Enchanter’s Bag

By then I’d realised that the Enchanter’s introduction in French had been in fun, and that I was perfectly able to understand her.

Enchanter presented me with pouch. It was a gorgeous thing, made of felted wool and golden mesh, with iridescent blue and gold beads in the shape of leaves on the front. The clasp was intricate, with a pattern of fine worked metal and tiny stones atop mother of pearl.

“Go on then, open it”, she said.

I unfastened the clasp, reached into the pouch, and, one by one, extracted a number of intriguing objects: a packet of dream seeds, spectacles, a candlestick, a tiny anchor, a medallion with the imprint of the Unicorn, a handful of gold coins, and a set of wings. The last item I drew from the bag was a bead strung on a leather thong. The bead was as long as my thumb and a little thicker. It had been turned from deep blue polished stone with fine, light veins. I was fairly sure it was lapis lazuli. The surface of the bead showed detailed carvings of figures and signs in bas-relief. It was clearly old.

Enchanter gasped.

“You have an intaglio!”

I looked at her. I’d not heard the term before. She must have sensed my question.

“It’s not a bead”, she said. “It’s a seal. If you roll it on clay, the pattern and message will be revealed.”

I considered the information for a few seconds, then I had an idea.

“Come on! Let’s go down to the water.”

I carefully replaced all the objects except the stone in the pouch. Then we descended a stone stairway onto a narrow strip of sand.

“We need to find a rock pool”, I said.

We soon found a shallow pool. I knelt down and scooped handfuls of fine yellow sand onto the stone, then added water and mixed a paste. Enchanter grinned. She had grasped my idea. She groped in the sand and moments later held aloft a razor shell, which we used to smooth the surface of the mixture and form it into a rectangle. Slowly, I rolled the seal across the sand, and an image took shape, raised this time. It showed a man and a woman engaged in conversation. They were dressed in what looked like ritual regalia with elaborate headdresses. Each of the figures held half of a disc upon which something appeared to be inscribed. The woman held a simple, straight staff, with ribbons tied near the top, the man, a staff with a curved top, like a shepherd’s hook. Behind the man, and to his right, a great bird spread its wings. Both the bird’s head and the woman’s hand pointed in the direction of a mountain range in the background. On closer inspection, the borders at the top and bottom were not merely decorative, they contained lines and symbols, but the sand was too coarse to show that degree of detail.

I swept the sand back onto the beach.

Enchanter looked thoughtful. “It doesn’t look Roman or Greek”, she said, “and not Egyptian, either. If you ask me, it’s much older than that. Intaglio have been around for thousands of years, so it might be from somewhere in the Near East. They were used as seals.”

I opened my pouch and placed the seal inside.

“And now?”, I asked.

We rose from the sand and made our way back up the steps.

“You’ll need the items from the pouch on your journey”, Enchanter said. “Take care not to misplace the bag or let anyone take it from you. Keep it with you at all times.”

The excitement ebbed from me, and I realised I was tired and hungry. “Where can I find something to eat and a place to rest”, I asked Enchanter. “And, what happens next?”

“Oh, you’ll find delicious food at the market”, Enchanter replied,” or in the taverns. You name it, you’ll find it here, I promise, and more besides! And as for rest, if you’re planning to stay here a while, you’ll find good rooms in the streets around the market square.”

That sounded good.

“Aside from having some fun, there are two things next on your list”, Enchanter continued, “one is to present us with a turn as part of the pageant on the floating stage, and the other, to find out if your boat has arrived at the quay.”

The thought of a pageant intrigued me.

“What kind of “piece” should I offer?”

“Something that tells us about your work and who you are, at this moment in time, and how you feel as you head out on your journey.”

That sounded challenging, but I was never one to shirk. I decided to eat first and act later, in all senses of the word.

“Fine. Let me rest a little, and I’ll meet you at the stage this evening.”

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