by David Bell
We had only a few days food left and no hope of finding any in that place with all the fields and crops ripped bare and churned into mud flats by the waves or covered with dust from the clouds. Only the Palace granaries might have something to left. My mother and Kanesh were the obvious ones to go. They took Luzar and Kerma with them. I asked to go as well. They said they weren’t sure about that. Strange, for some reason I never knew, they always wanted to keep me away from the Palace. I would have gone whatever they said. There was someone I wanted to see.
You have to remember I’d lost something very precious. For days I couldn’t, wouldn’t let myself say anything or do anything, not even look at anybody for fear of some thing or some word reminding me of Kallia. Somebody told me afterwards that my mother hugged me for hours like a baby and Namun did as well and even Kanesh. I don’t remember any of that. Then one night Luzar sat down next to me and began to talk in that way of his and things slowly began to change. For a start, I found my pipes and began to play again. I couldn’t speak but I could play. Yes, these very same pipes: what do you think of the carving? Yes, feel it. Now, there’s a story I could tell you another day.
My mother went to see the High Priestess, not the one I first saw at the Games when Kanesh saved that wounded leaper from the charging bull, then again on the throne in the chamber under the Palace. Something happened to her and she died; I’ve heard stories about that. It was a new High Priestess, except she was old: the one my mother served with in the sanctuary on the sacred Jaduktas. That was lucky for my mother and she came away with a promise of help for our people. And she found out what happened to Naudok and Leilia. You remember I told you about them? Naudok, Creator of Ships, he called himself. Leilia was his mother. Namun said she was in love with me. I never knew, or else, well, I never knew. She was a beautiful woman. Yes, well, they were on the ship when the waves came and that’s what saved them. After it was all over Naudok said he would never have anything to do with ships again and he would think of stars instead. He once told Namun he knew how many stars there were in the sky without having to count them. The High Priestess gave him a good place to watch the stars and think about them: the sanctuary on the sacred Jaduktas. Perhaps he’s still up there doing his measurements with Leilia still looking after him, as well as serving the Lady Mother and tending a little shrine to Kamrosepas. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to see her again.
Shall we move into the shade? We don’t have much wine left by this time of the year but I can offer you something cool you might like. Where was I? Kanesh? I didn’t see him go but I know where he went because I went there later and she told me. No, I’m not going to say any more about that. It was the last time I was going to see her and I wanted to say a proper farewell and, yes, thank her for those other times.
Pasipha laughed when I said that, said pleasure was nothing if not shared and the latest pleasure I gave her had been the best. I asked her what she would do now. She gave me a surprised look and said wait to see what happened of course. I knew very well what happened would be what she wanted to happen. She could twist any man round her little finger. Even Kanesh? Perhaps not, but I do remember his saying something about a pact he’d made with her. No, I don’t know what it was. I gave her a parting gift: the bloodstone Koreta had given me. There was a wistful look in her eyes when she took it. She put it on her table next to a little figure made out of twists of grass, the sort that Luzar makes so well. Koreta: that noble man who found his strength again at the very last and spent it attempting to save others. Death at sea is what he would have wished. But he did take my Kallia with him.
We found the Captain of Archers on the Davina when we got back from the Palace and there was a lot of serious talking that night. The Captain told us that Keftiu was suffering and things would only get worse once winter came. There were so few sea-worthy ships left; more might come from the other shore but no one could be sure because it was bad there too. The dust fall had come at just the wrong time of year. The crops were ruined and the grass was dying and that meant the animals would die too. The Palace granaries might last until the year turned, but then what? Grain was needed from the Black Land, Kinaani, anywhere, but there was word that Korus had poured its poison down on those lands too.
