Kallista

by David Bell

  “You mean he cannot outrun us?” said the commander.

  “Not that; the wind by then will be rising and he will be struck by the squalls that make the Kapros strait a graveyard for ships. If he has the fortune to weather the strait he will seek shelter on the windward side of Kestera and there our other vessel will be waiting for him.”

  “Then he cannot escape us,” said the commander.

  “If the Lady Mother favours us, he cannot,” said Potyr simply.

  The commander spoke to his second in command. “Give the orders: send men out to bring back the boys; all hands to stay aboard and rest; we sail at midnight; inform our sister ship’s captain.”

  “Commander,” said Kanesh, “if and when we sight that pirate off Kestera, I suggest you order your crew to slacken discipline and row like a cargo ship. A little deception might lure our prey too close for his own comfort.”

  A high-riding moon at midnight saw the two warships slip safely out of the cove and make for the open sea. With the Sailors’ Star aloft close on the starboard bow they trod the glittering path the moon spread out before them across the black water towards the shores of Kestera. The Hunter should have been with us, thought Kanesh, smiling to himself, but as it is we have the Charioteer. Good companions to have at such a time? At least one of them is showing us the way.

  Sharesh and Typhis walked on either side of Lady Pasipha’s chair as she was carried along the paved road towards the Palace. She chatted easily of what lay in store for them as they went along.

  “I hope you will find interest in the dancing and the music, master helmsman. I take some part in the instruction of the performers. They say I have a certain gift for technique. Quite what that means I cannot say but I do know when something does not fit. The stories are for the younger people, of course, but some of them tell of the sea, as you might expect. After the stories, they play a game that need not concern you. It would be a time to take some food and drink a little wine, before you return to your lodging. Ah, we have arrived. Thank you, that is very gracious of you. I will precede you to tell of your coming. A steward will show you to your places.”

  They were led into a long cool chamber with a high ceiling half open to the evening sky and wide windows looking out onto an inner paved courtyard where a fountain played into a stone basin. On the wall panels between the windows were paintings of wild animals and birds, a stealthy panther and a nervous gazelle, swallows swooping, and doves perched on the branches of an olive tree. Standing on a wooden platform so that he could reach high up on the wall was the painter, slowly and carefully painting a frieze of blue spirals between red lines. The sound of their footsteps caused him to turn and look down at them. He lifted his brush in recognition when he saw Sharesh and nodded his head meaningly in the direction of a far corner of the hall. Sharesh glanced across and saw Namun placing the last of a sheaf of long reeds in a tall vase before slipping away through the doorway at the end of the chamber.

  They walked through the same doorway and down a flight of broad marble steps into the sunken part of a wide room that had tiers of stone benches on two sides and another flight of steps opposite. Flat woollen cushions were scatterd on the benches and the room was lit with the soft light of beeswax lamps on tall tripods. The steward indicated with his wand that they might sit where they chose on one of the benches. Typhis marched across the floor, stepped up the benches and strode to a window to look out. Sharesh sat down on one of the front benches and looked upwards at the painted ceiling. Figures holding hands formed circles in what seemed to be a grove of trees. Men and women, or boys and girls, he could not be sure, but they were dancing, that was clear, and each circle was dancing round a bull. Or was it a man wearing a bull mask?

  Boys and girls, mostly of Sharesh’s age, appeared in the far doorway and were ushered into their seats on the benches by several matrons wearing ankle-length flounced yellow gowns and with their hair swept back from their brows into elaborately coiled ringlets flowing down their backs. Each child was dressed in a white shift caught in at the waist with a girdle of plaited green rushes and wore a silver crescent neck pendant. Chattering in whispers they took their seats and looked expectantly around them. Some of them, catching sight of Sharesh, pointed and giggled until quietened by the women. Sharesh felt conspicuous in the blue tunic and leather belt that Leilia had given him to wear until Typhis whispered in his ear that he looked more grown up than a crowd of kids just out of the bathtub. Of course, Typhis whispering was like a gale blowing througn a forest, and the children thought it better to turn their attention elsewhere.

  A pipe began to play somewhere, its notes echoing as if they came out of a long corridor or a cave, and a line of dancers filed into the room. They were all young girls, barefoot, and wearing loose green dresses with white sashes round the waist. They stood in a row facing the audience, their faces expressionless. The notes of the pipe faded away into silence and still the dancers stood motionless. Music of a different kind began to play and Sharesh felt his heart jump as he recognised the sound of the instrument his mother sometimes played when she sat in the courtyard at home, and had played to help him go to sleep when he was very small. He closed his eyes and could see her with the harp shaped like the sacred horns resting lightly on her lap as she plucked the strings with her fingertips. It was made of the wood of the olive tree covered with shiny brown and yellow striped scales that she told him came from the shell of a sea turtle. He heard a peal of laughter and opened his eyes. The dancers were moving quickly in a circle, leaping and skipping and throwing their arms joyfully in the air. The children in the audience began to clap and sway in motion to the dancers’ movements. The circle dissolved into two rows of dancers facing and prancing towards each other, at the last moment seeming to merge but slipping past to the edge of the floor, then turning to repeat the measure, again and again, until the audience could see nothing but a whirl of green and white shapes.

