Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (28 page)

I shook my head.

‘He’s among Rome’s finest ancient playwrights. It was Plautus who wrote: “frequently the greatest talents lie hidden”.’

The Nomenculator gave one of his convulsive winks. ‘It’s not only the greatest talent that lies hidden, so too does a clever enemy.’

As I hurried to rejoin the others, I wondered if Paul’s suspicion was justified, or whether he had lived too long in a city full of intrigue and conspiracy.

T
HE
N
OMENCULATOR
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.