Thus we loaded five dirty and quarrelsome dogs as extra cargo. The rest of the pack lined the beach in a noisy frenzy as the gap widened between ship and shore, and we left Kaupang to the same sound as our arrival – the barking of dogs.
Chapter Six
FRANKIA
*
FREQUENT SWIGS OF black horehound leaves steeped in hot water helped Walo find his sea legs on the southward voyage. Thanks to him, all our animals were in good health when our ship turned into the estuary of the great river we had left three months before. From there, Redwald worked the tides, anchoring during the ebb and riding the flood to bring us upriver by easy stages to Dorestad. In the last week of July, the cog tied up to a staithe in her homeport and I found a royal courier waiting for me as we docked. His instructions were to escort me to Aachen with all speed. Any white animals we had collected were to be trans-shipped and to proceed upriver by barge on the first stage of their journey to distant Baghdad. It seemed that the mission to the caliph was to go ahead.
Leaving Osric and Walo in charge of the animals, I said a hurried farewell to Redwald, interrupting him as he stood at the foot of the mast, supervising his crew unlace the great sail from its spar, ready to carry it ashore. I had already offered to deliver the captive eagle to the palace mews master on his behalf. But he had declined gruffly, saying that I was not a Frisian so he could not trust me to drive a hard enough bargain over the price.
‘I owe you an apology,’ I said.
He tilted his head to one side and gave me a knowing look. ‘You had your doubts about me, didn’t you?’ he said.
I felt my face go red. ‘That’s right. But you’ve done as you promised, and brought us back safe. I want to thank you.’
He clapped me on the shoulder. ‘That was just good business. I seem to remember that I was promised a bonus if you and all the animals got here in good condition. I’ll settle up with Osric and he can pay me from the rest of your silver hoard.’
He reached into an inner pocket, produced a small coin, and held it out to me.
‘You’d forgotten about your share from the sale of the Rhenish wine,’ he said.
The coin was the dinar with Arab script and Offa’s name, the same gold coin that my attacker had asked Redwald to change for silver.
‘That’s too much,’ I said. ‘Besides, I bought the wine with funds from the royal treasury. You should credit them with any profit.’
‘I’ll haggle with the treasury in my own time.’ He pressed the coin into my hand.
I had no wish to be rude so I slipped the dinar into my money belt. ‘I’ll spend it in Baghdad when my mission is over,’ I told him.
‘That coin will be a useful reminder,’ he said.
‘A reminder of what?’
He made a wry face. ‘That money has a very long reach.’
*
Aachen had altered while I had been away. Summer was the building season, and the royal precinct resounded to the constant tapping of hammers as teams of tilers crawled over the vast roof of the future banqueting hall. The web of scaffolding had been dismantled from the façade of the basilica and re-erected around the treasury. The arcade leading to Carolus’s private quarters was no longer an untidy muddle of bricks and paving slabs. Several houses on the fringes of the precinct had been torn down to make extra space for the royal building programme, and there was a new stable block I could not remember seeing previously. There was no time to take in any further details because my escort whisked me straight to the royal apartments and handed me over to the major domo, a plump, watchful man whose sharp eyes immediately took in the suspicious-looking package in my hand. It was early afternoon, a time when I knew the king liked to take a nap. Yet the major domo waved aside the guard who wished to check whether what I was holding was some sort of weapon and immediately brought me up the familiar broad staircase leading to the royal apartments. Without knocking, he eased open the door to the king’s private audience room and slipped inside.
A few minutes later he reappeared and held the door ajar. ‘The king will see you now.’
It was the same audience chamber as before, though in daylight it seemed even more spacious and airy than when candle-lit. Carolus was alone in the room. His slightly dishevelled appearance suggested that he had only just got up, and the silk cover of the couch he used as a day bed was rumpled. He yawned and stretched before addressing me, looking down from his great height.
‘I’m told that you’ve brought back two ice bears,’ he said.
I was reminded that the king’s long and successful reign depended partly on his excellent intelligence system that brought news from all parts of the kingdom.