by David Bell
Kerma and Kanesh went ashore with him in the boat. When they returned it was in another boat paddled by a boy from one of the shelters. The smith’s wife and child were not with these people but with the other fugitives from the bronzesmiths’ island. Someone had set off to show him the way to where they were camped. Sharesh watched the boy sculling his boat back to the shore.
“What will happen to him, the smith, and all these people?”
“They will go back, in time, and pick up the pieces of their lives again and do the best they can,” said Kanesh. “As for the smith, he will be back at his forge one day but he will no longer be able to hear the ring of the metal he casts. He will have to train a boy to do that for him. Or his daughter,” he added, with a smile, “girls have sharper ears. Look to your post, now. The captain is raising anchor. Shardana, they all say set course for Shardana. Follow the sun to where it sets. Three days’ sail”
“Helmsman,” said Potyr, “bring her about.”
ISLAND OF WOMEN
Some time before dawn Namun at lookout called that he could see a distant light fine on the starboard bow. Steady or unsteady, he was asked. He took a long time to reply. Finally, he said it was unsteady, flickering.
“Fire,” said Kanesh.
“Keep watch on it,” said Potyr. “If it is fire, at first light in this clear air we should see smoke.”
Sharesh took Namun’s place on the bow as the sun rose from the sea astern. Fine on the starboard bow, where Namun had seen the light, the misty dark silhouettes of islands floated on the surface of a sea that was changing as he watched, from the grey of dawn to the blue of morning. Fine on the larboard quarter a white speck on the horizon showed where another island was catching the early rays of the sun.
“I was told something of these islands,” said Kanesh to Potyr. “Finding them assures us that we are on course.”
“Is there water here?” asked Potyr. “I would not fill the jars from that befouled stream near the people’s shelters.”
“They spoke of a spring of sweet water on the near side of the big island, the closest to us now.” Kanesh pointed to the island no longer veiled in mist but showing a coastline of white cliffs crowned with green forest. “There is a bay with safe anchorage. The spring rises from a cleft in the rocks somewhere on high ground above the cliffs, or so they said.”
“We need water, enough for two days more at least. Helmsman, change course to starboard and take us to the far end of the island.”
“There is more,” said Kanesh but before he could go on, a call came from the bow. “Smoke! Smoke rising, inland near the trees.”
“Too early in the year for grass itself to catch alight,” mused Potyr. “There are people on that island.”
“They come over in the spring for the wild goats and the young boar and things that grow there, and to dig for white earth. I was told that the wise women use it in their medicines. Perhaps we should take some if we can find the workings. It might make useful barter anywhere physicians ply their mysteries.”
The good anchorage was not difficult to find. The bay was a smooth crescent of limpid turquoise water, rimmed by a narrow strip of dazzling white sand and vertical cliffs of honeycombed white rock. The sea near the beach was so clear the lineman had no need to cast his lead. The Davina dropped anchor a ship length out at the near end of the bay where the cliff sloped down, offering an easier climb to the grassy ground on top. It was still well before midday. Namun was sent off with the Taphians to search for the spring while the rest of the crew set to cleaning ship. Namun was the first back, scrambling and sliding down the powdery white slope, sending up clouds of dust. He dashed into the sea to wash it off and climbed on board to report that the spring was running and the water was cool and sweet and it was as far away as, well, half the time he had been away.
“Distance, lad, distance, not time,” barked Typhis. “Others have older legs and lungs than you. How far?”
“Hm, there and back,” replied Namun, pointing to the other end of the beach. “Long way for older legs,” he added, nimbly dodging a swipe from a very muscular arm. When the rest of the search party had clambered onboard, Tissias came aft.
“If we take the water, Captain, we must leave an offering and say a prayer at the spring. It flows into a basin carved with the Lady’s image. The place is sacred.” He thought it wiser not to say that Namun had pushed his face into the basin and gulped down the cool water before they could stop him.
“Is there any other water?”
“Not that we could see, Captain. We smelt smoke but it was blown on the wind and we couldn’t see any fire.”
“Come up here and I will give you the offering you are to present and tell you the words you are to say. The Lady will then not refuse mariners what she knows they need.”
The Davina made ready to raise anchor and follow the coast to where it was hoped the white earth workings would be found. Kerma was left behind in charge of the water party who were to fill the heavy jars at the spring, led there by Namun and the Taphians, and get them back to the beach ready for the ship’s return, by dusk if possible, and if not, early the following day. Two archers stayed with them and Kerma had his own bow and shafts as well as the heavy battleaxe. The rest of the party carried swords. From the bow deck Sharesh watched the black dots of men toiling up the track with jars on their backs until the Davina rounded a headland and they were hidden from view.
It was a jagged coast of cliffs and sea caves, small offshore islands and tall pillars of rock standing like monuments to storm gods or forgotten sea battles. In one place the cliff arched out to sea, roofing a grotto higher than the Davina’s mast where silky blue water spread like a rich carpet inviting wanderers to enter and rest. Sharesh’s mind drifted in reverie. What lay there, deep in the grotto, waiting, drawing him in? He felt its urging. Slip into the water, it was saying, and be drawn into the soft purple darkness and find…
“It comes without warning, that feeling,” said Kanesh. “No man is immune to it and no man should feel shame for it. There is a strangeness about this island. It has an allure we should be wary of. The light last night, the smoke this morning and the carved basin at the spring; all have meaning for us. We must tread very carefully here. Ah, white water ahead: signal the Captain larboard rudder.”
