A Song For Nero

by Tom Holt

  So much for the getting out of the coffin part; the swimming for it bit proved to have been just a trifle ambitious. I froglegged and scooped as hard as I could, but it didn't seem to make any odds, I was still headed straight for that ugly old rock. I'd just about given up hope when I saw it looming up in front of me, then dodging off to the left — in other words, I'd been carried past it.

  That was great, absolutely wonderful, except that I was headed for another, even bigger and uglier rock behind it. Screw this, I thought; but somehow I managed to fend off that second rock with the palms of my hands, so that I glanced off it rather than going into it, splat. Then I had a bright idea, and grabbed for a chunk of stone sticking up out of the side. Caught it, too, and contrived to hang on and drag myself up onto it, both feet out of the water.

  So there I was, crouching on a breaker surrounded by white foam and nasty, bad-tempered waves. It meant I was back on dry land, up to a point; but I couldn't get round the fact that my new dominion, of which I was emperor and sole tenant, was slightly smaller than the seat of my bum, so there didn't seem much point in making myself at home, building a city, dreaming up a model constitution or issuing decrees. Not that I'd have had the chance, because a moment later another wave sloshed up round me and hooked me off my rock like it was picking a bogey out of its nose.

  So ended my reign as king of my own little island, which was so short I think I even managed to beat Otho's record for how quickly an absolute monarch can be slung out on his ear.

  That left me back in the water again; but for some reason I can only guess at (assuming I could be bothered, which I can't) the current behind the rock wasn't nearly as ferocious as it'd been when I was in front of it. I swam like crazy, and found I was actually making headway, cutting across the current. It was still wavehandling me in the general direction of the cliff, but for every yard forward I went, I reckon I must've gone four feet sideways. So I kept going, even though my arms and legs felt like they belonged to someone else, with the result that I missed the cliff and found myself heading for a narrow apron of shingle and pebbles between two vicious-looking rock spurs. By now I'd given up on the swimming, because the current was stronger than ever, but that was fine, the waves were bundling me right at the scrap of shingle, which was the direction I'd have been heading in anyhow I was saying to myself, if only I could wind up on that little beach, all my troubles would be over. I was dead wrong, of course. The sea carried me to the beach all right, but then it started dragging me up it on my stomach. This was awful, because — well, have you ever watched a carpenter finishing a piece of wood by rubbing it down with a bit of sharkskin? I'm here to tell you, it hurts.

  I could feel my clothes ripping away, and I also had an idea that the backwash would haul me back out again, so as to give the pebbles another chance to grind me down. I didn't fancy that; so, when the backwash started pulling at me, I dug my fingers and toes into the shingle and tried to hang on. Result was, for a second or so I turned myself into a human rake, dragging a furrow of gravel and small pebbles down the beach. Then the force acting on me slackened up, and I knew, that was my one and only chance. I scrabbled up the beach on all fours, racing the tide, and contrived to get two or three yards higher up the beach than I'd been when the raking business started, before the backwash began hauling me back again. When that happened, I dug in once again, and repeated the whole business; and again, and again, with the sea's grip on me getting a little bit less each time — and then at some point, I was free and clear. I don't know what changed exactly Either the storm finally ran out of puff, or I simply made enough ground to get free; in any event, I was lying on my face in the shingle, with an ache in the bones of my hands and legs like you can't begin to imagine, but I couldn't feel the sea dragging at me any more. If I'd wanted to, I could've stood up and walked.

  Just then, though, it was simply too much bother, it'd have meant too much effort and pain. Instead, I lobster-crawled about ten yards before flaking out, and if you ask me, that was quite an achievement in itself. Maybe not up there with the Labours of Hercules, and I don't suppose it'd have inspired Lucius Domitius or any of his brother poets to write a twenty-book epic poem, but it was enough to be going on with, for a little rat-faced Greek with no particular reason for fighting so hard to stay alive. And then, you may ask, what did I do with this freedom I'd fought so hard to win; now that I'd torn myself out of Neptune 's grasp and cheated the Ferryman yet again? Well, of all the things to do, lay there with my nose in the gravel, and fell asleep.

