The Bull from the Sea (26 page)

I ran out to the stables, calling for a chariot and a good fresh pair. The charioteer came hurrying, but I waved him off and took the reins. You do not roam from land to land without racing sometimes with borrowed horses, and these knew who was master. I turned them out of the Eagle Gate upon the road to the sea. The folk of Troizen, who had lately seen me drive by in state, stood staring in my dust, remembering courtesy when I was gone by.

I could see him at the turns; but he never looked back, only forward towards the hard mud flats of Limna; when he reached them he leaned forward over the team, and they raced away. But, I thought, though he had the start of me, he was a big lad; my beasts had less weight to carry. He had unhitched his third horse, the one for festivals, and was only driving the pair.

The ripples of the landlocked Psiphian Bay plashed upon shining stones. On this same road I had driven to seek my father, and try my manhood in the Isthmus, just at his age. And now I was galloping till my teeth rattled in my head, for all the world as if I were a boy again with a taller boy to beat. Which was not so; a man does not get wet year after year at sea, without finding a stiff joint here and there. Mine would ache tomorrow. All the same, I meant to win my race today.

I was gaining when a long turn hid him. He had not seen me. It was my will against his whim. I rounded the headland; there, quite near, was the chariot. But it stood empty beside the road. Without sense—for the pair stood quietly, the reins hitched to an olive tree—my heart tripped and hit my throat. Then, seeing all was well, I tied my own horses near them, and took the path up the hill.

I thought he would give me a long scramble, knowing his ways. But he had not gone very far. There he was in an ilex grove; and as I walk lightly, he did not see me for the trees. He stood still, panting deeply from the drive, and the climb, and, as I saw, from anger. His big hands closed and unclosed as they hung beside him, and he paced the clearing like a beast in a cage. Suddenly he reached upward, and, with a great sound of cracking, tore off a limb near as thick as my arm. He trod on it and broke the middle, then snapped all the lesser branches across his knee. Leaves and white splintered wood lay all about him. He stood over this mess, staring down. Then he knelt, and felt about in it, and came up with something in his cupped hands. His touch was changed; stroking, and delicate. But the thing was dead, whatever it was. He dropped it—some little thing, a bird or a squirrel’s young—and put his hand to his forehead. When I saw his grief, I knew he had come to himself and was sorry for what had passed between us. That was enough for me. I came forth and held out my hands to him, saying, “Come, boy, it is past. We shall know each other better.”

He looked at me as if I had dropped from heaven, then knelt and touched my hand with his brow. As he rose up I kissed him; and now, when he straightened after to his hero’s height, I felt only pride.

We talked a little, and smiled together at our race, and then fell silent. Evening was far spent; the hilltops grew gold above the water drenched in their shadow; there were scents of sea wrack and dewy dust and thyme, and a shrill of grasshoppers. I said, “I took your mother from the Maiden, and she claims her debt. The gods are just, and one cannot mock them. Even though you serve one who has never loved me, be true and you will be my son. Truth is the measure of a man.”

“You will see, Father,” he said, calling me this for the first time since childhood, “I will be true to you as well. He paused, and seeing he had more to say but was shy, I answered, “Yes?”

“When I was small,” he said, “I asked you once why the guiltless suffer too, when the gods are angry. And you said to me, ‘I do not know.’ You who were my father, and the King. For that I have always loved you.”

I made him some kind answer, wondering if I should ever make him out. Well, trust must do instead. As we walked back to our chariots, I asked him where he had been going. He said, To Epidauros, to be cured of my old sickness which I thought was gone. But you came instead.” I saw that he meant his anger. Strange words for a young man in his strength, just of an age for war.

The sky grew bright with sunset; the earth glowed, and his face also with its own light. I drove home in peace, and that night’s sleep was sweet to me. But it is given only to the gods, to live in joy forever.

T
HAT SUMMER I SAILED
with Pirithoos as far as Sicily, to sack the city of Thapsos. It was a night assault, from the sea, and went so well we were on the walls before the alarm. I could hear the watchman yelling. It was not “Theseus of Athens!” as it used to be, but “Theseus the Pirate! Theseus the Pirate!”

