The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  She knew she wanted to say something, but could not think what it was. Berris spoke for her. ‘But, father, what good will she get from all this? She is Spring Queen now, she has all the treasure of Marob if she chooses to call for it: suppose she doesn’t like to give all that up?’ And he glanced from her to the others, and back again; he was wondering a little what sort of Spring Queen Essro would make when Yellow Bull was Corn King.

  ‘I will give you anything you like, Erif,’ said Harn Der, ‘and your marriage shall be undone at once. You shall still have what power you choose—after all, you have more power now than any of us.’ He laughed, a little nervously. ‘In a year you will have forgotten all this. There is nothing to make you not forget, Erif?’

  ‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘I am not going to have a child—yet.’

  ‘All the more reason to finish quick,’ said her father.

  By now all Marob was asleep except these four; they could hear nothing but the wind, and the wood-fire burning quietly beside them, and their own movements and voices. They dropped to whispering. Berris wanted to talk about a new idea of his, the way certain curves, running into certain other curves, gave him a feeling of sureness in the heart; but he knew his father and brother were not interested, and Erif Der was too deeply absorbed in some pattern of her own. Tarrik would have listened; Tarrik would have put it into words for him. But he could not talk to Tarrik these days without feeling such a traitor to all friendship, such a brute-beast, that he could not work for hours afterwards. He began to puzzle out the practice of his idea, not as an animal or a flower, but just as lines in the air, not bounded into a flat surface or the solid edges of wood or metal, but passing through one another like the cracks in a great crystal. As night wore on, it grew more dreamlike, less fixed, less possible to remember, and when the others spoke, their voices followed the curves, cutting each other’s paths, light for his sister and darker for the other two.

  At dawn they were all awake still, and nothing had happened; the pile of things lay there in front of them, no smaller; the dead would not return. The slaves brought them in food and drink, but this time no full plate or cup to stand aside in case One came for it. Essro strayed in too, gentle and anxious, and sat by Yellow Bull; Erif Der went to the heap and took two or three small things of her mother’s, an embroidered coat, a pair of shoes, and a little box full of cowrie shells, some painted red, and small loose pearls. She pushed back the shutters; there was rain blowing past on the wind; she reached out her hand and it pricked her coldly, stinging the fresh scratches, and all at once she felt as if her heart was being pricked and pierced, and she began to cry bitterly, as she had never yet done in all the week since her mother had died. So she ran out, and back in the rain to the Chiefs house by the harbour, where one was never out of sound of the sea.

  For three days that storm rose, beating in from the Black Sea, till all Marob felt salty with blown spray; then it lulled suddenly, but left the beginnings of winter behind it. There were scarcely any leaves left on the trees in the Chief’s garden, and the few late flowers seemed too much battered to revive again for any sun. Erif Der put on a long felt coat, lined with reindeer pelts, and walked in the garden with her box of cowries. She made a face, sometimes consciously, sometimes not, whenever she passed one of the Greek statues; the half-draped marble nymphs looked cold and silly. Before she had made up her mind what to do with the shells, she met Eurydice, whom she still thought of as Yersha, walking in the garden too, with her favourite maid Apphé, who was a hunchback, but pure Greek. Erif Der hated seeing Apphé; it frightened her to think of people being like that; she liked funny, twisted things made by her brother, half beasts and half men, but not living flesh. She tried not to show how uncomfortable and afraid it made her, because she hoped Eurydice did not know yet; but if and when she did, Erif thought, this much of her own power would go. Eurydice motioned the maid to go on; as she passed Erif Der stiffened, but did not draw back. ‘Are you sorry that the summer is over?’ she asked Eurydice.

  ‘Summer is not over yet,’ said the elder woman decidedly, and beckoned Erif to sit down on the seat beside her.

  ‘It seems like winter,’ said Erif softly; ‘look over there at the clouds—so grey—’

  But Eurydice, who was not Yersha in her own garden, would not look up higher than the things she knew. ‘Child,’ she said, ‘I am not going to play games with you. And I do not think Charmantides will play games with you any longer.’

  Erif Der spilled out the cowries on to her lap. ‘I like playing games,’ she said. ‘Will you help me to thread these shells, Aunt Yersha?’

