sethsomewhere
02-23-2015, 01:17 PM
We have come to a river, the distant boundary between two worlds, the end of this world, to a point of no return. Here, silence dwells. Decimus Junius Brutus stands atop a granite hill, beneath drifts the River Limia.
"One does not know his limits until he sees the horizon."
"Can you see the horizon, sir?" Lucius Domitius Cato asks.
Brutus looks across the river. The line between the hills and the sky is blotted out by fog. Brutus observes a bird of prey alight on the riverbank and enter the water. The bird bathes its wings in the river, then returns to the pine wood. Brutus nods his head.
"Sir, you are not known as one who looks at birds."
"These things do not come to pass without the will of heaven," Brutus says. "I have prayed to the great gods and they have answered."
"And what is the will of the gods?"
A cavalry detachment, led by Titus Maccius Plautus, emerges from the forest upstream. They cut across the sandy flood plain toward a narrow ford in the river. Titus surveys the valley and points toward the granite hill where Brutus stands. He spurs his black Parthian horse and crosses back across the plain toward the trees. The cavalry rides along the verge of the forest and enters the Roman encampment.
"At dawn the gods compel us to cross the river," Brutus says.
"The soldiers are terrified of what will happen."
"They will forget their fear before they even cross the river."
Brutus steps down from the rocky outcrop and marches through the scrubby gorse to the pine wood. He reaches the forest edge and crosses the sandy plain toward the encampment, stopping at the ditch that encircles the camp perimeter. Inside, a group of soldiers gathers around a hearth dug in the ground, filled with ashen remains of poppies.
"The barbarians are indolent when not at war."
"The murmuring Lethe lulls them to sleep."
"They made an expedition with another tribe and once they crossed the River Lethe they forgot their friendship and fought among themselves."
"They did not fight each other," Gaius Veturia Calvinus says, "Once across the river the barbarians forgot why they had crossed, so they went separately into the forest to find a home. These are the abodes of the dead, as they have no memory of their previous life."
"They forgot even death," Tacitus Flavius Drusus says.
Brutus crosses the camp threshold.
"Perhaps these barbarians are already dead," Brutus says. "If it is indeed the River Lethe, then we must be in the underworld."
The soldiers around the hearth jump to their feet. Brutus enters the circle formed by the soldiers and stands between them and the hearth. The other soldiers in camp gather around the hearth, including Titus Maccius Plautus.
"I do not remember dying," Brutus says. "I also do not recall sending the cavalry upstream."
"You did no such thing." Titus Maccius Plautus says.
Titus walks through the crowd of soldiers to meet Brutus.
"I wanted to survey the river to find a way around it," Titus says.
"That was not necessary, Titus. Tomorrow we shall cross the river at that ford."
Brutus motions upstream toward the ford on sandy flood plain where the Titus Maccius Plautus and his cavalry stopped.
"You will be alone in this endeavor."
"It is not so. The gods command it."
"They have spoken to you?"
"It has been observed."
"In what way?"
"A bird," Brutus says. "It bathed in the river and returned to its nest."
"Yet it did not cross the river."
"You miss the point."
"Do tell, what is the importance of this bird?"
"The bird did not forget from where it came."
"Decimus Junius Brutus, you are a consul and general of Rome, an augur you are not."
"It is not necessary that I be one, Titus."
"Yet you insist the gods speak to you."
"It is true. Jupiter has shown me that a bird drinks from this river as any other."
"Let them drink if they are thirsty." Titus turns to the soldiers behind him.
"Titus Maccius Plautus, do not be unmindful of your duty to Rome," Lucius Domitius Cato says.
"I am free to do as I wish," Titus says.
"No one is free but Jupiter," Brutus says, pacing along the soldiers surrounding him. He turns around walks toward Titus. "At dawn the gods compel us to cross the river."
Cloudy vapors rise from the river valley in a doubtful dawn. A procession of soldiers drifts across the flood plain toward the riverbank. The cavalry detachment lingers in the encampment as Titus Maccius Plautus tends to his black Parthian horse, oblivious of the watchful gaze of Decimus Junius Brutus from the hill above the River Limia.
