by K. T. Tomb
They found a path up the cliffs, but there was no way Aineias could go up it. It was steep and winding and the slope was covered in gravel. They wondered for a moment whether they could make a sledge of some sort to carry him on but neither had the strength to do it. Instead they dragged him to a small crevice in the rock where they could rest.
***
Anwen was taking her basket to the shore to check her fish traps when she saw the beach littered with debris and the bodies of dead men. Frightened, she ran back up the path shouting and soon the beach was filled with the men and women of her village. They pulled the bodies up from the edge of the water and while some picked through the debris for rope and other useful things, the rest gathered the wood in a pile on the beach. They took the money, charms and knives from the dead men’s bodies then laid them on top of the wood pile.
From the crevasse in the rock, Pyrrhus and Diazus watched the activity, not sure whether to stay quiet or approach the people on the beach. As they sat wondering, the choice was suddenly taken from them. It was Anwen who found them huddled together there, jealously guarding the sleeping form of Aineias. Men with spears came swiftly at the sound of her voice and holding their weapons leveled at them. Then they noticed the salt on their bodies and faces, and the splint on Aineias’ leg, and they raised their spears. The warriors spoke to them, possibly asking questions, but none could understand the other.
Eventually Pyrrhus held up a hand, asking them for silence. He made a questioning expression with his face and raised his hands before pointing down. He repeated the gestures over and over again, asking “Where?” in Greek.
It took a while, but finally one of the men understood his question and answered him.
“Kernow,” he said, gesturing to the beach and the cliffs.
He repeated the name and then went silent, not knowing whether that was enough for the poor souls to know where they were. He scanned their faces for a sign of comprehension but saw only their blank stares. He thought for a moment then made a much wider gesture and responded to their question again.
“Prydain,” he said.
Pyrrhus coughed and looked at him. He did not know the name Prydain, but it sounded a lot like another name he had heard many times since he had left Corinth with his friend.
“Priteni?” he asked, uncertainly.
The man nodded.
“Do, Prydain!” he said, smiling.
Pyrrhus could not help himself then and he burst out in laughter, slapping his hands on his knees.
“Aineias, wake up,” he cried, shaking the sleeping man vigorously. “Did you hear that? We’re on Priteni!”
Aineias smiled at his friend weakly and said, “Well, I guess we’ve found it then!”
***
A strong man with long dark hair and spiraling tattoos over his body and face carried Aineias’ unconscious body up the steep path. He must have been up and down that hillside for all his years because he had the footing of a mountain goat and never missed a step. Pyrrhus and Daizus, on the other hand, had to be helped up the slope by the other men and women.
In the village, they were brought into one of the big houses and given places around the fire. An old woman in the house angrily questioned the other villagers why the strangers had been brought to her house. When she heard their explanation, she grabbed a few bowls and began ladling stew into them from a big iron cauldron that hung over the fire. She gave them each a bowl and a stale oatcake then set about tidying her house, constantly shooting angry looks at her tribesmen.
As they hungrily ate the food, a man with a long beard and a clean-shaven head came in to look at Aineias’ leg. He took the splint off and ran his fingers along the bone. He seemed pleased with what had already been done and nodded to Daizus, whom he had been told had set the leg. He inspected the boards that had made the splint and nodded again. Then he reapplied the splint, while Aineias grimaced constantly in pain. Before he left, he took a small pouch from his belt and gave it to their hostess, with some instructions.
As soon as they had eaten another meal of stew and oatcake, forced on them by the old hostess, she took a pinch of whatever was in the pouch and put it in a cup of hot water. She marched over to Aineias and handed him the cup. She nodded and mimed drinking. He sniffed the drink and crinkled his nose. The woman mimed drink again, a little more deliberately, angrily commenting in her own language. Aineias drank it and coughed. The liquid tasted bitter. He wondered what the potion was, but almost immediately he had his answer as his eyelids began to droop and he swiftly drifted away to sleep.
The day after they had washed up on the beach, the Kernowek finished laying the bodies of their fellow crewmen on the pyre they had built from the driftwood. The night it was lit, they all got drunk. The drink of the Kernowek was made from grain and the two Greeks had found it heavy and unpleasant at first, but Daizus enjoyed it immensely; it was rather similar to what they drank in his homeland.
They sat on the beach and celebrated the lives of their shipmates retelling the stories they had shared with them during the journey amongst others and in the flames of that pyre all that was left of their quest and of those days of horror seemed to drift away like the rising smoke.
The only thing that had not gone on the pyre was Jason’s lyre, Pyrrhus had kept it. In the evenings, he would pluck at the strings trying to figure out the melodies that Jason had often played for them. Over time, he got better and he would play them all, singing the words as he remembered them. Somehow, the song would always end with Pyrrhus in tears and Anwen wrapping her slender arms around his neck and rocking him until the pain of his memories had passed.
Two months later, Aineias walked unsteadily along the cliff tops with Pyrrhus. His leg had healed well and though he had developed a limp, he was grateful to be up and about again. They walked in silence, until they reached the beach where they had landed and stood looking down at the dark mark that the funeral pyre had left on the beach.
