The King Must Die (34 page)

Sweetmeats came in, and Rhodian wine. I sat at the table's foot, talking to some guests who had moved down to speak with me; when of a sudden he leaned forward in his chair, and bawled, "Theseus! Here!"

I felt the blood rise in my face. It was in my mind to be deaf. But then I thought, "No. If I am not his captive, then I am his guest." So I left my place, and walked up without too much haste, and stood before him.

"Well, Theseus," he said grinning. "How is it to be cock of the ring? It's a different lad now from the one who came from the mainland in leather breeches, hah? Do you think better now of Crete?" I did not answer. He flipped my necklaces with his finger. "Look at these!" he said, speaking to the guests. Me he hardly looked at. "I’ll wager not all these were won for leaping bulls. Hey, boy?" Still I was silent, and kept command of myself. I was studying him. It concerned me to know him. I looked at his heavy mask, wondering how one became such a man as this. Before long he looked away. "A jewel," he said, "from every lord in the Labyrinth. Of the ladies I say nothing. Their mysteries must not be profaned." And he winked at a lady not long married, whom I had had no dealings with, and who blushed right down to her breasts. "All this, yet nothing yet from the patron. I’ll swear you wondered why."

He grinned, and waited. I said, "No, my lord."

He gave a great bellow of laughter. "You hear that? He thought I had a rod in pickle for him, because he was unruly in the harbor. You young fool, what do you think we look for in a bull-dancer? We have our divinations, we who follow the ring."

I stared at him, I who had faced him that day with his eyes a handspan from mine. This time he did not meet them. He looked at the guests. "Well! You agree Asterion can pick a winner?" There was a gust of acclamation. I was ashamed for them, more than for myself; they passed for free men.

He clapped his hands. A servant brought upon his palms what I took for some dish or other. For a moment I wondered if he meant to poison me; I pictured him staring about, daring the company to remark upon my death. Then I saw it was a little tray, lined with purple leather, on which was spread a great collar of gold and gems. The servant held it out to Asterion, who, without touching it, waved him to give it me.

I felt an itching in my fingers. They ached to pick it up and slash it across his face. I had sworn to hold every Crane's life as dear as mine; but no dearer than that, and my honor was dearer. It was not my oath that held me. I suppose it was the habit of being king, and answerable for people to the god.

I held my hand, and spoke quietly. "You are too liberal, Minotauros. But have me excused; I cannot take it."

The slave wavered the tray about, not knowing what to do with it. I heard a soft stir along the table, and women's dresses rustling. But Asterion, after one hard look from his round eye, said heartily as if he were presenting some show to them, "You cannot, eh? Why not?"

"I come of the Royal Kindred," I said. "It would hurt my standing, to take a gift from a man who struck me."

Everyone was listening. But this seemed even to please him. He waved a hand, displaying me. "Hark to him! Still as mad as when he came. For that I backed him. They are all wild and mad, all the great bull-leapers. Born for the bulls, and good for nothing else. It is their daimon leads them to Crete." He clapped me on the shoulder; he was like a man who owns a dangerous dog and boasts of its fierceness. "Very well, have your way then." He snapped his fingers at the servant, who took the gift away.

You would have supposed that having faced out this affront, he would have kept me out of his way. But not at all. Every so often he would command me to one of his feasts, and go through some like pantomime. I would even hear him, beforehand, saying to someone, "Only watch, and see how proudly he will answer me. He is wilder than a mountain hawk. Have you heard how he loosed the bull? I saw it when he came raw from the mainland." He had turned even my honor into a mountebank's act for his guests to laugh at. I never told even Amyntor what I put up with on these days. I was ashamed to speak of it. I only said, "I have paid for my supper." He knew what I meant. The other noblemen I found civil enough; among the younger indeed I was a kind of fashion. Any bull-leaper may be taken up so; but they found me curious because of the blood I came of, not having had a king or a king's son in the ring before. Some of them asked me why, if the god was angry, I did not sacrifice someone else to him, rather than go myself; if I dressed him in my clothes, they said, he would stand for me. Being a guest, I did not ask if they took the gods for fools, but only said I had been called by name. They would stare at this, then catch each other's eyes. Nearly all their rites have grown frivolous and like play, just as with the bull-dance.

