Cutter's Island

by Panella, Vincent

“She and her crew of politicians plead for your life. They tell me you’re harmless, and barely a man. They say you have no politics and expect me to believe it.”

  His fingers on the sword grip are long and white, the nails scrubbed clean. If their grip tightens, I swear this pretend faggot goes for the knife in his boot. Sulla will ride in Charon’s boat with me.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t cut off that thing for which Servilia so desperately pleads.”

  “If you want me to beg for my life, I won’t. You know who I am.”

  “Yes I do. You married the daughter of Cinna! This is why your name is on my list!” He slams the table with the flat of the sword, scattering inks and scrolls and tablets. “The real you hides behind all that female garb. You’re the ghost of Marius—no different from your cousin over there—and you’d slice this Republic down the middle and replace its guts with liberal ideas. You’d weaken it so every stinking Italian on the peninsula would have the vote. Next would come Gauls and Spaniards and even Syrians. They wouldn’t need an army to take us over.”

  “If I wanted to bring you down I would have left Italy to join your enemies.”

  “You’re too cunning for that. You know I’m strong. You know I can take that one-eyed prick, Sertorius, and lying Mithridates and anybody else who comes against me!”

  He lowers the sword and says, “Do you want to live?” Without waiting for an answer he hands over a parchment—a divorce decree for Cornelia.

  “Get rid of her and you’re pardoned.”

  “For what crime?”

  Now he speaks with false intimacy. “Look at it this way, young man. This little thing of yours,” and here he points the sword at my groin once more. “And that little thing,” he taps his temple with one finger, “have gotten you confused. Keep your ambition between your legs. Restrict it there and live to be old and happy. Live until you can’t get it up any more, and after that, take your pleasure from dreams and fantasies. But bring it up between your ears once more and I’ll cut it off! Divorce your wife and you’ll come out of this a rich man. Those numbered among my friends can buy any number of properties. You can have another villa to replace the one you lost, and for the price of a good horse. This will show you that I’m ready to make peace.”

  I set the decree back on the table.

  “I can’t do it.”

  “Why not?”

  “You shouldn’t have to ask.”

  “Then take your chances.”

  “You’re a rich boy,” says Cutter. “But what have you seen? Where have you been, to Mytilene? By the time you arrived with Nicomedes’ fleet the battle was over. Is that what you did for your civic crown? Delivered a fleet to another commander? Any slave could have done it.”

  He looks at me with pity, then takes something from a pouch and holds it up. It’s a bridle piece, cast in the shape of a scorpion.

  “Gold-plated bronze,” he says, “From the great Pompey’s horse. Now there’s a man with accomplishments to his credit.”

  “It could be from anyone’s horse.”

  “Trust me, Lord. I fought against him.”

  “Where?”

  “In Spain, at the River Sucro, as a slinger under Sertorius.”

  “And why did you fight for him?”

  “I fought for King Mithridates, the friend of Sertorius. The two of them are squeezing you east and west right now. We may still push your guts out.”

  “You don’t understand the march of history.”

  “But I know Sertorius. He can win, Lord. He can win.”

  “He didn’t win at Sucro.”

  “Nobody won that day, but Pompey led a cavalry attack that sounded like the thunder of a hundred storms. He galloped on a charger covered with so much gold we were almost blinded, for the attack came early in the day and the great man was riding into the sun, as reckless as Alexander. We gave him a volley and he was hit by three stones, each strong enough to kill a bull.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing! The first stone was mine, the smoothest in my pouch. I cried out, ‘Here’s for you, Pompey!’ before letting fly. The stone hit him in the shoulder, and should have torn his arm off. Then two more stones struck, one denting his shield, the other his chest plate. Even above the din I heard the armor collapse. But he just kept coming, no helmet, the stones flying past his face as if gods protected him. He had a fancy stabbing spear in one hand and a round shield in the other, embossed with shining iron as only a strong man can carry. His long hair streamed behind him, flowing like music. Believe me, Lord, this was the image of a god, Achilles himself, the very sun! But then he took a dart in the leg and gave up his horse, which was torn to pieces. And such was the struggle for the great man’s souvenirs that the horse was hacked to pieces and we nearly lost the battle.”

