Saxon: The Emperor's Elephant (31 page)

Had I thought more carefully about the dried and cracked mud of the riverbank I would have avoided the disappointment awaiting us. When we arrived at the junction where the canal met the river,
it was to find a sizeable settlement of whitewashed houses and reed-thatched storage sheds. Moored against the riverbank lay a score of boats, empty and idle. The canal itself was dry.

‘If you had got here two months ago, it would have been different,’ the canal superintendent told me, spreading his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘The canal is only open
when the water level in the Nile is high enough. When the Nile flood recedes, the canal empties out until just a few puddles remain.’

We were seated on cushions on the floor of his office where, at times of high water, the merchants came to pay the tolls that allowed them to use the canal. It was a large, comfortable room,
furnished in the local style with low tables and carved chests that contained his ledgers. Slatted shutters over the window openings allowed any breeze to circulate, and the building’s thick
mud walls served as a barrier to the heat outside.

‘Right now there are places in the canal where you couldn’t float a child’s toy,’ he went on, shifting his weight on his cushion. He was very corpulent, his thighs
bulging under his gown as he sat cross-legged. A thin gold chain almost disappeared into the fleshy folds of his neck.

‘Is there no way of retaining the flood water in the canal?’ It was the sort of question that Protis would have posed. I felt a sudden wrench of sorrow that the young Greek was no
longer with us. He would have loved to suggest an ingenious solution to a practical problem.

‘There would be no point,’ said the superintendent. ‘If we sealed the mouth of the canal and trapped the water inside, the summer sun would suck it all up in a matter of weeks
or it would seep away through bed of the canal. And there would have to be a system of lifting the cargoes from river level and loading them on canal boats.’

He paused and gave me a calculating look. ‘You are not the first to have arrived here after the canal has shut.’

I waited for him to go on.

The superintendent swatted away a fly circling near his face. ‘If the cargo is urgent, a caravan can be arranged.’

‘A caravan?’ I asked, feigning ignorance though I had been waiting for him to make the suggestion. Abram had learned that the superintendent supplemented his income by privately
hiring out the labour force that should have been doing canal maintenance.

‘A road runs alongside the canal almost as far as the eastern marshlands. There it branches off and goes directly to the port at al-Qulzum. The land journey only takes a few days more than
if you had gone by water. Regrettably, it involves hiring waggons, draught animals, baggage handlers and guards . . . which, of course, incurs extra expense.’ He paused to allow the last
words to sink in.

I decided that, for appearance’s sake, I should haggle. ‘I don’t understand the need for guards. Are the caliph’s governors not charged with ensuring the security of
travellers?’

‘The guards are there to protect against wild animals,’ the superintendent answered smoothly. ‘Beyond the marshland the desert is infested with lions.’

‘And hyenas?’ I said, meaning to sound sarcastic.

Unexpectedly he agreed. ‘Of course. Lions and hyenas. They go together and they prey on travellers.’

The superintendent was well aware that I had no choice but to hire a caravan. The canal would not reopen for many months and even if the ice bears survived the long delay, I did not fancy
arriving in Baghdad late and with mangy, half-starved animals.

With heartfelt insincerity I told him that I would be most grateful if he would arrange a caravan to transport my menagerie across the desert. He struggled to his feet with an effort and assured
me in the same spirit of fraudulent friendship that my well-being and the success of my mission were close to his heart. He would make sure that the caravan would be ready to depart within a
week.

Walo was waiting for me outside, shifting from foot to foot with impatience. ‘Can you come at once,’ he blurted out.

Alarmed, I asked, ‘There’s nothing wrong with the animals, is there?’

‘No, no,’ he replied. ‘There’s something you must see.’

