The Bull from the Sea (6 page)

My mother and the crone had run at the screen and put it up again. The old woman stood making the signs against evil. The girl was pressed against the far wall of the cave, her eyes fixed and staring, her knuckles against her mouth, standing in the stream. The red mud of its channel stained her feet like blood. I dared not speak in the holy place. I looked my pity. But she stood stiffly and did not see.

At last my mother came out from behind the curtain, white in the face, with stains of ashes on her forehead. She beckoned me, and walked down the steps below. I followed silently. Over my shoulder I saw the two priestesses were together no longer. The old woman was near, keeping close for comfort. The girl was alone, a long way behind.

We passed the rock with the eye, and came out into unhallowed ground. My mother sat upon a rock, and bowed down her face in her hands. I thought she wept; but she said, “It is nothing, it will pass,” and I saw it was a faintness on her. Presently she sat up. While I waited I had looked out for the girl. “Where is she, Mother?” I asked. “What will become of her?”

She answered with half her mind, being still weak and sick, “Nothing; she will die.”

“She is young,” I said, “to lay hands upon herself.”

My mother pressed her hand on her head as if it ached. “She will die, that is all. She comes from the Shore Folk; when they see their death they die. That is finished; it was her fate.”

I felt her hand; it was warmer, and her face had some color back. So I said, “And what is mine?”

She drew her brows together, and laid her fingers flat on her closed eyes. Then she put her hands on her lap and sat up straight. Her breathing grew deep and heavy, her eyes as marble were dead to mine. I waited alone.

At last came a great sigh, such as the sick give sometimes, or men bleeding upon the field. Her eyes opened and knew me. But she moved her head as if its weight were too great to bear, and all she said was, “Go home and leave me. I must sleep.” I could not tell if the Sight had come to her, or if she could remember it. She lay just where she was, in the dry leaves of the wood, like a warrior after a long day’s battle or a slave all-in. I paused beside her, not liking to leave her in the wilds alone; but the old woman came up, and spread her mantle over her, and turned and looked at me. So then I went.

As I walked down through the forest, I looked through the trees if I could see the maiden going. But I never saw her again.

I
T TOOK ME FIVE
years to bring all Attica under one rule of law. I have seldom worked so hard. In war the battle-rage and the hope of glory sweep one on; in the bull ring there are the cheers and wagers, and the life of the team. This work was lonesome and slow, and patient as carving a statue from a flawed block one must humor, yet keep the shape of the god.

Tribe by tribe and clan by clan I went to them, eating with their chiefs, hunting with their lordlings, hearing their assemblies. Sometimes, to draw a voice from the silent, I would go alone like a strayed traveller, and ask shelter from a fisherman, or at some stony mountain farm, sharing goat-cheese and hard bread and milling with them the small chaff of their day’s trouble, the skinflint landlord and the sick cow.

Always, before I made myself known and worked my little wonder, I would ask for the altar of the ancestral god or goddess, and make an offering. It pleased my hosts and served my turn. These simple folk, shut in their fold of the hills, did not know the gods’ first names, nor that they were worshipped everywhere, but used some outlandish title from the old homeland; they seemed often to think, even, that their Zeus was theirs alone, and Zeus in the next valley was his enemy. And the mischief of all this was, it turned the local chief into a king. Of course he was the god’s high priest, or the Goddess’ husband; how could he swear fealty to the servant of another god?

With a hard question, one cannot do better than bring it to Apollo; and that very night he sent me guidance. I dreamed of playing my lyre, which lately I had neglected, and of singing something wonderful. On waking I forgot the song; but I saw what the dream meant, and how the god would help me.

I tried it out first myself, dressed as a poor men’s bard who sings for his supper and a bed. Coming to a valley farm at evening, I gave them a lay of Peleia Aphrodite, whom they worshipped there as something else. But of course they knew her in the lay, the Foam-Born with her doves and magic girdle; and I put in the song how the King had made her a shrine at Athens for helping him home from Crete. This time I went away without telling my name; it had pleased me to have my music praised by men who had no hope of favor. They gave me wine and a good cut off the saddle; and what is more, a pretty girl I had been playing eyes with while I sang came slipping to my bed when the house was quiet. Clearly, my plan had Apollo’s blessing.

