The Corn King and the Spring Queen

by Naomi Mitchison

  ‘I ran all the way there and back. I did not want to think, but my whole body was glad.’

  ‘It seemed long enough to me. The lamp began to burn down and I poured in fresh oil. I wondered if you had been kept by anything. I thought there might have been a night raid from Megalopolis. I began to listen for it. And I heard your feet running, coming back to me. You came in, panting. I did not think I had ever seen your eyes as blue before as they were then in my tent in the lamp-light. I said: “Let us talk about this now.” You came in and knelt beside me quickly on one knee and your right hand dropped and touched my foot; I felt it grip round my ankle. But your face was hidden, your head was against my thigh. I took your helmet off and laid it down on the bench beside me and I began to feel your head with my hands, tangling my fingers in your hair, pulling your hair, I think. I felt the bones of it under my hands, the way it juts out at the base of the skull. There were light hairs like fur on your neck, lighter than your skin. I pulled your head round to look at your face and I saw you were laughing. Why were you laughing, Panteus?’

  ‘With delight, my King.’

  ‘I did not know that. I thought you were perhaps laughing at me. Yet I thought that was better than anger or shame. You ducked a little as I lifted the sword sling over your head. I undid the straps of your breastplate. You kept very still all the time. I laid it by. I undid your shoulder brooches, pricking myself. You had a shirt of some very fine, soft, blue stuff—better than we’ve worn since! I pushed you away from me to arm’s length, so that I could look at you. I thought then for the first time that you were square and balanced, like a statue by Polykleitos. You still said nothing, but your hands went up to me, and I knew what you wanted and took the brooches out of my own tunic. We must have seen one another often before, naked, but we had never looked so close. You took your tunic right off and laid it by the sword. I saw no blemish on you, Panteus.’

  ‘Nor I on you. And I was glad that my body was strong and hard and clean. You were very brown all over, more than I’d thought. I put my hands on to you, on to your chest, and stroked down over your flanks and thighs. I stood up and we kissed one another. You said: “Tomorrow there will be fighting again. Stay with me now.” So I said I would stay.’

  ‘I think,’ Kleomenes said, ‘that after this we stood for some time only looking and being glad. I sat down on my bed and you sat beside me. Then I said: “What now? For we are neither of us boys, but grown men.” Then you began to laugh. I had never seen anyone laugh so, your low and delightful laughter filling my tent. After a time you said, still with your mouth full of laughing, but very gently: “Now we will go to sleep, Kleomenes, and speak of these things again in the morning.” So we lay down and I spread my cloak over both of us. We were close enough for each to lay his head on the other’s arm. And it was a most sweet sleep we had.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Panteus, ‘I remember that. A very sweet and deep sleep for both of us.’ He sat half up on the couch beside the King, leaning rather forward on both hands, dropping his head between his shoulders, his eyes half shut in the thick tension of remembrance. The blue fringes of the Egyptian stuff lapped round his stiffened fingers. The others, who had been listening or half-listening, understood how he was thinking back to this thing which was within their own experience too. The King looked round at the twelve, calmer and happier than they had seen him for a long time.

  Neolaidas was whispering to the helot servant. He looked up and spoke anxiously: ‘Monimos has gone to his mistress. Are we sure that’s safe?’ The other helot assured him that it was, but Phoebis was doubtful and so was the King.

  ‘I think we should get ready, my friends,’ Kleomenes said. ‘If the Alexandrians are not awake we shall wake them very soon.’ Then he stood up and every one else stood up. In a way they were glad to have the time of waiting and remembrance cut short, the time for action come.

  As they got up they shook those gaily woven Egyptian things off their bodies. They kicked them on to a heap on the floor, and while they stood naked, stretching themselves, someone in angry mockery threw a cup of wine over them to soak and blemish the fabrics of rejoicing. They could not come in armour to a sacrifice and feast of gladness, but they had brought their swords, and Panteus had brought a sword for the King under his cloak. The King’s own sword had been taken, and nobody knew where it was.

