The King Must Die Read online

  When I was empty, I looked about me. Evening was falling. The sun girdled with purple was sinking in the burnished sea; eastward the first stars blinked in the cloud-rack. I stretched out my hand to Poseidon, but he sent no sign. He was away perhaps, shaking the earth somewhere. All about us I felt another power, dark, past man’s thought, giver of desolation or of joy, she who can cherish or cast away but abides no question. Two gulls flew by me, one following the other with wild cries, the pursued screaming as if in scorn. I was cold and weak, and grasped the bulwark to keep from falling.

  “Sea Mother,” I said, “Foam-Born Peleia of the Doves, this is your kingdom. Do not forsake us while we are in Crete. I have no offering now for you; but I swear, if I get back to Athens, you and your doves shall have a shrine upon the Citadel.”

  I sank on the deck again, and pulled my blanket over my head. Lying down eased the sickness and I slept. When I woke, the stars were paling, and the wind had changed; we had tacked and it was behind us. The ship flew smoothly; stretched out like spent dogs the rowers lay sleeping. The Cranes woke up, and reached hungrily for last night’s uneaten food.

  When day was bright, we saw before us the high shores of Crete: huge wrinkled yellow cliffs, sheer-standing, the land hidden above them. It looked a cruel coast.

  The great sail was hauled down, and another hoisted. All the royal ships of Crete had their dress sails, kept fresh for making port. This was dark blue, with a device in red. It showed a naked warrior, with a bull’s head on his shoulders.

  The Athenians gazed with eyes of stone. Nephele, always the first to weep unless the grief was another’s, sobbed, “Oh, you deceived us, Theseus! There is a monster after all!”

  “Shut your noise,” I said. She put me out of patience. But she liked roughness in men, and dried her eyes. “You fool,” I said, “it is the emblem of a god. So they draw the Earth Snake man-headed; did you ever meet him?” They cheered up, and I felt better myself. “At the harbor bar,” I said, “be ready.”

  Where the cliffs opened to a river-mouth, we saw the port of Amnisos. Since it was bigger than Athens, we took it for Knossos itself. The soldiers formed up forward; the Captain, curled and oiled and burnished, stood on the bridge gilt-helmed and spear in hand; we could smell his scent from the afterdeck. They had taken down our awning, to let us be seen. Ahead was the mole, with people on it.

  I knew nothing yet; but they gave me pause. There was an air in their looking and strolling, before one could see a face. They seemed people broke to wonders, as the chariot horse is broke to noise. They had not come to stare, but to glance idly and pass on. Women with parasols leaned together heads crimped and bound with gems; slim men half bare, with gilded belts and jewelled necklaces and flowers behind their ears, led spotted hounds as languid and proud as they. Even the laborers seemed to look at us over their shoulders, as if in passing at a common thing. I felt the pride drain out of me, like blood from a mortal wound. These were the people I had thought to amaze. My toes curled on the deck, as I pictured their laughter.

  I looked round. The Cranes too had seen. They were waiting, as a tired slave waits for bedtime, to hear me own we were beaten. “They are right,” I thought. “We have got to die; let us come to it decently at least.” And then I thought, “This is Crete. We have come to the end, but for this one thing. I have made myself answerable for these people; now I must go on if the whole world mocks me. I undertook it.”

  I clapped my hands, and shouted, “Sing!”

  They formed their circle, and now in the first comers I knew the bravest and the best: Amyntor, Chryse, Melantho, Iros and Hippon and Menesthes, and good ugly Thebe. As for Helike, she was there already, the only one who had not faltered. Poised as proudly as the Cretans on her slender feet, she seemed to say she had no awe of such people, she who had danced for kings. It was she who saved us. Till now she had been playing, saving her best for the show. The rest looked at her, not at the Cretans, when we passed the mole. I tossed her up as she had taught me, and felt her little hands, clever and strong as an ape’s, grasp my shoulders as she stood upside down. “Fate is our master,” I thought. “Yesterday a king, and today a tumbler’s man. I hope my father never hears of it.”

