by C. B. Currie
And now Algas had his own boat.
Thirteen
Life with the Selevian Wayfarers was not easy, but was never dull. Vanis woke with the camp at dawn and helped to prepare the carts for travel. There were tents to take down, bedrolls to stow, barrels to return and sacks to move. Cooking pots needed washing if they hadn’t been done the night before and everything was lashed down. This was all before a breakfast of spiced bread, hard cheese and sweet, but weak ale, with much conversation and banter among these colorful people.
They walked all day, plodding along the northeastern high road with creaking wheels and cackling voices. The blisters on Vanis’s heels and toes rubbed raw, scabbed over and gave him constant pain until he wore in his boots. Then the boots themselves began to wear and the soles of his feet were always tired and in need of rest. At noon they would stop to eat lightly and some of the men would get out their lutes and flutes and play more tunes. They would carry on strumming as the caravan moved north the rest of the day and stop to set up camp just before dark. The Wayfarers were adept at doing this and seemed to take a half hour at most to have a circle of tents erected and a large fire with a spit turning.
The evenings were spent feasting on roasted fowl and rabbit, stewed vegetables and wild edible shrubs and leaves. Sometimes even venison and Vanis wondered why he had never eaten so heartily at the well endowed priory, where thin soups, hard bread and cheese were more typical fare. He had heard of other priors and bishops who ate better, but Algwyn had always been a frugal old miser. Of course, the wayfarers poached such meat as they had because no lord would willingly let wanderers hunt freely in his forests. Yet no lord knew fully what went on along the back roads, which was why Vanis was glad not to be travelling alone anymore. After his brush with the robbers who might have killed him or worse, he felt secure in company and company did not come much better or more entertaining.
The Wayfarers were liberal with the wine and ale they carried and happily shared it. Each night was spent playing music and singing around the fire, and he learned some of their tongue, and many of their songs, as well as bawdy local tunes that were popular in taverns and at village fairs across the land. Perhaps it was because he too carried a lute that they had taken him in so readily for few of their men were without an instrument and most had good strong voices.
The women too were fond of music too, and as a stranger Vanis enjoyed the attention of some of the girls in the band, especially after his bruises and cuts had healed. They sang and danced at night to the lilting and gay chords of their menfolk’s lutes and lyres; some women played harps and one even had a pair of hide-bound drums she beat with deft hands. An old man led his troupe of dogs in tricks and performances they rehearsed each night the caravan stopped, and some of the youths proved adept at juggling, acrobatics and other dances.
Every night seemed a celebration and every day was a happy journey. They would stop near farms and tiny hamlets, and some would sell wares and others would trade poached meat. They would purchase ale, wine, food and other victuals and share them freely among themselves, though Vanis noted that any coin they took in was carefully checked and placed in a strongbox kept by their headman, Drelo.
In this way Vanis passed his days and nights in a tired, happy daze. When the sky was clear he checked it ahead, brilliant autumn blue and promising distant adventures. At night he would sometimes watch the stars, away from the campfire and mark the constellations and wonder where they hid by day. He was on the journey he had always dreamed of, though it was not by sea, and that was enough to wake him each day and to make him greet the morning with the same vigor as the Selevians, as though every day were their first and last and needed to be enjoyed to its fullest.
Gilene was another enjoyment. She was comely enough, dark of complexion with dusky hair; short, curvy and full-lipped and with hips that moved enticingly to the rhythm of the music around the fireside each night. She had taken a special and early interest in Vanis and by the third night they were meeting away from the campfire and undressing one another. She pretended it was their secret but he suspected from raised eyebrows and suppressed giggles that the joke was on him and that she was not choosy about the strangers she took between those smooth thighs on cold nights on these lonely roads. It was all the same to him for he had been raised by the priory to deny himself the pleasure of women, and he knew now he would never have to forego such delights again.
