The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

by Mary Renault

  I gave him back, and kissed her, and put my fingers into his hand, to feel his grip. As I played with it, I set his palm upon the royal ring of Athens, and his grasp closed on the bezel. My eyes met hers. We were silent, for there were others within hearing; but it never needed speech between us, to share our thought.

  V

  HE FLOURISHED LIKE SPRING flowers, and grew like a young poplar planted by a stream.

  We found him a good wet-nurse; his mother had not much milk, and fretted for the wild hills and me. But she would come running in from the hunt, to pick him up and toss him upon her shoulder; he loved her strong hands, and would squeal for joy. Before he could walk, she would ride full gallop holding him astride before her; he had no more fear of a horse than of his nurse’s lap. But by the evening fire she would take him on her knee like any mother, and sing long northland songs to him in her own tongue.

  I have fathered a good many sons, and there is no child of my body I have known of that I have not cared for. There were six or seven in the Palace. But it seemed in the nature of things that when I came to look at them their mothers said, “Quiet now and behave; here comes the King.” The people were not long in seeing that this one had taken my heart.

  But the brighter the light, the further seen. It shone too clearly: her love and mine, his excellence, and the hope of my heart. I had ruled now nine years in Athens, and I knew the people; I felt, as a pilot feels the set of the tide, that here they were not with me.

  When I had loved here and there, they had taken it lightly; indeed it was their boast. I could have peopled, myself, another Attica, if all the tales had been true. It had made a good one, that I had bedded even the Lady of the Amazons and got her with child. But when time passed, and she lived my queen in all but name; when they saw that by my choice she would have had that too; then their face altered.

  It was not in the small man’s fear of change and newness that the danger lay. The real fear was old, deep-rooted in every Hellene. She had served the Goddess; and I had not tamed her. They too remembered Medea. They thought, and maybe rightly, that if I had not come she would have edged my father off his throne, and sacrificed him at the year’s end as was done in the days of the Shore Folk who had the land before us, and brought the old religion back again.

  It was close to the ground, among the peasants, that this rumor spread like bindweed. If I had foreseen it, I daresay I would not have named the boy Hippolytos; it is a Shore Folk custom, for the son to take his mother’s name. But it would have been a public slight on her to change it; nor could I think of him by any other.

  The barons, if they had chosen, could have done much to check such tales. They knew her life, and could see the truth for themselves. But they had their own grudges. They were jealous of her power with me; of her friends, and the new blood in the Palace; they thought she taught their daughters hoyden ways; above all, the nearest to the bone, they were set on the Cretan marriage.

  The fate I waited for had not stepped in to free me. The girl was Minos’ child; and Crete is too full of the old religion to set aside the female line. If I gave her to another man high-born enough not to disgrace her, he would have Crete in his hand; if I gave her to a peasant as once was done in Argos, I should be disgraced myself, and the Cretans would not bear my rule; if I kept her unwed, she would be a lure for every ambitious king in Hellas and every lord in Crete. Even this I might have risked, for my girl’s sake and her son’s; but there was more yet, there was Mykenai. Echelaos was King there now. He had long since married off his sister; but if he learned that what I would not do for the Lion House, I had done for a captive of my spear, he would not rest till he had washed out the slight in blood. Nor would he believe that for so slight a cause I would refuse their match; he would think me his enemy already. Then Mykenai and Crete would make two millstones, and Athens would be the grain.

  As time ran out, I saw there had been only one hope for Fate to bring me. It was Phaedra’s death that I had hoped for in my heart. I thought about it, as one must think when one sees the certain means to the end desired. Every king has men about him to whom he need only look a wish. But there is evil beyond one’s reach, as there is good.

  When all this was pressing close on me, I got a message from Pirithoos, bidding us both to his wedding. We went gladly, hoping the people of Attica would turn their minds to other things, once we were out of sight. But it turned out the most unlucky feast in Hellas, worse than that one in Kalydon after the boar-hunt.

