The King Must Die (17 page)

She said, "What am I, then? The captive of your spear?" Now anger warmed the paint upon her cheeks; I saw her gilt-tipped breasts rise and fall. Yet at her words, my mind turned from her to the girl Philona, the leavings of a pirate and a thief, who had never lain with a man much better than a beast, and was ignorant of all gentleness but what I taught her. She had waked me from my first sleep with weeping, begging me not to sell her or pass her on.

"As always, Madam," I said, "you are the Queen."

"But now you are King, Hellene? Is that it?" I thought that for a woman in mourning, more gravity and less sharpness would have been seemly; but it was not for me to say it. The last sunlight on the wall had turned rose-red; and in the wicker cage the white bird was making its feathers warm for sleep.

"There will be time later," I said, "to speak of that. Now I have blood on my hands you cannot cleanse me of, nor would it become me to ask it of you. When I am free of it, I will come back, and give the blood-price to his children."

In the falling dark she stared at me and said, "Back? From where?"

"From Athens," I said, hardly believing I could name it at last. "People say there is a temple of the Mother on the Citadel, and a shrine of Apollo with a holy spring. So I can be blood-cleansed both by the Sky Gods and the gods below. I shall ask the King to cleanse me."

There was a bracelet on her wrist, of a coiled gold snake. She tugged at it and said, "Athens now! Have you not done enough at Megara? Now you want to be hearth-friend of an Erechthid. A fine house to wash you clean! You had best take your water with you."

I had expected a different kind of anger from her. You would have thought I had put some slight on her, rather than killed her kinsman. "Don't you know," she said, "that his grandfather sacked Eleusis, killed the King untimely, and forced the Queen? Ever since then the Erechthids have lain under the Mother's curse. Why do you think Aigeus had to build her a shrine on his Acropolis, and send here for a priestess? And it will be a long while yet before he washes the curse away. That is the man you want to cleanse you! Wait till your young men, who think so much of you, hear where you are taking them!"

"A suppliant does not come with warriors. I shall go to Athens alone." She tugged again at the bracelet. She looked like a woman pulled two ways at once. "She is angry," I thought, "that I am going. Yet she wants to have me gone." She said, "I know nothing of this Apollo. When do you go?"

"When my courier brings his answer. Perhaps in two days, perhaps tomorrow." "Tomorrow!" she cried. "You came here at sunset, and the sun is not yet down." I answered, "The sooner away, the sooner returning."

She paced to the window, then back to me. I smelt the scent of her hair, and remembered how it had been to desire her. Then she turned to me like the cat who shows her sharp teeth and curled tongue. "You are a bold boy, Hellene. Aren't you afraid to put yourself into the hand of Aigeus, now he has seen what kind of neighbor you mean to be? He has fought for his slab of rock and his few fields between the mountains, like a wolf for its den; he has grown lean in war with his own kindred. Will you trust such a man, whom you never saw?"

"Yes," I said. "Why not? The suppliant is sacred." The last dull stain of light was quenched upon the wall; the hills were gray, only the highest peak was flushed like the breast of a maiden. The bird's feathers were as soft as wool, and its head was all hidden. As I looked to where already over Athens the night was falling, one of the Palace women came in softly, and turned back the great bed.

I was shocked at such unseemly folly; but it was not my place to rebuke it. I turned to the Queen. She looked at me with eyes I could not read, and said to the woman, "You may go." As she left, I said to her, "Make me a bed in the east room. I shall sleep there till I am blood-cleansed." The girl's eyes opened, as if I had said something unheard-of; then she covered her mouth with her hand, and ran out of the room. I said, "That is a fool, and impudent too. You would do better to sell her."

I shall never understand the Shore Folk. I had meant no slight to her household; I spoke quite civilly. I was amazed to see what offense she had taken at my words. She clenched her hands, and her teeth showed between her lips. "Go, then! Go to Aigeus the Accursed! Like to like." She laughed; but my mind was in Athens already. "Yes, go to him, you who want to be greater than your fate. And when the reckoning comes, remember that you chose it."

"Let Zeus judge me," I said, "who can see everything." Then I went out.

First thing next day I called for a pen and Egyptian paper. It was a year or two since I had written anything; so I practiced first on wax, in case I had lost the skill, or forgotten some of the characters. Not that there were secrets in my letter; but I wanted my first words to my father to be my own and not a scribe's. I found the knack came back, and I could still write the fair hand my tutor had beaten into me. I signed it Kerkyon, and sealed it with the King's ring; and sat listening to the courier's hoofbeats fading on the Athens road.

