by Mary Renault
She paused long, to reprove me. Then she beckoned us down the steps. We stood in the pit before her, while the bull-cries beat on our ears. Then she spoke in Cretan, words of a ritual, and made a sign. The priest swung up the ax, and struck, and the blood spurted like a fountain into the libation bowl. The roaring choked and fell silent, and the head lolled down.
A priestess brought a long rod with a tuft upon the end, and held it for her hand. But she put it away, and said in Greek, “You are to be made clean for the gods below. Is there any one of you who has shed the blood of a kinsman? Speak truly. There is a death-curse on him who lies.”
While she spoke Cretan she had been all goddess; but on the Greek she stumbled once, and I heard a human voice. The priestesses had turned to look, as if the ritual were broken.
I stepped forward and said, “I have. Lately I killed some of my cousins, three with my own hand. My father’s brother died too, though I did not kill him myself.”
She nodded, and said something to the priestesses. Then she said to me, “Come out, then. You must be cleansed apart.” She motioned me toward the altar where the bull’s blood was draining down. Now I was quite near her, and saw within the painted brows a down of soft hair. The place was thick with the hot stink of blood; yet now I thought, “Goddess-on-Earth she may be; but she has the scent of a woman.” A little shudder stabbed me through, and my heart quickened.
She said, speaking precisely as if each word were a grain of gold she was counting out, “For what cause did you kill these men? In a brawl? Or to pay a blood-debt?” I shook my head and said, “No, in war, defending my father’s kingdom.” She asked, “And is he the lawful King?” Her hair was fine and dark, with a soft burnish on it; a curling lock had fallen down over her breast; I could see tiny creases in the gilded nipple. I remembered where we were, and took a step back from her, and said “Yes.” She nodded gravely; but I saw the lock rise and fall again, and my blood sang in my ears.
Presently she said coolly, word by word, “And you were born in his house, of one of his women?” I looked her in the face. She did not look down; but her eyelids quivered. “My mother is the Lady of Troizen,” I said, “daughter of King Pittheus by Klymene his queen. I am Theseus son of Aigeus son of Pandion, Shepherd of Athens.”
She stood as straight and stiff as the image in the sanctuary; but a little disk of gold in her diadem caught the light as it trembled. “Then,” she said, “why are you here?” I answered, “I made the offering for the people’s sake. I had the sign.”
For a little there was silence, and I waited. Then she said in a light quick voice, “You may be cleansed of this blood, because you saved your father’s.”
The priestess offered her the rod again, but she turned away and dipped her finger in the steaming blood-bowl, and made on my breast the signs of the trident and the dove. I felt the blood warm and sticky, and with it her finger-tip, smooth and cool. The touch went right through me. I resolved not to look at her; it is dangerous to strip a goddess, even in thought. Then I looked. But she was looking at the water-bowl they held her to rinse her fingers.
Presently she made a gesture, as if impatient, and the priestesses led me aside. Then she took the rod of aspersion, and dipped the tuft in the blood and sprinkled the Cranes with it, and uttered an invocation. Then she went straight to the steps. When she picked up her skirt to climb them, I saw her little feet, arched and slender, and softly rouged on the toes and heel. All the great ladies of the Labyrinth go barefoot. They never go outside, unless they are carried.
Once more we threaded the House of the Ax. Sometimes we saw a painting we had passed before, then turned aside and were lost again. But at last we came to a passage that ended in a great door, all studded with bronze nails. The young man tapped with his dagger hilt; a guard opened it, and let us in, and made us wait. The passage went on beyond; and at the far end was the sound of voices echoing in a lofty hall. The voices were many, and all young.
Presently there came a man about forty years old, by his looks half Cretan and half Hellene; a wiry man with a short dark beard, who had something of a horse-master or charioteer. The young man said, “Here is the new batch, Aktor. To train as a team. That is the order.”
