The Amber Seeker

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘This is the new Tern. Fit him up for sea if you can.’ He turned to me. ‘Dolphin will look after you. He’s in charge, as far as you’re concerned. Mind you do everything he says and Seal will fill your plate well. You look like you could do with some second helpings.’ Seal, I gathered from this, was the cook. It was like being part of a child’s story.

  Gurt ambled away and leaned over the side strakes to talk with Cara, calling Minke over to join him.

  ‘Minke navigates.’ Dolphin had a smile of such a relaxed nature I could not help returning it. ‘I’d trust him anywhere. Let’s get you kitted out.’

  From a big chest he pulled out a thick gansey, a fine pair of sealskin trousers, a hat and mittens. ‘That coat’ll do a few seasons yet. Wolf.’ He stroked it, and nodded sagely, as if this told him something important about me. ‘You and it have both seen better days, I take it.’

  I knew I’d be happy on this boat, and I was. Gurt was a fine leader. He had eighteen crewmembers: Dolphin second-in-command, Minke navigating, and Seal in the galley with Dogfish and Catfish. Octopus kept the boat in order, repairing bust shackles, stuffing caulking between the pine planks of the hull if any leaks appeared, checking the rigging whenever we sailed, fixing tackle, oiling oars. Then there were the twelve seabirds, who rowed and pulled on ropes to hoist the sails and obeyed any other orders we were given. We were paired for rowing: myself, the Tern, with Petrel; Eagle with Bonxie, both bruisers; Black-back and Glaucus, the gulls, who were actually brothers, big gentle giants and almost identically blond, blue-eyed and gormless; Kittiwake and Guillemot, small, dark, endlessly chatty; Gannet and Cormorant, one silently dour, the other argumentative; Puffin and Shearwater, the youngest of us all, with barely a beard between them but plenty of fun. The ship’s cat was called Lobster. It sounds like a joke, but in fact it had serious value. In the role of Tern, I had found a place where, at least temporarily, I was welcome. It brought me back to myself and healed me of some of the trauma of life under the Greatmother’s tyranny.

  After getting me dressed for sea, and giving me a sleeping roll, Dolphin showed me my bench, where I would sleep and row and under which I could stow my few belongings. He was curious about my box; it was his business to know as much about me as he could, and he was nosy in a kindly way so I showed him what it contained. If he was impressed by my writing he did not show it then, but I found out later he made sure Gurt knew about it.

  Each of us had our space on board. The tiny area under my bench was my own domain and it was strictly forbidden to go under anyone else’s bench without their express permission. This right, and the right to be left in peace (by anyone except Dolphin or Gurt) if you had your back turned or your eyes closed, gave us a freedom, a space to be ourselves, that made the ship a kingdom of consenting adults, despite our childish names. We worked together out of respect. It made me wonder, and I had many hours and days ahead of me to wonder in, whether such harmonious teams of free men are the future, an alternative to slaves and discipline, or whether it was a fluke, an anomaly. Whichever, if emperors and senators were more like the honourable Gurt, I feel sure the world would be a more peaceful place.

  Once he had shown me my spot, Dolphin took me to meet Seal – a grey, whiskery, twinkly-eyed man who gave me a floury handshake and a piece of warm, sweet bread. ‘Gurt says you must feed him up,’ said Dolphin. Seal cut two more slices, one for me and one for my amiable boss.

  I was then put in the safekeeping of Petrel, who was carefully whipping a rope, winding a thin sinew around a loop in the bitter end to join it to a shackle. Dolphin’s last words were, ‘Help him get ready for the Var,’ before he went off to join Gurt and Minke in their deliberations with Cara. I presume they were planning our route out through the channels between the islands we had navigated among to get here. I wished I could listen in on their conversation.

  ‘What’s the Var?’ I asked Petrel.

  ‘Vow of allegiance with the crew, obedience to Gurt, safety on the boat, all of that. Isn’t this beautiful rope?’ He lifted a length and let it slide through his fingers as if it was a lock of his lover’s hair. ‘We’ve all got new sheets for this trip, and this is quality.’ He returned to whipping, tugging the sinew tight with each turn around the rope.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I asked him.

