I translated his words to Walo but failed to calm him. ‘It would be better if the bears were taken outside, somewhere in the shade,’ he insisted.
The head keeper saw that Walo was still troubled. Stepping past him and into the stall, he beckoned to Walo to follow him. Then the older man walked around the stall, patting the walls with the palm of his hand and repeating something in a soothing tone.
‘What’s he trying to say?’ Walo pleaded with me.
I asked the head keeper to repeat himself, because what he had said was impossible.
But I had not misheard.
‘He wants you to know that the walls are hollow, and they will be filled with ice.’
Walo gaped at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. ‘With ice? How can that be?’
I relayed the question to the keeper and was told that great blocks of ice were brought down from the mountains every winter and stored underground in straw-lined pits within the Round City. The purest ice was kept for cooling the drinks served to the caliph, his senior ministers and their guests. The lesser grade was used just as he had shown within the palace itself. Certain rooms in the palace had hollow walls that were filled with ice and, when that was not possible, trays of ice were placed where the breeze would carry the cold air into the rooms.
‘This stall is constructed in the same way,’ explained the keeper. ‘We use it for sick animals who need to be kept cool in the summer. The caliph takes a keen interest in his menagerie and we are permitted to take from the ice stores when necessary.’ He gestured towards Walo who was still looking dazed. ‘If your friend wants, he can stay close by. There’s a dormitory at the end of the building where the keepers sleep when they are on night duty. He can find a bed there and I will make arrangements for food to be brought to him.’
I was longing to see more of the elephant and other exotic animals, but our escort from the barge was growing impatient.
‘What would Carolus think if he saw Baghdad for himself – how big it is?’ I remarked to Osric as we went back out into the street, leaving Walo to watch over the ice bears.
‘I’m more concerned about what the caliph will think of the animals we have brought him,’ Osric replied in a low voice.
His tone caused a twinge of anxiety. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I had a look into some of the other stalls while you were helping Walo. There are animals in them that I have never seen before, animals so extraordinary that I wouldn’t have believed they could exist.’
‘What sort of animals?’
‘One of them must be the animal our friend the Nomenculator thought was the unicorn.’
My heart sank. After all my searching for the elusive unicorn, it was already to be found in the caliph’s menagerie.
Osric’s next words were more reassuring. ‘It does have a single horn. But that’s the only resemblance. It’s greyish black, like the elephant you saw, and not white, and no one would ever call it graceful. More like a stout ox or a very large boar with a wrinkled and armoured hide. The horn is a pointed stump growing on its nose. Not a unicorn’s long spiral spike.’
My friend had also learned that the building we were visiting was not the only place where the caliph’s exotic animals were housed. ‘The keepers told me that there are at least two more similar buildings, as well as kennels, stables and mews for his hunting birds,’ he told me.
‘Did they say what other animals are kept?’ I asked him.
‘Wolves, several creatures whose names I didn’t recognize, and thirty lions.’
I looked at him in utter disbelief. ‘Thirty! That’s impossible.’
Osric made a slight, helpless gesture. ‘I know. It does make our gift of strange animals seem trivial. But I’ve no reason to doubt what the keepers told me.’
‘I’d need to see those thirty lions with my own eyes before I’d believe them,’ I said grudgingly.
‘Maybe we will. I was told that when the Caliph wishes to impress an important visitor the lions are brought out and put on display. The keepers stand in a double line, each with a lion on a short chain. The visitor has to approach the caliph, walking in the aisle between them.’
‘But where could so many lions have come from?’ I said.
‘From rulers in India,’ Osric replied. ‘Along with elephants. There are at least two dozen elephants in the royal collection. Only a handful are kept in the building we visited. Others are in an open-air park.’
‘And next you’re going to tell me the caliph already owns a dozen ice bears,’ I said.
Osric smiled. ‘He has bears of all sorts, large and small, brown and black. But there’s not a single white bear in all of Baghdad.’
We had arrived at our destination, a substantial, high-walled building with an archway that opened into an interior courtyard. Our escort accompanied us inside and showed us to a set of rooms along one side of the courtyard. The rooms were spacious and airy, and our baggage had already been brought from the barge and placed inside. There was very little furniture apart from a couple of low tables, a scattering of large cushions embroidered with geometric patterns in red and green, and some expensive-looking carpets. The whitewashed plaster walls were bare but the doors and windows looked out directly on a fountain playing in the centre of the courtyard. The drifting spray made a rainbow in the rays of the afternoon sun and the sound of the water gave an impression of coolness.
Our escort informed us that a meal would shortly be provided and suggested that we might like to rest for a few hours. Later that evening, Osric and I would be taken to a private meeting at the palace of Nadim Jaffar, who had expressed a wish to meet us.
‘Do you know anything about this Nadim Jaffar?’ I asked Abram as the escort withdrew.
‘Short of meeting with the caliph himself, you could not hope for a more promising introduction.’ Abram went across to the doorway and checked that he could not be overheard. ‘Jaffar is a member of Haroun’s inner circle. “Nadim” is a title given only to the caliph’s particular friends.’
‘And this Jaffar is influential?’
‘More than that. He is a senior vizier – a minister as well as being Haroun’s chief advisor. His family, the Barmakids, wield extraordinary power, second only to the caliph’s himself.’
‘Why would he want to meet us so soon after our arrival?’
Abram frowned. ‘Jaffar is the head of the barid. Perhaps he intends to check on the reports that he has been receiving about us.’
‘And why weren’t you included in the invitation?’ I asked.
‘As your dragoman, I have no formal role now that we have reached Baghdad. Besides, Jaffar will have been told that you speak good Arabic, so no interpreter is needed.’
‘I would be easier in my mind if you accompanied Osric and me,’ I said.
Abram treated me to one of his enigmatic smiles. ‘I’m sure you don’t need my help to make a good impression on Jaffar, and that way you could get to meet Caliph Haroun himself.’ He paused for a moment. ‘My only regret is that I won’t have a chance to see Nadim Jaffar’s palace. It is a byword for his opulent lifestyle.’
*
A decent interval after the call to evening prayer, our escort reappeared at our door. He walked with Osric and me to the bank of the Tigris. A private ferry was waiting at the quay, manned by a crew of a dozen oarsmen. All three of us settled ourselves on the benches and our vessel was rowed out on the river as the pink tinge of the sunset seeped from the sky. We steered directly for a row of blazing torches on the far bank, the reflection of their flames twisting and flickering on the water as we drew closer. The torches were fixed in brackets along a balustrade to show a flight of marble steps. Our guide led the way as we disembarked and followed him along a path through a garden half hidden in shadow. Dozens of torches and lanterns, artfully placed, cast their light on beds of flowers in full bloom. I marvelled at the effort and expense of growing such blossoms in Baghdad’s scorching dry summer. A hidden musician was playing a stringed instrument so that the notes seemed to float through the leaves of ornamental trees that lined the path. When the music faded away, an unseen woman with a beautiful voice began to sing a gentle, haunting song.