The King Must Die

by Mary Renault

  He spoke as if he had learned it off. But I had never had word from the King, except through the Goddess. I stared, trying to read him. His Cretan looks, his finery, his foppish ways, all made him doubtful to me, once I began to doubt. I knew nothing of his standing among the warriors. My eyes met his. He took me by the arm, a grip tender to look at but strong and hard. “I have a token for you. Watch out, and take it like a love gift.” He opened his hand saying, “I was to tell you it has been cleansed with fire,” and then, as someone came past us, “Wear it, my dear, and think of me.”

  The ring in his palm was of a pale gold, very old and heavy. The carving was in an antique style, pointed and stiff, but the worn device could still be read: a bull above the shoulders, a man below.

  He slipped it on my hand. Under his warning eye I smiled, turning it this way and that. I had seen it once before. So I leaned on his shoulder, as I had seen youths do in Crete, and whispered, “It is enough. What does he want?” He put his arm around my waist and said, “He did not tell. It is something heavy.” Then he looked past my shoulder and murmured swiftly, “One of Asterion’s people. We mustn’t look too well in together. Quick, give me the slip.” I shrugged him coyly off me, and went away. Though I felt a fool, I had no more doubts of him.

  Down in the vaults, I found the second thread tied ready, and a clay dark-lantern. I had never been this way alone. It is natural, when with a girl, to expect boldness of oneself; but now I found these ancient warrens eerie and awesome, haunted, it seemed, by the dead who had been crushed there when Earth-Shaker was angry. The bats that came winnowing round the light were like souls kept from the River. When at length I came to the Watchman, looking at me under his moldering helmet with the caves of eyes, it was like meeting a comrade; one knew what he was, and that he belonged to a god. I made the sign of propitiation, and it seemed he said to me, “Pass, friend.”

  When I reached the door above; I doused the lantern and stood silent, listening. No one was on the stairway. I shut the door behind me, and saw (for there was a moon this time) how it closed flush with the wall and the painting hid it. There was a little hole to hook one’s finger in, and work the catch. White moonlight fell on the stairs beyond, but the tall throne was in shadow. I trod softly through, and saw faint light under a door. Going up to it I smelled the incense. So I scratched the panel, and his voice bade me enter.

  He sat in his high-backed chair, masked as before, his hands laid on his knees. Yet it was not the same. The room was clear of litter. The incense burned before a stand on which stood some symbol or image. And there was some new thing about him; a stillness, and a power.

  I touched my breast in greeting and said softly, “Sir, I am here.”

  He beckoned me to stand in front of him, where he could see me through the mask. I waited. The air was close and fetid, the smoke stung my eyes. They were heavy for sleep; I remembered that tomorrow was the bull-dance.

  “Theseus,” he said. His muffled voice sounded clearer than before, and deeper. “The time is come. Are you ready?”

  I was troubled, wondering what had miscarried in our plans. “We are, sir, if need be. But the day of the burial would be better.”

  He said, “The day is proper, and the rite. But the beast of sacrifice is not enough. Something is needed of us, Shepherd of Athens; me to suffer it, and you to do it.” He pointed with his bare right hand to the stand behind the smoke. Then I saw the holy thing that stood there. It was a two-headed ax, fixed upright on its shaft in the polished stone.

  I stood still. I had not thought of so solemn a thing as this.

  “The gods can send a sign,” he said, “when our ear hears them no longer. They sent a child to lead me.”

  For a moment I wondered whom he meant. But though Alektryon was three and twenty, he would have known him from his birth.

  The curved crystals of the mask were turned toward me. I looked at the ax wreathed in blue smoke. What he asked was seemly, and good every way. Yet my hand hung down. This was not Eleusis, where I had fought a strong man for my life. I felt myself shiver in the close air. I had thought, “He is old enough to be my father.”

  “These two years now,” he said, “every breath I have drawn has fed my enemy. I have only lived to keep my daughter from him. Not one of the Kindred dared to offer for her; not one dared stand between him and the Gryphon Throne. Now I have found a man, why give him one day longer? Take care of her. She has her mother’s blood; but her heart will rule it.”

  He stood up. He was taller than I by half a head.