Vanis earned his keep as best he could working with the others to make and break camp, helping with the wagons and learning the rudimentaries of hunting, though even the Selevian boys of ten or twelve were more adept at bows and traps than he could ever hope to be. The men were friendly and welcoming, teaching him new ways to play the lute, in the high chords of their people, and also teaching him the basics of swordcraft as he sparred with them at lunch and before supper, but he was as clumsy at swordcraft as he was with a bow.
To them he remained Bilago, the one-legged saint, in honor of the time they met him and his boot had been off, hopping around like a stranded eel after his run-in with the thieves. Only Drelo used his name, Vanis, and the headman had taken a liking to him.
They called themselves the Monderi, the People of the Road, and Drelo’s band had traveled across the continent and this great island kingdom for many years. They could not say where they had come from originally, for most of them had indeed been born in Selevia or parts nearby and the dialect they spoke was near enough to Selevian that it was no surprise that was what everyone called them.
And always, there was the sky above him. Light or dark, clear, overcast or broken by cloud, he would look to the horizon and dream his dreams of a larger world and a greater purpose. Father Haendric had often talked of purpose, but here he was, Vanis the bastard, the disgraced novice, finding his own purpose under that endless and watchful sky. For once he could tell himself he knew what was to be content.
They crossed the river Burr at Charnel Bridge, so named because in an ancient battle, the bones of men had been so many they could have filled a charnel house, and on meandered northwest into the lowlands of Somersvale. On the fifth night of winding through back trails and stopping at small settlements, and Drelo announced that they would likely arrive at Brookleith in a day or two. Vanis had expected to arrive sooner, but the Selevians had made good use of every hamlet and village along the way, no matter how small.
The drums were beating, hands clapped and the strings sang as the Monderi laughed and cavorted around the large circle of campfires. Drelo came and sat next to Vanis, filled his cup from a carafe of the sweet white wine that was his own favorite, and punched the lad’s arm.
‘Taking a break from the strings, young saint?’ He asked. ‘You’ll never play as well as Carelo if you don’t practice more.’
Vanis chuckled, ‘My fingers are sore.’
‘And your back too I suspect,’ and Drelo hit him again. Vanis ignored the ribbing, but smiled. After spending near half his life among the dour, pious faces of the priory, he was relieved to be among such light hearted folk. It had once seemed to him that such people only existed in other men’s imagination, yet here they were just as if they’d stepped out of a storybook or one of Haendric’s tales.
‘You sing good psalms,’ Drelo told him. ‘But you must learn to sing of love and loss. Steal their hearts, and they’ll pay you good coin.’
‘Whose hearts?’
‘The common folk. You will not travel with us forever. We have our roads and you have yours and I have already seen that yours will be much different.’
Vanis no more believed the old Wayfarer had the gift of foresight than he believed a thief could perform magic. ‘Do you mean I’ll have to leave?’
‘I mean you will someday want to leave. I also was young once.’
‘And when you were young?’
Drelo leaned back, lifted his tunic and showed a ragged pink scar across his side and belly. ‘I was pressed into service when I was a boy, fought in the
wars in the desert.’
‘You went to liberate the Holy City?’
Drelo smiled and shook his head. ‘I fought to defend it against the armies of your people.’
Vanis was taken aback. ‘But you’re no heathen.’
Drelo shrugged, ‘In years and lives gone by, I worshipped in whatever temple I was told to. Did you choose your own faith?’
Vanis had to concede the point. Haendric had told him how the Wayfarers were superstitious, but not necessarily pious. He had seen how when they stopped near a chapel they were quick to fall in and worship with the locals, but he also had heard how they might also call into a heathen dome if that were the only thing available in the southern deserts, and how they would visit pagan shrines in the woods and wilderness and even build their own. Part of surviving everywhere meant praying to whoever might be listening. And making sure the locals saw it.
