The Emperor's Elefant

Chapter Twelve

The Nomenculator was efficient. Forty-eight hours later his messenger arrived at our lodgings in the Colosseum with a list of the different foods that the ice bears could be given safely. I had not expected it to include cabbages, lettuce, apples and even turnips and beans. Research in the archives had revealed that the Colosseum’s animal keepers had kept their bears healthy by giving them vegetables and fruit with their fish and meat. Paul had added a note to say that if I would let him know what quantity of foodstuffs was required his staff would arrange a daily delivery. The messenger also brought me a document with a large crimson wax seal with the imprint of two crossed keys. It was from the papal secretariat: I was invited, with one companion, to attend the celebration of Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. I read through the document, mystified, until I noticed the date. The invitation was for late December – on Christmas Day.

I would have preferred for Osric to have accompanied me but on Christmas morning he woke up feeling feverish and so it was with Abram beside me that I found myself cricking my neck to stare up at the gilded roof struts of the monumental church built over the spot where St Peter had been buried. The roof was at least a hundred feet above me, and the space inside the building was vast, by far the largest that I had known. Nevertheless, the chance to attend Christmas Mass with the pope was something ordinary people could only dream of so it was hardly surprising that the dragoman was crushed up against me by the throng of dignitaries, high officials and civic notables also invited to the event.

For the past two hours all of us had been waiting for the pope’s formal entry, very little was happening and I was now bored.

My attention wandered and I gazed at the many marble columns; I twisted around to get a better view of the area immediately around the saint’s shrine. Gold leaf had been applied lavishly to every free surface. On the wall of the apse was a vast mosaic. The figure of Christ was in the centre, handing a scroll to St Peter. On his left hand stood St Paul. Looming over the shrine itself was a silver arch. From its crossbeam hung a gigantic chandelier blazing with oil lamps, all of them lit despite the fact that it was daylight outside. The entire apse glittered and twinkled with thousands of points of light, reflecting gold and silver, enamel work and mosaic.

‘The lamp is known as the Pharos,’ murmured Abram, noting the direction of my glance. ‘There are said to be more than one thousand lights on it. Both the lamp and the solid silver arch of triumph are the gift of Pope Adrian.’

I was about to comment that the pope must have amassed huge wealth to afford such an ostentatious gift when a flourish of trumpets announced the imminent arrival of the man himself.

The entire crowd turned to face towards the basilica’s entrance and a hidden choir which had until now been keeping up a muted chanting in the background, suddenly burst into full-throated song.

All I could see over the heads of the throng was a three-foot-high silver-and-gold cross studded with jewels. Mounted on a gilded pole it was being held up in the air, swaying slightly as it advanced slowly up the nave and towards the saint’s shrine. From time to time it disappeared from my view, hidden behind the purple and gold draperies hung between the marble columns on each side of the nave. I squeezed forward and stepped up onto one of the plinths at the base of a column in order to get a better view.

A choir dressed in long robes of white and gold headed the procession. They were singing away lustily in concert with the hidden choir. Behind them came the cross-bearer, and then another man holding up a similar pole topped with a smaller gold cross. Below it hung a large square of purple velvet, tasselled with gold and edged with a band of gems. Embroidered in pearls and gold thread on the velvet were two intertwined symbols that I recognized as chi and rho, the first two letters of ‘Christ’ in the alphabet of the Greeks that had been drummed into my head by the renegade priest who was my childhood teacher.

‘The Laburum,’ said Abram who had climbed up on the plinth behind me. ‘Banner and symbol of the Holy Roman Empire.’

The church dignitaries solemnly pacing up the aisle behind the banner were gorgeously attired. Their flowing tunics of lustrous white silk had gold and purple borders. Long cloaks of richly embellished material were pinned at the shoulder with gem-studded brooches. A few were bare headed and had tonsures, but most wore square, four-cornered caps, black and crimson. They processed through the smoke curling up from the censers that some of them swung from gold chains. Others held velvet cushions on which were displayed various sacred items – a set of keys, holy books, chalices and vases.

‘Adrian favours the veneration of images,’ muttered Abram in a disapproving tone as one of the priests in the procession extended his arms and briefly raised up the picture of a saint he was carrying, turning it to left and right so that the crowd could see. More gold and enamel shimmered in the light of the oil lamps that hung the length of the nave.