I recall exactly what Kanesh said after that. He said worse would surely now come. With the fleet crippled, Keftiu was all but defenceless and the same pirates, he called them invaders, who had sacked Kallista would seize their chance and set sail for Keftiu, as they had always intended. You could resist, he said, but you would be overwhelmed, you have no walls and you do not have the men. Even your chariots will be useless without horses. You know that and Sekara knows it too. He may try to negotiate and he may be offered some terms. The invaders will not come to destroy. They covet the wealth and magnificence of Keftiu as the Hikshasus covet those of the Black Land, and it is all but theirs for the taking. They will hand out a few sinecures and people like the Commander will accept them. They will not, at least not to begin with, depose the High Priestess, nor despoil the temples. But remember, they have different gods, warlike gods who despise weakness and tolerate no rivals, especially those who take female form, and their gods in time will prevail.
Silence. We all knew Kanesh was right. What would you do, the Captain asked. Act like a palm tree and not like an oak, Kanesh said, bend with the wind. Bide your time, use Keftiu’s magnificence and mysteries to seduce your enemies. The Lady Pasipha will be of great help in that. Let Keftiu work its languorous spell on them and in time all may not be lost. At the same time find some remote valley or, better still, a hill site in the mountains. Dig wells, stock it and fortify it and be sure the archers have clear sight from the walls. Make it too troublesome for the new rulers to consider taking it.
The Captain took all this in and then asked what would we do. Potyr said now our people looked settled and were getting some food at least, we would sail for Gebal and load grain for Keftiu if it could be bought. After that, he could not say. I remember the Captain grinning and shaking his head when Kanesh said we needed crew and why not come with us. Never could resist the chance of a good fight, he said. A real soldier; I hope he had his wish.
Gebal: have you ever been there? No, of course not. The most wicked city in the world, they called it. Find anything, buy anything, sell anything, do anything you wanted in Gebal. That was in the old days. We’d been there once before. I think I told you that.
The ash had fallen there as well, and there was pumice washed up all along the coast. One skipper just back from the Black Land said he’d seen it there and another who’d been bound for Telchina told us he’d turned back at the sight of black clouds covering the place. Makes me wonder what happened to our other ship that was going there. We saw nothing of her at Kapera.
There was no grain to be had in Gebal, no matter where we looked. There was timber and some oil but not much and it was very costly. Everything had gone before we got there. It was the ash, of course. People hoard when they get frightened. Merchants buy up what they can, gloating over the thought of the profits they will make when things grow scarce. Merida would have made a fortune. As it was we now owned his ship. We had to decide what to do.
My mother and Kanesh went looking for the smith. They asked me to go with them. I didn’t know she knew him until I saw how warmly they embraced. It was then I began to suspect something. The smith gave me the signs and the grip, grinning all the time. The workshop was different, bigger furnaces and crucibles, piles of slag and cinders and more moulds than I’d ever seen before. He took us into a dark back room, some sort of storage place. He lit an oil lamp and held it up for us to see. The grey metal gleamed from every corner: discs, bars, hooks, blades of every size, plates of the sort for fitting on shields. Back in the workshop, he stood beaming and nodding at us and talking with his hands. Just to be sure, I asked Kanesh what he was saying but I already knew. The smith had mastered the real mystery of hardening the grey metal, iron, and making bla
des that would keep their shape and take the keenest edge. There’s more, my mother said. He asks if you wish to learn the mystery and work with him. And win a kingdom, Kanesh said. That was when they finally told me about my heritage, about their own story and how I came to be born.
My mother a princess. My father not dear Dareka but Kanesh, this maryannu noble, once instructor of the Great King’s charioteers. All the years they were parted from each other, hunted, made prisoner, nearly driven mad and then at last brought together again by me, their son, on a beach on Kallista. I could find no words, only tears and they wept too. They told me what lay ahead for me now that Kallista had gone and Keftiu was all but ruined.
The Great King the Labarna was dead from his wound at last. Rivals wrangled, intrigued and fought for his marble throne. My mother had best claim to succeed if she returned with such an illustrious husband and an heir. Women had power in that land. The whole Hurrian nation would march for her and the maryannu veterans would mount their chariots again for the father I knew as Kanesh and the commander they knew as Atarhus, son of the storm god. The campaign would be long and hard but their men’s swords and spears and arrowheads would be of the grey metal iron and they knew the secret ways into the Citadel by which it could be stormed. Then the whole land of Anadolus would be at their feet. One day I could be king, Labarna, and build ships for the return to Keftiu, to restore it to its own people.
