The Navigator, page 5
Lomax struggled to quickly transcribe his words.
"Three hundred sesterces for the lot. Including the animate chattel."
The savages smiled. Sejanus whispered something to Urthella and she walked over to a sack of silver coins. She counted them out in her hand and gave them to the longshoreman who'd been on horseback. He distributed them among his men.
Quill watched the savages take their payment and walk away, giddy. They jumped down from the hut and waded through the water. She was now alone, standing before Sejanus, Lomax, and Urthella, who were all up on a raised platform.
"And now for the matter of this chattel." Sejanus pointed down at Quill, accusingly.
"Chattel?" Quill squeaked. She went to brush back her hair. Sand was fused to her scalp. The mess on her head didn't budge, stuck together like concrete.
"Please address him as your honor," Lomax bellowed from the platform.
Quill cowered. She felt like she was still dreaming.
"Now, now," Sejanus chided. "She is new here. She will have plenty of time to learn honorific titles. I am Lord Sejanus, Grand Barrister of Smaaland. Welcome to the Magical Forest." He clicked his fingers on his armrests. They were inlaid with narwhal tusks. The ivory glistened.
Quill glanced around the empty hut and peered out at the bustling village. "Smaaland?"
Sejanus leaned forward in his high seat. "Your name please, chattel?"
"Quill," she said unsurely.
Sejanus motioned to Urthella.
The old woman grabbed a long sheet of parchment from a stack of papers and walked it over to Quill.
"Please peruse that document, Ms. Quill. It is a contract, guaranteeing you certain rights and privileges in exchange for the surrender of your liberty."
Quill stared at the paper. It was a long, legal-looking form. At the very end of it was a blank line for her signature. The wording was tiny and nearly indecipherable. She strained to read it.
Sejanus watched her squint. "What is your occupation, Ms. Quill?"
"What is this?" Quill looked up from the paper. She shuddered in the cold of morning. Her tattered clothes dripped seawater onto the floor, making little dimples in the sand.
"That is a contract for your indentured servitude to the Smaaland State. You washed up on our shores as flotsam. By the dictates of the livery of seisin, you are therefore state property."
Quill's eyes darted between the three officials. "I. . .you don't understand. I was thrown overboard by pirates. Lost at sea. I'm exhausted. I'm hungry. Please-"
Sejanus ignored her pleading. "You will be nourished in due course - once you sign the document. Now, please tell me your chosen profession. Smaaland needs to know what your talents are, so we can begin to utilize them most efficiently."
"Please." Quill's hands trembled on the thick paper. "Help me. I don't know what this is. This is a mistake."
"A mistake?" Sejanus balked. "I wrote the law, are you saying I lack the proper expertise to interpret it?"
Quill started to cry. "I just want to lie down. I need to sleep."
Sejanus was unmoved. "We don't have all day, Ms. Quill. The Court was about to adjourn for a recess. Tell the Court what it is you're good at, and it will assign you suitable labor."
Quill breathed heavily. She wanted to scream. She felt a sinking feeling of hopelessness.
"Fuck. . .," she barely muttered.
Sejanus made an awkward laugh. "Ah, I see. You're good at fucking. Well we have many brothels here in need of a fresh face. . .or rather a fresh unmentionable. I'll have Lomax inquire as to a needing establishment."
Quill's heart dropped into the sand. "I'm a navigator."
Sejanus bit his tattooed lip. "A navigator, like the great Giovanni? Highly curious you didn't say 'helmsmen.' Tell me, Ms. Quill, from where do you hail?"
"Kudu."
"A Hesperian navigator?" Sejanus clapped his hands together in excitement. "It's been quite some time since I've had the pleasure to converse with a fellow ex-patriot. What's your alma mater? Yucca, Nordland-Cross, the University of Trimble?"
"Nhan Zhe Nautical Academy."
"Such an elite school," Sejanus mused. "Must be quite the scholar. You shall fetch a princely price at state auction."
"Help me."
"You will be given food and quarter once you sign the document. Now." Sejanus motioned to it. "If you would be so kind."
Quill crinkled the paper with shaky hands. She stared at the tiny lettering. "You want me to agree to be your slave?"
Sejanus smiled. "Rest assured, in that respect, the contract is a mere formality. You are already a chattel - of the State to be precise. That document is a self-acknowledgement of your indentured status."
Quill went to hand the paper back.
"Please don't approach the bench!" Lomax boomed.
"If you refuse to sign, you will have none of the rights and privileges that come with state ownership. Understand? You will be left to survive on your own devices."
Quill squinted at Sejanus and then at the paper, trying to guess his meaning. She shook her head and ripped the document to shreds. She let go of the pieces. They fluttered down to the sandy floor.
Sejanus bit his lip again as he watched the bits scatter. "Lomax?"
The Grand Notary perked up his ears and readied his pen.