Then came a short gap in the line, and I recognized Paul the Nomenculator. He was walking with a more soberly dressed group. These wore dark gowns, their hands clasped in front of them, faces fixed in solemn expressions. They had the appearance of notaries and scribes rather than bishops.

‘The papal ministers,’ explained Abram out of the side of his mouth.

The singing of the choirs rose to a crescendo, and at last I caught a brief glimpse of Pope Adrian. He was halfway up the aisle and looking straight ahead, his long aristocratic face composed and serene. His only concession to the winter chill was a short cloak of bright scarlet with a collar and trimmings of white fur. Under it, like the others, he was in a long tunic, though he was the only person in the procession to be wearing a long, gold-banded stole. Adrian might have been ninety years old but he walked with a firm step and it was clear that he had been a handsome man. On either side a senior official in dark ministerial dress was leading him by the hand in a gesture of formal support. The pope was half a head taller than they were, and the ridged cap accentuated a high forehead and strong features. He reminded me of an ageing and pitiless bird of prey.

A firm tug on the hem of my coat pulled me off the plinth, and I turned to find myself looking into the scowl of a burly spectator. I had been blocking his view. Abram had been treated similarly. I apologized profusely and slipped back through the throng to where I no longer had a view of proceedings. The singing had died away so the procession must have reached the saint’s shrine. A hush spread across the crowd and then came the strong, clear voice of a priest summoning the faithful. The service had begun.

*

‘The Nomenculator looked very drab compared to some others in the procession,’ I commented to Abram some hours later as we made our way back towards our lodgings in the Colosseum. We were walking from the basilica downhill towards the river through an area of recently built wooden houses. Many of them were inns and hospices catering for the needs of pilgrims visiting the city.

‘Appearances are deceptive,’ he said. ‘Those closest to the pope wield the most power. The two dignitaries you saw leading him by the hand are both his relatives. One is the Primicerius Notariorum, the other the Secundarius – the head of chancery and his deputy. Adrian wants one of them to succeed him, to keep it in the family.’

‘You’re very well informed,’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘I keep my ears open. All the gossip indicates that there’s going to be trouble when Adrian finally passes on.’

‘There are rivals?’

‘Several.’

‘Alcuin warned me about this sort of thing. Thankfully it doesn’t concern us,’ I said.

The dragoman wrapped his cloak tighter around himself. A chill wind had got up and there was a smell of rain in the air. Soon it would be dark. ‘It might concern us,’ he said carefully. ‘Adrian and King Carolus are known to be close allies. Carolus even refers to Adrian as his “father”.’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked, perhaps a little too sharply, but I was stung that the dragoman was more knowledgeable about these matters than me.

Again he shrugged. ‘It is common knowledge. Adrian may already have obtained an undertaking from Carolus to support a member of Adrian’s family as the next pope.’

‘That’s pure supposition,’ I objected.

‘People in Rome have vivid imaginations, particularly when they are hatching plots.’

‘But I still don’t see how that affects our embassy,’ I said.

Abram halted and turned towards me, his dark eyes searching my face. ‘What if someone wants to send a warning to Carolus, to encourage him to stay clear of Roman politics? What would be a good way to do that?’

I felt a faint shiver of apprehension as I saw his meaning. ‘Harm his embassy.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Abram, you’re becoming as devious and mistrustful as those Roman conspirators you just spoke of,’ I said, keeping my voice light though I remained uneasy. ‘We can’t look for enemies lurking down every alleyway.’

We continued our walk in silence as I thought over what the dragoman had told me. Despite myself, I looked around. It was dusk and the light was rapidly fading. What was it that Paul had said about not walking the streets unescorted after dark? I quickened my pace, glad to note that we were in a street lined with inns. A party of men was coming towards us, and they turned into the doorway just ahead of us. By their dress they appeared to be foreign pilgrims. They had been drinking and were talking loudly, laughing and joking with one another. With a sudden jolt I recognized their speech. They were talking together in my mother tongue: Anglo-Saxon.

I waited until we were well out of earshot before I said, ‘Those men back there. They were from England.’

