by David Bell
‘It wasn’t Keftiu that Sharesh sighted. It wasn’t much more than pile of barren rock about half a day’s sail from Keftiu. That’s what the ship’s granddad said when the skipper asked if anybody knew it. Granddad once sailed in a ship that worked that bit of the Keftiu coast, he said. There was nothing worth having on the place, in fact, best keep away. There was talk of pirates using it. We were closing on it when all of a sudden the Lord Potheidan, or the Lady Mistress of the Seas, I don’t know which, decided they hadn’t finished with us yet and whipped up squalls off the larboard quarter. We were forced away from the island whether we liked it or not and had to run before the wind. It wasn’t long before we sighted the coast we all longed to see, and the snow-topped mountains further back, but in that sea it was too risky to try putting in.
‘You know that story about the man who angered a god because he was too crafty, so the god made him roll a boulder up a hill and every time he got near the top, it rolled down again and he had to start all over? I was beginning to think this voyage was like that. Anyway, it was another night and day before the Lord Potheidan (must have been him) thought of somebody else to torment – now I’m talking like the lord, better be careful – and we made landfall at last but a long way from where we wanted to be.
‘It looked like a good landfall. We couldn’t wait to walk on Keftiu ground again. There was a little crescent of a bay with sandy-coloured headlands full of caves. Behind that was a wide, flat valley with big mountains on one side – I didn’t know till somebody told me afterwards these were the sacred mountains you can see from the Palace; they look different from the other side. There were hills on the seaward side with a palace, or that’s what it looked like, a big one, on the slopes with the morning mist still clinging to some parts of it. There were lots of little black dots around it: people coming and going, I thought. We saw some ships in the bay. As we came in, we could see most of them were either loading or on their way out to sea, full of people. As you come into a port you get lots of shouts from other ships wanting to know who you are and where you’re from and what are you carrying and all that sort of thing. Not there: nobody seemed very interested in us, even though we were the Davina and she didn’t look like any other ship.
‘We still didn’t know what place it was and nobody wanted to tell us. They all seemed in a hurry to leave port. The lord couldn’t wait any longer. He got the skipper to put us across the bows of a ship getting ready to up anchor and told the archer captain to put his men on the bow with strings drawn back ready to loose. Then he had Typhis bellow across that unless their skipper told us the name of the place and what was going on, he’d soon find himself pinned to his own cabin door.
‘Paitoia, the man yelled back. You’re in Paitoia. Can’t you see what’s happened? Use your eyes. Look up there. He pointed inland towards the palace I told you about. Now, get out of my way! We backed oars and let him pass. All of us that could were looking at the palace now and at the smoke, not morning mist as I’d thought, that was rising from it in clouds that grew higher and thicker as we watched.
‘You didn’t drop off during that last bit, did you? I thought you were nodding there. Not nodding? Fixing things in your memory, were you? So that’s how you do it. I must try it myself. I forget a lot these days. A hundred and fifty-seven days before we saw Keftiu again! I remember every single one of them and what a welcome we got at the end of it! Is that enough for now?’
The poet sat on the terrace for a long time after the sailor had gone, thinking over what he’d been told. He smiled to himself: they always talked too much, once they got going. When he was younger he believed everything they told him, these men who spent their lives on ships and saw such strange and distant places. Now he wasn’t so sure. Still, some of it might make a good story. That island where the women poisoned the sailors and made them behave like pigs, or the other island that nobody wanted to leave once they’d eaten the fruit; and the boar hunt with the girl winning; yes, he could make something out of them. He would think about it.
WARNINGS
“Horses, Captain, we need horses, as many as you can find. Get on up to the palace with your men. See if the stables are still standing. Take every decent mount you find.”
The Captain of Archers and his men jumped onto the jetty and forced their way through the desperate crowd, shoving aside the peasant women with their children and their goats and the men with bundles on their backs who were struggling to get aboard one of the ships, no matter which. Kanesh watched until they broke free of the throng and set off at quick march along the road out of the port.
“We have room for some of them,” said Potyr looking at the pleading hands being held out towards the ship by people lining the jetty edge.
“Old friend, where would you set them down? On some hostile shore they have never seen? How long would they survive? Their fear is drowning their good sense. Their villages are damaged, not destroyed. They know only this land and are safer here if they could but see it. There must be someone in authority in the Palace, someone with the means to restore order and get the people back to work.”
“I will leave you to find that out,” said Potyr. “At a different time we might have stayed to help.”
“You may yet find the chance. This earthshaking will have troubled many other towns.”
“I’ll take the offshore wind and put in along the coast for water. Who will go with you?”
“Those who can ride: the archers, all three, and Sharesh,” said Kanesh. “I must get ashore. How will you find your way through that clutter without the archers to warn others off?” He jerked his head towards the harbour where ships and boats were moving about in all directions, crossing bows, sometimes colliding, in their haste to get out to sea.
“Kerma will stand on the bow with his axe.” Potyr gave a tired smile. “And, of course, there is always the helmsman’s voice. Pull in there, and let the Lord Kanesh step ashore. No one to come aboard, mark you.”
