Cutter's Island

by Panella, Vincent

  “I’ve given the order to forego the whipping, for all of you. This is in exchange for the mercy you’ve shown to me and my staff.”

  This time his lips are steady when he smiles. “This only means we’ll die more slowly, of thirst and hunger, of tiny wounds in our feet which won’t bleed fast enough. We’ll welcome the pecking of carrion birds.”

  “You won’t die slowly.”

  “And why is that, Lord?”

  “Because I’ve arranged that as well.”

  He gives me a conspiratorial look, then shakes his head as if to get rid of some pain.

  When I don’t elaborate, he says, “No matter. All is written, Lord, written down beforehand. So why should we thank you for this illusive mercy? My end is old news. The fisherman who lived on the island and sucked the wisdom of the sea into his body, he saw my fate, and had he met you, would have seen yours. No man is forced, Lord, to punishment or mercy, especially one like yourself. Save the political gestures for the senate of your great city, and do your work here. I’m ready for whatever you measure out. I’m ready for the curtain to fall.”

  “It’s impossible …” I begin.

  “For what?”

  “For an equal exchange between us. Nothing I do will suffice.”

  “Except to die.”

  I salute him as the soldiers hoist his crosspiece, then nail his feet, one spike in each. He doesn’t cry out when the blood flows. I leave him and canter down the line. The process is in full swing now. Eighty-eight posts are set, the tools distributed. Soldiers lead each man to his destination. Some need to be dragged over the sand. I pass those with whom I’ve spent my time on the island, those who mocked, those who insulted, those who threw the javelin and ran against me in the games. A few avert my gaze, others pray for mercy, clasping their hands and crying out to me. They’ve become beggars for their lives, cowering, unshaven, and stinking from prison, where they were stripped of their clothing and given rough, tattered garments to wear. Mercy, Lord. They all say it, the dart men who killed Secondini’s crew mutilated their bodies for a few bits of gold, the insolent ones who called me Imperator or faggot, those who held up the money sacks and gestured with mock obeisance. Mercy, Lord, I had nothing to do with it.

  I hear the cries of Goras and see him in the front row, distinguished by his great belly.

  “Take me in your service, Lord. I’ll serve you loyally.”

  “I know that.”

  “I always treated you with respect, Lord.”

  “And you liked my poetry.”

  His response is cut off by a spasm of pain, for his great weight pulls on the nails and opens his wounds even further. I order more ropes to hold him up and ease the pain, then say goodbye and turn away. When he cries out, “I thought you were my friend!”—I urge my horse to a more remote place.

  This beach is an open temple of fate. Like angry bees, the soldiers in yellow armor and black capes wrestle the prisoners to the posts, mortise the crosspieces, set each man’s feet into a wooden rest, and drive the nails to hold them fast. The air rings with the sound of hammers and the agonies of the guilty. I canter my horse along the tide line. Above the groans and cries my name flies in the air, as though the gods are speaking it. Caesar! Caesar! On the lips of men, in the lapping tide, my name bubbles up in the salty foam, the chant of two syllables, CAE-SAR! CAE-SAR! The tidal flow sings my destiny, rising, rising, foaming, yet steady and white like the swan. My name sails above the cries of the doomed. There’s no way to tell them that I am doomed to this as they to death.

  Cutter faces the sea, his head moving from side to side as if to deny this is happening to him. His feet drip blood.

  “Is it better with the weight off your arms?” I ask.

  “You test me, Lord, to the limit.”

  “Are you comfortable?”

  “Oh yes, Lord, very comfortable.”

  I urge my horse closer and wave the nearby men out of earshot. For the first time now we are the same height. I stare at him until he brings his eyes from the sea and looks into mine.

  “You want to say something, don’t you, Lord?”

  “A few last words, something between us.”

  “I have no regrets.”

  “I think you do.”

  “Are those your last words? For if they are, well and good.”

  “I have some other words.”

  “Lord?”

  I pause, look out to sea for a moment. There is no swan, only a band of glittering sunlight. Turning back to Cutter I say, “My second poem, that you didn’t have a chance to hear.”

  He looks to the sky for tolerance. “And must I suffer this now?”

  “There’s something in it for you.”

  “A lesson?”

  “A return gift, my story for yours.”

  “I will hear it, Lord.”

  “Of course you will. This is a chance for you to mock me one last time.”

