The Pope's Assassin Read online

  Nikephorus was not put off. ‘What was the tableware to look like?’

  ‘A jug or ewer, decorated with the image of a mounted warrior hauling along his captive by the hair.’

  The Greek’s eyes narrowed. Again he astonished me with his quickness of thought. ‘Then Arno is less intelligent than I supposed. The khagan has at least one of those already, probably two.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘The Avars have a great love for matching pairs,’ he said. ‘It’s something we learned in Constantinople long ago. We always send them matching gifts, a pair of white horses, identical twin girls trained as musicians and dancers, and so forth.’

  He broke off, and the shrewd eyes studied me. ‘I presume the coins you were carrying were gold solidi?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Now where would Archbishop Arno have laid his hands them, I wonder?’ he asked. ‘Am I right in thinking that it might have something to do with the Avar Hoard, and that is why you had a drawing of the Ring?’

  He had caught me off-guard. My hesitation in replying gave him his answer.

  He treated me to a conspiratorial smile. ‘If the khagan’s people do question you, I suggest you avoid any mention of the place those coins came from.’

  He darted a sideways glance at Faranak. ‘You know how she lost her husband?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘At the storming of the Ring.’

  With that he made his way briskly to the door and let himself out, leaving me standing in the half-darkness.

  *

  A few days later, I had clambered up on the low roof of Faranak’s house to mend a leak that had appeared with the spring thaw, when I saw an Avar trooper striding purposefully along the laneway. I recognized him as the officer in charge of the patrol that had captured Beorthric and me four months earlier.

  ‘Come down! You’re wanted,’ he called up, and when I was back on the ground, he ordered me to accompany him.

  I spoke Avar well enough to explain that Faranak’s hearth fire was almost out, and first I should have to fetch logs and add more fuel.

  ‘No time for that,’ he snapped.

  He walked off and as I trailed along behind him, I imagined that Nikephorus’s visit had been to warn me that I was about to be interrogated about the gold coins. Desperately I thought what I might say when questioned, and knew that my only real hope was that the Avar interrogators had also summoned Beorthric for questioning and that he would speak up in my support. This seemed highly unlikely. The faithless Saxon had already denied, in the presence of the khagan, that he knew anything about the reason for my mission, and had deliberately avoided contact with me ever since. There was no chance that he would change his story now. Vengefully, I toyed with the idea that if Beorthric was willing to abandon me to my fate, then I could match his betrayal by telling the Avars that Beorthric had taken part in the massacre at the Ring.

  The Avar set a brisk pace. The morning was dreary and cheerless, with low, unbroken cloud. The air had lost its winter chill, and the last remnants of the snow banks on each side of the footpath were dissolving into thin streaks of dirty slush. Everything was dripping wet, and the path was full of puddles, forcing passers-by to step around them. I heard Avar being spoken, but also other languages that I did not recognize. I concluded the khagan’s winter capital was home not only to Avars, but also to other wandering peoples and tribes. We reached the square in front of the khagan’s residence and, to my surprise, carried straight on. I had never been this far from Faranak’s house and had no idea where we might be going. The wooden houses soon gave way to a sprawling labyrinth of tents and shacks, and we passed empty stables and cattle pens where the ground was churned up to a slop. I supposed that the Avars had already driven some of their flocks and herds out to spring pasture.

  Finally, we arrived at a fenced-off area at the edge of the settlement. Drawn up in neat rows were a number of two-wheeled carts. Loaded on them was equipment that I recognized from my days spent on campaign with Carolus’s army. They were devices for throwing rocks and stones and heavy arrows. It was a weapons park.

  Squads of men were at work, carrying out repairs, and my escort handed me over to an overseer. With a surge of relief it dawned on me that I was not being brought for interrogation but to help with the annual maintenance of the Avar military machine. This was confirmed by the tall, gangling man, to whom I was assigned as an assistant.

  ‘Several turn-bar sockets are split,’ he commented, peering into the winding mechanism of an onager, a stone-launcher. ‘Rainwater got in, froze, and cracked the timber. I keep telling them to make sure the sockets are sealed when the machines are laid up for winter.’