"Beyond the Lethe is a river so large its waters extinguish the fires of the sun," Brutus says. "It must be a terrible sight."
"Sir, have you awakened fearing the same superstitions as your soldiers?" Lucius Domitius Cato asks.
"No, but I must think like them if I wish to conquer their doubt."
The sun rises from behind the hills, lifting the blanket of fog from the river valley. Brutus and Cato descend the wooded hill and join the army marching upstream to the narrow ford in the river. The cavalry has left the encampment and brings up the rear of the column. The soldiers file into three lines parallel to the river. Brutus and Cato stand in front of the formation with their backs to the river. Brutus steps toward the soldiers.
"Each soldier that has no fear of this river, step forward and we will cross," Brutus says.
There is silence and stillness. Brutus approaches the front line and faces Marcus Aquilia Florus.
"Marcus Aquilia Florus, take the standard of Rome across this river."
Marcus Aquilia Florus stands silent and motionless.
"Do you refuse to cross?" Brutus asks.
"Sir, I am afraid that I will forget I am a Roman if cross this river," Marcus Aquilia Florus says.
Brutus walks down the front line and stops at Gaius Veturia Calvinus.
"Tell me, Gaius Veturia Calvinus, why do you fear this river?" Brutus asks.
"I fear that I will forget my wife and marry a wild barbarian woman and grow my hair as long as hers."
"And you, Tacitus Flavius Drusus, you will not cross even though the gods tell us to do so?"
Tacitus nods his head. Brutus continues down the front line of the soldiers. He stops at Titus Maccius Plautus.
"And why do you fear this river, Titus?" Brutus asks.
"For my part, I fear nothing but the immortal gods."
"The gods are not to be feared."
"Yet you insist we cross this river for fear of the gods."
"We are not the playthings of the gods," Brutus says. "I observed a bird enter this river and return to where it came. If this means that the gods give us favor to cross, then so be it. But I will cross not out of fear but because I choose to."
"You do not choose, Brutus. The gods control you."
"The gods compel us, condemn us, consecrate us, but they do not control us," Brutus says. "We choose, and it is by our action, not of the gods, that the world is made better."
"Then I choose not to cross," Titus says.
Decimus Junius Brutus turns around and marches back along the front line. He takes the standard from Marcus Aquilia Florus and walks to the edge of the river. He pauses at the water's edge, raises the standard above his shoulders, digs in his right heel--leaving his footprint in the spongy grey sand--and enters the river. Brutus descends down the gently sloping riverbed before ascending onto a shoal in the middle of the river. He crosses the narrow shoal and descends again into a deep channel along the opposite riverbank. Brutus wades diagonally against the strong current, raising the standard above his head as the water rises to his chest. He reaches the opposite shore and climbs out of the water up the steep bank, planting the standard on the crest of the riverbank. Brutus turns around to face his army.
"Marcus Aquilia Florus, come retrieve the standard of the Republic of Rome," Brutus shouts.
There is silence and stillness. Brutus waits next to the standard. Marcus Aquilia Florus walks forward from the first line of soldiers and stops at the river's edge. He looks down at the water, raises his head to look at Brutus, then enters the river. His pace is slow in the shallow water and he struggles to cross the deep channel. He reaches the steep bank and climbs up the muddy slope several yards downstream from where Brutus stands. Marcus Aquilia Florus looks across the river toward the army, then walks next to Brutus and the standard.
"Gaius Veturia Calvinus, cross this river so that your hair may grow long," Brutus says.
There is silence but not stillness. Gaius Veturia Calvinus strides to the shore and wades into the river. His pace is quicker than Standard Bearer's as he crosses the channel with little effort. He emerges from the river in front of Brutus.
"Soon your hair will be long and lay across the bosom of a barbarian b*tch," Brutus says.
Gaius Veturia Calvinus laughs. "That will not happen. My wife would kill me and then I would really have to cross the Lethe."
