The King Must Die Read online

  They picked their way daintily about, their waists nipped in like wasps’, their kilts embroidered; some had found fresh flowers to stick in their long hair. From their wrists hung carved seals on bracelets of gold or beads; and the scents they wore were strange and heady.

  I went through the market, greeting the craftsmen and the farmers. Though the Cretans could not well have taken me for a son of the village, they heeded me no more than a passing dog, except for a few who stared. I saw, as I looked round, that they were treating the place as if tumblers and mimes were putting on a show for them, pointing at people or at the goods, calling out to each other or giggling with heads together. One man had filled his cloak with radishes and onions; going up to the potter, he said in his mincing Cretan Greek, “I want a crock to keep these in. That one will do.” When the potter said it was his best piece, meant for the table, he only said, “Oh, it will do, it will do,” and paid the price without question, and tossed his vegetables in.

  Just then I heard a woman call out in anger. It was the oilman’s young wife, who sold in the market while her husband worked the press. A Cretan was thrusting money on her, and clearly not for her oil jars, for he was grabbing at her breast. Some village men were coming up, and there were the makings of a brawl; so I tapped the Cretan’s shoulder. “Listen, stranger; I don’t know what your customs are at home, but these are decent wives here. If you want a woman, the house is over there, with the painted doorway.”

  He turned and looked at me; a sallow creature, wearing a necklace of fake gold, which was peeling from the glass below. Then he winked. “And what do you get out of it, eh, my lad?”

  I could not speak at first. Something seemed to give him pause, and he jumped back. But he was beneath a lesson, so I only said, “Thank your gods you are a guest of the land; and get out of my sight.”

  As he went, an older man with a beard came up and said, “Sir, I ask your pardon for that low fellow. A nobody who can’t tell a gentleman when he sees one.” I said, “It seems he can’t even tell a whore,” and walked away. I could see, behind his civility, that he was pleased at having been gracious to someone below him. None of us was of consequence to these people. I remembered my grandfather’s words; he had understood it.

  I was going, but paused as a loud voice began to speak. It was the shipmaster, standing up on a stone bollard. “Anyone for Athens?” he was saying. “Now’s your chance, good people; now’s the time, while the weather holds. If you’ve never crossed the sea, don’t be afraid, Sea Eagle will get you there smooth as milk and safe as houses. No need to risk your necks on the Isthmus Road and get your throats slit by robbers. You’ll meet no pirates on this run; that’s what you pay taxes to King Minos for, so come and get the worth of it. Sail in Sea Eagle, for speed and ease. And if you can’t judge of a ship for yourselves, let me tell you this: your King’s own grandson is booked with us this trip.”

  So far I listened, standing behind the crowd. Then I said, “Oh, no.”

  It was the people of Troizen, all turning round, that brought him up short. He said, “And who may you be?” and looked again and said, “Sir?”

  “I’m King Pittheus’ grandson,” I said, “and I’ve changed my mind. Your ship won’t do; I’m used to better.” At this all the Troizenians cheered. You might have supposed that they believed it.

  The master looked at me, put out. “Well, my lord, that’s for you to say. But you won’t do better for a ship than this, any nearer than Corinth. They don’t call at these small ports.” I was getting angry, but would not make a show of myself before the people. I was at pains to keep my voice down, but somewhat surprised to find it saying, “I shan’t need one. I am going overland, by the Isthmus Road.”

  I turned on my heel, hearing behind me the people clucking and the chattering of the Cretans. As I went, I had a glimpse of the fellow with the necklace, who had taken me for a pimp. I was sorry to leave him with a whole skin; and then for many years forgot him. Yet I see, when I look back, that he let flow the blood of as many men as if he had been some great War Leader; the blood of chiefs and princes, and the blood of a king. It may be that if all were known, palaces and kingdoms have fallen by such men. But they go to their unmarked graves, and never know it.

