Charikles and the Horse
Mar 21, 2011 18:42:16 GMT -8
Post by ladymoondancer on Mar 21, 2011 18:42:16 GMT -8
This was a "novel fragment" I wrote for my Ancient Greek Novels class. And I had a great time writing it, I might add. ;D
Let me give you some background on what happened in the actual novel, Leucippe and Clitophon, written centuries ago by Achilles Tatius.
But first, let me tell you how the names are pronounced.
Leucippe - loo-KIPP-ay - She is a girl who is in love with Clitophon.
Clitophon - CLITE-o-fon - He's a dude who's in love with Leucippe. He's also Kleinias' cousin.
Kleinias - CLEAN-ee-us - Clitophon's cousin. He's in love with a boyfriend named Charikles.
Charikles - CARE-ih-klees - Kleinias' boyfriend. He is somewhat younger than Kleinias.
Lycurgus - LIE-cur-gus - Charikles' slave. He didn't have a name in the novel, so I made one up. ^_~ Incidentally, slavery was common in Greece at the time among the upper class, which is typically who these novels were about. So having slaves isn't the mark of a "bad guy" character like it might be in a modern novel.
As the story begins, Clitophon is talking with his cousin.
Clitophon: Kleinias, I'm in love! We have this house guest, Leucippe, and she's totally hot! I stare at her all day! (Way to be creepy, Clitophon.)
Kleinias: Ha ha, I knew you'd fall in love someday!
Clitophon: Yeah, but my father wants me to marry my half-sister!
(Apparently this was not uncommon in those days. You could marry your half-sister if you had two different mothers, but not if you had the same mother but two different fathers.)
Just then Kleinias' boyfriend, Charikles, runs up. Kleinias is crazy about Charikles and is distressed to see he's in tears.
Charikles: Kleinias, my father is making me get MARRIED to a GIRL. And she is not even a PRETTY GIRL. He is just making me do it because she's rich!
Kleinias: OMG I HATE WOMEN SO MUUUUUCH!
Then Kleinias rants on and on about how women suck and Charikles is facing a living death and he will turn old before his time and women KILL the men they love and also the men they hate, STUPID WOMEN!!
Charikles: You're freaking me out even more! I'm going to go ride that horse you bought me (yeah, Kleinias is a sugar daddy) and think about how to get out of this marriage!
Clitophon: Uhhh, Kleinias? Can we . . . talk about how I'm in love with Leucippe some more or is that too close to this whole "women" issue you have?
Kleinias: Oh no, dude, that's totally cool.
So they chat about that a little more until Charikles' slave runs up . . .
Slave guy: OMG CHARIKLES IS DEAD!
Kleinias: WUT!!!
Slave guy: He rode the horse and let go of the reins and it freaked out and trampled him to death! (Insert a very graphic description of the horse trampling poor Charikles and dragging him behind, tangled in the reins.) It trampled him so badly he's disfigured and totally unrecognizable!
(One of the lines from the text describes his body as "one continuous wound." Poor Charikles!)
Kleinias: NOOOOOOO--breath--OOOOOOO!!
He goes on to grieve about how he himself gave Charikles the horse that trampled him.
So with nothing left to hang around for, Kleinias joins his cousin Clitophon as they run off with Leucippe (since Leucippe's parents and Kleinias' parents won't allow them to get married.)
Then Achilles Tatius sends his characters to get shipwrecked and kidnapped and attacked by pirates and sacrificed by bandits and all kinds of exciting things! But in the end, Leucippe and Clitophon at last are able to get married and live happily ever after. (Yay!)
So that's the framework. Now here's the story I wrote:
Charikles and the Horse
Clitophon's POV:
The wedding torches blazed and the flutes and drums announced with greatest pomp—Leucippe and I at long last were to be wed! As a man dying and delirious from thirst finds water all the sweeter, so did my joy reach new heights with Leucippe at last mine. Our eyes met again and again over the sumptuous wedding feast, finding greater sustenance in our mutual gaze than could be drawn from any dish however savory and trading silent yet certain promises sweeter than honey. All the company gazed on Leucippe, fraught with admiration for one who was at once so beautiful and so pure, yet her eyes she reserved for me alone.
But after a while I noticed one guest, one partygoer lingering on the fringes of the feast, who seemed immune to Leucippe’s grace; rather than standing spellbound by her gaze, this youth was constantly craning his neck over the crowd, looking hither and thither in a manner that better suited a spectacle of many different entertainments rather than one that featured, as I felt, one beauty far more pleasing and superior than any other. In some indignation I pointed him out to my cousin Kleinias.
