by David Bell
“What did I tell you? Best time of the day to see it all. Now, swallow a cup of this wine. It’ll warm you like the sun going down into the sea.” Merida signalled for the wine to be poured. “How do you find it?”
“It is from the mountains where sometimes the grape hangs on the vine until it freezes and the small amount of wine that can be made is very sweet. And sometimes the dried grape of one year is put with certain herbs into the juice of the next to add yet more sweetness. And so the wine can be carried far without souring.”
“Great Diwonis, you know this wine!” exclaimed Merida. “And do you know the mountains where it is made? I bargained for this wine in Gubal, and paid too much, unlike me, but you, where have you found this wine? In Gubal, no, in Ugarit, there was a man who wore a tunic like yours. He had a beard. Where…?”
Kanesh cut him short. “I have travelled. Wine is always to be found and often should be left where it is found. Sellers of wine are like fishermen in the fine stories they tell of their goods.” He suddenly sounded bored. “Your hall is very fine: I should welcome the chance to see it again before the light is all gone. I am told you are a man with a taste for painting. I expect you have plans… plans for the hall, that is.”
In spite of himself, Merida felt flattered. Very few men could turn him away from things he wanted to find out, but, well, he was proud of the hall and this man who seemed to know so much had noticed its quality, hadn’t he? He had travelled, he said, and his bearing spoke of authority. Not that authority meant all that much: it could usually be handled if the payments were right. But this man didn’t look like that sort. He had travelled. There was that rumour about him being an ambassador shipwrecked on his way to important negotiations at the Palace. Until things were clearer it would be better to be a little bit careful, and talk about other things, the paintings, perhaps. And then, later, bring up the other plans, if things seemed to be going all right.
In the hall the young man Merida called his cupbearer was lighting beeswax lamps on the tall holders that stood between the alcoves with a burning splinter of aromatic wood. Twilight coming through the windows blended with the glow from the lamps and the shadows cast made the room seem even larger. They sat on stools around a brazier of glowing charcoal and warmed their hands. There was a faint but delicious scent of spiced food cooking somewhere. Dareka began to feel a little drowsy from the wine and the perfume from a brown powder the cupbearer had sprinkled on the coals. The voices of Kanesh and Merida seemed to come from far away.
“The house is new but the swallows are already nesting here. I have also heard the dove. You have built a dovecote for the house? Has your artist a hand for birds?”
“He is the master who painted the rooms of what the townspeople call Little Labyrinth on the side of the square opposite my house there. The joke is that it has as many rooms as the Palace and just as hard to find your way around in them. The swallow brings the sun, my mother used to say. Potyr carries doves on the ship to send a message ahead of him, or to the Mistress, Posedeia, to ask for safety on the voyage.”
“Then the swallows of your house and your ship’s doves must be painted on your walls.” Silence fell. Dareka’s eyes were closed. Kanesh stared into the brazier where the charcoal was now dull and flecked with white ash. He picked up a thick reed that was lying on the floor and blew soft short breaths through the tube into the brazier. The coals glowed red again and pale blue flames flickered over them. Merida sat with his head on one side, looking at the floor and making faint whistling sounds, softly through pursed lips.
Kanesh said, almost in a whisper, “Your other plans, Merida, how do they concern me?” Merida stiffened, shot him a startled glance, and then relaxed.
“Ha, has Dareka been talking to you? Wake up, Dareka, what have you been saying to our friend here?”
“He has said nothing, but you have said a great deal while talking, or thinking, of other things.”
Merida looked at him appraisingly. “You have travelled, you say. I don’t doubt that. I know the signs. Why does a man like you travel – for war, for curiosity, on the secret orders of a king? Or is it because he can’t go back to his own land? Now, when I travel, everyone knows why. I trade. I see strange places; I buy and sell rare and precious things for rich and powerful people; I haggle and I never lose; I see what’s new and I use what I see, and some things I do I can’t speak of. I crave all these things, and more, but while I travel, not one day passes when I don’t think of coming back, to Keftiu, to Kallista. But you, no, you don’t speak of going back. Yet there was some slight sadness in your voice when you spoke of the mountains where the sweet wine is made. Now your travels have brought you here.”
“The storm brought me here.”
“And here you must stay – don’t look at me like that – until you can put this away, I mean.” Merida pointed with his foot at the crutch that lay beside Kanesh’s stool. “And then your travels will begin again?”
“That may be. But first I have debts to pay here.”
“I see a way in which you can do both.”
“I see that we have come to the plans, at last. I owe you no debt, Merida, save thanks for the wine and the warmth of this brazier.”
