London - Edward Rutherfurd [14]
The wicker boat! It consisted of a shallow keel, with broad ribs made of light timber. But this delicate framework was the only hard material in the vessel’s hull. Over the frame was stretched a coat not of wood, but of osier woven into stout wickerwork. And over this, to provide the necessary waterproofing, was a coating of skins. Traders from over the seas had long admired the wickerwork of the Celtic Britons. It was one of the island’s minor glories.
Though only twenty feet long, the wicker boat had one other refinement. In its centre, secured with stays, was a short mast on which a thin leather sail could be raised. The mast was nothing more than a small, freshly cut tree trunk, carefully chosen so as not to be too heavy, and with a natural fork left at its top as a head for the halyards. Charmingly, it was also the custom to leave some sprigs of leaves growing at the top of the mast, so that the little wicker boat seemed almost like some living tree or bush floating upon the waters.
Primitive the vessel certainly was, but also remarkably convenient. Light enough to be carried; flexible but sturdy; stable enough, despite its shallow draught, to be taken out to sea if necessary. The oars and tidal flow would propel it about the river, but its little sail could be a useful additional source of power – enough, given its lightness, to overcome the river current if the wind was anywhere behind it. For an anchor, it had a heavy stone set in a wooden cage like a lobster basket.
They carefully inspected the little vessel, raised and set the mast, and for several hours that afternoon they tried the boat out upon the river. At the end of which time his father remarked with a smile: “She’s perfect.”
High tide came some while before dawn the next day, and so it was just at first light that father and son pushed the wicker boat out from the spit and caught the ebb tide that would carry them downstream for many hours. There was also, by good luck, a gentle breeze from the west, so that they could hoist the little leather sail and, using a broad oar to steer, sit back and watch the riverbank pass by.
As they slipped away into the stream, Segovax turned round to see his mother by the end of the spit, her pale face watching them depart. He waved, but she did not wave back.
The river beyond Londinos did not widen quickly, and before it did so, the boy knew they must pass through one of the most striking features in its long and winding course.
For though, in its great journey from the island’s interior, the river made many a huge meander, it was just past Londinos that it entered a series of big, tightly packed loops that formed a sort of double S. About a mile from Londinos’s eastern hill, it began a big curve towards the north before swinging completely round to the right and almost doubling back on itself as it went south. At the bottom of this southern curve, still only three miles as the crow flew from the eastern hill, the river’s course passed directly beside the high ground on the southern bank, which rose from the riverside in a large and gracious slope. At this point the river veered clean round north again, and then, after a mile, back once more.
As they passed through the loops, his father watched Segovax with amusement. Every so often he would ask, “Where is Londinos now, then?” Sometimes it lay to the left, sometimes to the right, sometimes behind. Once, when the boy became confused, he laughed aloud. “You see,” he explained, “though we are going away from it, Londinos at this moment is actually ahead of us!” It was a feature of the river well known to those who sailed