The Pope's Assassin

by Tim Severin

  We followed him down from St Peter’s and across the Tiber by the St Angelo bridge. He set a brisk pace, plunging into the tangle of alleys that were an uncomfortable reminder of my narrow escape from Gavino’s gang. Every so often he turned to ask us to hurry, assuring us that we would be pleased with what we would see. Eventually, we emerged on the Via Lata not far from the spot where Pope Leo had been attacked, and from there crossed into the more open areas of the disabitato with its ruined buildings and overgrown monuments. It was more than the hour’s walk he’d promised when, eventually, we found ourselves passing under the arch of the Salarian Gate with its crumbling twin towers and leaving behind us the ancient city wall, its plaster flaking away from the rotting bricks.

  ‘Where are you taking us?’ I demanded. It was mid-week and there was very little traffic on the Salarian Way, only a few carts returning to the nearby farms after delivering produce to the city markets.

  ‘Come, sirs, it’s not much further.’

  Finally, we came to a small knoll on the left-hand side of the road, about a half a mile out of the city. The side of the knoll had been cut back into what appeared to be a small quarry. Our guide turned off the road towards it and led us along a footpath that threaded between small boulders and loose stones overgrown with grass and weeds. As we got closer it became evident that what I had mistaken for a quarry was the remains of an ancient burial site, the original facing slabs long since removed or fallen away. In the centre was its entrance, a low doorway cut in the living rock.

  ‘Here it is, sirs,’ explained the guide. ‘The doorway to the holy tomb of the blessed St Pamphilus.’

  I had never heard of St Pamphilus nor, I was sure, had Beorthric. In the weak afternoon sunshine the place looked unthreatening and tranquil.

  ‘Lead on,’ I said to the guide.

  ‘Sirs, I can only show one person at a time. Further inside, the passageway is very narrow.’

  I glanced at Beorthric. He appeared composed and had shifted the scramseax to hang close by his right hand. ‘I’ll wait for you just inside the entrance,’ I said.

  The doorway was so low that Beorthric had to duck his head as the three of us went in. We were in a cave, some eight feet across and twice as deep, with a roof close enough to reach with an outstretched arm. The light from behind us showed that the cave was natural, its walls uneven, but the roof had been heightened. The chisel marks were plain.

  The guide bent down and opened a sack lying on the floor just inside the entrance. He took out two torches made of tow soaked in oil and wrapped around wood shafts. It occurred to me that the sack must have been placed there very recently, and the little clay lamp in a niche in the cave wall also. The lamp was lit.

  The guide used the lamp’s flame to light both torches and handed one to Beorthric. He kept the other for himself. ‘One person at a time,’ he repeated, giving me a sharp look. ‘We should not be long. Then you may have your turn.’ I watched as he walked to the back of the cave where a flight of steps led downward into the darkness. With Beorthric following him, he disappeared.

  I counted to one hundred, went to the head of the steps, and stood listening. I could hear nothing. Very quietly and slowly I began to descend, feeling my way with one hand on each side against the rock face, treading cautiously. Very soon I was in complete darkness and unable to see anything. I continued downward, far deeper than I had expected, sixty-four steps in all until, on my left, the rock wall came to an end and my hand was in empty space. I presumed I was in an ancient catacomb and had reached a gallery leading sideways. Very cautiously, I reached out directly in front of me: more empty space. I tested with an outstretched foot: the steps continued downward. I listened again, holding my breath, and thought I heard a faint sound to my left.

  I made the decision to follow the gallery and turned into it. The air was cool and had a musty, damp smell. I paced forward, arms still spread wide, setting down each foot forward carefully, fearful that I might step into empty air. The galley was no more than five feet in breadth, and my outstretched arms spanned it easily. My fingertips brushed against different surfaces, sometimes it felt like rock, and sometimes it had a gritty texture. I guessed that I was feeling my way past rows of cubicula, the little chambers cut in the rock to receive the bones of the dead, then sealed with stones and mortar. Underfoot there was a soft crunching as I trod on a thick layer of dust and chippings.

