Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (39 page)

The shipmaster reached into the pocket of his grubby gown and pulled a small, thin rectangle of wood, about an inch by two, with a cord through its centre. ‘When this tells me
so.’

He put the end of the cord between his lips, held out the tablet at arm’s length to stretch the cord, and closed one eye. He held the position for a moment, then spat out the cord and
grinned at me, showing worn brown teeth. ‘Beyond Zanj I will have to find a different star, of course, probably Farqadan.’

I must have looked utterly mystified for he wound the cord around the little tablet and slipped it back into his pocket, then said, ‘It will be easier to explain once we are at sea and
under the great bowl of the heavens.’

*

On the morning before Sulaiman and his fellow captains were due to weigh anchor, Osric and I planned to walk to the harbour and make sure that there was to be no last-minute
delay. But as we left our house, we came face to face with one of Jaffar’s servants. I recognized the senior steward I had last seen in the lamplight of Jaffar’s luxurious garden.

‘Nadim Jaffar sends his sincere apologies for keeping you waiting,’ said the steward after we had exchanged greetings. ‘He asked me to say that he is entrusting to you the most
precious of all his flowering plants.’

My glance travelled over the steward’s shoulder to the small, veiled figure standing a few paces behind him. It took me a moment to grasp Jaffar’s pun. Zaynab was the name of a
fragrant flowering plant. It was also a popular name given to girls.

‘Please come inside,’ I said, stepping back into the house. The two visitors followed Osric and me into the courtyard. Only after I had shut the door to the street, did the steward
gesture at his companion to draw aside her veil. Sulaiman had already hinted that our woman interpreter was special, but I was completely unprepared for Zaynab’s good looks. She had dark
lively eyes, a delicate mouth and a neat pointed chin. Her hair was still hidden beneath a shawl so I could only see her face, but it was her complexion that caught my attention. Her skin was the
colour of the cinnamon that the Nomenculator had shown us all those months ago in Rome, and flawless.

I struggled to find something to say. Beside me Osric was equally speechless.

‘Nadim Jaffar sent me to be of assistance to you on your journey,’ she said, breaking the silence. Her voice was huskily melodious, and the way she phrased her remark confirmed that
she was a slave.

I forced myself to stop staring. ‘I understand that you speak the languages of Zanj.’

‘Only some of them,’ she murmured. She stood with her small, neat hands clasped in front of her, utterly composed.

‘Our captain, Sulaiman, hopes you will also assist him in his trade negotiations.’

‘If that is what you wish.’

Jaffar’s steward caught my eye. ‘If I may have a word in private.’

‘Of course.’ I walked with him across the courtyard to the side room our host used as a counting house. Behind me I heard Osric strike up a polite conversation with our new
interpreter.

‘Nadim Jaffar offers you Zaynab in obedience to the caliph’s direct command,’ the steward said to me once we were alone.

He hesitated for a moment as if unsure whether he was exceeding his instructions. ‘One of the Zanj chieftains sent Zaynab as a gift to the Commander of the Faithful.’

His statement brought to mind the wretched slaves I had seen in Kaupang. It required a great leap of the imagination to equate them with the beautiful woman in the courtyard.

‘My master was willing to pay almost any price to include Zaynab in his household. The caliph agreed to sell Zaynab for thirty thousand dirhem.’

I sensed that I was missing something. The steward’s gaze searched my face, waiting for me to understand what he was hinting at.

Then it struck me: this was the crown prince’s doing. Mohammed had suggested to his father that Jaffar despatch Zaynab to join the expedition. Jaffar was not only tutor but also the
leading figure of his rival Abdallah’s circle. By forcing Jaffar to send away a favourite slave worth a small fortune, the crown prince was twisting the knife.

