Mason Beckett ‘27
Chapter 1
It all began in the winter. The fateful time when harsh zephyrs blew strong and thick white snow clung to the frozen ground. A small boy trudged through snow-laden fields once tangled with green vines and flowing grapes. His golden curls grew near to his shoulders and his cheeks burned pink from the icy gale.
A near thicket of snowy byrons surrounded the old frozen creek, and long crystal icicles dangled from the tree’s bare branches. The icicles wavered in the flurries of snow, and many dropped heavily into the powder below. The boy saw his breath emerge from his tightened chest and float in the air until it disappeared into the cloudy gray skies. His shaggy fur coat swallowed his skinny body, but was the only gift from the master of the house.
“Where are we going?” The shivering boy asked. An old man walked with a slight limp behind him. His waist was flabby and soft from pies bursting with tender meat and brimming goblets of sweet red wines.
“To the creek, my boy.”
“Why?”
“Enough questions. Let us walk.”
The boy obeyed and kept quiet as he stepped over a mounded den. It was the warm hiding place of the long-tailed fox in the hard stormy months. His shoulders brushed against low-hanging branches, and snow trickled into the pores of his coat, chilling his body.
At last, the pair arrived at the unmoving creek. The darkened outlines of scaly plakel and trout were dotted beneath the slick ice bed.
The man stood under an elderly oak and sternly said, “Lucius Gaius Seneca, son of Remus, you must atone for your late father’s mistakes. Take off the furs and step out onto the ice. You are to be purified by a trial of water.”
Lucius gazed nervously into the man’s eyes, as a frightened piglet would. The hardening snow crunched under the man’s leather boots as he trudged towards the boy. Lucius’ quick feet began to run home towards the fields, but the man’s calloused grasp caught the boy’s shoulder and tossed him out onto the thin ice.
The frozen surface splintered and the icy waters of the Northern glaciers sloshed to shore. Lucius sunk into the shallows as cloudy dark mud swirled around him. Panic surged through his freezing body. He searched blindly for a foothold but found nothing. Numbness poured into his inflamed arms and legs. His burning lungs screamed as he writhed violently in search of breath. The current of the melt dragged Lucius against broken granite stones, scraping gashes in his soft face. Lucius’s eyes drifted shut as the tentacles of death slithered from the world of Psyche to claim the young soul.
A figure dove into the waters and laid the dying boy upon the far side of the snowy shore.
Chapter 2
The ancient oaks cast dark shadows to conceal beasts of Amphion. Their colorful branches dropped bright leaves of yellow and orange onto the wet grasses, trodden by quick-footed nymphs and equally quick huntsmen. The smooth grainy shaft shifted in Lucius’s trembling hands. Trickles of sunlight glinted off the sharp metal point. Many eager youths and daring men had been lost to the forest and the lurkers. Loose strands of dripping lichen swirled in the Northern winds. Lucius nervously peeked over his shoulder. Distant laughter echoed throughout the trees. A chilling creek poured down the mountainside into a lily-filled pond. Why did I agree to this? Lucius thought.
A sudden rustle came from a crumbleberry bramble. His heart rapidly pounding and adrenaline flowing, he raised the spear up in the air and hurled it past the sweet berries. A squealof agony burst from the bramble and was followed by a large ugly boar. The matted hairs on its back bristled angrily. Its pearly tusks shone in the light. The spear had stuck itself into the boar’s flank. A trail of oozing blood followed.
Lucius knew the blow he dealt was not fatal. The boar snorted, its wet snout glistening with snot, and wildly charged. Black hooves flying, and blood staining the fresh leaves, Lucius fumbled with the leather sheath, his fingers greasy with sweat, and drew out a short-bladed dagger.
The warring beast did not hesitate for an instant. It sensed the fear in the boy’s damp breath. Shaking, Lucius stood firm. His calloused feet were unmoving in the dark moist soil. The boar yowled as its head drove into the frightened youth, knocking him violently to the ground. It reared back, and plunged a tusk into Lucius’s now bleeding side.
He moaned in fierce agony. Pain stabbed through his body. Lucius inhaled heavily and whispered desperately, “Don’t leave me here to die. I want to live among the trees and sun, with air in my lungs and soul in my body. I vow on everything dear to me, I will commemorate you in this life and the next if you hear me!”
The boar’s once gleaming tusks were soaked dark. He listened to its deep shallow breaths, remembering the story of the great hero, Xanthos, slayer of Ariston, the silver-skin serpent; he had finished the snake with a blinding ember stake. Lucius winced painfully as he reached behind him and wriggled his fingers in search of the distant dagger. He felt the graze of metal against his hand and clasped the rough hilt.
Biting down on his lip, Lucius used the last of his strength and struck at the beast. Death soured the air. A sudden thud shook the stained crimson earth, and Lucius looked up from his wound.
Lying in the soft mud was the boar, its eyes glazed on him. A wide cut had slashed its neck, and an arrow had buried itself into the beast’s broadness.
A cool breeze glided across the forest floor, and the last breath of warm life wandered off to be lost forever.
The End
Lucius shifted in the uncomfortable leather saddle. Bucephalus turned his smooth black head and short ink mane to eye his master, but Lucius angrily dug his heels into the horse’s flank, prodding him onward.
Bucephalus trotted quickly on the narrow-paved street, his metal shoes clinking against the smooth charcoal-smeared stones. A passing man—decorated in the clothes customary to a successful merchant, a rich cloth tunic and flowing indigo cape—stepped aside onto the sidewalk and kneeled to his new king. Lucius disregarded the merchant’s respect and goaded Bucephalus again to move past the kneeling onlookers.
An aging woman with thin red hair and smoky gray eyes ran behind Lucius, and spoke loudly amid the silence: “We grieve with you, sire!”
The red, chafed eyes of Lucius filled with bitterness. He softly responded, “You know nothing of my grief, woman.”
He and Bucephalus turned left onto Hali’s wide processional avenue. The rough ashen bark of the olive trees lining the clustered road warmed in the midday sunlight. A deep voice shouted at a elderly man, heavy chain shackles binding his thin wrists and burning ankles, as he stumbled on an iron grate and roughly fell to the ground. The steady line of bruised, chained men following him stopped in their tracks and shifted their eyes to the stone-laid street as the deep voice turned into the painful crack of leather against the man’s bare, scarred back.
Eager farmers from the outskirts of the city pushed carts plentiful with baskets of plump olives and fresh unearthed kaklo hearts past smirking children tucking handfuls of sweet lavender grapes into secret folds of their tunics. An assembly of women sat upright on a prolonged wooden plank and used their nimble fingers to weave dyed threads through traditional U-shaped looms. Stacks of colorful tunics and stolas had been placed next to a shaded alleyway; bright draped sails shielded the balding heads and graying cropped beards of a few aged men who laughed and passed around a long clay pipe, incense smoke curling above.