by David Bell
“A cistern almost full of water: so far, so good,” said Kanesh to Potyr. “Shall I tell them that the captain sends his thanks but hopes they will understand that a captain always stays with his ship during darkness?”
Kanesh put on a dark red tunic draped over with a black cloak for the occasion. The long sword in its scabbard hung from his leather belt with the silver buckle. On his feet were soft leather boots. He ordered the others to brush their kilts clean and comb and oil their hair.
“He didn’t make us do this on Shardana,” whispered Namun to Sharesh. Kanesh overheard. “Finery has its uses,” he said.
He was given the best seat at the feast, a tripod stool with a long backrest bound with reeds. When the beakers were brought, the slinger’s father, evidently headman of the settlement, signed for the first to be offered to Kanesh who accepted it, raised it as if in offering, and passed it to his host. He took the second and allowed a few drops of the contents to fall to the ground. These gracious gestures drew appreciative drawings-in of breath and mutterings from the assembled villagers. He drained his beaker and flung it to the ground, shattering it into fragments There was a moment of startled silence and then a roar of applause. He stood up and raised his arms for quiet and gestured over the heads of the crowd. Head high and staring straight before him, Kerma strode through the throng, bearing in front of his chest a wooden pallet the carpenters had knocked together. He bowed to the headman and laid the pallet at his feet, whipping away the cloth that covered it. The turtle raised its scaly head and swung it slowly from Kanesh to the headman. A second approving murmur came from the people. The turtle was placed on a rough wooden table with a cord attached to its leg to prevent escape and the feast began. Fires had been burning and food cooking for most of the day. The results were cauldrons of porridge sweetened with honey, pots of greasy stew made from stringy goat meat, roots and bitter olives and a variety of wild birds, variably plucked and roasted almost to charring on spits over the flames. To Namun’s surprise, the turtle was not slaughtered and added to the feast. Almost having to shout above the din of feasting, Kanesh explained it had not been offered as food.
“It was a risk worth taking. Some ancients believe the turtle carries the world on its back. They fear if the turtle were to be moved, the world would fall off. To them what we have done would be seen as sacrilege. But to these people it is their Great Mother’s beast because like her it comes from the sea. We have brought it and we come from the sea. She is present at their feast and will be at their festival tomorrow. They approve, for the time being, anyway. Have you taken any of this drink? They make it from honey. Luzar seems to like it. Perhaps he knows of it. That is the third pitcher he has downed.”
The dancing began before the eating had ended. The women cleared a space in front of the chieftain’s house, shoving aside those men who were still standing and dragging away the others who lay unconscious on the ground. Sharesh recognised the steps and the patterns. It was a dance of praise to the Lady Mother. Not a word was spoken but the linked hands, the intertwining lines, the twisting, turning bodies and wild ecstatic eyes formed her image and spoke of her power. The wildness lessened and the mood became languorous and still there was no sound from the women, only the soft scraping of their bare feet on the earth. Their faces glowed in the firelight. Sharesh realised with surprise that one of the dancers was Luzar.
“Play,” said Kanesh. Sharesh raised the pipes to his lips.
He caught the sensuous rhythm of the dance, but played his own melody and found that he could lead the dancers with his music. He did not know how long he played, but the flames had died down to fluttering ashes when he felt a touch on his arm and knew that Kanesh was bidding him to slow and soften the notes further, until they trailed into silence. The dancers stood, heads down, mute and motionless. Kanesh rose and led the men from the Davina away into the darkness, leaving the village people to their visions and their dreams.
On a bright warm morning they made their way past the fields and the animal folds and the outlying round houses, back to the village. This time, the Captain of Archers and his men were with them, quivers full and wrist guards strapped on ready. Kerma was boasting to the Taphians and any other oarsman who would listen, about how much of the sweet liquor he had put away at the feast; not that it had any effect and not that he cared for it, they must understand, but as a Davina seaman one had be polite and keep up appearances. That’s what the lord had said. What he liked was Halaba wine; that was the drink for him but it would be many a day before they tasted any more of that.