Sharesh came back to his senses and did as he was bidden. He forced himself to watch the water. It was so clear that he could see the white sandy bottom and schools of brightly coloured small fish twisting and darting away from the Davina’s thrusting forefoot. He signalled for more larboard rudder to turn her away from an islet of white rock spattered whiter with the droppings of yellow-billed seabirds that lifted lazily from it and soared away as the Davina passed three oar’s lengths clear. It was a jagged coast, too hazardous to stay close in, probing each cove, turning each point and headland. The sea threw up dazzling flashes of light poured down from the early afternoon sun making him shade his eyes with both hands. Close one eye and slit the other when you look into the sun, Typhis had said. The vague spots on the sea ahead must be yet more rocky islands strewn in a line across their path; and beyond, that was surely a great ridge running out to sea: safer to stand well out. Signal the Captain: hard larboard rudder and hold her there. Take her where the sea is darker. Like her almond eyes.
After many false sightings that cost them time to investigate, the workings were found at last: deep pits in the hillside facing a broad open bay free of reefs. A track overgrown with tufts of grass and low shrubs led down from the pits to a short rough pier that was no more than a pile of the black boulders that dotted the nearby cliffs. It ran out into water deep enough for the Davina to anchor nearby. The white earth was almost soft enough in places to dig out with hands but for the better kind, a soft white clay, a mattock was needed. Most of the crew went ashore, glad to stretch their legs, lend a hand at the digging, and carry the loaded sacks and baskets to the end of the pier where they were floated out to the ship on a
small raft of planks lashed together by the ship’s carpenter. Some of them played with the white paste, squelching it between their fingers and smearing it on their faces and arms.
“There’s enough on me to pay for a goat.”
“I can’t tell you from a goat now. Never could, come to that.”
“Makes your skin as soft as a girl’s, doesn’t it?”
“Now don’t go giving me ideas.”
“Is it true what they say, that it gets rid of backache?”
“Only if you eat plenty of it. Here, down this handful.”
Potyr took in the height of the sun above the horizon.
“Too late now to manage that coast safely,” he said to Kanesh. “We will stay at anchor here and sail back at first light.”
“No one has been at these workings before us this year and we have seen no one all day, although we know someone on the island has made a fire. I found a track on the ridge that looks as if it leads back towards the bay where we left the water party.” He turned to the Captain of Archers. “Come with me, Captain, if you please. Let us see what we can find. Sharesh can come with us and be our eyes.” Potyr watched the three of them climb up to the slope and disappear into the trees that covered the crest. He told Typhis that the crew could stay ashore to cook the fish Leptos and Leptos had caught, but everyone must be aboard before dusk when the ship was to be anchored farther out in the bay.
From places where the trees thinned out, they had a view across the grassy lower slopes of the ridge as far as the sea on each side of the island. Evening was approaching but sunlight still filtered through the leaves. The wood was very quiet, peaceful in fact, and somehow soothing. For much of its length the track kept close to the ridge crest and was easy to follow. It was obviously used recently more by goats, deer and wild boar than by humans, judging from the droppings. The Captain of Archers kept a shaft ready nocked for a chance shot. Fresh meat was a rare treat on a sea voyage. Eventually, the track began to veer away from the sunlight still flickering through the leaves and emerged into the open ground of a spur that sloped away towards the sea, and, Sharesh realised with a thump of his heart, the place of the blue grotto. It was still in view, even in the failing light, when the track led them to the cleft in the hillside where the spring bubbled into its stone basin. A posy of flowers, wilted by the noonday sun, lay next to a little bowl of barley grains on the lip of the basin, undisturbed by any bird. Beside it and on the ground below were scattered the remains of other offerings: almond shells, withered grapes and dark-coloured berries strewn among fish spines with the heads still on, and gnawed bones of rabbits and pigeons. They climbed to the top of the hill and found a cleared space near the edge of the forest. In the centre, piled on top of a mound of white ash and charred wood, still warm to the touch, was a cone of piled-up dead branches smelling strongly of oil and resin, all ready for the flames.
The Captain of Archers kicked at the ash. “This was the fire we saw at night from the ship,” he said. “Look here, in the dead coals: bones.” He picked one up and sniffed at it. “Pig’s chine, still got bits of meat on it. This was roasted here today, while the ash was still hot inside.”
“Where are the men?” said Sharesh. “When I looked over the edge of the cliffs as we were coming here, I saw no one on the beach, only the water jars stacked together with their stoppers on.”
Kanesh spoke slowly, thinking hard. “They finished the work of filling the jars and taking them to the beach. We saw the offerings the captain ordered to be placed at the spring. What did they do after that?”
“Took their ease in the grass and ate what they brought with them,” said the Captain of Archers.
“Not only what they brought,” mused Kanesh, “but what they found.”
