The Emperor's Elephant(109)

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.