  “Why do you tell me this with such elaboration?”

  He winks at me, as if we share some secret. “I’m not a simple man, Lord. What you see around you, the coarseness of this life, even of my past, says very little about me. I know men and their motivations.”

  “Do you think I envy Pompey?”

  “Pompey is the man right now, until Sertorius and Mithridates put him to rest. Believe me, they will.”

  “And I? Who am I?”

  “A man of dreams.”

  “And you know my dreams?”

  “I know one of them. To return and punish us.”

  “Do you think it’s a dream?”

  “I think it frightens you.”

  “Yes, perhaps. But I’m going to do it.”

  Where am I? Sitting at the base of the tower and shading my eyes to scan the misty Asian coast, dreaming of what took place beyond that mist not very long ago. History’s greatest men have trampled the mainland facing me—Croesus, Xerxes, Alexander—men whose bones are common dust, yet in whose category I count myself in dreams that only Servilia understands. Greater than Pompey. Greater than Crassus. Even greater than Sertorius. I need her to reaffirm my destiny, my ancient lineage, my link to the gods.

  The land and sea around me is ours, every stone, every tree, every grain of sand underfoot. But not in the sense that we own it, not in the sense of property, but of security and law. And it is here, on the edge of our republic, that King Mithridates swears to the peace made with Sulla, but sends his raiding parties across our borders and uses fleets of pirate ships to attack our state. And what does our governor do? Nothing. And I? Wait, and consort with the enemy.

  I don’t know where I fit. Am I really a man of dreams? Am I as strong as Sertorius, who can march fifty miles a day in winter with no food and no cloak? Am I as brave as Pompey, who can ride into a hail of stones? Am I as rich as Crassus, who owns half the city? Do these men pass their days lying on the sand pulling dreams from the sun?

  Pompey charges with a long spear. Stones fly past his face and clang off his armor. After the battle the soldiers hail him as Imperator. The cry from their ranks shakes the earth.

  I never divorced Cornelia. At least that’s to my credit.

  Cutter’s worried about the money. It’s been too long since Curio was left in Miletus—on the doorstep of the governor, a Sullan who surely hopes this fop is already dead after hearing his message—that our state, by not protecting its own citizens, owes me the ransom.

  So now Cutter stands in front of my table chewing his lower lip and the tuft of beard beneath it. He looks out the window toward the beach, where some of his men argue over what to do with me. The loudest voices want me gone, to the slave market in Delos.

  “Do you hear that?” he asks.

  “I hear a group of savages, and it’s your job to control them.”

  “I’m not a dictator, Lord.”

  “Nor a leader.”

  He laughs. “This is why we like you, Lord.”

  Reminding myself that I’m lucky to have lasted this long, I close my tablet, fold my hands over my chest, and lean back in my seat.

  “You know the choices and alwa
ys have. Kill me outright, take me to Delos, or wait for the money. You’re the chief.”

  “All three options are under consideration, Lord, believe me. But you bring up a sensitive point. I’m the chief, but only so long as I deliver. Those men down there …” and he gestures helplessly toward the beach—“are losing patience. They would like to take you over to Delos. But my argument is that only your servants have any value. And with your fevers and fits, to say nothing of your un-slavelike disposition, you’d be considered little more than a hunk of flesh, long and skinny at that. Those slavers have physicians to look men over, and they don’t miss a trick.”

  “That’s your argument? It has nothing to do with my ransom being more than you’d earn in five years of smashing up ships with those toy boats of yours?”

  In response he pulls on his ear, directing it to the window, where the voices from the beach grow louder and angrier.

