Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (42 page)

The old man shook his head. ‘We must check the ship for storm damage. Then we head for al-Ubullah.’

‘Where do you think we are?’ I enquired.

‘Tonight, if the sky clears so I can read the stars, I’ll have a better idea. My guess is that we’re off Komr or possibly WaqWaq.’

As far as I could recall, neither place had been mentioned when Musa had shown us the map in the royal library.

Sulaiman rubbed at the thin stubble of his beard. ‘Captains from al-Ubullah picked up reports of those places while trading on the coast of Zanj. I’ve not heard of anyone landing
there.’

He frowned at the distant dark line on the horizon. ‘We need to find a gently shelving beach of clean, hard sand on which to beach the hull and check the stitching.’

I had forgotten that our vessel was held together with cords of coconut rope. ‘What about the inhabitants? Will they be friendly?’

The old man shrugged. ‘Maybe we’ll find the place uninhabited.’

*

The unknown land, whatever its name, showed a flat coastal strip fringed with grey-green
gurm
trees. To seaward their tangle of roots presented an impenetrable wall,
each root thrust deep into the sucking ooze, and it was midday when Sulaiman eventually found a small crescent of sandy beach protected by a tongue of land. By then the gale was no more than an
evil memory, and we made the final approach on a gentle breeze, gliding across water so clear that Sulaiman could judge his moment and run the keel of his ship gently into the sand. It was a moment
of utter relief.

‘We wait here for two full tides,’ said Sulaiman, ‘to check and clean the hull, and we can stay longer if we decide on any repairs.’ He looked across at me. ‘That
will give you and Osric enough time to explore inland if you wish.’

I declined without hesitation. ‘Osric and I will remain with the ship. I want no more accidents.’

If Sulaiman had not sent two of his sailors to gather firewood I would have kept my word. But we needed to light a fire to cook and most of our firewood had been washed into the sea during the
gale. What we still had on board was soaking wet. So the two men were despatched even before the tide had ebbed and we were waiting for the water to recede and the ship to settle on the sand.

They returned after a short while, bringing back an object that they had stumbled upon in the undergrowth.

They gave it to Sulaiman, who walked across to where I was standing with Osric.

‘I think you should see this,’ he said to us. It looked like a fragment from a broken bowl, no larger than the palm of my hand. Dirty cream in colour, the dished side was smooth and
the outer surface was slightly rough.

I took it from Sulaiman and was surprised how light it was, much thinner than the heavy earthenware pots we had seen in Ifriquia.

‘Whoever made this does fine workmanship. The people living here must be very skilled craftsmen,’ I told him.

‘My men found at least a dozen similar fragments, all lying close together,’ said Sulaiman. ‘They believe that they were not made by any human hands, and this frightens
them.’

I looked again at the delicate pot fragment. ‘I think we should go and judge for ourselves,’ I said.

Guided by one of the sailors we walked up the beach and over a low ridge to find ourselves on ground overgrown with rough grass and straggly underbrush. The sailor stopped at the edge of a
circular patch some four or five feet across. Here the grass had once been pressed down flat though now it was beginning to grow again.

Scattered on the ground were several more fragments of the bowls. Most were the same size as the sample I had been shown. Others were larger, seven or eight inches across.

‘What do they remind you of?’ asked Sulaiman softly.

It was Osric who answered. ‘That looks to me like some sort of nest. Those fragments are bits of bird shell.’

I felt a fool for not seeing the truth sooner.

I stooped down, gathered up several larger fragments, and tried to fit them together into a single piece. The egg that they would have formed was enormous, more than a foot in length.

I looked up at Sulaiman. ‘What do your sailors think?’ I asked.

‘They believe they are the eggs of a rukh,’ he said. ‘A small one, but nevertheless a rukh. That’s why they’re scared. They are frightened that the creature might
suddenly swoop down on us and pluck us away.’

