The King Must Die

by Mary Renault

  At this, everyone began to walk into the water. Those who wore white robes kept them on; many stripped naked, both women and men, but all was done with deep solemnity, and they kept their lit torches in their hands. The night was calm; the sea seemed sown with a thousand points of fire, every flame with its rippling image.

  She led me forward till the water lapped my breast, and held her torch high for them all to see me. I was there to be cleansed of blood; they, I suppose, washed off ill-luck, and death. I was young, and had killed a man whose beard had grown; though it was the earth magic had put him in my hand, I felt my victory. Also I was going to the Queen; and with darkness came desire.

  In Salamis, across the strait, lamps burned in the houses. I thought of home, of my kindred, and of Kalauria across the water. Everything here was strange except the sea, which had carried my father to my mother. I loosed my girdle, and pulled off my robe, and gave it to the priestess. She stared surprised; but I plunged in and swam beyond all the people, far into the strait. Behind me the torches were a fiery surf along the shore, and above were the stars.

  For a while I was quiet, floating on the sea. Then I said, “Blue-Haired Poseidon, Earth-Shaker, Horse Father! You are the lord of the Goddess. If I served your altar well in Troizen, if you were there at my begetting, lead me on toward my moira; be my friend in this land of women.”

  I turned to swim back, head over heels in the water. As it rushed in my ears, I heard the pulse of the sea-surge, and thought, “Yes, he remembers me.” So I swam back to the torches, and there was the chief priestess, waving her light about and crying, “Where is the King?” for all the world like some old nurse when the children get too big for her. That, I suppose, was what made me swim up under water, and bob out laughing right under her nose, so that she jumped and nearly doused her torch. I half expected a box on the ear. But she only eyed me muttering in the Minyan speech, and shook her head.

  Walking back in my wet robe, it was strange to feel my wounds fresh-smarting from the salt, for it seemed a year since the wrestling. As for all the people, you might have supposed King Kerkyon had never been. But as I looked beyond the wrestling ground, where the precinct was lit with cressets, I saw beside the rock-cleft the woman who had wept for him, face down on the bare stone, her torn hair flung about her, still as the dead. Some women on the steps were calling out, upbraiding her. Presently they ran down clucking, and pulled her to her feet and led her up to the Palace.

  At the sanctuary-house I was dried and oiled and combed again; then they brought me a tunic of embroidered work, a necklace of gold sunflowers, and the King’s ring. The Goddess was carved upon the gold, with women worshipping her, and a youth done small. I had a cut on my cheekbone, where Kerkyon’s fist had driven it into my face.

  When I was ready, I asked for my sword. They said staring that I should have no need of that. “So I should hope,” I said. “But since I am going to my wife’s house and not she to mine, it is proper to bring it with me.” This they made no sense of. I could not say it was my father’s; but when I said “My mother gave it me,” they fetched it at once. Earthlings inherit everything from their mothers, even their names.

  Outside was a guard of young men singing, and musicians. They led me not to the Palace, but to the precinct below. The song was in Minyan, but the bawdy clowning told the story. One expects some fooling when they bring the bridegroom, but there is measure in everything. Besides, I thought, I knew what I was about, and had no need of teachers.

  The song changed to a hymn. I got to know it after. It is the Corn Song of those parts, about how a whole ear springs where a grain was sown, through Mother Dia, from whose womb comes everything. Then they sang the Queen’s praises, hailing her as Kore, which is her unforbidden name. Presently we came to steps going into the ground. At once the song ceased, and all was silence. The priestess put out her torch, and took my hand.

  She led me down into darkness, and on through a winding way, and up a little. Then the walls opened to a space, and there was the scent of a woman. I remembered it on the Queen when I walked with her, heavy like asphodel. The priestess let go of me; I heard her fading footfalls and her hand brushing the walls. I stripped and dropped my clothes behind me, keeping only my sword in my left hand. Then I went forward, and felt a bed. I propped the sword against it, and reached out and found her. She slid her hands up my arms, then downward from my shoulders; and what I had learned with the Troizen girls seemed nothing, like the games of children before they understand.