  He looked at me with languid brown eyes. Everything else about him was pale, I realised, except his dark, dark eyes. ‘I’m not from anywhere. I’m from everywhere. I’ve been wandering too long to remember and I no longer care.’

  There was something so utterly sad in the thought of this, I was caught off-guard and nearly choked, but before the emotion could take me he said, ‘But I’m here now.’ It was as if ‘here now’ was some kind of comforting home, a safe destination.

  ‘It’s where we are going to that matters,’ a voice said, ‘not where we’re from.’

  I looked up at Gurt. He had taken up a position of observation, feet apart, back against the mast, watching the work of his crew. ‘I don’t care where you’re from, it doesn’t matter on board this ship. It’s always a new day on The Dawn.’ It sounded better the way he said it in their tongue, like saying, ‘Dawn always brings a new day’ or something. Anyway, that was Gurt.

  At sunset I swore myself to work with the rest of the crew and, kneeling before Gurt, promised to obey his commands at sea. He handed me the end of a rope, and I wrapped it round my waist and tied a bowline in it, and he gave me a hug and tot of ale and thanked me for the Var.

  I loved being on that ship. We were happy together. I travelled on it for two years, and all that I know of the amber trade I learned as part of Gurt’s crew. I didn’t often get ashore to take measurements with my gnomon, but I kept a record of our movements, and long conversations with Minke enabled me to build up a good sense of the geography of those northern lands. We sailed east from the amber coast into an enclosed sea, Baltica, in which there were many islands, on one of which, Abalus, the amber supplies were truly prodigious, suggesting that this place was perhaps the true origin of all the amber that washed up on beaches around the region. The market there was dominated entirely by the orange gem, as if there was nothing else worth buying in the world. I wished I still had my leather pouch of gold coins. I could have brought back some real treasure.

  There was only one occasion – when we had sailed up a wide river that flowed north out of the plains and I met a trader who convinced me he plied a land-route to Athens trading amber for silver – that I was tempted to jump ship and make my way over land to home. But the pull of Albion was stronger. I still had nothing to show for my discoveries of the source of tin there, nor the source of the northern ivory, and there was the ever-tantalising prospect of seeing Rian again, discovering my own son and taking them into my future life, so I remained with Gurt and his promise of a crossing of the North Sea.

  At the end of one year, Gurt gave me a piece of walrus tusk as payment for my hard work on his ship. I don’t think he realised its significance to me, but perhaps I had once complained while he was listening that I had failed to get any proof of the existence of walrus while I was in the far north. While we travelled, I whittled at the ivory and shaped it into a little dolphin. It was partly a joke, because I had become so fond of the man who had that name, but also partly a serious nod of thanks to Apollo who had kept me safe for so long.

  Eventually, we set out on the journey that earned his boat its name. West, following the sun.

  SAILING

  We embarked in the early morning, of course. There was a light breeze, so we upped anchor and raised The Dawn’s sails with a song and were under way without needing to put a hand to our oars. There were so many crew members that once the sails were up it was light work, and I could sit and watch the islands as we slid past them, navigating the complex channels, the tides always in our favour.

  The boat pitched and rolled a bit as we approached the open sea, the waves driving in at a different angle from the breeze. At the till
er, Gurt smiled, holding the boat as close to the wind as he could. The further we went the wilder and more barren the islands became, brown heather clinging to the rocks. Gulls soared and swung, and the sea hushed, frothing off the hull. The rhythm of the waves rolling under us lulled me into a trance-like joy.

  I was interrupted by Seal proffering a honey-cake. ‘Last bite before the open ocean,’ he said.

  It was delicious.

  The wind seemed steady and our course was straight. Once the last island was behind us there was just water, the satin surface ruched and crumpling but not breaking except where it hit our vessel. Bubbles rose to the surface sometimes and I imagined what life might be teeming below. A few optimistic fishing lines were out, but nothing was biting. Our wake hissed and fizzed behind us.

