“That,” said Tajima, “is the ship of Tersites.”
Chapter Thirty
I felt small, standing on the shore, beside that towering, mighty body, that massive structure, held in its building frame, sloping down to the water.
“There is much to be done,” said Aetius, once of the arsenal at Port Kar, apprentice to the mad, half-blind shipwright, Tersites, once of the same city, now an embittered expatriate. “The rudder has not been hung at the sternpost.”
“A single rudder?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
The common Gorean galley has two side-rudders, each with its helmsman.
“The masts have yet to be added,” said Aetius. “There will be six, two aft, two amidships, and two forward. They will be square-rigged, with four spars to the aft and amidship’s masts, and three to the forward masts.”
The usual Gorean ship has a single mast, which is lateen-rigged. In a fighting ship this mast is lowered before battle. Usually the Gorean ship carries three or more sails, to be fastened, as needed, to the long, sloping yard, depending on wind conditions. The smallest sail is the “storm sail.”
“The masts are fixed, permanent?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said.
The lateen-rigged galley can sail closer to the wind, but, for a given length of yard, it exposes less surface to the wind. The square sails, reefed according to conditions, are all-weather sails, permanent sails. The masts need not be lowered to accommodate changings of sails. Square-rigged vessels are not unknown on Gor. The dragons of Torvaldsland, for example, are square-rigged. Too, they have a single rudder, the “steering board,” which is located on the right side of the vessel, as one faces forward. On Earth vessels of centuries ago the “steering board” on the right side, as one faces forward, apparently gave rise to the expression “starboard.” The “port side,” or left side of the vessel, facing forward, at least on Gor, and perhaps on Earth, may have received its name from keeping harbor buoys to one’s left as the port is entered. This custom regulates harbor traffic, before a berth is reached. Leaving the port, of course, as one is reversing direction, the same line of buoys is once again on the left. This may be a mariner’s tradition brought from Earth. I do not know. Road traffic on Gor, naturally, keeps to the left. In this fashion, one’s weapon hand, if one is right-handed, faces the passing stranger. In Gorean, as in many languages, the same word serves for an enemy and a stranger. To be sure, not all strangers are enemies, and not all enemies, perhaps unfortunately, are strangers. I noted that the ship was carvel-built, with fitted planking, as opposed to being clinker-built, or with overlapping planking. The dragons of Torvaldsland are clinker-built. In this respect they ship more water, but they are more elastic in rough seas, and thus less likely to break apart.
“As you will note, in the frame,” said Aetius, “the keel is unusually deep.”
“The ship is large,” I said.
“Even so,” he said.
This information made me somewhat apprehensive, for it suggested that the designer of the ship was planning it not for swiftness and maneuverability, common features of a Gorean galley, even the so-called “round ships,” but for stability in serious weather. Most Gorean ships put into port, or beach, frequently, even daily, being light enough to be drawn onto the beach. Many Gorean pilots are reluctant to venture beyond the sight of land, and open-sea voyages of more than a few days are rare, except in Torvaldsland. A ship of this stability and size, of course, might remain at sea indefinitely. I had the sense that this vessel had been designed with an unusual voyage in mind.
“Such a vessel,” I said, “might sail even beyond Cos and Tyros.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Beyond even the Farther Islands,” I said.
“Perhaps,” he said, looking away.
“There are no shearing blades, at least as yet,” I said. Such blades are designed to shear away a galley’s oars, thus crippling her, and preparing her for a ramming, usually amidships, which is a blow of considerable force, easily sufficient to rupture and flood the prey vessel, and occasionally sufficient to snap her in two. One of the dangers of ramming is the possibility of fixing one’s ram in the victim and inadvertently sharing her fate. The structure of the ram is designed, naturally, to minimize this eventuality, and to facilitate its withdrawal by back- oaring. Indeed, some rams are fitted with a flaring collar that determines the quantity of penetration into the target. Still the pressures are such that the ram, even so, is occasionally, dangerously, anchored in the victim. Some captains reduce the ramming speed at the last moment to minimize this form of engagement. It is not necessary for the ram to shatter the opposing vessel to guarantee its destruction. If the enemy ship takes in more water than she can expel the ram has done its work. Shearing blades, incidentally, had been an invention of Tersites, many years ago. They had soon become common on all long ships, even those of Cos and Tyros.
“The ship is too massive for them to be effective,” he said.
I did not doubt that. The usual galley could easily avoid such devices.
“There is no ram, as yet,” I observed.
“One is not needed,” he said.
“I suppose not,” I said. I supposed that any vessel so slow or unwary as to come beneath the bow of this leviathan would be shattered like kindling, crushed like a cache of vulo eggs beneath the tread of a tharlarion. Tersites, incidentally, had recommended that the rams of galleys make their strike above the waterline rather than below it. Some shipwrights had acted on this recommendation and others not. The advantage of having the ram above the waterline is that it increases the speed of the ship, particularly if the ram has a flared collar. If the strike is made at or near the waterline the ram’s effectiveness is little compromised, given the rise and fall of the sea.
“How can the ship defend itself?” I asked.
“Variously,” said Aetius. “To begin with, it is difficult to attack, given its size. The height of the bulwarks, as in round ships, discourages boarding. Here we have an extreme instance of that. Consider the difficulty of scaling the walls of a city, particularly if the city were at sea. And the timbers, particularly at the bow, and in the vicinity of the waterline, are layered horizontally, and interlaid with sheets of metal, to a depth of five feet. Similarly the ship, when fitted, will be equipped with the usual implements of offense, catapults and such. Too, it will have a crew of a thousand or more.”
“So many?” I said.
“We will have here,” said Aetius, “a fortress, a floating city, with hundreds of defenders, swordsmen, spearmen, archers, and such, who will have the advantage of height.”
“It will move only under sail, I take it,” I said.
“That is its design,” he said. “It is not a galley.”
“The size, the weight,” I said.
“Of course,” he said.
I saw no thole ports, near the waterline, even for the great oars, with grips, those used on some round ships, five men to an oar.
“And you yourself, as I understand you to be Bosk, of Port Kar,” he said, “have armed the ship most devastatingly.”
“I do not understand,” I said.
“Was it not you, on the 25th of Se’Kara,” he asked, “who first used tarns at sea?”
“It was a gamble,” I said.
“The stones were cast well,” said Aetius.
“As it turned out,” I said.
The tarn is a land bird and will not fly beyond the sight of land. What I had done was to house tarns below decks until we were far from land. Then, in battle, I had released them with riders, primarily to cast vessels of fire
