The Emperor's Elefant

Chapter Four

The wind, though blustery, stayed fair for the next three days while Redwald steered his chosen course without any sight of land. In response to my questions he told me that he took the direction of the waves as his guide, together with the angle of the sun and stars whenever the clouds allowed. But it was a mystery to me how he managed to calculate so accurately the distance we had covered. Late one morning, he gestured over the bow and announced casually that we would be at Kaupang next daybreak. I looked in that direction but saw nothing. Another couple of hours passed before I made out a narrow dark smudge just discernible against the hazy line where a grey overcast sky met a sullen-looking sea. It was our landfall. Judging by the crew’s lack of any reaction, they thought this feat of navigation was unremarkable. They made minor adjustments to the set of the sail, and then went back to the everyday routine of repairing worn tackle and hauling up buckets of water from the bilge and tipping the contents overboard.

Slowly the cog wallowed towards the coast. It was a raw land, rugged and desolate. Thick, gloomy forest covered dark hills that rose gradually towards a range of mountains whose bald peaks were purple-grey in the far distance. As we drew closer, it was possible to make out the jumbled boulders of a rock-bound shore without any sign of human activity. The wind had already eased to a soft breeze and in the late afternoon it died away completely. The cog was left becalmed, the big sail sagging. We were perhaps a long bow shot from the shoreline, and I supposed the vessel had come to a complete halt. But watching more closely I realized that the cog was caught in some sort of current. She was being carried sideways towards a spit of land where the swell heaved and broke on a hidden reef, each surge and retreat sucking back the foam in whorls and patterns. Unnerved, I turned to look at Redwald, for it seemed to me that the cog must drift helplessly onto the rocks.

‘Is it far to Kaupang?’ I asked, trying to hide my alarm.

‘Just around that point,’ he answered calmly.

He seemed utterly unconcerned by our situation and I wondered if he had noticed a gathering grey murkiness out to sea. To add to our troubles, a fog bank was beginning to form.

An hour dragged by and there was nothing to do except observe the shoreline slowly edging past. Behind us the fog bank grew thicker, swallowing up the sun as it sank towards the horizon. Now the mist was oozing towards us. The first wisps arrived, cool and moist, caressing our faces. In a very short time it had wrapped itself around us and we could see no more than a yard or two in any direction. It was like being immersed in a bowl of thin milk. From where I stood beside the helm I could see no further than the mainmast. The bow was totally invisible. When I licked my lips, I tasted fresh dew. The fog was settling. I shivered.

‘Have you been in anything like this before?’ I muttered to Osric standing at my shoulder. Walo had gone below deck, taking his turn to guard our saddlebags.

‘Never,’ he replied. Long ago he had been shipwrecked on a voyage from Hispania to Britain aboard a ship trading for tin. It was as an injured castaway that he had been sold into slavery.

‘Why doesn’t the captain drop anchor?’ I wondered.

I did not know that sound carries well in a fog. ‘Because the water’s too deep,’ came Redwald’s voice somewhere in the mist.

I watched the droplets of water gather on the dark tan of the sail, then trickle down, joining into delicate rivulets before dripping to the deck. Somewhere in the distance was a faint sound, a low, muted rumble repeated every few seconds. It was the murmur of the swell nuzzling the unseen rocks.

The cog drifted onward.

Perhaps half an hour later Redwald abruptly growled, ‘Sweeps!’

There were indistinct movements in the mist. Blurred figures moved here and there on the deck, followed by several thumps and dragging sounds. The crew were preparing the long oars that had been lashed to the ship’s rail during the voyage.

There were more noises and some clattering as the sweeps were thrust out over the side, splashes as their blades hit the water.

‘If you want to make yourselves useful, lend a hand,’ came Redwald’s gruff voice again.

I fumbled my way to where I could just make out a crewman standing ready to pull on a sweep. He moved aside enough to let me join him. I gripped the soaking-wet wood of the handle.