  Suddenly she cried out like a virgin. There was a clash of cymbals and blare of horns. Torchlight blinded me; I heard a thousand voices laughing and cheering. Then I saw we were in a cavern whose mouth had been closed with doors; the people had been waiting outside, to see them opened.

  For a moment I was too stunned to move. Then anger lit in me like a mountain fire in summer. I snatched my sword, and shouted, and ran forward. But amid shrieks and squeals I found myself entangled in women, who, if you please, had been standing foremost to see the sight. Everyone was calling out and exclaiming, as if I were the first man they had ever known to resent such a thing. I shall never, till I die, understand Earthlings.

  I flung the women off, and crashed the doors together. Then I strode back to the bed and stood over it. “You barefaced bitch!” I said. “You deserve to die. Have you no shame for yourself, no respect for my honor? Could you not have lent me some man of your house to keep the door for me, seeing I brought no friend? Or have you no kinsmen to see decency? Where I come from, the meanest peasant on the folk-land would have blood for this. Am I a dog?”

  I heard her quick breathing in the dark, which seemed blacker after the torchlight. “What is it?” she said. “Have you gone mad? There is always the Showing.”

  I was struck dumb. Not only with Kerkyon, but with the gods knew how many men before, she had shown herself to the people. There was music outside, a wild air on flutes and lyres, with drums beating like blood in the ears. She said, “It is over now. Come here.” I heard her move on the bed. “No,” I said; “I have drunk poison; you have shamed my manhood.” The scent of her hair came close, and I felt her hand on my neck. “What has the Mother done to me,” she whispered, “sending me a wild horse-tamer of the Sky Folk, a blue-eyed charioteer without law or custom or respect for anything? Don’t you understand even seedtime and reaping? How can the people trust the harvest, unless they see it sown? We have done what is needful now; they will ask no more of us. Now comes the time when we can please ourselves.”

  Her hand moved down my arm; she laced her fingers in mine, and loosened them from the sword hilt. When she had drawn me near, I forgot that what she knew, dead men had taught her whose bones lay near us under the rock. The drums were quickening their beat, and the flutes shrilled higher at each clash of the cymbals. I learned more in that one night than I had in three whole years from the girls of Troizen.

  2

  WHEN THEY LED US up to the Palace in the fresh morning, and I saw from the upper terrace the glittering sun-path on the sea, I thought to myself, “Only four days out from home, and here I am a King.”

  Nothing is good enough at Eleusis for a new-made King. They drown his days in honey. Gold necklaces, inlaid daggers, tunics of silk from Babylon, rose-oil from Rhodes; the dancers throwing flowers; the bard, lest you should miss the compliment, singing it again in Greek. Young girls sighing; the King is everyone’s beloved. Old women cooing; he is everybody’s son. And among the Companions, the guard of high-born youths who are in the running themselves for King, it seemed too that I was everybody’s brother. I did not notice at first that I was not the eldest brother, but the youngest spoiled by all the rest. I had other things to think of.

  The great bedchamber faced southward. When one waked at morning, one saw in the wide window only the rose-flushed sky; then sitting up, the hills of Attica purpled with daybreak, and the gray landlocked bay. The walls were painted with white spirals and pink flowers, the floor had
red and black checkers. The bed was of Egyptian ebony studded with gold barley-ears, and had a cover of civetskins bordered with dark purple. In a withy cage at the window lived a bird with smooth white feathers color-shot like pearl shell, which whistled at sunrise, and when one looked least for it sometimes spoke. It made me start, and she used to laugh. The earliest sunlight glowed deeply in her hair; strong hair, and springing; when one gathered it up, it filled both hands full.

  I lived all day for the night. Sometimes I fell asleep at noon, and did not wake till evening; then I would not sleep again till dawn. I hardly noticed at the marriage sacrifice how, though I killed the victims, it was the Queen who offered them, as if she were the King. At the Games I won the spear-throwing and the jumping, and a silly horse race with little Minyan ponies. Also I won the archery, though I had thought my eye would be out from going short of sleep.