These young lords and ladies were full of nonsense, having almost their own language, like children's games. And they held their honor as light as they held their gods. The deadliest insults passed for jest among them; and if a husband would not speak to his wife's seducer, it was considered something great. Once, when alone with a woman, I asked her how long it was since any of them had washed out a slight with blood. But she only asked me how many men I had killed myself; as if, through two wars and a journey overland, I should have kept a tally. Even in bed, the women would keep one talking of such things.

Chiefly these people took to me as something new. New things were their passion, and hard for them to come by; Lukos, I found, had spoken the truth about their records going back a thousand years. They would stand on their heads for the sake of newness, if nothing else new was left. You could see this in their pots and vases. No one needs telling that Cretan potters lead the world, though you must go to Crete to see the best. There were many in the Palace, working for the King; the great nobles too maintained their own. I never tired of looking at the work; the colors are more and richer than ours at home, the patterns gay yet free, and full of harmony. They are fond of drawing sea-creatures, starfish and dolphins and squids and shells and twining weeds. It was a pleasure only to take their pots in your hands, to feel the shape and the glaze. But lately they had begun to spoil them with all kinds of gaudy stuck-on finery, flowers and dangles which might show their skill, yet gave the thing a look of being fit for no use and good for nothing, but go gather dust. The truth is that what had not been tried in a thousand years was not worth doing. But even beauty wearied them, if it was not new.

I remember one lord I dined with, taking us to see his potter's workshop and the latest work. There was a great deal of talking, which I could not follow, for they have many more words than we. So, finding a lump of raw clay, I amused myself for a moment by pinching out of it a little bull, such as children make at home when they play in mud, but not so good, since I had lost the knack of it. Just as I was about to roll it up again, there was crying and twittering, my host and his friends holding back my hand, and crying out that it must be fired. "How fresh!" they said, "How pure!" (or some such word). "How he has understood the clay!"

I felt affronted at being so made light of. Even though I might be from the mainland, still I was a guest. I answered, "Clay I do not understand; I was not born in a craftsman's house. But bulls I understand, and that is no bull. At home just as here, a gentleman knows the look of good work, though he cannot do it. We are not so backward as you suppose."

At this they begged me not to be offended; swearing they had spoken in earnest, and that I had done what their very newest craftsmen were winning praise for. To prove it they led me to a shelf, covered with such wretched botched things as you will see at home far up in the back hills, offered at a little shrine of no reputation, the work of some ham-fisted peasant who never saw inside a workshop, but can sell them for a handful of olives or of barley, because the place has no one better. "You see," they said, "how we learn strength from the early forms."

I said I saw they had not mocked me, and was sorry; then I could think of no more to say. Presently, seeing me stand in thought, a woman touched my arm. "What is it, Theseus? Are you angry still? Or is it thinking of the bulls that makes you look so grim?" I laughed, and said what such ladies wish to hear. But the thought in my mind had been, "If I had my Companions here, and a few thousand warriors, I could sweep Crete from end to end. These people are in second childhood; fruit for the plucking; finished, played out."

Meanwhile there was still the ring. We Cranes, being of one mind with trust in each other, polished our dance till the oldest men preferred it to their memories. We had had close calls; by now there was not one of us who did not owe his life to the team. Between Phormion and Amyntor, who had each drawn off the bull from one another, there was no more talk of insolence or of clay-streaked hair. In the Bull Court both were chiefs and both were craftsmen. One day, when Chryse lost her balance and was left clinging on the horns, I had to take that same leap which had been death to the Corinthian. But Hippon was there at once on the other side, and we all got off with a graze or two, though we had a shaking.

After this same dance, I was on my way to the bath when a waiting-woman stopped me in the courtyard. "Theseus, come at once, do come, and show yourself to my lady. She got word that you were dead, and is in such grief that she is sick with it. She has been crying and screaming quite beside herself; poor little Madam, she is more soul than body; a turn like this could kill her."

I was somewhat impatient, having already more women on my hands than I could well do with. "Salute Madam for me," I said, "and thank her for her concern, and say I am very well."