So then I got the bards together. I paid them well, since their work would bring them to places below their standing. But if I could do it, so could they. Besides, they could see glory waiting for them in Athens, once it had the chief shrines there of all the gods. They agreed with me that no service could be more pleasing to the Immortals; and very well they did it.

As for me, I had to go about in my own person among the chiefs, and it was often tedious. One must remember their fathers’ deeds, right back to whichever god they sprang from; remark the heirloom in the hall; sit through the plodding lay strummed by a hanger-on. And never a look at the women; I had got a name for liking them, and where someone else could lead out the horse, as the saying goes, I could not glance at the bridle without putting the family in a panic. One could soon have enough of this. Often I wished for someone to share my mind with; but their hearts were in little things, they would have thought me a dreamer, and I had to plan alone.

One summer day, I drove down to my great pasture on the plain of Marathon. It was royal land; my father had not stocked it for fear of raiders, it being much open to the sea. But I had had it cleared and the stone folds mended; and there I had reared the bull-calf got on old Hekaline’s heifer by the Cretan bull. He was three years old now, running true to the strain; last year’s calves were coming on, and a score of cows were carrying. For his dark-red muzzle, I had named him Oinops.

I was coming along through the olive groves, when I saw the smoke of bale-fires rising above the trees, and heard the horns. My charioteer pulled up the team and the riders stopped behind us. He said, “Pirates, my lord.”

I smelled the air for smoke. This was a new thing on the seas, since Crete had fallen; or rather, an old thing had gathered strength. The Cretan captains, when they came to the mainland to take our tribute, had claimed it went to keep pirates down. There had been something in it.

My charioteer gave me a righteous eye. It said, “Why will you ride so ill-attended? I told you your father would have brought the Guard, if he went so far.”

“Come, hurry,” I said, “and let us see.”

We cantered along, and presently met a young lad running, the son of a small chief near. He knuckled the flaxen hair on his damp brow—he was about thirteen—and said out of breath, “Sir, my lord King, we saw you from the tower. My father says be quick, I mean be pleased to honor the house, sir, the pirates are landing.”

I leaned down an arm and heaved him into the chariot. “What sails do they carry? What device?”

One always asked this. Some sea-raiders were just a cutthroat rabble, content to burn the nearest peasant farm, steal the winter stores and sell the folk to slavery. But there were men of lineage too, younger sons, and warriors out to better their estates, who would make a war of it, and scorn a common prize. So we might see deeds today.

Boys of that age know everything. Three ships, my lord, with a winged horse, red. That is Pirithoos the Lapith.”

I said, “This fellow has a name, then?”

“Oh, yes, sir. He is the King’s heir of Thessaly. They say he is a great horse-raider up north, but sometimes he goes to sea. Roving Pirithoos they call him. My father says he fights for the love of trouble, he won’t wait till he needs meat.”

“He can have his wish,” I said. “We must get to your father’s place before him.” I set down the charioteer, who was the heaviest, and touched up the horses. As we got up speed, the boy said, “He is after your cattle, sir. He has a bet on it.”

When I asked him how he knew, he quoted me a fisher-lad from over at Euboia, where the ships had watered. Often I wonder where such boys go later, when I look at the foolishness of men. This is a bold dog,” I said, “to count his spoils beforehand.”

He had been clutching the rail with rattling teeth, for the road was rough; but now he looked straight up at me. “He wants to try you for the sake of his standing, sir, because you are the best warrior in the world.”

It would have been nothing from some place-seeker at Athens; but here it was good, as when they called out “Sing again!” at the valley farm. I answered, “Well, it seems that is for proving.”

As we neared the village, the beacon-smoke rose higher, and the sound of the horns; people were beating too on basins and pots and anything they could find of metal, as they do to ease their feelings when an alarm is on. At the chief’s steading, the top of the tower was full of craning women. Further on were shouts, and the bawling of cattle.

