Prize: £1,000

Finalists:

Lisa H. Owens, Deryn Pittar, Maddie Logemann, Jo Kerr, Laura C. Rader, Galen Gower, Deidra Whitt Lovegren, Meg Keane, Debbi Voisey, Aalisha Green, Sue Cook, Wendy Markel, Cecilia Maddison, Roxy Kirkham, Lida Kanari, A.R. Kent, Martin Tulton, Julie Bissell, Nicole. K. Hollick, E.M. Chaffin, Devika Rajeev, Aggie Novak, Dhevalence Moodley, Alyx Barter, Jane Thomas., Katrina Moinet, Yingli Lin, Travis Robinson, Felipe Orlans, Anna Perrett, Ann Marie Struck, Hannah Rickard, Katie Challis, Lou Andreev, Sarah Haggett, Angela Huskisson, Ioana Gradinaru, GiKa, Arlo Fox, Lo Saga, S.L. Rosey, Miguel A. Rueda, Kelli Johnson, Stephen Armson, Lisa Verdekal, Emily Elledge, Victoria Mascord, Katherine J. Brodt, Raymond Tilma, Phoebe Thomaz, Aaron Prince, William Herbert, Robert Burns, Laurel Hanson, Sarah Heald, Dominic Sargent, Lin Whitehouse, Adriana Tihan, Mary Daurio.

and the winner is…

Caitlin Woodford

The Wine-Dark Sea

First, Leyla scrubs the shells. Mud, hardened sand, the film of saltwater—she dredges it all up using a thick cloth and her muscled fingers, so it won’t taint the soft flesh inside. The snails have spent their whole lives on the bottom of the Mediterranean, soaking up whatever debris has settled down onto them. She rids them of it all, makes their spiny bodies shine. When they’re cleaned and dried in the sun, Leyla takes the hammer to them. Not too hard, or it’ll break the fragile bloom within. Not too soft, or it’ll take too long. She needs every coin she can earn. Leyla cracks the widest swell that protects the inner body, pulls off the pieces. Beneath is the prize—a slick, pulsing gland. Running through it, a thin band of liquid, clear in the dark of the shell, but already darkening to purple in the sunlight. She takes a thin blade, hardly bigger than a needle, slices through the gland. Gently squeezes it above a waiting jar. One drop falls into standing liquid. She digs out the remaining flesh from the snail, tosses it into a bowl to take home for her dinner. Tosses the shell onto the pile. And starts again.

Before he leaves to join the legions, Hanno walks a long way to wash his clothes in a different part of the city. He follows the curve of the Mediterranean, watches it lapping against docks and spits of sand. He’ll wash himself after he finishes with the clothes, though it won’t make much difference. He’ll have to shave his head to rid the hair of the stench. Maybe his mother will do it for him later. Hanno hates to ask her for this favor—she’ll know why he wants to. It’s an honor to do this work, she’ll say. An honor to labor over the shells, over the vats where they age the purple dye in animal urine. Let her think what she likes. Hanno has been denied entry into service before because of the smell of his body, tainted by living in that waste his whole life. The thousands upon thousands of rotting fish, urine, human sweat and dirt. But in the ashes of the plague, they’ll take anyone they can find. He scrubs his clothes with a piece of pumice in the well across town. Splashes a bit onto his face, to aid the sweat. Maybe he’ll sweat everything out in the clean air up in the northern provinces. 

Leyla hears little of the orders that come and go. This is the business of imperial messengers and the men who run the dyeworks—men with stout, wine-thickened laughs who rarely cross the stench threshold. It covers everything, sinks into everything, the stench. They wouldn’t dream of darkening their cloaks with it. But she hears things this time. 

The emperor is having a baby, they say. The other women pass the news around on hot breath, whisper over the bubbling vats. Their eyes linger on Leyla. A baby boy, he hopes. The sun bears down on her graying hair, wrapped in a strip of cloth around her head. She listens. They are to make swaddles, blankets of Tyrian purple. Purple fit for a future emperor, the heir chosen by the gods. What an honor, they say, to bring him into the world cloaked in royalty. 

