The King Must Die

by Mary Renault

  For a moment he stood with the wall behind him. Then his arm shot out grasping. A shape like a black thunderbolt whirled round him in the air. He had snatched up Mother Labrys from her stand, the King-Eater, the ancient guardian. On the stairs above us, a priestess screamed.

  He had denied me my warrior’s standing; so I had been ready to kill him unarmed as one kills wild beasts. Yet it stirred my heart, to see there would be a fight. I danced about him, feinting with my spear, while he waited, half crouched, with the ax laid back to his shoulder. And it seemed wrong to me that either of us should be armed, save he with his long horns, which presently I must grasp and vault on, while the gamblers called the odds, and the people shouted in the painted stands.

  The old priest and priestess had scrambled out; now the small space was clear. I lunged, to make a quick end. But fear had quickened him too. Down came the stone blade upon my spear shaft, a foot from the head, and it drooped like a switched grass stalk, cut half through. Then we two were alone in our little bull pit, as in the days of the primal sacrifice; the armed beast and the naked man.

  I heard his heavy grunting in the hollow mask, as he came forward lifting the ax to strike. There was strength in those fleshy shoulders. Above in the Throne Room was a battle raging; there could be no help yet. He had worked round me, to head me off from the steps, and was driving me back against the further wall. Then, when there was nothing more to do, my body thought for me, as it does in the dance. I stood up against the wall, and when the ax came at me, dropped like a stone. As it struck the wall where I had been, I seized his leg and threw him.

  He fell heavily, on the hard glazed floor of the earth court. I heard the muffled clang of the gold mask striking; and when I grappled him and saw it askew, I knew he was fighting blind. He still had the ax; but now we were in-fighting, and he could not swing it. He shortened his grip and, as we rolled and twisted, beat me with it as one might with any stone. But I hampered his arm, so that it did me no great hurt. And I thought, “Labrys will never fight for him.” She was old, and used to dignity; and once again she had fed upon a king. She would not like to be taken lightly.

  And I was right. If he had let her go, and used both hands to wrestle, he would have had a chance; he was twice my weight, and had not labored that day like me. But he was no wrestler, though Cretans are well taught; he could not give up the hope of cracking my head. So as he raised the ax blade, I had time to grab my dagger out of my belt, and drive it home with all the strength left in me. It had a long way to go, through his thick carcass; but it reached his life. He doubled up with a great grunting cry, clasping his midriff. I stood up from him, with the ax in my hand.

  A cry went up from the people on the stairs; but more of awe than grief; and a deep hush followed it. Looking up, I saw the Cranes all safe, and the guards already fled away. Before me he lay writhing, scraping the noble mask of the Bull God on the floor; I drew it off, and held it up to the people.

  Now I saw his face, grimacing with bared teeth. I stepped up to him, to hear what he would say to me. But he only stared at me as at some shape of chaos, seen in a dream where nothing makes sense. He who had thought to rule without the sacrifice, who had never felt the god’s breath that lifts a man beyond himself, had nothing to take him kinglike to the dark house of Hades. And yet, mixed with the blood and sweat that smeared his breast, I saw the oil that had made him slippery while we grappled. He had been anointed, when we broke in. So after all there was a rite still to do.

  I lifted the mask of Minos, and put it on. Through the eyes of thick curved crystal, everything looked little, far and clear; I had to pause awhile, to get the feel of it and judge my distance. Then I swung Labrys back, and brought her down, my head and shoulders and body coming round with the blow. The force of it tingled through my hands; and the voice at my feet was silent.

  From the Throne Room above I heard the cry of the Cranes; and from the porch the din of rout, as the news reached the defenders. But I stood still, seeing through the crystal a small bright image, such as a god may see who looks down from the sky, far down and back for a thousand years to men who lived and suffered in ancient days; and in my heart was a long silence.

  BOOK FIVE

  NAXOS

  1

  WE SAILED FROM CRETE, at last, in a ship we found in an olive field.

