The Amber Seeker

by Mandy Haggith

  ‘Faith is stronger than greed.’

  ‘Oh, you idealist, you!’ Ussa chuckled, as if indulging a child. ‘I do admire it in you, but you’re wrong. Your days are done. Come, Pytheas. Just to be clear,’ she addressed the Lily again, ‘this is not trade. I have a debt to pay, that’s all. I sold his tin ages ago, but I’ve plenty more where that came from and I’m sure you’ll both agree one pure ingot is as good as any other.’

  ‘The most valuable things cannot be so easily interchanged,’ the Lily said.

  ‘You sound just like Manigan. Everything has its price. Everything.’

  The mention of that man gave me an idea. ‘Are you still after him?’ I asked, all innocent.

  ‘Sadly yes, he evades me endlessly.’

  ‘I saw him, you know.’

  She rounded on me, her smile still wide, her one eye blinking a little too fast. ‘Go on.’

  ‘My tin?’

  She swivelled to face the slaves standing behind her. ‘Fetch Pytheas a hold-sack of smelting metal.’

  There were four such sacks on the jetty. The bigger of the two men heaved one onto his back, carried it to me and dropped it at my feet. The metal made a pleasing clatter on the stone paving. I bent, untied the sack, took out an ingot and bent it, listening. It crackled. I tested two more. Both sounded pure.

  ‘I don’t deal in rubbish, as you know,’ Ussa said.

  ‘Thank you. You’re an honourable woman.’

  ‘Do you hear that?’ Ussa held her hand out palm up, a cat-like satisfaction on her face, watching the Lily for a reaction. There was none forthcoming. ‘And Manigan?’ Her eye switched to me. The price of my tin was information, clearly.

  ‘I saw them in Kantion. Manigan and Rian,’ I said.

  Her eye-brow raised slightly and I feared I might be straining credibility by suggesting they were together.

  ‘He was trading ivory. They said they were going north, up the east coast, once all his ivory stock was gone. He seemed to be getting good value. If I had had this,’ I nudged the tin with my toe, ‘I’d have offered some of it.’

  ‘You can join me. I’ll track him down. And her, my runaway. You’ll get what you want.’

  I shook my head. ‘All I desire now is to see my home again. I’m heading south.’

  ‘Well.’ Ussa rolled her eyes.

  I knew how little she thought of the idea of home.

  ‘I wish you fair winds. I take it my goods are not required here.’

  ‘No.’ The Lily said the word with such force it seemed to propel Ussa round and away. She didn’t look back at us.

  I picked up my sack. It was enjoyably heavy. ‘Now all I need is an Armorican ship,’ I said to the Lily as we walked together back up the hill. The other Keepers went on ahead, but she kept my slow pace.

  ‘Why did you tell that lie about Rian?’

  ‘I thought it might be a useful – what do you say – wild goose trail?’

  ‘Why say she is with the Mutterer?’

  ‘Ussa’s mad for his stone. It was just a way of making something up that would pique her interest. I know a thing or two about her desires.’

  The Lily said nothing, but I sensed I had created an advantage for myself.

  ‘I mean Rian only good.’

  The Lily looked at me sideways, and I pressed my point.

  ‘I intend to take my son home with me.’

  She lifted her chin and lowered it again. It was like hearing an ingot crackle. I had what I wanted.

  DECISION

  The next day, the Lily returned with the two of you. I was sitting on the bench in the sunshine. A fresh breeze filled the island with the rustle of vegetation and set the sea rolling across the beach. Waves were breaking on the shore with their regular heave, crash and hush of foam. I watched a big boat that had come in this morning at high tide and now lay at anchor. It looked Armorican: it was solid wood and beamy. I was anxious to be gone and I had a hope that this might be the vessel I could journey with.

  I had walked down as soon as they had landed but the Keepers supervising the jetty said that the ship was strictly out of bounds to everyone. They assured me that one of them would visit me later and sent me back to my hut.

  The Lily had one of you on each side, holding your hands, and you were both skipping down the track. As you got closer I heard you were singing a silly song, the rhythm of your steps fitting perfectly to the tune. You skidded to a halt just above my cell, panting.