  I heard the twitter of voices, calling out to each other, but could not move to look. Picturing all those scornful eyes, I wished myself at the bottom of the sea. Then Helike signed to me to catch her; and as her face passed mine she winked at me. The dance ended. I looked, and saw Lukos on his bridge waving gaily to the people. He looked so pleased with himself that I could have kicked him, even when I saw what it meant.

  We tied up at a high stone wharf. Beyond were houses like rows of towers, four or five floors high. The dockside swarmed with faces, brown and quick-eyed. In the midst were some priests, who I thought had come to receive us. But they stood there, pointing and tittering. They wore petticoats, to show they served the Goddess; and I saw from their smooth plump faces and shrill speech that they had offered her their manhood. They were only here to stare.

  We stood for a long while in the hot Cretan sun, with the troops drawn up beside us and the Captain idling on his spear. No one kept the crowd away from us. Women clucked and giggled; men disputed; in front was a crowd of flashy fellows with gimcrack jewels, like the man at Troizen. But I could not tell them this time to get out of my sight. They were the gamblers and the bookmakers, come to reckon the odds on our length of days.

  They walked round us, chaffering together in Cretan stuck with Greek words misused, the speech of such men in Knossos. Then they came up and kneaded our muscles, or, nudging each other, pinched the girls on their breasts and thighs. So long as no one damaged us, we were anybody’s meat. Amyntor would have struck one, but I held his arm. It was beneath us to notice them. Death I had been ready for. but not this, to go to the god with less honor than an ox or a horse. Better I had leaped in the sea, I thought, before I made myself a mountebank for scum like these.

  Suddenly a great trumpet blast sounded behind us. I jumped round to face it, as anyone would who had been a warrior. But there were only the gamblers, pointing and shouting odds. It was a trick they used on the new bull-dancers, to see who moved quickest, and who was afraid. Chryse’s eyes were wet with tears; I don’t think she had known a rough word before she left her home. I took her hand, till I heard the lewd talk, and then I dropped it.

  A stinking fellow wearing stale scent poked my ribs and asked my name. When I took no notice, he shouted as if I were a deaf idiot, in barbarous Greek, “How old are you? When were you last sick? How did you get those scars?” Turning from his foul breath, I caught the eye of Lukos, who shrugged, as if to say, “I cannot be answerable for these low fellows. When you had a gentleman, you were not thankful.”

  But the heads of the crowd were turning. I followed their gaze, up the steep street of tall houses. Three or four litters were coming down it. Soon there were more, filling the causeway between the middens. Lukos looked well pleased with himself. I saw it was not to amuse the rabble he had kept us here.

  The litters approached: first a man in a carrying-chair, nursing in his lap a cat with a turquoise collar; then two women’s litters, the curtains open, the servants running side by side to let their mistresses gossip. They leaned together, their hands in fluttering talk, and the shoulders of the inside bearers nearly breaking, for they were all little men. The people in the litters were much bigger than the Cretans round them, and fairer too. This made me sure they were from the Palace; for I knew the house of Minos had Hellene blood and that the court spoke Greek.

  Litter after litter was set down; lords and ladies were lifted out like precious jewels, and handed their lap dogs, their fans, or their parasols. Each seemed to have brought some toy or other; one young man had a monkey with its fur dyed blue. And yet, if you will believe it, out of all those men, the King’s daily companions fed at his board with his meat and wine, not one carried a sword.

  They all met and greeted, kissing cheeks
or touching hands, talking together in the high clear voice of the Palace people. Their Greek was quite pure, but for the Cretan accent which sounds so mincing to a mainland ear. They have more words than we, for they talk continually of what they think and feel. But mostly one could understand them. The women called each other by such baby-names as we would use to children; and the men called them “darling” whether they were married to them or not; a thing which from their behavior nobody could guess. I saw one woman alone kissed by three men.

