The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  And there were present the Picninnies, and

  the Joblillies and the Garyulies,

  And the great Panjandrum himself with the

  little round button atop;

  And they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can

  till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.

  NEW PEOPLE IN THE THIRD PART

  People of Marob

  Disdallis, wife of Kotka

  Yan, son of Yellow Bull and Essro

  Klint-Tisamenos, son of Tarrik and Erif Der

  Linit, Erif’s cousin

  Murr

  Sardu, a slave-girl from inland

  Men, women, and children of Marob,

  Greeks and inlanders

  CHAPTER ONE

  WITH THE END OF autumn the north wind that blows softly or strongly all summer through in the Ægean Sea shifts round to the south. They ran in front of it past island after island, first dim and misty blue-purple ahead of them, then as they got nearer an unfolding of barren brown cliffs, and here and there a valley with patches of green along its bottom, a harbour, a little town. So, hour after hour, they coasted along till the island drew behind again, became less actual, faded and faded till, when next they remembered to look back, there was nothing there. This way they passed Seriphos, Paros, Naxos—constellations of small islands, named and obscure, or almost nameless, just rising out of a smoothly silvered sea—Chios, Poieëssa, Lesbos, the mountains of Asia on their right with the sun rising behind them. The air grew cooler; sometimes there were clouds; twice a short storm kept them in harbour. At Byzantium again they changed ships.

  During their few days in the town Tarrik sought out the best known of the merchants who traded with Marob and got the latest news and rumours from him. It seemed that Harn Der was well thought of as Chief. There had been another raid by the Red Riders towards the end of summer, but Harn Der had ambushed them, killed more than half of them—they were never kept as slaves—and driven back the rest, scattering and terrified, into the lost wild forest and marshes behind the hills. But there was no Corn King, and, as far as that went, things had gone badly with Marob. Having found that trade was so poor, the merchant had not bothered to discover exactly what was happening in Marob, but after much questioning Tarrik and Erif Der found out more or less. Yellow Bull had died without giving his powers to any successor, but Essro was Spring Queen, and, as Tarrik had done nothing to hurt her things, she had done her share well enough. Part, at least, of the flax crop of the year had not been quite as bad as people had thought it was going to be. Her son, Yan, was a very young baby still, but the merchant remembered he had heard that the Council of Marob had seen the child and thought well of him, discovered certain marks on his body—not that the merchant knew or cared anything about it!—and it was at least likely that there were some in Marob who thought of him as the possible new Corn King. At that Tarrik frowned a good deal and looked at Erif, but she did not meet his eyes. She glanced at herself in a silver mirror which the merchant had hanging up beside his door, and it seemed to her that she was recovering her looks.

  For a time it had been all she wanted—or so she felt—to be with Tarrik again. She made no plans and asked herself no questions about magic; she was forgetting Greece, forgetting all the time when he had not been there. Even, in a queer way, it was good to be sad, for then he was so kind to her, gentler than she had ever hoped anyone could be. Sometimes she thought that, for herself, the pain had been almost worth while. Yet, if she began thinking that, she would lose faith with the dead child, the son who had been violently alive all winter and spring inside her body, almost talking to her, with little feet and fists and head pounding against her heart. All that was left of him now was some part of her; that part must be, still and always, angry and unsoothed. But, for the rest, she had good nights with Tarrik.

  During the first days of the voyage they had lain on deck, on the high stern of the boat. When they woke, they woke sweetly to stars that looked down and were sorry for the world, as Sphaeros had told them, stars moving in the great circles that were proof of God. Erif liked stars now; though neither she herself nor any magic could reach them, she did not mind; though she could not reach them they did not hurt her, they were beautiful without pain. She lay with her head on Tarrik’s chest and looked up at them, aware of the calm sea and the tapering, trembling masts. Tarrik was big and quiet. He had his arm round her, holding her down to his body. She had got the peace she had always known she could get by giving herself up altogether to him. She had fought against it before, but now she did not feel like fighting any more. So she could be quite quiet for a time and watch the stars from her place over Tarrik’s heart.

