In Jutland a scientific instrument is discovered in an archaeological dig and a young Turkish archaeologist is invited to explain its possible origins. This opening episode takes the reader back in time to 16th-century Algiers. Rashid - a slave - decides to run away to educate himself. The ship he is on capsizes drowning everyone but Rashid who gets washed up on the shores of Jutland. He is discovered by Heinesen, an apprentice of the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who designed and built instruments. Everybody believes that Rashid must be some sort of animal-demon but Heinesen rescues him from imprisonment. He then goes to Cyprus and becomes a scholar working in the library of a wealthy timber merchant. After a brief affair with the man's wife, Rashid returns first to Jutland then heads south on a ship which will take him back to the world he left behind.