The Bull from the Sea (21 page)

I made in the darkness the sign against the evil eye. “Is it witchcraft? Should we seek it out?”

“But then he would surely pine. He is stronger and taller for his age than all the others. I have told you; a god is with him.”

“He said, ‘The Lady.’ You were a priestess; can you get an omen, or any sign?”

She said quietly, “I was a maiden, Theseus. She will not speak to me. Sometimes, during the Dance, the Sight would come. But I left it at Maiden Crag.”

Not long after this, I heard a commotion outside the Palace, but muted, as if people were keeping their voices down; so I sent to see. In came one of the Palace elders, bringing in the priests’ servant from Zeus’s sanctuary, with a bleeding cut on his arm. With a long face and well-pleased eyes, the house-baron said my son had done it. The boy, it seems, had found a kid tied up for sacrifice, and started petting it. When the man came to fetch it to the altar, the boy defied him. He got on with his duty, as he was bound to do, whereat Hippolytos in a fury drew his toy dagger, and set upon him. How fortunate, said the baron (relishing it like good wine), it had been the servant and not the priest.

That was something, certainly; but it was still sacrilege, and all the Palace knew it. Apart from the bad luck it might bring, he could hardly have done worse than insult King Zeus. For his mother’s safety, as well as the honor of the god, I must do justice before the people.

He came all flushed and tumbled, the tears of rage still in his eyes, but sobered at being brought before me. He should be ashamed, I said, to strike a servant who could do nothing back. I suppose I should have begun with Zeus the King; but he, after all, prefers kings to be gentlemen. It went home to the boy, as I could see. He said, “Yes, Father, I know. But the kid could do nothing either; what about him?”

“But,” I said, “this was a beast, without sense or knowledge of death. For that would you rob the King of Heaven?” He stared me in the face with his mother’s eyes, and said, “He did know. He looked at me.”

For his own sake, it was no time to be soft with him. “Hippolytos,” I said, “you have lived seven years, and in all that time I have never raised my hand to you. That is because I love you. And because I love you, I am going to beat you now.” He did not look scared, but studied my face, trying to understand. “You have angered the god,” I said. “Someone must suffer for it. Is it to be you, who did the wrong; or would you rather go free, and let him curse the people?”

“If it has got to be someone,” he said, “let it be me.” I nodded and said, “Good boy.” “But,” he said, looking up at me, “why should Zeus curse the people, when they did no harm?
You
would not do that.”

Just as if a man had spoken, I found myself saying, “I do not know. It is the nature of Necessity. I have seen Poseidon Earth-Shaker throw down the Labyrinth, crushing the evil and the good. The laws of the gods are beyond our knowing. Men are only men. Come, let us have it over.”

It was hard to do as I knew I must. I had got to mark him, for justice to be seen. He never whimpered. Afterwards I said, “That was kingly borne, and King Zeus will like it. Now don’t let it be for nothing, but respect the gods.”

He swallowed, and said, “Then he won’t curse the people now; so can I have the kid?”

I kept my patience, and sent him to his mother. Of course the thing was talked about for a month, and never quite forgotten. She was a servant of Artemis, who loves young beasts; so it was a gift to her enemies, who, for the most part, had first been mine. She was only their weapon. They were the elder lords, whom I had curbed in their power over their serfs and slaves; who hated change, and envied the newcomers from the Bull Court, with their youth and gaiety and foreign ways. And these, for their part, not being fools, soon felt it, and let it be seen that they were on the side of the Amazon. So, where there had only been rivalry between man and man, there grew up two factions in the Palace.

Often, I knew, Hippolyta met with such pinpricks as can be done in the dark by those who would not dare an open enmity. This time they were not bondwomen who could be sent away. And this time she did not keep it from me. She was a wild girl no longer, but had an understanding as good as a man’s; she was concerned for my sake, and for our son’s.

Angry as I was, yet I was doubly careful when I gave judgment to hold the balance true, and give them no case against her. I believe they sent spies after her when she rode into the hills, to find if she had secret rites there. And I know they tried to use the boy; for, knowing no contrivance, he would tell us how he had been questioned, not understanding what it meant. Though his mother had nothing to hide, yet there was danger in his innocence; her friends, who loved laughter, might say in joke what would not sound well in earnest, and his own fancies be twisted by subtler minds. I did not warn him; he was clear as water, it would appear and breed more suspicion. I put more faith in his own nature, not to talk freely to those he did not like.

