I did so. Among the Saracen symbols was an inscription in Roman letters: ‘Offa Rex’.
‘This is Offa’s coinage?’ I said, puzzled. ‘Why the Saracen writing?’
Redwald leaned back on his chair and I recognized the look that he had on his face when he was about to impart one of the secrets of his trade. ‘A couple of years ago, Offa decided to issue a coin in gold, not his usual silver. He wanted to expand Mercia’s trade with Hispania. Having a coin that the Saracen recognized would make payments easier. So his mint master took his mould from a genuine Saracen coin, a gold dinar, and changed a single detail – inserting Offa’s name.’
‘So those cut-throats were Offa’s hirelings.’ The thought that Offa had not forgotten my existence and was prepared to have me killed made my stomach twist.
‘Not so fast,’ warned Redwald. He slid a second gold coin across the table towards me. ‘This was another coin your knife-wielding friend wanted me to change for silver.’
This coin bore a cross on one side, and two stylized heads on the other. Both wore crowns, one with long pendants hanging almost to the shoulders. I looked up at Redwald questioningly. ‘Where does this one come from?’
‘Constantinople. That’s a Byzantine solidus.’ Redwald raised an eyebrow. ‘The figure on the left is the young Basileus Constantine.’
‘And the one with the dangling decorations?’
‘His mother, Irene. She acts as regent. Can you think of any reason why someone in Constantinople wants you done away with?’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘Just in case they try again, I think we should bring forward the date of our departure from Kaupang. I seem to remember that I gave my word to deliver you and your friends safely back to Dorestad . . . and that’s when I’ll be paid my bonus.’
At that moment Osric limped into the room. He made me stand up and peel off my tunic so that he could examine the wound. As he cleaned the gash with a rag soaked in rainwater, I reflected to myself that either Redwald was innocent of my attempted murder or he was a most ingenious liar. He had provided me with two suspects. The first was King Offa whose agents had hired the killers to rid their master of a longstanding nuisance. The second was the basileus in Constantinople. As Osric had pointed out, the Emperor of the Greeks had reason to wreck Carolus’s mission to the caliph.
I racked my brains trying to understand how the Greeks could have known why Carolus had sent me to Kaupang. The Khazars could not yet have carried back their report to Constantinople. Then I recalled Osric’s other warning: the Greeks have their spies everywhere. Their sources at Carolus’s court could have alerted the basileus even before Osric and I left Aachen.
*
Redwald lost no time in preparing for us to leave Kaupang. He sold off the rest of his wine cheaply and arranged for the remaining quern stones to be left with a local factor. On the morning before the cog was due to set sail, I went with Walo to fetch the three white gyrfalcons and the eagle. They had been left in the care of Gorm, and the bird dealer’s son had already picked the stitches from the eyelids of the more recently captured birds so that they could see, and had been gentling them so that they were easy to handle.
Gorm himself helped us carry the birds down to the cog where she lay against the jetty. Climbing down into the ship’s hold, we found two of Redwald’s sailors slinging a long wooden bar by ropes from the deck beams. It was a travelling perch.
While Gorm and I looked on, Walo wrapped sacking around the wooden bar so that the falcons’ talons could get a firm grip.
‘Here, you can’t do that!’ shouted one of the sailors. Walo had picked up a length of light rope, and was hacking it into short lengths with the knife he used for cutting up the ice bears’ food.
‘Let him be,’ said Gorm sharply. ‘He knows what he’s doing.’
Walo had begun rigging the lengths of cord so that they dangled beside the perch.
‘What are those for?’ I asked the bird dealer.
‘So the birds can reach out and get a grip on the cords with their beaks when the ship rolls,’ Gorm explained. He turned to Walo. ‘How about you staying on in Kaupang? I could use a really good assistant.’
To my alarm Walo’s moon face went pale, and his half-closed eyes began to glisten with tears. He shook his head violently and looked at me pleadingly. He was frightened of being abandoned.
‘That’s all right, Walo,’ I reassured him. ‘I need you to look after the ice bears. You can remain with Osric and me.’
Walo mumbled something, and I had to ask him to repeat what he had said. ‘The bears have no names,’ he muttered.
Gorm hastened to make up for his blunder. ‘Sigwulf, I think that Walo believes that you were going to leave the ice bears behind because you hadn’t given them any names.’
My mind went blank and I looked at the bird dealer. ‘What do you suggest?’
He chuckled. ‘My son has been calling them Modi and Madi these past few days. Maybe that fits.’
‘Why’s that?’ I had never heard either name.
‘They’re gods, sons of Thor. Modi means “angry”, Madi means “strong”.’
I looked across at Walo. ‘Will those names suit?’ I asked.
He brightened and gave me a shy nod.
‘Then it’s time we got Modi and Madi down to the ship,’ I told him.
He reached inside his shirt and pulled out his deerhorn pipe that hung on a leather thong around his neck. ‘They will follow me here,’ he said.
I was lost for words. The two animals were no longer the feeble, sickly creatures that had arrived in Kaupang. They were larger and heavier, active and quick, and they enjoyed mock fighting. Rearing up on their hind legs, they battled and growled, seizing their opponent’s neck or limb in their formidable jaws and twisting and tugging. It required little imagination to picture the danger if they ever got loose.
Gorm came to my rescue. ‘I’ve got a better idea, Walo. We’ll bring them to the ship on a sledge.’
And that was how it was accomplished. Redwald’s sailors built a double-size sledge on top of which they constructed a sturdy cage. It had to be large enough to contain both bears at the same time because Walo assured us that the animals would become distressed and unpredictable if separated. He himself sat inside the cage with the bears while they were moved in case they needed calming. After much coaxing we harnessed four terrified horses to the sledge. Then all of us – Gorm and his son, Redwald, Osric, Ingvar the bird catcher, Osric and myself – hauled on drag ropes and we set out for the dock. Our progress along Kaupang’s rutted and pot-holed street, even with the bears securely caged, caused uproar. Merchants shuttered their shops while we passed, stallholders evacuated their stands, and only the most curious of their customers remained to gawk at us. Every step of the way we were accompanied by a horde of wildly excited dogs, snapping, snarling and barking.
We reached the jetty where Redwald’s crew waited until the top of the tide, then slid the entire contraption across and onto the cog’s deck where it was fastened down with strong ropes. While this was being done, I was concluding a last-minute purchase with Ingvar’s help. Among the pack of curs attracted by the commotion of our departure were several dogs with short fox-like faces beneath high-set triangular ears. Of medium size, they were stocky and active and had curly tails. They gave an impression of sharp intelligence and it occurred to me that if their thick coats of short dense fur were washed and cleaned, they would be off-white. Like everything else in Kaupang, they were for sale.
Thus we loaded five dirty and quarrelsome dogs as extra cargo. The rest of the pack lined the beach in a noisy frenzy as the gap widened between ship and shore, and we left Kaupang to the same sound as our arrival – the barking of dogs.
Chapter Six
FRANKIA
*
Frequent swigs of black horehound leaves steeped in hot water helped Walo find his sea legs on the southward voyage. Thanks to him, all our animals were in good health when our ship turned into the estuary of the great river we had left three months before. From there, Redwald worked the tides, anchoring during the ebb and riding the flood to bring us upriver by easy stages to Dorestad. In the last week of July, the cog tied up to a staithe in her homeport and I found a royal courier waiting for me as we docked. His instructions were to escort me to Aachen with all speed. Any white animals we had collected were to be trans-shipped and to proceed upriver by barge on the first stage of their journey to distant Baghdad. It seemed that the mission to the caliph was to go ahead.