Strandpiel Book Two
Chapter Two: settling In.
Setting the scenes. Prologue-ish.
As always, this is V0.4. Revisions et c in progress.
A continuing family saga charting the interlinked lives of family and friends on at least two continents, with a cast of characters both living and dead.
Picked up a review from reader The Lady of Fiction. What can I say but… better crack on.
Not sure if there are other key characters who need establishing scenes here. At the start of Book Two, there probably are, But this should get the ball rolling and prepare the ground!
Howondaland. A bay on the Widdershins Sea coast, some way Rimwards of the Gulf of Ghat. January.
The first of the ships arrived at the pre-agreed landing point. Getting them here had taken some co-ordination. Given what they were carrying, and its destination, the obvious sea route out of the Circle Sea would have been hazardous. Not only the passage of Cape Terror, but also the Rimwards Howondalandian Navy patrolling the approaches, on that side, to the Zulu Empire. Any ship carrying this cargo to the Zulu Empire would have been impounded. The men and women it was carrying would have fought back too, although their skills were not those of a fighting ship's marine company. It would also have caused an International Situation.
The cargo and passengers could not go all the way overland. Several potentially hostile nations straddled the overland route. Even getting them to a coast where they could board ship had been a significant undertaking. They had come from a place, or places, which were quite a long way inland. Places that were famous for being a long way inland.
An advance party had negotiated ships and passage from the Neverlands, a remote nation which was famed for shipping and commerce.(1) Sandwiched in between Brindisi and Genua, the natural harbour here allowed for easy loading of the ships and those who were travelling. Trusted friends, brothers and sisters of the People, and representatives of the war leader who was buying their services, met them here and explained the next leg of the journey and what to expect. They would follow the Gulf of Ghat round, it was explained, taking care to avoid hostile contact with the Muntabian Navy. In that event, the ships would run up false flags, Klatchian or Ankh-Morporkian. One nation allied to Muntab, the other flag of a country Muntab would not care to offend.
On the coast of Howondaland we drop anchor and disembark. Your journey then will be a brief one overland to the kraal of your War Leader. Who will be paying you according to your Agreement.
The voyage had been without incident. The weather had been relatively good for the time of year, but passengers on board who had never seen the sea before – there were many of them – had been awed at first and then sea-sick. Other passengers had seen Baikal, the great inland sea also known as Lake Mouldava, whilst others had been aboard boats on Mother Vulga. For those from far Sy'bera, to see so much open water in one place, and no apparent end to it, had verged on terrifying.
But, several weeks later, they had Arrived. And, Nikolay Ivanovitch Achinov conceded, whoever had been planning this had planned well. The ships were in a sheltered bay, safe from any unpleasantness at sea. Their soon-to-be hosts had built a jetty, going out far enough so that the ships, in turn, could draw up and be unloaded. Apparently a clever Quirmian woman had overseen this, an engineer by profession.
She was out there now, at the jetty head, laughing and joking with the men – and some of the other women, the frightening ones – helping to unload the precious cargo. They watched a gantry crane swing out, slowly and carefully, from aboard the ship. It was supporting a horse, a carrying sling underneath its body, neighing in fear as it was swung out, and lowered, carefully, so very carefully, onto the jetty. This was not a natural position for a horse. Great care had to be taken and the unloading process was necessarily slow and painstaking. (2)
Nikolay had been watching this all morning, trying to conceal worry and anxiety. The horses were precious. They were wealth, life, everything, to a Cossack. Those that had been successfully unshipped had been reassured and soothed by their bonded riders, then walked off the jetty to where the next stage happened. Zoya Zlatanavichniya, a Cossack who had been here for some time serving the warrior princess, had explained that horses new to Howondaland required inoculation against ailments of the horse, un-known back home on the Steppes. Igor and Igor will attend to this.
Nikolay accepted this. He knew about Igors.
"Then we ride to the city of the Princess?"
"Da." Zoya replied. "Princess Ruth, who will become Her Majesty, needs cavalry. I suggested we seek to recruit more Cossacks. To train our own cavalry, to ride alongside them, to take her salt and vodka, to help her become Queen. Friends spread the word. You answered."
"This looks like a good country." he said, making conversation. "When you get off the beach."
"I'll show you later." Zoya replied. "Behind the dunes and the hills over there. Grass country begins. A Steppe, although here it is called a veldt in one language."
