took a deep breath. ‘No, Your Majesty. There is no unicorn.’

  His eyebrows came together in a scowl. ‘My Book of Beasts states otherwise. Last month I was unwise enough to mention my hopes for a unicorn to my councillors, and one of them failed to hide his smirk. I dislike being thought a fool.’

  Carolus’s ill-humour was making me nervous. ‘I meant only that there is no unicorn among the animals we brought back. The animal itself does exist of course.’

  The shrewd grey eyes regarded me suspiciously. ‘Go on, but don’t try to hoodwink me.’

  ‘Your Majesty will recall you showed me the horn of an aurochs as proof that such an animal is real?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Here is the proof that the unicorn exists.’ I held up the velvet-wrapped package. ‘I obtained this in the Northlands though no one could tell me where to find the living creature.’

  ‘Show me,’ ordered the king.

  With a showman’s flourish I whisked off the purple velvet cover and offered the unicorn’s horn to the king. He took it from me and stood for a long moment, grasping the horn in his large, strong hand, turning it this way and that.

  ‘Remarkable,’ he said finally. A delighted smile replaced the scowl.

  He whirled about, giving me a fright, and using the unicorn horn as a pointer, rested the tip on a deep-red gem set in the crosspiece of the great jewelled cross that dominated one side of the room.

  ‘Know what this is, Sigwulf?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, Your Majesty.’

  ‘A precious carbuncle. It represents the blood of Christ.’

  He lowered the unicorn horn and turned to face me. ‘And where has God hidden the precious carbuncle to demonstrate its great worth?’ he demanded.

  I shifted my feet uncomfortably. ‘I do not know, Your Majesty.’

  ‘In the skull of the asp or within the head of a dragon. That is where you find the carbuncle.’ He looked triumphant. ‘There are those who question that fact, just as they question the existence of the unicorn, but no more!’