Left of Africa Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  The innkeeper was puzzled.

  "Can’t forget what?"

  "I can’t forget anything. Anything I see or hear. That’s how I know some of the people who were talking here tonight were telling lies; they didn’t say quite the same as they did on other nights." The innkeeper smiled.

  "We usually call them stories, not lies," he remarked. "It’s not considered fair to point out such little errors. Sailors, and fishermen, and I fear most other people usually listen to each other’s stories, and keep quiet about whether or not they believe them."

  "But how can I tell where to go, if I don’t know what to believe?" the boy almost wailed.

  "If you’re telling the truth yourself about your memory, you should have no trouble. Just find someone who tells exactly the same story each time."

  "But no one ever does! A lot of the men here now say they are from a city called Phokaios, and I’ve listened to all I could about it the last two nights; and one says its harbor is bigger than any other, and another says Tartessos is bigger. One says his ship is the fastest on the seas, and another says he hopes they never see a Carthaginian galley because they couldn’t get away. One says it takes half a month to get here from Phokaios and another was telling a story where it took two months—"

  "That can all be explained, boy." It was a new voice, and Gizona and the innkeeper turned to see who it was. The boy had not heard it before; apparently whoever it was had not been telling stories the last few nights.

  He did not look much different from the other sailors. He was of about the same build, and like them seemed immensely strong; his clothing was of the same material, and his weapons not noticeably different. For a moment Gizona could not decide what it was that made the fellow stand out from the others.

  Then the boy’s memory supplied an answer. During the excitement that had attended Gizona’s capture and initial questioning, this man had said nothing. He had simply watched, and all the others had surged around him. They had never bumped into him, though, and they had always left room for him to see. Not even the most excited had ever stood in front of him. That fact had gone into Gizona’s memory without carrying any meaning with it; now he decided that this must be a leader-perhaps the captain of a ship. He had gathered enough from the stories of the last few nights to guess what a captain might be. He had been going to make a rude answer— he had heard liars explain their lies before— but something about the quiet man’s attitude made the boy change his mind.

  "I don’t see how they can all be telling the truth," he said a little lamely.

  "Of course you don’t. But think a moment: do you suppose that, if you and your friend Chekoled were each to describe the village where you were born, that the descriptions would sound very much alike?"

  "Well— I don’t see why not."

  "Take a different pair of people, then; try the king of this city of yours, and the innkeeper standing beside you. Would their descriptions of Tartessos sound the same?"

  "I don’t suppose so. The King wouldn’t know too much about the streets and buildings here by the river, except maybe at the big docks; and I don’t suppose the innkeeper knows much about the palace or the soldiers’ barracks and—"

  "That’s the idea. Everyone sees a different part of what he looks at. A great-uncle of mine named Kolaios came here nearly thirty-five years ago, and his description of the coasts he saw on the way just doesn’t make sense to me now-or rather, it wouldn’t if I weren’t able to allow for the fact that he got here by being blown off course in a storm. The light was different for him, the waves were different, the very city was different; the Tartessans had never seen Greeks before, I guess, and he thought they were rather stupid and suspicious. Now, I know their language, as the rest of my officers do, and I know they’re nothing of the sort; but if my uncle were still alive and I were to tell him my knowledge of this city, he’d call me a young fool who shouldn’t be trusted with a ship." "I think I see; but how can I find out what is true, if no two people see the same thing?"

  "You'll have to see for yourself, at least until you’ve seen enough to tell pretty well how much of another person’s story means anything to you. After all, young fellow, if we're all liars as far as you're concerned, won’t you just have to trust yourself? Even I don't trust many people on some matters; I wouldn’t take your description of the river near this city, because I'd have to know things you wouldn't have noticed if I were to bring my ship in safely."

  "What would you need to know?" asked Gizona "When the tide is in, you would have no trouble unless you went farther up river than the city. When it is low, I don’t know about the mouth of the river; but near the city the deep part is very crooked. From the place where the ships are loaded it extends toward the second highest hill on the north bank; when you reach the point where the red-roofed barrack north of the palace is in line with the second shed at the docks-counting from the south-you turn south; then— " he went on; and Orestes of Phokaia, grandnephew of Kolaios of Samos, owner and captain of the Phokaian pentakonter Proteus, listened in a silence that was only partly caused by amazement. True, the boy’s memory seemed fantastic; but more than that, any seaman could of course think of uses for that memory. No one had yet dreamed of such a thing as a mariner’s compass; ships normally stayed in sight of land, and navigated by pilotage-that is, by simple recognition of landmarks along the route. The custom of making pictures, or even written descriptions, of these landmarks had not yet developed to any extent; charts were unknown. The best navigator was the one with the best memory for landmarks; and Orestes of Phokaia was hardly listening to Gizona as the boy neared the end of his description. He was planning, instead.

