The King Must Die

by Mary Renault

  Early next morning, the singing woke us. We dressed and joined the others, and went with the people down to the shore. Already they were dancing, and the jars of unmixed wine, dark and strong, sweet as ripe grapes, were going from hand to hand. People greeted us; we caught fire from the wine and laughter, and began to feel that oneness with the feast which is Iakchos’ magic gift.

  Everyone looked seawards; soon shouts of rapture greeted a sail. The ship came round the point toward the holy islet just off-shore; and all the women began to slip away. The Naxians took our girls along; and Ariadne too was drawn from my side. I saw no harm in it, knowing the honor they held her in.

  The ship approached, all bound with green boughs and wreaths; the mast and oar blades and the beak were gilded, the sail was scarlet. Young girls were singing on the deck, playing the tabor and the pipes, and clashing cymbals. Standing in the prow, girt with a fawnskin, crowned with green ivy and young vine-shoots, stood the King. He was very drunk, with wine and with the god; as he waved to the people, I saw a mad gaiety in his shadowed eyes.

  On the sacred isle his train and his car were waiting. They waded to the ship and pulled her in, and lifted the King ashore to a crash of music.

  Soon the car was coming through the knee-deep ford. Men drew it wearing leopardskins and the horns of bulls. They pulled on the ropes and yokes; those dancing round them wore strapped to their loins great leather phalluses that bounced as they sprang along. They sang and clowned and called out broad jests to the people. Then came the gilded car, and round it the women.

  They came beating the cymbals, or bearing long garlands twined among them, or waving the sacred thyrsos on long poles. As they danced they sang, but the song was wild and blurred, for the maenads had on their masks already. Above smooth shoulders and wreathing arms and dancing breasts, were the heads of lions and leopards, of lynxes and of wolves. Their dark Cretan hair flowed free behind them. I thought that one could not have picked out among them even one’s own sister or one’s wife. The King stood up in the gilded chariot, laughing wild-eyed, and swaying tipsily as it bounded on. Sometimes he would take a handful of corn from a bin beside him, and scatter it on the people, or jerk his gold cup to sprinkle them with wine. Then they would leap for the blessing to fall on them, and the women would scream, “Euoi! Euoi!” The men who drew the car began to leap and run, pulling toward the hill road. As they went the King’s arm waved the cup, and I heard that he was singing.

  The people began to stream up from the shore toward the bills; and I felt one with the feast, for that is the magic of the god. But I waited for Ariadne to come back from the island, now the rite was done, so that we could go up together, and share the madness and the love. The car and the music were far ahead, and I grew impatient, but I waited still. I did not want her running about without me. One must not be angry at what women do in Iakchos’ frenzy; the way to keep your girl is to have her yourself.

  Some lads were dancing to the double flute; I danced with them till they cried, “To the hills!” and ran after the rest. Still she did not come. A few women waded the ford to shore, but they were old, or great-bellied with child. I asked one such if she had seen her. She stared, and said, “Why, she is with the Queen and the maenads, following the god.”

  You do not last long with the bulls unless your wind is sound, and I soon caught up with the crowd. Alone upon the road I felt angry and anxious; but some of the Cranes were drinking and dancing in an orchard all in flower; they held out their hands to me, and I was one with the feast again. The farm people brought out their best wine in honor of the god, and it would have been boorish to rush away. But presently we went on, up to the goat pastures where the hills are high. I had seen already that on the tops there was snow.

  We came out far above tilled land, among thyme and heath and smoothed gray boulders, rain-scoured and hot with sun, where lizards basked and darted. From these tall mountains one sees sea and sky all one, a great round ether of shimmering blue, and the gray isles floating weightless in it. With the young men I threw myself on the springing turf, panting and laughing and drinking. We had picked up somewhere a big wine jug painted with wreathing squids and seaweed. Amyntor and I and some youth from Naxos aimed the wine stream into each other’s open mouths, shouting and spluttering. Then the Naxian looked past us and jumped up and ran off. I saw him chasing a girl among the boulders.

