Poseidon's Steed

His beady eyes narrowed, and his two caterpillar-like eyebrows became closely knit together. The corners of his mouth stretched so far down they seemed to elongate the entirety of his large, round face.

Sir Newman took a slow, calculated breath. “Mr. Dawson, do you know why I chose you?” He said, his reverberating tenor thick with aristocratic airs.

I gripped the brush until my knuckles turned white and spoke through tightly gritted teeth. “Because I was there.”

He leaned in close to scrutinize the details and then stepped back to gaze at the entire thing, his face contorting as he adjusted his squinting for each new perspective. His monocle added to the comedic effect; I could have laughed if I wasn’t so spitting mad.

“Very good, so you know.” Removing his monocle, he turned to me slowly. “If you were there, then I believe it should be easy for you to recreate it. £1000 is no small commission, and I’m sure you appreciate my offering you any commission at all.”

Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to exhale the fire that had begun to build in my chest and stomach. I envisioned myself a dragon, breathing a line of hellfire hot enough to incinerate the entire down.

“I have already given you three months, Mr. Dawson, and my patience is running thin. I will be returning in two days. I trust you understand what will become of you if it isn’t completed.”

He turned and made his way out of the room, his large body creating what seemed to be an irreparable bend in each floorboard he set foot on.

I stared at the painting before me, eyes bulging out of my face in an animalistic way. I imagined tearing it apart and hurling it in the fire, then fanning the suffocating paint fumes out my window and down unto the streets below where Sir Newman rode in his carriage.

Yelling, I flung the paintbrush in my hand at the picture. It hit the canvas with an unsatisfying bounce, failing to tear through the fabric but leaving a large white stain near the bottom of the painting.

I dropped to my knees, the tears of humiliation I’d been bottling up for four months finally breaking forth, streaking my smudge-covered cheeks as they raced down to the floor. Out of the thirty men on the ship, I was the only one left. They were my brothers—my only family. And I couldn’t save them.

Pieces of the ceiling cracked off and hit the back of my head as I pounded my fists into the floor, bloodying my knuckles but still unable to bend the boards half so much as the sheer weight of Sir Newman.

“God, please, how did he find me?” I pleaded, sobbing into my hands. This shabby room, my safe haven all these years, had been discovered by Newman’s men. I felt exposed, stripped naked and writhing on the ground like a worm for the all world to see. How everyone would love to see the last crew member of Poseidon’s Steed hung, done away with good and sent off to hell to join his brethren.

I could still see Old Cray’s kind, wrinkled face, eyes ablaze even as he was forced into the prisoner cart. I was pressed in next to him, and the cart was shut from behind, squarely wedging me between two great, unmovable forces.

As the cart lurched forward and I stumbled onto Old Cray, his eyes fell my shackles. Sir Newman (then Major Newman), seeing that I was scrawny and small, had overlooked the fact that my shackles weren’t properly fastened. I didn’t notice it, either—but Old Cray did.

Without a word he wrestled my thin hands out of the rusty metal bonds and, when the guards left at the port were turned with their backs to the road, threw me out of the cart. I was too scared to cry out as I crumpled onto the dirt road like a straw man. I looked up at Old Cray, and the jerk of his head was enough for me to understand.

I scrambled up onto my feet and ran, crouching behind the confiscated crates and barrels of our treasures as the guards passed. It took what felt like hours to get away from the port and into the safety of the town, where no one would recognize me in the crowded streets. By the time I found a secluded little alley to catch my breath in, I heard the sickening cheer of the crowd echo from the town square. The hanging had already begun.

I spent weeks sleeping in that alley with the rats, terrified out of my mind. News had spread that one of the crew members had escaped, and I knew that Sir Newman (knighted for his bravery in the pursuit and capture of Poseidon’s Steed) would be out to find me. I was the one dark blotch in his perfect record.

One evening, an old hermit of a painter found me in the alley when looking for rat subjects for a painting. Believing me to be a lost youth he took me in as his apprentice, and for two decades I remained with him, rarely leaving his workshop. Having no wife or children he left me the workshop when he passed away, the shabby old room in a secluded corner of town in which I continued to make my humble works of art and in which I now knelt, soul battered and wrung out.

I had taken every precaution possible to avoid discovery. I rarely left the workshop, and always in disguise (even though it had been decades since my—poorly—sketched face graced the town square. I only sold my mediocre works of art, wary of the limelight a masterful piece might shine on me. Only heaven knows how Sir Newman’s men, after two decades of fruitless searching, found my humble abode.

The knock on my door was the first ominous sign. No one ever knocked on my door. There was a louder knock when I failed to answer.

