The Queen handed to Nun a clay tablet, covered with the incomprehensible long-legged script, with the lion and bull across the bottom. He stood, holding it, and the only words that came to his lips were, “I cannot accept. If Gebal is to be attacked, my place is at home.”
The Queen looked at him with compassion. “I tell you, Giblite, if you work for us and have my backing there is an honorable future for you. Nothing can save you otherwise.”
And at that moment there was a disturbance at the entrance to the chamber, and in strode the distinguished white-haired councilor whom the King had addressed as Sea Lord.
The Queen rose to her feet. “Sea Lord,” she said icily, “this intrusion is very sudden!”
“A thousand pardons, Your Majesty,” said the Sea Lord smoothly. “It did not enter my head that you could be in—ah, private audience with this person.” He looked coldly at Nun. “As you know, he is urgently invited to a—er—a conference on nautical affairs at Mallia. That is, of course, if he deigns to accept hospitality at my humble country mansion.”
Nun bowed, not to be outdone in politeness now that he knew how little it was worth. “Your Sea Lordship is most kind,” he said. “I have already heard of your delightful residence at Mallia.”
“That’s settled then. An honorable escort awaits you and your—ah—mathematician friend. Infinite apologies again, Your Majesty, for the intrusion. But it was His Majesty’s express wish.”
The Queen nodded to the Sea Lord, but said nothing. She held out her hand to Nun. He knelt and kissed it.
“Farewell, Your Majesty,” he said. “And thank you.” But he could not see the expression in the Queen’s eyes.
Nun and the Sea Lord left the chamber, and outside they met an escort of soldiers with the Chaldean among them. They were taken from the palace to where a painted chariot waited to drive them to Mallia. Nun and the Chaldean traveled together in the same chariot, but his companion was very silent. Hardly a word passed between them, even when they came to a high part of the coast road and they both suddenly saw directly to the North over the blue sea, just above the horizon, a harmless-looking cone with a faint wisp of smoke coming from the top. It was Thira, the island of menace.
But nothing could be more peaceful than Mallia. After driving across a fertile coastal strip, they emerged from olive orchards to see a palace of golden stone standing in a semicircle of soft, rounded hills. At the seaside was a small harbor where a few ships lay. Everything was on a much smaller scale than at Knossos, and instead of the bustle and magnificence of the King’s palace, here all was luxury and calm. They were shown into airy apartments hung with fine linen, but they did not know whether they were prisoners or guests, and when the Sea Lord sent for them after dinner he himself seemed uncertain how to treat them.
“I understand that Her Majesty the Queen sent for you in the first place, Chaldean, and that you, Giblite, came over with a cargo of logs. That is correct?” And without waiting for a reply he continued, “Good. Then let’s begin with the facts. Now we in Crete, of course, always welcome traders from abroad, and Her Majesty’s particularly interested to see jugglers and magicians from the East. But we have in Crete certain standards, you know. We like to think of ourselves as civilized, and it’s not asking much for visitors to our shores to pay a little regard to the decencies and so forth. So it’s my embarrassing duty to make you realize that your respective public performances at Knossos made a very bad impression, a very bad impression indeed. Let’s take the incident with the bull first. You foreign visitors are not expected to be able to play the game as we Cretans do, of course. But we do expect you to remember that it’s an honor for you to take part in our bull festival. I admit it was a mistake ţo invite those northern barbarians—they’re just not civilized like us, and people with skins that color never will be. But you Giblites aren’t savages. I should have thought the honor of representing your city in front of Ring Minos would have been enough to make you take the bull by the horns, and so on, instead of pull—instead of acting as you did.”
The recollection of the bull’s tail being pulled seemed to give the elegant gentleman pain. “You don’t look like a coward. Well, there it is, a very good bull with its nerve gone—it will never fight again—and the priests foretelling all sorts of trouble with the harvest.”
The lord turned in his chair and faced the Chaldean. “And that brings me to your performance, Chaldean. I won’t say your prophecy wasn’t very well delivered, perfectly correct in its form. And it would have been quite in order to foretell a little famine or so, some disaster threatening the common people. But to accept the hospitality of His Majesty King Minos, to stand in his palace and tell him to his face that it’s going to fall down—well, I mean it’s beyond the bounds of decent behavior. I think His Majesty took it very well. He’s graciously given orders that you should be well treated at present. And he is paying you the compliment, both of you, which I for one—with all respect to His Majesty—believe to be thoroughly undeserved, of taking the rest of your story seriously, and asking me to find out about it. So now you know what you’re here for.”
Nun had rather lost the thread of that last sentence, and permitted himself a glance at the Chaldean. But his friend’s face was expressionless.