  And when in bed there

  You call me sweeting,

  I lay my head there,

  I hear it beating,

  Or sleepy shifting

  On your strong breast,

  Dipping and lifting

  And giving rest,

  I feel the strength in

  Its steady beating

  While minutes lengthen

  To hours heaping:

  I know my life is

  But yours to use,

  To be your wife is

  The thing I choose.

  For all she knew that might go on for ever and ever.

  At Byzantium they had a big room with a bed raised on steps. Kotka used to bring them supper in there, all the oddest kinds of cakes and sweets and sausages that he could find. He wanted to do all he could to ensure their luck. He would be seeing his own wife soon. Erif got in half a dozen women to put her dresses to rights and make her more from the stuffs which she bought; men used to come from the warehouses with lovely things from all parts of the world and spread them out over the bed and on the steps, and Erif sat in the middle and laid folds of them over her wrist, tried them against her eyes and hair, and bargained for loom lengths to pack into her painted chests. For almost a whole morning these were being shifted and tipped and quarrelled over and carried down the gang plank into the ship which Tarrik had hired to take them back to Marob.

  On the ship, Tarrik talked rather little about his plans. The others saw that he had them and left it at that. Some of them remembered, as they got nearer home, the queer things that had happened last year at midsummer and Harvest and at the bull-fighting, but when they discussed them in whispers together they came to the conclusion that whatever bad luck had been on the Corn King then would probably be off by now—had perhaps ended with the death of the child begotten in ill-fortune—and that at any rate if there was any hovering about still they were not going to help it to settle by allowing it in their words and thoughts. Kotka had asked him once what he was intending to do, but had not dared to go into much detail. Erif seemed content not to ask anything.

  They were three days south of Marob when a rather annoying and persistent north-west wind began to blow dryly off the land. They rowed against it, but made very little headway. Tarrik was patient for quite a number of hours, but at last, when he got too tired of seeing the same mud-banks with the same low, greenish cape behind them, not altering position when he glared at them over the side, he began challenging the others to fight with him. They were none of them very anxious to take him on, but he threw things at them and called them names and hammered on the irritation that the wind had thrown every one into till they were all angry or sulky. At last Black Holly, who was one of the biggest and strongest, said he would fight. He had the advantage of knowing just where Tarrik had been wounded at Orchomenos and how to hurt him. Kotka searched them both for weapons. A space was cleared in the waist of the ship. Erif sat in the middle of a pile of fur rugs, heaped up between her and the wind, and laughed at them.

  They ran at one another like two dogs, and clawed and kicked and grunted and rolled over and over one another and hit themselves against the deck and the spare oars and any corners of things there were. Black Holly ran his nails into the scar on Tarrik’s wrist. Tar
rik bit off a small piece of Black Holly’s ear. Then the godhead came clear; Tarrik became filled with the strength of bulls and rams and growing wheat; Black Holly saw it and whimpered and lost his own strength. In a minute he was down, with his arms pinned to his sides and Tarrik kneeling on him and banging his head against the deck. The others pulled their Chief off. Erif jumped up and went to Black Holly, who was still half lying against someone’s knees and feeling his bones to see if anything was broken. She began stroking him and telling him he was quite well, saying it was all play. She put the hilt of her dagger into his hands. He stopped glaring at the Chief and smiled at her instead. In a few minutes every one was quite cheerful, including Tarrik, who swung her off her feet and kissed her; his teeth were all red with Black Holly’s blood still, but that would wash. Someone began singing; they all joined in. And at last they seemed to have got beyond that flat cape!

  Now Erif had been reminded again of magic. She curled down among her furs and propped her chin in her hands and began remembering. She saw something grey fluttering over the waves, blown towards them. When it was nearer she saw it was a pigeon. The wind tossed it on deck close to her; as she picked it up its wings spread and quivered. She saw that one of its quill feathers was ringed with yellow paint and knew it must belong to Essro, her sister-in-law. She took it below and gave it bread soaked in wine. It recovered, slept, and was then quite tame, as if it were used to being handled by humans.

