The Bull from the Sea (11 page)

It was the only marriage, as I had long since known. I had thought I could take my time, since they could not betroth her without my leave. Of course they had not asked; they had been waiting for me. Well, there could be no more trifling, after today.

I had not seen the child since I was a bull-boy. She had been seven or eight years old. Before the bull-dance, they would bring in the little ones of the princely houses, just to see the procession of the dancers into the ring, and be shown the first in fame. Before the bull-gate opened and there could be blood, their nurses took them away. Thus she had come, one of a crowd of piping children I would sometimes wave to, as I passed by. One day, when a rumor ran round that the bull had killed me, she had screamed herself so nearly into a fit that her scared nurse had fetched me up to her, to prove I was still alive. That was how I remembered her: a naked tear-drenched child on a painted bed, curled up in tumbled linen, clutching my hand.

Then I had met her sister, and came into the ring with my mind on other things; but now and then, lest my face wore my thoughts too clearly, I would turn to the children’s balcony and smile and wave. By my counting, now, she must be about fourteen.

Like a winding thread, my thoughts passed and repassed about the Labyrinth, and came at last to Naxos.

I had never set foot there, since that midnight sailing. But my ships, when they passed that way, had had orders to bring word if ever Ariadne the Thrice-Holy should leave the shrine. So much was needful; to hold her could bring great power to an enemy. But she had grown too sacred; years passed and she was still there, in the sanctuary of Dionysos on its offshore island. Each vintage moon, she led the maenads up the mountain; at nightfall they came down swaying with wine and weariness, their hands wrist-deep in blood; and last year’s Vine King was no more seen.

For a long while after that Naxos feast, my tongue had been sealed with horror. But kings cannot sit hand on mouth, like frightened children. She had to be accounted for. In Crete, when I freed the Labyrinth, I had told the people she would be my wife. So when I went back there, and had put the land in order, I told this story to the princes: that I had had a dreadful dream at Naxos in the Isle of Dia, Dionysos appearing to me in his shape of terror and warning me off his chosen bride. Which was true enough, after its kind.

So I had put her off with a show of honor. In time, having passed through the islands mouth to mouth, my own tale came back full of marvels. She was so dear, it seemed, to Dionysos, that his vine-grown ship would glide by starlight to the water-stairs, and he would come to her in the shape of a black-haired man. I hoped it was true she had found a lover. She was a girl it would come hard on, to sleep alone.

And then, after a few years more, news came that she was dead in childbirth by the god. Whether the child had lived I could not learn; Dionysos’ shrines have many secrets. I should lie, if I said I grieved. It was a burden lifted. And it left young Phaedra clear heir of the House of Minos, last of the Children of the Sun. When Echelaos left next morning, I gave him for his guest-gift the Cretan singer. It made him my friend for a long time after; and as he shortly became King, the present was well spent.

I had thoughts of going to Crete for the betrothal, to see the girl for myself. Then there was a blood-feud at Eleusis, which no one else could deal with. So I sent an embassy instead, with a great gold bowl as a pledge to the kinsfolk. For the maiden I ordered something prettier; she had been a delicate child, small-boned and silken-haired; the Palace goldsmith made her a wreath of lapis hyacinths, with sprays for the ears. But my mind’s eye still saw her in the nursery with monkeys painted on the wall. So I sent her one in a little scarlet coat, and wondered if she would remember.

The ship came back bringing the kin’s consent, and the gifts of compliment. One was a likeness of the maiden, painted on ivory; but it was just like any Cretan picture of a girl or goddess. Even her hair had been done black, which I knew was fair light brown.

I had given my envoy leave to go, when he lingered and caught my eye. He was a white-haired baron I had chosen for his gentle manners. When I had sent the rest away he said, “My lord, I have something in trust for you.” He brought out a packet of embroidered stuff. “The princess sent it herself, by an old nurse of hers. I was to tell no one but you, for her aunt would scold her, but you would understand.”

Inside was a wreath of plaited hair. There were two colors in it. I stared; then it came back to me. That day in Crete after the bull-dance she had begged a lock of my hair, saying, as little children do who know nothing of the matter, that one day she would marry me.

The old man said, “She has been kept much alone; it is only innocence. Ah, but the bird is knocking there, within the eggshell; and a lovely bird it will be.”

I told him the tale, being happy and glad to share it. Now the thought of the maid began to take hold of me, and I grew her in my mind from child to woman. Beside this picture the Palace girls looked coarse and stale, and most nights I lay alone. The lands were quiet; once more the fancy took me to sail for Crete.