  Not only the earth had felt Poseidon’s trident. The ebbing sea, that had grounded the keels at Amnisos, had rushed back with the earthquake. It had broken the mole, and dashed the ships upon it, and flooded the lower town, and killed more people than a war. But a few ships had been carried inshore and stranded softly, like this among the olives. We rolled her down to the water on the trunks of the broken trees.

  We mounted guard on her day and night, till the weather let us get away. All Crete was in turmoil. As soon as it was known the House of the Ax had fallen, the native Cretans rose up everywhere, to tear down the strongholds and sack the palaces. Sometimes the lords were killed with all their household; sometimes they fled to the mountains; a few whom their people loved were left in quiet. Rumors came in every hour; and men would send to me, asking me to lead this band or that. To all these I gave the same answer, that I would come back soon. It was not as a freed bull-dancer leading freed slaves to plunder that I meant to reign in Crete. I would come as a king, to Hellenes and Cretans both alike. Now there would be no lack of ships; if I could not get enough in Attica and Troizen and Eleusis, I should have Hellene kings elbowing each other to share the enterprise; more than I wanted, if I was not quick. From this day on, the mainland would rule the Isles. Never again, in any Hellene kingdom, would boys and girls take to the hills at the sight of a Cretan sail.

  The bull-dancers who came from the Hellene lands took ship with us, and the Minyans from the Cyclades. Only two girls stayed behind to marry Cretans; men who had loved them from the ringside, and sent them gifts and letters, but never met with them till now. But they were from other teams; even now when our hearts looked homeward, the Cranes were one kindred still.

  We had no great trouble to man our ship. Many men had killed old enemies in the rioting, and wanted to get away before the blood-feud caught them up. We built a shelter near the place, and did not let the girls go far alone, even full-armed. It was a lawless time.

  When at last the wind was fair and steady, we met on the shore and killed a bull to Poseidon, and poured him libations of honey and oil and wine, thanking him for his favors and praying him to bless our journey. Also we did not forget Peleia, Lady of the Sea. Ariadne made the offering. Her dress was frayed, and her train of priestesses two poor old crones we had found huddled over a fire of sticks. But her beauty still held my breath, as it had from the gilded shrine above the bull ring.

  The fires were quenched with wine; the ship ran down the rollers, and lightened as she felt the sea. I picked up the Mistress in my arms and waded through the water, to set her feet on the deck that would bear us home.

  Once more I stood in a ship of Crete, looking at the wine-dark restless sea, and seeing the towering yellow cliffs stand with their feet in foam. But Ariadne was weeping for her homeland, and while I talked to her of Attica the last landmarks sank away.

  Next day we saw a great smoke ahead of us. Toward evening the pilot said to me, “It is on Kalliste, where we should be tonight. A forest is on fire, or there is war.”

  “Of that we have had enough,” I said. “Watch out, and if the town is burning, run for Anaphe.”

  We sailed onward, and the smoke hung in the sky like a great cloud black with thunder. As we drew nearer, an ashy dust began to fall on us, darkening all the ship, and our flesh and clothes. Presently the lookout called to the pilot, and I saw them chattering on the beak. Going up there I found their faces pale. The pilot said, “The land itself has changed.”

  I looked at the gray landfall; and it was true. My belly crept with awe and fear. I drew into myself, to listen for the god; some dreadful wrath seemed written on the very sky. H
e sent no warning; but for the black cloud, all was peace. So I said, “Go nearer.”

  We came on. A fresh following wind streamed off the smoke to the northward; the late sun shone pale and clear. And then, as we stood in to westward of Kalliste, we saw the dreadful thing that the god had done.

  Half of the island was clean gone, sheared off from the hilltops straight down into the sea; and in place of the smoking mountain there was nothing. The god had carried it all away, all that great height of rock and earth and forest, the goat pastures and the olive groves and the orchards and the vineyards, the sheep pens and the houses, gone, all gone; nothing was there but water, a great curved bay below huge sheer cliffs, where wreckage floated; and outside the bay, by itself on a horn of land, a little mound pouring out smoke, all that was left of Hephaistos’ lofty chimney.

