Chapter 41

“Hello the cave! We have a visitor seeking High Chief John.”

John turn to look out of the cave, saying to himself, “Another visitor?”

As he peered down the slope, he saw the merchant Awabee, but he was not alone. There was another, older, man with him, and was led by Fresno. What was this about, John wondered, but had to wait for them to get to the cave mouth. Numa had been called, and was right behind him.

“John! Get yourself to your throne; this may a higher level meeting.”

Accepting her opinion, John scooted back to where the throne stood in all its splendour, and hopped aboard. He tried to appear nonchalant as he sat there, one elbow on the arm of the throne, as if this was his due as High Chief. In reality, he felt stupid.

Fresno arrived first, to tell Numa, “Chief Numa, this is Merchant Awabee, who spoke with High Chief John at the fisher village. With him is a Chief of his merchant group, Chief Carabee.” He gestured to the two men and left them to speak for themselves.

Awabee asked, “Is High Chief John available?”

Chief Numa pointed behind her.

“Over there. He is on his ceremonial chair for greeting important visitors.”

Awabee thanked her politely and led his companion over to John.

“High Chief John, may I present the leader of our merchant group: Chief Carabee?”

John stood up from his seat and extended an open hand.

“We always extend a welcome to peaceful visitors, gentlemen. What can my humble tribes offer such important merchants?”

Awabee turned to gaze at Carabee, who responded softly, “You were correct, Awabee. The High Chief is exceedingly modest about his capabilities. That makes him dangerous!”

He faced John, saying louder, “We are grateful for your gracious and hospitable welcome. Mostly, we are here with questions, as we are confused about one or two matters where you may be able to help.”

John adopted a pose of surprise, and point at his own chest.

“Me? You expect me to answer your questions? I am a humble landsman, and you men are powerful seafarers and merchants. What possible questions could you have that merit my involvement?”

Carabee eyed him suspiciously.

“For a man who has proved himself more powerful than any other man I have met, you are surprisingly reticent, High Chief John. Can we dispense with the pleasantries and get down to the nitty-gritty, man to man?”

John gave him a broad smile.

“Chief Carabee, I like a man who likes to get down to business. I am continually being told to be more diplomatic in my dealings with people such as yourself, so your attitude is a nice change.

Go ahead; ask your questions.”

Carabee explained, “It is not simple. When our carpenters got the damaged ship to repair, they examined it thoroughly, then asked a simple and obvious question: Where is the ship’s boat?”

John gave an amused chuckle. “And?”

“And we had no answer to that question; it was embarrassing. Our men had taken over the damaged vessel but never thought to ask about the ship’s boat before they took the ship away. We had to go back to the fisher village and ask them what they knew about it.

That did not go any better, for they explained that the whole village had fled to sea before the pirates arrived, and did not return until Fresno here signalled the all clear to them. They claim to know nothing of the missing boat, and Fresno for some reason is not telling. He simply insisted that only High Chief John was in a position to deal with the matter. That is why we asked to be brought to see you. Was the boat lost, or destroyed, or what?”

John looked past them at Fresno, who was standing in the background, grinning like crazy.

John spoke to Carabee, “Like your question or questions, the answer is another tale. Fresno was there, but he is correct, for you have to understand the reasoning involved.

By the way, as you ask about it, do you want the boat back?”

Carabee gaped at this. “What? You have it, somewhere?”

“Not exactly. You see, it is buried.”

“Naturally, you buried a boat on dry land! Why did I ask a silly question?”

“No question is silly, in the right circumstances. We attacked the pirate shore party that had been left at the village overnight, killed the pirates and rescued the women they had with them for what they viewed as entertainment. We wanted these men to simply disappear, because men being missing is more scary than a bunch of corpses, for you don’t know what happened to them. The imagination can do weird things to people.”

“I can see that, but why bury the boat?” Carabee was intrigued.

