The King Must Die

by Mary Renault

  When I had given her the news alone, I called the Cranes together, and swore them all to silence, and told them the plan. “It is the secret of the Cranes,” I said. “It is too soon to tell the others. Someone will talk, out of so many. As for friends and lovers in the Labyrinth, we will spare them when we strike; but till then our oath must bind us. Meantime, we must find a place to hide arms in, when we can get them. We have the girls too to arm.”

  I looked about the Bull Court. It seemed barer than a field; we had only our little bundles. Then Melantho said, “In our rooms we could hide them easily. It is an old rambling warren, all holes and corners and loose boards. Only the outer doors are guarded.” I said, “That will do for your own weapons, but not for ours. Ten to one we shall have to break out at night, and force your gate after.” There was a silence. Then Hippon looked at me under his lashes. “Theseus. If we wanted the girls let out at night, I think I could get in there.”

  We all stared at him. He turned to Thebe, and whispered to her, and they went off together. He was gone some time and talking we forgot him. Then Thebe appeared, not in her bull dress but her Athenian clothes. “What has she done,” I thought, “to look so pretty? That’s not Thebe at all.” The girl came up, looking under her eyelids, and hugging a shawl about her breast. It was Hippon. He had repaid our patience, after all. Everyone knew he had picked the post of danger. Then Iros said, “But wait, my dears, till you have seen me!”

  This promised something. I knew by now that only men were kept from visiting the girls. There were many Palace ladies who came calling after dark, with a bribe for the guard and a gift for the priestess. Our spirits lifted.

  I had one great fear, that hope might keep us too much at stretch, and we would dance the worse for it. I felt I could not bear to lose one of my people now, when it might be the last watch before dawn.

  If one wore a loose necklace into the ring, one always made a weak link of thread in it, in case it caught on the horn. That was old custom; but now I made the Cranes do the same with their belts, under the clasp. This was after I had seen a Median tossed by his belt and killed. Many dancers copied this device; but, as it happened, I was the first to test it. I had slipped by Herakles very close, and felt him hook me. My belt held a moment, and I thought I was finished; then it gave way. Scrambling off without much grace, but none the worse beyond a nick in my side, I felt my loin-guard about my foot, kicked it away, and stood in the ring stark naked.

  All round the stands, the people had been yelling and groaning and screaming, thinking to see me killed at last. Now their tune changed; there came from the men a shout of laughter, from the women flutterings and little squeals. Menesthes and Pylia meanwhile had drawn the bull, and Chryse was leaping him. But the people had seen all that before, and I had all their eyes. If one Cretan was in the stands, there must have been fifteen thousand.

  I had given no thought to this beforehand; but now I felt hot all over, trapped in the open till the end of the dance. I even missed the bull turning my way, till Nephele called my name. She drew him off, and Amyntor and I had to look after her, which made me forget myself; but when there was time again, I was angry with the Cretans. Anger is bad in the ring. It showed me my folly.

  “What!” I thought. “A slave made my garment; but All-Knowing Zeus made me. Shall I be ashamed before these foolish Earthlings, who think he dies each year; I who am a Hellene?”

  So I ran round to face the bull, and danced with him to keep him in doubt of me; when I had fooled him cross-eyed I did the leap with the half-somersault, and vaulted off my hands; the people stopped laughing, and cheered instead. Soon he started sulking, then turned and plodded off; the dance was over, and I went to face the ribald Bull Court. I suppose I only remember this foolish trifle, because of what happened just after.

  Next evening a slave brought me a token scribbled on clay, bidding me to a feast with a young lord whom I knew. After dark I bathed and dressed. (There are running conduits everywhere about the Labyrinth; no water needs to be carried in. They even have some to carry night-soil away, so that one need not go out to the midden.) As I passed along a colonnade, a woman slipped out from behind a column, and touched my arm, and said, “Telephos has no feast tonight.”

  Her head was covered with a mantle; but I saw she was gray and bowed with age. “He has just bidden me,” I said. “Is he sick, then, or in mourning?” She answered, “He did not send. Follow me; I will show you where to go.”

