The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  ‘There you are, Metrotimé!’ stormed Agathoklea. ‘Put him in the cupboard, into the book chest, hide him under your bed; I’m sure I don’t know what to do with him!’

  ‘Who is it?’ said Metrotimé, getting up and delicately poking Nikomedes with her toe so as to disarrange his tunic still further. ‘It looks rather nice. Bed, don’t you think, not books?’

  ‘It’s Nikomedes of Sparta, devil fly away with him!’

  ‘Oh,’ said Metrotimé, waggling her eyebrows, and rather obviously rearranged the tunic into complete decency. Nikomedes blushed and sat up rather more, patting his throat gingerly. ‘A hot cloth?’ suggested Metrotimé, and clapped her hands.

  Agathoklea nodded. ‘Is your woman safe?’

  ‘Too dreadfully,’ said Metrotimé, and when a large, kindly looking slave-woman came bustling in, ordered her to bring steaming cloths and a glass of wine. ‘Now,’ she said, ‘what about it, dearest?’

  ‘I came in,’ said Agathoklea, ‘and found the King, bless him, prettily busy with this young man in a corner.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Oh, the limit in another minute, wouldn’t it, you wretch?’ She shook Nikomedes, who was still rather too dazed to speak. ‘Well, I thought, here’s a nice business! For really I do think, mixing up politics and pleasure—! Don’t you? Besides, I’ll take my oath this brat knows no more about it than an idiot baby!’

  ‘How amusing!’ said Metrotimé. ‘Is that true, Nikomedes? Haven’t you ever enjoyed yourself with a nice friend?’

  ‘No,’ said Nikomedes, in some obscure way rather ashamed.

  ‘Yes, quite too unsuitable! What happened?’

  ‘The next thing was I heard the little devil say, as cool as a monkey, just what he thought he was going to get out of it—money and ships and goodness knows what all! Next thing, he’d have been dead in another two ticks if I hadn’t got between them. And next thing, we’ll have to get him out, and you’ll have to go and talk to my poor ducky little King, and I only hope it’s not too late to put things right!’

  ‘Hmm. I gather the thing turned right over—the other side of the God! But what a fool the boy must be to speak just then. Who sent you, boy?’

  ‘I came myself,’ said Nikomedes.

  Just then the slave-woman came back with hot cloths, which she and Metrotimé between them laid on Nikomedes’ neck over the red bruises. ‘I think, dearest,’ Metrotimé said to her friend, ‘that you should go back. I expect, you know, there’s nothing to worry about. You should get him to sleep; he’ll be tired. I’ve got some stuff here; just the thing. Tell him it’s from me. It induces—dreams. Yes, very pleasantly.’ She opened a chest, took out a small box and shook out a couple of blackish pellets. ‘I take them myself from time to time. I’ll see to this brat. Now, run along, dearest.’ Agathoklea went out with a last, not perhaps absolutely serious, scowl at Nikomedes, and the pellets. Metrotimé sat down with her book beside her and began to polish her nails, glancing at the story from time to time.

  At last Nikomedes said very shyly: ‘Please, what do I do now?’

  ‘I should get up off the floor if I were you,’ said Metrotimé. ‘That’s right. Now come here and let me take those cloths off your neck. There! Now the bruises won’t show. How old are you, Nikomedes?’

  ‘Going to be fifteen.’

  ‘Goodness, how old! Old enough to keep secrets. Do you think you can manage not to tell anyone at all about this evening?’

  Nikomedes thought hard. At last he said: ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. Now, how do you feel? Quite all right?’

  Again he thought hard. Surprisingly, his shattered self had picked itself up again. The dream was ended; he was awake. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m ready to go.’ It was only then that he realised he had failed. But it was not, somehow, a bitter failure; it was blurred. He thought his father might be glad, after all, that he had failed. Only his father must never know. He liked Metrotimé. He thought it would have been fun to have an elder sister.

  She said: ‘Don’t try this again, not for a year or two! You were lucky, you know. By the way, did you hear about the Vintage?’

  ‘Yes, every one has.’

