The Boat of a Million Years Page 3

  Above him reached utter clarity, a hue that raised memories of white roses. No more than half a dozen stars could shine through it, atremble, barely seeable. Air rested cool, so quiet that he heard water lap on the bayshore. Dew gleamed on ground that slanted down to the broad argency of it. Inland the terrain climbed toward mountains whose ridges lifted blue-gray into heaven.

  He left the village. Its houses nestled together, a double tow that ended at a great barn where grain was threshed, in this rainy climate, and which would serve as a fortress in case of attack. Beyond were paddocks, beehives, small fields goldening toward harvest. He drifted from them, beachward. When he came to grass he wiped off his bare feet the muck that free-running pigs and chickens had left in the lane. The moisture caressed him. Farther on he reached shingle, rocks cold and hard but worn smooth. The tide was ebbing, that mighty pulse which the Mediterranean seas scarcely felt, and kelp sprawled along the strand. It gave off odors of salt, depths, mysteries.

  Some distance onward, a man stood looking aloft. Brass gleamed as he pointed his instrument. Hanno approached. “You too?” he murmured.

  Pytheas started, turned about, and replied mechanically, “Rejoice.” In the luminous twilight it was clear how he must force a smile.

  “Not easy to sleep under these conditions,” Hanno ventured. The natives themselves didn’t much.

  Pytheas nodded. “I hate to miss a minute of the loveliness.”

  “Poor for astronomy, though.”

  “Um, by day I’ve been ... gathering data that will yield a better value for the obliquity of the ecliptic.”

  “You should have ample by now. We’re past the solstice.”

  Pytheas glanced away.

  “And you sound right defensive,” Hanno pursued. “Why do we linger here?”

  Pytheas bit his lip. “We’ve ... a wealth of discoveries still to make. It’s like a whole new world.”

  Hanno’s voice crackled: “Like the land of the Lotus Eaters.”

  Pytheas lifted his quadrant as if it were a shield. “No, no, these are real people, they labor and have children and grow old and die the same as us.”

  Hanno regarded him. The waters whispered. Finally the Phoenician said, “It’s Vana, isn’t it?”

  Pytheas stood mute.

  “Many of these girls are beautiful,” Hanno went on. “Height, slenderness, skin that the summer sun kisses tawny, eyes like the sky around that sun, and those blond manes—oh, yes. And the one who’s with you, she’s the bonniest of the lot.”

  “It’s more than that,” Pytheas said. “She’s ... free. Unlettered, unaware, but quick and eager to learn. Proud, fearless. We cage our wives, we Greeks. I never thought of it till lately, but ... is it not our doing that the poor creatures turn so dull that we’re apt to seek sweethearts male?”

  “Or whores.”

  “Vana is as mettlesome as the liveliest hetaira. But she’s not for sale, Hanno. She honestly loves me. A few days ago we decided she must be carrying my child. She came to my arms weeping and laughing.”

  “She’s a dear person, true. But she’s a barbarian.”

  “That can be changed.”

  Hanno shook his head. “Don’t play tricks on yourself, my friend. It’s not like you. Do you daydream about taking her along when we leave? If she survived the voyage, she’d wither and die in Massalia, like any uprooted wildflower. What could she make herself into? What sort of life could you give her? You’re too late. Both of you.”

  Again Pytheas stood mute.

  “Nor can you settle here,” Hanno told him. “Only think. You, a civilized man, a philosopher, crammed cheek by jowl with other human bodies and cattle into a wretched wattle-and-dab hut. No books. No correspondence. No discourse. No sculptures, no temples, no traditions of yours, nothing of all that’s gone to form your soul. She’ll age fast, your lady, her teeth will go and her dugs will sag and you’ll loathe her because she was the bait that trapped you. Think, I say, think.”

  Pytheas free hand knotted into a fist and smote his thigh, over and over. “But what can I do?”

  “Leave. She’ll have no trouble getting a husband who’ll raise the child. Her father’s well off by their standards, she’s proven herself fertile, and every child is precious, as many of them as they lose. Hoist sail and go. We came in search of the Amber Island, remember? Or if it’s a myth, then we want to find whatever the reality is. We have these eastern shores and seas to learn a little about. We mean to return to Pretania and finish circumnavigating it, determine its size and shape, for it’s important to Europe in a way that Thule can’t be for centuries. And then come home to your people, city, wife, children, grandchildren. Do your duty, man!”

