Across The Lake

by Doug Kelly

  “Allow me,” he said, as he passed beside the cousins.

  He offered Briand a couple of copper coins, the smallest denomination. Briand took the coins reflexively, holding them as if they were red-hot coals. After Trahan left the garden and rode past the Arrow Gate, Briand threw them as far away as he could. Two copper coins, American pennies, for two peasant boys. That is what Trahan had thought. The man had no idea with whom he had spoken. To Trahan, the coins were worth nothing, so the meager gift was simply symbolic. It was no sacrifice to this man to press relatively worthless coins into the hand of someone that he thought was a peasant. Trahan thought the coins would be precious to a servant and would have been insulted to see the coins thrown away.

  They overtook Davin as he went toward home and silently walked beside him. Davin continued talking about his fruit and flowers, oblivious to the silent anger of the pair of young men next to him. He was not the man he used to be.

  In earlier days, Davin Matin, the leader of the clan, had been as confident in a love for war as Briand was now, and he possessed extraordinary physical strength, giving him an advantage as a leader among men. Brandishing his battle-axe, he had distinguished himself in many battles and sieges. Aton’s father had a talent for mechanical construction, but this resourcefulness had been the beginning of his difficulties. During a long siege, he had invented a machine and had done so by using fragmentary descriptions that he had seen in ancient books. When completed, his machine cast large stones with great force and accuracy against the opposing village’s walls. His inventive skills were similar to Aton’s intellectual and creative talents, just as Davin’s physical accomplishments were similar to Briand’s capabilities. After all, they were blood relatives.

  The old warlord, Olar’s father, was pleased with Davin’s catapult, which promised him a speedy conquest over his enemies and the destruction of their strongholds. The men who had the hereditary command of the siege artillery, which consisted mainly of battering rams, could not endure to witness another man’s successful accomplishments, especially if he might be a rival for attention from the warlord. They conspired, criticized him, and Davin fell into dishonor. Secret messages from the old warlord assured him that this disgrace was policy, and that he would recall him as soon as he felt himself able to withstand the pressure of his trusted advisors. To the detriment of all the clans under his control, the old warlord died soon after, and the present warlord, Olar, succeeded.

  Although their families had been friends for generations, the new warlord had Davin Matin arrested and given a heavy fine, which laid the foundation of debt that had since been constantly increasing. The tribunal released him, but the court did not permit him to approach Olar Regalyon for years, which was just long enough for the men surrounding the new warlord to consolidate their power. In the meantime, men with half his capability, but with a perpetual ability to agree with everything related to the ruling family’s wants and desires, had become the favorites in Olar’s realm.

  He did not compete for attention against Olar’s newest companions. It was pride, and nothing but pride, that had kept him from the new warlord’s estate. Slowly, but deliberately, he had sunk out of sight, occupying himself more and more with mechanical inventions and with his own clan and stockade. Davin had come to be regarded as no more than a farmer, but even now, he could not escape danger.

  His simple nature attached the common people to him. Whether that was due to his natural kindness, his real strength of intellect, and charm of manner, or whether it was because of the honesty that he used to judge them, or whether it was owing to all these things combined, it was certain that there was not a man on the estate who would not have died for him. It was also certain that the people of the entire district loved him. Instead of carrying disputes to the warlord, plaintiffs would privately bring their arguments to him for judgment.

  All of that, as the warlord gradually became aware of it, agitated his jealousy and anger, a resentment cunningly inflamed by Trahan, who kept track of the growing debt, but Olar and his advisors hesitated to do anything against Davin, fearing that the people would rise in rebellion. Therefore, Davin’s weakness was his best defense. Olar soon forgot the matter and laughed at his own foolishness, that he could be jealous of a man who was no more than a farmer.

