by David Bell
“Wait till you see the stuff and you might change your tune,” grunted Typhis. “It doesn’t come in those great lumps from the Black Land you keep going on about. At least, it doesn’t on Malluon where I’ve see it being worked.”
“Now, they remind me of the Black Land,” responded Kerma. “See there, further along the shoreline? Sand dunes, just like the Deshret; makes me dream of home.”
The dune field stretched as far as a cape that, as they drew closer, was curved like part of the claw of a crab; the other part could be seen curling towards them through the evening haze and between the two was the sea lagoon, where the chieftain had told Kanesh they would find seamen who knew these waters. Moments after the Davina turned round the point of the claw, Namun sang out from the bow.
“Sail, no, two; ship with sail furled; fine on the starboard bow; close in to shore.”
“Take her in, helmsman,” said Potyr, “slow ahead and stand off the nearest vessel while we hail her.”
She was a strongly built flush-deck cargo ship that had seen better days but still looked sturdy enough for coastal trade and short haul open sea work when the weather was fair. She might have loaded obsidian, in fact, there were sizeable lumps of the dark shiny rock still on her deck waiting to be crated and lashed, or lowered into the hold, but she was low in the water, so heavy laden with other cargo, too: metal, Potyr guessed. He asked Kanesh to hail her. He would know their tongue.
“Davina long out of Keftiu, Captain. What ship are you?”
“Keftiu? Keftiu, you say, captain? First time I ever see a Keftiu ship in these waters. I see one once off the big river where the cold wind comes from. She wasn’t like your ship, though, Captain. Who? My ship? Turtle, Captain, slow but sure. Out of Kyronus.”
Potyr heard the name Kyronus and sent up a silent prayer of thanks to the Lady Mother.
“Captain, I have a flagon here that I need help in emptying. You would be very welcome aboard. We can swap a few yarns, you and Captain Potyr here, and me.”
“Be glad to help. Captain, but I can’t hang about too long. Got to put out at daybreak.”
The Turtle’s captain was helped back to his ship as the sun was flushing pink at dawn’s approach, leaving them with much to ponder on.
As the Turtle lumbered across the still waters of the sea lagoon, on a heading past the far point, Potyr and Kanesh held council with Typhis and the Captain of Archers on the bow deck, out of hearing of the crew.
“If he’s right in saying we’ll have that wind again soon, why is he on that course? He’ll be heading straight into it.”
“He knows these waters and the wind, helmsman. He reckons he will make Kyronus before the wind does.
“We can do the same and be there before he’s gone halfway. Then we wait.”
“If you recall, he said the wind can blow gale force for three or six or thirty days. We do not have that time.”
“I haven’t the sense of courses and headings that you three have,” said the Captain of Archers, “but it seems to me that sailing to the great river mouth and the trading post takes us away from where we really want to go. Once there, we must turn about and sail back the way we came. What is there at the great river that is so important?”
Kanesh answered him. “News of shipping, pirates at large, all the information mule trains bring from inland or the roads to the Kharron river where we know we must put in, supplies, messages to find and the chance to leave messages for ships to pass on to other ships that might, one day, reach Keftiu. Trading posts do all these things for a ship. But when all is said and done,” he added, “time and winds are what concern us most.”
They all waited for Potyr to speak. He was gazing out to sea but they knew he had not missed a single word that had been said.
“The captain said it is six days’ sail across the open sea to the great river, fewer for this ship. If he is right about the wind, it would come on us halfway. We know what it can do to a ship, even this ship. Typhis is right: we can make Kyronos, I have no doubt, and there we could wait for fair weather. In time, the Lady Mother favouring us, we could make the crossing to the great river, I am sure. The captain also said that following the sun from this bay would bring us to the shores of Sapanim.”
“Sapanim! How many days’ sail?” asked Typhis.
“I reckon ten days, twice as far as the great river but, remember, if the wind does blow, we know the ship can run before it.”
