The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  ‘Very likely,’ said Kleomenes, ‘very likely. I told you all it would be bitter to live.’

  ‘That’s gone. But—Kleomenes, supposing we kill ourselves now, here, all of us on this one little island—or if not all, at least you and me!—we get something back, don’t we?’

  Kleomenes sat down on the sand; it was hot against his legs. For a moment it ran and trickled busily where he had disturbed it. ‘Why?’ he said.

  Therykion sat down beside him. ‘There’s no point in sailing on,’ he said. He looked round at the quiet brown island, the deep colour of the sea and sky, the red sails of the ship making a square, cool shadow. Kleomenes followed his look and tacitly agreed that it was all in itself very pleasant, but for them Therykion was right, and there was no point at all in any of it. A gull rose from among the rocks. Therykion went on: ‘What are you going to do in Egypt? It won’t be pleasant for your mother to see you as you are now. Kratesikleia is used to death by this time, but she is not used to dishonour. The children will not be glad either, when they are old enough to understand. If you had been going to surrender to any king it would have been better to do it to Antigonos, who is at least a good fighter and a man who keeps his promises. Or is it because Ptolemy put up a statue to you? I wouldn’t trust him a yard. Him or Sosibios. But we can trust our own swords, Kleomenes, and our own hearts. Can’t we? I can see over to Lakonia from here: our own hills. If we died looking at them it is possible that our souls might go there.’

  ‘Because you are as unhappy as I am,’ said Kleomenes, ‘there is no need to imagine things that you know are impossible. If we die, we die and are ended: as far as the sun and rivers and hills of Lakonia go, anyhow. If we die we shall never see our friends and children again. That’s clear, I think. It is also clear that the easiest possible thing would be just to kill ourselves here and now, and never have to lift up again this intolerable burden of planning and hoping and dealing with strangers and enemies. For one thing, this cut on my face is itching quite devilishly, Therykion. I didn’t sleep all last night because of it. I assure you, I should be glad to get rid of it! But I am not going to. I am going to do something much harder. I have run away once; I am not going to run away again.’

  Therykion answered slowly: ‘That is all more or less what Sphaeros said yesterday to Neolaidas when he was in great pain and asking his servant for his dagger, but I wish you would think of something that is not a Stoic idea, Kleomenes. I know very well that Sphaeros says it is giving up the fight worse now to kill ourselves because we are afraid of hardships and dishonour and what people will say of us, but that is only partly true. It is only the outside, the mere surface and appearance of reality.’

  ‘What is the deep thing, then, that Sphaeros did not see? What do you see as the kataleptike phantasia, Therykion?’

  Therykion bent nearer: ‘I am not sure if I can explain it. I think—I think there is a kind of beauty which is utterly lost in living and being rational and making plans and having material hopes: even for one’s country, even for the New Times, even for Sparta. I think that is at the back of what Zeno and Iambulos say when they write down their dreams of what a state should be. You will not get this beauty for yourself by dying. I know you are right to say that even if we die looking on those hills, they will fade out for ever at the moment of death. But I think that your people and your revolution will get the beauty. I think your dying will put a bloom on them, Kleomenes.’

  The King stayed very still. ‘You think my blood can buy something, Therykion, that my life and my work and my reason will not be able to buy?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Therykion.

  There was a very long silence. Then the King said: ‘I understand, Therykion. I agree with you in a way. But I am not going to do it. Not yet, anyhow. You see, it is not natural for me to look at things in that way. I can do it for a time through your eyes; but when a man kills himself, then above all is the time he should see clearly and through his own eyes. I have a different idea of Sparta and a different idea of the world. A plain idea with no bloom on it. Only, I think, a good idea. At any rate, the one I have lived for and the one I mean to go on living for. Each man, after all, must do the thing that is right for himself, not the thing that other people say is right for him. You agree with that?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Very well. I believe I can help my idea best by living, and just plain contriving and scheming. Like a farmer in a difficult year, not like a priest with a sacrifice to make. If ever I come to hold your ideas I will act on them, Therykion. I think, perhaps, you are more like the men of old days, more like Leonidas. In their name, forgive me, Therykion, because I did not die in the battle.’

