Gavin Smith - The Age of Scorpio

‘Always.’

There were cries from the fort. Britha caught the look on Teardrop’s face as he turned. He looked troubled. Britha got to her feet, rearranging her robe. Through the break in the cliffs she could see a ship approaching, its prow crashing through the rough white water between the rocks.

Britha grabbed her spear and headed towards the shore. The god-slaves had picked up their pitch. They seemed to feel that the ship was an answer to their prayers.

Even in the darkness and with the distance, Britha found herself able to make out the details of the ship clearly. The vessel was huge and made from planks of wood that looked to have been both painted and varnished. It looked like a southern trading vessel. She knew that the crew would have skin darkened by the hot suns of the south.

She had only seen their like once before, though she had heard stories from others of the Pecht who had dealt with the strange traders from the hot lands far across the seas. She found herself awed by the strange craft. It made the wood and skin boats of her people look so rudimentary and primitive.

The oars had been raised to prevent them from being splintered by the rocks on either side of the narrow entrance. The ship moved only by its gaily coloured sail, though even without the oars it was a close fit for the large vessel.

In the stern of the ship Britha could see hugely muscled men and women in kilts made of bronze-tipped strips of leather, labouring at the huge lever of the ship’s rudder. The navigator looked like those who worked the rudder, but older, gone to seed, though still powerful. He wore a blaidth -like garment but shorter and with no trews, and his footwear was a complicated series of leather straps. His eyelids and the skin around them were painted black, his head shorn, his beard trimmed short. He shouted instructions at the rudder-men and -women. Again, Britha wondered at how she could make out so much from so far away.

All of the crew looked so different to Britha’s tall, pale, hairy people. With skin colours in various dark hues and bizarre clothing and ornamentation, the crew of the ship looked very strange to the ban draoi ’s eyes.

‘From your world?’ Britha asked suspiciously as she and Teardrop walked down to the shore. The ram prow of the ship splashed through the water of the harbour, the sinister-looking eyes painted on it disappearing in the white foam.

Teardrop shook his head. ‘Carthaginians, at a guess.’

A large, powerfully built man was holding on to the rail at the front of the ship. He wore a boiled leather jerkin over another blaidth -like piece of clothing. The light brown fur of some beast formed a small cloak. The man’s trews seemed overlarge to Britha. She could also make out the hilts of a sword and dirk on a belt. He had a necklace from the teeth of some mighty beast around his neck and wore a studded leather band on his head. His hair was neatly trimmed to the shoulder except for two long braids. His beard and hair were dyed and lacquered. Part of his face was white, limed, Britha assumed, like some of the southron tribes did. More black dye traced out a pattern across his face, all of it running due to the salt spray. To her eyes the ship’s master looked decadent, his face paint an extravagance that should only have been used for war or ceremony.

The Goddodin in the fort above raced along the stone palisades, keeping pace with the ship. Britha saw braziers placed for fire arrows. She wondered if they had any of the oil left. Would it look like a water- fall of flame pouring down on the ship if they used it? she wondered. It was something she almost wanted to see.

The man was shouting and laughing. He seemed to be by turns exhorting the sea, daring it to do its worst and crying out to a god named Dagon. Britha had no idea how she knew the language, she just did, it seemed.

Next to the master was a wiry man with the darkest skin she had ever seen, a deep rich brown colour. He was nearly as tall as Bress. He was stripped to the waist, though also wearing very large trews and leaning on a long-hafted great axe, the heads of which were two massive crescent-shaped bronze blades.

With a final crash the ship made it through into the natural harbour. The white-clad god-slaves on the shore seemed ecstatic, and were crying their thanks to the Dark Man.

The ship struck its sails. The oars came down to back row and slow the ship down. Stone anchors were slung overboard.

Britha was angrily shoving the god-slaves out of her way. Fachtna was following her, watching the ship manoeuvre closer to the shore. The injuries Britha had given him were gone. The man in the leather jerkin and the face paint was shouting up to the fort in a broken version of the Goddodin’s language, which Britha was still able to understand, assuring them that he was here for trade as he had been before.

‘So you’ll ride your fish woman, you’ll ride Teardrop, you’ll even ride Bress, despite him killing half your people and enslaving the other half, before you’d ride me?’ Fachtna asked.

‘It’s my right, the right of every woman to take their pleasure where they want and with whom they want. And it’s not before, it’s instead of, and frankly I would ride the Cirig’s entire herd of beasties and the wolves in the wood before I got near you.’

‘I’ll have to warn them you’re coming,’ Fachtna told her. Britha turned to face him, her irritation with the Goidel warrior overcoming her fascination with the strange ship and its even stranger crew.

‘Decide what it’s going to take to get you to stop talking to me and decide now.’

Fachtna’s retort was cut off by a ramp being dropped onto the shore from the ship. The master strode down it followed by the tall brown-skinned man, who seemed to be his bodyguard.

The quality of the master’s clothing and his slight paunch marked him as wealthy. His bearing, however, was more that of a warrior than a merchant, but there was a definite intelligence behind his brown eyes.

The emaciated old man, who had spoken to Britha before, approached the ship’s master. Britha again shoved him out of the way, sending him sprawling.

‘This is not a fitting welcome,’ the ship’s master managed in the Goddodin tongue.

‘We speak the language of Carthage,’ Fachtna said. The ship’s master looked thoughtful. His guard, bronze axe at the ready, was studying Teardrop with suspicion.

‘And what would a northern barbarian know of the might and splendour of Carthage?’ the master asked.

‘Enough to recognise its tongue shouted across these waters.’

‘You speak it well.’ The ship’s master looked at Teardrop then back to Fachtna. ‘Did your demon whisper it? Pour it into your ear like honey?’

Britha was confused. ‘We don’t pour honey in ears.’ She was surprised to find herself apparently speaking Carthaginian. ‘We eat it.’

‘And I am no demon,’ Teardrop said.

‘A sorcerer then?’ the brown-skinned guard asked. Teardrop gazed at the man but said nothing. The guard met Teardrop’s look and held it.

‘My friend asked you a question,’ the ship’s master said.

‘I heard,’ Teardrop told him.

‘Who is he to ask it?’ Britha demanded.

‘Where I come from the women let the men speak,’ the Carthaginian answered.

‘Where I come from it is courteous to introduce yourself, and where I come from we geld men for discourtesy. Since we’re closer to where I come from than where you come from, which one of my ways would you like to respect?’ Britha asked. Fachtna was staring at her with a raised eyebrow.

The Carthaginian gave it some thought; the guard shifted, ready to strike.

‘The introduction, I think!’ he finally said, his face splitting into a wide grin.