Amber and Clay by Laura Schlitz (phonics books txt) 📕

god,

cast out of Olympus,

rejected,

the maker of beautiful things.

I see this boy who has no one:

his father indifferent,

his mother sold.

I see this boy as he stoops and labors,

sweats and survives. I am the god

who does not turn his back on ugliness.

Beware, all you

who cast out children,

who use them as tools

for your shameful needs.

I tell you, these children are not alone:

A god stands beside them,

a Fury, a Nemesis,

who will avenge them.

I will shape this boy’s fate

like a tool at the forge;

through fire and hammer

I will shape it.

Look at him! Silver-crowned in the moonlight,

hoisting himself over the windowsill! He risks his skin

to visit a forbidden room

and worship a painted wonder. How he desires it!

Not the horse only, but beauty:

that is the thing he seeks.

I will give him

the best consolation a mortal can know:

not love, which is fickle

as faithless Aphrodite,

nor power, which makes a man

first drunk,

then thirsty.

I will give him the power to create.

I will make him like myself:

a maker of beautiful things.

I slipped into the house on silent feet.

I went to Hestia’s altar;

I prayed:

Help me, O Goddess,

and I will remember you.

I filled a lamp with oil and lit the wick.

I sheltered the flame with my hand;

my fingers glowed red.

I passed through the shadows step by step,

listening,

holding my breath:

Everyone slept.

There was the horse in the andron.

Each time I saw it

I ached to make a horse like that:

vigorous, mettlesome, his muscles rippling like water,

I stood on the couch

wonderstruck.

How long did I stand looking? I heard someone behind me.

I turned so fast I almost slipped —

I should have blown out the lamp.

Instead I lifted it high.

He stood in the doorway.

Not a grown-up: a boy.

The master’s second son: Lykos.

How many years since we played in the courtyard?

Often he came to the stable to ride.

I’d bring his horse in from the pasture.

He never looked at me.

I’d hand him the rope and slink off.

When someone doesn’t see you,

you want to get away.

“Rhaskos?”

He remembered my name.

“Is that you? What are you doing here?”

I stepped down from the couch.

To be caught in the andron

in the middle of the night —

There wasn’t a lie I could tell.

I hung my head.

“I heard a noise. I thought it was a thief.

Then I saw the light.

For a moment, I thought the house was on fire!”

I stole a glance, sideways. He was older, thinner,

but that look of mischief —

the corners of his mouth puckered,

his eyebrows lifted —

“Whew, you stink! I can smell you from here!

Sometimes Father says the andron

stinks like the stable.

Is that because of you?

Have you come here before?”

My mouth was dry.

“You’re supposed to answer when I speak to you.

I’m your master, you know.”

He sat down on the couch,

and pulled up his feet, sitting cross-legged.

He rubbed the sole of his foot with his thumb,

as if he had a callus there,

and spoke without lifting his head.

“I think about you sometimes.”

When he said that, I stared at the floor:

Rows of flat pebbles, black and white,

cunningly arranged,

but that wasn’t why I stared.

I didn’t know anyone thought about me.

“We used to have good times together, didn’t we?

All we had to do was play. And fight.

You were the best one to fight with.”

“You were stronger.”

His head came up.

He grinned at me.

“I was, wasn’t I? Even then! But you put up a fight.

I’m learning wrestling now. I bet you’d be good at it.

But I guess you don’t learn wrestling.”

“I don’t learn anything.”

“You should thank the gods for your good luck!

All they ever do is teach me things, and half the time, I can’t learn them.

Sometimes I think I’d rather be you, working with the horses.

You were always crazy about horses. Remember how

we used to take sticks,

and switch our legs,

and gallop?

You could whinny just like a horse.

I remember your mother made you a little horse out of clay,

and I broke it.

Do you remember that?”

I’d forgotten.

The memory came back to me: a rough little figure,

sun-dried, short-necked;

more like a dog than a horse.

It was my only toy.

“I remember,

because your mother smacked my bottom so hard,

I howled like a wolf.

That seemed like a regular whipping, back then.

We used to have good times, didn’t we?”

He sounded like Georgios and Demetrios.

Whenever they were drunk, they liked to talk

about how good things were

when they were young.

“Then your mother was sold

and I got to be seven years old.

After that, we never spoke.”

“I’m not supposed to talk unless someone talks to me first.”

He nodded briskly.

“I’ve got a slave of my own now, old Zotikos.

He takes me to school every day.

If I don’t learn fast enough, he beats me.”

“A slave? A slave beats you?”

He threw up his hands.

“All boys have slaves to make us learn.

Zotikos is old, but he uses a cane, and he can hit hard.

He says I’m bone-lazy and good for nothing. It’s not fair,

because I’m not so bad at wrestling,

and I win all the footraces.

I just hate memorizing all that Homer.

Hesiod and Homer, they’re poets,

and I have to learn them by heart.

Homer tells stories, so he’s interesting once in a while —

but Hesiod’s boring.

Then I have to play the lyre.

Zotikos is always yelling at me

because he says the lyre’s out of tune.

I don’t see how he can tell. It sounds all right to me.

Does old Georgios beat you?”

“Sometimes.”

“It’s worse for you.

When I grow up, I’ll be a soldier,

and nobody will dare lay a hand on me,

but you’ll always be whipped.

At least no one makes you learn poetry.

You ought to be grateful for that.”

I didn’t argue with him.

I didn’t know what poetry was,

and it had been so long since anyone spoke to me —

not giving orders, but talking.

And he was a boy. Like me.

I hadn’t talked to another boy in years.

He heaved a sigh. He sounded like a horse:

a long breath and a brief snort.

“Sometimes it seems to me that nobody ever gets out of anything.

I mean, you’ve got to be a slave,

and I’ve got to go to school,

and be a soldier, like my big brother, Menon —

only I won’t be like Menon, because he’s awful.

But you know what I mean.

You have to work for old Georgios,

and I have to learn to play the stupid lyre.”

He