by J. S. Bangs
“Thikram’s blessing on you for your hospitality,” Patara said as he smelled the steam rising off the fish.
“Our pleasure,” Sunda said. “Will you be here long?”
“I don’t think so,” Patara said. “We must get to Davrakhanda, but for now we need a new mast and a new sail. I don’t suppose there’s anyone in the village who can fit a mast?”
Sunda shook his head. “Not here. We have a carpenter who works wood to make canoes and fishing rigs, but no one who knows how to form a mast.”
“It’s not too hard. Mostly you just need something long and straight.” He glanced into the forest beyond the edges of the village. “Even if we just stripped a palm tree—well, I’ll have to ask my mate. Khinda!”
Khinda sat a few spaces away from Patara and Sunda, and he rose and slid into the corner of a loose triangle with them. “Captain!” he said merrily as he sat. “The kindness of this place is better than clear skies and strong winds.”
Patara would have preferred to be on the seas, sailing the last few days to Davrakhanda, but he wouldn’t insult their hosts by saying so. “I was discussing our plans with Sunda. Do you think we can make a mast here?”
“What do we have to make masts from? Chir pines available inland?”
“Chir pines?” Sunda said. “Never heard of them.”
“Great mast material. Long and straight and sturdy, from far inland. In the mountains. But never mind, here on the beach we’ll probably be stuck with palms. Or the anjili tree, if you have one.”
“The anjili grow near here,” Sunda said.
“Better anjili than palms. The bigger problem is the sail.”
Sunda shook his head glumly. “Nothing we have. Could maybe make one, but would take too long. We buy our sailcloth from Bhurnas.”
“And where is Bhurnas?”
“About four days from here. Big city. Has its own harbor.”
They really had gone aground in the bleak end of nowhere. Four days to the nearest city. Patara swore. “Four days isn’t too far to walk. Is Bhurnas big like Davrakhanda?”
“Don’t know,” Sunda said, shaking his head rapidly. “Never been to Davrakhanda. Too far! But Bhurnas is bigger than Dasnaya, you understand.”
Patara had a grim idea. It would cost him nearly everything, but at least they might make it home. “Do they have a bronze-worker?”
Sunda looked troubled. “Don’t know.”
“Are you suggesting we walk there with our tin?” Khinda said. “That’s a heck of a load to haul on our backs.”
“Better than limping into Davrakhanda with nothing, no?” Patara counted the days on his fingers. “I will leave some men with you, Khinda. Ashturma and I and some others will take baskets or sledges and carry our tin into Bhurnas, as much as we can carry, and sell it at whatever price we can find. Then we’ll have money to buy a sail and can at least get back home.”
And he’d get home in time to beg for an extension on his debts, before his family was imprisoned. Barely.
“I see you’re leaving me with the hard work,” Khinda grumbled.
“No, I’m the one carrying a few hundred pounds of tin overland to some city I’ve never heard of.”
“Bah. I’m the one chopping down trees and trying to fix a mast out of them.”
“Bah.” Patara leaned forward. “Your real work is to watch the thikratta woman. I’m not taking her with me to Bhurnas.”
Khinda’s eyes slid to the side, to where Idhaji was sitting, flicking the village children with grains of rice. “Thikratta, you said?”
Sunda drew in a breath sharply. “A thikratta woman? We wondered why you came in with a single old woman aboard.”
“A thikratta,” Patara repeated. “But be quiet about it. I don’t want to alarm the village.”
Sunda nodded his head. “Some people wouldn’t like it. What is she doing?”
“She’s heading west to some place called Ternas.”
“Heading west? Then why not just let her go?”
“I will, when she’s ready,” Patara said. “For now she wants to… to dry her books, I guess.” Khinda gave him a curious glance, and Patara shook his head with a sigh. “She came into our boat, and she stays with us until she’s ready to leave of her own volition.”
“Perhaps she’ll leave the same way she came,” Khinda said.
“I hope,” Patara said. He ate another piece of fish. His arms were tired and, having finally discharged the last of his duties, weariness overwhelmed him. “Sunda, do you have rooms for my men to sleep?”