It is my way to bring things into daylight, and fight them out. It irked me to take such care. But rumor still drifted from the north; garbled and foolish mostly, yet with a feel of truth behind. The ship must be whole, if the storm was coming.

And soon I knew it was; for I heard from Pirithoos. He sent me his own wife’s brother, with a letter under his royal seal, to give me when we were alone. It said, “The Black Cloaks turned due south. It is the tribes east of Euxine who are on the move. They are coming down towards Hellespont, and I do not think the straits will stop them. If not, they will reach Thrace this year. Don’t count on winter to slow them down, for hunger and cold may drive them faster. The rest, Kaunos will tell you.”

I turned to the Lapith, who was waiting for it. He said, “There is a message Pirithoos thought better not to write. It is this: ‘Warn your lady that the fighting women of Sarmatia, who serve the Goddess, are riding with their men; and the Moon Maids are leading them.’”

I
DID NOT TELL
her, thinking there would be time enough for trouble. I made out, to her like all the rest, that Kaunos had called in friendship as he travelled by. But as soon as we were in bed that night, she said, “Come, what is it?” and had it out of me. She could feel my thoughts through my breast.

When she heard she was long silent, lying in my arms. Then she said, “Perhaps the long-haired star has come again.”

“What?” I asked her. “Have the Moon Maids left their shrines before?”

“They say so. They say that as long ago as an oak takes to grow and die, the people of Pontos lived beyond the mountains, by the shores of another sea. Then this star came, with fiery hair that streamed all across heaven; and it drew the peoples like a tide. The priestesses of that time read the omens, and saw the land could not be held against the hordes of the Kimmerians; so they went with the people, fighting in the vanguard. When they reached Pontos, part of the star fell down upon the earth. So they took that land, and held it.”

I remembered the thunderstone. But she did not like to talk with a man of these sacred things.

“It is no joke,” I said, “for a whole people to cross Hellespont. Then there is Thrace, a wide country full of fierce warriors. Somewhere north of Olympos they will be stayed; we shall never see them here.”

She lay quiet, but too lightly to be sleeping. I felt the thought of her heart, as she felt mine.

“What is it, little leopard? What do you fear? I love your honor like my own. Never would I ask you to fight sworn comrades, not even if they stormed the Rock. If it does come, it is your time to be a woman; sick, or with child. Or you shall have omens not to fight on either side. Leave everything to me.”

She clung to me, saying, “Do you think I could watch you from the walls, and not leap down to you? You know we are what we are.” In the light from the starry sky I saw her eyes as bright as fever. I stroked her and told her to be at peace, it would never come to pass. At last we slept; but she woke me tossing and sighing, and half-choked with sleep she gave the Moon Maids’ war-cry, as I had heard it at Maiden Crag. I woke her, and made love till she slept again. But next day I sent without telling her to Delphi, to ask the god what to do.

Meantime the Palace people were still at odds, and the boy grew stronger. He would ride into the hills and lose his groom, and be found on a hilltop or by a stream, talking to himself, or with his eyes fixed on nothing. Yet there was no sign of madness in him; he was quick-minded and, to tell the truth, could write and figure better than I. Nor did he do anything outrageous, after the theft of the kid, but was gentle to those about him. But one day a baron came to me and, pretending to let it fall by chance, told me the boy had made himself a shrine of the Goddess, in a cave among the rocks.

I answered lightly; but at fall of dusk I climbed down myself to see. The path was steep and dangerous, fit for wild goats. At last I came to a little ledge that looked towards the sea, and a cave-mouth blocked with boulders. There was carving at its mouth; it was very ancient and flaked away, but I saw it was an eye. The shrine had been long abandoned; but on the rocky slab before it there were flowers and shells and colored stones.