  "How did you come to learn this?" asked the captain, when Gizona finally stopped.

  "I came down river on the north bank to a point some distance past Tartessos, and then got a ride in a boat that was carrying hides back up to the city. The man who owned the boat was telling his son how to keep in deep water, pointing out the landmarks as he talked."

  "And of course you remembered them all."

  "Of course. I told you I can’t forget anything."

  The captain seemed satisfied for the moment. His next words were not addressed to Gizona.

  "Friend innkeeper," he said, "the boy has been bruised, and is probably hungry. Please bring him water and cloths to wash his hurts, and some of this good food. I will pay."

  The innkeeper had a pretty good idea of what the captain was planning, and nodded.

  "Do as the excellent captain says, Phaxos." The slave obeyed. His feelings toward Gizona had not changed, but he did not dare say any more on the subject.

  Gizona, with his cuts washed and a good meal inside him, was a much more useful-looking young man. So, at least, Captain Orestes felt; and Gizona himself would have agreed with the suggestion. He had not been actually starving-his master of the moment was generous enough with regard to food-but like almost any boy of his age he had been perfectly willing to eat. He had not bothered to ask himself, or anyone else, why the captain had fed him; Gizona seldom bothered his head very much about why things happened. When he did, he was apt to be satisfied with the first answer that entered his head, as had been the case with the question of why he was disliked by so many people. Just now, the main question in his mind was how he was going to get back into the silversmith’s shop to sleep; quite naturally, the smith locked the place up securely at night, expecting his servants to be home at a reasonable hour.

  Orestes, who had watched with some amusement while the boy ate, decided it was time for a little work on his plan. Actually, it was still more a wish than a plan; he wanted the boy on board the Proteus, preferably without having to kidnap him.

  "I suppose you came to Tartessos before we did, so that you didn’t see our ship when you arrived."

  "I’ve been here about a month. I don’t know what your ship looks like, so I don’t know if I ever saw it or not."

  "We were
n’t here a month ago. Haven’t you been to the port since then?"

  "Not much. I’ve been in different parts of the city, working wherever I could. What is your ship like?"

  "Well, it’s hard to put into words, since I don’t know your language as well as I might. She’s big, rows fifty oars, and of course has to be pretty long to make room for the rowers. There aren’t any bigger ones in the port just now; if you come down to see, you can know her that way."

  "When could I come down? My silversmith is at the upstream end of town, about as far from the port as he can be and he won’t like it if I’m gone during the day. He feeds me too well for me to want to annoy him if I can help it."

  Orestes had not intended to make an open admission of his plan quite so soon, but the opportunity seemed too good to miss.

  "I gave you a pretty fair meal tonight."

  "That’s true. It’s only one meal, though, and even if you gave me another tomorrow it wouldn’t do me much good if my smith told me to go away."

  "Didn’t you expect him to do that anyway, as soon as the story of your curse caught up with you? Mightn’t it be a good idea to move before that happened? If you moved far enough, it might break the trail for the story."

  "I never thought of that," Gizona replied slowly. "Do you really think it would work?"

  "I can’t tell for certain; I’ve never had a curse chase me like that. It seems to me to be worth trying, though."

  "But where could I go? It seems to be safer to stay where I am; maybe nothing will happen to make him get rid of me."

  "Maybe. it always has, though, you say, and the slave here seems to think the story is pretty well spread through the town. As to where you could go-well, the world is wide. I’ve seen a lot of it, but not all. You must have some idea, even if you don’t trust all of it, from what you’ve been hearing my officers tell the innkeeper here."

  "But how could I leave Tartessos? Of course I could get down to Gades near the river mouth, but that’s not very far; and I don’t want to keep walking from city to city or village to village the way I have been; you get pretty hungry that way. To get any farther I’d have to go on a ship, and I don’t think a boy can do anything on a ship. I’m not big enough to row, and what else does a sailor have to do?"

  That, of course, was the captain’s perfect opening.

  "There’s one thing he needs which you have better than anyone I’ve ever seen, boy. He must remember." He leaned forward and began to talk; slowly, carefully, as clearly as he could in a language not his own. He explained how a seaman needed, above all, to know the sea; to remember coasts, and channels, and weather signs; how a trader needed to know— to remember— what goods were produced in one place and needed in another, what could best be carried in his own type of ship, what seasons each product was available. He talked about the things to be seen, supposing that Gizona shared the curiosity of most boys; the great rock that guarded the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, the smoking mountains to the east, the strange creatures that swam the seas.

  Some of these things the boy had heard about earlier, but this time he was able to look more charitably on the differences between the captain’s descriptions and those of the others. The very differences which had earlier made him suppose all the sailors were liars now began to arouse his curiosity— as the captain had said, he could always find out which was true by seeing for himself.

