The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  I told him the tale, being happy and glad to share it. Now the thought of the maid began to take hold of me, and I grew her in my mind from child to woman. Beside this picture the Palace girls looked coarse and stale, and most nights I lay alone. The lands were quiet; once more the fancy took me to sail for Crete.

  I sent no word before me, meaning to do it from some port nearby. I had not told even my pilot yet where I was going, keeping my secret like a lad. When I ordered my ship fresh-painted, a new awning, a fanciful gryphon beak from the bronzesmith, I saw smiles sometimes, but did not care. As the news of the match went round, I saw that it pleased everyone. Even the lords who had hoped I would choose a daughter of their house were glad their rivals had been passed over. Everyone would have feared the tie with Mykenai, as they would have feared one with Minos in the great days of his power. But now Crete was down, they saw a bond that would hold the great land safe in vassalage. The men praised my wisdom; the women had heard about the keepsake and thought it pretty as a minstrel’s tale.

  I was at the harbor seeing the new beak fitted, when there came a shout from the watchtower that a pirate fleet was in sight.

  A great outcry began, people driving the livestock inland and carting off the bales. Sea-rovers had been getting bolder; there had been flying raids all along the coasts to the Isthmus. Soon we saw longships, coming in under oar and sail. But the foremost signalled with a polished mirror, three times three. I laughed, and sent to disband the warriors and make the guest-room ready.

  The people looked rather askance at Pirithoos, having been afraid to the last that he meant to sack the harbor. For myself, I was overjoyed; I needed a friend to talk with freely.

  This time he was fresh and barbered, his ships in trim. He was outward bound though it was high summer, for the kingdom’s business had held him. I did not wait for his story, being full of my own. Upstairs after dinner, the wine at our elbow and the servants gone, I poured it out to him. He was all for the marriage, till I said I was off to Crete; then he stared and laughed, and said, “Have you lost your wits?”

  I had got used to prettier phrases; even the Palace girls had kept their thoughts to themselves. Before I could answer, he went on, “Can’t you see it is the way to spoil your marriage, to see her now? A little giggler with the puppy-fat not fined off her yet, and spots as like as not. All idle palace-bred girls go through it; it’s only peasants who work it off that are pretty at fourteen. Oh, no doubt she’s a good girl, and will be beautiful. So wait for it, don’t start with downcast hopes and a dismal bedding. Mark my words, if you wed now you’ll be stale for her when she comes to her best, and she will have a roving eye.”

  This dashed me a little. I said, “I need not marry yet. When I see her I can decide.”

  “Don’t see her at all, if you want to love her after. And when you bed with the pretty bride you dreamed of, don’t forget to thank me. Meantime we have sailing weather, and deeds to do.”

  I had guessed all along he had been pleading his own cause. Yet there had been something in it.

  He said, “And your ship is ready. A lucky omen! Listen, and see why I’ve sailed a week out of my way to fetch you.”

  He told me the venture he had in hand: to sail north to the Hellespont, and force the straits, and on into the unknown Euxine, searching for gold. “There is a river comes down in the sand; they tie rams’ fleeces to strain the stream, and haul them up full of gold-dust. I talked with a captain of Iolkos who brought one home with him. He didn’t get it without trouble; but what are we—women? Why flog along old sea-roads, when one can see the world?”

  I began to say, “We could sail on after Crete,” but I knew there would not be time. All my life I had wanted to see the country beyond the straits, at the back of the north wind. Reading it in my eyes, he gave me a long tale of marvels, earth-born warriors spawned from dragon-teeth, witches who could make old men young in a magic bath, and such sailors’ yarns. I laughed. And then he said, “Oh, yes, and we shall hug the Pontos coast. That’s where those Amazon girls come from, that you thought so much of in the bull ring. Don’t you want to see how they live at home?”

  “Why should I?” I said. “Bull-dancers never talk of home. It’s like bellyache; it takes your mind off the bull.”

  So he went back to the Kolchian gold and dragons, while I stared into the lamp-flame in its bowl of streaked green malachite, seeing pictures in the grain.