  He grits his teeth and forces the words. “Give me all of it, Lord, the whole poem. Hold nothing back.”

  “You’re very kind. So here it is, from me to you, here and now. It will become part of what is written down, a song over this sand and these foaming waters.”

  “What is the poem called?”

  “My Father.”

  Old Anchises, standing on Ilium’s wall,

  his trembling hand arched over his eyes, the

  better to see, observes the dust cloud of his

  son’s chariot. And like a wolf, the son hustles

  across the plain of old Scamandros, moving to

  buttress the line at its weakest point, hungry

  to face the angry Argive heroes.

  An old wolf himself, Anchises counts that

  son like a miser counts coins, he with the

  chariot the oldest minted, Aeneas, of

  unalloyed gold, like the sun on his

  shimmering helm, that coin pressed in

  the days of honest kings, a weighty piece,

  set with the image of a far-off city of hills, bathed

  in sun and blessed by the God of Rivers.

  This coin the old miser tucks into a

  separate purse worn on a leather necklace

  close to his heart. That young wolf, he knows,

  sprang from Golden Venus, into whose womb

  Anchises poured his seed when that Goddess came

  to him on Mount Ida, and would, despite the

  auguries of Cassandra, live to fight in other

  lands, and his own divine seed begin a race of

  Italians to surpass in greatness the tribes of

  Greece and Troy combined.

  And one of these, held captive near the

  place of his first father, will soon play the

  wolf again.

  “So, what do you think?”

  “A good poem, Lord.”

  “Do you understand the allusions?”

  “I see what you mean, Lord.”

  “There’s a lesson there.”

  “It’s better than your last.”

  “Had you heard this poem on the island, things might have ended differently.”

  “I think not, Lord.” He shrugs and I follow his gaze out to sea, where the trireme comes into view over the smooth, gold-tinted waters, its metal fittings aglow in the setting sun, the oarsmen pulling slowly, then lifting the oars as the anchors are thrown out. The ship’s rails are hung with legionary shields, and flying from its mast, the ensigns and banners of our state, and the flag of my family gods.

  “And what do you see now?”

  “A good ship, Lord. I thought it was done for.”

  “It’s been repaired, ‘as a memorial’ you might say.”

  “And may you use it well.”

  “It will serve.”

  “My work is in that ship, Lord.”

  “I will think of you.”

  We look at each other. His eyes begin to blink and the skin around them twitches. We look out to th
e sea. Some fishermen wading in the shallow water near the islands are pulling up nets laden with mullets. They work ignoring the activity on this beach.

  “From the first moment I saw you …” Cutter begins, then stops.

  “I understand, and perhaps for me too.”

  We watch as one of the fishermen leads a donkey into the surf and the fish are thrown into straw baskets slung over the animal’s back.

  Biting his lip against the pain, but speaking through it, Cutter says, “You would think that right now I envy those simple men who fish for a living and fear the gods and do as they’re told. Their lives prepare them for death.”

  “Would you have it any other way? Would you like to have been one of them?”

  “No, Lord.”

  He’s still looking out to sea, as if he would fly there. His face is purple and swollen from being beaten at the prison.

  “Are you ready?”

  “No.”

  I place my hand on his shoulder and rest it there, not caring who sees me. Unlike what Pompey would have done, given the orders from afar, or Crassus the same, men whose justice would have been absolute.

  “You are a poet, Lord.”

  I look at my hand on his shoulder. “This is the sign of a poet?”

  “A true sign, that you see the connection between men.”

  “But you’re not ready?”

  “Some men are always ready for death, and perhaps I am, Who knows? The restless, unsatisfied hunger for life abandoned me when I lost my hand. Now I’ve drunk from the cup. I’ve seen the great men of our time. I’ve been swallowed by the sea and spat back up. I’ve been cheered and insulted by multitudes at a time, and I eventually devoted myself to the defeat of your state. It may yet come about.”

  I take my hand from his shoulder. The moment is over.

  “Not in my time.”

  “Who knows, Lord. This victory of yours, this little show on the beach, will be written down for others. Everything is known, everything seen, if only by the gods, who have their way of speaking to man.”

  “You should have been a senator.”

  He looks out to sea, gesturing to the trireme rocking against its anchor ropes. “And you a pirate.”