  It is on the lower ridges that the women begin to fall away from the god’s maenad train, those whom the madness does not wholly possess. They throw off their beast-masks, leaving the mystery to those it calls, and wander dreaming or half wild about the hillside, and give themselves to love.

  “Now,” I thought, “for certain I shall find her.” She was only a guest, and had done all that was due. The rest she would be glad to miss. So I went upward with the others. I was full of wine now, and one with the feast, and last night’s grief had left me. It was Earthling business, and nothing was asked of us strangers except rejoicing. A long way off, somewhere beyond the ridge, I heard a thin shrilling, like the cry of birds, from the maenads still about the King. But it was far away. Soon I should find my girl; “or,” I thought as we reeled up singing toward the snowline, “a girl at any rate.”

  We linked arms in a line, and sang and shouted and passed the wine along; I and the Minyan next me leaned our heads together and bawled our life stories in each other’s ears and swore eternal friendship. Soon we came to the first snow, lying in pools and lakes among the green-brown mountain grasses lush with its moisture. We knelt and flung it on our faces to cool them from the climbing and the wine.

  I stood up, and saw above us the snow pools broken. There was the track of many feet, a crushed vine-shoot, and a broken flute. They must have left the car when the ground got stony. Not far off was a streak of scarlet; a scarf, I thought, dropped by a girl. But when I got nearer, it was, or had been, a fawn. There was not much left to know it by, but further on I saw the head. I stood silent, staring; for a moment the dance of my blood was stilled and chilled.

  As I stood there, something cold struck my neck, and I turned round. There was a little pine wood just above, in a fold of the mountain; laughter came from it, and a girl ducked behind a tree. Putting up my hand I found a snowball in my hair. So I gave a shout, and ran.

  The pines were thick, the mats of the needles soft and dry. She squealed and dodged among the pine boles, half frightened and half not. I caught her at the edge of a little hollow, and we rolled in a tangle to the bottom. She was a Naxian girl, with long sloe eyes and a nose tip-tilted. I don’t know how long we stayed there; the time of Dionysos is not like the time of men. After a while I heard a giggle, and saw another girl watching us from up above, and climbed up to make her pay for it. In the end we stayed all three together, and time was lost again. All the strain and stretch of danger was loosened out of me, the fierceness of war and the care of kingship. This seemed the only good, to be one with the living mountain, with her birds and goats and wolves and her sunning snakes and flower-bells, drinking the strong honey from her thriftless breast, living each breath just as it came.

  Once, while we were lying half asleep, watching the pine tufts weaving against blue sky, and hearing them sough softly, the breeze brought from far off a high, wild, birdlike scream; a long shrilling upward and upward, falling away to silence. But by now the wood was all murmurs and kisses and little scuffles and shrieks, and they filled the stillness quickly. I too reached out for the girl beside me. It was no use to think. There had been nothing in his eyes a Hellene could speak to.

  The magic time of Dionysos slipped by unreckoned; and the sun riding homeward clothed the hills with gold. Those who were soberest called out that dark would overtake us on the mountain if we did not go. So we went down under the great sky arched clear and yellow over the purple islands; singing old songs, tipping the bottoms of the wine-jars, and holding our girls’ hands till the farms began and they slipped away.

  Already down in Naxos
the lamps were burning. The long walk had sweated out my drunkenness; my limbs were full of youth’s kindly weariness, my eyes heavy for sleep. I looked down at the Palace bright with torches, thinking that when I met Ariadne there, I would ask no questions and answer none, and then we should keep friends. She would be in her bath by now; I thought pleasantly myself of warm water and sweet oils.

  When dusk was falling, and the evening clouds were touched with fire below, we were on a farm road which twisted through the olive groves. The girls had all gone home, and the songs were dying away. As we walked in twos and threes, the youth beside me pulled my arm, and went off the road into the field. Everywhere the men withdrew into the shadows; and, looking back, I saw a white flitting, as of ghosts, come slowly down the hillside, winding half hidden through the groves. The men sat down, in places under the trees that were not sown with barley. I looked at the youth who had signed to me; but he only said under his breath, “It is better not to meet them.”

