THE POSTERCHILDREN VOLUMEONE:ORIGINS
By Kitty Burroughs
Copyright 2013 Kitty Burroughs
Smashwords Edition
ISSUE #1
There were protesters at his father’s funeral. For the life of him, Mal couldn’t understand what they were protesting—over his father being buried in a graveyard full of humans, over the insinuation that he’d been a hero at one time, or over the ugly, simple fact that his father had existed in the first place. Protesting a burial seemed like a complete waste of time and energy. It wouldn’t change anything. Corbin Underwood had been born, had lived for forty-nine years, and had died. He’d been a father and a hero, though Mal personally thought that he hadn’t been successful in either role. Others disagreed, though. Many spectators seemingly thought him a model citizen, dabbing at their eyes and singing the Rook’s praises as they lowered him into the ground. His cape and goggles were spread over the top of the closed casket, folded and arranged so neatly, he half expected his father to step out of the crowd and begin suiting up. He had to remind himself that his father was inside the wooden box, and that the cape and goggles were going to be buried with him. His father was gone. His father was dead. They were burying the Rook, and everyone had shown up to watch.
Sandwiched between his mother and the empty chair where his brother should have been sitting, Mal felt like he was suffocating. Despite
Marshal’s crimes, a seat had been saved for him. If he did show up, it probably wouldn’t be until long after the casket had been buried and the guests had gone home. He’d want privacy to spit on the Rook’s grave. The thought turned Mal’s stomach.
“Hey,” a woman’s voice whispered by Mal’s right ear. “This seat taken?”
He twisted in his seat, coming almost nose-to-nose with Ellie Lark.
She smiled in greeting. He frowned back.
“You’re late,” Mal accused. Before he had a chance to complain at her more for her tardiness, his mother lightly smacked his ear. It was a silent, though effective, command to behave.
“I’d hoped you’d come, Elouise,” she whispered, leaning over Mal to kiss her cheek. Ellie gave another smile, this one thin-lipped and wan.
“I wasn’t going to pass up my last chance to say goodbye.”
Ellie was the wayward foster child. She was the one that the public forgot about, the unofficial ward of the Rook, so her presence at the funeral was not being noted any more than her absence would have been. Mal wasn’t sure how anyone could miss her, though. As a green-band poster, Ellie’s band paraphernalia contrasted brightly against the sea of black. He was positive that she’d chosen the brightest green accessories that she could find, a neon act of protest against the muted dark tones that the rest of the
mourners had paired with their black formalwear. The fluorescent lime of her cheap jewelry kept catching his eye, drawing him back from the eulogy.
Not that it was much of a eulogy. One by one, the members of the Set had stood at the podium and had tried to pretend that they hadn’t abandoned the Rook years before. His father’s old teammate, John Wright, was the only one that had yet to speak. He was soaked from the storm, rivulets worming from his hairline into the sodden collar of his shirt. For an agonizing ten minutes, John simply stood there, shuffling and reshuffling his notecards, while the rain pounded down on the mourners.
December in Portland was cold and wet and miserable on a good day. The endless gray rain was either the best backdrop for a funeral, or the worst. Shivering in the formal clothes that had fit him two growth spurts ago, Mal wasn’t sure which it was.
“Corbin Underwood,” the Commander began, then stopped. He cleared his throat. “Corbin Underwood — Corbin was...” His voice shook, choked thin. “Corbin was a damn fine man. He was my friend. My partner. When things got tough, I always knew he’d show up to set things right. He was a hero, and that’s why we — why we’re...”
John Wright, the leader and former Knight of the Set, broke down. Standing in front of the casket, the big man started to cry.
“I’m sorry,” the Commander rasped, his voice thick. “I can’t do this.
A week ago, most of you were screaming for his blood. Well, you got it. You got him.”
The assembly went very quiet silent, until someone punctuated the rain with a strangled little sob. Beside him, Ellie was crying. She’d tried to muffle the noise with a hand over her mouth, but it’d escaped through her shaking fingers. The first sob was followed by another, and Mal’s mother reached over him to comfort her.
Ellie cried for the man that’d failed her countless times. So did the Commander. It was real, and it was raw, and it was painful to hear. Mal didn’t understand it. Dry-eyed and sick to the pit of his stomach, he didn’t understand.
Abruptly, Mal realized that he needed to leave before he got sick. He lurched out of his chair, squeezing between them and stumbling gracelessly over his own feet. He didn’t get very far — just to the field bordering the cemetery — but thankfully, nobody tried to go after him.
The grass hadn’t been cut for months, so it was waist-high and marshy from the continual rain. He vomited in the weeds, heaving until his stomach cramped up. Mal kicked some loose dirt over the mess, then crouched in the high, wet grass. His face and fingers burned with shame.
He was hiding. From what, he wasn’t sure. The ugly, ignoble thing that was a superhero, much less a man, openly sobbing, maybe. The protesters, probably. His mother, definitely.
Mal heard Ellie coming long before she parted the grasses and found his hiding place. Ellie hadn’t been trained to be quiet and sneaky. She smiled when he met her blue, blue eyes. The first time he’d seen her, he’d noticed the bright living blue of her eyes long before he’d seen her wings. Nothing could detract from the physical deformities jutting from her back — not for long. They were too big to hide, but too small to carry even her negligible weight. She crouched down next to Mal, smoothing her skirt over her knees.
“Hey. How’re you holding up?”
“I wouldn’t sit there,” Mal mumbled, glaring at his uncomfortable shoes. “I threw up.”