They watched another horse successfully disembark.
"Too slow." Nikolay remarked.
"Da. Marianne is considering how to deliberately ground a ship and opening the hull. If more of our people arrive, we need a faster and safer way of unloading horses. I regret we only had time to build one jetty."
Nikolay Achinov grinned broadly. Soon he could ride. See this new country. See where the adventure led him, and the Host. The idea had appealed to him ever since Vetinari's messengers, the women on the fabulous white flying horses who visited the Atamans with despatches from Ankh-Morpork, had let slip in conversation that Princess Ruth of the Zulus employed Cossacks, and she could always find room for a few more. He reflected that Lady Olga Romanoff, who had a fund of travellers' tales about faraway Howondaland – she actually lived there herself for part of her week – had spoken of a possible coming war, where those who gave their service to the warrior-princess would find adventure and reward.
And comparing notes with those who had answered the Call from other Hosts, Nikolay had discovered a flying-horse-messenger called Vasilisa Budonova had told similar tales to the brothers and sisters of the Ron Cossacks, whilst a messenger called Irena Politek had casually mentioned, to a receptive audience in the middle of a Sy'berian winter in the Vortex Plains, that it didn't snow in Howondaland. Cossacks had come from all hosts, with the blessing of their Atamans.
"Zoya Zlatanovichnya. What is the name of this place?"
He nodded towards the native kraal. It appeared to be home and barracks for the frightening-looking women soldiers who had greeted them, confident looking women, well built, with very sharp spears. Nikolay had been relieved to see white officers amongst them, and even more relieved that some were Cossacks who had already made a home here.
"It is called Sagalo. On the Bay of Tadjoura." she replied. (3) "Part of the domain of the Queen-Regent-Elect, who will shortly be here to welcome you."
Bitterfontein, the Turnwise Caarp, Rimwards Howondaland.
Rebecka Smith-Rhodes, Healthcare Practitioner, had made a point of being on time for breakfast that first morning in Howondaland. Aunt Mariella had said this would be a good idea.
She had dressed in comfortable Veldt-khaki working clothes and tried to ignore that she'd had slightly too little sleep since her arrival in the small hours of the morning. Working farms started early so as to use the daylight; she reckoned people would already have put in several hours of work even before breakfast. Even in a vineyard with few actual animals, early morning daylight was not to be wasted.
She had hesitated about the weapons belt. Aunt Mariella had said to bring it downstairs with her; it could hang on the peg nearest the door where everybody kept ready-use weapons. Apparently it was an old Boer habit that died hard, even here, a long way from any uneasy frontier where people went armed all the time. There really wasn't a need to go visibly armed in Bitterfontein, although old ways of thinking died hard.
Bekki hesitated again, then selected a different belt, transferred over a few useful pouches, and added a small working knife. Typical Lancre witch-wear. She left the sword and whip in her room, alongside the crossbows, and wondered if Aunt Mariella and Uncle Horst knew anywhere to practice. She thought again. They were Assassins. Of course they'd have a practice range.
In a large unfamiliar house, she tried to familiarise herself with the layout. The smells of a cooking breakfast were in the air; all she needed to do was to follow them. She noted black servants, maids moving around performing their early morning chores, said good morning, and introduced herself, explaining she had arrived by night and didn't know her way around yet. A subdued and quiet maid led her to the big dining room.
A large plain table was there, set for - she counted the places – twelve. She was used to this. In a tight-knit Boer farm community, it wasn't just the family who ate daytime meals. Workers, key people, invited guests, anybody on the morning routine who might be quite a few miles away from their own home. Community. An opportunity to discuss the day and the small and great news.
What the stone-flagged dining room had was Uncle Horst and a couple of serious-looking older men, dressed casually for outdoor work, who were talking about the middle terraces up on the Sandrift, Rimwards-facing for maximum sun, and intently debating something called terroir and how it could be improved. Or at least maintained.
She frowned, at the unfamiliar words that were entering the conversation. A lot of them sounded Quirmian.
Terroir. Of the earth?
She gathered that terroir was something to do with slope and soil and climate, but was still hazy as to what it actually was. She also wondered about how a green harvest differed from a regular harvest. At this point, Uncle Horst noticed her, and his face split into a delighted grin.
"Rebecka!" he said and opened his arms wide. She happily hugged a favourite uncle.
