The Islanders

Mesterline DRIFTING WATER

MESTERLINE was the birthplace of the poet and playwright KAL KAPES, who is widely regarded as one of the island’s most cherished sons. Although he frequently made long tours through the Archipelago, speaking and giving readings of his work, Kapes returned to Mesterline whenever he could. He met his wife, SEBENN HELALDI, also a poet, during one of his visits. They maintained a permanent residence on the island, in the heart of Mester Town.

The nature of Mesterline is that of providing a refuge, an instinct that permeates most of the people who live on the island. The native Mesters are open-minded, tolerant and incurious. They instinctively feel protective towards others, especially those who come to believe themselves cast out by the unreasonable expectations of others, or by pressure from authorities, or by laws they feel unreasonably restrict their behaviour. Although Mester people are themselves law-abiding they are tolerant of those with individual, unfashionable or unpopular ideas.

Ever since hostilities have been fought across Sudmaieure, Mesterline, although relatively distant from the landmass, has become a natural recourse for deserters because of the liberal attitudes on the island. The young men and women, frequently frightened, disillusioned or in some way damaged, drift towards Mesterline all year round. In many cases they arrive only after long and complex journeys, and often with the help of the island underclass.

When shelterate regulations were introduced throughout the Archipelago, a handful of islands immediately opted out. Mesterline was one of the first, although not, of course, the only one. By the time Kapes was born, the tradition of sheltering young deserters was well established, but while he was still a young man there was a sudden surge of deserters arriving on the island, and for a while a few of the islanders wanted a change. Kapes became actively involved in the controversy, maintaining that Mesterline’s great tradition of tolerant welcome should never be allowed to die.

Today, deserters may safely live on Mesterline, never at risk of being turned in by the islanders, nor subjected to pressures to move on to somewhere else. The price the Mesters pay for this lenient attitude has been the frequent searches of the island by the black-cap escouades. The Mesters remain forbearing even of this intrusion, mainly because there is nothing they can do. They have none the less devised innumerable secure hiding places for those deserters who need to use them. From time to time the black-caps inevitably discover one of these refuges, and although a few of the deserters might be grabbed and taken away, because of the existence of the Covenant the islanders themselves are immune from reprisals. Invariably, new bolt-holes are prepared every time an existing one is exposed.

Mesterline is an island with low hills, broad valleys, wide meandering rivers and long beaches of deep-yellow sand. The Mesters have a love of viewpoints, so along the stretches of coastline where there are tall cliffs, the people have built many houses against the sheer faces, with innumerable ingenious means for gaining access to them.

Mesterline is a rainy island with daily showers. It lies in the path of the warm westerly wind known throughout the sub-tropical latitudes as the SHUSL, and towards the end of most afternoons a brisk rain storm sweeps in, drenching the countryside and towns. The steep streets in the coastal villages have permanent runnels dug along each side, to drain away the water. The Mesters relish these intense showers. They will often interrupt business or family meetings to go outside to stand in the streets or public squares, turning up their faces and raising their arms, allowing the rain to course through their long hair and drench their lightweight clothes. Everyone is happier after the day’s shower. It is as if the Shusl brings the signal for the day’s routines to an end, because afterwards the bar-keepers and restaurateurs put out the tables and the musicians arrive, ready for the easygoing socializing through the long warm evenings.

The secret of Mesterline is an open one: there is something in the water, some unique combination of minerals, some consequence of the natural filtration beds.

Any new arrival on the island falls under the spell of the beneficent feeling within four or five days, and within a month sees no earthly reason to move to another island.

Kal Kapes, one of the few Mesters who regularly travels abroad, has often invoked the experience as a kind of metaphor for growth: what happens when you sail away, the grinding sense of loss, or fear of imminent death, that steadily increases until one day it vanishes and no longer hurts you, and what happens when you arrive, and succumb happily to the Mester experience, a change for the better, a shifting of earthly priorities, emergence into a higher state of being and understanding.