“Do you see that dissolute youngster at the back of the pack, stretching his neck in that unseemly manner? His head wobbles to and fro as though searching for a sight that will satisfy him—I can’t decide if he’s arrogant beyond belief or merely blind to allow his eyes to be drawn away from Leucippe in her wedding splendor.”
Kleinias answered with a smile, “I would think you would be glad, after all your travails, to find a man who looks on your beloved with indifference rather than excitement.” So saying he turned his head to gauge the man in question. All at once the blood rushed from his face, so that you might have thought he was mere shade who had wandered out of Hades by mistake. At the same moment, the fellow who had excited my commentary with his craning and peering locked his gaze on Kleinias’. He proceeded to elbow his way across the room towards the table, ignorant or uncaring of the exclamations of annoyance and surprise he left in his wake. His lips parted as he reached us, but before he could get a word out, Kleinias burst out of his seat and engulfed him in a tight embrace.
I stared in astonishment, in part due to the stranger’s clothing, which had were naught but rags and in part because the stranger so eagerly returned the embrace. “Hey now, what’s all this? Did our customs of greeting change without my knowledge? Kleinias, if you’re going to offer each of the guests a hug and a kiss it will take you forever to meet them all.”
The youth laughed as he turned towards me. “Is your memory that short, Clitophon? I recognize you as clearly as when I last laid eyes on you. Have you forgotten me so easily?”
“No—it can’t be!” I exclaimed.
“It is,” Kleinias replied, voice cracking and trembling with raw emotion. “Charikles—here and in the flesh! But how? Are you a specter, come to torment me for the cruel gift that led you to an untimely grave?”
“You said yourself I’m in the flesh—alive, I assure you, and well . . . now that we’re reunited at last. At any rate, you’re looking more than a little ghostly yourself. Sit down, don’t overtax yourself. It would be a shame if your heart gave way now. No Greek tragedy, thanks, I prefer a happy ending! But I’m sure you’re wondering what drama I’ve been mired in.”
“We certainly are,” I cried out. “The last we knew—or thought we did—you were the victim of manslaughter most foul—or horseslaughter, I should say.”
“And slaughtered that horse should have been, horrible brute,” Kleinias put in, eyes flashing at the memory of the murderous beast he himself had given the lad.
“Don’t judge the horse so harshly. There’s more to my story than meets the eye,” Charikles told us, seating himself. “Let me tell you my tale. You’ll recall my last words to you—that much can happen in a single night. It did, Kleinias, it did.”
-----
Charikles' POV:
You recall our parting, I’m sure. I have dwelled on it often myself, a bittersweet memory. At the time, I was in a panic over my impending marriage to a bride who, though rich, was less attractive than the horse you entrusted to me, Kleinias. Her very face froze me in terror. It would be like marriage to a Gorgon. Steeled by your words, I resolved to do whatever possible to avoid this fate. I poured out my woes to Lycurgus, my slave, as he saddled the horse you’d gifted me.
“A living death, that’s what it is. Haven’t I got enough years to grow old and get married, that I must waste my youth locked in the manacles of wedlock? It’s a travesty—and all brought about by my father’s greed.”
Lycurgus was inclined to agree. “If anyone benefits from this union it will be your father. But take heart, the gods can provide a rescue when its least expected.”
We were walking through the trees as he spoke these woods, leading the horse as we looked for land free from stones and roots that might trip the noble beast. As we crossed over a babbling stream we came in view of a certain tomb raised there—you both know the one I mean, the final resting place of some poor soul overlooking the sea. To our surprise, we saw a ship anchored and men milling about the gravesite, rough and brutish types. By unspoken consent we quietly stepped behind a grove of trees and hid, all three of us—myself, Lycurgus, and the horse!
“Hurry up there,” the biggest brigand snarled—they were graverobbers, sure enough. “We want to be clear of this place before anyone suspects.”
“Hurry up yourself,” another of them retorted rudely. “You’ve hardly lifted a finger on this endeavor, content to lean back yawning in the sun while we slave away.”
“It’s thanks to me you’re handling gold instead of dung,” came the harsh reply from their captain.
“A fat lot of thanks you’ll get from me, when you take first pick of all the treasure and then filch any other bauble or gem that catches your eye besides,” his underling threw back, this time against a backdrop of ugly mutters of support from the others. “He’s right . . . It’s hardly worth risking our lives for what we get . . . It’s not fair.”
These grievances must have been building for some time, for they burst forth in a torrent—the brigand leader roaring and the others shouting back about their rights to the ill-gotten gains that, in truth, none of them had the least right to. The words got more and more heated and at the pinnacle, the main body of thieves drew their swords, fell upon their leader, and slew him. While we were still standing in shock over the spectacle we’d witnessed, they gathered the rest of the gold and hurried away to pull anchor—in silence and possibly, if there was any room for it in their hardened hearts, shame.
