by David Bell
I am pleased to report that the ship (see earlier despatches), of novel design and recent construction, has, contrary to most expectations, successfully completed its voyage to an obscure land in what is known in these parts as the “Endless Ocean” and has returned with a sizeable cargo of the much-prized metal, tin. Now that the passage to the land of tin has been proved, further voyages are sure to follow. It will be evident from this that our plans for the land of Keftiu to maintain its dependence on the manufacture of bronze have every prospect of fulfilment and that our own development of the new metal, iron, will bring with it in the not too distant future the military superiority we rightly seek. Further to this, I regret to report that I have as yet been unable to acquire reliable information on current activity in the closely guarded shipyard although it seems possible that a second vessel, perhaps of larger size, may already be under construction and talk of warships has certainly come to my ears. Our own strategy is, of course, based upon possession of a formidable and mobile army. It may now be prudent to bear in mind the importance and reach of sea power.
I should add that after discharging its cargo in the town port, the vessel mentioned earlier was seen entering the bay where the shipyard is situated, presumably for cleaning and repair, but that at present its location is unknown. There is a rumour, as yet unconfirmed, that it has been taken without leave by members of its original crew and a number of renegade Palace troops, said to include archers, on a hastily arranged expedition to the island of Kallista whose governor is well known to us as an astute interferer in our affairs. Their object, it seems, is to repossess the island from invaders who have installed themselves in the principal town after a night attack. What is more likely is that the owner of the vessel, one Merida, the same who is trying to establish a vineyard of Halaba vines at his flamboyant new mansion on the island, not content with his recent windfall, has despatched the ship loaded with cheap goods that he hopes will bring him profit in the devastated settlements of Keftiu where there is greatest need.
It has come to my knowledge that the Lady Akusha, who has eluded us for many years, has returned to Keftiu and resides at present in the sanctuary high on the mountain Jaduktas which overlooks the Palace and town. The recent earth-shaking caused the death of most of her companions there, as well as destroying a temple on the lower slopes (note: certain anomalies relating to the discovery of corpses in these ruins are being investigated). Given the present circumstances and her own virtual solitude, the Lady Akusha might at last be apprehended without too much difficulty and returned to where she should answer for alleged past misdeeds. I await instruction in this matter.
To the Most Mighty Labarna, King of Kings, Dear to the Stormgod of the Sky, Highest in the Sight of all the Gods, all Praise and Majesty…
The envoy rolled up the sheets and sealed the edges with beeswax warmed over one of the lamps. He applied his red sealstone to the soft yellow wax and looked at the impressed image of the goddess in her flounced skirts. It was one of his little weaknesses, he knew, to use a trinket fashioned on Keftiu in addition to the heavy official stamp with its less delicately carved open-mouthed lion. He took another sheet of wadij from the pile on his table and began to write a private letter to one of his intimates, a young cavalry officer in the Royal Guard of the King of Kings himself:
My dear,
May the gods lovingly protect you. These are strenuous days for me in Keftiu and I do not refer to the turmoil consequent upon the recent lamented shaking of the earth. I promised to tell you of my meetings with the Lady Pasipha. These have progressed.
THE RETURN, SHARESH’S STORY
Potyr looked up into the night sky, searching for the Sailors’ Star. He found it and turned his head first one way, then the other, drawing breath deep into his lungs, scenting the wind. He raised both arms high and whistled softly and long and then again. The sounds from the town faded away and the Davina herself seemed to quieten and steady. Or was I just imagining that? In the silence Potyr opened his left hand and something white rose fluttering upwards into the night sky. In his right hand he had a small rhyton. Holding it over the rail he poured liquid from it, drop by drop, into the waves below. Then he let the flask fall in too. He lifted his arms above his head again, hands palms upwards in the gesture of supplication, and then slowly down and straight before him, pointing towards the prow. It was very cold.
