The Bull from the Sea

by Mary Renault

  “And then?” I said.

  “When you threw me and got my sword, that was a death to me. I woke all empty. I thought, ‘She has given me out of Her hand, though I kept Her laws. Now I am nothing.’”

  “That is the way of it, when you hold out your hand to fate. I felt the same on the ship going to Crete.”

  She made me tell her about the bull ring; we did not speak of the dagger in the wall. I knew she had been torn in two, and the wound not healed yet. But a little while after, she said to me, “On Maiden Crag, if a Moon Maid goes with a man she must leap down the cliff side. That is the law.”

  I answered, “Maiden Crag is far away, but the man is near.”

  “Come nearer.” We leaned our shoulders together, and wished the light away; there is not much chance, in a war-fleet, to be alone.

  It was still like this with us when the ships reached Thessaly. As we rode along the river path towards Pirithoos’ Palace, he edged up his horse to mine. “Well, Theseus. This seems a good dream you’re having, though it never troubled sleep of mine. You will have to wake up when you get back to Athens; so you had better borrow my hunting-lodge, and dream a little longer. Look, you can see the roof, below that shoulder of the mountain.”

  So I shipped home my men, all but my body-servant and a guard of eight. Half a month we stayed where the forest thins and the high woods are open, in a Lapith house of logs with a painted doorway. There was a table of pine-wood, sleeked with hand-rubbing; a round stone hearth with a bronze fire-basket, for the cold upland nights; and a carved red bed, whose bearskins we would throw down at evening before the fire. Pirithoos sent up a groom and huntsman, and an old woman to cook. We would find errands for all these people, to be alone.

  We slept as much as nightingales. We would be up at the dark of dawn to eat bread dipped in wine, and ride into the hills as the stars were paling. Sometimes on the lonely tops we would see startled Kentaurs shambling away from us; we would make them the sign of peace we had learned from Pirithoos, and they would pause to stare under their low heavy brows, or point us where there was game; then we would leave them a hunk of meat in payment. When we had fed our household we killed no more, but would give the gods their portion, mine to Apollo and hers to Artemis; that is how the custom of the double offering started, which you will find now in all my kingdoms. After this, we would sit on a rock or in an open glade as the sun grew warm, learning each other’s language, or hushing to make the little birds and beasts come near us; watching the horse-herds like swarms of ants on the plain below; sleeping sometimes, to make up for the night; or locked in love, knowing nothing beyond ourselves but some leaf or snail-shell on the ground next to our eyes.

  She liked the great Thessalian horses, which she had only known by hearsay, and was soon as bold on them as a Lapith boy; but up in the high hills we used the little Kentaur ponies with eyes in their feet, such as she had known at home. She had been only nine years old when they offered her to the Goddess. Her father was the chief of a tribe inland from Kolchis, a mountain people; as long as she could remember, she had known her parents had vowed to dedicate her, if they should be given a son. Since they had paid their pledge she had never seen them, and they were growing dim to her; she remembered best about her father how he darkened the doorway as he stooped to come in. But her mother she saw always lying in bed with the newborn boy, while she herself watched silent, seeing the joy and knowing they did not grudge the price. They had sent her to the precinct in the foothills, where the little girls were trained and toughened like boys, till they were of age to bear arms. “Once,” she said, “the Warrior Priestess found me crying. I thought she would beat me; she used to beat the cowards. But she took me laughing in her arms, and said I should live to be a better man than my brother. That was the last time I cried, till the other day.”

  Once I asked her what became of the Maidens when they grew old. She said that some became seers and gave oracles; the rest could serve if they liked at the shrine of Artemis down in the plain; but often they chose to die. Sometimes they leaped from the Crag; but mostly they killed themselves in the sacred trance, as they danced the Mystery. “So would I have done. I had made up my mind I would never live to wither and stiffen and be dead alive. But I don’t dread it now, because we shall be together.” She did not ask, like other women, if I would love her still.

