by Tim Severin
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Prologue
AACHEN, FRANKIA, 780 AD
Sorely wounded, Roland felt his death coming upon him.
He made his way to where a great block of marble stood.
Raising Durendal, he struck the stone with all his strength.
The sparks flew and the rock was scored, but Durendal did not break.
Three times he struck the rock.
Still the blade did not shatter.
Lamenting, Roland laid himself face down on the grass,
his sword and the oliphant beneath him,
and prepared to give up his soul to God.
I put down my pen and wait for the ink to dry. I am pleased to see that my letters are neat and evenly spaced. I learned the new script under the critical eyes of the men who persuaded the king that it should be made standard throughout his realm. I sit straighter on my stool to ease the nagging cramp in my spine and try to ignore the low incoherent muttering to my right. An Irish priest, ruddy cheeked and bald, has an irritating habit of talking to himself at his desk. It is mid-January in Aachen and the royal chancellery is full of draughts; every few minutes the priest wipes his streaming nose on the sleeve of his gown. He is making notes of what he has seen and heard at court, and has already confided to me that he is writing a biography of our lord and master.
‘I shall call it The Life of Carolus Rex,’ he said, his Latin tinged with the musical accent typical of his island.
A dull title for a colourful topic, I thought. But I restricted myself to enquiring why he embarked on this labour when the notaries of the imperial secretariat were being paid to compile the official record.
‘My dear Sigwulf,’ he replied, ‘the wisdom of the ancients tells us that when great men die, the story of their deeds deserves more than burial in mouldering archives. Their lives must be celebrated in classical prose, enduring and invigorating.’
I wonder just how lively his prose will be when, between sniffles, he adds, ‘With God’s help, my book will be read and re-read for generations to come. It will not be some fanciful yarn recited by the fireside or sung to a simple tune that soon fades from memory.’
He is wrong, of course. Tales of the tongue can be more vivid than tales of the pen; they endure just as long, as I know from personal experience, and they are more widely remembered.
However, the priest’s disdainful remark plants an idea in my mind: I will write a story about the brave, chivalrous and noble man who was my patron and my friend. He also saved my life. My tale will be my way of keeping his memory bright. At times he could be arrogant, vindictive, headstrong and greedy for wealth, yet all agree that his death is a tragic loss. Few, if any, know that I abandoned him in his final hour. That is why I begin this homage with the moment of his dying.
I still grieve for him.
Chapter One
‘RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE, you fool!’ the man yelled. He was meant to be my bodyguard and had sworn to my father that he would protect me. He grabbed me by the arm and spun me round so I faced away from the disaster. Then he gave me a hefty shove between the shoulder blades so that I had to take a few steps just to keep my balance. A moment later, he took his own advice and barged past me, racing off with great leaps across the turf, tossing aside his shield and sword. I stood there stupidly, my head still ringing from the blow of some missile, probably a slingstone, which had struck my helmet. Behind me I heard the whoops and shouts of the Mercians. They had smashed our feeble line with their first charge. The majority of our men had come to the fight carrying their seaxes, though the way they gripped their weapons made it look as if they were about to trim and lay a hedge rather than use them as the lethal fighting blade that had given our Saxon people their name. The rest arrived equipped with clubs, staves and the hatchets they used for chopping firewood. A few brought bows and a handful of arrows more suitable for hunting small game. None of them thought to bring along spare bow strings. I had noticed one man armed only with a thresher’s flail. My father should never have ordered them into battle.
Our plan had been to stop the Mercians at the hill crest. Two deep and shoulder to shoulder, we shouted our war cries and waved our pathetic weapons, more to keep up our spirits than in real defiance. It was a late spring day full of sunlight with the cloud shadows chasing across the downland. The breeze had the faint salty tang of the distant sea and fluttered our family banner – two black stags on a yellow field. My father managed to extract a few extra cheers from our men as he rode up and down in front of our battle line. But you had only to compare his scrawny horse with the sturdy charger of the Mercian commander waiting at the foot of the slope to know the difference in our resources. My Uncle Cyneric and my two brothers took their places in the front line. I, as the king’s youngest son, was stationed a little distance to the rear. My duty was to direct our pitiful reserve, a score of elderly churls and the same number of household serfs.
Only the slope was in our favour. We reasoned that the Mercians would not attack up such a steep hillside. But they came on regardless – a terrifying mass of warriors stamping and hallooing, beating their leather-covered shields with their heavy iron swords. They were confident in the knowledge of a dozen victories over petty kingdoms like my father’s. They out-numbered us, two to one.