  “There’s a division here, Lord. Those of us willing to be more patient with you and with your governor, have developed a kind of affection for you. It would be hard for us to kill you, or send you to Delos, where your only value would come about if they broke your spirit, probably by maiming you in ways we all know about. We’re not butchers, Lord.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Look!” he cries, “They come!” He motions me to the window, where I see Hytaspes and several others approaching.

  “Who do you think they want?” he asks.

  “You!”

  “But that means you! Don’t you understand, we’re tied together. If I fall, then you fall!”

  “What will they settle for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Call their leader in here. I see now that I’ll have to do your job.”

  He calls in Hytaspes, who enters the hut walking like a large African monkey, slightly bent over and with his arms hanging away from his body.

  Cutter says, “This one is already angry, Lord, because your man was allowed to defy us, and I let him go.”

  Gesturing with his fat hairy arms, Hytaspes begins to speak. Because of the defect in his lips, his voice is a low passionless monotone. He directs his words neither to Cutter nor to me, but toward the window, where the other malcontents are looking in. The gist of his speech is that the agreed ransom isn’t enough. When he’s done he looks at me directly, his watery black eyes beginning to shift as soon as I hold them. I turn to Cutter.

  “Now I see the game.”

  “What game, Lord?”

  “This game. It was foolish of you to set so low a figure for one so important as I am—descended from the original twenty-six tribes who claim divine lineage beyond recorded time, married to a consul’s daughter, and nephew to a general who has defeated the known world’s fiercest armies.”

  “He’s right,” says Cutter, stroking his beard and looking up as if he’s discovered a new star. Hytaspes, only now catching the direction of my speech, begins to nod his head.

  Raising my voice so those outside can hear, I say, “Let me make it easy for you, and set a figure more worthy of my station, a figure impossible to disagree with.”

  “Which is?” they ask, almost in unison.

  “Fifty talents, more than double the original twenty. Send word to my man and he’ll raise it.”

  “But how long do you expect us to wait?” asks Hytaspes.

  “It will arrive sooner than you think, or want.”

  “And what does that mean?” Hytaspes puts in, as he heads for the window to confer with the others.

  Cutter steps forward and winks at Hytaspes. “Until the young man takes it back.”

  “Takes what back?”

  “The money,” I say. “Every coin of the ransom money—when I return to punish you for your crimes.”

  Cutter nods to Hytaspes as if to humor me. “He’s sworn to capture and punish us, don’t you remember?”

  Hytaspes smiles.

  “But in the meanwhile,” I say, “get out of here. I’m paying for my privacy.”

  Cutter bows low and backs out of the hut. This time nobody laughs.

  Here’s how Servilia tells me where I fit. I fill her mouth with more sperm than she can swallow and she rubs it on her breasts until they glisten.

  “Now,” she says, “lick it off.” And as I lick, “Don’t be frustrated, little baby. They’ll make you governor of a province and give you two legions. Of course I’ll be an old granny by then. You can fornicate your way around the world and I won’t care, but you’ll always love me, won’t you?”

  “I’ll always love my granny.”

  “Then give me what you have. Give me all of it.”

  Making love to Servilia is like riding a horse at a dead run, and gladly plunging into the abyss, searching for the absolute bottom. I pound her like a hammer. I seek, I seek, but find no bottom. She sings in my ears like a Siren. Tears run down from her eyes. My legions march across the territory of her chest. I am … Imperator. I come swooning like a woman, then collapse and cling like a child.

  Later she tells me that men take power the same way they make love.

  Cross the island to the white-capped sea off the west beach, into the wind. A knifelike pain in my stomach makes me want to fall to the sand and curl up like a worm. Double the ransom, double! Paying money is like dying.

  Further along, two great rocks jutting up from the sand offer shelter from the wind. I stand between them, hunched over. The pain in my stomach is the figure in my mind. In coin, one hundred and twenty thousand, enough to sink a boat, or raise an army. Now a sudden dizziness, and I press my hands against the rocks to hold myself up. The crash and howl of water and wind seeking me out. Let the elements force the pain from my stomach until life is only what I see and hear. I have no more thoughts.