Ellie didn’t make a show or fuss about it. She just moved to his other side and settled in. She spread one of her wings over him. It was too small to hold her aloft, but large enough to shield him from the patter of the rain. Mal tucked his chin out of habit, leaning down so that Ellie didn’t have to strain herself. She smiled at him, her eyes rimmed raw red and smeary gray from mascara tears. He’d tried not to see her crying, but she’d hovered at his peripheral throughout the service. Most green-bands wore earthy tones,
but not Ellie. Her preferred shade of lime was blinding. He hated it. He hated her, just a little bit, for being there when his own brother was not.
“Why did you come?”
“What?”
“Why did you come?” Mal repeated, impatient. It was a simple enough question, wasn’t it?
Ellie shrugged. The flutter of her wet feathers flicked raindrops on his cold face.
“Like I said, this is my last chance to say goodbye. Why else?”
“He doesn’t deserve your tears,” Mal ran his sour tongue over his teeth, grimacing. “Wright can say what he wants, but Father was weak. That weakness got him killed.”
Ellie bowed her head, tucking a stray curl behind her ear. She’d woven her hair back into a thick braid, but it was starting to fray. It looked strange to him, since she usually wore her hair loose over her thin shoulders, curling and wild. Without that mane, she seemed very small.
“Yeah, well, nobody said that heroing’s an easy gig.”
“If you believe that he was a hero.”
This time, she hit him with her wing. It was only slightly less jarring than having his ear boxed.
“Let the old man get in the ground before you start him rolling in his grave, okay?” Ellie’s blue eyes blazed. “C’mon, Mal. You’re supposed to be a genius. I know that you know that what they’re saying isn’t true. Not about him, and not about you.”
He rubbed the side of his face, looking away.
“If you’re attempting to cheer me up, you’re doing a shit job of it.”
“Language, young man. And are you admitting that you need cheered up?”
“I said no such thing,” Mal said, inwardly proud of the imperious ring he managed to plaster over his shaky voice. She probably couldn’t even tell how hard it was getting for him to swallow past the tears in his throat. “I don’t need anything from you, harpy.”
“Oh!” She said brightly, clapping her hands together. Ellie had a way of ignoring him when he tried to get a rise out of her. “That reminds me! I’ve got something for you. I hope you didn’t think I’d forgotten that a certain someone turned fourteen last month.”
Ellie patted down all of the pockets of her bright green raincoat before she found what she was looking for. She dropped a small, poorlywrapped gift into the palm of his hand.
Unwrapping it, he found a little wooden bird pendant. It was strung on a leather cord, and blue seed beads glittered from the gouges of its eye
sockets. Glued in, most likely. He turned it over in his fingers, inspecting it. It wasn’t skillfully made. In fact, it was kind of ugly.
But she’d made it herself. He could tell.
“Jewelry,” Mal commented blandly. “Mm.”
“It’s supposed to be a rook,” Ellie said, leaning into him so she could get a better look at her crude attempt at arts and crafts. “But it kind of turned out badger-ish, so I thought of you. Marshal’s been teaching me how to carve. I’m starting to get the hang of it, I think.”
When Marshal had left home, he’d taken Ellie with him. His eldest brother had hated him from the first moment he’d first laid eyes on him, so it always nettled Mal when Ellie accidentally reminded him of how attentive a brother Marshal could be. When he wanted to be. When he cared to be.
“Of course.”
“Happy belated birthday, Mal,” Ellie smiled, undaunted by his lukewarm response.
Mal stuffed the necklace in his pocket with a grumble. Her smile faltered, so he sighed loudly and slipped the cord on over his head. He’d wait until she was gone to throw the stupid thing away, he vowed, tucking the pendant under his shirt.
“It isn’t a big deal.”
“It’s a deal if I say if it’s a deal,” Ellie countered, her wing brushing his cheek again. “And I say that it’s a big deal. So shut up already.”
He shrugged, feigning indifference. Fourteen wasn’t a big deal. It was a filler year between teenage landmarks, that awkward stretch of months between late childhood and early adulthood. The only thing special about fourteen was that it marked the end of his second block of training and the beginning of his third block.
“I’m going back to Foundation with my mother,” Mal said, after the silence between them had cooled from warm companionship to something that itched at his skin. He’d been avoiding this conversation since the last time he’d seen Ellie.
“I know. Like I said, I...I figured that this might be my last chance to say goodbye, and I wasn’t going to pass that up.” She sighed, her gaze wandering out to the wet field. “We’ll miss you.”
Mal stared at the scuffed toes of his too-small dress shoes. He didn’t dare look at her. His chest was already aching.
“My brother won’t miss me.”
“Says you.”
“You’re not denying it.”
Ellie puffed an annoyed little breath.
“Fine. I’ll miss you. Better?”
He was positive that she meant it, too. Like her tears, her words were genuine. It did make him feel better, but he wasn’t about to admit that to her.
“Whatever.”
“Look, I have a shift that starts in a half-hour. I tried to get the whole day off, but the boss is anticipating a hungry post-funeral crowd, so...” She looked at him, finally. Her blue eyes were swimming again, big and glossy.
“So this is it, I guess.”
Mal bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper, stubbornly unwilling to make a sound in front of her. It was one thing that she’d felt strongly enough about his father to see him off, but another thing entirely that she’d come to say goodbye to him, too.
His chin wobbled. He rolled his hands into fists, nails digging into his palms. The pain kept him focused.