“The spring!” broke in Sharesh. “Other offerings at the spring: fish and almonds and grapes, and berries and –”
“Black berries, and meat they baked on the cinders; pig’s chine, you say, Captain, yet there are no other parts of a pig to be seen. Meat was left at the shrine and they took it, and some of the black berries.”
“Juniper, to season the meat,” said the Captain of Archers. “The tree grows on this island.”
“Very like juniper, my friend,” said Kanesh. “But not the same and easily mistaken when the leaves of the juniper are not with the berries. If our stupid men have eaten what I think they have, they are in great danger. They must be found, and quickly.”
The sound of shouting came from the forest and a moment later Namun burst out of the trees and ran up to them.
“Quick, come on! Back there! We found them, but they’re all mad!”
Kanesh seized him by the arm, swung him round as easily as if he were a child and glared into his shocked face. Namun struggled furiously to free himself, but Kanesh held him like a vice and gradually he calmed down.
“Listen. Listen. The light is dying. In the forest it is darker still. If you run we will lose you. You must take us to the place and you must walk.” He turned to speak to the Captain of Archers but there was no need: he was already making torches from the oil-soaked firewood. When this was done, he raked among the ashes and lit the torches from hot coals blown into life. He handed one to Sharesh and they started off into the forest, following Namun.
“Luzar found them,” said Kerma. “We’d been looking everywhere, shouting through the woods and we’d no sooner come across this glade than he turns up out of nowhere with them following him, quiet as lambs. Soon as he goes off again, without a word, they went raving mad and started climbing trees and screaming they could see the Great Mother. We pulled them down and they went staggering all over the place, banging into trees and then they fell down and started frothing and grunting like pigs. Look at the four of them now, frightened of the fire and all shaking. Look at their eyes, wide open staring, big as plates. They’re all mad, acting like animals. What’s got into them? They’re all full of devils. They must be.” He was nervously fingering the amulet hanging round his neck.
“It’s this place, sir,” said Tessias. “We’re not wanted here. I could feel it right from the start, after we found first found that basin with the carving on it at the spring; and he drank from it before we could stop him,” he added, looking accusingly at Namun. “We shouldn’t have come here, sir.” Mirtias nodded in agreement. The two archers said nothing. Their eyes were on the men lying twitching and snorting on the ground in front of them.
“Watch your mouth,” barked the Captain of Archers. “It’s not for you to say what the Captain or Lord Kanesh here should or shouldn’t do!”
“Tell me what happened,” said Kanesh.
They all started speaking at once. Kanesh held up his hand for silence and pointed at Kerma. “You first.”
“Well, we lugged the jars up the hill and found that spring and then we put the flowers and the barley on the basin edge, like the skipper told us to and stood quiet and respectful for a bit and then we started filling the jars.”
“There were things already there, offerings,” cut in Namun, “nuts and fish and berries and –”
“And that meat,” said Kerma, “a nice bit of chine, ready cut and fresh. They hadn’t told us we’d find that when we got there,” he said, looking at Namun and the Taphians.
“They weren’t there when we found the spring first,” protested Namun, “were they?” he asked Tessias and Mirtias. They shook their heads.
“All right, all right” said Kanesh. “Carry on, quarryman.”
“Well, I told these four,” resumed Kerma, jerking his head at the men on the ground, “not to touch anything but just get on filling the jars, but oh no, when we were done and taking a spell, they must have lifted the stuff and slipped away and done a bit of cooking on that half-dead fire. A bit later on, we heard all this singing and yelling coming from up on the hill and when we got there to see what was going on, they were capering about like drunks thrown out of a tavern. When they saw us they shot off into the forest. We went i
n after them but couldn’t find hide nor hair of them. It started getting darker and we were on the point of leaving it till the morning, when up turns Luzar and hands them over. Where he came from I’ve no idea. I thought he’d stayed behind on the ship.”
“They shouldn’t have taken offerings from a sacred place,” said Tessias. Kanesh looked at him with eyebrows raised. “Everybody knows the priestesses do and even we can, sir, but that’s after the Mother has taken what’s rightly hers. They took it without waiting long enough. Too greedy, they were. It wasn’t time. Now look at them. It’s a punishment.”
“They were meant to take it,” said Kanesh. They all looked at him in astonishment. “The food was not an sacred offering, but a crude lure. There are people on this island who prey on the unwary and the curious. These men are suffering because of their greed, not because of sacrilege. They are also our shipmates and we must help them. We must get them back to the beach and do our best for them. They need medicine to rid them of the poison from those berries. Tie their hands and legs and carry them.”
When they got back to the beach with the now silent and almost senseless men, Luzar was waiting for them. A low fire was burning on the sand with a clay pot of bubbling liquid sitting in the embers. The men were laid down and their heads held up while some of the liquid from the pot, cooled with water from one of the jars, was poured into each throat. Gradually their twitching and snorting began to ease and eventually they were lying peacefully on the sand, seemingly asleep, except that their eyes were still wide open.
“Wait now,” said Luzar. “If eyes close before morning, they live.” Kanesh pointed to the pot. “Root of the white flower?”