Kanesh came along the jetty with the archers who scrambled aboard while the oarsmen were taking hold of their oars, and the riggers settling the mast on its crutch and lashing the spar to it. I waited by the bowline. Potyr signalled and I slipped the line from the bollard. As the Davina’s prow began to swing slowly away from the jetty, Namun thrust his oar out towards my feet and I ran along it and jumped on board. I knew Typhis didn’t like me doing it but he was too busy with the rudder.
I heard the stern line splash into the water and could just make out the big cloaked figure step easily aboard as the Davina swung farther out into the stream. Not for the first time I wondered how he could do that when he was as lame as he sometimes seemed. But even after all the time we’d been together there were still many things I didn’t know about him, Kanesh. I watched as he hauled himself up the ladder to take his place on the stern deck, next to Potyr.
Typhis eased the tiller to steady the swing. He shouted a command and ten oars were run out on each side and the oarsmen bent nearly double, dug in their blades and as one man, pulled, lifted clear and pulled again. By then I was at my lookout station on the high prow and I felt the ship surge forward and head for open water. Astern, the few lamps left in the town began to dim as we drew smoothly away. High above the town glowed the Palace lights, many fewer than there used to be, and higher still, a single flickering spark on the dark bulk of the sacred mountain, Jaduktas. At last, perhaps too late, we were going back. I whispered, Mistress of the Seas, guide us safely there. I wondered if she were listening.
The oarsmen settled to a long steady stroke and the Davina’s keel hissed through the calm dark sea, The Charioteer was low in the sky. I remembered Dareka telling me stories of the stars when I was a little boy. My favourite was the one about the Hunter. I was told that he had committed a terrible crime and that a scorpion was sent to sting him to death and that was why his brightness faded away in the summer, which is the season for scorpions as everybody knows. I asked what his crime was, but my Dareka told me it was about a girl but I was too young to understand. I found out later. Years afterwards, when I told Kanesh about this, he had said it was all superstition and stars went dim near the horizon because haze and dust were thicker there and got in the way of the light. The Hunter’s comings and goings might tell you about the seasons but, if you wanted a star to steer or ride by, the one to follow was the Sailors’ Star. With a start I realised that we were heading towards it now, and not along the coast to Malia as I had expected. And there, some way off to starboard was a faint light. That must be Dia, the goat island, which was supposed to look like a giant lizard when seen from the coast of Keftiu. The surf was always strong and loud on Dia’s shoreline, but we were too far away to hear it now.
I turned to call out my sighting and almost fell over Kanesh. I don’t know how long he had been standing behind me but he must have read my thoughts because he said quietly that we were heading for the islands of Tholos and that, when we reached them, we would decide our course of action. Meanwhile we were following the star that always stood in the same place in the night sky.
Dawn came with a glow like a distant fire spreading through thin sea mist. The oarsmen, tired now, were keeping the Davina just under way. As the sun rose, burning off the morning mist, it revealed an empty sea, not a dolphin to be seen, not a bird in the sky. Potyr ordered food and water for the crew, one section to eat while the other paddled slowly to keep the ship from drifting off course. We had no star to guide us now and had to trust in Potyr’s sense of the sea and his sightings of the sun. I scanned the horizon: still no sight of Thol
os. I began to feel restless, wanting Potyr to send me up the mast. Surely I would see Tholos from there. Kanesh, reading my thoughts again, told me to be patient; I might soon be wishing I were back at sea with nothing to do but watch the waves slip past.
The sun climbed higher, warming our bodies, but Kanesh still wore his cloak. He told me once that he had never felt warm again near the sea since he was in that shipwreck years ago. We stared ahead, silent now. The ship was almost stopped. We were losing time. Kanesh turned slowly then nudged my arm and nodded astern. Potyr was looking upwards and turning his head slowly from side to side. His hand was raised, its fingers spread wide like a fan and moving as if searching for something. He was feeling for the wind. Then I felt it myself, like a soft breath on my face, coming from astern. Potyr called out to make sail. Oars were hurriedly lifted from their pins and stowed inboard. The riggers stepped the mast then hauled on their ropes and raised it vertical. Four of them, two to each side, tugged on the rope lifts running through the bronze eyes at the top of the mast to raise the upper yard and lift the heavy linen sail into place. Others pulled on braces and sheets to steady the yards and trim the sail. It immediately began to fill, revealing the well-known sign of Merida, the bee in flight, to anyone who might be looking our way. Kanesh said to me drily that we knew she could fly but could she still sting as well, this time? The ship tugged like a dog on its leash and strained forward to skim through the dark blue water. I knew that if the wind kept up like this we should sight Tholos before nightfall. As far as I knew, none of us had set foot on Tholos but there were plenty of stories about it, and none of them very encouraging.
