The Euthanasia Protocol by Grahame C. W. Howard

Author:Grahame C. W. Howard
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
Published: 2014-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

The council of elders, or synod as some called it, ruled that the boy should be allowed to stay and he rapidly settled in to his new life at Inverneuage. An exiled lecturer in astronomy taught him navigation and how the tides were created, while with the help of some local tradesmen he renovated the fishing smack and mastered how to sail it. He learned at what state of the tide he could sail his boat in and out of the harbour, while on his trips he charted the position of sandbanks and other hazards that he had to contend with when sailing. The estuary was broad and with a spring-tide range of over twenty feet the currents could be fast and treacherous. Thus twice a day the sea swept in, transforming the muddy, landlocked harbour into a calm sanctuary in continuity with the sea some ten miles away. The boy calculated how long he could stay out before having to wait for another tide to be able to sail back in and, with the help of his friends, even drew up some basic tide tables. Initially he was often caught out, finding himself high and dry in the middle of the estuary miles away from home. But his boat simply sat on the exposed mud and he whiled away the hours reading until the sea flooded in once more and he could continue his journey.

As the boy grew in experience and confidence he fished further away and his catches became larger. As soon as his smack with its heavy red sails was spotted approaching, willing helpers from the village would descend on the harbour with their barrows in order to transport his catch up the hill to the town. There, some would be distributed immediately, the rest being sold from a stall on market day. He made no money directly but in return for his fish he would obtain items that he needed from the other shops and stalls: food and clothes, or trinkets and ornaments as well as his beloved books. He lived alone in the fisherman’s cottage from where he could follow the tides and watch the weather rolling in from the east; it reminded him of his house at the foot of the loch. The vagaries of the tides and his fishing trips meant that his attendance at classes – which were held, as was everything else, in the City Hall – was sporadic. That, however, was not in any way detrimental to his education, since within this strange and eclectic community were many academics whom had been expelled from their posts during the secularist revolution. They came mainly from Dalriada and England but amongst them were others with strange guttural accents who hailed from across the sea. Their expulsion had not merely been about religious reform but due to the total annihilation of free and independent thought: a sort of ‘Dalriadan Darkenment,’ as one of his teachers had labelled it. The extraordinary thing was that, through these people, knowledge was welded into the very framework of this strange community.

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