  But Eurydice’s lips tightened, and she swept the shells on to the ground and caught Erif Der by the shoulders and shook her. ‘You have bewitched my Charmantides!’ she cried. ‘Take care! I can see if he cannot. I tell you, if you hurt him, I shall hurt you more!’

  Erif Der, cramped against the corner of the seat, pushed out at Yersha, her hard, hateful hands and face, but could not get free for a moment. ‘I have done nothing!’ she said. ‘I am Queen, not you! What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Yersha, almost spitting into her face, ‘that whatever you can do to your own barbarians, you cannot magic a Hellene!’

  Erif Der got loose. ‘I shall tell Tarrik,’ she said. ‘I suppose he used to like you once, Yersha—before you got so old.’ She stooped and began to pick up her shells. Eurydice stamped the heel of her sandal on to the girl’s hand, and crushed one of the cowries; it seemed more adequate than words; an arrow scratch tore and began to bleed again. But Erif Der laughed. ‘Even suppose what you said were true, Aunt Yersha, how much Hellene are you?—in winter?’ But Eurydice turned and walked quickly up to the house, calling her maid in a high voice, careful not to look up at the sky, in case there were any clouds after all.

  Among the cowries, Erif Der picked up a hairpin of Yersha’s, and laughed again; but her hand was sore all the same, and she wished she was out of the Chief’s garden and standing alone on the seashore in the cold, or down in the forge with Berris, making things—and not magic. She went over to one of the fountains and sat cross-legged on the ground beside it, dabbling her fingers and frowning; then she began threading the cowries. In a way she was glad that Yersha hated her as much as she hated Yersha: it was all simpler. When it came to an end, as it would soon, Yersha would be in her power. She thought of all sorts of amusing things that might be made to happen to her, with all the lively imagination of a young married woman against an old maid. Yes, Yersha would be sorry for stamping on her hand: quite soon now. And Tarrik?

  As she sat there, Tarrik came out of the house; he had been talking with his aunt, and, in a way, he knew that she was right. He knew he had married a witch and must beware of her; he knew she was working against him somehow; and yet he could not quite connect her with anything that had happened, least of all Midsummer and Harvest. The more he tried to remember, the less certain he was of what had happened; some cloud had come over his mind, and she—she could take it away if she chose. Yet it had been his own doing at the beginning, and he was Chief and Corn King and whatever he did was right. Make her be different, then. He went over to the fountain; she had a long string of odd shells and she was playing with them, pulling them along the ground and pouncing on them like a wild kitten. He could not see her as quite grown up, nor, somehow, quite plainly; he rubbed his eyes. And he should have got used to his wife by now. Used to her and tired of her, he thought savagely, remembering his old love affairs, and stood still, considering her critically. Then he pulled off her fur cap and threw it away, and rubbed his hands in her hair; it was wonderfully soft and full of little ends; it tangled round his fingers. She reached up gently and caught his wrists, but he shook her off and picked up the string of shells and broke a twig from the bush beside him and began pushing it into the long, smooth slits of them. He let them slide from one hand into the other, and then began to coil them round his neck, with the two ends hanging loose over his coa
t in front. ‘You like taking my things, Tarrik,’ said Erif Der, still sitting cross-legged, leaning a little against his knees.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tarrik. But how to make her different? ‘I do what I like with you,’ he said again, and pushed the sleeve back from her arm and ran his hand along it. Then he took off one of his own rings and put it on to her middle finger. ‘That’s for you, Erif,’ he said. Women like to be given things. The ring was too big for her: it was a sun-ring, a topaz in a claw setting, warm from his skin.

  ‘Who made it?’ she asked.

  ‘It comes from inland, from the north,’ he said. ‘Do you see, Erif, it is really a sort of dragon?’

  ‘No Greek could have made that,’ she said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘We make better things than the Greeks.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tarrik, you hate the Greeks, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes. No. Erif Der, take your hands from me!’ He stepped back quickly and a loose end of the cowrie chain swung against his sword hilt, tinkling. He twitched at it, and it broke: the shells came showering down between him and Erif.

  She gave a little cry: ‘Oh, Tarrik, you are worse than Yersha!’ and began to pick them up again hurriedly.