From the jetty they watched the Davina slip and slide her way past the other vessels as disdainfully as a fine lady shrinks from the touch of beggars. The warning bellow of Typhis still reached their ears even after the figure of Kerma, waving his axe, had faded from their sight. Sharesh watched her go with an ache in his heart. She had become part of him he realised. Would Potyr really bring her into the Palace port in four days’ time and would he and Kanesh be there to meet her? Would there be a port left to take her?
“We can do nothing here,” said Kanesh. “The Palace is where we will find what we need. If we come across the archers on the way, well and good.”
The road was paved near the port and cobbled further inland. They passed many small farmsteads and fields with the stubble of recently harvested crops. No one was about. The usual noises of fowl clucking, dogs barking or children squabbling were all stilled. Walls lay in jumbled heaps and roofs gaped with holes. Untended goats and sheep wandered through the vineyards and olive groves of larger houses, stripping leaves from the vines and trees and grazing in the gardens. Broad-winged birds circled slowly overhead, scouting for small rodents now free to roam the abandoned fields, or for the bigger and tastier carrion that lay there. Kanesh held up his hand for them to stop at one house with sagging timbers just off the road that had black smoke coiling from its open doorway. Inside were the charred remains of a kitchen and the red glow of a fire now dying down. The shards of a shattered oil jar near the hearth showed how the blaze had started. A man stood behind the house staring into the distance towards the sacred mountain. Dried tears streaked his face and dribble dripped from the corners of his open mouth. In one scorched hand he held a tiny cup, the kind a mother uses to feed the child she is weaning. They spoke to him, softly and kindly, asking him what had happened, but his dull eyes showed no sign of knowing they were there.
The clap of hooves on cobbles drew them back to the road, thinking perhaps the archers were returning. Approaching were three rough-looking, dust-covered men, each
urging on an overloaded donkey with cuts to the flank from a willow switch. Blankets and clothes were piled high over the animals’ backs while heavy baskets, bronze pans and bowls and jars of oil and wine bumped against their ribs. Strapped on top of one was a finely carved chair and on another, a loom with the thrums of a half-woven piece hanging from it. Giving surly, sidelong glances at Kanesh and Sharesh, the three tried to pass but Kanesh stepped forward and stood in their way.
“I see you are in a hurry,” he said. “So I will take only a little of your time.”
“Clear the way,” said one. “We want nothing from you.”
“Then we agree,” said Kanesh. “You want nothing from me and I want everything from you, everything you have there.” He pointed at the three donkeys.
“You mad? Just move aside and you won’t get hurt.”
“Gladly,” said Kanesh. “You need not worry about the beasts. I will take good care of them.”
“Got a nice-looking sword in that sheath, haven’t you? Only two of you and there’s three of us. I wouldn’t mind a sword like that.”
“You may have it,” said Kanesh, drawing the blade so swiftly from its sheath that Sharesh saw only a flash of light from the grey metal. “Where would you like it, here, in your throat or down here, in your love tackle?”
The man jumped back in alarm and then looked round angrily at the other two. “Come on,” he snarled. “They can’t take us all on.” One reached for a short lance on his donkey’s back and the other two drew bronze daggers from their belts.
“If you go now,” said Kanesh. “But you must make it quick and leave your plunder behind, you may pass out of range of the archers who are putting shafts to their strings even as we speak. Look round if you wish, but that will be wasting what little time you have left. Wait. Look at me. To lighten your load, leave your clothes and daggers there, yes, there on the road.”
Kanesh kicked the dirty kilts and loincloths off the road and threw the daggers after them. “Looters,” he said, spitting the word after the three naked wretches who had edged away and then broken into a run without looking back. “If they go near the port, they will be seen for what they are and be lucky to lose only a hand. Turn the beasts round. The rightful owners may be somewhere along the way.”
“I can’t see any archers,” said Sharesh.
“Nor can I. However, archers regularly see to their strings and shafts; so what I said was a reasonable supposition. Our three villains clearly thought so too.”
They pressed on along the road, passing one damaged and deserted house after another and meeting no one to whom they could hand over the donkeys. There was nothing for it but to carry on to the Palace which was now clear in view on the hillside with the road climbing towards it.
“There, riders, I see them now,” said Sharesh, pointing towards movement on the road near some houses clustered outside the main Palace buildings.
“Take out the lance,” said Kanesh quietly. He drew his sword and held it at the ready. They waited while the riders quickly drew closer.
“Only archers ride like that,” said Kanesh, putting the sword back in its sheath. “Upright and turning a little to the side they loose from.”