  I drew back from her hand. I had had enough already of such fooleries, which ended all the same way, with a woman one did not want. Sometimes all they wanted themselves was to be even with a rival. The place was sticky with such intrigues. I said, “If he did not send, I will go and sleep. But I will ask him first.”

  “Hush!” she said. I peered at her in the dimness. She had not the look nor sound of a bawd; not even of a servant. She had gray Hellene eyes, and the bones of breeding; and when I looked, I saw she was afraid.

  It puzzled me. The bookmakers stood to win if the bull should kill me; but bets did not cover a death outside the ring. I could not think of any husbands I had cuckolded who would take it beyond hard looks; in the Labyrinth they were mostly used to it. And I kept clear of jealous women. Yet I had the feel of danger; danger and something more. There were secrets here; I was young; it would have tormented me to go away now unknowing. “What do you want of me,” I said. “Tell me the truth, and I will see.”

  “I can tell you nothing,” she said. “But I will take an oath, for myself and for those who sent me, that no harm is meant you, and none will come if you do as you are told.” “A pig in a poke. Is it something against my honor?” She answered with an edge, though quietly still, “No, indeed! More honor than you are worthy of.” And then, turning her face away, “It is no choice of mine that brings me.”

  For sure, she was neither bawd nor chambermaid. She sounded more like the head of a great household. “Let us hear this oath,” I said.

  She pattered it off, in the old Cretan of the rituals; and then it came to me that she was a priestess. The oath was heavy, so I said, “Lead on.” She took from her arm a cloak she had been carrying, and said, “Wear this. You are too gaudy; you catch the light.”

  I put it on, and she made me keep ten paces behind her. She scuttled along like an old rabbit in a warren; presently reaching a little lamp from a bracket, she led me into places I had never seen, through smithies and carpenters’ shops and kitchens and stinking midden-yards. At last we entered a store piled up with firewood, and she let me overtake her. We sidled between the stacks; behind them was a cleared space, and a wooden trapdoor. She pointed to its ring in silence. Certainly, she had never been a servant.

  It had been freshly oiled, and opened silently. There were wooden steps below, and a far dim lamplight shining through them. They went down deep. There were smells of grain and oil and wax, and a cold smell of earth.

  I went down a few steps, and looked round below me, and saw great store jars standing, taller than men. The clay was worked in handles all about them, so that they could be moved; in the half dark these looked like ears and fingers. I waited for my guide; she leant down, and spoke in my ear. “Go to that column there, beyond the grain jars. A thread is tied about it. Take the thread in your hand, and follow where it leads you. Keep hold of it, and you will not come to harm. If you stray into the treasure vaults, the guards will kill you.”

  “Why are you leaving me?” I said, and took her wrist to keep her. I did not like it; it had a smell of treachery and ambush. She said proudly and angrily, “You have my oath. Neither I nor those who sent me are used to be forsworn. Let be; you hurt me: you had best be more civil, where you are going.” Her anger rang true, and I set her free. She said, with a bitterness aimed beyond me, “Here my errand ends; to know the rest does not concern me. So I am commanded.”

  I went down the steps, and heard the trap close softly. Around me every way stretched the vaults of the Labyrinth; long
pillared passages lined with bins, or shelves for jars and boxes; crooked hooks full of clay-sealed vases with painted sides; tunnels with bays set back for casks and chests; a maze of dim caves, stoppered with darkness. A great gray cat leaped past me, something fell clattering, and a rat gave its furious death-squeal.

  I went round the grain jars, of which each could have held two “men standing, and found the pillar. It had a ledge with a little lamp, a twist of wick in a scoop of clay. Joined to the dressed stone was an offering bowl, smelling of old blood. Black stains with feathers stuck in them ran down to the floor and a shallow drain. It was one of those master-pillars of the house, at which the Cretans offer sacrifice, to strengthen them when the Earth Bull shakes the ground.

  The thin cord round it had been tied there lately, for it was clean of blood. When I picked up the slack from the pavement, a house snake went whipping into its pierced clay pot, not a yard from my hand. I started back with gooseflesh on my arms; but I had the cord, and followed it.