“Did you see that?” I asked in amazement when the brigands were out of earshot. “Good heavens, what’s the world coming to? We’d better tell someone—I don’t suppose they’ll be able to catch them, but at least they can seal the poor, desecrated tomb.”
“Wait a minute now, master.” Lycurgus had a thoughtful look. “You said just now you faced a living death . . . But death is exactly the way to avoid this marriage!”
“What do you mean?” I asked, rather alarmed. “I’d rather leave suicide as a last resort.”
“But you’re already dead, sir . . . don’t you see your corpse lying there in the grass?”
Catching on, I looked at the dead brigand. Of course, there was little resemblance between us, but perhaps that could be remedied. “We could throw him off a cliff,” I suggested. “The rocks would disguise his face, not to mention the battering of the sea.”
“But a body tossed by the sea is just an anonymous body,” said Lycurgus. “This must definitively be Charikles’ body, poor Charikles who died before his marriage to his mourning bride.”
“A pox on my mourning bride. Let her marry my horse.”
This brought the beast into our minds and we turned towards him—a noble animal of arched neck and fine chest.
“Let’s see what he thinks of this tomb robber who himself needs a tomb,” Lycurgus said, leading the stallion towards the body.
Well, the long and short of it was that the horse didn’t like it at all. His head tossed and he snorted in disapproval, pawing the ground. Far from being dismayed, we were delighted. I had brought a change of clothes for riding, which we hastily gifted to the ex-brigand—finer garments than he’d ever worn in life, I’d wager. Then I held the horse’s bridle, stroking his nose to reassure him while Lycurgus heaved the carcass onto the saddle, stuffing the lifeless feet into the stirrups and trussing the rein thongs tightly round the waist. We both stepped back as the horse danced and jittered, unhappy with its macabre load. A grim spectacle it was, a rider with his head lolling in limp circles and hands literally tied in the reins.
“I don’t see how this cadaver could be mistaken for me,” I said in dissatisfaction, “except by a blind man.”
“They’ll only see it in the aftermath,” Lycurgus pointed out, and gave the horse a hearty slap on the rump that sent it sprinting through the woods like a lightning bolt.
What a spectacle! The horse tore through the trees like the finest racer, then realizing its lifeless payload was still in place, began bucking and leaping in a panic. The body gyrated first this way, then that—falling forward over the horse’s neck, then flopping backwards against its hindquarters, each time steeling the horse’s resolve to rid itself of this unworthy rider. At last a dash under a low branch knocked the corpse off the saddle, yet the rein thongs held tight, dragging it after the horse, who continued to thunder through the woods. The brigand’s carcass rolled this way and that, hammered by the horse’s steel-shod hooves and dragged through briars and thickets. The description Lycurgus gave to you of its wild flight was not false, Kleinias and Clitophon, except on one point—Charikles was watching, not riding, the frenzied beast!
When the horse at last stood still, winded and flecked with froth, all that could be said about the body was that it was very dead and was wearing the tattered remains of Charikles’ clothes. Lycurgus ran into town in a fine semblance of a panic to describe my “death” while I led the noble horse farther into the woods and hid it there. I instructed Lycurgus to say it had escaped in the hubbub—I was afraid it would be punished for its innocent part in our scheme otherwise. I knew it was wisest to hide too, yet I could not resist creeping back to town to gaze upon you, Kleinias, as you counseled Clitophon with your typical generous demeanor. I confess, I was worried the announcement of my death would send you into a suicidal shock and was prepared to leap forth from the shrubbery, even to the detriment of all my plans, if you showed signs of self-harm. My heart echoed your grief in sympathy; my father’s grief, somewhat less. I could not forget that it was his greed that had led me to such secret shenanigans.
My wedding, so hastily arranged, became a more hasty funeral; the wedding hymns became dirges, and a robber received most undeserved commendations and lamentations. This I beheld only from a distance, knowing a corpse should only make one appearance at a funeral; two excites exclamation. Still, my plan was to reveal myself to you as soon as possible after the event, to reassure you that I had not yet passed into the dim land of the dead. This I told Lycurgus when he snuck into the woods with leavings filched from the funeral feast.
“I must contact Kleinias immediately,” I said. “I’m sure he’s beside himself. If he makes some excuse for traveling, we can sneak away and no one will be the wiser.”
