The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  Then it became clear that Tigru was speaking for himself, and the other savage was still determined to sacrifice us. Tigru whispered at us greasily. He is taking a risk in going against the feeling of the camp. Tarrik said he would write a letter and Tigru must come back for it after midnight. He said that midnight was his own most sacred time and that an order signed then would be obeyed. That was the kind of rigmarole Tigru could understand. He nodded and went away, oozing a little at the lips with the thought of the women and the fresh meat.

  Tarrik says he is going to try and kill Tigru when he comes back and then cut our ropes and try to escape. I will help him over the killing. But we both think that we are almost sure to be caught on our way through the camp. We will have Tigru’s weapons and we will not let them take us alive again.

  We have said good-bye to one another. We both agree that this chance is worth taking. I will buckle the paper under my belt again. Oh, Erif, I wish you knew that Tarrik and I had made friends!

  Letter Three

  HYPERIDES, SON OF LEONTEOS, to Timokrates, son of Metrodoros, live well! Oh, my adventures! I will tell you everything from the place where my odd scraps of paper left off.

  We lay down and rested, so that we should be as strong as possible when the moment came. We scarcely talked at all: the time for that was over. The camp became quiet, though we heard voices now and then. We listened hard, because we had to find out where the horses were tethered. At last we thought we were sure of the direction. Tigru came in stealthily and fastened the flap of the door behind him. Tarrik stood up, holding the letter, and began to talk, manœouvring so as to get the savage immediately in front of the tent-pole and me. I was in shadow, holding a piece of cloth torn from Tarrik’s thick shirt.

  Tarrik sprang and knocked Tigru against the tent-pole. He got his wrists at once and fought him hand to hand, while from behind I stuffed the cloth into his mouth. I found afterwards that I had scraped the skin off two fingers on his filed teeth, and later they festered. He was horribly strong. While Tarrik still held him I worked down towards the throat. It seemed to be hard muscles and sinews all over. I could not get at the life in it. I squeezed the whole thing back as hard as I could against the tent-pole, but I did not think I was anywhere near killing him. He made the most filthy choked noises, and Tarrik grunted like a beast with pain and effort. It all took incredibly long, or seemed to. It was more horrible than you would think possible, Timokrates, the feel of that twitching throat! I did not think I could go on holding it much longer. My strength was giving. I trembled all over. Then suddenly I got the impression that something had broken, I still don’t quite know what, and the body jerked and then went slack.

  Tarrik and I took the weapons and cut our hide ropes. I was slow but he was amazingly quick. For a moment I was afraid he would not wait for me. Then we slipped out. It is very difficult to know for oneself even, still more to write, what happened. But sometimes now when I am just going to sleep I get a kind of flash vision that dates from then of Tarrik stabbing down over a man’s shoulder into the great vein. I know I was wounded somehow and he pulled me on. I know he cut through the hobbles of two horses and slashed them into a gallop, holding on to the bridle of mine.

  I know we were separated in a wood for some horrible, but most likely quite short, space of time. I know I was blundering on, desperate with panic, half falling off my horse, and Tarrik found me again and we rode all that night by stars we knew in gaps of the thick trees. Twice we drew into a thicket and hid. My forehead was cut and bleeding and he tied it up with a pad of moss. We had no food, but we drank from a brook. Spaces of blankness came over my mind. It was a real and horrible pain to stay awake and balanced. He put his arms round me and held me on the horse while I rode sleeping. We did not dismount till the evening of the next day.

  Tarrik knew all the time in what direction we had to go, or if he was ever in doubt I never guessed it. He seemed to take us straight. We chewed leaves and roots and any berries or nuts we could find. He had Tigru’s sword, but I had dropped the dagger somewhere, probably in the first galloping off. Somehow I could not begin to realise that we even might be going to live.

  Then! Then, Timokrates, a very long way off, at the end of the day, under a darkening sky, I saw a little pale line that was not grass nor tree-tops: the line of the sea; the clear way between oneself and home. And I bent over my horse’s mane and fell to weeping with joy and weariness, and Tarrik wept with me because he was to be King again and because very soon he would know whether his child were alive or dead.