“You can’t afford Halaba wine,” said one of the oarsmen. “Beer, that’s the drink where you come from. You’ve said it often enough.”
“Best in the world. Brewed there ever since the gods first gave us barley. I only wish this jar was full of it.”
They heard a clamour of voices coming from the village long before they reached the wall. Struggling through a band of excited children blocking the gateway, they found the slinger waiting to lead them to his father’s house where, he said, the procession to the festival place would begin. The house was shaped like a mound, narrowing upwards to a roof made of turf laid on close-packed branches held up by roughly squared-off beams. It had walls of shaped stone blocks fitted snugly together without any mortar. The doorway was two stone posts leaning inwards and topped by a massive lintel. It reminded Sharesh of a cave in a hillside. The headman came out to greet them as they walked across the open space where the feasting and dancing had gone on the night before. He had a chain of bronze rings round his neck and a staff in his hand. Round his waist was a sling. Every other man and most of the boys carried the same braided rope. After a great deal of rushing about and shouting, to the loud banging of a drum and blasts from a bull’s horn the procession set off, led by Kanesh and the headman. They went through the only other gateway in the wall and along a path to where the hilltop widened into a space much bigger than the village itself. Inside a circle of upright stones was a clump of wind-blown myrtle with a single flat-topped stone standing in front of it. To one side of this stood a weathered and chipped wooden post as high as the stone.
The Davina men looked on as the festival began with a great deal of chanting and raising of arms to the sky as everyone shifted about until each stone in the circle had a woman, some with babies on their backs, standing in front of it, while the village men and boys formed a group outside the stones, apart from their visitors but glancing more at them than at what was happening inside. An old woman in a long woollen smock and a chaplet of green myrtle leaves in her greying hair then walked slowly round the circle of women, who had begun to chant again. Each one made a gesture of reverence as she passed. She went up to the standing stone and placed her myrtle chaplet on the top. It was now the turn of the women to make their offerings of flowers and grain. The last one placed her newborn child among the flowers and Sharesh for a shocked moment thought it was to be a sacrifice, but she gently lifted it free and put it to her breast again, once the blessing had been received.
The solemn mood changed quickly to one of excitement and anticipation. The women had shown the people’s devotion to the Great Mother. Now it was the turn of the village men. Kanesh sensed that the challenge he had suspected was not far away. He exchanged looks with the Captain of Archers who clearly felt the same and said a quiet word to his men. The village men began to walk about, untying the slings from their waists, thrusting a finger through the looped end of one cord and swinging the braids over their shoulders and round their heads, releasing the free cord and catching it again as it swung back. The slinger standing by his father’s side raised a shout and all heads turned towards him. The headman raised his staff high and banged the butt down hard on the ground. A man standing beside the wooden post placed something on top of it. Sharesh peered closely but could not make out what it was.
“Boar,” said Namun, “carved out of wood.”
“Now we shall see who is to be champion slin
ger,” said Kanesh to the Captain of Archers. “And after that?”
“It will be our turn. This is to be the test, or some part of it.”
Every man and all of the older boys were expected to show their skill with the sling, or lack of it, with the wooden boar as their target. At the headman’s signal each man stepped to the mark, some thirty paces from the target, for the three throws allowed. The slingers stood eyeing the target as they glanced over their forward shoulder, then swung the braided cords in one rapid overarm whirl, loosing the free cord just as the loaded pouch was level with the shoulder. They had all been put to learning the skill as soon as they could stand and each man had his own way with his weapon, a fancy knot at the end of the release cord, a strand in the braid dyed red, a soft leather pouch or one of flax, flatter stones or rounded ones, white or dark, some touched by the lips, some tossed in the air before loading, every man was different. Experts and beginners, the skilled and the clumsy, the confident and the nervous, all stepped to the mark and threw.