  Up and down the line, all the pirates have been fixed to their crosses. Cutter tries to stare at me, but his eyelids begin to flutter. Now from the trireme one blast of a horn. Curio signals at the rail—one hand drawn across his neck. Then he holds out both hands, palms up.

  “Your man wants it finished,” says Cutter.

  “He’s always impatient.”

  The sun nears the horizon, and Cutter exhales from deep inside himself. “I should have killed you both.” Still looking away, he says, “The night is ahead of us. Will you stay until the end, Lord?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’ll have the last word. Once the pain begins you’ll see me die badly. All night long I’ll insult you and your great city and call out the names of its victims. I’ve put them to memory, like you with your poem. I’ll start with Secondini, that trader captain who eluded us so many times. And tomorrow, when my head is cut off, your men will have to throw it into the sea to quiet my voice. Even then, from the bottom of the sea my mouth will sing of the Romans I’ve beheaded, drowned, and robbed, mocking them because I’ve defied their law for so many years.”

  “That’s not the way it will happen,” I say, giving the signal to the men up and down the line. From my saddle pouch I take a length of soft, strong leather.

  “What is this, Lord?”

  “My promise.”

  “Of what?”

  “A quick death.” Gently saying, “Hold still now,” I loop it around his neck, simultaneously urging my horse against the cross. When close enough for purchase, I pull the leather tight. Cutter’s breath is choked off, and his face reddens. Up and down the line the soldiers follow my example and dispatch the pirates in the same way. The leather cuts into the beard on Cutter’s neck and his face turns red, then blue. His eyes bulge out with shock, as his body strains against the ropes. I pull tighter, using all my strength now, unable to speak, but trying to tell him with my eyes that this is the most painless way to do my work. In the single nod of his head which precedes the empurplement of his face he seems to understand this. I pull until the life goes out of his eyes, and a look of outrage freezes behind the mask on his face.

  This is my beginning, as certain as a beard’s first growth, or the early pulsings of sexual desire. The work is done, although not to Curio’s liking. He would whip them with rods and slit their throats after a night of suffering. “Think of poor Secondini and his men! Even more, think of your reputation.” But if they in Rome criticize this as an excess of mercy, let them think back to Sulla and Marius, whose blood lust only fed on itself. So let us end it here, the price paid, my word kept, this little part of Our Sea made safe, for now, and the course of my life set.

  Grouped in my wake and packed with Marines are Juncus’s four warships. Our Sullan governor wanted to sell the pirates into slavery and pocket their treasury. He wasn’t pleased that I’d taken matters—and money—into my own hands. To soothe his feelings I’ve agreed to do him a favor: contingents of Mithridates’ army have crossed our borders not two days sail from here. With his force I plan to attack and give our governor some credit for protecting our borders.

  The deck of Cutter’s trireme sways under my feet, and I grip the rail to prevent the oar surge from pitching me into the sea. This galley powers through the swells, almost as if the sea were flat and calm. At each rise the beach near Miletus comes into view, tinted red from the setting sun and shrinking constantly. The crosses are still discernible, like children’s play sticks in the sand. Cutter is forward of the rest, ready to receive the pack of vultures who settle on the sand and stride toward him like generals. I shudder to think of what language might pass between them. Soon sea mist covers all, and turns my attention forward.

  The young man in bright clothing and hand-carved boots who fiercely defended his poetry, and who, in the midst of barbarity, insisted on the refinements of civilization, returned to uphold the law these dead men laughed at. Thus it will be written.

  TO THE READER

  While historians agree that Caesar kept his promise to return and crucify the pirates, the adventure isn’t treated in detail. More is made of the young man’s cunning and the first signs of a mercy remarkable for its author. In Caesar’s last years this trait proved fatal.

  After his adventure with the pirates and the brief military action against Mithridates’ invasion force, Caesar would wait fifteen years for his next command. He went on to conquer all of France and parts of Germany, Spain, and Britain. He won the civil war against Pompey and the Optimates, and wrote of these achievements in a spare, elegant style which became the benchmark for Latin prose. The man associated with a million combat deaths and the man who cut off the right hands of whole tribes was the same who pardoned those peers who fought with Pompey. Among those spared was Marcus Brutus, Servilia’s son, and a leader in the conspiracy. On the Ides of March his dagger would find its target in Caesar’s groin. Yet even after the assassination, Caesar remained victorious in his prophecies: his death, as he had foretold, unleashed the dogs of civil war once again.

  V. P.