Chapter 1: Arrivals (Part 4)

Early Summer
Year 6

No land was in sight; they had last seen it two months ago when they had first left. Now, around them the sea stretched in every direction, sapphire clear, while the sun, directly overhead, showered its radiance unforgivingly on the men exposed on the decks below. There were four ships; stoutly constructed, their prows cut through the water easily. They had been named, at their completion, the Orkor, Dermu, Tioron, and the Mondery. Each carried some fifty Erennin, as well as enough supplies to last them at least five months, six if rationed. These two hundred men were on a mission of exploration; driven by curiosity, they had left Itayra in the springtime to see what lay beyond the western sea. Jodias had given them his support; they were to find new places and people to trade with, to increase the wealth of the kingdom. Two months ago they had left Itayra with big hearts and excitement to see what lay beyond the horizon. But now, having passed the horizon a long time ago and seeing nothing beyond the horizon but more water and yet another horizon to pass, the men were running low on enthusiasm. Arboru, standing at the bow of the Tioron, knew that; as captain of this expedition, he could not help but hear every single mutter and whisper the crewmen made to one another at the oars, on deck, in the hold, at mealtimes. And he knew that soon they would have to turn back; he could not hold off their demands to return any longer. It was not a problem of pay; he had paid them enough gold each to allow them to start their own businesses if they wished. But they were homesick, and missed their families who were probably hundreds of leagues behind them, the distance growing greater by the minute.

Arboru walked around his flagship, one of the best specimens of Erennin shipbuilding there was yet. After the Arrival the Erennin had had to shift quickly from building boats and, at most, small river ships, to far larger ones suited to carrying the huge volumes of cargo needed for trade and withstanding the open sea. They had adjusted well, and produced such as the Tioron, with its pointed bow, its elegantly curved aft prow, and its capacity for cargo while riding reasonably well on the water. It could travel at almost two-and-a-half leagues an hour at maximum speed. The ships did not sink; they were so light and so often unballasted that they would stay afloat even in the severest storms known to the Erennin. Arboru looked upon his ships with pride; as one of the first coastal traders to begin plying the ports of the new Erennia, he had made the Orkor, Dermu and the Tioron well-known names among the trading communities of fifteen different ports, the capital itself and even in some of the southernmost Old Kingdom ports. A shrewd businessman, he had become extremely wealthy in the three short years since the Arrival. His adventurous spirit had gotten the better of him, and he had withdrawn his trading fleet from the coasts, provisioning them at Itayra where he oversaw the construction of the Mondery, paid for from his own coffers. Crews were found with generous offers of money, and they had sailed amidst well wishes, gifts and a visit from Jodias himself, who had come to see the merchant explorer he had supported with his presence and influence.

Standing at the bow, looking dead ahead, Arboru felt a tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he discovered the first mate, Haridouros, standing behind him, looking steadily at him. There was almost an…expectant…look to him, a look he had never seen before. His only true friend on this ship, a childhood playmate who had followed him through thick and thin for many years, Arboru was comfortable speaking to Haridouros, whatever the topic.

“Come, stand up here with me,” Arboru said, motioning to the raised platform he stood on, at the ship’s bow. “There is something you want to say to me; I can tell from your look.”

“I don’t know how to broach this to you, Arboru.”

“Now, Haridouros, you know that there is nothing you cannot say to me. We have been friends for—what is it now, thirty years?—and we both trust each other like brothers.”

“Trust has nothing to do with this, Arboru. The men want to go home. They want to turn back eastwards to their homes, where wives and children await. They spoke to me because they knew that they would get nothing but rebuffs from you. Arboru, you must take them seriously. They have threatened to mutiny, to throw you overboard and turn the ship around to sail home. And they say, and I believe them, that others on the remaining three ships would also do the same, turning for home after killing those who wish to go on.”

Arboru pondered this for a moment, and then, very quietly, said, “I see. And you, my friend? Have you elected to go their way? Will you captain this ship and turn it back, after contributing your strength to throw me overboard?”

“You know I would follow you to the ends of the earth, Arboru. I would never countenance any harm being done to you, by your own crew no less. I would not captain the ship if they mutinied; this much I told them, and that is why I will follow you overboard if you do not turn back.”

Nodding in thought, Arboru pondered his choice. Not that there was much of one. “Thank you for telling me this, Haridouros. I would not have believed it if you had not told me so too, like everyone else. Put out the signals for a complete stop, furl the sails and call the captains of the other three ships to come to the Tioron for a meeting.”

This was done; the horn-call soon brought the small fleet to a stop, small boats rowing out from the three other ships to the flagship. Assembling on the deck, the crew of the Tioron and the captains listened as Arboru stood on the platform to address them.

“I know you want to return home. I have heard this myself, and I know that if I do not allow this, I will be eating the dust at the bottom of the sea with the fishes. I will tell you this: I am not afraid to die; I have faced the Ismaransi in three battles and stared death in the face more than once. I have spat in its face! I am not afraid of you, and if you will kill me, I will take a few of you with me before I go.” Arboru laid a hand on the hilt of his sword, hanging from his waist.

“We will push on westwards. I have given almost my entire fortune to you and these ships to explore the oceans, and I will not turn back so easily! Are you all cowards? Our supplies are not even used up and you would turn back? We have the King’s own orders to go west to the best of our abilities, and is this how you honour our King, who brought us out of the grasp of the Ismaransi?”

A heavyset man shouldered his way forward through the men, his face marked with a deep scar. “Now look here, Arboru. You are a merchant and you know nothing of family. All your life has been spent travelling from place to place and of course you find this nothing different. But we have our own lives to lead, our own families, and we will return to them even if you would take a few of us with you. And if you think you are the only one who has stared death in the face before, let me tell you that there are some of us here who have fought in every battle since the first one, and at least two who used to be in the Guard before they retired. You might take fewer of us with you than you might like.”

He had ended with a clenched fist; among the crowd, people tensed for violence. Only Haridouros now stood by Arboru, but the assembled crew was edging forward, and the first mate had the distinct sensation that if his captain bared the slightest sliver of his blade, the two of them would be hurtling off the deck in the blink of an eye, with weights tied to their ankles. Haridouros laid a cautionary hand on his captain’s sword-arm. Arboru paused, then relaxed, taking his arm from the sword hilt.

“Alright. I can’t oppose your combined will. Just one more day. If by sunset of tomorrow we still do not discover land, we will turn back. You have my word on this. Give me just one more day.”

Once more the gods worked through their ineffable agenda. The dawn of the next morning brought excited shouts from the lookouts of the ships; the sharpest-eyed one, on the Orkor, saw it first. Then within minutes, the other were also shouting excitedly, “Land! Land ahead!”

In the shortest time Arboru had dressed and hurried fore to be greeted by the sight of low hills protruding darkly above the level of the flat horizon; after so long seeing only a curved line for a horizon his eyes blinked in disbelief. But it was there; dry land again, slowly being illuminated by the sun, rising behind their backs. No one seemed to mind when Arboru ordered the sails to be unfurled and the oarsmen to start rowing for all they were worth. By the time the sun had reached its zenith, they had beached their ships and were setting up camp on the shore, exploring the area around their landing point.

And Arboru was praying in thanksgiving harder than he had ever done in need before.