Chapter 3 – Tedieous of Spiphica
Tedieous, the Oarsman1, clung to the edge of the Narzissonia while looking down into the solid green sea. There, he reflected upon his first non-rowing order. The order came right from the Commander without warning or elaboration. Tedieous was simply told to jump overboard and retrieve a spear from a dead man.
Eager to not displease his Commander, who had just moments earlier, speared a total stranger for no apparent reason, Tedieous hastily left his rowing bench and climbed over the railing of the ship.
The sea, which had heretofore only been a permanent backdrop to his journey, stared back at him with menace. It could see far more of him than he could of it. What scared him was not the thought that something might be lurking down there, but that anything could be lurking there. His sight only penetrated so deep below the surface. Beyond that waited infinity.
Also, he wasn't confident that he remembered how to swim.
Looks from nearby oarsmen warned him that he had hesitated long enough. He performed the smallest action possible and let go of the railing. He gently extended his center of gravity and fell forward. He hit the cold water and was engulfed.
When the shock of immersion wore off, when he was convinced that he did not die the instant he hit the water, many concerns were answered. He could swim and he could keep his head above the surface, though not exactly at the same time.
After much paddling, he arrived at the drifting rowboat and began treading water beside it. The initial plunge had masked this part of the ordeal.
He could pull himself into the boat, but there would be a dead man's body in there. He could also reach his hand in without looking, but again there would be a dead man's body in there. He decided on the first choice, as his desperation to get out of the water was slightly higher than his fear of sharing a boat with the deceased.
Grabbing the sides of the boat, he lifted himself up and in. He landed on a wet bundle of nets.
Slowly he opened his eyes.
There was the body. The man lay on his back with his eyes closed. The man's tunic was stained with blood but was otherwise not terribly gruesome. Sticking out of his abdomen, like an ill-placed ship mast, was the Commander's spear.
Tedieous swallowed and looked over his shoulder at the Narzissonia. He realized that he hadn't been this far away from the ship since the day he enlisted.
Several months earlier, a line of hopeful recruits stood in line before the recruitment tent. Colorful enlistment banners hung overhead2.
A scribe named Insipides sat beneath the tent. As Tedieous walked up, he lifted a stylus above a clay tablet.
“Name?” Insipides asked.
Tedieous found the Scribe's tone alarmingly distant.
“Tedieous of Spiphica.”
Tedieous was, if not proudly, then perhaps unabashedly, a native of the coastal polis of Spiphica3. Like most villages of the time, Spiphica was said to be built upon the foundations of a much older and far unluckier settlement.
Tedieous had little exposure to the outside world, a fault to which he found the outside world mostly accountable. Tedieous and much of Spiphica were amazed that a Greek battleship, let alone the Armada's flagship, would ever arrive at their sleepy shore.
Insipides took note.
“Address?”
“The street it’s on doesn’t really have a name. How about, up there… kind of on that hill?”
Tedieous' dwelling was set atop a gentle slope, deep in the thriving funeral-pyre district of town. The building was an exemplar of poor design. The two columns that stood before the front porch were completely different heights. The base of the apartment was made of discarded stone, but a third of the way up the builders had made the ungraceful transition to mudbrick. It leaned in a way that no building should. He was going to miss that house and all of its glorious flaws.
Insipides' hand continued to scrawl symbols onto the wet clay tablet.
“What are your skills?”
Tedieous rose up and lifted his hand to list them off with his fingers.
Before the great war and his prolonged entanglement within it, Tedieous was an exceptional potter. He had served as an apprentice at several workshops before finally setting up his own. He was a highly skilled artisan who nevertheless failed miserably at all aspects of maintaining a business.
Tedieous had constructed a massive pottery kiln which took up most of the first floor and made the surface of the second dangerous to walk across with bare feet. It broke all sorts of fire codes, but thankfully his two funeral pyre salesmen neighbors drew most of the fire department’s ire.
“Skills? Oh, let’s see, throwing, wedging, kneading, luting…”
Tedieous paused as he caught a glimpse of Insipides' tortured eyes, for the first time peering at him rather than the tablet. There was something distinctly malevolent about him, but it was a retired sort of malevolence.
Blinking, Insipides clarified, “Combat-related skills.”
Tedieous concealed his fingers, “Oh. None.”
Insipides sighed through his nose, “Military experience?”
“None.”
“Combat equipment?”
“None.”
“Any sort of desire to kill?”
Tedieous didn't.
Tedieous had sustained a meager living on the sole patronage of a businessman by the name of Olemedes. Olemedes was the reigning olive tycoon in the area. His bountiful groves produced the richest olives in Spiphica. The oil was stored in clay jars, all of which Tedieous made in his workshop. In Spiphica at least, Olemedes’ name was known by every merchant and trader. One could not cook a meal, light a lamp, or oil up a naked athlete without having the name Olemedes drizzle through one’s mind.
Though financially indebted to him, Tedieous struggled to find anything to like in Olemedes. He was an uninteresting person that was uninterested with people.
Tedieous told himself that he felt no intense malice towards Olemedes. He told himself this up until the day Olemedes stopped paying for Tedieous’ pottery. Already on shaky financial ground, Tedieous was forced to make a desperate decision. As that decision window opened, a Greek battleship pulled into the harbor seeking fresh recruits.
“None,” Tedieous responded.
Insipides' eyes dropped to the next section of the tablet.
“Next of kin?”
Tedieous knew little about his parents, except that they were no longer around. He suspected that he had come from an unspectacular line of unspectacular people who had carved out unspectacular lives. Not one to break with suspected ancestral trends, he did not. He lived a simple life, held few aspirations, made few enemies, made fewer friends, and kept himself busy enough so as not to think about the things that he might be missing. Above all, he prided himself on the fact that he was a reasonable person.
“None.”
Insipides checked a few boxes upon the tablet. Tedieous tried peeking over the tablet to see what was being written.
“I think I have enough. We have an opening for an oarsman. You can pick up your oar at the dockyard,” Insipides said with a tepid sparkle in his eye, “And welcome aboard.”
That day seemed like a thousand years ago.
Tedieous looked down and spotted the oars in the dead man's rowboat. He peered back at the Narzissonia. He looked back and forth. Off in the distance, he thought he could see the coastline. His heart began to pound. He reached for one of the oars but was interrupted by someone yelling from the Narzissonia.
“Is it there?” shouted Commander Narzissonius.
Startled by the nearness of the Commander's voice, Tedieous instead grabbed the spear, pulled it right out of the dead man.
“I got it,” he yelled back, waving the spear in the air.
The Commander clapped twice.
Tedieous had come to realize that being a reasonable person was a staggering disadvantage aboard this ship.
- Translator's Note: Oh, hello there protagonist. Welcome back. I thought we lost you. ↩︎
- Translator's Note: “Need Money? Love to Travel? Wanna Kill Indiscriminately? Enlist Today!” ↩︎
- Translator's Note: Spiphica remains one of the undiscovered cities of antiquity. It was an ancient land known for its strange ability to slip completely out of people’s minds, especially those of cartographers. ↩︎