I said nothing to the boy, but asked his mother if she knew. She shook her head. Later, when she had coaxed him to speak, she said to me, “Theseus, he had not even seen the sign; you say that it is worn. And I find he does not know its meaning. How should he? It is women’s business. And yet, he says that the Lady comes there.”

My backbone shivered. But I smiled, and said, “He sees the gods in your likeness, that is all; and who am I to blame him?” With the barons’ envy and the peasants’ ignorance, she had troubles enough.

Presently came news from the north that beyond Hellespont there were great wars, and the folk were fighting from their citadels. It was said they had burned their harvests, choosing to live like the birds all winter, if it drove the horde from their fathers’ lands. It needed no divination, to see where this would lead.

It was soon after this that my envoy came back from Delphi, crowned with die garland of good news. The god had said that the Rock would not fall before the coming generations equalled those that were gone; a storm would break on it, but would ebb after the appointed sacrifice. The envoy had asked what must be offered; and the oracle had replied that the deity who required it would choose it also.

I thought about this. Next day I had brought up to the Citadel some of all beasts the gods are pleased with, and had lots cast among them. The lot fell on a she-goat, which I sacrificed to Artemis. Thus the oracle had been fulfilled. The beast backed from the altar, and fought against her death. It is never good, when the sacrifice does not go consenting. But I had done what was decreed.

Autumn came cold that year, and early. I sent to Argos for three ships of grain, and stored it in the vaults under the Rock, and warned all the people to make no great feasts at harvest time, but save their food. Rumor was everywhere; it was too late for silence, which would only make fear grow. And in the month after the longest night, word came that the horde had crossed the Hellespont. They had done it without ships; winter itself had made a bridge for them. In the great cold, huge blocks of ice had drifted down from the Euxine and jammed the narrows, and the strait had frozen round them. They had crossed over dry-shod, in a night and a day. Now they were overrunning Thrace like starving wolves.

I knew now in my heart that they would come to Attica. I called the chiefs in council, and ordered all the strongholds stored with food and weapons. By luck the harvests had been good. Over in Euboia, where the straits would protect them, I had a camp built for the women and children and old men, with a great stockade for the cattle. The frosts were over; the first hard buds were on the fig trees; there would be no ice this time. Those who had gold I gave leave to store it in the Rock, and saw just tallies given. Then I sacrificed to Poseidon and Athene, the City’s gods, and gave offerings to the dead kings at their tombs. Remembering Oedipus and his blessing, I went out to Kolonos and made gifts to him also.

All winter the horde worked down southward, picking clean the hamlets and the farms. Some small strongholds fell, but the great ones held, where the people had fled with their stock and stores. So the horde lived leanly on the gleanings of the fields, on roots, and wild game; on old horses and sick cattle not worth saving, and the sack of lonely farmsteads, which they burned behind them. Pirithoos sent me word when they reached Thessaly, before the gates of the forts were closed. I knew then that it would not be long.

So the herds of Attica were rafted over to Euboia, and after them all the people who could not fight. It was a day of weeping; I held a sacrifice to Hera of the Hearth, to give them hope. But Hippolytos I did not send there. I did not trust him out of my keeping where his mother’s enemies could seize their chance. I sent him oversea the other way, to Troizen and to Pittheus my grandfather. He and my mother would understand him, if anyone could; and he would be safe there as I had been in childhood when my father was fighting for his kingdom. When he had taken leave of his mother, I said good-by to him. He looked white and still; but he did not ask to stay; I guessed he had begged that of her already. At the last he roused himself to smile, remembering one must do so to warriors before battle. I saw there the makings of a king. He was too young yet to say to him, “If I die, I leave you this realm, but you will have to fight for it.” The old man at Troizen knew my mind, but he must be growing frail, and could not be much longer above the earth. To the gods I commended him, and saw his pale bright hair in pale bright sunlight grow faint as he sailed away.

Now fresh news came to us every day, as fugitives came over Parnes through the passes, half dead from the mountain cold, with babes on their backs and blackened toes that died from off their feet. I shipped them to Euboia or sent them down to Sounion. And I set watch-posts above the passes, with great beacons piled up to light for warning. In my mind was the thought that Attica is Land’s End. Till now they had only had to fight for the day’s food; down here they must fight for being.