  The sea around us was strewn with burned branches and dead birds and lumps of half-charred thatch; a thing like a white fish swimming was a woman’s arm, drifting alone. I shuddered, and remembered how the place had made me uneasy on the voyage out. Surely some great impiety must have been done there, a thing to make the gods hide their faces in the midst of heaven. I saw it as it had been last year, all dressed with fruit blossom, as harmless to look at as a smiling child, only for that doomed brightness. We went on quickly, for the sailors would not stay. They reckoned that in such a spot even the sea and air must be charged with the god’s anger, that it would stick to a man and eat the marrow out of his bones. Some of them wanted to sacrifice the ship’s boy to keep Dark-Haired Poseidon from pursuing us. But I said it was clear the god had taken his due, and it was not us he was angry with. So we left that place, and gladly too; the rowers labored faster than the rowing-master gave the stroke, to put it behind them. Sunset came down, such as none of us had ever seen, splendid and awesome, great towering purple clouds in a sky of crimson and green and gold, dyeing all heaven and slow to fade. We took it for a sign that the gods had ceased their anger, and were still our friends. With a little breeze we made Ios by midnight, and sheltered there. Next morning the wind was fair. We steered for the tall shape of Dia, that fertile island whose city they call Naxos.

  Before evening we were in the harbor, looking up at the hill-slopes rich with olives set in green corn, with orchards and with vines. So well the Mother has loved Dia, no wonder they named it with her name. It is the greatest of the Cyclades, and the richest too. From afar we saw the royal Palace standing among vineyards, a high bright house in the style of Crete. Ariadne smiled and pointed; I was glad the place was homelike for her. Kalliste had quenched her spirits.

  Two or three of the bull-dancers had come from here. In the arms of rejoicing kindred they told their tale. We were the first ship straight from Crete, since the fall of the Labyrinth; till now the Naxians had had only wild talk third-hand. They cried out that they had seen dreadful portents; a noise like a thousand thunderbolts, and a shower of ashes, and the night sky lit with fire over Kalliste. It had happened, as we learned, the very day and hour when the House of the Ax was stricken.

  Our news filled them with awe and wonder. Time out of mind, Minos had been High King of all the islands; they had traded by his laws and paid him his tribute. From Dia it had been very great, because the land was rich. This year it had been due again; now they would keep for themselves their olives and corn and sheep and honey, and their wine, than which there is none better; and all their boys and girls would dance at home. There was a feast tomorrow, of Dionysos, who himself planted the vine there, when he came sailing from the east as bridegroom of the Mother; and they would keep the day as it had never been kept before.

  But it surpassed all the rest for them, when they heard who Ariadne was. The people are mixed in Dia, but Naxos and its royal house are Cretan, the ancient stock without Hellene blood. They have the old religion, and a reigning Queen. So when they saw the Goddess-on-Earth among them, it was a greater thing than if Minos himself had come. They set her in a litter, lest her foot should touch the ground, and bore her up to the Palace. I walked beside her, and the rest followed behind.

  At the porch of the Palace they set her down, and the steward brought a greeting cup. They led us off to the bath, and then into the Hall. The Queen sat in her place before the king-column, in a chair of olive-wood inlaid with pearl and silver; her footstool was covered with a sheepskin scarlet-dyed. On a low seat beside her sat a dark young man, with strange shadowed eyes, whom I took to be the King.

  She rose and came to meet us; a woman of about thirty years, handsome still, and a true Cretan, with dark crimped hair in serpent tresses, breasts heavy but round and firm, and a little waist tightly cinched in with gold. She held out to Ariadne both her hands, and gave her the kiss of welcome. The Palace women had dressed her richly from the Queen’s own store, in a deep-blue gown that twinkled with silver pendants, and her eyes, new-painted, glowed in the lamplight.

  The tables were laid, with food and places for all the dancers, though we were near twoscore. The Queen was gracious, and pressed us to eat and drink before we told our tale. Ariadne sat on her right hand, at the head of all the women. When I had said I was her husband (we were to marry in Athens, but I did not want her to lose standing here) I was put on her left, beside the King.