“And a thought, a memory, of distant mountains? No matter, we can talk of those another time. Listen to my idea. My ship is being repaired. You know this because the boys have told you how they helped to beach her. I need her to sail for Keftiu as soon as she is ready. They’re waiting for important cargo that I have in store here. That’s not all. Potyr, he’s the ship’s master and a man I would trust with my wife or my wine on a long voyage, Potyr is taking my instructions to the shipyard to do other work on the ship, but, more important… here, you tell him, Dareka, he’ll believe you.”
“A new ship, we are building a new ship, new design, bigger, faster, longer range than any other in the fleet. A master shipwright from Gubal is on his way to Keftiu, may already be there, to take charge of the work.”
“Naudok of Gubal,” said Kanesh. “Some say he lacks respect for the old ways and has too sharp a tongue. He has made enemies in Gubal. He will be glad of work in Keftiu.”
The others looked at him in astonishment. “How do you know of Naudok?” said Merida.
“I hear things on my travels; like you. What has this to do with me?”
“Making certain that all goes as it should with the work starting on the ships will leave Potyr no time for the other matters, important matters.”
“And they are?”
“Diplomatic. With ships like this we can land two cargoes where we brought in one before, so, more tax takings for the Palace. And they’ll be fast enough to outrun pirates, or, if they’re armed, and they can be, take them on and beat them. There’s a warship in this design if they can only be made to see it and we’re going to need them if things I’m beginning to hear come about. The Palace has a lot of say in the supply of timber and rope and bronze and we need these fast and lots of them, so they have to be brought round to deciding we get what we need without trouble from others. Then there’s the guilds: the shipbuilders and other owners, I mean. We’re bringing in men from somewhere else and they’ll not like that. Not until someone explains to them how they’ll do very well themselves in the long run from learning how to build better ships, and corner more of the trade on these seas: someone who knows the ways of those in high positions, someone with the power of words.”
“Your words would sound well in the ears of a tax collector or a shopkeeper interested in small gains. Those in what you call high positions see only those matters that threaten to weaken their control as worth their attention. They must be shown that such a danger exists.”
“Then listen to this,” said Merida who then repeated what he had said to Dareka about the growing scarcity of tin, and went on almost feverishly in great detail about how the supply of bronze would suffer, and what this would mean for all trades and crafts and the prosperity of everyone, not least tho
se in high positions. Bronze, and bronze making in Keftiu was at the core of everything they did.
“With this you may be halfway to changing someone’s mind. But you need more. You must offer a way out of the difficulty which will increase yet more the power of those who decide.”
“All right. What about this: I have been told of other lands where there is tin: lands where men of Keftiu have never been, but could go. If they had a ship that could sail there.”
For the first time Kanesh gave Merida a look of something like admiration. “You want them to think you can ensure the supply of tin? They can be persuaded of the chance, but they will suspect that you will try to control that trade. You will not get that control, but I think you will get your ship. There are certain people who must be convinced because they are the ones who will decide this.”
“And who are they?”
“The commanders. Without bronze for their armour and their weapons they lose their power and they will do anything to prevent that. Of course, they disdain trade, or at least make a show of doing so.”
“Then our envoy must be one who can speak in ways that the military men understand,” said Dareka.
“Campaigning, hunting, horses, iron, these are the sort of things they are interested in,” said Kanesh. Then as if regretting he may have revealed something he preferred to keep secret, he went on quickly, “Merida, all this talk has passed the time in an agreeable way, and my thanks for that, but again I say, how do these matters concern me and my debt, which is not to you?”
“Sharesh is to make his first visit to Keftiu. It is for his education. A boy of his age soaks up everything he sees and hears. He must see the Palace and the docks and the shipyard and the processions and the markets and workshops. He is learning the script. He can make some lists of the things he sees and show them to us when he comes back to Kallista. I cannot go; this house, my business with the Governor, I have too much to do. Dareka has his work here; other ships due to arrive. So, Sharesh needs a guardian. Someone who is known to him. A man who can be trusted.”
“I made a promise to him.”
“Now you can fulfil it, and pay the debt to him and to Dareka and the lady Akusha.”
“And travelling in your service is the price to pay. And the lady Akusha?”
“She said that you would be his guardian,” said Dareka.
“Who can gainsay the lady, eh, Dareka? The ship will sail at the full moon. Enough time for me to walk again without this.” He prodded the crutch with his toe. “The smell of that food is like a call to arms. I know you have let it tantalise us so to hurry matters along, Merida; now feed us or I will break this wood over your head.”