It is only a two-hour ride, and all that day I looked for him. Though I had given my father no cause for making haste, yet, being young, I ate my heart out with impatience, and no reason for delay was too far-fetched for me to think of. But next day's noon had passed before the man returned.

On the Lower Terrace was a black basalt seat, between pillars hung with yellow jasmine. Here I went apart, and opened the letter. It was shorter than mine, written in a good clerkly script. He welcomed me to Athens as his guest, touched on my victories, and agreed to undertake my purification.

After a while, I called someone to fetch the courier. I think it was in my mind, as it had been many times with this man or that since I came to Eleusis, to ask him what kind of man the King of Athens was. Yet now as always, there seemed something unworthy in it. So I only asked, as one asks any courier, for the news.

He recited to me various matters, which I forget, and then said, "Everyone is saying the Priestess will soon be Queen."

I sat up, and said, "How is that?"

"Well, my lord, the curse has lain hard on him. Kinfolk claiming his kingdom, no son by either wife, and the Cretans won't forgo the tribute for all his asking." I asked what tribute. "Fourteen bull-dancers, due again next year, my lord. And they only take the cream. The ladies of the shrine say it's a sign for him." He paused, as if something stuck in his throat.

"This Priestess," I said. "She came from Eleusis?"

"She served here, my lord, in the sanctuary. But she came first from some shrine up north, right beyond the Hellespont. They say she has the long sight, and can call the wind; the common folk in Athens call her the Cunning One, or the Scythian Witch. He lay with her before the Goddess a long while back, because of an oracle she had when the kingdom had some misfortune. They say the next thing will be that he must raise her up beside him, and bring the old customs back." I saw why he had looked askance at me. He went on quickly. "Well, my lord, but you know what Athenians are for talk. More like it's because of the two sons she's had by him, he having no heir."

I stood up from the basalt seat, and said, "You have leave to go."

He scampered off into cover. I paced up and down the terrace in the yellow autumn sunlight, and saw people who had come to speak with me go away silent. But presently my mind grew cooler. I thought, "I sent the man off too shortly. I ought to reward him rather; a timely warning is divine. As for my father, what right have I to be angry? These eighteen years he has taken no wife, for my mother's sake and mine. I should have been here sooner, if I had lifted the stone." The sun was still high, the shadow short before me. I thought, "The man who sleeps on a warning does not deserve one. Why wait till tomorrow? I will go today."

I went back to the Palace, and called the women to dress me. The red leather suit I had brought from Troizen was Hellene, and nearly new. I slung on the serpent sword of the Erechthids; and, to cover it till the proper time, a short blue cloak pinned on the shoulder, such as one can wear indoors.

I chose two body-servants to wait on me. A guard I thought unfitting to a suppliant; besides, I wanted to make it clear I came in friendship and in trust. Those two would have been all my company; but just as I was going, my captive girl Philona pulled at my cloak in tears, and whispered me that all the women were saying the Queen would kill her as soon as my back was turned. I kissed her, and said Palace gossip was the same everywhere. But she looked at me as the coursed-down hare looks at the spear; and when I thought, I did not trust the Queen entirely. So though it was an inconvenience, I made one of the servants take her up on his mule.

When my horse was brought, I sent the Queen word that I was ready to take leave of her. She sent back that she was sick, and could speak to no one. I had seen her walking on her terrace; however, I had fulfilled the forms.

So I mounted, and in the court the Companions cheered me, but not quite as before; now I was War Leader, I was not so much their own. It would have made me sad at another time; but now I saluted them cheerfully, and soon forgot them, for in my face blew the breeze from the Attic bills.

The road followed the shore, and then swung inward. The autumn grass was parched and pale, the dark oleanders were dusty. At the border guard-tower I had to tell the Athenians who I was; they had not looked for me till morning. I felt my haste had been boyish and raw, and that they would take me lightly. But they were very civil. As I rode on, one of their couriers posted past me to Athens.

Suddenly, at a turn of the road between the low green hills, I saw standing huge before me a great flat rock, like a platform raised by Titans to assail the gods from. Upon its top, glowing bright in the westering sunlight, stood a royal palace, the columns russet red, the pink-washed walls picked out with white and blue squares. So high it stood against the sky, the guards on the ramparts looked as small as goldsmith's work, and their spears as fine as wire. I caught my breath. I had guessed at nothing like this.

