A Warning to Caesar

Timeon of Neapolis, upon receiving news that Caesar was intending take his legions across the ocean to Britannia, gathered his documents and went to the general. One ancient scrap of text among the scrolls ran thus:

‘I am Stephanos of Empyrion, once a companion of Pythias. I have been in those islands that are flung like an arrowhead into the far darkling sea. I would not go there again for all the gold of Xerxes. The Britons prick their skin with the forms of beasts. So that when a man walks towards you there might be a salmon leaping up his legs, or a bear shouldering on his back. Or worst of all, a rangy, licking wolf overlaying his face. Man and wolf stare with the same eyes.

At twilight a king (and there are many of them in that country) will smile and unwrap the oiled skull of one of his slain enemies. He will talk to it as he fingers the teeth and the eye sockets. Then he will present it for you to heft and appreciate. At night he sleeps on the skull. In dreams they confide together, the dead and the living men, of the slash of battle, and women they have shared.

I was told there are walls in the north of Britannia where old and fresh heads are fixed upon the ramparts that they might scream out a night warning should an army approach.

Most precious are the stone heads. Some are so large it takes three men to lift. A king will get his poet to tell you how this great blunt carved face has been in the care of his family for hundreds of years. I was shown one such massive example. To me it was as if a dog had brought me its favourite bone and I had no words with which to thank my painted host.

I advise no one go to that island, where the murderer and the murdered collude. No good will be got there. For, even though it is many years since I returned to Empyrion, I have often been troubled by a voice in the corner of my bedchamber. It is like the grinding of rock against rock. Words as plumb-deep, unfathomable and dark as old well water.’

Steven O’Brien