  ‘They’ were obviously the Avars, and as he didn’t look like an Avar himself, I asked him where he came from.

  ‘Lombardy,’ he answered. ‘I was taken prisoner during the first Avar war. That was nearly ten years ago. Maybe I won’t ever go back there. Here they treat engineers with the respect we deserve.’

  ‘I’m a prisoner myself,’ I said, ‘but I can’t say I’m enjoying the experience.’

  ‘Depends how useful you make yourself. The Avars expect every foreigner to be a clever craftsman. That’s why they brought you along –’ he jerked his head towards the other men busily working on the machines – ‘you’ll find all sorts: Gepids, Greeks, Slavs, Franks . . . some of them are slaves; others are freemen; a few have married well and think of themselves as Avars.’

  He sucked his teeth in disapproval as he found another socket damaged by frost. ‘We’ll have to take this lot apart.’

  ‘I’m afraid I won’t be much use to you. I’ve no experience of this sort of work,’ I admitted.

  ‘You’ll pick it up quickly enough.’

  We set about dismantling the stone-thrower. For the first time since being taken prisoner, I was enjoying myself. There was satisfaction in the simple tasks of using wedges and levers to prise apart the mechanism without doing further damage. Also my companion liked to talk and, after nearly a decade living amongst the Avars, he was able to answer some of the questions that had been puzzling me. I asked him about the ceremony with the whirling sorcerer.

  ‘Happens at mid-winter every year. The qam – that’s what they call their devil man – invests the khagan for the coming year with his symbol of authority.’

  ‘You mean the golden skull.’

  ‘Handed down through the generations. A long time ago the Avars defeated a people that had been their worst enemy, cut off the head of their supreme chief, and turned the skull into a drinking bowl. The commander of the Avar army on that day was chosen as the first khagan. Whoever is presented with the skull nowadays is recognized as the chief of all Avars for the coming year.’

  That, I thought to myself, explained why Faranak had been pleased to see her nephew confirmed as khagan. It also made me wonder if the triumphant warrior on the golden flagon, with a severed human head dangling from his saddle, had been the first khagan.

  ‘Who selects the khagan for the coming year?’

  The engineer shrugged. ‘I’m sure something has been agreed beforehand. The qam just makes it formal. Avars believe that all power flows from some mysterious figure up in the sky. During the ceremony the qam calls down some of that power, and directs it into the skull. Then he hands it to the chosen leader. The ruler drinks from that skull at banquets. Nasty habit.’

  I hadn’t seen Khagan Kaiam drinking from the skull at the banquet, and said so.

  ‘He only brings out the gold skull for feasts when all the tarkans, the clan leaders, get together. It lets them know who the boss is.’

  I recalled the toad-like Avar’s look of controlled hatred as he watched Kaiam receive the gold skull. Toad Face was probably a rival.

  ‘Do you know a surly-looking Avar with a mouth like a great frog? He’s some sort of chieftain?’

  ‘That’s the tudun,’ the engineer replied at once. ‘His title means that he’s responsible for defence o
f the western frontier, and it makes him second to the khagan.’

  ‘He doesn’t seem to have much liking for Kaiam.’

  ‘He’s from a different clan,’ said the Lombard, passing me one of the long wooden bars used for tensioning the onager’s windlass. ‘Put the end of that bar in that gap between the frame and the windlass drum, and give it a good heave while I give the rim a belt with this mallet.’

  I did as I was told, and the drum moved along its axle a fraction.

  ‘I met the Greek ambassador the other day,’ I said, wanting to keep the conversation flowing. After months of virtual solitude it was good to talk, especially in Frankish.

  The Lombard gestured at me to keep pressure on the turn bar, and he gave the drum a couple more heavy blows with the mallet before he answered. ‘He usually shows up about this time of year. We call him the Poison Dwarf.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ I asked, shifting my grip and again throwing my weight on the turn bar.

  ‘Always stirring trouble. It’s probably why we’ve been told to hurry up with fixing these war machines. Someone’s planning a campaign.’

  The engineer stood back and wiped his brow. ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if that crafty little so-and-so is busily encouraging Kaiam to move back into his old capital at the Ring.’