“And if we put to sea now we will be but one day short of landfall should the wind strike again.”
“How can that be?” said the Captain of Archers. “The captain here said ten days’ sail to Sapanim.”
“There is said to be land part way to Sapanim where a ship may seek shelter and take on water,” said Kanesh.
Silence fell. Three men waited for Potyr to make his decision.
“The water jars must be cleaned and re-filled. Helmsman, bring us in close to where that vessel took on water.” He looked pointedly at Kanesh. “We sail at midday.”
A rough track led along the shore from the inlet where ships took water from a stream, to the settlement where miners brought their ore and stone down from the mountain diggings on the backs of donkeys, or on their own. A wooden pier stuck out into the bay where ships tied up for loading. Kanesh could see little in the way of copper stone in the dumps. The cargo of copper intended for the furnaces on the bronzesmiths’ island and now on its way to Sikelia must have been dug out elsewhere on Shardana. He picked out pieces of stone from one heap that had white streaks speckled with grey spots and handed one to Sharesh. The spots glistened as they caught the sun when he turned it in his hand.
“The smith of Gubal: he drew silver from grey stone like this!”
“No Sharesh; from the heavy metal that he first drew out of stone like this.”
“My silver bead, the one Tessias said was payment for the music, was made on Shardana?”
“Who can say? Perhaps in the mountains. I see no forges here. At the chieftain’s tower we were served wine from a jug of Keftiu style, so the bead also may be from there.” He prodded with the toe of his boot at a pile of round boulders and cobbles of a stone that shone bright and black where the mud had washed off. “Look here. This is the obsidian still sought by people who cannot pay for bronze. We will take some. There will be a sale for it where we are going. Luzar? See to it.”
When Luzar emerged from the squalid hut where some of the miners rested for a night or two before heading back to their workings in the mountains, he was followed by a barefoot man wearing a ragged kilt and a dirty short-sleeved smock tied at the waist with greasy rope. He looked half starved although his eyes were hard and his glance direct.
“This man says he will be pilot for us,” said Luzar. “Have him take a sack and fill it with this stone.”
As they walked back along the track towards where the ship lay at anchor, Sharesh asked why the man following them with the heavy sack on his back wore a braided rope round his forehead. Was it a tribal sign?
“He is a slinger. That is his weapon,” said Kanesh, “and from that we know he is our pilot.” The man wolfed down the food given him so hungrily it was clear he could not have eaten for days. He told a story of being taken by force aboard a ship to make up the crew, only to be marooned on Shardana when they had no further use for him. He had made his way over the mountains, following the sun, lost for days, living on roots and berries and small animals he could bring down with his sling. When he crawled into the settlement they would have nothing to do with him, calling him a barbarian and threatening him with spears. He had to hide in the forest and steal in at night to search for scraps. Why stay there? To find a ship that would take him back to his land. He had swum out to more than one, only to be warned off, or find she was headed for some other land. Now, all thanks to the Great Mother, these lords in their fine ship, had shown him pity and he would show them the way they sought and they would return him to his land and to his father.
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“A plausible tale,” said Kanesh. “I think rather he is what is left of a pirate crew, lost in some storm or failed raid. However that may be, he has what we want and he will serve our present purpose.”
At noon the Davina raised anchor and, following the slinger’s signs, set off across the gulf to the narrow point opposite, the crab’s other claw. It was a hot and humid day and the oarsmen’s backs soon began to run with sweat although the stroke was light. Bordering the gulf were long stretches of sandy beach and dunes, tufted with low shrubs and tussocks of dry grass. Beyond these, through a thick heat haze that extended over the low ground as far as the foothills, glints of light showed where swampy lakes and salt lagoons lay stagnant under the hot sun. The slinger directed Typhis to larboard of the point and as the Davina drew level with it, he turned his arm abeam to larboard, setting her on course to follow the sun as it began its run down the sky.