  The Lily said, ‘You’ll be leaving on her, then.’

  I wasn’t quite sure if it was a question or a demand.

  ‘If she’s going south, yes, I hope so.’

  She had let go of your hands and you were both flushed and smiling. Cherubs, the pair of you, with an expectant air.

  ‘They want to write again,’ she said. ‘Ask nicely.’

  ‘Please can we do feather writing?’ You asked so sweetly I laughed out loud.

  ‘Of course. I’ll get the parchment and quill.’ I fetched my writing box and got out my tools, and this time you were keen to stir the ink in the bowl. As we got ready, I said. ‘Do you know when they’ll sail?’

  ‘Tonight at high tide, probably. It’s clear, and the wind is fair. They’ll want to be away I’d guess, unless the Keepers’ offer of hospitality is too tempting.’

  We began by writing your names again. Then we wrote Rian’s name and then mine. I stuck to the strange, twiggy little alphabet used for Keltic, even though it felt weird to write my name like that instead of in my usual Greek lettering, but I thought it would only confuse you if I tried to explain that different tongues had different alphabets. As it was, I needn’t have worried. Your writing was an indecipherable scribble, a proto-alphabet all of your own. You were the precocious one of the two and demanded to look inside my codex and then asked me to read what it said, and you just accepted that the foreign language I spoke looked different on the page. I taught you to say a few words of Greek: ‘boy’, ‘girl’ and ‘I love Mother’, which made the Lily smile, with a bitter look in her eye.

  I was remembering the early days of my acquaintance with Rian, when I watched her writing in sand and taught her some basic Greek vocabulary. Looking back did not make me proud.

  Fortunately you were both too excited with your feather writing for my thoughts to linger anywhere but on you. You each drew a picture of yourselves doing your favourite things, unrecognisable to me, but then I wrote, ‘Soyea dancing’, under one scribble and ‘Cleat building a sand fort’ under the other and you ruined the rest of the page with your efforts to copy out the letters. Still, I can safely say no piece of parchment has brought me more joy. What are all the fine poems in the world if a child cannot experience the fun of scratching their own name? I have that sheet to this day. As words do, those marks have transcended time and I will carry that happy afternoon in the sun with you to my grave, and perhaps beyond.

  It was as you were practising with the quill that I decided to stake my claim.

  ‘When I return to Massalia, I really need to prove I am a father.’

  She nodded, clearly waiting for what was coming.

  ‘I shall take Cleat with me.’

  ‘I know he is your son, but you have barely met. His mother left them in our safekeeping.’

  ‘Just for a little while, of course,’ I said.

  The Lily turned to Cleat. ‘Would you like to go with Pytheas, to where he comes from, on that boat there?’ She pointed to the mighty ship.

  I watched a little face, all innocence, lift towards mine, look out to the ocean adventure and back to me, and nod. There was trust in that face, a trust I knew in my heart I did not deserve, but what a gift it was. No ingots of precious metal could ever feel more valuable.

  ‘You’d bring him back soon.’

  I wasn’t sure if it was a question or not, but it seemed impossible to say anything other than, ‘Of course, yes.’

  Would I return? The idea had only occurred to me in that idle way
every traveller has of imagining what a place may be like in another season, if it were actually home. Such fantasies are no more than that, but here, suddenly, I was faced with another thought entirely. This was my children’s home. I could not only bring my son up to be a Massaliot, we could frequent this place as well. I could endear myself to your mother by being a doting father, visiting regularly. Of course I would return. I said it with all sincerity and saying it made it sound true, made it a promise.

  ‘When?’

  It was already midsummer. By the time I reached home it would be harvest time. And of course, once there, the child would need to settle, to be shaped into a Massaliot. I had no idea how long that might take.

  ‘Your home is only a few days’ sail away, you said.’

  I had indeed said so, making light of my onward journey. She made me spell out again how far south I would need to travel and how long it would take. I told her it was far closer than Ictis was to the north of Albion, and I showed her my calculations that backed up my argument. She listened with close attention.