I was angry, and the Thapsians paid for it. All the same, it set me thinking. All I had to show at each year’s end, these days, was a load of plunder, and a girl I would be weary of next year. Once it had been a hold of bandits cleared, the borders strengthened, laws broadened or fined down to a better justice; some old blood-feud settled between two tribes; a suppliant freed from a bad master. It seemed, when I thought, that no one had been much the better for my life, this year, or last, or the year before.

As we coasted back past Italy, I thought of what had passed at Troizen. I could let things drift no longer. Hippolytos had chosen his own heritage, such as it was. Young Akamas, Phaedra’s boy, must be the heir of all my kingdoms. He must come to Athens, and be seen.

There was no harm in the lad, and no little good. But he was too easygoing, and lived from day to day. Courage he did not lack, as I had often seen; but there seemed no thrust of ambition in him. He was the son of my wedded queen, with clear title, if I chose, to the mainland kingdoms; yet, as far as I could see, he waited for Crete to fall into his lap, and looked no further. It was true he was all Cretan, just like some graceful prince of the Older Kingdom painted in the Labyrinth, walking in a field of irises with the royal gryphon on a string; it was true, too, that I had made him so. I had only fetched him to Athens on a few short visits, all his life. He had been a delicate child, which was my excuse. The truth was I had wanted to keep him content with Crete. There had been enough brothers fighting over Attica, in my father’s day. But he would have to be seen there now. The people would have forgotten him; and it was time he was taught his trade.

He still had the fecklessness of a child. He was too old never to have asked himself—as it seemed he had not—how long he could hold Crete without the mainland fleet to back him. It needed thinking of; for Deukalion was dead, and his son Idomeneus was quite another man. If he was not already conspiring to get the throne, it would not be fear that was stopping him, but a pride too high to risk disgrace. He had the blood of Minos, both the Cretan line and the Greek; and he was five-and-twenty, while I was past forty now and taking no great care of myself, as anyone could see. He would wait a while. But once I was gone, young Akamas would need both hands to hold on with.

Women in Crete have always understood affairs, so I wondered what his mother made of it, and how much she had tried to push him on. He had a truly Cretan reverence for her; yet last time, he had seemed more at ease with me.

She had never asked me to bring her to Athens, though neither her people nor mine would have quarrelled with it after so long. Often I had thought about it; then looking at the closed rooms that still had echoes, I had put it off for another year. So I had said nothing to her; and she was never one to tell all her mind. She was turned thirty, and that is late to start again among strangers. Also she was Minos’ daughter; perhaps she did not care to step into the shoes of the dead, which would never have been hers while the living wore them; or to go where a bastard had been set above her son. Perhaps she had heard my house had too many girls and that, with my being away, they got out of hand. Like enough all these things had part in it.

The summer was far gone. If I thought too long I should put it off again. So I parted from Pirithoos at sea, and made straight for Crete.

The boy was there to meet me, full of spirits; asking where I had been, what I had brought him back, and how soon he could sail with me, though he was barely turned thirteen. He chattered like a starling all the way in the chariot. On the terrace of the royal house stood his mother waiting, small, neat and jewelled, her fine brown hair sleek in the sun, her bare breasts round and firm as the grapes down in the vineyard, whose scent the warm Cretan sun drew up to us.

When we were alone, I told her how matters stood, saying, “It would not have been just to pass over Hippolytos, when his mother gave her life for me and Attica in the war. If I had died then, with both sons children, neither could have hoped for much. But he has offered himself to Artemis, to pay her debt. The gods know best, and we must do what is left to do.”

“Yes,” she said, “that is true.” She sat silent, her tapered white hands folded in her lap. I almost said she need not come to Athens, unless she liked. I felt the words ask to be spoken, like a dog asking at a closed door. But I knew it would seem a slight to her. She had had a good deal to put up with; my calls had been short, between Athens and the sea. I had never, myself, flaunted my women at her; but the isles were full of tales and songs about the sea-raids I had got them in, and she must have heard. So I said she should be there to share in her son’s honor; that she could trust me to put the house in order, and see she was well served.