  They were nowhere near a town, but in the evening the wind dropped a little and they got into shoal water, sheltered by mud-banks, and anchored. After midnight, when Tarrik was asleep and the whole ship very still, Erif woke. She pulled up the wick of the lamp to make a bigger flame and went over softly to the bar where the pigeon perched, asleep too. She looked at it hard; she listened; she put out her hand and felt it; she was almost sure it must have come on purpose. She cut herself off from every one on the ship, even Tarrik, and laid herself open to anything that might have come with the bird. She heard its heart beat, tiny and distinct and very, very quick; she knew that in its sleep it thought it was stretching its wings and curling its little claws in flight. For a moment she got its sleep vision of an air world, all a-flutter with possible dangers. But she could not get beyond it to Essro or anyone else.

  After an hour she was very cold and her eyes ached with the unsatisfied strain. She pushed down the lamp-wick again and felt her way back under the blankets to Tarrik. She half meant not to wake him, but in the end, holding her cold hands and feet against his warm body, she got impatient at being left alone and woke him to take her back out of magic. The next morning she asked a question which she had managed not to want to ask yet. She said: ‘What are you going to do about Yellow Bull’s son?’ He said: ‘There cannot be two Corn Kings in Marob, but I’ll see when we get there.’ And he began talking of other things. Erif, though, was almost sure he had made up his mind. Then it appeared to her that the bird’s coming on board was after all an accident of the wind; the poor creature no doubt saw the ship while it was being blown over the water and struggled to get to safety. There was no purpose of Essro’s. The purpose would be her own.

  All that day the wind dropped. Erif wrote on a thin piece of linen: ‘Hide with your baby. Danger from us.’ She tied it round the bird’s leg, fed it well and let it go. For a few minutes it circled uncertainly, then seemed to get its bearings and made for the land. She turned from watching it and found Tarrik watching her. ‘Were you doing magic?’ he said. Then: ‘For me this time?’

  ‘I never know what it is going to be in the end,’ she said, ‘and what I was doing then wasn’t quite magic. It was more real, I think, not an appearance.’

  Tarrik said: ‘Your magic is not an appearance, Erif. You are not to say it is.’

  The bird was almost out of sight. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I tell you not to, little witch! Because I don’t want to hear any more about appearance and reality. Because I’ve left Greece and I am going to be King of my own country.’

  ‘I liked Sphaeros,’ said Erif, ‘by the end.’

  ‘I never said I didn’t like him. Or any of it. But that’s over. When you say your magic is only an appearance, Erif, you mean that mine is too—my power over the seasons! And you are not to say that.’ He shook her.

  ‘Very well,’ said Erif, enjoying being scolded as she would have enjoyed being out in a storm. But she couldn’t all the same help saying: ‘It’s not very safe to say about anything that it’s over. Is it, Tarrik?’

  A few days later they rowed into Marob harbour, a little after dawn, and made fast to the rings. They had seen, when they were close to the harbour mouth, a great crowd all along the breakwater sand walls, but as they rowed in the crowd dispersed, and by the time they had thrown out mats between their sides and the stone quay and then tied up, there was no one left except three or four of the inland traders who were nothing to the Chief of Marob, and some slave girls who would never be noticed either way. All the same it was probable that they were being watched from the houses. Tarrik came up into the bows by himself in full dress as the Chief, white felt embroidered with metals and colours; but he was bare-headed because the Corn-crown was still in Marob. He stood quite still at the prow, looking towards the town, quiet and bright and just the same between grey sea and a sky so very pale blue, only lighted by the strengthless, November sun. When he had looked he turned his back on the town and sat down on a coil of rope.

  After a little, Kotka beckoned to one of the inlanders, a squat, hairy savage who traded in furs and resin and sometimes amber. ‘Where is Harn Der?’ said Kotka.

  The man grinned; he did not like Harn Der, who had killed a great many of his cousins, the Red Riders. He said: ‘Harn Der is gone.’

  Kotka gasped a little and looked up at Tarrik for a sign, but the Chief stared out to sea beyond the harbour mouth, and his face was hard. ‘Where?’ said Kotka.

  ‘Away, in his winter waggons, with all his household, and food for six months.’