  “You ... speak harshly.”

  “Yes. I respect you that much, Pytheas.”

  The Greek looked from side to side, to the mountains athwart that sky which hid the stars in its light, down over woodlands and meadows, out across the shining bay toward unseen Ocean. “Yes,” he said at last. “You’re right. We should have departed long ago. We shall. I’m a graybeard fool.”

  Hanno smiled. “No, simply a man. She brought a springtime you thought you’d lost back into your heart. How often I’ve seen it happen.”

  “Has it to you?”

  Hanno laid a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “Come,” he said, “let’s go back and try to sleep. We’ve work ahead of us.”

  8

  Weary, battered, faded, and triumphant, three ships neared Massalia harbor. It was a crisp autumn day, the water danced and glittered as if diamond were strewn upon sapphire, but wind was light and bottoms were foul; they moved slowly.

  Pytheas beckoned Hanno to him. “Stand with me here on the foredeck,” he requested, “for it may be the last quiet talk we shall ever have.”

  The Phoenician joined him in the bows. Pytheas was being his own lookout in this final hour of his voyage. “You can certainly expect a busy time,” Hanno agreed. “Everybody and his third cousin will want to meet you, question you, hear you lecture, send you letters, demand a copy of your book and insist you write it yesterday.”

  Pytheas’ lips quirked upward. “You’ll always have a jape, won’t you?”

  They stood for a bit, watching. Now as the season of the mariners drew to a close, the waves—how small and gentle, in this refuge from the Atlantic—were beswarmed with vessels. Rowboats, lighters, tarry fishers, tubby coastwise merchantmen, a big grain ship from Egypt, a gilt-trimmed barge, two lean warcraft spider-walking on oars, all sought passage. Shouts and oaths volleyed. Sails boomed, yardarms slatted, tholepins creaked. The city shone ahead, a blue-shadowed white intricacy overspilling its walls. Smoke blew in tatters from red tile roofs. Farmsteads and villas nestled amidst brown stubble fields, pastures still green, darkling pines and yellowing orchards beyond. At the back of those hills, a higher range lifted dun. Gulls dipped and soared, mewing, in their hundreds, like a snowstorm of the North.

  “You will not change your mind, Hanno?” Pytheas asked.

  The other turned grim. “I cannot. I’ll stay till I collect my pay, and then be off.”

  “Why? I don’t understand. And you won’t explain.”

  “It’s best.”

  “I tell you, a man of your abilities has a brilliant future here—boundless. And not as a metic. With the influence I’ll have, I can get you Massaliot citizenship, Hanno.”

  “I know. You’ve said this before. Thank you, but no.”

  Pytheas touched the Phoenician’s hand, which grasped the rail hard. “Are you afraid people will hold your origin against you? They won’t. I promise. We’re above that, we’re a cosmopolis.”

  “I am everywhere an alien.”

  Pytheas sighed. “Never have you ... opened your soul to me, as I have to you. And even so ... I have never felt so close to anyone else. Not even—“ He broke off, and both -turned their glances aside.

  Hanno took on his cool tone again. He smiled. “We’ve Been through tremendous things
together, good and bad, terrible and tedious, frolicsome and frightening, delightful and deadly. That does forge bonds.”

  “And yet you will sever them ... so easily?” Pytheas wondered. “You will merely bid me farewell?”

  In a single instant, before Hanno summoned laughter back to himself, something tore apart and the Greek looked into a pain that bewildered him. “What else is life but always bidding farewell?”

  II. The Peaches of Forever

  To Yen Ting-kuo, subprefect of the Tumbling Brook district, came an inspector from QTang-an, on an errand for the very Emperor. A courier arrived beforehand, giving the household time to prepare a suitable welcome. Next noontide the party appeared, first a dust cloud on the eastern road, then a troop of mounted men, servants and soldiers, attendant on a carriage drawn by four white horses.

  Pennons aloft, metal aflash, they made a brave sight. Yen Ting-kuo appreciated it the more against the serenity of the landscape. From his hilltop compound, the view swept down to Millstone Village, earthen walls, roofs of tile or thatch, huddled together along lanes where pigs and peasants fared, but not unsightly—an outgrowth, a part of the yellow-brown loess soil from which men drew their lives. Beyond reached the land. This was early summer, barley and millet intensely green on their terraces, dotted with blue-clad human forms at work. Farmhouses nestled tiny, strewn across distances. Orchards here and there were done flowering, but fruit was set and leaves full of sunlight. Willows along irrigation canals shivered pale beneath a breeze that smelled warmly of growth. Pine and cypress on farther ridges gave dark dignity. Right and left were heights used for pasture, whose contours stood bold out of shadow.

