by David Bell
Kanesh gave his mare a final stroke on her muzzle and the barley cake he had kept for her. The Captain of Archers took the reins, called the guard to attention, and after a nod from Sekara, gave the order to march. Kanesh watched until the party was lost in the darkness of the town, and then went to look for the Dolphin. He found Sharesh curled up on a heap of fishing net. Namun sat nearby running his finger over the marks on a clay tablet. He looked up when he sensed Kanesh watching him. Kanesh put his finger to his lips and then went back to the ship’s stern.
“More unloading, starting at dawn,” said Potyr. “After that we go looking for Naudok”
“Been on horseback, eh?” said Typhis. “Your arse must be sore after all this time.”
CREATOR OF SHIPS
Namun and Sharesh were feeling very important. Potyr had given them the job of seeing that everything unloaded from the Dolphin reached Merida’s warehouse and was duly stored away there. Sharesh could read the items on the tablets and their quantity, and although he could not do this yet, Namun had a very good memory. Of course, the responsibility for this was the agent’s, but, as Potyr observed, there was no harm in being careful. They were not to get in the way and not to act above themselves. The agent had been told that Sharesh needed practice in reading tablets. With so much activity on the quay and in the warehouses, it was not an easy task to keep up with every load, but they turned it into a game, running between the ship and the shed and back again and again, and always offering to help, and at the end of the morning, when everything had been done, their numbers added up, and the Master said he was pleased with them. They were even more astonished when Typhis gruffly said he didn’t mind if they stayed on the ship, grinning at Kanesh when they were not looking. Kanesh said perhaps as a reward they could be allowed to see the shipyard.
Naudok had persuaded Merida that a small bay he had found some distance along the coast from the town’s port and shipyard would be the best place for building the new ship. It had a good shelving beach and was protected from cross-shore winds. Old boatsheds had been turned into storage space, workshops and living quarters for the shipwrights, and the carpenters who were putting the finishing touches to a wooden jetty big enough to take the Dolphin. She was to bring in timber and other materials before she was refitted and set on the coastal carrier trade to help pay for the new work. Outside the warehouse, after Merida’s agent had recounted all of this and answered other questions, Potyr asked him for a guide to lead them to the bay; someone known to the men working there.
“Leilia,” said the agent. “She’s in here somewhere. You can rely on her.”
He called the name, once, and then again. A woman dressed in a long sleeveless workaday shift and wearing a peasant’s flat straw hat, appeared in the warehouse doorway and looked coolly at each one of them in turn. She was slim, and taller than most of the women they had seen on Keftiu; no longer young but not yet old, and calmly self-assured. A crescent of silver hung from a thin silk cord around her neck. She waited, eyes downcast, saying nothing. The agent opened his mouth to speak, but Kanesh stepped forward, holding up his hand, forefinger lifted in a sign of greeting, and spoke to the woman in a soft, friendly voice. Sharesh could hear the words but, except for Kanesh, they were strange to him; one sounded like kamrosepas, her family name, perhaps, because she gave a slight sideways tilt of her head, as if in recognition. She spoke a few words of the same tongue in reply, and then went back into the warehouse. She was out again in a moment with each arm through the handle of a basket covered with leaves.
“I will show you the way. Follow me.”
At a sign from Kanesh, Namun and Sharesh took the baskets from her and fell in at the rear of the party as Leilia’s graceful figure led them through the sand dunes and onto the beach. A light onshore breeze was sighing through the beach grass and the tamarisk. Beyond the reach of the little waves that creamed up the beach, the sand was firm and the woman’s pace was deceptively fast. She stopped and turned to look inland. The snow-capped peak of the great mountain glistened under the sun. The boys caught up and stood at the woman’s side. He eyes were closed and her lips moved.
“Id-e-ya, Hann-anna, Ata-nia, Pot-in-ya.”
The boys dared not move as she repeated the words, softer and softer until her whisper faded away into the sighing of the tamarisk. A sudden gust of wind, and her hat sailed away into the beach grass. Namun dropped his basket and darted after it. She took it from him and patted it back on her head. She looked down at his upturned face, and put her hand gently on his shoulder. His mother had always done that when she was pleased with him. The men had gone on ahead, but leaving the boys behind skimming pebbles over the waves, she soon caught up with them. They were talking about transporting materials from the port to the new shipyard.
