by Alan Smale
With only one Hawk wing they were one flight or bad landing from disaster. And ideally they’d also have a wing for Kimimela.
So, they needed wings or the materials used to make them: deerskins scraped parchment-thin; long cords of thick sinew from bear, moose, or buffalo; and straight spars of a wood that was light enough to fly yet stout enough to withstand the stress of launch. There was no mystery to the making of wings, but it took weeks or months to do from scratch; whole neighborhoods of western Cahokia under Ojinjintka’s control were devoted to turning out the extensive materials needed for Cahokia’s fleet of Hawks and Thunderbirds.
In addition, Marcellinus wanted to build a throwing engine. The flatness of the landscape around the Mizipi was a source of perpetual frustration to Sintikala, who now demanded to be dropped off onshore whenever she saw even a low river bluff.
In principle a throwing engine was much easier to construct than a Catanwakuwa. They needed a solid oak base, a throwing arm, a twisted rope of hemp and sinew, a simple windlass arrangement to crank it tight, and that was it. They had woodworkers, one remaining rope maker, and all the tools they needed, and Akecheta and several others on the Concordia had served on the original ten-man onager teams in Cahokia. The Iroqua had mounted onagers on their dragon ships, perhaps even on this one, and so there was no reason Marcellinus could not do the same thing. It was just a matter of acquiring materials of the necessary quality.
Without Hawks they were blind, reliant for scouting information on Isleifur and Mahkah, who could barely travel faster than the dragon ship itself. And in an emergency, launching Sintikala might be the key to their defense.
Perhaps most crucial, if Sintikala remained unable to fly whenever she wanted, there was the distinct possibility that she might go mad or drive everyone else on the longship crazy.
To continue as river nomads they also needed other things. New jars to transport fresh water, without which they had to constantly hunt for streams. More rope for the days when towing the longship upriver from the bank would be more effective than rowing. Food that was easy to keep and transport for times when they could not hunt or forage: pemmican, dried meat and berries, nut cakes. Baskets, to keep it all in. Isleifur Bjarnason wanted scrapers, preferably of antler horn, to clean the Concordia’s hull. And the warriors wanted beer, although if it was half as bad as the mess of brewed grain and fermented sap that the Cahokians used to make, Marcellinus would happily give it a miss.
And it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have more weapons.
—
Marcellinus was familiar with the markets of Cahokia and other towns of the upper Mizipi, which were already surprisingly rich in goods for a land of such huge distances with no beasts of burden and no wheeled carts other than the ones Marcellinus had introduced. Cahokia produced baskets, pots and jars of clay, bowls and beakers carved of wood, many fine skins and furs and feathers for clothing, hoes and adzes of chert, arrowheads and ax heads, bows and spears, chunkey stones made of sandstone or quartzite, tabaco and herbs, and, lately, various new items of iron and steel. The rivers and forest trails of Nova Hesperia brought in more exotic goods from farther afield: seashells from the coasts, copper from the lakes area, mica from Appalachia, obsidian and galena and crystals and bears’ teeth and beads of various kinds from who knew where.
The Market of the Mud was in a different category entirely. There was a much wider array of trade goods, from tiny beads to canoes and wings. Turquoise, jade, and lapis lazuli; much more copper; many more crystals and semiprecious stones; high-quality flints. Conch shells and sharks’ teeth, many more extravagant shells, engraved marine-shell cups. Alligator heads and the skulls of animals and fish with which Marcellinus was unfamiliar. Foods of all kinds and a bewildering array of plants and herbs that cast heady scents across the market.
And above all, more finished goods. Buffalo-skin cloaks. Ornate beadwork already sewn into belts and sashes and moccasins and made up into fine necklaces. Carved figurines of flint clay. The range of items and the high levels of artistry and workmanship were astonishing. And live animals: deer, rabbits, and birds, especially the parrots of a kind he had never seen before, some a bright red, others blue-winged and orange-breasted, and yet more of a vivid green, but all with similarly long tails and dangerous-looking hooked beaks.