Before me, down on the plain, the road led to the city wall and the gate-tower. Its roof was manned with javelin-men and archers; on the teeth of the battlements their bullhide shields hung like a frieze. Here no one asked my name. A massive bar dragged through its wards; the tall horse-gate swung open, turning on its stone trackway; within were a guard saluting, the market place, and little houses huddled under the rock, or climbing its foot slopes. The captain of the Guard sent two men at my horse's head to guide me to the Palace.

Everywhere the cliffs stood sheer, except to westward. Here the road tacked back and forth up the steep slope, flanked for defense with a great curtain-wall. The way was ridged for foothold, but soon grew too steep to ride, and they led my horse. A guardhouse topped the curtain-wall; the men touched their spear shafts to their brows, and passed me through. Far below me I saw streets and walls, the Attic plain stretching to the sea and hills; and on the hilltops the violet hues of evening, like a crown of purple and gold. Before me was the upper gate of the Citadel; the lintel-stone was painted with bands of blue and crimson, and with the royal device, a serpent twined round an olive tree. The late sunlight was like yellow crystal, brilliant and clear.

The place overawed me. Though I had heard tell of it, I had pictured only a hill such as any king or chief will build on. I had not dreamed my father the master of this mighty stronghold. Now I saw why he had held out so long against all his enemies; it might be kept, I thought, against all the world in arms. I understood what I had heard in tales: that since King Zeus made men, there was never a time when a king did not live on the Acropolis of Athens; that even before men were made it had been a fortress of earthborn giants who had four hands, and could run upon them. You can see the great stones they set together, time out of mind.

I passed through the inner gate upon the table of the Citadel. There were the pacing sentries, men now not toys; and before me the Palace, with its terrace looking to the north. If my father had been on it, I thought, he might have seen me on my way. My breath came faster than if I had scaled a mountain, and I wet my dry lips with my tongue.

I passed between the houses of the Palace people, and a few hardy trees, pines and cypresses, planted as windbreaks and for shade. Before the king-column of the great door, a chamberlain stood with the cup of welcome in his hands. After the long ride and the climb, the wine seemed the coolest and best I had ever tasted. As I drained it, I thought at last I had reached the end of my journey; with this draught I became my father's guest.

My horse was led away, and they brought me through the courtyard to the guest rooms. The women had filled the bath already, and the room was soft with scented steam. While they brushed my clothes, I lay in the water and looked about me. Coming up, I had been dazzled by the splendor of the Citadel. But once inside, you could tell this was a war-pressed kingdom. Things were quite well kept up, the wall paintings retouched and fresh, the bath things polished, the oils well blended. But the women were few, plain mostly and past their youth, and on the furniture were empty rivet-holes, where gold had been taken out. I said to myself, "He has carried his burden too long alone. Now he shall want for nothing."

I was dried and oiled and dressed and combed. At the door a baron waited to bring me to the Hall. I walked along a colonnade, over a floor of tiles painted with dogteeth and waves; on my left were columns of carved cedar, on my right a frieze of gryphons hunting deer. Servants whispered and peeped in doorways as I passed. My boots threw an echo, and the rattle of my sword hilt against the studs of my belt seemed loud. Now I began to hear the din of the Hall ahead of me, voices talking, cups and plates rattling, stools and benches scraped on stone, a lyre being tuned, and someone scolding a slave.

At the far end of the Hall was a step up between two columns. Beyond on this low dais sat the King. They had just brought up his own table and were putting it before his chair. All I could see from the doorway was that he was dark-haired. This I had guessed, from my mother taking him for Poseidon. Approaching, I saw that the brown was streaked with gray, and that he was indeed a man whom trouble had set its mark on. The skin about his eyes was dark and drawn, and the folds beside his mouth were as deep as sword cuts. His beard hid his chin, but his shaven mouth had a settled weariness; it was wary too, a thing I might well have looked for. I had thought to see in his face the mold that had stamped my own; but his was longer, the eyes not blue but brown, set deeper and not so widely; his nose was a little beaked where mine is straight, and whereas my hair flows backward from the temples, his hung down beside them, narrowing his forehead. Wherever he had sat in Hall, you would have known he was the King; but the man who had felt Poseidon's breath and swum rough water to the Myrtle House, I could not see. Yet he it was, and I had known he could not but seem strange to me.