The two main Mesterline rivers arise from the drainage of precipitation, but both are fed by natural springs close to source. Water taken from either of the rivers has no great impact on the disposition of anyone drinking it, although after filtration and the usual treatment it has a faint but pleasant flavour and can act as a mild pick-me-up. The river water is mainly directed to industrial or irrigation uses, or as inexpensive mains supply to people’s homes.

To feel the full Mesterline effect one needs to partake of the spring water, tapped from only three natural sources inland.

For centuries the water has been bottled at source, two senior families running the business on a not-for-profit basis, themselves as much a product of the Mester outlook as the people they were supplying. One of the springs, indeed, could be freely tapped by anyone prepared to clamber up through the foothills with a suitable container. Mester water can always be drunk in its natural state, a mild aeration giving it a delicious and refreshing sensation on the palate.

Such was the essence of Mester life, but there is always some outside influence ready to try to ruin everything. On most islands it is the weather that comes along, changing the season, bringing a sharp or cooler wind, or in places a tropical storm or hurricane. In other parts of the Archipelago it can be the unwelcome intrusion from one or other of the combatant powers. Mesterline’s interruption was unique to itself. Some hundred years ago the Seignior of the day for some reason felt dissatisfied with the level of tithes he was receiving, and the open secret was turned into a business proposition.

An inter-island water supply company, apparently under contract to the Seigniories of several of the desertified islands to the south, opened negotiations to tap the Mester wells and purchase the water on an industrial scale. It involved the building of a large, mechanized bottling plant, new roads, several storage tanks, and the laying of a subsea pipeline away to the south.

The Mesters, dopily unaware of the consequences of what was happening, sat blithely in their cliffside houses, and sprawled on their beaches, sat serenely in their bars and along the sidewalks, watching the trucks trundling to and fro, and the construction workers spending money in the shops and bars, and the ships coming and going with building and construction materials. The local water became cheaper and more easy to obtain, and the Mesters cheerfully drank even more of it than usual.

Then one day the water was no more. The bottling plant moved into full production and the pumps were daily pouring unimaginable quantities of the precious liquid into a long pipeline that led no one knew where.

The trucks that once had taken construction workers to the mountains now came down from the heights, heavily loaded with crate after crate of attractively bottled water, bearing labels in foreign languages. The trucks went down to the port, where water-company ships bore the crates away. In the quayside bars and restaurants, in the local shops, in the homes and most of all in the bodies and minds of the Mesters, the water was no more.

Slowly the Mesters came to realize what they had lost. In parallel with that, and consequent upon it, the soothing, relaxing, cheering effect of the water wore off.

It coincided with one of the return visits of Kal and Sebenn Kapes. He, not feeling the familiar growth in him, the happy emergence into the higher state, was quickly apprised of the change that had taken place. Poets are not legislators, nor are they warriors or agitators, but they can be good with words. Kapes made a speech one day in the centre of Mester Town, a passionate speech well equipped with excellent turns of phrase, and what followed was unprecedented, unexpected, inevitable and noisy.

The ruins of the bottling plant are open today as a visitor attraction and access is free all year round. The summer palace to which the Seignior of the day retired can also be visited, on the small adjacent island of Topecik, but a boat ride is of course necessary. Parents with small children are reminded that parts of Mesterline are now historical or heritage sites where large explosions occurred in the past, and care should therefore be exercised. Although the direct action took place nearly a century ago there are still in theory legal proceedings being taken against the estate of Kal Kapes and certain members of the Seigniory families.

The remains of the undersea pipeline are normally closed to the public, but access to the remains of the pumping station is possible, and there is also a heritage section of the pipeline. It is possible to explore this if permission is obtained in advance.

Samples of Mester water may be taken freely from the source, and more supplies may be ordered from any of the shops in town. Visitors are reminded, though, that there is a strict upper limit on the quantity of water that may be taken from the island, and that what is permissible should be only for personal use.

Currency: Archipelagian simoleon; Muriseayan thaler.