The Emperor's Elephant(16)

‘You seem to be as expert in gold and silver as in guiding a ship through the dark,’ I said, intending to flatter him. His reply surprised me.

‘There’s a tidy profit from acting as a money changer.’

It was my turn to change the subject. ‘You said in Dorestad that you should have known that I can speak Saxon.’

Redwald chuckled. ‘The name Sigwulf is rare among the Franks. Much more popular among Northmen and Saxons. So what brought you to the court of King Carolus?’

He put the question lightly but I detected again that he was showing more than casual curiosity.

‘It was not my choice. Offa of Mercia despatched me there, to get me out of the way.’ It was an honest answer and designed to evoke a response. It succeeded.

Redwald sucked in his breath. ‘Offa’s a right mean bastard. I trade regularly in his ports and I wouldn’t want it widely known that I’ve taken a passenger he doesn’t like. Could damage my business.’

‘Then make sure I don’t come to the attention of anyone in Kaupang who might report to Offa that I arrived there with you,’ I said quickly. It was a flimsy safeguard for my future, but better than nothing.

‘That I will do,’ Redwald assured me bluntly.

There was little more to be said so I turned and groped my way across the deck, stepping carefully to avoid loose ropes and other dimly seen obstacles. As I reached the ladder down into the hold where Osric and Walo had prepared sleeping places for us among the bales and boxes of the cargo, Redwald’s voice came out of the darkness behind me.

‘Get a good night’s rest, Sigwulf, however hard your pillow.’

I paused with my foot on the top rung. My pillow was to be a saddlebag containing the king’s silver.

*

We emerged from the Rhine mouth the following afternoon, though it was impossible to say at what point we had left the river and reached the sea itself. The colour of the water remained the same murky greenish-brown, and the flat, dull Frisian shoreline lacked any headlands to mark our departure. As soon as the vessel began to rise and fall on the gentle swell, poor Walo turned pale and began to moan softly. He gripped the ship’s rail with such desperation that his knuckles showed white. Redwald gruffly advised him to take deep breaths of fresh air and look at the horizon to steady himself. Walo closed his eyes even more tightly, whimpering with distress. Before long he was seated on deck, head down between his knees and retching miserably. Osric remained below, guarding our saddlebags, and I took the precaution of eavesdropping on the cog’s six-man crew in case they were planning any mischief. They talked among themselves in Frisian and their only topic of conversation was the weather. I gathered that they were expecting an easy passage to Kaupang as the wind at this season was usually from the south-west and favourable. Reassured, I ducked beneath the edge of the large rectangular sail that smelled of fish oil and tar and made my way forward to the bow where I could be alone.

A thin veil of light cloud covered the sky, and the sensation of facing out across an empty sea towards a hazy and indistinct horizon played tricks on my mind. It seemed that I was adrift in a great, limitless void. There was only the undulating sea swell ahead, the steady rhythm of the vessel’s movement beneath me, and an infinite, trackless space across which I was scarcely moving. I felt isolated and detached, free of my day-to-day existence and from whatever lay ahead on my new endeavour. Next winter I would be twenty-nine years old. No longer was I the naïve and inexperienced youth who had arrived at Carolus’s court. I had matured and grown more worldly wise from all that had happened to me, and it would be normal to have put down roots. Yet I continued to feel like a stranger among the Franks in spite of Carolus’s generosity and favour. I was still unsettled and restless, and always hovering in the background were my strange dreams and visions. They came without warning and though I had learned to be very wary how I interpreted them as omens of the future, they still disturbed me.

I looked back to where Redwald stood stolidly at the helm. Every so often he glanced up at the sail or looked out across the waves, his gaze watchful and calculating. He knew his ship intimately, how she handled in a seaway, how she responded to every shift of the wind, how best she carried her cargo. To that knowledge he added his vast experience of the sea to hold the cog steady on her course. Here, I thought to myself, was an example that I should follow. I knew myself far better now than ever before, and the time had come for me to have more confidence in who I was. I should be more purposeful, more open.

I reached up behind my head and unfastened the lace that held my eye patch in place. With a flick of my wrist I tossed it overboard.