"It will not do," the woman said. "Last time she was in love with a bull-dancer he died, and she found I had kept it from her. Now nothing will do but she must see you herself." I raised my brows. "By now," I said, "you will find her consoled again." But she tugged at my arm, crying, "Oh, do not be cruel, do not kill my lamb. Look, it is hardly a step out of your way." And she pointed to the royal stairway.

I stared at her. "What!" I said. "Don't you think the bulls will kill me quick enough?" She bridled just as if I had insulted her. "You ignorant boy! Do you take me for a bawd? What next, these mainlanders! She is not ten years old."

I went with her as I was, in my bull-dancer's dress and jewels. She led me up the broad stairway, lit from above through a hole in the roof, and upheld by crimson columns. After much turning round and about, she brought me to a big light room, with a child's bed in one corner, a bath of alabaster, and dolls on the floor. The walls were very pretty, painted with birds and butterflies and apes gathering fruit. I was looking at them when I heard a squeal as high as a bat's, and the child was running across the room to me, mother-naked from her bed. She leaped straight into my arms, as light as one of the painted monkeys, and clung about my neck. The nurse who had brought me, and another who was there, cackled with laughter and cracked their jokes. But I was sorry for the child; I saw she had really been in grief. Her face and even her hair were drenched with tears, and there were stains like crushed purple under her eyes. She was one of those thin-skinned girls you find in very old houses; light-brown hair as fine as silk, little hands carved from ivory, and eyes of a clear green. I kissed her, and said this would teach her not to cry ahead of trouble. Her body was as delicate to touch as a fresh lily flower, and her breasts were just beginning. I carried her back to her bed, and put her in.

She curled on her side, hugging my hand to make me sit by her. "I love you, Theseus, I love you. I am almost dead with it."

"The omens say you'll live," I answered. "Now go to sleep."

She rubbed my hand with her wet cheek. "You are so beautiful! Would you marry me, if I were old enough?"

"Why, for sure. I would kill all your suitors, and carry you off in a golden ship."

She looked up at me; her lashes were all stuck together with weeping. "Aketa says that when I am a woman you will be dead."

"That's with the god. I shall be too old for the bulls, that's certain. Then you fine ladies will all forget me."

"Ah, no!" she cried. "I will love you for ever! When you are an old man, twenty, thirty years old, I will love you still."

"We shall see," I said laughing. "This I’ll tell you; when you are grown, if I live I shall be a king. A gamble for you, Brighteyes. Will you bet?"

"Yes, I will. So now we are promised, and you must give me a token." I offered her a ring, having plenty more; but she shook her head. "No, rings are only gold; I must have a piece of your hair. Nurse, come here and cut it off."

"My hair?" I said. "No, that I can't give you; I have offered it to Apollo. Besides, someone might get hold of it, and use it to do me harm." Her mouth drooped; and I heard one nurse whisper to the other, "You see? He is still a barbarian, under the skin." So out of pride, though I did not like it, I said lightly, "Oh, yes, take it if you want."

The nurse brought a woman's razor, and cut the lock for her. "Don't be afraid," she said. "I will take good care of it. No one shall have it but me." As I went, she had laid it in her palm, and was stroking it softly with the tips of her fingers.

I paused at the door to wave to her. "Good-by, Bright-eyes. You never told me your name."

She looked up from the hair, and smiled. "Phaedra," she said.

6

One day the Bull of Daidalos broke a lever, so that his head would not move. Craftsmen were fetched to mend it; the dancers crowded at first to watch, then wearied of the long careful job, and went away.

I lingered on, being always curious how things are made. I had picked up some Cretan now, from the words of the rituals, and from hearing servants talked to. So I could follow mostly what the men were saying as they worked, about a tower that was building on the south coast, for a lookout against the Egyptians in case of war. Another answered that he for one had nothing against Pharaoh; it was said he worshipped only the Sun God, and slighted other deities, but he was good to craftsmen. "Before it was nothing more than copying; they thought it impious in a man to look at things for himself; now they can get some joy of their own skill. They say there are even craftsmen's laws there, and they work for whom they choose. The Egyptians can come, for me."