The man looked us over with a narrow black eye. Here was another who sized us up like horses. But this was no buyer. This man would do the work. He snorted and said, “It’s true, then? He took them all?” and looked again. “All one team?” he said. “What is he about? Am I not to give them a leader? And the Corinthian, what am I to do with him?” The young man shrugged (it is a gesture Cretans are fond of) and said, “That is my message. Ask the patron.” He went away.
The door clanged shut behind us. The man looked us over again, frowning to himself, and whistling through his teeth. He made no difference between girls and boys. When he got to me he said, “You’re old for this game. How did you get here? You’ve a beard coming.” And then, before I could answer, “Well, you’re built for it, we shall see, we shall see. We must make what we can of what we get, with patrons teaching us our business.” He muttered on to himself, like a groom currying a horse; then said suddenly, “There is the Bull Court. Practice is over; you will be eating soon.” He jerked his thumb and was gone.
I had thought we should get some account at last of what we were to do. But we were only raw colts being turned into the horse field. I walked down the passage, the Cranes behind me. At the doorway, the noise came to meet us.
We were in a great hall, whose roof stood on cedar pillars; it was lit from high windows under the eaves. The blank walls were plastered white, and covered all over with chalked scribbles and drawings. Boys and girls were everywhere; calling and quarrelling and laughing, chasing each other, playing leapfrog, throwing balls, gossiping in twos and threes, a few moping alone; youths and maidens of every color man was made in, white and black and brown and golden, all naked but for their little loin-guards of colored leather, and their beads or jewels. The high walls threw back a dozen tongues, and as many kinds of broken Greek, which seemed their common language. Right in the midst of the hall was a great piebald bull. It stood stock-still, though two boys sat on its back and a girl was swinging on one horn. I was astonished, and went nearer.
A girl saw us first. She had a Phoenician face, hook-nosed and olive-skinned; her mouth was painted, and her loin-guard embroidered in blue and gold. She was slender, but her muscles rippled like a young wrestler’s. She stared a moment; then put two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly, so that the hall echoed. The shouting stopped. Everyone turned to look, and I saw a scuffle round the bull. It bellowed, and its head swung round toward us. Nephele screamed.
“Be quiet,” I said. I had seen the expectant looks, and knew we were being somehow baited. The bull came no nearer, only bawled and swung its horns. Going toward it, I heard creaking within, and smothered laughter. A thin dark lad tumbled out grinning through a hole in its belly. It was carved in wood, with a bullhide stretched over, and horns of gilded bronze. Its feet were fixed to a low slab of oak-wood, with bronze wheels set in.
A crowd gathered round us, staring, and throwing questions, which we could not understand because they spoke bad Greek and all at once. Some fingered the blood-sign on my breast, and pointed and called to others. On the back of the wooden bull there was one rider left, sitting at ease. Now balanced on his fingertips, he vaulted down and landed before me. He went beautifully through the air, as if he were flying.
He was slight, and smaller than I; a Minyan, with some Hellene blood. He stood poised on the balls of his feet, like a dancer, then took a step back and looked us over. I had never seen such a youth as this. At first sight he could have been a mountebank. But his heavy gold necklaces, his arm-rings of jeweller’s work, the gems on his glittering belt and loin-guard, were not gilded shams; he was wearing a prince’s ransom. His light-brown hair hung down in long curled tresses, groomed as sleek as a girl’s, and his eyes were painted. But with all this frippery,
he was like a young panther, lean and spare and hard. A thick red scar, like a long burn, curved round the ribs on his right side.
He cocked his head sideways, shaking his crystal earrings and showing his white teeth. “Well!” he said. “So here are the gay Athenians, who danced all the way to Crete. Come, dance for us now, we’re all impatience.”
There was malice in his laughter. Yet it did not anger me. To me he was as a priest, who would show me a mystery. I felt I had been in this place before, that my soul remembered it; that it had been woven into my moira before I was born.
I answered him simply, “None of us are dancers, except Helike here. But we danced to show we belonged together.”
