‘And a hundred other uses,’ said Solomon, addressing them all. ‘This is my gift to you all. Use it as you can. Rory macShiel knows how to make more if you need more – he has promised me his next one – but I have other dreams for you to make and use.’

‘Next time,’ said Rose, ‘you should make it up in the town. There’s not much point to it being down here.’

‘Of course, dear lady. We must dismantle the device and carry it back with us.’ Solomon leaned on the brake, and he could hear the collective sigh as the wheel hissed to a halt.

He had them in the palm of his hand, and it was all he could do to stop himself laughing.

He led the procession up the beach and down the main street. There would have to be a new building to house the device, but for the moment they could erect it at the far end of the street. It would be there when they stepped out in the morning, and again as they closed their doors for the night.

‘Why you, Rose?’ some woman was asking. ‘My barley needs grinding too.’

‘Because no one else would take him in except me. It’s only proper that I have first rights. Besides, Rory macShiel’s family.’

‘You have nothing good to say about him, Rose naMoira macArthur.’

‘Perhaps I’ve changed my mind, Shelagh.’

macShiel was fastening the oak nails on top of the frame again, and it was clear that he was listening to the exchange. He looked at Solomon, who nodded silently back.

‘It’s a good work, Solomon Akisi, a good work all round.’

‘It is that. But this is only the beginning for you, my friend. You will soon be working on your boat, and then another aeoleopile. While you are doing that, you must think about what you want next. Is it true that your wife walks to the spring every morning and every evening for water? In my country, only the poor do that.’

‘But we are poor, and blessed for it. There’s fish in the sea, and we have meat and bread. We have clothes on our backs and faith in God above that tomorrow will bring no evil things.’ macShiel hammered in the last nail and waited. So did everyone else.

‘God said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the Earth and subdue it.” It is our duty to Him not to lose a child to sickness, to make our toil less burdensome, to break the spirit of this world into service for the next.’ Solomon didn’t need a platform to stand on. They all had to look up at him, except macShiel, and even he hung on the Kenyan’s every word. ‘When I came here, across the land and the sea, what was my impression? Of a land that was empty, untamed, unloved. Seas of rubble, not one stone on another. We should not go back to the ways of the proud and wicked Users, who brought destruction on their own heads, but neither should we grub around in the mud like base creatures. Are we not loved by God? Does He not send us good things, like wind and rain and sun in its season? Does He not provide meat and milk? Who are we then, to despise what we are given? Are we that ungrateful that we squander what is freely provided? Are we such sinners that we show disrespect to God’s magnificent creation?’

‘No, Solomon, we’re not. But these new things you promise us: we’ve never needed them before. Why should we suddenly need them now?’

‘Are you children, or are you men? Will you not take responsibility for providing for your families? Who here will still have their wife grind their grain by hand? Will you, Rory macShiel, make the daughter of Rose naMoira turn the quern when there is an alternative? Will you force her to fill her jars at the spring when there is a cistern in the centre of town? Will you have a happy wife, or one who narrows her eyes at you and is too tired for contentment?’

macShiel was beaten, and he knew it. It had been a day unlike any other. ‘I just don’t know what Father Padroig’s going to say when he sees this from the top of the hill.’

‘He will thank God for sending me to you. But what is it that you want? Do you want me to leave you?’

‘No, no. Of course not, man. We want you to stay. Don’t we?’

Solomon watched as their faces told the truth of it. They loved him and feared him.

‘Very well. I will stay.’

PART 2

CHAPTER 13

SOLOMON WAS LOOKING out over the bay from his room in the church tower. He liked to be high up, to see everything in a single sweep, to watch the patterns of nature and consider their causes.

The boy Brendan called down from the roof. ‘Master Solomon, I can see Rory macShiel’s boat coming round the point.’

He checked for himself and saw the triangular lateen sail emerge past the black rocks on the headland and tack for the harbour.

‘What did I tell you, boy? An Cobh and back in just one day.’ Solomon climbed the ladder to the belfry, with its single bell, and then out onto the windswept roof. He leaned his elbows on the waist-high parapet to steady his telescope.

Brendan macFinn stopped pulling on the rope that wound through a pulley system and down over the edge. ‘Master Solomon? Can I look?’

Without taking his eye from the eyepiece, Solomon answered: ‘When you have finished your chores. Would you rather carry everything by hand? Have I not saved you work?’

‘If you lived on the ground like other folk, there’d be no need for all this hauling.’

Solomon did look up, slowly and deliberately. ‘Do you tire of your duties so quickly?’

‘No, Master Solomon.’

‘Should I look for another apprentice?’

‘No, Master Solomon.’

He checked that the boy looked sufficiently contrite, then returned to the telescope. macShiel sailed the new design of boat well, using the sail to its best advantage. But even with the optics, Solomon could see little evidence of the trade goods he had asked for. Where was the copper to line the cistern? The iron tools he had wanted?

‘Something is wrong,’ he said, and slid the collapsible tube together. ‘macShiel has a face like a dark sky.’

‘We say like thunder.’ Brendan caught sight of the basket peeking over the parapet, and he swung what the African called the winch round so he could deposit the load on the stone roof.

‘My saying is better.’ Solomon started to climb back down. ‘Carry on, boy.’

He tried to think what might have happened. The weather was good, the winds favourable. They had loaded his boat with cloth and leather of good quality. Those had gone, so he’d made land. Perhaps there was a caravan on its way then. macShiel had been able to buy so much that it would have to be sent on later.

He had all but convinced himself that he was right by the time he left the church tower and started off down the hill. There was much to do, and a caravan of the right riches would make his plans go easier. Progress wouldn’t have to crawl along. While the aeoleopile was already housed and being used by a grateful townspeople, the pipework for the cistern was slow in appearing. It appeared that macShiel was the only real craftsman in the entire population. The others knew skills of one sort or another, but nothing that was of any real use. Even macShiel refused to teach another man, or take on a boy. He was saving his knowledge for his own non-existent sons.

Curse him.

There was another crowd around macShiel as he beached the boat and furled the sail. Solomon was fed up with these spontaneous crowds, as if they had nothing better to do than get the latest gossip. They were why his pipes were so long in the making.

At least they parted for him as he swept up, the hem of his robe picking up wet sand from the beach.

‘Did you get there? An Cobh?’

macShiel threw a rope from the bow and waited for someone to tie it off before he jumped into the shallows.