“Not yet, master,” he objected. “The tears harrowing Kleinias’ eyes and the sorrow on his face are the surest evidence we can present of your demise. Let his expression lighten—as it undoubtedly would, with knowledge of your safety—and people will begin to suspect something is amiss. ‘What’s this? Kleinias, who doted on the young man, walks about with a spring in his step and a smile on his lips? What hard-hearted man is this, who can laugh while his lover lays dead, killed by his gift?’ You know how people love to gossip. Their wild conjectures might lead them to the truth—or, worse, lead them to accuse Kleinias of deliberately arranging your death!”
That thought tormented me even more than separation from you, Kleinias, so I let myself be convinced. Likewise I listened when, after a time, Lycurgus gave me a humbler change of clothes—my finery was too noticeable, he said—and urged me to head towards a lonely beach.
“Ride there and I will arrange for Kleinias to meet you there with a ship,” Lycurgus said, “so that you can depart immediately.”
Oh Kleinias, there was a ship there—but not you! A group of ruffians who would’ve felt at home in the brigand band were waiting for me. Naïve as I was, at first I thought there’d been some mistake.
“Look at those brutes,” I whispered to Lycurgus as I dismounted the horse. “Let’s get away while the getting’s good.”
But Lycurgus, cunning devil, hailed them loudly. “Greetings, friends! Here he is, just as I promised.”
Even then I didn’t understand. “Lycurgus, do you mean you know these men? You’re entrusting Kleinias and me to the dubious seafaring skills of these ugly devils?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your mouth when talking to your betters,” the largest of them growled. (Have you noticed scoundrels always follow the strongest among them rather than the wisest? Not that you’d find any of these fine fellows underneath a plane tree.) “Show respect before I teach it to you with my fists.”
While I was sputtering in indignation, Lycurgus gleefully threw his oar in. “That’s right, he’s a mouthy one—a real brat. Our master can’t stand to listen to his chatter anymore.”
“OUR master?” My outrage redoubled. “You devious liar! I’m the very master you look to, whose word is law—me, Charikles!”
The odious slave laughed in my face. “You hear that, gentlemen? Not only mouthy, but delusional. He thinks he’s Charikles . . . Charikles, who I’m sure you’ve heard was buried less than a week ago. He imagines those rags of his are dyed the deepest purple, I’ll wager. Nevertheless, he’s strong of body and has a fine face—“
They proceeded to haggle for me as three of the menacing pirates surrounded me and hustled me onto the ship. But Lycurgus did not escape unscathed.
“Why pay a slave for a slave?” the pirates sneered. “We’ll take both for free.” Lycurgus’ protests and laments as they forced him onto the ship were a small consolation to me.
Nor did they forget the horse—he was led up the ship’s ramp, ears twitching backwards and forwards as though perturbed by this turn of events.
“The gods and I will look after this.” That’s what I told you before we parted, Kleinias. Well, I admit I made a hash of the situation, but the gods still took pity on me. We’d been out at sea nearly three days when stormclouds blackened the sky. The ship tossed in the waves until the battered hull could take it no more . . . It breached and the salt water tore it apart, board by board. Lightning sizzled across the sky in sudden jolts, revealing in flashes the men crying and dying among the froth and flotsam. I clung to a few meager boards, praying to all the gods I could remember and a few I couldn’t, when what should I see churning through the sea foam but that magnificent horse!
His eyes rolled at each crack of thunder, but he made no attempt to unseat me as I swam over to him and pulled myself onto his broad back—though he struck out with hooves and teeth against any brigand who dared try to pirate him. Lycurgus actually grabbed his tail in an ungainly attempt to save himself, but the horse lashed out with a powerful kick that half lifted him out of the water. Stunned, the treacherous slave sunk beneath the waves to meet a watery end.
Meanwhile, my equine savior plowed through the breakers, braving the waves that curled above and crashed over us. Only by winding my fingers through his mane and clinging with all my strength did I stay seated against the might of the storm. But my steed never quailed. His muscles rippled as he pulled himself away from the wreckage with each stroke of his legs. The gods mercifully pushed us towards land and when the sea calmed, dolphins leapt about us in encouragement, providing an escort until the noble creature at last stood, weary but with a proudly arched neck, on land.
And ever since then I’ve been searching for you, Kleinias—but reports of you seemed to come from here, there, and everywhere—and always I rode into a town just after you’d left it, it seems! But now at last I’ve found you. Congratulations on your wedding, Clitophon, and you, Leucippe. But I hope you’ll understand if the wellspring of my joy has a different source.
~*~
Clitophon's POV:
I looked at Leucippe. “We understand,” we said, smiling.
Kleinias didn’t say anything. He just wept and laughed and hugged him close.