  They greeted Lukos gaily, but without much regard; one could see he looked rather too much a Cretan. However, he got some kisses. A woman with a pair of love-birds on her shoulder said, “You see, dear man, how we trust you; all this way in the noon heat, just at the whisper that you have something new to show.” The man with the cat said, “I hope your swans are not geese.” Just then a woman came up richly dressed, with an old face and young hair; I had never seen a wig before. She was leaning on a young man’s arm, her son or husband, one could not say. “Show! Show!” she cried. “We are here the first and must be rewarded. Is it the girl?” She peered at Chryse, who had drawn close to my side. “But she is a child. In three years, yes, oh yes, a face to burn cities. What a thousand pities she will not live!” I felt Chryse’s arm tremble against mine, and touched her hand softly. The young man bent and murmured in the woman’s ear, “They understand you.” She moved away raising her brows, as if she found us presumptuous. “Tut, my dear, they are barbarians after all. They don’t feel as we should.”

  Meantime Lukos had been talking to the man with the cat, whom I now heard saying, “Yes, yes, no doubt; but does it signify much? These mainland kings breed like conies; I daresay he has fifty.” Lukos said, “But this one is legitimate. More than that, the heir … Certainly I am sure; you should have heard the scene. And what is more, he came of his own desire. An offering to Poseidon, so I understand.”

  A young woman, with large doe’s eyes painted to look larger, said, “Is it really true, then, that the mainland kings still immolate themselves? Just like the old songs? What it must be, to be a man and travel, and see these wild savage places! Tell me, which is the prince?” A friend lifted to her mouth her peacock fan, and whispered, “You can see.”

  They both slanted their blue-lashed eyes, and then looked down. I began to notice that whereas these ladies looked at the girls, and spoke of them, as if they were already dead, toward us men they were not quite the same. I believe, on that first day, I wondered why.

  Two of the men had just walked round us to stare their fill, not lewdly like the gamblers, but coolly, as if we were horses. I heard one say, “It passes me why Lukos put on this show. If he had kept quiet till the bidding, he might have had a chance himself.” The other said, “Never; he’s not the only one who knows form. It must be something to him to be talked about; or he would have sold the news, we all know where.” The first man looked round, and said dropping his voice, “No one from the Little Palace. If he is the last to hear, Lukos will be sorry.” The other, without speaking, raised his brows and moved his eyes. I followed their glance.

  Another chair was coming; or, rather, a kind of car. Two great oxen drew it, whose horns were painted crimson and tipped with gold. A tooled leather canopy on four poles shaded a thronelike chair, in which sat a man.

  He was very dark; not russet like the native Cretans, but greenish-dark like the ripe olive; and as thick as a bullock. His neck was no narrower than his head, and only a line of blue-black beard marked off one from the other. Coarse oiled black curls hung on his low brow; his nose was broad, with wide black nostrils. One would have said a beastlike face, only the thick mouth was a mouth that thought. And the eyes told nothing. They only stared, while behind them the man seemed making ready to do what he would do. They put me in mind of something seen long ago, which I could not recall.

  The chair came up and the servant who led the oxen stopped them. The court people made graceful salutations, touching their finger-tips to their brows; the man’s answer was rough and careless, hardly more than wagging a finger. He did not get down, but beckoned, and Lukos came up bowing. I could just catch their words.

  “Well, Lukos, I hope you have pleased yourself today. If you thought to please me, you are a greater fool than you look.”

  From a chief among warriors, it would have been nothing much. But after all the fine manners and courtly speech, it came like a savage beast breaking in among people who were afraid of it. They had all drawn back, lest they should seem to listen.

  Lukos was saying, “My lord, no one here knows anything. This show in the harbor, the boys and girls put up themselves, for sport. People thought I trained them, so I said nothing, and kept the truth for you. There is more here than they think.”

  He nodded as if saying openly, “Well, you may be lying, or perhaps not.” Then he ran his eye along us, while Lukos whispered in his ear. Amyntor, who was near me, said, “Is this Minos himself, do you think?” I looked again, and raised my brows. “He? Never. The house is Hellene. Besides, that is not a king.”

  As these words left me, I heard all the twittering voices sink, like bird song before a storm. We had stood there so long, being talked of like cattle without understanding, I had forgotten we could be understood ourselves. The man had heard.