  The rest were not so appeased. They desired Davin’s destruction. They hated his popularity. They lost no opportunity to discredit him, and endeavored to alienate the affections of the people by representing him as a conjurer, a thing clearly proved by his contraptions, which were so clever that wizardry must have helped design them. That could be a capital offense. The most immediate and pressing danger was the old but mounting debt accounted for by Trahan, which he might demand payment for at any moment. Therefore, the two cousins found themselves without money or powerful positions in society. However, under Davin’s personal attention, his walled estate, although so carelessly guarded, had become a prolific garden. The best kinds of cattle were abundant, the horses were healthy and in demand, and his crops were best in the province. Yet there was no money because of the endless debt assessed against him.

  Aton and his father were equally displeased with their stations in life. Aton was intelligent, talented, respectful, and he knew that he possessed these qualities. He extended respect to his fellow man in the warlord’s service and any allied clans, but on most occasions, they returned his respect with indifference. He felt utterly powerless. In the confines of the estate, the servants and slaves alike would gladly run to do his bidding. Beyond the walls of the enclosure, he was helpless. His manual labor, from farming to work in a village, could produce nothing in a time when slaves or servants did almost all the work. His hobby of inventing, his passion for philosophy, and his life as a hunter in the woods was free, but not lucrative. The furs he sold simply maintained him. It was barter for existence, not profit. He envied the hill people in the surrounding area who roamed in comparative freedom, but they also had no wealth. He could not become a merchant without money. Without money, or personal influence that has the same effect, he could not enclose an estate and build a house fit for marriage to a woman of a privileged family. He had little hope to inherit the clan’s estate or his father’s legacy. His family was so deeply in debt that on a whim, Olar might evict them at any time.

  Slowly the bitterness entered into the depths of his soul and solidified. The emotions of hopelessness and helplessness embittered every waking moment. He was becoming hateful from the feeling inside, the knowledge that he had talent that only required opportunity. The feeling stung him like a wasp. The days went by and everything remained the same. Continual brooding and bitterness in his spirit was tarnishing the silver lining of his soul.

  Finally, the constant decline of his father’s reputation with the warlord and the collateral effect that had on him was more than he could endure. Late one night, in the darkness of his lonely room, Aton had decided with firm resolution to travel beyond the confines of the walled enclosure and onto the vast open water of the big lake, and venture into the world surrounding him. That would involve separation from Esina, long separation, without any means of communication. It was the thought of parting, not seeing the woman he loved that had kept this secret desire suppressed for so long. Here, with his clan, he had nothing to give her. For that reason, he felt ashamed of his lot in life. In the end, the bitter taste of hopelessness forced him to face it. He had begun the boat, but had kept his purpose secret from everyone except Briand, and especially from Esina, just in case her tears or the heat from his passion for her would melt his resolved spirit.

  Initially, Aton had considered two options of travel for an adventure away from the familiarity of his home and the league of clans. The first consideration was to travel by foot, the same as other hunters like him had done. This was a mode of travel to which he was already accustomed. The second and less desirable of the two choices was to travel away by merchant ship. The ship would require payment, and as Bria
nd had warned him, the crew might not be hospitable. If he traveled by foot, he could not cross the lake or visit the unknown territories on its opposite shore and the islands spread throughout. Fed by a large river, the lake was enormous. To circumnavigate the shoreline of a lake that size on foot could take years, if he survived. Therefore, he had cut down the cypress tree and built the boat. He did not know where he would go or what he would do, so he left his future up to fate. He still had no definite plan or destination. Just to the lake and beyond, adventure awaited. He had heard that the large lake was actually an estuary that connected to the ocean. Not having seen the ocean, he was willing to take the risk that a current could sweep the boat away to the coastline.

  He had often envisioned offering his services to a ruler of a distant empire, and having some far away warlord accept him with the great praise that he obviously deserved. He thought that he could reveal the inventions that he had designed to a rival warlord, and then accept the enormous wealth to which his intellect entitled him, for his innovative ideas. All too often, his euphoric thoughts would betray him and he would try not to think of about rejection, ridicule, and all the laughter that his tormenters might direct at him. Without money, without an entourage of influential friends, how could he expect them to accept his ideas or even listen to him? Still, he wanted to leave. He could not help himself, because he thought that he had no future here.

