by David Bell
“Good enough,” said Potyr. “Most of them are from here; been with us a long time. Only two jumped ship, one in Gubal, one in Ugarit and he was stabbed in a fight over some woman. They will stay true.”
Merida asked a few more questions about the ship and the cargo and then fell silent, looking down at the table. The air was still and the muted sound of voices from the terraces opposite was like the distant hum of insects. Potyr’s eyes were closed but Dareka knew he was not asleep. Afternoon languor began to make his own eyelids droop: it had been an early start to the day and the sun was hot now. His thoughts strayed from details of oil jars and copper ingots to memories of Keftiu and its mountains and busy harbours, and the Palace with its halls and temples rising in tiered rows from broad paved terraces, its great staircases and colonnades of rose-painted tapering cedar columns, all set about with gardens where cypress, pomegranate and tamarisk grew among the beds of caper, cyclamen and poppy. It was where first he saw Akusha and thought she was beautiful like Kallista but more so and more mysterious. She was not of Keftiu. How had she come there? She was one of those who served the Lady and the priestesses of the Lady but she had learned the rite in another place, she told him, of which he should not ask. Akusha was not of Keftiu. Kanesh was not of Kefiu. When they spoke to each other on the beach where Kanesh was washed ashore they used words he could not understand.
Merida’s voice cut through these thoughts. “All right. Beach her tomorrow. Do what you can with the carpenters here, enough to make her seaworthy for the crossing to Keftiu. Typhis can have his new oar. I must get the copper and tin to Keftiu, and the ebony and amber and the resins you’ve been storing here. The prices will be high, what with all the trouble getting things through to the coast; thieves all along the roads, most of them the local chieftains, not to mention the pirates once you’ve put to sea. How long before she can be ready? Not till full moon? Great Potheidan! I’ll deal with those carpenters. Plenty of ready finished timber was washed up from that wreck I was told. Dareka, find out who has it and buy it. We have to ship that cargo to Keftiu before anyone else gets there and the price drops. She can go to the repair yard after that.”
“Whatever is done to that ship by the Keftiu shipwrights, she can never live through another voyage like the last. Her framing is too old and weak. Repairs in one part make other parts weaker. She is good only for coast work now.”
“Potyr, old shipmate, your words are true, or there’s no salt in the sea. I know that and I have plans. Listen. We get her back to Keftiu, unload and sell the cargo on. After she’s mended she works the coast, as you say, timber, corn, sheep, special stone from the quarries, not too heavy, things like that. We could sell her some day. For longer hauls I can use other holds, or rent a vessel if I have to. Until,” he paused and looked at the other two as a grin spread over his face. “Until the new ship is built. There.”
“So you meant what you said yesterday?” said Dareka. “But building a new ocean-going ship takes time, plans, a place in the shipyard, timber ordered and seasoned, rigging…”
Merida waved a hand to stop him. “It’s all arranged, Dareka, well, most of it. We,” here he glanced at Potyr who nodded solemnly. “We have talked a lot about this and we have been to the yards in Gubal. Did you know they have a new way of building a ship, and better tackle for raising and lowering the sail and the mast than you’ve ever seen? They can build them bigger and faster than anyone anywhere and they know how to make a ship really watertight. That should satisfy you.”
“But that was in Gubal. You cannot be thinking of building a ship there, and in Keftiu they build them differently.”
“Dareka, listen, things are changing. When I was in Gubal I found a master shipwright and I’m paying him to come to Keftiu with some of his carpenters and build on our new ship. The Palace officials will not stand in our way once they know that these new skills will be learned by Keftiu shipwrights. Plans? The Gubal master has them in his head. We had an artist there who drew pictures of what we told him we wanted. I have one you can look at if you like. It’s on a sheet of that stuff, wadij, or something, it’s called; they make from a water plant in the Black Land. We ought to think of making it here, Dareka – it would sell – but I want a proper picture of the ship on the wall in my new house over the Lagoon. Potyr thought the plan would work, didn’t you, Potyr?”
“A plan is a painted ship idle on a painted ocean. A real ship on a real ocean can be very different.”