  Once a Kentaur came to us with a gift of wild honey—that is all they have to give—and begged us with signs to kill a beast that was taking their children. While we beat the coverts for a wolf, I heard a furious snarling; running over I found her with a full-grown leopard on her spear. Before I could help her, she cried out, “No! He is mine!” as fierce as the beast itself. It was a hard thing, to let her be; she knew it after, and was sorry, but full of her triumph all the same. Yet she could whistle birds to her hand, and would bring all manner of creatures into the house: a pecked pigeon, and a fox-cub she fed till the vixen came for it. It bit me, but she could handle it like a pup.

  She was always after me to teach her wrestling. To tease her I said for some time it was my mystery. But at last I laughed and said, “Well, then, find somewhere to fall soft. For I won’t have you grazed and bruised all over, and that, my girl, is the price of taking a man.”

  We found a dip in the pine wood, drifted full of needles, and went at it properly, stripped to the waist. She was as quick as I, and as strong as it needs if you are quick enough. Neither of us could surprise the other, we knew each other’s minds too well; but she learned quickly, and liked the sport, saying it was like the play of lions.

  She had given me a fall, but I had brought her down with me; we rolled on the springy pine-mat, in no haste to rise again, when she stopped laughing and pulled away and said, “A man is watching.”

  I looked up. There coughing and stroking his beard was a baron of Athens, whom I had left as a judge when I sailed away.

  I got up and went over, wondering what bad news could have made him come so far himself, instead of sending a courier. A rising in Megara? The Pallantids landing by sea? As he greeted me, I saw him fidgeting and looking down his nose. I knew then, and said, “Well?”

  He brought out some tale, rehearsed beforehand, of this and that; matters a few spearmen could have settled, or he himself in judgment. He said some ship or other had brought a rumor I was sick. But I could see through his shuffling well enough. The warriors had been talking. Oh, yes; Theseus had been himself on the voyage out; he had sacked Kolchis, and filled their hands with spoil; all had been well till the Amazon had worked her Scythian magic on him, stealing the soul from his breast in return for her charm against weapons; then he had left the fleet as a hound-pack leader goes off on the trail of a wolf-bitch at full moon, to run mad with her in the forest.

  It was beneath me to read his thoughts aloud to him. I said that since no one in Athens could deal even with trifles while I was gone, I would come myself and see to them. I saw there was no choice; playtime was over. If hearsay got about and crossed the borders, some enemy might see his chance; then these fools would have bred the thing they feared.

  I turned to speak to her; but she was gone, without my hearing a footfall. So it was then, and often after; if she thought herself a hindrance to me, she would be off like a deer in covert. She would come back as quietly, saying nothing of it, from love and pride.

  My dry-nurse had not come alone. Up at the house there were three more like him, waiting to see what I had turned into since I was bewitched. The best of them—I think he had really had some fear for me—gave me a tablet tied with cord. It was from Amyntor, whom I had left in command of the army when I sailed off. So he could do as he chose; and had chosen to write his message in Old Cretan. It is used in the rites of the bull-dance, and by the native serfs; you must go to Crete to learn it. I saw by the glum faces they had all had a look inside. After the greetings, the message said, “There is nothing here your spearmen cannot take care of, till you wish to come. I saw your heart, sir,
in the Bull Court, but fate was not ready. We, who remember, will have a welcome for the fair and brave.”

  After we got back he had married Chryse, the best of the bull-girls; so he understood. But things must have gone far enough, if he thought this message needed.

  I called a servant to bring wine. I suppose they had thought to stay the night in my house, before they saw it. Their eyes crept round all four walls, lingering on the bed. I was growing weary of them. “I will not keep you now,” I said. “The track is dangerous in the evening mists. I want a message taken to the Head Steward of Athens; send a runner if no ship is leaving. I want the Queen’s rooms opened up, which were closed in my father’s day; cleaned, painted and made handsome. I want to find them ready.”

  There was a pause. They did not look at one another; I saw to it that they did not dare. But their thoughts spun between them like cobwebs in a breeze.

  “You came by ship,” I said. “Is it fit for me to sail in?” Indeed, they said, it was well prepared. “The Lady Hippolyta is coming with me. She was a royal priestess in her land, and will be treated as befits her. You have leave to go.”

