by David Bell
He rose, spoke the necessary words of respect for the Labarna and left the envoys to their work. In their despatches they reported that the envoy from Keftiu was not a man of Keftiu but carried the seals of authority. He was bearded, as were they, had a limp, carried his sword on his right side and had the manner of a horseman, with a turn of phrase not unlike that of the maryannu. Although professing no title, he spoke with the authority of a noble and had impressive knowledge of the Labarna’s lands and peoples, including the language. He had enquired about iron and, naturally, his query had been met with incomprehension. Neverthess, it was not certain that he had been convinced. It would be prudent to pursue enquiries about him.
His mind went back to the meeting in Sekara’s quarters and what followed. Dinner was finished and cleared away and Ektan had left a flask of wine and a goblet on the table he set by each of them, lit the lamps, saluted and left them to their talk.
“You speak the language. You know how their minds work. They will recognize your rank and you will have the seals of authority. You know what we want. It’s up to you to find out what they want in return.”
“I have my own wants, if I do this.”
Sekara looked at him sharply. “And they are?”
“I will come to that. Before any direct meeting with the Labarna’s envoys – should he deign to respond to your overtures – other ground will have to be prepared.”
“Go on.”
“You see two objectives for this mission. I see a third. You seek the Labarna’s aid in confronting the piracy threat and his agreement to protect the trade routes from the deserts and mountains towards the rising sun that the tribesmen disrupt at present. I agree with those objectives.”
“And what persuasion will you use to gain the Labarna’s alliance?”
“The Labarna has ambitions to extend his empire towards the coast and beyond but he has no navy. His power fades away at the shoreline. He will find that unfortunate when he has to confront settlers there and on the islands who have ships and, moreover, their countrymen who have even more ships, and know very well how to use them, as we have found to our cost. In return for his compliance with our needs for safeguarding the overland trade routes, we will offer to supply the ships to counter what we are calling the piracy threat but know to be more serious than that. The greater cost will fall on us unless the Labarna can be persuaded to meet some of it.”
“How might that be done?”
“We will point out that increased trade brings increased wealth from the tolls levied on the merchants and also increased supply of goods of a kind that the Labarna’s reputation demands. We will also hint, if it becomes necessary to facilitate the negotiation, that we have heard of sources of tin that only we can exploit because only we have the necessary ships and knowledge of the routes – a forgivable fiction given the circumstances – and that we can, thereby, ensure that the Labarna’s armies may have the bronze they require. The Labarna must know by now that the supply of tin from lands towards the rising sun is in decline and not only because of theft from the caravans.”
“You spoke of a third objective, presumably the ‘other ground’ that has to be prepared?” Kanesh drank deeply from his goblet. “Certain other authorities and, yes, merchants, must be brought into this, without, I hasten to say, knowing all of what is contemplated, and when they realise that their trade will not only become safer but also more extended, they will see the advantage of meeting some of the costs we have talked about. If you agree with my proposals, I shall need assured passages to Alasiya, Telchina, Sikelia and, of course, Gubal. Shardana and Sapanim can wait. The Black Land? They go their own way, although one day the Labarna, or his descendants, will have cause to look to their defence from that direction. That junior captain who was with us at Kestera would be my man, if you agree? Would the Captain of Archers also be available, by any chance?”
“We have a lot to talk about,” said Sekara drily. “I will call Ektan to bring more wine.”
“I think this is the wine from Halaba. I will need to get used to it. They ship it out of Gubal.”
Birdsong greeted the rising sun. Kanesh walked stiffly towards the window and looked across the white walls and roofs and down the dark slopes towards the sea.
“I will have the necessary letters of introduction drawn up,” said Sekara. “On wadij, I think, and the seals prepared. Is there anything else I should know?”
“Could an audience at the Palace be arranged? Oh, and can you tell me how was the almond harvest this year?”