  All began well. Pirithoos had found himself just the right girl: some great lord’s daughter, and a Lapith of the Lapiths, one who like her mother before her would put up with a roving man. The Palace was crammed to the doors with food and wine and guests. The Lapiths are great hosts. As well as the hall for the kings and lords and warriors, the whole courtyard was set out with tables for the grooms, tenants and peasants; and beyond, under the trees, were more tables still. Pirithoos told me these were for the Kentaurs.

  When I stared, he said, “Why not? I promised Old Handy I’d do my best for them, and I’ve kept my word. I let no one hunt them for sport, nor steal their ponies, nor burn their honey-heath; if they’re caught sneaking a lamb or kid, I give them a proper trial—the farmers used to nail them up on trees, to scare the rest. And they’ve done their part, better than I ever looked for. They’re like horses, they feel a friend. Last month, they gave me warning of a cattle-raid; came right down into the plain to do it! Such a thing was never known in Thessaly. I owe them a dinner; and they’ll have a good one, for I know their likes; I should. Meat; an extra cartload of raw bones, which they like cracking for the marrow; and mare’s milk fermented with honey. I’ve stored that over there, for the smell makes most people vomit. Out here, there’ll be no fear of the wine going their way. Wine sends them mad.”

  On the wedding day, I rode with Pirithoos as his groomsman in the bridal car, bringing home the bride, a great train of mounted Lapiths following. It was a fine sight, winding down from her father’s castle and through the plain. The peasants cheered; the Kentaurs joined in with a tuneless howl that would have made the horses bolt, if any but Lapiths had had hold of them. Then we settled down to the feasting. Doing my groomsman’s duty, I went about to see that all was going well, and found the Kentaur feast flourishing under the shady trees, though, as Pirithoos had said, a queasy sight. Only one corner had decorum. There Old Handy sat, served by his boys. I daresay they had taught him something, but he had taught them more. I would not have known them, washed and combed and gold-decked as they were, but they were all at the wedding, and there were never less than two or three about him, leaving their kindred to do him courtesy in the stink of the Kentaur feast.

  In Thessaly the women sit apart at festivals; but I could see Hippolyta by the bride. She had put on woman’s dress, knowing Pirithoos would like it, and none could match her beauty. But so it always seemed to me.

  Besides my servants, I had brought as my body-page a youth called Menestheus. He came of the royal kin, a son of my father’s cousin Peteus, who had died in exile during the wars for the kingdom. I saw no need to visit these old troubles on the lad, especially as there had been no love lost between him and his father, by all accounts an overbearing man. So I gave Menestheus a place at court, and found him useful; he was quick-minded, and did not need telling twice. If he had a fault, it was to run ahead of what was wanted; he had been overmuch corrected, and was fond of showing where others had fallen short. But officiousness always looks easier to train than dullness.

  Just now he was serving tables, with the other youths of good blood. But when I had sat down to my meat, a boy came to my shoulder, and bent down and said quietly, “Did you know, my lord, that your page is giving Old Handy wine?”

  For all his sleek hair and embroidered short-drawers, he was brown as old wood, and he had used the clucking Kentaur name; so I went out quickly. Sure enough, Menestheus with his jug was standing before Old Handy. One of the boys who was servi
ng him with meat had got behind his shoulder to signal “No”; but Menestheus missed it, or did not heed.

  Old Handy’s head came forward; I saw his nostrils twitch at the sweet strange scent. But his wisdom stayed him, or else he trusted his boys. He turned his head aside, and pushed the jug away from him; a gesture as simple as a beast’s, yet, as he made it, somehow kingly. One of the boys grabbed Menestheus’ arm, and showed him I was beckoning. But he had to pass the Kentaur benches, and they had smelled the wine. Presently one made a long arm and snatched the jug; then two were scuffling, pulling it to and fro and swigging by turns.

