Chapter 9: Arthur’s Story—Lateen Rigged

“That’s the centerboard,” Golgi said.

At first, Golgi had been reluctant to teach Arthur. “I’m only a boy, and you’re a tween,” he had protested.

“But I need to learn!” Arthur had insisted. “If we’re to take the boat all the way to Hagen, I must know what to do.” Therefore, Golgi had become a teacher.

“This box,” Golgi said, pointing to the tall, narrow wooden structure that stuck up from the keel, “holds the centerboard. When the water is shallow, we raise the centerboard with these ropes and those at the other end. The mast is that pole lying under the cannabis. It fits into that socket, there. The other pole is the boom. The sail and lines will be in the other box.”

The boat could travel the river from one end to the other, with the current or against it. With the centerboard raised, it could be poled through the shallowest of the swamps. In deeper water, it could be rowed with sweeps: either with one oar on each side or with a single sweep-rudder in the stern. Golgi explained that although they could simply drift with the current, they couldn’t steer if that’s all they did. “You have to be moving faster than the water if you want to steer. That’s why you’re always poling, rowing, or sailing.”

“What if the wind’s blowing toward you?” Arthur asked. The answer, including an explanation of what Golgi called a lateen sail, had Arthur’s head swimming. At least, he thought, Golgi knows how to do it, and he’s finally overcoming his reluctance to tell me about it!

The wind was from the west, blowing in the direction of their travel. Golgi and Arthur had mounted the mast in its socket. Gonde attached the sail to the boom, and the two older boys hauled on the halyard to raise the sail. Golgi had hesitantly corrected Arthur when Arthur had called the halyard a “rope.” “On a boat, the ropes are called lines, and each one has its own name,” he said.

It’s more than tradition, Arthur grasped the concept. It avoids confusion when things have to be done in a hurry, and my guess is that times when things have to be done in a hurry come rather often on a river.

Gonde had scrambled up the mast, and clung to it. Arthur had been worried about the boy’s safety, but Golgi reassured him. “Gonde’s careful—and he was lookout on our boat for a year.”

“There’s a dock, ahead,” Gonde called.

“It’s getting late,” Arthur said. “Perhaps we should stop.” Looking to Gonde he called, “Is it a village?”

“Only one hut,” Gonde replied.

“Then we will stop,” Arthur resolved. “Um, how do we slow down?” This was addressed to Golgi.

“We must strike the sail,” Golgi replied. “Come down!” he called to Gonde. The little boy clambered down the mast, landed lightly on the centerboard box, and jumped into the well of the boat.

At Golgi’s directions, Arthur slowly lowered the sail. “Be sure not to let go of the halyard,” Golgi cautioned, “or someone will have to climb up the mast and feed it through the block.”

Golgi had been steering, only, with the rear sweep. Now he began to skull, skillfully using the long oar to both propel and steer the boat. “Raise the centerboard!” he ordered, and Arthur hastened to obey. I’ve got to put a block and tackle onto this thing, he thought. I guess with two men, they didn’t need one, but Gonde can’t . . . The rest of the thought was lost as he ran to the other end of the box and completed raising the centerboard.

Gonde skillfully tossed a line over a piling as they passed a dock. Faster than thought, he wrapped—belayed, Arthur thought—the other end around a cleat fixed to the top edge of the side of the boat—gunwale, Arthur thought. Golgi held the sweep steady in the water, slowing the boat as its stern swung around in the water until the boat came to rest alongside the dock with the gentlest of bumps.

*****

No key, no door, no guardian dog;
What need of these? Sheer poverty
Their sole protection . . .
—Theocritus, Idylls

The boys had made no attempt to be quiet, and so were surprised that no one came from the hut to greet them.

“Where is everyone?” Gonde asked.

“Likely in the fields or in the woods . . . ” Arthur began.

“Or on the river, somewhere,” Golgi added.

“But the hut’s open,” Gonde said. “Why couldn’t someone steal everything they had?”

Indeed, the door of the hut was standing open, as were the windows. The building, itself, was built of heavily weathered planks. The roof was thatch.

“Fine boatmanship,” came a voice from the dock. The boys looked to see a man walking from the shore. “You boys been on the river long?”

“These two grew up on the river,” Arthur said. “They’re teaching me. How about you?” Arthur carefully shaped and cast magic. I’ve got to get him talking, he thought.

Arthur’s encouragement was hardly necessary. “All this life,” the man said. “My sons have my boat out, now. They’re fishing,” he waved his hand. “Bayou, there, leads to a lake. My wife is visiting her sister, who lives on the lake.” The man continued, telling of his family and of fishing on the river, in the lake, and among the bayous.

“My boys will be back tonight. We’ll smoke the catch. Three days after—a few days before new moon—we’ll leave for market in the next town down the river. We’ll stop and visit along the way. You headed for market?”

Arthur had been paying less attention to the man’s words than to how they—and he—affected the magical field. The man was not Evil, nor was he necessarily Good. I must risk it, he thought.

“Neither the boys nor I have been past Detmold before,” he said. “What is the name of the market town?”

The man didn’t seem to think this unusual. “Rostock,” he said. “It’s three days downriver. My boys and I will along with you. If you want to wait until then, that is.”

His offer is genuine, Arthur thought. And he seems friendly enough. Aloud, he said, “We thank you. May we tie here until they return?”

The boys left the boat and walked with the man—who named himself Ezra—to the shore. Golgi had objected to leaving the boat. “What if someone steals it?”

Golgi had whispered, but the man heard him.

“Youngster, your home must be a much finer place than this—” he swept his arms toward the rude hut— “for you to be worried about thievery.”

“Huh? I don’t understand,” Golgi said.

“We and the people along the river do not steal, for we are too poor to have anything worth stealing,” the man said. “That’s the one Good thing our prince has done. His tax collectors have left us so little that there’s no envy, no covetousness, no thievery. Yet he cannot take the river’s bounty, which keeps us fed and provides barter for clothing and flour for bread. You two,” he gestured to the boys, “see the basket there? Crab apples. They’re tart . . . don’t eat more than one. I’ll talk with Arthur, here.”

Golgi and Gonde looked at Arthur who nodded. He’s the only person here, and he is being truthful about the rest of the family having gone fishing. We need to know more, and quickly.

When the two boys were out of earshot, Ezra said to Arthur, “You’re not Evil, or I’d have felt it.”

At Arthur’s surprised look, Ezra continued. “I do naturally what you have to spell to do. And I felt your spell. Oh, don’t worry. It was clean and quiet. You’re good at that. You’d have to be, to be a mage and live free as long as you have.”

Ezra paused, stroked his chin, and then said. “Of course. You’re not from around here. You’re from Arcadia, are you not? Even as quiet as you were, you’d not have lasted this long in Eblis.”

Arthur thought quickly, and then answered. “Yes. I am from Arcadia, but I mean no harm to you or your people.”

“The boys—Golgie and Gonde—they’re from Eblis?”

“Yes,” Arthur said, naming their village. “We met a few days ago. They agreed to accompany me.”

“You don’t want to tell me where you’re going, now, do you?” Ezra asked.

“Hagen.” Arthur said. His voice was flat.

Ezra looked hard at Arthur, and did not ask the question that Gonde had asked.