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The Emperor's Elephant(85)

By:Tim Severin


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.