  6

  THUS I SET OUT by land for Athens. My grandfather, though he thought I had acted like a fool and was concerned for me, could not ask me to go back on my word before the people, and disgrace the house. My mother went to the House Snake, to get me an oracle. Though she saw dangers in my way, she did not see death. But she said weeping that the dangers were very great, and she had no surety for me. She made me vow to her that I would not tell my father’s name till I had reached him; she was afraid of my falling into the hands of his enemies, and to comfort her I promised this. I asked her if she had any message for him; but she shook her head, saying I was her message, and for the rest, it was long ago.

  So two days later my pair was harnessed, and I mounted beside my charioteer. I had meant to drive myself, but Dexios had begged to come. He had been suckled by a mare, as the saying is; for a driver or a friend, one could not do better.

  We drove echoing under the great gate of Troizen, which giants built, and where my great-grandfather set up the device of our house, a thunderstone on a pillar, with an eagle either side. My grandfather, and my uncles, and the young men set me on my way as far as the shore, where the road turns northward. Then they rode back, and our journey had begun. The first night we slept at Epidauros, at the sanctuary of Healing Apollo; the second at Kenchreai. When we saw at evening the round mount of Corinth stand above the plain, we knew that next day we should cross the Isthmus.

  The crossing took a day. That is the truth, behind all the harpers’ nonsense. Nowadays I am content to deny such fables as no grown man in his senses would believe, and let go the rest. They are dear to the people, and hurt neither them nor me.

  I met no monsters, nor did I kill a giant with a cudgel; a fool’s weapon for a man with spear and sword. I kept my arms, though more than one tried to have them off me; I had no need of monsters, with the men I met. It is rocky country, where the road tacks about, and you can never see far ahead. Among the rocks by the road, the robbers lie up.

  Dexios saw to the chariot, while I took on whatever came. He had to be ready to get us sharply away. That was his work, and he did it well. Having no change of horses, we could not risk them. Now, after the years, these scrimmages get confused together in my mind, except for the last.

  Deep blue, and black, the Isthmus is in my memory; blue sky above, with seldom a cloud to break it; and always on the right, black plunging rocks with their feet in a blue sea. The pink dusty road before us, the scrub and the dark pines, lay always between these depths of blue. The sea was calm; as one looked down, it drowned the eye like a second zenith, but bluer still; bluer than lapis, or sapphire, or whatever flower is bluest; and then again, in the dark clear shadows round the deep roots of the rocks, green and grape-purple, like the ring-dove’s sheen. It must have been seldom I stood in quiet to gaze at it. My eye was sharpened for other matters. Yet it is the blue that I remember.

  I remember that, and the feel of a land without law. On the Isthmus Road, a wounded man by the wayside, his blood black with flies and his mouth cracking for water, is the sign for wayfarers to flog on their donkeys and get out of sight. There was not much to be done, by the time one found him. I remember one I could only dispatch like a dog gored by the boar. I did it quickly, while he was drinking; he got the taste of the water first.

  We found noonday shelter in a river-bed, with a summer trickle for the horses. It hid but did not trap us. When we had unyoked and eaten, Dexios went off among the rocks; and presently it seemed to me that he had been rather long gone. I called, but got no answer, and went to look. The rocks were steep, and to climb faster I left my spear at the bottom. It is hard to believe one was once so green.

  From the top of the gully I saw him soon enough. He wa
s lying at the feet of a thick-shouldered fellow who was stripping off his arm-rings. He must have been stunned from behind, never to have cried; I saw the club the robber had put down while he worked. Dexios moved a little; he was still alive. I remembered how I had saved him from the bull. Now again it was I who had endangered him. I was going to climb back for my spear when I saw the man, who had now got all he had, start rolling him toward the cliff. Just there the road skirts it near.

  I shouted over the rock-edge, “Stop! Let him alone!” The man looked up. He was broad and red, with a thick neck and forked beard. When he saw me he laughed, and shoved Dexios with his foot.

  I scrambled over the rocks; but they were rough, hard going. “Let him alone!” I called again, and heard my voice crack, as it had when it was breaking. The fellow put his hands on his hips and bawled, “What are you, Goldilocks? His girl, or his fancy-boy?” This he followed with some dirt he liked well enough to laugh at; and in the midst of his laughter, kicked Dexios over the cliff. I heard his cry, broken off in the middle.