  Orestes was a widely travelled and well educated man; he was a good speaker by nature, and had been trained in argument by his trading life as well as by his education. He was quite right about Gizona’s curiosity; if the boy had only possessed the desire for adventure common to his age, there would have been no trouble at all. Unfortunately, Gizona had already had adventures enough, most of them unpleasant; and Orestes was too honest to deny that there was a certain amount of danger attached to the life of a sailor. Even had his honesty not been on duty, he would hardly have dared lie to a memory like Gizona’s.

  It all boiled down, therefore, to the question of whether the boy wanted to win one kind of peace at the cost of losing another-did he want to get away once and for all from the "curse" story which had followed him most of his life, by facing the physical dangers of the sea?

  Gizona wasn’t sure. He wanted to eat his cake and still have it-to get rid of his old troubles without risking any new ones, though he never admitted it in so many words. Orestes could see clearly enough what was going on in his mind, but didn’t quite know what to do about it. A grown man might have been shamed into making a choice by having his cowardice called what it was; Gizona was too young to be convinced it was cowardice.

  At least, he was too young to be convinced by Orestes, and the captain knew it. The slave Phaxos did not, however. The innkeeper had long gone about his other duties; nearly everyone had finished eating, and Phaxos had little to do. He had been filling his time, whenever he could, by listening to Gizona and the captain; now, with his master safely out of hearing, he saw fit to make a remark.

  "He’ll never go to sea. He couldn’t steal anything on a ship, and if he did he couldn’t get away with it."

  Orestes never knew just what Phaxos had against the boy, or why the slave’s words had so much more effect on the little fellow than anyone else’s. Gizona sprang to his feet, furious as he had been at the other insult an hour or more earlier.

  "You talk too much about stealing, slave! Can’t you think of anything else? Your master had better be careful of his food and wine! I'll go to sea any time you will you can watch me, and if you live off what I steal you’ll starve early. And I hope you do!"

  Orestes turned to the innkeeper, who had come from the kitchen at the sound of Gizona’s shouting.

  "Good host, I wish to buy your slave, Phaxos. What price will you take for him?"

  The haggling which followed gave both Phaxos and Gizona plenty of time to reflect on the evils of hasty speech. It was lengthy, because the innkeeper very quickly caught on to what the captain was doing; and knowing how much Orestes wanted the boy, he held out for a high price for the slave. For a time, Phaxos had hopes that the sale would fall through, but at last an agreement was reached.

  The boy and the slave looked at each other as the words were spoken, and for the first time felt something like sympathy for each other.

  And the next morning they went aboard the Pentekonter together.

  CHAPTER 3

  Phaxos was angry and indignant at the world in general and Gizona in particular; the flash of sympathy he had felt the night before had gone, and he was blaming the boy entirely for the position he was in-with some justice, it must be admitted.

  Gizona himself had been angry most of the night, entirely at his own careless talk; but the sight of the Proteus quickly buried this feeling in one of curiosity. He knew, of course, how a rowboat worked, and had not lived in Tartessos for a month without gaining some idea of larger ships; but this was actually his first chance to examine one at all closely.

  She was big, as the sailor the night before had said. Hauled up on the beach on rollers, she looked even bigger than she would have afloat. Somehow the heap of goods which the Greeks had bought, and which were to be loaded aboard her, looked tiny; she should have been able to carry many times that amount, it seemed to Gizona. He said as much to the captain.

  "The Proteus was built for speed, not cargo. We would not use such a ship in our own waters for trading."

  "Why not? And what do you mean by "your own waters?’ "

  "The sea about our own land-the eastern end of the great sea. At this end we are not liked-just like you, Gizona, though the reason is different. The people of a city on the southern shore, called Carthage, claim that they alone have the right to trade at this end of the sea. Any other ship they catch is sunk, and her crew either killed or used as oar-slaves. For that reason any Greek ship which comes here has to be fast, even though that means less cargo. That’s one of the things I told you that a sailor has to know.

  "We
have twenty-five oars on each side, and can use our sail if the wind is blowing the right way. However, fifty oars means fifty men, and a lot of food and water; so there is much less room for cargo than you would think."

  "When do we go?"

  Orestes glanced down at the small figure beside him.

  "Getting interested after all, eh? I thought you’d be glad before we got too far. We should be loaded in two days; after that, we’ll have to be careful. I have two men down at the coast watching Gades, and we can’t go until they report that there is no Carthaginian galley there-or, if there are any and they stay too long, we’ll have to go down the river at night. If they see us they’ll chase us, and there’s no sense asking for trouble that can be avoided."

  "Then why are you here at all?"