“Goodbye, Elouise.”
She looked like she wanted to hug him, but he didn’t give her any signs of openness to that kind of contact. He didn’t want her to touch him. A hug would be disastrous. He’d fall apart in front of her, and he couldn’t do that. He just couldn’t let that be her last memory of him.
Ellie pressed a dry kiss to his forehead, then stood.
“I hear that the third block’s the toughest one,” Ellie said, tousling his hair. “So give ‘em hell, big guy.”
“I will,” Mal promised, nodding jerkily. His hot, dry eyes itched, but he managed to keep hold of his composure until she was well out of sight. When he was positive that she was gone, he let go. He wasn’t even sure why he was crying, since he was angrier than he was sad. He was angry that his father was gone, angry that his brother hadn’t bothered to come, and angry that he had to leave Portland. He was angry, but he was crying all the same.
It felt a lot like betrayal. All his life, he’d been told that things would go a certain way. He’d excel in his first block of Academy training, he’d spend his second block as the Rook’s sidekick, and then he’d return to the Academy to finish out his training. He would graduate in the top of his class. He’d lead a public superhero team, just like his parents. The world had promised him all that and more, under the stipulation that he worked his hardest.
It’d all been one great big lie.
His mother must have known that he’d break down after talking to Ellie, because she waited fifteen minutes before she came to collect him. Thankfully, Mal got most of the shuddering, gut-twisting sobs out of his system before he saw her violet umbrella coming his way. The privacy gave
him time to collect himself as best he could. Composure and poise were two things that people associated with his mother, the Queen. Mal tried to be as collected and strong as she was, but he often fell short.
His mother stroked back his hair. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand.
“Have you said all of your goodbyes?”
Mal looked out at the muted gray veil of rainwater, trying to pick out any smudge of lime green still visible amid the monochrome mourners.
“Yes, Mother. I have.”
“Then dry your eyes, habibi. It’s time.”
He angrily smeared at his face with both hands. All signs of a bleeding heart had to be cut out and left in the field like the entrails of a kill.
There would be no place for a weepy boy back at the Academy. They’d be looking for weakness — looking for his father’s flaws.
Mal would not give them that satisfaction.
When the airport car service finally pulled into the gravel drive and parked in the field in front of the Academy, June’s first impression of the high-and-mighty Best School in America for Posterchildren was that it had more trees than was strictly necessary. Everywhere she looked, there were trees. Pine trees. Leafy ones. Trees, trees, trees. Clearly, the deforestation
myth was yet another lie that the government perpetuated to rile up conservationists and give the hippies something to do with their time. Flying over the state, it’d been obvious to June that Foundation, Oregon was nothing like New York. Peeking out the tiny window before they’d touched down, all she had seen past the wing were breathtaking mountain vistas and a worrying lack of city lights. It was going to take some getting used to, but she was nothing if not adaptive. This wasn’t her first time being sent to a big-name boarding school. The Maillardet Foundation for the Future of Humanity was the best school for posterchildren in America. Everyone said so. So in spite of her mother’s fears and her own reservations, June was going to Oregon to become a superhero.
And okay, maybe she didn’t know exactly what ‘becoming a superhero’ entailed, but June had skimmed the Welcome to The Academy brochure a couple of times, and she hadn’t seen anything in the literature that looked like it’d be too much of a challenge. The way she saw it, it just wasn’t possible for her to continue in the life track her mother had laid out for her. She wanted her to finish up high school, go to college, get a degree, and then live a nice and/or normal adult life. Now, that plan had been a good one — though June had privately vowed to have at least two or three questionable college experiences, just to keep Marcy on her toes — but it’d
belonged to the Old June. Old June was on the slow track to a nice, normal career. New June was a clean slate.
June must have been staring at the trees for a little too long, because the driver twisted in his seat and gave her an indulgent smile.
“If you drag your stuff up to the forum, someone’ll transport it to your room,” the driver said, gesturing up the unreasonably large grassy hill with a roll of his wrist. It was a polite way of telling her to get out and get a move on.
Gathering her purse, June took a deep breath of her future. And then she sneezed. Twice. Her allergies were unbearable, as she had predicted. The greeting committee of Too Many Freakin’ Trees came paired with Too Much Freakin’ Pollen. She had knocked herself out with a hefty dose of antihistamines on the plane ride in from New York, but even her old pal Benadryl didn’t stand a chance against the leafy tyranny surrounding her.
Shading her eyes from the sun with one hand, June squinted up the hill. The heathens running the Academy obviously hadn’t gotten the memo that paved pathways were the hot new thing in landscaping this century. She could pick out the way she was supposed to go, but only because the dry, weedy grass had been trampled flat by foot traffic. There was a concrete building in the distance, but it was way too distant for her comfort.
“Just shlep my crap up Golgotha,” June muttered to herself. “Sounds like fun.”
The driver probably would have helped her if she’d asked him to, but she wasn’t interested in taking any helping hands. Old June would have, but she’d left Old June back in the JFK terminal with her mother, Marcy. She was New June now, and New June didn’t need anyone’s help.
When he popped the trunk, she yanked her two over-full suitcases out of the back and started the climb.
She wasn’t the only tragic Sisyphus laboring up the hill, fortunately. There were three other kids bravely dragging their worldy belongings to the summit. She caught up with the nearest one, a slim boy with curly dark hair and an unfairly small backpack. He was whistling, like the psychological endurance test laid out before them didn’t bother him at all. Maybe he didn’t get it. Maybe he’d figured out how to get someone else to carry his junk. There was no way that everything he owned could fit in one backpack, after all.