“Same old Potyr. He’d wonder what the catch was even if a goddess invited him to bed. I know he’s interested. I saw the look on his face in the shipyards at Gubal. Think of being master on that ship, Potyr. You could sail her to the ends of the earth. Now, you haven’t tried this wine yet. If you like it sweeter, here’s the honey, best thyme-flavoured Keftiu. We’ll pour a jar-full over the prow of the new ship when we pray to the Lady Potynia, Mistress of the Ocean, for her blessing on her and all who sail in her.” He looked at Potyr with a straight face as he said this. Dareka wondered if he believed a single word of it.
“That’s settled, then,” said Merida. “About the cargo for Keftiu, what do you think about Sharesh going, Dareka? He’s never been and there’s a lot he could learn and a lot he ought to see, if he’s going to make his way in this work, don’t you agree? You can’t go, and I have to stay here and see about the work on my new house. He’d have a friend in that boy on the ship but there ought to be someone else in charge of him. What about your friend from the shipwreck? They tell me he is on the mend. He owes you a debt. And there’s always Potyr to see that everything is done properly. They shouldn’t be away too long and Potyr will have my warrant to rent a ship for the passage back. After all there will be goods I am ordering to return, and there is my wife who will want to see Kallista again, I suppose. Of course, you will have to persuade the Lady Akusha, but she must surely see what a chance it is for her son? And she knows Keftiu from her younger days, doesn’t she, and has important friends there, still, perhaps?”
Dareka was thinking that Merida had no son, nor was likely to have one. It was well known, but only whispered, that his marriage to the Lady Tuwea was no more than a respectable formality by mutual consent. One day someone, especially someone who had grown up close to Merida and his work, might be chosen as his heir. “I will speak to her,” he said.
“You will? Good. I want to see this stranger from the shipwreck. Tomorrow. Bring him to the new house. I have many questions for him. If he can’t walk yet, we can send a cart for him. Now, I have more things to do than I have hairs in my arse and you must have work at the harbour. We will meet tomorrow in the evening. You get the best view of the Lagoon then.”
Dareka was surprised at how calmly Akusha took the suggestion that Sharesh should make the voyage to Keftiu.
“So soon,” she murmured as if to herself, then aloud to Dareka. “When will they sail and when will they return?”
Dareka explained about the need for repairs to the ship and new equipment that had to be made. The ballast had to be changed and new anchor stones fashioned to replace those lost at sea during the storm. Merida always had orders from Keftiu for Kallista’s fine pottery and delicacies like its spiced wine and salted fish, as well as some more specialised goods, and these had to be bargained for, checked for quality, brought in and packed. The grain they were taking had to be examined for mouse and rat damage; they needed another cat in the warehouse. Then there was the cargo just landed: items from that destined for Keftiu had to be sorted, re-packed. There was so much to do.
Akusha held up her hand, smiling. “When will they sail?”
“Not before the full moon. And the ship’s master will want the sea and the winds to be favourable, so it could be later.”
“The time of the festival. They will sail after the procession. The full moon will bring them the wind they want.”
“There is another matter. This ship will not return. Another is to be chartered for the Lady Tuwea’s voyage b
ack to Kallista. Sharesh will accompany her. There is much to be done on Keftiu before that and it may be they will not sail until a later moon. There is a boy on the ship who has become his friend, but he will need a guardian to keep him safe on Keftiu. I will look for such a man.”
“Kanesh will be his guardian.”
Dareka protested, “We know nothing of this man and besides, he is unable to move from the house.”
“Sharesh found him helpless on the shore. With the Lady’s help we brought him through the fever. You came when he needed your strength. You saw what happened with the sword. This man has said he has a debt to pay. He will guard Sharesh with his own life. He is growing stronger with every day that goes by.”
Dareka recognised that firmness in her voice that he had never felt able to gainsay. He came closer to her, looked deep into her eyes and said, “Then, my love, at least tell me where he is from.”
Her eyes had depths he could not sound. Her face almost touched his but her voice came from a distance, “He will tell you himself, my husband, when he sees fit.”
Later, as they lay together with the soft breeze of evening cooling them, he said, “Merida wishes to see him, tomorrow, at the new house. I am to be there, too. Merida has plans.”
“Kanesh has been expecting this. Merida has plans for everyone: you, Sharesh, Kanesh, perhaps me. Amaia tells me he has put questions to her about Kanesh but of course she told him nothing. Not all of Merida’s plans run the course he seeks.”
Dareka shivered a little. The evening air felt cooler, as if it came from seas far away. He drew the fine linen sheet over their bodies. There was a little time yet before they need go to the terrace for supper.