“Come through to this other room; the women are ready to serve us and there is a boy who will play his pipes. This way, my friend.”
As the two of them made their way towards the dining room, Dareka, walking behind them, heard Merida saying, “Oh, I should have said that you will return on another ship, er, with my wife. Now what were you saying about horses? I have been thinking; the new ship perhaps could carry horses here from Keftiu, or Gubal. Iron, you said. I heard talk of that in Kinaani. What is it? Dareka tells me that Dorejo is fussing about the Governor wanting to see you. Take no notice of him — no, you wouldn’t would you? — I’ll have a word with the Governor, the lord Koreta. I have something for him that he always likes, from Gubal.”
***
Sharesh lay awake, hardly daring to think about what Dareka had told him. If he whispered the word ‘Keftiu” he would wake up and it would all be a dream. Had Dareka really said he would be sailing on the ship bound for Keftiu after she had been mended and hauled off the beach where he and Namun had helped get her ashore? And Namun would be going too. His mind was in a whirl. Would they see sea monsters? What if there was a storm, like the one that sank Kanesh’s ship? And Kanesh was to go with him; would he take the sword they called a brand? Would he be seasick? Namun said everyone was seasick, except Potyr and Typhis. They would see the Palace and the markets and all the ships from all over the world. Dareka had said something about a new ship being built but he couldn’t remember any more about it. Now he’d been told he had to work hard at his script or he wouldn’t be allowed to go: Dareka hadn’t been smiling when he said that, had he? Better do what he said, just in case; and the master Merida wanted him to make lists for when he was there; why was that, lists of what sort of things? So many things to think about, but if you think about them too much would they really happen?
Bright moonlight shining through his window changed the shapes of things in the room and drained all the colours away. The carving of the Lady with the snakes that his mother had given him stood on the windowsill where he always put Her for protection at night. With the moon and night sky behind She loomed black and huge. He looked away quickly and saw a ragged humpbacked dark shape climbing the wall across the room. When he sat up in fright it turned into his old cloak hanging on its peg. The sleepy dog lying over his feet groaned in protest. They said if you slept with the moon shining on your face you went mad. Or was that only the full moon? Full moon was when they would make sail for Keftiu. Now wide awake, he got to his feet and, leaving the dog settling comfortably back into the covers, he went out quietly and tiptoed along the corridor which led past the kitchen and storerooms towards the courtyard. He heard voices outside. Through the open doorway he could see his mother in her long gown standing in the moonlight. She spoke softly to someone whom he could not see in the shadow of the overhanging vine, but he recognised the deep voice of Kanesh when the invisible figure replied. At first both spoke in the words he could not understand but then his mother said in the language of Kallista,
“He must see the sacred bulls in the procession as they lead them to the Palace.”
“Piebald playthings, docile as cows from eating the weed mixed with their fodder, ready for the games but not for slaughter.”
“The finest is offered for sacrifice; its blood runs from the altar. He should see this.”
“And the rest killed and jointed for Palace banqueting my lady. He should see bulls in the wild, how they fight for the herd, fight like the bulls of Hattusa. On a breeding farm in the mountains on Keftiu he may see such a bull before it’s tamed for the sport.”
“Keep him close, Kanesh, when you are there. The old practices are behind us but in remote places there are still those who twist the rite and sacrifice a child in different ways.”
“He will be as safe with me as if…”
“As if what? As if he were –”
“Do not say it. As if he were the king’s son was my meaning.”
“And a king’s son is always safe, my Lord, is he?”
“It will be my duty to show your son all the ceremony and ritual that you require, my lady, but I will find time also for him to see how the shipwrights and the smiths use their skills, and how the hunters train their dogs and stallholders price their goods in the market as well as the merchants in their counting houses.”
Sharesh heard his mother give a little laugh.
“I should have thought nothing less of you. He will learn much, but help him build belief that learning is not only seeing.”
They spoke a little while longer but again in the other words, and then Akusha turned towards the doorway where Sharesh shrank back into the shadows. He crept through the corridor to his own room, climbed onto his cot and pulled the covers and the dog close to him. So much more to think of now. He fell asleep wondering at how his mother had said ‘my Lord’ to Kanesh: what did she mean by that?
She looked down at the sleeping boy. Twelve springs ago she had first held him to her breast on Keftiu. Spring was the proper time for him to return to his birthplace. It was the time of new beginnings. She stepped to the window and looked upwards to the moon now halfway to the full. The Mother was there, too, turning the times of women. Her own time, her own name, came with the full moon. She closed her eyes and let the soft light bathe her face, a
nd no prayers were needed.