  There was no wrestling; it seemed that had been settled already. But if you are supposing these were the funeral games of the dead King, you will be wrong; they were held in my honor. He was gone from sight and mind; I have grieved longer for a dog than they did for him. What is more, I was Kerkyon now. It is the style of Kings of Eleusis, like Pharaoh in Egypt and Minos in Crete. So the man had not even left a name behind him.

  Days passed, and the Palace business began again. Down on the plain the army turned out to exercise, throwing spears at the stuffed hog, or shooting at the mark. But this, I found, was not supposed to concern me. It would not answer, for war leaders to come and go, one every year. The troops were led by Xanthos, the Queen’s brother. He was a big man as Minyans go, on whom his sister’s red hair was not beautiful. He had the russet eyes of a fox. There are hot red men and cold red men, and he was one of the cold. He used to speak to me man to boy, which made me angry. Though he could give me a dozen years, I was the King; and I was still new enough in Eleusis to suppose this meant something.

  Every day the Queen held audience. Seeing the Hall filled with women, I did not understand at first that she was doing all the kingdom’s business without me. But the women were heads of families; they came about land disputes, or taxes, or marriage portions. Fathers were nobody in Eleusis, and could not choose wives for their own sons, or leave them a name, let alone property. The men stood at the back till the women had been heard; and if she wanted a man’s advice, she sent for Xanthos.

  One night at bedtime, I asked her if there was nothing in Eleusis for the King to do. She smiled and said, “Oh, yes. Undo this necklace; it is caught in my hair.” I did not move at once, but looked at her. She said, “Why should the King sit at clerk’s business with ugly old men?” Then she let fall her belt and petticoat and said, coming nearer, “See, it is pulling here. It hurts me.” And there was no more talk that night.

  Just afterwards, I learned by chance that she had seen an embassy from Rhodes, and never even told me. I overheard it on the Lower Terrace; the stewards had heard it first. I stood there in my tracks. No one had so insulted me since my childhood. “What does she take me for?” I thought. “Because I have less beard than her fox-eyed brother, does she think I need a nurse? Thunder of Zeus! I killed her husband.” Anger blurred my eyes.

  There were voices about me. The young Companions were escorting me, as they did everywhere. I hardly knew one yet from another; there had been no time. “What is it, Kerkyon? Does something trouble you?” “You look sick.” “No, he looks angry.” “Kerkyon, is there something I can do?”

  I said it was nothing. I had too much pride to say I had been made light of. But when her women had gone that night, I asked her what she meant by it.

  She looked at me amazed. It seemed she really could not see why I was angry. She said she had done nothing against custom; and I saw it was true. As for making light of me … she shook out her hair, and laughed at me through it sidelong.

  Next morning dawned green and gold. A tress of red hair lay tickling on my breast. I lifted it off and slid away, and went to the window. The Attic hills swam in gold mist, across a shimmering sea, looking near enough to hit with an arrow. I thought how strange are the ways of Earthlings, and hard for a Hellene to understand. For she had chosen me, and set me to the wrestling, and hallowed me King. Yet neither she nor anyone else had asked if I consented to my moira.

  The white bird woke and whistled. Her voice from the bed said wide awake, “You are thinking. What are you thinking of?” I made her the answer she liked best. I was the first Hellene she had ever married.

  From this day on, I awoke from dreaming. I had spent the long days of Eleusis in sleep, in dancing or wrestling with the young men, playing the lyre, or looking out to sea. Now I began to seek for occupation. It is not in my nature to do nothing.

  The Companions were nearest to my hand. If there was war, at least I should have command of my own Guard, though Xanthos led the rest. It was time I paid them some attention.

  These youths, as I was saying, never left me, except when I was with the Queen in bed. They were all well set up, well bred and personable, or they would not have been where they were; they were chosen for such things, rather than for feats of arms. I had no need of their protection, for in Eleusis nothing was so dreadful as to kill the King out of his time. After suffering many pains, the killer would be sealed in a tomb alive, for Night’s Daughters to do their will on him. It was long since it had happened, and then by misadventure. But the Companions were an adornment for the King, which the people liked to see about him.

