Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (26 page)

The church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin came as a pleasant contrast to the general urban decay. The building was conspicuously well maintained. Modest in size, it stood on the edge of an open
space that I was already learning to call a forum. Seven round-headed arches that gave it a simple elegance pierced the plain red brick façade. A large group of servants lurked in a nearby
alley, and in the portico of the basilica four or five men dressed in long dark tunics and cloaks sheltered from the drifting rain, conferring. My guide pointed to one of them – a short,
heavy-set man wearing a broad-brimmed hat who was standing slightly apart from the others and rubbing his hands together to keep warm. He looked up as I approached, and – to my amazement
– gave me a broad wink.

‘I’m looking for the Nomenculator, Paul,’ I said in my best Latin. A servant had detached himself from the waiting group of attendants and was hurrying towards me, doubtless to
head me off before I bothered his master. My young guide promptly made himself scarce.

‘My name is Paul,’ said the man, waving the servant away, ‘and judging by your accent you must be Sigwulf, the envoy from Aachen that my friend Alcuin wrote to me about.
I’ve been expecting you for some weeks.’

He treated me to another broad wink with his left eye, screwing up that side of his face. I realized that it was an involuntary convulsion.

‘I’m sorry to be late,’ I said. ‘We encountered difficulties on our journey that delayed us. I arrived only this morning, and my companions are waiting outside the
city.’

‘Then it is my pleasure as well as my duty to welcome you to Rome,’ said Paul. His voice was husky, as if he was suffering from a cold, but his manner seemed genuinely well disposed.
‘Alcuin asked me to be of assistance.’

‘I don’t want to disturb you. But we need to find lodgings urgently for ourselves and a place to keep the animals that King Carolus is sending to Baghdad,’ I answered,
rummaging in my satchel for Alcuin’s letter of introduction.

‘Ah yes. The animals!’ said Paul, ignoring the proffered letter. ‘Alcuin wrote to me about those. I’m longing to see them for myself. Don’t worry about disturbing
me. My business here at the basilica is finished.’

He turned to his companions and explained that he was being called away on an important matter. Settling his hat firmly on his head, he stepped out into the street and gestured at me to
accompany him. I noted that half a dozen attendants followed us at a discreet distance. Clearly the Nomenculator was a person of importance.

‘His Holiness insists on checks and double-checks, though they are not really my responsibility,’ he told me as we walked along briskly. ‘He’s determined that the
translations are successful. My fear is that they will only make the thefts worse.’

He saw my look of utter incomprehension and gave an apologetic chuckle. ‘Forgive me. A lifetime of working at the papal court leads one to presume that everyone knows the obsession of the
day. It creates a sort of tunnel vision.’ He laughed again. ‘A not inappropriate metaphor.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said, confused. ‘What translations must be successful?’

‘Of holy bones. They must be moved into the city itself. To be better protected, and more accessible to the faithful.’

I gave him a sideways glance. I judged him to be in his late forties. His face was a blotchy coarse red. He had a bulbous nose and great bags under his eyes. He looked like a drunkard, and yet
there was an underlying sharpness as well as genuine warmth. I found myself liking him.

‘What bones are those?’ I asked.

‘Of saints and martyrs. In ancient times a municipal ordinance forbade burials within the city. So the bodies of the sainted dead were put underground in catacombs in the suburbs. Now
we’re trying to locate them, and bring them into the city where they can be properly preserved and venerated. As well as protected from grave robbers who would sell off the bits and pieces to
whoever will buy them.’

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. ‘In Santa Maria’s the workmen have excavated a new crypt. It has alcoves for the bones that will be brought in from the catacombs. I was there
to check that everything was in order.’

‘But I thought your office as Nomenculator makes you responsible for petitions to the pope, not overseeing translations, as you put it.’

‘Quite so. Unfortunately, my passion is ancient history. I’m more familiar with the archives than the pope’s librarian who, by the way, is a political appointment and an
ignoramus. So I’m always being called upon to identify the catacombs where the martyrs were buried, and to authenticate their remains. Though, to be truthful, most bones look much like any
others.’

‘Santa Maria Basilica appears to be a very suitable place to keep holy relics,’ I said, I hoped tactfully.