"Sorry I didn't get to see you last night." he said.
"My fault, Uncle. I got the timings wrong." she said.
Uncle Horst grinned.
"Mariella said. And Olga said, last time she was here, it was something you're not quite getting the hang of. She suspected you'd aim for ten at night, and arrive at one in the morning."
Bekki winced. Calculating time zones around the Disc was a blind spot for her. Godsmother Irena had said this could be a bit of a problem for a Pegasus Service flyer. It was why she was flying as second pilot on an established route. Among other things.
Her uncle introduced her to the others in the room, senior employees on the Plaas. Mr van Linden, in his middle forties and squarely built, supervised field and terrace work and managed the labour force. Mr de Merit managed the bottling plant. Mr Graham ran the distillery side. All began work early in the morning, and were offered a working breakfast here as a courtesy.
"I hardly understood any of that." Bekki said, honestly.
"Ag, I reckon you'll be learning about grapes and viniculture from the ground up." de Merit said. "All the way from the vine to the klipdrift bottle. We do it all here."
"Your aunt managed it." van Linden agreed. "Clever woman. Fast learner."
He looked speculatively at Bekki.
"So. Company nurse?" he asked.
"Healthcare practitioner." Uncle Horst said, with a completely straight face. "She's got a knack for it, and she's been learning the trade since she was eleven. Seventeen this year, but she's had a lot of experience."
Mr Graham the distiller nodded knowingly at her. He had the look of somebody who had to do some very precise thinking very quickly and very accurately, so as to avert the possibility of boiling brandy.
"I hear they teach very good nursing in Lancre." he agreed. "Lots of practitioners there making sure people get to be very healthy. They take care about it, I hear."
Bekki returned a poker face with just the slightest hint of a smile.
"Yes. That's it exactly." She agreed.
The four men traded knowing looks. She reflected that Mr Gordon Graham had completely avoided using the word Witch, whilst the other three had very carefully not articulated the word Hecksie. But they all knew well enough and were prepared to keep the secret. A girl who knew about practical healing, medication and how to diagnose and treat would be a nurse here, or a Healthcare Practitioner. The circumstances of her learning, the people she'd learnt from, and some of the other skills she used in healing injuries would be glossed over and not spoken of.
Aunt Mariella had been telling people she had a niece who had been informally training for nursing and care work for a few years now. Bringing her over here, as farms and industrial environments are potentially dangerous places and sometimes people get hurt, would be good for everyone. Rebecka gets experience and anyone who gets hurt gets fast first aid, practically on the spot.
Mariella had very carefully not gone into the part-time job Bekki had elsewhere, which would occupy her for two days a week. She reckoned that would explain itself; a white stallion with wings was hard to conceal, so don't bother. Best he's out in the open while he's stabled here. Olga Romanoff said no secrets, so you can answer whatever people ask about Boetjie. You fly two days a week for Ankh-Morpork. Fact of your life. We'll work around that.
Bekki noted everyone in the room was standing up, drinking rooibos tea from mugs. Nobody was making a move to the table, although a cooked breakfast appeared to be ready. She assumed they were waiting for other people and would then take seats. One of the quiet black maids brought Bekki a mug of tea.
"Dankie." she said, automatically. Baas van Linden raised an eyebrow. He said nothing. Bekki adjusted, and remembered this was Rimwards Howondaland, where servants were taken for granted and rarely thanked. People who did were thought of as a bit eccentric. Or worse, liberal.
Aunt Mariella arrived, in casual working clothes and the look of a woman who had been putting in several hours of physical labour, trailing a couple of Ridgeback dogs. one recognised Bekki, barked, and padded over to her to say a morning hello. Mariella greeted everyone, with a quick hug for Bekki and the sort of casual kiss for Uncle Horst that said this is all you're getting in public, jou bliksem.
"Got some young vines in the greenhouses that are ready to transplant." she said to van Linden. He promised to get people onto it. Mariella acknowledged this, then asked one of the servants to take the dogs to where they could eat.
"Top terrace, west-side Sandrift?" he asked. Bekki recalled that some dialects of Vondalaans still used the old words for the cardinal points; here it wasn't so much Hubwards, Rimwards, Widdershins and Turnwise as North, South, West, East. A hangover from when people used to believe they lived on the outside of a spinning round globe in space. Some Omnians still believed that now, despite all the evidence for elephants, world-turtle and flat earth.(4)
Bekki was feeling hungry. She wondered when they'd, you know, actually sit down to eat. Uncle Horst seemed to guess her thoughts.
