The King Must Die (11 page)

I got to my feet, and heard from the people a deep sighing, as if they had all just finished the act of love.

"So it begins," I said to myself; "and only a god can see the ending."

They had brought a bier, and laid the King on it. There was a high scream from the throne. The Queen rushed down and threw herself on the corpse, rending her hair and clawing her face and bosom. She looked just like a woman who has lost her dear lord, the man who led her a maiden from her father's house; as if there were young children and no kin to help them. That was how she wept, so that I stared amazed. But now all the other women were crying and howling too, and I understood it was the custom.

They went off wailing, appeasing the new-made ghost. Left alone among staring strangers, I wanted to ask, "What now?" But the only man I knew was dead.

Presently came an old priestess and led me toward the sanctuary-house. She told me they would mourn the King till sundown; then I should be blood-cleansed, and wed the Queen.

In a room with a bath of painted clay, the priestesses bathed me and dressed my wounds. They all spoke Greek, with the lilt of the Shore People, lisping and twittering. But even in their own speech they have Greek words. There is so much sea traffic at Eleusis, the tongues have got mixed there, as well as the blood. They put a long white linen robe on me, and combed my hair, and gave me meat and wine. Then there was nothing to do but listen to the wailing, and wait, and think.

Toward sunset I heard the funeral coming down the long stairs, with dirges and weeping and the aulos' skirl, and disks of bronze clanging together. From a window I saw the winding train of women, robed in crimson with black veils. When the dirge ended, there was a great cry, between a scream and a shout of triumph. I guessed the King was going home.

Soon after, at fall of dusk, the priestesses came back to fetch me for the cleansing. A red glow shone in at the window; and when they opened the door, I saw everywhere a leaping torchlight. There were torches as far as one could see, filling the precinct and streaming up to the Citadel, and flowing on into the town. Yet all was quiet, though all the people were there, from about twelve years old. The priestess led me between them, in a deep silence, till the shore with its beached ships lay before us. When the water lapped our feet, the priestess cried out, "To the sea!"

At this, everyone began to walk into the water. Those who wore white robes kept them on; many stripped naked, both women and men, but all was done with deep solemnity, and they kept their lit torches in their hands. The night was calm; the sea seemed sown with a thousand points of fire, every flame with its rippling image.

She led me forward till the water lapped my breast, and held her torch high for them all to see me. I was there to be cleansed of blood; they, I suppose, washed off ill-luck, and death. I was young, and had killed a man whose beard had grown; though it was the earth magic had put him in my hand, I felt my victory. Also I was going to the Queen; and with darkness came desire.

In Salamis, across the strait, lamps burned in the houses. I thought of home, of my kindred, and of Kalauria across the water. Everything here was strange except the sea, which had carried my father to my mother. I loosed my girdle, and pulled off my robe, and gave it to the priestess. She stared surprised; but I plunged in and swam beyond all the people, far into the strait. Behind me the torches were a fiery surf along the shore, and above were the stars.

For a while I was quiet, floating on the sea. Then I said, "Blue-Haired Poseidon, Earth-Shaker, Horse Father! You are the lord of the Goddess. If I served your altar well in Troizen, if you were there at my begetting, lead me on toward my moira; be my friend in this land of women."

I turned to swim back, head over heels in the water. As it rushed in my ears, I heard the pulse of the sea-surge, and thought, "Yes, he remembers me." So I swam back to the torches, and there was the chief priestess, waving her light about and crying, "Where is the King?" for all the world like some old nurse when the children get too big for her. That, I suppose, was what made me swim up under water, and bob out laughing right under her nose, so that she jumped and nearly doused her torch. I half expected a box in the ear. But she only eyed me muttering in the Minyan speech, and shook her head.

Walking back in my wet robe, it was strange to feel my wounds fresh-smarting from the salt, for it seemed a year since the wrestling. As for all the people, you might have supposed King Kerkyon had never been. But as I looked beyond the wrestling ground, where the precinct was lit with cressets, I saw beside the rock-cleft the woman who had wept for him, face down on the bare stone, her torn hair flung about her, still as the dead. Some women on the steps were calling out, upbraiding her. Presently they ran down clucking, and pulled her to her feet and led her up to the palace.