  What joy it was to be back on the ocean! I found myself mesmerised by the grey patterns of the sea; an endless complexity of jabbled texture, yet at the same time perfect simplicity. Surface – horizon – sky. There was both nothing to see and everything to look at: my head filled with light and ripples. A breeze sang in the sail and water chuckled past.

  I know of nothing better for the soul, no more fulfilling way to fill up a slice of a person’s lifetime than a long sea voyage. Have you ever been on one? I am sure you must have. And if you have, do you agree? If you have not, please try to find a way to do so.

  On the ocean, time and space redefine themselves forever. The open eye of the sea gazes back as you stare into it, and it is an eye so huge and wise that it leaves the soul blessed by the presence of a bigger life-force than one’s own. I do not believe it is a god, though some believe it is. Perhaps I am wrong. I am prepared to believe some deity rules over it and I call him Apollo, perhaps in ignorance, and make libations to him in the hope of safety in return. Whatever it is, god, spirit, living being, or simply water body, it is bigger, so much more enormous, than we can comprehend. We merely skate over it, like a fly on a cow’s hide, but far smaller than that. I can conceive of no possible comparison. There is nothing quite like realising what an insignificant little scattering of dust we are in our transit between the womb and the soil, enjoying or wasting our brief moment, our pathetically short burst of being. A sea journey shows us this by its presentation of a spatial scale otherwise beyond imagination. Each moment becomes both valuable and unimportant, precious and beautiful, but not clutchable – a gift given freely to be handed on.

  At the start, I always find myself staring out, wanting to witness everything: the passage out from land; the quality of light; the sounds and smells of the waves; the visits by sea creatures, birds and dolphins that seem to take pride in escorting us out into their domain. Then, as the days pass, I reach a dissolution of that desire. I cease to want anything. I stop looking and simply see. Being on watch helps. You must scan the horizon for boats, for life, for land, for anything untoward, anything that provides relief from nothing. When it is over, when the hand on your shoulder allows you to end the search, then eyes and mind can cease striving and let the rolling motion of the surface hypnotise. That is when peace wells up like darkness, oozing up out of an animal core, and with it a kind of bonding happens with the great motherly expanse. Whatever ‘I’ is ceases to matter.

  During a sea voyage the camaraderie of those on board becomes so strong you would not believe it. Jokes become funnier, emotion is honed to its truthful core, dear friendships are made. It is as if the depth of the water below us gives us space to deepen into. I would say it is best to be part of the crew, rather than just a passenger, but even as a passenger, if you have the attitude, you can become one with the boat. The crew will welcome your interest and friendship. Each of us can find our place there, if we will.

  There is a warning necessary also, because if you cannot find a place on board, if your will is such that it demands to be loose, or perhaps if in the past there is something that makes constraint a torment to you, then a boat voyage may be a kind of torture, or even dangerous. I would still say try it and discover for yourself whether you can expand into the vastness of the ocean and the sky and revel in their empty and infinite possibilities, while inhabiting the paradox of confinement and close quarters. You will find out if you too can revel in the joy of being small in this enormous universe.

  So it is to be upon the ocean. In my book of that title, ironically, I wrote nothing of this, and yet it is what I feel is most fundamental about voyaging on the sea. It was while thinking these things that I completed whittling the dolphin from the piece of walrus ivory. I hope you like it.

  ALBION

  TRADING

  My time as crew with Gurt was the penultimate stage of my voyage. When we landed on the shore of Albion I did not know what would happen next but I was sure I did not want to return to the amber coast on The Dawn. I was headed west, then south.

  We sailed into a wide river mouth full of boat and ship activity and we hailed a small vessel and asked advice, naming some people Gurt knew. We were directed to a landing beach where our ship’s master disembarked, taking Eagle and Bonxie with him, from which I deduced he might not be expecting a completely warm welcome, or simply did not know what kind of reception to expect.

  We pulled off from the shore a bit, lounged and enjoyed the sights and sounds of the river traffic, and were soon engaged in banter with people in little boats, curious about our huge vessel. My knowledge of Keltic kept me at the heart of these exchanges and I saw Dolphin’s attention on me often. I was being assessed for some role.

