Loading at Midnight

Barca huddled with the captains. “The women will start loading the ships. Board everyone and stand ready to sail at a moment’s notice. Have everyone arm themselves with knives, axes, chains, sling shots, whatever they have. Prepare to defend the ships in case of attack.”

He put the Oarswoman in charge of the loading crews. The women left their sleeping babies with the locals, hiked their skirts into their sashes, and hurried to the shoreline. However quickly they worked, the Oarswoman encouraged them to move a little faster. They swiftly filled the holds fore and aft, balancing the cargo from side to side. Truth be told, they accomplished the task as well as any sailors ever had. She charged Uru and the older children with a mission to prepare Barca’s animals—crates, bedding, fodder—and load them all onto the ships. With a finger to her lips, she added, “You must as stay as quiet as an egg.”

No one asked why. No one objected. They imagined the hard-shelled silence of an egg and set to finishing the tasks. When the ships were loaded, parents lifted their sleeping children from their beds, thanked the villagers, and went aboard. The babies who stirred were given a finger dipped in honey to lull them back to sleep. Word spread softly among them that the signal to sail, if there were to be one, would be two flares thrown overboard from the deck of the Arbiter.

← Chapter 42 | Chapter 44 →