  The courtiers looked as scared as if I had thrown a thunderbolt among them, which they must pretend not to see. I thought, “What is all this to-do? Either the man is King, or he is not.” Then I saw his eyes on me, large staring eyes that bulged a little. And I remembered where I had seen them; they were like the eyes of the Palace bull at Troizen, just before he put down his head to charge.

  “What have I done?” I thought. “That old woman at home was right to call me a meddler. I was resolved to get us talked of here, and what has come of it? This brute, who can clearly have what he wants, now wants to own us; the worst master in Knossos, without a doubt. This is what comes of presuming; I should have left everything to the god.” And I began to wonder how I could get us out of it.

  Just then he stepped down from his chair. From his bulk I had expected him to stand six feet or more; but he was hardly the common height of a Hellene, so short were his thick legs for his trunk. As he got nearer, I felt something about him that gave me gooseflesh. It was more than his ugliness, or his wicked look; as it might have been something against nature.

  He began to walk round us, and to look us over. He handled the boys like a steward buying meat; but with the girls he was shameless, in spite of the people watching; I saw he thought himself above their opinion. Melantho was angry, which pleased him; Helike, who I suppose had had things to put up with in her calling, stood in silent scorn; Nephele winced, which made him laugh and slap her bottom. Watching him draw near Chryse, who was my darling of all the girls, I said to her quietly, “Don’t be frightened. You belong to the god.” His eye slewed round at me; and I saw he was leaving me to the last.

  To seem careless, I looked away; and my eye fell on a litter that had not been there before. It had been set down on its feet not far away; but the curtains of thick rich stuff were still close-drawn. One of the bearers was fetching Lukos over. He went at once, bowing low before it, and setting his clenched hand to his brow in the salutation we use for gods. The curtains parted, a little crack that showed nothing; though I could hear no voice, someone within was speaking, for, to hear better, he sank down and knelt with one knee in the dust.

  At this I expected the rest to do some homage. But after one glance they went on as if nothing were there. It made a deep mark upon my mind. I had thought I knew a little about command, and what is due to a man of standing. “But this is something,” I thought, “to summon invisibility, like a god.” I had no time to think more; for the man had come to me.

  He looked me in the eye; then he put his black hairy hands on Chryse and ran them all over her. Anger almost burst me; but I guessed that if I struck him she would be first to pay. So I commanded myself, a
nd said to her, “Take no notice. The people here are ignorant.”

  He turned, moving faster than I had thought he could, and took hold of my face by the chin. His body was scented with musk, heavy and sickening. He held my face with one hand and slapped it across with the other, so hard that my eyes watered. Something weighed down my right arm; afterwards I found the marks of Chryse’s nails. I should have forgotten everything, but for her; there was strength under her sweetness. Beyond, among the courtiers, I heard a murmur, as if custom had been offended; they sounded indeed more shocked than I was, for no one expects a slave to have any rights, and I should have been ready for such things, but for the care taken of us on the ship. At the sound he turned round swiftly, to find their faces blank; they were expert at this. For my part, I hated them only because they had seen it. I was afraid they might think I was weeping.

  With my face still in his hand, he said, “Don’t cry, little cockerel; the bulls will hurt you more. What do they call you, where you come from?”

  I answered aloud, so that no one should think I was crying, “In Athens they call me Shepherd of the People; and they call me Kerkyon in Eleusis. But in Troizen, they call me Kouros of Poseidon.”

  “What is it to me,” he said breathing in my face, “what titles your tribesmen give you, you mainland savage? Tell me your name.”

  “My name is Theseus,” I said. “I would have told you before if you had asked me.”

  He struck my face again, but this time I was ready and stood still. There was a pause, while some thought was born behind his staring eyes.

  The closed litter still stood there. Lukos had gone away, but the crack still gaped a little, though I could see no hand. The man had not looked that way since it had come, being busy with us. I wondered if whoever was inside would be angry to see him slighted. “Surely,” I thought, “the odds are on anyone hating him, from a god down to a dog. And he was not called to speak. But nothing in Crete is simple.”