‘You’re not so different from the Qureshi,’ Drelo went on. ‘You worship Celimar: they, Khelim. You say he was born of an untouched woman, they say he was just born. You say he drank a libation and flew to Heaven and they say he was murdered. Ended up in the same place though didn’t he?’
Vanis watched the old wayfarer take another swig, straight from the carafe. He took one from his own cup and Drelo was quick to offer a refill.
‘We all end up in the same place,’ Drelo said. ‘But how we get there, boy, that is the mystery.’
He stroked his mustaches and smiled. ‘You’ll leave one day, you all do, for our life is not easy and you’ve only seen the easiest part. Sooner or later we are chased out of a town, called thieves and worse; three summers ago some boys, in Southwall I think it was, beat the old tinker, Felicio, and two of the men were locked in the keep for a week.’
‘Why was that?’ Vanis asked, concerned suddenly about what would befall them when they passed through a real town.
Drelo sipped some more. ‘The tinker? No reason. The men? Perhaps they stole a maiden’s virtue, perhaps she wanted them to. Perhaps she was no maiden. But we had to pay a lot of money to release them. When people are tainted by life with us, they leave. You’ll leave too. Your journey I think will be interesting.’
More prophecy, Vanis thought and for a moment was disdainful. ‘All my life, I’ve heard Heaven has a plan for me, but what about my dreams? Is a man not entitled to those? Must everyone submit to fate?’
‘No,’ Drelo conceded, ‘but it’s always there, for when you’ve nothing else. You look at the sky a lot, young saint. There is mystery in the sky. I have always followed it. Perhaps it will take you to where you want to be? I think it might.’
Vanis could only nod and smile again. The care these people showed him often left him lost for words and the only gratitude he could show was to help with the caravan and to smile often. ‘Thank you Drelo,’ he said, and meant it.
‘Don’t get her pregnant,’ Drelo said, slapped a firm hand his shoulder, stood and staggered off, leaving the rest of the wine.
Vanis poured himself a little more wine, leaned back on the log behind him and took in the music and clapping, the husky voices of the men, the light chords of their instruments and the swinging steps of the women. Gilene smiled at him with large brown eyes from across the campfire as she gyrated. Her smooth dark hips flicked left and right above a low cut skirt, and her soft rippling belly encouraged him to think of what lay further down. He felt a familiar pressure in his breeches. Perhaps a life on the road would always be this way.
Fourteen
Steering a craft that normally took several crewmen was difficult, but not impossible. Algas had been born to the sea. Though, his father had raised them on ships larger than this. He could sail and if need be he could fold the sails and row, though rowing took a lot of effort for a boat this size and he could feel his strength fading as his fever worsened.
There was nothing to eat aboard the boat – another thing he should have noticed before setting out. If the men who had taken him aboard had truly been planning a journey of several days they’d have brought food and drink, but men planning to kill him and throw him overboard would have expected to return the same night. In the cold light of dawn he mused no more on their fate. At least a bucket kept aboard used for bailing the bilge could also collect rainwater.
He believed that the town or village the sailors had called Longbeam was no more than a day up the coast because he had passed this way heading south and knew the shoreline was awash with inlets and bays that sheltered local communities. Many of these were so small they had not been fit for a raid, but Longbeam was one place they’d discussed in his brother’s mead hall and they might have attacked it later in the season but for their defeat at Breglyn.
He weighed up stopping there. He had coin to buy supplies, but they would be suspicious of strangers. They would also wonder what a lone northern fisherman was doing in a boat made for three or four. They might also recognize the boat itself, for the port it had come from was only a day south and its sailors had surely stopped there before. He was thankful to find in the sea chest some fishing lines and tackle. There was also a large net rolled under one of the rowing benches, but he would have been unable to manage that all by himself. So he anchored the boat in a deserted cove, sat in the wan light under a cloak as a chill rain drizzled onto him, and waited for the fish to bite.