Even as they spoke I could tell they began to realise I could not do as they hoped. How could I tell them I was a sailor, a poet as Koreta and the Father of the Water People had said, a singer of songs? I was not a warrior prince like my father. I tried and there were more tears. They made no further attempt to persuade or force me but I saw the hope lingering in their eyes. So I told them what would make them finally understand. I told them what Luzar had said to me when I was wrapped in my misery and silence. I told them that Ariadana would be waiting for me if I ever returned to Pherethan. My mother’s face softened and my father took my hand. I could see they understood because they too had known the agony of loss and the joy against all hope of finding a beloved one again.
They were on the quay and the smith was with them to watch us leave. Many of our crew were in tears. I knew they would do as my father had said. They would raise their armies, the smith would arm them, and they would march on the Citadel. I looked only at them, my father so regal in his long red cloak, my mother so beautiful and stately at his side. It was at that moment—how could I not have noticed it before—that I saw a soft roundness to her waist, always so slim in my memory. Of course, she was not so old that she could not conceive again and bear the sort of son who would follow her and my father to the throne. As I stepped to the rail my father put his hand on my arm. He unlaced the scabbard from his belt and handed the great sword to me. Any father would want his sword to go to a son who fought so well as mine did on Kallista, he said. My tears came again. I placed it back in his hands. You will need it at the Citadel, I said. When you have no further use for it I will know and I will come for it then. The words chased on the blade, I said, I have read them and that is what they say. He looked long into my eyes and then he said poet, singer of songs, yours is a nobler way.
I have not seen them since that day. I shall see them again, I know it, but when and where, I cannot tell.
Walk with me down to the beach, will you? Don’t say anything for the moment because I have just told you things I have always tried to forget but never could. Now I do not want to forget. I thank you for that. I can think of them now, my mother and my father, side by side, riding in the hills where the wild bulls roam and there is ice to cool the wine. Take my hand; it’s difficult here. I’m sorry; I should have remembered your blindness.
I like to watch the boats going out late in the afternoon. Leptos usually catches something. They soon got used to the kind of net made here. Can you hear the bees? Potyr keeps his hives near here. He spends more time with them now than he does on the Davina. That pleases Eluwena. Luzar takes the ship along the coast with the tinstone and the ingots now. The miners still talk of Kanesh. Some of them say he knew so much he must have been a god. Typhis has got used to Luzar. Now and then they take the Davina across the narrow sea. She’s still sound enough for a short crossing like that.
With Gebal behind us Potyr said he would not call at Keftiu on this voyage. We had nothing for them, he said, so why divert from our course. Kallista, then, I said, because the storm is past. One day, he said, and no more. So one day it was, enough for the Davina to sail all round. The Mountain that saved us we knew from far off but nothing else was the same. We found not one great curve of an island with only one way into the Lagoon but three islands, with straits between, and all coated in grey ash and pumice streaked brown where streams flowed off the slopes. We kept clear of the Lagoon because we saw steam rising from its waters as well as its walls. Perhaps Korus was simmering in the depths. Perhaps it still is, readying itself to rise above the waves once more. Potyr let his bronze ring fall in the sea where we thought the ships had been engulfed in the fiery clouds and I let Kallia’s pebble follow it down. Then we set course towards the setting sun. Nobody will ever live on Kallista again, Typhis said. Perhaps not, I thought, but people will talk about it and the way it died until all of that is forgotten.
Off Kestera we saw the black ships with their helmeted crews, none of them a match for the Davina but too many of them to brave when we had no archers and no Namun with his firepots. So, unseen by them, we watched them go by on course for Keftiu and when they had passed, we set our course for the Pelos cape. I asked Potyr our heading. We have our pilot, he said: for Sikelia, the Strait and Pherethan. Strange, Ariadana once told me I would never return. But I did. Perhaps she told me that to make me do it.