‘When you have time, you should go inside and take a look around. It has some superb interior decoration, mosaics and painted plasterwork. All done by priests from Byzantium. Locally
it’s known as Santa Maria of the Greeks.’

The mention of Greeks was unsettling. I thought of the Byzantine gold solidus that one of the men who tried to kill me in Kaupang had asked Redwald to change for silver coin. ‘Is there a
large Greek congregation here?’ I asked. ‘I was told that the Holy Father and the Church authorities in Byzantium are at odds with one another.’

He sniffed, a sound that conveyed both amusement and disdain. ‘Renegade Greek priests, refugee preachers, ambitious prelates. Rome is full of every sort of delinquent. Some genuine, some
with a hidden agenda. I should know: many of them come to my office seeking favours.’

He paused for a moment. ‘I’m a papal gatekeeper but the person I recommend for an audience with the pope doesn’t necessarily get what he wants. There are other hurdles to clear
before one benefits from the pope’s patronage.’

It all sounded very much like Abram’s warning to me that Rome was like a snake pit. I should be wary. I decided it was safer to turn the conversation to a more neutral subject, something
closer to Paul’s interest.

‘I saw workmen ripping marble slabs from a fine-looking palace back there. Is that allowed?’ I asked.

‘That sort of thing has been going on for centuries,’ he answered cheerfully. We had turned into a broad avenue dominated by a looming triumphal arch. Sixty feet high, its three
archways were flanked with columns of yellow marble topped with over-size human figures draped in togas. Huge panels of carved marble depicted scenes of warfare and hunting, trophies, gods, Roman
soldiers and defeated enemies. Sections of the frieze had fallen away and the surface was streaked with dirt. Wild plants had taken root in cracks in the stonework and grown into bushes high above
the ground. It looked shaggy and forsaken.

Paul waved up at it. ‘We’re standing on the Triumphal Way. That arch was erected five centuries ago to celebrate an imperial victory. Yet already most of those marble panels were
second hand. They were taken down from previous monuments and reused. We Romans have little loyalty to the past when it suits us.’

I should have been listening to him more closely, but my attention had wandered. An extraordinary structure dominated the skyline beyond the triumphal arch. The Nomenculator did not have to
explain to me what it was. My teacher had told me about it when I was a boy and I had never expected to see it for myself. The Colosseum was everything that I had imagined – soaring up like a
vast perforated drum, three layers of ornamented arcades perched each on top of the other and surmounted by a podium. There was a wide break on the side of the drum where a huge section of the
edifice had collapsed, but the overall effect was still breathtaking.

Paul noted my amazement. ‘The greatest structure of the Roman world. A feat of engineering and design that has never been equalled,’ he said with more than a hint of pride.

‘It is stunning,’ I confessed.

He looked at me from under the wide brim of his hat, and a mischievous smile spread across the blotchy red face. ‘That is where you and your embassy will be accommodated for the
winter.’

I thought I had misheard, and stood rooted to the spot.

He had to repeat himself. ‘That,’ he said, pointing, ‘is where you will be staying. It’s your winter quarters and will house the beasts too.’

‘But how . . . ?’ I stammered.

His smile grew even broader. ‘Alcuin listed the animals you were bringing. When I got his letter I wondered where on earth I could possibly put such creatures. It was like trying to find
accommodation for a circus. Then, of course, it came to me: the very centre of Rome has a place designed precisely for circuses and their strange and curious beasts.’

‘But the Colosseum was for gladiatorial contests.’

‘It was, and sometimes the fights were between wild animals or between men and beasts. So the Colosseum has dozens of stalls to accommodate dangerous creatures.’

‘And is it still possible to use them nowadays?’

His face twitched in the convulsive wink once more, and he laid a conspiratorial hand on my sleeve. ‘Believe it or not, the Nomenculator can wield considerable influence when he wants to.
Besides, the Colosseum is not as impressive on the inside as from where we stand. Those stalls and shacks should give you a clue.’

Around the base of the Colosseum squatters had thrown up a line of lean-to shops and poor dwellings. Like limpets, they rested against the outer wall of the amphitheatre. Here, as elsewhere, the
citizens of Rome took indiscriminate advantage of their city’s heritage.