At the sanctuary-house I was dried and oiled and combed again; then they brought me a tunic of embroidered work, a necklace of gold sunflowers, and the King's ring. The Goddess was carved upon the gold, with women worshipping her, and a youth done small. I had a cut on my cheekbone, where Kerkyon's fist had driven it into my face.

When I was ready, I asked for my sword. They said staring that I should have no need of that. "So I should hope," I said. "But since I am going to my wife's house and not she to mine, it is proper to bring it with me." This they made no sense of. I could not say it was my father's; but when I said "My mother gave it me," they fetched it at once. Earthlings inherit everything from their mothers, even their names.

Outside was a guard of young men singing, and musicians. They led me not to the Palace, but to the precinct below. The song was in Minyan, but the bawdy clowning told the story. One expects some fooling when they bring the bridegroom, but there is measure in everything. Besides, I thought, I knew what I was about, and had no need of teachers.

The song changed to a hymn. I got to know it after. It is the Corn Song of those parts, about how a whole ear springs where a grain was sown, through Mother Dia, from whose womb comes everything. Then they sang the Queen's praises, hailing her as Kore, which is her unforbidden name. Presently we came to steps going into the ground. At once the song ceased, and all was silence. The priestess put out her torch, and took my hand.

She led me down into darkness, and on through a winding way, and up a little. Then the walls opened to a space, and there was the scent of a woman. I remembered it on the Queen when I walked with her, heavy like asphodel. The priestess let go of me; I heard her fading footfalls and her hand brushing the walls. I stripped and dropped my clothes behind me, keeping only my sword in my left hand. Then I went forward, and felt a bed. I propped the sword against it, and reached out and found her. She slid her hands up my arms, then downward from my shoulders; and what I had learned with the Troizen girls seemed nothing, like the games of children before they understand.

Suddenly she cried out like a virgin. There was a clash of cymbals and blare of horns. Torchlight blinded me; I heard a thousand voices laughing and cheering. Then I saw we were in a cavern whose mouth had been closed with doors; the people had been waiting outside, to see them opened.

For a moment I was too stunned to move. Then anger lit in me like a mountain fire in summer. I snatched my sword, and shouted, and ran forward. But amid shrieks and squeals I found myself entangled in women, who, if you please, had been standing foremost to see the sight. Everyone was calling out and exclaiming, as if I were the first man they had ever known to resent such a thing. I shall never, till I die, understand Earthlings.

I flung the women off, and crashed the doors together. Then I strode back to the bed and stood over it. "You barefaced bitch!" I said. "You deserve to die. Have you no shame for yourself, no respect for my honor? Could you not have lent me some man of your house to keep the door for me, seeing I brought no friend? Or have you no kinsmen to see decency? Where I come from, the meanest peasant on the folk-land would have blood for this. Am I a dog?"

I heard her quick breathing in the dark, which seemed blacker after the torchlight. "What is it?" she said. "Have you gone mad? There is always the Showing."

I was struck dumb. Not only with Kerkyon, but with the gods knew how many men before, she had shown herself to the people. There was music outside, a wild air on flutes and lyres, with drums beating like blood, in the ears. She said, "It is over now. Come here." I heard her move on the bed. "No," I said; "I have drunk poison; you have shamed my manhood." The scent of her hair came close, and I felt her hand on my neck. "What has the Mother done to me," she whispered, "sending me a wild horsetamer of the Sky Folk, a blue-eyed charioteer without law or custom or respect for anything? Don't you understand even seed-time and reaping? How can the people trust the harvest, unless they see it sown? We have done what is needful now; they will ask no more of us. Now comes the time when we can please ourselves."

Her hand moved down my arm; she laced her fingers in mine, and loosened them from the sword hilt. When she had drawn me near, I forgot that what she knew, dead men had taught her whose bones lay near us under the rock. The drums were quickening their beat, and the flutes shrilled higher at each clash of the cymbals. I learned more in that one night than I had in three whole years from the girls of Troizen.