  ‘If the dead know anything of the living,’ Therykion said, ‘they see and understand. But, my King, I must act on the way I see life myself. Will you and Sphaeros understand that?’

  ‘I am not trying to stop you if you must, Therykion. This is an odd little island. I shall remember it all my life. This is an odd day. It is like a cover on something. If I only knew how, I could put my finger through it all and tear the sunlight across like a piece of painted paper! Therykion, am I right in thinking that when you were quite a young man you were initiated into one of the Mysteries?’

  ‘Yes. It was altogether satisfying for a time.’

  ‘And this thing you are going to do now will be altogether satisfying for ever.’

  For some time neither of the two said anything more. Then Therykion got up very quietly and the King made no movement to stop him. He went a little way along the beach and climbed over a spur of rocks that stood between it and the next beach. Then he was out of sight. In about half an hour the King got up and went over to see. Therykion had fixed his sword firmly between two rocks and fallen on to it. Now he was dead. It seemed to the King simplest and least violently painful to the others to wrap Therykion in his own cloak and put him into a hollow of warm sand and then cover him with more sand. Over it all he made a pile of stones like a small cairn. Then he wiped Therykion’s sword clean and fitted it into his cairn, blade upward, and he jammed the stones carefully round the hilt so that it would not fall down for a long time.

  After that they sailed again and made Kyrene, and so went along by horse and camel until they got to the boundaries of Egypt. Here they were met by the royal officials of King Ptolemy. Those of them who were native Egyptians tried to hide the fact under plain Greek dress and a very Greek manner and accent, talking a great deal about Corinth and Athens, where they had seen all the sights and been to the best lectures. But those who were Greek or Macedonian wore Egyptian ornaments and head-dresses, and straight wrapped tunics of yellow Egyptian muslin, and swore a great deal by Serapis and Osiris. They brought embroidered cloaks and bed-hangings for the King, and a set of silver plate for his table, fine horses with gilded bridles, and a leash of the lovely, long-legged Persian hounds to course gazelles for the amusement of the Spartans in the fringes of the desert. They also read to him a long and only slightly patronising letter from King Ptolemy. He listened in silence.

  After that they gave him two private letters. One was from his mother, who had just heard the news of the disaster. She wrote very proudly and almost happily about her younger son Eukleidas, who had fallen in all honour on the field of Sellasia. She wrote about her eldest in a kind of hurt bewilderment. She supposed that what he had done was for the best. It was terrible for her to think of the Macedonians in Sparta, swaggering about in the King’s house, in her own rooms even! The worst of the women would like them. If she had been there she would have armed and encouraged the best of the women to defiance or death, as Archidamia, the grandmother of Agis, had done when Sparta was in danger once before—but that time they had beaten back the barbarian, the wicked Pyrrhus! Was this generation of Spartans worse than those which had gone before? Yes, she would have fought the Macedonians with roof tiles! He put the letter down. She did not understand yet.

  The other letter was from his son Niko
medes, a formal letter of sorrow and welcome, only sometimes showing through love and a great puzzlement. The boy’s tutor must have supervised it. He was past thirteen now, able to see things with a man’s vision. Yes, a reasonable being, at the age when, in Sparta, a boy would be likely to be singled out from among the rest by his grown lover, perhaps taken up into the hills for love and hunting and teaching and much talk. If he was intelligent and beautiful and gentle to his friends; surely Nikomedes the son of Agiatis would be all that! Kleomenes had been the same age himself when he and Xenares, whose body must, he thought, have been found and brought back from the field of Sellasia, had first met and loved one another. It would be different in Egypt. No hills to go up among, no empty heights full of clear air to run and shout in. So he would have his boy to himself, unshared. Nikomedes would be able to understand what had happened. He would be able to tell his father that he had done right. Yes, he would be old enough to take a hand in it himself, perhaps to advise, to help.

  By autumn they were all settled in Alexandria. The boys went on with their lessons. Kratesikleia spent much time with the palace women trying to make opportunities for her son to meet King Ptolemy. And Kleomenes began to get letters from home.

