The Mysteries, A Novel of Ancient Eleusis, Page 2

CHAPTER 1: Persia Crosses the Hellespont

  A great bonfire burned on shore where fast water flowed through the strait separating Europe and Asia, the Hellespont. A man of war, dressed in a short black tunic, stepped forward with a hot iron, the tip glowing brilliant red, and slipped it into the hurrying current. Steam hissed into the cold morning air, and its froth trailed downstream, dissolved. Warrior after warrior appeared carrying glowing irons, and they too branded the water, marking it for the Persian King, King of Kings, Xerxes. Men carrying jangling fetters emerged from the crowd and ceremoniously heaved them far into the unbridled flow. Another thirty stepped forward, each with a coiled length of lash used to force reluctant men into battle, and, leaning over the current, dealt it three-hundred stinging lashes, all the while shouting, "You salt and bitter stream, Xerxes punishes you for your insults and will cross you without permission, without sacrificing. Your acid and muddy waters deserve neglect."

  Ten more were brought forward, unwilling men, their heads laid upon the chopping block. These were the engineers who'd built the bridge across the strait recently decimated by violent storm and churning surf. Another man emerged from the throng, dressed in black, hooded. His pale legs stuck from beneath his tunic as healed tubular wounds. He swung his ax with the confidence of one who'd performed the task a long bitter time, as from a god's bidding. The swift stroke of the ax fell, and each severed head, all ten in turn, rolled among tender wildflowers. The mouths moved as if to articulate some ancient wisdom. Bodies slumped, releasing pulsing spurts of life-giving blood. A leg, a hand quivered as though stricken by a fit of nervousness.

  A Greek, Harpalus, not a prisoner but a traitorous engineer, stepped forward to execute the order at which the Persian team of ten had failed so miserably: to bridge the Hellespont. Horns bellowed, men shouted as they labored against the elements. Anchored ships bucked and pitched in the restless current while wooden winches groaned, stretching taut giant coils of papyrus and flax cables, straining to fulfill an oracle. The arched lines hissed in the wind like snakes. Two more bridges, formed of biremes, triremes, rope and plank, stretched the width of the channel.

  The strait bridged, the king burned incense, broadcast myrtle bows over the road, and put his troops in motion. When an old man begged the King for his eldest son to remain behind to protect his family and tend crops, the king cut the son down the middle and, leaving a bloody half on each side of the road, drove the army between them. A total eclipse of the sun reduced the landscape to darkness, causing birds to roost, and giving the king pause, but the Magi put the King's mind to rest. "'Tis but a sign to the Hellenes of the future eclipsing of their cities," they said. For seven days and nights, the troops crossed, one million seven hundred thousand under the lash of the impatient king. All Greece shuddered.

  As she stepped off the bridge into Europe, a mare gave birth to a hare.