  No idea how long I was out for. I just remember coming round, and it was starting to get dark, and what woke me up was the horrible pain in pretty well every part of me, except possibly my hair. I'd have given anything to go back to sleep, but that was no good; it was as if it was my ninth birthday, and all I wanted in the whole world was to go back to being eight again — couldn't be done. So I made an effort and got to my knees, then tried to stand up. No way; my legs weren't having that, my body'd suddenly got much too heavy, and I sort of toppled slowly forwards, like a rickety old building collapsing. I gave it a while before trying again — not too long, just in case the tide made up its mind to come back looking for me. Also, it occurred to me that it'd probably be a good idea, now that I'd made up my mind to stay alive a bit longer, not to be stuck on that little snippet of beach once it was too dark to see. Four goes it took me before I managed to get on my feet and stay there; then I began walking.

  It wasn't a cliff, not like the ones on either side. It was just a bloody steep bill where a cliff had used to be until at some point it had collapsed and fallen into the sea, leaving an untidy mess of huge squarish boulders. The only way to tackle them was piecemeal, one rock at a time, like climbing a whole series of tiny mountains.

  When the light gave out I was still at it, and I had to finish the job in the dark, by feel. Finally, though, I felt grass under my hands instead of rock, and so I made a sort of unilateral declaration of having got up the hill, and passed out again. Next thing I knew was daylight, and warm sun, and some horribly loud birds yelling their stupid heads off at me.

  So there I was, cast up alone and naked on a strange, deserted shore, rather like someone or other famous, only just then I couldn't remember the bugger's name. I say naked; actually, that's a slight exaggeration. My clothes had been well and truly shredded, to the point where you couldn't really call them clothes any more, but I did still have my belt. I wouldn't bother you with this minor detail, except that — maybe I should have mentioned this before —when we were back in the cave under the temple in Africa, shifting the treasure, my trusty old leather belt, which had done me sterling service for a dozen years or more, been my faithful companion in all my adventures (condemned cells, guardhouses, hiding in empty oil jars, the lot) had finally given up the ghost and disintegrated. Well, a bloke needs something to keep his shirt from flapping about in the breeze, and it just so happened that in the treasure heap there was this rather fancy, actually pretty vulgar and tacky, solid gold belt, made up of linked plates as thick as your pinky finger with jewels and stuff set in it. Well, beggars can't be choosers, and I really did need a belt, so I wrapped some old sacking round it so it wouldn't chafe and put it on (pretty good fit, actually) and I guess it must've slipped my mind after that, because instead of leaving it in the cave on the captain's secret island along with all the rest of the loot, I just sort of kept on wearing it. Please don't get the idea that there was anything dishonest about it, like I'd intended to steal that belt from my new friends — I ask you, would I do a thing like that? No, it was an honest oversight. Really Anyway, after all that, the only thing I had left to me was that stupid belt, that stupid solid-gold-and-gemstones belt, which was probably only worth the price of a medium-sized farm, or at most a very small country estate. Still, a man with nothing but a splinter in his bum is better off than a man with nothing at all, as my old mother used to say So I wrapped the few last tatters of my clothes round the belt (to stop it c
hafing), chose a direction at random, and started to walk.

  It was only then that it occurred to me to wonder where the bloody hell I was.

  I'm no great shakes at geography, believe me, but even so, I felt sure that if there was a country, or even a fair-sized island, parked in the sea between Africa and Sicily, someone would probably have mentioned it at some stage, and I've had got to hear about it. But apparently not. The further I went, the more obvious it became that this wasn't just some pimple of rock, like the captain's secret island. This was a proper island, with mountains and valleys and forests, as big as Aegina , say, or Salamis , or Elba . But there didn't seem to be any people on it; no fields or vineyards or terraces or boundary stones, no houses, no smoke to be seen rising from chimneys, no light flashing off the bronze cladding of a temple roof.