  Sure enough, when Gurt came back on board a few hours later, I found myself enlisted as a kind of trade broker. Dolphin had the idea that I could draw up a document, listing all the goods they had for barter and noting down the agreed exchanges as they happened. I had little parchment left but readily agreed. The best way of acquiring new writing material is to use what you have in public. Other writers make themselves known and we understand each other’s needs.

  We slept on board, and the next morning we returned to the beach and began unloading our cargo. I sat on a nearby rock and wrote the list of goods. It was mostly skins, precious stones, mainly amber, and some silver objects, hideous engraved things I wouldn’t choose to own even though I am now rich enough to be able to. Dolphin showed me a cup and we both grimaced and laughed.

  When Gurt was ready I headed off with him, while Eagle, Bonxie and the Gulls carried bundles and boxes over to a large wooden roundhouse with a wide doorway. Inside, a fire was blazing and there was the smell of freshly baked bread. The floor was made of oak and the wooden benches around the walls shone. The whole place was spotless and welcoming. There were fleeces to sit on and a beautiful young woman in a fine red gown offered us warmed honey-ale from a vat beside the fire. She had dark hair and pale skin and reminded me of Ussa by the way she turned her eyes on men, flicking them away, then looking back, scanning up and down our bodies as if sizing us up for consumption. I wondered what Ussa was doing now that she only had one eye, and what she had done with my tin. I knew it would be long gone, but you always retain a glimmer of hope, don’t you?

  After we had settled ourselves, the King and Queen made their appearance. I don’t suppose they were really monarchs, and no doubt they paid homage to someone, but they were the powerful people of the area. They were both dripping with gold jewellery: she had hoop earrings, a huge and elaborate neckpiece with colourful beads strung among golden chain-work, and bangles and ankle bracelets that tinkled as she walked. Her embroidered dress made the young woman look positively plainly robed, but all the more beautiful by contrast with the wobbling jowls and glassy eyes of her superior. The man was also decked out in style, clothed in fine leather and fur, with a gold torc around his neck and ugly rings on both hands, like weaponry.

  Gurt instructed his goods to be laid out and I have to say Eagle did a fine job of making a ceremony of it, unfurling each skin so it glistened in the firelight, highlighting the colours and textures special to each pelt, laying out the smaller goods with revere
nce and arranging them to complement each other. With this treatment our cargo suddenly seemed like treasure.

  Gurt talked about the value of the goods. I followed instructions to record the deal. My presence, with my quill and parchment, which both Eagle and Gurt used to punctuate the performance, seemed to impress the King. Writing was not something he was familiar with, he said, and he came and pored over my work, not daring to touch the parchment, as if it were magical. I wondered what they had been told about this art of mine before I had been brought into this role. The Queen looked on, nodding and smiling.

  Then our hosts clicked their fingers and gave instructions to the young woman, who served us biscuits and buttered bread rolls. Meanwhile the Queen opened the hasp of a big wooden chest and began taking out metal work, handing it over to Gurt and Eagle. The King encouraged all of us to look at the pieces. They were mostly weapons: daggers, axes and spikes.

  ‘This is some of the local smith’s work,’ the King said. ‘I know it’s nothing much really, compared with the likes of amber, but it’s handy enough.’ This was a different kind of performance, one of deprecating modesty on the surface. But the weaponry was sharp and cruel, and spoke for itself.

  A second chest of objects was presented containing utensils for cooking and tools for farming. The king lifted one piece out. ‘Look here, this is a handy thing, it’s a tripod for holding the pot over the fire, lets you get it right where the heat is.’ They were well-made of good quality iron, anyone could see that, but it was hard to see why anyone would cross an ocean for such goods.

  Gurt showed polite interest but our hosts could see he was not impressed, so they opened a third chest. Everything in it was wrapped in deep green felt and the commentary stopped as the pieces began to circulate.

  ‘Who makes these?’ Gurt asked, holding open a silver locket on a fine chain.