“So?” he said, arching his brows at me. “And whose was that notion; yours?” I answered, “We planned it together, when we were in council.” He raised his brows again, and then walked round us, staring at each in turn. Many had stared at us that day; but this one saw us. I felt as if a fine sharp blade pricked me over, searching for flaws. When he got to Nephele, he peered at her with a quirking smile, then chucked her under the chin saying, “Think nothing of it, darling; you will do when you have to.” Chryse he found staring wide-eyed at a tall girl with a turquoise necklace, who held her hands and whispered in her ear. “Calf stealer!” he said, slapping the girl’s buttock, “give her time to look about.” Melantho snatched Chryse away, and stood with an arm around her. The youth laughed, and strolled back to me.
“Well,” he said, “sure enough you are all together. Do you know you’re the first team to be given a green leader?”
I said surprised, “How did you know? The trainer himself has only just heard it.” He gave a light scornful laugh. “He! He never knows anything unless we tell him. All Palace news comes to us first; bull-dancers go everywhere.” A boy near by said slyly, “You do, we know,” but he took no notice. “When I heard you were to lead instead of me, I made sure the Minotaur wanted you dead. But now I wonder.”
I said, “I daresay he does. There is a quarrel between us.”
“A—!” He took a standing jump straight up in the air, flinging back his head in a great laugh, and slapping his thigh so that all his jewels tinkled. “Oh, I shall like you, Athenian; yes, I must after all. Is it true you threw his signet in the sea? What odds are they laying on you, do you know?”
I was beginning to get the air of this place. It stirred me like strong wine.
“Don’t know your odds yet?” he said. “You must keep your wits about you here. What is your name?” I told him all our names, and asked his own. He said, “In the Bull Court, they call me the Corinthian.”
“Why?” I asked. “Are you the only one from Corinth?” He answered lightly, “I am now.”
I understood then his flourish and his load of jewels, and why when he talked no one broke in. Once, far away, I had wanted to be a warrior; to be a king. Now it was forgotten; only one ambition burned me. No one I have told this to at home has understood it, not even Pirithoos, my nearest friend. As the saying is, only those the snake has bitten can tell each other how it feels.
“The trainer thought,” I said, “that you were going to lead us.” It seemed to me my ignorant meddling had done the Cranes nothing but harm.
He looked in my face, cocking one eyebrow. He had an eye that stripped one’s courage to the bone. Then he shrugged his shoulders in the Cretan way, making his earrings dance and catch the light. “Oh, he knows nothing. I told you so. He wants me laid off to train with a new team, because he’s bet on me for three months more. The man’s a fool. Your bull knows your name before he is calved; that’s what we say in the Bull Court.”
“It is moira,” I answered, understanding him. “Does everyone here belong to Asterion?” He clicked his tongue. “Belong! One might take you for a peasant. He is a patron like any other. Only he is rich enough now, it seems, to dedicate a team, instead of this dancer or that. It has made talk. Only the King has done it before. My lord holds his head very high these days. But you did not get in here, you Athenians, without being purified? I suppose you are Sky God folk; still, you should have learned by that whom we all belong to.”
I said, “To the Earth-Shaker?” Then I paused, and said as carelessly as I could, “Or to the Goddess-on-Earth?”
He said, “Oh, I suppose to both, by the custom here. But you’ll not see her again, except at the bull-dance. She is Ariadne the Most Holy, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. You’ll only see her in her shrine. Otherwise no one sees her, any more than they do the King.”
Just then someone shouted in Greek that the food was ready. The trestle was set at the end of the hall, and the dancers were racing over. I saw our talk must end; it would be presumption in me to sit beside him. Whatever he was at home in Corinth, a shepherd or a sailor-boy for all I knew, here he was a great prince and I was nothing. Already I did not find this strange.
The food was simple, but plenty and very good. Indeed, after the house of Minos had been served, the pick of everything went to the Bull Court. Bull-dancers lived well in Knossos; as well as the King Horse in the year he goes to the god.
4
WE LIVED IN THE Bull Court: a city sealed in a palace, and a life sealed in with death. Yet it is a proud city, and a strong fierce life. A man once in it is of it till he dies. So I, who have gray beginning in my beard, still say “it is,” as if the Bull Court stood and I might yet go back to it.
