The Sword of Damascus (11 page)

Yes, still alive. None of this abolished the fact that I was so bloody old. And being old, I can tell you, is rather like being ill – except there’s no hope of getting better. Again, though, I had no valid reason to complain. Age had crept slowly up behind me. It was a matter of a white eyebrow here and there, a growing bald patch, a bit of a belly for a while, the gradual wearing out of teeth. Other men around me had sickened and died in various and usually horrid ways, and I’d drifted serenely through middle age with barely diminished vigour. Even when I did finally reach the age that men called ‘half as old as time itself’, I remained too busy to notice the falling off of bodily power.

But age had finally crept up. I leaned back against the mast and thought of my aborted narrative of the Athens trip. I’d been so young and strong, so healthy and so confident about facing the world. In the space of time separating then from now, men had been born and had grown old and died; so, in many cases, had their sons. But it didn’t strike me as such a very long time since I’d stood on the deck of that other ship. Now, I was unambiguously decrepit. I’d seen as much back in Cartenna, when, for the first time in years, I looked into a proper mirror. Apart from the eyes, which were much as they always had been, the face looking back at me had reminded me of nothing so much as the unwrapped mummy I’d seen a few times of the Great Alexander. Little wonder everyone thought me a creature of magical powers. I hadn’t called for the wig and the paint to cover up the truth. Neither, though, had I waved them away. The racing chariot of my life was reaching the end of its final lap.

Even so, the final lap wasn’t ended yet. I’d survived the journey from the Tyne to the Narrow Straits. If only poor Wilfred hadn’t nearly died, I’d have found the journey preferable to another winter in Jarrow, and I’d conceived a grudging respect for whatever race of barbarians had been able to design and build so large and capable a ship, and even for the barbarians who, if beastly in all else, had been so capable in handling it. We’d now be retracing the voyage out in much improved weather and with me in charge. It was worth looking forward to my reception in Canterbury and then in Jarrow. I thought again of the day just past. I thought of that ridiculous Prefect, and then of his secretary’s despair on the jetty. I’d have to ensure that something unpleasant came of the useless lump of meat who’d tried to leave me behind. But the whole thing had been as neat an operation as anyone could have wished. I thought again of that absurd story about the martyrdom of Saint Flatularis. And I thought of the look on Edward’s face. Yes, I was alive, and life still wasn’t so bad that I wanted it over.

I thought again. Yes, I was alive. But let it be assumed that there was a Hell, and that I’d just had some vision of my place there – even that might have its moments. I put my head back and laughed. And I let out a long, gratified fart.

‘You are unable to sleep, Master?’ It was Wilfred behind me on the deck. I finished my laugh and hoped the fart hadn’t been too embarrassingly loud. But he’d announced himself with a coughing fit, and probably hadn’t heard anything.

‘But what keeps you awake so late – or so early?’ I asked. ‘I did tell you to drink all your wine and get a proper night’s sleep.’ From habit I raised my arms each side of me in the gloom. He reached weakly forward and helped me to my feet. He cleaned me with the sponge and pulled my clothes back into order.

‘I was looking at the lights over in the west,’ he said. I followed his pointed finger, but saw nothing. ‘I think there is more than one.’

I sniffed and suggested it might be a fishing boat, or some merchant ship that wasn’t hugging the shore. Even in the Mediterranean, most seaborne trade doesn’t start again until the late spring. But that doesn’t mean the seas are empty. I wondered – now that Hrothgar wasn’t around to keep the ship moving in its vaguely eastward course – if the crew would go back to full-time piracy. Once I’d taken charge of things, I’d spent some time with Wilfred on an inventory. We were running short of everything, including money. If we were to get back all the way to Richborough, we’d need a top-up from somewhere.

‘Something you may not have appreciated, Master,’ Wilfred added, ‘is the danger that Edward took on himself when he went back for you.’

I said nothing, but let him help me over to the side of the ship – rather, we helped each other. Then I kept an arm round him while he finished coughing.

