Kallista

by David Bell

  The diving stone was another of their favourite places. He was a strong swimmer but a poor diver, compared with her and her cousins. They laughed at him and tried to teach him how to make sure his hands went into the water before his knees did. Other boys who belonged to the group all seemed better than he, but he liked the flat rock because she was there and when Kallia dived she was like a seabird, spearing the waves.

  “Don’t sulk,” she said, shaking the water from her hair and looking down at him. “Diving is for show and fun. Swimming is what matters. Look at your dog: she knows that. You can save yourself, and others, by swimming and you swim like a –”

  “A stone anchor,” laughed a voice he had been longing to hear again. “Watch!” and Namun planted his foot on Sharesh’s head and pushed him under. He came up too fast for Namun to step back, grabbed his ankle and dragged him into the sea.

  They all sat on the grass near the hut, letting the sun dry their skin. Kavrar put the basket with its pitchers of pomegranate juce and honeyed cakes down beside them then wandered back up the hillside towards his goats. The faint sound of his pipe came floating down to let them know he was still not too far away. Sharesh listened. He decided one day he would learn to play the pipes. Perhaps Kavrar would show him how. Namun took the leaves off a basket he had brought, revealing freshly grilled crayfish. Sharesh wondered if he were mistaken, or did the girls always seem to cluster round Namun?

  “Back so soon? I had you two days away at least.”

  “You know Potyr; keen to turn her round as fast as he can and this Gubal ship hasn’t the legs of the old Dolphin. The season is drawing on. We’re loading tonight, ready to sail for Telchina at dawn.”

  “I know; I listed the cargo.”

  “There’s a message for you I was told to bring. That’s why I’m here.”

  “You’re here to swim and amuse us,” said Teptria, pouting at him, “and not talk shipping. Race you to the diving rock and back.”

  Namun was first to his feet but she easily beat him to the water’s edge because he still had his sea legs. As he ran, he called over his shoulder:

  “Tonight at dusk. Governor’s Residence. He wants to see you. Without the dog.”

  On their way back to the town Sharesh asked Namun how he had come to know Kallia’s cousins.

  “Oh, on Keftiu somewhere,” was the vague reply. “Potyr and Kanesh send me on all sorts of errands so I meet lots of different people. They came to the shipyard once with their father, so I was told to show them round while the men talked. They wanted to swim, so I took them to the other side of the point where all those tamarisk trees grow, where nobody could see us.” He gave Sharesh a mischievous grin. “Now, what about you, and Kallia?”

  “We like to go to the beach and sit near the fishermens’ hut and talk.”

  “Hm. Teptria and Mara don’t like talking much. But they do like doing other things.”

  “You’d better watch out. If Kavrar catches you…”

  “I’ve had a word with Kavrar. He likes the Keftiu wine, the kind with a bit of poppy syrup you can mix in, and I bring him some now and then. It helps him doze off in the afternoon when we need him to.”

  Sharesh was speechless. Namun gave him the wide-eyed look he assumed when something was obvious to him but not necessarily to anyone else. They reached the slope leading down to the Red Cliffs and stood with the sun hot on their backs, looking down towards the town and harbour. Namun pointed out a ship’s mast and said it belonged to the Gubal ship. Sharesh asked why the mast had not been lowered when she entered the harbour.

  “Saves time on a quick turn round when you want the sail raised as soon as you clear the harbour again. Potyr wants it done like that. We’re in a rush with this voyage. Could be the last this season. Did I tell you what Naudok wants done with the mast on the new ship? It has to be squared off at the heel and fitted snug into a square step so it can’t twist, and the step goes right down to the keel where it’s fastened with pegs and wedges. So the mast will stay up nearly all the time. Naudok said something about better trim for the sail, and braces, but I didn’t understand all of what he said.”

  “What is the ship like now? I wish I could see her again.”

  “After the last cargo of timber came in, they worked on her like devils. The deck is finished now and they are making the rails and stern cabin. There’s lots more to do, caulking, thwarts, oars, all kinds of fitting out but there’s all winter to do that in. Naudok hasn’t told them yet about sails and metalwork, so there’s plenty to do there as well.”