Unseen, motionless, Luzar watched the lord closely as he went from tree to tree, turning over a leaf on one, running his finger along the bark of another. Luzar decided he presented no danger, even though the long sword was hanging from his belt. When the time was right he would ask to see that sword because he felt a strange force in it.
“Lady is resting.”
“I know. I recognize the sounds. Where are you?”
What had seemed to be sere leaves, branches and scorched grass stirred and twisted and became Luzar. In the light of late afternoon his skin was almost the same colour as the dry leaves on the almond trees. His dark blue eyes looked steadily at Kanesh, revealing nothing of what was passing through his mind.
“You are very good at hiding.”
“Not hiding. Standing with the trees, feeling their spirits.”
“They help you feel you are again in the forests of your own land.” The blue eyes darkened with the sadness of distant memories.
“The day is hot and the lady will take a little time to recover from her rest. I am sure you will know how long that may be. I shall sit here among the trees until you come to tell me that she is ready to see me.”
“Lady perhaps will not want that.”
“Nevertheless, I shall wait.”
Pasipha was sprinkling dried sweet herbs on the coals of a little brazier when he was shown into the room and their perfume freshened the arid stale air of the hot afternoon. Her simple gown of sheer yellow silk hemmed in blue was short-sleeved, revealing her shapely arms and delicate wrists with their silver bracelets. Her black hair had been brushed to hang down her back and over her shoulders and breast. With the light of the lamps behind her she looked like a young girl waiting perhaps for her maid to come and announce that her music teacher had arrived. She looked at Kanesh with wide-open innocent eyes, her red lips pursed in a little plea for forgiveness. He felt the guilty pleasure of her seductiveness stealing over him.
“You are cross with me, Lord Kanesh. What can I do to soften your anger?”
She has burned with such lusts, taken up and cast away countless lovers as greedily as a bee sucks flower after flower and yet, and yet, she can still look as innocent as a trembling fawn.
“You want something of me, Lord Kanesh. I can tell.”
The silver bracelets on her arms are like shafts of moonlight falling on ripe peaches.
“Lord Kanesh?”
“Lady,” he said at last, “you intended something for my charge which cannot be permitted.”
“You mean that handsome boy? He was eager to play the game.”
“He did not know the kind of game that was being played.”
“Did he not, indeed? He learns quickly, my Lord. You should be proud of him and allow him to make the entry he feels he must into life’s mystery. He will find his way through it as he did through the other maze and such a handsome, inquisitive boy will not want for guides.”
“Strange as it may seem to you, I have no fear of that since it must happen, sooner or later. It is the other intention that I know of and will oppose while there is life in me.”
Her air of innocence faded and she looked at him shrewdly. “He has told you.”
“Nothing; but the signs are not hard to interpret. Besides,” he added almost carelessly, “there was another witness.”
Peering closely at him, she nodded slowly. “The black one, of course. The Lady Mother will not forgive him for seeing
and hearing things that no man or boy is permitted to see or hear, except…”
“Her chosen one.”
“He braved the labyrinth and reached the sacred place.”
“So did the other.”
“You know which one has the nobility, the lineage. You know that better than anyone.”
“I know that it is not his destiny to haunt the corridors and depths of the Palace, to be put on show when the festivals demand it, and when he has served his purpose, make way for another and be seen no more.”
“Sacrilege, Lord Kanesh! So daring!”
Her great eyes are shining with elation. What kind of woman is this?
She gazed down into the brazier, languidly took another pinch of the sweet herbs from a small silver bowl and let them fall from her fingers onto the glowing coals. She closed her eyes and raised her face, scenting the perfume with her delicate tip-tilted nose. She spoke in a slow, dreamy voice.
“The bull that is chosen for the sacred rite must be young and strong and never have known cow nor heifer. If there were to be any doubt of that, it would become known to the Lady Mother and the choice would have to fall elsewhere.”
Her hair falls down to her breast like the shadows of a summer night reaching for the swelling waves of the sea.
“I believe you will have a competitor, my lady.”
