Back to the Intro Page
Check Out my Story Competition
The small wooden ship drifted closer to the shoreline, which was growing larger and larger every minute. Cadeyrn waited for a moment as he made sure that he recognised the man sitting at the front of the boat. Seeing the bushy grey beard, Cadeyrn smiled and signalled to the men of his tribe to bring down the numerous animal-hide containers that were filled with the tin deposits that they had collected from the local rivers.
Cadeyrn had been a young man when he first found the tin glittering upon the riverbed outside his small wooden hut. He was now an old man with wrinkled skin and many grandchildren; all of them enjoying the new power that tin had brought. When he first started trading to the continent several nearby families joined him to collect the tin, now though he was the chief of an entire trading tribe.
“Cadeyrn, good to see you again,” boomed the voice of Adon in his heavy accent. “How has the Dumnonii been treating you?”
“Just fine, Adon,” Cadeyrn smiled as several men already stepped forward to relieve his men of their containers. “How’s Gadir?”
“Growing, growing,” Adon said. “I reckon it could really be something, just like one of those fancy Greek towns in the east.”
A silence fell across the beach, which was broken only by the wind skipping across the sand and rattling the ship’s single sail. After the boat was filled with the tin, Adon pulled out a bag and handed it swiftly into Cadeyrn’s hand.
Peering inside the bag, the Briton found himself starring at finely made pottery, crafted weaponry and small shining minerals. Nodding happily at his haul for the spring, Cadeyrn closed the bag and said his goodbyes to his trading partner.
“Same time next year then, Cadeyrn?” Adon asked, shaking his hand.
“I don’t know,” Cadeyrn wheezed. “I’m noticing that the tin is thinning out on the riverbed. I’m not sure how much more of it we can gather up to trade with you.”
“Have you tried mining it?” Adon said, his sandals slipping deeper into the sand. “I’ve heard that it’s been pretty successful for some of my other trading contacts.”
“Mining?”
“Yeah, it’s where you dig into the ground,” Adon explained. “There’s far more minerals under the ground than in the riverbeds, even in Dumnonia I bet! I tell you what; send a man to the settlement just west of you. I’ve been trading with them for a while now and apparently they’ve moved on from the riverbed several years ago. I’m sure they can offer you some advice.”
“I’ll have to look into it,” Cadeyrn said with a smile. If he was right and there was even more tin under the ground than in the rivers then he and his tribe could become even richer. He could trade with other people beside Adon. “Well, have a safe trip south.”
Here is Richard reading the story to you.
Forward to the Next Time Period Story
