from J JOURNAL
I pulled open the city gate with my white flag unfurled, billowing out above my head. Outside the walls the Volsci were lined up in ranks on the Campus Martius, maybe a thousand of them in battle gear. I prayed to Fish they would honor the sign of ceasefire. The minute they saw me, their choruses were quelled, and their drumming was tamped to a muffled beat.
“Vive Pax Tibema!” I shouted.
The Volsci campfires crackled in the wind. Some of the soldiers laughed, “The Pax is dead.”
I ignored them. “I come as an ambassador to King Victorrex Gloriosus, sacker of cities, breaker of stone, brave son of Hedd. I knew I would get him at the mention of his father.
Victorrex signaled, and three Volsci ran towards me. I drew in my breath and tried to remain as wooden as a statue. Still I trembled. When the soldiers reached me, one snatched my flag and the other two my arms, tugging me forward into the Volsci crowd. I figured I was a dead man, but I suppressed my fear and trusted in Fish. The soldiers tossed me before Victorrex, who stood stone-faced, his cheeks covered in war paint. We were close in manly age.
“Sextus the Learned,” he said. I must admit I was flattered by his recognition. My reputation had been growing in the region ever since my royally funded sabbatical to the library in Alexandria. I fancied myself a philosopher by trade. “Why does King Tarquin not come himself?”
The King does not wish to offend you with his coarse speech.” I bowed obsequiously.
Well spoken, he said. “What is your message?”
King Tarquin sees your tremendous army. At your martial chorus tenoi shakes the marrow of our bones. Proud you must be of your unmatched weapons of modernity.” I continued on like this with line after line of pure pulp. I knew he would eat it up. One thing I’ve learned is that people can t resist flattery, especially imperialistic egomaniacs.
\ou speak the truth, Victorrex said. “But what is your mission? Is it that you sue for peace?”
Certainly not. King Tarquin knows that to sue for peace from a man such as you, the image of Mars, is an insult.”
Victorrex hacked out a clam of sputum and expectorated on the ground between us. “Then why do you come?” he asked.
“King Tarquin knows the battle is over even before it has begun, but he also deems it unworthy of your honor not to put up a fight. Confident in your confidence in the confidence of your soldiers ...” It was a mouthful, and I admit I was nervous, but the king could not hide his disdain, which spread across his face, clear as his war paint.
“Please, hurry up,” he said, “my soldiers are impatient to slaughter your troops and rape your women.”
“I fully understand,” I said. “To get straight to the point, King Tarquin would like to challenge three warriors from your army to fight three of ours, three on three, so to speak. Surely, you will not fear such a contest.”
A cry rose up from the Volsci, “Bring it on!” But Victorrex raised his hand and silence returned. “You challenge three of my soldiers ?” he asked.
“Unless, of course, you are afraid, in which case, we can go ahead with the full-scale battle.”
“Victorrex Gloriosus fears nothing,” the dupe said.
“King Tarquin knows this, but if you are, shall I say, uncomfortable with our request, we can go ahead . ..” It went on like this a half-dozen times before we finally negotiated the terms: three of our men, the Horatii, would fight to the death against three of their men, the Curiatii. If the Horatii won, the Volsci would return to their homes in the next town over, and if the Curiatii won, the Volsci would in short order raid, pillage, and sack Punicea. It was not exactly a bargain, but I knew
a good deal when I heard one. We shook hands, and I strutted back to the city with my white flag blazing above my back.
After Regi blew his trumpet, and King Tarquin announced the terms, the mustered Puniceans let loose a sigh of relief. The youthful Horatii even leaped a bit in anticipation of the competition. The priests were called out of the temple with the golden statue of Fish, and a pious sacrifice of clams was offered to our favorite god in thanksgiving for the delay of death. The priests also chanted petitions seeking victory in the coming combat. Their song was a solemn one: ,
Fish, source of our life,
Swimmer and lord of the sea.
Give us victory in the coming strife,
And we will sacrifice hoards of clams for thee.