“The challenge and the chance are what I relish most, Lord Kanesh, as you well know.”
Some time later she said, “You may be interested to know that the almond harvest was sparse this year, except, happily, in my own orchard. I will have enough for bridal gifts, should the occasion arise.”
Then, much later, she said, “You were a long time coming to see me. May I ask whether your audience at the Palace was satisfactory?”
“It is too soon to know.”
Silk whispering its stealthy song in the darkness.
On nights like this when the moon was full and the air was still warm, the lady sometimes had him carry her in his arms to the pool and stand guard while she bathed in the silver light. Afterwards, when he had dried her skin gently with the soft towels, and smoothed in the sweet almond oil, they would walk among the trees breathing in the scents of the night. Luzar stood as still as the tall standing stones in his own land, waiting.
The room was exactly as he remembered: the scent of lavender, the painted dolphins gliding through the painted waves, the portrait of her with windblown hair, but tonight she wore a long white gown and a veil because the moon was new, its form mimicked by the heavy silver crescents at her throat and on her wrists.
The High Priestess looked at Kanesh evenly “What you wish, I cannot give.”
“My words precisely, lady. I remember other words spoken in this room: ‘I will see him but he will not come close to me’.
“That was before the Lady Mother revealed her will. Do not forget that she showed you her favour when the bull turned on you. I am only her servant. “
“As I have said, lady, she does not speak to me, or if she does, I do not choose to listen. Your way, her way, will not ensure the continuity you seek. The means of gaining that lie on the open seas and not in the dank passages and cellars of this place.”
“Where is the conflict between our different ways?”
“It lies in my intention, my determination, lady, to see my charge play his part in the enterprise and open his eyes and his mind by following his urge to sail those open seas.”
“We are not so different, you and I, are we, Lord Kanesh? We are both resolute. The Lady Mother will decide.”
“You said she favoured me once. Even you cannot be sure that she will not favour me a second time.”
“We are all her servants, whatever we may think. He did leave rather hurriedly for Kallista. I now see why.”
“To pursue his work and to prepare for his ceremony.”
“Then he will return to Keftiu a man. That is good. The Spring Festival is a happy time, a time of renewal.”
This time no wine was offered. The High Priestess moved to the window and stood in silence looking up at the slim curve of silver in the black sky. Her veil fluttered a little as if she might be whispering a prayer. Perhaps it was only the night breeze trying to touch her face.
“I understand the deputy commander has very properly provided you with an escort. All good men, I trust.”
Now here he was, dog tired, in foetid, crowded Gubal, the port where no one seemed to sleep; where the ships came in laden with the produce of every land and island he had ever heard of, and some he had not, and were turned around as fast as they could be unloaded and their holds filled anew with goods to honour a king, adorn a queen, bribe a chieftain, enrich a merchant, seduce a lover, supply smith, carpenter, jeweller, shopkeeper, tailor, sculptor, painter, wine seller, baker, physician, musician, shipwright and many more. Shipwright: was the oak from Kinaani that Naudok had demanded for the oars safe in the warehouse ready for when Potyr docked? He must see to it and also the linen from the Black Land for the sails. Kanesh pushed his way through the crowded winding streets of shops, warehouses and taverns towards the harbour. Anything any heart craved could be sold, bought or stolen to order in Gubal and all was on display. From the Black Land came linen, cotton, ivory and ebony, gemstones and jewelry, wadij for the scribes, richly coloured cloths for ladies and the bitter white powder used for bleaching, tanning leather and colouring glass. Sheep, donkeys and mules stood listlessly in pens, waiting for the butcher or the dealer. Kept apart from these, in stables, were fine horses from the high plains. Ingots of copper shipped from as nearby as Alasiya and as far away as Sapanim lay piled outside warehouses next to bales of the best white wool brought down from the uplands of Sirion by cart and mule train. Contemptuous-looking camels stalked the streets carrying the bundles of perfumed woods and boxes of spices, some for taste, like kinnamum, and others for oblivion, like the syrups drawn from the poppy, that they had brought across the great parched deserts. Massive pot-bellied storage jars holding corn from Kinaani stood in rows in the shade alongside slim, tapered ones brimming with the fabled wine of Halaba. All these and countless other things came and went in Gubal, not forgetting the girls and the boys, the most expensive ones those with fair skin and and pale hair from the distant mountains between the two great seas.
