CHAPTER 5

His name was Bin Haji, and he wore a circular cloth hat that had been his father’s, and his grandfather’s before him.

‘He came from the far west, from the mountains. At that time there was lots of fighting and he had had enough of it.’

Apart from that, Bin Haji wore the jellaba and looked like everyone else.

‘Fighting?’ asked Benzamir. ‘Who was attacking your grandfather’s people?’

‘He told my father everybody. But I think it was the Rus. Their land lies to the south and it is poor. Where are you from? You sound like you learned your Arabic from the Holy Qur’an.’

‘Near enough. My people speak a different dialect now, and it’s all but incomprehensible to anyone but us.’

‘But you keep the teachings of the Prophet, peace be upon him. This is good.’

It was later. The sun was starting to slide down towards the east, and a cooling breeze was beginning to drift in from the sea. They stood on the steps of the mosque and watched the men of El Alam stroll around the square, talking in twos and threes.

‘The sheikh said you know the stars,’ said Benzamir.

‘Yes, though I am puzzled as to why you want to talk to me. Are you after learning, or do you seek your fortune? I tell you now, I do not deal with that. Allah, the Most Merciful, gives me all the direction I need.’

‘Learning only.’

‘Then that is good.’ Bin Haji looked at the shadows in the square. ‘There is an hour or so before prayers at sunset. Come with me.’

Benzamir padded barefoot through the silent mosque to reach the imam’s rooms at the back. In the first room were divans and cushions, like the sheikh’s, only less rich and padded. There was also a trunk, its lid hanging back on a chain. It was full of books.

‘A library,’ breathed Benzamir. ‘May I?’

‘Of course. It is good to meet another man who can read.’

Benzamir knelt by the edge of the trunk and touched the cover of the topmost book. It was bound in red leather, hand-stitched, with brass corners. He picked it up and slowly, almost reverentially, weighed it in his hands. It was heavy, and smelled of age.

It was closed by a metal clasp, and he had to study it for a moment. Then he worked it loose and creaked back the wooden cover. The Arabic script inside was upside down: of course–he had the book back to front.

Bin Haji was watching him. He said nothing about the mistake.

Benzamir looked down and leafed through the first few pages. Lines of dense type, black ink on a worn cream background, together with diagrams and notation.

‘Geometry,’ said Bin Haji. ‘Do you know geometry?’

‘Yes, yes I do. Tell me, is this an original work or a translation?’ He kept on turning the pages to see if there was something he didn’t recognize. It started very simply, with regular shapes and solids; how to bisect lines, how to calculate angles. It moved on to the properties of a sphere: these pages looked well-thumbed.

‘I believe it is a translation of a much older work. You know how it is with these things.’

Benzamir didn’t, but nodded slowly as if he understood. ‘Fascinating.’ He looked at all the hand-drawn conic sections. He put the book on a low table and went back to the trunk for another.

‘You wanted to ask me about the stars. What is it you want to know?’

‘Hmm? Oh yes. I’m sorry. We don’t have such magnificent books where I come from. These are really very special. The pages…?’ He angled the book to the light to see them edge-on.

‘Vellum, mostly. Some are cloth treated with fine clay.’

‘Where do books like this get made? There must be a king’s ransom in this box.’

Bin Haji smiled nervously. ‘I…yes. They are very precious. Most are out of the scriptoriums of Misr.’

‘I’ll have to go there.’ Benzamir slipped onto one of the divans, still holding the second book. ‘The stars. More specifically, stars that move.’

‘The stars are fixed: they do not change. If there were something new in the sky, it would not be a star. Perhaps you mean one of the planets.’ Bin Haji frowned. ‘You do have some knowledge of the heavens?’

‘Yes,’ said Benzamir enthusiastically, ‘I do. I need to know if you or any of your congregation have seen a bright light, or maybe more than one, falling from the sky to touch the ground. Have you?’

‘No. Nothing out of the ordinary. There are the usual lights in their seasons, the so-called shooting stars, but nothing like you describe. Are you searching for a thunderstone?’

Benzamir had to think. ‘A meteor. It would look like one, wouldn’t it? If one had fallen, where would I go to find out about it? Who would gather news of that sort?’

‘If you dare, the emperor of Kenya’s court. His spies are everywhere.’