Three slingers, one of them the headman’s son, struck the target with each of their throws. The others stood down and these three prepared to throw again to decide who would be champion. As the first man stepped to the mark, the headman banged the ground again with his staff. With the whole crowd looking on, he turned to Kanesh holding out his hand, palm upwards, in a clear invitation to join in the contest. Kanesh had been waiting for this moment but feigned surprise before beckoning to the archers to step forward. He called out to the headman, loud enough for all to hear:
“It is only just that each man should be allowed to use the skill he knows best. Is that not so?” Consternation showed briefly on the headman’s face, but the people were muttering, some heads shaking, but most nodding in agreement. He had to accept the terms but he had one more trick to play. At his command, the target was replaced by another half its size and each man was restricted to a single attempt. All three slingers struck the boar, rousing a great cheer from the crowd.
Before the noise died down the first archer had planted his arrow squarely in the centre of the boar, sending it spinning from the post and the second was already at the mark with his shaft nocked, waiting for the target to be set up again. No sooner had this been done than it was sent flying again and the Captain of Archers stood at the mark displaying ostentatious impatience as he waited for his turn. His shaft struck the boar and flung it into the myrtle bushes. Whenever he told the tale afterwards, and that was often, Kerma said there was such a silence you could have heard a gnat fart.
Slingers and archers, all had struck true. There had to be a way of settling the contest but the headman and his men were at a loss as to know how. Kanesh exchanged words with the Captain of Archers and spoke to the crowd again.
“Two men, one slinger and one archer, will loose together at my call, then two more and then two more until all six have loosed. All of you will see who strikes first. Do you accept?”
The headman and some of the others kept silent, looking angry and suspicious, but the crowd decided for them. Such sport had never been seen before. This must not be missed. Two men stepped to the mark. Kanesh waited until the sling was loaded and the shaft nocked. He called.
The wooden boar with the arrow quivering in it was falling to the ground as the sound of the slingstone stripping leaves from the myrtle could be heard. Two more men stepped to the mark and loosed. This time the sling stone sent the shaft’s feathers scattering, but the arrowhead was already embedded in the boar. The Captain of Archers and the headman’s son stepped up. The feathered shaft split the wooden boar in two, the halves falling down each side of the post. Many swore afterwards that they saw the slingstone speed through the split.
While the crowd watched in silence, the Captain of Archers sent his men across to retrieve the shafts.
“Very useful of Luzar to find out what was planned,” said Kanesh.
“Hm, I suppose you put him up to it. He understands their tongue I am told. I still can’t make him out but I must admit knowing what that headman was up to gave us time for a bit of badly-needed target practice.” He took his shaft from one of the archers.
“Ah, I see you used a broad-head point,” said Kanesh, “a war arrow.”
“A splitter; had to make things obvious. And it gives the crowd a good show. Slings are all right in their place but no match for a bow in the right hands. It’s a light weapon; no penetrating power. And –” he added, “– you can’t set a fire going with a slingstone. Well, that’s that. What happens now?”
“We have earned our water and I think we should fill the jars and be on our way as soon as we can. There are some here who will not take kindly to the outcome of this contest. They had other things in mind. Perhaps they still have. Today is their festival of the bull. Luzar heard a bull call and the people are waiting for something. We are too conspicuous here. Now might be the time for our men to mix in with the crowd and take their chance to slip away when the people’s attention is fixed on what might happen here next. The space here is large and that stone decked with the offerings looks ready for some kind of sacrifice.”
“From what that Taphian says, you are something of an expert with bulls at festivals.”
“We must wait and see, you and I. Perhaps we should rejoin our host.”
