by David Bell
Koreta sat in his usual high-backed chair by the window from where he could see the harbour and beyond.
“The wine from the mountain valleys if I am not mistaken: a rare pleasure. I am grateful. A ship could always run into trouble on that coast, from wreckers or a few desperate men trying to seize what they can to feed their families. They could hardly be called pirates yet they need to be beaten off from time to time. The archers appear to have done again what they were there to do. I expect a service was done for the Labarna’s minister when someone rid him of what I hear was a troublesome deputy, yet the threat will not end there. The skills of the smith in Gubal will be turned to the use of the Labarna when he sees fit, whatever your friend may wish and then we shall see changes.”
“As to that,” said Kanesh, “we have acquired some of that same skill which we may put to use one day. In the meantime, we shall have the bronze, and the ships.”
“Good. Some of us must think to the future, which reminds me: Lady Akusha’s son. I know he is to sail with you. It would please an old seaman to see that young man, one more time. Tell me, what more have you to do?”
“The usual things before a long voyage which you know all about: cargo for Keftiu, some already on board, training of new crewmen, provisioning, sailwork – sewing on the owner’s emblem – and things he has hinted at but not yet told us. The captain intends to sail in two days’ time. Is there anything I may do for you?”
“Yes, Kanesh, there is. Succeed! I may not be here when you return – you see I say when and not if – but I will be with you on this voyage however long it lasts. Now, more of this delicious wine, and tell me about this steering device but before that, about Alasiya, a place I remember well. I believe you rested one night on Alasiya, is that not so?”
Alasiya, the time before. From the state of his back when they pulled him on board, they took him to be a slave, flogged for some petty crime, or his owner’s pleasure. Somehow he must have got away, stolen the boat, and been carried out out to sea by the current. Throw him back, said one of them. No, said the skipper, there’s a use for him where we’re going. Give that bundle here. Long ago the copper stone could be scraped and shovelled out of shallow pits. Now they had to creep along tunnels and hack the rock with stone picks, or drive in wedges to break the pieces off. Foul air and poisonous dust made a miner’s life a short one. Throw water on the rock, he said, and blow air in through pipes the potters make. What does a slave know about this work, they said? The day came when he was told to do it. The smith whose furnace burned in a clearing near the workings saw what he had done and took him in place of the man who had been strangled for stealing metal. When the others had gone, he made the sign to the smith and took his hand in the grip. They worked together at the furnace and he was no longer shackled at night. You are here to search for something, said the smith. It is in your eyes. Until my life’s end if it has to be, he replied. Three days after leaving the mountains the donkey train carrying the ingots reached the port. You scored the marks on the ingots last time, said the smith, and you know the metal. Some were changed to look like another’s mark but you will know them. The skipper whose ship had taken him from the sea was persuaded by the cord tightened round his throat to give up the ingots. He was allowed to keep his life but not the sword. The smith led him to a furnace near the harbour. He made the sign and gripped the hand of the man sanding the moulds. Stay here and work, they said. The taverns are good. Stay near a seaport, be patient, and one day you will hear what you want to know. When he had drunk too much the fisherman began to boast about his boat, his catch and then about the lady from the sea he had found on the shore. A princess, he boasted, with a silver crescent at her throat. The priestess had given her shelter. He has the hands of a smith, thought the priestess, but the bearing of a noble and there is the sword he carries. On the far coast of Alasiya is the sanctuary of the Lady from the sea, he was told. She protects castaways. Seek there. He took gifts, not offerings, for what they might tell him. Keftiu, they said, she took ship for Keftiu. A ship in the roads was leaving for Keftiu when the new moon shone. One day out from Alasiya a storm rose up and the ship lost her mast. She was driven onto the Libun shore and he was the only one to survive the wreck. He began to walk towards the rising sun. It scorched his skin like a furnace. He crouched in the shadow of a rock, when he could find one, and waited for the night. The Sailor’s Star guided him and he heard the Hunter urge him on. It could not last. He staggered