  “Well,” he said at last, “but they are waiting for you in Crete. You don’t want to offend them.”

  I answered, “I’ve not sent word yet.” It was all he got that day from me. But he knew that he had won.

  Pontos

  I

  HALF ATHENS SAW US off at Piraeus, when we had sacrificed to the Lady of the Winds. I thought, when I heard the cheers, how times had changed. In the great days of Minos, pirates were no better thought of than brigands on the land. But now there was no fleet strong enough to guard all the sea-roads. Kings fought for their own shores, and sometimes sailed out to take vengeance; and where there is war there’s spoil. From this it was not far to roving on adventure. Young men could set themselves up in life; kings could grow rich without hard taxes, which pleased their people; warriors could show what they were made of, and see the wonders of the earth. Only the graybeards murmured, when I put to sea with Roving Pirithoos and manned the benches of my ships with spearmen. Chiefs’ sons, whose fathers would have had blood from anyone who offered them an oar to pull, were nearly fighting in my presence chamber to get their names in first.

  They had time to work their hands in. We got a steady south wind all the way north to the straits; dolphins curvetted in our bow-wave, and blew glittering spray from so blue a sea that one looked to see it dye the oars. Once or twice we saw smoke on shore, and longships beached there; men on our business, very likely; but they let us be. It could be seen from our strength and blazons that we were a royal fleet; and wolves make way for the lion.

  I could have dived in and swum with the dolphins for joy to be alive. For a long time the rover in me had been a slave and captive of the king; and now he was on holiday. My eye was as fresh as a boy’s, and my heart as light.

  If we had been sailing to plunder Hellene lands, I should have felt less easy. To me all Hellenes are kindred of a sort; which is why, in the Hellene lands I have conquered, I have treated all men as my own people and made no serfs. Some kings know nothing beyond the neighbor they are at feud with; for them, you are foreign if you come from ten miles off. But I have been a prisoner where strange gods were served, and what was dear to us was nothing to our masters. It draws one to one’s own kind.

  We coasted north to the mouth of Peneus, where Pirithoos’ people lit a smoke-fire for him, to let him know that his lands were quiet. So we went on, and rounded Mount Athos safely, and sighted Thasos where they mine the gold of Troy. A Trojan fleet was there, loading, and must have had a king’s ransom aboard. But one does not bite the gryphon’s tail, where the head can reach so quickly. So we passed Thasos by.

  Ahead was Samothrace, where great dark cliffs and wooded steeps stand straight up from the sea. It has no ship-harbor, which has kept it wild. But it is sacred; Pirithoos and I had ourselves rowed ashore in their boats of hide, taking our stern-pennants to be charmed against shipwreck and defeat by the dwarf gods of the mountain.

  We climbed steep winding paths that tacked about the crags, up through mist-swathes that danked the fir woods; past rocky slopes where the hamlets of the Sai, the oldest Shore Folk, are perched like the nests of storks, and on their roofs nest the storks themselves. At the very top, above the cloud-wet woods, are high stony uplands. The dwarf gods’ rough-hewn altar is there, and the holy cave. Having come so far, Pirithoos and I asked to be charmed against defeat and shipwreck ourselves. The rites are secret, so I will only say that they are brutish and nasty, and foul one’s clothes. I left mine on the beach below and, to feel clean again, swam all the way to my ship. However, we were nei
ther wrecked nor defeated, so one must say of the dwarf gods that they kept their word.

  While we were in the cave, a hunchback priest with the legs of a bandy child asked us each apart in a vile coarse Greek if we had done any crime beyond the common run. The dwarf gods, he said, had had to be cleansed for murdering their brother; so the man in need of cleansing wins favor there. I told him how I had not changed my sail coming home from Crete, and what had come of it; and he said it would be much to the dwarf gods’ mind. They seemed pleased too with Phithoos; but he never told me why, and, wishing to keep my own counsel, I did not ask. As we clambered down the mossed craggy paths, the wooden bull-roarers, that they dance to in the cave, boomed and roared in our ears; and when we had rowed out of the long shadow of the mountain into sunlit water, it was like being born again. But it is true that I never dreamed again about my father, after that day.

