“Interesting,” Captain Larroche stroked his chin in thought, before looking round. Seeing Pat, he called to him. “Pat, take a jolly boat, some of your savages and go and scout the southern river. Don’t go more than ten miles, just past the base of the mountain. I want to know the depth, so take a plumb line.”
“Sir,” said Pat, already moving.
“If it pleases the Captain,” offered the fisherman, “Subash can show you the way and the best place to anchor. Subash also knows where there are rivers with sweet water for drinking.”
Captain Larroche regarded him for a moment. “Thank you. We will wait for the report of my mate, before we will take you up on your offer. In the meantime, please discuss with my officers,” he indicated Taufik and Suzanne, “as to the state of the Kingdom.”
“Brian! What is that woman doing?” He turned to his mate in alarm, pointing down to the deck where a young girl had come aboard and was attempting to drag a sailor into the fo’c’sle.
“Damn,” said Brian glancing down. “I’ll sort it, sir.” He didn’t stop for the Captain’s nod, but headed straight down to the deck, calling for the Bosun who came up hurriedly.
“Bosun, clear these people off the ship. None to come aboard without a letter from the Captain. And get those damn whores off as fast as you can. What the hell were you thinking, you know what the Captain thinks of them!”
“Ah, sorry sir. Blindsided me.” The Bosun stormed off, grabbed the girl and threw her overboard, where she went with a piteous wail and a thrashing of legs and skirts, only to surface in short order, climb into a boat and started to scream abuse at the Bosun. She, meanwhile, was screaming in fury at her mates who had missed the girl getting aboard.
Pat took the jolly boat with Maru and Wiwik, while Bai Ju and Hinatea jumped in as they pushed off. Pat gave Hinatea the plumb line and told her to go to the bows. With her entire life spent on the ocean, she was a fantastic judge of depth, so didn’t need the plumb line to find the deepest route. Maru and Wiwik pulled up the little sail while Pat took the tiller with Bai Ju perched beside him, watching avidly.
They sailed up the river, close to the south bank and avoiding the main channel and current. Although fields appeared near the village, some miles away, here was virgin forest, right to the edge of the river, a verdant green, silent and empty. On the far side were the ruins of an old fort, crumbling back into the jungle but still prickly with menace. The river was a brilliant blue, sparkling in the sunshine with little wavelets created by the fresh wind. The mountain poured down to the north bank, steep and green, invisible behind its cloth of trees. Pat was watching Hinatea, who indicated a route with her arms, not changing much as the river was uniformly deep. Staying a good 75 yards off the bank, to ensure no problem with depth. Her eyes were fixed on the river, till Wiwik pointed at the bank, “Warrior!”
Standing on a branch of a tree, one arm supporting himself on the trunk, stood a man, dressed in some sort of grey furs. He had a flat face with big eyes and no nose, and was staring fixedly at them. Pat realised the man was tiny and felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
“Is it a spirit of the woods? A ghost? Or a child?” Maru wondered, gripping the throwing axe he had come to love.
“Little people,” breathed Pat. “Another one behind him. Damn, there’s an army! All in the trees. No weapons, but they are watching us.”
“Maybe they are gathering to attack the ship,” suggested Wiwik.
“We are at a disadvantage,” said Hinatea, “I don’t like them seeing us first. Should we go back?”
“We need intelligence,” said Pat. “We cannot go back and say we ran from some enemies. We need to count them and assess their military capability.”
“Yes,” said Bai Ju, “let us find their city, it may be built from gold!”
At her tone, the others looked at her sharply. She was shaking with laughter. She punched Pat heavily on the shoulder. “You are so funny! These are animals, monkeys they call them!”
“But they are like men!” Maru objected. “They have hands and can hold things! What sort of witchery is this? Animals like men?”
“It is not witchery,” said Bai Ju. “There are many animals here that will surprise you. Coloured birds that can talk. Snakes longer than this boat and able to eat a man. Huge lizards in the rivers more dangerous than sharks. Little snakes at whose bite a man drops dead instantly. A huge pig, nearly as big as an elephant, with a sword on its nose. In the mountains there are even dragons.”