only a few steps before falling. Each time he fell, it took longer before he could struggle to his feet again. The stars were blurred and swam in the night sky. He could no longer hear the sea, only the bleating of goats. The boy brought his father and brother to carry the dying stranger to their hovel on the shore. He lay on their only cot for days while the woman dripped water down his burning throat. When he could stand again he told them he must leave to find a ship. He had a journey he must make. Wait a little longer, they said. I have nothing to give you in return for my life, he said. We ask nothing, was their reply. It is not our way. Wait a little longer. The merchants who cross the deshret with their camels come here for the water. They will take you to the Black Land once they see you carry such a sword. They mounted him on the oldest female camel. They smiled and waited for him to fall to the ground when she started. He whispered in her ear and stroked her head. She carried him as carefully as a woman carries her baby. They left after sunset and came at last to the green swamps and waterways of Kanub. Something was wrong. Thatched roofs were blackened ash. Fields were deserted and the mud walls of the water channels were broken. Bloated bodies drifted in the drying reed beds. Hikshasus raiders, said the desert guide. Lead the camels upstream, said the oldest of the merchants. When the camp had been overrun and he was the only one in the camel train left alive, again he was given a choice. You killed three of my men but none of the horses, said the Hikshasus commander. You will show me if you are the cavalryman I think you are. The archers will go with you to make sure you come back. He rode off at speed on the horse of one of the men he had killed, turned and cantered back to the commander. You will ride with us, said the commander, or remain here with your silent friends. Year followed year. Campaign followed campaign: raids, ambushes, assaults with archers on towns and camps. In one campaign they crossed mountains and great curving sand hills and reached a different sea. Across this sea and another beyond it, said the commander, lie rich cities which we will take one day. Now we will sack this one before us. Leaving the smoking ruins behind them, they rode along the seashore passing through deserted villages whose people had fled to the hills fearing their approach. None was worth turning aside to pillage. A rider on an exhausted horse caught up with them at dusk. We are ordered back to Hatoret, said the commander. Rahotep has crossed the river with chariots. You will lead the counter attack, maryannu. They reached Hatoret near a mouth of the Iteru after days of hard riding. Rahotep’s force has withdrawn, they were told. The Akhet flooding is too close. Ships were still coming up the stream to Hatoret but every one was watched. He told the trooper on guard that his horse had a sore pastern. The man bent down to look and slid over unconscious when the place in his neck was pressed. He slung saddlebags of water and food over the horse’s back and rode away. No one followed him because the Akhet had begun and the land behind him was flooding. He reached the sea and rode along a coastline of sand bars and lagoons whose waters were covered with flocks of pink long-legged birds. He searched for shade when he felt the sun on his back at midday and rode on again at dusk, walking his horse halfway through the night. He caught up with a camel train heading the same way. They were glad to have another armed man with them, one who looked as if he knew how to use the sword he carried. The merchants’ destination was the port of Tzudon where they would trade their spices and turquoise for glass beads and the purple dye. In the city he sold his horse for silver and went to a tavern near the harbour. The tavern owner pointed to a seaman drinking near the door. He poured wine into the man’s beaker and put th
e pitcher in front of him. The skipper said he was loading timber, dates and jars of oil and would put to sea at dawn next day. Yes, the ship was bound for Telchina, going on to Keftiu. If he had believed it would help, he might have prayed that she was still there. They reached Telchina after ten days sail through calm seas. On the third day out he had glimpsed a smudge of land on the starboard horizon. Mountain peaks on Alasiya, said the helmsman. How many years was it since last he saw them? Ten, twelve or was it more?
“Alasiya? One night? It seemed like more.”
FIRST LOVE
The garden was full of the blue and yellow flowers of spring. It was a sunny day and so calm that even the new dusty pink fronds of the tamarisk hung still in the warm air. They were sitting on the same white limestone bench with the dolphin-shaped armrests, but this time they were holding hands.