“If the boat goes missing too, there is an automatic assumption that the two are connected. If the men and the boat have vanished, the most obvious story is that the men vanished with the boat and took the women with them, so the other pirates would look for them up and down the coast.”

“Clever,” he agreed. “So you buried the boat on the beach?”

John shook his head in disagreement. “Too easy to spot the disturbance in the dry sand, in full view. It would show up against the surrounding sand. It had to be well away from the beach.”

“That’s not easy, John, for there would be a trail in the ground from dragging the boat along. It would be an arrow straight to the target.”

“That is so. Instead, we cut some young trees, lopped the branches off, and used them as rollers to run the boat across. As the boat passed the last roller, that roller was picked up and transferred to the front, and the process continued, so you have a continuous road of trunks to run across. Where we might be short, we used the oars as extra rollers on the ground.

The trail we left was fairly indistinct as it was, but we had a couple of people take a break from moving logs from the rear to the front, and they used brushwood to sweep the trail in a random fashion, so it was difficult to determine that there was a trail at all. To add to the confusion, there were many existing trails from the village into the forest in all directions.

When we got far enough away, we sought a location that was bare sand, large enough for our purposes. There we dug out the sand until we had a hole to place the boat inside. The sand was just damp enough to not run back into the hole. Dry sand is horrendous and dangerous that way!

Once we had slid the boat into the hole, we covered it over again with the removed sand, and scattered the excess sand about, so there was no mound visible.”

Carabee grunted, “So much for the boat, but what about the dead pirates in the village?”

John gave him an evil grin. “Inside the boat; where else? The extra weight made little difference to the movement of the boat over the rollers, and thus the men and the boat had disappeared. We all vanished back into the forest with the rescued women, and headed home.

You can have your boat back now, but you will have a few pirate bodies to dispose of when you collect it.”

Carabee and Awabee both grimaced, scrunching up their faces in disgust over retrieving long-dead bodies with their boat. The best solution would be to leave the boat where it was, they concluded.

John decided to alleviate the situation.

“Tell me, gentlemen, what do you sit down on, when you are at sea?”

Awabee retorted, “That is a silly question, John. We have a few chairs by our tables for mealtimes. The chairs are pegged to the floor to keep them from sliding about.”

“Have you thought about seats with three legs?”

Awabee laughed in derision. “You think that removing a chair leg will help? The chair will simple fall over.”

John gave him a serious stare. “If you make a stool with three legs, equally spaced, the stool will be more secure than a four-legged stool!”

The man gaped in disbelief, so John called to Raka, “Raka dear, can I have a stool please, a three-legged one?”

She fetched the stool, and presented it to John. “This one was made yesterday, so it has not been tested for firmness of the legs.”

John hand it over to Awabee, saying, “Try it out, old friend.”

Awabee placed it on the floor and gingerly placed his behind down on it. He didn’t fall over, and he tried rocking it. This showed him that it was more stable than any other chair he had tried.

“How does that work?” he demanded.

John started to explain about geometrical planes, but quickly simplified it.

“Any three points (such as three legs of a stool) will always sit securely on a surface, even where the surface is uneven, like the floor of this cave. It is to do with a principle of numbers, and the same does not hold true for four legs, one of which will probably not reach the floor.”

Awabee blinked, so John said, “Just accept that a three-legged stool is always stable; any other number of legs is not. That does not mean that the seat is always level; it may not be, but it will always be stable enough to sit on.”

Carabee observed, “High Chief John, you are not just a clever soldier. You have a clever mind in that head.”

“No more than anyone else, Chief. It is a matter of using it. Our Maker in the Farfarers Tribe has just invented a three-wheeled barrow for transporting materials. It works, and was demonstrated to me yesterday by a travelling merchant who has a sample for testing as a trade item.”

“A barrow with wheels?” Carabee queried. “Why?”

“Why a barrow, or why wheels, or why three wheels?” John wanted clarity.

“Why wheels at all, to get down to basics?”