  ‘How long would he need to stay? Will you return before Lammas? That’s six weeks away.’

  I laughed. ‘No, no. Not so soon.’

  ‘But by the equinox. After that the weather gets worse.’

  I heard myself say, ‘Oh yes, I’m sure by then’, but I sounded more certain than I was. When I finally reached home, would I really be able to leave again so soon? I knew I should. And it would be good to establish the route between my home and this place as traversable with regularity. ‘Yes, by the equinox. And if for some reason it is not possible I will send word somehow and certainly come first thing in spring.’

  She frowned at this.

  ‘I’m sure the equinox is more likely,’ I added hastily, turning to Cleat and distracting everyone’s attention back to the beach. ‘We will have a fine time on board that ship, won’t we? And then we’ll sail back here before the summer’s done.’

  The sea was gentle and visibility was excellent. We could see far out into the ocean. Any journey seemed possible, nowhere too far or too difficult.

  ‘And I, after all, am Pytheas.’ I said. ‘I have sailed to the edges of the known world. I have been to Thule and returned. I have been to the Amber Coast and returned. How difficult can it possibly be to return from Massalia?’

  PARTING

  Some hours later, I had made an arrangement with the skipper of the Armorican ship. I packed up my belongings and vacated my cell, thanked the Keepers for their hospitality and received warmer thanks than my services had really merited – but that reveals everything about those warm and gentle women.

  I made my way to the nursemaid’s hut. She had begun to pack a bag of children’s clothes. You were trying to get her to include some favourite thing of yours, a little piece of blanket. You kept stuffing it in, but each time she patiently took it out and gave it back to you. It wasn’t until then, I think, that the dreadful truth finally dawned on you: you were not both coming.

  ‘You’ll stay here with me, Soyea,’ the maid said. ‘Don’t you want to stay with me?’

  The tantrum you threw then took me aback. You hurled yourself to the ground and screamed with a volume I could not believe possible in one so small. I have to say I was glad you weren’t the one coming on my journey. In retrospect, I know that passion like that is sometimes what it takes to get a person through the trials that life throws at us. You must have been feeling torn in two.

  Your brother remained quiet through it all, at first appearing a bit smug that he had been singled out for adventure, then merely bewildered as the maid took you off to somewhere else, where you could not witness our departure. Whatever scene of grief you made was out of my hearing and sight. I can only hope it was briefer than the long, drawn-out suffering of your brother.

  As your wails faded into the distance, Cleat studied me with a frown. The nursemaid’s parting words to him were that she’d be back very soon, and I was impressed that this seemed to be enough to stop him from becoming upset. I tried to engage him in conversation.

  ‘Have you ever been on a ship?’ I asked.

  He nodded.

  I was crouching, to try not to intimidate him. ‘When was that?’

  He gave the merest shrug.

  ‘Did you come here on it?’

  His chin was wrinkling, and the nod was smaller this time.

  ‘Do you like the sea?’

  No response at all, just those wide eyes.

  ‘Shall we look if we can see the ship we’re going on?’

  I stood and gestured out of the open door. He backed into the corner and shook his head. His mouth was turning down at the edges. I crouched again. ‘Now, Cleat. You don’t need to be frightened of me. If there’s anything you want at all, you can ask me for it. I want us to be friends. Do you understand?’

  He stared at me. I wanted to believe he gave a tiny gesture with his head to indicate he did. Perhaps he just blinked.

  I wished I had some little sweet thing to give him. I put my hand in my pocket. The little amber bear was there in its pouch. I took it out and showed him, offering it to him. ‘Here, you can have this. Do you like it? See how it shines in the sun.’ I let the light from the doorway illuminate it.

  It seemed to transfix him. He reached out his little hand to touch it.

  ‘It’s a bear. Take it,’ I said.

  He looked up at me and back to the bear, then withdrew his hand.

  ‘Really. You can have it.’ I thrust it towards him.

  He put his face very close to it and, like a jeweller, scrutinised it intently. His mouth relaxed, I swear it almost became a smile.

  ‘You like it.’

