The Corn King and the Spring Queen (13 page)

For a moment this was too much to believe. Harn Der and Yellow Bull and their friends could not help staring at one another before the shouting started; it seemed impossible to be so favoured. Tarrik put his hand on to his shirt over Erif's star, and looked at them all with a very clear vision. Then he smiled and sat down. It suddenly occurred to Harn Der that perhaps this was all Erif's doing, and for the first time for weeks he was pleased with his daughter.

Tarrik did not even go to bed that night. Erif Der lay alone, waiting for him; after about three hours she fell asleep. But he was not in the house at all: he was in his other house, at the far end of Marob, where he was no more Chief, but Corn King and god. It had been cold going there, and very dark, with a few snowflakes falling out of nothing. Inside it was still cold, but airless, choking under the low stone roof. He took his own clothes off, as he had to, chewing bitter berries all the time, and put on the long, red robes, straight from neck to ankles; the stuff was damp and harsh against his skin. He shivered and put on the head-dress and mask, dark polished squares of jet and carbuncle and onyx, the blood-red coral, the upright corn ears, the Single Eye on his forehead. He went into the inner place; the guardian, an old, old woman, crouched in a corner. He stood over her and
passed his hand three or four times in front of her face; she slept.

Tarrik took another mouthful of berries, and lighted the lamp over the stone. He did not much like what he was going to do; but it was only till midsummer, and besides he was a pupil of Sphaeros. He tried to think of it all in Greek, but there were no words for half of it. At any rate, this would be Yellow Bull's pay at Plowing Eve. He took down the Plowshare, blew on it, and wrote in the mist his breath had made. He did the same thing with the Cup and the Sieve, and he undid certain very important knots in the Basket. Last of all he took off his head-dress, and ran a tiny nail into it, so that it would just scratch the ear of the next wearer. He took great care not to touch the point of the nail himself. When that was done, he took off the red robes and got into his own clothes again; it had all taken a long time, and they were cold like a deserted nest.

The next two hours he spent with his head-men at the real, the Chief's house; they were making him up bales and chests of precious things to take with him. He would come to Hellas as a Power! There were twenty he had bidden make ready to come with him, young men, strong and faithful, all free and of the noble blood of Marob. He gave them everything they wanted, armour and money and fine clothes. They were all sad at leaving their horses. But it was not to be for long. When he came back, he would know how to be a real, Stoic king.

Yellow Bull came as he had been told, an hour before dawn. He and Tarrik went together the way the Chief had already been. They talked about the secret road and how much could be done on it, even in winter. ‘I will make a good road, Chief, I swear I will!' said Yellow Bull. ‘Yes,' said Tarrik gently, ‘I am sure of you.' They were close to the other place now; in a few houses people were stirring; they could see a sudden line of light behind the shutters, the first thin fighting against the night. Yellow Bull suddenly found his eyes full of tears. ‘Nobody else believed in my road,' he said, ‘and now—' But Tarrik laid a hand on his arm, and there they were at the door.

Half the town was down at the harbour next morning, with much lamentation. Many of them had brought presents for the Chief to take with him. He had very wisely decided
that it would be better to go in the trader rather than in his own state ship, which was much faster and very beautiful, but would not stand continuous bad weather. He walked quickly, with one arm across Sphaeros' shoulders; they both wore long fur coats and thick boots. The Chief had left his crown for Eurydice, and he was bare-headed, but had a fur hood to put on later if he wanted it. He and his men were all in a bunch together, full of movement and life and warmth under their heavy coats. The Spring Queen and her women came separately from the great door, chill and downcast, to say good-bye. And the Council, with Berris Der and a few others, waited on the breakwater for the Chief to pass. There was not wind enough to sail by, but the rowers were ready; the sky was low and grey over the ship, and the sea grey and scarcely rocking against the harbour walls.