Still dazed, I twisted round and looked over my shoulder. The Mercians were wading among our men, crushing any hint of resistance. A man toppled backward as the bronze boss of a Mercian shield smashed into his face. I saw swords and spear butts rising and falling as they cut down or spiked anyone who showed a glimmer of fight. I recognized a farmer who had visited our great hall only last week to pay his tithe. He was a slow-spoken gangling man who was half a head taller than those around him and wore a metal helmet like my own. God knows where he had found it, but it did him little good. A Mercian swordsman feinted at his face, then smoothly dropped his blade and hacked him across the legs. The farmer tumbled to the ground like a slashed nettle. Desperately I looked for any sign of my father. He was nowhere to be seen. Our flag was tangled around its staff and swaying back and forth. Seconds later it was dragged down and disappeared. A riderless horse, wild-eyed with terror, bolted past me. I recognized the beast as the one that my oldest brother had ridden. He too must have fallen. The triumphant howls of the Mercians were beginning to fade. They were running out of breath. Here and there our men were falling to their knees, hands clasped, pleading to be spared. That would limit the massacre; it made no sense to injure a prisoner who would soon be a slave.
One of the Mercians, a thick-set warrior in a leather jerkin sewn with metal plates, caught sight of me. I was standing by myself, numb with awful knowledge. His bearded face split into a covetous grin. He must have glimpsed at my neck the glint of the thin gold torc I had received the previous winter when I began my sixteenth year. He had no intention of sharing such loot with his comrades. Without a word, he began to run purposefully towards me. He had taken several strides before I gathered my wits and began to flee. I ran without hope. As a child I had never been able to run
fast. My brothers had mocked me for being so sluggish, and they scarcely bothered to pursue me, knowing the chase would soon be over. Now it was the same. I heard the feet thudding on the turf behind me, the reverberation growing louder as the gap closed. Soon my breath was rasping in my throat, and my knees hurt. My loosely fastened helmet bounced on my head and slipped forward until all I could see was a yard or so ahead of me. I had dropped my sword but realized too late that my buckler was still strapped to my left forearm. I tried in vain to shake it free, but only succeeded in throwing myself off balance. I had gone no more than fifty yards when I became aware of the looming presence of the Mercian closing in. I heard his panting and sensed his air of easy triumph.
Then something solid crashed into me from behind, and I fell forward, face down into the sun-baked ground. I caught a whiff of sweat and greased leather mixed with the sweet smell of bruised grass as a heavy weight dropped on my shoulders. Someone was kneeling on my back. My helmet flew off and rolled clear. A hand was grasping my hair, pulling my head upward; for a ghastly moment I thought the Mercian was stretching my throat ready to cut it. Then his hand pushed forward sharply and my forehead slammed down on to the earth. Pain jolted through me. I tried to feebly squirm away, but the grip on my hair held fast, and the Mercian raised my head and battered it against the ground a second time. This time I did not resist. I welcomed the wave of blackness that engulfed me.
For more than a month I had known that this would happen.
*
I came to my senses, still lying face down. Someone had lashed my wrists together with a strip of rawhide. My face was now pressed against cracked and hardened mud. The slime on my cheek had the smell of chicken droppings. I stifled a groan and raised my head to look around. It was mid-afternoon, the sky had clouded over, and I was sprawled in the yard in front of my father’s great hall, my own home. A large group of Mercians was clustered in front of the building, still dressed in their war gear. They were joking amongst themselves and taking turns to step forward and pick up an item from a pile of goods heaped on the ground. I recognized the helmet I had been wearing at the battle and, with a lurch in my stomach, my father’s long ornate sword. To my right was the man supervising the division of the booty. He was seated on a tall carved wooden seat, which had once been my father’s place of honour. The Mercians must have dragged the better furniture outside when they looted the hall. The man sitting in my father’s place was middle-aged with a thick powerful body and heavy rounded shoulders. His hair was curled and greased and elaborately piled up on his head. Even without the crown that he wore for his image on the coins from his royal mint I had no difficulty in recognizing Offa, King of Mercia. I lowered my head back into the farmyard filth and lay still, gathering my thoughts. The sight of my father’s sword confirmed that he must have perished on the battlefield. I doubted that my two brothers had survived. My gold torc was gone, of course. I could feel the bruise around my throat where my captor had wrenched it away; doubtless it was now hidden in his clothing. I toyed with the idea of denouncing him but decided it would serve no purpose. To the victor, the spoils. Last autumn, Offa had sent a message to my father, demanding to be acknowledged as his overlord and a payment of tribute. When the demand had been rebuffed, Offa had used the excuse to invade. Our battered little kingdom would first be raped, then either become a tributary of Mercia or absorbed directly into Offa’s domain, which already included much of England.
I had already dreamed it in vivid detail: an antlered stag was grazing peacefully on a lush meadow when a huge dangerous-looking bull, led by a vixen, emerged from the dark forest in the distance. With the vixen scuttling a few paces ahead, the bull advanced. Too late, the stag raised its head and confronted the intruder with its antlers. The bull charged and gored its victim to death while the vixen screamed her encouragement. I had woken, drenched with cold sweat, realizing the screams were my own.
Rough hands were hauling me to my feet. Someone – I presumed he was the Mercian warrior who had captured me – took me by the elbow and marched me over towards King Offa. The pile of booty was gone. Now it was time to dispose of the prisoners of war.