  The music slowed and the circle formed again, then opened to form a crescent. The leading dancer stepped daintily towards the front bench with her hand held out towards one of the sitting children. He stood up and she led him into the crescent which then reformed as a circle turning slowly round the dancer and the boy who stood in the centre, hand in hand. After the circle had made a complete turn, a dancer left it and moved towards the pair in the centre, took the boy’s hand and led him back to the circle where he joined the other dancers. Again the circle opened into a crescent and the leading dancer approached another boy in the audience and drew him back to the dance. All the while the harp sounded its rich echoing notes. Eventually five boys had been led into the dance and the crescent opened for what might, from a change in the music to a more stately rhythm, be the last time. Sharesh found the dancer standing before him with her hand outstretched. It was Kallia. He felt he could not move from his seat but she drew him gently into the crescent and he saw the lights of the lamps passing in front of his eyes as he turned slowly round, holding her hand, while the circling dancers wove their measure round them. But this time when the dancer left the circle and came towards him she did not take him to join the others. She held something in her hands that she passed to Kallia. The lights dimmed and shadows played on the walls. Kallia turned to Sharesh with the bull mask in her hands, raised it and placed it over his head. It was a hood of a rich thick cloth with horns of woven straw and holes for his eyes to see through. He did not feel the least fear. She took both of his hands and they twirled slowly in a circle in one direction while the dancers paced round them in the opposite way, gradually closing in on the two of them. When the last note sounded from the harp, Sharesh was standing with Kallia while the dancers knelt in a group around them. After a long silence when no one in the audience knew what to do, a girl started to clap and soon every one was doing the same and shrieking in delight. Sharesh lifted the mask from his head and offered it to Kallia. She took it, and slipped out of the room with the other dancers, leaving Sharesh surprised wit
h himself for not feeling foolish by what he had been persuaded to do with others watching him, but also feeling it had not all been just a game as the Lady Pasipha had said the dances would be.

  It was now dark outside and the lamps were turned up. The musicians entered, two pipe players and the harpist. They played some happy catchy little tunes and the children clapped their hands and tapped their feet to the music. Sharesh looked round to see where Typhis had got to and saw him sitting in a chair by the window with his head on his chest, seemingly fast asleep. The music ended with a flourish at the end of a fast tune that had the children jumping up and down in so much excitement that they did not notice the players leave the room taking their instruments with them. A table and a stool were put in the place where they had been playing. Eventually the matrons looking after the children managed to hush them into silence and promise them there was another treat to come if they would only be quiet and behave.

  An old man with white hair and dressed in what looked like a sack with armholes shuffled through the far doorway and made his way slowly across the room towards the table. In one hand he was carrying a lamp. He placed this on the table and sat down wearily on the stool. His back was bent and he looked as if all he wanted to do was sleep. He lifted one skinny arm and most of the lamps on the tall tripods were turned down leaving the room almost in darkness. The old man fumbled with something he drew out of his shabby tunic. Sharesh heard a sharp cracking sound, and another, and saw sparks fly from the old man’s hands. The sparks caught light in a little curl of tinder and a tiny flame glowed. The old man’s lips pursed as he gently blew the flame high enough to light a teased-out end of cord into a little torch to light his lamp. The lamp burned brightly, shining on his face. He looked up and smiled in surprise as if he had just seen his audience for the first time. In the glow of the lamp the lines of age were smoothed away and his face was young and alert and his eyes were bright.

  “Listen,” he said in a deep clear voice. “Listen. Long ago, in a time even before I was born, a ship came out of a storm and landed on these shores. And in that ship not a man was found, not a captain, not a helmsman, not a man of the crew. It had a sail and it had oars but there was not a man in that ship to work them. But there was something in that ship that was alive. In that ship there was a great white bull with horns of gold. And he came ashore and he stalked about this land as proud as proud. Where had he come from, and why had he come here in that ship? Listen, and I will tell you.”

  The children sat fascinated and open mouthed as the old storyteller told them of sacred bulls, and giants, and heroes; and great fish and monsters that roamed the oceans; and how fire came out of the sea and how the ground shook when the Lord Potheidan grew angry; and why the flowers bloomed and the corn grew; and where swallows came from and why the Lady Mother caused snakes to live; and who had built the great Palace with all its rooms and halls and corridors and fountains; and many, many more stories until every child had heard a story that he or she loved, and told themselves time and time again, until the day they died. Sharesh had never heard such wonderful stories. He could see every picture that the storyteller’s words seemed to paint. But just as wonderful was that Kallia was sitting where he could see her across the room.

  The storyteller’s voice stilled. He picked up his lamp and blew out the flame. He shuffled away into the darkness, an old man in a shabby sack of a coat, but an old man with all the riches of the world in his head and on his tongue.