  Anger entered into me. It filled me body and limbs, so that I seemed without weight; as I sprang out from the rock, anger bore me like wings, and carried me where I could not have leaped before. My very hair seemed to rise, as the mane of the King Horse does in battle. I landed on my feet, straightened up, and began to run. I hardly felt the ground beneath me. There he stood waiting, his mouth open and the laugh half out of it. As I got nearer, the sound ceased.

  Afterwards I found on me the marks of his teeth and nails. At the time I felt nothing, but noted he was no wrestler, having trusted in his club. So I got an arm-grip as he tried to throttle me, and let him throw himself over my back. He lay, as Dexios had before him, dazed, with his head over the edge, all ready. I don’t think he knew where he was going, till he was by himself in the air. Then I saw his mouth open again, but not for laughter. There was a great round-topped rock at the water’s edge, shaped like a tortoise; he struck it head-on. The cliffs are high, just about there.

  I went to see where Dexios had fallen. He lay dead across a sharp rock lapped by the sea, which rippled his white tunic and brown hair. I climbed down as far as I could above him, and sprinkled the earth to free him for his journey, promising him the offerings later. At least I had given him the one murdered men need most.

  Feeding the horses and yoking them up, I was reminded by my clumsiness of his long-learned skill, consumed like a thorn-twig in the fire. I mounted and gathered in the reins, and felt what it is to be alone.

  A little way on, a fellow met me with obeisance, and told me people were looting the house of Skiron, whom I had killed, offering to lead me there that I might claim my due. I told him to help himself to it, if he could get it, and drove on leaving him downcast. The jackal does not like to do his own hunting.

  That was my last fight in the Isthmus. Either I was lucky, or people were avoiding me. By evening I was clear of it, and driving through the Megarian foothills beside the sea. Dusk was falling, and ahead to the east the mountains of Attica looked thunder-black against the heavy sky. The road was desolate, the only sound wolves howling, or the scream of a rabbit nipped by the fox. Soon the track grew dangerous for horses in the bad light, and I had to lead them.

  Other things go to make a grown man, besides proving himself with his hands. Now when no one threatened me, I was as lonely as a child. This dark rough road seemed forgotten by the Sky Gods, and given to earth-daimons not friendly to man. I ached from fighting, felt my wounds, and grieved for my friend. For comfort I called to mind that the King of Megara was Hellene, and my father’s kinsman. But round me was only the friendless night, and I remembered rather that my father had sent no word to me since my birth. I thought of Troizen, the round hearth in the Great Hall, the fire of sweet-burning wood in its great warm bed of ash, my mother sitting among her women, and the lyre going from hand to hand.

  Suddenly there was a great clamor of dogs, and whistling; and from the next bend I saw a fire. There was a fold of rough stones and thorn bushes, and round the fire six or eight little goatherds, the eldest not past thirteen and the youngest eight or nine. They had been piping, to keep their courage up with music against the ghosts of night. At sight of me, they scampered off to hide among the goats; but when I called to them, presently they came out, and I sat among them to get warm.

  They helped me unyoke the horses—one could see them in their mind’s eye charioteers already—and showed me where to find water and feed. I shared with them my figs and barley bread, and they with me their goat-milk cheese, while they called me “My lord,” and asked where I had come from. Not all the tale of my day was fit for lads so young in a place so lonely, who had enough to fear from leopards and wolves. But I showed them Skiron’s club, which I had brought away, and told them there had been an end of him, since he seemed a bugbear that haunted their dreams. They sat or lay around me, their rough hair falling over their bright eyes, their mouths opening in shrill sounds of wonder, asking what this or that place was like not ten miles off, as you or I might ask of Babylon.