Leyla remembers the day her son was born. The cloth she wrapped him in was ragged, old. But he had a bit of the purple on him as well. The dye always set deeply into her hands, so that when she held his little body for the first time, her fingerprints stained his skin. She wonders if he was still marked by purple as he died.

Hanno is going to the north to destroy a traitor. His chest swells with purpose as he is issued his armor, his weapons. They are all talking about it in the camps. A barbarian, who was for years a critical aide to Rome, had recently defected to lead the growing coalition of tribesmen pushing along the Danube. The Emperor was furious. The new recruits were to be moved as soon as possible to defend the border and bring the tribes to heel. 

Hanno fumbles with the leather straps of his new sandals, smiles sheepishly at the other recruits around him doing the same. All low-class boys like him, dirt surrounding their bright eyes, hungry for action. They don’t leave for another day, but their energy makes the air sizzle. He tightens his waistband, pockets the advance pay he was able to secure for his mother. He’ll drop it off tonight, when he goes to say goodbye. 

The recruits take Hanno out drinking, soak in their last night in Tyre with wine and hollers echoing through dark streets. Hanno passes out asleep at the foot of another soldier’s bed. When he wakes, it is to the sound of horns calling the army to gather and depart. The bag of coins still weighs down his pocket, but it’s too late to take them anywhere. They’ll go with him on the march, along with the guilt. 

When Leyla was a girl, the coastline of Tyre was flatter. Now the piles of discarded shells form sharp dunes that reshape the beach, ground slowly down to sand below the feet of the dye workers. She hauls a load of empty shells out, heaves the basket over and watches as they tumble down towards the water. The sea is dark today, absorbing the gray of deep clouds overhead. She pauses to take a breath of clear air before going back.

A thin boat like a splinter idles in the water. Two men leap overboard, their limbs gliding gracefully as they swim straight down. Moments later they reemerge with hands full of shells. Even from here she can hear their rough laughter and speech. They jostle each other, slap the sun-leathered skin of each other’s backs. Leathered like her husband’s. 

Leyla turns quickly and walks down the dune. She does not allow herself to linger on these memories during the day. She sees flashes often, but anchors to them only as she lays on her mat to sleep. Her husband’s sun-worn back. Her sisters’ long, braided hair. Her son’s soft belly. She worries if she thinks of them too often, they will change, their honor and their memory will shift beneath piles and piles of shells. Morph like the coastline defying the sea.

Training is brutal. Hanno at least has strong hands, and he’s a good swimmer, so his breathing is better than many other recruits. He hears the weaker ones wheezing behind him as they sprint. On the fifth day a centurion comes by to watch them struggle in the hot sun. It’s the first time Hanno has seen a real Roman up close. None would stoop so low as to visit the dye region in Tyre. Hanno is struck by how small the man is, how gaunt his face. Plague had done more than deplete the legions. It had weakened the survivors. For the first time, Hanno feels a ripple of fear in his belly at what might await the armies of Rome. 

Hanno’s cohort joins the bulk of the legions in Cappadocia, and they march for a month around the coast of the Mediterranean. In dozens of cities and across acres of land, Hanno watches the sea change out of the corner of his eye. It’s clearer up here, or at least not weighed down by the cloud of stench. He wonders if his memory of the sea where he grew up has already changed—he can only imagine it now as a deep purple, the color of the dye. The color of his mother’s fingertips. 

As the legions turn toward the Danube, Hanno feels the outer shell of his body hardening. His muscles have crystallized, his feet have calloused. He starts to imagine himself a real soldier. He’s always wanted this, to leave behind his family’s trade and make something more of himself, to live a full, clean life. All that’s left is to cross the threshold of the river, draw his first blood. 