  It led winding through dark narrow storerooms, smelling of wine and oil, of figs and spices. Every so often, at a turn, there would hang on the black dark a little seed of light, from such a lamp as the first, beckoning the way rather than showing it. As I groped round a pillar, a strange harsh cry, low down, made my hair rise. In the moist floor an old well smelled dankly; a great frog sat on its coping, pale as a corpse. Then the way narrowed, and either side I touched rough stone walls, where creeping things scurried from my fingers. And as I paused, I heard from within the wall a muffled beating, uneven like a heart in terror; when I laid my ear upon the stone, faint and deep a voice was cursing and shouting, calling for light, and upon the gods. But only a few feet on I could hear it no more; the prison must have been a good way off.

  Next I found a great place full of crooked shadows, where old furniture was stored, lamp-stands and vases. A long arm of it stretched away into the dark; but peering down it, I could just see piles of dusty shields and spears. Then I was sorry I had not marked my way; and working out a flake from the nearest pillar, I scratched on it the trident sign of Poseidon. After that I marked each one I passed.

  From there the thread led into a passage all in darkness, where I could only feel my way along the walls. My face tickled with cobwebs, and a rat ran over my foot. I thought of snakes, and trod delicately. This passage sloped upward, and the air felt warmer. At the end was another lamp, and a great room of archives: shelves of scrolls rustling with mice; moldy rolls of ancient leather; bundles of palm leaves inked with faded signs; chests and baskets full of clay tokens and tablets. The dust made me sneeze, and the mice went scampering.

  Then after a narrow place again there was a light. I came into a long chamber that was a storehouse for sacred things. There were tripods and bowls, anointing vases with wide bases and narrow necks; libation cups with breasts sculpted on their sides; sacred axes and masks and knives of sacrifice; and a great stack of dolls with jointed limbs. The thread wound about, round piles of incense-stands, and emblems on long poles, and a gilded death-car such as princes are wheeled on into their tombs. It passed a tall press, bulging open with women’s vestments, gold-crusted and smelling of cassia. Then there were stone steps leading upward, and a door ajar. The end of the thread was tied to its handle.

  I pushed the door, which opened without a whisper. Now there was tall space all about me, and a clean floor below. I smelled scented oil, beeswax, incense, spiced wine, and burnished bronze. A great shape reared before me, dark against glimmering lamplight; the back of a woman ten feet high, standing on a plinth and crowned with a diadem. It was the Goddess of the great sanctuary, where the nobles had bid for our dedication when first we came. But now I stood behind her, in the hidden place.

  Then I saw that within her shadow another stood, smaller and darker. It was a woman, wrapped head to heel in a long black robe. Nothing showed but her eyes. They were Cretan eyes, dark and long, with thick lashes and soft brows, and the forehead above them was smooth as cream. More I could not see, neither her shape nor her hair, for the robe she was folded in covered everything; only that she seemed slender-waisted, and was not very tall. I closed the door on the thread behind me, and came in. My borrowed cloak was filthy with dust and cobwebs. I dropped it, and stood waiting.

  She made a little gesture to call me nearer, just slipping her finger-tips out of the robe. I approached to within two paces of her; then I could tell by her eyelids she was young. But she did not speak, only drew the robe about her so that it hid even her fingers. So I said, “I am here. Who sent for me?”

  She spoke at last, but without dropping the robe from before her mouth, so that her voice came small and muffled; yet it had a clearness, as a blade has though it is sheathed. “Are you Theseus, the bull-dancer from Athens?”

  I thought it strange she should not know me; all Knossos goes to the dance. “If you doubt that,” I answered, “I cannot prove it.” But her eyelids trembled, and were young; so I said, “Yes, I am Theseus. Who wants me, and why?”

  “I am a priestess,” she said. “I serve the Goddess-on-Earth. She sent me here to question you.” Then she let the robe slip down from her face. I saw it was made delicately, unpainted, and very pale. Her nose was straight and fine, and her mouth seemed small because the eyes were so dark and wide. When she had unveiled her head, she paused, looking at me, and pressing herself back against the base of the statue. I waited, and then said, “Yes?”

  I saw the tip of her tongue move across her lips. The old woman, too, had been afraid. Yet I could not believe that here in the holiest place anyone would murder me. Nothing seemed sense. I saw the robe moving, where her fingers twisted within.