He grinned.
"Just waiting for Mother." he explained. His grin faded. "These days, she has to take her time with things."
Bekki registered concerned son. She said nothing. Aunt Mariella had mentioned…
Hendricka Lensen arrived for breakfast a few minutes later, hobbling painfully and slowly in, supported by two sticks, an anxious-looking older black servant woman in attendance. She greeted everybody by name, gave Bekki a long appraising look, and made her way to the seat at the head of the table. When she sat, everybody could sit. But not before. She was Mevrou here, head of the household.
While she asked searching questions about the work that needed to be done today around the plaas and the business, alternating this with asking about the health and wellbeing of wives and children, Bekki covertly assessed her.
Uncle Horst is the same age as Aunt Mariella, twenty-eight or twenty-nine. They were at school together. Aunt Mariella says he has two older brothers. The one she absolutely loathes and despises and the one she concedes is perfectly okay, all things considered. The brother who also works, sort of, for the plaas. So with two older brothers, their mother might be…. Somewhere between fifty-five and sixty? Boer women tend to marry and start families young.
Bekki shuddered. She was nearly seventeen. In a different life she could be married and a mother by now… and she'd seen sixteen and seventeen year old mothers in Ankh-Morpork, Lancre and the Chalk. Ugggh.
Mevrou Hendricka has a sharp mind. She is still the deciding force here. Aunt Mariella defers to her. She is asking purposeful questions about how the land is managed and how the businesses are operated. That is why she invites their key people to breakfast. But her body, for a woman in her fifties, is ruined. From the way she walked, I suspect her knees are done and her hips are failing. Rheumatism, arthritis. One attacks the muscles and ligaments, the other destroys the joints and bones. That could be a woman of eighty there.
Mevrou Hendricka looked at Bekki, and then passed over her. Her face softened into a kindly smile.
"You two little fellows are invited to breakfast too." she said, prompting them. "No rule says you can't. Now come up and introduce yourselves."
"Errr.. thanking you kindly, Mistress." said Wee Archie Aff The Midden. "Are we, like, allowed onto the table?"
"Wellnow. You are four or five inches tall. It would spare me straining my neck. I am Hendricka Lensen. I own this plaas."
Wee Archie and Grindguts The Destroying Demon deferentially introduced themselves. It was like watching two very small delinquents being told off by the headmistress, Bekki decided.
"You arrived with Rebecka. You help her in her work. Mariella has already spoken to you both concerning what is expected."
Hendricka Lensen smiled slightly.
I've met your folk before. Ten years ago now, nearly eleven, Irena Politek flew her Pegasus here for the first time. She brought some of your people with her. I advised your people then what the rules were. Irena enforced them. And I know you listen to… to people like Irena."
Hendricka nodded down the table.
"And people like Rebecka. Also, Olga Romanoff is a friend who visits. You both work in her service too."
Wee Archie gulped.
"Aye, mistress. The Hag O' The High Airs."
Hendricka smiled. "And that first time, Irena brought a Kelda with her. Kelda Kirstie. Who also commanded her folk not to take anything away that does not belong to them. I understand Keldas speak to each other through means of their own?"
"Aye, mistress…"
Hendricka smiled again.
"So there will be no misunderstandings concerning wine or distilled spirits while you live here. Three Hags and a Kelda have said so."
Bekki was appreciative. She wondered about reminding Archie that Kelda Kirstie had founded a Clan nearby… well, relatively nearby. She was in the same country, anyway. She found herself warming to the old lady. And reflected that nobody got to be a Mevrou who didn't know how to be firm with people. Her ouma was a Mevrou. Nobody argued with her ouma.
Then Hendricka turned her attention to Bekki.
And she's a friend of Ouma Agnetha…
"Tell me about yourself, Rebecka."
Bekki told. She tried to ignore the crunching of toast coming from her right as Feegle and Demon took their breakfast.
Talking about being a Witch without actually using the word took a little ingenuity, but everybody was in on the secret. Hendricka listened attentively.
"Midwifery skills. Ten children, including your own nephew."
"Ja, Mevrou. But I did not think of her as my aunt, at the time. She was a first-time mother who needed somebody to assist at the birthing. I did what was necessary."