“I need to go back to Corinth,” Aineias said, breaking the silence.
Pyrrhus nodded, but said nothing. He was thinking. He thought a lot these days.
“I’m not coming,” he said eventually. “Anwen’s with child.” He turned his head to gaze at Aineias and looked at him sadly. “Besides, Corinth will be gone by now and if she isn’t, she will be soon.”
Aineias shook his head disbelievingly.
“You can’t know that.”
“I know,” Pyrrhus said, touching his chest where his heart beat. “I feel it in here. The Romans will have taken her by now and destroyed her.”
Aineias said nothing. He didn’t want to believe the city was lost, but Pyrrhus could be right. Corinth stood in the way of the Roman Empire’s expansion, and it had to be dealt with, but he couldn’t accept it. He had to go back to see what had happened to his home.
“She is my home and I cannot just give up on her,” he said, after a while. “We were brought here in order to save Corinth, and I will go back there even if it turns out she is beyond saving.”
There was firmness in his voice, a determined look on his face. Pyrrhus was quiet. He had a sad expression on his face as he looked at his skipper.
“We’ve sailed together for more than 10 years,” he said “And I’ll sail these seas with you every day of your life if you stay here but I cannot go with you. Fate has taken Corinth, our ship and our friends, but I chose to stay where Fate has made me happy.”
He turned to his friend and looked at him. Aineias shook his head sadly and turned his back on him, slowly walking away towards the village.
That evening when Pyrrhus and Diazus entered Anwen’s hut for supper, Aineias was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Many years, later, an old man sat on a milestone between the ruins of Corinth and the Roman fort whose garrison held control of the isthmus. He had sat there every day since he’d arrived and every day, around midday, the children of the garrison, and of the town, would come and gather at his feet
. They sat cross-legged on the ground surrounding the marker and waited patiently. They came there because every day he would tell them a story. It was always the same story, but he told it well, and the children loved it. It was the story of a great monster and the hero who had tried to capture it.
Most of the children spoke some Greek, but the main language spoken here now was the Latin that the Romans had brought with them. The old man spoke it well, having become fluent in the years it had taken him to traverse Gaul and Dacia, Thrace, Illyria and Macedon, to finally make his way to the ruins of Corinth.
Everything had been destroyed, everyone he’d known was gone; scattered to the four winds and yet once he had arrived at what was left of his homeland, he found that he could not leave again. Many times he had thought of the beautiful island and his friends. They lived a comfortable life there and so would he if he went back, but he couldn’t. He’d made himself a little hut inside the remains of a bread shop he had once patronized and survived on the milk and eggs of the two goats and few chickens he kept. Every day he would walk to the city limits and sit on the marker stone to wait for the children.
“Aineias, Aineias,” they cried loudly. “Tell us the story again. Please, please.”
“I will tell you the story,” he began gravely, as the children sat down. “That story of the Kraken and of the hero, Aeneas, who tried to capture him.”
“Is that the Aeneas of Troy? The Aeneas who is our forefather?” one of the boys from the garrison would ask every day.
And every day the old man would smile and reply, “Perhaps.” Then simply continue with his story.
“Ages before now, when the gods had only just defeated the Titans and began shaping the world as we know it, the great god Neptune would ride his chariot along the shores of the great water that lies beyond the Pillars of Hercules. There, where Africa and Iberia have tried to touch each other since the beginning of time.
“Neptune loved it there; the waves were like mountains compared to the waters of our sea, and riding those waters with their high waves and their strong tides, pleased him very much. He would race along the shores for days and enjoy the spray from the ocean and the rough waters.
“One day he went to ride his chariot there. He raced for miles and miles and then turned back and rode the same waves in the other direction. Then the tides pulled at the chariot. Neptune struggled to keep it moving through those waves and tides, quickly regaining control of it as only a god could. It was then that he saw her and at that moment his chariot crashed into a wave and he took the tumble into the wild sea. Moments later he came up out of the ocean, he looked at the shore and saw her again.
“His eyes had not deceived him; she was beautiful. The woman had dark, sun-kissed skin and dark hair, eyes as green as the stormy sea and a perfectly sculpted body. He knew that he loved her the moment he saw her. In that moment, Neptune’s love for the woman was greater than his love for his wife, Salacia, and so when he mounted his mighty chariot again, he did not steer it back out into the water, but straight for the coast and to her.
“She stood on the beach looking at him as he approached her. Neptune stepped off his chariot and walked up, slowly coming closer to where she stood.
“‘What is your name, O Beautiful One?’” he asked her, bowing to her.
“‘I am Lotus,’ she answered shyly.
“He took her hands in his and pressed them to his lips.
“‘I am Neptune, the great god of the sea, one of the Lords of Olympus. I am the Tamer of Horses and the Shaker of the Earth and I will shake the Earth to have you.’
“The maiden tried to pull away from him, but he held her with gentle force and she understood there was no malice in him. She raised him up from his knees. They kissed and laid together in the sand, loving each other throughout the night. She accepted his love fully and they both knew that he had impregnated her.