There was no wind and the water was flat, so he really had nothing else to do for a while, unless he wished to take to the oars again. He caught two blue herring and one small flatside. He ate one of the herring raw, and that was something he’d done before too. He decided the other fish would be best grilled when he could find some land and a break in the weather to make a fire.
By late morning he had unfurled the sail and was able to tack northwards under a small wind. Rounding several more coves, he passed the town he assumed must be Longbeam with a wide berth. It was larger he thought, than the one this boat had come from, with sun-bleached boards of the houses looking pale in the distance. He must have been little more than a speck and a sail on the horizon to anyone watching from the shore. Further out to sea he saw more craft, likely the fishing boats from this town.
Some hours later he found the coastline as he remembered it and knew he was perhaps only a day’s journey away from the Shorhan isles and his palisaded settlement. That would have to be a journey for the morning however as he had no wish to sail or row through the night and his boat was not built for speed and in any case would not sail any quicker with a crew of one. Here the coves were rocky and ran steep into the sea, small islets and treacherous rocks and shoals spreading for many miles southwards from the coastline and guarding the great bar that led to Northwatch. These were the Blackwater Rocks, or so the Southlanders named them. To his people they were simply The Crags. It was on a gravelly beach on one such rocky island that Algas drew up the boat and began to look for a campsite.
The beach was small, no more than sixty paces from end to end, and facing the north, shielded on three sides by steep craggy slopes where seabirds whirled and shrieked. There was no sign of people to the landward side and only more rocks and coves in the surrounding sea. This would be as good a place as any to hide for the night and he took his belongings as well as some tools for making fire and made his way up the tussock-covered slope from the beach to the high rocks above.
There was little in the way of vegetation, but he found a slight overhang with a scraggly tree leaning out of it to shelter under. He gathered some branches and with a bit of effort, some driftwood back down on the beach. There he struck the firesteel to the flintstone from the tool bag. Char cloth and dried grasses caught the embers and after some time he was able to blow a flame into life on the small kindling he’d gathered. He built the fire slowly, watching the damp wood smoke and sputter and when he had enough flame, skewered a gutted fish on a sharpened branch and sat turning it over the hissing fire.
This was how he passed the afternoon as the drizzle slowly abated and the clouds eventually l
ifted, revealing a wan orange orb whose light was reassuring, but hardly warm. He could easily watch the small bay where he’d beached his craft and the seas around for miles from his high vantage. Algas was admiring the view, despite his worsening chills and throbbing head, when he spied from the south, a large boat with full sails making its way northward.
Cursing that he had found only enough kindling for the one fire he stamped it out and scattered the wood then scrambled for higher ground in the craggy peak of the island hilltop behind him. They might have seen the smoke already by now. Could they be looking for him? Perhaps the swimmer had made it ashore? Normar longships were sleeker, lower and best pulled by oars, their masts simple crossbeams and their sails large squares. This boat was similar in size to a longship, though it had two masts with two sails each mast and a lot of rigging and rope. There were larger sails on the main mast and small triangular ones on the foremast; there had to be a dozen crewmen and more worrying, many other men aboard
The crew were a busy lot, scurrying to and fro, pulling on ropes and gesticulating. They were efficient and the boat sailed quickly, closing the distance between the southern horizon and his island, weaving between the shoals and coves with apparent ease. They were experienced and knew these waters. He could now make out that the other men were armed. They did not wear matching vests or capes, in the manner most southlander lords dressed their men, but could be a town militia or a band of sellswords. They were clearly looking for something but was it especially him, or were they just patrolling the coast?
The boat rounded his island and found the stony cove sheltered between cliffs, his beached boat plain to see, and then it slid to the shore and men shouted orders and answers as they splashed onto the beach. The leader was tall and dressed in good mail and a fine fur-trimmed cloak of red. His men had leather or chain armor, steel and iron helms, swords, axes and pikes. They immediately fanned out in two groups of six, either side of the beach, as sailors from the ship hurried over to the fishing boat to begin searching it.