There are a few different shades that can emerge from the snail dye. It is always purple, but the final hue does not become clear until after the long process of soaking is complete. Leyla makes multiples of the same blanket and swaddling cloths for the new royal baby, in case one shade is not to the family’s liking. The finest purple that can come from the snails is a deep, reddish purple that appears tinted with black. The color of clotted blood. Only this purple is acceptable for the Emperor’s robes, but for the baby they are willing to take variations. 

Leyla is not simple-minded. She knows the smell and toil of her work makes her undesirable, her family and neighbors the only companions of her isolation. Still, she feels pride in her family’s legacy, the generations spent tending to this color, the rarest and most valuable in the world. She swirls the cloth in the vat with a long stick, then lifts it up to check the shade. Not quite blood. She drops it back in. 

That night, Leyla’s sleep is broken by the roaring of wind. A storm has blown in from the sea, and racks the city in its throes. Rain and wind pummel the houses and the dyeworks for two days. At the end, they find a hole torn in the roof. Everything within has been destroyed by the rain. Broken shells are strewn everywhere, the vats are overrun with clear water. They send the divers to collect more snails immediately. Those who return from the storm-churned waters do not bring back enough. 

Hanno first sees the Danube from the top of a hill where they make camp. It’s nothing like the Mediterranean—thinner than the sea, of course, but also darker, greyer. It cuts across the deep green forests like a stone knife. He doesn’t have long to look at it. There’s a rumor that the Emperor himself is coming to camp today. Soon they’ll meet the Northern tribes on the field, take their revenge for treachery. 

Hanno lines up with the rest of his cohort for inspection. It’s a cold morning even though it’s springtime, and despite his training Hanno cannot stop shivering. He’s used to the warmth of Tyre, the beating sun. Here everything seems too much like stone. There’s no fluidity in the air, the people. Even the river appears cold and still. Then a ripple runs down the ranks. The Emperor is here. Everyone straightens, strains to get a look while maintaining order. He struts casually down the ranks on his horse, flanked by generals. There’s nothing especially regal about the Emperor’s face, aside from how clean it is. Hanno notices the purple robe draped across his shoulders, feels a jolt of longing for home. He pushes it down, forces himself to fill with awe at his leader, this man anointed by the gods. As the Emperor passes Hanno, he flinches with poorly-concealed disgust, covers his nose subtly with the trim of his robe. 

The dye workers are behind. Terribly behind. Leyla does not sleep for two days as she cracks shell after shell, barely pausing to eat handfuls of hardly-cooked snail. Her hands ache, but the imperial merchants are coming in a few days to collect the cloth for the baby. The baby who will not wait to be born, even after a terrible storm. The men running the dyeworks have been paid some in advance, and they will not suffer humiliation for neglecting to deliver. 

When the merchants arrive, Leyla and the other women can hardly stand. They have worked tirelessly, have just managed to pull enough together for the little emperor. The merchants are accompanied by guards. Their plumed helmets brush the low ceiling of the dyeworks, they grip their swords with one hand and their noses with the other. Leyla and the others are trying to clean up as the packages are passed off. The merchants open one, then another, scoffing to each other. Is this a joke? they ask. These people are meant to be the experts on the art of purple, but this is a disgrace, the merchants say. The guards are getting restless as the argument heats up. No one from outside this area can stand the stench for this long. Leyla is wiping down an empty vat when she sees the finger pointing at her. She has been here the longest. She is the one to blame.

Hanno is placed on the front line with the other provincial soldiers. Good, he thinks. Let the Romans sit back, keep themselves clean. He has everything to prove. The boy from the dyeworks, the boy coated in stench. He can see the figures of the tribesmen rustling in the trees far across the field. He will destroy them. He will make them pay for his humiliation, if no one else will. He hefts the sword in his thick hand, feels the sweat drip down his face. The horn blows.

