by Mary Renault
I was on my toes to fly at him, but I held my hand. He had lost his head, and it helped me to keep mine. Raising my brows I said, “The mouth is near the heart,” and even his own men laughed. Then I said, “This is my answer, and the Eleusinians are witnesses. You have struck at me with other men’s hands. Come out now, and use your own. Take up your spear and your shield, or, if you like, your sword. But first choose out your share of plunder, and put it aside. If you fall, I swear by Ever-Living Zeus I will not touch one piece of it, gold or bronze or girl. It shall be given out among your men by lot. And with my share the same, so that if I die my men will not be losers. Do you agree?”
He stared. It had come on him quicker than he looked for. Some of the Hellene barons cheered. Pylas moved his hand to quiet them, but it had set off the Companions, and they shouted, “Theseus!” At this all the rest stared; for it was against custom to give the King a name.
Xanthos hearing it cried out, “You young upstart! Attend to your own business that the Goddess chose you for, if you are fit to do it.” To that I answered, “If she chose me, then why have you tried to cut me off out of my term? I call her to uphold my right.” I had not heard the Minyan songs for nothing. I knew what the King must do if he is wronged. “Mother! Goddess! You raised me up, if only for a little while; you promised me glory in return for my length of days. Do not let scorn be put on me, but treat me like your son.”
He saw then that he had no choice. A man does not call on these powers to witness a lie, and all the people knew it.
“Horsetamer,” he said, “we have suffered you long enough. You have set yourself above your fate, and become an offense to the gods. They will punish us, if we do not stop your insolence. I accept your challenge, and the terms. Choose your prize, and if you fall your men shall share it. As for the weapons, let them be spears.”
We chose our shares. I saw my boys laughing at his unwonted modesty. He did not want his men’s wishes fighting for me. I took what I thought fair, not more or less. But it is the custom for Kerkyon to choose a woman first of all. His time is short, and the pleasure a man has had cannot be taken from him.
I went over to the captives, who had been stood up to be seen. There was a girl of about fifteen, tall and slender, with long pale hair falling about her face. I took her by the hand, and led her out. I had seen her eyes shining through her hair in the firelight; but now she looked down, and her hand was cold. Though there was no chance of her being a maiden, I thought of my mother setting out for the grove. I said to Xanthos, “If I die, see she is given to one man, and not made common sport of; we have got whores enough. She is a king’s handmaid now; so treat her so.”
We took our oaths before Pylas and the host, calling to witness the River, and the Daughters of Night. Then all men drew back, leaving a great space between the fires; and we took up our spears and shields. Pylas stood up, and said, “Begin.”
I knew I should be slow; I was tired from the battle, and my wounds were stiffening; but it was the same for him. We circled once or twice, feinting with our spears. Beyond us I saw a great wall of faces red with firelight, floating on darkness and swaying with the fight. They were always in the tail of my eye, though I never looked at them; I remember nothing else so clearly.
I lunged at him, but he turned it aside; and I caught a thrust of his on my shield, but could not hold it long enough to get through his guard. We circled again, and gave each other glancing wounds, I on his shoulder, he on my knee. I had borrowed a long shield with a waist, because it was light; his was straight-sided, the kind they call man-covering. I wondered if he was fresh enough for the weight.
We circled and lunged, and the faces swung like a curtain in the wind. All this while, I was making up my mind to part with my spear. A throw is a gamble with one’s life; it is suddener than a thrust and harder to parry; but if it fails, you are left with a three-foot sword against a seven-foot spear. Then you will be lucky to come well out of it.
I watched his eyes, which were like carnelians in the firelight, and let him see my side. He was quick, and nearly had me. I sprang back as if to save myself, and threw up my shield to mask my arm, and in the same moment threw. He must have known the trick; up went his shield and the spear blade pierced it. I had thrown so hard that half the blade went through the double bullhide, and stuck fast. He could not free the shield, and had to throw it away. But he had his spear still, against my sword.