“For all of them. And for you, Captain, this way. Nothing great, you understand—even my own bed is small…”
“We’ve been sleeping on boards in the dhow for the past weeks, so anything that’s dry and has a sheet will be fine.”
Sunda put his hand on Patara’s knee. “Of course, of course, Captain. Whenever you’re ready.”
Patara and Ashturma slept next to each other on a narrow bed of dried palm leaves in the entryway of Sunda’s house, with the sound of the ocean waves rolling through the window and the chatter of parrots overhead. The gray glow of dawn woke Patara before either Ashturma or Sunda stirred. He slipped through the curtain over the front door and walked the narrow clay path to the beach.
There were half a dozen fishermen getting ready to go out for the morning catch, wearing nothing but short dhoti tucked high above their knees. They hailed him cheerily, and one of them called out, “Captain Patara, fancy a ride out with the nets?”
“I’ve never fished much,” Patara said.
“Eh?” the man cried. “What you done on the boat all these years?”
“I pilot the dhows in the deep waters to Kalignas. The boys fish more than I do.”
“Big work, that, eh? Not like fishing boats.” The man grinned, a bright white smile appearing like a ray of sunlight in the darkness of his beard. He scratched his belly and swatted at a fly that had landed on his thigh. “But you come along, keep a hand on the rudder, never mind the nets. Eh? You get us to the reef?”
“I supposed I can handle that,” Patara said. The thought of a morning sail across the water sounded better than sleep.
“Come along then! Bring me good luck, catch Birindi herself, eh?”
Patara climbed over the outrigger into the canoe. It was a small, ugly thing, barely wide enough for a man to crouch inside, with a rough black hull and the interior cavity worn smooth and oily by countless days of feet and fish. The smell of seawater, clams, hemp netting, and old seaweed rose from its belly.
“I’m Chalika,” the man said. “Happy to have you along. Push?”
“Push.” With a single heave they pushed the boat into the water until the seawater splashed around their knees. Chalika leapt into the canoe with a little holler, and Patara jumped up behind him, grabbing the rear oar and slashing at the water to move them away from the beach. Chalika ran up the sail, and a moment later the wind caught it with a snap. The rough hemp rigging groaned as they scurried away from the shore.
The smell of the sea, the rocking of the boat, the spray of water, and the snapping of the sail made his heart rise, and he could not help but laugh. His host laughed as well and slapped the side of the boat.
“Little but fast, eh? Don’t need to go far for fish. You see out there, past the bay, at the breakwaters where the waves come over the reef?”
“I see it,” Patara said. “Spent half the day yesterday trying not to hit it.”
“Ah, rough bit, bad storm. Tore off half the roofs, it did. By what time you fellas come rowing in the bay we got most of the thatch back on, but not all. Sorry about the dhow, though.”
Patara’s boat was sliding past them on their left, sitting high on the beach, the low-tide waters lapping at the stern. The sight of her there filled him with sorrow. “Aye, sorry,” he said. “But she’ll get fixed.”
“The Lady smile on you.” They had almost reached the mouth of the bay, where a hundred yards of green water separated the bay from the
reef and the slate-colored ocean beyond. “Here Birindi has the waters. No need to go begging Ashti’s mercy.”
“Ashti always smiled on me. At least until yesterday, the fickle bitch.” Patara said it cheerily, and Chalika laughed. Patara’s anger and frustration had evaporated with the rising of the sun and the rocking of the boat. Petrels overhead cawed and dove into the water. The paddle in his palm felt as comfortable as his wife’s hand.
“Right here, now. You hold the sail and let me do the nets?”
“Sure thing.”
The fisherman lifted a neatly folded net from the bottom of the canoe. He fastened two loops to a set of wooden hooks affixed to the side of the canoe, then heaved the rest of the net overboard.
“Steady now, parallel the reef, not too fast,” Chalika said. “Any trouble?”
“None at all,” Patara said. The spray of the breakwater on the reef wet his face and sprinkled his lips with salt.