“There is a track behind the dunes good enough for donkeys, men, and bullock carts, too, if it is cleared, but I walk on the beach.”
Soon afterwards, they rounded a point and the coastline swung sharply inland opening up the bay ahead of them. On the other side of the bay a headland stood out about two ship lengths towards them. Potyr squinted at it thoughtfully: good shelter for a ship to tie up while she was worked on, but not long enough to haul her off the beach if the wind was wrong. He could see the wooden jetty being built for the Dolphin further down the beach, but still getting some shelter from the headland. They entered the bay and made in the direction of a group of sheds clustered on the far side. As they drew close, the boys came running to join them and Leilia held up her hand and said,
“I will go first. Naudok sets guards. He is wary of strangers.” Typhis snorted and muttered something to Potyr. Leilia said quietly:
“Naudok sees everyone as strangers until they prove themselves to him. That does not always happen.”
“Then we must reassure him,” said Kanesh. “Please lead the way.”
Leilia spoke to two young men who were standing outside one of the sheds and then went inside. After a long interval during which Typhis became very restless, she emerged to say that Naudok would see the Master of the Dolphin.
“Naudok will see us all,” responded Kanesh firmly. “We all have our parts in this enterprise, according to our particular skills.” He then added a few words in the other language and the tense look that had begun to appear on Leilia’s face faded into one of some relief. She led them inside.
They were surprised to find the place full of light. A part of the roof was open to the sky, letting in bright sunlight. Windows were open in three of the walls and burning lamps stood on wooden tables and stands arranged in straight rows. On one wall shipwright’s tools of every kind, adzes, axes, splitting wedges, saws, drills, augers, chisels, gouges, angles, curves, betels, hammers, mallets, caulking mauls, files, shaves, plumb lines and measuring rods, hung from neat lines of hooks, or lay in perfect order on shelves, and all clean, bright and sharp. On another wall more hooks and brackets held rings, cleats, clamps, straps and bars, bronze in one row, wood in another, carefully arranged by size. Next to these were coils of rope, line, cord and leather strapping, with knots, hitches and bends of every kind tied from each. On a large table were sawed sections of several types of wood, cedar, cypress, acacia, oak and pine, and samples of carpentry joints, butt, scarf, mitre, dowelled, dovetail and mortise and tenon. Sheets of linen and cotton sailcloth hung over wooden trestles, and pots of glue, lime, oil, tow and black stinking paste stood near the door to let out the smell. Everything was in its place, easy to find and ready to hand.
In the centre of the shed, directly below the roof light, stood a square wooden table with models of ships made from wood and fired clay, all aligned, on one side, and on the other, neatly piled sheets of wadij covered with drawings. A man sat on a stool at the table with his arms folded and his eyes closed. His straight black hair cut precisely to the level of his ear lobes framed a thin, smooth-skinned face with a pointed chin. He wore a loosely fitting jacket of white cotton with sleeves down to the wrists. He
was perfectly still and seemed oblivious to the presence of the visitors. Leilia spoke.
“Naudok, the visitors from Kallista are here.”
Naudok’s eyes snapped open, darted glances at each of them, and closed again. “They have important news, good news.”
Naudok jumped to his feet, knocking over his stool, trotted to a window and stood there with his back to them.
“Ask them to tell you what the news is, then you will tell me.”
“It is a message from the deputy commander, the Lord Sekara, ‘to Naudok, master shipwright of Gubal. He is to know that permission’.”
“I am not a shipwright. I am a creator of ships, a creator of ships. The shipwrights are out there. They do as I decide.”
“Indeed they do,” said Leilia soothingly and went on, “That permission is given for the building of a ship, and the supply of all necessary materials.”
“Tomorrow, we will start tomorrow. You have brought the dried figs? Who are these men?”
“I am Kanesh, and you are Naudok, creator of ships. Potyr will be the master who will make your ship fly across the waves like a seabird, and Typhis, the helmsman who will steer her on a true course.”
“I must eat five dried figs now. Where are my dried figs?”