Oddly enough, I felt cheated. In my mind I had already abandoned the quest for griffin or rukh. To find signs of its possible existence was unsettling.

‘Other creatures lay eggs,’ I objected. ‘Crawling creatures like the crocodiles we saw on the banks of the Nile . . . and serpents.’ After seeing a snake kill Walo, the
sight of the huge eggs had sent a shiver down my spine. ‘If these are serpent eggs then the animal is huge and very dangerous. We should leave this place undisturbed.’

Osric disagreed. ‘These are bird’s eggs, Sigwulf. Serpents, crocodiles, turtles . . . their eggs don’t have hard shells. If Walo was here, he would tell you the
same.’

Mention of Walo jolted me. I knew what Walo would have done. He would have known immediately that they were eggshell fragments from a gigantic bird, just as he had known that the mysterious
black beak found in the whale’s phlegm came from a meat-eating creature. If he had been with us, he would have been thirsting to find the creature and learn more. The thought made me ashamed
of my own timidity. If already I were responsible for bringing Walo to his death in Africa, soon I would find it even more difficult to live with the knowledge that I had chosen to throw aside the
chance to carry out his last wish.

Standing there holding the pieces of a huge egg, I made my choice: I would locate a nest still in use by a griffin or rukh, take a couple of fledglings from it, and bring them to Baghdad and
Aachen for all to wonder at. No one else need be involved.

‘Why don’t you and your men carry on attending to the ship,’ I suggested to Sulaiman, ‘I will see if I can find a rukh’s nest that has got complete eggs in it, or
even chicks, and be back by dark. Then we can decide what we should do next.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Osric insisted. ‘Two people will cover more ground than one.’

The shipmaster did not argue. ‘If you’re not back by morning, my men will assume you have fallen victim to the rukh, and insist on leaving this place. I will not be able to prevent
them.’

Without another word Sulaiman and his sailor headed back to the beach, leaving Osric and myself standing by the abandoned nest.

I gazed inland where the heat haze obscured whatever lay beyond forest-clad hills. I was thinking back to my search for the white gyrfalcons.

‘The griffin and the rukh are said to be like giant eagles. They build their nests among the mountain crags. Yet this creature lays its eggs on flat ground. That doesn’t seem
right.’

‘Whether the creature flies or crawls or walks on legs, we would be wise to go cautiously,’ said Osric. ‘Let’s start by looking around for tracks.’

Together we began to search the area. It was mostly scrubland with a few clumps of stunted trees among the tangle of thickets and rough grasses. We had been searching for perhaps an hour,
circling the nest and checking the ground, when we found a second nest. This time it was in use. A clutch of half a dozen huge eggs lay on the ground. The undergrowth around the nest had been
pressed down by a heavy weight, and the nest was less than an arrow’s flight from a small lake. A well-marked trail led through the undergrowth towards the water. Several more tracks
indicated that the creature patrolled around the margins of the lake, and that worried me. Thoughts of crocodiles and water serpents came into my head.

Osric went up to the nest and laid a hand on an egg. ‘It is warm,’ he said. ‘The parent cannot be far off.’

He crouched down, listening, then touched the egg again. ‘I think I detect something moving. I believe the eggs will hatch soon.’

A tight knot of fear gathered in my stomach. I was remembering the terror I had felt back in the forest when the aurochs had appeared behind Vulfard and me. ‘We mustn’t be caught
between the beast and its nest. That could be dangerous,’ I said.

‘If it is a crawling beast that comes from the lake, then we would be safer if we were off the ground,’ Osric answered. He pointed to a nearby grove of trees. ‘If we can get
ourselves up into one of those trees, facing the nest, we should be safe, and have a good view.’

We made our way to the grove and managed to find a tree into which we could climb ten or twelve feet off the ground. Branches and leaves partially blocked our view, but the path leading to the
nest passed less than ten feet away.

For an hour or two we crouched among the branches, tormented by insects and growing increasingly uncomfortable as the branches dug into us. Lying in wait for the aurochs, beside Vulfard, had
been damp and tedious but more comfortable. My shoulder wound began to ache again.