  ‘Much good that will do him,’ said Kotka. ‘We shall track him and catch him like a beast.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said the inlander, but he looked north into the whitish and chilly sky, and Kotka too, following his look, thought it very likely indeed that the snow would come within three days and there would be no tracking anyone.

  Erif Der made a sign to Kotka. He said: ‘Where is Essro, who was the Spring Queen?’

  ‘Gone,’ said the man. ‘Gone too. Suddenly.’ Then he said: ‘I have a present for the Spring Queen who comes back.’ He took three very fine ermine skins out of the breast of his coat. ‘Tell her: from the inlanders.’

  Kotka took them, a little disdainfully, though he could see they were beauties. ‘Oh, these,’ he said, ‘from the inlanders: very well. But—take care!—not from the Red Riders!’

  The man went back to his friends and seemed to be telling them all about it. Someone else came down on to the quay. It was Kotka’s wife, the witch Disdallis, with two small children beside her, a boy and a girl. She was very fair and she wore a stiff dress of crimson felt with branches and hearts of crushed turquoise sewn on to it round the hem and waist. The cone on her head was crimson, with turquoise dangles, and her ash-fair plaits were tied with the same colours. She hurried stiffly down the quay to the ship, waving her fingers at Kotka. He was going to jump ashore to her, but she cried to him to wait till she had strewn some small things she had brought with her on to the stone which his foot would touch first. He called to her: ‘I am going to the Council. If they want the Corn King back they must say so, and quick.’

  Disdallis motioned that she could not speak for a moment, then put down the last of the things and said: ‘Oh, they’ll want him. Things have gone badly wrong this year. Now, jump!’ She held out her arms.

  Kotka jumped into Marob and gave her and the children a thorough kissing. She went nearer the boat. Erif leant over and they touched hands. ‘Do they want me too?’ asked Erif.

&nbs
p; ‘They do,’ said Disdallis, ‘and we do. We like Essro, but some of us did not help her so well as we would have helped you.’ And she reached up a sprig of flowers made of coral and scented wax.

  Erif knew she was speaking for the witches of Marob. She fastened the sprig on to her dress, and said: ‘Do you know where Essro is?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Disdallis, and looked at her straight. Then: ‘Midsummer and Harvest went wrong. Essro did her part, but she had no one to dance with. There was rain during all the end of the summer; in some places the corn sprouted in the ear. We shan’t have more than enough to keep ourselves over winter. There was none for the ships to take. Last week there was a fire in the flax stores and a great deal was burnt. And one of the wells in the middle of the town has turned brackish. You, Erif—are you ready to begin everything again?’

  ‘I want things to do at once,’ said Erif, and stood up and stretched herself.

  Kotka and his wife went up off the quay and the ship waited. Tarrik still sat on the coil of rope with his back to the shore. He did not even answer Erif when she spoke to him, nor would he eat. By and bye Kotka came back with most of the Council. Tarrik had his back even a little more turned than before. The Council saw that he was as bad as ever, and that it was on purpose. But they also knew that they must have him back; they could not, for the sake of the land, afford to be proud. They spoke, one after another, bidding him welcome to his own place. He did not answer. The first speakers had tried to hint at terms and compromises; they hoped to get something more reasonable to deal with than the Chief who used always to laugh at them! But the later ones, more wisely, had said nothing about things of the sort. It began to be rather terrible that he would not turn round. They did not know what his face would be like. Kotka stood behind; he and his witch wife were smiling.

  The Council whispered together; some of them went back. In a short time they had got hold of most of the rest of the people who mattered in Marob. Also they had made a wide and splendid pathway out of the most beautiful carpets and shawls in the place for the Corn King to tread. They appealed to one after another of the nobles who were on board. Each of them looked out and answered that the Chief was angry because of some different thing, but mostly either to do with their conduct towards him and the Spring Queen, or else to having let Harn Der escape now. The Council consulted again. They brought and showed the Corn-crown of Marob. They sent up to the town for a white bull which one of them owned, and sacrificed it on the quay-side in a noise of horns and drums. Then they smeared its blood on their own throats and foreheads; it was for them.