He came for me, stabbing quickly here and there, and I turned the point with my shield or with my sword, which harmed the edge; but I could not hurt him, because he was out of sword-reach, and he was driving me backward. Something struck the earth close behind me, with a thud like a stone’s. It happened again, and I thought, “They are turning from me at the last. I was always a stranger here.” Then as I fell back further, I saw what it was: a spear point-downward, with the shaft ready to my hand. There were three of them, here and there around me.
I stuck my sword into the ground, for want of time to sheathe it, and snatched one up. Xanthos looked at me in bitter anger; no one had tossed a shield to him. He was getting ready to throw, so I threw first. It sank between his ribs, and he dropped his spear, and fell. As his helmet rolled away, his long red hair tumbled unbound about him; and I knew where I had seen such hair before.
His captains came round him, and one asked whether to draw the spear out, for he was in pain. He said, “My soul will go with it. Bring Kerkyon here.”
I went over and stood before him. My anger had left me; I saw his hurt was mortal. He said, “The oracle spoke true. You are the chick of the cuckoo, sure enough.” Now at the last he looked puzzled, like a boy. He fingered the spear that stood in his side, with the captain holding the shaft, and said, “Why did they do it? What did they gain?” He meant that they would have got my booty, if I had died. I said to him, “Our ends are written from the beginning, and my time too will come.” He answered bitterly, “But mine is now.” Then I was silent, for it is a thing there is no answer to.
He looked long in my face. Presently I said, “How do you want to be buried, and what shall we put in the tomb with you?” He stared and said, “Do you mean to bury me, then?” “Yes,” I said, “why not? I have taken my due; the gods hate a man who exceeds. Say what you want done.” I thought he had paused to think; but when he spoke he only said, “Men cannot fight the Immortals. Pull out the spear.” So the captain drew it forth, and his soul went with it.
I had his body washed by the women, and laid on a bier, with a guard against the beasts of prey. Of what he had on I kept only his two swords; he had fought well, and was of the royal kin. His share was portioned as we had agreed, and his men saluted me, when their lots were given them. After that we feasted. Pylas left early, because of his wound, and I did not stay drinking late; I wanted to take my chosen girl to bed, before my bruises stiffened again.
I found her good, and gently bred. A pirate had caught her on the shores of Kos, when she was gathering agate stones for a necklace, and sold her in Corinth. Philona was her name. My wounds had stopped bleeding, but she would not lie down till she had dressed them. This was the first girl I had had of my own, and I thought I ought to show her from the beginning who was master; but in the end I let her have her way. Because of a promise I made her that night, I have still got her about my household, and have never lent her to a guest without her consent. Both her two eldest sons are mine, Itheus the shipmaster, and Engenes, who commands the Palace Guard.
BOOK THREE
ATHENS
1
SO I RODE A SECOND time down the Isthmus Road to Eleusis, and the people stood on the roofs to see; but this time, not in silence.
I put the Companions to lead the march, and rode myself at the head of the men’s army. The King of Megara had given me a riding horse, as a gift of honor. The Guard showed their trophies, and stepped out to the flutes, and sang. Behind us came the wagons of the spoil, the women and the herded cattle. Our tread was muffled in gree
n boughs and flowers, flung down to us from the rooftops. At the hour when a man’s shadow is twice as long as a man, we came to the ramp of the Citadel; and the Guard divided, to let me ride in first.
As I rode under the gate-tower black with people, the gates groaned open, and the watchman blew his horn. The flags of the Great Court stretched before me, and between the high walls my horse-hoofs echoed. Upon the roof, the Palace people were thick as winter bees; but they were quiet; no bright cloths hung from the windows. There was only a deep slanting sunlight; the toothed shadow of the roof-edge, clogged with shadows of heads; and on the broad steps between the painted columns, a woman in a wide stiff skirt and purple diadem, tall and un-moving, throwing like a column a long stiff shadow in the sun.
I dismounted at the stair foot, and they led my horse away. She stood waiting, putting no foot down the steps toward me. I went up till I stood before her, and saw her face like painted ivory, set with eyes of dark carnelian. On her shoulders, combed and plaited with threads of silver and gold, hung the red hair I had seen mixed with blood and dust upon the earth of the Isthmus.
