Now, less than six weeks after departing Rome, we were gliding along the braided waterways of the delta heading deeper into Egypt. Watching the fisherman cast his net again, I was confident that I had made the correct choice.
‘That night in the Colosseum, did it involve those Saxons you were so worried about?’ Abram asked.
The abruptness of his question caught me off guard as I kept my suspicions to myself, and I could only answer feebly, ‘How do you reach that conclusion?
‘The knife attack in Kaupang you described to the Nomenculator. Then Protis loses his life in the arena in the Colosseum. You could have been the victim just as easily.’
‘Maybe someone wanted to harm the animals and damage Carolus’s embassy to the caliph, as you had feared,’ I said.
The dragoman tilted his head, squinting through half-closed eyes at the fisherman who was disentangling what looked like a twig from his net. ‘We need to keep alert.’
I was taken aback. ‘Even here? In Egypt?’
He turned to face me. I noticed how much browner he was now, tanned by the Mediterranean sun. He could have passed for an Egyptian himself. ‘Make no mistake. Our arrival in Alexandria was noted.’
‘But we are in the caliph’s territory now. That is security enough.’
He treated me to a sceptical glance. ‘Did you listen to the dock workers in Alexandria, or to the port captain when he spoke with his assistants?’
I failed to see the point of his question so he added, ‘They were speaking Greek. Alexandria may be part of the caliph’s possessions but in their hearts its citizens still think of themselves as Greeks. They were proud members of the Byzantine Empire for centuries and, if asked, they would still serve Byzantine interests.’
He did not have to explain any further. In Aachen, Alcuin had warned me of the hostility of the Greeks when they learned Carolus was sending gifts to their Saracen enemies. To them, the caliph was a foe. I also recalled the Khazar slave traders in Kaupang who would have passed through Byzantium on their way north. They had vanished a few days before I was attacked, and Osric had suspected them as being Greek agents. Unbidden, there sprang into my mind an image of the Greek priest in his dark robes officiating at Protis’s funeral. The largest foreign community in Rome was Greek. They had their own churches, shops and guilds. For every Saxon pilgrim you might encounter in the streets of Rome, you were rubbing shoulders with fifty Greeks. They had the means and resources to organize the events that led to Protis’s death.
‘Protis was a Greek,’ I said. ‘If the Greeks have been trying to prevent our embassy reaching the caliph, we have to remember that Protis lost his life helping us.’
The dragoman was unimpressed. ‘Protis was a Massalian. His Greece was the homeland of ancient heroes. Neither he nor his city had any ties to Byzantium.’
Both of us turned at the sound of a high-pitched cry of delight. It was Walo. He was in the bow of our boat, waving and shouting incoherently. I hurried forward to find out what was the matter.
‘There! There!’ he babbled.
His finger shook as he pointed at the reeds that fringed the river.
I looked in the direction in which he was pointing. The countryside of the delta was so utterly flat that my view was the empty washed-out sky and the thick wall of reeds, taller than a man, on both banks of the river. Wherever there was a small gap in the reeds, it offered only a glimpse of foreshore, a pattern of cracks and fissures where the water level had fallen and the sun had baked the mud into a pale brown crust. I saw nothing unusual.
‘What is it?’ I demanded irritably. I was still trying to come to terms with what Abram had just told me and Walo’s simple-mindedness could at times be exasperating.
‘There! Right down by the water!’
Osric had come forward along the wide deck and joined the two of us. ‘What’s Walo so excited about?’ I asked him.
‘A crocodile.’
Then I saw it. I had mistaken it for a dead tree submerged close to the reeds. A gentle ripple spread out. First a broad snout, the colour of wet bronze, and nostrils appeared, then two protruding eyes. The full size of the beast revealed itself as its armoured back and spine quietly broke the surface followed by the ridge of its long thick tail. I judged the beast to be fifteen feet in length. Beside me, Walo let out a gasp; part delight, part fear. Despite myself, I stepped back a pace, wondering if the animal could swim the short distance and lunge at our vessel. But our Egyptian boatmen appeared untroubled as we glided past the creature and it sank back down, reverting to being a drowned log.
Walo was breathless with excitement. ‘Could you see tears in its eyes?’