  From the north-east we came down across the grass plain to Marob, and Tarrik looked at the fields. ‘It will be nearly Harvest,’ he said, and then he laughed and threw back his stiff beard and said again: ‘It is a queer business, but I am done with Harn Der now. The dead has dropped off me. It was, as you say, all folly. I will show the people.’ We were riding over a field that had just been cut, over the clean, sharp stubble. ‘Harvest,’ he said; ‘Harvest,’ crooning round the word. I did not doubt that the thought of the cut corn had become a solid thing in his mind, a little bright-edged eidolon, instead of the mere idea it was in mine. He looked, himself—how shall I put it?—sun-ripe and golden and full of gifts.

  We saw a farm in the distance and went there on foot, hoping to find, as we did, somebody quite stupid who would not recognise the King nor be much interested in strangers. Tarrik did most of the talking, beginning tentatively: ‘There’ll be fine doings in the town now.’ He thought he would be sure to find out exactly when harvest was that way. The slave-girl we were talking to immediately burst out into complaints about having been left behind, and we found that this day was already the first day of Harvest.

  Tarrik went on to say what a grim business it had been at midsummer and the girl said anyway they’d got a younger and better-looking Corn King now, bless his heart! ‘Younger—’ said Tarrik, and stopped. I knew he was wondering if it could be his child. But the next minute it came out that it was Gold-fish, Erif’s younger brother. Tarrik was finding it difficult to speak. I said: ‘It was a good thing no more got killed at midsummer than were.’ ‘All the more to get killed afterwards,’ said the girl, picking up her spinning again.

  That was maddening. We did not know what to say. I asked her to show us the way to the well. Half-way she said: ‘I was in town then. Why, I saw Black Holly killed!’ The Chief started like a horse, but I gripped his arm and said: ‘Ah yes, but the others?’ She shook her head. ‘But I tell you what I did see,’ she said. ‘I saw the big horse go by a-gallop, and that poor innocent baby holding on to its mane as gay as a bird, love him!—and the white-faced lady lashing out with her big whip at the ones that tried to catch her!’ ‘Klint?’ I asked quickly, before Tarrik could speak. ‘Aye,’ she said, ‘and I’m glad he’s away, for all his father!’ Then she suddenly glared at me and said: ‘Who are you, anyway, not to know that?’ I laughed and said, of course, I was there too and signed to Tarrik to come away. He was holding on to the well curb and licking his lips with the strain of it.

  We went back. He said nothing for some time, either in comment or explanation. I scarcely dared to ask. When he spoke it was heavily and quietly. He said: ‘I must go back tonight.’ Then he began to thank me, not, I think, for anything special, but for just being there when he wanted me. I was—oh, very much moved, Timokrates! After that he gave me directions as to where to go the next day, and after nightfall he rode off himself.

  I think I shall tell you now what had been happening while we were away—better than telling you how I stayed awake for hours that night wondering vainly about it and very anxious for Tarrik. It was like this. When Tarrik was taken prisoner and they thought he was killed, the Council of Elders, who had mostly been Harn Der’s friends, and had never forgotten what happened, although up to now constrained to think they had, decided to get power over Marob. To do this, they chose as Corn King the eighteen-year-old Gold-fish, my Erif’s brother, and said they would make him Chie
f and war leader as well when he grew older and wiser. But I think they always intended to keep that power for themselves. This was all decided the day after the raid when everything was still topsy-turvy, and they put it into action at once, seizing on the Corn King’s Place and his house itself. There was violent street-fighting, in the course of which Black Holly was killed, and Kotka, wounded already by the Red Riders, was wounded again almost to death. When we came back all these weeks later he was still not able to move.

  They meant to have the child either killed or in some way maimed so that it could never be Chief or Corn King. This seemed to them, I believe, a right thing to do for Marob, on the grounds that both its father and mother were proved unlucky. They were afraid for themselves and their food. The girl Linit barred the doors of the Chief’s house and tried to gain time, for she would never believe that Tarrik had been killed. The next thing that happened I am telling you as it was told to me without comment. All I can say is that this is a very strange country, and that one has evidence of things occurring here which would certainly be against all the laws of Nature at home.