“This man,” said Luzar to Kanesh. “says no wind now for many days.”
The ship made good running only at night when the air was cooler and the Sailors’ Star shone brightly in a cloudless sky. During the heat of the day she was kept slow ahead with one watch at the oars while the other sought shade and rest until their turn came. The slinger proved to be right: there was no wind. The sail was furled so that its spread would not hold back the ship, however slightly, but it was raised again at dusk when fleeting light breaths of wind ruffled the smooth surface of the sea. When he was not moving among the oarsmen with ladle and water bowl, Sharesh watched the blue water slipping past and thought how every sweep of the oars was drawing the Davina a nearer to the Endless Ocean, and farther away from Kallista and Keftiu. Of the land where they were heading, the Tin Islands, he knew nothing beyond the few words Luzar had spoken about it. Then the thought stole into his mind that all he knew about the land he had left, Kallista, or Keftiu, was memories. What was happening there now, he did not know. Memory and what was before his eyes this instant: the ship, the crew, the blue water; that was all he knew. In the emptiness of the ocean it was a thought that brought on a feeling of loneliness. The sight of Leptos and Leptos making ready a barbed harpoon, one coiling the line, the other balancing the shaft, drove the feeling away. Where was the target, the prey? A swirling patch off the starboard bow, triangles of ribbed fin piercing the surface, smooth grey-blue backs just below: the great hunter fish! The harpoon lanced out; blood stained the foaming water, streaking after the fleeing fish. The carefully coiled line sped out as the brothers let it go. They knew the fish would turn. The ship was moving slowly enough for the harpoon point not to be torn from its lodge in the fish’s spine. With Kerma’s help they played the fish, gradually drew it in and when at last it lay exhausted at the ship’s side, dropped overboard to loop and lash round other lines for hauling it out of the water. Six men struggled to get it onboard as the rest cheered and licked their lips at the thought of enough oily red meat to last for days.
When the sun touched the horizon on the fourth day Namun called out land in sight, fine on the starboard bow. The slinger raced to the bow and stood there grinning broadly and shaking his head up and down.
“My land,” he shouted, “my land!”
ISLAND OF SLINGERS
They sailed on through the night at slower speed. Potyr was wary of closing on a shore he did not know until he had a clear sight of it in daylight. At first, Potyr took it for the mouth of a great river but, as the ship drew closer, he saw it was an inlet of the sea with a headland on the starboard side and a low-lying island at the mouth. Following the slinger’s signals, the ship was eased cautiously into a channel to larboard of the island. Potyr ordered the linesman to the bow and when he reported that the line was too short to sound the depth, Typhis was told to take her in. The inlet stretched so far inland they could not see its end. There were small islands in the stream but these were easily passed. Bordering the inlet on each shore were low rocky cliffs cut through by narrow valleys, all floored with boulders and all dry. The ship’s water jars were half empty. A stream or spring had to be found, so they rowed on, the inlet’s walls gradually closing in on them. Kanesh went up to the bow where the slinger stood, peering eagerly ahead.
“Captain,” Typhis said, “we can’t take her anywhere she can’t turn. I’m not sure we can trust him. If he doesn’t bring us to an anchorage soon, throw him overboard and let’s go back down to that island. We could anchor there.”
“Hold her steady here. Kanesh is talking to him.”
Kanesh climbed back on the stern deck. “Our pilot tells me that there is one more turn to make and then the water ends. His village lies inland from there. I have told him we trust him but if he proves false, he will find himself in the water as a target for the archers.”
The Davina dropped anchor within sight of where the inlet ended. Potyr held her just out of bowshot from low cliffs that rose from a sandy beach, too narrow in any case to have her hauled out. Sharesh and Namun were sent ashore with the slinger, under strict orders to stay on the clifftop themselves and watch closely where he went and report back. They were not to concern themselves with Luzar: he knew what he had to do.
Still dripping wet from their swim back to the ship, the boys told what they had seen.
