A Deal on the Shingle Beach

Frustration was written all over his face. The village's bags of first class lambs wool had been more plentiful and plumper than ever. The flock of well-nurtured sheep, pasturing on the slopes of the Peloponnese, had grown each year. The buying agents from the island of Keft had no need to canvass the hinterland of Mittentown to acquire the volumes they needed. And still.

"Here you have what it's worth", said the noble Keftiu merchant, pointing to a few very thin rolls of artfully woven and colorful cloth, as well as ridiculously few of the axes and sickles made of sturdy bronze so high in demand.

When the villager showed his disappointment, the Keftiu, with the most friendly smile and an apologizing shrug of his sholders, pointed vaguely north and softly said in the language of this native: "Please don't force upon us the incommodious journey to the next village, where they will offer us certainly more wool for our precious goods."

The villager knew that he had no choice. This wool was the only export they had, and he, the son of the eldest, was chosen by the others to do the transaction. He couldn't come back emptyhandedly. And therefore, feeling like a stupid chump, he agreed in the deal. Why did he even try to bargain with this gorgeous, splendidly dressed and painted being from a foreign, richer, smarter and better world? Why not simply be content with what he got? And he carried his modest yield up to the village, while the seamen from Keft stowed away the bags in the cargo hold, pushed their ship off the shingle beach, and, with forcefull strokes rowed straight away from the small bay into the open sea, though every child knows that you must keep close to the shore, unless you risk to be swallowed whole by Poseidon.

The people from the Pillar Island undoubtedly had Poseidon on their side. Though the villager didn't call the god of the sea by that name, because Greek was not his language. We ignore this detail. And we will call him - like a much later king of Sparta - Areus. Admittedly we cannot know if this name was in use among his people, the Pelasgians.

While they carried their load up-hill, his younger brother, who had sensed his disappointment, asked him: "They have all this stuff on their ship. Why can't we take what they are not willing to give? Once they are ashore, we attack them with all our men, finish them off, take what they have, burn the ship and cover all tracks." - Areus paused and laughed: "Haven't you seen the lances on the ship? The helmets next to the oars? No simple seamen are running their ships. Nor slaves. People in the north tried this trick once. The ship escaped. Hours later - nobody could tell whence - a whole fleet of fully staffed war ships landed. Women." - "Women?" - "Yes, six hundred archers. Even horses. It took them two hours. Only the children were spared." - "Women, really?" - "One bare breast. The children told." - "And the other?" - "Tied down, I guess. To draw their bows. They say they didn't waste a single arrow."

When they reached Mittentown, most men had gathered in the central place. They taxed the value of the goods they received in exchange for half a year's worth of tending their sheep, and gruntingly they accepted the deal. The colorful and delicate cloth from Keft was valuable indeed. They could trade it for at least ten times the volume of the plain rough cloth woven by the local women. And it was even enough for Areus to keep a bit for himself. For example for the wedding of his daughter Klysina.

As the son of the eldest, he had been married to Mela, daughter of the chief of a city a three day's journey further north. At the age of fourteen she had given birth to a daughter, regrettably their only child. Though she was only a girl, she might be mated to a noble person in one of the villages nearby, in particular, if he could add in a dowry of precious goods like this Keftian cloth.

"Wouldn't it be great", Areus said to himself, "if one day I could enter that island and get hold of their secrets of weaving? It is our wool that they make this stuff out of, and if we knew how to make it, we would be rich and famous." - He was sure that one day he would build a loom right here in this village, so fine and precise, that it would outshine the Keftian cloth. That would be his cloth. Mittentown cloth.

Next Section : Departure With a Yellow Stone