Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (20 page)

I looked on as he swung open the door, climbed into the cage, shut the door behind him and went across to the bear and bent over to check the burn. Modi opened his eyes, raised his head and
allowed Walo to rub away the soot.

I turned away, marvelling. On my way back to camp, it occurred to me that the events of the previous evening should be a warning to me that I was prone to making unfounded assumptions. Because
Madi’s name meant ‘angry’, I had presumed Madi had mauled the drunkard. But I had been wrong. Modi had been responsible for the attack. With Redwald I had made the same mistake,
thinking that he was behind the attempt to kill me in Kaupang. In future, if anyone tried to do me harm or wreck the embassy to the caliph, I would be more deliberate. Instead of making a quick
judgement as to who was responsible, I would wait for the clues to make some sort of pattern. Of one thing I was certain: my difficulties were far from over.

By mid-morning we had shifted all our remaining stores and equipment, the gyrfalcons in their cages and the white dogs onto two more river craft. Then our newly recruited boatmen pushed our
ungainly craft away from the bank, using long wooden oars, and we floated out on the slow-moving surface of the river. The ferrymen – two men in the bow and two in the stern – settled
the oars into short Y-shaped crutches. Standing facing forward, they began to take slow, leisurely strokes. Our vessels drifted, barely moving. I was with Abram on the lead boat, carrying stores,
and looked back towards our little convoy. A short distance behind us came Walo with the ice bears, then Osric on the vessel with the aurochs. The other stores boat brought up the rear. All three
craft were low in the water and the double ferry, weighed down by the aurochs in its enclosure was scarcely visible. The huge animal appeared to be standing on the river’s surface, the water
level with its hooves.

An unseen eddy caught our boat and it began to rotate slowly. Our boatmen corrected the movement, holding us straight and in mid-river. The bank on both sides was steep, covered with thick
brushwood. There was nowhere to land in an emergency. It was evident that it was now impossible to get off the river. We were committed to wherever it would carry us. Abram had left to me the final
decision whether to continue by road or take to the river. If I had made the mistake, I had no one else but myself to blame for our situation.

A heron standing in the shallows watched us draw closer. We were moving so slowly that the bird did not consider us a threat. It turned its head, watching us along its spear of a beak, as we
drifted past.

‘This is even less than walking pace,’ I complained to Abram.

‘We’ll move faster once we pick up the current,’ he assured me.

Ahead of us the river curved to the left and out of sight. We drifted round the bend and passed a gulley where a stream emptied into the main river. Almost imperceptibly our speed increased for
a few yards, then slackened again. Had I not been so dismayed by our dawdling pace, I would have enjoyed the tranquillity of the scene ahead of us. A large flock of wild ducks was feeding on the
surface. They had blue beaks and wing tips, beautifully speckled brown breasts, and a noticeable streak of white just in front of the eye. They scattered in leisurely fashion, paddling just far
enough apart to keep a safe distance from the dipping oars as we drifted among them, then came together again once we had passed. There was a small, rippling swirl almost within touching distance,
and I had a momentary glimpse of the fin and green-bronze back of a fish as long as my arm before the creature sank from view. High overhead four swans flew, dazzling white against the grey,
overcast sky. They were following the line of the river and overtook us in moments, the sound of their wing beats fading so swiftly that it made me feel as if our boats were anchored in one spot.
From somewhere in the distance came a long rumble of thunder.

The hours dragged by. All that afternoon our little flotilla crept along at the same languid pace. Unlike a straight roadway, the river meandered and twisted in casual loops. Where trees
overhung the bends, our boatmen were obliged to take a course to avoid branches that extended far out over the water. This increased the distance we had to travel. We never knew what we would
encounter around the next corner or whether we would find ourselves heading north, instead of south. After four hours of travel I doubted we had progressed the same number of miles.

Just as I was thinking that our situation could not get any worse, there was a faint scraping sound. Our vessel had touched bottom. We were in mid-river and had been travelling so slowly that it
took me a little while to appreciate that now we had come to a complete stop. The boat was caught fast on a shoal.

Our crew were waving at the boats behind us, signalling that they were to head for the bank, and not follow us onto the underwater obstacle.