  He was a handsome youth, about sixteen years old, lively and graceful; all made, you would have said, for gaiety and women’s love. He did not look strong enough to have fought for his kingdom, and I wondered how he had been chosen; but I did not care to ask him. There was something about him I could put no name to, a daimon in his eyes; not that they wandered, like men’s eyes whose wits are troubled; rather they were too still. Whatever he fixed his gaze on, it was as if he would drain it dry. When they put his golden cup into his hand, he turned it round till he had seen the whole of the pattern, and for a long time stroked it with his fingers. To me he was very civil; but like a man who from courtesy hides his straying thoughts. Once only I saw him look toward the Queen, with a grief that I could not read, for it seemed mixed with darker things. Though there was no need yet to talk, beyond the civilities of the table, something oppressed me in his silence, and I said only to break it, “You have a god’s feast here tomorrow.”

  He raised his eyes to my face, not with any message, but as he had gazed at the winecup, or the women, or the flame of the new-lit lamp. Then he said, “Yes.” That was all; but something woke in my mind, and of a sudden I saw everything. I remembered Pylas saying to me in the mountains above Eleusis, “I know how a man looks who foreknows his end.”

  He read it in my face. For a moment our eyes met, seeking to speak together. It was in my mind to say, “Be on my ship before cocklight, and with the dawn we will be away. I too have stood where you stand now; and look, I am free. There is more in a man than the meat and corn and wine that feeds him. How it is called I do not know; but there is some god that knows its name.” But, when I looked into his eyes, there was nothing in them that I could say it to. He was an Earthling, and the ancient snake was dancing already to his soul.

  So we drank our wine; and I did not wonder he took plenty. We did not speak much, for I had nothing to say that could be said; whether he knew that I was sorry, whether it comforted or angered him, I do not know.

  When we had done eating, the Queen asked for our tale. So Ariadne told how the Labyrinth had fallen, how I had had my warning, and who I was. Speaking of me before people made her blush, and me to wish for the night. But I could see that the Queen pitied her, when she heard the Mistress was going to a Hellene kingdom ruled by men. As for the King, he listened with wide dark eyes and the lamplight shining in them; and I saw that if it had been a tale of Titans or the old loves of the gods, it would have been all one to him, as he looked on night and feasting and the light of torches for the last time.

  Ariadne finished her tale, and I spoke too when the Queen invited me. “Alas!” she said when she had heard. “Who can be called fortunate, till he has seen the end? Lady, you have known a change
beyond the common lot.” Then she remembered the courtesies, and bowed toward me, saying, “And yet the Fates have relented to you after.” I bowed, and Ariadne smiled along the dais. But I remembered how she had said in Crete, “You are a barbarian; my nurse told me they ate bad children.” And I thought within me, “Will she always see me in her heart a mainland bull-boy, even when I am a king?”

  The Queen was speaking still. “Now you must take heart, and forget your griefs. You and your husband and your people must stay for our feast tomorrow, and honor the god who makes men glad.”

  When I heard this, I did not look at the youth beside me. All my wish was to be gone with the first of day. I tried to catch Ariadne’s eye with mine; but she was speaking her thanks already. Outside a little wind was getting up, which might keep us in port tomorrow; if after slighting these people we could not get away, it would be a sorry business. The times would be confused now Crete had fallen; one might have need of friends. So I put a good face on it, and looked pleased.

  After we had heard the harper, the Queen wished us good rest, and got up from her chair. The King also bade me good night and rose. Once again my eyes met his, and my heart felt bursting with what I wished to say; but it fell away from me, leaving me silent. As they reached the stair I saw her take his hand.

  The tables were taken out, and the men’s beds made in the hall; the women were led away, to the grief of those who had become lovers since we left the Bull Court. Of these were Telamon and Nephele. But from what I had heard of the rite tomorrow, it was only a fast before a feast.

  Ariadne and I were given a fine room on the royal floor. This was our first night in a great bed. So although the wind had eased, I did not say much of the delay, except that to be at home would be still better. She answered, “Yes, but it would be a pity to miss the festival. I have never seen it as they do it here.” As no one had told her what I knew, I said no more, and soon we slept.