The chief met me at the gate. He had seen from afar I had few men with me; he was afraid I would strip him of his, lose them in battle, and leave him naked. I took none, but sent a horseman to scout. He came back, having been no further than the pasture. Two wounded men were there; the rest of the cow-wards had run away. The gate of the fold was broken and the Sun Herd gone; and the pirate band had turned towards their ships again. The boy had been right.

Time is short,” I said. “Have you two fresh horses?”

He gave me two, the only chariot-horses he had. I saw the riders would not keep up far with me; the great Thessalian breed were rare then in the southlands, and none of theirs would carry a man for long. But one could not sit doing nothing.

As we went down along the olive-slopes towards the plain, I saw the chief’s son running down a path and waving. “Sir, sir! I have seen them, I climbed the pine tree. Take me up, my lord, and I’ll show you where.”

“This is war now,” I said. “Have you your father’s leave?”

He swallowed, and said strongly, “Yes, my lord.” At his age I would have said the same. Seeing me pause, he said, “Someone must hold your horses, sir, while you are fighting.”

I laughed, and pulled him up. It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies.

I drove on, and when the riders flagged, waved them back before their ponies foundered. Presently from an open place on the slope one could see the plain. The boy pointed.

On the curved shore of the bay were three long snake-headed pentekonters, riding as pirates do, close in with a stone anchor, which they cut to get quickly away. They had left a strong ship-guard. Pirates do not carry oarsmen who are not spearmen too, and about half their strength must have been there, some eighty men. The rest must have planned an inland foray, to need this care. Mostly they go for what they can see offshore.

The sound of bawling reached me. I drove to the next turn, and then I could see the raiders. They were driving the herd, like men who know how. While I watched there was a check; they clustered, heaving to and fro; then one went flying. It was the bull, living up to his forefathers. But the odds were against him; presently they got more halters on, and pricked him along with spears. Counting the horns, I saw they had taken only the Cretan stock, and the cream of that. They could be well away, before the footmen could catch them.

I shaded my eyes. There was a man apart, waving his arm, giving orders. His helmet gave off a flash of silver. “That’s Pirithoos,” I thought. “The man who is off to range the Hellene coastlands, boasting of how he pulled Theseus’ nose.”

I turned to the boy and said, “You can get down now. I am going after him.”

He cried, “Oh, my lord, no!”

“Why not?” I said. “A man must fight when he is challenged. I daresay the fellow hasn’t reckoned on my coming alone; but if he is a warrior and cares about his standing, he must meet me, not set on me with his band. If he is no gentleman, I am out of luck. But it only comes once to us.”

“But, sir!” he said. “I only meant don’t put me down.”

“This loses time,” I told him. “You have heard me. Out!”

“But I am your man now,” he said, grabbing at the rail and going red as if he would cry. “You took me for the horses. I have to go into battle with you, or lose my honor.”

“Well, you have a fair case there.” I had to admit it. “This is no way to go on, to make old bones. Very well, then, let us go with our fate. Hold tight.”

We clattered down the slope on to the flat plain. Then we could go. The light car hopped and bounced over the salty clods. The sun shone brightly. Marathon always has the feel of luck for me. The horsehoofs pounded; my arms rattled about me; my shield tugged in the wind and I slid it off for the boy to hold. He clutched it with one hand and held on with the other, drinking with open mouth the air-wash of our speed.

The pirates had turned to stare. They were big hairy men, with the bowlegs Lapiths have from getting off their mother’s back straight on to a horse’s. They pointed, shouting, at my team; I remembered they are famous horse-thieves, and thought it would be a comedown if they killed me just for these. Their words were half lost in hair; at sea they do not shave their upper lips like Hellenes, nor their cheeks, but let it grow down like bears before and behind. Some had it to their middles.

The herd milled about; the Lapiths hailed each other in their bastard speech, antique Hellene and pirate slang. With all the noise, the leader had not seen me; the herd was between. It was odds-on one of these ruffians would have me with a javelin first. Remembering the bull knew his own name, I yelled out, “Oinops!” and for a moment he stopped dead.

The bright-helmed leader came running; just in time, too; one of the pirates was an archer, and had an arrow fitted to his string. The chief shoved him toppling backwards, and beckoned his armor-bearer, who brought his spear and shield.