Marcellinus was less happy to encounter an array of goods that had come across the Atlanticus with the 33rd Hesperian. Shields and breastplates, gladii and pugios, helmets, and a variety of other items such as heavy sagum cloaks and tin dishes, Roman scarves and belts and kit bags. He found a Roman tack hammer, a stylus and wax tablet, and what looked very much like a set of padded woolen undergarments that once had supported Roman armor and prevented it from chafing the wearer. The abandoned Roman wagons had been plundered for their booty, and some of that booty had traveled far indeed. Marcellinus would hardly have been surprised to have turned a corner and come face-to-face with one of the legion’s lost horses.
Some things he didn’t recognize at all, including a composite reflex bow of a sophistication he had not known existed in Nova Hesperia and a well-cast iron tube with a bitter aroma whose use he could not fathom. Something about this item caught his curiosity, and so he traded a bent pugio for it.
Occasionally they came across a stall that sold Hawk wings, but Sintikala gave them short shrift and even Marcellinus could tell at a glance that they were nowhere near the high standard of the Cahokian Catanwakuwa. The likelihood of the Hawk chief going aloft with an inferior wing was remote. Instead, she sought out raw materials: spars of pine and cedar, sinews of the right tensile strength and suppleness. Even after half an hour, Marcellinus could see that her main problem would be acquiring the deerskin for the wing material itself. Wapi and the others hunting for hemp and hardwoods for the throwing engine were having a much easier time of it.
Kimimela raised her hand to touch a scarlet-breasted parrot, which eyed her disdainfully and with a loud squawk stepped sideways on its perch to avoid her. The elderly woman standing at the stall smiled and handed her a long blue feather.
“People are looking at us,” Hurit said.
Kimimela sniffed. “You always think men are looking at you.”
Hurit sighed patiently. “People, and not just me. All of us. Him.”
Marcellinus nodded. Even though he was surrounded by Hesperians of a wide range of types and skin tones and was wearing a Cahokian tunic and moccasins, his hair and bearing would always mark him as different. “Well, stay alert. Especially if anyone starts following us.”
“Merda, it’s hot.” Mahkah wiped his brow. “Have you seen any beer yet?”
“When can we go back to the longship?” Hurit asked.
—
“Holy Juno.” Marcellinus froze in shock.
Aelfric sat on the causeway with his legs dangling over the edge, sewing a moccasin. He looked terrible. “How was it? You didn’t come back with much.”
“They’ll bring us the wood by raft. What on earth happened to you?”
The Briton looked unconvincingly innocent. “Me? Nothing.”
“Your mustache just melted in the heat?”
“Ah, that.” The Briton grinned, which made his upper lip seem even more shockingly bare. “Chumanee insisted. Hey, we all have to make sacrifices.”
“So I see.”
“Much cooler, though. How was the infamous Market of the Mud?”
“Hot. Crazy.” Gratefully, Marcellinus sat down beside Aelfric while Kimimela went to the water jars to bring them all wooden beakers of water, still goggling at Aelfric. “Difficult. The Chitimachans desperately need to invent money.”
“You could invent it for them.”
Marcellinus paused. “Not this time. You had no trouble here?”
“All quiet. Some Cherokees came to talk with us. Seemed friendly enough.”
“Some what?”
Aelfric waved vaguely eastward and then to the northeast. “I don’t know. Warriors from a
ways away, but not armed. Fascinated by the boat. Wondered where they could get one.”
Marcellinus laughed. “Not from us, that’s certain.”
Kimimela stopped dead, looking downriver past them. “Merda.”
“Ah,” said Isleifur. “The Yokot’an Maya.”
“The People of the Sun,” Mahkah said. “I told you their boats were big.”
Three longboats of the Yokot’an Maya sailed toward them in a V formation. Almost identical, they were close to eighty feet long with a raised prow and stern and a crew of around fifty men apiece. The sails appeared to be of reed matting, suspended between wooden spars above and below. Simple shrouds held their masts in place, and each craft was steered by a broad rudder in the stern. Oddly, amidships on each longboat stood a small hut thatched with reeds. Aside from that, their resemblance to Norse longships was remarkable.
A command rang out from the leading Yokot’an longboat. Its captain had seen the Concordia, and now the boat’s path through the water curved to the left toward them. The other two ships matched its course.