The Horatii knelt before Fish and offered a silent votive prayer, and then the priests hauled Fish back into the temple with the women and children. I stood atop the city tower with King Tarquin, and he allowed me to address the troops: “Puniceans, if the Volsci should prove victorious in the match, our martial plan is to run for our lives. If you want to stick around and fight, you’re welcome to, but I advise against it.’ The faces of my fellow citizens blanched, ashen with fright, and I realized this was no way to rally their spirits. “Warriors, do not fear,” I continued. “The Horatii are the fiercest men in the Tiber Valley and perhaps the world.” A little hyperbole could not hurt. We shall triumph behind their strength.”
Cheers rose up, and I decided I should end on the high note. I gave a simple benediction of Fish and nodded to the King, who gave a thumbs-up and ordered the city gate opened. Then we all stomped out into the broad plain of the Campus Martius, led by Tarquin and me, with the three Horatii right behind us. The Volsci had swept away their campfires to make room for the contest and were now lined along the far side of the plain in front of our wheat fields, which extended several hundred yards back to the sylvan overgrowth of the thick brimming forest. When the Volsci saw us fully assembled, a trumpet sounded, and the three Curiatii strode forth from their midst, identical triplets, the only difference among them their colored mantles, gold, silver, and white. As radiant as the sun, they were beauteous and strength-filled, rumored to be lovers of ladies, and not truly of Volscian stock, or even Mediterranean, but foundlings, left in the Tiber to drown by a roaming
tribe of the warlike peoples of the North. But this was no time to contest their genealogy.
As the Curiatii reached the middle of the plain, King Tarquin stared as if stunned by their beauty, and a gasp of wonder heaved out from our soldiery. But the Horatii were not to be intimidated and gallantly marched forth to face their illustrious foes. The sets of triplets met at centerfield, shook hands, and then counted off ten paces in either direction. The crowd on both sides joined in the count, “One, two, three, four .. . “ At ten, the Horatii wheeled to face their opponents, who had already turned on nine, the cheats, eager to fight. Spears flew, dirt spewed up, and, faster then you could say, “Victorrex Gloriosus,” one of the Curiatii was dead. A swift spear had tom straight through his comely face, and his body flipped into a tumble as the life force gushed out in gore. A cheer rushed forth from the Punicean onlookers. It was now a three on two.
Emboldened by success, our three champions fell into pursuit, and the Curiatii fled in the opposite direction. Victorrex cast his sullen eye upon the cowardly retreat of his fighters and uttered castigations which could be heard above the tumultuous din. “Turn around and fight, you venereal minions of Mars!” Shamed by their leaders disapproval, the two Curiatii halted their flight, spun, and met their foe head on. Swords clashed, sparks flashed, and one of the Curiatii collided against two of the Horatii. Reeling, the Volsci fighter whirled his steel and with a lucky blow lopped off both their Punicean noggins. Their headless forms slumped into a heap, and the Volsci crowd roared with glee. At the sight of his lifeless siblings, our final warrior raised up his sword so as to give himself some legroom and high-tailed it out of there, across the Campus Martius, aiming himself for the wheat fields and, I guessed, the woods beyond. But the Volsci throng stretched itself out to barricade his escape. When our hero realized he was blocked, he reversed himself and scampered towards our side of the field, but the two Curiatii cut him off. He turned like a frightened rabbit and bolted for the far end of the campus. King Tarquin fell to his knees, and all of us did the same. Together we begged Fish for a miracle.
The Curiatii closed in on their prey like panthers on a deer, and the Volsci cheered in wild waves as our warrior sprinted away. The Curiatii outstripped each other in their thirst to catch Horatius, and the three combatants, strung out on the plain, looked as if they were vying in an Olympic foot race. The clamor of the armies echoed across the heavens, then, suddenly, at the far end of the campus, our man struck. He
rotated on his heels and, with a lunging poniard, skewered one of the Curiatii before the poor bastard had time to react. The Curiatius’s sword dropped from his hand, and his blood-splattered body shivered to its death in the dust. The other Curiatius stumbled into his dead brother, and he too met the Punicean’s plunging poniard, which became fastened in the crook of his neck. A cheer pealed fi om oui leaping ranks. The wound, however, was not fatal, and the enemy writhed in the grass. Our hero snatched up the sw'vrd which had killed his own two brothers, and our battalions responded vsdth merciless applause. Then raising high into the air the murderous blade, Horatius finished off his foe with a vengeful thrust. The Curiatii were defeated, and our city was saved.
