Bensiabel's Tale: The Serpent Charmer

Farrin, Sage and Bensiabel sit on the low stone wall circling the moon mirror, in the comfortable silence that accompanies a party eating. When he had arrived, Bensiabel had found Farrin and Sage at the gates, Sage with two hot chocolates, cloudy with whipped cream and topped with chocolate curls, and Farrin with another in one hand, two bags in the other, carrying sugared violets and spiced chocolate twists.

Bensiabel sips his hot chocolate, crushing the half melted chocolate curls on his tongue and reflecting that he enjoys a drink he can chew.

When they are all satisfied, Bensiabel rolls up the bags and tucks them into his pockets. They discards their star-speckled cups in the black bins nearby, the empty cups sparkle before disappearing into the abyss.

“Farrin tells marvelous stories, he knows so many. I would love to hear one,” Sage added.

Farrin looked at Bensiabel. “Would you like to hear a story?” he asked.

Bensiabel felt as excited as he had when his parents had first given him permission to visit the cirque. It had been at least two years since anyone had given him a book to read, even longer since anyone had told him a story. Even his mother had insisted that thirteen was too old for bedtime stories.

He nods. “Yes, please, if you have a story.”

Farrin pauses, absently glancing into toward a fire breather on an elevated platform not far from them, watching serpentine flames wind in loops of silver smoke into the night sky. While he is silent music floats on the cool wind, drifting from multiple tents across the moon mirror.

He opens his mouth to begin his tale.

“Music is powerful, it is a way of sharing secrets, of passing on stories and weaving legends. It is as insubstantial as light, which is why it is so often dismissed as a weak art. Music can be made by the smallest of things, a chorus of crickets in midsummer, the cooing of a morning dove, the whisper of wine through a grapevine. Yet the most powerful music comes from the human heart. It is influenced by good deeds and bad, and it may cause good deeds and bad.

Once, long ago, there was a young man, a knight, eager to prove himself.

The hero lived in a great land, a land of armour and arms, a land of training and discipline. He was trained among warriors, but he did not care for battle. His sword held no great thrill, even when it flashed silver in the hot sunlight of the morning. Instead, it was the flute that caught his eye. It gleamed to him the way a beautiful woman gleams for other men, he longed for music and melodies, for softness and tempo and fluttering notes that the wind would carry away.

He often could be found far away from training grounds, hidden in canopies of forests, or in the tall grasses of meadows, running his fingers over sticks as though feeling the holes of a flute. He dreamt of lullabies and arias, he dreamt while he was awake, and often came home sore from bruises gained while not paying attention.

He was the topic of gossip for many. His strangeness was spoken of in local markets and forums, in taverns and bathhouses, on sheppard’s’ hills and in perfumed courtyards. Everyone knew of the strange boy who preferred music to swords. But could music cut a foe down? Could music strike armies with the force of a tsunami? They laughed and called him soft, joked and pointed and whispered behind his back.

But he did not care. He only stole more time away from training, more time in meadows and by forest creeks, carving sticks into crude flutes, tossing away scraps of bark and dying leaves.

His father lamented him. The youth was strong, he had the grace of a warrior, but he did not seem to see the reason in war and battle. His father often encouraged him, making his son rise early, giving him tasks of heavy lifting and sending him on errands that passed through training grounds. The youth accomplished all this with indifference and speed; he always strived to have spare time, and continued to spend it in the wilderness, then coming home with an assortment of pipes which he collected in his bedroom.

His mother felt differently. She had come from a land of music and art, she had learned to listen to the river’s song, to hear the buzzards and see the uniqueness in a scarlet pomegranate seed. She cultivated his love for music, quietly asserting to his father that he should have the freedom if he did not refuse to train, and would listen to him humming in the early hours of dawn.

For his birthday she presented him with a flute, a rare gift in this land. ‘It is from my homeland,’ she explained as he unwrapped the flute and widened his eyes. He could hardly bear to touch it, for it seemed so exquisitely beautiful, of rosewood with bands of gold between notes, he was sure it could not be anything less than divine.

When the youth was not yet a man, for though he could grow and beard and had the knowledge and the strength of a man, but the heart of a child, a messenger came to the land, from a far island in the sea.

The messenger was met at the gate of the land, given a home in which to stay, for he had been traveling for weeks and was very tired. He slept for hours while news spread in the land, as quickly as a rising tide, and when he woke he called to the leaders of the people. The messenger told of a great beast, cursed by the gods with hideous features and banished to a lonesome island, in a great stone palace.

The creatures was a woman, he told them, a woman beautiful as the heavens, but boastful and unwise. For her hubris she had been cursed with a head of snakes.

