‘I hope we don’t run out of money,’ I confided to Abram after explaining my tussles with the skinflint in the treasury.
‘I can arrange cash for us along the way,’ he answered.
‘As far as Baghdad?’
He gave an easy smile. ‘As far as necessary.’
The sun was burning off the dawn mist and the day promised to be blisteringly hot. The horse provided to me by the royal stables had already worked up a sweat and we paused for a few minutes to allow the animal to cool down. The dragoman took the opportunity to introduce his attendants to me. One of them was a cook, good at producing a decent campfire meal, and another was handy with making running repairs to the tents and other equipment strapped to the horses. There was no need to ask about the third man. He had a serviceable-looking sword dangling from his saddle and was evidently a bodyguard. Never before had I felt so well prepared when starting on a journey.
‘Does your cook prepare special meals for you?’ I asked as we moved off at a gentle amble. It was a leading question for I was curious to know more about my travelling companion. I presumed his attendants were his co-religionists but he had made no mention of the fact.
‘I try to follow the dietary laws of my faith,’ Abram replied. ‘Fortunately, Radhanites are allowed broad dispensation due to our wandering way of life.’
He turned in the saddle to check on our little pack train, and I stole a sideways glance at my companion. He rode well, his handsome face alert as he watched the passing traffic.
‘Alcuin told me about the constant wayfaring, but that’s almost all he knew about your people.’
The dragoman showed no sign of resentment of my probing. ‘We originated in Mesopotamia many centuries ago, according to one theory. Others say that we came out of Persia.’
‘What do you believe?’
‘Under the present circumstances I prefer Persia. In that country’s language “rah” means a path and “dan” is one who knows. So a Radhanite is “one who knows the way”.’
‘Then Persian is one of those dozen languages that Alcuin said you speak.’
He acknowledged the compliment with a graceful shrug. ‘Once you’ve acquired six or seven languages, the rest come easily.’
‘I’ve yet to reach that stage.’
‘So Frankish is not your mother tongue?’ He regarded me with polite interest.
I shook my head. ‘No, I grew up speaking Saxon. I learned Latin as a child, Frankish and Arabic later.’
‘Then, like me, you are a wanderer.’
‘Not by choice,’ I admitted, and found myself confiding to him how Offa had forced me into exile.
He heard me out, his expression turning to one of sympathy. When I finished I realized that instead of learning more about Abram, it was the reverse.
‘Is there anything about our mission that worries you?’ I asked him, hoping to divert the conversation back to what I had intended.
‘Getting the animals across the Alps before the first snowfall of winter,’ he said, guiding his horse around a deep rut in the road surface.
‘The ice bears would enjoy seeing some snow,’ I said cheerfully. I was relaxed and carefree, happy at the thought that I had a dragoman to recommend how far to travel each day, where to spend the night and find our food.
‘You might consider taking a different route, avoiding the mountains entirely.’ He made the suggestion diffidently.
‘The royal chancery decided we go by river barge along the Rhine as far as possible. At some stage we’ll shift the animals onto carts and haul them over the mountain passes.’
Abram sighed. ‘The Arabs have a saying: “Only a madman or a Christian sails against the wind.” It seems that a Christian also chooses to travel against the current.’
‘Is there an alternative?’
‘You could use the river Rhone instead . . . and have the current help you.’
I wondered if this was an excuse for Abram to be among his own people. Alcuin had said that the Radhanites in Frankia clustered along the Rhone. ‘Let’s see how far Osric and Walo have already taken the animals along the Rhine before we change our plans,’ I replied cautiously.
*
The sound alerted me three days later – a familiar yowling and yapping. The noise came from the direction of a low ridge that ran parallel to the highway, the width of a field away. We turned aside and when we topped the slope, found ourselves on the crest of an artificial earth embankment built to protect the neighbouring fields from flood. In front of us was the broad river, and we were looking down on a barge firmly stuck on a shoal a few yards out. The two ice bears were in their cage at one end of the vessel. The aurochs occupied a larger, heavier cage at the opposite end. The dogs were tethered between them, tied to a thick rope. They were jumping up and down, quarrelling and lunging at one another, tangling their leashes, and ignoring Osric’s shouts of exasperation. Walo was nowhere to be seen. Closer at hand, standing on the muddy foreshore, was a huddle of what I took to be the barge men. They looked disgruntled and mutinous.