“She’s let you leave sooner than usual,” said Sharesh.
Kallia giggled and gave him an arch sideways glance. “I’d just finished brushing her hair when she suddenly said there were things she had to get on with in the summerhouse and I could go now. She thinks I don’t know what goes on in there. Merida doesn’t, or if he does, he doesn’t care.”
“Kallia, I haven’t much time left. We’re sailing soon and I don’t know when we will be back.” If ever, he was thinking.
“I know,” she said and her eyes filled with tears. He held her close as she sobbed, murmuring words, any words, to comfort her until at last she sighed, lifted her head, looked long into his face, sniffed, and smiled again. He kissed her upturned lips, feeling he never wanted to stop.
“Why did you wait to do that until it was almost too late?”
“Oh, I don’t know, I, you, I think I was frightened of you. I did try, in the cave that time but –”
“You missed, silly; you should have tried again. You don’t have to be frightened of me.”
He kissed her again and this time he didn’t feel frightened of her, only of what he was beginning to feel. She pushed him gently away.
“I can hear voices. Merida has some people in the house. They may come out at any moment. Let’s go round the other side. There’s something I want to show you and then we can look at the Lagoon. It’s so beautiful at this time of day.”
Hand in hand and bending low out of sight of anyone who might glance from a window, they crept acoss the terrace and round to the side of the house facing the long curve of the cliff’s edge. She put her finger to her lips and pointed to one of the windows. The stole across the white paving stones and cautiously lifted their heads to look inside.
The painter was standing on a low trestle bench with his back to the window, brush in hand, tracing the outline of a swallow on the newly plastered wall. The bird was in flight, turning up towards another swooping down close on bow-shaped wings, its long forked tail splayed wide. This bird had been painted dark blue with red oval rings around its eyes. Both beaks gaped open as if crying the excited twittering notes swallows pour out in flight. On each side, other swallows soared and plunged above rocky ground from which resplendent sprays of lilies sprang. It looked so real that Sharesh felt at any moment that one of the birds would fly past him through the window. The painter bent down to pick up a pot of different colour and fearing he might see them, they lowered their heads and crept away from the house.
“He was at the Festival, watching Namun and me when we were boxing,” said Sharesh, “and I saw him again on Keftiu. He seems to be everywhere.”
“I know. He was painting a picture of the Lady Pasipha,” said Kallia. “He paints beautiful swallows. I can almost feel those soft creamy feathers on their breasts. I think one might be a parent and the other is her baby that she’s feeding.”
“Namun says they’re fighting over feathers that they use to line their nests. It’s true their beaks are open and they look sharp, but I believe what Leilia told me once. She said they dance and fly close together because they love each other for life.”
After a long silence she said quietly, “You won’t be here when they come this year.”
“I may see them fly over the ship on their way towards you,” he said, “and if I do, you know what message they will bring you from me.”
Her face lit up with a smile and she stretched up on tiptoe, trying to kiss his nose but only reaching his chin. He laughed and bent down to find her lips, but she broke away.
“They’re coming out! That was Merida’s voice. Let’s go down to the Cave in the Lagoon. No one will find us there.”
The painter watched them run towards the path, smiled, and turned back to sketch the shapes of two more swallows on the wall.
Without saying a word, she took off her blue tunic and yellow skirt and drew him down onto the soft moss-covered ledge. His lips found the sweet points of breasts that had tormented and enchanted his dreams. His heart was hammering in his chest and his fingers felt thick and awkward, fumbling with his belt, until she loosed it and slipped his kilt from him. Trembling and urgent, he was afraid of her again but she kissed him and held him close until he found the silky hair, delicate as a bird’s nest, and the soft, moist cleft below.
Afterwards, they sat looking out across the calm waters of the Lagoon silent at first and shy and then smiling and then laughing and then hugging each other until tears ran down their cheeks.