‘Pull away!’ Redwald ordered. After a few moments I picked up the rhythm, a slow steady dip and pull. Osric must also have found his place at another oar handle, and not long afterwards I became aware of a figure ducking past me. I recognized the shambling walk, and knew it was Walo. He must have sensed that something was wrong and clambered up from the hold. I decided there was no point in worrying that our silver was unguarded. It was more important that every man aboard helped keep the cog off the rocks.

I began to count the strokes and had nearly reached five hundred when, abruptly, Redwald called on us to stop rowing. Gratefully I stood straighter, my arm muscles aching. I turned to my neighbour and was about to speak when he raised a finger to his lips and gestured at me to stay silent. He cocked his head on one side and I understood that he was listening intently. I tried to pick out the sounds, and heard the noise of small waves breaking. The sound came from directly ahead. We were off the reef, but very close.

‘Row on!’ came Redwald’s command.

We returned to our labour and this time I had counted another four hundred strokes before we were told to stop. Once again we listened. Now the swash and rumble of the breaking waves came from a different direction and seemed to be more distant.

‘Row on!’

We must have rowed for perhaps three hours, stopping and listening at regular intervals. The fog and the gathering darkness soon made it impossible to see the surface of the water and the blade of the sweep. We trusted entirely to Redwald’s commands. Eventually, during one of the listening pauses, I heard him tell one of his men to take the helm. Then I heard the shipmaster’s clogs thump along the deck as he moved forward.

‘Row on!’ This time Redwald’s command came from the bows. Then, every twenty or so strokes, I heard a splash very close by.

‘What’s the captain doing?’ I whispered to my oar comrade.

‘Soundings,’ he hissed back irritably, as if I was an imbecile to have asked.

The explanation meant nothing to me so I kept on heaving on the handle of the sweep until finally Redwald’s voice came floating back. We were to stop rowing and the crew were to go forward and drop anchor.

Gladly I helped pull aboard the heavy sweep and laid it on deck. From the bow I heard a heavier splash which must have been our anchor hitting the water, then the thrum of rope, and more activity as the crew made fast.

Redwald’s gangling shape loomed through the fog, an arm’s length away.

‘All set for the night,’ he announced. ‘You and your friends can get below and rest.’

‘When will we finally reach Kaupang?’ I asked him.

‘We’re there,’ he said flatly.

‘How can that be?’ I blurted in surprise, unable to keep the disbelief out of my voice.

There was a throaty chuckle. ‘What did I tell you when we left Dorestad?’ he demanded.

I thought back to our departure as we sailed down the Rhine’s current in the fading light of evening.

‘You said something about listening,’ I replied.

‘Exactly,’ the shipmaster said. He brushed past me without another word.

I held my breath and listened intently. The ship was lying quietly to her anchor. There was no longer the creak of ropes and timber, not even the sound of water moving past her hull.

In a moment of absolute silence and through the pitch darkness, I heard the bark of a dog.

*

I awoke with a stiff neck and aching shoulders after an exhausted sleep. At first I blamed my hard pillow, the saddlebag packed with silver, but the moment I stretched and felt the soreness in my muscles, I recalled the hours spent hauling on a sweep. I could hear the muffled sounds of distant activity and sunlight was pouring into the hold through the open hatchway. I rose gingerly and made my way to the foot of the ladder to the deck. Fresh blisters on my palms made me wince as I hauled myself up the rungs and emerged into a fine, bright morning. There was not a breath of wind. The fog had gone completely.

Turning to look over the bow, I blinked in surprise.

We were anchored within a stone’s throw of a landing beach. In dense fog Redwald had managed to guide the cog into a broad, sheltered inlet. It was little wonder that his crew had such confidence in their captain.