  It was full night. I could see no more the darkling sea nor the black mountains; only the rough walls of the fold, the dim shapes of goats within it, and the ring of faces flushed by the fire, which caught the polish of a reed pipe smooth with handling, a herd dog’s yellow eyes, a bone knife hilt, or a tangle of fair hair. They brought me brush for a bed, and we lay down beside the embers. When they had crept together under two threadbare blankets like puppies scuffling for a place near the dam, there was one small one left outside, the runt of the Utter. I saw him drawing his knees up to his chin, and offered him some of my cloak; he smelled of goats’ dung, and had more fleas than an old dog, but after all he was my host.

  Presently he said to me, “I wish we always had a man to stay with us. Sometimes it thunders, or one hears the lion.” Soon he fell asleep, but I lay waking by the husk of the fire, watching the bright stars turn through the heaven. “To be a king,” I thought, “what is it? To do justice, go to war for one’s people, make their peace with the gods? Surely, it is this.”

  BOOK TWO

  ELEUSIS

  1

  I ROSE AT DAYBREAK, waked by the herd’s bleating, and washed in the stream; a thing my hosts beheld with wonder, having had their last bath at the midwife’s hands. From there on, the road grew easier, and dropped seaward. Soon across a narrow water I saw the island of Salamis, and all about me a fertile plain, with fruit and cornlands. The road led down to a city on the shore, a seaport full of shipping. Some merchants I met on the road told me it was Eleusis.

  It was good to see a town again, and be in a land of law; and better still that this was the last stop before Athens. I would have my horses fed and groomed, I thought, while I ate and saw the sights. Then, as I came to the edge of the town, I saw the road all lined with staring people, and the rooftops thick with them.

  Young men like to think themselves somebody; but even to me this seemed surprising. Besides, I found it strange that out of so many come to see me, no one called out or asked for news.

  Before me was the market place. I pulled my pair to a walk, to save the traders’ pitches. Then I drew rein; before me the people stood in a solid wall. No one spoke; and mothers hushed the babes they carried, to make them still.

  In the midst, straight before me, stood a stately woman, with a slave holding a sunshade over her head. She was about seven and twenty; her hair, which was crowned with a diadem of purple stitched with gold, was as red as firelit copper. A score of women stood about her, like courtiers about a king; but there was no man near her, except the servant with the parasol. She must be both priestess and reigning queen. A Minyan kingdom, sure enough. That is what the Shore People call themselves, in their own places. Everyone knows that among them news travels faster than one can tell how.

  Out of respect, I got down from my chariot and led the horses forward. Not only was she looking at me; I saw it was for me she waited. As I drew near, an
d saluted her, all the crowd fell into a deeper silence, like people who hear the harper tune his strings.

  I said, “Greeting, Lady, in the name of whatever god or goddess is honored here above the rest. For I think you serve a powerful deity, to whom the traveller ought to pay some homage or other, before he passes by. A man should respect the gods of his journey, if he wants it to end as he would wish.”

  She said to me, in a slow Greek with the accent of the Minyans, “Truly your journey has been blessed, and here it ends.”

  I stared at her surprised. She seemed to be speaking words prepared for her; behind all this another women peeped out in secret. I said, “Lady, I am a stranger in the land, travelling to Athens. The guest you look for is someone of more mark; a chief, or maybe a king.”

  At this she smiled. All the people drew closer, murmuring; not in anger, but like the goatherds by the fire, all ears.

  “There is only one journey,” she said, “that all men make. They go forth from the Mother, and do what men are born to do, till she stretches forth her hand, and calls them home.”

  Plainly this land was of the old religion. Touching my brow in respect, I said, “We are all her children.” What could she want of me, which the city knew already?

  “But some,” she said, “are called to a higher destiny. As you are, stranger, who come here fulfilling the omens, on the day when the King must die.”

  Now I understood. But I would not show it. My wits were stunned and I needed time.

  “High Lady,” I said, “if your lord’s sign calls him, what has that to do with me? What god or goddess is angry? No one is in mourning; no one looks hungry; no smoke is in the sky. Well, it is for him to say. But if he needs me to serve his death, he will send for me himself.”