We heard the creature before we saw it. It was the sound of a large animal coming towards us through the underbrush, moving confidently, a little clumsily. Once or twice I thought I heard the
sound of a heavy footfall.

We clung to the branches, peering down the track.

The creature stamped past, very close. Osric and I were nine feet off the ground, yet the creature’s head was on a level with us. It was massive. I held my breath in case it turned its
head and saw us. The eyes were bright and beady and the beak was a heavy, pointed spear and sharp enough to do serious damage. The body was covered with a heavy coat of dark brown feathery
bristles. A glimpse of the massive claws at the end of its two scaly legs, thicker than my thigh, made me shiver. Each claw was nine or ten inches long.

The animal reached its nest, and stood there, peering about as if seeking an enemy. Then, squatting backwards, it lowered itself down to cover the clutch of huge eggs. Even when the beast was
seated, the head on the snake-like neck was five feet above the ground.

Osric and I waited for the creature to settle before we cautiously climbed down and crept away, keeping the grove of trees between the beast and us.

After we had gone perhaps two hundred paces, Osric turned and looked at me. ‘That was neither griffin nor rukh. It cannot fly,’ he said. The wings had been little more than
stumps.

‘It’s not in the Book of Beasts,’ I said. ‘There’s a creature called an ostrich which it resembles. But it is nothing like as big and massive.’

‘What do we do now?’ Osric asked.

‘Nothing,’ I replied. I had already come to a decision as we were creeping away from the giant bird.

Osric gave me a look that was full of understanding. ‘You’re thinking of Walo, aren’t you?’

I nodded. ‘He was so certain that the Book of Beasts is correct and he died because of it. Today we’ve only learned that those huge eggs belong to a different beast, neither rukh nor
griffin. That doesn’t prove that such creatures don’t exist somewhere else.’

My friend knew me well enough to understand what I had in mind. ‘So we report to Sulaiman that we failed to find the creature that laid the eggs.’

‘Exactly. Then the search for the rukh and griffin will continue, and even be encouraged. The sailors already believe they’ve seen rukh’s eggs.’

Osric considered before replying. ‘If we bring back news of that extraordinary creature we’ve just seen, Musa’s colleagues in the caliph’s library can add it to the Book
of Beasts and from there it will spread far and wide.’ He treated me to a quick, conspiratorial grin. ‘But I agree with you: it is better that we encourage the search for the griffin in
the hope that Walo’s trust will one day be justified. And I have a suggestion.’

I looked at him enquiringly. ‘What’s that?’

‘We return to that empty nest, gather up as many fragments of the eggshells as we can find, and bring them back to Baghdad. Let others draw their own conclusions.’

T
HROUGHOUT THE LONG
, dreary voyage back to al-Ubullah, everyone on board was exhausted and dispirited. Walo’s grisly death continued to cast its
shadow. Osric and I passed many hours in shared gloomy silence, and it was obvious that Zaynab had been deeply affected too. Quieter and more withdrawn than on the outward trip, her sadness
revealed itself in the way she sat by herself in her customary place on the foredeck, staring out towards the horizon. Had the situation been different I would have gone over to talk with her and
tried to ease the common sorrow. But Walo’s death served to increase my previous reticence. I was very much in love with Zaynab and it made me fearful that I would mishandle the situation
with a clumsy intrusion on her grief. Again and again I told myself to wait until we were back in Baghdad. There I would find the right moment to reveal my feelings. With a lover’s stubborn
blindness I pushed aside all thoughts that Zaynab was returning to her former life as Nadim Jaffar’s costly slave-singer. Somehow the obstacle would be overcome. All that mattered to me was
that somehow I would find a way into Zaynab’s affections so that we shared the same feelings for one another, and together we would explore where it might lead. That heady prospect helped me
endure the miserable ordeal of our homeward journey.