2

When they led us up to the Palace in the fresh morning, and I saw from the upper terrace the glittering sun-path on the sea, I thought to myself, "Only four days out from home, and here I am a King."

Nothing is good enough at Eleusis for a new-made King. They drown his days in honey. Gold necklaces, inlaid daggers, tunics of silk from Babylon, rose-oil from Rhodes; the dancers throwing flowers; the bard, lest you should miss the compliment, singing it again in Greek. Young girls sighing; the King is everyone's beloved. Old women cooing; he is everybody's son. And among the Companions, the guard of high-born youths who are in the running themselves for King, it seemed too that I was everybody's brother. I did not notice at first that I was not the eldest brother, but the youngest spoiled by all the rest. I had other things to think of.

The great bedchamber faced southward. When one waked at morning, one saw in the wide window only the rose-flushed sky; then sitting up, the hills of Attica purpled with daybreak, and the gray landlocked bay. The walls were painted with white spirals and pink flowers, the floor had red and black checkers. The bed was of Egyptian ebony studded with gold barley-ears, and had a cover pf civetskins bordered with dark purple. In a withy cage at the window lived a bird with smooth white feathers color-shot like pearl shell, which whistled at sunrise, and when one looked least for it sometimes spoke. It made me start, and she used to laugh. The earliest sunlight glowed deeply in her hair; strong hair, and springing; when one gathered it up, it filled both hands full.

I lived all day for the night. Sometimes I fell asleep at noon, and did not wake till evening; then I would not sleep again till dawn. I hardly noticed at the marriage sacrifice how, though I killed the victims, it was the Queen who offered them, as if she were the King. At the Games I won the spear-throwing and the jumping, and a silly horse race with little Minyan ponies. Also I won the archery, though I had thought my eye would be out from going short of sleep.

There was no wrestling; it seemed that had been settled already. But if you are supposing these were the funeral games of the dead King, you will be wrong; they were held in my honor. He was gone from sight and mind; I have grieved longer for a dog than they did for him. What is more, I was Kerkyon now. It is the style of Kings of Eleusis, like Pharaoh in Egypt and Minos in Crete. So the man had not even left a name behind him.

Days passed, and the Palace business began again. Down on the plain the army turned out to exercise, throwing spears at the stuffed hog, or shooting at the mark. But this, I found, was not supposed to concern me. It would not answer, for war leaders to come and go, one every year. The troops were led by Xanthos, the Queen's brother. He was a big man as Minyans go, on whom his sister's red hair was not beautiful. He had the russet eyes of a fox. There are hot red men and cold red men, and he was one of the cold. He used to speak to me man to boy, which made me angry. Though he could give me a dozen years, I was the King; and I was still new enough in Eleusis to suppose this meant something.

Every day the Queen held audience. Seeing the Hall filled with women, I did not understand at first that she was doing all the kingdom's business without me. But the women were heads of families; they came about land disputes, or taxes, or marriage portions. Fathers were nobody in Eleusis, and could not choose wives for their own sons, or leave them a name, let alone property. The men stood at the back till the women had been heard; and if she wanted a man's advice, she sent for Xanthos.

One night at bedtime, I asked her if there was nothing in Eleusis for the King to do. She smiled and said, "Oh, yes. Undo this necklace; it is caught in my hair." I did not move at once, but looked at her. She said, "Why should the King sit at clerk's business with ugly old men?" Then she let fall her belt and petticoat and said, coming nearer, "See, it is pulling here. It hurts me." And there was no more talk that night.

Just afterwards, I learned by chance that she had seen an embassy from Rhodes, and never even told me. I overheard it on the Lower Terrace; the stewards had heard it first. I stood there in my tracks. No one had so insulted me since my childhood. "What does she take me for?" I thought. "Because I have less beard than her fox-eyed brother, does she think I need a nurse? Thunder of Zeus! I killed her husband." Anger blurred my eyes.

There were voices about me. The young Companions were escorting me, as they did everywhere. I hardly knew one yet from another; there had been no time. "What is it, Kerkyon? Does something trouble you?" "You look sick." "No, he looks angry." "Kerkyon, is there something I can do?"