  Then the straits of Helle were there before us, like the mouth of a great river. We hove-to, to wait for night. In summer the northeast wind blows down head-on all day there, but drops at sunset. We put ashore for water with all hands armed; for the people there are great ship-robbers and wreckers. Pirithoos showed me a chart the captain from Iolkos had made for him, showing which shores to hug where the eddies would run our way. This man, he said, had been a king’s heir whose father had been put aside by a powerful kinsman. The sailor son had not wealth enough to raise an army and get back his heritage; but in this voyage he got enough fleeces full of gold-dust to hire all the spearmen he needed. He had given his chart to Pirithoos because they had been boys together at Old Handy’s school; and because, as he said, he would not live to make another voyage to the Euxine. He was King in Iolkos; but he suffered a good deal from a curse that a northern witch had put on him. “So give them a wide berth,” said Pirithoos, “even if they offer to do you favors. He told this one he’d marry her if she showed him how to get the gold from Kolchis. Now the curse is eating his bones, and by his looks he won’t last long.”

  “Kolchis?” I said. “Did he tell her name?”

  “The crafty one, he called her. Aye, and that was her name. Medea.”

  I told how she had been my father’s mistress and had tried to poison me. As to his share in it, he had been frightened for the kingdom; and the least I could do was respect his memory.

  Five nights we nosed along the straits, catching the inshore eddies; first through the narrows, then by Propontis where you lose the further shore. By day we lay up watch and watch; for the Hellespont is by water what the Isthmus used to be by land. We rigged up bulwarks of shields and hides to keep off arrows, as the Kolchian captain, Jason, had warned Pirithoos to do. Even so one man was pinned by the arm and died of it. And we had only the chiefs to deal with, being too strong to tempt the lesser bands; so this Jason must have been a good man, to have forced the straits with a single ship.

  On the sixth night the water got so narrow, we could hear jackals barking on the far side, and see men move around their watch-fires. Just towards dawn, a new breeze struck our faces, open and salt. The two shores fell away; our prows pitched in a sea-swell. So we hove-to till light, and it showed us a wide gray ocean. It was the Euxine, the Traveller’s Joy. So they call it; for its gods are the sort one had best be civil to.

  We steered to the east; and when the sun had risen the sea was blue, dark blue as lapis. First the land was low; then it rose in high mountains, cleft with gorges carved by the winter rains, and hung with deep forests or sunny woods. When we put in for water, we found it plashing down boulders gleaming like black marble, into pools of mossy stone under the shade of myrtles. Birds sang sweetly, and the woods were full of game. We longed to camp ashore, eat fresh-cooked meat and wake to the sun through green leaves. But Jason had said the forest folk were fierce hunters, who would pick you off with poisoned arrows before you had seen one move. So we posted watches and slept on board; and the night-guard got with javelins two men who were sneaking up to throw fire into the ships.

  Next day, still pushing eastward, we had flat calm; but by now the rowers’ hands were hardened, and a good singer had worked them in. Towards evening, we saw cloud on the mountaintops. At once Pirithoos called out to pull for shore. Before we made it, down came a black, wicked northeast squall. We were driven out beyond sight of land; great green-black seas tossed us as we ran before the wind, and we needed more men bailing than rowing. At fall of night, the storm dropped as swiftly as it had come, and left us in calm under a sky of clearing stars. We rocked about in the swell till daybreak; while I thanked Blue-Haired Poseidon, who had never yet forsaken me on land or water.

  The sun rose out of a jagged skyline. Great heaven-spearing mountains reared, tipped with snow, above the nearer hills which had hidden them while we hugged the shore. As we set course, Pirithoos conned the chart and shouted from his ship that we must be near Kolchis, and should beach soon for a war-talk.

  Presently we sighted a dip in the hills, and a river-mouth. When we came nearer, there was a little plain beside a river, with a city of wooden houses thatched with brush, and a king’s house of stone. We steered away, and put in at a creek beyond the headland, to make them think we had sailed on.