  “Has he done anything about the steering oar? Somebody told me some of the Black Land ships have two, one for each side, like that one we saw at the Blessing of the Ships, but bigger. Typhis must be grinding his teeth.”

  “Naudok hasn’t told anybody yet, not even Potyr, but I looked through the window one night when he didn’t know I was there and I caught a glimpse of some drawings he was looking at. If I’m right in thinking what I saw, and it was only by lamp light, it’s not like anything else, but I’m not saying any more now because if I was wrong you’d laugh your head off.”

  Tika led the way down the slope from the ridge overlooking the town and through the gardens. They parted at the street corner next to Dyer’s House, Namun heading for Ship Street and the harbour, and Sharesh for the narrow stretch of Telchina Street. After the heat of mid afternoon people were beginning to emerge, yawning and stretching, from their doorways and courtyards and make their way towards shops or friends’ houses for the early evening drink and gossip. Namun called back over his shoulder.

  “Have you asked her yet why she left Keftiu and the Palace? You ought to, you know.”

  He disappeared into the shadows of Ship Street before Sharesh could ask him what he meant.

  The only thing to do was to catch him later before the ship sailed.

  EYE OF FIRE

  Sharesh had seen the Governor only once before, a tall man with long white hair and bandaged hands, standing on the steps of the Residence, waiting to greet the High Priestess. The same man now sat before him in a high-backed chair watching him closely, his bandaged hands lying in his lap, the lower part of his face masked with a white silk scarf and one eye covered with a leather patch. He struggled to remember what his mother had told him he must do when he was brought in to the presence of the Governor, the representative of the Palace on Kallista.

  He bowed, holding his hands in the gesture of respect, looked straight at the masked face and said:

  “I am Sharesh, son of, er, son of –”

  “Son of Dareka… perhaps?”

  “Of Dareka, yes, of Dareka.”

  “We have to be sure of these things. Son of the lady Akusha, too, at least we may be sure of that. I am Koreta. I have titles but they need not concern you. They are only names that come with age.”

  Sharesh waited. The eye above the mask was kindly but the glance was keen.

  “Sit down on that chair, Sharesh, and tell me what you saw and what you did on Keftiu.”

  The voice was soft but firm and faintly hoarse, as if coming from a sore throat. Sharesh swallowed hard and his mind went blank. The kindly eye kept looking at him, crinkling from the smile behind the mask. He could think of nothing to say.

  “Your first sight?”

  “Snow! Snow on the mountaintops! Kanesh told me it falls from the sky like feathers and they bring it down to the palaces covered in straw to cool the wine.”

  “Go on.”

  Sharesh poured out his memories of Keftiu: the shipyard and the building of the ship, the horses, the journey to the farm where the sacred bulls were bred, the quarry and the quarryman, the bull leaping, the drought and the storm.

  “The new ship; tell me again about the ship.”

  “She will fly across the waves like a seabird.”

  Koreta opened his eye wide. “You are a poet.”

  Sharesh shifted on his chair and looked sheepish. “Well, it was Kanesh who said that to
Naudok, really.” He went on in a rush. “But it is true; she is beautiful, like a bird resting before she takes flight and I –”

  “Wish to fly with her, wherever she steers her course?”

  The eager look on the boy’s face gave Koreta his answer. He turned his head slowly towards the window. The first stars were beginning to glitter in a purple sky. Lower down, flickering points of yellow light showed where the fishing boats were putting out to sea. Soon the Sailors’ Star would lift high in the sky and he could find the course he wished to follow once more. It was so long before he spoke again that Sharesh wondered if he may have lapsed into sleep, as old people do. Had he been dismissed? Should he creep quietly from the room?

  “There is more, Sharesh, is that not so? More that took place in the Palace; tell me of that.” He hesitated. There were things he had seen and done and felt that he wanted no one else to know, but somehow this, gentle-voiced man could draw the words from him as smoothly as a weaver draws the thread from the spool. He did not know how long he talked, prompted now and then by no more than a single word from Koreta, but at last he fell silent and stared down at his feet, tired, yet feelng free.

