Tim Severin - The Emperor's Elefant

He licked his lips and swallowed, struggling to speak. ‘I remember you read to me that the asp called prester moves with an open mouth, and those it bites swell up and rot follows the bite.’

A spasm of pain racked him and he reached out and clutched my hand. ‘The rare beasts are here! Take a young griffin from its nest and bring it home. Feed it meat, just like Madi and Modi.’ Those were the last coherent words he spoke.

We dug his grave at the foot of the low cliff close to the spot where we had filled the water jars. The hole was deep enough so that the wild animals would not reach his body, and we put him in the ground within hours of his passing. Sulaiman was urging us to hurry.

As we left the beach, the shipmaster drew my attention to the heavy swell now rolling in from the sea.

‘There’s a storm somewhere out there,’ he told me bluntly. ‘If it catches us on this exposed coast, we’ll be as dead as your friend back there.’

His words struck me as callous and I had to remind myself that on his voyages Sulaiman must have seen many deaths from accident, drowning and disease.

‘We should head back to al-Ubullah,’ I said. Until Walo died I had been prepared to give the bestiary the benefit of the doubt and was ready to accept its descriptions of outlandish creatures – after all, so many had come true. I blamed myself for not questioning the claim that music would tame the asp. Had I done so, Walo, whom I had brought on this venture, would still be alive.

‘I will gladly set a course for home,’ said the shipmaster. ‘I’ve already taken us further beyond Zanj than I had promised to Jaffar, but first,’ he nodded towards the south horizon where the sky was beginning to cloud over and show a peculiar colour, pearl grey with a hint of green, ‘I think, we must put our trust in the All-Merciful.’

The storm that enveloped us later that evening lasted for a full three days. Had the gale come from the east when it howled in on us, our ship would have been driven ashore and dashed to pieces. Fortunately, the wind and waves came from the opposite direction and forced us out to sea instead. Faced with such a tempest our crew could only lower the spars and sails to the deck, lash them securely, then crouch in shelter, seeking to escape the blast of the wind and rain. To stand and work on deck was impossible. Sulaiman made no attempt to steer a course. He surrendered to the supremacy of the storm and let his vessel drift where the gale pushed her. The ship rolled and pitched wildly, shuddering to the repeated blows of the great waves that marched down on us. We thought only of survival, bailing water from the bilge, trying to keep the hatches covered so that the waves that often washed across the deck did not pour into the hold, and staying afloat. When the wind eventually eased, leaving a lumpy, grey sea, we were wet, hungry and utterly exhausted. The cooking fire had long since gone out, and we were eating handfuls of dates clawed from the last remaining sack of them in the hold. Yet throughout the ordeal Sulaiman had squatted near the helm, needing only short naps to keep himself alert. Whenever I glanced in his direction, he looked to be calm and unworried. I understood why the crew placed their confidence in his judgement and experience, trusting him to keep them safe. I knew that I had failed to do the same for Walo.

On the fourth day, as the height of the waves eased and they began to lose their white crests, Sulaiman climbed up on the lowered mainspar and stood there, one arm around the mast. With more than deliberate care he scanned the entire horizon before dropping back onto the deck, and coming over to speak with Osric and me.

‘There’s land to the south-east,’ he said. ‘We’ll go there and find an anchorage.’

‘Can’t we set course for home?’ I asked. Walo’s death had affected me deeply. More than ever, I wanted to be finished with the voyage. My curiosity was at an end. No longer did I care if there was such a creature as a rukh or a griffin, and on the slim chance that it did exist, I did not have the stomach to go on with the quest when the lives of those precious to me were placed at risk: Osric and – of course – Zaynab. I would return to Baghdad and tell the caliph that Sulaiman had brought us further than any of us had imagined possible, and we had found nothing.

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.