Free The Fabulous Beast by Garry Kilworth Page B

been, from the top of some coastal mountain, to watch men skipping across the wavelets, spearpoints flashing in the sun, wicker shields dripping with spume sprayed from ten, twenty, even fifty-thousand bare feet. They swarmed across narrow stretches of ocean, tripping the blue like dancers, intent on death and destruction. Countries exchanged hands swiftly, for none were safe, with no barriers to protect them.
    More recently the world has been a settled place. Kingdoms are established, alliances in place: the world as safe as anywhere can be. All is no doubt fragile, albeit but it is a porcelain peace. My own home city of Pisa, ruled by the powerful Medici family, has seen little bloodshed in the past few years. My name, though not important, is Sforza, but I am not related to the Sforza’s of Milan. They are rich and important while my own origins are humble. I am a mere raft-puller, fortunate enough to be chosen for the expedition. However, I am not an ignorant man, being the illegitimate son of merchant who has seen fit to have me educated. The reason for my lowly employment is that it was the only way to join the endeavour, all other posts having been taken.
    Our leader is a man I admire greatly for his enterprise and courage. His name is Amerigo Vespucci and he has dedicated himself to finding a new path to the East Indies, where even a humble raft-puller may become instantly wealthy. Such riches there are to be had as nutmeg and other precious spices, silks, silver, porcelain and medicinal rhubarb to cure the plague. The great armies of the Dutch, jealous of their trade routes and exclusive water-trails, prevent us from using the landways and searoads to the east, but we are going west, to forge a path to the back door.
    Enterprise and courage is needed, by all on this expedition. We have thousands of miles of open ocean to cross. No one has ever attempted such a sea crossing as we are about to walk. There will be storms and tempests, and strange creatures of the deep. Unknown terrors, and perhaps, at the end, no land at all, for no one is absolutely sure that this ocean will lead to the rear of the East Indies. We hope, we pray to God and his legions of angels, to Maria-of-Nazareth his only daughter and Our Saviour, that we will not perish on the journey and will find firm footing on a land promised to us by Ptolemy, the map-maker.
    All is ready. We commence the journey tomorrow morning, from the Western shores of Ireland. The sea looks calm, but for how long? I have fears. This I freely admit. We all have great hopes that the early philosopher Strabo’s calculations as to the girth of the world – in essence 18,000 miles – are correct. If it should result that Posidonius was more accurate with 24,000 miles, we shall have that much further to tread and will possibly perish through lack of fresh water and food. The arguments for Strabo are strong, but I am no mathematician and cannot gauge which of these old Greeks, if either, has the true measurement.
    ~
    I was visited last night by ugly dreams and fearful visions of calamity, but woke this morning to a calm sea. We set forth just after dawn, drawing the rafts in the opposite direction to the rising sun, along its arrow-straight rays that glistered on the waters. There are eighteen persons to a raft, the six colourful pulling ribbons spread like a fan in front of each, with three pullers to each ribbon. I am the lead puller on the scarlet ribbon, with my good companion and cousin Giseppi behind me, and at the back there is Greta von Köln, a very strong Prussian woman. In all there are fifty rafts, with Amerigo – we almost always referred to him by his Christian name, which he preferred – and his navigators and officers of the military striding out in front, determined faces never looking back, always towards the horizon. Others: soldiers, cooks, carpenters and various artificers of a kind, walk beside and between.
    This morning the Atlantic Ocean was a dull