“Ease of movement. A turning wheel transfers its load onto the next part of its outer rim, taking it forward, and the process continues all round the wheel, so that a wheeled vehicle moves very easily on a flat surface. You can have a barrow with a single wheel at the front, and two legs, making it like a three-legged stool but with a carrying capacity when you use the handles to lift the back legs. Brando devised a three-wheeled barrow, complete with a brake peg to secure it when stopped. The one-wheeled barrow uses its two legs as a brake.”

Carabee said thoughtfully, “As these items available for trade purposes?”

“Not as yet, but they will be when we get the production organised. Stools are easiest, then one-wheeled barrows, then three-wheel barrows, will be the sequence.”

Carabee murmured, “We seem to have diverged from the topic of the boat. How do we identify the location of the buried boat, and its occupants, assuming we actually decide to have it back?”

John called over Fresno to him.

“My young friend, do you recall where we buried that boat? Can you find it again?”

“Yes, I can do that. I noted certain trees nearby at the time. What about the contents?”

“The contents, yes. Our merchant friends know they are going to have to deal with that matter if they want to recover their boat. Not all blossoms smell sweet, unfortunately. Salt water should help to rectify any aromatic questions.”

Fresno almost gagged at that remark. He knew how long the bodies had been in the sand, inside the boat, with the sun beating down on top.

John resumed talking to Carabee.

“Have fun recovering your ship’s boat if you want it, Chief. Let us know later what, if any, of our trade goods interest you. Have a safe journey home.”

Carabee offered, as a thank-you “That matter of an invader army? How about we get one of our ships to sail near the coast line to the south of here, in the hopes of some of that army spotting our vessel. We can let them infer that our ship is scouting as a part of the Northern army’s naval contingent.”

“I love the idea, Chief Carabee. It is these little touches that can add support to my own implications about the Northern Army. It will be a bonus for me, when I report hearing of an armed fleet to my north.”

“Lovely. I will enjoy ordering that cruise, and I’ll make sure they stay far enough from shore that there will be no attacks on them this time. Just close enough to be seen, but without much detail.”

“Thank you,” said John. “If...” There was a crack of thunder overhead, drowning his words. John held up a hand while he walked swiftly to the cave entrance to look at the sky.

There were dark clouds coming at them from the west, and he was in time to see another flash of lightning in the distance. The time gap between the flash and the next bang of thunder told him that the storm was still about ten miles distant.

John returned inside, and spoke to his visitors.

“Looks like torrential rain on the way. You men had best either leave at once, or wait here until the storm has passed.”

Carabee looked questioningly at Awabee, who declared, “I don’t want to get drenched out there while we are in the forest. Do you need to be back quickly, Chief, or can we wait?”

“Nothing important, Awabee. We can wait out the storm.”

John glanced across at Fresno. “That should give you time, Fresno, to report to Jenka’s family and her friends on how she is coping in your family. Go speak with them now.”

Fresno grinned and nodded, and hurried off to find them.

John stayed with his visitors to be hospitable. Awabee wanted to see how a three-legged stool was made, and Raka offered to bring a stool-maker to show them.

They were fascinated in how a socket for each leg was bored into the seat, and some hoof or hide glue poured into the hole. The leg, pared thinner until it stuck in the socket securely, was pushed in and the glue left to set for the next day or so.

Awabee asked, “No pegs to hold the legs?”

Raka answered for the tribe, “It is possible, but why bother? It would be a slow process to bore another hole and prepare a peg to fit, and for a stool, extra work does not improve the stool very much; it will still last for years with the glue. As merchants, you will know that extra quality is not needed unless it attracts a better trade value, and stools don’t come into that category; they are too basic.”

Carabee fingered his chin as he thought.

“If a few stools were carved with designs on the edge or the seating surface, and were stained to bring out the grain of the wood, (as I have noticed with some of the wood of our ship), the resulting object could be regarded as worth more to a family that considered themselves more important in their local hierarchy. Pegging the legs into place, or cross-bracing the legs, would add value too.

