The Year of Rice and Salt

'Maybe. I can refine our distance from equator tonight.'

'Good.'

But a distance from China would have been better, and that was the calculation they could not make. Dead reckoning had been impossible during the long period of their drift, and despite I Chen's continual guesses, Kheim didn't think they knew their distance from China to within a thousand li.

As for distance from equator, I Chen reported that night, after measuring the stars, that they were at about the same line as Edo or Beijing a little higher than Edo, a little lower than Beijing. I Chen tapped his astrolabe thoughtfully. 'It's the same level as the hui countries in the far west, in Fulan where all the people died. If Hsing Ho's map can be trusted. Fulan, see? A harbour called Lisboa. But there's no Fulan chi here. I don't think this can be Fulan. We must have come upon an island.'

'A big island!'

'Yes, a big island.' I Chen sighed. 'If we could only solve the distancefrom China problem.'

It was an everlasting complaint with him, causing an obsession with clockmaking; an accurate clock would have made it possible to calculate longitude, using an almanac to give the star times in China, and timing from there. The Emperor had some fine timepieces in his palace, it was said, but they had no clock on their ship. Kheim left him to his muttering.

The next morning they woke to find a group of locals, men, women and children, dressed in leather skirts, shell necklaces, and feather headdresses, standing on the beach watching them. They had no cloth, it appeared, and no metal except small bits of hammered gold, copper and silver. Their arrowheads and spear tips were flaked obsidian, their baskets woven of reeds and pine needles. Great mounds of shells lay heaped on the beach above the high tide mark, and the visitors could see smoke rising from fires set inside wicker hovels, little shelters like those the poor farmers in China used for their pigs in winter.

The sailors laughed and chattered to see such people. They were partly relieved and partly amazed, but it was impossible to be frightened of these folk.

Kheim was not so sure. 'They're like the wild people on Taiwan,' he said. 'We had some terrible fights with them when we went after pirates in the mountains. We have to be careful.'

I Chen said, 'Tribes like that exist on some of the Spice Islands too, I've seen them. But even those people have more things than these.'

'No brick or wood houses, no iron that I can see, meaning no guns…'

'No fields for that matter. They must cat the clams,' pointing at the great shell heaps, 'and fish. And whatever they can hunt or glean. These are poor people.'

'That won't leave much for us.'

'No.'

The sailors were shouting down at them: 'Hello! Hello!'

Kheim ordered them to be quiet. He and I Chen got in one of the little rowing boats they had on the great ship, and had four sailors row them ashore.

From the shallows Kheim stood and greeted the locals, palms up and out, as one did in the Spice Islands with the wild ones. The locals didn't understand anything he said, but his gestures made plain his peaceful intent, and they seemed to recognize it. After a while he stepped ashore, confident of a peaceful welcome, but instructing the sailors to keep their flintlocks and crossbows below the seats at the ready, just in case.

On shore he was surrounded by curious people, babbling in their own tongue. Somewhat distracted by the sight of the women's breasts, he greeted a man who stepped forward, whose elaborate and colourful headdress perhaps confirmed him as their headman. Kheim's silk neck scarf, much salt damaged and faded, had the image of a phoenix on it, and Kheim untied it and gave it to the man, holding it flat so he could see the image. The silk itself interested the man more than the image on it. 'We should have brought more silk,' Kheim said to I Chen I Chen shook his head. 'We were invading Nippon. Get their words for things if you can.'

I Chen was pointing to one thing after another, their baskets, spears, dresses, headpieces, shell mounds; repeating what they said, noting it quickly on his slate. 'Good, good. Well met, well met. The Emperor of China and his humble servants send their greetings.'

The thought of the Emperor made Kheim smile. What would the Wanli, Heavenly Envoy, make of these poor shell grubbers?

'We need to teach some of them Mandarin,' I Chen said. 'Perhaps a young boy, they are quicker.'

'Or a young girl.'

'Don't let's get into that,' I Chen said. 'We need to spend some time here, to repair the ships and restock. We don't want the men here turning on us.'