Early on the morning of Garibaldi and Sallina's sixth day on the Reliant, a sailor high up on the main mast cried, "Land Ho!"
The sailor in the crow's nest could see land. All Sallina could see from the deck was water in every direction.
But in the late morning, Garibaldi, Sallina, and the Captain stood at the high-point of the fore deck, and they could see land ahead of them. They were sailing toward the northern coast of the Satian sea.
"Do you see the smoke up ahead there?" the Captain said.
Sallina could see a gray smudge above the land. "Yes, I think so."
"That is Kublaminsk. There are cliffs on both sides of the harbor. We will be there in a few hours."
"I'm looking forward to having my feet on dry land," Garibaldi said.
"It won't be as comfortable as you think."
"Kublaminsk?" Garibaldi said.
"No, the ground."
"What do you mean?"
"You'll see," the Captain said.
A seagull cried out above them. It flew between the masts and followed the ship. After a while another seagull joined the first, and another, and another, until there were a dozen of them flying in circles and calling out to one another in their sharp voices. When the cook threw a bucket of kitchen scraps off the back of the ship, the gulls flew down and grabbed little pieces out of the water. Sometimes several of them would try to get the same piece of left-over food, and when that happened, they cried and flapped their wings at one another. When one of them got away, the others would chase her around, trying to get the scrap from her beak before she had a chance to swallow it.
"It must be tiring being a seagull," Sallina said, "Always fighting for you supper."
"But, my dear girl," the Captain said, "seagulls can fly. What would you give to be able to fly?" He looked up at the seagulls. "I think I would be happy to fight for my supper if I could fly." He looked down at his tummy and patted it with both hands. "In fact, it would do me good."
Sallina laughed.
In the afternoon, with the sun shining down from above, and a light breeze filling the ship's sails, Harry steered between two cliffs and into a wide pool of deep, calm water. This pool was what the Captain called the harbor. Around the edge of the harbor was Kublaminsk itself, a town of a hundred or so small, wooden, houses. Among the houses were a few large buildings, which were also made of wood. The larger buildings were on top of a low hill in the middle of the town. The wood beams around the edges of their roofs were carved and painted. All around the town, and coming down to the sea, was a wooden wall made of logs. The logs were standing straight up next to one another. One end of each log was buried in the ground. The other end was sharpened to a point.
"That type of wall is called a stockade," Garibaldi said to Sallina, "It's made of pine logs."
"Really?"
Garibaldi's father had once chopped down pine trees for a stockade. Garibaldi had been too young to help him much, but his father had explained how the logs would be used. The sharp points made it difficult for soldiers attacking the town to climb over the wall. The Kublaminsk stockade used hundreds of trees, maybe thousands. Garibaldi could not count them all.
The hills around the town were covered with bright, green grass. Standing upon the grass, for an hour's walk in every direction, were sheep and ponies. There were no trees, except for a forest in the distance.
"They might have carried the trees all the way from the forest up there." He pointed to the forest in the distance. "That's a lot of work."
"What is the stockade for?" Sallina said.
"To stop enemy soldiers getting into the town."
"Oh," Sallina said. "I hope the enemies don't come while we're here."
Garibaldi smiled and put his arm around her. Sallina looked around the harbor. There were no other ships, only small boats tied up in the shallow water next to the shore.
The Reliant drifted slowly to the middle of the harbor. The sailors lowered a huge, heavy, double-hook into the water.
Otis walked past them with a rope in his hands.
"Otis," Sallina said, "What's that hook thing?"
"The anchor," he said, "It gets stuck on the bottom and holds the ship where she is."
Sallina looked across the water to the town. Otis walked by again. She said, "How will we get to the town?"
Otis pointed aft. "The longboat."
The longboat was the rowboat that hung behind the Reliant's aft deck.
"So that's what it's for," Garibaldi said.
Sallina and Garibaldi wanted to visit the town that afternoon, but the Captain said he would not take them. "They're honest people here, but they like to fight, and they change their chief every few months, or so it seems to me. I'm going to make sure we're welcome before the rest of you go ashore."
"Are we trapped on the ship, then?" Sallina said.
The Captain smiled. "If you really want to go ashore, you can swim."