A couple of dozen boats lay drawn up in an uneven line on the shingle. They ranged from two-man skiffs to middling-sized cargo vessels. Their crews must have been ashore, for these boats were empty and unattended. Three much larger ships were berthed alongside a rough stone jetty and here the day’s work was already well underway. Men were hoisting cargo from the holds, carrying sacks and packages ashore, rolling barrels down gangplanks. At the root of the jetty stood a stocky, shaggy pony. It was harnessed to a wooden sledge already heaped with boxes, and the animal’s master was tying down the ropes that held the load in place. As I watched, a mongrel wandered up, circled the pony cautiously, and made as if to cock its leg. Someone must have thrown a stone, for suddenly the mongrel yelped and ran, tail between its legs. I wondered if it was the same dog that had barked the previous evening.

‘Kaupang must be just over there,’ said Osric. My friend was already on deck, leaning on the ship’s rail. He pointed inland to where a rough track led past a couple of weather-beaten shacks and over a small ridge. ‘Seems as though our captain’s expected.’

A small open boat was coming to us, rowed by two men while a third stood in the stern. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out. ‘Redwald! The knorr leaves for Dunwich at noon. You can have her space alongside as soon as she’s gone.’

Redwald shouted back, ‘I’ve got passengers you can take ashore for me right away!’

I was surprised that Redwald was being so obliging. ‘There’s no hurry. Osric and I can wait till later,’ I said to him.

‘I want you off my ship,’ he grunted. He jerked a thumb towards the jetty. ‘See that big vessel? That’s the knorr. Her captain will want to come aboard and have a chat before he sets sail.’ When I made no move to step away from the ship’s rail, Redwald shot me a meaningful look from his pale blue eyes and added, ‘Dunwich is a port on the English coast. Part of King Offa’s domain. Gossip spreads fast.’

There was a slight bump as the rowing boat came alongside.

‘But Walo stays aboard,’ I said.

Redwald scowled. ‘Then tell him to keep out of sight.’

I was about to climb down into the waiting skiff when the shipmaster laid a hand on my shoulder. He slipped his sailor’s knife and its sheath from his belt and held it out to me. ‘Here, take this, and don’t loiter in Kaupang after dark. Come back to the ship before dusk. The knorr will be gone by then.’

I took his knife without a word and lowered myself into the skiff. Osric followed, and as we were rowed ashore I looked back at the cog, wondering what to make of Redwald. He had ordered me off his ship because he wanted to avoid trouble with King Offa. Yet he seemed genuinely concerned for my safety ashore. He also knew that we were carrying a fortune in silver. I fretted that Walo was not the right person to have left on guard. At the landing place a man was melting tar in a cauldron over a driftwood fire. The unmistakable smell of hot pitch hung in the still air and a flock of seagulls squabbled at the water’s edge, tearing at a shapeless piece of carrion with their orange and yellow beaks.

‘Redwald is worried that King Offa will get to know that I’m in Kaupang,’ I said to Osric as we walked up the beach and out of earshot of the skiff’s crew.

‘Then we must take care not to draw attention to ourselves,’ he answered. ‘If Kaupang’s a seasonal market, there’ll be plenty of strangers who arrive here just for a short visit. We should be able to blend in.’

We stood aside to allow the pony and loaded sledge to go past at a lunging trot, the driver slapping the reins and shouting encouragement. Then we followed them along the track as it led up the slope of the beach to where it skirted the grove of alder trees and then crested the low ridge. On the far side, we found an untidy straggle of humble single-storey dwellings, their walls and roofs made of weathered grey planks. Among them were several much larger buildings shaped like huge upturned boats and roofed with turf. It took a moment to realize that this was Kaupang and our footpath, where it broadened, was Kaupang’s one and only street, unpaved and chaotic.

‘So this is the great market place of the north!’ observed Osric dubiously.

Scores of makeshift sales booths were little more than crude hutches. Rocks and turf sods had been piled up to make their walls, and sheets of canvas rigged to keep out the rain. Other shops were open-sided sheds. Much of what was for sale was merely heaped up on the ground, jumbled together, and left for prospective buyers to browse. Despite the chaos and clutter, the place was swarming with customers.

We strolled forward, picking our way around untidy displays or squeezing between rickety stalls set up at random.

