by Severin, Tim
‘Under the present circumstances I prefer Persia. In that country’s language “rah” means a path and “dan” is one who knows. So a Radhanite is “one who knows the way”.’
‘Then Persian is one of those dozen languages that Alcuin said you speak.’
He acknowledged the compliment with a graceful shrug. ‘Once you’ve acquired six or seven languages, the rest come easily.’
‘I’ve yet to reach that stage.’
‘So Frankish is not your mother tongue?’ He regarded me with polite interest.
I shook my head. ‘No, I grew up speaking Saxon. I learned Latin as a child, Frankish and Arabic later.’
‘Then, like me, you are a wanderer.’
‘Not by choice,’ I admitted, and found myself confiding to him how Offa had forced me into exile.
He heard me out, his expression turning to one of sympathy. When I finished I realized that instead of learning more about Abram, it was the reverse.
‘Is there anything about our mission that worries you?’ I asked him, hoping to divert the conversation back to what I had intended.
‘Getting the animals across the Alps before the first snowfall of winter,’ he said, guiding his horse around a deep rut in the road surface.
‘The ice bears would enjoy seeing some snow,’ I said cheerfully. I was relaxed and carefree, happy at the thought that I had a dragoman to recommend how far to travel each day, where to spend the night and find our food.
‘You might consider taking a different route, avoiding the mountains entirely.’ He made the suggestion diffidently.
‘The royal chancery decided we go by river barge along the Rhine as far as possible. At some stage we’ll shift the animals onto carts and haul them over the mountain passes.’
Abram sighed. ‘The Arabs have a saying: “Only a madman or a Christian sails against the wind.” It seems that a Christian also chooses to travel against the current.’
‘Is there an alternative?’
‘You could use the river Rhone instead . . . and have the current help you.’
I wondered if this was an excuse for Abram to be among his own people. Alcuin had said that the Radhanites in Frankia clustered along the Rhone. ‘Let’s see how far Osric and Walo have already taken the animals along the Rhine before we change our plans,’ I replied cautiously.
*
The sound alerted me three days later – a familiar yowling and yapping. The noise came from the direction of a low ridge that ran parallel to the highway, the width of a field away. We turned aside and when we topped the slope, found ourselves on the crest of an artificial earth embankment built to protect the neighbouring fields from flood. In front of us was the broad river, and we were looking down on a barge firmly stuck on a shoal a few yards out. The two ice bears were in their cage at one end of the vessel. The aurochs occupied a larger, heavier cage at the opposite end. The dogs were tethered between them, tied to a thick rope. They were jumping up and down, quarrelling and lunging at one another, tangling their leashes, and ignoring Osric’s shouts of exasperation. Walo was nowhere to be seen. Closer at hand, standing on the muddy foreshore, was a huddle of what I took to be the barge men. They looked disgruntled and mutinous.
Osric glanced up and saw me. With a final angry yell at the dogs, he clambered over the side of the barge and squelched his way across the ooze to come to speak with me.
‘Didn’t expect you back so soon,’ he said. His legs were slathered to the knees with grey sludge.
‘Where’s Walo?’ I asked, dismounting.
Osric gestured upriver. ‘He’s gone ahead with a cart. Took the gyrfalcons with him.’
A sudden apprehension gripped me. ‘You didn’t let him go off on his own? Anything might happen.’
My friend was calm. ‘He’s training the birds. He does that every day. Says that they need exercise or they will lose condition. He’s got them flying on a length of line, and coming back to a lure. Besides, one of the barge men went with him, to find some oxen.’
‘They’ll need at least twenty,’ said Abram. He too had got down from his horse and was standing beside me.
Osric had begun scraping the mud off his legs with a twig. ‘The barge men say that we can rely on the flood tide only for another fifty miles or so. After that, we’ll have to haul and row the barge,’ he said.
In a language I did not understand, Abram called back to his servants waiting at a discreet distance. One of them slid from the saddle, handed the reins of his horse to a companion, unlaced a bundle attached to a pack saddle, and hurried forward with a small folding table.