“They didn’t say anything in the brochure about torture,” June puffed. She had to give her rolling suitcase an especially hard tug to get it clear of a sinkhole. She was trying to avoid the more obvious dips and rocks, but her luggage wasn’t all-terrain certified. It wasn’t built for this. Neither was June.
“It’s not that bad,” the boy grinned, flashing dimples.
June was just about to launch into a bulleted list of everything that was wrong with his opinion, but she was interrupted by a bellow of “Hey! You guys! Hi, you guys! Gosh, I’m so sorry I’m late!”
The bellow belonged to the big blond putz charging down the hill to meet them. He was built like a linebacker, all broad shoulders and thick arms, but he was wearing a pressed button-up shirt and a sweatervest. A pair of thick-rimmed glasses dangled off one ear, knocked askew during his run. He stopped short so quickly, she was a little worried that he was going to pitch forward and roll on past them.
“Welcome to Foundation!” He took June’s luggage from her with a smile, hefting the bags like they were full of clouds and pixie dust. Those muscular guns were not for show. “Sorry, the Commander usually does the campus tours, but he had a...he had somewhere else he had to be today. He asked me to take over, so I’ll be showing you around. I’ll go ahead and get these up to the forum. The other new students are already there.”
And then he turned on his heel and ran back up the hill.
“C’mon,” the kid with the backpack said, laughing. “You heard him. We’re almost there!”
“I don’t need a cheerleader,” she said, throwing back her sweaty hair with a toss of her head.
The dry grass evened out to a manicured lawn, and the lawn stretched up to a squat gray building. Backpack-guy opened the double doors for her with a flourish that she ignored. The tourguide and the other two new kids — a gangly guy in suspenders and a girl with her hair done up with a sparkling rainbow ribbon - were parked by the pile of bags.
“You made it!” The tourguide said when he saw them in the doorway. June had hoped that she’d have a minute or two to catch her breath, but she had a feeling that he would drive them forward with the sheer force of his perkiness. “I know you’re all probably rarin’ to go, but I need to do a quick headcount before we start the tour. I hope you don’t mind.”
And the big lug genuinely sounded like he hoped that taking the time to call attendance didn’t offend anyone. June pushed her sweaty bangs out of her eyes with a snort.
“Go for it, champ.”
He gave her a smile like a flash grenade, then peeled back the first page on his clipboard.
“Lau, Lan.”
The other girl raised her hand. One end of her scintillating ribbon fluttered in tandem. It might have just been the angle that June was standing at, but it looked like the ribbon was slowly changing colors. It must have
been fiberoptic or something. She made a mental note to ask her where she’d bought it.
“Hovick, Junip — “
“It’s June,” June said, sparing him a short wave. Lan’s shimmering ribbon reminded her of how gross her hair was, so she started pawing through her purse in search of a hair tie.
“Petrov, Maksim Mick...Mick-ha...?”
“Maksim Mikhailovich Petrov,” backpack-guy finished in the booming voice of an announcer, his black curls flopping as he bowed. “Prrrrrresent and accounted for!”
There was one show-off in every group, June mused as she continued to root around for a scrunchie. God, she despised teenagers.
“Willard, Jack.”
“Yeah,” Mr. Suspenders said. His sheer apathy was inspirational.
“Everyone’s here,” the tourguide said cheerfully, clapping his hands. “Great! So — “
“Oh, so you’re too good to introduce yourself, then?” June interrupted, arching an eyebrow at their fearless leader. “I see how it is.”
The big guy gave her his best goldfish impression.
“Oh. You...?” He blinked rapidly, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Oh. Well. I...I’m Ernest. Pleased to meet you.”
“Uh-huh. I’m sure you are.”
She couldn’t find a hair tie in her purse, but she did find a semimelted, semi-flattened, but possibly edible candybar. Seeing as she’d burned roughly ten thousand calories challenging the hill, June decided that she deserved a snack.
Ernest cleared his throat before she even had a chance to unwrap the candy.
“I’m, uh. I’m sorry, Ms. Hovick, but I’m gonna have to ask you to throw that away.”
“Excuse you?”
“It’s the rules?” Ernest said, his voice squeaking a little on the question. “We’ve got a diet, see, and — “
“Tolerating all of this fresh air isn’t enough?” June demanded. It was difficult to look threateningly down at someone when you only came up to the middle of their chest, but she gave it her best shot. “I have to eat healthy, too?”
Ernest looked completely flummoxed, red to the tips of his ears.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, shaking his head. “I’m just...trying to warn you, I s’pose. The RA will go through the stuff you brought with you. Unhealthy fats and sugars are monitored. I’m not trying to be mean. It’s just how it is.”
“You people are monsters,” June announced, unwrapping the candybar and taking a large bite. “You want my candy? Fight me.”
He held his clipboard to his chest like a shield.
“I’d really rather not,” Ernest said, very quietly.
“Then I’m going to pretend this exchange didn’t happen.”
“That’s fair, I guess.” Ernest took a deep breath, then visibly collected himself. “Can we start the campus tour now, maybe?”
“Lead on,” June said with an expansive wave.
“Okay,” Ernest said, nodding. “So this is the forum. We use it for the big school gatherings, since it can hold all of the students in all of the blocks all at once. You’ll be back here on Saturday. That’s when they’re going to announce the second block scores.”