  “Come,” he said. I heard a soft laugh within the mask; it made me start like the bats in the vault below. “He has had a good run, our long-horned Minotaur. But he cannot be Minos till the priests have seen my body. And they know who owns the Guard. I wish I might watch his face, when the blood-guilt comes homing back to him. Come, Theseus; nothing is left to stay for. You have the ring already. Labrys is waiting; take her from her bed.”

  I went to the polished stand. The ax was shaped like the one they use in the bull ring. Its haft was bronze worked with serpents; but when I looked at the head, I saw it was of stone, the edges of the blades hand-flaked and ground, the neck drilled for the shaft. Then I raised my fist in homage, knowing that this was Mother Labrys herself, the guardian of the house since the beginning.

  He said, “It is two hundred years since she took a king, but she will remember. She is so old at her trade, she could almost do it alone.”

  I lifted her from her bed. Dark shadows beat about me, like stooping ravens. I answered, “If the god says so. We are only watchdogs, to hold or let go when they call our names. But it is against my heart.”

  “You are young,” he said. “Never let it trouble you. You are breaking my prison.”

  I felt the ax in my hand, and it balanced well. “Speak for me,” I said, “beyond the River, when the Avengers ask whose hand you fell by. If I live I will see your tomb well found with all a king should have; you shall not go hungry or scanted in the paths of darkness under the earth.” He answered, “I will commend you there as my son, if you are good to my child. If not I shall require it of you.”

  “Do not fear,” I said. “She is like my life to me.”

  He knelt before the image of the Earth Motherland turned his back; then he drew off the mask and laid it down before him. His black hair had broad streaks of white, and his neck showed through it like the bark of a dead tree. He said without turning, “Have you room?” I lifted the ax, and said, “Yes, for a man of my height there is room enough.” “Do it, then, when I invoke the Mother.”

  He was a short while silent; then he cried aloud to her in the ancient tongue, and bowed his head. My hand was still unwilling; but it was due to his honor not to keep him waiting. So I swung down the ax, and it came strongly with my arm, as if it knew its business. His head lolled down, and his body sank at my feet. I drew back from it, my flesh shrinking in spite of me. But when I had put Labrys back to lick her chops after her long fast, I turned to him again, and saluted his shade as it started on its journey. His head lay turned toward me; and though it lay in shadow I saw what stopped my breath; he had not the face of a man, but of a lion.

  I ran out through the curtain, and stood panting in the fresh night air. My limbs shuddered and my hands were cold. But in a little, when I could think, I was glad for him. I saw the gods had set upon him a mark of honor, now he had made the offering at the people’s need. Thus they may turn to men at last, after long silence; after blood and death, and the bitter grief for what can never be undone, have closed the listening ear thicker than dust. So may they do at the very end, even with me.

  A flake of moonlight struck the coping of the sunken shrine. I looked about me, and saw against the wall the tall white throne of Minos, with the priests’ benches either side, and, painted behind, the guardian gryphons in a field of lilies. An owl hooted, and somewhere in the Palace an infant cried till its mother stilled it. Then all was silent.

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nbsp; There was danger here, and I should have been gone already; but this place seemed set apart only for me, and for its watching gods, and the ghost waiting for the ferry on the sighing shore. It seemed unworthy of what had passed, that I should scramble off like a thief. I felt he saw me. So I crossed the painted floor and sat in the seat of Minos, laying my hands flat on my knees and my head against the throne-back, sitting upright and thinking my thoughts. At last I heard beyond the doors the voices of the Guard calling their rounds. So I rose up softly, and went back through the dark maze along the path of the thread.

  9

  I WOKE HEAVY-HEADED, with all the teams astir before me. As I fetched my breakfast yawning, I saw Amyntor eying me. Presently he asked how I had slept. I was not used to rebukes from Amyntor. But I remembered how I had gone off last night, and that he was an Eleusinian. “You fool,” I said, “do you think I went courting? I was sent for. Minos is dying. By now he must be dead.” It was best for his own sake he should know no more.

  “Dead?” said Amyntor. He looked about him. “Not yet; hark, no one is wailing.”

  It was true. After the mystery performed in silence and dark night, I had forgotten to wait for clamor. There was no doubt I had dealt a death-blow. Labrys had split his skull. I said, “Well, he is sinking fast; I had it for certain.” Surely, I thought, by now someone has found him.

