Plebimus Maximus

Dawn, slow to her feet, lazily picked each star out of the sky as streaks of blue and red crept over the horizon. The new day breathed life into the sea, and zephyrs raced bellies low to the oscillating swells. Winds caught the snapping sails. A bronze prow met the breakers head-on, slicing them in half. The salt spray, rocketed on deck by the repeated thunderous collisions drenched the knotted backs of the rowers. Seasalt reminded Ilius of the sap of the cypress trees he used to climb in his father’s villa when he was a boy. Sticky and viscous, it would not come off his hands in a panic, he grabbed his father’s centurion helmet to try and wipe it off. His father found him later that day cowering behind the tree he had climbed earlier. Clutching the helmet the sap had stuck to his hands, Ilius could not see his father through the hot tears stinging his cheeks, but he heard his familiar gentle laugh as he picked him up and they both walked down to the river. Little footsteps kept pace with long strides. When they were both at the bank’s edge, his father instructed Ilius to submerge his hands and helmet into the water. Slowly, the gentle current washed away treebark, pebbles, and finally sap as he freed his hands from the smooth steel. Ilius, head rested against the feathery plume of the helmet, fell asleep in his father’s arms that night.
The coarse residue of the sea spray subdued his hands, but it was not as warm or ticklish as the sap he had felt years ago. The sun, now white hot in the sky, peeled skin and opened blisters, exposing flesh to the baking light. One-hundred eighty oars each in sync with the next did not cease to fight the frothing current, obeying the final authority of the drum. Row. Row. Row.