  ‘What did you think about it?’

  ‘Nothing much. I heard about the girls who danced and went mad and let the fauns have them in the open fields. I wish I’d seen that!’

  ‘The God Dionysos had taken possession of them. I was one.’

  ‘You! But I thought they were just common girls. Why did you do it?’

  ‘It was as if each one of those men dressed as fauns had been the God himself. They had got something divine into them by being part of the feast. One wanted that from them for oneself. Do you understand at all?’

  ‘But you knew they were ordinary men all the time. One can’t get behind knowledge, behind the real thing.’

  ‘Yes, one can, and must. I suppose Sphaeros is your tutor, Nikomedes? You’re a little Stoic, aren’t you?’

  ‘I try to be. But I’m not wise yet.’

  ‘No, it takes time! But you haven’t told me what you thought about the Vintage except that some of it was funny and perhaps shocking.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I do think. I just think it’s much too hot for running about and enjoying oneself here! And anyhow the vines don’t do so well as they do at home, and the grapes are half the size, unless you fuss about all the time, watering them. They simply aren’t worth having a feast about!’

  Metrotimé laughed and told him to drink a little wine and eat some of the flat crisp cakes she brought out of the other room. While he was doing this she fetched a plain coloured girl’s dress and head handkerchief. ‘I’m going to take you out of the palace,’ she said, ‘and you must be disguised. It will be quite safe if you are. Come now, you can put this on over your own tunic.’

  ‘But need I be dressed up as a girl?’ protested Nikomedes.

  ‘Yes, indeed you must. We’ve got two sets of sentries to pass. Here, let me fasten it. Silly boy, that’s not the way to put on a handkerchief! Why don’t you grow your hair long? It’s a shame to cut it off, soft and fine as it is.’

  ‘Spartiates used to grow it long in old days, but it would be silly now. Men don’t, and I won’t. Can’t I hold this stupid skirt up more?’

  ‘Not too far! You make the most darling girl, Nikomedes. Wouldn’t you like to stay with me and be my sister? Oh don’t scowl at me; I always do say things in the vilest taste! We’ll just draw the kerchief forward an inch, so. And the end round across your chin. Now, keep your head bent like a nice, modest girl. One moment till I find a scarf for myself. There! Come along, Nikomedes.’

  They passed the guards with no trouble at all, for they all knew Metrotimé; she was friendly and generous to them; though, for that matter, it was the only sensible thing to be. There were not many people about, and they took the smaller streets, hurrying rather, like respectable women getting home. ‘Where are you going?’ whispered Nikomedes at last.

  ‘To Erif Der. She’s the only rational one among you. You can tell her if you must tell someone, though I still advise you not. Berris can see me home. You can stay there for the night and have a good sleep and forget about it all.’

  They came to the house and knocked. It was Berris himself who came to the door, a mallet in his hand and stone-dust all over himself. He stared at them, not recognising Nikomedes. Metrotimé walked past him into the house and whispered to Nikomedes to run along to the work-room and take his things off, which he was only too glad to do. Then she told Berris what had happened. He listened, leaning his chin on her shoulder and every now and then kissing her ear or neck. ‘I didn’t know the boy had it in him,’ he said finally, ‘after all this grandmothering. Well, I’m glad that divine lunatic of yours wasn’t allowed to murder him.’

  ‘Agathoklea is so sensible,’ murmured Metrotimé. ‘No, Berris, I will not have your nasty stone-dust in my hair! Go away! Well—wash!’

  When they got upstairs the
y found Erif making a bundle of the dress and kerchief, and Nikomedes staring with some alarm at Berris’ half-finished relief of hawks carrying off and eating little men and women. It was very horrid, with a curious stiffness and fatality about it, the stiffness of that same dream in which one cannot escape. ‘Brr!’ said Metrotimé, ‘what a nasty, fascinating thing! It’s like something out of one of these dreadful Egyptian temples, only worse, because it’s now, not a thousand years ago. Do you know, Berris, I believe Agathokles would adore it! What’s your price?’