  Our weapons had suffered from the storm; the hide shields were wet and heavy, and all the bowstrings were spoiled. But we had our spears and swords and javelins; and we agreed together that whereas Jason with a single ship had had to get his gold by stealth and bribe a sorceress, we need not be so modest. We would lie up till dark, and sack the town.

  And this we did. The Kolchians kept a good watch and saw us landing, though there was no moon; but it did not give them long to get their goods up to the Citadel, and they left a good deal behind. We fought in the streets by the light of the burning houses; and, the men of Kolchis giving way before us, we caught up on the mountain road with the mule-train that had the gold. There were rich townsmen too, who had slowed their flight with too much gear. But mothers carrying children I let go free. Some of the men, who had been some time at sea and wanted women, were displeased by this, especially Pirithoos’ Lapiths. But he took my part from friendship, and told them that if they wasted time they would miss gold enough to buy them girls for a year.

  We threatened the men of the gold-train, to make them tell us where the fleeces were: promising more, indeed, than we could have performed. Neither Pirithoos nor I could stomach torture; it was one of the things on which we both agreed. However, they showed us the fleeces in the stream; they had not very much gold in them, having been lately changed. But they made good trophies, and I never washed the gold from mine, but hung it as it was in my great hall.

  What with gold, the loot from the houses of the King and headmen, the goblets and brooches, worked swords and daggers and fine-woven clothes, we were well content, and ready to turn for home with what the gods had given. But first we scuttled all the Kolchian ships, which Jason had had no chance to do; and that, as he had said to Pirithoos, was the root of all his troubles after.

  The day dawned calm. Though we were weary, we rowed hard to shake off the Kolchian shore, lest the King might have allies near. Soon after sunup we got a breeze, and let the rowers sleep at the thwarts. The pilot’s watch, who had caught a doze while the ships were beached, saw to the sailing. Pirithoos and I, each in his own ship, lay down on our pallets aft to rest. I looked at the blue sky up above, with the great serpent-painted sail straining at the yard; its creaking soothed me, and the thought of the good work done.

  I woke up knowing that something was afoot. It was past noon; the sea was as dark as wine, the sunshine like pale honey. We were close inshore, under hills with green woodlands gilded by the westerning light. The ship was rocking and listing, as the men craned and scrambled to the landward side. I jumped up swearing, and made them trim her; then I went to see. Right up in the beak was a ledge for the pilot to stand and con a tricky passage. I clambered into it, and grasped the bronze gryphon by its comb.

  I soon saw what the riot was about
. Rounding a point close in, we had come right on a troop of girls bathing. Not dabbling either, like women washing their clothes, but swimming in the open sea. Now, of course, they had made for land; the steersmen without orders had put their helms hard over, and the warriors were at the oars.

  This was madness, for the woods might cover anything, and came right down to the shore. I opened my mouth to curse them and order them back on course; but the words delayed. I too had been weeks at sea; I had to pause for a look.

  The ones in the water were going so fast, with clean flashing arm-strokes, that I might have taken them for boys if some had not got ashore. They were running for the covert, going over the pebbles lightly, as if their feet were hardened; yet they had not the look of peasants. They moved too proudly. Their thighs were taut and sleek, the legs long and slender; their shallow breasts were as perfect as wine-cups turned on the wheel. All over they were gold with sun, not skewbald from wearing clothes; and on the brown their pale fair hair shone like silver. They all wore it alike, not very long, and drawn into one thick plait behind, which bounced between their shoulders as they ran.

  The quickest had reached the woods; where the groves were thin I could see the sun-dappled gold limbs moving. And I thought, “If these are the women, what are the men like? Surely, a race of heroes. If they come it will be a battle for bards to sing about, and some of us will feed the kites. Well, if they come, they come.”

  I waved to the boatswain, and shouted, “Faster!”

  The warriors leaned laughing on the oars. We were coming in so fast, the girls who had been furthest out were still in the water. One was a short javelin-cast ahead. There was a splash alongside. Young Pylenor, a famous swimmer who had won many prizes, was out to get another. He shook the water from his eyes and shot off like a spear. The men cheered him; it brought back Crete to me, and the roar of the ring.