The King Must Die (3 page)

"The Lord Poseidon, who rules everything that stretches under the sky, the land and the sea. He told the King Horse; and the King Horse led them."

I sat up; this I could understand.

"When they needed new pastures, they let him loose; and he, taking care of his people as the god advised him, would smell the air seeking food and water. Here in Troizen, when he goes out for the god, they guide him round the fields and over the ford. We do it in memory. But in those days he ran free. The barons followed him, to give battle if his passage was disputed; but only the god told him where to go.

"And so, before he was loosed, he was always dedicated. The god only inspires his own. Can you understand this, Theseus? You know that when Diokles hunts, Argo will drive the game to him; but he would not do it for you, and by himself he would only hunt small game. But because he is Diokles' dog, he knows his mind.

"The King Horse showed the way; the barons cleared it; and the King led the people. When the work of the King Horse was done, he was given to the god, as you saw yesterday. And in those days, said my great-grandfather, as with the King Horse, so with the King."

I looked up in wonder; and yet, not in astonishment. Something within me did not find it strange. He nodded at me, and ran down his fingers through my hair, so that my neck shivered.

"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice; but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated, he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox. And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand."

I wanted to say I understood him. But I was silent, as in the sacred oak wood.

"Later the custom altered. Perhaps they had a King they could not spare, when war or plague had thinned the Kindred. Or perhaps Apollo showed them a hidden thing. But they ceased to offer the King at a set time. They kept him for the extreme sacrifice, to appease the gods in their great angers, when they had sent no rain, or the cattle died, or in a hard war. And it was no one's place to say to him, 'It is time to make the offering.' He was the nearest to the god, because he consented to his moira; and he himself received the god's commandment."

He paused; and I said, "How?"

"In different ways. By an oracle, or an omen, or some prophecy being fulfilled; or, if the god came close to him, by some sign between them, something seen, or a sound. And so it is still, Theseus. We know our time."

I neither spoke nor wept, but laid my head against his knee. He saw that I understood him.

"Listen, and do not forget, and I will show you a mystery. It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus. The readiness is all. It washes heart and mind from things of no account, and leaves them open to the god. But one washing does not last a lifetime; we must renew it, or the dust returns to cover us. And so with this. Twenty years I have ruled in Troizen, and four times sent the King Horse to Poseidon. When I lay my hand on his head to make him nod, it is not only to bless the people with the omen. I greet him as my brother before the god, and renew my moira."

He ceased. Looking up, I saw him staring out between the red pillars of the window, at the dark-blue line of the sea. We sat some while, he playing with my hair as a man will scratch his dog to quiet it, lest its importunities disturb his thoughts. But I had no word to say to him. The seed is still, when first it falls into the furrow.

At last he sat up with a start, and looked at me. "Well, well, child, the omens said I should reign long. But sometimes they talk double; and too early's better than too late. All this is heavy for you. But the man in you challenged it, and the man will bear it." He got up rather stiffly from his chair, and stretched, and strode to the doorway; his shout echoed down the twisted stair. Presently Diokles running up from below said, "Here I am, sir."

"Look at this great lad here," my grandfather said, "growing out of his clothes, and nothing to do but sit with the house dogs, scratching. Take him away, and teach him to ride."

2

Next year, I began my service to Poseidon. For three years I went to Sphairia one month out of four, living with Kannadis and his fat old wife in their little house at the edge of the grove. My mother used to complain that I came back spoiled past bearing.

It was true I came home rough and noisy. But I was only breaking out after the quiet. When you serve a holy place, you can never forget, even in sleep, that the god is there. You cannot keep from listening. Even on a bright morning, with birds in song, there are hushing whispers. Except at the festival, no one cares to be too loud in a precinct of Poseidon. It is like whistling at sea. You might start more than you bargained for.

I remember many days like one: the hush of noonday; the shadow of the thatch falling straight and sharp; no sound but a cicada out in the hot grass, the restless pine-tops, and a far-off sea-hum like the echo in a shell. I swept the floor round the sacred spring, and scattered clean sand; then took the offerings laid on the rock beside it, and put them in a dish for the priests and servers to eat. I wheeled out the great bronze tripod, and filled its bowl from the spring, dipping the water out in a jug shaped like a horse's head. When I had washed the sacred vessels, and dried them in clean linen, and set them out for the evening offerings, I poured off the water into an earthen jar that stood under the eaves. It is healing, especially for tainted wounds, and people come a long way to get it.

There was a wooden image of Poseidon on the rock, blue-bearded, holding a fish-spear and a horse's head. But I soon came not to notice it. Like the old Shore Folk who worshipped the Sea Mother under the open sky there, killing their victims on the bare rock, I knew where the deity lived. I used to listen in the deep noon shadow, quiet as the lizards on the pine trunks; sometimes there would be nothing but a wood-dove's coo; but on another day, when the hush was deepest, there would sound far down in the spring a great throat swallowing, or a great mouth smacking its lips together; or sometimes only a long thick breath.

The first time I heard, I dropped the cup back in the bowl, and ran out between the painted columns into the hot sun, and stood panting. Then came old Kannadis, and put his hand on my shoulder. "What is it, child? Did you hear the spring?" I nodded. He ruffled my hair and smiled. "What's this? You don't fear your grandfather, when he stirs in his sleep? Why fear Father Poseidon, who is nearer yet?" Soon I grew to know the sounds, and listened with my courage on tiptoe, in the way of boys; till the days of silence came to seem flat. And when a year had passed, bringing me trouble I could tell no one, I used to lean over the hollow rock and whisper it to the god; if he answered I would be comforted.