The sun slid down towards a red and purple horizon on the larboard quarter. Some men made the protective signs sailors do before nightfall. Kanesh stood motionless on the stern with Potyr now at his side. Both stared straight ahead. I went back on lookout and strained my eyes into the fading light. Then I saw it: a light, seeming no brighter than the oil lamp by my bed at home. It disappeared. Then it appeared again and behind it was a humped shape darker than the sky. I sang out the call, “Land ahead, fine on the starboard bow!” It had to be Tholos. The crew came to life, leaning over the side to look for the light, pointing and chattering to each other. None of them wanted to spend a second night at sea and the thought of land nearby cheered them. After sunset the wind began to slacken and the Davina’s speed fell away. The stars came out and sure enough, Potyr was keeping her on course with the Sailors’ Star dead ahead. He shortened sail with the intent of standing well off Tholos until first light to avoid the danger of reefs.
Dawn found us becalmed in sight of Tholos. Potyr ordered the sail furled and the oarsmen to their positions. We kept our distance from some black rocks that looked like stumps of rotten teeth sticking above the waves and, a little later, passed a bigger dome-shaped island on which we could see a few goats grazing and seabirds soaring about the cliffs. Just before the sun reached its highest the Davina was coaxed into a small bay on the near side of the third island, the biggest. The beach was too narrow to haul her up, so the stone anchors were cast away fore and aft, to hold her steady in the shallows.
Ten men were ordered ashore carrying the pot-bellied jars, to look for water. They also had swords and the archers who went with them had full quivers, just in case. Several more were posted as pickets along the top of the cliffs and others of the crew were allowed ashore to swim and light fires on the beach to cook the fish that the towed lines had caught.
Potyr sat on the stern with Kanesh, Typhis and the Captain of Archers, going over the plan of action. I stood as close as I dared, catching snatches of what they were saying: ‘sail at dawn… landfall about midday… if there’s a wind… the Lady will send us a wind… She? How can you be sure of Her… you can’t because you don’t believe… I believe all right, I believe in men’s muscles and your seamanship… we can row there… we will not need to row; She will send us a wind… eat and rest now… tell the men we sail at first light’.
With everything settled at last, Kanesh left the others and went into the cabin emerging shortly afterwards, with the basket I had seen him bring aboard just before we had sailed from Keftiu and the chest that Namun had been given by Naudok. He lifted two large round pots with handles from the basket and some small boxes and flasks and a coil of what looked like thin rope out of the chest. He placed all of them on the stern deck. I didn’t think he knew I was watching. Into each of the pots he carefully measured quantities of yellow and white powder from the boxes and added lumps of what I recognised as the resin that hardens on the bark of pine trees. From one of the flasks he poured in a thick black liquid and from another a stream of golden oil. He cut two lengths from the coil of rope, and pressed one down deeply into each pot. I saw flakes of white powder fall from the rope. Finally he plugged the tops of the pots tightly with wads of wollen cloth, leaving one end of the rope trailing outside. He replaced everything in the basket and stowed it away in the cabin. When he came out he looked at me and I knew he had been aware of me watching everything he had just done. I started to ask him what he had been making, but I thought better of it and went to see how many fish the Leptos brothers had caught.