  I must have advanced some thirty or forty yards when I detected a faint flicker of light ahead of me. My eyes had grown accustomed to the darkness so the light was enough to show me that I was approaching a section in the gallery where it had been enlarged to form a small chamber. Beyond it the underground passageway continued into darkness. It seemed that I had guessed correctly when I had turned down the gallery: the guide was standing off to one side in the chamber, holding a torch and waiting.

  Inch by inch I moved closer, staying pressed against the wall, remaining in the shadow. I halted when I could go no further without being spotted, and listened. From the darkness beyond the guide came the sound of a voice, someone speaking slow, careful Frankish. The shape of the gallery and the rocky walls carried the sound clearly, though the speaker was too far away to be seen. My spine tingled. I did not know the voice but I recognized the distinctive accent. It was the same accent I had heard from the men who had waylaid me in Paderborn and who had given me a beating as they demanded to know about the golden flagon.

  I stayed for a couple of minutes at most. I had no wish to be discovered, and Beorthric would be able to tell me about the man he was meeting. So I turned around and crept back down the gallery until I reached the steps and mounted them back into the entrance chamber. I was waiting there when the guide and Beorthric reappeared not long afterwards.

  ‘You next,’ said the guide to me. Beorthric held out his torch for me to take.

  ‘No thank you,’ I said. ‘I have a fear of enclosed spaces.’

  The guide made no attempt to make me change my mind. He took Beorthric’s torch and extinguished it as well as his own, put them back in the sack, and led us out into the daylight.

  ‘We can find our own way back,’ I told him firmly.

  He must have been well paid already because the fee he demanded for guiding us was less than outrageous. Nor did he argue when I told him I would only pay half. ‘You failed to warn me that the saint’s tomb is deep underground. I have a fear of confined spaces, so only one of us is satisfied with your services.’

  In response he pulled from his pocket a small clay ampoule. ‘Sir, even if you did not see the saint’s tomb for yourself, you should bring this home with you. It contains holy oil from the lamp that burns in front of the saint’s shrine and has miraculous qualities. The flame never goes out, yet the lamp is never replenished.’

  ‘Then that’s even more of a miracle if you keep stealing the lamp’s oil,’ I said.

  ‘I can let you have it for a very reasonable price.’

  When I declined his offer he shrugged, turned on his heel and headed back towards the city.

  I waited until he was well out of earshot before asking Beorthric, ‘Did you get a good look at who set up this meeting? I followed you down, but only near enough to listen in for a couple of minutes.’

  ‘I didn’t get close enough to be able to identify him again. He’s tall. He stayed in the shadows and was wearing a fur hat with the flaps down and tied under his chin. It didn’t leave much of his face visible.’

  ‘Did he question you about the warrior flagon?’

  ‘I told him that I hadn’t been able to learn anything about it. Then he asked a question that I thought was strange: he wanted to know whether I had ever laid eyes on the Pope in person, or on King Carolus. I told him that I’d seen the king at a distance several times but never the Pope. Then he dropped the subject.’

  ‘And how did your conversation end?’

  ‘He said that he might have a job for me. But it was not his decision. He would cont
act me again very soon and I should be ready to leave Rome for a day or so.’

  Beorthric’s words left me baffled and more than a little uneasy. With Carolus far away in Frankia, I could not see an immediate connection between him and Pope Leo in Rome. Nor had I got any nearer to establishing the identity of the mysterious Greek agent. The only fresh information that I could bring to Archbishop Arno was what Paul had told me about Maurus of Nepi.

  *

  ‘So you never saw the man’s face?’ Paul asked. Our route back to the Schola had taken us close to Paul’s villa on the Viminal Hill and I had decided that we should call again on the retired Nomenculator. Just possibly, he might be able to tease out more from our visit to St Pamphilus’s shrine.

  The three of us were gathered in the room where Paul kept his collection of scrolls and Beorthric had finished describing his conversation in the catacomb.

  ‘He spoke Frankish with a very distinctive accent,’ I told him.