The head boatman seemed unconcerned. A stocky, square man wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat, he rolled back his sleeves, revealing thick forearms covered with thick black hair. He probed the
river bottom with a long pole. I thought he was searching for a deeper channel to get us over the shoal, but he was only trying to locate a firm spot where he could rest the tip of the pole, then
push. He and his three comrades heaved and shoved until reluctantly our boat slid backwards into deeper water. Then, without a word to me or Abram, they began to punt our boat to join the others
already nestled against the bank. There they rammed the bow of our boat deep into the reeds. One of them leaped ashore and fastened a heavy mooring line around the trunk of a sapling.

I was dismayed.

‘Aren’t you going to try to get past that shoal?’ I demanded of the head boatman. He looked blank and Abram relayed my question in a language that I only partially
understood.

‘He only speaks Burgundian,’ the dragoman explained after listening to the boatman’s reply. ‘He says that it is better we spend the night here. It is safer for
us.’

I looked around. The river took its course through an immense untouched forest. On both banks rose a solid wall of huge trees, heavy with summer foliage. There was no movement, no sign of life,
no sound. Even the leaves were motionless in the muggy, still air. I wondered why the boatman sought safety when our surroundings were so peaceful.

‘Please let him know that progress today was very disappointing. Ask him how far he thinks we will travel tomorrow. I’m worried we’ll run out of food for the animals,’ I
said.

Another exchange of conversation, and Abram informed me that the boatman expected to make good progress the following day and to reach a town where we could purchase rations for the animals.

I accepted his response grudgingly and waited for our boatmen to go ashore and set up camp. However, they made no move to do so. Instead, they fastened extra ropes between our four vessels,
drawing them even closer together until they were buried deep within the reed bed, their blunt bows almost touching the bank. It seemed that we were to spend the night on board.

Walo fed the animals from our stores, and Abram’s camp cook dangled lines off the stern of our boat and caught several plump fish with silvery-gold scales. He alone was allowed by the
boatmen to go ashore to light a fire and broil the fish. After the meal the head boatman insisted that he return aboard. As the evening shadows lengthened, I wondered yet again why we were not
being allowed to spend the night on dry land, and what was so dangerous in the brooding forest.

Dusk came early beneath a lowering sky, the clouds massing together until their undersides took on the texture of curdled milk. From far away sheet lightning flickered over the leafy canopy.
Rumbles of thunder reached us, but so faint that they only emphasized the deep silence of the great trees.

As the darkness settled over our little flotilla, a noise began, croaking and scratching. It rose gradually from the reeds as myriads of the frogs and insects began their chorus. The noise was
muted at first. Then it grew louder and louder, reaching such a level that it seemed to vibrate the air with a constant humming, buzzing whine. Sleep was near impossible. The noise penetrated right
inside one’s skull. At intervals the din would die away. Then a few moments later it returned at full strength, interspersed with chirps and high-pitched whistles. I had never heard anything
like it and it was a long time before I drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

I woke suddenly. There were neither stars nor moon and the night was so black that it was impossible to gauge the time. I could have been asleep for an hour or much longer. I lay still,
wondering what had awakened me. The night chorus had eased to a low, background hum, as if the creatures in the reeds were exhausted. I felt the boat rock beneath me, a gentle swaying movement, as
if it were encouraging me to return to sleep. I turned over and dozed. Moments later the boat rocked again, more violently this time. Close to my ear the water was rippling past the thin wooden
hull, a sound that had not been there earlier. There came another shaking movement, and the boat bumped against its neighbour. I sat up and peered into the darkness. There was nothing to be seen.
There was a rubbing and creaking from the ropes tethering the vessel to the bank, then a distinct crunch as the bow bumped on gravel. I could just make out the figure of one of our boatmen. He was
crouching in the bow, attending to the mooring line.

Reassured, I lay back down and fell into a troubled sleep. When I opened my eyes in the grey light of another overcast dawn it was to sense immediately that something had changed dramatically.
There was a heavy, rushing murmur everywhere. I scrambled to my feet and looked upon a landscape transformed. The reeds among which we had slept were almost totally submerged, only their tips
showing. The lip of the riverbank had been three or four feet above us when we arrived, now it was level with the boat. I swung round and looked at the river. The placid, flat surface I remembered
was now a racing flood the colour of oatmeal. Small waves rose and fell, apparently at random, sweeping downstream on a broad torrent of dark, roiling water. Pieces of flotsam, ranging in size from
small twigs to entire trees, rolled and twisted in the currents, now waving their branches in the air, now showing their claw-like roots.