The Sea Lord continued his monologue. “You know very well what I mean. You claimed that in an ordinary laden cargo vessel you made the passage from the port of Gebal to Crete in two days. It was quite obvious to anyone who knows anything about the sea that this was the normal sort of exaggeration you Orientals go in for. My flag officers”—he glanced at the languid young men sitting around—“have advised me that the minimum time for that passage is four days, even with the most favorable winds. You talked some nonsense about sailing at night and being directed by the stars. His Majesty seemed to think it might be a practice the Cretan Navy could adopt—though wisely he’s left it to me, and while I’m responsible there’s no danger of our ships being allowed to blunder around in the dark.” He laughed, and the flag officers copied him. “And unfortunately for your claim it’s been refuted by your own crew. I had some trouble rounding them up and bringing them and your vessel to Mallia for examination. But they saved me a lot of trouble. They all agreed that it had in fact taken you four days to get from Gebal to Amnisos. So there it is. I don’t suppose, in the face of that, you will want to press your fantastic claims about a new-fangled method of navigation.”
The Sea Lord was silent and sat with a bored look on his face. Nun looked over at the Chaldean, who met his gaze, and it seemed that they were sharing the same thoughts. The members of the crew had, of course, told the truth. They had arrived at Amnisos four days after leaving Gebal, having spent two nights at sea and two in the islands. And after that self-satisfied harangue, neither of them felt inclined to convince the Cretan of the facts of star-navigation even if he would have listened.
One of the flag officers broke the silence, addressing Nun in a sneering voice. “Well, Captain? You have heard his Lordship’s question. How long did you take from Gebal to Amnisos?”
“Four days,” said Nun.
The officer raised his eyebrows and turned to the Chaldean. “Is this the truth?”
“The voyage took four days,” said the Chaldean.
There was a silence. The wind had been taken out of the questioners’ sails so suddenly that they were at a loss for what to do next. A weather-beaten, middle-aged man who had the looks of a real seaman broke the silence.
“If I may put a question, my Lord—” he said tentatively.
“Oh, certainly, yes,” murmured his Lordship.
The man turned to Nun. “Captain,” he began, “I’ll admit that even four days from Gebal to Crete in a craft of your type was a pretty smart bit of sailing. Perhaps you’d tell us the facts now, how you planned the voyage, the course you steered on, and so on.”
“Why? Are you thinking of
taking the same trip,” asked Nun pleasantly. They would like to know, so they can plan their campaign against the mainland, Nun thought. What the Queen said was true.
“Taking the same trip?” repeated the other. “No, no, not at all, why should I? Just for general interest, though,” and he tried to make his smile look pleasant.
“Oh, quite,” said Nun. “You just want the facts.” He’d give them the facts, he thought. “Well, first of all there was Balaat-Gegal—”
“Where’s that,” interrupted the other.
“Where?” exclaimed Nun, pretending to be deeply pained. “I am speaking of our revered Mother-Goddess. It was a matter of beseeching her aid, and requesting favorable winds, which I must say She was gracious enough to grant us most of the way, though, indeed, I have been often neglectful of Her rites and observances—”
“Yes, of course, very pious and proper,” put in the Sea Lord. “These things have their place. But we were thinking of more material—”
“Oh, sir!” continued Nun. “Don’t imagine we neglected the material offerings. Our priests are not as neglectful as that. They were kind enough to accept a gold figurine, a Cretan one indeed. I had got it here on a previous voyage, and good value I paid for it too. You see, it doesn’t pay to skimp these things. And look what a lovely east wind we—”
“Yes, yes, yes,” the weather-beaten seaman interrupted again. “I’m sure you did the right thing. But what about stores, and rigging, and so on. As one seaman to another, you know, I’m interested in these things.”
“Ah, there’s one thing I should mention. This anchor. A good big one it was. The priests of Reshef suggested it would be a good thing to dedicate to their God, for a safe passage you know. So we lugged it up and put it among the obelisks there. And very efficacious too, not an enemy did we meet all the way. All friends …” He looked at the faces around him, all more or less bored at his pious chatter, with perhaps a hint of suspicion that he was pulling their legs.
The Sea Lord’s voice sounded again. “Kindly tell us, Captain, exactly how you directed your ship from Gebal to Crete. And it might be better if you just related the facts of your voyage.” Now his voice carried a threat.
“Oh, the fact, my Lord,” said Nun without thinking, “is that we started by following the Little Dog—”
There were angry exclamations from more than one voice at this: “Following a little dog! The man’s an idiot! He’s mocking us!”
“I mean, my Lord,” Nun went on hastily, seeing that he had gone too far by telling the truth, “I beg your pardon, one of our sea-going terms. I mean I just pointed the ship toward Crete and kept going—”
But the Sea Lord was on his feet. “I think we have heard enough,” he said to the gathering, without even troubling to look at Nun. “I’m satisfied that the fellow is wandering in his wits and whatever he knows can be of little value to us. If anyone else wishes to get sense out of him tomorrow, let him try whatever method he chooses. This meeting is adjourned. Meanwhile the prisoners are to be confined to the North Tower.”
The Sea Lord made a dignified exit, the meeting broke up, and Nun and the Chaldean were marched off to confinement.
Their accommodation as prisoners was not so fine as when they had been guests of the palace. But it was by no means a prison. It was a loft in a tall watch-tower, reached by a kind of ladder, which the Chaldean climbed with some difficulty. The soldiers stayed in the room at the bottom of the ladder, satisfied that there was no other way out.