  I sat, and waited, watching the road through the twilight; no one had said it was forbidden to look. Presently they came in sight, wavering here and there, stumbling and wandering as if in sleep. Some had their masks still on; from lolling necks and shoulders, fierce faces of lynx and leopardess stared wide-eyed; but sometimes they hung by a loose string, and one saw the parted lips drooping with weariness, the half-closed eyelids. The pipes and cymbals trailed from their limp hands; their long hair hung forward, tangled with heather and matted thick with blood.

  They were stippled with blood like the spotted panther; their bare arms, their breasts, their clothes. Over their feet it was powdered with pale dust; their hands were dark with it, clotting the fingers and streaked above the wrists. The poles of the thyrses, which dragged behind them like the spears of wounded men, were dabbled all over with bloodstained hand-prints. I covered my mouth with my hand, and turned my eyes away. The Naxian had been right; there could be no luck in looking nearer.

  They seemed a long time passing. I heard the dragging feet, the stones kicked blindly, the little gasps as those who tripped caught hold of others. Then the sound drew away, and looking again I saw them melt into the shadows at the bend of the road. I was getting up when I heard wheels coming, and waited to see.

  It was the gilded chariot, going home empty. It was lightly made, and two men pulled it easily, one each side the pole. They had taken the heavy bull-horns from their heads, but still wore their leopardskins, having no other garment. They plodded along, muttering shortly sometimes to each other, like men after a long day’s plowing; two dark-haired Naxians, a youth and a bearded man.

  The chariot passed, and no one followed; that was the end, and I rose to go. Then, when I was on my feet, I saw into the back of it. It was not empty after all. A body lay on its floor, jogging limply with the jolts of the rough road. I saw a torn blue skirt, and a little arched foot rouged at the toes and heel.

  I ran out from the trees, and seized the rail of the car; the men feeling my weight on it stopped and turned. The younger said, “It is not lucky, stranger, what you are doing.” The elder said, “Let her alone till morning. In the sanctuary she will not come to harm.”

  “Wait!” I said. “I will see her, lucky or not. What has been done to her? Is she dead?”

  They stared at each other. “Dead?” said the young one. “No. Why dead?” And the elder, “She will take no hurt, man, from our Naxos wine. It is all good, and we keep the best for today. Leave her be; her dream ought not to be troubled. While her sleep holds, she is still the bride of the god.”

  From his way of speaking, I guessed he was a priest. I guessed too, I don’t know how, that he had had her on the mountain. I turned away from him, and leaned into the car.

  She lay curled on her side, against the bull-horn headdresses which the men had taken off to ease their brows. Her tumbled hair was like a sleeping child’s, but for the sticky points it ended in. Her eyelids lay smooth and full and glossy over her eyes, and against the dark lashes her cheek bloomed softly. By those I knew her, and by the tender breast cradled upon her arm. I could not see her mouth, for the blood all over it. It was open, for she was breathing heavily; I saw her teeth, even, crusted with dried blood. As I bent over her, its stale reek met me mixed with the smell of wine.

  After a while I reached out, and touched her shoulder where her torn bodice bared it. She sighed, and murmured something I could not hear, and her eyelids fluttered. She stretched out her hand.

  It had lain closed on her breast, like a child’s who has taken her toy to bed with her. Now when she tried to spread it out, the blood on it had stuck between the fingers, and she could not part them. But she opened her palm, and then I saw what she was holding.

  For almost a year I had sat by the Cretan ring, and watched the bull-dance when I was not dancing myself. I had watched the death of Sinis Pinebender, and kept the face of a warrior. But now I turned away and leaned upon an olive tree, and almost threw the heart up from my body. I heaved and shivered in the chill of evening; my teeth chattered, and water poured from my eyes.

