by David Bell
First, he was flogged with a lash armed with wolves’ teeth. The general regretted this felon’s punishment, meant to humliate. Leave him to me now, he told his men. Go make the horses ready. No, you there, stay. He drew his sword. The Great King needs a head as proof, he said, and swinging round, cut off the head of the soldier with a single stroke of the sword. I owe you this, he said, for your work with the charioteers. With them we will sweep our enemies from the field. With that silver chain the Great King gave you round its neck, this head will look enough like yours by the time I return to the city. Now, help me get the body into the boat. You can throw him overboard when you are far enough out. Push. Get in. There are paddles, if you can use them. If not, once past the point the current will take you out to sea. I can do no more. The Labarna may accept this head as proof of your death, we shall see, but he may take mine for failing to bring back the Lady Akusha. He pushed the boat off and threw a bundle into it as it drifted away. Your sword, he called. If you live, you will need it.
Oh yes, he knew the place. He remembered every step of the journey that led him there. A journey that started his years of wandering and searching until the sea once again brought him to where he sought to be.
GUBAL
“What did you say?”
“I said did you know the place, that spit of land we passed, and did you see something I should know about?”
“It was too dark to see. No, nothing that needs concern you.”
Potyr thought to press him, but changed his mind and told Typhis to alter course to starboard: there were reefs ahead.
At its highest point the sun was square on the starboard beam. With open ocean before him Potyr intended to sail through the night and make landfall by dawn on the next day.
“Sail ahead, fine on the larboard bow,” called the lookout.
They continued on course and it soon became clear that they were rapidly closing on the other ship. As they came up on her, Potyr looked her over carefully: long, narrow in the beam, dirty sail, hardly stirring, no oars visible and a cloud of seabirds swirling and squabbling round her stern as if waiting for rubbish to be thrown overboard: puzzling, suspicious.
“She’s almost stopped,” said Kanesh. “Fishing boat?”
“Too big, too far out and no nets or lines thrown,” said Potyr. “If she’s a cargo carrier, why is she stopped? If we keep on course, we shall come too close. Helmsman, turn starboard and raise the stroke.”
“Sail turning starboard. Oars putting out!”
“She’s going to cross our bow and make us sheer away,” said Potyr.
“Archers?” said Kanesh, with a wolfish smile on his face.
Potyr nooded, turned to Typhis and said, “Let her cross, then get me close on her larboard quarter.” A tumult of noise and movement swept the ship.
“Archers on the stern deck! Bring oil and soak your rags! Get me some fire up here!” Kanesh’s voice rang out even louder than Typhis’s shouts to the oarsmen, the two almost drowning the sound of feet hammering on the deck as archers hurried to the stern, closely followed by Namun carrying a smoking cauldron by its chain and Sharesh at his heels with a jar of oil and a bundle of rags. The ship surged forward to the deep, rhythmic boom of the crew, every man grunting in time to the thrust and pull of his oar. Sharesh crouched on the deck, shaking with fear and excitement as the oil slopped from the jar clutched in his trembling hands. With eyes and mouth wide open, Namun jumped rapidly from one foot to the other as if in a dance, hardly noticing when the fiery cauldron touched and scorched his thigh. The thrill of speed and power and imminent attack ran through them all like a fever.
Not all: Potyr stood silent, swaying forward and back smoothly to the pitch of the ship, waiting his moment. Sharesh tensed himself, sure they were about to ram. The archers nocked their shafts. They were almost on her.
“Now,” said Potyr and Typhis swung back the steering oar. The stern of the other ship almost scraped their bow as she crossed. “Now,” said Potyr and Typhis dipped his oar. The ship swung hard starboard and under full stroke slid smoothly onto the port quarter of her prey.
“Sail and stern cabin first,” said Kanesh. Two archers loosed shafts with blazing cotton wads into the sail that soon began smouldering and then caught fire in the wind. The other two archers sent blazing arrows into the stern cabin side and then all four shifted their aim and began to shoot into the crowded deck. The vessel stopped and some men began to jump overboard.
Clouds of smoke and the smell of burning wood wafted over the waves towards them. They watched for a while as men worked frantically to put out the flames with water sccoped up from the sea in basins and cauldrons.
