The King Must Die Read online

  I said something he could laugh at. I was not after a girl that evening. He was right already; the bull-dance is a jealous mistress. But in the daytime one was never alone.

  The Great Court was empty under the moon. Tier upon tier rose the pillared balconies, dimly glowing. Lamps flickered behind curtains of Eastern stuff. The pots of lilies and of flowering lemon trees shed a sweet heavy scent. A cat slipped from shadow to shadow, and a Cretan who looked as if his errand were the same. Then all was silent. The great horns upon the roof-coping reared up as if they would gore the stars.

  I stretched out my hands palm downward, and held them over the earth. “Father Poseidon, Horse Father, Lord of Bulls, I am in your hand, whenever you call me. That is agreed between us. But as you have owned me, give me this one thing first. Make me a bull-leaper.”

  In our last month of training, we went to the pasture to take our bull.

  The bull chooses the team, not the other way. You bring a cow, and tether her, and wait with nets. It will be the king bull who mounts her, the one the others give best to. While they are mating, you must hobble him to a tree, and net him.

  We were in luck. They had just taken a rogue bull out of the herd. That means, in Crete, what you or I would call a proper bull with his wits about him. He had killed a rival, and one of the men who went to bring him in, and both too quickly. Now he bellowed in his pen, while he waited for sacrifice.

  Aktor led us down to the water meadow. We saw the Palace roofs all furred with people watching. It is a time when odds are laid; also it is not unknown for a dancer to be killed at the bull-catching, and this, of course, they would be sorry to miss.

  But Poseidon favored us. When the cow was tethered, two bulls came up and made a fight of it. The new king, who was black, was much the quicker, and his horns were splayed, which is always bad, for such bulls will gore sideways instead of tossing. But, by chance I am sure rather than wit, the rival, who was red and white, broke one of them in a headlock. The black ran off bawling, scared as a warrior whose spear breaks in his hand. The other trundled to the cow.

  I saw to the hobbling, having met bulls before. We got him netted with no worse than grazes when he dragged us to our knees. I made everyone wait for him to finish what he was at; there was no sense in making him hate us. Then we threw and pulled tight. After he had stumbled a few times, and fallen once, you could see him say to himself, “This needs more thought.” So while he was thinking, we hitched him to the pole between the oxen, and brought him away.

  I named him Herakles. This was a hero I had thought very well of, in the days when I had meant to be seven feet tall. Later, though no doubt he was a worthy son of Zeus while he walked the earth, I had taken somewhat against him. This bull looked like my notion of Herakles, handsome and hulking and rather simple. If you don’t learn in the Bull Court to laugh at yourself, it’s certain you never will.

  To this day, I sacrifice to Herakles once a year, though I do not tell the hero for whose sake I do it. He was a huge bull, with a broad brow, and great thick horns springing out just as they should, well forward, which made him come at you straight. In his heart he was lazy; but he had a great conceit of himself, and did not care to be made light of. So he got the name of a busy bull. But though he was a long way from safe, he was safer than he looked, having half his mind on his stall and his feed of mash to follow. Best of all, he had a back like a barrel.

  There are two ways of practicing with your bull once you have caught him. He is chained to a stake in the practice pit, so that you can learn to dodge the horns with grace. Or he is roped down so that he cannot run, but only toss his head. This is for the bull-leaping. You are not given long at either; if there were time to get him even half tame, there would be no sport as Cretans reckon it. However, there is no law that you must make him your enemy. We all brought Herakles a lick of salt or a handful of greenstuff when we came to dance with him. But he eyed us askance, blaming us for his captivity.

  I was getting to know the other dancers now, both men and girls. It was no soft fellowship, the company of the Bull Court. One knew one’s own odds and everyone else’s; daily one ate and talked and scuffled with people doomed to die; those who were bull-shy, those who had given up, or had a bad oracle from their gods. Gods of all the earth are worshipped in the Bull Court; which is why the altar outside the dancers’ door of the ring is sacred to them all. And there were nearly as many ways of divining: with sand or pebbles, with water-droppings or with bees or slivers of ivory, with birds, like the Hellenes, or, as the Sauromantians do, with lizards. Those marked for death died and were remembered little, as a dropped stone leaves ripples in a pool according to its weight. Yet there were a few who had looked for death since their first dance, and had faced it certainly, and yet death held off from them.

