by Severin, Tim
The sight that greeted me was puzzling. The house we occupied was built on a former spectator terrace so I was looking down into the floor of the arena only fifty paces away. There was not a breath of wind. Above the jagged rim of the Colosseum hung a bright three-quarter moon. It bathed the scene in a cold light, strong enough to cast deep black shadows across the tiers of terrace seats opposite me. The white dogs should have been in their kennel. Instead, they were out on the sand of the arena, barking frenziedly, running about in circles, dashing in, then retreating quickly as they harassed something invisible within the deep shadow under the high far wall of the arena. The dogs had cornered an intruder. From where I stood I noted that one leaf of the heavy double door into the rooms where the animals were kept was ajar. It occurred to me that a thief had come to steal the gyrfalcons. I hurried down the steps leading into the arena, about to call off the dogs. Then something in the far shadow moved. I came to an abrupt halt and the hair on the back of my neck rose. Out from the blackness stalked the aurochs. The spectral moonlight made the black shape of the beast more menacing than ever. The barking rose to a crescendo as one of the bolder dogs dashed in to nip at the aurochs’ hocks. The aurochs swung its head downwards and sideways and hooked upward with its horns. A pointed tip must have grazed the dog’s flank for I heard a high yelp of pain and the dog fled. The aurochs trotted forward into the centre of the arena and stopped there, swinging its head from side to side, looking for its next victim.
‘How did the beast get loose?’ said a voice. I glanced round to find Osric standing on the step behind me. He was looking grim.
‘I’ve no idea. Have you seen Walo anywhere?’ I asked my friend. He shook his head.
There was the slap-slap of sandals and Protis arrived, running down the steps towards us, almost knocking us over as he skidded to a halt beside us. He gazed at the aurochs with appalled fascination.
‘Find Walo,’ I said to him urgently. ‘We have to work out how to get the aurochs back in its stable.’
Just then, I saw Walo coming down the steps towards us.
‘Are you all right, Walo?’ I called up to him. He appeared to be unsteady on his feet.
‘I must have eaten something bad. I’ll soon be better,’ he answered.
‘Walo, how did the aurochs escape?’ Protis asked.
Walo stared down at aurochs, now pacing around the arena, ignoring the hysterical dogs. ‘I don’t know. I locked up all the animals as usual.’
I came to a decision. ‘Walo, you head back to bed. The rest of us will take it in turns to stay here until daylight. We must make sure no one gets into the arena and is hurt. Then we’ll devise a system to get the aurochs back inside.’
‘What about the dogs?’ Protis asked me. ‘They could get injured.’
‘If they’ve any sense, they’ll learn to stay clear of those horns until morning,’ I told him.
The words were hardly out of my mouth when Walo gave a strangled moan. He was staring towards the half-open door that led to where the animals should have been safely housed. The door had swung back and a pale shape had appeared in the opening. Someone had also let the ice bears loose. One of them was about to enter the ring.
In that instant the situation became a living nightmare. There was no doubt in my mind that we were about to see a fight to the death between the bears and the aurochs. It was to be a repeat of the blood bath of those ancient displays in the Colosseum when exotic wild beasts were pitted against one another. Whether the aurochs would kill the ice bears, or the other way around, I had no idea, though I found myself hoping that the ice bears would be the victors. Modi and Madi were our most valuable animals. If either one of them was injured or killed, it would be a crippling loss. Carolus’s gifts of the remaining animals to the caliph would seem commonplace.
Walo slipped past me before I could stop him. He threw a leg over the low balustrade that topped the surrounding wall of the arena and dropped down onto the sand. His devotion to the well-being of the ice bears had overwhelmed his common sense. The head and shoulders of the bear had emerged from the doorway as the animal paused, gazing about to see what was in the arena. I saw the turned-in front paw and knew it was Modi. Behind him I saw movement and Madi’s shape appeared. Walo was empty handed. Without his deerhorn pipe to soothe them, he would have to make them turn around and go back into their room. If they chose instead to maul him, he was a dead man.
But first he had to reach the open doorway. The aurochs saw the movement as Walo ran. The great beast spun on its haunches and lowered its head. Walo was alert to the danger and swerved away. But it was hopeless. There was no chance that he could get past the aurochs and reach the door. He stopped and turned to face the animal that had killed his father.
My mouth went dry.
With a yell of defiance Protis thrust me aside, hurdled the low balustrade and tumbled into the arena, falling on his knees. He scrambled back on his feet and shouted, waving his arms at the aurochs to get its attention. The brute whirled to face him. Protis shouted again, then pulled his shirt over his head and flapped it in front of the aurochs. He was taunting the beast, drawing it away from Walo, who stood for a couple of heartbeats and then sprinted towards the ice bears.
Time seemed to stand still. Protis kept up his clamour and now he was joined by the dog pack. They were barking and dancing around him, leaping up with excitement. He was like a huntsman surrounded by his pack.
I stole a quick glance at Walo. He had reached the doorway and, hands extended, was pushing and shoving on Modi’s head, trying to make the animal turn and go back inside.