A lookout on the clifftop shouted that the water party was on its way back and in a hurry. Some of them soon appeared at the crest and began clambering down the steep slope, moving awkwardly under the weight of the heavy jars. The archers stood on the cliff edge looking inland, arrows nocked to their bowstrings. Panting for breath, one of the water carriers shouted what had happened. They had come across a collection of huts with fires burning outside. These may have been the lights we had seen the night before. Women and children had run away at the sight of the men with swords and bows. They found a stone-bottomed channel leading down to a cistern with water in it. While they were filling their jars, a crowd of wild-looking men had appeared with a pack of dogs and started throwing stones at them. Nothing for it but get back to the beach with the bowmen holding off the barbarians with drawn bows. One dog, bolder than the others, had rushed towards them and was shot. The other dogs immediately fell on it and tore it to pieces. In the noise and confusion the water party was able to get away without hurt, but the barbarians were now close by and looking very threatening.
The Captain of Archers said we had enough men to get rid of them and made for the ship’s rail, but Kanesh stopped him. He pointed to the top of the cliff directly above the ship where some large loose rocks were piled up. He said we could chase the barbarians away and perhaps kill most of them, but we could not kill them all. At night they would come back and push the rocks down onto the ship and sink her. That was what the boulders were piled up there for. These people were wreckers. He said we did not need to fight now; save the fighting for later when it would be unavoidable. Then he asked Potyr to let him go and talk to the barbarians. Yes, he meant talk. Potyr didn’t like it but eventually he agreed, but only if Kanesh took ten of the archers and their Captain with him. Kanesh told me to follow and bring a full wineskin with me.
We toiled up the cliff, Kanesh limping and slipping all the way but scorning any offer of a helping hand. At the top we paused to catch our breath and view the scene. The archers stood in a line with arrows resting lightly on the strings. The barbarians kept just over a bowshot being distant and every man held a spear or a heavy stone axe. Their dogs roamed restlessly around them barking and snarling in our direction.
Kanesh told me to stand where I was and started limping towards the barbarians. They lifted their spears and shouted at him, but he kept moving closer to them. Suddenly one of them who seemed to be their chief shouted one word to the dogs, who instantly raced towards Kanesh, teeth bared and snarling like devils. A word from the Captain and his archers drew their strings to the cheek. The leading dog was almost on Kanesh when he thrust out his arm, forefinger pointing straight between the dog’s eyes, and hissed loud, harsh words in that language I didn’t understand. The dog dropped on its belly, ears flattened, and b
egan whimpering. Kanesh pointed once at the rest of the pack, spoke again and the same thing happened. I’d seen him do it with dogs before but it still made my spine prickle. Kanesh bent down and stroked the lead dog’s head. He walked a few paces past the squirming pack towards the gaping men, then turned and snapped his fingers. The whole pack jumped up and trotted after him, tails wagging. I heard the archer nearest me whisper the name of the Mistress of Animals and ask for protection against devils.
As he drew closer to the barbarians, I could see that Kanesh had put his hands together in front of his chest in the peace gesture and that he was speaking to the one who seemed to be the chief, although I could not make out the words. Kanesh stood in front of the chief for a long time, looking straight into his eyes. Then without turning he raised his arm and beckoned me to come forward. No one else moved. I stood beside him while he spoke to the chief, again in the strange words of that ancient language. Speaking to me in words I could understand, but without taking his eyes off the chief’s face, he said that he had told the honourable chief of this island that we were men of peace, that we were voyagers on our way to help our own people and that we were saddened to know we had frightened his women and children and that the archer who had killed his dog would pay for it. All we wished was that he grant us his permission to take a little water and shelter for one night on his beach and in return for this great honour we would give the chief this jewel and, to seal our friendship, we would drink this wine. Then he held up a pendant made from a thin silver chain on which hung a figurine of a nautilus carved from blue Black Land glass, made it sway a few times in front of the chief’s face and then pressed it into his hand. He reached behind his back and took the wineskin from me, unstoppered it and pressed a few drops onto the ground. All this time he kept the chief’s eyes fixed on his. He spoke again, one ancient word, and suddenly laughed out loud. The chief looked startled, and then he laughed too. Kanesh handed him the wine skin and he emptied most of the contents down his throat. Kanesh finished off the rest.