Hanno hears nothing in that first rush. He sees the opposing army rushing towards him, their ranks scattered. The legions advance in formation, a thick wall of bodies pressing together and each other forward. For a moment it seems that this is all just a big game, that they are all running in a race or playing in a field. Then an arrow strikes the man next to Hanno, and his blood splatters the grass. 

Everything becomes screaming, clods of dirt upheaving, blood blinding the eyes. Hanno runs with his weapon raised, accesses the frenzied animal instinct to slash at anything that moves. All thoughts of honor escape him, there is only the raw beating of his heart and the knowledge of his soft skin. How easily it can tear. He does this for some amount of time, and then at once it is over. He has not seen what has happened, only hears the horn and feels the air collapse into relief and retreat. As he turns to run back with the others he sees the blood-clot purple, the sheer volume of it, sprayed across the field. Produced in an instant, so much quicker than at home. Hanno thinks of his mother’s hands working the shells, easing the color out of them over days at a time. He is supposed to be the one to bring home honor. But what honor is there in this upheaval, the annihilation of artistry? Tomorrow, we go again, the centurions say. The Emperor wants the whole lot of the traitors gutted.

Leyla’s breath comes short and wheezing. She has not found the strength to stand and light a candle this cloud-darkened morning, so the room is a wash of shadows. She is expected to return to the dyeworks. They told her this after the guards left. Leyla was sprawled on the ground, purple blooms beginning to simmer under her skin. Left eye swollen shut, two muscular fingers snapped. Come back as soon as you can stand, they said. They need her expertise. 

In the shadows of her room, Leyla cannot stop the ghosts from gathering. First, her sisters. She sees them sitting up on the table, braiding each other’s hair. All of them taken years ago by disease. Their bodies are still pockmarked. Then, her husband. His body wet and shining, drying himself in the corner with an old cloth. He doesn’t turn around. She’s glad of this. Does not want to see his drowned face again, the sea-swollen cheeks that she had to identify after his broken boat washed ashore.

Last comes Hanno. Her sweet, soft boy. He kneels beside her, and she sees him, finally sees him, as he died. His body ravaged like hers is now. She can’t hear him, but she knows what he must be saying. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. 

It takes ten thousand shells to make a single ounce of Tyrian purple dye. Leyla knows this well. She has cracked hundreds of thousands of shells in her life, drained the thin gland of mucus from each of them. She says to herself that she has done this over and over for honor. She should get up, go back to her work. But here, surrounded by the ghosts, Leyla wants only to rest with them. Let the Romans do what they wish. Leyla has never been a Roman anyway. Ten thousand shells for an ounce of dye. Ten thousand soldiers for a fragment of land Leyla will never see. Enough dye for the hem of a robe. Enough provincial boys for the hem of an empire. 

First, Hanno’s body is roughened by the scraping of other armored bodies against his. Leather, metal, the film of sweat—all of it shredded and smeared by the press of the ranks, threatening the soft flesh inside. Hanno has spent his whole life by the Mediterranean, soaking up all the stench and debris that has settled onto him. He’s rid of this now, cleansed to a shine by the rush of battle. A space opens up for him to move, to fight. He raises his sword against a tribesman, who takes a hammer to him. Not too hard, or the fun will be over quickly. Not too soft, or Hanno might still have a chance. The tribesmen need every dead Roman they can get. The man cracks the armor protecting Hanno’s inner body with a knife, tears through the pieces. Beneath is the prize—the sweat-slickened chest. Just beneath it, the heart, beating in a frenzy in the sunlight. The man takes his thin blade, slices up. The blood begins to run. He stabs Hanno again, to be sure, and tosses him aside as he continues through the fray. 

The last time Hanno sees it, the evening sky is a wine-dark purple. He’s lain on the field all day, waiting. Stars are sprinkling overhead like sunlight on waves. He can smell it—the stench of the dyeworks, the shellfish residue radiating off of him. Finally easing out of his flesh, now that the soul flickers, and is gone.