"Tacitus Flavius Drusus, your general Decimus Junius Brutus commands that you cross the river and join us."
Tacitus Flavius Drusus enters the river as a murmur rises among the soldiers. Tacitus Flavius Drusus crosses the river and climbs up the bank to join Brutus and the other two soldiers. Brutus commands the remaining soldiers to cross the river one by one. The murmur from the soldiers increases as each one is called by Brutus using their full Latin name. Finally, Titus Maccius Plautus remains alone opposite Decimus Junius Brutus.
"Titus Maccius Plautus, cross the river at once," Brutus says.
Titus unsheathes his sword and lifts it above his head as he steps into the water.
"Lucius, tell Gaius Veturia Calvinus he will lead the soldiers up the hill. Adrian Vulcanus Palacius is to remain with us," Brutus says. "Bring the shackles."
Titus reaches the shoal and enters the channel. The sun glints off his sword as he raises it above his head in the chest-deep channel. The soldiers begin to climb the wooded hill as Titus pulls himself up from the riverbank on to his feet and sheaths his sword.
"Titus Maccius Plautus, do you remember my name?" Brutus asks as he puts one hand on Titus's shoulders and his other hand on Titus's sword.
"Decimus Junius Brutus," Titus replies.
"Correct, I am Decimus Junius Brutus."
Brutus stops in front of several boulders at the foot of the fog-wreathed hillock. He swings in front of Titus and unsheathes his sword in one motion. Brutus places the tip of the sword on Titus's chest and pushes his back against a granite boulder. Brutus turns and looks at the pine wood across the river.
"Yesterday, the birds were thirsty," Brutus says. He turns back to Titus. "Today, I am afraid, they will be hungry."
Lucius Domitius Cato and Adrian Vulcanus Palacius grab Titus's wrists and stretch out his arms against the rock. Adrian places an iron band around the right wrist of Titus and hammers a wedge into the boulder to fasten the bond. He does the same to the left wrist and then clamps shackles to Titus's ankles and drives a rivet for each shackle deep in the granite. Cato and Palacius leave Titus chained upright against the rock. Decimus Junius Brutus follows his army's trail up the wooded hill, beneath which drifts the River Limia.
"One does not know his limits until he sees the horizon."
"Can you see the horizon, sir?" Lucius Domitius Cato asks.
Brutus looks across the river. The line between the hills and the sky is blotted out by fog. Brutus observes a bird of prey alight on the riverbank and enter the water. The bird bathes its wings in the river, then returns to the pine wood. Brutus nods his head.
"Sir, you are not known as one who looks at birds."
"These things do not come to pass without the will of heaven," Brutus says. "I have prayed to the great gods and they have answered."
"And what is the will of the gods?"
A cavalry detachment, led by Titus Maccius Plautus, emerges from the forest upstream. They cut across the sandy flood plain toward a narrow ford in the river. Titus surveys the valley and points toward the granite hill where Brutus stands. He spurs his black Parthian horse and crosses back across the plain toward the trees. The cavalry rides along the verge of the forest and enters the Roman encampment.
"At dawn the gods compel us to cross the river," Brutus says.
"The soldiers are terrified of what will happen."
"They will forget their fear before they even cross the river."
Brutus steps down from the rocky outcrop and marches through the scrubby gorse to the pine wood. He reaches the forest edge and crosses the sandy plain toward the encampment, stopping at the ditch that encircles the camp perimeter. Inside, a group of soldiers gathers around a hearth dug in the ground, filled with ashen remains of poppies.
"The barbarians are indolent when not at war."
"The murmuring Lethe lulls them to sleep."
"They made an expedition with another tribe and once they crossed the River Lethe they forgot their friendship and fought among themselves."
"They did not fight each other," Gaius Veturia Calvinus says, "Once across the river the barbarians forgot why they had crossed, so they went separately into the forest to find a home. These are the abodes of the dead, as they have no memory of their previous life."
"They forgot even death," Tacitus Flavius Drusus says.
Brutus crosses the camp threshold.
"Perhaps these barbarians are already dead," Brutus says. "If it is indeed the River Lethe, then we must be in the underworld."