  They laid fist on breast, and started backing out. In the doorway they took root, blinking; and the lesser ones edged behind the greater. The chief of them, who had found us in the wood, seemed to have words stuck in his throat like a fishbone. I waited, tapping my fingers on my belt. At last it came. “By your favor, my lord. The ship for the Cretan tribute is at Piraeus, waiting to sail. Have you any commands? Some message?”

  He had not the face to hold my eye. I was getting angry.

  “You have got already,” I said, “my message for the runner. There is nothing in Crete that will not wait.”

  IV

  ALL PEOPLES HAVE THEIR time-marks. In Athens they will say, “It was while we still paid Minos tribute,” or, “In the year of the bull.” But sometimes in my presence they check and pause, and count by the feasts of Athene or the Isthmian Games. They do not say, “In the time of the Amazon,” though all Athens says it. Do they think I shall forget?

  It was ripe autumn, the turning of the grapes, when I brought her home. We would stand on the Palace roof, while I showed her the villages and great estates; then she would point to some peak of Parnes or Hymettos, and say, “Let us go there!” I took her, whenever I could. She was not used to sitting indoors, and would get into mischief, meaning no harm; running up to me in the council chamber with two couple of great wolfhounds, which knocked the old men over and trod in the clerks’ wet clay; getting some rich baron’s daughter to strip and wrestle with her, so that the mother, finding them at it, screamed and swooned; clambering in the beams of the Great Hall to get her hawk; and so on. I once overheard my chief steward call her a young savage. But he was so frightened when he saw me, that I was content and did no more to him. I was too happy to be cruel.

  They had made the Queen’s rooms fine again; but she only used them to dress and bathe. It was in mine she liked to be, even when I was not there. Our arms hung up together on one wall, our spears stood in one corner. Even the deerhound I gave her, a tall bitch from Sparta, mated with Aktis as soon as it was grown.

  Against her coming they had laid out a treasure of jewels and clothes, embroidered bodices and gold-hung flounces. She walked up to them softly, like a deer smelling a trap, wrinkled her brows, drew back, and looked at me. I laughed, and gave her the jewels to play with—she loved clear bright things—and let go the clothes to the Palace women. Hers I had made by my own craftsman, in her own style, but richer. The kidskin was Sidonian dyed, the laces were plaited gold tagged with agate or crystal, the buttons lapis, or Hyperborean amber. For her caps, I got the one thing fine enough to put against her hair: the silk that comes a year’s journey before it reaches Babylon, woven with flying serpents and unknown flowers.

  As I had promised, I gave her arms: a shield with her leopard crest, a cheek-flap helm plated with silver and plumed with sheet-gold ribbons that glittered when she moved. I had brought her a Scythian bow from the Hellespont; and she used to come with me to the smithy to watch the making of her sword. It was the best one made in my time in Athens. The center rib had a line of ships let into blue enamel, in memory of our meeting; the pommel was made of a green stone from the silk country, like clouded water, carved with magic signs; the golden handgrip of the hilt was beaten into lilies. I taught her myself to use it. She used to say it handled like a living limb. Often at evening I would see her lay it across her knee, and run her fingers over the work to feel its fineness. Her hands lie on it still.

  The Cretan ship had sailed, with no message from me. Sometimes I was sorry, as one would be for forgetting a child’s name day. But Phaedra was leaving childhood, and it would be crueller still, I thought, to let her think I would soon be coming. “There is time enough,” I would say to myself; though for what, I did not know.

  As the people saw it, there was one more woman in my house, a captive of my spear, who had caught my fancy above the rest. Kings marry notwithstanding, and get an heir. Only I knew, and she who never thought to question it, that I could never watch another woman walk in front of her.

  The Palace girls guessed, however, finding me so changed, who had never before kept to one alone. I had brought them all gifts from Kolchis, and gave them leave, if they were lonely, to go with my guests of honor. Those with growing children of mine, for whom they still hoped favor, took it well; but I saw some looks that I did not like. A great house must have women, who are as much its wealth as corn and cattle; there must be proper service; besides, they are the signs of victory. But I told Hippolyta, if she had any trouble, to bring it straight to me.