As the servant opened up the table and set it firmly on the ground, I caught Osric’s eye. ‘Abram has been appointed as dragoman to our embassy,’ I explained.
Abram removed a leather tube from his own saddlebag, and extracted a scroll wound around two slim batons of polished wood. When the servant had withdrawn, he rolled the parchment from one baton to the next – it must have been thirty feet long at least – until he came to the section he wanted, then placed the scroll face up on the table. The parchment was sprinkled with tiny symbols carefully drawn and coloured. The most frequent symbol was a double-fronted house, its twin roofs coloured red. A number of oddly elongated dark brown shapes resembled thin loaves, and a few drawings looked like large stylized barns. Many symbols were linked, one to the next, by thin straight lines ruled in vermilion ink. Near these lines were written numerals in Roman script.
‘We are here,’ Abram said, placing a finger beside a double-fronted house. Next to it in small, neat lettering was written ‘Dorestadum’.
It was an itinerarium, a road map, something I had heard of but never seen until this moment. An itinerarium was greatly prized, and I doubted if even the royal archive in Aachen possessed such a treasure.
‘How far does your itinerarium extend?’ I enquired. I noted that Abram had taken care to reveal only a small portion of the scroll.
The dragoman rewarded my knowledge of the map’s name with a slight smile. ‘My people would not thank me if I told you. They spent generations in assembling the information it contains.’
He turned his attention back to the map. ‘Here we are, still close to Dorestad. This red line –’ his finger slid across the surface of the map – ‘is the route that the chancery in Aachen would have us take. Here we would leave the Rhine and continue along this next red line up through these mountain ranges marked in brown, and down into Italy, and finally to Rome.’ His finger came to rest on a symbol, larger and grander than the others. It showed a crowned man seated on a throne holding a sceptre and an orb. Clearly the pope.
Osric was quick. ‘Those numbers marked beside the road are the distances between the towns, I presume.’
‘Or the number of days’ travel required for each sector,’ answered the dragoman. He shot me a mischievous grin. ‘In Persia the distances are stated in parasangs, not miles.’
‘What are you proposing? ‘I asked. From where I stood I could see that the short wavy blue-green lines represented the course of rivers. Areas painted a dark green were the sea. Every feature was distorted and out of shape, stretched in some places, compressed in others, so as to fit on the scroll. It was not so much a map as a stylized diagram that showed what mattered to a traveller – the important locations and the distances in between.
Abram looked down at the diagram. ‘The further we proceed up the Rhine, the stronger the current will run against us. We cover less distance each day and risk reaching the Alpine passes when they are closed by snow.’
He traced a thin red line that went south-eastward. ‘I recommend that we leave the Rhine at the tidal limit and go by waggon along this road to a different river, the Rhone. That river flows in our favour.’
I interrupted him. ‘What about the difficulty of transferring the animals from one river to the other?’
‘The road between the rivers is suitable for wheeled vehicles. It crosses low hills and rolling countryside, not
mountains.’
His reasoning was sound, and yet I was reluctant to be persuaded. ‘Every extra mile by land means additional costs – relays of oxen, fodder to feed them, wages for waggon drivers. Our resources may not be sufficient,’ I told him.
His response was to point to a symbol on the parchment. It depicted a substantial building arranged around a hollow square. Even without the arches of what could only be a cloister, it was clearly the symbol for a monastery. I ran my eye along the new route Abram proposed. I counted five monasteries spaced at convenient intervals. I smiled to myself. I had told Abram about the skinflint in the royal treasury. The bookkeeper would regret giving me the written authority to requisition stores along my route. Every abbot in Frankia was obliged to obey that royal writ, and then reclaim the cost from the king. By the time I had finished providing for my waggon train that document would drain more money from the treasury than if the accountant had given me the silver I wanted.
Abram sensed that he had made his point. ‘At the mouth of the Rhone we charter a ship to take us directly to Rome’s port. The voyage lasts no more than four or five days,’ he said.