Their fancy stool would be shown off as a unique craft product; the only one of its kind with these designs and so forth. Such a product would be valuable in trade terms, so would be something we would equally value more highly to obtain from you.”

John exclaimed, “Artworks! I should have thought of that. Arts and crafts would appeal to the people at the upper levels of society, and they usually pay well for such trophies. The trouble is that we have a limited number of prospects for such goods around here.”

Carabee informed John, “We have been to many places where such artworks, as you call them, are valued as exotic, especially if they are made with woods not readily available in their locality. Can you locate suitable woods with strong graining that will show up, and will also stain and polish well, and might accept carving of the surface? Not all woods are suitable, but if you test a number of them, you will eventually find the best wood for the job.”

John regarded Carabee with a new interest.

“What do you think is the market for artworks such as carved stools or tables?”

“Tables as well? On board ship, our tables have to be fixed to the cabin floor to stop them moving when the ship rolls, so are seldom decorated, but land-based societies will be interested in carved wooden tables. Four-legged tables, I presume? A sloping top will not be valued, even if was secure on three legs!”

John smiled back. “Yes. Three legs are not so good for taller items like tables. The legs of a table can be carved to make them attractive. For example, the feet of the table legs can be wider and carved into the shape of an animal’s foot or head. The table top can be decorated one way or another, for example carved very lightly to make a picture on the surface. That is very time-consuming, so the value we would expect from it would be considerable, Chief Carabee.”

“True, but the value to the final purchaser would also be much higher. To someone like that General of the Invaders, a carved and polished stool would be worth more than two hands of unadorned stools, as it would be unmatched among his acquaintances.”

John grinned as he suggested, “And you will apparently only have one of these special ones to trade; your others will be tucked away out of sight until you get to another customer.”

“Correct! High Chief, you have some understanding of what trading is all about.”

“Carabee, we had to work out the trade possibilities for our soap production. That is why we offer soap with various fragrances built into them, and some moccasins have stitching of a different colour to emphasise the good leather the footwear is made from. These small touches say ëquality’, and make them more attractive to wear and own.”

Awabee was watching this discussion open-mouthed, as Carabee and John traded ideas back and forward. He added his own contribution.

“This special chair you are sitting on ñ throne, you called it? Could you make such an object in wood, carved like the stools and tables we discussed? Most Chiefs would love to have one of these, I believe.”

Carabee regarded his junior partner with pleasure.

“Quite so, Awabee. A desirable object, again, indicating high status. Well, John?”

John said slowly, “We could have a go at it, but I think a colleague in another tribe might do the job better. I will speak to him about it.”

Awabee was not finished with his suggestions.

“John, how do you wrap your soap, to stop it getting wet in the rain? Water on it would be bad for the soap!”

“We haven’t thought that far ahead as yet, but we should. We haven’t invented a proper paper yet, so we can’t wrap them in paper.” He stopped as thought struck him. “I recall certain cheeses being encased in wax before sale. Perhaps we could do the same with our soap?”

“Good thought. You might have to add a little something to stop the wax from melting too readily. An alternative is clay. I have heard of clay being used as a cover for protecting something held within. Why couldn’t that be soap?”

Raka intervened, “Whether you use beeswax or clay, you can mark the outside to show what the contents are: soap and the scent used, for example. We would have to devise a symbol for soap and another for each scent.”

John muttered, “Damn! With packaging, the first smattering of writing has arrived already.”

“What?” Raka asked in surprise. “What did I say?”

John apologised, “Sorry, just my reaction to the proposal for symbols for soap and scents. I see that as the first step towards symbols for most words. It is a means of recording the meanings of what people want to say.”

“Why would we want to record what people say? That seems silly, for most speech is not important except at the moment it is said.”

“True, my dear Raka, but eventually you will realise that keeping a written record of what works in making soap and what doesn’t, can save a lot of time in future, for you then don’t have to remember everything.