  I was taken aback. ‘But that risks starting another war with Carolus. Surely the Greeks wouldn’t encourage an attack on the Franks. They are both Christian, while the Avars are out-and-out pagans.’

  ‘Religion has nothing to do with it,’ said the engineer. ‘If the Avars are tied up fighting the Franks, they can’t trouble the Greeks. And should the Franks win, then the Avars are weakened. Either way, the Poison Dwarf goes back to Constantinople well pleased with his meddling.’

  ‘And what if the Avars are victorious?’ I asked.

  ‘Then the Greeks are almost as happy.’ The Lombard smiled sardonically. ‘They don’t want to see Carolus any more powerful than he is already. They’d do anything to cut him down to size.’

  He dropped his voice so as not to be overheard. ‘There’s a lot of grumbling amongst the Avars. Something’s brewing, and if it bubbles over, all of us foreigners best keep out of sight.’

  I would have paid more attention to his warning, but my mind was elsewhere: over his shoulder I had just caught sight of a tall figure in the distance, someone who looked like Beorthric. He was directing a squad of men as they lifted a stone-thrower back on its cart.

  ‘Have you come across another Frankish prisoner,’ I asked, ‘a big fellow, blond, with eyes that are very pale blue? He speaks Avarish.’

  ‘I know who you mean,’ said the Lombard. ‘But he’s not a prisoner. He lives with an Avar woman, a wealthy one. She’s first cousin to the tudun. He’s done well for himself.’

  The tall man in the distance had moved away from the work squad, and I could see him more clearly. He was not Beorthric.

  In a strange way I felt relieved. I wasn’t sure I wanted to meet the Saxon face to face and to endure another rebuff. I had a more immediate worry: if the Avars provoked a war with Carolus, it would destroy any hope that they would grant me my freedom.

  *

  Work on the war machines went on all that month. Each day was sunnier and warmer than the last, and the whole of the khagan’s winter capital was coming alive. The narrow laneways were bustling as families prepared to shift from winter quarters. Winter clothes, rugs and bedding were brought out into the sunshine and hung up to air, doors and windows left open, tent flaps unlaced and peeled back. Horses were being given extra food and exercised, ready for the spring migration. On the way to the weapons park, I encountered small groups of Avar men riding in from the countryside. Their fine clothes and the fancy decoration on their saddles and bridles marked them as minor chiefs. My Lombard foreman told me that they were arriving for the grand council that immediately preceded the spring migration. During that daylong assembly the qam would be called upon to invoke his powers of divination and look into the future. His responsibility was to foretell the weather for the coming year, the amount of pasture available, and to predict whether there was to be peace with other tribes and nations, or war. In view of the solemnity and importance of the meeting, all work in the weapons park would be suspended.

  The following morning, I had just finished cleaning out the ashes from the fire pit when the door was flung open with a tremendous crash. Two Avar troopers half stumbled, half fell into the room. Faranak gave a shriek of outrage, but they ignored her. They grabbed me by the elbows and bundled me outside. It was useless to resist, and I was too shocked to try. The men were drunk. I could smell it on their breath and they had the unpredictable belligerence of the intoxicated.

  They hurried me along the laneway. We lurched and slithered down the same track that I took to fetch water from the river and one of them tripped over his own feet. If he hadn’t clutched me, he would have gone sprawling. We veered to our right and cut across the slope towards a low grassy knoll overlooking the river. Here a large pavilion had been erected. The sides were open, and a meeting was in progress under the canopy. I was hustled forward into a scene that reminded me of the mid-winter festival. Once again the qam was at the centre of a circle of onlookers, though this time most were seated on the ground. The Khagan sat in the front rank, the tudun beside him. There was no sign of Nikephorus, nor were there any women or children. Evidently, this was the council meeting of the leaders of the Avar clans that the Lombard had told me about. He had omitted to mention the heavy drinking. Every tarkan had a cup or bowl in his hand or on the ground before him. Kaiam himself was drinking from the golden skull. As I watched, he took a long draught, then held it up to be refilled. I was dumbfounded to see that the attendant who leaned forward over his shoulder to pour more wine was Beorthric. The Saxon mercenary had shaved off his blond hair and was dressed as a well-to-do Avar in long soft boots, loose trousers and a thigh-length jerkin with a collar of black lamb’s wool. As he stepped back to take his place amongst the small group of servitors standing behind their masters, he made no attempt to look at me, though I stood directly opposite him, not twenty yards away.