  CHAPTER SIX

  While the winds of changing seasons bent the trees above him, buds unfolded, and leaves expanded. Aton chopped and carved through the long weeks of early spring. As his hands brought the shape of a boat out of the rough wooden planks of a cypress tree, a map of the known territories continuously crossed his thoughts and imagination. In his mind, he saw the villages along the shores of the grand lake, their disorder, the weakness of the social fabric, and among many other things, the misery of the slaves. At any time, from the northern area and its vast forests, invading armies of rival warlords or nomads might descend upon his region. In his imagination, he saw it all and it fueled his desire for adventure.

  Thoughts of joining a battle, the desire to conquer and pillage came to him with a romantic light, but his father and cousin had distorted their fables of combat from reality. Aton’s youthful mind did not understand that war was not romantic. In that regard, he was just like his peers, yearning for battle to prove his manhood, selfishly desiring the plunders of war regardless of the hardships that armed conflict spreads across the land. So many young men before him had run to the line of battle, directly into a skirmish, feeling as if they were invincible because their cause was just. On the battleground, lucky amulets, blessed by shamans, adorned their bodies, jingling from their clothes or tinkling from around their necks and wrists as they ran into danger, screaming their passionate cries of war, thinking and truly believing that they possessed magic that could control the outcome of events and ensure their bravery in battle. They never understood that they were not running toward glory, into the arms of victory, but that they were actually running to their demise, into the eternal embrace of death’s cold arms. Beyond the lake, Aton thought that his future, his manhood, was waiting on a battlefield, but of all the things that his clever mind had comprehended, the one thing he still did not understand was that war only brings misery, heartache, and death.

  What was there, behind the immense and uncharted belt of forest that extended around the lake and beyond? Were the stories of gold, silver, and jewels true? Because of these thoughts, Aton occasionally left the boat, and walking half a day into the forest, reached a location from where, resting on the ground, he watched vessels making slow progress by the use of oars, and some being drawn with ropes by gangs of men or horses on the shore. Except for a few cottages where the owners of the horses lived, there was not a town for at least half a day’s walk from there. Under the shade of tall trees, he would occasionally nap and always dreamed about what waited for him on the other side of the lake. He would be the bravest warrior; the richest warlords would seek his inventions, and he would return home wealthy from the plunder of war. Under the dense tree canopy, he would occasionally nap and always dreamed about what waited for him on the other side of the lake.

  Aton worked on, slowly building his boat. The days passed, and the boat was nearly finished. In a day or two, he would launch it, and soon afterwards, he would begin his voyage. First, he would see Esina once more, at the annual spring festival. He would see her, but he would not say goodbye. She would not know that he was going away until after he had actually departed.

  When the boat was finished, Briand came to help him launch it, and they rolled it on logs down to the place where the stream formed a pool. When it was on the water, as Briand had predicted, it did not appear as buoyant as it should. It was a crude boat and very ugly, too. Briand made a few offhand comments. He also added insult to Aton’s injury when he said, “I told you so,” a few times. Aton was so angry that he did not listen to anything Briand was saying. He walked back to the spot where he had worked for so many months, sat down and turned away from the water. His mind wandered away and he began to brood over the pattern of unfortunate incidents that had preceded today as they had all his life. It was not so much the actual circumstances that depressed him, but that these conditions seemed to have accumulated and this comparatively little annoyance was the tipping point for all his frustrations. In a fit of anger, he wadded the parchment that he had used to illustrate the boat’s design and threw it onto the water.