With Dareka ready to hand, and the help of a stick, Kanesh could now make his way awkwardly down the staircase and stump across to sit under the vines trailing over a framework of laths which covered part of the courtyard. The leaves were just beginning to unfold and throw dappled shade onto the cool alabaster flagstones. From time to time he heaved himself onto his feet and shuffled round leaning heavily on his stick. He treated the little maid who brought him food with such grave politeness that she stood staring at him open-mouthed as he ate until he looked up and smiled, making her run away flustered to tell the cook. Sharesh and Namun came in the afternoon and told him how they had helped to beach the ship. They sat at his feet while he told them stories that held them spellbound or made them yell with laughter, roll about and punch each other. He sent them off with instructions to bring back a special piece of wood, from a carpenter or the ship or out in the fields, wherever they could find it, he said. He showed them the shape, with his forearm upright and his other hand across the top, like a hammer, he said, but with the handle very long, from here, his foot, to here, his shoulder and the top shorter, forearm length. They were back before the sun was halfway down the sky. The ship’s carpenter had cut a mortise in one end of a pole and fitted the crosspiece in snugly, strengthening the joint with a dowel. Kanesh wrapped a band of cloth round the crosspiece and trimmed the end of the shaft with a stone knife they found in the kitchen until it just touched the ground when the crosspiece was under his armpit. “Now I have three legs,” he said. “I will soon walk faster than you,” and he set off round the courtyard bending the knee of his injured leg to hold it off the ground. Long afterwards, Sharesh remembered this was the first lesson he learned from Kanesh.
Dareka came into the courtyard to tell Kanesh it was time to go to meet Merida. “There is a cart waiting at the end of the street.”
“That is the way of a peasant. You see I have a new leg. Since there is no horse, I will walk with you.”
To begin with, along the street, Kanesh moved quite easily, thrusting his crutch firmly onto the paving and swinging his good leg forward, but where the road ended and became a track outside the town the slope was steeper and the surface rougher and his progress became slower and more painful with every step. He had to stop to rest and catch his breath after every few heaves of his body. He accepted water from the skin that Dareka carried but shrugged off any attempt to offer him an arm. As they approached the crest he was stopping to rest after each step, and breathing so painfully that Dareka waved the cart forward, determined to force him to ride, but Kanesh gave him such a black look and raised the crutch as if to strike him that he stepped back and watched him put the crutch to the ground again and lurch forward another step. At last they reached the level ground from where they could see the dark blue ocean both ahead of them and behind. Kanesh slowly lowered himself to sit on a rock. He took the skin offered by Dareka, tilted his head, pressed a jet of the liquid into his mouth, swallowed, frowned and looked up.
“Your sign should be the fox. Not your best wine, but your strongest, to make sure the race is run.”
“Not so. I had no other choice. You drank all the water getting to this place.”
They eyed each other and slowly began first to smile and then to laugh, louder and louder until the carter thought they must surely have eaten bread made with mouldy grain and gone mad.
“Send the carter before us to announce our arrival. I am ready to go on.”
“With the power of Diwonis?”
“If you say so. The vine itself holds my respect. No other plant sends its roots so deep into the earth.”
The house stood on a rise at the end of a roadway of cleared ground on which flat grey stones from a quarry near the shore of the Lagoon were being laid. On each side of the roadway deep holes had been dug and cypress and tamarisk trees planted. In front of the house the road widened into a square paved with the same glistening stone slabs. Broad steps of white limestone led up to an entrance hall with a door frame of cedar that stood out before the ground floor. Above this the house rose to two other levels, the higher set back from the lower. The entrance hall and the floor above had terraces with low surrounding walls reached by stone staircases from each side. Cut stone had been used for the walls of the ground floor and entrance hall and plaster-covered brick with timber framing for the upper floors. Large windows with partly closed shutters pierced the walls facing towards the town. Ladders and scaffold poles at one side of the house showed that work was still in progress on the roof. At the other side a gang of men and boys were chipping a deep drainage channel in the hard red rock, sloping it away from the house. Stone flags were spread along its length ready for laying and sealing to make the drain watertight.
