“You saved us few from the consequences of my folly.”
“No folly. Who could have foreseen the sea in windless air would go so wild so fast?”
“What might have done it?”
“Demons,” mumbled a sailor.
“No,” Pytheas replied. “It must have been a trick of these enormous Atlantic tides, thrusting through a strait cluttered with isles and reefs.”
Hanno mustered a chuckle. “Still the philosopher, you!”
“We’ve a boat left,” Pytheas said. “And our luck may turn. Beseech your gods if you like, boys.” He lay down on his pallet. “I am going to sleep.”
6
The ships survived, though one scraped a rock and opened seams. When fog had lifted and waters somewhat calmed, rowers pulled the three to the high island. They found a safe anchorage with a sloping strand where, at low water, they could work to repair damage.
Several families lived nearby: unshorn, skin-clad fishers who kept a few animals and scratched in tiny gardens. Their dwellings were dry-laid stones and turf roofs above pits. At first they fled and watched from afar. Pytheas ordered goods set out, and they timidly returned to collect these. Thereafter the Greeks were their house guests.
That proved fortunate. A gale came from the west. The ships got barely adequate protection from the bluffs around the east-side inlet, but everywhere else the storm ramped unchecked for days and nights. Men could not stand against it. Indoors they must struggle to speak and hear through the racket. Breakers higher than city battlements hurled themselves onto the western cliffs. Stones Weighing tons broke from their beds in what had been the shallows. Earth trembled. The air was a torrent of spume, whose salt flayed faces and blinded eyes. It was as if the world had toppled into primordial chaos.
Pytheas, Hanno, and their companions hunched crowded together on dried seaweed strewn over a dirt floor in a cave of gloom. Coals glowed faint red on the hearthstone. Smoke drifted acrid through the chill. Pytheas was another shadow, his words a whisper amidst the violence: “The fog, and now this. Here is neither sea nor land nor air. They have all become one, a thing like a sea-lung. Farther north can only be the Great Ice. I think we are near the border of life’s kingdom.” They saw his head lift. “But we have not come to the end of our search.”
7
Eastward oversea, four days’ sail from the northern tip of Pretania, the explorers found another land. It rose sharply out of the water, but holms protected a great bay. On an arm of this dwelt folk who received newcomers kindly. They were not Keltoi, being even more tall and fair. Their language was kin to a Germanic tongue which Hanno had gotten a little of on an earlier wandering; he could soon make himself understood. Their iron tools and weapons, arts and way of life, did bear a Keltic mark. However, their spirit seemed different, more sober, less possessed by the unearthly.
The Greeks meant to abide a short while, inquire about those realms that were their goal, take on fresh supplies, and proceed. But their stay lengthened. Toil, danger, loss had worn them down. Here they found hospitality and admiration. As they gained words, they won full comradeship, shared in undertakings, swapped thoughts and recollections and songs, sported, made merry. The women were welcoming. Nobody urged Pytheas to order anchors up or asked why he did not.
The guests were no parasites. They brought wonderful gifts. On a ship of theirs they carried men who knew only longboats fashioned of planks stitched together, driven by paddles. Those men learned more about their own waters and communities elsewhere than they had dreamed they might. Trade followed, and visits to and fro for the first time ever. Hunting was excellent in the hinterland, and the soldiers fetched plenty of meat home. The presence of the Greeks, their revelation of an outside world, gave new sparkle to life. They felt themselves taken into brotherhood.
This was the country its people named Thule.
Midsummer came, with the light nights.
Hanno and a lass went to gather berries. Alone under the sweetnesses of birch trees, they made love. The long day tired her, and after they returned to her father’s house she fell happily asleep. He could not. He lay for an hour on their bed of hides, feeling her warm against him, hearing her and her family breathe, himself inhaling the fragrance and pungency of the cows stalled at the far end of the single long room. A banked fire sometimes let slip a flamelet, but what made soft dusk was the sky beyond the wickerwork door. Finally he rose, pulled his tunic back over his head, and stole forth.
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.”