  ‘Depends on how many days’ work I put into it. I’m not sure I shall sell it at once, either. I’m glad you don’t like it, Metrotimé.’

  ‘Well, I must be going back,’ she said. ‘Are those the things? How sweet of you, Erif! Good-bye, Nikomedes –’ She kissed him. ‘You’ll see me in, Berris?’

  Berris looked at her and grinned. ‘All the way!’ he said.

  Chapter Five

  THE NILE ROSE more and more rapidly and flooded the land, though in the delta country this made less difference than in the valley itself. But there was a feeling of security and comfort about, even in the still, baking weather they were having now. The date harvest was gathered and every one in Alexandria went about the streets sucking the hot sweet things and spitting the stones into the gutters. But Kratesikleia had a theory that they were bad for children and would not let Gorgo eat them and tried to stop the boys. Neareta took to them; she kept house better than any of the Spartiate women, and Phoebis was fairly cheerful.

  Not long after this the last of the season’s letters came over from Greece. The chief news they brought was that Antigonos of Macedonia was dead, quite suddenly of excitement and haemorrhage after a battle. It was queer. King Antigonos was dead, and it seemed to make no difference! They were up against worse forces than Antigonos now, things that were out of the power of Spartan courage. The only real hold Kleomenes had was over Ptolemy’s Greek mercenaries, most of whom had a great admiration for the Spartan King and his friends, half romantic and half practical, and would sooner have been led by them than by Sosibios. But that was a difficult power to use without letting it appear too much as a threat.

  A month and a half later, when the Nile was sinking again and all the flooded land left with the soft, new mud, delicious to tread in and rich with the thought of the young growth, came the Festival of Osiris, the Corn King of Egypt, who is slain every year and broken into pieces and sown like grain over the long narrow valley of fertility. Last year Kleomenes had not known what was to happen that day, and woke in the morning and listened quivering to the wailing, for it seemed as though it had come out of his own mind into objectivity. Then the children, who had enjoyed it all the year before, came in and told him what it was: only the natives wailing for their God who was dead—as people at home in Amyclae still wailed for Hyacinth. But soon it would all turn right and there would be processions and songs and barges with lamps—could they go this year?—and the little troughs of barley, the resurrection gardens that every one had planted, would shoot up green, and the natives would say that Osiris was alive again.

  This year Kleomenes knew it was coming and waited for it with an extra tension of nerves. Now it was too late for any more news from Greece this year. Though it was still fine in Egypt, there would be storms between him and his Sparta. How blessedly cold it would be on those mountain tops! Kleomenes sent for Panteus and rode with him to hunt in the edges of the desert till the wailing was over. Why not hunt? There was nothing else to be done. The palace laughed at them still! But there was pleasure yet in the swift air, in the sight of the hounds’ bodies, in the skill, the sudden decisions, the alertness of the senses in hunting that did not leave the mind time to fret and jangle. It was marvellous to stop a quick, just glimpsed, galloping thing, to topple it over in bright blood! To run and shoot up overhead with the sting of the bowstring brushing one’s cheek, to see the flying thing change direction, suddenly crash down through bright hollows and cliffs of air. Something in the mere check of speed sent the blood jumping through the heart. And the power, to bury one’s fingers in warm quivering fur and feathers, to change it all in an instant to some other stuff. One found a wounded beast very still and close, and looking at one with bright bead eyes, as if one were a God, but with no wretched cringing or appealing, only accepting what God gives, so that one had no slightest twinge as the thin knife struck cleverly into the heart. They were very happy, those two, hunting, and sleeping at night tired out and full of the juices of toasted meat, on cloaks and saddles by some tree-shaded pool where they had drunk and would drink again in the morning. For three days they kept everything else out of their minds and hearts, while in Alexandria and all the cities of Egypt, folk wailed for the dead Corn God.