  One never knew. It was that gave spice to the Bull Court. It was said that if a dancer lived three years, the Goddess set him free. No one could remember anyone lasting half as long. Yet one could not tell one’s fate. One said to oneself that there might be war, or some tumult we could get away in; or that the Palace might burn down. Sometimes at night I would remember how the Labyrinth had no walls, and the seas round Crete are empty, with no neighbor islands to give warning of surprise.

  It was a hard fellowship; but it was one without envy. Anything you were good for was good for all the rest. There was none of that jealousy one finds among warriors or bards or craftsmen. People would throw you to the bull if they did not trust you; but they would rather have you fit to trust, and would help you learn. Among the bull-leapers there was bound to be emulation, and they would not teach their show tricks; but I never knew them enemies, unless it was for love. As for the glory of our patrons, that was nothing to us. Our concern was first, like the victims in the ancient pit, to stay alive; and after that, to have honor among each other. Patrons and lovers and gamblers would send jewels to the dancers, who wore them all, for bull-dancers are showy and love finery. But no one could judge like us.

  In the evening, after the girls had gone, we used to dance, and sing the songs of our homelands, and tell tales. Sometimes then, looking about me, I used to think, “These are men one could bind to a common cause, who would stand together. And most of the girls are as good as men.” I was a learner still, and counted for nothing yet. But I cannot keep from putting my hand to what I find about me.

  I had enough with the Cranes at present. Pirithoos my friend, who also came young to a kingdom, told me once how heavy he found his first year’s reign. So did I too. I did not bear it in a citadel, with my barons about me and gold in my hand to give. Far off in Crete, in the Bull Court, I bore the weight of it.

  I learned there, a thing that came hard to me, what one must leave alone. First there was young Hippon, who had been my father’s groom; a modest, quiet, sensible lad, fresh-faced and graceful. He had been taken up by a young Palace noble, and within a week, it seemed, had more airs and graces than Iros; posed and shrugged, and made long Cretan eyes at any man who spoke to him. It made me angry; it was bringing down the Cranes to the common level of the Bull Court; I felt my own standing touched by it. I let him see what I thought, which wounded him, for his skin was thin. Then he would be clumsy, and fumble his jumps; whereas, when he was pleased with himself, or had had a gift from his lover, he was neater than even Helike with the living bull. In Athens he had been nobody; here he could win a place in the sun. I saw all this before it was too late; it was I, not he, who had been harming the team. He had found his nature for better or worse, and might yet be good of his kind. If he was worked against the grain, he would be good for nothing. I took the edge off my jokes, praised his new earrings, and watched his style improve.

  Then, as the time drew on for our first bull-dance, came trouble where I had least looked for it. Helike grew pale and silent, and slipped away from us to sit alone. She had a look I knew, after a month or two in the Bull Court. It was the look of those who had had bad auguries; those who had been br
ought young from home, and were growing out of their strength and speed; those who had given up. But it made no sense in Helike. On the wooden bull she had a perfect style. The nakedness of the Bull Court suited her; though she was thin and had hardly more breast than a boy, her dancer’s grace made her look like one of those gold and ivory bull-girls the Cretan jewellers make.

  I went up to her alone, and asked if she was having a sick day. It was a thing the girls did not talk of much; but it was a trouble to them, since all were virgins. Sometimes they were killed then; and I felt answerable for the Cranes.

  She swallowed, and looked about her, and said it was nothing. Then she told me the truth. Helike was bull-shy. She had been afraid since our first practice with the living beast.

  “I trained with my brother,” she said. “He is my twin; we danced before we could walk, and he thinks with me. Even with you I was not afraid; you have a tumbler’s hands. But this is a brute, who would as soon kill me as not. How can I tell what he will do?”