“They are on the table, in their proper place,” said Leilia.
Naudok almost ran back to the table where five dried figs from one of the baskets had been laid out in a straight line by Leilia. Naudok closely inspected each fig in turn and moved them so that they were all exactly the same distance apart. He then sat down and ate each one in the same way, three bites and no more. He looked up at Leilia and she smiled at him. He smiled back at her and with the smile still on his face, turned to the others, though looking past rather than at them.
“Kanesh, Potyr, Typhis,” he said, like a child repeating a rhyme. “I will show you my ship.”
The light was fading by the time that he had finished showing them drawings of the ship on sheets of wadij which he extracted carefully from the pile on the table and replaced in the correct order when they were finished with. The drawings showed the shape and structure of the ship from every side and angle, different designs of mast, rigging, deckhouse, seating for the oarsmen and sectioning of the hold. There were smaller drawings of planking shapes, joints designed for securing deck beams to girders and girders to stanchions, positioning of tenons, every frame that had to be cut to match the hull shape at its assigned location, and many more, even including different types of anchor. Naudok was relentless in describing every detail, again and again until it seemed to his onlookers that he was really talking to himself. Truly, they said, at the end, nothing had been left out, but Nadok insisted there was so much more to do, to think about, to invent.
“There’s one thing you’ve left out,” said Typhis. “Where’s the steering oar?” Naudok gave him a startled look that slowly changed into a blank stare.
“That is secret. Only I know the secret. You must wait until I am ready to show you. I have work to do. Go now.”
Leilia had stood silent by Naudok’s side while all of this was going on, moving only occasionally to straighten the pile of drawings. She looked over the top of Naudok’s head at Kanesh. He read the unspoken message in her eyes. As they were leaving, Kanesh said something to her in the other tongue. He felt sure that Naudok had also heard and understood his words.
Outside they watched carpenters hammering the last planks into place as they finished the decking on the jetty.
“He will need the Dolphin to start bringing in the timber as soon as we can load her,” said Potyr.
“What he needs is a good kick up the arse. Doesn’t he know we’re the ones who will make his bloody ship fly across the waves like a sea-bird, if he ever gets her into the water?” Typhis spat on the sand.
“The woman will see that you don’t get the chance,” said Potyr. He turned to Kanesh. “What did you say to her, and to him?”
“That we need the skill which he, and no other, has. He must be humoured, or our enterprise is lost. She is his mother, and like a mother she will do her utmost to ensure that he succeeds. She is vital to our plans.”
“I remember Merida saying that you seemed to know about this Naudok when he first started talking about the new ship after he got back to Kallista. Now it turns out that the two of you can speak the same tongue. We never saw him when we were in Gubal, did we, Potyr? How did you come across him?”
Kanesh ignored the last question. “Master helmsman,” he said, “what would a man such as you have just seen do when he is threatened with violence and imprisonment, because the plans he has drawn up for a vessel do not meet the merchant’s requirements, and he refuses to change them or return the money? I will answer my own question: he would go into hiding, until someone gives him a way of escape, and not only that but the chance to build, yes, create, the ship he has always dreamed of creating.”
“It is true that he has in his head ships of a kind this sea has never seen,” said Potyr. “The woman has told you of what took place in Gubal, is that not so?”
“She did, and in return I made it clear to her that we accepted her guidance in our dealings with her charge, Naudok, creator of ships.”
Potyr sought for irony in Kanesh’s words, but could find none. “I can see,” he said. “That speaking in a tongue she understood, and others did not, carried conviction. I hope that this familiarity you have with the tongues of others will continue to serve us in our enterprise. Do you think we might now have some more straightforward talk, with mere craftsmen?”
The time that was left until nightfall was spent by Potyr and Typhis in making arrangements with the master carpenter and head shipwright for bringing in timber of the right kind at the right time for the building work to proceed. Kanesh walked along the beach to where the boys had made a fire and were grilling a fish that Namun had caught by tickling in the shallow water. He told them that in the next few days they must help with the preparations for laying the keel of the new ship and then explained what he meant by that, remembering Naudok’s drawings.
“We looked through the door when you were with Naudok, but you didn’t see us,” said Sharesh. “He is strange, isn’t he? I like the lady, Leilia; she is so pretty and she has a necklace like my mother’s. Does she look after him?”