“They can save her,” said Potyr. “We have done enough. Set her back on course, helmsman.”
“A lesson sharply given,” said Kanesh. “I suppose they were pirates,” he added.
“We both saw axes in hands, and grappling hooks.”
“We knew our ship could run. Now we know she can fight.”
“Against poor men in need of food after a hard winter? Yes.”
Kanesh did not respond. He was looking away to starboard: to where Alasya lay over the horizon.
In late afternoon cloud began to spread across the sky from astern as the wind shifted onto the port beam. Night fell with no stars to guide them. The crew divided into watches and under half power the ship’s speed fell away. The stern lantern was lit and Namun and Sharesh were told they had the keenest eyes on board, so they would take turns as bow lookout. Namun stood first watch with Sharesh huddled in a blanket at his feet. Wind sighed in the rigging and oars dipped in rhythm with the gentle pitching of the bow. His head began to sway in time to the ship’s movement and soon, all the strength screwed up for action now draining from him, Sharesh slid into a deep sleep. Namun strained his eyes into the darkness ahead. Typhis had told him that you saw things that weren’t there if you stared too long with both eyes open. You had to close one to rest it and look with the other and then change over. He could see nothing but the sparkles of light that glowed in the waves as they surged past the bow and trailed away in the wake. Something long and black swirled in the bow wave and faded away into the blackness of the sea. There were sea monsters in this ocean. One of the lookouts said there were fish big enough to swallow a ship and its crew. They had teeth as long as swords. Everybody knew that. There were monsters with eyes as big as cartwheels that came up from the black depths and wrapped their arms round a ship and crushed it to pieces. He said a silent prayer to the Lord Potheidan and wished he had a pig to throw into the sea. There were sea-women with long hair and tails where their legs should be. They swam alongside ships or sat on rocks holding out their arms and singing songs that made sailors jump overboard and swim out to them. Everybody knew that. Typhis said so. A lot better having their arms wrapped round you than monsters’ arms, Typhis said; pity about the tails, though. He looked to larboard, ahead, to starboard. He could see nothing. He was feeling sleepy; nearly time to wake up Sharesh.
Pasipha was leading him along a winding path through the trees. Leaves brushed his cheeks and the grass was soft and cool under his bare feet. She led him to a pool with flowers growing at the edge and floating water lilies opening their petals wide. Her gown fell from her as she stepped into the water. She turned and beckonded to him. In her hand was an alabaster box. He knew the sealstone was in there. She took it from the box. On it was Kallia’s face, not hers. She held it towards him for a moment and then let it slide from her fingers into the pool. She held out her arms to him and he stepped forward.
“Get up!” Namun kicked him firmly on the backside. “Your turn on watch. Get up!”
Dawn found them in sight of land. Potyr stared ahead for a long time. “Hold course,” he said to the man standing in for Typhis.
“Land ho!” called Sharesh from the bow. The ship continued on its way. “Low headland, palm trees, sand beachline.”
“Does he see a river mouth,” said Potyr a
nd the message was passed forward.
“No river,” came the answer.
The sun rose higher in a sky of broken cloud. Potyr could now see for himself the white line of waves breaking on a beach, two headlands close together forming an inlet he now recognised. Closer still and he could make out shipping moving in the inlet’s mouth and the brown and white houses of a large town spreading its streets inland.
“No river: we have strayed off course in the night,” he said to Kanesh. “We are down the coast from the landfall I expected. That is Ugarit ahead of us.”
“Then we have strayed in the right direction,” said Kanesh.
“We cannot put in here. The place has too many temptations for seamen.”
“No more than has Gubal, surely?”
“We shall have little time there but enough to find and get our men back on board before we sail. Helmsman, you know the course: hard a starboard and keep the coast in sight. I want us at our berth in Gubal harbour before tomorrow night.”
Groans of disappointment rose from the deck as the crew saw the taverns and soft beds of Ugarit gradually fade into the distance astern.
“I hear tell that some of the Ugarit merchants are becoming nervous as the Labarna’s campaigns get closer each year and are seeking to move their warehouses and workshops to Gubal.”