‘Until the man in the green robe stopped them,’ he continued once he was able to speak again, ‘the archers were raining arrows on to the docks. Edward was already in the boat – already holding an oar – when the big northerner dropped you. When he reached you, there was an armed man only six feet away.’

I nodded. I hadn’t been able to take in the whole picture at the time. But it was easy to see it all now. I’d led the main body of guards far into the upper part of the city, then had taken everyone by surprise with the speed of our getaway. Even so, the docks were an easy killing ground. It needed a very cool nerve to go deliberately back there.

‘You were looking forward to Constantinople, weren’t you?’ I asked.

Wilfred shrugged. ‘To pray in the Great Church there, to consult libraries so vast that the catalogues alone fill more books than we have in Jarrow, to walk through the endless streets and squares that you have described so well – who would not wish to see the New Rome built by Constantine as capital for his Christian Empire?’ He paused and looked again into the west. ‘But you are right that there is work to be done in England. It is sinful to wish for a place in the world other than the one appointed by God.’

It wasn’t the answer I’d have given at his age. But it was useful to have only one resentful boy to keep in line. And I did want him in a place of safety as soon as we could get to one. If we could safely put in to Africa, I’d have considered even that for him instead of this ship, where he was slowly dying.

‘And what place,’ I asked with a smile, ‘do you suppose has been appointed for Edward?’

‘He may not be quite so great a sinner as you believe,’ came the reply.

I thought of jumping in here with some questions, but didn’t want to break the flow.

‘Perhaps I should have told you at the time, but Edward did ask many questions back in the monastery about your earlier life. I broke no confidences, but now realise he was gathering background information for his mission. I think, though, he was inspired by the stories told by the other monks of your progress from Kent to Rome and then to Constantinople, and of how you rose from dispossessed orphan to greatest commoner in the Empire.

‘You once told me, Master, of how you were expelled from Rome after your first few days there. You managed to have the decree cancelled, but you surely remember how it felt.’

I sighed and thought back to that meeting in Rome all those years ago, when the Dispensator told me he was throwing me out of Rome. As with all the man’s dealings with me, it was a ruse to get me to do his dirty work. But I’d cried like a child when I thought I was to be pushed out of the glorious new world I’d found on leaving England. However, Wilfred hadn’t finished.

‘We prayed together after you fell asleep over dinner,’ he said. ‘There are things I am not able to repeat. But the plan was for Hrothgar to be present when the northerners first arrived at the monastery. If there had not been some confusion that Edward cannot explain, the capture would have gone as smoothly as it eventually did. There would surely have been no killing outside the monastery.’

‘Very well,’ I said. I’d already worked this out for myself. Whatever the case, Tatfrid was dead, and there was no bringing him back. Edward hadn’t been any kind of principal in the capture. And he had saved my life. ‘Let Edward know that I will send him ashore at our first Spanish port for supplies,’ I continued firmly. ‘If he chooses to make off with the money I give him, I shan’t think any the worse of him.’ There was a wind picking up, and the ship swayed just enough to make me clutch harder at Wilfred, and then to steady him. Was the sky clouding over? Hard to say. ‘The Saracens will break into Spain sooner or later. When that happens, there will be opportunities for the man he will surely become.

‘Now, do help me back to my cot. If I sleep late, I don’t suppose my presence will be actively missed.’

Chapter 13

I stood between two of the northerners. A third stood behind, holding up a wooden shield to keep the fine drizzle from soaking me.

‘It’s an Imperial battle fleet,’ I said, looking west across the mile or so of choppy sea that divided us. ‘I can’t say what it’s doing in these waters. And it’s pretty unusual for it to be out of harbour at all this time of year, and on a day like this.’

‘Could it have followed us from Cartenna?’ Edward asked. He was the one who’d got me out of bed at dawn, and had then been darting up and down the mast so he could relay the details of the fleet’s elaborate gyrations. I could see these now for myself as it struggled ever closer while keeping in attack formation.

