by Severin, Tim
‘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.
Walo cried out, ‘Sea pigs! They came to listen!’
I recalled the picture in the bestiary where a shoal of fish clustered around a ship on which a man was playing a lute. The sound of music, according to the text, attracted the creatures of the sea.
‘They’re not pigs,’ muttered Sulaiman who was standing beside me.
He sounded so disapproving that I felt I should defend Walo though he could not have understood what the captain had said. ‘Walo has seen a picture of fish with snouts like pigs. They root in the sand on the sea floor,’ I told the shipmaster.
Sulaiman was scathing. ‘Whoever made such a picture knows nothing. Those animals are the children of al-hoot, the largest creature that lives in the sea.’
I guessed he meant a whale. Turning to Walo, I translated what the captain had said.
Walo was stubborn. ‘They came to listen to Zaynab sing,’ he insisted.
I thought it wiser not to pass on his comment to Sulaiman. Instead I asked the captain, ‘If you don’t believe in sea pigs, do you think we are wasting our time seeking the rukh?’
The shipmaster thought for a long time before replying. ‘I don’t know what to think. Ever since I first went to sea I’ve heard sailors speak about the rukh. They repeat stories about the rukh just as they have tales of how al-hoot grows so big it is mistaken for an island, with earth on his back and plants growing there.’
‘But you don’t believe such yarns.’
Sulaiman laid a hand on my arm as if imparting a confidence. ‘When I come across a new island that I have never seen before, and it’s small and low, with a few bushes growing, I approach very cautiously.’
‘Then you are not so different from me or Walo,’ I told him. ‘Walo firmly expects to encounter the creatures whose pictures he has seen. I search for them because I believe there is a possibility that they exist. You hesitate to dismiss them as nothing but fantasy.’
The shipmaster chuckled. ‘The only reality is my promise to Nadim Jaffar that, in searching for the rukh, I will take my ship further than any navigator before me.’
*
As Sulaiman predicted, Al-Jah had sunk to the night horizon by the time we arrived on our trading ground, the coast of Zanj. During the twenty days to get there I had done my very best to hide my growing yearning for Zaynab, and I believed that I had succeeded. It required painful self-discipline because I was longing to get to know her better, to tell her how I felt, and explore any feelings she might have for me. Not a day passe
d but that I ached to be alone in her company. Yet this was impossible and dangerous, and I knew it would place her in a difficult position. She was the only woman aboard the ship and she had to keep her distance, treat everyone equally and receive the same respect in return. So I forced myself to keep all my conversations with Zaynab to a minimum, and always in the company of Walo as together we looked through the pages of the bestiary. I took great care to appear casual and unconcerned whenever Zaynab appeared on deck, and I never spoke a word to anyone about the effect she was having on me. Not even Osric could have guessed how difficult it was for me to conceal my emotions whenever I laid eyes on her, or the fact that my thoughts lingered on the way she walked or sat and, above all, on her smile, so unhurried and enchanting.
The coast of Zanj brought me out of what was in danger of becoming a lover’s trance. The land was lush and exotic. It extended from a fringe of white surf across the sandy beach, then into dense groves of palm trees that merged to make a broad expanse of vivid jungle green. Many miles away loomed highlands where towering thunderclouds built up every afternoon, dramatic and threatening, only to dissolve and drift away. The people of the coast were striking in appearance. Tall and well-built, with wide shoulders and big chests, they had fleshy swelling lips and shaved their tightly curled hair at the front, leaving it to hang down at the back in long strands soaked in butter. Their only garment was a tanned hide or a length of cloth tied around the waist, and their skin was a rich black with just a hint of brown. Their bare-breasted women dressed in similar fashion, carrying their babies across their backs in a cloth sling. They wore broad ruffs of copper wire, and strings of scarlet beans as anklets, necklaces and bracelets. They lived comfortably, growing vegetables in small gardens close to their thatched houses, raising goats and a few cattle, and, of course, they fished. As soon as we dropped anchor, they came out in small boats to trade or coax us ashore. They wanted our enamel goods, filigree and fancy metalwork, weapons, mirrors, spices, silk and embroidered cloth, as well as the more humdrum sacks of dates. In exchange they offered items they had been gathering for months from the inland tribes: packets of gold dust, coloured pebbles and nuggets of veined rock to be cut and polished into gems, the spotted skins of pards that were greatly prized in Baghdad, and – above all – quantities of elephant teeth.