  “It is a heavy matter,” she said, “touching impiety. The Goddess says you must be questioned.” There was a tight bunching in the robe, where she had clutched it up. “You must answer, on pain of cursing. We have heard that the High Priestess of Eleusis chose you King of the Year; that after you had married her, you roused the people against her, and put her to death; that you have maimed the Mother’s worship and profaned the Mystery. Are these things true?”

  “Only,” I said, “that I am King of Eleusis. The Goddess chose me, or so I was told. And it was the last year’s King I killed, according to the custom, not the Queen.”

  She wrapped the robe tighter, so that it showed her crossed arms. “What is that custom? How did you kill him?” I said, “With my hands, at wrestling.” She gazed at me with big eyes, then only nodded. I said, “I was away in the border land, when the House Snake stung the Queen. She took it as a sign of the Mother’s anger, and went away. I do not even know if she is dead; I will swear, if you like, that I did not kill her.”

  She looked down at her hidden hands. “Did you grieve? Was she very dear to you?” I shook my head. “She had tried three times to have me killed, once by my own father’s hand unknowing. She deserved to die. But I left her to the Goddess.” She paused, then said still looking down, “Why was she angry? Had you been with someone else?”

  “Only in war,” I said, “as happens everywhere. No, it was not for that; she thought I would change the custom. And so I did; I come of a house of kings. But I never profaned the Mystery. The people were content, or they would have killed me themselves.”

  She said after a pause, “And you will swear all this is true?”

  I answered, “What oath shall I take? I have told you, as it is, on pain of cursing.” Her lips parted, and shut quickly. I thought, “She had forgotten that. She is a priestess, yes; but what else?”

  “That is true,” she said. “You need not swear.” Then she was silent again. I saw the cloth stirring over her hands.

  “What now?” I thought. “And if all this is so heavy, why not an older priestess? It is not common, to trust such things to girls.”

  She stood in thought, twisting and untwisting a fold of the robe. I said, “I have been with the bulls three seasons. If the god is angry, or the Goddess, they have not far to re
ach for me.

  She said again, “That is true.” I saw her lick her lips and swallow hard. “Perhaps the Mother has some other thing in mind for you.”

  I thought, “Now for the truth,” and waited. When no more came, I said, “It may be so. Has she sent you some omen?”

  She opened her mouth; but only breath came out of it. Her breast rose and fell within her arms. “What is it?” I asked, and came a little nearer.

  Suddenly she spoke in a little high voice, swift and breathless. “I am here to question you. You must not question me. We must know these things in the sanctuary; that is all. That is why we sent for you.”

  “I have answered,” I said, “as well as I can. Am I to go back the way I came? Or can I walk across the courtyard?” And I bent down for my cloak; but I was watching her.

  “Wait,” she said. “You have not leave to go.” I dropped the cloak again; I had only wanted to get some sense from her. While I waited I saw that her hair was fine, waving of itself, with a silky burnish. There was a small waist in the close-drawn robe; and they must be tender breasts, which her arms cradled so softly. “Come, speak,” I said to her. “I shall not eat you.”

  A lock of hair, which fell down within her robe, went suddenly straight as if the end were being pulled. “I was to ask you,” she said, “to ask you for the Goddess, that is, for the records of the sanctuary …” She stopped, and I said, “Yes, what?” Her eyelids blinked, and she said faster than ever, “We have no account of the Mother’s rite in Athens. What is the ceremony, how many priestesses take part, how many girls? What victims are offered? Tell me from the beginning, and leave nothing out.”

  I stared at her surprised. At last I said, “But, Lady, there are six girls in the Bull Court, all Athenian born, who know the ritual. Any one of them could tell you, better than a man.”

  She began to speak, then bit it off in the middle. Suddenly her face, which had been so pale, was as pink as the morning mountains. I strode toward her, and rested my hands on the plinth either side of her shoulders, to keep her where she was. “What game is this? Why ask me things to no purpose? You are keeping me here—for what? Is it an ambush? Are my people being harmed while I am gone? No more lies now; I will have the truth.”