  For a moment the clouds seemed to thin. ‘She spoke to me just now,’ he said, and then, ‘Erif, I am in danger! I know I am as much Corn King as ever, I know I have the power still! But they think not, they think—oh, I can’t tell what they are thinking! I will make them believe in me again. You are my Queen, the Spring Queen, Erif; you must help me. You must! If you don’t I shall hate you: I do terrible things to the people I hate, I kill them in horrible ways, I hurt them for hours. I don’t want to hate you, Erif, I love you—’ Suddenly he stopped; he was saying things he had not meant to say. Was she changing?

  ‘You are mad,’ she said. ‘You are mad, Tarrik!’ and got to her feet. She had put the cowries somewhere, into her dress, perhaps, between her warm young breasts. He put out a hand for them and then checked himself, only keeping a grip of the woollen stuff of her dress, holding her so that she could not go away unchanged.

  ‘When the snow comes,’ he said, ‘they will have the bulls in, and the racing. I shall fight the bulls, Erif! Then they will see I have power, they will know I am Corn King and Chief of Marob!’ He let her go.

  ‘Yes,’ she said gently, ‘do that, Tarrik. Then it will be over and you will not be unhappy any more.’

  ‘I will not be unhappy any more,’ he repeated; and suddenly picked her up in his arms, picked her right up off the ground and kissed her as if he would never be done. In a little he felt she was kissing him back, her arms were round his neck, soft and strong and straining. He took her into his house. Women like to be given rings.

  Eurydice, up in her own room, called the maid Apphé sharply to draw the curtains and light the lamps. ‘I feel so sad when the good weather is over,’ she said; ‘when the sea is rough: no ships, nothing! Oh, shall I ever get away, shall we ever go south, Apphé? Light the big lamp—yes, and more wood. And bring me my mirror. Oh, I am not so old. If I could get to my own Hellas I would still be happy. How happy I should be.’

  ‘But I know it will come, my lady,’ said Αpphé; ‘let me read your hand again. Look, you see, the sure line, the travel line, isn’t that certain?’

  ‘You’ve seen that often, so often, Apphé, and so have I. But it never comes. How could it? Charmantides will not leave Marob.’

  ‘Unless anything were to happen to we-know-who,’ said the maid.

  ‘Yes,’ said Eurydice, fingering the edge of her silver mirror, ‘unless he were free.’ And then: ‘I wish I knew what truly happened to that artist—Epigethes; he was to have made me a jewel-case. How he talked! Athens, Corinth, Rhodes. … What do you think, Apphé?’

  ‘You know what they say, my lady—’

  ‘Not a word of it true! He denied it—to me. How could Charmantides—? My sister’s son!’

  ‘No, my lady.’

  ‘And yet—all this last year—Oh, Apphé, it surely cannot be winter again already!’ She twitched the drawn curtains back; yes, there were real clouds, and that leaden, restless sea.

  When it was nearly dusk, Erif Der, who had been lying back, half awake, half dreaming, suddenly sat up—so suddenly that Tarrik woke and blinked and swung over an arm to catch her; heavy and warm, it rested on her a moment before it slipped off again as he settled to sleep once more. She got up softly and soberly, and picked up her shoes and dress from the floor, and put them on, and splashed her hands and face with water that had sweet herb leaves soaking in it. She smiled at Tarrik lying there; she could see the mark on his chest where her star had burnt him, and his strong, bare arms that had held her so firmly and yet so softly, and the dark curly hair in his armpits that smelt of hay and summer and sun. She moved a step towards him, and then shook herself and tiptoed out, and down the stone stairs and out of a side door on to the road, and so to the beach. Eastwards, out to sea, it was black and wild looking, unquiet still after the storm; the only light was inland, over the tops of the houses. The snow might come soon, any day now. And, ‘I will do it!’ she said aloud, stamping on the pebbles, ‘I will! He shan’t change me—not this way! Let him go to his bullfight and end it!’ And then she began to run, plunging breathlessly across the shingle till she got to sand; while one is running hard there is no time for regrets, for changing one’s mind, for softness and love. When she stopped it was full night; she stood between low cliffs and a sea of hollow black and the lightless grey of foam-caps, unending. As she looked out, she thought she saw something, a spark, a tiny light, far off, hardly in sight. It was late in the year for a ship, late and bad weather; she could not be sure, sometimes it was there, sometimes hidden. She climbed half-way up the cliff to see better, but night was almost come, the wind pulled at her dress, she was cold and cramped, and if she stayed longer, they would miss her in the Chief’s house.