  The stories had held them all in such a spell, that no one had heard her come into the room, not even Typhis.

  “Now for some honey cakes,” said Pasipha. “Then we can play the game. You will like this wine, master helmsman. Let me pour some for you.”

  “Land ahead!” called the lookout on the leading warship.

  The sky behind them was flushed with the first pink light of the rising sun, enough for them to see that they were on course for the vague dark peak of a distant headland.

  “We shall be standing off that cape when the sun lifts,” said Potyr. “These men row well.” Dawn came like liquid gold running along the horizon astern of the two ships. They were now close to the cape of Kestera. The commander gave the order for a change of course to larboard giving the ship a heading for the windward coast of the island. The second warship turned starboard and the gap between the two quickly widened. Kanesh saw the commander of the other ship standing on her bow give a single wave of his arm, whether a signal of orders acknowledged, or signal of farewell, who could say? Soon afterwards they had pulled into the lee of Kestera and the commander ordered half speed ahead. The ship began a relatively leisurely progress along a jagged coast of inlets and headlands. Potyr had recommended they lie in wait in a small bay close to the far cape of the island where they would have sight of the strait, through which they hoped the pirate ship would attempt to escape from their companion, and be close enough to his likely course for them to make a surprise interception. By mid morning they were in position with only two light anchors holding the ship steady. The commander sent three men to climb up the steep seaward slope of a peak from the top of which they should have a clear view of what was happning on the other side of the island. Their orders were to get back to the ship as fast as they could leap down the slope once they were sure that the pirate ship was heading for the strait. Everything was made ready: grappling hooks, javelins, bows and arrows, swords as sharp as the armourers could make them. Now was the worst time: the time of waiting. Potyr looked up at the sky. The morning was warm and the archers lay dozing on the bow deck, weapons at their sides. The crew was stood down to rest but no one was allowed off the ship. Potyr pointed upwards towards the peak and, following his sign, Kanesh saw a thin whisp of white cloud high in the sky. As he watched, the cloud grew longer and was soon joined by others, all streaming over them from the leeward side.

  “The Lady Mother is sending the wind we wanted,” said Potyr quietly.

  On the other warship they were beginning to feel the effects of the wind as the sea grew choppy and the helmsman had to strain hard on his loom to keep the ship standing well clear of the shore. They had almost crossed a large bay and were heading to seaward of a headland with two small islands lying off it, when the bow lookout sang out:

  “Ship in sight on the larboard bow, and coming on!”

  From his position outside the stern cabin the captain saw a small ship making its way through the passage between the two islands and the headland. He gave the command to slacken speed and splash oars and stagger their course in the hope that they might be taken for a cargo ship on its way to the strait.

  “Looks like a Melluon stone trader; twelve oars; short mast; cabin well astern. That’s her all right,” said the captain to his second in command. “Steady as you go; get as close as you can to her.”

  They were no more than ten ship lengths apart, close enough for the captain to see some men in the other ship with coils of rope in their hands and others holding javelins, when the pirate commander must have realised he had been deceived. His shout for a change of course came faintly across the water and his ship swung violently round with the starboard oars stopped and the larboard rowers pulling as hard as they could go. It was too late. The warship sprang from wallowing and splashing into smooth pursuit and quickly drew close. A few more strokes and she would have been close enough for the grappling hooks to be thrown, when suddenly some bundles were thrown overboard form the pirate and splashed into the sea.

  “Men overboard!” called the lookout.

  “Not men, sir: look at their arms waving. Great Potheidan, they’ve thrown the women overboard!” shouted the second in command. “What do we do?”

  “Stop oars; get close, careful now, larboard side ship oars, and get ready to fish them out. Men to stand by with hooks, best swimmers ready to go in if they have to.”

  “He’ll get away, sir.”

  “From us he might, but not from the wind that’s getting up and not from our frie
nds on the other side. We’ll be after him as soon as we have these poor girls on board. Get a move on, there.”

  By the time the three shivering, terrified women had been lifted on board and taken down into the hold, the pirate vessel had reached a point off the headland midway between the two small islands. The warship set off in hot pursuit and with forty oars to her twelve soon began to overhaul the smaller ship. They rounded the headland to find a long straight coastline stretching into the distance beyond them towards the strait. Another small island lay offshore not far ahead and the pirate ship was making for the narrow passage between this and the coast. The wind was now blowing with enough force to tip the waves with white foam.

  “He’ll not get through there in this weather,” said the second in command. “He’ll run aground. Steer to seaward of the island, sir?”

  “He’s not trying to get away,” replied the captain. “His mother ship must be somewhere near that island. He’s trying to join her. Yes, steer to seaward.”

  The captain had barely finished speaking when the bow lookout cried, “Island ahead! Ship’s mast in sight.”

  “There’s our real quarry, and he’s lost all right,” exclaimed the captain. “He won’t fight us now we have him on a lee shore. Get me clear of that island so he can see us and then we’ll let him go.”