In the evenings, an hour or two before sunset, we would moor to the riverbank, as it was too perilous to use the river in the darkness and risk striking the occasional rocky shoal. We picked isolated locations to avoid attracting crowds of curious onlookers who might come to stare at creatures they had never seen before. Twice Abram asked us to stop within walking distance of a large town so that he could go ashore and spend the night with his fellow Rhadanites. From them, he told us, he could learn what we might find when finally we reached the sea.
Gradually the river grew in size. Large tributaries added not only their waters but also an increasing number and variety of river craft. We encountered ungainly rafts of timber floating down from the forests, barges loaded with great blocks of building stone, and scores of vessels bearing casks and barrels of wine. The river had become a great artery of commerce, and the bridges were high and wide enough to accommodate the traffic. We passed beneath their arches without incident now that the water level had dropped. On good days a breeze from the north allowed our boatmen to spread simple square sails and increase our speed. My spirits were lifted by the welcome sound of water chattering and lapping under the blunt bows of our ferries as we pressed onward. In such carefree conditions, Abram, Osric and I would exchange places on the different boats. Abram and Osric spent long hours talking together quietly, sometimes in the Saracen tongue. I joined Walo and his ice bears, keeping him company, for I wanted him to feel at ease in these strange, new surroundings.
It was always a challenge to find a way of engaging Walo’s attention. He seldom spoke to others and kept to himself, passing the hours in his own special world, apparently in a half-daze. Yet he must have been taking note of what was going on around him because, like a shutter briefly being thrown open, he would come out with a sudden perceptive remark. He was at his happiest and most alert when dealing with our animals and that, in turn, provided me with a means to draw him out of his isolation: he loved to hear more about the exotic creatures depicted in the Book of Beasts. Whenever I joined him on the boat, I would sit beside him on the deck leafing through the pages until he pointed to an illustration that caught his interest. Then I would read out the information written underneath. In nearly every case the animal was as unknown to me, as it was to him.
‘What’s that lion with a man’s face?’ he asked one hot afternoon. Our boats were passing low gravel cliffs where the river had undercut its bank. Sand swallows had burrowed into the cliffs, and a cloud of the small brown and white birds whirled over our heads as they made their way to and from their nests.
‘It’s called a manticore,’ I told him, reading the accompanying text.
‘Those great teeth must mean it is a meat eater,’ Walo commented.
The creature had the head of a man attached to the body of a lion. The artist had drawn a human face with a straggly beard and a wide open mouth armed with sharp fangs. The staring eyes were a cold blue but all the rest of the animal had been coloured blood red.
I quoted the text: ‘The manticore has three rows of teeth and eats human flesh. It is very active and can leap great distances. No one can out run it. Its voice is like a whistled melody.’
Walo was intrigued. ‘I would love to see such a wondrous creature, even if it is dangerous.’
‘But you would not want to come too close,’ I said. ‘Apparently the manticore can shoot poisoned spines from the tip of its tail.’
Walo detected the note of scepticism in my voice. ‘Surely the book is telling the truth.’
‘We’ll never know. It says that the manticore lives in India, and we are only going as far as Baghdad.’
I could sense Walo’s disappointment. His grasp of geography may have been non-existent, but he had a simple, direct shrewdness. ‘We can test the truth of the book. Read out what it says about an animal we know, then we can judge whether it is right.’
I turned the pages until Walo pointed to an illustration of a flock of half a dozen tall birds standing in a group. They had long necks, pointed beaks like herons and stilt legs. The nearest bird was standing on one leg and gripping what looked like a round stone with the other foot, holding it up from the ground.
‘Cranes!’ exclaimed Walo. ‘Flocks of them pass over my forest every spring, high in the sky, but they do not stop. They must be travelling to their summer home in a place I do not know. In autumn I see them as they return. Going back the way they came.’
‘Their Latin name is Grus,’ I said, reading. ‘They travel large distances, flying very high so that the leader can see the lands to which they are going.’