That year, another boy came to the sanctuary. I came and went, but he was there to stay; he had been offered as a slave to the god, to serve the precinct all his days. His father, being wronged by some enemy, had promised him before his birth in exchange for this man's life. He got home dragging the body at his chariot tail, on the day Simo was born. I was there when he was dedicated, with a lock of the dead man's hair bound round his wrist.

Next day I took him round the sanctuary to show him what to do. He was so much bigger than I, I wondered they had not sent him sooner. He did not like learning from a smaller boy, and made light of all I told him; he was not a Troizenian, but came from up the coast near Epidauros. As I saw more of him I liked him less. By his own story, there was nothing he could not do. He was thick and red, and if he caught a bird would pluck it alive and make it run about bare. I said he should let them be, or Apollo would be after him with an arrow, because birds bring his omens. But he said sneering that I was too squeamish to make a warrior. I hated even his smell.

One day in the grove, he said, "Who is your father, towhead?"

With a bold front and sinking belly, I answered, "Poseidon. That's why I am here." He laughed, and made a rude sign with his fingers. "Who told you that? Your mother?"

It was like a black wave breaking over me. No one had ever said it openly. I was a spoiled child still; nothing much worse had come my way than justice from those who loved me. He said, "Son of Poseidon, a little runt like you! Don't you know the gods' sons are a head taller than other men?"

I was shaking all over, being too young to hide my heart. I had felt safe from this, in the sacred precinct "So shall I be tall, as tall as Herakles, when I'm a man. Everyone has to grow, and I shan't be nine till spring."

He gave me a push that tumbled me over backwards. After a year in the holy place, I gasped at the impiety. He thought it was him I was afraid of. "Eight and a half!" he said, pointing his blunt finger. "Here I am not turned eight, and big enough to push you down. Run away home, little bastard! Ask Mother for a better tale."

There was a bursting in my head. What I next remember is hearing him yell in my ear. My legs were knotted round him, and I had both fists full of his hair, trying to crack his head upon the ground. When he put up an arm to beat me away, I sank my teeth in it and held fast.

The priests got me off him by prizing my jaws with a stick.

When we had been scrubbed and beaten, we were brought to beg the god's pardon, burning our suppers before him to purge our impiety. At the moment of the sacrifice, the throat of the spring gave a great belch and gurgle. Simo jumped a foot in the air; he had more respect for the god's presence thereafter.

Kannadis cured his arm, when it festered, with the holy salt water. My wound was inward, and slow to heal.

I was the youngest of the Palace children; I had never thought to measure myself with any others. Next time I went home, I began to look about, and to ask people's ages. I found seven boys born in my year and season. Only one of them was smaller than I. There were even girls who were taller. I began to be silent, and to brood.

All these six boys, as I saw it, were threats to my honor. If I could not outgrow them, I must prove myself some other way. So I would challenge them to dive between steep rocks, to poke wild bees' nests and run, to ride the kicking mule or steal eggs from eagles. If they said no, I would make them fight. These contests I won, having more at stake than the others, though I never said so. Thereafter we could be friends, for me. But their fathers complained of me, that I led them into danger; and I was never two days running out of a scrape.

One day I saw old Kannadis walking home from Troizen, and overtook him near the ford. He shook his head and said he heard sad tales of me; but I could see he was pleased I had run after him. Taking heart from this, I said, "Kannadis, how tall are the sons of the gods?"

He peered at me sharply with old blue eyes, then patted my shoulder. "Who can say? That would be making laws for our betters. The gods themselves can be what size they choose; Paian Apollo once passed as a shepherd lad. And King Zeus himself, who got mighty Herakles, another time went courting as a swan. His wife had swan-children, curled up in eggs, as little as that."

"Then," I said, "how do men know if they are god-begotten?"

He brought down his white brows. "No man can knew. Still less may he claim it. Certainly the gods would punish his pride. He could only seek for honor as if it might be true, and wait upon the god. Men are not asked to know such things; heaven sends a sign."

"What sign?" I asked. But he shook his head. "The gods will be known, when they are ready."

I thought much about this matter of honor. Talaos' son, climbing out on a limb which bore my weight but not his, got a broken arm, and I a beating. The god sent no sign; so it seemed he was not satisfied.

Behind the stables was the pen of the Palace bull. He was red as a pot, with short straight horns and a look of Simo. We boys liked teasing him through the palings, though the bailiff would clip us if he caught us at it. One day we had been watching him serve a cow and the show was over, when it came into my head to jump down in the bull pen and dodge across.

He was quiet after his pleasure, and I got away easily; but it made a stir among the boys, which was enough to send me back next day. The life I had been living had made me hard and wiry and quick-footed; and when other boys out of emulation joined the game, I was still the master. I chose my band from those who were slight and spry; we would play the bull two or three together, the envy of the rest, while someone watched out for the bailiff.

The bull too was learning. Soon before we were on the fence he would be pawing the ground. My troop grew shy, till at last the only boy who would go in with me was Dexios, the Horse Master's son, who feared nothing four-footed. Even we two liked to have the others drawing off the bull's eye before we jumped. One day, waiting his moment, young Dexios slipped, and fell in while the beast was watching.

He was a boy younger than I, who followed my lead and liked me. I saw what must happen, and all through my fault. Being at my wits' end what else to do, I leaped down on the bull's head.

What happened I don't well remember, or how it felt, or if I expected to die. By luck I grasped him by the horns; and, being as new to this as I was, he rid himself of me carelessly. I flew up, struck my belly on the top of the fence and hung, felt the boys grab me, and was down on the other side. Meanwhile Dexios had climbed out, and the noise had brought the bailiff.

My grandfather had promised me the thrashing of my life. But seeing, when he had me stripped, that I was black and blue as if I had had it already, he felt me over, and found two broken ribs. My mother cried, and asked what had possessed me. But she was not the one I could tell that to.