  ‘What does it sound like?’

  I imitated the accent as best I could, and must have done it accurately because Paul immediately said, ‘That’s someone from Benevento. They have their own way of speaking, from high up at the back of the nose.’

  Benevento, he explained, was a city four or five days’ distance by horseback to the south-east of Rome. It was ruled by a powerful family of aristocrats much as Nepi had its duke.

  ‘There the comparison ends,’ he said and there was an undertone of respect in his voice. ‘The lords of Benevento take the title of Prince, and have good reason to do so. They own vast swathes of land, hold their own court, even strike their own coinage. If Benevento is involved with whatever is going on in Rome, then you need to be very, very careful.’

  I recalled his earlier warning that the Pope ranked alongside princes and kings and that papal politics was fraught with risk. ‘Why would the Beneventans be interested in Beorthric?’

  Paul treated me to a long slow stare, encouraging me to think for myself. ‘What does our mysterious man in the fur hat know about Beorthric and why would he ask if he had ever laid eyes on the Pope?’ he prompted.

  ‘So that Beorthric would recognize the Pope when he saw him . . .’ My voice trailed away and my throat went dry with fear as I realized the enormity of what Paul implied.

  Calmly Paul continued with his bleak assessment. ‘Beorthric is unknown here in Rome. He arrives from the scene of a successful killing of a foreign ruler, and if I may say so,’ he gave a slight nod towards the Saxon, ‘he looks like a man who can use a weapon effectively.’

  Beorthric, who had been silent up to this point, interrupted with a typically practical question. ‘Are the Beneventans capable of setting up a similar attack to the one that Kajd arranged?’

  ‘If the Beneventans can’t do it for themselves, they’ll find help inside Rome,’ Paul assured him. ‘There are plenty of others who would be glad to be rid of Leo, and willing to arrange the practical details.’

  ‘Then I must warn Archbishop Arno immediately,’ I said.

  Paul frowned at me. ‘It might be more profitable to make sure that Beorthric is taken on as a killer for hire.’

  ‘And if he is?’

  ‘Then you’ll be in a position to thwart any attack that’s being planned.’ He saw that I was reluctant to accept his suggestion. ‘You’re forgetting that Fur Hat also asked if Beorthric knew Carolus by sight.’

  I was finding it difficult to keep up with Paul’s reasoning. He seemed capable of finding plots and conspiracies where none might exist. ‘Surely you don’t think that the Beneventans and their allies might strike against Carolus too?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s a possibility. It’s better to have Beorthric at the heart of any conspiracy than for the Beneventans and their allies to turn to some unknown cut-throat whom we cannot watch.’

  Still I hesitated. ‘If this goes wrong and Beorthric is exposed, he’ll be killed. I know these people. They’re ruthless.’

  ‘I can take care of myself,’ Beorthric put in sharply and I hoped it was not his pride that made him do so.

  Paul treated me to a wintry smile. ‘I’m sure Arno would approve. Wasn’t he the one who proposed that Beorthric lured the Greek agent from hiding?’

  There was little point in reminding Paul that Arno’s scheme had not produced the result the archbishop had been hoping for. ‘I don’t see how all this ties in with the warrior flagon,’ I said.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Paul admitted.

  He glanced out of the window. There was a little more than an hour to sunset. ‘If you intend to get back to your lodgings before dark, you should set out now.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  IN THE DAYS that followed, Beorthric made it very clear to me that he intended to carry out Paul’s scheme for him to be chosen by the Beneventans as a killer for hire. However, I was still apprehensive about its outcome. More than once, I decided to go back to the Lateran and report to Archbishop Arno, only to change my mind at the last moment. The archbishop had asked for information on which he could act, and I had none. But every time I tried to talk to Beorthric about the dangers of what Paul had proposed the Saxon flatly refused to consider any alternatives. The most I could get him to accept was that, as far as possible, he would include me in whatever developed. It left me uncomfortably aware that if anything went wrong I too was likely to suffer the consequences. Both of us could finish up being arrested by the authorities if they got wind of the Beneventan conspiracy. Worse, if the Beneventans discovered that that Beorthric was a double agent, he and I would be done away with. Yet in the end I managed to persuade myself, perhaps naively, that it was preferable that I share the same risks as Beorthric as he would have a better chance of success if I stood by him, and that should he find himself in trouble I might be able to help him out. With all this bickering between us, Boerthric must have found me to be irresolute. Certainly I found him stubborn, and as a result we became irritable with one another as we waited at the Schola for contact to be made.