‘That was a boarding house for English pilgrims. They pay a very low rent to stay there, thanks to a donation from one of their kings some years ago.’ There was enough light for me to see Abram’s expression change as he realized what lay behind my comment. His eyes narrowed. ‘Is this something to do with that coin you showed us the other evening? The one from King Offa?’ he asked.

‘I hadn’t realized that some of his people would be here in Rome.’

It was Abram’s turn to reassure me. ‘Now you’re the one who imagines plots and conspiracies round every corner! Dozens of your countrymen make the pilgrimage to Rome, especially to witness the Christmas celebrations.’

We walked on but I was unable to shake off the unwelcome idea that even in Rome I was within Offa’s reach. The prospect of spending three more months in Rome had lost its appeal. The sooner we were on our way to Baghdad, the happier I would be.

*

The months dragged by. January and February were cold and dreary with slate-grey skies. A week of incessant rain caused the river to overflow and flood the low-lying parts of the city. The water rose above head height, obliging the residents to move to the upper floors as the Nomenculator had described. The Colosseum escaped the worst of the inundation, though there were days when several inches of standing water in the arena meant that the animals could not be exercised. They stayed in their stalls and were well looked after. Walo’s feeding the ice bears with vegetables along with meat and fish, as Paul had researched, was a success. Modi and Madi thrived, and of course were very happy in the winter cold. The gyrfalcons also stayed in good condition and one morning Walo came to me, grinning with delight, to report that one of the dogs had given birth to a litter of four puppies. Two of them were pure white so we had more than we had started out with from Kaupang. The remaining pair had black and brown markings and, after they had been weaned, Walo made a present of them to the stable-hands who had the unpleasant job of cleaning out the aurochs’ stable. That creature remained as bad tempered as ever.

Word had spread about our exotic animals and at exercise times there was usually an audience to watch them. The ice bears attracted by far the most attention. Entire families would sit in the Colosseum’s former spectator seats as Modi and Madi padded lazily around the arena, and I was obliged to post attendants to stop children throwing stones to provoke them. Various members of the Roman nobility also came to inspect and admire the white gyrfalcons, watching Walo exercising them. The birds looked even more spectacular than usual as they circled high above the great bowl of the Colosseum. Our visitors’ reaction to the sight of the surly aurochs, drooling, snorting and rolling its eyes angrily, was always the same: awe tinged with fear. Our benefactor Paul once paid an hour-long visit to see the animals, but after that we rarely saw him. His butler had found us a local cook and a house servant, so when Abram suggested that he and his three attendants move away to live with a Rhadanite family I agreed. It meant that the four Rhadanites could have their food cooked in their own style and observe their dietary laws. There were many days when Protis was away, visiting his friends in Rome, and Osric and I would tour the city’s sights. We would either arrange to meet up with Abram as our guide or we would rely on a small book written for pilgrims that I had bought from a peddler in the porch of St Peter’s Basilica. It listed the shrines of a bewildering number of saints. We dutifully joined the queues lining up to see their tombs or to inspect sacred relics. Invariably, when we emerged from a dark crypt into the daylight or stepped out from the doors of a church, it was to be pounced on by hawkers and street vendors offering to sell us medallions and pilgrim badges.

By early March I was beginning to believe that Abram’s fears of an attack on our embassy were unfounded, so routine was our life in Rome. One evening after a fine sunny day that showed the first signs of spring, Osric and I returned to our lodgings footsore and weary, and rather later than usual. All the houses were shuttered and dark. Walo had gone to bed, and there was no sign of our servants, so I presumed that they had left and gone to their own homes. Osric and I headed to our separate rooms. I lay down in my underclothes for it promised to be a very cold night under the clear skies, and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep. Some time later, I awoke to the barking of dogs. I lay still in bed, listening. Several households within the Colosseum kept dogs as pets and as watchdogs. At night they often barked or howled at one another, and made sleep difficult. But the noise that awoke me was different. I recognized the distinctive high short yaps of the dogs we had brought from Kaupang. It was the sound they made when wildly excited. The noise was close at hand, which was odd. The dogs were always locked up for the night in their kennel deep within the stabling behind the arena, and any noise should have been muffled. My first thought was that Walo might have failed to confine them. I got up, pulled on some clothes and went out of my room and opened the front door of the house to see what all the noise was about.

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.