“Doesn’t really pertain to us, does it?” Jack asked. It was the first substantial sentence that he’d said. Well, the first substantial sentence that June had heard him say, anyway. She might have missed a mumble or two. He spoke quietly, slowly. Her candy wrapper made more noise than he did.
“Well, yes and no. You all haven’t been paired yet. You’ll find out who your partner is then, same as everyone else.” Ernest started walking, expecting them to follow. “If you didn’t know this already, the Academy is split up into blocks of three years. Some of the posterchildren here attend from first block on through the third, but you only really need to be here for
the third block. At the end of every block, we’re tested. We get a score out of fifty. So the more blocks you go through, the more points you get. You’re scored by how many points you’ve earned out of the ones possible for you. I was born here in Foundation, so I’ve been attending the Academy since I was eight. That means that when they announce my total, I’m judged by how many points I’ve gotten out of a hundred. The first and second blocks, you’re on your own. But the third block — “
“You get a partner!” Lan finished with a delighted smile. “I’ve read all about it. The system’s awesome. Almost everyone that makes it through the capstone year gets placed with a public hero team. Since we’re new, we get paired with someone who has been here their whole life, basically. Right?”
Someone had done her homework. June didn’t regret skimming the information packets, though. There had been an awful amount of numbers involved, and statistics bored her.
“Right,” Ernest said, equally delighted that someone had an interest in what he was talking about. Jack looked like he’d tuned out halfway through his answer, and June was more interested in her candybar. The jury was out on whether or not Maks gave a crap. With his perpetual lopsided grin, it was hard to get a read on him. “That way, they’ve got more of a chance.
The regular students are paired off by score, but the staff will choose your partners specially. They want everyone to succeed, y’know?”
Ernest pushed open the double doors on the other side of the forum. After their brief stint indoors, the sunlight was dazzling.
“It’s like this year-round,” he said, gesturing up at the sky. “Old Professor Maillardet figured that the training would be a heck of a lot more effective if the fields weren’t rained out for most of the year. The rest of western Oregon’s got two seasons: the rainy season, and August. Foundation’s climate controlled. It’s always in the mid-seventies.”
It really was pretty, June had to admit. The Maillardet Foundation’s campus was a sprawling green thing dotted with rustic cabins, ivy-laced brick buildings, and running tracks. She hung behind the group for a moment, just soaking in the view. For the next three or four years of her life, this was going to be her home. This was it.
An unexpected surge of homesickness knotted in her ribcage. Between the year-round training schedule and the cost of plane tickets back east, it was going to be a long time before she saw Marcy or Gerry again. She tried not to think about it, but once that ugly realization unfurled, it was hard to uproot it and toss it aside.
“You’re not thinking about ditching the peer tour, are you?” An amused voice asked, jerking her out of her thoughts. Maks he of the
stupid theatrics and tiny backpack — had stayed behind, too. He obviously thought that their moment of bonding over shared torture meant that they were going to be friends or something. That was cute, but not really June’s style.
“There’s no way that Big Hunk over there is one of our ‘peers’.”
Maks laughed again. It was a full-body thing with him, not just a movement that involved his mouth and lungs. It was kind of obnoxious.
“You don’t know who he is, do you?”
“Trouble in a sweatervest?” June muttered, frowning at the tourguide’s rapidly shrinking form. He had yet to realize that he’d lost half his group.
“That’s Ernest W. Wright,” Maks said, waggling his eyebrows. “The Commander’s kid.”
Everyone knew who the Commander was. It was impossible to stumble your way through an average American existence and not be familiar with the Commander’s smiling face. His very white, very straight teeth beamed from billboards and lunch boxes. Everyone knew the roughhewn chunk of muscle and white bread patriotism that was John Wright, the Commander. June wasn’t big on the capes as an institution, so she didn’t follow all of the spandex-clad justice-fighters, but the Commander was iconic. Even his rogues respected him.
And the hot mess in the sweatervest was his son. It looked like making bad first impressions was something that New June had adopted from Old June, in spite of her best intentions. How was she supposed to know that he was related to America’s favorite superhero? “Oh,” June squeaked, her throat tight and dry. After a moment’s thought, she added, “Still not gonna fork over my candy.”
The campus tour took longer than Ernest had anticipated, but he still got home well before his father. Friday was spaghetti night in the Wright household, so as soon as he’d kicked off his shoes in the foyer, he went straight into the kitchen. After washing his hands, Ernest put on his apron — rule number one of the Wright kitchen: protect your good clothes — and started chopping the onions, garlic, and olives.
He couldn’t remember the first time he’d made spaghetti all by himself, but he’d had to stand on a stepstool to do it. At this point, he could make it with his eyes closed. His dad had taught Ernest to cook as soon as he’d been able to reach the counter while standing on tiptoe. They were both impervious to extreme temperatures, so burning himself had never been something they’d had to worry about.
Ernest enjoyed cooking. Between teaching two subjects at the Academy and saving the world every once in a while, his father was a busy
man. He tried to lighten his load, even if it was just by doing things as small as cooking meals for the two of them.
Heating the pans and putting water on to boil, he went over the campus tour in his head. He’d never done it by himself before, so he’d made a couple of mistakes along the way, but it’d been okay. Ernest had been living in Foundation for his whole life, so he knew every square inch of the campus. He was pretty sure that he’d shown the new kids all of the important things — Devil’s Club Lake, the mess hall, the dorms, the training facility, and the academic buildings — and at least Lan and Maks had seemed interested. Two out of four wasn’t bad, was it? Jack didn’t show much of an interest in anything, and June was...