Below me the aurochs pawed the ground, gouging the sand of the arena, still watching Protis. It rolled its great head from side to side, and then flicked up its horns as if rehearsing an attack. Then the great creature dropped its head and launched itself forward with a sudden thrust of the muscled hindquarters. I had witnessed the terrible speed of the creature when it rushed past me in the forest, running down Vulfard. Even so, I was appalled by how quickly it covered the distance to Protis. One moment it was ten yards away, the next it was almost on top of him. Protis must have planned to use his shirt to blindfold the brute. But what had been possible on a beach in daylight with an aurochs tired from a two-mile swim was no longer realistic. The enclosure of the arena was the brute’s familiar territory, the animal was fit and in top condition and the flat moonlight made it difficult to judge distances. Worse, there was something truly evil about the hatred the aurochs displayed towards the human. It was as if all the months of being confined within a cage during the long journey were now concentrated in the ferocity of the onslaught.
Miraculously, Protis managed to dodge the attack. He leaped aside as the aurochs flashed past him, flinging its horns into the empty air. In the blink of an eye it had swung round on its haunches, lowered its head again, and was driving forward at its target. This time Protis did not even attempt to flap his shirt at the onrushing beast. He was only yards from the high wooden wall of the arena. He dropped his shirt, turned, took two strides and leaped upward, reaching for a handhold on the upper edge. He succeeded and hung on, drawing up his legs so that the horns of the charging aurochs smashed into the timber just below him with a splintering crash that I could feel from where I stood.
The aurochs drew back, shook its head as if slightly stunned, and turned aside. Then it trotted away a few yards, wheeled about to face Protis, and waited. The young Greek was dangling with both hands and at the full extent of both arms. He looked over his shoulder at the monstrous beast. It was clear that the vengeful aurochs was waiting for him to drop.
Osric and I bolted for the front row of the spectator seats. Protis was twenty yards away. If we could reach him in time, we could grab his wrists and haul him up to safety. As I ran I flicked a desperate glance towards the doorway where I had last seen Walo. The door was closed. Somehow he had managed to turn the bears around and push them back. What had happened inside, I could only guess.
>
We were so close to Protis that we would have reached him in a couple more paces, when he lost his grip. Perhaps he tried to pull himself upward onto the balustrade and miscalculated, or the palms of his hands had become too sweaty and he had slipped. He dropped away from us just as Osric and I arrived at the point where we could have saved him. We looked over the edge, aghast. Beneath us Protis was scrambling back onto his feet and turning to face the aurochs. Even then he might have escaped the beast’s next attack if one of the dogs had not bumped into him. They had been circling hysterically, barking frenziedly the entire time. Now, as Protis stood up, one of them scurried behind him, brushing against the back of his knees, and threw him off balance. A heartbeat later the aurochs was coming forward and this time the vicious up-sweep of the horns caught Protis full in the stomach. He was flung high in the air. He cartwheeled and landed limp on the sand. The aurochs had already spun round and was on its victim in a flash. The horns hooked down.
Sick at heart, I watched the killing. It was like Vulfard’s death all over again. The aurochs tossed the broken body repeatedly, picking it up on its horns after each time Protis’s corpse flopped to the sand then flinging it up in the air. When the beast tired of that murderous treatment, it let the body lie where it fell, waited for a moment or two, then slowly and deliberately folded its fore legs and knelt and crushed the bloody remains of the young Greek into the sand. Finally the beast rose to its feet, looked around the arena as if satisfied and, ignoring the dogs, trotted away in the direction of its stall.
The door stood wide open. Walo must have succeeded in returning the bears to their enclosure and prepared a way for the aurochs to leave the arena. The hulking beast passed through the open doorway and headed for its stall of its own accord, for I saw it no more.
Numbed, I looked around the great empty bowl of the Colosseum looming over the gruesome death scene. The commotion had awoken people living in the other houses. A torch flame flickered in a window. My gaze travelled round the circle of the seats opposite me and my stomach gave a sudden lurch. In the dark shadow of a tier of seats slightly higher up, was a darker patch. It was difficult to be certain. Tucked in against one of the columns was what looked like the shape of a man. Someone was sitting there, watching. My spine crawled as I wondered if a spectator had been there the whole time, relishing the spectacle of Protis’s death.
Osric and I went down into the arena. Protis’s lifeless body was so badly mangled that Osric had to go back to our lodgings to fetch a blanket in which to wrap the corpse, so we could carry it away. As I waited for Osric to return, I looked up again at the spot where I thought I had seen a spectator. This time the place was empty.
*
A Greek priest from the church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin came for Protis’s funeral. He conducted the service in the little chapel inside the Colosseum itself, and afterwards we buried Protis in the makeshift cemetery in the abandoned section of the arena. We placed a broken piece of marble to mark his grave. On the Nomenculator’s advice we claimed that Protis had been killed in an accident while the aurochs was exercising. Paul said that it was the only way to avoid an official investigation by the city magistrates. If they got involved, we would not be allowed to leave the city for months. Osric and I had already agreed between ourselves that we would stay silent on the even more delicate question of how all the animals had been set free that fatal evening. Neither of us wanted Walo to be blamed.