  Was I ever so weak, so alone, so without gods or divine powers? I have no more, no ancestry, no concept of honor. I’m a dead shellfish with its guts pecked out by gulls, as inert as these rocks bearded with weed and smoothed by the water’s hands.

  Living is like eating sand.

  When my head clears I continue along the beach, pushing myself into a fast walk, fighting the thought of being nothing, disconnected, forgotten.

  Washed up on the sand are Neptune’s gifts, clay shards, a broken mast, a shredded sail partly buried in the sand. I pull on the sail but it won’t come out. It’s made of cowhide, too stiff to grip tightly. I pull harder, setting my feet, pulling until my fingers ache. Nothing. I dig around it with the mast and pull some more. The parched cowhide breaks in my hands. I heave the mast piece unto the surf and keep walking.

  In gold coin—twelve thousand pieces.

  At night Cutter staggers up with a jug of wine and calls me out. I find him sitting on the ground, his eyes rolling so they almost disappear. He puts the wine to his lips, then rejects it.

  “Non Missio,” he says, raising his jug to the sea in salute. “Do you know what that means?”

  “Everyone knows what that means.”

  “But not what it’s like.”

  “And you do?”

  “I know what it’s like to be a piece of shit.”

  “And I don’t?”

  “You just think you do.”

  He tries to speak again but his stomach heaves and he takes several deep breaths to stop himself from vomiting. He waves me off and goes away.

  The next day we get into the skiff and I row him to the deep part of the harbor where the sand beach abruptly turns to sheer cliffs of rust colored stone. Fingers of sunlight poke into the shallow sea bottom. He sits in the stern rubbing the stump with his good hand. His eyes are steady now, and at one point they turn up to me and lock.

  He tells me his real name—Vatinio—and that he spent two years in a gladiator school at Capua. Non Missio was their guarantee to patrons: no defeated gladiator asked for mercy.

  He then dismisses the subject with a wave of his hand, and directs me past several caves at the base of the cliff. I row the skiff past these
and he shows me a large cavern where the new trireme is tied up. Silver seeing-eyes have been nailed into the prow on each side, and the oar blades and woodwork are also trimmed with silver.

  “With this ship,” he says, “No one can stand against me.”

  Later he takes me to a storage room, a below-ground cave, its entrance hidden by some innocuous shrubbery. We enter a chamber as large as a villa with enough supplies for a small city. Saying, “What do you think? What do you think?” he shows me rows of amphorae filled with oil and wine, stacks of copper ingots, sword blanks, ash handles for spears and tools, and a mound of ivory tusks.

  He digs into a trunk with his stump and stirs up coins and jewelry like a cook making stew. Hanging from his ram’s head are snake bracelets and bulls-head chokers. With his good hand he lifts out daggers with ivory handles inlaid with precious gems, a sword belonging to Mithridates, its handle inset with a gold image of Alexander—which he kisses.

  “We descend from him, all of us.”

  “Was he a pirate like you?” I ask.

  He closes the trunk carefully and looks up, as if summoning the gods for patience. ‘These trinkets ripped from the extremities of your brethren had been ripped from others. In the end, all is even.”

  “My money too?”

  “Forget about the money.”

  My laughter echoes in the cave.

  The poet stands before his audience, parchments in hand. But this is no Aventine salon, no dinner given by some venerable, guests reclining on brocade couches and sipping watered wine, puckering their lips over medlar fruits. This is Cutter’s island, where pirates with the presumption to call themselves the navy of Mithridates swill like hogs, stuffing meat into their mouths as if stanching wounds, gulping down Samian wine as fast as they can fill their stolen bowls.

  “Sing to us, Lord!” cries Cutter. “Sing of gods and heroes.”

  I play to the vein of truth behind his mockery. Somewhere deep in all of these monkeys is the love of music, the love of poetry, the love of art and civilization. I can play to that. There are days to sing, and days to get even. Today, I sing.