‘I don’t see many takers for Redwald’s shipment of household querns,’ I murmured. There were some women in the crowd, but not many. They wore loose linen dresses reaching to their ankles and most of them had tied up their hair in scarves. That was a shame because, from what I glimpsed, they had fine, lustrous hair and wore it long. By far the majority of Kaupang’s customers were men. In general, they were burly, heavily bearded and exuded a certain swaggering arrogance. One passerby stared into my face, and then gave me an odd look – he must have seen my different-coloured eyes – and I was glad that Redwald’s dagger was very obvious in my belt. A drunk came swaying out of a ramshackle building that did duty for a tavern. He pitched forward on his face in the dirt in front of us. Like everyone else, we skirted around him and carried on walking.

In the area where foodstuffs were for sale, the most common offering was fish: split, dried and hung up like laundry, dangling in long strings that gave off a pungent smell. I could see little sign of the sort of farm produce normally found in a country market. There were no vegetables or fruit or fresh meat, just a few eggs and some soft white cheese in tubs being sold by one of the very few women stall holders.

‘I wouldn’t risk my teeth on that lot,’ Osric commented, nodding towards a handful of knobbly oatmeal loaves displayed in a wheelbarrow.

We drifted on to where farm implements were for sale. Here the traders had laid out axes, saws, cauldrons, hammers, chisels, lengths of chain and barrels of massive iron nails. It was also possible to purchase rough slabs of raw iron, ready to be heated and moulded into tools. I thought sourly of Osric’s nickname of Weyland, and that made me look more closely at some of the men in the crowd. A big ox of a man standing near me was examining an axe. His shirt front was open. Hanging from a leather thong around his neck was a T-shaped amulet. I recognized Thor’s hammer.

‘Let’s see if we can track down a seller of hunting birds,’ I suggested.

‘Maybe over there.’ Osric pointed towards one of the larger open-sided sheds. Some sort of unidentifiable animal skin had been nailed to a cross-beam high enough to be seen above the heads of the crowd.

We pushed our way through the press of people and found ourselves in front of a display of anchors, rolls of sailcloth, fishing line and hooks, balls of twine, ropes and nets. The air reeked of pine tar. The proprietor was a scrawny, pockmarked fellow who was trying to sell a coil of rope to a customer. The local language was close enough to Saxon for me to understand most of his sales talk. The rope was dark, greasy and – if the man was to be believed – cut from the thick leathery skin of a large animal he called a hross-hvalr, and far superior to rope made from strands of flax. His client, a thick-necked man with half an ear missing, was fingering the rope doubtfully and saying that he preferred thin strips of good-quality stallion hide so that he could plait his own rope. ‘One horse’s skin is as good as another. You will save yourself the labour of all that plaiting,’ wheedled the shopkeeper.

His client was not persuaded and dropped the heavy rope’s end with a disdainful grunt, then wandered off. I waited until he was out of earshot, then asked the shopkeeper. ‘Excuse me, I heard you speaking of a “hross-hvalr” just now. Is that some sort of horse?’

The man looked me up and down. He must have seen by my clothes that I was not a seafarer and therefore an unlikely customer. He was about to turn away when perhaps he noticed the colour of my eyes because he hesitated. His expression, which had been dismissive, changed to one that was more wary.

‘Why would you want to know?’ he asked.

‘Just curiosity. I’m a stranger to these parts and “hross” sounds much like horse.’

‘You’re right in that,’ the man agreed.

‘I’m told that many of the animals native to this region are white. I’m wondering if this type of horse is also white.’

‘I’ve never seen a live hross-hvalr,’ said the merchant. ‘I get offered lengths of rope made up from their skin. It’s always the same colour as that one there.’ He nodded towards the coil of rope on the ground. It was a dull, grey-black.

A thought occurred to me. ‘So you don’t make the rope yourself?’

‘No, it comes ready made. The hross-hvalr lives far in the north where the winter nights are so long that there’s plenty of dark time for a man to fill in the hours sitting by his hearth, slicing up skin into rope.’