The end!
Let me give you some background on what happened in the actual novel, Leucippe and Clitophon, written centuries ago by Achilles Tatius.
But first, let me tell you how the names are pronounced.
Leucippe - loo-KIPP-ay - She is a girl who is in love with Clitophon.
Clitophon - CLITE-o-fon - He's a dude who's in love with Leucippe. He's also Kleinias' cousin.
Kleinias - CLEAN-ee-us - Clitophon's cousin. He's in love with a boyfriend named Charikles.
Charikles - CARE-ih-klees - Kleinias' boyfriend. He is somewhat younger than Kleinias.
Lycurgus - LIE-cur-gus - Charikles' slave. He didn't have a name in the novel, so I made one up. ^_~ Incidentally, slavery was common in Greece at the time among the upper class, which is typically who these novels were about. So having slaves isn't the mark of a "bad guy" character like it might be in a modern novel.
As the story begins, Clitophon is talking with his cousin.
Clitophon: Kleinias, I'm in love! We have this house guest, Leucippe, and she's totally hot! I stare at her all day! (Way to be creepy, Clitophon.)
Kleinias: Ha ha, I knew you'd fall in love someday!
Clitophon: Yeah, but my father wants me to marry my half-sister!
(Apparently this was not uncommon in those days. You could marry your half-sister if you had two different mothers, but not if you had the same mother but two different fathers.)
Just then Kleinias' boyfriend, Charikles, runs up. Kleinias is crazy about Charikles and is distressed to see he's in tears.
Charikles: Kleinias, my father is making me get MARRIED to a GIRL. And she is not even a PRETTY GIRL. He is just making me do it because she's rich!
Kleinias: OMG I HATE WOMEN SO MUUUUUCH!
Then Kleinias rants on and on about how women suck and Charikles is facing a living death and he will turn old before his time and women KILL the men they love and also the men they hate, STUPID WOMEN!!
Charikles: You're freaking me out even more! I'm going to go ride that horse you bought me (yeah, Kleinias is a sugar daddy) and think about how to get out of this marriage!
Clitophon: Uhhh, Kleinias? Can we . . . talk about how I'm in love with Leucippe some more or is that too close to this whole "women" issue you have?
Kleinias: Oh no, dude, that's totally cool.
So they chat about that a little more until Charikles' slave runs up . . .
Slave guy: OMG CHARIKLES IS DEAD!
Kleinias: WUT!!!
Slave guy: He rode the horse and let go of the reins and it freaked out and trampled him to death! (Insert a very graphic description of the horse trampling poor Charikles and dragging him behind, tangled in the reins.) It trampled him so badly he's disfigured and totally unrecognizable!
(One of the lines from the text describes his body as "one continuous wound." Poor Charikles!)
Kleinias: NOOOOOOO--breath--OOOOOOO!!
He goes on to grieve about how he himself gave Charikles the horse that trampled him.
So with nothing left to hang around for, Kleinias joins his cousin Clitophon as they run off with Leucippe (since Leucippe's parents and Kleinias' parents won't allow them to get married.)
Then Achilles Tatius sends his characters to get shipwrecked and kidnapped and attacked by pirates and sacrificed by bandits and all kinds of exciting things! But in the end, Leucippe and Clitophon at last are able to get married and live happily ever after. (Yay!)
So that's the framework. Now here's the story I wrote:
Charikles and the Horse
Clitophon's POV:
The wedding torches blazed and the flutes and drums announced with greatest pomp—Leucippe and I at long last were to be wed! As a man dying and delirious from thirst finds water all the sweeter, so did my joy reach new heights with Leucippe at last mine. Our eyes met again and again over the sumptuous wedding feast, finding greater sustenance in our mutual gaze than could be drawn from any dish however savory and trading silent yet certain promises sweeter than honey. All the company gazed on Leucippe, fraught with admiration for one who was at once so beautiful and so pure, yet her eyes she reserved for me alone.
But after a while I noticed one guest, one partygoer lingering on the fringes of the feast, who seemed immune to Leucippe’s grace; rather than standing spellbound by her gaze, this youth was constantly craning his neck over the crowd, looking hither and thither in a manner that better suited a spectacle of many different entertainments rather than one that featured, as I felt, one beauty far more pleasing and superior than any other. In some indignation I pointed him out to my cousin Kleinias.
“Do you see that dissolute youngster at the back of the pack, stretching his neck in that unseemly manner? His head wobbles to and fro as though searching for a sight that will satisfy him—I can’t decide if he’s arrogant beyond belief or merely blind to allow his eyes to be drawn away from Leucippe in her wedding splendor.”