‘I shall make sure that Zaynab returns unharmed to Nadim Jaffar,’ I promised with a confidence I did not feel. My recent experiences had shown how easily the lives of travellers were
put in danger. During the days in al-Ubullah I had thought long and hard about the succession of delays and mishaps we had experienced on the way from Aachen to Baghdad. I had now come to the
conclusion that some, if not all, of these events had been deliberate attempts to wreck the mission, and I had a suspicion of who had been responsible, though the underlying motive was still
unclear.

AFRICA

*

S
AILING TO
Z
ANJ
had a marvellous, dream-like quality. Each day seemed to repeat as if time was turning back on itself. Dawn
brought a horizon, sharp and clear and infinitely distant, from which the sun rose into a sky where a scattering of puffy white clouds were all moving in the same direction as our ships. Far below,
our little company of half a dozen trade vessels ran across a sparkling sea of the deepest blue. A favourable wind, fine and steady from the north-east, filled the huge cotton sails and our crew
scarcely needed to touch the ropes. The breeze tempered the heat of the noonday sun so the deck was never too hot to the touch, and the air retained its pleasant warmth long after dusk. Sunsets
were dramatic. A tremendous golden-orange glow suffused the entire sky, changing to the colour of pale parchment that diminished and retreated as darkness spread in from the east. Then the moon
rose and laid a silver-white path across the black undulating surface of the sea. Wherever one looked upward, the heavens were alive with a multitude of bright stars.

In such idyllic conditions I fell in love with Zaynab.

On the third morning of the voyage, not long after sunrise, I was standing near the mainmast with Walo and waiting for the cook to hand us our breakfast of dates, bread and water. There was a
sudden light slap as something struck the sail and fell close to where Zaynab was seated on the foredeck where the anchors were stowed. There was flapping and wriggling on the planks. Walo ran
forward and I watched as he picked up what seemed to be some sort of small fish. He turned to Zaynab and must have asked her a question for she pulled back the shawl that covered her head and
leaned forward to look at what he was holding. As Zaynab would be unable to understand Walo’s Frankish, I walked across to interpret.

‘Is it a fish or a bird?’ Walo was asking her. I looked down at what he had in his grasp. The creature had a fish’s body, six or seven inches long. There was a fish tail and a
fish head, with round startled eyes.

Walo gently took the fin on the side of the fish between his finger and thumb, and pulled. Out swung a wing.

‘Our name for it is “fish that flies”,’ said Zaynab.

Walo pulled open the second wing. The web between the bones was so fine and delicate that the light shone through it.

‘Is it in the book?’ he asked, turning to me.

‘I can check,’ I said uncertainly, my voice sounding odd in my ears. Zaynab’s shawl had slipped down around her shoulders. Her dark hair was long and lustrous, piled above her
head and fixed with an ivory comb. She wore tiny diamond studs in her small, shell-like ears, and the curve of her slender neck was so soft and perfect that it made me want to reach out and stroke
it.

‘What book is that?’ she asked me, looking up. Her eyes held mine for a moment, and I felt a tingling shock. Never before had I met with an expression of such gentle kindness framed
with beauty, yet tinged with melancholy.

‘A Book of Beasts. It’s a list of animals . . . with their pictures,’ I blurted. Suddenly I wanted to keep the full attention of this remarkable young woman with the
cinnamon-coloured skin. ‘I’ll show you.’

Light-headed, I hurried aft to collect the bestiary and brought it to her. With Walo looking on, I opened the cover and leafed through the pages. I made a deliberate effort to keep both my hand
and voice steady.

‘Here’s a fish with wings!’ I announced, then read out, ‘ “
The serra or saw fish. Also known as the flying fish. Named from the sawtooth crest on its back. It
swims under a ship and cuts the ship in half . . .
’ My voice faltered. The insignificant little fish in Walo’s hand was never likely to damage a ship’s hull. I felt
foolish.

Zaynab ignored my confusion. ‘Is there a picture?’ she asked.

I turned the book around and showed her. The artist had drawn a dragon-like animal emerging from the depths of the sea. It was very large, almost the same size as the ship it was menacing. The
sailors aboard the vessel looked terrified.