‘Perhaps I should ask someone from that area,’ I suggested.

The man paused before replying, cautious about giving information to a stranger.

‘If you can help me find what I’m looking for,’ I coaxed, ‘I would gladly pay a small reward.’

He cocked his head on one side and looked at me sharply. ‘What exactly is it that you are seeking?’

I hesitated, aware of my own doubts. ‘I’m looking for an unusual sort of horse, a white one. It’s called a unicorn.’

There was a startled pause, and then he threw back his head and hooted with laughter. ‘A unicorn! I don’t believe it!’

I stood there, feeling foolish and trying not to show it.

He laughed so hard, he almost choked. ‘In these parts you’ll find Sleipnir before you come across any unicorn. A hross-hvalr is a horse whale,’ he gasped finally.

I waited until he had regained his breath and, curbing my irritation, asked him again who had supplied him with horse whale rope.

‘His name is Ohthere,’ he told me. ‘He owns a large farm on the coast and so far north that it takes him almost a month to get here, sailing every day and anchoring each night. He shows up in Kaupang every year, probably the only time he meets anyone outside his own family.’

‘Where can I find this Ohthere?’

The shopkeeper was still chuckling. ‘At the end of the street, on the outskirts of town. He always sets up a big tent there, on the right.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, stepping back. ‘You’ve been most helpful.’

‘And tell him that Oleif sent you!’ he called after me as I trudged on, Osric limping beside me.

‘What did he mean about finding Sleipnir before we came across a unicorn?’ Osric asked.

‘It was his way of saying that there’s no such creature as a unicorn. Sleipnir is the horse Odinn rides. According to the old beliefs, Sleipnir travels on eight legs.’

We were passing one of the large boat-shaped houses with a turf roof. Three men stood in the open doorway, deep in conversation. Judging by the tints of grey in their neatly trimmed beards, two of them were in their mid-forties. Their companion was younger, perhaps in his twenties. All three were dressed in the same unobtrusive style – loose trousers of dark wool, a long shirt belted at the waist and soft knee-length boots. Two of them were bare headed; the third wore a round felt cap with an unusual trim of alternating patches of glossy dark and light fur.

Osric nudged me with his elbow. ‘Over there,’ he murmured, flicking a glance towards the strangers.

At first sight there was nothing noteworthy about them apart from the fact that their skins were a darker shade than most visitors to the market and they appeared to be more neatly groomed.

‘Look at their belts,’ Osric prompted under his breath.

I took a second glance. Their broad leather belts were stitched with complicated interlocking red and green patterns in loops and whorls. The buckles were ornate and of massive silver.

‘Slave dealers,’ muttered Osric. There was sadness in his voice and I remembered that once he too had been traded as a slave.

I felt the pressure on my arm as he steered me so we passed close enough to the three slave-dealers to overhear their conversation.

The three men ignored us as we sauntered past and when we were at a safe distance I asked, ‘What were they talking about?’

‘I picked up a few words. Enough to guess that they come from Khazaria, well beyond Constantinople.’

‘Redwald mentioned that Saracen traders come to Kaupang to buy slaves. I’m surprised that the emperor in Constantinople allows Saracens to cross his lands to get here. They could be spies,’ I added.

Osric grimaced. ‘Trade leaks through frontiers. Slaves bought in Kaupang can finish up serving in the palace at Constantinople.’

Presently we found ourselves in the rougher end of Kaupang’s market. Rubbish littered the ground and the buildings were even more seedy. Stray dogs, scabby and malnourished, nosed for scraps at the side of the roadway. A group of what looked like vagrants were squatting or lying in the shade of one of the flimsy sheds. There were tear streaks on the grimy faces of some of the women and girls, the men looked sullen and bored. They wore no chains but I knew at once that they were for sale. They could have been taken prisoner in local battles, kidnapped by slave catchers, or sold into slavery to pay debts. I tried not to think of my own people made captive when King Offa conquered us. Most would have been allowed to stay on and work the land, paying their taxes to their new lord, but others would have been sold. It was my good fortune to have been sent into exile.