  She said nothing, so I thought no harm, till one evening I came in as she dressed, and she said to me, “Theseus, must I undo my hair?”

  “What need?” I said, smiling and catching her eye across the maid; I used to undo it in bed. She answered, “This gift of yours will need it.”

  She lifted it in her hands: a heavy golden diadem, crusted with gold flowers, with a shower of gold chains on either side to mingle with the hair. She was going to put it on, when I jumped forward and caught her wrist, and called out, “Stop!”

  She put it down jingling, and looked at me surprised. I said, “I did not send this. Let me see it.” I put out my hand; but it drew back as if from a snake. There was no doubt what it was. Someone had brought out the crown of the witch Medea. She had worn it when I had seen her first, sitting by my father in the Hall.

  Hippolyta, too, sat there at my right hand; perhaps in the very chair. She would have worn this for my sake before all the barons, if I had not come in time. It broke my night’s sleep; I would reach over to feel if she was breathing. In the morning, I sifted the matter out.

  The treasurer owned to me, since there was no help for it, who had coaxed him for a peep inside the strongroom. He was no worse than a doting fool, and had served my father, so I only took his office from him. Then I sent for the woman.

  While I walked up and down, Hippolyta came in. I heard her behind me, but would not turn. I was angry with her for keeping her mouth shut. Any woman can tell when another hates her; she might have been poisoned, instead of this. The truth was, of course, that she had felt herself a victor; it was beneath her to trample on the fallen. I heard her breathe hard behind me, and a clink of bronze. Trying to harden my heart, and keep a rebuking back to her, I could not help a quick look over my shoulder. She was dressed for battle down to her shield.

  Our eyes met. She was as angry as I.

  “They say you have sent for her here.” I nodded. “Her, without me?”

  “What is this?” I asked. “Have you not seen enough of her? If you had done as I said, it would have been better every way.”

  “Ah! You own it! And what did you mean to do, then, fighting my quarrel? Tell me that.”

  “Fighting? You forget, I am the King. I shall do judgment. Go now; we will talk afterwards.”

  She came up in t
wo strides, and looked at me eye to eye. “You meant to kill her!” she said.

  “It is a quick death, off the Rock,” I said, “and better than she has earned. Now go as I asked, and let me deal.”

  “You would have killed her!” Her eyes flashed, and narrowed like a lynx’s. Even when we were hand to hand at Maiden Crag, I had not seen her like this. “What am I? A peasant wife, one of your bath-girls? It was the same when I killed my leopard! Oh, yes, I remember; I had to shout or you would have had that too. And you swore not to dishonor me!”

  “Dishonor you? Not to stand by and see you wronged, is that dishonor? I warned you against letting things come to this. You would not heed; and who is the better for your pride?”

  “I am, if you are not! Did you think I would come creeping to you like a slave-girl, telling tales? Have I never been taught honor, or the law of arms? I know what calls for a challenge, as well as you do. Yes, and if you had been any other, I would have had your blood too, for this.”

  I nearly laughed; but some voice said danger. If she lost her head and defied me, she was too proud to draw back; and who could tell the end of it? But, I thought, if I give in first will she not despise me? We stood at stretch, fizzing like cats upon a wall. I don’t know what would have come next, if we had not heard outside the Guard bringing the woman. That brought back my wits.

  “Very well,” I said. “I give her to you. But remember, after, it was you who asked.”

  I went and sat apart, in the window. But the woman, when they brought her in, ran straight past Hippolyta, fell down clasping my knees, and wailed excuses. She blamed it all on the treasurer, who had loved her, poor fool.

  “Get up,” I said. “I have nothing to do here. The Lady Hippolyta can right her wrongs without help from me. Attend to her; there she is.”

  I looked across. She was sickened already by this grovelling; she could not meet my eye. But she stood her ground, showed the weapons (ax, spear and javelin, as I remember) and offered her enemy first choice.