  Chapter Four

  THEMISTEAS LAY quite still for fear of hurting himself. They fed him with milk and soup and something else that tasted foul and smelt worse. This time he felt strong enough to talk. He raised himself a little cautiously, and after all it did not hurt unbearably. ‘It’s you, Philylla,’ he said, ‘my little girl.’ His mind fumbled back. ‘Are you at home now? For always? Was your man killed too?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, he lived, with the King. I’m here for the time. Don’t think about it yet, father.’ She turned her back to him and began pounding up the herbs to put on his wounds.

  He thought about what she had said. After a time his unquiet whispering reached her again: ‘Where is the King?’

  ‘King Eukleidas is dead. King Kleomenes is at Alexandria.’

  ‘And Sparta?’

  ‘Wait till you’re stronger, father. In the meantime, our house is safe. Mother has taken care of that.’

  ‘Why do you speak of her looking that way? Philylla –’

  ‘Never mind how I speak, father. Stay still now, for I am going to undo the bandage on your shoulder. Hold the bowl, Ianthemis. Don’t look, silly, if it’s going to make you sick!’

  More days passed. The slaves carried him out into the court. A few yellow plane leaves blew in and there was a smell in the air that is so lovely after months and months of dry dust and hard, cloudless, glowing blue: the smell of rotting fibres at last; the sweet, sad smell of damp mornings and cooler air. ‘How long is it since the battle?’ Themisteas asked.

  Ianthemis, who sat beside him on the step with her embroidery, answered: ‘Twelve weeks, father.’

  Themisteas reached over suddenly with his sound hand and gripped her. ‘You—tell me! Your mother and Philylla won’t. What happened?’

  Nervously Ianthemis said: ‘But are you strong enough, father? They didn’t want you to hear—’

  ‘Hear what? Am I a baby? The truth now, if one of you she-things can get it out! What, is it so bad? Are we all slaves to the Macedonians?’

  ‘No, no, but—Mother and Philylla think differently, I’ll try and say. After the battle there was no more fighting. They came for three days. I didn’t see them myself. King Antigonos sacrificed and then he went away. They say he had heard suddenly of a war in his own country. He didn’t burn anything or steal anything except just enough gold to make things for Apollo at Delos. A lot of people went to him at the King’s house, where he lived.’ She stopped a minute to breathe, then as she felt her father’s fingers tighten on her, scurried on. ‘I—I think mother went. At least, I mean, I know she did! And a lot of people were pleased. Mother says he has given us back our Constitution. I know we’ve got the ephors again. Do you mind, father?’

  ‘The ephors? No! I never felt really right without them. I’d like to know who they are, though. But go on: what about the land?’

  ‘We’ve got our own land just like it used to be when I was a little girl, only not the house in the city: that’s gone. But they’ve taken away the land that Panteus had, so Philylla has had to come back and live at home. It’s horrid for her, father!’

  ‘Stop,’ said Themisteas. ‘Let me think. Ours… as it was. So Eupolia went Macedonian behind my back, and saved us all! What do I do? Don’t look so frightened, you little rat! The answer’s just nothing. Nothing. The King’s gone and might better have been killed as far as I can see. And Eupolia’s saved my estate! Who’s seen to all this chopping and changing?’

  ‘There’s a Macedonian governor. Mother likes him. He is very kind and polite. He came in once when you were too ill to understand and went out on tiptoe. Philylla ran away that day; she went to the farm and she didn’t come back till after supper. Oh yes, and we’re part of the Achaean League now.’

  Themisteas said grimly: ‘I don’t see Sparta contributing much army. Tell me again, for I think I have forgotten, the names of all my friends who have been killed.’

  She looked round anxiously, but no one was coming to rescue her. She began on the long list of names, repeating them sometimes, beginning to cry herself. Some were as old as her father, but most were young lovers and husbands that should have been! Whatever had happened to Philylla since, she was safely and solidly married and her husband was alive, but where was Ianthemis to find a man now? She said: ‘Every one I know is mourning for someone, and Dontas is simply silly because the captain of his class was killed!’

