The King Must Die (4 page)

By the time my bones were mended, it was time for the shrine again. Simo had now learned some manners; but he remembered his bitten arm. Now he never used my name, but always "Son of Poseidon." He said it too smoothly, and we both knew what he meant

When it was my turn to cleanse the sanctuary, I used to kneel afterwards by the spring, and whisper the god's name; and if any murmur answered, I would say softly, "Father, send me a sign."

One day of midsummer, when I was ten years old, the noon stillness seemed heavier than I had ever known it. The grass of the grove was pale with drought; the mat of pine needles muffled every sound. No bird was singing; even the cicadas were dumb; the pine-tops stood unmoving against the deep blue sky, as stiff as bronze. When I wheeled in the tripod, its rattling seemed like thunder, and made me uneasy, I could not tell why. I trod soft-footed, and kept the vessels from chinking. And all the while I was thinking, "I have felt this before."

I was glad to have done, and did not go to the spring, but straight outside, where I stood with my skin prickling. Kannadis' fat wife greeted me as she shook her blankets, and I was feeling better; when up came Simo and said to me, "Well, son of Poseidon? Have you been talking to Father?"

So he had spied on me. Yet even this did not move me as at another time. What rubbed me raw was that he had not lowered his voice, though all the world seemed to be saying "Hush." It rasped me as if all my hair were being combed backwards; I said, "Be quiet."

He kicked a stone, which set my teeth on edge. "I looked through the shutter," he said, "and saw the old woman naked. There's a wart on her belly."

I could not endure his voice sawing at the stillness. The offended silence seemed to brood around us. "Go away!" I said. "Can't you feel Poseidon is angry?"

He stared at me; then gave a jeering whinny. As it left his mouth, the air above us was loud with whirring wings. All the birds in the grove had left their trees, and hung above uttering their warning calls. At the sound I tingled all over, body, limbs, and head. I did not know what oppressed me so; but Simo's laughter was past bearing. I shouted, "Get out!" and stamped my foot.

My foot struck the earth; and the earth moved.

I felt a rumbling, and a sideways ripple, such as some huge horse's flank might give to shake off flies. There was a great noise of cracking timber, and the roof of the shrine came leaning down toward us. Men shouted, women shrieked, dogs barked and howled; the old cracked voice of Kannadis called on the god; and suddenly there was cold water all about my feet. It was pouring out from the sanctuary, from the rocks of the holy spring.

I stood half dazed. In all the din, I felt my head clear and lighten, like the air after thunder. "It was this," I thought. "I felt it coming." Then I remembered how I had felt strange, and cried, when I was four years old.

Everywhere in the precinct and beyond, people invoked Poseidon Earth-Shaker, and vowed him offerings if he would be still. Then close at hand I heard a voice weeping and bawling. Simo was walking backwards, his clenched fist pressed in homage to his brow, and crying, "I believe! I believe! Don't let him kill me!"

As he blubbered, he backed into a slab of rock, and went down flat, and started to roar, so that the priests came running, thinking he was hurt. He went on babbling and pointing at me, while I stood too shaken to be glad, swallowing tears and wishing for my mother. The water was turning to mud about my toes. I stood in it, hearing the cries of the wheeling birds and Simo's sobbing, till old Kannadis came up and made the sign of homage. Then he stroked the hair from my forehead, and led me off by the hand.

No one was killed in the earthquake; and of the houses cracked or broken, none fell right down. My grandfather sent the Palace workmen with two new columns for the Shrine; they mended the conduit of the holy spring, and the water returned to its course again. He came out himself to see the work, and called me to him.

"I hear," he said, "that the god sent you a warning."

I had been long alone with my thought, till I hardly knew the truth any longer; but this came as true to me. He knew such things, because he was priest as well as king. My mind rested.

"Henceforth," he said, "you will know it again. If it comes to you, run out of doors, and call to the people that Poseidon is angry. Then they can save themselves, before the houses fall. Such warnings are a favor of the god. Try to be worthy."

I said I would. I would have promised anything to the kind Horse Father, who had answered my long prayers with a sign.

