He sat back with a sour smile. ‘I make it a policy to stay clear of him. His line is in gems and fine ornaments. If he thought I was infringing on his trade by doing more than changing money and handling broken silver, he would try to put me out of business.’
‘Would he set his men on me because I’m with you?’
He shook his head. ‘Only a madman would carry a commercial rivalry that far.’
‘Surely you don’t believe they tried to kill me because they thought I practise black magic!’
‘No, though it’s common knowledge that Ingvar caught two gyrfalcons in the same trap when you were with him. Everyone says that’s not natural.’ He paused and gave me a look of shrewd calculation. ‘What about King Offa? You told me that he had a grudge against you.’
‘How would he have found out that I’m in Kaupang?’ I said.
‘Of course he has his agents here, though I wouldn’t know who they are, or want to,’ Redwald answered. ‘I don’t pry into King Offa’s affairs. My trade with Mercia is too valuable . . .’ His voice tailed away, and a heavy silence hung in the air between us. ‘There’s a coincidence, though. If your identification is correct, one of the attackers came to see me last week. He wanted money changed.’
Redwald reached inside his tunic and pulled out a small soft leather pouch. ‘Northmen trust gold coins even less than silver ones. They get rid of them as quickly as possible.’
He untied the little pouch and shook the contents on the table, a mix of half a dozen gold coins of varying thickness, shape and size.
He picked up one of the coins and handed it to me. ‘Take a look.’
The coin was the size of my thumbnail. It was recently minted so the markings were clear. I recognized the wavy lines of Saracen writing.
‘That was one of the coins that your mysterious attacker – if we have the right man – wanted me to change into silver,’ Redwald said.
I turned the coin slowly in my fingers. ‘Advance payment for a murder?’
‘Possibly. Equally, it might have been his gambling winnings or part of his legitimate wages from the jeweller, though the latter would have been very generous.’
Unwisely I took a deep breath and winced as I felt the stab of pain from my wound. ‘I’ll get Osric to translate the writing after he’s bandaged the gash in my side. If we know where the coin comes from, that might tell us who was behind the attack.’
‘You don’t have to ask Osric. Turn the coin over and read what it says,’ said Redwald.
I did so. Among the Saracen symbols was an inscription in Roman letters: ‘Offa Rex’.
‘This is Offa’s coinage?’ I said, puzzled. ‘Why the Saracen writing?’
Redwald leaned back on his chair and I recognized the look that he had on his face when he was about to impart one of the secrets of his trade. ‘A couple of years ago, Offa decided to issue a coin in gold, not his usual silver. He wanted to expand Mercia’s trade with Hispania. Having a coin that the Saracen recognized would make payments easier. So his mint master took his mould from a genuine Saracen coin, a gold dinar, and changed a single detail – inserting Offa’s name.’
‘So those cut-throats were Offa’s hirelings.’ The thought that Offa had not forgotten my existence and was prepared to have me killed made my stomach twist.
‘Not so fast,’ warned Redwald. He slid a second gold coin across the table towards me. ‘This was another coin your knife-wielding friend wanted me to change for silver.’
This coin bore a cross on one side, and two stylized heads on the other. Both wore crowns, one with long pendants hanging almost to the shoulders. I looked up at Redwald questioningly. ‘Where does this one come from?’
‘Constantinople. That’s a Byzantine solidus.’ Redwald raised an eyebrow. ‘The figure on the left is the young Basileus Constantine.’
‘And the one with the dangling decorations?’
‘His mother, Irene. She acts as regent. Can you think of any reason why someone in Constantinople wants you done away with?’ He gave a bleak smile. ‘Just in case they try again, I think we should bring forward the date of our departure from Kaupang. I seem to remember that I gave my word to deliver you and your friends safely back to Dorestad . . . and that’s when I’ll be paid my bonus.’
At that moment Osric limped into the room. He made me stand up and peel off my tunic so that he could examine the wound. As he cleaned the gash with a rag soaked in rainwater, I reflected to myself that either Redwald was innocent of my attempted murder or he was a most ingenious liar. He had provided me with two suspects. The first was King Offa whose agents had hired the killers to rid their master of a longstanding nuisance. The second was the basileus in Constantinople. As Osric had pointed out, the Emperor of the Greeks had reason to wreck Carolus’s mission to the caliph.