Hendricka smiled slightly.
"Your grandmother told me about it. Agnetha was very impressed. She also told me you are good with animals, with livestock?"
"Ja, Mevrou. You do what is necessary. In Lancre, I worked on a pig farm for a year. I saw far more animal than human births. I also have a little experience of sheep and horses."
Hendricka smiled again.
"The business here is grapes and vines." she said. "We do have some livestock. Horses and donkeys for various reasons. Some cows, for the milk. But mainly horses, for riding and to draw carts and carriages."
She nodded to Horst.
"You can show her the stables and paddocks. Rebecka, I believe you brought a horse with you?"
"Ja, Mevrou. Boetjie will require grooming and exercise."
"I'd like to see him. Close to. But that can wait. Now we need to talk about the work you will be doing here…"
Later in the morning, having seen the horses, Bekki and Uncle Horst were in the stables, tending to Boetjie. Bekki was introducing her mount to the grooms, black employees drawn from the local township, and explaining that these people are to be trusted, as they will feed and water you and if I am not here they will be taught to groom you.
Uncle Horst watched with interest.
"I imagine grooming the wings calls for special care." he remarked. "How do you deal with, you know, feathers?"
"To an extent, like caring for a cage-bird, but scaled up." Bekki replied. "Up to a point, Boetjie can groom his own wings. But a Pegasus is not built like a budgie or a parrot. There are lots of places he will not be able to reach, towards the back of the wings and definitely towards the wing-root. We have to take over. Inspect for parasites. To very carefully sponge and clean the feathers and get to the wing underneath, where practicable."
She smiled at the black grooms.
"It takes a little getting used to and it's hard at first. But I will show you how this is done."
They worked together on grooming and sponge-bathing for a while. Bekki placidly awaited the moment she knew was going to be inevitable, when the spill-words were spoken. Uncle Horst waited for the grooms to finish here and move on to other jobs in the stable, out of earshot. He sighed, resignedly.
"Come on, Uncle. What's on your mind?" she asked.
Horst Lensen sighed again.
"Bekki, is there anything you can do for Mother?" he asked. "Anything at all?"
She had expected this. She looked, seriously, at her uncle.
"Well. It would take an Igor to replace those worn-out joints," she said. "I can't do that. This happens, Uncle. Too much hard physical work for far too long out in the open in all weathers. A body can only take so much. Her joints are ruined."
Bekki took his hands.
"What I can do, Uncle Horst, and be clear that this is not something you could defend under the heading of Healthcare Practitioner, is to take the pain away. It would not be permanent, as the damage is done. I could do this for her first thing in the morning. There would be a lot less pain, she could move more freely, walk faster and further, perhaps with no need for the sticks, but by evening she would be feeling it again. You cannot turn the clock back."
Bekki considered this.
"Well, you could, but it would need an Igor. To replace both hips and both knees. I'm not sure how your mother feels about that, as I've only just met her. She might have strong feelings against. Some people do."
"But you could take the pain away?" Horst asked, anxiously.
Bekki sighed.
"Yes. I could. And let me use the word. This is a Witch skill. I could easily do this for your mother. Easily. But she's got to ask me to. I can't just walk straight in and do it. She has to ask. And who cares for her right now? Who helps her get out of bed and dress? I'm betting the old house-girl who helped her to breakfast this morning does these things? And has done for a few years now? We've got her feelings to consider too, because you don't nurse somebody for years without getting close to them. Somebody new suddenly walking in and taking over, well, that could make her feel unwanted. Excluded. Your mother's maid deserves consideration too."
Uncle Horst considered this.
"But you can do this?" he persisted.
"Easily… well, it's not the most difficult Witch-skill. But it's not like putting a bandage on a cut finger, Uncle. This is intimate care. You just do not walk in and ask her to lift her skirt, take her stockings off and lie on the bed so you can work on her legs from hips to ankles. She has to ask."
Bekki squeezed her uncle's hand again.
"Then I'll do it for her. As often as it needs." she said.
Uncle Horst smiled.
"Thank you, Bekki." he said.