  Menestheus came up, still not much put out. I was angry by now, remembering I had given him Pirithoos’ warning, and asked him what he meant by it. He looked righteous, and said, “I thought, sir, they were failing in respect to him. First he is put outside; then they keep the wine from him, which all the Palace clerks are getting. He is their tutor, even if he is a Kentaur.”

  “Tutor?” I said. “He is a king. And he was never under a roof since he was born. His boys know what he is, and love him. That is love. You are in love with your own notions, which is only with yourself. When you are ready to learn before you teach, you will be a man.”

  By now the Kentaurs were licking the jug for lees. They had spilled a good part, so, I thought, there could not be much harm done; and I said nothing to Pirithoos, who was whispering to his bride. The meal was ending, and it would soon be time for the dances.

  The women were getting up. It is a Lapith custom for the bride to make a progress with her train among the guests, who throw flowers and blessings, before the men’s dancing that ends with carrying her away. Evening was coming on, and indoors they were lighting the torches. Hippolyta and I changed smiles as she slipped off; our bridal had not been much like this.

  The music struck up. The women swept round the hall, with pretty children bearing torches, and the bride on her father’s arm. They went out through the doors, and we heard the cheering and songs in the courtyard, going further off. Then the noise changed. It grew loud and ragged; an old man far off shouted in anger, and Pirithoos jumped to his feet. As I followed, I heard a clear voice yell, “Theseus!” It was Hippolyta’s, pitched to carry above a battle.

  The men jumped up in turmoil, and raced for the door. “Wait!” I shouted. “Get yourselves armed!” There were old war-trophies on the walls, and some men who had come a journey had stacked their arms by the door. I took a Lapith battle-ax, and a sword. As we were arming, three or four children came pelting in, their bridal clothes dusty and torn, their screams of terror pulsing as they ran. We had no time to comfort them, but dashed out into the dusk.

  The courtyard was empty, the peasants’ benches overturned. The noise came from beyond the gates. Outside was a scene like the sack of a city; shrieking clawing women thrown down upon the tables among spilled meat and curds, with Kentaurs grabbing and gobbling over them, or growling at one another; the peasants, who had run to help, yelling for help themselves as loud as the women. No shame to them, for Kentaurs have Titan blood, and when they are maddened have two or three men’s strength; one had torn a poor wretch’s arm off. Through all this I ran, shouting my war-cry and Hippolyta’s name; when she answered, it was like black night lifting. Running over bodies writhing or dead, over food and crocks and torches, I found her fighting with a knife from the carver’s table, guarding the bride. The old lord, her father, lay trampled and bloody on the ground before them. Just as a Kentaur got the knife away, I got there in time to split his head. It was so thick, it nearly turned the ax in my hand, and I had trouble to wrench it free. I gave it to Hippolyta, and drew my sword, and we fell to it side by side. Pirithoos set the bride behind him against a tree, and got to work with his long spear. The women’s screams grew less; the war-cries rose, and the great bellows of the Kentaurs.

  I have been in some bloody fights; but this was the bloodiest, and the ghastliest too, for it was neither war nor beast-killing, yet the worst of both. I have forgotten most of it and am glad. But I remember barking my shins on the huge wine-jar which the Kentaurs had sneaked out from the courtyard, smelling their way to it as they do when they raid the folds. And I remember seeing Old Handy. His table was overturned, and he stood before his chair of honor, with a boy in either arm. He had them clasped to his sides, like his own young; his old yellow teeth were bared, defying the rest to touch them, and the hair had lifted on his back. He was roaring to his people in the Kentaur tongue, trying to make them stop. But they were too mad to hear; and as I watched, the boys writhed in his arms, and twisted free, and drawing the little gold daggers from their jewelled belts flew screeching like hawks into the battle. I was busy then for some time; but near the end I looked that way again. Old Handy was standing alone, his hairy arms hanging by his bent knees so that the knuckles almost swept the ground, his head sunk in his shoulders, looking before him. I have heard it said that Kentaurs are too near the earth to weep as men do. But I saw it then.