  Essro, the widow of Yellow Bull, whom Tarrik killed, looked down the well in the middle of her farm-yard. The water twenty feet below was like a little dark, round mirror. She saw the face of her sister-in-law, Erif Der, looking up at her out of it. The image stretched its arms as if it were trying to hold something. Then that faded and the image of the child Klint came instead, not as he is now, but as a small baby, as he was when his mother left him. Essro rode north as fast as her horse could go. I have never seen her myself, but they say she is a timid and unhappy woman. I believe she made this long ride in great fear. When she got to Marob she somehow managed, in some woman’s way, to let Linit know, and Linit let Klint down to her through a side-window. And Essro galloped away with him through the streets of Marob, and back to her farm.

  There are other things that are said here. That Essro, pursued, threw down a thorn branch which grew into a whole wood of thorns between her and the pursuers. That she called into the air and hornets rose up behind her and stung them. That she did even more fantastic and incredible things. All I know is that the Council left her in peace with the child and now she has him with her own son down on the farm by the marshes.

  The time, anyhow, went on to Harvest. Gold-fish was put into the Chief’s house and seems to have enjoyed himself there, and had plenty of feasts and gave presents to every one. Linit took shelter with Disdallis and helped her to nurse Kotka. When it came near the day of Harvest, the Council chose a man to be the other actor in the Corn Play, one of themselves, a man called Tsomla, a big, bearded fighter. They had already given him Wheat-ear, Erif’s little sister (though I suppose she was considered rather as Harn Der’s daughter by the Council) for his wife. He waited the middle night of Harvest, as the custom was, in the dark, locked Place of the Corn King.

  A little after midnight Tarrik came back to Marob. He knocked in some secret and peculiar manner on the door of his Place, and the old woman who is guardian opened it and knew him. She strewed some kind of stupefying leaf on the fire, and the other actor in the Corn Play went so deep asleep that he did not wake fully for three days. She took his clothes off and Tarrik put them on, and then she looked at their faces side by side and with plucking and moulding of fingers and with dark and pale dyes she made Tarrik look like the man Tsomla. She put white powder in Tarrik’s new beard to make it look like the other’s, and I think it likely that they also went through certain rites together.

  In the morning Gold-fish came to open the door to the other actor, the Corn Man. Tarrik says that at first no one saw that there was anything strange, but as he walked beside Gold-fish in the great procession to the stubble field, Gold-fish began glancing at him and then hastily away, more and more uneasily. But he said nothing and Tarrik went into the centre of the field to do his dance with the new Spring Queen, the quite young girl whom Gold-fish had chosen.

  I was among the crowd then, rather behind and quite disguised by my beard and my barbarian clothes. I watched the dance between the Corn Man and the Spring Queen, ending in the rather alarming ritual of death and mourning. And I gradually became aware—but later than anyone else, I suppose, because I was not really part of Marob—that there was a growing uneasiness among the crowd of watchers and worshippers, spreading outward from the young Corn King. I have an idea that Tarrik had looked at him in some rather shattering way from behind the beard and the mask of Tsomla’s face.

  Into the black-robed company of mourning women bounded the Harvest Fool, the one whose business it is to break up all the sadness and tension with a series of peculiarly crude and school-boyish jokes. Quite often I could not understand the words, but the import was plain enough. The men of Marob began to rock with shrill and nervous laughter. They seemed prepared for anything. The Fool danced over to the black winding-sheet above the Corn Man and suddenly it lifted and Tarrik bounded out, declaring himself with every movement of his body, crying aloud: ‘Tarrik and Marob! Tarrik and Marob!’ as I had heard it at Delphi in the moment when the stones struck my head.