The mystery of the watcher in the spectator seats preyed on my mind. I was unsure if my imagination had been playing tricks or not. So, on the morning after Protis’s death, I climbed to the upper tier where I had seen the lurking shadow. The stone benches were worn and chipped, streaked with a winter’s grime. It was hard to know if anyone had been there recently. I turned away, about to go back down to the arena, when I felt something crunch beneath my shoe. I had stepped and crushed the empty shell of what looked like a small nut. I went down on my hands and knees and saw three more half-shells, lying where they had fallen close beside the seat. They were greenish brown and wizened, more like the thin casings of large seeds. I picked one up and smelled it. There was a very faint whiff of some exotic flavour that I could not identify. Instantly, the unusual tastes of the meal with the Nomenculator came back to me. Paul loved exotic spices. He had also arranged for the animals to be housed in the Colosseum and had a vast knowledge of ancient Roman ways. I imagined him sitting on that seat, nibbling on dried seeds, and looking down into the arena when Protis died, enjoying the spectacle and indulging a perverted sense of history re-enacted. But that made no sense. It was Paul who had warned me that a clever enemy remains hidden. He would have been foolhardy or very arrogant to have taken the risk of coming to the Colosseum that night.
I sat back on my heels and thought about the Anglo-Saxons that Abram and I had met on our way back from St Peter’s Basilica. It was possible that one or more of them were King Offa’s hirelings, paid to get rid of me. But there, too, I saw a difficulty: releasing the aurochs and the two bears into the arena was not a sure way of getting me killed. Protis had died, not me.
Of course there was the simpler explanation: the spectator had been there by coincidence. Nevertheless, I was left with a disagreeable feeling that the shadowy watcher had known what would happen.
Carefully, I gathered up the half-shells and put them in my purse along with Offa’s coin.
Chapter Thirteen
‘THE ANNUAL NILE FLOOD – a great mystery,’ Abram remarked. The two of us watched a fisherman throwing his net in the mud-laden current. The graceful flare and splash of his net was endlessly fascinating. Standing in a tiny, unstable boat hollowed from a tree trunk, he gathered up the fine mesh hand over hand, swung it inboard, and shook out a silver shower of fingerlings.
‘Why a mystery?’ I asked.
‘The river rises when there is no rain in Egypt. So where does the water come from?’ he answered.
‘Doesn’t your itinerarium provide a clue?’ I asked.
‘The itinerarium only extends so far,’ he replied, pointing upriver with his chin. ‘The source of the river is unknown.’
He had produced the map when we went to the Nomenculator to report what had happened with the aurochs. Paul had pressed us to leave Rome as soon as possible, saying it was for our own safety. He knew of a large party of pilgrims leaving for the Holy Land and he could arrange for us and the animals to accompany them to the port of Brundisium. From there the pilgrims would sail for Jaffa and Jerusalem and we could continue overland to Baghdad. Diffidently, Abram had proposed a quicker route by ship from Brundisium to Alexandria in Egypt, then onward. He unrolled the scroll to show the Nomenculator what he was suggesting.
‘This is Alexandria on the Egyptian coast,’ he had said, pointing to a symbol of a castle. ‘Those lines, like a tangle of green worms, represent the delta of the Nile, each river finding its own way to the sea. And here’ – he had slid his finger to a straight black line that met the most easterly of the rivers – ‘is a canal that links the Nile to the Erythrean Sea. From there one can sail all the way to Baghdad itself.’
The Nomenculator had taken the opportunity to show off his erudition. ‘Herodotus wrote about the canal, if I’m not mistaken. Built by the pharaohs. Emperor Trajan had it dug and cleared when it silted up.’
‘Are you sure that the canal is still usable?’ Paul had given Abram a worried glance. ‘Shifting sand is difficult to keep at bay.’
‘The map has been a reliable guide so far,’ the dragoman had replied reasonably.
Paul had then turned to me. ‘Sigwulf, I think your dragoman is offering good advice.’
‘Then we go through Egypt and use the canal,’ I answered. Months earlier in Aachen, Alcuin had suggested this same route, and indeed our voyage from Italy across the Mediterranean had been uneventful. In Alexandria we had been met by customs officials and taken to an interview with the city governor. His overlord was the caliph and when he heard of the purpo
se of our journey, he immediately gave his permission for us to proceed. Abram had slipped the port captain a generous bribe for his dockworkers to shift our animals without delay onto two large riverboats that regularly plied the river.
Now, less than six weeks after departing Rome, we were gliding along the braided waterways of the delta heading deeper into Egypt. Watching the fisherman cast his net again, I was confident that I had made the correct choice.
‘That night in the Colosseum, did it involve those Saxons you were so worried about?’ Abram asked.
The abruptness of his question caught me off guard as I kept my suspicions to myself, and I could only answer feebly, ‘How do you reach that conclusion?
