Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (5 page)

N
OW THAT THE AUROCHS
was their captive, they starved the beast of food and water. Only after three days, when the animal was close to collapse, did the
foresters drop a loop of rope around the deadly horns and tangle its legs with heavy cords. Then, very cautiously, they began to dig away one wall of the pit, bevelling the earth into a ramp.
Nevertheless, the aurochs still had the strength to try to gore its enemies as they prodded the creature up the slope and into a heavily barred cage on wheels. No one was willing to go down into
the pit and delve into the slimy mud to retrieve what was left of Vulfard. His battered corpse stayed submerged in the muck and excrement as the trap was filled in; there was no Christian
burial.

All that time Walo refused to leave the scene. He slept in the same little trench where Vulfard had hidden beside me in the ambush, and begged scraps of food from the foresters. Despite their
charity they treated him with caution. At times he ducked and cringed away if anyone came near him, or, without warning, he made sudden aggressive movements as if to strike them. He was
increasingly haggard, his face and clothes filthy. I feared that his mind was close to total collapse. When everyone was ready to depart, I coaxed him into coming with me as we trailed along behind
the aurochs’ cage, its solid wooden wheels creaking with the strain as it was manhandled over tree roots and ruts until we were on the better surface of the road that brought us to Aachen.
There I managed to trace his family, only to learn that his mother had died when he was still an infant. Vulfard had raised him up on his own, almost entirely in the forest, and now no one wanted
to take on the responsibility of looking after him. When we finally returned to Aachen with the aurochs, Walo finished up at my own home, sleeping in an outhouse by his own choice, as he felt more
at ease there than in the main building.

‘We could take Walo north with us,’ I suggested to Osric. We were seated on a bench in front of the house, soaking up the sunshine of a spring morning and discussing the journey to
collect the white animals. The sounds of sawyers shaping beams and trusses for yet another royal building carried clearly from the nearest construction site.

‘He could turn out to be a liability,’ Osric grunted. Grateful for the warmth, Osric was massaging his crooked leg. In his belted woollen tunic and sturdy leather boots he dressed
like a Frankish tradesman, though his black eyes and swarthy skin hinted at his Saracen origin, as did his habit of wearing a cloth wrapped around his grey felt skull cap.

‘His father saved my life,’ I said. ‘And Walo’s showing signs of recovery. He’s speaking an occasional sentence. If we leave him behind, he’ll just slip back
into a wordless daze. There’s no one here to look after him.’

I tried to sound casual and reasonable but my friend knew me only too well.

‘I get the impression that you’ve another reason why you want Walo to accompany us?’ he said pointedly.

Osric was the only person with whom I regularly discussed my prophetic dreams.

‘It was the night after my interview with Carolus,’ I admitted. ‘I dreamed I was trudging through a pine forest and heard a strange buzzing sound – very loud. Two wolves
were running towards me between the trees. The buzzing noise came from a great mass of bees clinging to their fur. The insects covered the wolves so thickly that they seemed to have grown a second
skin that hummed and rippled. The wolves paid no attention to the bees but I was terrified. Out of nowhere, Walo appeared . . .’ I paused, remembering the bizarre scene.

‘Go on,’ prompted Osric.

‘Walo was acting like a madman. He went straight up to the wolves and stroked their heads, and they sat down obediently, their tongues lolling out. Walo sat himself on the ground between
them and many of the bees swarmed across and onto Walo until he, too, seemed to be wearing a coat of bees. Then I woke up.’

Osric was quiet for a long moment. ‘What does the Oneirokritikon have to say?’

I hesitated before replying. Both of us knew that the dream book could be as dangerously ambiguous as any charlatan fortuneteller.

‘Artimedorus writes that seeing a madman in a dream is a good omen. He points out that madmen are not hindered in anything they have set their hearts on. So to dream of someone who is
insane means that a business venture will succeed.’

