The King Must Die (31 page)

They use a little double ax, of the sacred pattern, to dispatch the victims. When they lifted it over his neck, I saw his hand come up for a moment, as if to ward it off; then he changed the gesture to a salute, and turned his head to take the blow cleaner. He was a gentleman, and he died like one. I found myself weeping, as if I had been in love with him. So I was too, though not as it is understood in Crete. No one took notice. To weep once is thought lucky in the Bull Court. Besides, a lady had fallen down screaming, and there was a crowd about her, fanning her and holding essences to her nose and catching her marmoset.

The bull was roped and led away. You could see it was getting tired; it would have had enough before long. The dancers filed out. The Rhodian next me was saying, "Why did he do it? Why? He had no need." Then he said, "I suppose he was called. I suppose it was his time." I said nothing. My tears had dried; I had begun to think.

The priest of Poseidon had filled a shallow offering cup with the Corinthian's blood, and poured a libation on the earth. Then he came forward and stood before the shrine, and poured the rest till the cup was empty, and spoke in Cretan. The Mistress in the shrine stood up and raised her palms outward, in the gesture that means "It is accomplished." Then she went out through the little door behind the shrine. I remembered the small rouged feet upon the steps, the tender breast with the ringlet on it. My flesh shivered.

When we were back in the Bull Court, I said to Amyntor, "Fetch the Cranes."

I waited by the Bull of Daidalos. No one felt like playing with him just then, so we had that place to ourselves. The Cranes came up. I saw Phormion pale, while Amyntor still shook with anger. Of the girls, it was Chryse and Thebe who had been crying; Nephele's eyes were dry. Helike was shut up in one of her silences, and spoke to no one. "Well," I said, "now we have seen the bull-dance."

Amyntor burst out, cursing the team that had let the Corinthian die. He was a nobleman, and thought of them as a royal guard that had failed its master. I let him run on awhile; he meant it well.

"Yes," I said. "But think; he was not of their kin; they owed him nothing; they had sworn him no oath. Why should he have been dearer to them than their lives?"

They looked at me, wondering that I could be so cold.

"On the ship," I said, "when I swore us in, it was only to keep us together. I was all ignorance; but I suppose the god prompted me, because I am in his hand. Do you all know now why we must be like kindred?"

They nodded. They were soft metal now, ready for striking. I had been right not to delay.

"The Corinthian is dead," I said. "But so are all his team. They gave themselves to death just when they thought to live a little longer. They know it, too. Look at them now. Shame would not weigh so heavy on them. They are afraid."

"Yes," said Amyntor. "That is true."

"When you love your life too much in the ring, that's when you lose it. Now they are goods no one will buy. They are not worth a graze or a scratch or a trickle of blood to anyone. And they have lost their pride in themselves. If any of them has had a guardian god, they must hear the music of his passing. Look at their faces."

But instead they all looked at mine, as if I had power to make things other than they were. They thought me hard.

"We are going to renew our oath," I said, "so that the gods of this place can witness it. But now we will swear it stronger. 'The life of every Crane shall be as dear to me as mine. What I would look for if I were in his danger, that I will do for him, the very same, not less by a single hair. So witness the River, and the Daughters of Night, and Bull-Faced Poseidon down below Crete. On the day I am forsworn, may they destroy me.' "

They looked at me with great eyes. Chryse and Amyntor both stepped forward, in a hurry to repeat the words while they had them right. They had not even looked behind them. I motioned them to wait; I could see the others. Not that I blamed those who hung back; it was a strong oath, and heavy.

"What is it?" I said to them. "Do you think you are doing it for me? Why should you, indeed? I am a king without a roof of his own, without food or clothes or gold or anything to give, except, like any one of us, whatever I am good for with the bulls. Do this for yourselves. We are only mortal. There will be quarrels among us, love rivalries, and such things. If you swore there would not, you would be forsworn within a week. But this we can swear: never to bring them into the ring. There we must be limbs of one body, as if we shared one life. We do. We must have no more doubt of each other than the spear arm has of the shield arm. Swear to that."

Then some came forward. I said to the rest, "Don't be afraid. You will walk lighter after, when there is no looking back. That is a mystery I am telling you. I learned it from a priest who is also a king."

When all had sworn, there was a silence. Then silly Pylia looked surprised, as if she had gulped strong wine. "Yes, it is true. I do feel better." We all laughed, more at her face than anything else. But all that day, we found that we were merry.

That night, after the girls had gone, a boy came up to me; a Minyan from Melos, whom I only knew by sight. "The Corinthian told me," he said, "who was to have his things when he met his bull. This is for you."

He opened his hand. There was a little bull in his palm, of polished crystal. The ring to hang it by was a slender gold bull-leaper, bent in a somersault on its back.

"Me?" I said. "He hardly knew me." I did not want the Corinthian to lose his last wish, because of this boy's stupidity. He shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, it is not a love-gift. Don't flatter yourself. He said he liked to put something on his fancy. Would it be to settle a bet?"

I took it away, and hung it round my neck by a strong thread. I did not reproach myself for having laughed and clowned with the Cranes before his blood was dry. He would have understood that better than anyone.

After dark I went round behind the cookhouse. The wicket gate was ajar as usual. Aktor the trainer, seeing me there, said, "Which girl tonight? Make the most of her. When you get to the bulls, you'll have less to spare."

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.