The Pope's Assassin Read online

  We sauntered away across the disabitato, careful to go at our previous casual pace. After some distance Theodore turned aside, to go directly back to his home. Paul promised him a bonus. ‘That was good work with the bar,’ he said. ‘When Albinus comes home and finds his loss, but no sign of a break-in, he’ll think the servants discovered his hiding place and helped themselves. He may go as far as questioning them, but they will plead their innocence. It will add to the mystery.’

  I waited until we had got back to Paul’s house and were again in his study, with the door closed, before I voiced the idea that had been forming in my mind. ‘Albinus must have gone to the dealers in stolen goods and bought back his pectoral cross so that he could return it to the arcarius and avoid awkward questions about the Pope’s ambush. He was already stealing from the Church and did not want to attract attention to himself.’

  Paul nodded. ‘He’s certainly a thief, but I have a suspicion that this goes rather deeper than that.’

  ‘Something to do with the attack on Pope Leo?’

  ‘All three men who’ve come to our attention had easy access to the papal treasury – Paschal and Campulus under Pope Adrian; then Albinus under Leo.’

  ‘You believe there was some sort of collusion between them?’

  He gave cynical smile. ‘It would not surprise me.’

  ‘But that makes no sense,’ I said. ‘Campulus and Paschal belong to the faction that wants Leo replaced. Albinus is aligned with their opponents. He’s Leo’s appointment and if Leo goes, so does he.’

  ‘That’s a conundrum you might mention to Archbishop Arno, and let him work out the answer,’ Paul replied. He unrolled the cloth in which he had carried the gold chalice and the flagon with its image of the triumphant horseman and placed them on his desk. ‘I suggest it is time for you to report back to him in person, taking our bloodthirsty warrior prince with you. Say where we found him, and advise the good archbishop that there is something very rotten in Rome.’

  ‘What about the chalice? What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll keep hold of the chalice and show it to some of my contacts amongst the dealers in stolen goods. If they’ve been offered it or know of anything similar, it might lead us to that mysterious Fur Hat who hired Gavino’s gang or some of his well-placed accomplices.’

  He picked up the flagon.

  ‘I had no idea that there were goldsmiths amongst the Avars who were capable of such fine work,’ he said. ‘Doubtless it was commissioned to celebrate some sort of important victory by that ferocious horseman.’

  ‘I wonder who he was,’ I said.

  Paul shrugged. ‘Who knows? He could have died generations ago. But the piece itself looks quite recent.’

  He breathed on the gold surface, rubbed it with his sleeve and then held the flagon up to the light and peered at the engraving.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ I asked.

  ‘Something to identify the maker, his mark,’ he said, turning the flagon over. ‘This is the work of a master craftsman. Even a barbaric Avar would be human enough to leave some sort of personal sign, probably something that’s tiny and hidden.’ He gave a little grunt of satisfaction. ‘As I thought: here’s his mark. It resembles the letters that you northerners use. Maybe you can make something of it.’

  He passed the flagon to me. ‘You’ll find the letters just inside the rim of the base, where they would be invisible when the flagon is placed on a table.’

  It took me a moment to spot what he had detected, and I understood why he had mentioned the writing of the north. They looked like rune letters.

  ‘Do they mean anything to you, Sigwulf?’ he asked.

  I turned the flagon this way and that, trying to see the marks more clearly. There were five of them and they were so small as to be almost unreadable. ‘It’s difficult to know,’ I said. ‘If I copied them down larger, it would help.’

  Paul brought me a stylus and a wax tablet from his desk, and I used them to draw copies of the marks. When I finished, I gazed down at the symbols I had scratched in the wax, and was baffled. ‘My father was an Old Believer and he made me learn the runes signs. But I never used them for any practical purpose,’ I admitted. ‘But I don’t recognize any of these marks, though one of them is very like Lagiz, the letter L, and another is close enough to our letter Z.’