The first thing Nun did was to go to the window overlooking the sea, but the drop to the ground was too great to think of letting himself fall, and the building was of smooth stone, impossible to climb. There were two low beds in the room. The Chaldean sat down on one and Nun on the other, and they looked at each other.
“We must escape,” said Nun quietly.
“My dear young friend,” protested the Chaldean. “You may think of these things. I am too old. I must stay here and await—”
“Await what?”
“Await the destruction that will certainly overtake this palace.”
“There is no doubt, then, about this happening?” asked Nun.
“For me there is no longer any doubt. No place by the sea like this can possibly survive.”
“The more reason for us to escape,” said Nun, briskly, getting to his feet and going to the window again. He looked up and down the coast. There was a quarter-moon shining on the still waters of the bay beyond the harbor—and Nun caught his breath. But it was not the natural beauty of the scene that made him do so, it was something he had noticed. There was a little island a very short distance offshore, with a building or two on it. And moored there, and clearly outlined against the path of the moonlight, was a ship. There was no mistaking its lines. It was his own ship.
“Look, Chaldean!” he exclaimed, only just remembering to keep his voice down. “It’s our ship!”
The Chaldean did not trouble to look. “Indeed, the Sea Lord told us he had brought the ship here, and her crew. But it must make you happy to see her,” he said sympathetically.
“I had forgotten. I wonder where the men are?” said Nun, and he started pacing restlessly about the chamber. How to escape from the tower? A rope, that was all he needed. The room was bare of hangings and there were only rotten pallets on the beds, nothing he could tear up to make a rope. He looked at his garments and those of the Chaldean, and thought of the long drop outside and shook his head.
He sat down despondently on the bed—and no sooner had he sat than he sprang up as if he had been bitten, and before the astonished eyes of the Chaldean flung the pallet off the low bed. He could hardly restrain an exclamation of triumph. The bed was a rough affair of wood, but the mattress was supported by a network of good strong cord, woven from side to side and from head to foot, fathoms and fathoms of it. What had been woven could be unwoven.
In feverish but systematic haste he set to work, undoing the lashings, unthreading the warp and the woof of it, cursing beneath his breath at the tangles in the kinked cord. For the more he undid the longer was the part he had to pull through each time. The Chaldean watched him remotely, not offering to help. But he wandered over to the trapdoor at the top of the ladder. And when there were only a few lengthwise strands left to undo, Nun heard his voice saying very loudly, “Welcome, soldier! It is kind of you to visit us in our comfortable quarters.”
Wildly Nun gathered up the loose cord, flung the mattress back on the bed, and by lying uncomfortably across the framework managed desperately to keep the mattress from falling through on to the floor.
“My companion is asleep,” said the Chaldean calmly, as the head and shoulders of a soldier appeared through the trapdoor. “Ah, you have brought food. You are most kind. Set it down. Please do not trouble to serve us.”
The soldier dumped a jug of water and a plate of bread on to the floor, took a look at Nun’s contorted body on the bed, grunted, and retired down the ladder. And not a moment too soon, for one side of the mattress immediately flopped through the gap in the support and Nun nearly fell through with it.
Nun let out a sigh of relief, and then had to smother his laughter at this absurd episode. The Chaldean carried the food back to his bed and began to eat the bread. Nun realized he, too, was hungry, but he could not stop the work he was doing. He took mouthfuls of bread from the Chaldean and chewed them as he went on. Soon he had finished unstringing his own bed.
“I’m sorry, sir,” he said urgently but quietly to his companion, “yours now.”
“My dear friend,” said the old man mildly. “You are welcome to all I have. But let me say now, in case you have thoughts of my descending like a spider on a thread from this tower, that I have no intention of doing any such thing. It is many years since I played such boyish games, and even as a child I was far from adventurous.”
“Don’t worry, si
r,” said Nun. “Leave everything to me. It’s not a difficult bit of seamanship, if the gear will stand it. I’ll have you down there as safely as off-loading a basket of eggs.”
“But—” protested the old man.
“Why should you stay here to share the fate of Crete?” asked Nun urgently. “You have done what you can to save these people. Why should you perish with them? Besides, how can I escape without you as my navigator?”
His companion moved, still protesting, to the floor, and Nun set to work on the other bed. He worked more quickly as he got the hang of it, and soon had four or five tidy coils of cord.
“Now for testing,” he said. “Don’t worry, sir, a seaman leaves nothing to chance, even if the world is coming to an end.”
The rafters of the room were not too far off the floor, and he was able to pass each length of cord over them and try his weight on every fathom of it. Doubled, it took the strain well. Single, he was not so sure of it. He looked at the Chaldean’s heavy, bony frame. He could hardly trust that to a single strand. But was there enough to reach the ground doubled? The only way to be sure was to try. He carefully knotted the lengths together and lowered the doubled line out of the window, having made as sure as possible that no one was likely to be passing below. It reached, but only just. He hauled it in again, then tested each knot separately by hanging from the rafters.
He was satisfied with his rope, but then it struck him that if it only just reached from the window to the ground, there would not be enough to pass round the Chaldean and for him to hang on to at the top. He must think again. He looked at the Chaldean’s flowing cloak.
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