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5. VOYAGE OF THE DIONYSUS
Brindlestar may have started as an exercise in world building, but it has taken on a life of its own. One of my enjoyable parts of writing for me is creating new characters, and then setting them down in a world that both challenges them and needs them to solve its problems. Meet Leef Undertree, would-be sailor and hero by necessity.
Barrel-chested, sunburned Herv Wallak roared out his laughter and pointed. Leef looked where he was pointing, knowing what he would see before he looked, and grinned. The familiar sight of green land over blue water jutted before them. Home.
After three weeks at sea, Leef Undertree scarcely noticed the roll and rise of the fishing trawler. He had become a rider of the waves, the small ship serving as his horse, rising and falling in a rhythm that had become second nature to him. In fact, after three weeks on the Inland Sea, he had begun to feel more at home here than at his home in Salonika.
He tightened down the lines leading to the jib, and glanced once again over the gunwale at his prize: the largest razorbeak ever seen in these water, since, well since ever. It lay strapped to the outside of the gunwale, too large to fit in the hold of the ship. It had taken him many hours to land the beast, first with pole and line and later with grappling hook. And even now the trail of blood in the water and his own bloody hands reminded him of the battle he had undertaken—and won. Now it was only their speed that kept the razorbeak from serving as food for the monsters that trailed behind them.
The giant green fish’s meat would feed the village for the rest of the season, but it was worth far more than that to him. It would mean that his father would regain his reputation as a leader in the community. And it would gain him something else, something far more important than prestige.
He envisioned the locust-wood deep draft ketch that he and his father had been working on for three years. His father, the master shipbuilder, had refused to name it: tradition stated that the ship’s first captain had that honor. But Leef already had a name selected for his first love: Dionysus. The name chosen for the god of wine honored the many nights his father had sat drunkenly supervising his hard work, and it honored the drunken joy that he felt right now. For he now knew where he would spend the rest of his life. Salonika was no longer his home. His home was the sea.
The next two hours slipped by quickly, and soon Herv and he were cutting across the smooth water of the harbor, the primary sun Paris bright over his left shoulder, the distant sun Achilles dim on the horizon. The boat cruised toward the dock where Leef could see his father waiting with a cluster of other men. Theirs was the last fishing trawler to enter the harbor, and he suspected that others had seen his catch and had stolen his opportunity to surprise his father and the rest of the village.
Sure enough, as they pulled up to the wharf and Herv tied up the bowline and he tied up the sternline, a dozen men piled onto the trawler, eager to see the enormous razorbeak tied on the other side of the boat. Others waded out into the water alongside the boat. As the men untied the monstrous fish and towed it through the water to the winch that stood just beyond the bow, Herv barked out orders.
“Careful now, that fishy’s got a lot of stories tied up in it, but there will be many fewer if it gets scarred in the process,” he told them. “And I will have the hide of any of you that don’t respect the efforts of this young man.” He turned and grinned at Leef.
“If that don’t buy you free drinks at Whaley’s Pub for the rest of your life, I’ll skin Whaley myself.”
“I’m not concerned about Whaley’s Pub,” Leef said, turning to look at his father on the wharf. “I have something more important on my mind.”
“Ah, he’s proud of you, can’t you see?” Herv said. “If he’s of a right mind, he will give you your inheritance here and now.”
“We’ll see,” Leef said, more to himself than to Herv. Without his eyes leaving his father, he climbed over the gunwale and climbed the moss-covered ladder to the wharf above.
“That’s a grand fish you have brought in,” Bard Undertree told his son as he joined him. Leef turned with his father to watch them hoisting the fish up on pulleys by its tail. The crossbeam with the pulley stood a good ten feet off the surface of the wharf, but even so, it wasn’t high enough to keep the head of the big fish from lying on the wharf.
“It is all yours,” Leef said to his father. “I brought it back for you to sell and pay off the debt on the business.”
“There is no debt,” Bard said. “You can keep the honor of the fish, and the money that comes with it.”
“What do you mean, there is no debt?” Leef echoed. “What happened to it?”
Bard grasped his son by his shoulders and looked into his eyes. “I have been thinking about getting out of the business for some time now. Your brother brokered a deal—a good deal—with the Hazard family. They have agreed to take over the debt, provide a yearly stipend for me until I die, in exchange for the business and all its properties.”
Leef couldn’t believe his ears. He looked at his father blankly, then across the wharf to where his older brother Mact stood with Mr. Hazard and his daughter Lizbeth. Leef noticed how closely Mact and Lizbeth stood together, and suddenly he understood.
“I get it,” he said slowly. “You get a retirement fee, Hazard gets the business, and Mact gets Lizbeth. What do I get?”
“What do you mean?”
“Where is my inheritance?” Leef said. “I don’t want the business. I just want the boat we spent the last three years building. The Dionysus.”
“I never promised you an inheritance,” Bard said, and Leef noticed an edge coming into his father’s voice. “Life is hard, and you will have to make your own way, just as I have spent the past 40 years making my own way. Besides, an inheritance goes to the firstborn.” Leef had always felt close to his father, even when he had had to walk him home drunk from Whaley’s Pub. But now, as he stared at his father, he realized that a barrier had come between him and his father. He had never gotten along with Mact, who was only interested in making money as a merchant. His father had had to choose between him and his brother. And Leef had lost out.
“The boat belongs to Mr. Hazard now,” Bard said. “Talk to him. Maybe he will be willing to sell it to you.”
Leef stood and stared as his father walked down the wharf and disappeared. Leef turned to the cluster of people around Mr. Hazard and walked up to his brother.
“That is the biggest fish I have ever seen,” Mact said to him. “Congratulations.”
“It’s the biggest fish this village has ever seen, and that’s a fact,” Leef said, no joy apparent in his voice. “And I will give it to you gladly in exchange for the boat.”
Mact looked at Leef and slowly shook his head.
“That boat belongs to my future father in law,” he said. “And he plans on selling it to King Zhukov in Sparta. In fact, the King has already sent his deposit.”
“I spent the last three years building that boat,” Leef said. “I know every plank, every turnbuckle, every dowel that went into her. She’s mine.”
“I could care less how much time you spent working on her,” Mact said. “All that matters is what the court will say, and all that matters to them is this slip of paper.” He held the bill of sale over his head as if it were a club to strike Leef down. And for Leef it was.
A sudden wave of despair flooded Leef. Choking back a sob, he said:
“Then I give the fish to you as a wedding present. May you have a long life and many children.” He turned and walked away from his brother for the last time.