  ‘Another mystery about our warrior prince,’ Paul said. ‘Transcribe those letters onto parchment and when you get back to Paderborn, perhaps you’ll find someone at Carolus’s court who can translate them. I understand that the king surrounds himself with scholars.’

  ‘I was thinking of staying on in Rome and helping with your inquiries,’ I said doubtfully.

  My friend treated me to a sideways look full of warning. ‘Sigwulf, we are dealing with ruthless people. If you were recognized during your little adventure in the slums, they may get wind of who you are and why you came to Rome. They may never allow you to make your report to your master.’

  Chapter Six

  FRANKIA, PADERBORN – AUGUST

  I came back to Paderborn at the season when nearly every countryman has a sickle in his hand, and his family is bent double in the fields, binding sheaves. Long hours of sunshine and a drying breeze promised a bumper harvest, and Carolus’s court was in an equally sunny mood because this was pinguedo, the grease time, when the red deer stags are at their fattest. Carolus was spending so much of each day with his hounds and huntsmen that normal business had slowed to a trickle. Pope Leo and his entourage should have already started back for Rome but they were still kicking their heels in Paderborn and waiting for the king’s permission to go home.

  ‘What have you got for me?’ Archbishop Arno asked bluntly. He was in his hunting clothes – royal councillors were expected to participate in the chase – and had come straight to his office to deal with the paperwork accumulating on his work table. From where I stood I caught a whiff of leather and horse sweat.

  ‘Hired criminals attacked Pope Leo. Their paymasters were most likely to have been Roman nobles who resent Leo holding office. Several senior members of the papal staff knew about the attack in advance and were part of the plot.’

  ‘Names?’ The archbishop glowered at me from under heavy eyebrows.

  ‘My contact in Rome is trying to learn the identity of the noblemen. So far I have two names from the clergy: one is the sacellarius Paschal, and the other is the head of chancery, a man called Campulus.’

  The archbishop’s eyes lit up with interest. He turned to his clerk seated in one corner, taking notes. ‘Check the files from Rome,’ he commanded.

  The clerk jumped to his feet and began searching through documents in a flat-lidded storage box beside his desk. He pulled out three or four pages and placed them in front of the archbishop before retiring back to his corner and sitting down again.

  Arno quickly read through the documents. ‘I thought so. These are letters received from Rome over the last couple of years, complaining about Leo and his behaviour. Campulus and Paschal appear frequently amongst the signatories.’ He glanced up, raking me with his eyes. ‘Can you prove their involvement in the attack?’

  ‘I interviewed one of the criminals, a petty thief by the name of Gavino. His evidence strongly implicates the two clergymen.’

  The archbishop grunted. ‘Anything else?’

  I reached into the satchel I was carrying and produced the gold flagon with the warrior prince decoration. I placed it on the table in front of the archbishop.

  ‘What has this got to do with your inquiries?’ he demanded harshly.

  ‘Perhaps nothing, my lord. It comes from the house of a very senior papal official who was also present during the attack on Leo.’

  ‘Campulus or Paschal?’

  ‘No, the papal chamberlain.’

  A puzzled look came over his face. ‘That mousey fellow who accompanies Leo everywhere? The one whose face got a hefty thump?’

  ‘That is correct, my lord. His name is Alb
inus.’

  He reached forward, picked up the flagon and examined the portrait of the mailed rider dragging along his helpless captive by his hair. ‘And how did you obtain this?’

  ‘It was necessary to burgle his house. My contact in Rome was looking for a link with the plot against Pope Leo. We discovered a large number of items of value in a secret hiding place.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘I believed you would want an eyewitness account if anything was found.’

  The archbishop gave a low grunt. It was impossible to tell if he was satisfied with what I had done. He toyed with the flagon, turning it in his thick fingers so that he could see it from every angle. ‘And the link with the attack on Leo?’

  ‘The flagon comes from the same source as other items that somehow got into the hands of the criminals – the Avar Hoard. It is a unique piece.’