‘An unlikely argument,’ Osric observed sardonically.

‘Enough to persuade me that taking Walo along with us would be more than repaying his father’s sacrifice. Walo could prove a lucky mascot.’

‘You’ll be exposing him to situations for which he is completely unprepared, perhaps to a new danger.’

Puzzled, I looked at my friend. ‘What do you have in mind?’

‘The last I heard, King Offa still rules Mercia as ruthlessly as before. He has his informants at Carolus’s court. He’s still your enemy, and he might well still be thinking
that he was foolish for not killing you when he wiped out the rest of your family. Now he has his chance to finish the job.’

‘But we’re not going anywhere near Mercia.’

Osric’s face clouded momentarily. ‘Offa will have heard about the caliph’s splendid gifts to Carolus and the preparations to send a mission to Baghdad in return. His agents may
even have reported that you have been put in charge of the mission. Mercia and Frankia are on good terms.’

It was true. Relations between the two kings, Carolus and Offa, had become increasingly cordial of late. They were exchanging letters regularly and recently there had been a formal trade
agreement between their kingdoms. All of a sudden I felt foolish. If Offa knew how high I had risen in Carolus’s favour he might now see me, the legitimate heir to the plundered throne, as a
threat. Offa was brutal and ruthless. Regretting that he had let me live, he might try and undo his mistake.

‘I doubt that the spies will think it’s worth reporting that I’m being sent to gather together the white animals,’ I replied.

‘Offa hasn’t tried to harm you while you are at Carolus’s court. That would be an insult to the Franks. But once you’re away from Frankish territory on this
animal-collecting trip, you’ll be vulnerable . . .’ Osric let his voice trail off.

‘Then we’ll make sure he doesn’t know exactly where or when we are going,’ I said firmly. Osric’s caution was oppressive.

He treated me to a sceptical glance. ‘Offa’s no fool. He’ll work that out for himself.’

His remark hit home. Carolus’s mews master had already told me that the source for white gyrfalcons was the market in Kaupang, on the furthest border of the kingdom of the Danes.

My friend grimaced as he tried to stretch his crooked leg. ‘Just how far north is this Kaupang?’

‘A month’s travel. The market is temporary, just a few weeks every summer. Traders come to it from all over the Northlands.’

‘And just as I was hoping to enjoy a few weeks of summer warmth,’ Osric grumbled.

‘Everything is being arranged by the chancery and we should be back before the summer’s over,’ I assured him. ‘There’ll be an armed escort from here to Dorestad on
the Rhine, a ship from there direct to Kaupang where we purchase the white bears and falcons, then back home.’

Osric shook his head in disbelief. ‘And a moment ago you said that we would conceal the timing of our journey. Not with an escort of Frankish troopers clattering along with us, we
won’t.’

‘Then I’ll have the size of escort reduced to the bare minimum. Just enough to make sure we arrive in Dorestad without being robbed. We’ll be carrying a small fortune in silver
coin. Carolus is providing a massive budget.’

‘Sufficient to buy a unicorn?’ My friend was gently mocking.

‘We’ll do our best to find one, and if we fail, the king will have to accept our excuses.’

Osric sighed. ‘That part of our mission is probably a fool’s errand. But I can see that you’ve already made up your mind about Walo coming with us.’

I got to my feet. ‘I must go and check how soon the chancery can have our escort and money ready for us.’ As I made my way across the royal precinct, I wondered if I should have been
more honest with Osric. The Oneirokritikon had offered an alternative explanation for my dream. According to Artimedorus, a dream of bees was only a good omen for farmers. For everyone else, to
dream about bees was highly dangerous. Their humming signified confusion, and their stings were symbols for wounds and hurt. If the bees settled on the dreamer’s head, it foretold his
death.