‘Snakes wreathe her head like a crown, coiling in green and black knots, hissing and spitting. She is such a hideous creature, the sight of her face turns men to stone!’ the man proclaimed.

He pleaded with each warrior, begging them for help. The warriors flexed their muscles, polished their swords, and many said goodbye to their families, declaring they would return with Medusa’s head on a spike. Many did not return, and their families mourned their fate, trapped forever in a stone palace, faces frozen in fear and cold marble. Countless warriors left in only three days, long enough for the news to reach the young hero.

The young hero heard he story of the beast Medusa and asked the messenger what he could do to help.

His proposition was met with jeering and mockery. He could not help, he was not a warrior, he was a silly boy with a flute in his hand, the weakest of sword wielders, the slowest of runners. How would his music help now?

Still, the young hero offered his services to the messenger, who gratefully, though with doubt and some hopelessness, accepted his bravery. He told the boy of an island, of the route to take, of the mountain passes and foreign towns, of the currents of wind and tide. When he finished the boy did not pack, he did not strap to his side a sword, he did not bring a bag of food, only a few apples, his flute, and the clothes on his body.

He dreamed that night a melody, a song fragmented by the lucidity of his vision. He sat nestled in an alcove of peacock silk cushions, playing his flute as two snakes emerged from a basket at his feet, coiled around one another, and began to dance. He watches the snakes’, evergreen with golden eyes, as they wound in circles, flicking their tails and their tongues.

He waited for a day of sunlight and fair winds, and when the sky was cloudless and the ocean rippled and glittered, he hoisted the mainsail upon the mast and set sail.

His journey is another story, with strange favours and deals, with hidden gods and mythical creatures. It is a tale for another day, but by whatever method, the youth arrived in a seaside village, and at the seaport, he bought a ship with the very little money procured from his homeland. He received no letters from home, but could imagine many laughing and believing him dead by now. In his mind’s eye the warriors imitated what they imagined his petrified face to be, immortalized in infantile fear and horror.

He anchored his boat close to shore and called out to the gorgon on the island.

She moved in broad daylight, seemingly unafraid, but he kept his eyes averted and was not turned to stone.

The hero could imagine the serpents glistening on her head, their forked tongues and pearly scales.

She would not speak, for a day and a night she was silent, only the snakes on her head hissed, there was no other sound on the island but the wind and the ocean. When the young hero spoke, he spoke with kindness, occasionally pausing to play upon his flute. So enchanted was Medusa by his music that she emerged from her palace more and more each day, closer to the shore, and began to converse with the young man.

They spoke for many days and nights, him from the sea, she on the land. She spoke of the loneliness of exile, of her yearning for company and change, of her life before the curse, when she was beautiful and loved. He spoke of his home, of the soldiers and their strength, of being alone while among others, save for his music.

At last a dawn came when the youth realized he had fallen in love with Medusa. He was besotted with her intoxicating hiss, with her sorrowful words. He spoke of his love for her, begged that she would allow him on the island, to propose to her.

But she had been promised love before, by another who had whispered sweet words before her curse, and he had left her after.

She refused the youth, who in his desperation turned to his only other love, unable to think of another way to convince her of his feelings.

He raised his flute to his lips and began to play.

He wove a tune, thinking of her sorrow and her loneliness, the melody so sweet Medusa tasted her own salty tears on her cheeks. Her snakes ceased to rear, their luteous eyes sparkled, they coiled away, straining toward the young hero and his music. Their harsh striking movements halted, they swayed gracefully with each crescendo, and stayed still, poised mid-dance with each breath he took.

He lowered his flute and told her again of his love for her.

When she wiped the tears from her face, she granted his her hand, and her heart.

Medusa did not change, she was never beautiful. She wore a veil that hid her snakes and her eyes, but the hero kissed her lips and married her under a bower of roses and lilacs.

Never did another man die for her.

Each night the hero played his flute, with new melodies, hypnotic and sweet as honey. The soldiers praised his music and fell asleep to its tranquility. So the hero proved himself and charmed Medusa. He proved the power of music.”

As Farrin has spoken, Bensiabel had forgotten the circus entirely. Pieces of it were slowly remembered - the growing cold of the autumn air, the shining stars and the scent of hot chocolate – as though he was emerging from a mist.

“I liked it,” Sage said. “It was a little sad at the beginning, but it ended well.”

“Yes, it was very good,” Bensiabel murmurs, still lost in the haze of another world. “Thank you.”

Farrin nods his head. He glances up at the sky, it is pitch dark and alive with stars, but on the horizon it has turned indigo, blushing with distant light. “It is late,” he says, though for him it is considered rather early. “You must be going I suppose.”

Text by Lucie MacAulay