  Arno turned it upside down. He had sharp eyes, for he noticed the maker’s mark at once. Like the former Nomenculator, he took them to be runes, and I was impressed that he tried to read them for himself. I saw his lips move as he tried to spell out the signs, but he was no more successful than I had been.

  ‘I could not make sense of them either, my lord, though I’ve copied them down for reference,’ I said. ‘My friend in Rome tells me that the flagon is undoubtedly Avar work, and quite recently made. But nothing more.’

  ‘No matter,’ Arno said. He licked his thumb and rubbed it against the image of the warrior, removing a smudge. ‘Leave this with me. Tomorrow we give a farewell banquet for the Pope and his people. Be there early – I’ll have someone watch out for you – and we’ll put Albinus to a little test.’

  *

  Banquets during the pinguedo were timed to start after the king got back from his day’s hunting. So it was an hour to sunset before I entered the great dining hall of the palace. It was a cavernous, gloomy space. The small unglazed windows placed high up in the thick walls allowed in little light so the cressets on the walls had already been lit. A shadowy maze of rafters, struts and trusses supported the roof above enormous smoke-blackened oak beams. Three long tables ran the length of the hall and at the far end on a low platform was the king’s table, set cross-wise. My normal place would have been midway down the hall, off to one side, amongst my fellow milites. On this occasion, however, an under-steward was waiting for me and he led me to the end of the central table, closest to the royal platform. A slight curl of his lip indicated what he thought of placing me amongst my betters and I attracted curious glances from my fellow guests as they started to arrive at their customary places around me. They were men of consequence: magnates and landowners with great estates. They wore expensive clothes and displayed jewellery to match: rings set with precious stones, bracelets and heavy torcs of gold. They knew one another but not the plainly dressed stranger placed amongst them. No one spoke to me as we remained standing, waiting for the royal party to enter. I noticed there was a gap on the bench across the table and a little down from me, and I wondered if the latecomers would be denied entry. Custom dictated that the king was the final person to take his place at table. At the last minute the same under-steward appeared, ushering in two guests. They were tonsured and soberly dressed in plain, dark gowns. I recognized Albinus, the Pope’s chamberlain, but did not know his companion. They reached the seats allocated to them just as the entire company turned and faced towards the dais to acknowledge the entry of the royal party.

  Judging by his manner, Carolus was impatient to get the banquet over and done with. His long strides outpaced his companions as he strode to his high-backed chair and sat down while his guests were still milling about and finding their seats. There were no women present. I recognized the great officers of the royal household: the count of the palace, the seneschal and the constable of the stable. A stooped grey-haired figure in a tunic of dark blue silk, I presumed, was the Duke of Spoleto, whose troops had escorted Pope Leo to safety. The duke looked bored, and I had no doubt that he would have preferred to be back on Italian soil. Pope Leo sat next to Carolus in the place of honour, the king towering over him. This was my first glimpse of Leo and I searched for signs of the wounds to his face. In the poor light of the banqueting hall the slash scars high up on his cheeks were barely noticeable. The rest of his face, under a close-fitting white and crimson felt cap, was unremarkable – wide-set eyes, a slightly snub nose, and a small mouth that held a suggestion of a pout. He looked nervous and uncomfortable, as if aware that his host who would have preferred to be staying overnight at a hunting camp. The only man at the royal table who appeared to take an interest in what was going on around him was Archbishop Arno.

  I caught the archbishop’s eye, and he gave the slightest nod of acknowledgment, then gazed out over the hall, deliberately ignoring me.

  My attention now turned to Albinus. He was little more than an arm’s length away. The result of a blow in the face from a club during the attack in Rome was more obvious than the injury suffered by his master. The bridge of Albinus’s broken nose had set crooked. It would be a permanent deformity. The bruising had gone, but a reddish mark remained. It added to his rather dejected and spiritless appearance. He sat quietly, looking down at the table in front of him, and it was easy to imagine that he was naturally shy and more than a little embarrassed by his appearance.