As the flotilla of the People of the Sun sailed by, the crews studied one another. Akecheta and Kimimela raised their hands to wave. Not wanting to just stand and stare, Marcellinus saluted the captain of the lead vessel.
He did not salute back. The Maya watched them impassively as their ships went by.
“Well, well,” said Aelfric. “Glad I don’t row for them.”
On the Concordia, Marcellinus, Sintikala, and Akecheta wore clothes indistinguishable from those of their crew. Not so on the Yokot’an ships. On them, the working crew wore only breechcloths, showing how much darker their skins were than those of the more northern Hesperians. With a shock Marcellinus saw that many were tied to their oars with long cords of sinew; they looked dirty and unspeakably tired. Others looked strong and healthy and had the eyes and bearing of warriors despite their place at the ship’s oars.
By contrast with the rowers, the ship’s captain was dressed magnificently. He wore a blue kilt woven in rich patterns, of a cloth more sumptuous than Marcellinus had seen anywhere else in Nova Hesperia. On his broad, bare chest hung a heavy necklace of carved jade, and draped over his shoulders was a cape made from the whole skin of a big spotted cat, a leopard or a similar majestic feline. Most striking of all was his headdress, constructed of blue-green feathers each a good two feet long.
“I’ll not be arguing with that gentleman,” Aelfric said softly. “Even if he does have a funny head.”
“Hmmm.” Now that Marcellinus had dragged his gaze down from the magnificent plumage of the headdress, he saw that the captain’s forehead was unnaturally flattened and elongated. The warriors’ heads were all similarly shaped. Those of the slaves manning the oars were not. “They must do that in the crib.”
“Hope it doesn’t catch on with the other Hesperians,” said Aelfric.
Marcellinus shook his head. “Doubt it.”
The captain’s ear spools were also of jade, and around his wrists and ankles he wore bands of metal that gleamed in the sun. “Damn,” Marcellinus said. “That’s not copper.”
Aelfric sighed. “If only Hadrianus knew. Stupid duffer sent us to the wrong place.”
“You…” Even now Marcellinus had been about to chide his tribune for his disrespect. He closed his mouth and watched the Yokot’an ships.
Once past the Concordia, the most gaudily dressed of the People of the Sun walked into their huts, and the doorskins dropped. The officers of lower status shouted orders in a terse but lyrical language as the slaves worked to bring down the sail, and the longboats coasted in to dock at the wharf a safe two hundred yards beyond the Cahokian dragon ship.
“Later, send someone to talk to them,” Sintikala said to Akecheta. “One or two of your warriors, young. Let them be impressed by the Yokot’an boats, let them smile a lot. We need to know more about these People of the Sun.”
Akecheta nodded and looked at the crew of the Concordia.
“Not Hanska, not Hurit. Send men. No weapons and long before dark. We would not want them to misunderstand.”
“I will go,” Mahkah said.
“Do they know hand-talk?” Sintikala asked Isleifur.
“No idea,” said the Norseman. “Just now was the closest I’ve been to them.”
“They must bargain somehow,” said Kimimela. “Perhaps they have a tame Pezi.”
“I’ll go with Mahkah,” Marcellinus said. “I want to see those boats up close and take the measure of their commanders.”
“No,” Sintikala said. “Not you, not yet. You’re too different. You stay away from them. And now I need two strong men to carry iron to the market to trade and help me carry back skins for wings. Taianita, come with us to speak words.”
—
Aelfric looked back down the footpath from the market. “Well, that’s peculiar.”
Sintikala and the others had emerged from the crowd on the causeway and were approaching the longship. Marcellinus whistled softly. “Should we be worried?”
They had not seen such a spring in Sintikala’s step for months. The frown she had worn since Shappa Ta’atan was gone, and by her side Kimimela was practically skipping. The braves carried a heavy mass of what looked like rolled deerskins suspended from a pole. Sintikala and Taianita carried a roll of something else. Marcellinus could not imagine what it might be. Clothing fabric?
“Good buying trip?” was all he could think of to say as they arrived.
For the first time in an age, Sintikala’s eyes sparkled. “You will like this. With this, you will throw us in the river.”