“What’s a dragon?” Pat said faintly into the deafening silence.
“It’s a big lizard, bigger than an elephant, that can fly. It breathes fire and eats people, especially virgins, and gold. Is powerful and can talk.”
“You have seen one?” Pat asked slowly.
“No, not myself, but my Sifu is friends with one.”
There was silence in the boat as they struggled to digest these wonders. Pat turned the tiller firmly and sailed straight at the monkeys. Immediately, they all shot up to the top of the trees, screaming loudly and showing long teeth at their attackers.
Hinatea burst into laughter. “The one at the back has a baby! She is carrying it on her back! They are animals, they are eating the leaves and fruit!”
Pat and Bai Ju were also laughing at the antics of the monkeys, though Wiwik and Maru were taking a bit longer to come round.
“How will we fight in this land, with all these fearsome beasts in the forests? When we patrol they catch us.” Maru asked Pat, concern in his eyes.
Pat considered the question, Bai Ju waiting for his answer. “On your islands you have no big predators, you must think of it as like the sea in which you swim freely despite the big sharks. In my land, there are wild dogs called wolves, which will kill people, and a big thing called a bear, which is like a man but also like a dog, big and heavy, with long claws and teeth. It mainly eats plants, but will eat meat if it can catch it. These dangerous animals are not common, and when you do find them they are usually scared of men, or at least avoid them. They don’t take risks. I expect these animals are the same, we have to learn their habits, so we will spend time in the forest studying them and discovering what they do. When we know them, we will not fear them.”
This was enough for them, and they went back to their tasks, while Bai Ju considered him thoughtfully.
They sailed on up the river, slowly moving over to the far side as they followed the edge of the deeper channel where the current flowed. In the lee of the mountain the river was much deeper, and they followed the main channel down alongside the shoulder of the mountain, to the point where the river split into three tributaries and became much smaller. Here was the landing place, with a natural quay from the rock and a little further along a small village. Fish traps jutted out of the river, and a well-used road led off through the fields to the East. A haze of dust drifted over the fields, and three stone buildings dominated the village.
They sailed up to the rocks, and tied up to a jutting stone. A troupe of kids came racing down towards them from the village, followed by a number of adults. The kids arranged themselves around them in a circle at a respectful distance, all laughing and smiling. Pat evaluated them - unlike the kids further south, none of them seemed undernourished or sick, though dressed in rags. Bright eyed and cheerful, dark brown skins and jet black hair, all were barefoot. A couple of them leaped into the river with shouts of glee and swam over to inspect the jolly boat, loud shouts indicating they had found something new and wonderful.
The adults now arrived, pushing through the kids, though gentle in doing so. The first man to arrive started talking excitedly. Pat understood not a word.
“Hey guys, do any of you speak Belada?” he asked loudly, which resulted in a huge increase in volume as everyone started talking at once, and an older man was pushed forward, wearing leather sandals and a strange cloth wrapped around his hips, falling to his ankles, something like a skirt. He had a loose white cotton shirt, open to the chest.
“I speak the trade language, I have travelled on a trading ship as far as Kalikut!” he said with pride.
All the other people exclaimed and regarded him with awe. He preened.
“Good, well done,” said Pat. “We are from a trading ship, and we are looking for a safe anchorage for our ship as we wish to trade with Kadwad. We are considering this place, and wonder if you have any horses we can hire?”
The man’s eyes lit up with excitement and he turned and shouted at the crowd who all cried out in wonder. Pat began to feel decidedly weird. The man turned back to him.
“My name is Ravi Sohal, I am pleased to help you! I am only person in the village who speaks Belada, I will be your interpreter!” he declared grandly. “Please Sahib, won’t you come to my house to discuss what you need?”