  “Good,” said Amyntor. “This must bring things to a head. Meanwhile there is the bull-dance; you had best get some more sleep.”

  “I am not tired,” I said, to keep him from fretting; he was always trying to nurse me. “Besides, they’ll never hold the dance with the King lying unburied.”

  “Don’t sell the calf before the cow gives birth,” Amyntor said. He had been the rashest of the Companions, before he came to Crete; it was being a catcher that had steadied him.

  I went back to my pallet to keep him quiet, telling him to say nothing to the others. It would only put them on edge; and it might be noticed. I shut my eyes; but I was wide awake behind them, listening for the outcry that proclaims the death of a king. Now and again I saw under my eyelids some Crane tiptoeing up to look at me. They were afraid of my coming to grief in the ring, so near our time. Hours seemed to pass. I grew too restless to keep still, and got up again. Noon came and our food; and the Cranes ate slenderly, as one must before the dance. For an hour we rested, playing at knucklebones; then we heard the pipes and tabors, and it was time to go.

  The sun shone. There were scents of warm dust and sharp spring leaves. We touched for luck the altar to All the Gods, which stands by the dancers’ gate. Round it in the dust sat the sacred cripples, bull-dancers who had walked out of the ring on their feet after a goring, but would never dance again. Some of them were old bald men and crones, who had sat here fifty years. They scratched and chattered in the sun, threatening to ill-wish us unless we gave them alms; we put our gifts into their bowls, hearing the music, and getting our bodies ready to dance in.

  The sand was hot from the sun; the women’s stands tittered and buzzed, the gamblers called the odds. We came before the shrine, and I looked up, trying to read in her face if she knew her loss. But through her ritual paint one could tell nothing.

  We spread and made our circle in the ring, and I took up my place facing the bull gate. Before it was lifted, we heard a bellow behind it. I could feel, all round, the Cranes pricking like dogs. It was the same with me. You could tell by the sound that something was wrong.

  The gate chains rattled. I got ready to watch him when he paused to look about him. On his bad days he would come in with his head held low, and stand fidgeting his forefeet. The gate rose clattering; and I raised my arm to him in the team leader’s salute. It seemed to me that I was still waving when he was on me. Without looking to right or left, or pausing to draw breath, he had shot straight out of the bull gate and across the ring, like a boar from covert, like a thrown javelin aimed at my heart.

  My mind was slow for lack of sleep; but my body thought for me. I flung myself sideways; his horn struck my thigh glancing, and knocked me down. I rolled away and scrambled upright, spitting out dust and blinking it from my eyes. Hot blood ran down my leg. There was a screeching as if all the women in the stands were being ravished at once.

  I flung my hair from my eyes. Hippon was riding the bull’s brow, clinging like a monkey in a hurricane, while Amyntor and Menesthes wrestled him by the horns. That could not last long, the way he was going. His eye was bloodshot, and on his mouth I saw a yellow foam; he moved as if he were mad. I looked at the mill about his head, not liking it much; but there was only one thing for it. When he was straight a moment, I grasped the horn-tips and vaulted over all three of them, to land upon his neck. I twisted round and straddled him, holding the horns low by the head and drumming my heels into his dewlap. It took his mind from the others, and they got away. He charged on with me, as fast as a war chariot. There was a noise too like the roar of battle, and I heard ten thousand open throats bawl “Theseus! Theseus!”

  I looked through my hair and saw Amyntor tearing along beside the bull, waiting to catch me when I let go. All the Cranes were wheeling round, too near. He was not ready for them; though I felt shaken half to pieces, I could not leave him yet. “Open out!” I shouted. “Let me ride him!” I locked my feet under his throat, trying to squeeze his windpipe and slow him for want of breath.

  He charged onward, tossing and bucketing till my very teeth seemed loosened in my jaws. And the Cranes for the first time had disobeyed me. They were scrambling everywhere. When Herakles dragged a moment, I saw Melantho and Chryse trailing on the horns, then they were gone, I could not see where. Flecks of foam flew backward on my face and arms; and in my nostrils was a strange acrid smell.