“I know you’re in there, Mr. Dawson.”

My blood ran cold, and a shiver resonated from my brainstem all the way down to my fingertips. A latent feeling of panic arose with unforgiving immediacy. The palpitations of my heart left me desperately grasping onto wisps of consciousness.

“I—I’m sorry,” I stammered, inching closer to the door as the room spun around me. “You must be mistaken. This is Mr. Elliott Jr., the old painter’s son.”

A low voice chuckled. “Oh, Mr. Dawson. I’m not here to kill you. If I wanted to, you’d already be dead. I’m here to make you an offer. Now, be a good boy and open the door.”

It took my trembling fingers a full minute to unfasten the locks on my door, which creaked open like an eerie fanfare to announce his arrival.

Sir Newman stepped in, much larger and more grandly clothed than I remembered him. He surveyed my workshop, stopping to gaze upon certain paintings with sounds of approval and scoffing at others.

“You are quite talented.” He admitted, almost mockingly. “When my men told me you had become an artist I almost didn’t believe them. A sea rat like you? No. And yet I see it is true.”

“Why are you here, if not to kill me?”

He laughed, a nasally sound that had a learned, aristocratic flair to it. “My boy, the capture of Poseidon’s Steed was the crowning achievement of my career. I was knighted for it, you know.”

I felt my jaw tightening. “So I’ve heard. Congratulations.”

He turned to face me, a smile etched on his face. “I would like to make you an offer. I can give you your freedom. I can tell Her Majesty that we have found and killed the Dawson boy. You can live on as Mr. Elliott Jr., free to travel the world with the riches I can bestow upon you. That is easily done.”

“What do you want in return?”

The smile morphed into an expression I couldn’t quite understand, a sickening look of pride that I still see in my dreams. “I want a painting.”

“Of?”

“The capture,” he sang with a grand gesture. “Poseidon’s Steed fleeing as the Royal Mary gains upon her, fleeing her doomed fate. The Royal Mary should be grand, towering! Don’t forget the gold accents on her. She looms large in the background of Poseidon’s Steed, ready to attack any minute. I will gift it to Her Majesty as a birthday gift.”

I could almost hear the shouts of my brothers as we sped along the waves, caught off guard by the sudden emergence of the Royal Mary from behind the thick, morning fog.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to chase the imagery from my head. “I can’t.”

He stepped forward and closed his warm, fat hand on my neck. “Then die. I could have you hanged tomorrow for your crimes, and yet here is the offer of a lifetime. Freedom, money, and fame—if Her Majesty likes what you create. I’m offering you £1000; you'll be set for life. I know you’ll make the right choice, Mr. Dawson.”

He let me fall to the ground, dusted his hands over my crumpled form, and made his way to the door. “I’ll be back in three months with high hopes.”

And he was true to his word. Today was exactly three months from that day.

Still kneeling, I glanced up at the painting. It was drawn to his exact instruction—the Royal Mary looming in the background of a small and insignificant Poseidon’s Steed, fleeing for her life. But, as I had tried painfully hard to not evoke my memories of the day whilst painting, the painting lacked life. The ships, and ocean, and the sky were dull, as if a misty cast had fallen over the scene and subdued all its vivacity. As much as I hated Newman, I had to admit that he had an eye for art.

I dusted myself off and shakily stood. I had a vision of Old Cray and his immovable, fiery gaze, peering unapologetically into the depths of my soul. What would he think?

“Thank you, Old Cray,” I whispered quietly. "You saved my life."

I took a brush and began working. Large swaths of colour slowly covered the Royal Mary, and I brought my most brilliant greens and blues out for the tumultuous waves. I kept the white streak from when I threw the brush, and I brushed in more white around it to add to the froth. For hours upon hours I stood, delicately working in the details. Dinnertime came and went, and then the night, too. I was almost done.

A final dab of grey, and I stepped back from the painting. I almost laughed out loud. I threw my brushes to the ground and headed to my bedroom. I took out my money, a few shirts, and a several valuable trinkets the late Mr. Elliott had left me. I tied it all up in a large rag, which I slung over my shoulder. I fastened my shoes, put on my nicest coat and trousers, and found my cap. Before stepping out this door for the last time in my life, I stopped to admire my painting once more.

This time, I did laugh. The grandeur of the Royal Mary was no more. Grey clouds swept over the area where her fearsome self once bobbed on the painted waves, trapping her far away. She bobbed there, a pale ship on the horizon, caught on fire from the battle with Poseidon’s Steed and trapped in smoke. In the foreground, Poseidon’s Steed sailed victoriously ahead with all her sails down and not a scratch on her hull, cutting through the emerald waves in search of new glory.