“If the Labarna seizes and holds such a port as Ugarit on this coast, more than the merchants will become nervous. However, for now more merchants in Gubal will please our owner, if it means a higher price for his cargoes. Steady as you go, helmsman.”
Potyr never took risks unless he had good cause and the good cause on this occasion was pressure of time. From this approach, and with the wind freshening astern, Gubal’s farther harbour, beyond the point, would have normally been his choice but Merida’s warehouse was on the seafront of the nearer harbour. Carrying an unloaded cargo through the narrow streets would take up too much time and, moreover, the far harbour was likely to be full of ships waiting to sail in company for the Black Land ports. He held his course until the low-lying rocky offshore island the crew called the flattened duck from its shape, was on his port quarter, then gave the order lower sail to the riggers and hard a larboard to Typhis who promptly turned the steering oar blade. The ship’s bow swung inland. She still had another flat scar to round but this acted like a breakwater making the sea a little calmer on its windward side, allowing the oarsmen to pull her smoothly into the harbour entrance where they had only a short time to wait before being guided past a reef to a berth by the harbour pilot. Lights were coming on along the waterfront and in the town as the ship tied up. Before long, Merida’s agent came hurrying along the quayside and stood open-mouthed, admiring the ship until Potyr told him sharply to have labourers ready for unloading at first light. He did not intend to run another risk, that of transporting such a valuable cargo in poor light, even as far as a warehouse he could see. The archers mounted guard and the crew was ordered to stay on board for the night.
As the morning wore on, unloading became more difficult with onlookers crowding the quayside to get a close look at this new ship with her clean lines, raked bow, high fore and aft decks, and the strange-looking rigging. Obviously she’d met with some weather, judging from the jury oar lashed on her quarter. Keftiu ship, was she? No, nobody built ships like that on Keftiu, or anywhere else, for that matter. Still, that was Captain Potyr on the stern deck and he sailed out of Keftiu and they were taking the cargo to the Merida warehouse. Must be from Keftiu: wasn’t that where that madman Naudok fled when he had to leave here in a hurry? Great Potheidan, she looks a flier, doesn’t she?
In the end, Typhis gave up bellowing at the crowd to let the port labourers get on with their work and sent the quarryman and the archers ashore to clear a way through. By noon everything had been shifted to the warehouse and Potyr gave orders to start cleaning ship and baling out the bilge. The ship’s carpenter and his mate were set to examining the caulking and every timber itself, looking for ends that may have sprung or pegs that had started, while the riggers went carefully over the sail, lines and braces. No serious damage was found. Potyr silently thanked the Lady Mother for a well-found ship. That left only the rudder fittings and for those, they must wait. Potyr gave the crew leave to go ashore. Kanesh was nowhere to be seen.
The smith looked up from his anvil. He stared at Kanesh for a moment, then put down his hammer and wiped the sweat from his forehead. His hair, once as black as his own charcoal, was grizzled now, Kanesh saw. The smith’s hands moved quickly: if you want your horse, she’s outside. Kanesh smiled and shook his head slowly. They seized hands in the smith’s grip.
“Not a horse,” said Kanesh. “Something else.”
“I know,” said the smith’s hands.
The smith put on a ragged old cloak full of scorch holes and led Kanesh through winding back streets towards the harbour where the ship lay. There were few people about but Kanesh noticed that when any saw the smith, some drew back and made a sign of deference while others hurriedly raised their hands in the plea for protection. Potyr was waiting for them, with the damaged rudder lying on the deck. The smith examined it for a long time, carefully feeling the surfaces of the bronze fittings with both hands, tapping them with a small hammer he fetched out from somewhere in the folds of his cloak and listening closely to the sounds made, with his head cocked on one side. He seemed particularly interested in the hackly broken surfaces. He stood on the quay and looked at the sternpost mountings, gauging the distance between them. He climbed back on board, held up his hand as a sign asking to be left to himself and went to the stern deck where he stood looking down the stern post into the water.
“He will not be hurried,” said Kanesh.
“Some time before the moon changes would be helpful,” said Potyr drily.