  At last it was over. The Kentaurs ran howling to the hills, whence later the Lapiths hunted them like wolves. Those that were left fled to the wild back-country, and there are none in Thessaly today.

  As the sound of the chase grew less, we who were guests of the land did what we could for the wounded, and carried in the dead. Those of mankind, I mean; the Lapiths no longer counted Kentaurs as men, and burned them the next day without rites, like murrained cattle. Yet I have thought that in time they might have grown more manlike, from being friends with men, but for this unlucky feast that roused the beast and quenched the man in them. Maybe Old Handy had bred some sons; and no doubt we killed them. He went off with the remnant of his people, to take up the burden of his priesthood on some other mountain; so I cannot tell.

  Hippolyta, all bruised, was inside helping the women, and I was making for the courtyard fountain to get clean, when I met in my way the youth Menestheus, white in the face. There was plenty to do, but he stood there looking sick. I was mired and bloody and plowed with Kentaur claws; I thought of the dead, of the young bride crying on her virgin bed, for her father was unburied, and who would get children on such a luckless night? My wounds smarted at the sight of him. I said, “This is your work, you meddling, smug young know-all. Does it please you still?” And I gave him a clout on the head.

  He gave me one look, and went. I daresay he saw his father once again. Sometimes I have wondered how much good was mixed with his self-conceit, and whether, like the Kentaurs, with a little more trying he might have been changed. I doubt it; it was his nature to believe anything, before he would believe he could be wrong. In any case, I was out of patience. He went off to think his own thoughts, which he ceased to tell me; and when next I knew them, it was too late.

  VI

  WE GOT HOME TO find the boy thriving in Chryse’s care; even in that short time he had been growing. The barons and the commons had not, as I had hoped, forgotten Crete; but that was little, beside some news Pirithoos had given me in Thessaly, which I had to carry alone.

  Far to the north, beyond the Euxine and the Ister, there was a great movement of the peoples. The Endless Plain, at the back of the north wind, is so far from the sea that if you bring an oar there, the folk take it for a winnowing fan; but storms were blowing there, and nations foundering like ships on a lee shore. The southern Thracians had heard it from the northern ones, who had it from the southern Scyths, and they from the Scythians northward, that a people called the Black Cloaks were coming out of the great northeast wastes, and eating the plains before them. What kind of people they were, he could not tell, only that they worshipped no gods but the night and day, and that the fear of them ran before their tufted spears like the cold wind before the rain.

  Pirithoos did not think they would come to the Hellene lands; they were too far, and having great herds moved slowly. “But,” he said, “if they come southwestward, they will push the Scythians south, and those will come down, landless and hungry, as they say our own fathe
rs did. Let’s hope we can hold harder than the Shore Folk who were here before us. If the Black Cloaks move some other way, it may never come. But, Theseus, look; if it does I shall have my hands full. If you want good friends in the bad time, you had better think again of this Cretan marriage. You know I don’t mean to slight your lady; she has more sense than any woman I know, and I swear she never had a wish that could do you harm. She must see it as well as I.”

  Those were his words to me. If he had any with her, I do not know. But one night in Athens, when I was lying awake in bed and thinking of these things, she laid her arm across my breast and said, “Theseus, we are what we are. But you must marry the Cretan.”

  I answered, “We are what we are. And if I give her what you ought to have, you will never have it.”

  “I am a warrior,” she said, “who took you for my king; my honor is in serving yours. Nothing undoes that vow; it is the truth of my heart. So don’t make me a traitor.”

  “And the boy? There is bad blood in the House of Minos. Must I graft on that stock, to pass him by?”

  She lay, silent awhile, then said, “He is in the hand of some god, Theseus. I felt it while I was bearing him; he seemed stronger than I. I think he feels it too. Sometimes I see him listening.”

  So we talked about the child; but she broke off, and said again, “Marry the Cretan, Theseus. Since you were betrothed to her, you have not been there once. Can you trust your governors and the Cretan lords forever? Of course not; and it has been upon your mind.” She always knew my thoughts without telling.