  They all had more or less Greek, which was the mark there of a gentleman. When I began to talk with them, they seemed to me very vain, full of petty jealousies and rivalries, feeling slights as a cat does water, and always trying to put each other down. They were curious about me, because I was a Hellene, and, as I learned after a while, because of some oracle concerning me which had been kept secret from the people. I remembered the dead King’s laughter; but it told one nothing.

  From all I could see, they had done little till now but play at war training. They did not lack spirit, so I suppose most of the kings had not looked beyond their own term. But wherever I am, I must put my hand to what I find there.

  Men soon get stale with courtyard exercise; so I got them into the hills. At first they went unwillingly; Eleusinians are plainsmen, and despise the mountains as poor barren land, fit for wolves and robbers. I asked them whatever they did when raiders came for their cattle, if they did not know the borderland. They took this quite well, and owned the Megarians often made away with stock, trying to make good their losses by the Isthmus bandits the other side. “Well,” I said, “there’s only one answer to that. They must be made to fear us more.” So I took them scrambling; we got a buck, and roasted our kill by a mountain stream, and they were pleased with the day. But on the way home one of them said to me, “Don’t tell anyone, Kerkyon. You would be stopped next time for sure.”

  “Oh?” I said, raising my brows. “Who would stop me, do you think?” There was some whispering; I heard, “Well, you fool, he’s a Hellene.” Then someone said civilly, “You see, it is very unlucky if the King dies out of season.”

  This is quite true. There is a Minyan song about some young King long ago, who got himself killed by a boar after the Queen had forbidden him to go hunting. Anemones are said to be dyed with his blood. The olives failed that year, and no one has ever heard the last of it.

  All the same, we were in the hills again next day, and the day after. Eleusis lies between two Hellene kingdoms; when the youths found their mothers’ rule bear heavy, they would cast an eye sidelong at the lands of men. So they came, and kept the secret, and were pleased with themselves. My trophies of the chase, which I could not show in the Palace, I gave away as prizes; but I had to be careful, or they would quarrel over them, being much given to rivalry. Time passed like this; as we got used to each other’s speech, we had a language of our own, Greek-Minyan laced with our own jokes and catchwords. No one else could understand it.

  One day, when we we
re straggled out on the mountain, I heard them calling to each other, “We have lost Boy!” “Where is Boy, have you seen him?” I climbed into view and someone said, “There he is.”

  I had put up with a good deal in Eleusis; but I did not mean to swallow insolence. I came forward, reminding myself that I passed for nineteen, and the eldest of them was not one and twenty. “The next one who calls me Boy,” I said, “I am going to kill.”

  They all stood gaping. “Well?” I said. “Here we are on the border. Anyone who kills me can run away; or you can throw my body off a rock, if you like, and say I fell. I shan’t hide behind the Goddess’ skirts; but let’s see first who can kill me. Who thinks I am a boy? Come out and say it.”

  There was a pause; then the eldest, a young man called Bias who had a proper beard, said, “But, Kerkyon, no one here would insult you. It is the other way.” More of them joined in, calling, “It is our name for you.” “Kerkyon is nothing; it is cold.” “All the good kings have nicknames.” And one who was always bold and reckless said, laughing, “It’s all in love, Kerkyon. You know you could have any one of us for a wink.” At this two or three shouted out agreeing, between joke and earnest, letting me see it was an offer; and next moment two had started a fight.

  I got them parted, and let it go as foolery. Everyone knows there is a good deal of this among the Minyans; and one cannot wonder. It comes of being tied to their mothers’ petticoats after they are men. Their mothers even choose their wives for them. Then they go to the wife’s house, and change one petticoat for another. When a man lives like this, a youth he can choose for himself, who looks up to him and copies him and boasts of his friendship, will give him more pride in himself than the womenfolk at home. I see no sense in looking down on this; most customs have a reason; even among Hellenes, in a long war where girls are scarce and the leaders are first served, the young men’s friendships grow tenderer than they were.