Certain important facts are worth recording, such as which woods are best for longbows, and which for arrows. To record all these things, you first have to devise symbols to represent these things, and also ëdoing’ words such as cutting, smoothing, polishing, oiling, and so on.”

“You really think all that effort will be worthwhile, John?”

“Gradually, it will turn from useful to essential. These ëbooks’ hidden away in the library in the cave are quite simply a derivative of what I am saying. These books are full of symbols for words of all kinds, and thus have much knowledge stored in them. Vickie, Sheila and Jean can all attest to that fact, for they grew up with books available to them, to help them study subjects like geography ñ the layout of the world, history ñ the story of what happened in the past; geology ñ information about all the rocks of the world; biology ñ information about plants and animals, and so on. The world is full of information, so it is helpful if much of it is written in books so we can access that knowledge at any time in the future.”

“Sounds interesting, my John. Can we start small, with symbols for our products, as I suggested?”

John grunted, “You are still not convinced, are you? Very well, start with the soap. We can use a wavy vertical line like this,” and he drew an ëS’ on the floor, “to represent our soap. For our hair shampoo, we could use ëSH’ for soap and hair, and for moccasins, use ëM’. The ëS’ is said as a hissing sound,” and he spoke ëssss’, and for shampoo is would be said ëshhhh’ as if advising quiet. The ëM’ is a sound with the lips closed,” and he demonstrated before asking, “Does that help sort out your labelling for identification?”

Raka nodded carefully before saying, “You used the sound of the start of the word ësoap’ and the start of the word ëshampoo’, then the start of the word ëmoccasins’, I noticed. Why did you not use the rest of the word ësoap’?”

“Clever girl! I tried to keep it simple, for everyone to be able to recognise the symbols easily. To write ësoap’ in full, we need to add a symbol for ëo’, then a symbol for ëah’, then a symbol for ëp’”, John pronounced them all to show what he meant. “That means a total of four symbols to mean ësoap’, when one will be enough for now. You expect everyone to follow these four symbols as easily as one symbol?”

“No, I don’t suppose so. Not everyone is as clever as you and me, I agree. Fine, we can stick with these starting symbols for now, but in the long term, you are going to have to use all the sounds that make up a word. After all, there are lots of words that start with ës’: storm, sneeze, smack, sea, ship, - oh, that is the ësh’ of ëshampoo’, as is ësheep’, and proves my point. Single symbols will not do as you add more signs for writing words.”

“You are right, but we have to take this in small steps, Raka; baby steps. The same applies to carving of stools, tables and thrones: we need to find who can carve before we can start a carving group. Do you know if we have any people in the tribe with artistic ability who might carve?”

“Carving? I don’t know; I haven’t asked, and I am one of the newcomers around here.”

John chuckled, “Raka, we are all newcomers in this tribe, so please ask around, and if you fail to find carvers we will have to ask Brando of the Farfarers for help. As it is, I will have to ask Brando to organise a team of woodworkers to build many three-legged stools, for we don’t have enough people to do that here.”

“We don’t? But our numbers keep increasing all the time.”

“True, but there is no sign of Makers among them. Most are female and either are mothers with responsibilities, or are looking for a man to marry: that is distracting for them, I assure you. You just told me I was going to be your husband!”

“Whatever happened to your claim that men and woman are treated equally?”

“They are, but that does not mean all the women want to do the sort of things that men do. Warriors can be encouraged and trained, whether male or female, but ingrained talent for specialist tasks is not so readily found. You are one of the exceptions, Raka. You want to learn new things all the time. Many girls have lesser ambitions for now and it will take time for them to espouse such expansive futures. The next generation will be willing to take on almost anything, if we bring them up right, but that is years in the future.”

They were interrupted by the pattering of rain outside. Raka went to look, then returned.

“John, we need to stay a person’s length away from the entrance. That rain looks like it will be very heavy and cause splashing.”

John admitted, “It is the first really heavy rain we have seen since I got here. I am surprised the stream keeps running.”