Here we parted company with the other vessels from al-Ubullah. They lingered at the anchorages to trade at leisure, while Sulaiman kept his promise to Jaffar and barely broke our journey. We took on water and fresh food, traded for half a day at an occasional stopover, and then – sailing alone – pressed ever southward. We sailed past chains of islands, fringing reefs, isolated outlying rocks tufted with bushes, and shallow estuaries where the shore was lined with dense masses of a tree that grew on spidery roots, half in and half out of the water, and which Sulaiman called gurm. Within another week we had reached the limit of the lands that Sulaiman already knew and, quite by chance, our captain’s purposefulness was rewarded.
To enquire about the rukh and griffin, we had made a cautious landing on a small strip of beach where a cluster of several dozen huts was half hidden among the ever-present palm trees. Two of Sulaiman’s sailors paddled us ashore in the ship’s boat. It was mid-morning on another hot, humid and sunny day, and there were just the three of us in the landing party – myself and Sulaiman with Zaynab as our interpreter. It was a struggle for me to keep my eyes looking ahead when I was so close to Zaynab, but I managed to keep my gaze on the beach, where a couple of small dug-out boats were drawn up at the water’s edge and a number of nets hung on stakes. The people themselves were timid, watching our arrival from a distance and standing well back as we set foot in the shallows. Zaynab called out a greeting and, hesitantly, four of them came forward. All men, they were barefoot and wore only loincloths. Slits in their ear lobes held small silver plates or ivory plugs. Zaynab explained that we came in peace and were in search of a great flying bird, large enough to carry away an elephant. She had to repeat herself several times before she was understood, and I tried to help by sketching a rough outline of a griffin in the sand, though without much success. The lion’s body could have been any four-footed beast with a tail, and the bird’s head was more like a chicken than an eagle.
The villagers examined my feeble attempt of a drawing, muttered among themselves, and then all of them shook their heads.
‘Ask if they’ve seen any trace of such an animal or even heard of it,’ I suggested to Zaynab.
She relayed my questions and again there was some sort of a conference, more animated this time. Then one of the men hurried back to the village. He disappeared inside the stockade and re-emerged holding something in his hand. When he came close enough for me to see what it was, my hopes soared. It was half of a very large hooked beak. Jet black, it had a sharp, cruel point.
I took it from the man, and turned it over to inspect more closely. Fully five inches long, it was much the largest beak I had ever seen, and as tough and hard as black glass. I could easily picture the sharp tip driving into flesh, twisting and ripping, hacking into bone.
‘Could this be a rukh’s beak?’ I asked Sulaiman, my excitement rising.
He did not answer me. He was staring at the object. ‘Ask where they got it?’ he said to Zaynab in a taut voice.
After a brief conversation, she replied, ‘One of the fishermen picked it up on the shore about a week ago. It was in an odd-shaped ball of something he thought was a piece of rotten fish. But now he’s not sure. Whatever it was, it had a bad smell and must have floated ashore when the wind was from the sea.’
I sensed that Sulaiman was hiding his eagerness, when he asked, ‘That lump of rotten fish – does he still have it?’
Zaynab was told that it had been thrown away because it stank. It was probably still on the village rubbish heap.
‘Can they find it for me?’ asked Sulaiman.
One of the men turned and shouted out to the onlookers. A lad broke away from the group and raced away, running behind the huts and out of sight.
We waited patiently until the boy returned, gingerly carrying in both hands a lump of something partly wrapped in leaves. It was the size of a man’s head and, judging by the lad’s wrinkled nose, it still had its unpleasant smell.
Sulaiman was not put off. He took the object and peeled back the leaves. To my eye it resembled a misshapen lump of greyish-black wax, soft and streaky. I caught a waft of its foul odour. It smelled like cow dung.