“Ah, sure,” said Pat. A girl pushed out of the throng and came up beside Ravi, and he stared. She also wore the cloth skirt, but her waist was bare, with a jewel in her belly button, and her torso was wrapped round in a gauzy, sheer sheet. Her long black hair was tied into a rope and hung down her back over one shoulder, while she had a red dot in the middle of her forehead and something yellow on her nose. At first he thought it was mucus, before realising she wore an ornament, a gold shell. Her skin was lighter than Ravi’s, more like honey. She was talking to Ravi, who turned back to Pat.
“My friend would like to know your names.”
Pat remembered how Suzanne introduced herself. “I am Lieutenant Pat Connorson of the Royal Ship Queen Rose, my colleague Sifu Sung Bai Ju, and my crew Maru, Wiwik and Hinatea. I am from the mainland of Harrhein, Hinatea is from our outer province of Pahipi and Maru and Wiwik are from our province of Vitua where Maru is of royal blood. Bai Ju is from Sung.” Pat cursed himself for forgetting all the words, realising he should have given everyone titles and made his own more impressive. He supposed he would have given Ravi and the villagers too much importance if he performed the entire ceremony.
Ravi considered the jolly boat with interest. “Is that the Queen Rose?”
“No,” said Pat patiently. “That is a jolly boat from the ship, we needed to make sure the river was big enough for the Queen Rose to sail down. We will return to the ship tonight with a chart of the river.”
Ravi was being jostled by the girl and by several other villagers and to Pat’s alarm he realised they were all clamouring to be introduced. This didn’t happen when Suzanne was in charge.
Pat decided to cut the visit short. “Ravi, I regret we are short of time to report to our ship. We will visit again tomorrow. Can you tell me where we can hire horses, and transport for goods, in the village?”
“There is one horse, sahib, but it is for messages. I will tell the rider, and he will go tonight to Sonda to tell the Rajah you are here. He will bring horses and transport for you.”
“Oh, good. But, uh, what will this cost?”
“I do not know, sahib. The horses belong to the Raja. I do not know what he will do, but I expect he will want to trade with you, it is known the kingdom needs more trade routes. So I am sure it will be a gift for you.”
“Right. I shall pass on the message to my Captain. Thanks, Ravi, we will meet you tomorrow.” He turned to go to the boat, and Ravi squawked in horror.
“No, no, you must come to the village,” he cried, visions of his increased fame and respect in the village crashing to ruins. Sensing the problem, the girl, her friends and the children rushed forward and grabbed his arms, as well as those of Maru, Wiwik and Hinatea. They hesitated at Bai Ju.
Pat found himself being manhandled by a couple of girls and half a dozen children, all laughing, and wondered how to extricate himself. He looked over at Bai Ju, who was laughing at his predicament. His eyes pleaded with her, and she mouthed at him, “The Void!”
He nodded, and relaxed, stopped resisting, cleared his mind and slipped into state. He shook himself and the girls and children slid off. Still in state, he turned to Ravi and spoke calmly and formally.
“Good Ravi, we thank you for your assistance. Now we have our duty and we will return to our ship now. We will be pleased to visit you tomorrow.” He bowed slightly, causing Ravi to automatically bow low, turned and made his way to the jolly boat, gently but firmly disentangling the girl’s hand from his. He boarded the boat, turned and Bai Ju was slipping the painter rope. Wiwik and Maru quickly unshipped the oars and they pushed clear of the rocks through a crowd of swimming children, who tried to keep up with them.
Next morning the Queen Rose sailed into the harbour and anchored two hundred paces off the quay. The crew were still muttering to themselves, dubious the monkeys they had seen on the way in were really animals and not leprechauns, orcs, pixies, brownies or goblins. At least one person argued for every one of these plus a few more Pat thought invented. Little had come up with at least three monsters on his own and was currently arguing for homunculi which appeared to be something magicians manufactured and caused Perryn to bridle with anger every time he mentioned them. Naturally Little realised this and ensured he mentioned them whenever Perryn was nearby.
Captain Larroche was annoyed at the discussion and called Pat over.
“Pat, they won’t believe anything you tell them till they have sent the things close up. Take some of your lads and go and get me one. Shoot it and get back quickly. Leave Bai Ju here, she can point out this Ravi to Suzanne.”