“Oh, that is because it is fed by springs higher up from here. As long as the springs continue, we won’t run short of water, and the pools in the back of the cave are also fed by springs, or they wouldn’t be there now.”

“That is a point. Now that the store room and the pool have been replicated over and over, surely the spring won’t feed the other ones; just one nearest to us?”

“No idea, John. I can’t help on that one. If the water comes down through cracks in the rock, then if the same cracks are repeated, then the spring will make its way through all the cracks, and end up in all the pools. It would depend on how much water comes from the spring. I thank I have seen a spring up there that drops into a hole in the rock, and whenever the hole fills up, the overspill goes down into the stream that runs past the cave. From that, it might be that if more water is getting through to the other pools, it won’t fill up in the hole on top. We can take a look on another day soon.”

“I don’t like the sound of that rain,” said Numa. Her voice sounded quiet as the rain got heavier, so she next called out, “Everyone get away from the entrance, or you will get soaked! The rain is going to bounce, at the speed it is coming down.”

Mothers gathered their children, or detailed older siblings to collect them, and shortly there was no-one near the entrance.

The two merchants had stepped further back, and now looked at the back of the cave with interest.

“High Chief John? If we had lights, we could go further into the dark.”

“No. Don’t go back there; it is not safe. There is a pool of water that you might fall into.”

Carabee was taken by John’s tone of voice, for it sounded more like a prohibition than a warning; as if he did not want visitors going there. He looked around, and spotted the string going into the darkness.

“John, there is a string going into the dark at the back of the cave. Is that for guidance?”

“Yes, and for other reasons. No-one leaves the string, for safety. Even then, only a few are authorised to go back there.”

“Is that because there is artwork on the walls?

“No, well, in a way there is; not truly art, but representations.”

“Oh, you mean handprintsÖ that sort of thing? I have heard of that in ancient caves.”

“That is the general idea, and the space is sacred to us; it holds memories. That is why you cannot go in there, and why I cannot tell you more.”

“Understood. One should never interfere with religious observances of other people if one is wise.”

“Thank you, Chief Carabee. Your compliance is gratefully accepted,” said John.

There was a flash of light, followed at once by a huge bang overhead, and the rainstorm intensified. Flashes of white among the sheet of rain outside indicated the arrival of hailstones into the mix. A few bounced inside the cave, causing a few exclamations of fright.

Numa ordered, “Get the guards back from the forest before they get hurt.”

John announced, “It is only hailstones, like hard snow; dangerous but only if they hit you. If you simply stay back from the entrance, you will be fine. The guards can shelter under trees. If the hail comes at an angle, there will be a sheltered side for them. Our warriors are not stupid, Numa, but call them back if you wish.”

Awabee overheard him, and queried, “How do you know this, John? Hailstones are not normal for this part of the world.”

John admitted, “I grew up in another part of the world, where hailstones are common in the winter season. That is why I know about them. Conversely, I am ignorant about certain aspects of this part of the globe. Where do you merchants come from?”

“Our homeland is a long way from here. We have to sail for many many many days to reach this part of the world. Because of the distance involved, we do a lot of our trading up and down the coast here. And at the end of the trading season we sail home with goods that should command a high trade value at home.”

“So what did you do before you were able to purchase these big ships? How did you cross the big water?”

Awabee seemed ill at ease.

“We did our trading along the coasts of the lands we knew. With smaller ships, we had to be able to keep land in sight for steering the right directions. It was sheer luck that we encountered a few big ships from another nation, and got to know where they lived, and where they built their ships. From that, we sailed there and negotiated to buy our first ship of this size. A group of merchants took it out on a trading voyage, and the builders told us of a stone that always pointed in the one direction. With that, you could sail in another direction, as long as you knew where that basic direction lay. It was some magic related to the entire world.”

“Ah, yes, the lodestone: it always points to magnetic north.”

“You know about it? Yet you don’t do any sailing yourself?”

“It is one of these bits of knowledge that I picked up a long time ago. I simply haven’t had a need to use it.”