King Tarquin and I bounced into each other’s arms, and our troops shouted halleluiahs to Fish. We all lifted Horatius to our shoulders, and a bunch of our men began clapping their hands in a steady rhythm, chanting, “Punicea, Punicea, Horatius the Warrior.” On the other side, the Volsci were already filing away, disappearing into the woods as suddenly as they had come. Victorrex Gloriosus and some stragglers, more stunned than anything else, stared at the battlefield, dumbfounded, as if they had been turned to stone. The fallen bodies lay scattered in the field like sloughed-off snakeskins, two Curiatii on the far side of the campus, the third, the silver-cloaked, near the Horatii, not far from the city gate. I grabbed King Tarquin and told him it would be right to shake Victorrex’s hand, suspecting that Victorrex was probably not too keen on our victory. A little sportsmanship could go a long way in keeping him from reneging on the terms of engagement. Besides, it was just good form. The King agreed, so we jogged over to Victorrex and exchanged handshakes. He congratulated us on the fight.
“King,” I said, “why the Fates wove us this victory, I cannot fathom. But the people of Punicea are thankful to you for honoring the terms of battle. May the gods bless you, and hold you, and keep a strong wind at your back.” It was an old seafaring blessing that came in handy sometimes.
A tear appeared in Victorrex’s eye, and he pointed to the bodies in the battlefield. “King Tarquin, I request permission to retrieve my fallen soldiers.” I was surprised at his humility and at the veiy request itself. I mean I didn’t think he needed permission to gather the corpses of his own men. Fish knows, we didn’t want them.
“By all means,” King Tarquin answered him, “piety demands it.”
Victorrex ordered some men to fetch his fallen soldiers. We wanted
to return to the celebrations but also knew that tact was necessary. King Tarquin was trying his best to remain solemn, but the fact was he was ebullient, quietly tapping his side to the rhythm of the victory songs. This is when the real trouble began.
The women and children were spilling out of the city, and the priests set Fish in the middle of the campus, so everyone began dancing like bacchanalians around our favorite god. It was pandemonium. The only Puniceans not celebrating were Mother Horatia and her buxom daughter, who were kneeling beside the deceased Horatii, crying their womanly eyes out. Our hero too had disengaged from the hullabaloo and joined his mother and sister in their grief. The Volsci pallbearers were hauling away their corpses on makeshift stretchers slapped together with spear shafts and battle flags. When the young Horatia caught sight of them, surprisingly, she rose from her knees and dashed across the field, wailing at the top of her lungs, “My beloved is dead, my beloved is dead.” At first, I thought she intended to attack the Volsci, hysterical at the slaughter of her brothers. In a way, I found it touching, although I have to admit, I wondered at the word “beloved.” But when I saw her kissing and clutching the silver-cloaked Curiatius, it was obviously not the first time she had ever felt him stiff, if you get my drift, and I realized something was awry.
Her brother must have realized too because he jumped up, sword flailing above him, and rushed towards his sister, red-faced with fuiy. Some revelers caught wind of what was happening and raced after Horatius like a swarm of bees on a bear. King Tarquin and I hurried to whisk Horatia away, and even Victorrex and the remaining Volsci tried to shield her, but to no avail. Horatius was still raging with the fervor of combat, and not a phalanx of Spartans could have stopped him. With one fell swoop of his sword, Horatia s pretty head was bounding in the dust. I could not believe my eyes. Horatius towered above his sister’s empty shoulders, panting with mania in his face, and, to be honest, for a minute there I thought he was going to slay the whole lot of us. King Tarquin, to his credit, shouted, “Stop, Horatius!” and grabbed the madman’s arm. Horatius dropped his weapon, and then eveiyone, me included, jumped in to restrain him. Victorrex and his men scooped up the last Curiatius and hustled off into the wilderness. They had seen enough of Punicea for a day.