The headman was tight-lipped. The planned embarrassment had failed, yet here were these fine-dressed strangers pretending to be unaware of the humiliation they had inflicted on him in front of all his people. His son kept his eyes on the ground, torn between obedience to his father and shame at the trickery intended for his rescuers. He muttered a few words complimenting the archers on their skill which his father ignored as Kanesh explained their meaning to the Captain of Archers. The awkward silence that followed was broken by shouts from the crowd. Everyone strained to look.
“The bull is on its way,” said Kanesh.
“Time for the water party to get going,” said the Captain of Archers. “These two will stay here with us. They can’t use a bow with a great jar full of water on their backs.”
A young black bull was led into the stone circle by two village men holding ropes looped round its neck. It had been washed and groomed but it was frothing and snorting hard and the noisy crowd made it more nervous, causing it to jerk its head against the ropes. Kanesh could see it had not been fed the weed to calm it, nor did the cattlemen carry hobbles. Somehow they managed to coax it to the standing stone where the old grey-haired woman now stood waiting to consecrate it.
Perhaps it was planned; perhaps it was a mistake; perhaps a bee stung it. Whatever the cause, the bull suddenly spun round, wrenching the ropes from the cattlemen’s hands and ripping the old woman’s side with its horn. She fell bleeding to the ground and the cattlemen ran for their lives. The bull charged straight towards the first thing it could see: the red tunic of Kanesh. He began to draw the long sword from its scabbard.
The Captain of Archers acted with the instinct of a soldier. The bull was twenty paces away when a broad-head point drove through its eye into the brain, killing it instantly but not stopping its onward rush. Kanesh and the three archers stood their ground while everyone round them scattered. Two more arrows were in the bull’s throat as its body slid over the last few paces, spouting blood, to end on its knees before Kanesh and his upraised sword.
Uproar broke out. Some cried sacrilege. Others started forward to catch some of the sacred blood, only to fall back at the sight of Kanesh placing the tip of the brand on the head of the bull that knelt at his feet in the ultimate submission of death. He waited until all were silent, then, followed by the three archers, strode out of the circle and along the path towards the village. No one followed.
They caught up with the water carriers where they were resting near the barley fields. “Impressive,” said the Captain of Archers.
“It was a place for theatre,” said Kanesh.
“Get on your feet, you lot,” shouted Kerma. “They’re coming after
us.”
About twenty of the village men burst through the gateway and started running down the path. They were whirling their slings round their heads and shouting.
“Our purpose in going to the village was to bring water back to the ship and that we must do,” said Kanesh. “The water party must get away while we will hold the position here.”
“Suicide rearguard, eh?” said the Captain of Archers. “I’ll wager you’ve done this before. It’s not a good place here, no cover. They could pick us off with those things.”
“More a fighting retreat. You know the drill. Potyr will send men; have no doubt of that. No, wait. Do you see smoke?”
“In the village, sir,” said one of the archers, there, near the big house. Flames as well, now.”
“Luzar,” said Kanesh, admiringly. “Luzar has fired one of the houses.”
The slingers gave up their pursuit and ran back to the village to help put out the fire. Kanesh and the others watched for a while and then started back for the ship. Luzar caught up with them on the beach where an armed party led by Typhis was assembling.
“Will there be enough water left in that cistern for their children and their fields?” asked Kanesh.
“Only one house burns,” replied Luzar. “Many buckets. Water comes all the time out of rocks.”
“Oars only,” said Potyr. “I want no sling stones damaging the sail.”
At dusk the Davina dropped anchor off an island near the mouth of the inlet.
“I wonder what they did in the end with that turtle,” said Kerma, picking a fish bone from his teeth. “Here, try this honey brew I picked up from one of the houses back there. Tell me what you think of it.”
THE STRAIT
They raised anchors at dawn and rowed slowly out to sea. Potyr followed the shoreline until Namun sighted a small bay backed by high cliffs. It was what Potyr was looking for.
“Take her in, helmsman. We will anchor there while the boy climbs the cliffs. There should be enough light when he gets to the top to see where the next land lies.”