“I should like to see Athens,” she said quite coolly, and paused in thought. “But what a strange young man, to give away a kingdom. Will he hold to it? Youths of that age are full of whims, and next year it is all forgotten.”

“Not he. What his mind is set on, he does not give up lightly.”

She raised her dark brows. “Neither do you.”

“He has had his chance. He knows it. And horses will fly, before he learns to intrigue. Take my word for that.” So without much more said, she agreed to come, and I gave her some jewels I had found in Sicily. My mind had been more on Akamas, and how he would take the news.

He looked astonished, as if such a thing had never crossed his mind; worse still, I guessed it was true. When I had done, he said, “Father, are you quite sure Hippolytos doesn’t want it? I could not take it if he does; not from a friend.”

It might have been some boy’s present, a chariot or a bow, to hear him talk. It brought back all my doubts of him. A light mind, I thought; no harm, no greatness. “He is your brother,” I said. “Don’t you think I shall deal justly between my sons? As for friendship, you have never met.”

“Not met! Father, of course we have.” He opened his dark, slanted Cretan eyes, with the surprise of a child who finds his own matters have not filled the world. “It was when I was going home from Athens, last time I stayed with you. You sent some letters to Troizen, and we were a week there, waiting for a wind. He drove down the moment he knew that I was there, and we spent the whole time together. He let me drive his chariot, once, on the straight; I had it all, he said so, he was scarcely touching the reins. My dog, Frosty, was his guest-gift. Didn’t you know? His sire was one of the sacred dogs of Epidauros. Surely they told you it was Hippolytos who took me there, and got me cured?”

“Cured?” I said. “You left Athens well enough.”

“Yes; but when I got there, I had one of those choking spells.” I had forgotten; in childhood he used to go quite blue with them. The priest at Epidauros knew all about it; he called it asthma, which was just what Hippolytos had said. You do know, Father, don’t you, he is almost a doctor? He would really be one, if he had not had to be a king. Well, I slept the night in the sacred grove, and had a true dream from the god.” His brown, sparkling face turned solemn, and he laid two fingers on his lips. “I mustn’t tell it; but it was true. Then Paian went away in music, and I was cured. Father, can’t Hippolytos come to Athens, while I am there? Then he can see how Frosty has turned out. He is really my greatest friend; and we shall hardly know each other, if we don’t meet soon.”

“Why not?” I said. “We will see.” This unguessed love came like a gift of heaven. I felt ashamed to have kept the boys apart; yet who could have forgotten the Pallantid Wars? Certainly, he must come. Yet there was another thought behind it all: that once in Athens, seeing his young brother’s hands so slack upon the reins, the elder would reach out for them. Phaedra had been right; what my heart was set on, I did not give up lightly.

And then, of his own accord, he wrote to me from Troizen. He wanted to come to Eleusis, to be initiated in the Mystery, and asked my leave. “Surely,” I thought, “the luck is running my way.”

I had a lookout watching for his ship, and when it was sighted, went up on the Palace roof to see. I remember, as it stood in past Aegina, how the white sail caught the sun.

Driving down to meet him at Piraeus, I thought it was too soon to give him such consequence before the people; but I did not care. As he crossed the gangplank, I saw he had grown again. His face was stronger, the softness of youth fined out of it. “Did I make this?” I thought. “No, it was she.” It came back to me how all she remembered of her father was that he had darkened the doorway with his height.

We drove up through the sea-gate, and on into Athens. I felt their minds as a pilot feels the weather, through the cheers and songs. In boyhood he had been Son of the Amazon, no more. Now they were like children with a new toy; the women cooing, the men likening him to Apollo Helios. If they could, they would have said to me, “Why have you kept this from us?”

In the Palace it was the same. The old men who had hated his mother were dead and gone. It was all being forgotten. I had been long in knowing it, I who did not forget. Young folk, who had been little children when she died, admired what they called his Hellene fairness. One heard this “Hellene” everywhere, and often it had meaning. Dark Akamas, with his slender waist and lithe Cretan walk and lilting accent, was the stranger now; it was his mother who had the shadow of the Goddess on her and needed watching. Why had I not foreseen it? If Hippolytos would stretch one hand out for his birthright, they would toss it to him like a flower.