Osric cleared his throat. ‘The Rhone empties into the Mediterranean not so far from the territory of the emir of Cordoba.’
I recalled Alcuin’s warning that the emir was a bitter rival of the caliph in Baghdad, and if the emir could interfere with our mission, he would do so.
Abram was unconcerned. ‘When we reach the mouth of the Rhone, my contacts there will tell me if the emir’s ships are too great a risk.’
Osric was still cautious. ‘And if we cannot continue by sea?’
The dragoman fluttered a hand dismissively. ‘Then we follow the example of the great Hannibal. He came out of Hispania with his elephants, crossed the Rhone and took his elephants to Italy through the mountains. The southern Alpine passes are easier than those that the chancery in Aachen wants us to use.’
Abram began putting away the itinerarium. ‘When I was preparing to bring the caliph’s elephant from Baghdad to Frankia, I studied Hannibal’s route. I was thinking of using it, but in reverse. Unfortunately, I never got the chance.’
He slid the scroll back into its leather tube with a gesture of finality and turned to face me. ‘Sigwulf, the route is your decision.’
Involuntarily, I glanced down at the aurochs, still standing in its enclosure on the barge. After months of captivity, the huge animal was still angry and dangerous. It bellowed and flung itself from side to side, trying to get free.
I made up my mind. ‘I accept Abram’s suggestion. We go along the Rhine only as far as the tide can help us. Then we head south overland and follow the Rhone to the sea.’
There was little point in having a dragoman, I told myself, if one ignored his advice.
*
Abram sent his men ahead to make the arrangements. By the time our barge reached the Rhine’s tidal limit, they had paid carpenters to strengthen a massive four-wheeled farm waggon to carry the aurochs in its cage. Wheelwrights widened the axles so that the vehicle would not tip over when the beast thrashed about. A similar waggon for the ice bears was only slightly smaller. A team of four draught animals would pull each vehicle. A further three carts of a more normal size would carry stores and food. Nothing had been overlooked. There was even a lad hired to scurry up and down our line of waggons with a brush and a bucket of wool grease, daubing the grease on the axles so that they turned smoothly.
We lost no time in taking to the road. Our progress, after we had climbed from the river valley, was stately. We seldom covered more than a dozen miles each day, proceeding at a steady walk. The weather was glorious, with day after day of summer sunshine. As Abram had promised, the route was undemanding. Great tracts of rolling countryside presented little difficulty to the plodding oxen. July was the time for haymaking so their fodder was readily available. The meadows were full of workers scything the long grass, turning and stacking it when dry. The monasteries along our path owned extensive lands, and I had only to produce my letter from the royal treasury for the local steward to supply whatever we needed – loaves, ale and wine for the men, meat for the bears and dogs, pigeon breasts and day-old chicks to feed to the gyrfalcons. Each day we set out an hour after first light, rested at noon, then walked until the sun was halfway down to the horizon. One of Abram’s servants rode ahead. He identified the open ground for us to stop and rest the animals for the noontime halt. He also made sure that water was available in a nearby stream or pond or drawn from a well by local people whom he paid in advance for their labour. When we reached our chosen camping place each evening, it was to find our tents had been erected and a cooked meal was waiting for us.
Men and animals thrived. Walo made wicker cages for the falcons. By day they were hung from a framework on one of the carts. At night he covered the cages with dark cloths. His training of them progressed so well that whenever we stopped, he could fly them off his hand and let them fly free for exercise before attracting them back with a morsel of fresh meat. He also fitted the five white dogs with collars and each animal was attached by its lead to a different vehicle so it, too, was properly exercised. In the evening after they had been fed, they were tied to stakes placed just far enough apart so they could not fight. The aurochs remained as truculent as ever, attempting to attack anyone who came close to its cage. It was extremely dangerous to feed and water the beast, and clear out its vast piles of dung. But the job had to be done.