  Bloody marvellous, I thought. Old-timers back home used to say that a man could feed himself perfectly well in Attica off nuts and berries and wild onions and easily trapped animals, such as stoats and rats and the like, but that was as far as they went; they didn't actually explain how Besides, I've never been any good at roughing it. I'll eat stale bread and the grease stuck to the side of the soup pot, but that's about as far as I'll go. Dump me down in the wilderness, with no baker's shops or sausagemonger's booths, and I'm fucked. I got myself thoroughly miserable thinking like this, and after a bit I couldn't really see any point in going on. Might as well sit down under this nice shady tree, I said to myself, and wait for the inevitable end.

  So I did; and maybe I closed my eyes for a couple of heartbeats, because next thing I knew, there was this bloke standing over me, looking down at me with a daft grin on his face.

  He was a sight, no doubt about it. Tall bugger, he was, thin and stringy like a vine that's outgrown its strength; you could see the bones and veins in his arms and legs as clear as anything. He could've been anything between fifty and a hundred years old; his hair had all fallen out, apart from a little sprinkle of white stubble on his chin, and his skin was the colour of new dark honey His teeth had gone the way of his hair, and he had only the one eye; at least, his left eye was more or less normal, but the right one was half-closed and there was just a bit of the white showing, as though that side of his face was staring straight up at the sun. He was wearing a newish shirt, bright purple, the colour that only Roman senators are supposed to be allowed to wear, and a pair of smart pigskin sandals.

  I looked at him, and he looked at me. Really weird way of looking, he had, like I was some strange object that'd just fallen out of the sky, curious and unusual but perfectly safe and unlikely to be worth anything. For some reason I was so shaken up that it took me a long time to pull myself together — which was bad, because this old scarecrow was the first indication I'd seen since I fell in the sea that I might actually get out of this whole horrible adventure alive.

  Eventually, though, I got a grip on myself and squeezed out a smile. 'Good morning,' I said.

  He frowned, like he was thinking it over. 'Reckon so,' he said, in Greek. 'Beans want rain.'

  I didn't want to talk about beans. 'Excuse me,' I said, 'but can you tell me where this is?'

  'What?'

  'I said,' I repeated, 'can you possibly tell me where this is?'

  'You'll have to speak up,' he said. 'I'm a bit deaf.'

  Exactly what I needed, I said to myself. 'Can you tell me,' I roared, 'where this is?'

  He looked puzzled, like he didn't understand the question. 'This here is Long Meadow,' he said. 'Five Firs Copse is away down over...' He waggled his left hand in a vague circle. 'And down there in the dip is Blackwater.'

  'Thank you,' I said, 'but what I actually meant was, what country is this?'

  He looked at me. 'You're foreign,' he said. 'From the shipwreck.'

  I nodded. 'That's right.'

  'Reckoned so. Watched you last night, coming up the beach over to Needles Cove.

  Reckoned you were going to be drowned, for sure.

  I didn't know whether to thank him for the compliment or apologise. 'Have you seen anybody else from the shipwreck?' I said. He lifted his head.

  'Reckon not,' he replied. 'Just you, and a whole parcel of driftwood and stuff, washed up on North Point. Where you from, then?'

  ' Athens ,' I replied. Fortunately, he seemed to have heard of Athens . 'Is there a town near here, or a village, somewhere I could get some clothes and something to eat?'

  'Pretty bad storm,' he went on. 'It's a wonder you wasn't drowned, or all busted up on the rocks. Terrible bad, they can be, sometimes.'

  'Don't I know it,' I said. 'I was wondering, is this Africa ? Only I don't really see how it could be anywhere else, there aren't any big islands between Carthage and Sicily '

  'Two or three times a year we get a wreck on the Needles,' the man went on, 'and pretty nigh every time they're all drowned, or cut up on the reef. Less you know the way through, you don't have much of a chance in these waters.'

  On balance, I said to myself, I think I'd rather starve. 'Well, aren't I the lucky one, then,' I said. 'Here, is there some reason why I shouldn't know where this is? Like, is this a secret military base, or a pirate hideaway or something?' I was kidding, of course. It was only when I said the bit about the pirates that I realised I'd said a stupid thing. But the old man just kept looking at me. 'Really,' I said, losing my grip just a little, 'all I want is something to eat and somewhere I can get some clothes, I don't want to be any bother to anyone, and if you don't want to tell me where this is, then that's just fine. Only I've just spent a day in a floating coffin, all my clothes have gone, and my best friend, and unless somebody helps me, I might just as well die. You do understand what I'm saying, don't you?'