The entire population now formed a circle around the murder site, all of us silent with disbelief. The sun had dropped to the horizon like a red ball of blood, and twilight crept into the sky. The priests pressed
through the crowd with Mother Horatia, and, when she saw her daugh ter slain on the ground, she shrieked from the lowest depths of her soul. Her lament echoed across the plain, and the pathos was so overwhelming that all of us began to weep. The priests transported the lemains of the deceased on a ceremonial litter, leading a somber cortege to the statue of Fish. Tarquin and I grabbed Horatius by the arms and followed the procession. No one said a word, and our crying and shuffling feet were like the march of the dead intq the netherworld.
The priests set down the remains of Horatio and the corpses of her brothers and ordered the clam diggers to bring out three times the normal allotment for the ensuing rites. Everyone waited in silence. The clam diggers returned from the sacred cistern with barrels teeming and poured the clams on the ground before Fish. We all kneeled in supplication, and the mounds of clams were set aflame. In silence, I begged Fish to accept our offering for the dead souls, but at the same time I was thinking about the laws that applied to the situation and the complexity of the case. You see, some years back, I had convinced King Tarquin to issue an imperative for me to “co-author” a civil law code for Punicea, based on rational principles of justice, and nothing else, not custom, not politics, not even religion. It was remarkably enlightened of him to give me the go-ahead, and it later provided me with a steady income when he designated me as the official civic adjudicator, in other words, chief justice, an appointment which came as no surprise since no one else in the city could read or write.
On the one hand, Punicean law clearly defined this situation as murder, or more specifically, sororicide. We were a community that had always emphasized familial piety, and we viewed all forms of violence against the family as intolerable. In fact, if I may say so myself, we were the first city in the Tiber Valley to condemn all domestic violence, even against women. The truth was that in most cities around the Mediterranean crimes against women were regarded less seriously than those against men. We were the only polis I knew of to make sororicide unequivocally punishable by death. On the other hand, Horatia was practically a traitor, a capital crime itself, although I realized the evidence was somewhat circumstantial. The king was probably going to call a general meeting of the citizenry, and it would be my duty to sort out the legal issues. To say the least, the circumstances portended a long night.
The sun disappeared, black night descended, and torches were stationed around the funeral gathering. After the preliminary offerings,
the priests announced that Fish had swum the souls of the dead into the rivei of shadows. It was time now for the cremation— my least favorite part. The priests laid the bodies atop the smoldering cinders of clams, prayers were recited, hymns sung, fresh wood was set down. Then torches were applied to the corpses. The firelight flickered across our faces, and the stench of burning flesh smoked away from the remains. I felt as if I had wandered into the darkest realm of Orcus.
As I suspected, once the funeral had ended, King Tarquin called for a general meeting to be held around the central tower within the city walls. The priests transferred Fish into the city, followed by the mass of people. Once inside, the gate was closed, the women and children ordered home, and Tarquin and I accompanied Horatius to the top of the tower. Regi blew the trumpet, and Tarquin addressed the crowd. “Citizens of Punicea, this day will be remembered for ages to come. Today we survived the onslaught of the mighty Volsci. Thanks to the wits of Sextus die Learned, the courage of Horatius, and, of course, the benevolence of Fish, our city was saved.” Applause rippled across the gathering. “But citizens, our joy was short lived, our triumph defiled by a heinous deed—sororicide.” A collective gasp rose into the night. It was the first time anyone had actually spoken the word aloud, and I think the pronouncement made the crime seem all the more horrific. Tarquin pointed to Horatius. “The man who was our hero has become the agent of abomination.”
Shouting fragmented the crowd. “But she was a traitor!” someone yelled above the others.
Tarquin raised his hands for silence and continued speaking. “Punicea is a city governed not by the whim of a king or people or priesthood, but by the rule of law. It is the law that provides order and liberates us from anarchy. Therefore, tonight we seek justice by means of our law.” Again the crowd broke into shouting, and Tarquin waited for silence to return. “Before we apply that law, however, we will afford eveiy citizen the opportunity to express his opinion.”