  The shouting faces were coming near. He was making for the barrier. Now I must leave him, or he would batter me off. I loosed the horns; Amyntor, through everything, was waiting. As he set me down, I knew I was done, a sitting bird when the bull came for me. Amyntor was all spent too; I could hear his sobbing breath. The Cranes were coming up, but they were breathless and slow, from doing more than they had been told to. I waited for Herakles to turn at the barrier and come back. But instead came a great crash, splintering, and shouting. He had charged it head-on.

  It was made of cedar-wood as thick as your arm; but he shook it. It rained down nuts and sweets and fans, and even a lap dog. One horn was stuck in it; he wrestled it free, and then he turned. But for me, all the bull ring was slowly turning. Only one thing I knew: that I had been gored, and if you lie down then, your blood is for the Mother.

  I stood, panting and swaying. Beside me Amyntor was exhorting me with curses and Minyan love-names, and calling on the gods. It is forbidden to hold up a victim. The bull came on. He seemed as slow as a dream. I thought I must be lightheaded. He seemed coming for ever. His big eyes, bulging and bloodshot, looked into mine. I gathered my last strength, watching which side he would gore. His head went down. It bowed, and sank, and touched the sand. His forelegs folded. He heeled over like a wrecked ship, and lay down in the dust.

  There was a hush, and a wavelike sound of awe and wonder. Then the cheers began.

  My eyes were clearing, though I felt weak and sick. I saw that my wound though bloody was not deep. The ring was like a garden, as people threw in like mad whatever they had with them, fans and scarves and beads and flowers. The Cranes gathered about me, filthy, grazed and bruised, dust in their hair, their grimy faces streaked with sweat. Phormion was limping; Chryse owed him her life, as she told me after. As she came up, hand in hand with Melantho, I saw her face was scored along the cheekbone so that blood ran down; she would never more be the perfect lily that had sailed from Athens. Helike was joking with Thebe; as happens also at war, she had been taken out of herself and lost her fear just when there would have been sense in it. Amyntor’s grin was silly with weakness; mine was as weak, and doubtless no less foolish. Telamon offered me his shoulder, but I waved him off. My girl in the shr
ine had been scared enough; at least I could salute her on my feet.

  She stood bolt upright on her dais. Her paint stood out like a doll’s, but she performed the ritual unfaltering. I was proud she had commanded herself, so as not to betray us; though she had not the Sight nor the Hearing, I thought, she would make a queen.

  Old Herakles lay where he had fallen. A bunch of wind-flowers, thrown from above, had spilled over his head. As I looked he gave a heave and twitch, and the flies settled on his eyes. And from above, where the upper stands were dark with the native Cretans, came a thick solemn buzz, as from men who have seen a portent.

  We went out to the gate. I was tired, but not too tired to think. I remembered the guard about the sacred bulls; no common man could enter even the compound. I looked up at the empty box of Minos, and then at the box beside it. There sat our patron, receiving compliments upon his team. But I saw his eyes, when he did not see mine.

  Once out of sight, I was not too proud to be carried. In the Bull Court the wise woman washed me and dressed my leg, and gave me a hot spiced cordial, while Aktor looked on whistling through his teeth. Our eyes met. He looked at the herb-woman, shook his head for silence, and walked away.

  Thalestris stood by my pallet, one hand on her hip, the other scratching her black hair. I beckoned her nearer. She bent and looked at me, not like a woman at a hurt man but like a warrior watchful in an ambush, waiting the word. I said to her softly, “The bull had medicine.” She nodded. I said, “Are the arms well hidden? Asterion must know something.” I was wondering, as I spoke, how soon he would send for me, and what death he would make me die.

  She said, “He can’t know much. Or the arms would be gone already. Yes, they are safe. Don’t trouble yourself; you will be good for nothing till you are rested.” I saw her shoving off the dancers who were coming up to speak to me. She was no fool; she knew if I did not rest now there might be no time later. I lay thinking of her words, my mind slow with weariness and with the herb-woman’s drugs. “He can’t know I killed Minos, or he could put me openly to death. He can’t know of the arms, or they would be gone. But does he know about the Mistress? Or whom she meant by her oracles? Has he put Perimos to the question, or his sons? What does he know?”