Next day in the grove Simo sidled up to me, and thrust something warm into my hands. "For you," he said, and ran away. It was a ring-dove. He had kept it to pluck, I suppose, and changed his mind. It trembled between my palms, while I chewed on the thought that Simo had done me sacrifice, as if I were divine.

I looked at its bright jewelled eye, its feet like dusky coral; the bloom of the back feathers, and the magic changing rainbow around its neck. A saying of my mother's came into my mind, that we offer to the gods from their own creation; I remembered the birds and bulls I used to pinch from wet clay, and looked at the workmanship in my hand. It was Simo, after all, who taught me how far man is, even at his height of fortune, below the Immortals.

I wondered if I should sacrifice it to Poseidon. But he does not much care for birds, and I thought I would give it back to Apollo. So I held up my hands and opened them, and let it fly.

3

After the god's sign, I no longer doubted I should grow tall. Season after season I waited, trusting. I had seen other boys shoot up all in a year or two, even without a god to help them. Seven feet, I thought, had been good enough for Herakles and would do for me; but I would settle for six, if Earth-Shaker required.

I turned eleven, and finished my service to Poseidon, and loosed a half-grown boar, whose tusks were showing, in the Great Hall when the King of Tiryns was dining there. Being younger than he had looked to me, he joined whooping in the chase, and said he had never spent an evening better; but my grandfather whipped me all the same, saying it might as easily have been the High King of Mycenae.

I turned twelve, and played in the thicket with a land baron's daughter, who was thirteen. This came to nothing; she scolded me off, saying I hurt her. I argued that from all I heard, it was only to her credit; but she said she was sure I must be doing it wrong.

None the less, I was coming into manhood. In that way, I was better grown than boys much older. But I was still the smallest of my year but one; and when Simo brought a message from the shrine, I saw he was a whole hand taller.

My uncle Diokles could comb his beard to a point now, and would soon be married. He laughed at my scrapes when I was in disgrace with everyone else, taught me the skills of war and hunting, and tried to make me spend my spirits usefully. But one day when I was thirteen, finding me out of heart beside the wrestling ground he said to me, "See, now, Theseus, no one can do everything. Some things need a light man, others a heavy one. Why can't you take yourself as you are? You are doing well enough. You're the best jumper about here, long or high; you nearly always win the foot race; as for riding, you can stay on anything; you are better than Dexios, who is better than all the rest. And you have a very straight eye, both for the bow and javelin; I know Maleus throws further, but how often does he hit? You will make a warrior, if you go on as you are; you're not frightened, you are quick, and you've a grip like a grown man's. If you are sensible, and get to know yourself, you'll seldom come away from the games without two or three prizes. That should be enough for anyone. It's time you stopped fretting your heart out, and wasting time, over contests where only weight will do. You will never make a wrestler, Theseus. Face it once for all."

I had never seen him so serious; and I knew he was really fond of me. So I only said, "Yes, Diokles. I suppose you are right." I was too old now to cry. I thought, "He has even forgotten why I should be big. It is not that he wants to hurt me, like Simo; not at all. Simply he never thinks of such a thing. It never enters his head."

Poseidon's sign was four years behind me. In youth, four years is long. And even the people thought less about it, now they saw I had not the stature of god-got men.

I was fourteen; the Corn Moon shone, and it was harvest home. My mother received the Goddess' offerings, or read her the pledges written on leaves of clay. At evening she went down to the Navel Court, and following as far the cloister walk, I heard her soft voice, telling the House Snake all about the harvest; for, as she said, if we kept anything from him we should have no luck next year. I lingered in the shadow thinking how she must once have told him who my father was. Perhaps she was talking of me now. But it is death for men to spy on women's mysteries. Lest I should hear a word of what she was saying, I slipped away.

Next day was the Corn Feast. In the morning she offered to the Mother at the sacred pillar, standing before it straight as the shaft, and graceful as the rising smoke. No one would have thought her sacred dress was so heavy, the flounces clashing with ivory lozenges and disks of gold. "Why does she not tell me?" I thought. "Does she need to be told I suffer?" And anger burned me like a red-hot rod, striking me on my heart where it was tender with love.