June was something else entirely. She didn’t look, talk, or act like anyone he’d met before. She’d looked him straight in the eye and challenged him to a fight, even though she was short and soft-looking and had trouble carrying her own luggage up the hill.
Ernest grinned stupidly at the sauce he was stirring. June was something else, alright. He’d swung by the library on his way home and had requested her file. It was a thin, flimsy little folder, since her active poster abilities had only been identified a few months prior. She was fifteen, but the board had decided to put her with the new group starting the first year of their third block. She was older than the rest of them, sure, but she was way
behind on the physical training that a posterchild needed. If they didn’t pair her with someone who could pick up the slack, she didn’t have much of a chance of graduating into the capstone class.
That was a sobering thought. He liked her. Ernest didn’t meet people that treated him like a person, not The Commander’s Son, very often. Or at all, really. His dad cast a wide, long shadow.
As if on cue, he heard the front door open. He quickly finished straining the noodles and set the sauce to simmer.
“Hi, Dad!” Ernest called over his shoulder, dumping the noodles in with the sauce. “How was it?”
His father didn’t say a word. He just pursed his lips and shrugged off his coat, dripping in the doorway. Judging by how wet and wrinkled his clothes were, he had to have been standing in the rain for quite a while. His hair was a tangled, wind-blown mess. Foundation was eternally between seventy-two and seventy-six degrees Fahrenheit, so sometimes, Ernest forgot that the rest of the world had things like unplanned rainstorms.
“Funerals aren’t...they’re not s’posed to be nice, I guess,” Ernest said, turning off the stove and fumbling for words. He hated seeing Dad look so defeated. It wasn’t right, but he didn’t know what to say to make the grimness go away.
“It wasn’t terrible, all things considered. I just wish it hadn’t happened in the first place,” Dad said, finally. He combed his hands through his wet hair, trying to tame it back down, then spread his coat over the back of one of the chairs.
“I made spaghetti,” Ernest told him, like it wasn’t obvious from the pots and pans. He loosened his apron strings, taking it off and balling it up. He twisted the tomato-stained fabric between his hands. “I can have it on the table by the time you dry off. If you’re hungry, I mean.”
His dad seemed to think about it for a few seconds. He loosened the knot in his tie, tugging it free.
“I don’t have much of an appetite tonight,” he said, shaking his head. “Think you can wrap it up for me? I’d hate to see such a nice meal go to waste.”
Ernest had been expecting that. He’d just wanted his dad to have the option of a hot meal after the day he’d been through.
“Sure. Sure, I can do that.”
His dad rolled his sleeves up past his elbows, opening and closing cupboards until he found a half-full bottle of whiskey and a glass. Ernest watched him pour a couple of fingers of whiskey, drink it, and refill his glass. It made his stomach hurt, but he tried to ignore it. Turning away, he dished up a pile of spaghetti.
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Title: The great Persian War and its preliminaries A study of the evidence, literary and topographical
Author: G. B. Grundy
Release date: January 13, 2024 [eBook #72704]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT PERSIAN WAR AND ITS PRELIMINARIES ***
Transcriber’s Note
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PREFACE.
T publication of a version of an old old story which has been retold in modern times by famous writers, demands an apology even at this day of the making of many books. It can only be justified in case the writer has become possessed of new evidence on the history of the period with which the story is concerned, or has cause to think that the treatment of pre-existing evidence is not altogether satisfactory from a historical point of view.
I think I can justify my work on the first of these grounds; and I hope I shall be able to do so on the second.
Within the last half-century modern criticism of great ability has been brought to bear on the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. Much of it has been of a destructive nature, and has tended to raise serious doubts as to the credibility of large and important parts of the narratives of those authors. I venture to think that, while some of this criticism must be accepted as sound by every careful student, much of it demands reconsideration.
A large part of it has been based upon topographical evidence. Of the nature of that evidence I should like to say a few words.
Until ten years ago the only military site of first-rate importance in Greek history which had been surveyed was the Strait of Salamis, which the Hydrographic Department of the English Admiralty had included in the field of its world-wide activity. A chart of Pylos made by the same department was also available, but was quite inadequate for the historical purpose.
Since that time Marathon has been included in the survey of Attica made by the German Staff Officers for the German Archæological Institute.
The surveys of Thermopylæ, Platæa, and Pylos, I have myself made at different times between 1892 and 1899. Pylos does not come within the scope of the present volume.
In the absence of these surveys, this side of Herodotean criticism was founded upon such sketches as Leake and other travellers had made of important historical sites, and upon the verbal description of them contained in their works.
It is superfluous to praise the labours of such inquirers. No amount of later investigation in Greek topography can ever supplant much that they have done. But I am quite certain that Leake would have been the last to claim any scientific accuracy for the sketchmaps which he made; and I think it will be agreed that maps without accuracy cannot be used for the historical criticism of highly elaborate narratives.
The present volume, deals exclusively with the Græco-Persian wars up to the end of 479 . . I propose to deal with the Hellenic warfare of the remainder of the fifth century in a separate volume.
Some of my conclusions are not in accord with the commonly accepted versions of the history of this period. But, when the circumstances of the work are considered, it will, I think, be conceded that such a result was almost inevitable.