Kleinias answered with a smile, “I would think you would be glad, after all your travails, to find a man who looks on your beloved with indifference rather than excitement.” So saying he turned his head to gauge the man in question. All at once the blood rushed from his face, so that you might have thought he was mere shade who had wandered out of Hades by mistake. At the same moment, the fellow who had excited my commentary with his craning and peering locked his gaze on Kleinias’. He proceeded to elbow his way across the room towards the table, ignorant or uncaring of the exclamations of annoyance and surprise he left in his wake. His lips parted as he reached us, but before he could get a word out, Kleinias burst out of his seat and engulfed him in a tight embrace.
I stared in astonishment, in part due to the stranger’s clothing, which had were naught but rags and in part because the stranger so eagerly returned the embrace. “Hey now, what’s all this? Did our customs of greeting change without my knowledge? Kleinias, if you’re going to offer each of the guests a hug and a kiss it will take you forever to meet them all.”
The youth laughed as he turned towards me. “Is your memory that short, Clitophon? I recognize you as clearly as when I last laid eyes on you. Have you forgotten me so easily?”
“No—it can’t be!” I exclaimed.
“It is,” Kleinias replied, voice cracking and trembling with raw emotion. “Charikles—here and in the flesh! But how? Are you a specter, come to torment me for the cruel gift that led you to an untimely grave?”
“You said yourself I’m in the flesh—alive, I assure you, and well . . . now that we’re reunited at last. At any rate, you’re looking more than a little ghostly yourself. Sit down, don’t overtax yourself. It would be a shame if your heart gave way now. No Greek tragedy, thanks, I prefer a happy ending! But I’m sure you’re wondering what drama I’ve been mired in.”
“We certainly are,” I cried out. “The last we knew—or thought we did—you were the victim of manslaughter most foul—or horseslaughter, I should say.”
“And slaughtered that horse should have been, horrible brute,” Kleinias put in, eyes flashing at the memory of the murderous beast he himself had given the lad.
“Don’t judge the horse so harshly. There’s more to my story than meets the eye,” Charikles told us, seating himself. “Let me tell you my tale. You’ll recall my last words to you—that much can happen in a single night. It did, Kleinias, it did.”
-----
Charikles' POV:
You recall our parting, I’m sure. I have dwelled on it often myself, a bittersweet memory. At the time, I was in a panic over my impending marriage to a bride who, though rich, was less attractive than the horse you entrusted to me, Kleinias. Her very face froze me in terror. It would be like marriage to a Gorgon. Steeled by your words, I resolved to do whatever possible to avoid this fate. I poured out my woes to Lycurgus, my slave, as he saddled the horse you’d gifted me.
“A living death, that’s what it is. Haven’t I got enough years to grow old and get married, that I must waste my youth locked in the manacles of wedlock? It’s a travesty—and all brought about by my father’s greed.”
Lycurgus was inclined to agree. “If anyone benefits from this union it will be your father. But take heart, the gods can provide a rescue when its least expected.”
We were walking through the trees as he spoke these woods, leading the horse as we looked for land free from stones and roots that might trip the noble beast. As we crossed over a babbling stream we came in view of a certain tomb raised there—you both know the one I mean, the final resting place of some poor soul overlooking the sea. To our surprise, we saw a ship anchored and men milling about the gravesite, rough and brutish types. By unspoken consent we quietly stepped behind a grove of trees and hid, all three of us—myself, Lycurgus, and the horse!
“Hurry up there,” the biggest brigand snarled—they were graverobbers, sure enough. “We want to be clear of this place before anyone suspects.”
“Hurry up yourself,” another of them retorted rudely. “You’ve hardly lifted a finger on this endeavor, content to lean back yawning in the sun while we slave away.”
“It’s thanks to me you’re handling gold instead of dung,” came the harsh reply from their captain.
“A fat lot of thanks you’ll get from me, when you take first pick of all the treasure and then filch any other bauble or gem that catches your eye besides,” his underling threw back, this time against a backdrop of ugly mutters of support from the others. “He’s right . . . It’s hardly worth risking our lives for what we get . . . It’s not fair.”
These grievances must have been building for some time, for they burst forth in a torrent—the brigand leader roaring and the others shouting back about their rights to the ill-gotten gains that, in truth, none of them had the least right to. The words got more and more heated and at the pinnacle, the main body of thieves drew their swords, fell upon their leader, and slew him. While we were still standing in shock over the spectacle we’d witnessed, they gathered the rest of the gold and hurried away to pull anchor—in silence and possibly, if there was any room for it in their hardened hearts, shame.