I sent no word before me, meaning to do it from some port nearby. I had not told even my pilot yet where I was going, keeping my secret like a lad. When I ordered my ship fresh-painted, a new awning, a fanciful gryphon beak from the bronzesmith, I saw smiles sometimes, but did not care. As the news of the match went round, I saw that it pleased everyone. Even the lords who had hoped I would choose a daughter of their house were glad their rivals had been passed over. Everyone would have feared the tie with Mykenai, as they would have feared one with Minos in the great days of his power. But now Crete was down, they saw a bond that would hold the great land safe in vassalage. The men praised my wisdom; the women had heard about the keepsake and thought it pretty as a minstrel’s tale.

I was at the harbor seeing the new beak fitted, when there came a shout from the watchtower that a pirate fleet was in sight.

A great outcry began, people driving the livestock inland and carting off the bales. Sea-rovers had been getting bolder; there had been flying raids all along the coasts to the Isthmus. Soon we saw longships, coming in under oar and sail. But the foremost signalled with a polished mirror, three times three. I laughed, and sent to disband the warriors and make the guest-room ready.

The people looked rather askance at Pirithoos, having been afraid to the last that he meant to sack the harbor. For myself, I was overjoyed; I needed a friend to talk with freely.

This time he was fresh and barbered, his ships in trim. He was outward bound though it was high summer, for the kingdom’s business had held him. I did not wait for his story, being full of my own. Upstairs after dinner, the wine at our elbow and the servants gone, I poured it out to him. He was all for the marriage, till I said I was off to Crete; then he stared and laughed, and said, “Have you lost your wits?”

I had got used to prettier phrases; even the Palace girls had kept their thoughts to themselves. Before I could answer, he went on, “Can’t you see it is the way to spoil your marriage, to see her now? A little giggler with the puppy-fat not fined off her yet, and spots as like as not. All idle palace-bred girls go through it; it’s only peasants who work it off that are pretty at fourteen. Oh, no doubt she’s a good girl, and will be beautiful. So wait for it, don’t start with downcast hopes and a dismal bedding. Mark my words, if you wed now you’ll be stale for her when she comes to her best, and she will have a roving eye.”

This dashed me a little. I said, “I need not marry yet. When I see her I can decide.”

“Don’t see her at all, if you want to love her after. And when you bed with the pretty bride you dreamed of, don’t forget to thank me. Meantime we have sailing weather, and deeds to do.”

I had guessed all along he had been pleading his own cause. Yet there had been something in it.

He said, “And your ship is ready. A lucky omen! Listen, and see why I’ve sailed a week out of my way to fetch you.”

He told me the venture he had in hand: to sail north to the Hellespont, and force the straits, and on into the unknown Euxine, searching for gold. “There is a river comes down in the sand; they tie rams’ fleeces to strain the stream, and haul them up full of gold-dust. I talked with a captain of Iolkos who brought one home with him. He didn’t get it without trouble; but what are we—women? Why flog along old sea-roads, when one can see the world?”

I began to say, “We could sail on after Crete,” but I knew there would not be time. All my life I had wanted to see the country beyond the straits, at the back of the north wind. Reading it in my eyes, he gave me a long tale of marvels, earth-born warriors spawned from dragon-teeth, witches who could make old men young in a magic bath, and such sailors’ yarns. I laughed. And then he said, “Oh, yes, and we shall hug the Pontos coast. That’s where those Amazon girls come from, that you thought so much of in the bull ring. Don’t you want to see how they live at home?”

“Why should I?” I said. “Bull-dancers never talk of home. It’s like bellyache; it takes your mind off the bull.”

So he went back to the Kolchian gold and dragons, while I stared into the lamp-flame in its bowl of streaked green malachite, seeing pictures in the grain.

“Well,” he said at last, “but they are waiting for you in Crete. You don’t want to offend them.”

I answered, “I’ve not sent word yet.” It was all he got that day from me. But he knew that he had won.

H
ALF ATHENS SAW US
off at Piraeus, when we had sacrificed to the Lady of the Winds. I thought, when I heard the cheers, how times had changed. In the great days of Minos, pirates were no better thought of than brigands on the land. But now there was no fleet strong enough to guard all the sea-roads. Kings fought for their own shores, and sometimes sailed out to take vengeance; and where there is war there’s spoil. From this it was not far to roving on adventure. Young men could set themselves up in life; kings could grow rich without hard taxes, which pleased their people; warriors could show what they were made of, and see the wonders of the earth. Only the graybeards murmured, when I put to sea with Roving Pirithoos and manned the benches of my ships with spearmen. Chiefs’ sons, whose fathers would have had blood from anyone who offered them an oar to pull, were nearly fighting in my presence chamber to get their names in first.