  She went back more slowly, not at all afraid of the dark; she was making plans for magic now, to put something between him and the bulls, so that neither eye nor hand should do what he wanted of them. This bullfighting would be all the barbarian part of him, that she could bewitch easily, as it had been before, for the two Feasts. It would have been a different matter magicking him over anything in which the Greek part of him counted; but she had been lucky. She knew it. Carefully she thought out the things to do. He might be killed by the bulls; they were always savage, coming in from the plains. She frowned to herself and went on faster; she would not let him be killed, only make him do it badly—so that people saw—and then her father could get his way at last and leave her in peace. Or would it be better, better for every one, if he were to be killed, dead and forgotten? He would rather be killed than lose his power—if one could ever judge for another. And she herself, she would forget him, surely she would. Times like today were meant to be forgotten; she would be free again, to start another life of her own, not his nor her father’s. She took his ring and threw it hard out of sight, out to sea; and then thought what a fool she was; she might have used it. Never mind, she would use other things. She suddenly remembered Yersha’s silver hairpin that had come so opportunely to her hand, and laughed aloud and ran on again till she was back at the breakwater.

  She scrambled up, lightlier than ever, and stood on the top, swaying to the wind; by the harbour wall she saw Berris holding a lantern, and called to him. He came, startled. ‘Where have you been, Erif?’

  ‘Talking to the crabs,’ she said. ‘And you? Won’t you make me something? Do, Berris! I’ll come and blow for you.’

  ‘Later,’ he said. ‘I can’t work just now. Oh, Erif, what are you doing to Tarrik?’

  ‘Doing what father wants.’

  ‘But not unless you want it yourself,’ said Berris, low and eagerly. ‘Father is not a god—nor Yellow Bull. They never think of beauty, they—oh, Erif, I wish I were well out of this.’

  ‘Do you?’ said Erif. ‘You’re a m
an, you can’t make up your mind. I can. I’m happy.’

  But Berris pulled her over by the sleeve to where the light streamed squarely out from a house window. ‘You don’t look it,’ he said. ‘Erif—I’m frightened of you when your face is like that!’

  Chapter Five

  BERRIS TOOK HER back to the great door of her own house; the guards lifted hand and sword to their foreheads as she went past, and did not look at her directly; it was no part of theirs to wonder why the Spring Queen of Marob had gone out at night with no servants, no coat, and nothing on her head. Erif Der tossed her plaits back over her shoulders, and grinned at them for the fun of seeing them not take any official notice. Then she kissed her brother and went on alone. She found Tarrik in the Council Hall, sitting in his great chair, with his chin on his hands. ‘I am thinking about the secret road,’ he said. ‘You can tell Yellow Bull. I wonder if it will ever be a danger. What do you think will have happened to Marob in ten hundred years, Erif? Will they be our blood, the Chiefs, then?’

  He looked at her softly, with those smiling, bright eyes of his. And she looked away, because if she had met them and smiled back, she could not have gone on keeping secrets; she would have told him everything, put herself into his hands, into his mercy and love, done anything he bade her, been a good wife to him, niece to Yersha. Oh, if she could start life again! ‘I can’t think so far ahead,’ she said huskily, through stiffened lips. ‘I hate the time when I shall be dead! I hate countries I shall never see! I hate stars! I hate things that men have no power over!’

  She threw herself down on the floor and hit her head with her knuckles; Tarrik went on speaking from somewhere above her: ‘But time is our own making, Erif. Even time so far off. I wonder if there will be any Marob then, or any Hellas. Athens has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years, but I think she is almost dead. And the other cities of Hellas too. Nobody knows how long Marob has been here; people don’t think about that; I don’t often. And I don’t really care much what’s going to happen, either. Erif, do you love me?’