His face set in a worried frown, he led me down a side-street of modest whitewashed houses, their wooden doors warped and cracked by the sun. It was mid-morning and there was almost no one
about. A few birds like starlings, dark brown with bright yellow bills and legs, flew down to peck at the piles of rubbish. We turned down an alleyway between high blank walls where the outer layer
of mud was flaking off in scabby patches, and finally came to the rear of a long, low stable building. From the far side I could hear a medley of strange sounds. The background noise was a moaning
and grumbling like a herd of cows in distress. Punctuating this clamour were sudden angry roars and enormous bubbling belches. I could not imagine what creatures would utter such constant
complaints. Walo and I walked round the corner of the building and there in front of us was a row of bizarre creatures lined up beside a long water trough. On ungainly legs, they stood taller than
a man and had serpent necks. Several of them swung their heads to look at us as we stepped into view, and greeted us with those loud, disagreeable groans.

Walo turned towards me, ‘What are they?’ he asked, obviously perplexed.

‘Camels,’ I told him. I had seen camels pictured in the church mosaics in Rome.

‘But they don’t look like the camel in the book,’ he objected. That was true. The bestiary’s camel had two distinct humps on its back. The creatures in front of us had a
single hump covered with unsightly clumps of dark brown fur. They appeared to be moulting.

Walo and I approached closer. The burping and groaning and moaning grew louder and more insistent with each step.

‘They could be the giant offspring of a deer and a cow,’ said Walo. One of the creatures shifted on its great padded feet, lowering its head to inspect us more closely, peering past
huge eyelashes. ‘Look! The upper lip is split. It moves in two parts. Like a rabbit.’

He reached up to touch the creature’s mouth.

The camel jerked up its head in alarm, and gave a gurgling grunt from deep within its gut. Its mouth gaped and I caught sight of long yellow teeth and feared it was about to bite. Instead it
shook its head violently from side to side, the pendulous lips flapped, and out shot a thick gush of foul-smelling green soup. It splattered over Walo, drenching his head and shoulders. The smell
was of rotten grass blended with dog excrement.

*

Twenty of the ungainly beasts laden with bales of fodder and baggage formed our caravan when we took to the road. Only the lead camel had a rider. The rest of us – guards,
cooks, attendants, camel drivers, the men leading our dogs on leads, and assorted hangers-on – were on foot. The cages for the ice bears and the aurochs had been fixed onto ponderous wheeled
platforms, each drawn by a pair of harnessed camels. A third cart followed with the gyrfalcons in their cages and a great barrel that contained a supply of water for our menagerie.

Our route along the canal bank led across an impoverished land dotted with poor villages where the peasants worked the thin grey soil with mattocks and hoes. Old men sat in the shade of dusty
palm trees and veiled women held back their curious children as they peeked from the darkened doorways of mud-brick hovels. The only livestock were flocks of scraggy goats and a few donkeys. All
life depended on the spindly wooden structures that, from a distance, I mistook for hangman’s gallows. They were devices for raising water from the canal. A bucket dangled from the end of a
long pole pivoted one-fifth along its length from a tall frame. A large stone fastened at the shorter end of the pole served as a counterweight so the bucket could be lifted and lowered with ease.
The bucket scooped water, was swung over the bank, and the contents were tipped into a drinking trough for animals or into an irrigation ditch. I found myself wishing that Protis was still with us
and could see for himself the ingenuity of this device. Where enough water remained in the bed of the canal, our camels were driven down to stand in the shallow puddles. Walo looked on from a safe
distance as they noisily slaked their thirst. According to what I had read to him from the bestiary, a camel prefers muddy water, so it stirs up the silt with its feet before drinking. Our camels
failed to do this and I could only presume from the look of mistrust on Walo’s face that he doubted whether they were true camels. His faith in the Book of Beasts was unshakeable.

‘If it gets any hotter, Madi and Modi may not survive,’ I observed to Abram on the evening we camped on the fringe of the marshlands where the boggy ground was too soft even for pack
animals. Here the road turned aside, striking into the wilderness.

‘There should be enough water in the great barrel to sluice them down if they begin to show signs of distress, and one of my own men will stand guard over the water cart at night,’
Abram said quietly.

The edge to his voice made me look at him sharply. ‘You still think that someone might try to sabotage the embassy?’ I asked. It had been on my mind too, but the dragoman’s
decision-making had been so astute thus far, I knew I should heed his advice.

‘Draining the water tank would be a good way of doing it once we’ve entered the desert. It would be no harm to take precautions.’