  Then they took up their ordinary town tunics, made, Alexandrian fashion, with short sleeves, but the King took his new sword and slit along the seam of his so as to lay his right shoulder bare, and the others did the same, in silence, with their swords. This was for two things. It would be a sign and mark to one another supposing they got separated, and a sign for those who joined them. And also it left the sword-arm and shoulder, for which anyhow the tunic was no protection, as free as possible. Then they went out into the courtyard. The guards were still sound and hoggishly asleep. They did not hear the bolts being slipped. Kleomenes and the twelve were out in the streets of Alexandria.

  Chapter Nine

  SEVERAL OF THEM were moving still. Idaios opened and closed his eyes slowly. There was nobody anywhere near. The Alexandrians had not dared to stay and look. Panteus shifted a little in the dust, sitting there waiting with his drawn sword over his knees, his sword, his sword waiting—So he shut his eyes again and counted steadily to two hundred. His wounds and bruises were too sore to let him think of much while he was counting. He looked up again. Idaios seemed to be dead now; his eyes stayed wide open and had begun to film over. There were one or two dogs slinking about, not daring to come near yet. Panteus was too hoarse to shout, but he threw stones at them and they disappeared again. He stared into the sky. Very high up still, a kite circled blackly against the dazzling blue; another joined it. The flies had come already.

  The shuttle began to click in his brain again; the hours he had just been through began to repeat themselves. Three hours—two hours ago, there had been hope. Now he could not remember what hope was like. They had all gone charging down the street away from that house where the King had been a prisoner, shouting through Sun and Moon Street, calling on the Alexandrians to remember they were Greeks and join them for freedom! Hippitas could not keep it up—he had begged them to kill him and keep the pace. But they had found a man riding and thrown him off and put Hippitas up on the colt, and then they all went storming again through Alexandria towards the palace, shouting: ‘Liberty,’ and ‘Down with the tyrants, down with Ptolemy and Sosibios, down with Agathokles and Agathoklea and Oenanthe!’ It had even seemed as though that were going to work. They had looked round at the growing crowd, coming along with them, keeping up, shouting: ‘Down with Agathokles, down with the palace!’ They caught the traitor, Ptolemy the son of Chrysermas, coming out of the palace, and killed him. They broke up the city guard and killed their officer with his fine chariot and fine clothes. Every one cheered and shouted luck to them.

  They got their first set-back at the prison. The keepers had been too quick for them; it was all hopelessly barred against them. And after that, when they turned back to the city, to try for one of the gates, or the docks, they began to see that it was all no good. They’d tried to organise this mob who ran with them, cheering and making a kind of triumph feeling for them, but it melted under their hands almost. None of the Alexandrians would help. Sphaeros was not in his house; they could not find him. They’d tried to get hold of the men they thought were friendly. Yes, they were friendly still, in a way, but there was nothing doing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. No use shouting: ‘Liberty!’ to men who didn’t want it. The Alexandrians stuck to Ptolemy and Sosibios and Agathoklea. The cheering crowd dwindled, and they found themselves almost alone, then quite alone, in this little square, a deserted winter-market place with nothing in it now but the skeletons of booths, and broken baskets and crocks. It became obvious what they had to do.

  They had risked and lost. But they were still, perhaps for an hour, free. There was one more action, and only one, which they could take.
Hippitas had smiled a little and said he was the eldest and ought, by Spartan custom, to be allowed a privilege. He asked that one of the younger men should do it for him. Agesipolis did it; Hippitas had always been kind to him. And before they had quite understood that Hippitas was really dead, Agesipolis had killed himself too, falling forward cleverly on to his own sword, like a diver taking off. It was then that the King had moved a few steps aside with Panteus and told him to be guardian of their honour and to wait till they were all dead before he, finally, killed himself. Panteus had said yes, he would do that. He had not known it was going to be so difficult. He had not known how the thin icicle of loneliness was going to spike him through.

