new first chapter

Chapter 1 - Trespass

“Your most imposing adversary defines who you will become in this land.”

—Scribonius Largus

A.D. 5

The young man escaped into the shadows. He raced through the narrow half-street past brazen firepots embossed with the grim image of the current Imperator, Caesar Augustus. Their flames flung spectral silhouettes that undulated along the stone walls.

A Roman Legionarius pursued him from the recesses of the dark alleyway.

That soldier! That barbaric savage… I’m only ten summers old.

The youth stumbled on the uneven pavement and his face smacked the wet cobblestones with a thud. He grabbed his forehead, pushed his hair back and came away with blood on his hand.

A raven chortled high above the clay rooftops. The gurgling croaks, rising in pitch and then deeper in sound from the back of the bird’s throat, mocked with its gleeful chuckle.

The soldier knocked over a terra cotta urinal vase as he rounded the corner. He darted straight for the young man and slid to a stop. He snatched his prey's woolen tunic, yanked him up from the ground into an arm-lock, and dragged the fighting youth back towards the shadows.

The youth gritted his teeth and pulled on the soldier’s arms.  He kicked the man’s shin with his bare heel as he pushed against the iron plates that jabbed into his back.

 “Pestis!” The soldier cursed and lessened his hold on the young man.

Must breathe. Get away. The youth drew in a needed breath, ducked his chin, scrunched his shoulders together and shoved. He slipped from the man's thick arms like a greased pig at a Bel-tene festival.

The soldier reached out and grabbed the youth’s tunic and turned him. With both fists clenching the woolen shirt, he lifted the youth up toward his face. Light flickered on the iron helmet. The red horse hairs of the crest rose like a flame in the dim firelight. He spewed vaporous breath-clouds of sour wine between the thick chin guards of the helm.

The youth’s stomach sickened. He spat at the shadowed face. “You will not hurt me again!” His voice echoed in the empty alley.

The soldier lifted his fist to strike another blow. “Quin taces!”

“No. I will not shut up.” Unabashed, the youth stared into the soldier’s eyes, daring him to strike.

Suddenly, the Legionarius let him go. He stepped back, raised his hands palms out, and laughed as the young man fell back. The soldier spoke something unintelligible in slurred Latin as he untied a flask from his studded leather belt and took a long draught of the vinegar smelling liquid. He laughed again and took another swig. He staggered forward a few steps, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed. His helm clanged hard on the stone street.

Surprised by his sudden good fortune, the youth clawed his way out of the shadows to the sewage ditch that bisected the dark alleyway. Behind him, in the darkness, he heard retching as the soldier vomited.

Once at the rivulet of refuse—the cloaca—he fell hard to his knees. The dim light from the alley’s firepots illuminated the pungent waste. The reflection revealed several fingernail claw-marks and a bruise on his jaw just beginning to swell. He grimaced at the mirrored blood that trickled from his forehead to his nose, and then dripped into the dark, oily pool.

 His hands plunged deep into the water to splash the image away. Beneath the surface of the sewage he grabbed a fistful of thick filth. Mollified, he sat back on his haunches, and looked at the mud oozing between his fingers. Closing his eyes, he slapped the muck over his tunic to cover up the stench of Roman garlic and wine.

He coughed, tasted blood, and spat. He wiped his mouth and face with his muddy hands. With tearless eyes darting, he scanned his surroundings.

The moon skirted the gap between the tall stone buildings showing nothing but shades of blackness. Shadows. The lack of color invaded his mind. Color is indulgence. He wished the moon away. He did not want his shame exposed.

The raven chortled.

* * *

“There you are, boy!”

Three men entered the narrow alley, and walked the hundred paces from the broad street beyond to where the youth sat back on his heels in the sewer.

With his hands grasping his soiled tunic, the youth raised his head and looked up at the bearded men standing before him dressed in colorful tunics and skins—cloth and leather like his own. Their long flaxen hair tied back. Long swords hung at their sides.

The oldest warrior’s graying beard bobbed when he chuckled at the sight of the boy. The youth caught this reaction, and noted it, pushing it into his memory for later.

Another man stood next to the aged warrior with his arms crossed. His booted foot tapped the cobblestones briskly. This man looked not at the youth, but to the Roman fairway whence they had come. The youth noted that as well.

The third and youngest man stood with legs shoulder width apart in a stance that spoke action. The man fingered his sword. “Where have you been, boy?”

“Where were you, Uncle?”

He paused and looked over to the booted man. “Where were you, Father? Why weren’t you there?”

He struggled to rise from the sewage, “And you, my Grandfather? Where were you when he violated me?”

The gray-bearded man reached up with both hands and grasped the golden torc around his neck. “Harrumph. Get up. Let’s be gone.” He turned to go.

 “That animal of the Earth held my arms! Tore my tunic!” He pulled his shirt. His hands flung outward. Muck flew everywhere. “I cannot say the horrors he did to me!” He rose to stand in front of his family. “I am a Prince of Albion!”

His grandfather did not turn back. He shrugged his shoulders, “I did not see this man.”

“Back there. In the alley!” He put a hand on his grandfather’s arm.

His grandfather swatted the touch aside and turned to face the boy.

“You must believe me!” he cried as he pointed to the shadows behind him.

“Whatever it is, you’re to blame.”

Carefully stepping around the filth, his family dragged their feet as they followed him back into the darkness.

 “There!”

In the cloacae lay the Roman that had seized him. Passed out, in his vomit. He snored in the shadows.

“Right there. That animal. That snake!” Then wrinkling his nose, “That Roman!”

 “He’s just a drunk. He can’t harm anyone,” his grandfather chided. “Let’s go.”

 The young man took a breath. He shifted his weight on the balls of his feet and doubled his fists as he glared at the men. He turned and started toward the sleeping drunk.

“Wait…” His uncle grabbed him by the arm.

An icy wind blew through the alley.  

The firepots sputtered.

Slowly, his uncle drew his long sword from its ornate leather sheath. The man touched the flat of the blade to his forehead, then, with both hands, he offered it to the youth.

“This is for you, my bold nephew.”

Without hesitation, the young man took the sword. Felt its weight. As the flame-pots flickered, he lifted it up so he could see himself in the blade. He sneered and let out a low growl.

His uncle nodded.

The youth turned to the shadow behind him and strode to where the soldier lay slumped in his shining Lorica Segmentata and helm.

The blade entered between the laminated armor plates and up into the soldier’s heart. Harsh scraping of iron pushed past iron was the only sound. Breath released from the body in a prolonged sigh.

He removed the sword with one hand and then yanked off the soldier’s helmet. The man’s eyes stood wide-open in alarm. His mouth—a silent, surprised “Oh.”  The youth spat on his death face. Then he lifted the long sword and, with much power, beheaded his attacker. Sparks sprang up as the blade cut through the neck and deep into the cobblestones.

The youth seized the scarlet scarf from around the man’s bleeding neck and wiped off the blade. He turned away from the body and said in a low gruff voice, “I hate Rome.”

Far above him, the raven fluttered away.

With head held high, holding the sword, he turned back to where his family waited for him. Not looking at them, he pushed past a few paces and stopped. He glanced behind once more at the stream of blood that flowed snakelike into the sewer. “That is the only Roman red that pleases me,” he growled and then entered the busy Roman boulevard—alone.