  Beorthric had poured the wine from the warrior flagon.

  The attention of every tarkan was fixed on their sorcerer. The qam was kneeling on the ground, hunched over, his face on his knees. He was rocking back and forth rhythmically, and chanting, his voice muffled. After a while he sat up. He was dressed in the same ragged costume as before and, once again, his face was hidden behind the heavy fringe of tassels dangling from his feathered hat. He shook his head from side to side, like a horse dislodging a fly, and the tassels lashed from side to side. Next, he rose to his feet and from a pouch at his waist produced a fist-sized stone, smooth and mottled bluish-white. He held it out with one hand while he caressed it with the other as he turned in a slow circle. His chant became a monotonous drone that gradually died away until eventually there was silence. He belched. I realized that he, too, had been drinking. Facing Kaiam, he delivered his prophesy in a high-pitched voice and my Avarish was good enough to understand that he was promising a fine summer and that the flocks and herds of all the Avars would multiply and grow fat.

  Once or twice he slurred his words. There was no longer any doubt. He was very drunk.

  My two guards had moved away, leaving me facing the Avar chiefs, alone and fearful. I could think of no reason why I had been dragged so roughly before the council.

  Kaiam asked the sorcerer a question. He wanted to know whether the time was ripe for the Avars to drive back their foes from their ancestral lands and restore the khaganate to its former glory.

  In answer, the qam wheeled round and, with a clatter and rattle of the amulets on his gown, came running directly at me. I froze in place. He came to a stop less than an arm’s length away, staring into my face. Behind the tasselled fringe, I saw glittering eyes, furious but unfocused. The mouth spat a stream of gibberish, and then a claw-like hand was raised, two
fingers extended. They jabbed towards my eyes like a snake’s tongue. I shrank back in fright. At the same time the qam’s other hand seized me by the shoulder, grasping me so that I could not back way.

  The two fingers kept weaving and stabbing back and forth, the qam shrieking with venom. Through my fog of fright I heard that my eyes marked me as the forerunner of great evil. After me would come those who wished to bring harm on the Avar people. I felt a strange tingling as the blood left my cheeks, and knew I had gone white.

  The qam’s sinewy grip on my shoulder tightened. Long, dirty nails dug in painfully, and a fine spray of spittle struck my face. There was a waft of a minty, oily smell from some herb that the sorcerer must have been chewing.

  Then I realized that the qam was a woman.

  She was not so different from Faranak, a few years younger, perhaps, and certainly stronger and more vigorous. Nevertheless, for all her frenzy, she was just that: a ranting crone dressed in rags.

  Perhaps she saw my expression change as understanding dawned, or maybe her store of abuse was spent. She let go of my shoulder and stepped back. I stayed where I was, shaking and taking deep gulps of air. I suspected that I had been hauled before the assembly as an exhibit, something to do with Kaiam’s plans for war. The qam had returned to the centre of the circle of the assembly. Now she was reaching up towards the sky with both arms, and calling for strength to flow down into the hearts, minds and weapons of the Avar warriors. She finished her appeal and, lowering her arms, let her head slump forward on her chest. Then her knees gave way, and she sank to the ground and lay still, a heap of amulets.

  Kaiam held up the golden skull, the symbol of his rule. In a voice loud enough for all to hear, he called on the assembly to bear witness that the omens were favourable and that the Avar nation was to prepare for war under his command.

  A deep hush fell on the assembly. It was as if each person in the assembly was afraid to take another breath. Something had happened that I was not aware of. Some of the chiefs were looking at the ground, others across the circle. No one spoke. No one responded to Kaiam’s announcement. Raising my eyes, I saw with a shock that Beorthric was staring directly at me. He held my glance for the merest second, and then, with a very slight movement, he gave a tiny jerk of this head. The message was clear: I was to leave.