Sulaiman was not put off. He poked the unpleasant mass with his finger, then turned it over gently so that he could inspect it on all sides.
‘Tell our friends here that this is fish dung,’ he said to Zaynab. ‘I am willing to buy both the beak and the dung that surrounded it.’
The four men withdrew a short distance and stood talking. Finally the oldest of them came back to us, and through Zaynab told us that if we had fish hooks to sell, they would part with the beak for five hundred fish hooks and ten knife blades. Sulaiman could have the lump of fish dung for its weight in copper wire.
I was still holding the strange beak, and Sulaiman made me give it back to the villagers. ‘I’ll pay four hundred fish hooks for the beak and the dung, no more,’ he said, wrapping the leaves around the foul-smelling mass and placing it on the sand.
It took at least an hour to conclude the haggling, and Sulaiman settled for 450 fish hooks for the beak and a length of embroidered cloth for the lump of fish dung.
‘You paid a generous price for the beak,’ I observed to Sulaiman as his men paddled us back out to his ship, the trade completed. ‘Does that mean you’re prepared to believe in the existence of the rukh?’
He nudged his foot against the rancid lump, again wrapped in leaves, in the bottom of the little boat. ‘This is what I paid for.’
‘What is it?’
‘Phlegm!’
I thought I had misheard.
He cackled with glee. ‘Al-hoot coughs it up, though others claim
it emerges from the creature’s backside.’
‘When it’s fresh and soft like that, it smells bad,’ the shipmaster explained, ‘but leave it in the sun for a week and it hardens and changes to a dark yellow, and the smell improves. Apothecaries in Basra pay a fortune for it to use as medicine and,’ here he smiled, ‘I will carry it in person to Baghdad and present it to Nadim Jaffar. He’s one of the richest men in the caliphate and will reward me handsomely, then keep part for himself and sell on the remainder to his friends.’
He prodded the evil-smelling mass with his foot again. ‘That’s the largest piece of it I’ve ever seen. A double handful will pay the entire cost of this expedition and will still leave an excellent profit.’
I failed to see what use the fastidious nobleman would find for a stinking ball of fish phlegm. ‘What does Jaffar need it for?’ I asked.
‘His perfume makers will melt it down, tiny morsel by tiny morsel, then add it to fragrant oils – rose, jasmine, all the flowers you can imagine. Just a few drops and their scents will be enhanced and last for many days.’
I thought back to my visit to Jaffar’s garden, to Haroun’s palace, and to a dozen other reception rooms in the Round City. Everywhere the air had been heavily perfumed. It was little wonder that the whale phlegm was so much in demand.
Sulaiman clutched the precious package to his chest as we clambered up the side of the ship, leaving me to show the strange beak to Osric and explain where it came from.
‘If that’s a rukh’s beak, how did it finish up floating ashore encased in whale phlegm?’ was his cautious reaction.
Walo, by contrast, was thrilled. He inspected the vicious pointed tip of the beak and assured me that it came from a large, flesh-eating creature that hunted other animals for meat. For him, there was now no doubt that we were closing in on a griffin or rukh.
*
The character of the coast changed as we sailed south. The vivid green of the woodland and jungle gave way to drier, more open countryside covered with sun-scorched grasslands, scrub and thorny trees. A brown, dusty haze frequently obscured what lay further inland. We noted that the people in these parts preferred to live in large settlements located on the bald hillcrests and they surrounded their villages with tall stockades. It gave an impression of a mistrustful, more dangerous place. Each night Sulaiman anchored as far offshore as possible for fear of being attacked. It was, of course, too risky to sail along an unknown coast in the hours of darkness. Our captain also showed the first signs of unease about the weather, frequently looking up at the sky or gazing out to the horizon. I asked what was troubling him and he told me that we were now close to the limit of the area where we could rely on favourable sailing conditions. To justify his fears, the winds were fitful, sometimes dying away entirely, and – more worryingly – once or twice they turned to the south, in the direction we were headed. Sulaiman warned that unless we came across the rukh very soon, we would have to turn back.