"Take this down – 'those who do not conform to the will of the State shall be made to be free.'"
Quill cocked her head at Sejanus's choice of phrasing.
"Got it your honor." Lomax looked up from his scribbling.
"Read it back to me." Sejanus took a small sip of water.
"Those who do not conform to the will of the State shall be made to be free."
"Good." Sejanus looked behind his seat. "Where is the Master-at-Arms?"
A tall man dressed in clanking, medieval-looking armor, shuffled up into the hut and saluted.
"Yes, your honor?"
Sejanus pointed at Quill. "Please make her free."
The Master-at-Arms grabbed Quill's hand and dragged her out of the hut. The two of them jumped down into the water.
The Master-at-Arms then led Quill down the shore, directly past a row of elevated, bamboo slave cages. The slaves inside those cages were being fed. Quill could smell the aroma of fried fish and coconut milk hanging in the air. She watched the slaves stuff their faces as she staggered by, longingly.
The armored man continued to walk Quill further down the beach, to the very edge of town, where the wooden village ended in virgin, mangrove forest. Here, there was one lone cage, far, far away from the others. It was low in the ground, half submerged in seawater. He pushed Quill inside of that little cage and locked the bamboo bars behind her.
Quill felt around her tiny prison. It was less than three feet high and two feet wide. She had to squat in it. The water went up to her breasts, chilling her core. She felt something scurry about under the submerged sand, and balled up in abject misery.
"I'm freezing." Quill pushed her head against the bars, peering up at the armored man, eyes pleading.
The Master-of-Arms began to walk away.
"Don't I get fed or something?" Her mouth watered from the lingering smell of fried food.
The Master-of-Arms stopped in his tracks. "No, that's for Smaaland's slaves. You're free. Remember?"
"I'm starving!"
"Then next time sign the stupid piece of paper."
-12 -
Oncus dug around in the submerged sand, searching for a buried mooring line. His fingertips brushed against the shell of a sand crab and the little creature tried to pinch him. He clutched the crustacean in his fist and pulled it out of the water, peering at it with his only eye.
Oncus's left eye socket was an empty hole, covered by a leather patch. Sejanus called him the cyclops. The name had confused Oncus for years. He'd taken it upon himself to read every old book in Sejanus's library to decipher its meaning.
He continued to peer at the crab for a moment. Its little legs twitched in the wind. He tossed the creature into the ocean with a satisfied smile.
As the little crab splashed into the water, Oncus turned his attention out to the bay. He saw a small rowboat making its way toward the docks from the open ocean. Inside of the little boat was a girl. She was briskly rowing the boat forward, deftly lifting the oars and dipping them back into the water in a smooth sculling stroke.
Oncus watched her craft glide up to the dock, admiring her perfect rowing form.
When the girl got closer to shore, he walked down to the dock's edge, his heavy boots clicking on the bleached wood. He put his foot out, letting the rowboat come to a gentle rest against his boot tip.
"Hello." Oncus peered down at the girl. His face was crisscrossed with intimidating Jan-Ju tattoos. His long, gray hair dripped seawater. "Little child of the ocean."
Petal stared up at Oncus. She looked feral, caked in dirt and bristling with spry muscles. Her feet were bare and her clothes were colorless tatters. The little rowboat she was tucked inside of was littered with trash and vibrant seashells.
"I'm not a child." Petal eyed Oncus's outstretched boot.
Oncus continued to hold her boat at bay. "Then maybe you're a nereid, or Clymene herself - come to Smaaland on a clamshell?"
"What?" Petal frowned. Her attention turned to the village beyond, which bustled with a cacophony of evening activity.
"Myths of the sea. The gods, the Khoi, the trells. Never heard of the nymph, Clymene, who sailed the oceans on a seashell?" Oncus took his foot off the rowboat. His cloak rippled in the wind.
Petal continued to frown at him. She went to grab one of the mooring lines to secure her boat to the dockside.
"One sesterces a night to dock here."
Petal pulled up a clump of colorful seashells. She tried to give Oncus a handful.
Oncus shook his head. "Don't take those anymore. Only allowed to accept Hesperian coin or silver, on orders of the Barrister."
"I don't have silver." Petal let the shells drop back into her boat. She went to push off. "I'll dock somewhere else."
Oncus motioned for her to relax. "Tell you what little nereid, I'll turn a blind eye to you - just this once." He pointed to his eye patch. "Since your craft is but a clamshell."
Petal bit down on her tongue, puzzled.
The old man began to tie her boat to the dock.
Petal stood up and went to step onto the pier. Oncus held out his hand to help her up, but she refused his aid, hopping up next to him under her own power. She was fidgety. She studied the village.
"Do you know a ship called the Kowaka Adon. Has it come here?"
"Never heard of it. . .sounds foreign." Oncus pointed to the mangroves, up at a large hut lined with torches. "Try the Beachcomber. The seamen who drink there know every ship on Ea."