He loathed the stinking, dusty, teeming, throbbing, thieving, fascinating place, its wealth and squalor, the constant bartering, the endless talk of bargain, profit, loss, fraud, anything, so long as it was about trade. He smiled ruefully to himself. He may hate all this but it was why he was here. Trade was drawn to Gubal like bees to nectar and with trade came information and with information, power. Why otherwise did the Labarna’s envoys stipulate Gubal as the meeting place? Why did the Labarna not take Gubal as he had so many other rich cities; as it was said he planned to do to Halaba? The city wall, neglected and tumbledown in places where it had been quarried for houses and storage sheds, would never stop his troops. No, the Labarna did not take it because the trade would go elsewhere and with it the information. Kanesh forced his way through the throng in the harbourmaster’s building and seized one of the clerks by the shoulder. The man turned angrily but quailed at the sight of the bearded figure looming over him; a lord and one, it was said, who had been seen in company with the envoys of the Labarna.
“Well?”
“A ship just in from Telchina, sir; skipper says he sighted your vessel coming up astern. She’ll likely stand off tonight. You know your captain likes to dock with the dawn if he can.”
He hired a mule and rode up to the promontory above the city from where he could get a clearer view out to sea. Sails dotted the blue waters, all set to bring their vessels into the protection of the bay for the night. A broad-beam heavy load cargo ship with its Gubal-type stem to stern rope truss pivoted over the centre mast was labouring close to the shore. She had thirty oars but was only creeping along, low in the water probably because she was overloaded with stone and had a crew t
ired at the end of the day. He shaded his eyes and tried to see further out. There was a single tiny sail near the horizon. It had to be Potyr, he was sure of it. Tomorrow the envoys’ tablets would be in his hands and the day after that, or the next day, once the ship had been cleared, re-loaded and her food and water jars filled, he could board her for the voyage to Keftiu, the last passage she would make before the winter weather put a stop to deep-sea sailing. During his wanderings long ago he had taken passage on such a ship loaded with great logs of cedar taken on board in the docks at Hatoret. Day after day she toiled upstream on the Iteru, the Great River that was the life of the Black Land, passing the glittering white stone mountains where the dead kings lay and the temples and statues and great obelisks, all speaking of dead kings and past glories and all waiting for the Deshret sands to claim them.
They had come here to Gubal, the gods and goddesses of the Black Land, brought by their priests and acolytes and worshipped in the temple half hidden in the cypress groves a little higher up the slope from where he stood. Had they brought their greenstone scarabs and their glazed pottery cats and put up their obelisks to make their deities feel at home in a foreign land? Perhaps, because higher still on the ridge, skirted by an arboretum of olive, tamarisk and pomegranate and overlooking sea, harbour, all, stood the great temple of the Lady, Ashator, guardian of the city, moon goddess of the crescent crown with feathers in her tresses. There was a sacred pool somewhere among the trees where it was said the goddess descended to bathe naked, cupping her breasts with her hands, when the moon was new. The coarse talk in the taverns was that it was not the goddess descending, but her statue lowered into the pool by her priestesses who, after taking her out, dried her reverently with their skirts, dressed her in a red gown and jumped in the pool themselves and sported while she watched over them. So close, the temples of the Lady of Gubal and the gods and goddesses brought from the Black Land, thought Kanesh. What did they share? Too much, according to some of the city worthies; that is, until the Hikshasus gave the Black Land kings something else to think about. Now it was better; you could trade with both sides.