The smith at last turned to look at them. He had a smile on his face that Potyr thought was almost mischievous. His hands spoke.
“Have the rudder and all the fittings brought to the forge,” said Kanesh.
“Drawing the ringed bars from the sternpost will take some time, and some diving, although not so deep, as she’s riding high now,” said Potyr. “You will have everything before dusk.”
The smith acknowledged his words with a courteous nod and turned to Kanesh. You will work with me; there are new mysteries, said his hands.
Outside one shop in the crowded street was a low wooden table covered with bowls and baskets heaped with powders, pods, leaves and seeds of every imaginable colour, shape and size. A veiled woman watched with careful eyes as Sharesh, at Namun’s urging, put his nose close to one bowl after another and sniffed. The brown powder smelled sweet, spicy, slightly burnt, and the yellow one rather earthy. Sesame he knew, and cumin, but the grey powder speckled with yellow was unfamiliar. He sniffed and his nose caught fire. He fell to his knees, coughing, sneezing, choking with hiccoughs, his eyes streaming so much he could hardly see. Just as he thought he was going to die, hands seized him and held his head tightly. He felt thick, cool, sour liquid fill his mouth and run up his nose and choked again, spitting it out. More was forced in and slowly he began to feel better. He lay breathless on his back, shadowy faces looking down at him, his nose at last beginning to cool.
“They make it from milk, cow, sheep, goat, sometimes horse, doesn’t matter,” said Namun. “It’s very good to eat mixed with honey and it’s the only thing to put the fire out after you’ve had too much of that spice.”
“You could have told me not to sniff it.”
“I was looking somewhere else. Over there: they’ve just gone up those stairs.”
“Who have?”
“Those girls who put your fire out. Come on, you ought to say thankyou.”
“One more,” said Typhis, “and then we have to go.”
“One more,” said the quarryman, somewhat later. “Do we have to go?”
“One more,” said the rigger, later still. “Is it time to go?”
“N
ot yet,” said the quarryman and Typhis solemnly, both together: “One more.”
“I’ve never seen that done before,” said the oarsman. “How does she do that?”
“Just wait,” said his mate. “She’s only just started.”
The mystery lay in the white powder the potters used to make the crucibles needed for freeing silver hidden in the heavy metal that came out of the shiney grey stones that looked like metal themselves, the smith said. Kanesh knew how it was done, with great heat from using the bellows until the heavy metal melted and soaked into the crucible walls or burnt off in smoke, until a little bead of silver was left lying at the bottom of the pot. The white powder was the ash left after burning bones. Make a paste with it for coating a mould, the smith said, and the bronze piece came away much easier. Then it dawned on him that a bronze tool made this way was not only smoother and stronger, but did not fail, no matter how heavily it was used.
“There is a charcoal made from the bones of animals,” said Kanesh, as quietly as if he were thinking aloud.
The smith rummaged among some sacks in a dark corner of the forge, found the one he wanted, and opened it to show Kanesh the greyish brown lumps inside. This will be mixed with the stones from which I will draw the copper for your bronze, said the smith’s hands. Your rudder will not fail again. Here are the bellows. We will begin.
Potyr listened while the agent listed the items of cargo to be shipped to Keftiu: a hundred cedar planks, twenty ebony logs, sixty copper ingots – a mixed lot of hive-and-hide-shaped, from Alasiya; thirty sealed jars of Halaba wine, forty wooden boxes packed with dates and ten smaller ones, lined with wool, containing turquoise from distant mountains across the deserts and blue stone flecked with gold from mountains even more distant, both for the jewellers of Keftiu, with a little of the blue stone to be set aside for the painter. Five boxes contained the ivory teeth of river horses that lived in the waters of the Iteru, the same waters that fed the fields where the white cotton flower was harvested to spin into the thread prized by the weavers on Keftiu and Kallista: twenty boxes contained loaded spools. The finest woollen thread to be found came from the fleeces of sheep farmed in the Kinaani hills and twenty crates had been prepared for the lengths of rich cloth being woven in the town and due for delivery in two days’ time. The owner had demanded more of the purple dye from the island city along the coast, said the agent, but it was no longer for sale, only the cloth already dyed with it.