‘It does have two wings,’ said Zaynab gently.

I was grateful that she had not laughed aloud. Her tactfulness only added to her attraction.

‘Maybe the writer was muddled,’ Zaynab murmured. ‘In Zanj I remember being shown a big fish that had a long flat nose with a row of sharp teeth on each side, just like a saw.
Maybe that is the fish that cuts up ships.’

I found myself gazing at her hands holding the book. Zaynab’s fingers were slim and graceful, and she had drawn patterns on them in dark blue ink, whorls and curlicues that merged and
flowed onto the palms of her hands and to her wrists. By comparison the artwork in the bestiary seemed clumsy and inept.

She noticed my rapt attention and gave me a demure smile, eyes cast down, as she handed the book back to me and tucked her hands out of sight beneath her shawl.

From behind me came a shout from the cook. He was summoning Walo and myself to collect our food. Hurriedly, I cast about for an excuse to speak with her again. I said, ‘There are other
animals in the book about which I know little, and which you may have encountered in Zanj. Perhaps I can consult with you again.’

‘I would like that,’ Zaynab replied. ‘Maybe you can also tell me about the countries and peoples you have seen.’

*

That night Zaynab surprised all the crew in a way that none of us could forget.

At twilight it was Sulaiman’s custom to find himself a spot on deck where he had a good view of the vault of heavens, as he called the sky. There he took measurements of the stars as they
emerged.

‘Try it for yourself,’ he said to me, handing me the little wooden tablet on its cord that he had shown me in al-Ubullah. ‘Place the end of the cord between your lips, stretch
out the cord, and hold the lower edge of tablet on the horizon. Select a star, and see how high the star measures against the tablet’s side.’

‘What’s the reason for the string?’ I asked.

‘So that the tablet is always the same distance from your eye. That makes the readings consistent,’ he answered.

‘Which star should I choose?’

‘On the voyage to Zanj the best is Al-Jah. You Franks call it the North Star.’ He gestured over the stern of his ship. ‘Al-Jah is fixed in the heavens. The further south we
sail, the lower in the sky it is seen.’

‘Even a child could use it,’ I said after I experimented with the device.

‘Now, yes. But when we reach the land of Zanj we will no longer see Al-Jah. It will have sunk below the horizon. Then I must use knowledge of other stars, where they are in heaven’s
vault at each season, to find my position.’

I gave him back the little wooden tablet and, choosing my moment, asked, ‘How did you know that Zaynab was to be our interpreter?’

‘I was the captain who brought her from Zanj when she was first sent to Caliph Haroun. I have followed her career ever since.’

‘There must be other slaves in the royal household, just as beautiful.’

‘None who can also sing with such sweetness.’ His voice softened. ‘I heard her sing just once on that first voyage, such a sad song. I’m told that is why Jaffar bought
her from the caliph, for her singing.’

‘Do you think she would sing for us?’ I asked.

‘Perhaps.’

Zaynab was the faintest of shadows where she sat away from the rest of us, on the small foredeck where the anchors were stowed. On an impulse I made my way over to her and asked if she would
sing. When she made no answer I went to where the crew were clustered near the cook’s charcoal box, talking among themselves. I asked them to be silent. For a long interval there was nothing
but the creak of the rigging and the sound of the waves washing along the sides of the vessel as our ship shouldered south. Then Zaynab began to sing. She sang a dozen songs, some plaintive, others
filled with longing, one that spoke of quiet joy, and we listened to her, enchanted. My spine tingled when I recognized her voice. It was Zaynab who had been singing among the trees when Osric and
I had visited Jaffar in his exotic garden.

When finally her voice faded away, no one spoke. We were left with our own thoughts. The sky seemed infinitely far away, a velvety blackness scattered with myriad bright points of stars. Our
vessel was suspended below it in a great dark void and no longer part of the real world. Into that brief lull burst an unnerving, eerie sound – a sudden heavy puffing and grunting and
splashing. It came from all directions and from the darkness around the ship.