Abram’s concerns weighed on me and that first night I found it difficult to sleep. He had replaced all the camp equipment lost at sea when Protis’s ship sank and Osric and I were
sharing a small tent. While my friend slept soundly I tossed and turned, swatting away the humming insects, listening for suspicious noises, remembering the sounds that had awakened me on the night
Protis had died. Shortly before midnight I got up and went to check on the water barrel, finding one of Abram’s servants on guard and also wide awake. Relieved, I returned to my tent and when
finally I did fall asleep, it was to drift off into a troubled dream: I was aboard a ship sailing, not on the sea, but across the land. I had to steer around rocks and trees, down the streets of
towns and up the slopes of hills. It left me with a queasy feeling and when I opened my eyes I had a nagging headache and it was daybreak. Judging by the volume of camel grunting and bellowing, the
beasts were already being loaded for the day’s march.

Osric was already awake, kneeling to roll up his sleeping mat.

‘Do you remember if the Oneirokritikon says anything about ships sailing on the land?’ I asked him.

He sat back on his heels and waited for me to explain.

I described my dream to him. From outside came shouts and oaths, then the sounds of a stick being used vigorously. Someone was getting the cart-hauling camels under way.

‘There’s a straightforward explanation,’ he said. ‘You were expecting to cross Egypt along a canal by boat. Instead, we are obliged to go by land. That’s a more
difficult journey.’

He reached for the walking staff that lay on the ground beside him. It helped offset the limp from his crooked leg while we were on the march. ‘But, since you ask, there was a mention in
the Book of Dreams about a ship sailing across the land.’

‘What does it say?’

‘That to dream of sailing a ship across the land, while avoiding rocks and obstacles, foretells a journey beset with many difficulties and dangers.’ He got to his feet and gently
poked me in the ribs with the end of the staff. ‘As far as I’m concerned, that’s no prophecy. It’s something we already know. You had better get up now or the caravan will
move on without you.’

Later that morning, we found ourselves venturing out into a dun-coloured stony plain. There was no soil, just scoured rock and the occasional patch of sand or gravel. We walked deeper into the
barren land, the wheels of the travelling cages crunching on the broken stones of the rough track. The sun was merciless, the bare rock throwing back the heat, and it felt as if we were walking
into a gigantic oven. The only plants were weed, thickets of thorn bushes and a few stunted trees with twisted leafless limbs. Every couple of miles we paused to draw off buckets of water from the
water cart so that our animals could drink. The water that remained in the buckets was thrown over them to try to cool them off. But it was no more than a gesture. Soon the ice bears were panting
and their fur was a lifeless yellow.

‘How many days will we be in the desert?’ I asked Abram after the caravan halted for the night. The camels had been unloaded and hobbled in a tight group, their packs stacked to make
an open square around them. Their drivers were lighting fires of thorn twigs. Under a clear sky it was going to be chilly.

‘The guide says we should reach the sea at the port of al-Qulzum in four days’ time,’ the dragoman replied. He looked past me, over my shoulder. ‘It looks as if Walo has
found something.’

I turned to see Walo walking towards us, carefully holding something cupped between his hands. When he was no more than two yards away, he announced proudly, ‘It’s a baby.’

I looked to see what he was carrying so tenderly, then sprang back in fright. Cradled in Walo’s hands was a small serpent. The length of my forearm, it had a thick body with dusty brown
scales and dark markings. The head was broad and flat.

‘It’s a young one,’ Walo repeated, holding up the snake so I could see it more closely. The hair rose on the back of my neck and I backed away.

‘A young what?’ I asked. I had broken into a cold sweat. I hate snakes.

‘A young cerastes. The parents can’t be far away.’

My mind raced as I tried to follow what Walo was talking about. I had an uncomfortable feeling that the serpent was venomous. Yet in Walo’s hands it appeared completely at ease, not
moving, though I could see its black tongue flicking in and out.

‘Look at its head, above the eyes,’ Walo urged, holding it up closer. It was as much as I could do to stifle a groan of fear as I swayed back out of range.