A debate broke out that plodded through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Seemingly eveiy male voice in Punicea was heard, but still division reigned. King Tarquin told the crowds that a decision had to be made, and that ultimately it was his responsibility as king, chosen by the people and ordained by the priests of Fish, to execute that decision. But first he wanted to hear the advice of the civic adjudicator.
This was one speech I could have done without. I canvassed the faces
of my fellow citizens and then Horatius. I had witnessed him defeat the Curiatii and save our city, but at the same time, the lunatic had murdered his own sister. “Puniceans,” I said, “the law mandates death for this crime.” The crowd grumbled, and I contemplated Horatius, who stared fixedly into the night. “By crucifixion,” I added. It was a method we had learned from the Etruscans, although we had never actually put it into practice—we never had the need. It was the latest technology and supposedly more humane than the traditional methods: flaying, gutting, drowning in a sack with monkey, co'^k, dog, and snake, or even decapitation. I don’t know how many stories I had heard of bungled beheadings that ended with executioners hacking away at a neck like an overgrown milkweed.
The citizens were in a frenzy, some screaming approval, some cursing the law. “Where would we be without Horatius!” someone yelled. I asked Regi to blow the trumpet. He let loose a high piercing C-note, and eveiyone grabbed their ears. Silence returned.
“I understand the case is a nuanced one,” I said. “Yet it is not my duty to express my own opinion but to explain the law. I will address what I see as the basic positions of our citizens, and for each I will explain how the law applies.” People actually applauded. “One opinion claims that all violence is wrong and opposed to the true spirit of the Pax Tibema. These people, mostly the tree keepers, believe violence has no place whatsoever in the civil law code.”
“Tell it, Sexy!” one of the tree keepers yelled. I really did not like these guys and their steadfast pacifism. I had spent years co-writing the civil code to establish a lasting justice in our city and to make Punicea a model for the Tiber Valley, the Mediterranean, and even the world. Then I risked my life to save our hides by negotiating the three-onthree with the Volsci, yet all these jerks had to say was that everything I had done was antithetical to the Pax Tibema. To hell with them.
“Nonetheless, the law is what it is, and unless we rewrite the whole code, we have to stand by what it says. Even if it were changed this very night, the rule of ex post facto still applies.”
“What does that mean?” It was one of the tree keepers.
“It means if you don’t like the way I’ve written the laws, you should have beaten your spear into a stylus, not a pruning hook.” I got a mild laugh with that line, but someone shouted, “Mercy before justice!” and hissing and catcalls punctuated the general din. I resumed speaking, but was muted by arguments and shouting. Then Horatius himself called out, “Citizens of Punicea!” Only a few listened until he shouted
again, ‘ Citizens of Punicea!” When they realized it was the man himself who was speaking, everyone came to order. “Citizens,” he said. “Today I have committed an unforgivable crime. I have killed my own sister. I stand guilty before you and before the law. My punishment is death, and I accept my fate with equanimity.” His display of fortitude was altogether admirable, but then he added, “But, please, think of my mother.”
Think of his mother. From an objective standpoint, a mother in these circumstances would normally evoke pity, compassion, even outright pardon, but anyone who knew Mother Horatia knew otherwise. Mother Horatia was probably the least-liked woman in all Punicea. She was renowned for her bitter personality and penchant for insult, and not a woman in town had ever spent an afternoon with her, laundering clothes in the river or picking berries on the outskirts of the Campus Martius or gathering crops at harvest time, without coming away battered by her sarcasm and brusqueness, if not, in fact, her fists. She was a feisty, combative shrew, obnoxious beyond reason, to the extent that no one marveled when her husband Horatius wandered off and was “lost” at sea. Who could endure her daily abuse? The thiee Horatii boys had been so emotionally battered at the hands of their sadistic mother that they could not help being what they were: the nastiest sons of a bitch and the fiercest fighters our people had ever seen. Over the span of the years, not a Punicean kid their age had not been bullied by them, and to be honest, a compelling reason for establishing the civil law code in the first place was to keep the Horatii in check, because in their manhood, most of us were downright terrified of them. Young Horatia was another matter altogether. Rather than nasty, she had turned needy, seeking the affection she did not receive at home in eveiy Tom, Dick, and Hany who stumbled her way. To put it mildly, the Horatii children were damaged goods, and Mother Horatia was to blame. Think of his mother? Fish forbid, and I said as much, more or less: “The law does not consider emotions, good or bad, Horatius. The law is blind to personal feelings. Otherwise it becomes subjective, which leads to the rule of caprice, not justice. No, the law must be impartial.”
