Julian Rathbone - Kings of Albion

First, I had to find lodging for our party and then camels to carry us and our baggage to Al-Iskenderia, named after the great Iskender who conquered the world some two thousand years ago, or so they say, and this delay bred another. It had been our plan to give Misr-al-Kahira a miss, and pass as inconspicuously as we could across the delta and out of the country – a plan I did not much like as I had hoped to seek Haree, my son, in his place of study, and spend some time with him. However, wandering in the souk Prince Harihara came across a shop which sold the hides of various wild animals including a tawny, ragged affair with a mask still partially intact beneath a tangled halo of coarse black hair. It was, of course, the pelt of a lion.

He called me to his side. 'Ali, is not this the skin of a lion?'

I thought of temporising, of perhaps speaking to the merchant, a lean man in a red gown with a red tarboosh but no turban to go round the rim, and asking him in Arabic to deny the obvious. But, I thought, why not? I could see where this would lead, and I was in no great hurry to get to Ingerlond. It was not my brother we were looking for. Suddenly I realised I was looking through a window of opportunity, that of seeing Haree. after all.

'Yes, Highness.'

'Can lions then be found in Egypt?' 'I believe so. Highness."

I le stood there, in the dusty dusk of the shop, with the bright sunlight beyond its striped awning searing the eyes, and all the noise and bustle of the alley beyond, and quizzed me further. He pushed his glossy black hair back off his shoulder and briefly caressed his marble smooth chin. 'What other large animals live wild?'

'Crocodiles in the Nile, and, upstream, hippopotami, I believe… There are large birds too. Pelicans, storks, cranes and herons…'

We left the shop in a hurry, with its keeper tugging at my sleeve. 'Will he not buy, then? Does your master not want to buy? F can lower the prices,' he shrilled.

'I think he plans to kill his own,' I replied, tearing myself away.

It took some organising. First, we had to abandon the status of incognito travellers we had adopted. We went to Misr-al-Kahira. after all, and introduced ourselves to the Caliph's court where, as representatives of an empire as rich as any in the world, and having offered suitable gifts from the small treasury we had brought with us, we were made welcome and given lodgings in that part of the palace set aside for honoured guests. There followed a week or so of feasting and such like while a full-scale hunting party in the desert was prepared.

One of the few bitter moments of the whole trip arrived when I went to Haree's lodgings. There I discovered that he had left only a month earlier to study the causes of blindness under a Moorish physician in the university of Kamatta-al-Yahud, which the Christians call Granada.

We were well lodged in a pillared pavilion set in a rose garden with a rectangular pool edged with basalt. Unfortunately there were not enough rooms so we had to share – cooks, soldiers, servants, clerks, fakir and monk all together in a quite small vestibule. Of course, our Prince and his chamberlain had cells to themselves close to the communal baths. So it was that when the day dawned on which the week-long hunting trip was to start. I asked to be excused. My plea was that I am not happy on a horse, hate camels, and that I am too old for such sports. Prince Harihara was reluctant to leave me behind, but some days previously I had discovered that one of the Caliph's musicians had once played his flute in a military band belonging to a Pathan chief and hail enough Hindustani vocabulary to manage interpretation at a simple level. Consequently my services as interpreter were not essential. My aim, apart from avoiding the pains and terror of horse-riding, was to rest: I was, after all, and I do not think I have mentioned this, by far and away the oldest in our party and the strains of travel were taking their toll.

I watched the party leave, the grooms lumbered with a variety of crossbows, including the monster engine designed for crocodiles. As soon as the great arched gate hail closed behind them, and the dust settled, I made my way back to our quarters.

There are few delights as rich as that which comes from the knowledge that one has a limited but extensive time to oneself, in pleasant surroundings, with adequate comforts and ways to pass the time with satisfaction. I folded my tired old knees on to a pile of cushions near the pool, and sitting thus cross-legged, completed a breakfast of quails' eggs with aubergine mashed in mare's yoghurt, sesame-seeded rolls, followed by almond and honey cakes. It occurred to me that a cup of K’hawah would be the ideal accompaniment, but the effort and time required in preparing it precluded the possibility and I made do with my usual glass of lassi aromatised with a pinch of the Moluccan nutmeg we had brought with us.

For a time I watched and listened to the songbirds, many with bright and lovely plumage, who inhabited that walled garden as if it were an aviary, and made friends with a sleek grey cat with a broad flat forehead and large ears which, either from lethargy or experience of repeated failure, made no attempt to menace the birds. The time wore on and the heat built. The sun flashed from the gilded domes and minarets that rose above the nearer roofs, and my eye was caught by a pair of vultures. They were soaring almost without motion on wings white with black tips against the deep azure of the sky – quartering, I reckoned, the execution maidan where impaling were scheduled. Since its odours, of charcoal burning and rotten offal, were masked by the fragrance of roses, orange blossom and an almond-scented purple creeper that festooned one of the walls, the birds were the only visible signs of the rapacious hustle and bustle of the great city beyond.

I had thought to begin a letter to Haree, an account of my journey so far, to leave at his lodgings when we left, but already the delightful sloth that comes when one has nothing pressing to do was filling my soul and I decided instead to take a bath.

The main pool was covered by a dome, open to the sky at its centre, and pierced with smaller lights below. These let in direct sunlight, blindingly bright and warm in contrast to the velvety darkness of the rest. The water shimmered blackly except where the light fell, and there it was emerald green and laced with patterns like the veins in marble. A deck of grey granite surrounded it, also rippled but this time with quartz, and beyond were cubicles, or alcoves framed with looped-back curtains of fine cotton gauze. Steps with balustrades led down into the pool and at their head was a pair of life-size sculpted lionesses, which sat on their haunches, heads up and alert above the taut musculature of their shoulders, round ears pricked.

I stood on the threshold of this circular hall to allow my good eye time to adjust to the dark and light, and for my ears to savour the play of ripples on the sides of the pool and the rhythmical pulses of water dripping on stone and on water. Then I slipped off my sandals, not wanting to soil the floor with dust, and made my way to the nearest but one of the alcoves (who, in such a situation, ever takes the nearest opening that offers?), intending there to divest myself of cape, loincloth and turban. I did not use the alcove out of modesty, for I fully expected to be alone, but because it had a low stone shelf, and the floor by the pool was wet. There I loosened my turban, unwound it, and pulled my cape over my head. Just as it came free I sensed, rather than heard, a presence. My right hand delved into my loincloth, where my stiletto always remains hidden, then relaxed. The new arrival was the Buddhist monk and I foresaw no harm coming from him, though I felt a touch irritated that the solitude I had been relishing was gone.