“I knew somebody like him when I lived in the Black Land,” said Namun. “But he was only a boy. Sometimes he’d run away when you asked him a question. All he liked doing was counting things, anything at all. His father was a priest, he told me.”
“You talked to the lady, Leilia, in words I could not understand, but I have heard my mother speak like that, sometimes,” said Sharesh. “What did you say to her?”
“I made a little joke,” replied Kanesh. “I said I thought she had the gift of healing and making things right, like a goddess whose name I mentioned, Kamrosepas. Now, we must return to the harbour and the Dolphin. I wonder if you can find the way back?”
After his talk with the shipwrights, Potyr had decided that since the weather was calm as much of the timber as possible should be loaded on the Dolphin and delivered to them without delay, so before dawn port labourers were manhandling rough logs of cedar and pine onto the deck where crewmen secured them with cords and wedges. Shorter lengths of branch wood and sawn blocks of oak were stored in the hold. Sharesh sat on the long trunk of cedar which lay on the quay, supported on battens. He had paced out its length, thirty-five long strides and tried to measure its girth, but his arms were not long enough to go round it.
“They can’t put this on the ship,” he said to Namun. “It’s far too long, and in any case it’s too heavy to lift.”
“They don’t do it like that, stupid; you wait and see. You’d better shift off there.”
Potyr ordered everyone aboard and the Dolphin slipped her moorings. She was paddled away from the jetty until she was well clear. At a sign from Potyr a crewman blew three loud warning blasts on a
triton shell horn. The sun was now up and a few onlookers gathered at the end of the jetty and the sides of other ships in the harbour. Potyr lifted his arm in a signal to the men who stood ready beside the great log, and then brought it quickly down. Two men with mallets knocked away the wedges holding the log in place and others behind thrust wooden levers under it and heaved. The log lifted, fell back, lifted again, was rolled across the jetty and fell into the harbour with a splash that set all the vessels there rocking in the waves. Once the water was quiet again, strong lines from the Dolphin were quickly secured onto bronze spikes that had previously been hammered into the end of the log, and without further delay it was taken in tow as the oarsmen pulled the ship away. Potyr knew that manoeuvring could be risky as he approached the bay along the coast and the ship’s speed fell away, but when it came to it, he would just cast off the towing line and hope that the log drifted ashore near enough to the carpenters’ working place.
“We can unload all the small timber at that new jetty,” said Typhis, glancing rather anxiously astern. “But it will need every man at the yard and ours as well to haul that tree ashore.”
“And bullocks,” said Potyr.
Leilia had thought of that. There were two teams already waiting as the Dolphin hove into sight. By midday all the timber had been landed and the tree-length cedar log dragged ashore and levered onto cradles ready for the carpenters to strip off the bark with adzes. The tree had been felled a year previously and the wood was dry beneath the bark. Even so, Naudok had ordered that it was to be left to season for fifty days more once the bark was stripped. They knew he would examine it every day for shrinkage cracks which would have to be filled before any shaping could be done. This would be the most important timber in the hull. It was to be used for the keel.
Day after day the carpenters continued preparing the timbers. Cedar logs were sawn into planks and then meticulously chiselled and shaved to an exact thickness determined with a measuring rod that Naudok had devised. Planks chosen for hull strakes were tensed with cords pulling each end into calculated arcs and dampened to keep the curvature. A group of men sat all day cutting, sizing and shaving oak dowels from the branch wood and test fitting them in holes drilled in a gauging block. Another group spent all their time sharpening old tools and mending broken ones. More and more loads of timber arrived on the Dolphin and by bullock cart. All the prepared planks, posts and beams were stacked separately on battens, covered during the heat of the day and uncovered at dusk so that the cooler night breezes could flow between the gaps. The boys were given the task of keeping the men’s water bowls filled and bringing them food which was prepared by a number of old women under Leilia’s supervision. At the end of the day they cleared away the piles of wood shavings and other waste and burned it on bonfires near the water’s edge. Naudok emerged from the shed only when the air began to cool as evening came on, when he would inspect the work done and give instructions for the next day.