The whole crowd paused and communally stared at me. Many nodded their heads in agreement, but soon there was a ruckus again, screaming, hollering, a clamor of confusion. King Tarquin raised his arms. Regi blew his trumpet until his ears were red. Finally, somehow, the crowd settled down to where I could speak again.
“The next opinion calls for Horatius s complete exoneration on two
counts, first, because Horatia was a traitor, and, second, because he is the savior of our city.” I held up two fingers for dramatic effect. “What we saw on the Campus Martius suggested Horatia may have been, shall we say, allied with one of the Curiatii. But what of it? So the girl slept around. That’s no news to anyone around here.” I darted my eyes from man to man, the many I knew who had partaken of Hoiatias charms. “Furthermore, at this point in time, we have no statute equating carnal knowledge with treachery. Yes, it may be in poor taste to sleep with the Volsci, but it’s no crime.” •
The cads all cheered.
“As for Horatius, he did indeed save our city, but there is no law which grants immunity to anyone in Punicea, not even the king. If Horatius were to be exonerated, not only would the law against sororicide be jeopardized, but the very law code itself. Once an exception is allowed, it opens the door for all kinds of excuses, and then the law is nothing. We’re right back to the arbitrary decisions of kings and priests that we wanted to eradicate in the first place.” There were murmurs of dismay. “In other words,” I said, “according to the law, we would have to execute Fish himself if he slew his sister.”
I understand now it was the wrong choice of words. The crowd did not like the comparison at all, not one little bit, and I should have known better. The priests shook fists at me, shouting, “Blasphemy!” Again I asked Regi for a trumpet blast, but this time skirmishes broke out, and several men hooked their hands on the stanchions of the city tower and began rocking it back and forth. It was pretty obvious that a full scale riot was about to break loose. King Tarquin signaled Regi again, but the rocking sent me falling into the trumpeter, knocking him off the tower. I was trying to hold on, praying to Fish for a way out of this jam, when I heard the sound of cracking wood. The legs of the tower had given out, and Tarquin and Horatius and I plummeted. Before I knew it, I was on the ground, snatched up by my shirtsleeves, socked with a right cross, trapped in a melee. The entire populace was pummeling away at each other in a free-for-all. I lost sight of Tarquin, and soon I was flinging punches myself, at first in self-defense, then I noticed the tree keepers, and even I was on the offensive. It was madness.
In the middle of it all the priests seized Fish and dragged him into the midst of the fracas. In retrospect, it was a shrewd move, because, as soon as we all saw Fish, we held onto our fists in fear of striking the deity himself. I’m sure none of us had any idea what the consequences
of such a blow would be, but I guarantee no one wanted to find out. In a matter of minutes, the fervor of the fight was lost, and we stood around, ashamed, our eyes sharpened on the priests and Fish. We had no idea what was going to happen next, but it was pretty obvious that for the moment the priests were in charge of Punicea. King Tarquin was tangled beneath a pile of beams and broken planks from what had been the city tower, and to my relief, he was all right. A few priests yanked him to his feet and escorted him to Fish. Then the eldest priest, Father Nupa, beckoned his younger brethren to lift him onto their shoulders so he could see above the crowd.
Nupa was veiy old. In fact, according to popular belief, he was 273 years old. I had always wondered about this, but not a soul of us could recall a time when Nupa was not alive. The grandparents of the oldest of the original settlers could not even remember a time when Nupa was not a priest. He hailed from the days in Carthage before King Tarquin s father had sailed from the homeland with colonists in search of a more peaceful existence. Nupa could speak of the early days of the cult of Fish, before it was an organized religion, when Fish himself swam the depths of the watery world, more of a tyrannical, vengeful, almost pathological Pisces than the fatherly Fish we all knew and loved. Some claimed Nupa had actually seen Fish himself with his own eyes, and it was commonly known that at one time he had personally sacrificed offerings of much more than clam innards. To put it nicely, in my generation the life expectancy of firstborns had improved dramatically, though there was still a faction of zealots who looked upon the old days as the good old days.