‘Are they? Why?’

‘Because,’ said Bin Haji, ‘he has the vanity to want to know all things. You really are from far away not to have heard of Kenyan spies.’

Benzamir opened the book on his lap. It was an atlas. He gasped with delight. The pictures were just what he’d expected. ‘This is pre…pre…what do you say here?’

‘Before the world turned.’

The pages were thick and crisp, faded with age. Benzamir could see errors wherever he looked: bays lost, headlands flattened, mountains moved, rivers erased. But the gross features were all intact, and even some of the old names persisted. North was still north, though much of the writing was upside down. He moved his finger along the coast from where he was to Misr El Mahrosa. Except that the city was far inland and there was El Iskandariya on the edge of the blue sea.

He turned more pages. Each one was a painstakingly copied work of art. The maps the transcribers had recent knowledge of were annotated heavily. Those of lost lands were sparse, and often wrong.

‘You’re a rich man. I thought the sheikh was blessed, but you…you’ve the wealth of knowledge here, and it’ll keep you and your children’s children in high regard.’

‘You would like to think so. I have no wife yet.’

‘Then you have to find one. These are too precious to pass into the hands of someone who doesn’t appreciate them. Or worse,’ said Benzamir, ‘Ibn Alam.’

‘We do not speak ill of the heir of Alam in this house,’ chided Bin Haji. But he seemed neither outraged nor scared by Benzamir’s criticism. ‘There is time enough for marriage later. I am not so old. If you like my maps, perhaps you will also enjoy this.’

He bent down and reached under a divan. As he lifted the cover, he revealed a row of boxes, all different shapes and colours. He picked one, and slid it out. He beckoned Benzamir over and gave the brass key a half-turn.

Benzamir knelt on the floor and watched as the lid of the box was lifted clear. What was inside was delicate in the way carved ice was delicate. There was a ring of metal, engraved with script and pierced with tiny holes. Then, balanced on fine wire above five concentric rings, small coloured balls. Around the third ball there was an additional ring, with its own tiny ivory sphere.

‘It’s an orrery.’

He touched the polished brass orb that represented the sun, and watched the way his fingerprint evaporated in the heat.

‘It used to be clockwork. My father had it converted to a hand crank. The dust causes havoc with the mechanism.’

‘Is it accurate? I mean, it has to be more than a toy.’

Bin Haji reached inside the box and retrieved the little handle. There was a hole in the side which fitted the square end perfectly. ‘The Earth goes around the Sun once, and the Moon goes around the Earth thirteen times. The Moon keeps its face to us, while we turn and turn, once a day. The other planets do not spin, but make their circles about the centre. Watch.’

He worked the orrery, and the planets danced for Benzamir. Each individual ring was inscribed with its Arabic name: Zuhra, Ard, Quamar, Merrikh, Mushtarie, Zuhal.

‘The planets fall out of alignment after four or five years, and need to be reset by making your own observations. It is a toy, though a very beautiful one.’

‘Don’t you use it to teach with?’ asked Benzamir. ‘Such a thing is worth any amount of explanation.’

‘The people here–well, they are not scholars. They fish. They grow crops. They keep sheep and goats and camels and cows. To know when Venus rises, or when Saturn and Jupiter are in conjunction? It might be interesting, but it is not necessary.’ Bin Haji stopped winding, and sat back on his haunches. ‘They are not ignorant, but their priorities direct their learning.’

‘Yes, of course. My people value learning highly. We’re always looking for the opportunity to learn something new.’ Benzamir peered into the heart of the machine. He could see the toothed cogs and wheels. Each one would have to have been cut with great accuracy by hand. ‘Where was this made?’

‘In the west. Misr El Mahrosa perhaps, or in lost Iskandariya. Long before I was born.’

‘Could it be made now? I mean, are there craftsmen who could replicate this? There’s so much engineering and astronomy that’s gone into this: differential gearing, the understanding of elliptical orbits, even the rings are angled slightly from the ecliptic.’

‘I do not know. You would have to go and ask,’ said the imam quietly.

Benzamir looked up, troubled by Bin Haji’s sudden change of tone. ‘Have I said something out of turn?’