  In Alexandria Philylla sat in her house and listened. Her servant had gone early, in delicious ecstasies of sorrow to the Temple of Osiris, that very old one, which had survived from Rhakotis, the forgotten city before Alexandria. This temple was squat and small, and now it was packed to overflowing with kneeling, groaning worshippers, begging the God to come again. Philylla went to their room and carefully folded up Panteus’ tunics, and picked up and paired the shoes and sandals which he had scattered all over the room in his joyful scramble for hunting-clothes and boots. She had helped him, with gay looks; truly she did not grudge him his joy! He was very untidy; as a young Spartiate in the first years of the King’s time, he had given up almost all his possessions except his actual arms and armour and the clothes he slept on, but lately he had accumulated more possessions, new clothes for palace ceremonials mostly, and Philylla had stopped him from throwing away three-quarter worn-out things. They would do—for something. There was enough good stuff to cut up for tiny shirts. If the time came. If. If. She sighed helplessly and patted the things down into the chest. For three days she would not have to fend for him, market or mend or think of new ways to try and make him look happier. She would live on the peasant grain which she never let him eat—it did not taste so bad, though!—and eggs, and he would bring back game with him. Philylla—Panteus. Panteus—Philylla.

  What was wrong? Who would know? It went round and round in her head in time with the wailing. It was not the state of marriage, because that, after all, was what she had wanted and got, and Agiatis had been happy, and Deinicha and Chrysa had been happy, and Leandris was happy. Leandris was going to have a baby next year. Was that it? But Panteus did not seem to want children; he said he was glad they had brought no one into this terrible world. She wished he would not say that, when there was still hope for Sparta—oh, surely, so much hope! What else was wrong? Oh it was not, not the King! How could it be? She had known about that always, had thought it lovely when Agiatis had told her that first day when he had sent her the arrows and violets and her darling magpie. She had been right to see it so! It was the pattern of Sparta, and if Agiatis knew it for beautiful, then it must be beautiful too, for her, the other wife!

  That was only right and logical. She thought of Sphaeros. He would say it was all delusion, a mere thing the disorder of her female mind had made. With age, Sphaeros was growing more and more formal, more apt to meet a difficulty with a stock phrase; she had not spoken with him much since Agiatis’ death, except about the boys. She wondered if the boys were getting out of life at all what Agiatis had meant them to get, and meant her to see that they should get. It was very difficult for her to do anything effective with Sphaeros and Kratesikleia, both firm that they knew best about everything; but she did keep up her deep friendship with Nikomedes and talked to him hopefully. He needed hope in that house. She thought he was very beautiful and was sorry that there was no one to tell him so. A little praise would not have hurt him.

  Through noon the wailing went on; she could not eat, she knew the Egyptians would be fasting. She began to be frightened, though she told herself it was nonsense. She tried to read, then to embroider. She went through the movements of one of the Artemis dances which she had learnt in Spart
a a long time ago, but that was more alarming than anything, all by herself. She began to imagine that Panteus might come back suddenly for something he had forgotten—or because there was no game—or because he had thought all at once how grim it was for her alone in the wailing city—because her thoughts had reached him and told him how she longed only for his arms and for one of those moments when he seemed really to be thinking of nothing but her. Could thoughts travel? The Egyptians thought so. They thought the Double, the Kha, could be sent out with messages. Well, even if that were possible, she would not spoil the King’s hunting!

  She went the next day to see Leandris, who seemed very happy and busy and not much disturbed by the wailing. And the third day Erif Der came to see her. ‘I’ve just heard you were alone,’ she said. Those two have gone again!’

  Philylla answered back to the tone of indignation with a laugh: ‘Yes, we shall have our larder full! I shall try to salt down some of it, for it won’t keep long in this weather.’

  Erif stared at her and said: ‘Yes, but the next time they’re away, come and see us.’

  After that they talked very comfortably of this and that; the noise of mourning did not seem to penetrate so much. Anyhow, on the third day it was less loud, though perhaps more intense and spasmodic, after the fasting and prayer and saying aloud of many alarming names, to revive the dead Corn God. Erif had brought with her a curious little drawing of dancers which Berris had made lately, on parchment, some winged and others with animals’ heads. Philylla said: ‘I wish he would make some more paintings of King Agis. Those were wonderful. I hope they will have got to young Kleomenes now; he has written fairly often, but never about that.’