A group of well-dressed men stood behind the royal seat: the royal councillors. To my shock and utter disgust my uncle Cyneric was among them. He must have surrendered very early in the fight and been spared. The look he gave me, a mixture of shame and arrogance, told me all I needed to know – he was now King Offa’s man.
‘This is the only surviving son, my lord,’ said my escort.
Offa looked me up and down with hard, grey eyes. He saw a raw-boned young man of ordinary height, dishevelled and filthy, dressed in a tunic and leggings, strands of lank yellow hair flopping over his dung-streaked face.
‘What is your name?’ Offa asked. His voice was gravelly, and he spoke with the thick vowels of his own dialect.
‘Sigwulf, my lord.’
The royal mouth twisted into a sardonic smile.
‘Victorious Wolf. Not very appropriate.’
My turncoat uncle stepped forward from the councillors.
‘He is the youngest son. There was another . . .’
A raised hand cut his sentence short. Cyneric was already being treated like the vassal he had become.
‘So what are we to do with you?’ Offa asked me.
I stared down at the ground and said nothing. We both knew that the sensible step was to put me to death, ensuring the direct bloodline of the kingship died with me. I wondered if my uncle had been dealing in secret with the Mercians before the invasion. His wife was one of Offa’s distant cousins. The marriage was meant to be a bond-weaver, one of those alliances that cement friendships between neighbouring kingdoms. In this case it had been the reverse. Perhaps the screaming vixen had been her.
‘Stand closer, lad. And let me see your face,’ growled Offa.
I shuffled forward and raised my head, flicking aside my long hair. At that precise moment the sun broke through a gap in the clouds and lit up the farmyard. The light fell full on my face as I found myself staring directly into the grim countenance of the man who was bold and ambitious enough to style himself Rex Anglorum, King of the English.
He flinched, just briefly, and then made a small movement as if to cross himself before he stayed his hand.
I was born with dark-blue eyes. This is quite normal among my people, and usually the colour of a baby’s eyes changes to a lighter shade of blue when they are a few months old. Sometimes their eyes turn to grey, and very occasionally to brown. But something different happened to me. The colour of my right eye did alter, gradually becoming a greenish hazel, while the left eye faded to the normal pale blue. By contrast my twin brother – of whom I shall write later – underwent the opposite. His left eye changed colour, and his right eye remained the same. To many in our community these were certain signs of the Devil, all the more so because in the pain and difficulty of giving birth to twins, our mother died.
Whatever fate King Offa had in mind for me changed in the instant that he saw my mismatched eyes.
I sensed the hesitation in the king’s manner as he tried to devise a way of eliminating me without doing me an injury. He was thinking that harming anyone who bore the Devil’s mark would invite trouble from the Wicked One.
He turned to question my uncle.
‘What do we know about this youth?’
‘His father’s pet, my lord,’ answered my uncle. I could hear his bitter dislike of me in his voice. ‘Too precious to be sent away for fostering like his older brothers. Taught how to read and write instead of how to hunt and make war.’
‘Not dangerous then?’ Offa raised an eyebrow.
‘I wouldn’t say that,’ my uncle replied hastily. ‘He is slippery, not to be trusted.’ He produced a sycophant’s smile, nastily deferential. ‘Maybe Your Majesty should have him tonsured and shut up in a monastery.’
Incarcerating an unwanted person in a monastery was an effective way of putting them out of
sight and mind.
A more thoughtful expression appeared on Offa’s face.
‘What are his manners like?’ he asked, as though he was enquiring about the training and discipline of a house dog he was considering buying.
‘He should know his place among his betters,’ my uncle admitted grudgingly. ‘He was brought up in the great hall.’
‘Languages?’ This time the royal question was addressed directly to me.
My tongue felt thick and dry in my mouth.
‘Only Latin,’ I mumbled.
There was a long pause as Offa regarded me seriously.
‘Clean him up and find him some decent clothes,’ he announced finally. ‘Mercia has a better use for him.’
‘And what has the king decided?’ The question came from one of the royal councillors, a greybeard with the air of someone long in the royal service. His obsequious tone indicated that his query was a customary one, designed to allow Offa to show off his wisdom.
‘He’ll go to live with the Franks. Their king has been asking for someone to be sent from Mercia as an earnest of our good relations. If he’s as educated and personable as is claimed, he’ll make a good impression. Well scrubbed, he could even be quite good-looking. That should keep the Franks off our backs.’
Offa was cleverer than I had given him credit for. It was the custom for rulers to send family members to live in other courts. Officially they went as guests and as a gesture of trust and friendship between kingdoms, but in reality they were kept as hostages. They lived in their new homes until they died or were recalled. Should war break out, they were killed out of hand. As the only surviving scion of a noble family, I could be passed off as a suitable pledge of Mercia’s good neighbourliness as long as my Frankish hosts did not enquire too closely. If they did discover I was not as important as had been made out, they would put an end to me and that would suit Offa just as well.
The king turned towards me again.
‘You will not come back,’ he said flatly. He did not need to say that if I did return, I would forfeit my life.