  West of the village those hills steepened rapidly and forest covered much of them. The journey remained long and ever more difficult to yonder frontier, to the realms of the Tibetans and Mongols and other barbarians, but already here civilization began thinning out and one treasured it as perhaps no one quite could in its heartland.

  “Beautiful are the procession of seasons

  Bequeathed us by the gods

  And the procession of ways and rites

  Bequeathed us by the ancestors—”

  but broke the old poem off and went back through the gate. Ordinarily he would have continued to his house and waited inside. To receive an Imperial envoy he placed himself and his sons, robed in their best, on the porch. Servants flanked me direct way to it across the outer court; elsewhere shrubs made a kind of maze conducting attention to a goldfish pond. Women, children, and menial workers were tucked away in other buildings of the compound.

  Stamp, rattle, and clang announced the advent. An equerry did so more formally, dismounting and entering, to be met halfway by the subprefect’s chamberlain. They exchanged bows and necessary words. Thereafter the inspector appeared. The servants prostrated themselves, and Yen Ting-kuo gave him the reverence due from a nobleman of lesser rank.

  Ts’ai Li responded courteously. He was not of the most impressive, being a short man and rather young for one of such stature, whereas the subprefect was tall and gray. Even die emblems the inspector had donned upon leaving his vehicle showed signs of hard travel. However, many generations of closeness to the throne lived on in his quiet self-assurance. It was to be seen that host and guest took a quick liking to each other.

  Presently they could talk alone. Ts’ai Li had been conducted to his quarters, helped to a bath and a change of raiment. Meanwhile arrangements were made for his entourage, assistants and attendants quartered according to rank in the compound, soldiers among the villagers. Savory odors drifted about, a banquet in preparation, spices, herbs, roasting meats—fowl, suckling pig, puppy, turtle—and liquors gently warmed. Sometimes a twang of zither or chime of bell came audibly loud from the house where singers and dancing girls rehearsed.

  The inspector had intimated that before thus meeting local officials he wished a confidential talk. It took place in a chamber almost bare except for two screens, fresh straw mats, arm rests, a low table whereon waited wine and rice cakes from the South. Still, the room was bright and airy, its proportions pleasant; the paintings, of bamboo and of a mountain scene, and the calligraphy on the screens were exquisite. Ts’ai Li expressed proper admiration, sufficient to show he appreciated, not enough to require they be given him.

  “My lord’s slave returns humble thanks,” Yen Ting-kuo said. “I fear he will find us a somewhat poor and uncultivated lot in these remote parts.”

  “Not at all,” replied Ts’ai Li. Long, polished fingernails gleamed as he brought cup to lips. “Indeed, here seems to be a haven of peace and order. Alas, even near the capital bandits and malcontents are rife, while elsewhere there is actual rebellion and doubtless the Hsiung-nu beyond the Wall look hungrily our way once more. Thus I must perforce have my escort of soldiers.” His tone registered his scorn for that lowliest of the free classes. “By the favor of Heaven, no need for them arose. The astrologers had indeed found a propitious day for my departure.”

  “The presence of the soldiers may have helped,” said Yen Ting-kuo dryly.

  Ts’ai Li smiled. “So speaks the bluff old baron. I gather your family has provided this district with its leaders for a goodly time?”

  “Since the Emperor Wu-ti appointed my honored ancestor Yen Chi after his service against the Northern barbarians.”

  “Ah, those were the glorious days.” Ts’ai Li breathed forth the least of sighs. “We impoverished heirs of them can only strive against a rising flood of troubles.”

  Yen Ting-kuo shifted on his heels, cleared his throat, looked straight across the table, and said, “My lord is surely at the forefront in that effort, having made such a long and arduous journey. In what may we help further his righteous purposes?”

  “Largely I require information, and perhaps a guide. Word has reached the capital of a sage, a veritable holy man, in your domain.”

  Yen Ting-kuo bunked. “What?”

  “Travelers’ tales, but we have questioned several such men at length, and the stories agree. He preaches the Tao, and his virtue appears to have brought him great longevity.” Ts’ai Li hesitated. “Actual immortality? What can you tell me, Sir Subprefect?”