Outside the stable. Hendricka Lensen signalled the two large servants who were carrying her chair (5) to stop and be silent. She reminded herself that she'd come out here out of genuine interest in the wingèd white horse that was to be permanently stabled here. She'd seen them when friends in the Air Watch visited. She'd even wondered what it was like to go into the sky on one. Hendricka sighed, resignedly. The funny thing was that when she'd been able to ride a horse, she'd taken it for granted. She wasn't mad-crazy about horses, the way some people were. A horse was a method of transportation. Pleasurable in its way, but utilitarian. It beat walking, over long distances.
And when her hips and legs had started to get bad, and she had to give up riding, she had missed it. It was funny how these things worked out.
But she would still quite like to see the world from above. From the back of a Pegasus. Olga Romanoff, a regular visitor and a friend of Mariella's, had been sympathetic when, almost embarrassed, the desire had spilled out. Olga had said that while the Service often took pillion passengers, it rather depended on that pillion passenger being fully able-bodied and being able to do the routine things with thighs, knees, and legs so as to be able to safely stay on. Olga had considered, and thought this might be an interesting problem to solve – sooner or later they might be called upon to transport, for instance, a person who normally needed a wheelchair. She would give it some thought, perhaps speak to a very clever girl she'd taken on as a Technical and Engineering Officer.
But for now, Hendricka Lensen was listening to a nearby conversation between her son and Mariella's niece, who seemed like a pleasant and capable young woman with useful skills. I'm not skulking at a door listening to a private conversation, she reminded herself. I came here to see the flying horse. But the flying horse will still be here tomorrow. This can wait.
She smiled, and signalled Tomwe and Seth to move on. She had a big plaas to tour. Just to check it was all working as it should. Her bakkie picked up smoothly, and moved on. Hendricka decided she'd speak to Mariella first before approaching the girl. Maybe give her a few days to settle in.
The Zulu Empire. Sagalo, on the Bay of Tadjoura.
Perhaps two-thirds of the horses had been unloaded without incident. The very capable Marianne de Menières, who had engineered the jetty, had been busy elsewhere. She had persuaded the captains of the three cargo ships to loan her their ships' boats, and these had been sailed ashore where Carpentry had happened. Now, two or more smaller boats had been conjoined together under large flat platforms.
Nikolay Ivanovitch Achinov, the Cossack hetman, was now watching the flat-beds heave to in the lee of the ship standing furthest out, which was unloading his carts and wagons by on-ship derricks. These were being secured to the flat-beds and poled back to shore, where they were unloaded.
"Horoscho." Nikolay said, in deep appreciation, as the clever Quirmian woman beamed.
"We will get you to the City of the Inghomyamazi, mon ami." she said. "We serve the same Princess, after all. We fight in the same Army. Therefore, your concerns are mine."
"Ing'om…" he asked, struggling to repeat the word.
Zoya Zlatanavichniya grinned at him.
"Also amabhubesikazi." she said. "It means львицы. You could call her city Lvitsgrad. These days, it even has its own Kremlin."
"I helped build it." Marianne said. "The walls are formidable. At least, in the outer circle. Inside, the inner walls, until we rebuild them, are…."
She indicated the flimsy brushwood walls of the nearby native fort.
"Ah." Nikolay said. "The princess builds her walls in stone. Her rivals do not."
"Oui. Malheureusement, rebuilding and upgrading takes time. We are concentrating on that which is most important, first."
Cossacks were saddling horses and fitting tack. Patrols were riding out, escorted by Zoya's cavalry guides, to see something of the land beyond. The newly landed wagons, serving as homes, stores, even a blacksmith's forge, were being fitted and teams of horses were being put into the traces. Very soon, the Cossack host would set out. So far, in a big continent with lots of coast, nobody else had noticed.
With a little help and intelligent planning, Ruth N'Kweze had recruited an entire Cossack regiment. Friends in the Pegasus Service would report back to the Homelands that they had arrived safely, and would happily take back letters and progress reports. Over the next few months, more adventurers would follow.
Marianne looked thoughtfully out to sea.
"A natural harbour." she said. "Safe anchorage for many ships. The curve of the promontories of the bay is a natural breakwater. The queen we serve has said the Empire needs better and more permanent ports. On the Ankh-Morporkian model."
"I know you." Zoya said. "You want to build this port for our Queen, don't you?"
"Very much so." Marianne replied. "Ecoutes-moi, chere amie. You are from a place where the nearest sea is at least a thousand miles away in any direction, so I will explain it simply. The sweep of the coast here suggests where I would build a stone quay and a pierhead. A beacon, on the tip of the promontory there. A lighthouse proper, at the highest hilltop. Imports and exports to and from the Empire, moving quickly through this port. Who knows, one day a Zulu Navy?"