“Did you see that?” I asked in amazement when the brigands were out of earshot. “Good heavens, what’s the world coming to? We’d better tell someone—I don’t suppose they’ll be able to catch them, but at least they can seal the poor, desecrated tomb.”
“Wait a minute now, master.” Lycurgus had a thoughtful look. “You said just now you faced a living death . . . But death is exactly the way to avoid this marriage!”
“What do you mean?” I asked, rather alarmed. “I’d rather leave suicide as a last resort.”
“But you’re already dead, sir . . . don’t you see your corpse lying there in the grass?”
Catching on, I looked at the dead brigand. Of course, there was little resemblance between us, but perhaps that could be remedied. “We could throw him off a cliff,” I suggested. “The rocks would disguise his face, not to mention the battering of the sea.”
“But a body tossed by the sea is just an anonymous body,” said Lycurgus. “This must definitively be Charikles’ body, poor Charikles who died before his marriage to his mourning bride.”
“A pox on my mourning bride. Let her marry my horse.”
This brought the beast into our minds and we turned towards him—a noble animal of arched neck and fine chest.
“Let’s see what he thinks of this tomb robber who himself needs a tomb,” Lycurgus said, leading the stallion towards the body.
Well, the long and short of it was that the horse didn’t like it at all. His head tossed and he snorted in disapproval, pawing the ground. Far from being dismayed, we were delighted. I had brought a change of clothes for riding, which we hastily gifted to the ex-brigand—finer garments than he’d ever worn in life, I’d wager. Then I held the horse’s bridle, stroking his nose to reassure him while Lycurgus heaved the carcass onto the saddle, stuffing the lifeless feet into the stirrups and trussing the rein thongs tightly round the waist. We both stepped back as the horse danced and jittered, unhappy with its macabre load. A grim spectacle it was, a rider with his head lolling in limp circles and hands literally tied in the reins.
“I don’t see how this cadaver could be mistaken for me,” I said in dissatisfaction, “except by a blind man.”
“They’ll only see it in the aftermath,” Lycurgus pointed out, and gave the horse a hearty slap on the rump that sent it sprinting through the woods like a lightning bolt.
What a spectacle! The horse tore through the trees like the finest racer, then realizing its lifeless payload was still in place, began bucking and leaping in a panic. The body gyrated first this way, then that—falling forward over the horse’s neck, then flopping backwards against its hindquarters, each time steeling the horse’s resolve to rid itself of this unworthy rider. At last a dash under a low branch knocked the corpse off the saddle, yet the rein thongs held tight, dragging it after the horse, who continued to thunder through the woods. The brigand’s carcass rolled this way and that, hammered by the horse’s steel-shod hooves and dragged through briars and thickets. The description Lycurgus gave to you of its wild flight was not false, Kleinias and Clitophon, except on one point—Charikles was watching, not riding, the frenzied beast!
When the horse at last stood still, winded and flecked with froth, all that could be said about the body was that it was very dead and was wearing the tattered remains of Charikles’ clothes. Lycurgus ran into town in a fine semblance of a panic to describe my “death” while I led the noble horse farther into the woods and hid it there. I instructed Lycurgus to say it had escaped in the hubbub—I was afraid it would be punished for its innocent part in our scheme otherwise. I knew it was wisest to hide too, yet I could not resist creeping back to town to gaze upon you, Kleinias, as you counseled Clitophon with your typical generous demeanor. I confess, I was worried the announcement of my death would send you into a suicidal shock and was prepared to leap forth from the shrubbery, even to the detriment of all my plans, if you showed signs of self-harm. My heart echoed your grief in sympathy; my father’s grief, somewhat less. I could not forget that it was his greed that had led me to such secret shenanigans.
My wedding, so hastily arranged, became a more hasty funeral; the wedding hymns became dirges, and a robber received most undeserved commendations and lamentations. This I beheld only from a distance, knowing a corpse should only make one appearance at a funeral; two excites exclamation. Still, my plan was to reveal myself to you as soon as possible after the event, to reassure you that I had not yet passed into the dim land of the dead. This I told Lycurgus when he snuck into the woods with leavings filched from the funeral feast.
“I must contact Kleinias immediately,” I said. “I’m sure he’s beside himself. If he makes some excuse for traveling, we can sneak away and no one will be the wiser.”
“Not yet, master,” he objected. “The tears harrowing Kleinias’ eyes and the sorrow on his face are the surest evidence we can present of your demise. Let his expression lighten—as it undoubtedly would, with knowledge of your safety—and people will begin to suspect something is amiss. ‘What’s this? Kleinias, who doted on the young man, walks about with a spring in his step and a smile on his lips? What hard-hearted man is this, who can laugh while his lover lays dead, killed by his gift?’ You know how people love to gossip. Their wild conjectures might lead them to the truth—or, worse, lead them to accuse Kleinias of deliberately arranging your death!”