  A full month went by, each day hotter than the previous one as spring turned into summer, and the compound of the Schola felt increasingly cramped and confined. I wasted many hours trying to puzzle out, unsuccessfully, if there was a connection between the Avar flagon and the threat to Pope Leo.

  Beorthric, bored by the inactivity, began frequenting the taverns in the neighbourhood. He also took to eating his meals in them, loudly announcing one day in the Schola’s refectory that he could no longer put up with the mumbling of prayers before being allowed to eat the food already set out on the table. He was also annoyed by the singing of devotees on their way to services in the great basilica of St Peter. Our lodgings lay on the processional route so it was impossible to escape their hymns and anthems and ecstatic cries that floated in across the compound wall. If he was in a sour mood, Beorthric would mock their fervour by imitating their songs in a deliberately tuneless, squawky voice or calling out to them to stop their racket.

  One day in mid-June, just when I was beginning to think that Beorthric’s graceless behaviour would get us evicted from the Schola, he returned from his evening tavern meal to say that our wait was over. A stranger had approached him as he was entering the gate of the Schola and told him to gather together his belongings and be ready to leave next morning at daybreak.

  ‘Was he the same man you spoke with in the catacomb?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No. He was not tall enough but he had the same sort of accent. There was a badge stitched to his sleeve. Some sort of livery mark. I’d say he was a manservant.’

  ‘Any hint where he was taking you?’

  ‘None. His Frankish was very limited. I think he was saying that I would be away for several days and might not be coming back here.’

  ‘I presume you told him that I would be coming with you.’

  ‘With sign language, but I got the point across. He didn’t look pleased.’

  To my relief the swarthy, sullen-faced man who met us at the g
ate in the half-light of the following dawn was holding the reins of three horses. He gave me a mistrustful look as I adjusted my saddlebags on the crupper of the animal allotted to me. As soon as we were mounted, he took us at a brisk trot through the empty city streets so that we were already clear of Rome and riding out into the countryside while the morning’s mist still lay on the fields. It was evident that the highway we were following dated back many centuries. In the first mile we passed one grandiose tomb after another, each close beside the roadside and erected to house the noble dead from imperial times. The majority of these mausoleums were badly dilapidated, and those still in fair condition were now being used as barns and cattle shelters by the local farmers. From the direction of the morning sun I could tell that we were heading south-east, but our escort made no attempt to explain where we were going or whom he was taking us to meet. Tight-lipped, he ignored us and I suspected that if I tried to speak to him he wouldn’t respond, and so I didn’t bother. At noon, when we stopped at a posting station to water and feed the horses, I asked a stable boy if he recognized the boar emblem stitched on our guide’s sleeve. The lad looked at me as if I was a dolt. The boar was the badge of the Princes of Benevento. It was the answer I half expected.

  According to Paul, the city of Benevento lay at four or five days’ distance from Rome so it came as a surprise when our escort turned off from the main highway on the third day of the journey. The landscape had scarcely changed since leaving Rome. It was the same pleasantly wooded hilly countryside where olive groves and fruit orchards outnumbered fields under the plough. Most of the inhabitants chose to live in small towns on the tops of the steeper hills whose lower slopes they planted with vines.

  ‘Where’s he taking us now?’ Beorthric asked. The guide was riding ahead along a track that led through an olive grove. The ground was soft enough to absorb the sound of our horses’ hooves, and the air was full of the buzzing and creaking of insects enlivened by the warm afternoon sunshine.