‘Might have,’ I conceded. But that wasn’t very likely. There had been no warships in Cartenna the day before. I knew of no naval base within easy communicating distance. And if this was what Wilfred had seen in the night, it would have been coming from the west – perhaps the north-west. The fleet might possibly have touched in on Cartenna after we’d left and then set straight out again in pursuit. But it struck me as a very faint possibility.

‘These waters are full of Saracen pirates and other raiders,’ I said, after another long inspection of those small, dark shapes. I couldn’t see the rise and fall of the oars, but the wind was now bringing the faint and ominously rapid beating of drums. Unlike our ship, these were propelled by well-trained – or well-whipped – slaves. ‘But do search your memory, Edward,’ I asked with a change of tone. ‘Did Hrothgar say anything about possible alternative meetings before Kasos?’

The boy shook his head. He repeated that the plan had been to use the design advantages of this ship so far as possible and keep away from the shore. There was no reason why Hrothgar should have shared any more with him than I’d already been told. But I did know that, ever since we’d had to put in to gather wood for a broken mast, we’d never managed to recover the course Hrothgar had had in mind.

‘Do you suppose, Master, we are to be attacked?’ Wilfred asked from deep within the folds of his hood. He might have been asking if the wind was about to change.

‘No reasonable doubt of it,’ I said. I glanced at Edward. He at least was looking scared. ‘Do you see how the fleet is bearing down on us in that crescent formation?’ I tapped the deck with my stick to show our own position, and then traced an invisible crescent a few inches beyond to show the formation of the fifteen battle ships. ‘The idea is for the outer ships to overtake us. You see how small and light they are relative to their sails and the number of their oars? On a smoother sea than this, they can move with astonishing speed. The bigger ships in the centre don’t move so fast. But you really don’t want to come within a few hundred yards of them. The biggest ship of all will be controlling all the others – coordinating their moves into a single and quite deadly weapon. The cusps of the crescent will overtake us. The whole thing will then close in on us like some giant pincer. If we don’t surrender at once, there will be grappling hooks fired at us from the larger ships. After that, it’s boarding.’

Wilfred calmly folded his arms and fought to suppress the renewed coughing fit. I looked round at a noise behind me. It was Edward, now carrying a spiked mace so heavy, it bumped on the deck beside him.

‘Will there be fighting?’ he asked, trying to look fierce.

Where his rain-soaked clothes clung to him, he looked absolutely lush. A shame he’d not be going back to Jarrow, I thought again. I smiled.

‘I’m sure the crew is up to a fight,’ I said. ‘But once those grappling hooks slam into the side of this ship, it’s numbers that will count.’ Edward’s face fell again. Before I could really enjoy the sight, I sniffed at the rising wind that had brought the sound of the drums. ‘Can you smell burning?’ I asked.

‘There are things on the larger ships that look like big spoons,’ Edward replied. ‘Do you think they might be catapults? They’ve been loaded with what look like bundles of burning cloth.’

I gripped the side of the ship and tried harder to see across the water. ‘Tell me,’ I asked, a cold feeling rising out of my stomach, ‘can you see bronze tubes projecting from any of those ships?’

Edward shook his head and gave a better description of the charged catapults.

I was only slightly relieved. Even I could see the speed at which the fleet was approaching. I’d never have thought it possible for the formation to be kept up in weather like this. No one but a fool could think this was to be a prearranged or even peaceful meeting. If orders had been given for a capture, this was an odd way to go about obeying them. This was an attack. Bearing in mind the price of those pitch bags, the catapults hadn’t been charged to scare us into surrender. It was an attack preparatory to sinking. I turned to the pilot, who was standing a few yards to my left.

‘Cancel the order to try going round those ships,’ I said. ‘Can we outrun them?’ I thought again of the hundred or so oarsmen aboard each of the attacking ships. I thought of them against fifty strong but semi-drunken northerners – fewer if we were to keep any fighting ability on deck.

‘Piece of piss!’ The man laughed. ‘But why not just ram through them?’ He cleared his throat and spat appreciatively.