At the far end of the roadway, at the point it turned back into a footpath, we finally found where hunting birds were sold. A dozen or so birds were fastened by cords around their legs to a line of wooden blocks on the ground. They watched our approach with their fierce, bright eyes. The ground around their perches was soiled with their droppings. Fresh bloodstains and shreds of mouse carcasses on the blocks showed that they had been fed recently. The smaller merlins and sparrowhawks were easy to identify, and Carolus’s mews master had taken me on a tour of the royal mews so I was able to distinguish the big gyrfalcons from their cousins the peregrines. Disappointingly, of three gyrfalcons only one was white. The plumage of the others was patterned in dark brown and black. They were not what I was seeking.

A whip-thin lad, scarcely ten years old, had been left in charge. Mindful that I had agreed with Redwald that he would be negotiating with the bird sellers, I contented myself with asking the boy if he knew where I might find a man called Ohthere. My question was drowned out by a sudden furious outburst of barking. A pack of mangy dogs rushed past, nearly knocking the lad off his feet. Their jostling and yapping disturbed the hunting birds. They fidgeted on their perches, fluffing up their feathers.

‘Where can I find Ohthere?’ I repeated. The lad had knelt down on the ground to calm the white gyrfalcon, gently stroking its plumage. When he looked up at me, I thought that he did not understand my Saxon. The dogs had bunched in front of a stout wooden pen a little further down the road and were snapping and snarling hysterically at its bars.

‘Ohthere?’ I asked again.

The lad continued to stroke the gyrfalcon. He raised his free hand and pointed. A heavily built man, roaring and cursing, had emerged from a leather tent close beside the wooden pen. He strode angrily towards the frenzied pack, and began laying about him with a stout stick.

Osric and I waited until the stranger had succeeded in beating back the dogs before we approached him.

‘Would you be Ohthere?’ I enquired politely. ‘Oleif said I might find him here.’

The man turned to face me, stick in hand. He was someone with whom I would avoid a quarrel. Watchful grey eyes were set in a craggy face under bushy eyebrows. He had a dense, black beard and although he was of no more than ordinary height, his barrel chest strained the fabric of his jerkin. Muscular forearms and thick, blunt fingers grasping the stick made it clear that he was not to be trifled with.

‘I’m Ohthere.’ His tone of voice, assured and forceful, matched his appearance.

‘I’m hoping you can tell me about the horse whale, the hross-hvalr. Oleif said they are found in the region where you have your farm.’

Ohthere studied me. I was sure he had seen the colours of my eyes, but he showed no reaction. ‘That’s right. Horse whales haul out on the beaches near me.’

‘Haul out?’

‘They clamber out of the sea and lie on the land, sunning themselves. That’s where they breed and raise their pups. What did you expect?’

‘I had hoped that they were a sort of horse, and maybe some of them have white skins.’ This time I did not want to make an idiot of myself by mentioning unicorns.

Thankfully Ohthere did not laugh. ‘They’re sea animals, big and bloated. Odinn only knows how they came to be called horses. They’re more like whales. That part of their name is accurate.’

‘And none of them are white?’

‘Not that I’ve seen. The only white thing about them is their teeth. Great long fangs. They fetch a good price for carving into ornaments and jewellery.’

Now I knew what animal he was talking about. At Carolus’s court I had seen chess pieces, sword handles and pendants that were said to have been carved from the massive teeth of a sea beast. An image flashed into my mind from the Book of Beasts that Carolus had showed me. As he flicked through the pages, I had caught a quick glimpse of a drawing of a great ungainly animal lying on a rocky shore. It had a bulging body, a tail like a fish, a mournful-looking face, and drooping whiskers. It was not a unicorn, and not what the king had wanted.

Ohthere must have read the disappointment on my face. ‘I’ve heard rumours of a small whale that is as white as snow. But it’s only a rumour.’