Our boatmen were conferring among themselves anxiously. All of yesterday’s lethargy was gone. They were tense and keyed up. They must have been discussing what should be done and had come
to some sort of agreement, because they made signs to Walo that he should feed the animals quickly. They helped him throw fodder to the aurochs, and handed out cold food to us. Then their leader
shouted an order. One man from our boat jumped ashore, leaping across the widened gap to the bank, and went to the mooring rope that held the boat furthest downstream. Its crew assembled, all four
of them, with their poles against the bank. The shoreman waited until they were ready, then, with a cry of warning, he unfastened the knot and cast off. The crew pushed in unison and their boat
went sliding out from the reeds and into the racing current. Within seconds the boat was whisked away, rocking dramatically, gathering speed with every yard. In frantic haste the crew switched to
their oars to prevent the boat from broaching sideways, and to bring her parallel to the current. At the centre of the river, where the current flowed the strongest, the vessel was picked up and
thrust forward, bobbing wildly through the patchwork of small, frothy waves heaping over the shoal that had brought us to a halt the previous day.

Osric riding with the aurochs was next to be cast adrift. Then it was Walo and the ice bears. Finally it was our turn. The boatman on the bank untied our mooring line and flung himself across
the widening gap as the current picked us up and sucked us out into the river. The boat spun crazily, a single wild revolution, before the oarsmen managed to bring it under control. Then we were
racing along downriver in a wild ride that brought my heart into my mouth. The other boats had already disappeared around the next bend and I wondered if we would ever see them again.

‘How did the boatmen know beforehand?’ I called to Abram. I had to raise my voice, for the river was no longer silent. There was a sinister, constant growl as the flood water surged
along, plucking at the riverbank, washing up against roots of trees, twisting itself into lines of small whirlpools.

‘I already asked,’ Abram shouted back. ‘The thunder and lightning yesterday was where the river has its headwaters. They expected heavy rain to swell the river, but admit this
was more than they expected.’ He grabbed for a handhold as our boat struck a floating log and juddered.

‘How long will the flood last?’

‘They can’t be sure – all today and maybe tomorrow.’

Now I understood why the boatmen had stopped us from camping on the riverbank. I had supposed that the risk had lain within the forest. In fact, the danger had come from the river.

The flood swept our boat as fast as a horse could canter. The boatmen stood poised, one man at each corner of our vessel. They watched for floating debris or sudden upwellings and rough water.
Every so often one of them took several powerful strokes with his long oar and adjusted our headlong course. Despite their efforts we thumped up against large logs. A rogue tree, torn from its
roots, slammed into the side of the vessel and nearly capsized us. The tops of the waves slopped aboard, and Abram and I bailed, using whatever was at hand to throw the water back into the river.
Each time I looked up from the work it was to see that we were passing a new and different section of riverbank. I estimated that in the first half-hour we travelled further than the entire
distance we had covered the previous day.

There was no sight of our comrades on the other boats until we entered a straight stretch of river, perhaps a quarter of a mile long, and saw them in the distance. Thankfully, all three vessels
were still afloat with their live cargoes.

With each mile the river grew wider, though the turbulence of the flood water scarcely lessened. Our boat dipped and swooped as it passed over unseen shoals. Islands came and went, the boatmen
choosing a channel past them. Their skill was reassuring, and our boat, being lighter and faster, gradually caught up with Walo and the ice bears. Ahead of them by another fifty yards, I could see
Osric holding on to the aurochs’ cage to steady himself. We eventually left the forest and the river took its course between low, fertile hills. On the river flatlands were fields of ripened
wheat, orchards of plum and cherry, and coppiced woodland. We fled past several large farms, then a small riverside hamlet. There was no attempt to halt. The power of the flood was too strong. By
mid-afternoon I calculated we had gone perhaps forty miles.