The storyteller waited patiently while the poet, eyes closed, sifted through his memories. Perhaps he had fallen asleep.
No, I’m awake, just thinking. Have you finished your honey wine? Did I tell you the last time I saw the painter was in the Lady Pasipha’s house the day before we set sail for Gebal? Know what she was painting? Not swallows or monkeys, no: octopus and nautilus, things the sea washes up now and then. What’s that? Namun and Kerma, you say. Where are they? Still on the New Dolphin, I shouldn’t wonder, working up and down the Kinaani shore from Gebal to the Black Land. Making a decent living, I don’t doubt it.
Hear that? That’s my daughter playing. I taught her. We play together every day. She’ll be better than me one day soon and then I’ll give her these pipes. I promised her. She’s a pretty girl, our only one. Her name, you ask? We call her Kallista.
“A pretty song, a pretty girl child, a pretty ending. But it cannot be, Prince Sharesh, son of Kanesh, son of the storm god. It will not be! Listen to me and do not say a word. I spoke to you last in the voice of the Keeper of the Beacon at Alefisia and I tell you now, as then, that I see everything, before and now and after. Before, I saw you as a fearless lookout on that great ship, weathering the storms of unknown seas and at last, finding what you sought in this land, and on your return, I saw you as a warrior on Kallista, dealing death to those who sacked your city. And I see you now, for shame, indolent, complacent, sunning yourself and talking of bees and flowers while your godlike father and your royal mother struggle and bleed in their noble cause. And I see what you must do, what you will do. This is no place for you. Your destiny lies on the battlefield beside that great lord and his lady. You will call keen-eyed Potyr and stalwart Typhis and Luzar the pilot and make ready the ship. Ariadana will gladly sail with you and wield a lance and Eluwena will be at Potyr’s side. You will take the girl because she is your parents’ only grandchild and your heir and you will take ten of the best spearmen of Crakluz. And you will sail through the Strait to Keftiu. Potyr and Luzar know the Davina’s course. And on Keftiu you will find the Captain of Archers and his men of Kydona whose arrows felled the raiders on Kallista and old Ektan who yearns to stand again at Kanesh’s side. And in a cove on
Keftiu you will find the great warship, Seabird, built by Naudok and dragged back to the sea after the great wave and now ready for sea.
You will stock her and the Davina with all the stores of war and crew her and other vessels with men whom Sekara will provide, and horses and chariots. And the Davina and Seabird will lead the Keftiu fleet to Gubal where Kerma and Namun will join you and there you will be armed by the smith with iron swords and lances and battle axes and scythe blades for the chariot wheels. Then, you will sail with your fleet past Alisya to land on the shores of Anadolus and lead your column away from the midday sun, force marching it until you hear the sounds of battle outside the walls of the Citadel where the Labarna once ruled. All this you will do because I have seen what is to be. And I will sing of your feats and those of your godlike father and royal mother so that your deeds will enthral men in ages to come. I may have no sight as you know it but I have an inner eye that sees farther and sharper than even keen-eyed Potyr can and I see all this happen as I have said.”
“My Lord, Kanesh, the men are exhausted. So many have fallen and our chariots lie shattered on the field with the horses dead in their traces. The few that are left can barely walk, let alone gallop. Your own wounds are grievous and the Princess… should we not fall back, or send a herald to seek parley?
Akusha’s eyes flashed below her blood-stained helmet. “Captain, never again even whisper of withdrawal or parley in my presence! Tell him, my Lord.”
“Captain, I have fought many battles, won many of them and lost some. But one thing I do know is this: if we are exhausted and fewer in number, then so is the enemy and perhaps even more so. One more charge will settle this battle and hence this war, one way or another. Sound the horn. We will charge.”
“Wait,” said Akusha. “I hear the sound of a horn some little distance away. Listen. There it is again. Captain, send a rider, no, go yourself to see who comes.”