It was Garibaldi who was most eager to go ashore. He wanted to stand on the solid earth again after a week at sea. He thought about swimming, but decided not to. He could wait until tomorrow. The water in the harbor was calm, and the ship was hardly moving. He did not feel seasick. If he swam ashore, he would most likely upset the Captain, and he did not want to upset the Captain.
Garibaldi and Sallina watched the sailors lower the longboat into the water at the back of the ship and pull it around to the starboard side with a rope. The Captain and six sailors climbed down the shrouds and into the boat. The sailors were wearing swords at their belts: cutlasses in curving leather sheaths. The Captain wore a sword also, but his was straight and thin. Sallina wondered why they were carrying swords. Were the sailors thinking about fighting?
With their swords on the benches of the longboat, the six sailors pushed off from the ship with their oars and started rowing towards the shore. The Captain sat in the back of the boat calling, "Stroke!" Whenever he called out "Stroke!", the sailors pulled on their oars. The boat moved quickly across the water. In a little while it had crossed the harbor and slid up onto the sandy shore of the harbor.
Sallina watched from the ship. She could see dark-skinned men and women coming out of the city. Two of them were soldiers. They carried swords and wore helmets. Their trousers and shirts were gray and red. When they stood next to the Captain, they were shorter than him, but they stood with their chests out, and their chins held high. The rest of the people wore shirts and trousers also: red, yellow, green, and purple.
The Captain was talking to the men with swords. He looked back at the boat. Sallina thought she saw him make some kind of sign with his hand. She looked across at Harry, and Harry held his hand straight up in the air. The Captain waved. He and the six sailors with swords walked with him into the Kublaminsk. The solders in gray and red shirts walked with them.
All the sailors were on the deck, even Jasper and Sharpy. Jasper had his arm in a sling. Sharpy walked on crutches. They watched the city quietly. Sallina whispered to Sharpy.
"Why is everyone so quiet? Is something wrong?"
He smiled at her. "Nothing's wrong. Remember that crate you stowed away in?"
"Of course, what happened to it?"
Sharpy laughed and put his hand on her shoulder. He had to lean on one crutch to do so. "Calm yourself, Miss, nothing happened to it." He looked at the city. "We're hoping to sell it to the chief. He said he would buy it, but that was almost a year ago."
"What if he doesn't?"
"We won't be as rich as we wanted to be, that's all. It will be a pity, because we worked hard to get that silk at a good price in Godiva. It comes all the way from Chi-In."
"Chi-In?"
"Aye."
"Where's that?"
"It's far away, Miss, far, far away in the West."
They waited and waited. The Captain and the sailors returned to the ship as the sun was setting. Harry helped the Captain climb over the ship's railing.
"Thank you, Harry," he said.
The Captain stood there breathing hard from his climb up the side of the ship. The sailors waited for him to speak. When he was breathing more easily, he frowned.
"Well, boys, the news is not good."
The sailors shook their heads. Some swore to themselves.
"They have a new chief."
"Already?" Sharpy said.
"Yes, already. The new chief is Chingis."
"What happened to Kuyuk?"
"If I understood correctly, Chingis challenged him to a fight, and the two of them chopped at one another with swords until Kuyuk was dead. After that, Chingis became chief."
"Damned barbarians!" Harry said.
"Perhaps," the Captain said, "But Chingis is no idiot. He laughed when I told him we had brought silk for Kuyuk. He said Kuyuk spent too much money, and that a chief should live no better than his people."
The sun went down behind the cliffs. A bird cried out above them. Sallina looked up to see what kind of bird it was. It was a large black crow.
"That's not very good for business," Dan said, "because if the chief doesn't buy the silk, who will?"
"Don't speak too soon," the Captain said. "Their soldiers like to wear silk shirts under their leather armor. When they get shot by an arrow, the silk wraps around the arrow head. It doesn't tear, so it makes it easier for them to pull the arrow out."
"So, let me see," Dan said, "That's one shirt per soldier, right? It's not enough to get rid of all that silk you bought, Captain."
"Furthermore," the Captain said, "There is not a woman on earth who does not love the feel of silk against her bottom. If the chief is not spending money on silk, the people must have more money to spend on themselves. So I think we can sell it all, but we'll just have to work a little harder to do it."
"Aye," Harry said, "Have a little faith in the Captain."
"Faith in the Captain!" Dan said.
"Aye!" the sailors cried.
The Captain smiled. "Thank you, boys, you make me proud."