“All along the top of the cliff there’s a thicket of juniper and thorn bushes, hard to see a way through but the slinger seemed to know where to go. When he came out on the other side he was by himself; we didn’t see Luzar again. After that there are pine trees, and flat ground covered with rocks except where the fields start –”
“They must have gathered the rocks up to make the walls,” put in Namun.
“Who?” asked Kanesh.
“The people; there were women working in the fields, hoeing. When they saw the man they looked worried at first and then they must have recognised him –”
“He shouted at them. Must have said his name –”
“They all ran over to him and started laughing and chattering. They knew him, all right.”
“And after that?”
“They all trooped off up the hill to the village.”
“Village?”
“On the top of the hill, a lot of little round thatched houses spread about in twos and threes.”
“And a big one in the middle. They all went up the hill and through the gate into the village, women, children, dogs, the lot.”
“You said gate.”
“Yes, well more like a gap in the wall. Big wall, really, quite high, all round the village, as far as we could see.”
“Anything else? Men, guards? Any sign of water?
“None that I saw; only one or two boys watching the sheep and goats.”
“I caught a glimpse of a man, near that cattle pen,” said Namun. “He must have been doing something with a bull. I could see its horns over the wall.”
“Water?”
“No. All the stream beds are dry.”
“Funny thing is, though,” said Namun, “that field where the women were hoeing was all green; looked like new barley, maybe oats.”
“Is that all?”
“Hm, I think so. Olive trees, they have lots of olive trees. And there was smoke going up from one end of the village. We waited to see if anyone came out again but nobody did, so we came back here. What’s Luzar doing?”
“Finding the water. If the fields are green there must be water.”
“Helmsman, take her out into midstream,” said Potyr. “We will anchor there overnight. There must be boats somewhere here, perhaps hidden in the bushes. Have our fishermen look for them. If Luzar finds the water, they’ll be needed for shifting the jars. When it gets dark I want a sharp lookout for any visitors.”
Leptos and Leptos found two boats with paddles in a cave at the foot of the cliffs, set them afloat and drifted up and down the water trailing lines. The sound of a splash jerked Namun out of a doze and when he went to the ship’s side to see what had happened, he saw one of the brothers in the water strugglin
g to lift a turtle into his boat. Turtle was a rare feast but Namun had never cooked one before. Tessias would know. He looked round for the Taphian and saw a three men standing on the cliff top. One was waving his arms.
“He’s back. The slinger; he’s back, up there on the cliff!” he shouted towards the stern and pointing to the shore.
“Send Leptos across,” said Potyr to Typhis. “Slinger only to come aboard,” he added. Kanesh turned to Potyr and spoke:
“He says his father and his people welcome us to their land and to their village. There is to be a feast this night in our honour and tomorrow is the festival of the bull. We are invited to be present. Apparently, this is an favour rarely extended to strangers.”
“And the water that was promised us?”
“There he seems a little evasive,” said Kanesh after speaking to the man. “He says the supply is short because the rain was sparse in the winter. It will be discussed at the feast. I have a feeling that it may in some way be connected to the festival he talked about.”
“What do you think? We could set him ashore, up anchor now and look for water farther along the coast.”
“We cannot be sure of finding it. There is water here: you will recall that the fields are green. I sense a challenge: we have to undergo some test if we are to have what we want. I find challenges difficult to refuse.”
“Very well, but before we leave this ship to attend the feast I wish to know what Luzar has discovered.”
“I will tell Leptos that he must find another turtle. This one will be our offering to the feast.”
Luzar paddled back to the ship in a boat he had found hidden under some branches on the beach.
“Stone chamber, very long, very deep.” He paced several steps and pointed part way up the mast to show how big it was. “Full to here with water and more water coming out of rock and buckets for taking water to the fields. Men have been hunting, some fishing. All carry slings. Fires for cooking a feast are burning. I heard the voice of a bull.”