The soldiers around the hearth jump to their feet. Brutus enters the circle formed by the soldiers and stands between them and the hearth. The other soldiers in camp gather around the hearth, including Titus Maccius Plautus.
"I do not remember dying," Brutus says. "I also do not recall sending the cavalry upstream."
"You did no such thing." Titus Maccius Plautus says.
Titus walks through the crowd of soldiers to meet Brutus.
"I wanted to survey the river to find a way around it," Titus says.
"That was not necessary, Titus. Tomorrow we shall cross the river at that ford."
Brutus motions upstream toward the ford on sandy flood plain where the Titus Maccius Plautus and his cavalry stopped.
"You will be alone in this endeavor."
"It is not so. The gods command it."
"They have spoken to you?"
"It has been observed."
"In what way?"
"A bird," Brutus says. "It bathed in the river and returned to its nest."
"Yet it did not cross the river."
"You miss the point."
"Do tell, what is the importance of this bird?"
"The bird did not forget from where it came."
"Decimus Junius Brutus, you are a consul and general of Rome, an augur you are not."
"It is not necessary that I be one, Titus."
"Yet you insist the gods speak to you."
"It is true. Jupiter has shown me that a bird drinks from this river as any other."
"Let them drink if they are thirsty." Titus turns to the soldiers behind him.
"Titus Maccius Plautus, do not be unmindful of your duty to Rome," Lucius Domitius Cato says.
"I am free to do as I wish," Titus says.
"No one is free but Jupiter," Brutus says, pacing along the soldiers surrounding him. He turns around walks toward Titus. "At dawn the gods compel us to cross the river."
Cloudy vapors rise from the river valley in a doubtful dawn. A procession of soldiers drifts across the flood plain toward the riverbank. The cavalry detachment lingers in the encampment as Titus Maccius Plautus tends to his black Parthian horse, oblivious of the watchful gaze of Decimus Junius Brutus from the hill above the River Limia.
"Beyond the Lethe is a river so large its waters extinguish the fires of the sun," Brutus says. "It must be a terrible sight."
"Sir, have you awakened fearing the same superstitions as your soldiers?" Lucius Domitius Cato asks.
"No, but I must think like them if I wish to conquer their doubt."
The sun rises from behind the hills, lifting the blanket of fog from the river valley. Brutus and Cato descend the wooded hill and join the army marching upstream to the narrow ford in the river. The cavalry has left the encampment and brings up the rear of the column. The soldiers file into three lines parallel to the river. Brutus and Cato stand in front of the formation with their backs to the river. Brutus steps toward the soldiers.
"Each soldier that has no fear of this river, step forward and we will cross," Brutus says.
There is silence and stillness. Brutus approaches the front line and faces Marcus Aquilia Florus.
"Marcus Aquilia Florus, take the standard of Rome across this river."
Marcus Aquilia Florus stands silent and motionless.
"Do you refuse to cross?" Brutus asks.
"Sir, I am afraid that I will forget I am a Roman if cross this river," Marcus Aquilia Florus says.
Brutus walks down the front line and stops at Gaius Veturia Calvinus.
"Tell me, Gaius Veturia Calvinus, why do you fear this river?" Brutus asks.
"I fear that I will forget my wife and marry a wild barbarian woman and grow my hair as long as hers."
"And you, Tacitus Flavius Drusus, you will not cross even though the gods tell us to do so?"
Tacitus nods his head. Brutus continues down the front line of the soldiers. He stops at Titus Maccius Plautus.
"And why do you fear this river, Titus?" Brutus asks.
"For my part, I fear nothing but the immortal gods."
"The gods are not to be feared."
"Yet you insist we cross this river for fear of the gods."
"We are not the playthings of the gods," Brutus says. "I observed a bird enter this river and return to where it came. If this means that the gods give us favor to cross, then so be it. But I will cross not out of fear but because I choose to."
"You do not choose, Brutus. The gods control you."