I have supported my conclusions, especially in such cases as I believe them to be in disagreement with accepted views, by arguments taken from the evidence. Where those arguments are in my opinion likely to be of interest to the general reader, I have inserted them in the actual text; where they are of a very specialist character, I have put them in the form of notes.
I have but little more to say with regard to my own work in general. In the form in which I have presented it in this volume I have tried to make it constructive rather than destructive. I have, I believe, confined my destructive criticism to passages in which I found myself in conflict with accepted authorities on the subject who had presumably enjoyed equal opportunities with myself of becoming acquainted with the facts. I have purposely avoided criticism of those
who, not having had the opportunity of visiting the scenes of action, but yet having made the best use of the evidence available at the time at which they wrote, have, in my opinion, been led into error by the defectiveness of the evidence they were obliged to use.
Early in the course of my inquiries, the results of investigation suggested to me that Herodotus’ evidence as an historian differs greatly in value, according as he is relating facts, or seeking to give the motives or causes lying behind them. Further investigation has tended to confirm this view. My conclusions on these two points will be made sufficiently clear in the course of this work.
In his purely military history Herodotus is dealing with a subject about which he seems to have possessed little, if any, special knowledge, and hardly any official information. The plan or design which lay behind the events which he relates can, therefore, only be arrived at, in the majority of instances, by means of an induction from the facts he mentions. This will, I think, adequately define and account for the method I have adopted in treating his evidence.
The necessity of employing various words indicating probability rather than certainty does not add adornment to style, but is inevitable under circumstances where the evidence is of the nature of that which is presented to any one who attempts to write the history of any part of the fifth century before Christ.
The spelling of Greek names is a difficulty at the present day Many of the conventional forms are absolutely wrong. I do not, however, think that the time has yet come when it is convenient to write Sikelia, Athenai, Kerkura, etc. I have therefore used the conventional forms for well-known names, but have adopted the more correct forms for names less known, with one or two literal changes, such as “y” for upsilon, where the change is calculated to make the English pronunciation of the name approximate more closely to that of the original Greek.
As one who is from force of present circumstances laying aside, not without regret, a department of work which has been of infinite interest to him, and whose necessary discontinuance causes him the
greatest regret, I may perhaps be allowed to speak briefly of my own experience to those Englishmen who contemplate work in Greece.
Firstly, as to motive: If you wish to take up such work because you have an enthusiasm for it, and because you feel that you possess certain knowledge and qualifications, take it up by all means; you will never regret having done so. It will give you that invaluable blessing, —a keen intellectual interest, lasting all your life.
But if your motive be to acquire thereby a commercial asset which may forward your future prospects, leave the work alone. You will, in the present state of feeling in England, forward those prospects much more effectively by other means.
In all work in Greece malaria is a factor which has to be very seriously reckoned with. There has been much both of exaggeration and of understatement current upon the subject. It so happens that many of the most interesting sites in Greece are in localities notoriously unhealthy —Pylos and Thermopylæ are examples in point. Of the rare visitors to Pylos, two have died there since I was at the place in August, 1895; and of the population of about two hundred fisher-folk living near the lagoon in that year, not one was over the age of forty. The malaria fiend claims them in the end, and the end comes soon. At Thermopylæ, in this last summer, I escaped the fever, but caught ophthalmia in the marshes. An Englishman who was with me, and also our Greek servant, had bad attacks of fever.
On the whole, I prefer the spring as the season for work. The summer may be very hot. During the four weeks I was at Navarino the thermometer never fell below 93° Fahrenheit, night or day, and rose to 110° or 112° in the absolute darkness of a closed house at midday. What it was in the sun at this time, I do not know. I tried it with my thermometer, forgetting that it only registered to 140°, with disastrous results to the thermometer.
At Thermopylæ in 1899 the nights were, in July and August, invariably cool, though the heat at midday was very great; so much so that you could not, without using a glove, handle metal which had been exposed to it.
The winter is, I think, a bad time for exploration,—in Northern Greece at any rate. Rain and snow may make work impossible, and the mud on the tracks in the plain must be experienced in order to be appreciated. Snow, moreover, may render the passes untraversable.
To one who undertakes survey work in circumstances similar to those in which I have been placed, the expense of travelling in Greece is considerable. Survey instruments are cumbrous, if not heavy paraphernalia. Moreover, as I have been obliged to do the work within the limits of Oxford vacations, and as the journey to Greece absorbs much time, it has been necessary for me to labour at somewhat high pressure while in the country. Twelve hours’ work a day under a Greek sun, with four hours’ work besides, demands that the doer should be in the best of condition. One is therefore obliged to engage a servant to act as cook and purveyor, since the native food and cooking are not of a kind to support a Western European in a healthy bodily state for any length of time. In case of survey, moreover, it is just as well to choose a servant who knows personally some of the people of the district in which the work is carried on, as suspicions are much more easy to arouse than to allay, and original research may connect itself in the native mind with an increase of the land-tax.
There are very few parts of Greece where it is dangerous to travel without an escort. Since the recent war with Turkey, the North has been a little disturbed, and brigandage has never been quite stamped out in the Œta and Othrys region. But it is not the organized brigandage of old times; nor, I believe, in the vast majority of cases, are the crimes committed by the resident population. The Vlach shepherds, who come over from Turkish Epirus in the summer with their flocks, are usually the offenders. Throughout nine-tenths of the area of the country an Englishman may travel with just as much personal security as in his own land.
The Greeks are a kindly, hospitable race. The Greek peasant is a gentleman; and, if you treat him as such, he will go far out of his way to help you. If you do not, there may be disagreeables.