When the weighted net had fully unfurled in the water the man stretched his legs and grinned. “Not really two men’s work, eh? Drop the nets, sail along the middle water, then pull ’em up to see what Birindi sent you.”
“It’s very pleasant,” Patara said. “A better morning here in the village I can hardly imagine. What is that?”
As soon as he said it he regretted it, because he knew what it was. A gray shape rose out of the reef a hundred yards ahead of them, the sea breeze whipping tattered fabric around its knees, gray hair streaming off towards the deep waters. Chalika turned and saw her.
“Hey, what?” he said. “Someone swam, for sure.”
“That’s a long swim.”
“How else she got out there on the reef?”
Patara bit his tongue. “Should we leave her?”
“Eh, she’s no trouble. We’ll see what she says when we pull alongside.”
The woman was watching the sea, standing atop the reef with the water up to her knees. When the canoe came between her and the shore she turned and waved, then dove into the water with a graceful kick, like a cormorant diving after its prey. She surfaced next to the outrigger and pulled herself onto it.
“Mind if I ride?” she asked. Without waiting for a response she arranged herself on the outrigger as if sitting atop a log, letting her feet dangle in the water.
“No mind, no mind,” Chalika said. “But what you done out here in the water all this way?”
“I was meditating and speaking to the Lady,” Idhaji said. “Lovely morning for it.”
The fisherman stared at her. “What?”
“She’s slightly mad,” Patara murmured, hoping that only the fisherman could hear.
“Mad, dear Captain? I would be honored to be mad. Many of the best thikratta of Amur have been mad.”
“Thikratta, woman?” the fisherman said, his eyes growing wide. He gave Patara a look of alarm. So much for Patara’s hopes of keeping her quiet.
“Yes, thikratta!” Idhaji laughed. “Do you have one in Dasnaya?”
Chalika shook his head vigorously, watching her with alarm and curiosity.
“Alas, I may only present you with Idhaji, a thikratta of the colony at Davrakhanda, and one who is fully sane. Though less serious than Captain Patara would prefer.”
“I prefer only that you leave my boat and my son alone,” Patara said. “Or at least my son, since it’s too late for my boat.”
Chalika’s astonished glare swung around to Patara. Idhaji cackled behind him.
“Not too late,” she said, shaking her head. “Many broken things can be repaired. Boats, usually. Sons, rarely.”
“My son is not broken,” Patara said.
“Yes, yes, but it’s not too late, as I said. And you are very disappointed in him.”
Patara was about to object, but he closed his mouth and took a moment to think of his words. There was a chance that the woman would repeat whatever he said back to Ashturma, and he didn’t want to further anger the boy. “I’m not disappointed. We just… disagree.”
“Because he doesn’t wish to sail to Kalignas?”
“Did he tell you that?”
“In a manner.”
Patara glanced aside at Chalika who was watching them mutely. He wasn’t quite comfortable having this conversation with the fisherman around. The fisherman intently looked over the gentle waves washing over his nets.
“The tin route to Kalignas is our family inheritance,” Patara went on cautiously. “My grandfather bought it. Went in debt to a skinflint Uluriya in order to secure the knowledge of the route and equip his dhow. We have the smallest dhow that sails that far. But my grandfather paid off the debts, and my father made us—not rich, but comfortable. And my son values it for nothing.”
“Perhaps your son is more like your grandfather,” Idhaji said.
“What could that possibly mean?”
“Dear Captain, don’t you see? Your grandfather took great risks on sea and on land to gain something precious. But now, for Ashturma, it is no risk to keep it. He wants to take risks of his own.”
Patara scowled. “What do you know about risk and sailing?”
“Being a friend of the Powers is very risky. So is running from the Red Men.”
“Got to pull the nets in soon,” Chalika broke in. He tapped the side of the canoe.
Idhaji grinned at him. “You want a good catch, fisherman?”
Chalika gave her a cautious look. “Of course, of course.”
“I’ll speak to Birindi,” Idhaji said. She slid off of the outrigger and disappeared into the water. A few moments later her head broke the surface ten yards towards the shore, and she called out, “Now!”
Chalika hesitated, his hand hovering near the nets.