  “Look at me, Sharesh,” whispered the voice. “You have been tested and tempted in ways you could not have foreseen and for reasons you could not know, and you have met the challenges of both. There will be many more, and different, for you to confront but you should welcome these, not fear them. “

  “Kanesh told me never to be afraid to be afraid.”

  “Wise advice.”

  “Then he said, ‘never let your fear make you do nothing’.”

  “If you hold to that, you may attempt anything. What is it you want to do?”

  “Be on the ship, wherever she steers her course!”

  There had been no sign or sound that Sharesh could detect but, at that point, Apigoron entered the room carrying a beeswax lamp and padded silently up to his master and stood waitng for instructions. The bandaged hand pointed towards the table beside the high-backed chair. Apigoron picked up a small alabaster box and presented it to Sharesh. Sharesh looked enquiringly at Koreta who slowly nodded his head. Sharesh opened the box and took out a small thin disc of blood-red stone. Apigoron held the lamp close. On the disc were carved in delicate strokes the outlines of a house with windows and a ship under sail.

  “Eye of fire, they call the stone,” whispered Koreta. “My sealstone; it has my mark on the other side. I entrust few with one of these. You may find it of use one day.” He fell silent and his eye closed. Apigoron indicated to Sharesh that it was time to retire from the Governor’s presence. He stood in the doorway for a moment, bowed deeply towards the figure in the high-backed chair and turned to leave. The sailors’ farewell came to him in a faint whisper.

  “Calm seas and a following wind.”

  When Apigoron re-entered the room, Koreta was sitting with his head bowed and his eye still closed but the steward knew that his master never slept. As he went about his business, deftly clearing things away and laying out the salves, bandages and bowls of perfumed water in readiness for the physician, he was alert for any faint sound that his master might make. He thought, but could not be sure, that he heard the words lineage and Pasipha.

  Sharesh hurried along the cobbled surface of Telchina Street. His haste was spurred by hunger, not fear of the dark: since Koreta became Governor the streets had been safe at night. Most of the houses had their shutters drawn now that the cooler night winds of autumn blew across Kallista. Each chink of light, snatch of sound and wafted smell told Sharesh the familiar story of the time left before sleep descended on the town: a baby sucking wetly at its mother’s breast, the clatter of dishes, a small boy’s voice reciting the words of a prayer, a door flung open and a dog kicked out, pursed lips on the point of blowing out a lamp, the smell of donkey piss, murmurs of conversation from a roof terrace, a few notes sounding from a pipe, a smell of barley cakes new from the hearth, satisfied grunts and a long throat-rattling belch. And there was another sound, very faint, of footsteps some way behind him, stopping when he stopped. He crossed to the other side of the street where the shadows were darkest and ran swiftly towards the columned entrance to the Little Labyrinth that jutted out into the street. He slipped behind one of the pillars and waited. The footseps came closer and in the gloom he could just make out the lithe figure of a young man. He let him pass on towards the entrance to Telchina Square where the lights that always shone from Merida’s house showed the figure to be Namun. Sharesh came up behind him as silently as he could. He knew better than to touch him because, when surprised, Namun’s first reaction was often to strike out without warning. Instead, he spoke quietly.

  “Why are you following me?”

  Namun showed no sign of surprise. “I’m not following you. I’m going in the same direction.”

  “The ship sails at dawn. You should be on board. If Typhis finds out –”

  “Typhis is sleeping it off in his favourite cot at the tavern and I have strict instructions to wake him at midnight.”

  “Well, where are you going?”

  “If you must know, and I don’t want this to get her into trouble, your mother’s maid sometimes keeps a few leftovers from the dinner for me and that’s where I’m going now, to get them. It’s a lot better food than you get on the ship the night before sailing, because the cook is always drunk.”

  “You could have asked me.”

  “I couldn’t do that. It makes her feel happy and I like to make people like her feel good.”