“Your chin is whiskery like a common sailor’s,” she said, as they climbed back up the cliff path. “I’m sure it’s given my face a rash.”
“If I’d known you cared about common sailors,” he grinned, “I’d have brought my new razor with me.”
They stopped and looked across the rim of the great bowl of the Lagoon. The distant islands were still in sight and the sinking sun was beginning to spread a shimmering path across the sea towards them. They watched as it reached the black pile of Korus and spread to its peaks, painting them with tawny golden fire.
“You will come back, won’t you, Sharesh?”
“If we can come here again, Kallia.”
She kicked him hard on the shin and he chased her, laughing, towards the house.
“You’re sure there’s nothing else, Dareka,” said Merida, “nothing you’ve forgotten?”
“Nothing. Everything is listed and checked. Potyr went through it all with me.”
“Things that will keep, Dareka, and things barbarians don’t have, that’s what has to go: resined wine, oil, dried stuff, figs and dates, and honey, plenty of that.”
“All on board now and the glass and the spices and best cotton cloth, yes, and some silk for any rich ladies tthey meet.”
“Rich ladies, you say?”
“We do not know that all the people are barbarians,” said Kanesh. Merida laughed: “Only barbarians would live out there in the Endless Ocean!”
“One thing more we need from you that Dareka has not mentioned yet,” said Potyr quietly. “The silver: every people I have ever met would take payment in silver.”
“I haven’t forgotten. You’ll have it before you sail. Have you decided when that is?”
“Dawn the day after tomorrow.”
“Why is it nearly always dawn with you, Potyr?”
“So that I can get back in daylight if I have to. Now, can you tell me why the carpenter came to me saying you told him that there was work to do on the stem post?”
“Ah, yes, well, I was about to mention that. Something my wife wants; wait, I know what you’re going to say, but she insisted and she is not a woman you can reason with, except I did manage to change her mind a bit on this thing.”
“What thing?”
“She wants an effigy, a carving on the stem post. She said she saw a Kinaani ship with one of a goddess and she liked it and decided one would look good on our ship. And bring luck and protection, she said. Wait, wait, before you say anything, it won’t be a goddess. I told you I got her to change her mind. Cost me a new silk gown, it did.”
“If not a goddess, what is suggested?”
“Not sug
gested, Potyr, already made and by the best wood carver on Keftiu. It’s the head of a horse, carved in hard white wood. Kanesh, you’ll like that, won’t you? More to the point, if you’ll excuse me, Kanesh, it will find favour with the Lord Potheidan. It’s my offering to Him after he saved us from that storm on the way back from Telchina.”
“Why not a white bull, if it is for the Lord Potheidan?”
Kanesh looked at the two faces, one austere and disdainful, the other hesitant but determined. “Someone might want to sacrifice a white bull, given the chance,” he said with a smile.
The joke broke the tension and the four men fell to discussing details of the stores, spares and supplies to be taken on in Keftiu. Merida was now in such a good humour that he even agreed with a suggestion from Kanesh that they also take a few tightly sealed flasks of Halaba wine, to sweeten any difficult dealings they might have with an awkward chieftain. They went on to thrash out the final selection of the crew, courses to be followed and ports and trading posts to be visited and countless other matters, until the lamps burned low and the wine flasks had to be filled yet another time.
“One more thing before you leave,” said Merida. “I’ve decided what the ship’s name will be: Davina. What do you think of that? It was my mother’s name.”
“Then, how could anyone object?”
“Sharesh, do you remember I once said you were a poet?”
“They were Kanesh’s words, my Lord Koreta.”
“So you said, but you spoke them like a poet. The sea brings out the poetry in men, Sharesh, because, like a poet’s mind, it too is never still. Even when it is dead calm, life moves, and irresistible currents are at work, below the surface. When you return from this long voyage, Sharesh, you will have many songs to sing and when your own voyage is long past, other poets might sing of you.”
“They sing of you, my Lord. When I was in the Palace, the storyteller sang of Gaiduros.”