  Themisteas stayed silent for a time, considering the list of names, and during this silence Tiasa came into the courtyard with a basket of washing on her head and stopped beside her master. He said: ‘It’ll take thirty years for Sparta to make this up. Even if you women are willing. Aye, we must find you a man, my little girl, and you must set to work to make boys. Fourteen, aren’t you? Well, you can’t start too soon with things as they are. If it’s all as you say and I have my land back, I’ll give you a good dowry. I wonder if your mother has any plans for you yet.’

  Ianthemis glanced up at Tiasa, and on her nod of encouragement, ventured to speak. ‘I do know mother thinks of someone. He’s Chaerondas, the son of one of the new ephors. He’s been in Crete, but now he’s at home again. I saw him once. He had such a lovely wolfhound!’

  ‘What did he do in the battle?’ She said nothing, and Tiasa could not think of anything to say which would help. Themisteas, after a long and uncomfortable silence, went on: ‘I see. He’s the other side. Well, I suppose I should be grateful to your mother and glad to have my daughter married off to someone who had the sense to see which way the cat would jump. Provisionally, I agree. Now, tell me about Philylla. Aren’t I going to have a grandson out of her soon?’

  Ianthemis shook her head, embarrassed, and Tiasa answered for her: ‘These things can’t be done to order, master, not by any of us, and least of all ladies and gentlemen. They don’t breed as well as that.’

  Themisteas sighed; his wounds were beginning to pain him. He was tired again. He did not want to think of it. ‘Poor Philylla,’ he said gently, ‘she’d have liked a child.’

  He shut his eyes. Ianthemis and Tiasa shifted the pillows so as to ease his thigh and shoulder. He was almost asleep. Half under her breath Tiasa said: ‘Yes, poor Philylla with that man of hers gone after the King and not so much as a line from him the whole time!’

  All the same, a letter did come at last. He said he had not known how they stood, so could not write before. There was deep depression in every line; he did not tell her what to do, only asked her what she thought of doing. He had got the news that his land had been taken away, and added on to the estate of one of the ephors, so he supposed she must be back at home. He wondered if her father was alive. For themselves, they did not know how long they would have to stay in Alexandria; it was difficult to see King Ptolemy
. He was old and ill and the minister Sosibios was a difficult and toughish person to deal with. The heir, young Ptolemy, was soaked in women and religion and the writing of verse. The Greeks in Alexandria were a rotten lot all through; not one of them could understand what had happened to the Spartiates and how they felt; people laughed and said it was all right because they were alive, and asked them to parties.

  He went on to say that the children were well, but very jumpy. Nikomedes was watching his father all the time like a lover. Krateskleia tried to keep them in too much; she thought very badly of all the boys they were likely to meet, and no doubt she was right, but they were too old for that kind of grandmothering; they obeyed her, but it was hard on them, and they never played games with other children. When the dozen or so who were the King’s best friends met to hold a kind of council together—usually after another rebuff from Ptolemy or his ministers—Nikomedes was mostly there too; it was a heavy thing to put on to a boy not yet fourteen. Little Gorgo was sometimes most painfully like her mother now. He saw the children often, for he went to the house most days: a high house in a street in Alexandria, very hot, with balconies. Kleomenes was getting headaches a good deal. Then again, what did Philylla think she should do?

  Philylla took the letter over to the home farm; she wanted to brood over it, to see what more could be got out of it, and when she was at home now she felt too angry and unhappy to take in anyone’s thought, least of all her husband’s. But the farm was safe. Mikon sat on the bench at the door, his leg out stiffly in front of him, slowly plucking a hen; one of the small children, naked and very dirty, was picking up the feathers and putting them into a basket. The other helots had taken on the children and the wife of Leumas; when the boys were older it would get whispered to them that their father had been given freedom and honour by King Kleomenes, and in the end had been killed for him; in the meantime they were slaves again, but they did not understand that yet. Behind the corner of the house two other children were squabbling shrilly. ‘Don’t move!’ said Philylla quickly, for she knew it was all Mikon could do to stand yet. And there were plenty now to order him about and make him stand up for them, obediently and dutifully, on his hurt leg, until they chose to give him his orders and laugh at him hobbling off. For his new citizenship had, of course, been taken away, and the few fields he had been so proud of, and had meant to make his children proud of, too. He was no longer part of the army of the revolution. ‘Poor lamb,’ said Philylla, ‘how is it?’