  He didn’t respond, and we remained like this, my hand outstretched, waiting, while he gazed at the bear unmoving for what seemed like minutes. It was like trying to get a wild animal to trust enough to take food.

  Footsteps broke the silence and the maid returned. She, too, looked at the bear and cooed at it. ‘Isn’t it lovely?’

  Cleat, seeing she was alone, said, ‘Soyea?’

  ‘Soyea’s at Auntie Bea’s.’

  Tears began to flow then. The little mouth dipped again and he uttered a phrase that I was to hear more than I could endure in the coming weeks. ‘Want Soyea.’

  The maid swept him up into a cuddle, which stemmed his weeping. She turned him to face me and pointed at the amber bear. ‘Look at the lovely bear.’

  ‘Take it.’ I offered it again.

  Encouraged by the hug, he reached his chubby hand towards mine and took the little animal into his clutch. I suddenly had a fear that he might eat it, but he seemed to know it was only for looking at. For a while we had a truce. No tears, and I was optimistic the acceptance of the bear might be the start of a friendly relationship. The maid persuaded him to put it safely in its pouch, and the pouch in a pocket and we gathered our luggage and set off for the ship.

  What happened next I cannot bear to set down in detail, my dear. It would break my heart again and I have not the strength to endure it over. Suffice to say that when the boat left that evening, both I and your little brother were blinded by crying. I remember affecting a cheery manner that I didn’t feel at all, seeing the pain he suffered in parting with you.

  HOME

  I made my customary libations as our journey ensued, but the Gods are cruel. Cleat and I nursed our separate agonies on the long sea-voyage home. We were together, but in reality we were terribly alone, especially him, poor, desperate, beautiful, sea-sick boy.

  I loved him. Please try to believe that. But to him I was a stranger. He would not call me father, even though it was obvious to all who saw us together that he was my son, a small, pale, image of myself.

  The Armorican ship took us to the mouth of the Garonne where I met a trader who knew my father. We travelled together up river and through the hills to home. I was glad to have a friendly person to pass the time with because your brother was silent and excruciating to
be with.

  Once home, I hand-picked a motherly slave to act as Cleat’s nurse, and ordered fine clothes to be made for him. I wanted him to have nothing but the best. I even arranged a partition in my bedroom so he would have his own space.

  We were feted in Massalia, of course, and I dressed in finery for my inauguration in the Boule. I decided to take Cleat with me, to show him off to my fellow citizens and to impress him with the grandeur of the ceremony. Though not as tall as a broch, it is a substantial building and more gracefully decorated than anything he would have seen in his homeland.

  I ordered his nurse to have him ready to walk immediately after breakfast, but when I went to his room he was lying on his bed, face to the wall, barefooted and still in his nightshirt. I complained and watched as his nurse cajoled and eventually tussled with him to get him into decent clothes. Nothing she could do would persuade him to put the sandals on – he kicked and wriggled until I lost patience. I probably shouted at him and he seemed to admit defeat, limply letting his feet be manhandled into the little leather things, which he looked at with evident disgust. He walked as if dragging a chain behind him, and let me take his hand but didn’t hold mine back. His rag doll acquiescence was maddening and I no doubt said things like, ‘Show some life, boy.’ He displayed no interest in the Bouleterion at all, nor my fellow citizens, several of whom greeted him in a friendly manner, none of which he appeared to register as either welcome or unwelcome. There was no light in his eyes, and during the proceedings he sat slumped in the corner of our family pew, apparently asleep. I assumed he was still tired from the journey. I didn’t want to think anything worse than that.

  But no matter what love I felt and tried to show him, no matter what the nurse I asked to lavish care on him would do, the wound of his separation from you and your mother was incapable of healing. I told him repeatedly that we would return to Albion. Perhaps he did not believe me.

  On my arrival in Massalia, as I had expected, I had much to do, both family and business matters to attend to, and my book to write. Everyone wanted to know what I had found out about the trade routes for tin and amber, especially, so my calendar was filled with invitations to dine with merchants, politicians and people with maritime interests, even some with genuine understanding of my scientific methods. Summer was soon over, the equinox came and I told him we would have to wait until the spring to make our journey back to Albion.