  He remembered how he had felt sick with apprehension that Kleomenes would ask him to do it for him. He would have had to. But none of the lovers did that. They loved one another too well. Kleomenes had loved him too well to make him. They had fallen on their own swords, and most of them had lain doubled up on them, so that there was no need to look at their faces again. They could have been asleep. Only one or two had done it clumsily and struggled and flopped over.

  He got up. Suddenly he found his head swimming. He put his hands up to his forehead. For a moment he got the odd idea that each one of these events had knocked away a piece of his skull, and now the whole thing lay open to the sun and vultures. Then he went round, doing what he had done once already. He pricked them each with his dagger to see if they were alive. This time none of them stirred. Then he went to the King. Kleomenes lay quite still on his face, his knees and elbows rather bent under him. He must be asleep. Otherwise. Otherwise. It was all impossible.

  I would have supposed I had faced this. Faced it at the feast. Or before Sellasia. Sellasia was different. Different because I wasn’t killed, because he wasn’t killed. But I thought I had faced it first then, or earlier. First before this. Or not. Faced first at the feast. The blood has stopped creeping out from under him. It did at first. Crept first at the feast. No, there was no blood then. We were talking to one another. He won’t ever speak to me again. He is not asleep.

  At first Panteus could not do it at all, though he had his dagger ready. Then he bent and pricked Kleomenes with it at the back of the ankle. He could not help being certain that Kleomenes would wake up then. But instead something rather horrible happened. The thing jerked and heaved over and lay on its back. Kleomenes lay on his back. He was still doubled up over the red, slimy sword-hilt. His hands were clenched on it. Panteus looked away from that, at his face. His eyes were half shut, a line of white between the lids. His mouth was open and there was blood on his teeth; he had bitten his under-lip to stop himself groaning. Panteus leant over, closer and lower, staring and feeling; there was a faint breath in the mouth, a faint throb of some kind at the base of the throat. He crouched down till their cheeks touched; he murmured ‘Kleomenes, Kleomenes.’ But there was no recognition anywhere. He tried to take one hand, but they were clenched tight and slippery with blood. So he sat down on the ground again and waited.

  He waited and counted and cried a good deal and called out people’s names sharply, because he was alone and the flies were buzzing so. The kites and the dogs came nearer. When he looked up next Kleomenes was quite dead. It was easier after that. He pulled the King’s tunic straight so as to cover him partly from the flies. He began to do the same for some of the others, but a kind of blackness had begun to come down on him, a shutter of weariness. It was not worth while. He went back to Kleomenes and knelt over him and put the point of his sword against his stomach, just under the base of the breastbone, pointing up and to the left. He held it firm with both hands. He fell forward onto it, over the King’s body.

  By and bye some of the Alexandrians came tiptoeing out of the back streets to look.

  PART VIII

  Death and Philylla

  Seine Leiche liegt in der ganzen Stadt,

  In allen Höfen, in allen Strassen.

  Alle Zimmer

  Sind vom Ausfliessen seines Blutes matt.

  Der Tote Leibknecht

  NEW PEOPLE IN THE EIGHTH PART

  Kottalos, the Captain of King Ptolemy’s Guards Greeks, Macedonians, Egyptians and others

  CHAPTER ONE

  ΒERRIS WAS GETTING on well with his big statue, at least he thought so, though Erif could not tell much difference from day to day except a lot of stone dust on the floor. He had been at it all the morning and afternoon, stripped to the waist like an Egyptian, and sweating. Erif had been sitting near him, sewing and singing. She was making a dress for Philylla and embroidering it with all kinds of luck charms. She found her own clothes rather uninteresting to make and usually left them plain, but it was fascinating and absorbing to make something for Philylla to wear. All the same she was thinking that she must go home this summer. The five years were up and perhaps those unsolved meetings had happened without her knowing about them. Perhaps they had happened in Marob. Anyhow, whether or not, she could not be separate any longer. She had determined after long thought that it would be better to go back to Tarrik and Marob and perhaps die, than to stay here without them any longer. She had come to this conclusion quite happily, but also quite definitely. She was thinking of it now.