Though the beginners trained apart, learning the first things of the dance, handsprings and somersaults and tumblers’ skills, all bull-dancers lived and ate together in the Bull Court till after supper, when the guardian priestess fetched the girls away. For the men there were ways into the Palace precincts, all of them winked at. We had the run of the Palace after dark, if we kept clear of the gates and walls. No runaway had ever passed them. It was said too that there was a curse on the attempt, and that your next bull after always killed you. Apart from that, bull-dancers went everywhere, as the Corinthian had said; though it was such a warren that lovers and mistresses would always send a servant for a guide. But the girls were locked in at night and watched all day. Their maidenhood was closely kept.
At first I thought it would be enough to drive one mad, playing about all day with girls near naked, and never to have one. But soon I learned one need never be short of a woman in the Labyrinth. As for the girls, they made do with one another, so old a custom that no one questioned it. But there were some who were all virgin, right through to the heart. They had given themselves to the bull-dance, and lived for it awake or asleep.
From the time of lamplighting, our lives were secrets from one another. But in the Bull Court we were comrades, men and girls, and sharers in a mystery, and craftsmen bound by our craft; often enough we were only hands to hold off death from one another, that and no more. Yet we were young, and made of the same stuff as other creatures Mother Dia brings forth into the light. Always drawn between us was a tight-wound lute-string that never snapped, yet never slackened; and, brushed or breathed upon, filled the air between with its secret sound. Many a time, when I have been with some Cretan lady, flounced and pinned and scented and crimp-haired, whose bed one could hardly get to for paint-pots and mirrors and toilet-stands all round it, I would fall asleep after on my pallet in the Bull Court, and embrace in dreams a waist like green willow, or wrestle a love-fall against strong slender limbs naked and cool and ringed with gold.
Never in the House of the Ax was this dream made flesh for me. Not till years after, when the Bull Court was far behind me and had ceased to be, did I meet such a girl again and have her for mine. After I had ceased to seek her, only then I found her, riding in her Scythian trousers bareback among the spears. Though she was taller than the girls of the Bull Court, yet she was fine-boned, and light to carry. Twice I have carried her off a battlefield in my two arms. Even the second time, though the dead weigh heavier than the living.
I have seen her hold a leopard alone upon her spear. But me she never harmed
after that javelin wound when first I took her, which I am glad to carry since it is all of her I have. Then, and once more unknowing, when she gave me a son six feet and three fingers high. But the Maiden Goddess, whom she had served in arms, and the gods below were good to her; before she could see the end, they closed her eyes with darkness.
But all this was still unspun upon the distaff. If I had known, perhaps it would have pulled me by the foot, and one day the bull would have been faster. Or maybe not. For your own bull will always have you, he is born knowing your name. So we all said in the Bull Court.
When we had finished beginners’ lessons, we could do a handspring, and somersault forward or back, and some of us could run at the vaulting-horse and swing ourselves over straight-standing on our hands. Iros and I could do it every time, Chryse quite often, and sometimes even Nephele. The Corinthian had judged her shrewdly. Her finicking was a show put on for men; she had deceived even herself with it, but when in the Bull Court she found it not admired, no girl in the team was tougher. As for Helike, the trainer saw at once that she knew it all, and sent her off to practice with the bull-leapers on the wooden bull.
From anywhere in the Bull Court, you could see the Bull of Daidalos. It was called so after its first deviser, though since then every part of it had been renewed a dozen times, save for the fine bronze horns worn smooth with unnumbered hand-grips. Everyone said the horns were Daidalos’ own handiwork. There was a perch in the hollow body, between the shoulders, where the trainer’s boy would sit to work the levers which made the head swing or toss. We would dance and sway out of the way, while Aktor shouted, “No! No! Move as if he was your lover! You lead him on, you give him the slip, you make him sweat for you; but it’s a love-affair and the whole world knows it.” It was the youths he thus exhorted, rather than the girls; for this was Crete.
Every day, in those first weeks, I looked for Asterion to send for me, and give me my punishment. But he never came, and I was treated like all the others.