Petal examined Oncus's withered face, her blue eyes brooding through the dusk.
"My boat will be safe here? You're not going to steal it?"
Oncus chuckled. "Of course not, child of the sea. When you need it, ask for Oncus, the longshoreman."
- 13 -
The Beachcomber Bar was an open hut, balanced up in the air between two thick trees. At the center was the bar itself - an island of colorful coral and carved limestone. Behind the bar stood an old bartender, busily mixing drinks. In a semicircle in front of him were tables and barstools, made of beech wood. Half of the tables were full, packed with merchant seamen, raucous pirates, and a group of fishermen playing dice on a driftwood tabletop.
Petal stood at the top of the staircase which spiraled up and around a wide tree trunk. She was hesitant to step onto the bar floor. It seemed to shift with every gust of wind. She never thought tree houses would be so precarious. She steeled herself and quickly shuffled her way over to the bartender.
"You look a little young for a drink," the bartender quipped. He didn't look up from mixing grog. He poured a blue liquid into a hollowed-out coconut husk and nodded to a merchant seaman for him to pick up his order.
"I hate alcohol."
Petal watched the fires surrounding the hut flicker with the wind. The torches were mounted on top of a low ivy wall. The tip of their flames singed the Beachcomber's thatched roofing.
"Then what can I get ya?" The bartender croaked. His dirty face was obscured by Jan-Ju tattoos.
"I'm looking for a ship, the Kowaka Adon. . .Oncus said-"
"Can't help," he interrupted. "Just the barman." He motioned to the surrounding tables. "Ask one of them. They've been to more ports than I have."
Petal nodded. She avoided the ogling table of pirates and approached the merchant seamen. They ignored her, picking the last flakes of flesh off a plate of grouper.
One of the younger merchants got up to get his next round. He squeezed by Petal to fetch his grog, avoiding eye contact with her as he did. Coming back, he shimmied past her again, slipping into his seat as if she wasn't there.
Petal continued to stare at him, standing next to his seat.
"You're a squirrelly looking sprite." The seaman finally acknowledged her. Fish bones were stuck between his incisors. "All bushy eyes and little muscles. Must be pretty strong for a girl."
"I'm looking for a ship, the Kowaka Adon. Have any of you heard of it?"
An older merchant, a brawny man with a white, woolen cap motioned to his ear. "The what now?"
"The Kowaka Adon," Petal repeated.
The seaman sitting against the wall began to chew on his fingertips. "Sounds like gibberish to me. Children's babble."
"It's a ship. I saw it," Petal insisted.
"Where're your parents at?" The young seamen slurped up his grog. "Such a feisty girl, gotta have one minx of a mother. . .hahaha."
Petal's ears tingled in irritation.
One of the pirates, two tables down from Petal, cleared his throat to get her attention.
Petal turned to face him.
The pirate was a burly man with a long beard. It was braded down the center, as was his hair, which hung past his shoulders in greasy dreadlocks, tipped with whale bone studs. He looked mean and old.
"What did you say you're looking for?"
Petal walked up to him. He reeked of vanilla pipe smoke.
"The Kowaka Adon."
The pirate's face broke into a beaming smile. Several of his back teeth were capped with silver crowns. "Oh yes, the Great Kowaka Adon."
"You know it?" Petal leaned in closer. Her cherry red hair seemed to smolder under the torchlight.
"Sure. Tell you all about it. Here, sit down."
The table the old pirate was sitting at was full. All the seats were taken by other pirates. He motioned for Petal to sit on his lap instead.
Petal didn't move. Her eyes bored into the men.
The other pirates giggled into their drinks, mocking her discomfort.
"Come on." The pirate tried to coax her onto his knee. "You want to know about the ship, right?"
Petal looked around the bar. Most of the seamen and fishermen had stopped what they were doing to watch her. She bit her tongue and squatted down on the pirate's lap, hovering just above his kneecap.
"That's a good girl." The pirate stroked his shaggy beard. "What's your name?"
"Petal."
"Very pretty."
"What do you know about the ship? When did you see it? Where is it going?"
"Are you from this island?" The pirate ignored Petal's questions and brushed his finger against her tattoo. "Got the look of a Jan-Ju."
"The ship."
"The Kowaka Adon." The pirate smiled. His companions chuckled and he started to massage Petal's shoulders.
Petal bristled with anger.
"When did you see it?" She seethed.
"A little while ago. Isn't that right, Erman?" The old pirate winked at one of the men sitting across from him.
The man opposite slammed back a drink and nodded. He drooled from drunkenness. "Yup, maybe two moons back now."
The old pirate ran his fingers through Petal's hair. "What is it you want to know?" He whispered into her ear.
Petal recoiled from his moist breath. "Where it's going. . ."
"That kind of information doesn't come cheap. Not even for pretty little girls."