  During the afternoon they had heard a certain amount of noise and disturbance in the streets, but that was often happening in Alexandria. Probably there was a strike or a murder or a procession or something. Once Erif had looked out of the window to see if she could see anything, but it all seemed to be a street or two away. She hadn’t bothered.

  Then, in the latter part of the afternoon, there was a knock and Ankhet came in. She seemed very nervous, and inverted the order of her Greek sentences, which seldom happened as a rule. She stood beside the statue without looking at it and told them just what the Alexandrian event of the day had been, adding that the bodies had now been collected by the authorities and would be suitably disposed of. Erif and Berris both listened without interrupting much, but Erif pricked herself with the needle and did not notice for some minutes. Even when Ankhet was gone again, soft-footed and apologetic, they did not say anything at all for a little time. Berris was thinking of those men whom he had known well and liked and lived with and worked for; the fighting up in Arkadia; all gone out of his life as though they had never been; all dead in some agony of spirit which he did not much care to think of. And then abruptly and dizzyingly he thought: do I get Philylla now? And almost at the same moment it came into his head that this death of the men was a thing past, part of the story of Kleomenes, and it shifted and stilled into another picture, a better one this time. But Erif was thinking almost entirely about Philylla and what was going to happen to her immediately. She put that into words. ‘I wonder if Philylla knows yet,’ she said. ‘Yes, she’s bound to. I suppose—Berris, I suppose she won’t try to do the same thing?’

  Berris was startled. He said: ‘I’m going to her at once.’ And he picked up his cloak.

  ‘No she won’t,’ Erif went on, thinking hard, ‘because of the King’s children. But what’s going to happen? Ptolemy and Sosibios will be very angry. And—you know, Berris, they may do anything when they’re angry. I expect all the Spartans are in danger.’

  ‘I’ll make her come away,’ said Berris. ‘The old Queen can manage without her.’

  ‘But the children?’

  Berris shrugged his shoulders. ‘Kings’ children always find plenty to look after them. And there’s the grandmother—what else is she for? They don’t need my Philylla too.’

  Erif was suddenly angry. ‘She isn’t your Philylla! She’s—no, she’s not mine either. Anyhow, don’t be stupid. She’ll stay if she thinks she ought to stay. We’ve no rights over her, worse luck. But you go to her, Berris, and do what you can. I’ll go to the palace.’

  Berris hesitated: ‘Don’t you want to see her, Erif?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Erif sharply. ‘But I don’t suppose it matters to her which of us, so you can. Besides, Metrotimé’s at Canopus, so you wo
n’t find out as much as I shall at the palace.’ She ran a comb through her hair and looked at herself in the mirror.

  ‘Who are you going to see, Erif?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘Oh, the faun. Probably you’re right.’ It was Erif’s Vintage Night faun, with whom she kept up a certain spasmodic intimacy. He might be useful. Berris quite approved; he was a personable young man, good at games and hunting, and he took an intelligent interest in sculpture. Erif went to the palace.

  She wasted at least half an hour with the faun before she could get him to find out anything. That was the maddening thing about men, one couldn’t go straight to the point with them—or only to some points. And their stupidity! To go on kissing her and paying her useless compliments as though she wanted either at the moment. Tarrik would eat you up and not leave any bones at the end of it!—she thought savagely. But by and bye he did go to find out, and when he came back the news was that Sosibios was very angry and likely to do something quite unpleasant. ‘You see,’ said the faun, sleeking back the hair off his round, brown forehead, ‘if nothing at all were done, they might go to Antiochos.’