“Not easy,” said the Captain of Archers. “Place is in turmoil; people still rushing about trying to put out the fires and some not knowing to throw sand or ash on oil fires, not water. A lot of them have grabbed what they could and run away. Column fallen into the main courtyard so you can’t get across easily. Stone blocks shifted in some of the walls and the roof in one part looks ready to come down. You can’t get through some of the streets for piles of rubble. There’s not many hurt. Watchman told me they felt a sort of trembling early on that woke everybody and most people managed to get out before the real earth-shaking started. Some got caught when walls fell into the street. We pulled two women and a child from under the rubble. Child was dead, I’m afraid. I think they’re beginning to sort themselves out and get back into some sort of order. It’s needed: the stores and magazines are going to be called on soon if the people are to be fed. Lucky for them, most of the harvest has been gathered. You can see we found the horses. A groom who knew what he was doing had opened the stable doors and chased them out when he felt that first ground trembling. That was another piece of luck because the place collapsed not long after they got out.”
“How did you manage to get way with so many horses? You should have been stopped.”
“I asked the groom to take me to the Governor. He said the Governor was too busy dealing with the trouble. I told him we needed horses to get to the Palace at Kunisu quickly where we had a job to do. I promised him they would be paid for and brought back here when everything got back to normal. What persuaded him in the end were the bows on our backs and arrows in our quivers. And we weren’t going to take no for an answer. Felt a bit sorry for him. They don’t have archers in this palace, nor any other trained soldiers as far as I can see.”
“We have no time to lose,” said Kanesh. “I must get to the Palace and you on to the harbour to make sure that when the ship makes port she can find a berth and discharge. Sekara should see to that. Go to him first. Things are bad here. They may be much worse where we are going.” He walked round the horses, eyeing reins and harness, lifting hooves, stroking and patting and murmuring softly to each one. “Still trembling a little. They have been very frightened but having a man in the saddle will calm them down. Have they been fed, watered?”
“They have and there is more grain for them in the bags on the packhorse.”
“We ride now. The mare will suit me; Sharesh here will take that gelding. When we reach the edge of the plain we will rest and wait for first light before we make for the higher ground.”
“What about these,” said Sharesh, stroking the back of one of the donkeys.
“Do you see them lifting their heads and sniffing the air? They know this ground. They belong to someone in the houses up there, near the Palace, sure enough. Let them loose and give the lead beast a slap on the behind.”
Sharesh did as he was told. The lead donkey jerked her head up and down and scraped the ground with her forehoof. Sharesh gave her another slap, harder. She ambled off along the road, uphill in the direction of the Palace and the other two obediently fell in behind.
They reached the edge of the plain before nightfall and started the climb into the foothills, but the track became more and more difficult to find as the light faded and the horses tired. Kanesh called a halt. The horses were hobbled and given feed and a little water from a skin emptied into a leather bucket. No fire was allowed. The men soaked hard barley bread in water and forced it down with a few olives. Kanesh said he would keep first watch and the others were soon huddled among the rocks, wrapped in their blankets.
Sharesh was too tired to sleep. His legs would not keep still and he was sore from unaccustomed sitting on horseback. Sharp stones stuck into his back and the archers snored relentlessly. He tried looking at the stars; that usually calmed him. He found the Sailors’ Star, off to larboard where it should be. There he was, thinking like a sailor. Why not? That was what he had become. Thoughts of stars and storms and pictures of friends and lovers flashed and mixed in his mind until they made no sense. He got to his feet. Kanesh was nowhere to be seen, probably somewhere out there among the rocks and scrub, scouting the ground. He saw a speck of light high up the hillside. As quietly as he could, he crept away from the others. The horses shuffled their hobbled hooves and one snickered softly. Stroking her muzzle quieted her. He squeezed his way through waist-high juniper bushes and set off up the hillside towards the light.
There was a small village, no more than a handful of stone huts and animal pens, built on a level spread of ground just below the top of the hill, where a layer of rock stood out from the slope. Whether such a tumbledown place had suffered from the earth-shaking or not, it was impossible to tell. The light he had seen was from a fire burning away from the huts, at the very edge of th
e level ground. The moon was high and bright, its light glistening on the distant sea and the white peaks of mountains inland. It shone down on the dark figures standing round the fire and on the flat top of the large stone beside it. A low wailing sound came from the dark figures as one of them raised what looked like a basket above their heads, brought it down to the fire, almost touching the flames, and lifted it again as if to let the moonlight bathe it, and lowered it, three times in all. The figures shifted and moved towards the stone. The basket was placed carefully on top by one of them who stood by the stone as the others drew back. They lowered their hoods and Sharesh saw that all were women. The one left at the stone lifted a cover from the basket and carefully felt inside. She bent over and gently drew out the arm of a child and raised its tiny palm to her lips. The wailing of the others changed to a solemn chanting.
Sharesh felt a stab of horror. The moon, the fire, the wailing and chanting: this was a sacrifice. She, the mother, or priestess, was saying farewell before the child’s blood was spilled onto the altar. That was it: to appease the Lord Potheidan for shaking the earth and tumbling down their huts! Without thinking, he got to his feet, determined to stop this. Wait. They were moving away, taking the basket with them, back to one of the huts. He sank down again to watch, waiting a very long time while nothing seemed to happen. He watched the fire flickering as it died. The notes of a lullaby came stealing into his mind; he must remember them, he resolved, and play them for that child when the pipes were in his hands again.