“Really?” Marcellinus reached out and tugged at a loose corner of the material. He leaned back to stretch it taut, and when he released it, it snapped back against Sintikala’s hand. She mock glared, Taianita giggled, and everyone else looked puzzled.
Marcellinus had seen this twice before in Nova Hesperia, first at Woshakee, where the Mohawk Iroqua had used it to launch Hawks from the hills over the town, and then at the Temple Mound of Shappa Ta’atan, where it was used to launch the priestesses. “Ah, yes. We can experiment with using this for launches until the throwing engine is ready.”
Sintikala nodded. “We will try it first without a wing, until we understand it.”
“How is it made? Where does it come from?”
“A tree. Far south. Beyond even the People of the Sun.”
“A tree? You’re sure?” It did not seem likely.
“Me first,” said Kimimela.
Sintikala frowned. “Why?”
“You may fly higher,” her daughter said rather smugly. “But I swim better.”
That was true, though Marcellinus blanched at the idea of flinging Kimimela into the air using such material. “It might be difficult to…aim.” Time to change the subject. “You bought this from the Maya? What language do they speak?”
Kimimela gestured, Hand-talk. “Some of them know it, anyway. When they speak, it sounds like…” She made a face and shook her head. Obviously nothing like the regular Hesperian languages they were familiar with, and the Maya traders had not learned a local language.
Aelfric was still looking at Sintikala’s roll of material. “We might use small bits of this to throw stones. Could be handy at close quarters, places where you can’t carry a bow and arrow. Make yourself a belt of it and you’d always be able to whip it off and use it to snap a rock into someone’s eye. Like a sling but better.”
“Good, yes.” They could experiment with small pieces before throwing anyone anywhere.
“Heads up,” Isleifur said, and everyone looked around at hearing the tone in his voice.
Over a dozen Hesperians were approaching along the causeway. They were laughing loudly, and some weaved back and forth at some risk of toppling into the bayou.
Aelfric squinted. “It’s the Cherokees. Bit the worse for wear by the look of it.”
“No,” said Hanska, and climbed aboard the longship, casually standing by a
thwart next to her gladius. Her eyes were alert.
Marcellinus looked over the canoes and dugouts plying the river, at the longboats of the People of the Sun. The Yokot’an Maya were paying attention, too. “Hanska’s right. I don’t believe it, either.” He glanced toward the Concordia’s prow, where Akecheta was trying to catch his eye. Most of the other men were looking to see where the nearest weapon was.
“Put the skins under the boards,” Sintikala said, and the braves hurried to stow the precious wing material away from harm.
Akecheta stepped ashore to stand by their side. “Something is happening.”
“You don’t have to tell us that,” Aelfric said. “Chumanee, Taianita, into the ship. You too, Kimimela. Go to the bow.” For once, Kimimela did not argue.
They waited as the Cherokee approached.
“Damn them,” Aelfric muttered. “I liked them the first time. Uh oh. Look left.”
Marcellinus looked around. Ten more men were approaching from the other side. Their shoulders drooped and they looked tired, but they were walking a little too fast on legs that did not seem weary. “I see them.”
“Up, all,” said Sintikala, and everyone on the longship stood, reaching for bows, swords, clubs, axes. Kimimela picked up a sling. Chumanee tossed a club to Mahkah. On the wharf, Marcellinus, Aelfric, and Akecheta stepped into close order, shoulder to shoulder, gladii drawn, and Hanska and Mikasi joined them.
A movement caught Marcellinus’s eye. Across the harbor the Yokot’an Maya were getting up, too. “Shit. Kimi, keep an eye on the People of the Sun. Sing out if—”
Two long dugouts slammed into the longship. Armed men sprang out from beneath what had appeared to be piles of furs and leaped aboard the Cahokian vessel. The dugout paddlers, not simple traders after all, raised bows with arrows nocked. Behind Marcellinus the Concordia rocked sharply, throwing many of the First Cahokian off their feet. Sintikala and others lashed out, but their attackers were fast and well trained.
A few of the First Cahokian swung their weapons, but the men of the assaulting force were already on them, knocking swords from their hands and stabbing upward with daggers of Roman steel. Too close for a melee, it quickly became a brawl.