Kanesh and Dareka were standing at the bottom of the steps before the entrance, looking up at the terraces and windows and smelling the raw smell of newly cut stone and drying plaster, when a young man wearing a blue linen kilt edged in yellow and a broad belt around his slim waist appeared in the doorway and bowed to them. He came down the steps as gracefully as a dancer, saluted them again with bowed head and hands pressed together before his chest and said that the master awaited them on the sea terrace, and would they follow him? With a flick of his hand Kanesh gestured to him to lead the way. They passed through several rooms all lit by beeswax lamps, some dazzling white with newly plastered walls and others still with rubble or brick faces waiting to be covered. In one room dishes of plaster gone dry and jars of yellow and green pigments showed that a painter had been at work during the day and thin charcoal lines could be seen setting out the spiral pattern of a frieze he was working on. They could hear the dull sounds of hammering and chopping coming up from workrooms beneath them. The young man stopped once to allow them to catch up and perhaps say something only to receive a sharp prod in the back from Kanesh’s crutch that sent him scurrying along a corridor lined with recesses filled with jars and bowls. This led into a large, airy room with painted wooden pillars supporting a plastered ceiling and alcoves in the walls in which stood tall vases full of flowers. The gold light of early evening flowed through wide windows and a doorway of dark red wood opened onto steps that led down to a broad terrace paved with white limestone squares. Merida was standing with his back to them and one hand on the waist-high
wall that ran round the terrace. He was wearing a white robe with a blue embroidered hem and was looking into the distance. He seemed oblivious of his guests’ arrival. The young man spoke quietly to him and Merida nodded slowly. Dareka started forward but was stopped as Kanesh’s crutch swung across his chest. All four men stood motionless.
Dareka started to speak but the look on Kanesh’s face made him keep silent. It was the look of someone used to being addressed first. Eventually Merida must have sensed something of this because he turned, looked at them and raised a hand in welcome. Kanesh remained standing at the top of the steps, saying nothing, with Dareka, now slightly uneasy, at his side.
At last Merida came across to the steps, and looking up at Kanesh, said, “You’re a man who knows his own mind. I am Merida.”
“I am Kanesh. It is the only mind a man can know but others can be surmised.”
“Find out all you can, then make your mind up quick, that’s my way of doing things. Don’t go on standing up there looking down at me, come over here and tell me what you think. The light’s still good enough to see.”
At a nod from Merida the young man disappeared into the house, returning shortly with an alabaster flask and three cups which he placed on the terrace wall against which the three men were now standing gazing at the view before them. He then withdrew to a discreet distance and stood with his arms folded awaiting further instructions.
The house stood back about a hundred paces from the edge of the cliff that plunged down to the waters of the Lagoon far below. The ground between had been cleared and laid out to gardens. Beyond, across the Lagoon, great red-and-black-striped cliffs rising in places to sharp peaks and rounded hills swept in a vast crescent enclosing the dark blue waters across which the sun, now low in the sky, painted a shimmering golden swathe. To one side in the distance stood the Mountain, its lower slopes green with tamarisk and acacia groves, its summit of bare rocks pale yellow against the hazy light of early evening. The tips of the crescent were separated by a narrow strait that led to the open sea and the way to Keftiu. Stretches of grey scrubland where goats browsed were blotched with the green fields of small farmsteads, and on the shores of the Lagoon thin wisps of smoke wafted up from the fires where fishermen’s wives were cooking or curing the catch. Here and there lights flickered offshore from boats setting out for the night’s work. White patches, one on the higher slopes of the Mountain and another near the crest of a ridge on the other side of the Lagoon, were the walls of places sacred to the same Mistress served by the High Priestess and her women in the Temple on the Hill. A cluster of faint lights on the shoreline below this ridge marked the harbour and houses of Mitoia, the smaller of the two towns on Kallista, and named after the bright red rocks on which it was built. Where the sun was now sinking, the dark peaks of other distant islands were smudges on the horizon half a day’s sail away. High in the sky flights of birds were heading to their roosts before nightfall. Emerging just beyond the middle of the Lagoon, like the spiny back of a sea monster, was Korus, a pile of splintered black blocks and boulders thrusting out claws of jagged shoreline from which the island rose, a dome-shaped hill dusted with red ashes and pocked with shallow pits. In the fading light Dareka watched Korus merge with the growing darkness of the sea, as if the monster were sinking down to its lair at the bottom of the Lagoon. He turned to Kanesh who was also staring at the blackened island and saw him shudder, not in fear, surely; no, with the sudden chill of night air, that must be it.