They had time to work their hands in. We got a steady south wind all the way north to the straits; dolphins curvetted in our bow-wave, and blew glittering spray from so blue a sea that one looked to see it dye the oars. Once or twice we saw smoke on shore, and longships beached there; men on our business, very likely; but they let us be. It could be seen from our strength and blazons that we were a royal fleet; and wolves make way for the lion.

I could have dived in and swum with the dolphins for joy to be alive. For a long time the rover in me had been a slave and captive of the king; and now he was on holiday. My eye was as fresh as a boy’s, and my heart as light.

If we had been sailing to plunder Hellene lands, I should have felt less easy. To me all Hellenes are kindred of a sort; which is why, in the Hellene lands I have conquered, I have treated all men as my own people and made no serfs. Some kings know nothing beyond the neighbor they are at feud with; for them, you are foreign if you come from ten miles off. But I have been a prisoner where strange gods were served, and what was dear to us was nothing to our masters. It draws one to one’s own kind.

We coasted north to the mouth of Peneus, where Pirithoos’ people lit a smoke-fire for him, to let him know that his lands were quiet. So we went on, and rounded Mount Athos safely, and sighted Thasos where they mine the gold of Troy. A Trojan fleet was there, loading, and must have had a king’s ransom aboard. But one does not bite the gryphon’s tail, where the head can reach so quickly. So we passed Thasos by.

Ahead was Samothrace, where great dark cliffs and wooded steeps stand straight up from the sea. It has no ship-harbor, which has kept it wild. But it is sacred; Pirithoos and I had ourselves rowed ashore in their boats of hide, taking our stern-pennants to be charmed against shipwreck and defeat by the dwarf gods of the mountain.

We climbed steep winding paths that tacked about the crags, up through mist-swathes that danked the fir woods; past rocky slopes where the hamlets of the Sai, the oldest Shore Folk, are perched like the nests of storks, and on their roofs nest the storks themselves. At the very top, above the cloud-wet woods, are high stony uplands. The dwarf gods’ rough-hewn altar is there, and the holy cave. Having come so far, Pirithoos and I asked to be charmed against defeat and shipwreck ourselves. The rites are secret, so I will only say that they are brutish and nasty, and foul one’s clothes. I left mine on the beach below and, to feel clean again, swam all the way to my ship. However, we were neither wrecked nor defeated, so one must say of the dwarf gods that they kept their word.

While we were in the cave, a hunchback priest with the legs of a bandy child asked us each apart in a vile coarse Greek if we had done any crime beyond the common run. The dwarf gods, he said, had had to be cleansed for murdering their brother; so the man in need of cleansing wins favor there. I told him how I had not changed my sail coming home from Crete, and what had come of it; and he said it would be much to the dwarf gods’ mind. They seemed pleased too with Phithoos; but he never told me why, and, wishing to keep my own counsel, I did not ask. As we clambered down the mossed craggy paths, the wooden bull-roarers, that they dance to in the cave, boomed and roared in our ears; and when we had rowed out of the long shadow of the mountain into sunlit water, it was like being born again. But it is true that I never dreamed again about my father, after that day.

Then the straits of Helle were there before us, like the mouth of a great river. We hove-to, to wait for night. In summer the northeast wind blows down head-on all day there, but drops at sunset. We put ashore for water with all hands armed; for the people there are great ship-robbers and wreckers. Pirithoos showed me a chart the captain from Iolkos had made for him, showing which shores to hug where the eddies would run our way. This man, he said, had been a king’s heir whose father had been put aside by a powerful kinsman. The sailor son had not wealth enough to raise an army and get back his heritage; but in this voyage he got enough fleeces full of gold-dust to hire all the spearmen he needed. He had given his chart to Pirithoos because they had been boys together at Old Handy’s school; and because, as he said, he would not live to make another voyage to the Euxine. He was King in Iolkos; but he suffered a good deal from a curse that a northern witch had put on him. “So give them a wide berth,” said Pirithoos, “even if they offer to do you favors. He told this one he’d marry her if she showed him how to get the gold from Kolchis. Now the curse is eating his bones, and by his looks he won’t last long.”