Excerpts from Creation by Gore Vidal (nonfiction)

This article comprises excerpts from the historical novel Creation by Gore Vidal.

Boar attack

Page 63:

We began our day’s march before sunrise. We walked in twos; each carried a spear. For some reason I was paired with Xerxes. He paid no attention to me. Needless to say, I examined him closely. As a child of the harem, I knew that if Atossa’s faction prevailed over that of Gobryas, he would be Great King one day.

Xerxes was a tall boy whose pale-gray eyes shone beneath dark brows that grew together in a straight line. Young as he was, whorls of dark-gold down grew on his ruddy cheeks. Sexually, he was precocious.

If Xerxes was at all conscious of his destiny, he did not betray it. In manner, he was neither more nor less than one of the Great King’s many sons. He had a charming smile. Unlike most men, he kept all his teeth to the end.

I did not speak to him; nor he to me.

At noon we were given the order to stop beside a forest spring. We were allowed to drink water but not to eat. For some reason, instead of stretching out on the moss with the others, I wandered off into the forest.

Green laurel suddenly parts. I see the snout; the curved yellow tusks. I freeze, spear in hand, unable to move as the huge bristling body breaks through the hedge of laurel.

The boar gets wind of me; backs away. No doubt, the beast is as alarmed as I. But then, in an odd circling movement, the boar wheels about and charges.

I am thrown high into the air. Before I reach earth again, I realize that all the wind has left my chest.

I thought that I was dead until I found that although I could no longer breathe, I could at least hear — and heard an almost human cry from the boar as Xerxes dug his spear deep into the animal’s neck. I drew my first uneven breath as the bleeding boar staggered into the laurel, where it stumbled, fell, died.

Everyone hurried forward to congratulate Xerxes. No one paid the slightest attention to me. Fortunately, I had not been hurt. In fact, no one noticed me except Xerxes.

"I hope you’re all right." He looked down at me and smiled.

I looked up at him and said, "You saved my life."

"I know." He was matter-of-fact.

Since there was so much that we might have said at that point, neither of us said another word or ever mentioned the episode again.

Over the years I have had occasion to notice that when a man saves the life of another man, he often has a proprietary sense about the one saved. In no other way can I explain why it was that Xerxes chose me to be his particular friend. Shortly after our forest adventure, at his insistence, I moved into the princes’ quarters.

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