The Emperor's Elephant(110)
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 passed 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.