  I thought within me, “This is the end of the Cranes.” All teams but ours were built round a seasoned bull-leaper. Chryse had the makings of it, and Iros, and I myself; but I did not know how soon. It was Helike I had trusted to please the people at our first dance, while the rest of us found our feet. If she would not leap, someone must; a team that gave no show would be broken up before next day was out, even if no one died.

  It was no use to rebuke her. She was a mountebank, not a warrior, and had not chosen to come to Crete. It had needed courage to tell me. Moreover, it could not have happened in any other team. If they as much as guessed you were bull-shy, they left you to the bull; by the law of the Bull Court, it was only shameful to forsake the brave. But she had trusted me, because of our vow. This was the first test of it.

  I talked to her awhile, and made her laugh, though only to please me; then I went off to think. But I could only remember a colt I had had in Troizen, who shied at chariots. I had cured her in the usual way, by walking up to one myself before her, then leading her up gently.

  That is the true reason, which was never told in Crete, why the Cranes let loose their bull in the practice pit. The Cretans thought we did it from wildness, and for sport, and tell it so to this very day. But it was my desperate remedy to start her out of her fear, or at the worst to see if I was good enough to leap instead.

  When the bull was tethered, and we had worked him awhile, I made pretense to take a message at the gate, and sent Aktor back to the Bull Court. Then I shouted, to warn the team, “The shackle’s loose!” and let it slip while I feigned to fix it.

  It was a place never meant to loose a bull in; small like the old pit of sacrifice, with high walls to trap one. But there was just room for a run and a leap, if you were quick, and the bull was slow. Cretan bulls, when something unwonted happens, need time to think. I ran in and grasped the horns and flung myself upward. As my body thought, and I soared and hung in air, I knew the practices had been nothing; this was life and glory, like one’s first battle, one’s first girl. I made a fool’s landing, my belly across his back, but I knew what I had done wrong, and got it right the second time. Then Helike came after me, and I caught her safely. We were doing our crane-dance round the bull, from pride in ourselves, when Aktor came back and found us at it.

  He promised us all a beating from his own hand, and he kept his word. We soon saw why; it was hardly more than a tickling. By that we knew he meant to bet on us, and did not want to make us stiff.

  There is madness in youth; but sometimes a god inspires it. We were captives and slaves, whose comings and goings were our own no longer. Where pride fails, there too sinks courage. But now we had gone to the bull in our own time, as if we were free, and it freed our hearts. Never again did we feel like helpless victims, after we had gone halfway to meet the god.

  Next day Aktor called us to the wooden bull, and put us through our paces. With the dancers watching, we set our best foot foremost. Patrons and lords and ladies would bribe their way in to watch; but the praise of one bull-leaper was worth twenty of them. Presently he told Helike and me to leap again, and walked away. I jumped, listening to the levers’ creak and the dancers’ chatter. Then when I was down, I saw whom the trainer had gone to greet. It was Asterion. He had come at last.

  While Aktor talked, he ran us over with his round staring eye, which never changed when it met mine, any more than the eye painted on the wooden bull. He nodded once or twice, and went away. I thought, “Now it is coming to me.” But when I thought what he might do, my first thought was, “He will keep me from being a bull-leaper.” I was so set on it that only death seemed worse.

  The trainer came back, but he said nothing. At last my ignorance burst me. I said, “What did the patron want?” He raised his brows and shrugged. “What does any patron want? To know the form. My lord, when he offers a hundred oxen for a team to do him credit, likes to get value for it. Take care he does; that’s the best advice I’ve given you yet.”

  He went away. The dancers and the bull-leapers closed round us, praising and finding fault and making the hard jokes of the Bull Court. One was never alone till dark, and then only with trouble.

  A little later young Hippon came up to me. “What is it, Theseus? I hope you are not sick?”

  He sounded like a bath-woman and I nearly said so. My anger wanted something to bite; but he had meant no harm. “How do you like it,” I said, “that any good we do in the bull ring will be profit for that insolent swine? If we even live, we must live for him.”

  Iros was with him. They looked at one another, making long eyes, like a couple of Cretans. “Oh,” said Hippon, “don’t trouble yourself with him. He is nothing; is he, Iros?” They grew knowing, and leaned their heads together. They were getting, I thought, to look just like sisters. “Oh no,” said Iros. “He is rich and does what he likes, but he is a very common fellow, not worth a thought. Surely, Theseus, you know the story?”