  “Oh.” Yen Ting-kuo scowled. “I understand. The person who names himself Tu Shan.”

  “You are skeptical, then?”

  “He does not fit my idea of a holy man, Sir Inspector,” Yen Ting-kuo growled. “We get no few who claim to be. Simple countryfolk are all too ready to listen, especially in unsettled times tike these. Masterless wanderers, who do no useful work but beg or wheedle their way along. They claim tremendous powers. Peasants swear they have seen such a one cure the sick, exorcise demons, raise the dead, or what have you. I’ve looked into some cases and found no real proof of anything. Except that often the drifter has availed himself of men’s purses and women’s bodies, convincing them that is the Way, before moving elsewhere.”

  Ts’ai Li narrowed his eyes. “We know about charlatans,” he said. “We also know about ordinary wu, folk magicians, honest enough but illiterate and superstitious. Indeed, their beliefs and practices have seeped into the once pure teachings of Lao-tzu. This is unfortunate.”

  “Does not the court follow, instead, the precepts of the great K’ung Fu-tze?”

  “Certainly. Yet—wisdom and strength grow scarce, Sir Subprefect. We must seek them where they are to be found. What we have heard of this Tu Shan has led the One Man himself to think that his will be a desirable voice among the Imperial councillors.”

  Yen Ting-kuo stared down into his cup as if to seek a comforting revelation therein. “It is not for the tikes of me to question the Son of Heaven,” he said at length. “And I daresay that fellow can do no serious harm.” He laughed. “Perhaps his advice will prove no worse than some.”

  Ts’ai Li regarded him for a silent while before murmuring, “Do you imply, Sir Subprefect, that the Emperor has occasionally been misled in the past?”

  Yen Ting-kuo paled a littl
e, then flushed and almost snapped, “I speak no disrespectful word, Sir Mandarin.”

  “Of course not. Understood,” said Ts’ai Li smoothly. “Although, between us, the implication is quite correct.”

  Yen Ting-kuo gave him a startled stare.

  Ts’ai Li’s tone grew earnest. “Please consider. It is now ten years since glorious Wang Mang received the Mandate of Heaven. He has decreed many reforms and sought in every way to better the lot of his people. Yet unrest waxes. So, be it said, do poverty at home and barbarian arrogance abroad.” He left unspoken: There are those, ever more of them, who declare that the Hsin is not a new dynasty at all but only a usurpation, a product of palace intrigue, and the time is overpast to restore the Han to that power which is rightfully theirs. “Clearly, better counsel is much needed. Intelligence and virtue often dwell beneath a lowly roof.”

  “The situation must be desperate, if you were sent this far to track down a mere rumor,” Yen Ting-kuo blurted. He made haste to add, “Of course, we are honored and delighted by your exalted presence, my lord.”

  “You are most gracious, Sir Subprefect.” Ts’ai Li’s voice sharpened. “But what can you tell me about Tu Shan?”

  Yen Ting-kuo looked away, frowned, tugged his beard, and spoke slowly. “I cannot in honesty call him a rogue. I investigate everything questionable that I hear of, and have no report of him defrauding anyone, or doing any other evil. It is only ... he is not my idea of a holy man.”

  “The seekers of the Tao are apt to be, ah, somewhat eccentric.”

  “I know. Still— But let me tell you. He appeared among us five years ago, having passed through communities to the north and east, sojourning a while in some. With him traveled a single disciple, a young man of the farmer class. Since then he has acquired two more, and declined others. For he has settled down in .a cave three or four hours’ walk from here, in the forest upland by a waterfall. There he meditates, or so he claims. I have gone there, and the cave has been turned into a rather comfortable little abode. Not luxurious, but no hardship to inhabit. The disciples have made themselves a hut nearby. They cultivate a bit of grain, catch a few fish, gather nuts and berries and roots. Folk bring other things as gifts, including money. They make the walk in order to hear whatever words he cares to give them, unburden themselves of their woes—he has a sympathetic ear—and receive his blessing, or simply spend a while in his silent presence. From time to time he comes down here for a day or two. Then it is the same, except that he drinks and eats well at our one inn and disports himself in our one joy house. I hear he is a mighty lover. Well, I have not heard of him seducing any man’s wife or daughter. Nevertheless, his conduct scarcely seems pious to me, nor do such preachments of his as I have heard make much sense.”