Kalev the Spy

Among the sailors on the Phoenix, there was one they called Kalev. Someone said his mother had given birth to him on a ship and that he had lived at sea ever since, never touching land for more than a few days at a time. Nobody knew the whole story, and none dared ask. He said very little and kept mostly to himself, but he was unafraid to wrestle a sea bass the size of a small child onto the deck for dinner, or wrap a rope around his waist and dive under the ship when the tiller got stuck. He excelled at cobbling together repairs from the limited materials on hand, and in his free time he carved wooden toys: a boat with a tiny canvas sail, a whale on wheels with a pull string, a pig whistle that squealed through two sound holes, even a board game with little wooden birds that moved along a path in a race to the end. Kalev won the passengers’ appreciation because he often relieved them on watch when they started to nod off. To Amaal, he seemed more a part of the ship than one of the crew.

One night, bothered by an uneasy dream, Amaal awoke and lay watching the moon behind a thin glaze of cloud cover. She turned to find a more comfortable position on the hard deck and, much to her surprise, noticed the figure of a man easing himself overboard by way of the rope that kept the shore boat tethered to the ship. In the shrouded moonlight, Amaal could see the Tillerman at the helm, apparently unaware of the stealthy escape. She waited until the man had disappeared, then quickly got up and tiptoed to the stern.

“Ho, Amaal,” the Tillerman whispered, “what has you up so late?”

“Did you see that man getting into the shore boat?” she asked.

The Tillerman gave her a dubious look and turned to look out across the ship’s wake. Sure enough, there was the shore boat being paid out to the fullest length far behind the Phoenix.

“By Ba’al!” the Tillerman swore under his breath. “It’s Kalev! What does he think he’s doing out there?”

They squinted through the milky moonlight and watched as the small vessel, still attached to the Phoenix by its umbilical rope, approached Tondo’s ship.

Amaal whispered, “We should tell the captain.”

“Shhh, wait a minute,” the Tillerman said.

They watched the shore boat disappear into the shadow of Tondo’s ship. A few minutes passed, then a few more. After what seemed like a long time, the boat reappeared, being pulled, hand over hand, back to the Phoenix. What they saw next spurred them to action: the shore boat held not one man, but four!

“Wake the Captain, Amaal, but warn him to remain quiet. Tell him that four men from Tondo’s ship are approaching, then go back to bed.”

Amaal did exactly as she was told. She lay with eyes wide open and watched as one-by-one, the intruders, each holding a dagger in his fist, poured onto the deck of the Phoenix. Led by Kalev, they crept toward the captain’s quarters. Amaal wanted desperately to shout a warning, but she bit her lip as her heart pounded in her chest. Why would steadfast Kalev have forsaken the captain? The intruders had nearly reached their objective when, as if on cue, six sailors from the Phoenix stepped silently from the shadows and surrounded them. The captain demanded they drop their weapons, but the intruders held their ground. One of them lunged forward, his dagger aimed directly at the captain’s chest, but before the weapon could reach its mark, Kalev grabbed the intruder by his long black hair, yanked back his head, drew a knife across his throat, and heaved him overboard. A high arc of bright red blood followed him as he disappeared and landed with a heavy splash in the water below. Amaal watched in horror, mystified. Which side was Kalev on? Was he a traitor or a hero? Or had he simply lost his mind?

The two remaining intruders stared in disbelief. Kalev grabbed the wrist of the one standing closer to him, forcing him to surrender his weapon, but the man took a swing that landed Kalev on the deck. The other intruder backed away and, stepping in Amaal’s direction, tripped over a coil of rope, landing within a hair’s breadth of her. The dagger in his hand was so close to her face that she could see her reflection in the blade. He rose awkwardly to his knees, slashing the air, trying to fend off the sailors. Without thinking, Amaal stood up behind him, clutched her flute case tightly in her hands, lifted it high above her head and brought it down with a hard crack against his skull. The man’s dagger fell onto the deck with a clatter as he held his head with a mournful groan. The sailors grabbed him and hauled him to his feet, but as they pulled him from the shadows, he turned to see who had taken him down. His expression changed quickly from fury to puzzlement to astonishment as he looked into Amaal’s eyes. She recoiled and returned quickly to her bed, alarmed at what she had done. She held her flute case in her arms and watched the captain interrogate the prisoners.

“What are you doing here?” he said. “Speak up or I’ll cut off your ears.”

One puffed up his chest. “We know you’ve got treasure on board.”

“Ridiculous,” the captain replied. “There’s no treasure here. You know as well as I do that the treasure was dropped into the sea back in Tyre. We all witnessed it.”

“You’re lying!” The intruder strained at the sailor’s grip.

“See for yourself!” the captain said.

The sailors shoved Tondo’s men roughly into the hold and held a torch while they searched between the rowing benches and among the food supplies, tools and ballast balls until the rogues were forced to admit there was no treasure on board.

“Now!” the captain said, “Go back and tell Tondo that you’ve found absolutely nothing. Try boarding my ship again and more throats will be slit!”

“What are your orders, captain?” Kalev asked.

“Let them go. They’ll do less harm alive than dead. We don’t need to give Tondo an excuse to come aboard again.”

The sailors jostled the robbers into the shore boat and set it out on its long rope back to Tondo. By this time the passengers were stirring.

“Nothing to see here,” the captain said plainly. “Everyone, go back to sleep.”

But Amaal couldn’t sleep. The image of a man having his throat sliced open turned her stomach. She thought of his body sinking into the water below and the swarm of sea creatures fighting one another to tear the flesh away from his bones. She watched the captain pat Kalev on his shoulder as they talked quietly in the shadows. It had been said that there were spies everywhere, but it hadn’t occurred to her that one of them might be on Elishat’s side. The two men shook hands and the captain walked forward and stood for a while, looking out at sea, while Kalev went to his usual place on deck and wiped his dagger clean.

It was then that Amaal realized that in the dark, no one had seen her clobber the intruder. They all assumed that someone among the sailors had delivered the crashing blow. She looked back at the Tillerman. He put a finger to his lips in a gesture that told her that he had been in on the secret operation all along. He waved her over and gave her the tiller to steer while he took a drink from his goatskin flask and spat overboard.

“You gave that pirate a crack!” he said with a quiet chuckle.

“I wasn’t thinking. I just had to do something.”

“You did the right thing,” he said, taking back the tiller.

“But Kalev…is he…is he one of them?”

“No, no, Kalev is one of us. Back in Kition, he overheard Tondo’s men discussing a plot to seize the Phoenix. He brought the information to the captain and asked permission to gain their trust and pretend to help the pirates. The captain has no authority over Tondo’s ship, you see, but if the pirates board the Phoenix, well, then he has the right to punish or even execute them. That’s the law of the sea. The captain and Kalev planned the whole thing.”

“What about the treasure?”

The Tillerman shrugged and shook his head. “You saw them search, and what did they find?”

“Nothing.”

“Exactly. Now, not a word about this to anyone, understand?”

Amaal nodded.

“Go get some rest.”

Amaal returned to her bed and watched the hazy moon played hide-and-seek behind the big square sail. She had the odd sensation of having lived an astonishing dream while everyone else slept. She hugged her flute case and remembered how good it felt to land it hard on the intruder’s head. As an act of violence, it sickened her, but as an act of courage, it felt powerful and decisive. What she couldn’t shake was the bizarre expression on the victim’s face—as if he recognized her.

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