"The gods compel us, condemn us, consecrate us, but they do not control us," Brutus says. "We choose, and it is by our action, not of the gods, that the world is made better."
"Then I choose not to cross," Titus says.
Decimus Junius Brutus turns around and marches back along the front line. He takes the standard from Marcus Aquilia Florus and walks to the edge of the river. He pauses at the water's edge, raises the standard above his shoulders, digs in his right heel--leaving his footprint in the spongy grey sand--and enters the river. Brutus descends down the gently sloping riverbed before ascending onto a shoal in the middle of the river. He crosses the narrow shoal and descends again into a deep channel along the opposite riverbank. Brutus wades diagonally against the strong current, raising the standard above his head as the water rises to his chest. He reaches the opposite shore and climbs out of the water up the steep bank, planting the standard on the crest of the riverbank. Brutus turns around to face his army.
"Marcus Aquilia Florus, come retrieve the standard of the Republic of Rome," Brutus shouts.
There is silence and stillness. Brutus waits next to the standard. Marcus Aquilia Florus walks forward from the first line of soldiers and stops at the river's edge. He looks down at the water, raises his head to look at Brutus, then enters the river. His pace is slow in the shallow water and he struggles to cross the deep channel. He reaches the steep bank and climbs up the muddy slope several yards downstream from where Brutus stands. Marcus Aquilia Florus looks across the river toward the army, then walks next to Brutus and the standard.
"Gaius Veturia Calvinus, cross this river so that your hair may grow long," Brutus says.
There is silence but not stillness. Gaius Veturia Calvinus strides to the shore and wades into the river. His pace is quicker than Standard Bearer's as he crosses the channel with little effort. He emerges from the river in front of Brutus.
"Soon your hair will be long and lay across the bosom of a barbarian b*tch," Brutus says.
Gaius Veturia Calvinus laughs. "That will not happen. My wife would kill me and then I would really have to cross the Lethe."
"Tacitus Flavius Drusus, your general Decimus Junius Brutus commands that you cross the river and join us."
Tacitus Flavius Drusus enters the river as a murmur rises among the soldiers. Tacitus Flavius Drusus crosses the river and climbs up the bank to join Brutus and the other two soldiers. Brutus commands the remaining soldiers to cross the river one by one. The murmur from the soldiers increases as each one is called by Brutus using their full Latin name. Finally, Titus Maccius Plautus remains alone opposite Decimus Junius Brutus.
"Titus Maccius Plautus, cross the river at once," Brutus says.
Titus unsheathes his sword and lifts it above his head as he steps into the water.
"Lucius, tell Gaius Veturia Calvinus he will lead the soldiers up the hill. Adrian Vulcanus Palacius is to remain with us," Brutus says. "Bring the shackles."
Titus reaches the shoal and enters the channel. The sun glints off his sword as he raises it above his head in the chest-deep channel. The soldiers begin to climb the wooded hill as Titus pulls himself up from the riverbank on to his feet and sheaths his sword.
"Titus Maccius Plautus, do you remember my name?" Brutus asks as he puts one hand on Titus's shoulders and his other hand on Titus's sword.
"Decimus Junius Brutus," Titus replies.
"Correct, I am Decimus Junius Brutus."
Brutus stops in front of several boulders at the foot of the fog-wreathed hillock. He swings in front of Titus and unsheathes his sword in one motion. Brutus places the tip of the sword on Titus's chest and pushes his back against a granite boulder. Brutus turns and looks at the pine wood across the river.
"Yesterday, the birds were thirsty," Brutus says. He turns back to Titus. "Today, I am afraid, they will be hungry."
Lucius Domitius Cato and Adrian Vulcanus Palacius grab Titus's wrists and stretch out his arms against the rock. Adrian places an iron band around the right wrist of Titus and hammers a wedge into the boulder to fasten the bond. He does the same to the left wrist and then clamps shackles to Titus's ankles and drives a rivet for each shackle deep in the granite. Cato and Palacius leave Titus chained upright against the rock. Decimus Junius Brutus follows his army's trail up the wooded hill, beneath which drifts the River Limia.