Later we had the Games. I watched the wrestling, the big men grasping each other round the middle, straining and heaving to lift each other off the ground. Nowadays you will have to go far in the back hills to see Old Hellene style; but in those days, there was no other in the Isle of Pelops, and as much skill in it as in a tug of war.

In the boys' events I won the jumping, and the foot race, and the javelin-throwing, just as Diokles had said. When the prizes were given on the threshing floor, I got a bag of arrowheads, a pair of javelins, and a belt sewn with scarlet. As I came away with them, I heard a voice say in the crowd, "He is blue-eyed and flaxen like a Hellene; but he is built like the Shore People, wiry and quick and small." And someone answered softly, "Well, who can say?"

I went outside. The Corn Moon shone great and golden. I laid my prizes on the ground, and walked down to the sea.

The night was calm. Moonlight lay on the strait, and a night bird called, soft and bubbling, like water from a narrow jar. From uphill I heard the singing, and hands clapping to the dance.

I walked straight into the water as I was, in my belt and drawers. I wanted to be far from men and their voices. As I struck out with the current to the open sea, I said within me, "If I am the god's he will look after me. If not I shall drown, and I do not care."

Beyond the narrows and the headland, the strait opened to the sea. Then over on Kalauria I heard music and saw torches weaving; and boylike I wanted to go and see. I turned, and struck for the island shore; but the lights grew smaller whenever I looked. I saw I might truly die; and I wanted life.

The current had borne me easily; but when I fought it, it was cruel and strong. I began to be tired, and cold; my leather breeches dragged at my thighs, my wet belt pinched my breathing. A wave slapped me head-on, and I went under.

I could not right myself; I seemed to sink to the very bottom of the sea. My head and my chest felt bursting. I thought, "The god rejects me. I have lived for a lie and there is nothing left. Oh that I could be dead without dying! It is hard to die, harder than I know." My eyes flashed and saw pictures: my mother in her bath; a hunchback the children laughed at; the shrine in the noon stillness; the youths in their horse-dance stamping for the god; and the sacrifice, my grandfather beckoning with his bloodstained hand. And then, just as when I was seven years old, I heard within me the sea-surge, bearing me up and on. It seemed to say to me, "Be quiet, my son, and let me carry you. Am I not strong enough?"

My fear left me. I ceased to struggle, and my face broke water. I lay on the sea, as easy as the lost child the father finds on the mountain, and brings home in his arms. Once round the point, the current always sets for land again. But I should never have lived to remember it but for Poseidon, Shepherd of Ships.

In the hills' shelter the sea was calm and the air gentle. Climbing to the torches I lost the last of the chill. I felt light and lucky, full of the god. Soon I saw light through apple leaves, and dancers whirling; there were pipes and singing and the thud of feet.

It was a little village feast, on a slope of orchards. The torches were fixed on poles around the floor, for the torch-dance was over. The men were doing the Dance of the Quails, with feathered masks and wings, wheeling and hobbling and dipping and giving quail-calls; the women stood round singing the song, clapping and tapping their feet. When I came out into the torchlight, they broke off singing; and the tallest girl, the village beauty the men were whistling and calling to, cried out, "Here is the Kouros of Poseidon! Look at his hair all wet from the sea!" Then she laughed. But when I looked, I saw she was not mocking me.

After the dancing we ran away, and lay hidden close in the deep wet grass among the apple trees, stifling each other's laughter when one of her suitors came crashing and roaring past. Afterwards she held me away from her; but it was only while she got out a windfall from under her back.

That was my first girl, and I had my first war not long after. The men of Hermione came north over the hills, and lifted thirty head of cattle. When I heard my uncles shouting to each other, and calling for their horses and their arms, I slipped away and helped myself from the armory and the stable. I stole out by the postern, and joined them up on the hill road. Diokles thought it a good joke. It was the last he ever laughed at; one of the raiders speared him. When he was dead, I rode after the man who did it, and dragged him from his horse across the neck of mine, and killed him with my dagger. My grandfather had been angry at my going without leave; but he did not rebuke me after, saying it was only proper I should avenge Diokles, who had always been good to me. I had been so angry I could not even feel I was killing my first man; only that I wanted him dead, like a wolf or a boar. We got back all the cattle before nightfall, except for two which fell down a steep place on the mountain.