‘You use words that I do not understand, yet you use them with complete familiarity. Again I ask you, where are you from?’

‘From here, originally. My ancestors lived in the Atlas mountains.’

‘How many generations ago did your people leave? There are no clans up there you could belong to. You are too different.’

‘We left seven hundred years ago, before the world turned. We left in ships that landed on strange shores, beyond…beyond wherever you think of as far away. Now it’s my privilege to return. Of all my people, I’m the first to make the long journey back.’ Benzamir smiled in what he hoped was a friendly fashion. ‘It’s changed less than I thought.’

Bin Haji looked sceptically at him. ‘Aside from north being south and south being north.’

‘I’m a son of the desert, as the sheikh says. The stories of my forebears live in me. I’m not so different after all.’

‘You would do well to guard your tongue. Talk of “differential gearing” is likely to lose you friends and risk you being mistaken for a sorcerer.’

‘That would be bad, I take it.’

‘You would be stoned. Or drowned.’

‘Ah. Thanks for the warning.’ Benzamir stood. ‘I don’t want to outstay my welcome. You have evening prayers to attend to.’

‘You are a confusing man, Benzamir Mahmood. I would have you down as a Kenyan spy were it not clear that you had never heard of them before.’ The imam started to close up the orrery, and Benzamir put the books carefully back in the trunk.

‘Salam alaykum, Imam.’

They exchanged kisses on their cheeks. ‘Why do you search for stars that fall from the sky?’ asked the imam.

‘Because it’s a sign that my enemies are near. If you hear of such things, send word at once.’

‘Where should I tell the messenger to go?’

‘Everywhere. Sooner or later, he’ll find me. After all, that’s how I’m having to search.’

Benzamir took his leave and walked back through the mosque. The first few worshippers had arrived, and the low murmur of voices filled the hall. He was almost out into the light when someone tugged the hem of his jellaba.

He looked down and saw the boy he’d noticed at the side of the road.

‘Salam, little one.’

The boy said nothing, just looked around and stepped behind a pillar. It was hardly inconspicuous, but the boy thought it would do.

Benzamir followed him, and sat on his haunches in the dust and shadow.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Wahir,’ said the boy.

‘Is this about Hassan Ibn Alam?’

‘Yes. I heard him by the stables. He wishes you dead.’

‘Wahir, my friend, this isn’t news. He seems to be a man of great passions. It’d be better for everyone if he had more self-control, but who am I to change him?’

Wahir looked around again. ‘He means to follow you and kill you in an ambush,’ he whispered. ‘He cannot kill you while you are under his father’s roof, but the moment you leave, he will give chase.’

‘I’m not afraid of Ibn Alam. I beat him once, and I’m sure I can do it again. But thank you all the same. I’ll keep a careful eye behind me.’ Benzamir was about to stand when he had a thought. ‘You know your way around, don’t you?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I need you to tell me some things. Things better said outside, perhaps–we will disturb the men praying.’

They stepped out of the mosque. The sky was turning a bold blue as the sun set, with a streak of orange on the horizon. They sat on the steps, a little to one side, and spoke between the muezzin’s cries.

‘I need to get to Misr El Mahrosa. How best would I do that?’

Wahir thought about matters for a while. ‘By boat,’ he concluded. ‘It is the fastest, and safest. There are pirates, but fewer of them than the robbers who attack the camel trains.’

‘But the only boat capable of making the journey is the sheikh’s, yes?’

‘So you need to travel to a port. El Asnam is not far.’

‘When you say not far, you haven’t actually ever been yourself, have you?’

Wahir shrugged. ‘I am told it is not far. Some of our slaves come from the market there.’

‘A three-, four-day walk?’

‘Walk?’ The boy was surprised. ‘Are you not rich? Only poor people walk.’

‘I’d share my wealth with you if I had any. No, hold on. The sheikh ransomed his ancestor’s sword. So I do have money.’

‘Then buy a horse.’

‘I don’t think I’m quite up to that. These camels–can I get one of those?’ Benzamir had in his mind the picture of a camel, but had yet to encounter the reality.

‘Of course,’ said Wahir.

‘Then meet me here after morning prayers. You can help me choose one.’ He spotted his sandals in amongst the neat rows of footwear at the mosque’s door. ‘Don’t be late.’