I took her cold hand, and leaned toward her with the kiss of greeting, for the people to see. But I did not touch her with my lips; I would not add affront to the blood between us. My mouth brushed the hair of her forehead, and she uttered a set phrase of welcome, and we walked into the Palace side by side.
When we were in the Hall, I said, “We must speak together alone. Let us go up; we can be quiet there.” She looked at me and I said, “Don’t be afraid. I know what is fitting.”
The bedchamber was in shadow, except for a sunset shaft against one wall. Some embroidery in white and purple was laced upon a stand, and a lyre with gold bands lay in the window. Against the wall stood the great bed, with its spread of civet and purple.
“Madam,” I said, “you know I have killed your brother. Do you know why?”
She answered in a voice as empty as the shore, “Who can give the lie to you, now he is dead?”
“What is the punishment,” I said, “for killing the King out of season?” I saw her lip whiten under her teeth. “Yet I killed him in battle, and have brought him back for burial, because I would not dishonor your kin. His men do not think I wronged him. As you see, they let me lead them home.”
She said, “What am I, then? The captive of your spear?” Now anger warmed the paint upon her cheeks; I saw her gilt-tipped breasts rise and fall. Yet at her words, my mind turned from her to the girl Philona, the leavings of a pirate and a thief, who had never lain with a man much better than a beast, and was ignorant of all gentleness but what I taught her. She had waked me from my first sleep with weeping, begging me not to sell her or pass her on.
“As always, Madam,” I said, “you are the Queen.”
“But now you are King, Hellene? Is that it?” I thought that for a woman in mourning, more gravity and less sharpness would have been seemly; but it was not for me to say it. The last sunlight on the wall had turned rose-red; and in the wicker cage the white bird was making its feathers warm for sleep.
“There will be time later,” I said, “to speak of that. Now I have blood on my hands you cannot cleanse me of, nor would it become me to ask it of you. When I am free of it, I will come back, and give the blood-price to his children.”
In the falling dark she stared at me and said, “Back? From where?”
“From Athens,” I said, hardly believing I could name it at last. “People say there is a temple of the Mother on the Citadel, and a shrine of Apollo with a holy spring. So I can be blood-cleansed both by the Sky Gods and the gods below. I shall ask the King to cleanse me.”
There was a bracelet on her wrist, of a coiled gold snake. She tugged at it and said, “Athens now! Have you not done enough at Megara? Now you want to be hearth-friend of an Erechthid. A fine house to wash you clean! You had best take your water with you.”
I had expected a different kind of anger from her. You would have thought I had put some slight on her, rather than killed her kinsman. “Don’t you know,” she said, “that his grandfather sacked Eleusis, killed the King untimely, and forced the Queen? Ever since then the Erechthids have lain under the Mother’s curse. Why do you think Aigeus had to build her a shrine on his Acropolis, and send here for a priestess? And it will be a long while yet before he washes the curse away. That is the man you want to cleanse you! Wait till your young men, who think so much of you, hear where you are taking them!”
“A suppliant does not come with warriors. I shall go to Athens alone.” She tugged again at the bracelet. She looked like a woman pulled two ways at once. “She is angry,” I thought, “that I am going. Yet she wants to have me gone.” She said, “I know nothing of this Apollo. When do you go?”
“When my courier brings his answer. Perhaps in two days, perhaps tomorrow.” “Tomorrow!” she cried. “You came here at sunset, and the sun is not yet down.” I answered, “The sooner away, the sooner returning.”
She paced to the window, then back to me. I smelt the scent of her hair, and remembered how it had been to desire her. Then she turned to me like the cat who shows her sharp teeth and curled tongue. “You are a bold boy, Hellene. Aren’t you afraid to put yourself into the hand of Aigeus, now he has seen what kind of neighbor you mean to be? He has fought for his slab of rock and his few fields between the mountains, like a wolf for its den; he has grown lean in war with his own kindred. Will you trust such a man, whom you never saw?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why not? The suppliant is sacred.”