  The old man looked at me for a long time, didn't say a word; and while he was doing that, I was just starting to wonder where on earth an old goat-chivvier would have come by a luxury-grade purple tunic. Then he leaned forward, put his hand on my shoulder and said, 'You'd better come on up to the big house.'

  'Fine,' I said. 'Thank you.

  Well, my excuse is that I was tired out and hadn't had anything to eat for a while, stuff like that. Truth is, I don't suppose I'd have been able to keep up with the old bugger even if I'd spent a month at a training camp for the Olympic games. He charged ahead, didn't matter whether we were going uphill or down, and all I could do was trot behind him like a little dog. We went up one mountain, then down it and up another, round a third, sideways across the face of a fourth, till I'd lost my bearings altogether. My knees and calves were aching like the muscles were about to bust out of the skin, and I was breathing like I'd been diving for pearls. Sad thing is, when I was a kid back on the farm, walking all day backwards and forwards to the fields or up the mountain after the stock, I could have gone on like that and never felt it. Still, that's the penalty you pay for leaving home to go gadding about.

  When we reached the top of the fifth mountain, at last I saw where we were headed. Could easily have missed it, even so: just one building, snuggled away in a deep combe between two mountain ridges, next to a sparse little trickle of water. It looked tiny from right up there, but as we went down into the valley, I realised it was quite a big place, long and narrow, no courtyard or anything, more like a huge shed than a house, with a thatched roof like a barn. I didn't see any people, or animals, or growing crops or vines, and I was wondering if the old fool lived here on his own, just him in that enormous shed. It was only when we were right up close that people started to come out of the house, a whole mob of them, two or three dozen, standing there watching us like we were a comet or something.

  Talk about the old boy and his purple tunic, they were all dressed like princes or senators, in fine wool and linen, purple and military scarlet and God knows what else. There was one bloke I took to be the leader, he was stood out slightly in front, as if he was waiting to receive us with a prayer and a speech. He looked like he was in charge; you can tell, once you've got your eye in. He was a big man, thick-set, a b
it on the chubby side, with hair the colour of tarnished bronze just before it starts going green. He didn't look Greek, or Italian, certainly not like an African or an Arab; in fact, none of them looked like anything I'd ever seen before, though you had to look twice to realise the difference. I can't quite place what it was, something about the nose and the cheekbones.

  'I found this one,' the old boy sang out. 'Off of the shipwreck.'

  The big man didn't seem surprised. 'Just the one?' he said. The old boy nodded, and quite suddenly, I felt— There was this neighbour of ours back home, and one day he was up on the mountain carting a load of big old boulders to shore up his terraces. Something went wrong; either a busted spoke, or his axle pin dropped out. Anyhow he hopped down from the box and knelt beside the wheel, having a look to see what the trouble was. Rotten bad luck on him, the wheel or the axle gave way while he was knelt there, and you can guess what happened. The whole load of stone slid off the bed of the cart, squashed his legs like you'd crush a fly He must've passed out from the shock, because the next thing he knew was waking up in bed back home, with a circle of anxious faces round him. His first thought is, the cart, were you able to fix it, can you arrange for the wheelwright and the smith to get it sorted out, because we're going to need it next month for the vintage. But nobody says anything, they're just looking at him with these really tragic expressions, and that was when he realised he couldn't feel his legs. So he asks what the matter is, and they explain, the only way they were able to get him out without killing him or shifting the stone so it rolled him over the edge down into the valley was to cut his legs off just above the knee; in fact, if a neighbour and his son hadn't been passing with a big crosscut saw to fell a new mast for their fishing boat, he'd probably have been dead before anything could be done. Well, the bloke just lay there, completely wiped out, like the facts were a huge dumpling he'd tried to swallow that'd got jammed in his throat.