  “No,” I said. “I have not kept him in mind. But tell it me.”

  After each had invited the other, giggling, to begin, Iros said, “He passes as Minos’ son. But everyone knows his father was a bull-leaper.” He did not trouble to drop his voice. The Bull Court was the only place in the Labyrinth where speech was free.

  Hippon said, “It is quite true, Theseus. Of course it is not talked about; but my friend, who told me, is so high-born that he knows everyone.”

  “So does mine,” said Iros, tossing his hair. “My friend not only makes songs, he writes them down. It is a Cretan custom. He is very accomplished. He says this bull-leaper was an Assyrian—”

  “Ugh!” said Hippon. “With their thick legs and great black beards.” Iros said, “Oh, don’t be foolish; he was only fifteen or so. It was Minos who fancied him first, Theseus, and kept him for months out of the ring, lest he should be killed.”

  “But,” I said, “that would have been impiety. He must have been dedicated, just as we were.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Hippon. “A great impiety! People said it would bring a curse. Well, so it did. The Queen was angry; and that made her notice the youth herself. They say the poor King was the very last to hear, after it was the talk of the Labyrinth and even of Knossos town. There is a bawdy song of how she used to follow him into the Bull Court, she was so besotted, and hide herself in the wooden bull. My friend said that is only vulgar talk. But she was mad for him, quite out of her head.”

  “And when the King found out,” I said, “I suppose he put her to death.”

  “In Crete? How could he? She was Goddess-on-Earth! No, all he could do was to get the Assyrian sent back to the bulls. I suppose he was out of training, or the god was angry; at any rate his next bull killed him. But he left his tokens behind.”

  “But,” I said, “surely at least Minos could have exposed the child?” Iros, who was never anything but civil, said patiently, “But, Theseus, the Cretans have the old religion. The child is the mother’s. So the King kept quiet to save his face,
and let it pass for his. I expect he would not like to give it out that he had not been with her. People would know why.”

  I nodded. One could see that, indeed.

  “At first,” said Hippon, “Asterion was kept in bounds. They say Minos was very hard on him; one can hardly wonder. Now it’s another story. He is clever; and he has got his hand on so many threads he is almost ruling the kingdom.” He looked at me, not following my thoughts, but concerned to see they moved me. I saw, under all his nonsense, the sensible stable-lad I had seen polishing harness, with a shrewd eye for a horse. “But you see, Theseus, how he is beneath your notice, an upstart like that.”

  “You are right,” I said. “Old Herakles is more worth studying. But what does Minos have to say about it?” His voice grew hushed; from awe rather than fear. “Minos lives very retired, in his sacred precinct. Nobody sees him.”

  The day passed. When night had fallen, I slipped away to the courtyard. I sat on the black base of a great red column, hearing women tittering in some room above, and a boy singing to one of those curved harps of Egypt. Now I was like a man whom vermin have been biting under his clothes, able at last to strip and scrape. But the sting had gone deep, and burned me still.

  I remembered the Corinthian’s laughter, when I said I had a quarrel with Asterion. But I had seen no joke in it; we both came of kings’ houses, and were such men as would seek out each other on a battlefield. My being a god’s slave did not alter that. I had challenged his anger to keep him from bidding for the Cranes, but also from pride. When he bid for us, I thought it was to get an enemy in his hand. Today I knew at last how he rated me. He had bought me as a rich man will buy a chariot horse though it has kicked him, because it looks to be fast and a stayer, and he hopes to win a race with it. The kick does not bruise his honor; a beast kicked him, not a man.

  When he had called me a mainland savage, I had thought it a studied insult. I had done myself too much honor; the man had spoken his thought. So he had bought me for his stable, and handed me to the trainer and thought no more of me; me the son of two kings’ houses, both god-descended, Lord of Eleusis and Shepherd of Athens; me who had had the sign from Earth-Shaking Poseidon. So light he had held me. And he not even kingly got.