“Might as well pull it in,” Patara said. “I doubt she filled the net with snakes.”
Chalika shrugged, unhooked the edge of the net, and began to pull it in. Patara helped him. The net came easily for a moment, then suddenly surged with an unexpected weight. Chalika cursed and grabbed the ropes. With a groan they pulled the net hand-over-hand out of the water and heaved it into the bottom of the canoe.
“Birindi’s tits!” the fisherman swore. The net held no fish, but a pair of sharks, each as long as a man’s leg. They twisted and flopped, threatening to turn over the canoe. Silver flashed in Chalika’s hand, and with a frantic twist of the wrist he stabbed the nearest behind its head and stilled its thrashing.
“Bad?” Patara asked. He scowled at Idhaji swimming in the water a few yards away from them with a grin on her face.
“No, good!” Chalika said. He pinned the other shark beneath his knee and severed its spine in the same way, then let out a whoop of elation. “Sharks this big—never catch them here! And they sell good. Meat for the family, fins and teeth to traders. Each of these worth as much to me as a whole net of reef fish.”
“Oh,” Patara said, his voice falling.
Idhaji laughed at them from the water. “Surprise and risk, Captain! Never know what you’ll catch. You fellows row back to shore now?” She swam over and pulled herself up atop the outrigger again.
Chalika waved at Idhaji with the hand holding the bloody knife. “Sure thing, my lady!” he said joyously. “And many thanks to you!”
He took up his paddle and turned towards the shore. “Nice story to tell back home, eh, Captain?”
“Nice story,” Patara grumbled. Ashturma would hear about it, and stick to the woman all the more. “Sharks,” he muttered under his breath. “Sharks!”
After Chalika had unloaded his catch, Patara joined the sailors for the day’s actual work. It took them all morning to unload the tin from the belly of the dhow and arrange the disk-shaped ingots in piles above the high water line. Strong, sturdy baskets were plentiful in the village, and they fitted them with fabric straps to carry them on their backs.
Thikritu volunteered to test them. The first basket, full to its brim, couldn’t even be lifted. They took out some tin, then lifted it again. It broke the straps. They
got more straps, took out more tin, and tried again, but when Thikritu carried it on his back staggered forward and begged that he couldn’t possibly walk a four-day journey carrying that much weight. They took out more tin, tried again, and finally reached a weight that men might carry to Bhurnas without dying on the road, so long as they stopped often to rest.
It was less than half of their remainder, perhaps a tenth of what they had originally carried out of Kalignas. It would have to do.
Patara chose Ashturma, Thikritu, and Vaija to carry the tin with him into Bhurnas. Khinda would stay behind with Jauda to fit a new mast with the help of the villagers, intending to have finished by the time Patara returned.
They left at mid-morning, groaning under the weight of the heavy baskets of tin strapped to their backs, with pouches of dried fish and leftover rice at their waists. It was hard walking. They moved slowly and rested often, yet by afternoon Patara’s muscles groaned and his back ached. Ashturma had the advantage of youth, but he didn’t look much better.
“You alive?” he asked Ashturma at the first stop towards evening, when the sun was a palm’s width above the horizon.
Ashturma grunted in response.
“Thikritu? Vaija?” They both groaned. “Then we’ll stop at the next village.”
The next village had a guesthouse where they could buy straw bedrolls, hot roti, and some rice beer. After eating, they slept with their baskets of tin stacked against the wall. Patara didn’t bother to post a guard—no one would be able to lift the baskets away, and who would steal raw tin?
Thikritu and Vaija fell asleep the moment they stretched themselves out on the reed mats. Patara lay on his side and let the coarse scratching of the mat relieve the agony of his limbs. A noise from Ashturma stirred him.
“Did you say something?” he asked.
Ashturma lay parallel to him, his hands laced over his chest, his eyes staring up at the palm-leaf ceiling. “Why don’t you like Idhaji?”
Of course. Patara was about to say “Is that all you can think about”—but perhaps a less harsh response was called for. “I don’t dislike her,” Patara said. “But she’s dangerous, and her type have nothing to do with us.”