‘Thank you for your help. I’m sorry to have disturbed you. Those dogs must be a nuisance,’ I said. Several of the curs had sneaked around behind us while we were talking, and were again at the bars of the pen, snarling and growling.

‘If they get too close, they’ll be sorry,’ said Ohthere. ‘Here, let me show you what I’ve got inside.’ He led me over to the wooden enclosure.

It was more of a large strong cage than a pen. The sides were made of stout timber posts and a number of heavy slats had been laid across to form a roof.

I peered inside.

All that was visible were two grubby yellow shapes on the ground. At first I mistook them for a pair of large and dirty sheep, sound asleep. Then one of the shapes moved slightly and I saw a snout with a black tip and two bright black spots. They were eyes.

‘Yearling ice bears,’ Ohthere announced beside me. Without warning he lashed out with his stick and caught one of the dogs across the rump. It ran off with a howl.

‘They don’t look that dangerous,’ I said, still gazing at the bears. They were both slumped on the ground. The two black eyes had closed.

‘That’s because they’re half-starved.’

‘How did you get them?’ I asked. I was utterly disappointed. I had expected to see a wonderful white creature like the one drawn in the bestiary. Instead, these two creatures looked sick and feeble, and their dirty fur was the colour of urine. They also smelled of piss. I wondered what impression such dejected and mangy animals would make on the caliph of Baghdad in return for his gift of a white elephant to Carolus.

‘The Finna traded them to me,’ Ohthere replied. ‘They had killed the mother bear. They let me have her skin as well. I’ve already sold it.’

‘Who are the Finna?’ I was already wondering if I should travel onwards and contact these people in my quest.

‘They roam the mountains and wastelands near my farm. A native people and always on the move. They come to me, asking to trade metal in exchange for feathers, horse whale teeth and skin rope. You never know when they will turn up or what they will bring for barter. This year they produced two bears.’

Ohthere stared in at the two animals. ‘It’s been impossible to get them to eat properly. They’ll eat a couple of mouthfuls and leave the rest. I’ve tried seal blubber, mutton fat, chicken, milk. I’d say they’re pining for their mother.’

One of the young ice bears had risen to its feet. It was somewhat bigger than I had imagined, the size of a large mastiff. It padded slowly towards the far side of the pen. The gait was strange, sinuous and soft.

‘How big will they grow?’ I enquired.

‘If they live, they’ll be as big as their mother, and her pelt was two fathoms from nose to tail.’

‘They don’t look very dangerous.’ A dog had poked its muzzle between the wooden bars and was barking shrilly at the moving bear. Scarcely were the words out of my mouth than the bear made a sudden pounce, lashing out with its paw. The movement was almost too quick to see. The claws raked the face of the cur. The dog screamed and fled, blood spraying from the wound.

‘You see my problem,’ said Ohthere. ‘You don’t want to get too close when you’re trying to coax them into feeding.’

‘I thought ice bears are white?’

‘In winter the fur is the same colour as the snow and ice. If they were healthy they would not look so shabby.’

‘Are they for sale?’ I asked, turning to look at him.

‘Why else would I have brought them to Scringes Heal?’ he said ruefully. ‘I was hoping that they would regain their appetites, but it seems I was wrong.’

‘I’ll make you an offer,’ I said.

Ohthere looked at me in surprise. ‘What would you want with them?’

‘I’m collecting white animals for King Carolus.’

A smile split the heavy black beard. ‘I can see you are no trader. You would not have been so honest about the identity of your client.’

He frowned at the cage. ‘Come back tomorrow at about this same time. By then I’ll have had time to think about a price. Mind you, I don’t suppose that these two bears will survive much longer. You could finish up delivering only their skins to Carolus.’

As Osric and I walked back towards our ship, I brooded on the discouraging start to our visit to Kaupang. We had found only one white gyrfalcon for sale, and though we were lucky to have come across a pair of ice bears, the two animals were so sickly that it was virtually certain they would die long before they could be brought all the way to far Baghdad. As for a unicorn, the mere mention of such a creature made people burst into mocking laughter.