Followed by his train of servants, the Nomenculator guided me through one of the many entry archways in the Colosseum’s lower wall. We walked down a dank tunnel smelling of rotting rubbish
and excrement, and came out on the lowest of the spectator terraces. We were standing where the most important onlookers once must have sat, within yards of the gory action in the arena immediately
below them. Now the spectacle was utterly different. On the far side of the amphitheatre a large part of the upper arcades had fallen inwards, causing an unsightly landslide of rubble. On the edge
of the ancient arena was a small rustic-looking chapel made from salvaged stones. The floor of the arena close to the chapel was being used as a burial place. Crude stumps of broken marble served
as grave markers. Much of the lowest arcade had been converted into makeshift dwellings. Smoke rose from their cooking fires. Higher up, the arcades had been abandoned, presumably as they were
unsafe, but not before being robbed of building material, some of which still lay in untidy heaps in the arena. The only area that retained anything like its former function as a gladiatorial arena
lay directly in front of us. A sturdy fence of wooden boards had been erected to make a semi-circular enclosure some thirty yards across. Inside the enclosure, the sand of the original arena had
been cleaned of rubbish and swept. Several tiers of stone seats that looked down into the enclosure were intact.

‘This place once held fifty thousand spectators,’ Paul said, leading me down some broken steps and into the enclosure. ‘Nowadays there’s an occasional theatre show in
this small part. For an audience of a few hundred.’

I said nothing. I was still coming to terms with how badly the Colosseum had deteriorated from what I had imagined.

‘In the heyday of the Colosseum the wild beasts were kept underground,’ Paul went on. ‘A system of trap doors and pulleys hoisted them into the arena so they sprang up through
the ground like magic. But all that mechanism is broken or rotted. Now you must be content with these stables at the back.’

We had arrived before heavy wooden double doors set into the high wall of the arena itself. The doors looked in good repair, and there was a sheen of oil on the metal hinges. The Nomenculator
waited while one of his servants came forward, raised the heavy bar that kept them shut, and swung them open. We went inside, into a large antechamber with a high, vaulted ceiling, whitewashed
walls and a stone-flagged floor.

‘This is where the actors waited before going out to perform,’ Paul told me. ‘Gladiatorial contests were by no means the only public spectacles in the Colosseum. There were
pageants and re-enactments, circus shows and dramas based on stories of their gods and goddesses. Many of them involved riders and horses.’

At the back of the antechamber was a broad passageway with several doors on either side. He led me to the first of them and opened it with a flourish. ‘This is where they kept their
nags,’ he announced.

I looked into a large, well-appointed stable. A small window set up high in the rear wall gave light and air. There was a stone manger, a groove in the stone floor to carry away piss.

‘This will be perfect for the aurochs,’ I said, pleased.

‘Alcuin claims that it is the only aurochs in captivity. I can’t wait to see it,’ Paul answered. ‘There are adjacent stalls for your other animals. I’ll have my
people keep the open space in the arena cleared so they can be let out for exercise,’ he let out a wheezy laugh, ‘though not at the same time.’

‘I’ll write to Alcuin to let him know how kind you have been,’ I said.

He acknowledged my thanks with a small shrug. ‘For your own accommodation I’ve arranged one of those houses on the lower arcade that we saw on the way in.’

We retraced our steps out into the arena where the Nomenculator’s attendants were waiting. They had been joined by two men standing on either side of a large box with protruding handles.
It reminded me of a deep bed with a canopy over it. I had never seen a litter before.

Pausing, the Nomenculator turned to me. ‘One of my men will escort you back to rejoin your comrades. If there’s anything you need, just let me know.’

He stepped inside the litter, half reclining on the seat. The two bearers lifted the vehicle and the Nomenculator’s mottled face came back level with my own.

‘Perhaps you and your colleagues could join me for a meal at my official residence? I’d like to hear about your journey so far,’ he said.

‘I’d be delighted,’ I replied.

‘If it’s not too soon for you, I suggest supper tomorrow evening. I’ll send someone to fetch you. A word of warning: avoid walking the streets of Rome on your own, especially
after dark. I don’t want to have to send a letter to Alcuin saying that something untoward had happened to you or your comrades.’