“In the morning, a contrite Salacia came looking for her husband. She looked for him in the sea and then, not finding him there, she went to the ocean to look. She was afraid her husband might have had an accident playing in the wild waves of the untamed ocean. She looked and looked and then when she came to the shores, she found her husband with the dark woman in his arms. Salacia knew that if she confronted them she would reap Neptune’s anger, so she went back home and tried to forget about what she had seen. She couldn’t do it. Even when her husband returned to her, she could not forget witnessing the tender moment of love he had shared with the woman. No matter what she did, she could not forget and she cried inconsolably. Then Salacia became angry and she came up with a plan.
“The next day she went to the witch that lived near the old temple of Apollo outside of Troy and she paid the woman richly for a spell. She asked for the most terrible spell she could make. Then she went back to the same shoreline, and she watched and waited for the dark skinned woman to come back. After a long time she appeared, walking across the sand. As she walked, she caressed her stomach, already aware of the child that Neptune had given her. She was happy, smiling as she walked along the shore but that was when Salacia surprised her; launching the wicked spell at the woman, who fell to the ground from the shock of the attack. When she recovered, her assailant was gone but it was plain to her that the child growing in her had been changed.
“Later that year, Neptune returned to the woman, to witness the birth of their child. She knew as she bore the pains of her delivery that the child was not a boy or a girl. The head came out first, but there was no skull and no hair; it was tender and smooth. The eyes were set lower. No torso appeared, instead out came eight arms and no legs.
“Neptune was appalled when he saw the octopus and immediately knew what had happened. He roared and raged and called out the name of his wife and immediately raced home to find the woman who had cursed his son.
“The woman cried and her family gathered up the child and took it from her. Aboard one of their boats, they sailed three miles out to sea and threw it overboard, knowing that the sea would take care of the abomination. When she heard what they had done she ran to the cliffs to throw herself into the sea but Neptune stopped her; he changed her into a tree and rooted her firmly to the earth on the cliff. This tree he named Lotus, and they still grow here to this day.
“But the child didn’t drown, the ocean nourished the monster and it grew. It grew to great size and fed on the animals of the seas until nothing the ocean produced could stem its hunger. So then, the monster began preying on ships; breaking them to pieces, sinking them and eating the crew. The monster is wild, having had no mother, and known no father other than the ocean. It is said that his mother did do one thing before he was taken from her and dumped into the ocean. It is said that the dark woman named the child. She named it Kraken.
“Many years after, the hero Aeneas sailed our sea and he passed the Pillars of Hercules. Beyond those mighty rocks that were carved out when Hercules passed there with that mighty herd, the Kraken swam and ate and grew. Aeneas hatched a plan to capture the mighty beast so he could use it to wreak havoc amongst his enemies. He took a great crew with him and the best boat he could find and waited on a beach beyond the Pillars. He waited for a while until he saw the Kraken appear above the water.
“He sailed straight for the beast, and when he arrived at the spot where it had appeared in the water, the creature was nowhere in sight. Eventually he did reach the beast, but he and his men soon found that no net could contain it. They threw harpoons into the side of the beast and it writhed in agony. The barbs dug into its flesh and the lines fastened it to that ship. The men heaved and the oarsmen rowed, and they pulled the beast back with them. But even as they made headway, the beast lifted two of its great tentacles out of the water and smashed them down onto the ship. With one swipe he smashed the larboard oars, and with another he smashed the starboard oars, sending the rowers flying. He swept it across another time and this time took the mast off. He rammed and battered the boat and then started swimming aw
ay, dragging the boat behind him. He went so fast over the mighty waves Aeneas could not cut the lines that tied his boat to the monster.
“All the men were afraid that the boat would be dragged down into the sea, but they could not do anything as long as the monster dragged them onwards and the sea battered the hull of their boat. Luckily, mighty Neptune intervened and rescued the hero from his cursed son. He sent a raging storm, and in that storm the beast severed the lines himself. The storm was Neptune’s gift, but just like so many gifts from the gods, it was both a gift and curse. The storm was too strong for the battered and beaten boat. She had been built well, she was one of the best ever built, but she could not survive the onslaught and the storm smashed the boat into a thousand pieces and Aeneas was thrown into the sea.
“Aeneas washed ashore, alone and wounded and lost. All he had was gone and he had landed in a strange country but he always had his wits about him. He stood up, brushed the sand and salt from his clothes and started walking along the shore. After days of walking he found the place he was looking for and found a ship to take him home again. When he finally arrived back in his homeland, he sat down on the city’s marker stone and thought of greatness past and greatness that might be.
“And that is where our story must end...”
The old man always concluded his story thus, knowing it pleased the children. It left them free to imagine an ending. But he knew the ending of the story of the Kraken and of Aeneas who had tried to capture him. He knew that story ended here, right here in front of the ruins of Corinth. The city he had once tried to help and which was now beyond it. He was certain she would be reborn, but every time he looked upon her ruins, he felt the tears welling up in his eyes. And every time he saw those crumbling stones and scared and burned remains, he thought back of what he had lost on the journey he had undertaken to spare her this fate.