*

We rode out from Aachen on the first day of June when the faint glow of dawn was barely visible in the sky. I hoped our small party would be unremarkable among the early
travellers already taking the rutted highway leading out of town. Osric and I wore the sober, practical clothes that marked us as smalltime merchants. Walo was dressed as our servant. I had removed
my eye patch to make myself less noticeable and would replace it only when it was full daylight. Our escort of two burly troopers had been persuaded to leave behind the helmets and armoured coats
that identified them as members of the royal guard. Each man led two pack ponies, his sword hidden among their straw-lined panniers stuffed with the bottles of Rhenish wine that purported to be our
trade goods. Our real wealth was in the leather saddlebags slung from the saddle of my horse and Osric’s: shiny new silver deniers from the king’s mint at Aachen. Each coin was the size
of my fingernail and the moneyers had stamped them with Carolus’s monogram on one side, and the Christian cross on the other. There were three thousand of them, a dazzling prize for any lucky
thief.

As the morning wore on, I was alarmed to see Walo attracting attention. He stared rudely at the people coming towards us along the road, gazing at them with open curiosity. Some scowled at him
in return. Others met his stare and, noting his moon face, looked away and hurried their steps. Ignoring their reaction, he swivelled right round in the saddle to turn and watch their backs long
after they had passed.

‘Walo sticks in people’s memories,’ Osric muttered as he rode up alongside me. ‘Let’s hope that Offa’s spies don’t hear that you are travelling with
Vulfard’s son. We’ll be easy to track.’

‘There’s not much I can do about it,’ I admitted.

‘Does Walo know where we are going and why?’

‘I got him in one of his better moments, and told him that the king was sending us to obtain white bears, hawks and a unicorn. But I didn’t say where we were going.’

‘What was his reaction?’

‘He accepted everything I said as perfectly normal. He only asked if a unicorn sheds its horn every year.’

‘Why on earth would he want to know that?’

‘He told me in all seriousness that if the unicorn loses its horn each year, then it is a sort of deer. If not, then it is more like a wisent.’

Osric raised an eyebrow. ‘For all his strangeness, he knows a lot about the animals. Let’s hope he doesn’t blurt out the reason for our journey to some stranger along our
route.’

‘He shies away from strangers. Maybe he doesn’t trust them,’ I reassured Osric. ‘But I’ll keep a close watch on him.’

We left the town and emerged into gently rolling countryside. The rich soil was intensively cultivated, and here Walo gawked at the prosperous brick-built farms with their tiled stables and
cattle byres, the barns, pigeon lofts and orchards. I guessed that his previous life under his father’s care had been almost entirely spent in the great tracts of untamed forest that the king
reserved for hunting. Edging my horse closer to Walo I took it on myself to try to explain what was happening on the land. Here a flock of sheep was penned next to an open-sided shed. Two men were
shearing while their comrades were carrying away the fleeces to drop them into rinsing baths. A little further on I described why an ox team was ploughing the ground so late in the season. It was
the new agricultural system recommended by the king’s advisors. The field had been left fallow for the previous year. When we came to a watermill, the turning paddles astonished him and I
doubted he understood my long-winded description of their function. But I needed to hold his attention while, off to one side, Osric discreetly bartered with the miller for a bag of oats for our
horses.

By noon, the day had turned very warm and it was time to break our journey. Passing a large, ramshackle farm, I spotted a water trough in one corner of the farmyard. I turned aside and led our
little pack train into the yard to ask permission to water our animals. Two ill-tempered guard dogs promptly burst from their kennel, barking and snarling. They were large, vicious curs. We pulled
up immediately, unable to dismount. Our horses skittered nervously, edging sideways and back. The dogs circled, hackles raised, occasionally rushing in to snap at their heels. One dog, the largest
and boldest, leapt up in an attempt to sink its teeth into a guardsman’s leg. He kicked out at the brute with an oath and I feared that he would reach for his hidden sword. After a little
while, when no one appeared from the farmhouse to call off the beasts, I pulled my horse’s head around and prepared to lead our party away.