They considered the prospect together.
"Ambitious." Zoya said. "But workable. First, we have the Queen's brother to defeat."
Marianne considered this.
"True. But first, I think, a second jetty. In time, a mole and larger landing stages. Built in stone."
They watched the activity on the water. It was oddly soothing to watch. Eventually, they sat together, on the soon-to-be-dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away. Unloading the ships continued.
More soon!
(1) Damn. The Compleat Discworld Atlas explains more about The Neverlands. Apparently a long time ago, clever people built lots of dikes to fill in the space between a chain of islands across the mouth of a large bay. Having reclaimed a lot of land now somewhat below sea level, they set about farming it. Until the Catastrophe happened and the sea flooded back in through the broken dikes. The original Neverlanders, or the survivors, disappeared from Discworld history. Maybe they Trekked across the continent to a new land (Sto Kerrig?) and started again. The original islands then became pirate lairs – people who knew all about ships and maritime commerce. Today, rather lazy pirates who do the "oo-AAR!" bit as a sort of reflex and who are earning a living in more legitimate ways. Running a maritime blockade past Muntab and potentially past Rimwards Howondaland might well appeal to them, for a price.
(2) Disembarking all the horses for a British cavalry brigade, in the Crimea in 1854 – a total of perhaps 1600 horses for a cavalry brigade – took five full days to offload them from the ships. One panicked horse could delay things considerably. While some ships allowed live cargo to be walked out directly onto the quay, as often as not it involved a harness-sling and a derrick crane to lower them to the ground, anything up to seventy feet depending on the height of the ship and the surface the horse was being lowered on to. The potential for disaster was great, and the horse would of course find this stressful.
(3) In case this is coming out as too improbable even for the Discworld. In 1889, the real Nikolay Achinov, a Russian adventurer and dreamer, set out from Odessa for Africa with the dream of founding a Russian colony. No small feat in itself, as the sea journey between Russia and Africa is even today not a quick or straightforward one. He came to earth at Sagallo in East Africa, a hitherto unclaimed land (that is, unclaimed by Europeans), unloaded two hundred Cossacks, their horses, and families, took over an old derelict fortress, and claimed Novy Moskva – New Moscow – for the Tsar. This did not last long. Skirmishes with affronted natives began, as the Cossacks rode out in search of plunder, and the natives asked the French for protection against these new white intruders. Diplomatic protests flew, the Tsar disowned Achinov, and the French forcibly took over. Russia's African Empire duly became a minor footnote to history.
(4) Round-Earthers were thought of as wilfully perverse, peculiar and obsessive people determined to fly in the face of objective reality. "Round-Earther" was a sort of shorthand for a particular mentality, often used alongside "left-ear-people".
(5) A normal household chair, a sturdy one, adapted in the workshops by bracketing long poles to either side and adding rudimentary foot-rests. Like the hermit-elephant version of a sedan chair, knocked together from immediately available things by people with basic carpentry skills. Hendricka referred to it as the Bakkie. (5.1)
(5.1) In South Africa, a bakkie is a sort of all-purpose word for a form of transport, most usually an open-backed lorry or utility vehicle with a cargo bed.
Notes Dump: a Township, exiled by statute to the very edge of the main story, where surplus ideas and concepts go into a pool of reserve labour but – very strictly – are not allowed to interact with the main story more than is absolutely necessary.
Currently re-reading the excellent Grrl Power comic strip. In which Colonel Maxima is a commanding officer who knows when a Mildly Military set-up like the superheroes' unit needs to be military and when it needs to be not military. When dealing with incredibly talented and exceptional people – her superheroines – Maxima is a CO who knows when, and when not, to do it by the book. Especially when she is dealing with the gifted but scatty and somewhat nutty new recruit Sydney. Maxima, in attitude and to a certain extent in look and general appearance, is Olga Romanoff (Although Olga isn't as pneumatic as that and her skin is not the colour of burnished gold.) Dealing with Sydney (Kiiki), the utterly unmilitary nutter, and in command of people who while they are uniformed, and conform to a certain sort-of-military discipline, only do this so far. Discipline and command therefore need to be intelligent rather than tough. As Olga well knows.