Now Nupa began to speak, but he was so old, and his voice so brittle, that no one could hear a word of what he was saying. Still, we dared not interrupt his speech. He surveyed the crowd and rambled on until he fell into a deep sleep. We had been awake the whole night. At 273, I could understand why he was sleepy, hut no one seemed to know if his speech was finished or not. Eveiyone was afraid to ask, so we stood sheepishly, waiting. In the east the black steed of night began to flee from the chariot of Apollo. A rooster crowed. The sound startled Nupa, who awoke and peered at us, his eyes creeping from face to face. Then he croaked out in a voice like a cackling bird, “Fish fangs, shark bites, dangerous seawater,” or something to that effect. He repeated this litany at least a half dozen times, then slumped on the sacerdotal shoulders of his brethren and fell asleep again. That was it.
We all turned to one another in puzzlement. What in the name of
Fish did that mean? No one seemed in any hurry to offer an interpretation except some of the priests, that is. Without warning six of the clowns tramped into the crowd and grabbed the civic adjudicator— yeah, me!—by the shoulders. Then one of them announced in a voice terribly easier to understand than Nupa’s that Fish demanded a penitential offering. He was not at all pleased with the way we had been behaving, and the sacrifice required the flesh of the author of the civil law code. Sextus the Learned must die. How he got this out of the fishfang business was beyond me, but none of my compatriots seemed to think it too far-fetched. I screamed to King Tarquin to do something. After all, we were co-authors of the civil law code, weren’t we? But it was too late. The case was beyond his jurisdiction. It had become a priestly affair, and I was the sacrificial clam.
The priests bound me with ropes woven by their wives for ceremonial use, flattened me out supine, and fixed me to stakes before the statue of Fish. Prayers were offered, and a flaming torch was presented by one of the priests as the others partook in a solemn ritual of spitting in my face. Then the scrolls of the civil law code, having been removed from the city archives, were placed beside me.
“Go ahead, burn me, but not the law code,” I cried. “Please, it took me years to compose.”
A section was tom off and shoved into my mouth as a gag. The priest approached me with the fiery torch, ready to ignite his sacrifice. I was about to die. The situation was so surreal that I could actually hear infernal drums greeting me from the underworld. They were getting louder and louder. One of the priests glanced around in perplexity. Oddly, he seemed to hear the drumming, too. Soon flaming arrows and catapulted stones were pelting us like hail in midsummer, and it became altogether clear that the underworld had nothing to do with any of this. The Volsci were back.
Within minutes, the city was in flames, the walls breached, and the citizens of Punicea were scrambling for their lives. I wriggled in vain to break free, pegged to the ground, and when the massive statue of Fish wobbled over in the chaos, I thought I was a goner, but remarkably the statue fell over me, but not on me, the lateral curvature between the pectoral and caudal fins creating a snug little niche for a skinny little bookworm like me. There I lay throughout the entire sack of the city, safe and sound, protected by Fish, discovered only after the last Punicean had been slaughtered and all the women carried off, when Victorrex Gloriosus ordered the “big flounder” hoisted up and to his
astonishment found me and the civil law code preserved and basically intact. Call it what you will, chance, serendipity, a miracle, and though the opportunity for negotiations had passed, at least on a municipal scale, arrangements for an individual philosopher were another matter. Apparently, the civil law code and I were known commodities, whose value could be appreciated even by a man masked in war paint. As the conquerors paraded in triumph across the Campus Martius and into the woods, battle trophies were raised up in front of Victorrex Gloriosus: the statue of Fish, Regi’s trumpet, the scrolls of the law code, and me. Elevated above the throng, I gazed back at what only a short time before had been Punicea, now a rubble of wood, bones, and dead men—and clams. Before a single tear could well up in my eye, however, a spear shaft prodded my nose forward in the direction we were headed, towards the city of the Volsci and my new home.
Nominated by J. Journal