The last dull stain of light was quenched upon the wall; the hills were gray, only the highest peak was flushed like the breast of a maiden. The bird’s feathers were as soft as wool, and its head was all hidden. As I looked to where already over Athens the night was falling, one of the Palace women came in softly, and turned back the great bed.
I was shocked at such unseemly folly; but it was not my place to rebuke it. I turned to the Queen. She looked at me with eyes I could not read, and said to the woman, “You may go.” As she left, I said to her, “Make me a bed in the east room. I shall sleep there till I am blood-cleansed.” The girl’s eyes opened, as if I had said something unheard-of; then she covered her mouth with her hand, and ran out of the room. I said, “That is a fool, and impudent too. You would do better to sell her.”
I shall never understand the Shore Folk. I had meant no slight to her household; I spoke quite civilly. I was amazed to see what offense she had taken at my words. She clenched her hands, and her teeth showed between her lips. “Go, then! Go to Aigeus the Accursed! Like to like.” She laughed; but my mind was in Athens already. “Yes, go to him, you who want to be greater than your fate. And when the reckoning comes, remember that you chose it.”
“Let Zeus judge me,” I said, “who can see everything.” Then I went out.
First thing next day I called for a pen and Egyptian paper. It was a year or two since I had written anything; so I practiced first on wax, in case I had lost the skill, or forgotten some of the characters. Not that there were secrets in my letter; but I wanted my first words to my father to be my own and not a scribe’s. I found the knack came back, and I could still write the fair hand my tutor had beaten into me. I signed it Kerkyon, and sealed it with the King’s ring; and sat listening to the courier’s hoofbeats fading on the Athens road.
It is only a two-hour ride, and all that day I looked for him. Though I had given my father no cause for making haste, yet, being young, I ate my heart out with impatience, and no reason for delay was too far-fetched for me to think of. But next day’s noon had passed before the man returned.
On the Lower Terrace was a black basalt seat, between pillars hung with yellow jasmine. Here I went apart, and opened the letter. It was shorter than mine, written in a good clerkly script. He welcomed me to Athens as his guest, touched on my victories, and agreed to undertake my purification.
After a while, I called someone to fetch the courier. I think it was i
n my mind, as it had been many times with this man or that since I came to Eleusis, to ask him what kind of man the King of Athens was. Yet now as always, there seemed something unworthy in it. So I only asked, as one asks any courier, for the news.
He recited to me various matters, which I forget, and then said, “Everyone is saying the Priestess will soon be Queen.”
I sat up, and said, “How is that?”
“Well, my lord, the curse has lain hard on him. Kinfolk claiming his kingdom, no son by either wife, and the Cretans won’t forgo the tribute for all his asking.” I asked what tribute. “Fourteen bull-dancers, due again next year, my lord. And they only take the cream. The ladies of the shrine say it’s a sign for him.” He paused, as if something stuck in his throat.
“This Priestess,” I said. “She came from Eleusis?”
“She served here, my lord, in the sanctuary. But she came first from some shrine up north, right beyond the Hellespont. They say she has the long sight, and can call the wind; the common folk in Athens call her the Cunning One, or the Scythian Witch. He lay with her before the Goddess a long while back, because of an oracle she had when the kingdom had some misfortune. They say the next thing will be that he must raise her up beside him, and bring the old customs back.” I saw why he had looked askance at me. He went on quickly. “Well, my lord, but you know what Athenians are for talk. More like it’s because of the two sons she’s had by him, he having no heir.”
I stood up from the basalt seat, and said, “You have leave to go.”
He scampered off into cover. I paced up and down the terrace in the yellow autumn sunlight, and saw people who had come to speak with me go away silent. But presently my mind grew cooler. I thought, “I sent the man off too shortly. I ought to reward him rather; a timely warning is divine. As for my father, what right have I to be angry? These eighteen years he has taken no wife, for my mother’s sake and mine. I should have been here sooner, if I had lifted the stone.” The sun was still high, the shadow short before me. I thought, “The man who sleeps on a warning does not deserve one. Why wait till tomorrow? I will go today.”