  “It might be her own supper she’s giving you.”

  “I know that, which is why I only take a little bit. I tell her I’m not very hungry.”

  “We can both go home together if you like.”

  Namun hesitated. “I can’t,” he said. “Seta’s goat and lentil stew is the best thing I’ve ever tasted, but I have other things to do before I go for Typhis. I’ll come with you as far as your house but I can’t stay.”

  They walked through the Square. Only one light was on in Merida’s house, which meant he must be staying at the mansion overlooking the Lagoon.

  “He’s driving us hard,” said Namun looking up at the house. “He must need the money.”

  “I will be there on the jetty when you sail in the morning,” said Sharesh, “but before then I want to know what you meant about asking Kallia why she left Keftiu. You said you know, so what was the reason?”

  Namun stopped and took hold of his hand. “Listen, my friend, I do know, but I can’t say, because this is something that only Kallia can tell you, if she wants to.” He said this so firmly that Sharesh knew he would say no more.

  “Namun, how do you find these things out?”

  “Sharesh, I find out by looking and listening and sometimes just knowing. You are different: you find out by asking, but you have to ask the right person at the right time and in the right way. Didn’t you know that? Now, have you thought of stowing away with us tonight?”

  Sharesh laughed. “If only I could. I’m stuck with the warehouse work and then I have all winter with the scribe as well as learning what I have to do for my ceremony next spring.”

  Namun was silent, thinking. It would have been the time for his own ceremony: the nights in the forest with the masked men, and the vigil on the icy mountaintop, and learning the chants and the elaborate steps of the dance with the men, and the paint marks and the secret things to drink, and last, most terrifying, the drawing of the obsidian blade three times across each cheek and the salt rubbed into each wound. That was what made a boy into a man in his country. But he could never do that now that all his people were dead.

  “Namun? Namun, wake up! We’re here.”

  Some days later, when he asked her, the little maid told Sharesh, yes, Namun sometimes did come to the courtyard door and she did find things for him to eat. She hoped that was all right. He never stayed long, she said, because he was always needed at the Lady’s House. She didn’t know he was
coming that night when he arrived with Sharesh.

  The shape of the Mountain grew sharper as the dawn light grew brighter. Namun slipped the stern line from its bollard and turned for an instant to look into Sharesh’s face before he leaped on board.

  “Last chance,” he said. “We won’t be back before spring.”

  The ship edged away from the jetty. Sharesh saluted Potyr and Typhis and received a nod from each in return. Her bow turned out into the harbour and the oars lifted, and dipped. She began the familiar glide towards the harbour mouth. Sharesh watched her go and take a large part of his heart with her. He saw the sail raised: there must be a breeze offshore. He could almost feel it and hear the swish of the bow wave and the creak of the braces. She was gone.

  INTRIGUES

  Kanesh sat on the terrace overlooking the harbour, feeling on his cheek the first breath of the onshore breeze that eased the torrid heat of the afternoon. Night would bring hot winds from the hills but now, and, for a little longer, it would be cool enough to think. There was much to think about and many details to reflect on, however, on the whole things had gone as well as could be expected. The long journeys by sea and land, the endless waiting, the tense meetings in pillared mansions and shabby back rooms, the offers and counter offers, the tricks and deceits, the implied threats and hint of bribes, the long stares held while each waited for the other to give the imperceptible nod, or to walk out, the final grip of the hand and the offer of food, wine and girls, or boys. Yes, on the whole, they had been worth enduring. There had to be letters, of course, exchanged between the authorities. Yes, of course, that would be done. And there would be gifts presented, suitable for the status of the authorities. Yes, that was already being arranged. Then there is agreement? Yes, the terms are agreed. The Labarna’s envoys had stood up, indicating that the meeting was concluded. He had not risen. There needed to be another meeting, for the exchange of letters. Naturally, that was so. His ship was expected soon. Ships can ride at anchor, or wait in port. Not forever; but, of course, long enough for the letters to be read and verified. All will be as it should be.