Stormbringers (Preview)

Stormbringers - Chapter 3

In the morning the quayside was alive with noise and bustle. The boats that had been out at sea since dawn were jostling for position in the port. The earliest arrival was tied up along- side the harbour wall, the others tied to it and the farthest ones throwing ropes at bow and stern and the fishermen walking on planks laid across one boat to another with huge round woven baskets of fish dripping on their broad shoulders till they reached the shore and stacked them in their usual place for the buyers to come and see what they had landed.

The air above the boats was filled with seagulls, circling and swooping for offcuts of fish, their cries and screams a constant babel, the flash of their white wings bright in the morning sunshine.

A little auction of the catch was taking place at the har- bour wall, a man yelling prices to the crowd, who raised their hands or shouted their names when he reached a price that they could meet, with the winner going forward, paying up, and hefting the basket to their cart to take inland, or carrying it up the stone steps into the town, higher up the hill, to the central market.

Basket after basket heaped with shoals of sardines came ashore, the fish brilliantly shining and stippled black like tar- nished silver, and the landlady of the inn came down and bought two baskets and had the lad from the stables carry them home for her. The other women of the town hung back and waited for the buyers to drive down the prices before they approached and offered their money for a single fish. Wives and daughters went to their fathers’ boats and took the pick of their catches for a good dinner that night. Individual fishermen had sets of scales on the quayside and leaned from their boats to sling iridescent-scaled fish into the tray, holding the balance to show to the waiting women, who then hooked the fish and dropped them into the bottom of their baskets.

Sleek cats wound their way around the legs of the buyers and sellers alike, waiting for the fish to be gutted and cleaned and scraps dropped down to them. In the sky above, the sea- gulls still wheeled and cried, the cold sunlight of the early morning shining on them as brightly as on the dazzling scales of the fish, as if the air, the land, and the sea, were all celebrat- ing the richness of the ocean, the courage of the fishermen and the profitable trade of Piccolo.

Freize was strolling through the bustle of the quayside, sniffing the pungent scent of fish, marsh and salt, pulling off his cap to the prettier of the fish wives, stepping around the boxes of fish and the lobster pots, relishing the noise and the joy and the vitality of the port. He revelled in being far from the quiet solitude of the monastery as he made his way through the crowd to find a ship that would take them due east, to the port of Split. He had spoken to one master already and wanted to find another to compare the price. ‘Though I don’t doubt they’ll have seen me coming and fixed the price already,’ he grumbled to himself. ‘A party on the road from Rome, two beautiful ladies and an inquirer of the church – bound to put the price up. Not to mention Brother Peter’s long face. I myself would charge double for him, for the sheer misery of his company.’

As he paused, looking around him, a ginger kitten came and wound herself around his ankles. Freize looked down. ‘Hungry?’ he asked. The little face came up, the tiny pink mouth opened in a mew. Without thinking twice, Freize bent down and lifted the little animal in one hand. He could feel the little ribs through the soft fur. It was so small its body fitted in his broad palm. It started to purr, its whole body resonating with the deep, happy sound. ‘Come on then,’ Freize said. ‘Let’s see what we can find for you.’

In a corner of the harbour, seated on a stone seat and shel- tered from the cold morning wind by a roughly built wall, a woman was gutting her fish and throwing the entrails down on the floor where they were snatched at once by bigger cats. ‘Too big for you,’ Freize remarked to the kitten. ‘You’ll have to grow before you can fight for your dinner there.’ To the woman he said, ‘Bless you, Sister, can I have a morsel for this kitten here?’