  At last I felt a hand upon my shoulder. It was the bearded priest. He was a well-made man, brown-bodied and dark-eyed; his limbs were scratched and bruised from running about the hills, and stained with wine. He looked at me sadly, as I had looked at the King last night, not knowing what to say to me. Our eyes met, like the eyes of men at sea who would hail each other, but the wind carries the sound away. I turned my face, ashamed he should see me moved.

  Presently I heard something, and looked round. The youth with the pole upon his shoulder was walking off with the chariot. I took a few steps after it on the road. My belly felt cold, and my legs were made of lead. The priest walked with me, and did not hinder me. Then when I paused he stopped, and stretched out his hand.

  “Go in peace, Hellene guest. It is grief to a man to look on mysteries he does not understand. To yield unquestioning, not to know too much; that is the wisdom of the god. She is of our blood; she understands it.”

  I remembered many things: the bloodied horns of bulls, the voice in the burning Labyrinth. She had told me in our first night she was all Cretan. Yet not all; she was Pasiphae’s daughter too.

  The car with the young man pulling it passed the turn of the road, and glimmered through the olive trees. A bright spring moon was rising, making everything pale and clear, casting dark shadows of leaves. The priest’s spotted pelt and dappled limbs seemed one with the tree trunk where he leaned watching me. He thought his thoughts, whatever they were, and I thought mine.

  The sunset was fading, and the moon’s face lifted above the sea, making a white path which shone between the moving boughs. I saw the moon and her brightness; but the place had changed for me. My life which was I stood upon a lofty platform, gazing on a great rock’s shadow flung across a plain. Clear and brilliant was the starry sky, spanning the amber mountains; and the high Citadel too shone of herself, as if her stones breathed light.

  “Indeed and truly,” I thought, “it was not lucky when I looked too near too soon. A cold bed, and a cold shadow on my fate, this looking will bring me. For what I must do now, dead Minos will not forgive me in the house of Hades. So much the worse for me. But better for the strong house of Erechdieus, which stood long before me and will stand long after. I will not go back to that light with my hand full of darkness; not even the darkness of a god.”

  I looked at the priest. He had turned his face to the moon, which glittered on his open eyes; his body was quiet as the olive tree, or as a snake upon a stone. He seemed like a man who knew earth magic, and would prophesy in the madness of the dance. And then I thought of the great Labyrinth, which had stood a thousand years; and how Minos had said the god’s voice called them no longer.

  “All things change,” I thought, “except the gods who live for ever. And who can tell; after a thousand ages, they themselves in their house above the clouds may hear the voice that calls home the King, and make the offering of their immortality—
for do not the gods’ gifts excel the gifts of men?—and all their power and glory will rise like smoke to a higher heaven, and pass into a greater god. That would be death into life, if such a thing could be. But this is life into death, the madness without the oracle, the blood without the listening ear and the consent that frees the soul. Yes, that is death indeed.”

  My mind went back to the room behind the sanctuary, where she had called me a barbarian. I felt her fingers touching my breast, and her voice whispering, “I love you more than I can bear.” And I saw her waking tomorrow in such another room, washed from the blood, perhaps with the madness all forgotten, with wondering eyes looking about her, and seeking me. The chariot had passed out of sight down the hill road. I could hear no longer even the sound of wheels.

  I turned to the priest, and found his eyes already on me. “I have done an unlucky thing,” I said. “Perhaps it has displeased the god. This is his feast day. It will be better for me to go.”

  He answered, “You have done him worship; he will forgive a stranger’s ignorance. But it will be better not to stay too long.”

  I looked toward the road, empty and pale in the moonlight. “A royal priestess, called to this mystery; she would have honor here in Dia?”

  “Do not be afraid,” he said. “She will be honored.”

  “You will tell your Queen, then,” I said, “why we go like this by night, without thanks or farewell?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She will understand it. I will tell her in the morning; tonight she will be weary.” There was silence, and I searched my heart for another message, where there was more need of it. But there was nothing to say.

  At last he said to me, “Grieve no longer. Many-formed are the gods; and the end men look for is not the end they bring. So it is here.” He stepped out from the tree, and walked away through the grove. Soon he melted into the fleckered shadows, and I saw him no more.