  The first thing that happened (and, in a way, the last thing, for after that there was only one possible issue) was that Gold-fish, the Corn King, howled and scrambled up the bank and bolted. He was found again two days later hiding under a bush and brought back. Every one has been quite kind to him. When that occurred, the young Spring Queen nearly bolted too, but then I rather think curiosity got the better of fear; anyway, she stayed. The Fool had to stay whether he liked it or not, for Tarrik had a compelling grip on him. Then a man near me shouted: ‘He is risen again! Tarrik! Tarrik! Tarrik and Marob!’ And then voice after voice picked it up and shouted that the corn was sprung, the dead was living, the King had come back to his people. I think most of them believed then, and for all I know believe still, that he had really been killed and was now born again out of the cut and harvested corn. This was partly because of the way they thought he had died, guarding the sacred things from the Red Riders, a death which had in it the seeds of rebirth!

  It is very curious, Timokrates, and I wonder what I ought to do, for I cannot help sometimes believing that I am here for the beginning of a new religion. Could I stop it now? Or have I the right to even if I know it to be based on a lie? Is it any use or any good trying to keep Marob away from its gods? Should I or should I not allow myself to be compelled by my philosophic principles to hurt my friends? Anyhow, it is desperately exciting, the most exciting thing that has ever come my way!

  The whole of Marob followed their King in a dance of most pure and wild happiness across the stubble field. I danced with them. It came easily; it would have been hard for me then not to dance. There were a few Greeks there, but not Menoitas, thank goodness, or any of the ones who had been in the same inn with me before. They might have stopped me from being happy a day with the crowd. The Council had no chance of speech or action, even if they had wanted to go against him, which I very much doubt—then, at any rate. I think they were only hoping that this reborn, this stronger and luckier God King, would spare his power and be merciful to them. A few of them, I suppose, realised that he had been a prisoner and then escaped, but even that seemed to mean that he was now completely lucky and in the confidence of Nature. It was almost as startling to escape from the Red Riders as from death. So the Council danced too.

  I found that a boat was sailing that night, so I sent off my bits of letters then and there. I went to the Chief’s house and slept until late the next morning. Tarrik himself woke me. It startled me to see him suddenly with his beard shaved off, and at first I got the old impression of the smiling, lazy savage. I was embarrassed at speaking to him. Then it became clear that he was the same as he had been when we were prisoners (and, I suppose, the same as he had been to Erif). He told me the news. He had been up and about since early that morning and had summoned a meeting of the Council. He was going to this at once. Several of his friends were dead, killed in the stre
et-fighting, including Black Holly, who had always been someone completely safe and trustworthy. The first tremendous wave of half-religious feeling for him in Marob must inevitably die down; he was not sure of his wisest course. We talked for some little time.

  He went alone to the Council, and I shaved my beard too, and had a steam bath, curiously refreshing, especially when they put bundles of mint and tansy over the hot oven before the water is poured on. I wish you could try one! One begins to sweat fairly soon and when the slave begins to rub one down the dirt comes out by handfuls. I had clean clothes too—every stitch clean!—and one of them gave my hair a thorough cut and comb, which I’m afraid it needed.

  Since that day the Council have met fairly often. Tarrik did not say what happened at the first meeting, and he does not say much now, but he comes out smiling, like someone who has won a fight. I think it is hard work, but he will do it. He knows he can. There are so many things he is no longer afraid of! I wonder if you think it is quite idiotic of me to get so excited about a barbarian chief. Conceivably it is, but then Tarrik as he is now is largely my doing—or do I flatter myself as a teacher?—and it is fascinating to see how he works! Yes, I think it is reasonable of me to be deeply interested.

  He has asked me to stay, and I will stay at any rate until next year. I’m getting on like a house on fire with my play. I seem to have accumulated ideas in all that time away from the manuscript. A new comic character has turned up, and the heroine has really made one or two quite smart epigrams! As a matter of fact I shall probably have to rewrite a good deal; some of the early speeches look simply childish now. And what a lovely lot of new metaphors I’ve picked up!

  One thing I must tell you. That same day, immediately after the Council meeting, Tarrik went to Kotka’s house. As we walked through the streets, men and women ran out to touch the Corn King. Some of them cut pieces out of his coat and he pretended not to notice. News of his coming seemed to go half a street ahead of us. Women were throwing coloured cloths and coats out of the windows and made a wonderfully gay and joyful rag-bag decoration. Disdallis herself opened the door of Kotka’s house.