Tim Severin - The Emperor's Elefant

There was a long silence.

‘Why do you ask?’ Abram said.

‘Because there was only your word that it was white. No one in Aachen ever saw it, and Nadim Jaffar didn’t seem to be aware of the fact.’

Abram did not reply. He reached into the pocket of his gown and pulled out a dried seed. He prised the shell open with his fingernails and popped the kernel into his mouth, then held out the empty husk on his outstretched palm. The elephant shuffled its great feet in the straw and took a few paces until it reached the end of its chain. Then it reached out with the long snake-like trunk and, very delicately, picked up the tiny offering. The trunk curled back and the beast placed the shell into its mouth and the jaws moved.

‘I was waiting for you to understand,’ he said quietly. I caught a faint whiff of a familiar smell on his breath.

‘On the voyage back from Zanj our captain Sulaiman had a great liking for those same seeds that you chew on,’ I said. ‘He told me they come from India.’

The dragoman was unflustered. ‘That is correct. They sweeten the breath.’

‘Those are the same shells that I found under the benches in the Colosseum on the morning after Protis died.’

Abram waited for me to go on.

‘I had many hours on the voyage back from Zanj to think about that sequence of mishaps that so nearly destroyed the mission,’ I said. ‘As far back as Rome I realized that someone was deliberately trying to prevent it succeeding.’

‘And what did you conclude?’ the dragoman was gently mocking me.

‘That, whoever it was, was remarkably well informed – wherever we were. It couldn’t have been Osric or Walo, which left only you or your servants. Also, on the two occasions when the aurochs was set free – in Rome and in the desert – the dogs didn’t bark. They knew the person or persons responsible.’

‘And when was the start of this campaign against you and your mission, do you suppose?’ Abram asked. He was supremely self-possessed.

‘In Kaupang,’ I told him. ‘Though the attempt to kill me there didn’t fit the pattern. I hadn’t even met you at that time and I couldn’t see how you might be responsible. Only later did I recall a remark that a shrewd sea captain named Redwald made to me. He warned me that money has a long reach. On another occasion Osric said something similar.’

The dragoman allowed himself a knowing smile. The elephant was again reaching forward with its trunk, begging this time. Abram extended his arm and allowed the tip of the trunk to thrust up his loose sleeve, exploring. When the trunk withdrew, the elephant tasted in its mouth what it had found, rejected it, and then the trunk stretched out in my direction.

It seemed natural to accept what it was the creature was offering. I put out my hand. The end of the trunk turned up and I saw something shiny and held in place by the fingerlike tip of the animal’s nose.

Something small and damp dropped into the palm of my hand, and I was looking down on a familiar coin – a gold dinar.

I admired the dragoman’s sense of theatre. ‘You didn’t need that conjurer’s trick,’ I said.

I took out my purse and found the dinar from Kaupang that Redwald had given me as a memento. As I anticipated, it was the twin of the coin that Abram had produced. Both bore King Offa’s name. ‘You were the paymaster who arranged the attack on me in Kaupang.’

A brief flicker of regret appeared in Abram’s eyes. ‘For that I apologize. I had not yet met you by then. Had that been the case, I would have considered a different, less violent course of action.’

I made a point of sounding incredulous. ‘You were behind all those other incidents, and yet you did not wish to harm me.’

‘Neither you, nor your companions. After I met you, I had no wish to hurt you, certainly not to cause your deaths. I tried to thwart the mission without anyone being killed.’

I gave a snort of disbelief. ‘I find that difficult to believe.’

‘I managed to delay and divert the mission. I took it by a longer route, downriver to the Mediterranean and not over the mountains directly into Italy. I was hoping that something would go wrong, an accident that would make you abandon the mission.’

‘Yet when an accident did happen and that raft hit the bridge, you risked your life to save the boatman who had been thrown into the water,’ I said.

He gave a slight shrug. ‘I repeat: I didn’t want anyone to be killed because of me.’

My scepticism must have been very apparent because he added, ‘Think back to when Protis’s ship foundered. My plan was for the animals to drown, and your companions to get safely to shore. I overlooked the fact that ice bears can swim, and the aurochs too.’

I stopped him there. ‘That was something else that puzzled me. I couldn’t understand how you arranged for the ship to sink.’

He arched a mocking eyebrow. ‘My people have excellent contacts along the river, and I sent ahead. Protis’s ship was delayed for repairs and while it was in dock, the carpenters were paid to drill some holes in the hull and plug them with wax. An old technique, used by unscrupulous shipowners. They then claim the loss of a cargo that they never loaded, but had stolen.’

‘And the wax comes loose and the ship sinks?’ I said.

He grinned. ‘But not fast enough. That was why I volunteered to swim overboard and put the canvas in place. It gave me a chance to knock out the last of the wax plugs.’

I found myself losing patience with his smug responses. Clearly Abram had anticipated this conversation. ‘You say that you didn’t want to hurt us,’ I snapped. ‘Yet Protis died in the arena. I presume your servants let the aurochs go free – and then the lions killed that poor wretch in the desert.’

‘I truly regret Protis’s death,’ said Abram, and he sounded as though he meant it. ‘I never thought he would be so foolhardy, or that his head would be so filled with the heroics of the ancient Greeks.’ He paused. ‘As for that poor wretch in the desert, he had no reason to run off into it.’

I looked down at the two coins in my hand. ‘These tell only part of your deceit.’

Abram grinned at me mischievously. ‘Then explain to me the rest of it.’

‘Offa might pay to have me killed, but he had no reason to wreck Carolus’s embassy to Haroun.’

This time I had managed to throw him off balance. His eyes narrowed. ‘Go on.’

‘So you set up another suspect. Those men who attacked me in Kaupang were also paid in Byzantine gold. I was shown a gold solidus. On our journey here you reminded me repeatedly that the Greeks are at war with the caliphate, and would do anything to stop an alliance between Aachen and Baghdad.’

I closed my fist and shook the two gold coins together so they clicked softly. The elephant had remarkably acute hearing. He flapped his ears and the trunk came questing again towards my hand, then withdrew as I kept my hand clenched.

‘Yet here in Baghdad I find that Greeks work for the caliph, and Arabs go to Constantinople to buy books. They are not at daggers drawn, as you had me believe,’ I said quietly. ‘Then I thought back to Christmas Day in Rome when I saw Pope Adrian with my own eyes as he went in procession in St Peter’s Basilica. He had a look of absolute self-belief, arrogant and implacable. I judged him to be someone who stopped at nothing to protect his Church.’

The dragoman was absolutely motionless. He did not contradict me.

‘It occurred to me that Adrian, more than anyone, has reason to be alarmed by an alliance between Carolus and Haroun, between the Christian king and the Commander of the Faithful. That would be the worst of all possible worlds for the pope.’ I chose my words with care. ‘The Nomenculator said to me that everything in Rome has its price. That all is self-interest. I remember his exact words, “We Romans have little loyalty to the past when it suits us.” ’