That thought tormented me even more than separation from you, Kleinias, so I let myself be convinced. Likewise I listened when, after a time, Lycurgus gave me a humbler change of clothes—my finery was too noticeable, he said—and urged me to head towards a lonely beach.
“Ride there and I will arrange for Kleinias to meet you there with a ship,” Lycurgus said, “so that you can depart immediately.”
Oh Kleinias, there was a ship there—but not you! A group of ruffians who would’ve felt at home in the brigand band were waiting for me. Naïve as I was, at first I thought there’d been some mistake.
“Look at those brutes,” I whispered to Lycurgus as I dismounted the horse. “Let’s get away while the getting’s good.”
But Lycurgus, cunning devil, hailed them loudly. “Greetings, friends! Here he is, just as I promised.”
Even then I didn’t understand. “Lycurgus, do you mean you know these men? You’re entrusting Kleinias and me to the dubious seafaring skills of these ugly devils?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your mouth when talking to your betters,” the largest of them growled. (Have you noticed scoundrels always follow the strongest among them rather than the wisest? Not that you’d find any of these fine fellows underneath a plane tree.) “Show respect before I teach it to you with my fists.”
While I was sputtering in indignation, Lycurgus gleefully threw his oar in. “That’s right, he’s a mouthy one—a real brat. Our master can’t stand to listen to his chatter anymore.”
“OUR master?” My outrage redoubled. “You devious liar! I’m the very master you look to, whose word is law—me, Charikles!”
The odious slave laughed in my face. “You hear that, gentlemen? Not only mouthy, but delusional. He thinks he’s Charikles . . . Charikles, who I’m sure you’ve heard was buried less than a week ago. He imagines those rags of his are dyed the deepest purple, I’ll wager. Nevertheless, he’s strong of body and has a fine face—“
They proceeded to haggle for me as three of the menacing pirates surrounded me and hustled me onto the ship. But Lycurgus did not escape unscathed.
“Why pay a slave for a slave?” the pirates sneered. “We’ll take both for free.” Lycurgus’ protests and laments as they forced him onto the ship were a small consolation to me.
Nor did they forget the horse—he was led up the ship’s ramp, ears twitching backwards and forwards as though perturbed by this turn of events.
“The gods and I will look after this.” That’s what I told you before we parted, Kleinias. Well, I admit I made a hash of the situation, but the gods still took pity on me. We’d been out at sea nearly three days when stormclouds blackened the sky. The ship tossed in the waves until the battered hull could take it no more . . . It breached and the salt water tore it apart, board by board. Lightning sizzled across the sky in sudden jolts, revealing in flashes the men crying and dying among the froth and flotsam. I clung to a few meager boards, praying to all the gods I could remember and a few I couldn’t, when what should I see churning through the sea foam but that magnificent horse!
His eyes rolled at each crack of thunder, but he made no attempt to unseat me as I swam over to him and pulled myself onto his broad back—though he struck out with hooves and teeth against any brigand who dared try to pirate him. Lycurgus actually grabbed his tail in an ungainly attempt to save himself, but the horse lashed out with a powerful kick that half lifted him out of the water. Stunned, the treacherous slave sunk beneath the waves to meet a watery end.
Meanwhile, my equine savior plowed through the breakers, braving the waves that curled above and crashed over us. Only by winding my fingers through his mane and clinging with all my strength did I stay seated against the might of the storm. But my steed never quailed. His muscles rippled as he pulled himself away from the wreckage with each stroke of his legs. The gods mercifully pushed us towards land and when the sea calmed, dolphins leapt about us in encouragement, providing an escort until the noble creature at last stood, weary but with a proudly arched neck, on land.
And ever since then I’ve been searching for you, Kleinias—but reports of you seemed to come from here, there, and everywhere—and always I rode into a town just after you’d left it, it seems! But now at last I’ve found you. Congratulations on your wedding, Clitophon, and you, Leucippe. But I hope you’ll understand if the wellspring of my joy has a different source.
~*~
Clitophon's POV:
I looked at Leucippe. “We understand,” we said, smiling.
Kleinias didn’t say anything. He just wept and laughed and hugged him close.
The end!
I had a great time writing it. The horse originally had less of a role until I remembered that the novel started with a detailed description of a picture of Europa riding a bull (Zeus) out to sea. So the horse carrying Charikles to the shore was a reference to and a reversal of that.