Most of all, Walo concentrated on tending to his beloved bears. Try as I might, I still found it difficult to identify which was Madi and which was Modi. To me they looked alike and I saw no difference in their behaviour. Fortunately, they adapted to the summer heat. They kept their appetites and, with shade and water within their cage, they showed no sign of distress. Walo fed and brushed them, played them tunes on his wooden pipe until they laid their heads on their paws and slept for hour after hour.
I envied them. Despite the idyllic conditions I was plagued by disturbing dreams. In the four weeks it took us to make our ponderous way across country to the Rhone, there was scarcely a night when I did not wake up in the darkness, my heart pounding, covered in sweat. Occasionally, I was shouting in panic. My nightmares always concerned an elephant. Sometimes I was riding on its back, high above the ground, feeling the creature sway beneath me as we moved across a depressing, broken landscape of grey rocks and harsh mountains. The motion made me feel giddy and I would wake up nauseous. In other dreams I was on the ground and the elephant was deliberately trying to trample me. I would turn and run for my life, pursued by the monstrous, enraged beast.
My nightmares often woke Osric and Walo, who shared a tent with me. Neither of them said anything until one evening shortly before we reached the Rhone. We had completed our day’s journey a little earlier than usual. Our road lay through an extensive forest of oak and beech and we had come upon a broad clearing where a spring of clean water had been channelled into a pool lined with stone slabs. Charred marks of campfires showed that previous travellers had rested there before us. Very soon our waggons and carts were drawn up in a neat line, the draught oxen unyoked, and all our animals had been taken care of. There were several hours of daylight left, so we were relaxing in the last rays of sunshine before the shadows from the surrounding trees spread across the clearing. All traffic along the road had ceased, and the place was so quiet that I could hear the low mutter of the ox drivers talking among themselves as they prepared to spread their bedding rolls beneath the carts. Even the white dogs had fallen silent.
‘I think I’ll sleep under the stars tonight,’ Osric commented, treating me to a meaningful glance. He, Walo and I were sitting by the embers of the campfire. We had finished our supper and Abram, who preferred to take his meals with his own men, had just rejoined us.
‘I’m the one who should sleep outside,’ I said. ‘There’s not much I can do about those dreams.’
‘What dreams are those?’ Abram aske
d.
I told him briefly about the elephant.
The dragoman smiled apologetically. ‘That was my fault. I shouldn’t have brought up the subject of Hannibal and his elephants.’
‘What’s an elephant?’ interrupted Walo. He had been listening in.
‘An elephant is a remarkable animal that the great ruler of the Saracens sent as a gift to Carolus,’ I told him.
Walo’s voice had been hesitant but his half-closed eyes were bright with interest.
‘Some say that it is the largest animal that walks on land,’ I added.
‘Even larger than that one there?’ Walo gestured towards the aurochs in its cage.
‘Yes, much, much larger.’
‘What does it look like?’
I started to explain what I knew about an elephant, its size and shape, but my words soon petered out. I had never seen the living animal and, for me, everything was hearsay. Abram was looking on with an amused expression.
‘Our dragoman can explain better than me,’ I was forced to admit.
Abraham chuckled. ‘I doubt I could paint a word picture that would do justice to the strangeness of the elephant. For a start, its nose reaches to the ground and can be used as an extra hand.’
‘You’re making fun of me,’ Walo said. He sounded hurt.
Abram’s statement reminded me that there was a painted illustration of an elephant in the bestiary that Carolus had given me. Until now I had kept the volume carefully protected in my saddlebag. With a guilty pang I realized that I had never really explained to Vulfard’s son what had led up to his father’s gruesome death and why we were now halfway across Frankia. This was my chance to begin to do so. I went to our tent and brought back the book.
I had wrapped it for safety in a long length of heavily waxed linen. With great care I removed the layers. Walo came across and looked over my shoulder as I opened the cover of the book and turned the pages. The elephant was the sixth illustration. The copyist had drawn two elephants facing one another across a stream. They were coloured a sombre green. They had large, doleful eyes, white curving tusks, and their trunks were about to touch. I presumed they were male and female.