I cannot acknowledge all the written sources of assistance to which I have had recourse in compiling this volume, because I cannot recall the whole of a course of reading which has extended over a period of ten years.
Of Greek histories I have used especially those of Curtius, Busolt, Grote and Holm; of editions of Herodotus those of Stein and Macan. Of special books, I have largely used the French edition of Maspero’s “Passing of the Empires,” and Rawlinson’s “Herodotus.” I have read Hauvette’s exhaustive work on “Hérodote, Historien des Guerres Médiques.” I have not, however, been able to use it largely, as I find that my method of dealing with the evidence differs very considerably from his.
Where I have consciously used special papers taken from learned serials, I have acknowledged them in the text.
Many of my conclusions on minor as well as major questions are founded on a fairly intimate knowledge of the theatre of war.1
I have dealt with the war as a whole, as well as with the major incidents of it, because it is a subject of great interest to one who, like myself, has, in the course of professional teaching, had to deal with the campaigns of modern times.
I cannot close this Preface without expressing my gratitude for the help which has been given me at various stages of my work.
Mr. Douglas Freshfield, himself a worker in historical research, and Mr. Scott Keltie gave me invaluable assistance at the time of my first visit to Greece, when I was holding the Oxford Travelling Studentship of the Royal Geographical Society.
My own college of Brasenose generously aided me with a grant in 1895, which was renewed last year.
In reckoning up the debt of gratitude, large items in it are due to my friends Mr. Pelham and Mr. Macan. As Professor of Ancient History, Mr. Pelham is ever ready to aid and encourage those who are willing to work in his department, and I am only one of many whom he has thus assisted. Such grants as I have obtained from the
Craven Fund have been obtained by his advocacy, and he has often by his kindly encouragement cheered the despondency of a worker whose work can only be rewarded by the satisfaction of having done it,—a reward of which he is at times, when malarial fever is upon him, inclined to under-estimate the value.
I owe much to that personal help which Mr. Macan so kindly gives to younger workers in the same field as his own. He has also been kind enough to read through the first three chapters of this book. Though he has suggested certain amendments which I have adopted, he is in no way responsible for the conclusions at which I have arrived.
To Canon Church, of Wells, I am deeply indebted for those illustrations which have been made from the beautiful collection of Edward Lear’s water-colour sketches of Greece which he possesses.
My father, George Frederick Grundy, Vicar of Aspull, Lancashire, has read through all my proofs, and has done his best to make the rough places smooth. I have every reason to be grateful for this labour undertaken with fatherly love, and, I may add, with parental candour.
The chapters in this volume which deal with the warfare of 480–479 were awarded the Conington Prize at Oxford, given in the year 1900.
G. B. GRUNDY.
B C , O , October, 1901.
NOTE.
N .—After nearly a year spent in learning the principles and practice of surveying, I went to Greece in the winter of 1892–93, and made
1. A survey of the field of Platæa;
2. A survey of the town of Platæa;
3. A survey of the field of Leuctra.
I also examined
1. The western passes of the Kithæron range;
2. The roads leading to them from Attica by way of Eleusis and Phyle respectively;
3. The great route from Thebes northward, west of Kopais, as far as Lebadeia and Orchomenos.
In the summer of 1895 I revisited Greece.
During that visit I did the following work:—
1. A survey of Pylos and Sphakteria;
2. An examination of the great military route from Corinth to Argos, and from Argos, by way of Hysiæ, to Tegea;
3. An examination of the military ways from the Arcadian plain into the Eurotas valley;
4. I also followed and examined the great route from the Arcadian plain to Megalopolis, and thence to the Messenian plain;
5. An examination of the site of Ithome.
In the recent summer of 1899 I did further work abroad in reference to Greek as well as Roman history. The Greek portion consisted of:—
1. A visit to the site of and museums of Carthage, with a view to ascertaining the traceable effects of Greek trade and Greek
influence in the Phœnician city;
2. A detailed examination, lasting ten days, of the region and site of Syracuse;
3. An examination of the field of Marathon, which I had previously visited, though under adverse circumstances of weather, in January, 1893;
4. A very careful examination of Salamis strait;
5. A voyage up the Euripus, and such examination of the strait at Artemisium as was necessary;
6 A survey of the pass of Thermopylæ;
7. A detailed examination of the path of the Anopæa;
8. An examination of the Asopos ravine and the site and neighbourhood of Heraklea Trachinia;
9. An examination of the route southward from Thermopylæ, through the Dorian plain, past Kytinion and Amphissa to Delphi;
10. A second examination of Platæa and the passes of Kithæron.
Other parts of Greece known to me, though not visited with the intention of, or, it may be, under circumstances permitting, historical inquiry are:
1 Thessaly, going
(a) From Volo to Thaumaki, viâ Pharsalos;
(b) From Volo to Kalabaka (Æginion) and the pass of Lakmon;
(c) From Volo to Tempe, viâ Larissa;
2. The great route from Delphi to Lebadeia by the Schiste;
3. The route up the west coast of Peloponnese from Pylos, through Triphylia and Elis to Patras;
4. The neighbourhood of Missolonghi;
5 Corfu and Thera (Santorin).
CHAPTER
I. G P 1
II. P G A . T S E
III. T I R
IV. P O E : . . 493–490.
V T E ’ : . 490–480
VI. T M P A . P G
F S P
T C P
M S
XIII. T W W
XIV. H H G