  Briand had followed him back to the construction site and sat on a pile of wood chips next to his cousin. He offered to get into the boat to prove it would work, but Aton, in his depressed mood, would not answer him. Briand returned to the pool and after getting into the boat, rowed it up and down the stream. It floated better than it looked. Upon his return, he tried to convince his cousin that it floated perfectly well. Who would see him in it anyway? He pleaded with Aton that the boat’s appearance did not matter, but the attempt was useless. Although it worked perfectly well, it was just not the boat that Aton had intended it to be. It did not come up to his standard of perfection. Briand was annoyed at Aton's silence, so he left him to sulk alone. They said nothing about it to each other until days later.

  Aton did not go near the spot where he had worked so hard and so long, but at the end of the week, Briand could not stand to see his cousin in a continual state of depression. He took a family servant with him to look at the boat and determine whether there were any cosmetic adjustments that he could make to it. This meant that the boat was no longer a secret. They pushed it off the riverbank and floated it a short distance downstream, rowed it near the shore past a fallen tree, and then, with a rope, towed it back again. The boat was a good one, and functioned perfectly well. Although Briand repeatedly tried to talk with Aton about the vessel, Aton was stubborn. He would listen to nothing and not only refused to talk about it, he did not intend to return to the worksite.

  The days came and went, and still Aton had not changed his opinion of the boat. He had effectively abandoned it, but he had not abandoned the forest. Desiring to continue brooding in solitude, Aton wandered aimlessly in the woods, until one day he found himself on the path that led to a bay of the lake. Wandering to the shore of the lake, he sat down and watched a vessel slowly sailing in the distance with the west wind. The thought occurred to him that with the addition of a sail he could venture much farther away from land. A sail might extend the distance of his voyage, helping him return home that much quicker, and he would not need to rely so much on the hard work of rowing. This realization invigorated him. He returned, and at once resumed work on the boat. Briand, finding that Aton was busy again, came to him and insisted on being allowed to help. With Briand’s assistance, the work progressed rapidly. Briand used the tools so skillfully that he accomplished more in a morning than Aton could in a day.

  They attached a mast, which was about the same height as the boat was long and made from the trunk of an
oak sapling. The sail, made of canvas, was not very high, but was wide in order to catch the shifting winds. As constructed, it was not well suited for running straight with the breeze, but it was for tacking against it.

  Briand was pleased with the appearance of the boat and tried to convince Aton of the same. He was so pleased that, now and then, he would announce his intention of accompanying Aton on his voyage. Briand’s enthusiasm for distant adventure soon waned after a visit to a nearby village and a glance at the pretty smile of another woman he had yet to add to his conquests. His resolution changed, but he remained indecisive, at one time openly criticizing himself for enduring such a life of inaction and disgrace and, at another, ridiculing Aton and his adventurous aspirations. Over the next few weeks, they made the final adjustments. The boat was ready for them to take to the lake.

  The original plan was to put it on a cart, but the shoddy wagons used in their enclosure could not carry it, so they used a sled. Several times during the journey through the forest, they had to stop the horses and cut the undergrowth away so they could pass. Closer to the lake, near the end of the journey, they had to fill a marshy area with fallen tree branches and bundles of shrubbery to make a path over the mud. Those delays kept them from reaching the shore until it was evening.

  It was a little inlet, but adequate to launch a boat. They left the boat there with three slaves that they ordered to build a hut and protect the vessel. Aton sent supplies the next day, and in the afternoon, they went back. They launched the boat and went for a trial voyage. With a stiff wind, they skimmed swiftly across the water, keeping close to the shore because neither man considered himself a true sailor. A careful observation of their eyes, constantly and quickly shifting to the seams between the long curved planks that shaped the hull, revealed their secret trepidations. Each man wondered to himself if the combination of pine tar and beeswax, which Aton had used to caulk the seams, would hold true and keep the boat from leaking. It did, so they tested the craft by tacking the boat against the wind, and went farther from the shore to do so. The boat responded perfectly, and Aton was finally satisfied. He ordered the servants to bring dried food and a supply of arrows to the hut.