  Servants were passing behind the seated guests, offering ale or wine. Those who chose ale were provided with drinking horns. The beefy red-faced nobleman on my left had brought his own. It was over-sized and silver-mounted. The moment it was filled, he turned his broad back on me and begun to talk in a loud, confident voice to his immediate neighbour. The booming conversation was a rerun of the day’s hunt, with a list of the quality and performance of particular hounds.

  Meanwhile, Albinus and his colleague had chosen wine and it was served to them in funnel-shaped cups of pale green glass. When Albinus started on his meal – inevitably, venison was served – he used his little eating knife to cut his food into diminutive morsels, then chewed on them listlessly, so that I wondered if his teeth still pained him. He did not say a word. Nor did he raise his eyes from his platter, and I was confident that the chamberlain had not recognized me from our meeting in the monastery.

  Sometime later, I became aware that an under-steward was progressing along the line of seated guests facing me. He was the same man who had brought me to my place at table. Now accompanied by two servants he was checking if every guest had enough to drink. Where he saw an empty glass or drinking horn he beckoned and a servant leaned in and poured ale or wine. As they came nearer, I saw that wine was being poured from what I now thought of as the gold warrior flagon.

  I watched the servant reach in between Albinus and his colleague. The latter paid no attention. But as the flagon passed into the chamberlain’s line of sight, Albinus dropped his knife. He stopped chewing and took a deep breath, then slowly he sat bolt upright and I got a full view of his face. He had gone very pale and his eyes had opened wide. The servant finished refilling the glass, withdrew the flagon, and moved on. Albinus sat for a moment as if stunned. Then with a visible effort he got control of himself. He reached out and picked up the filled glass – I saw how the liquid trembled – and raised it to his lips. As he drank, he half turned and looked up towards the royal table, towards Leo. I tried to read his expression. It could have been shame or guilt or fear, but it seemed to be something else: Albinus was trying to communicate a silent message. Leo was looking towards Carolus and did not notice. The chamberlain turned again to face his front, and I glanced away, too late. Our eyes met, and in that moment I saw the glimmer of recognition, followed immediately by hard and hostile calculation.

  I feigned indifference and swivelled in my seat, as if to summon a servant, but in reality to look up towards the royal table above me. Archbishop Arno was staring down at Albinus, his expression grim.

  *

  Not long afterwards, Carolus signalled an end to his banquet by rising abruptly to his
feet. In the body of the hall there was a general shuffling as everyone got up from their benches in deference to the king. We remained standing until he left, his guests scurrying after him, then we sat down again to the final course of summer fruits, and drinking. I took advantage of the moment to slip away, and found Arno’s secretary waiting for me outside. The archbishop wanted to see me in his office, at once.

  Arno was standing in front of his work table, feet apart, hands behind his back. Yellow light from a single torch in a wall sconce made his face look even more craggy than usual. He was alone.

  ‘You did well to bring that fancy flagon to my attention.’ He made it sound as if he rarely gave his approval. ‘Alcuin said you were the right man for the job.’

  I waited for him to go on.

  ‘Your part in this business is finished.’

  ‘My lord, I haven’t yet established a firm link between Albinus’s wealth and the attack on the Pope,’ I protested.

  ‘No longer your concern,’ the archbishop snapped. ‘In the next few days, Pope Leo and his staff leave for Rome and I will travel with them. There I will open a formal investigation into the events of the attack.’

  I was feeling rebuffed and irritated, and decided to risk the archbishop’s anger. ‘Then you should hear what I believe was the real reason for the attack on Pope Leo.’

  Arno glowered. ‘Tomorrow morning, an hour before dawn, the king rides out hunting. I must accompany him and I want to get a few hours’ sleep before then.’

  He made as if to brush past me.

  ‘There was no attempt to murder the Pope,’ I said flatly.

  That stopped him.

  ‘What makes you say so?’ he growled.

  ‘No one hires a band of petty criminals to cut out a man’s eyes while standing in the street. That’s a task for professional torturers, in a prison cell,’ I said.

  Arno snorted dismissively. ‘You saw the cuts on Leo’s face. They’re not imaginary.’