Berris had only heard that morning. The evening of the feast he had not taken it very seriously—he was thinking of his sister. And the day after he had ridden away into the country to draw trees. He had found elms and limes and ashes standing on the bare plain, and he had been so fascinated by the tangles of their black arms that he had stayed there till sunset; and after that he went straight back to the forge, not to his father's house. He still could not quite realise that Tarrik was going. All these last months he had seen very little of the Chief, but somehow the assurance that he was there had been enough. It seemed to Berris that when he had made something supreme he would show it to Tarrik and everything would be right again. In the meantime he was not sure what he was after; he had done scarcely any solid work, only sketches and a little jewellery and ironwork just to keep his hand in. Since he had found out the truth about Epigethes and the wire keys, he had gone back entirely to his own mind for form and pattern, but now, while Sphaeros had been in Marob, the Hellenic ideas had come softly back and ranged themselves before him, vague and straight and beautiful. For certainly this Sphaeros hated the house of Leonidas in Sparta, and it seemed clear to Berris that it must have been full of just the kind of things that Epigethes liked: that he had liked himself ever so long—nearly a whole year—ago. But what did Sphaeros like? He never could make out, and
found it quite impossible to believe what the Stoic assured him was the truth: that these things did not appear to him sufficiently real or important to give him any very great pleasure one way or the other. Now Tarrik and Sphaeros were both going! He stood on the edge of the breakwater, watching the slaves go past with all the things the Chief was taking with him; every time a man went by it seemed as if a bit of himself were going too.

The Chief was talking to his Council now. It occurred to Berris that probably he had the loudest voice of anyone in Marob. Or was it only that he did not care how much he let himself go? The men were all on board now; the ship was only waiting for Tarrik. He was saying good-bye; they gave him the salute, knife and hand. And last, Erif.

She did not know what to say; she wanted to show him some sign. Because love is so much an affair of giving yourself away, by word, or look, or touch. But here, in the middle of this crowd—she had not even told him about the child. If she had: well, if she had he might have stayed. And she wanted him to go: out of danger. ‘Till summer,' he said, ‘till the fine days and the warm sun, Erif!' And questioned her with his eyes. But she could not answer. Only she put her hand up on to his breast, hurriedly, clumsily, in under his coat and there was the hard flat lump her star made below his shirt. ‘Look for me here!' she said. ‘It will tell you—if I live or die. Tarrik, I will be faithful to you!' He looked down at her hand, then straight at her face; he held her at arm's length, searching, searching. She dropped her eyes. ‘Give me something!' she said low, then, as he hesitated, not knowing what would work, she pulled the onyx-handled hunting knife out of its sheath. ‘If this clouds,' she said, ‘you are in danger.' She dared not say more, for fear of saying too much. They kissed each other under the eyes of the crowd, a bad, short kiss. Tarrik turned to the sea and the ship.

He saw Berris Der standing on the edge. ‘Good-bye, Berris!' he said, holding out both hands, smiling. But to Berris it seemed quite impossible to say good-bye all in a minute; he had far too much to talk about. ‘Good luck, Berris,' said the Chief again, ‘good luck and good-bye!' But, ‘Oh,' said Berris, ‘I'm coming too!' And he jumped
on to the ship and Tarrik jumped after him, shouting: ‘Cast off, cast off!' And so they went to sea.

Erif Der fainted into the arms of two of her women. A very proper display of feeling, every one thought. When she came to, she refused to go back to the Chief's house and her quiet room. She went instead to the Spring-field, that place of her own that she had just as the Corn King had his. It was barred now, and lightless, till winter was past, but she went in and stayed there while it was day, and came out a little happier; she had done what she could to give Tarrik a good wind and fair weather for his journey.

Harn Der was partly horrified and partly relieved at what Berris had done. It was a foolish and dangerous thing, but, on the other hand, in some ways it made their plans easier if they had not got someone with them who might suddenly change sides—Berris had been as uncertain as all that lately. As it was, he had always wanted to go to Greece, and now he was going. Artists are difficult people to have in a family. And about Erif. ‘I wonder why she fainted like that?' said Yellow Bull thoughtfully.

‘She may be going to have a child,' said Harn Der.

‘Essro ought to have told me.'

‘Women like their own secrets, my son. But—if she is—well, I think it must be dealt with. If Tarrik is to go, no use not doing it thoroughly.'

‘Will she mind?' asked Yellow Bull, doubtful.

‘She married him with her eyes open. She has no business to mind. Better for her to get clear of it all. And even if she does mind, it will have to be done; she must know that as well as we do.'

‘Better not speak of it to her.'

‘If she had done what I meant and worked her magic better it would never have happened. But women are like that, even the cleverest.'

‘Yes. Father, it is a queer thing being Corn King suddenly like this. He took me to the House—. Is it strange for you too, your son being God?'

Harn Der rubbed his fingers through his beard; he had not got that sort of mind. ‘No,' he said, ‘not very strange. I shall not feel it strange when I am Chief, either. I give Yersha about four months.'

‘Yes,' said Yellow Bull, ‘and there will be a Council
meeting tomorrow, father? I can start at once on the secret road!'

That evening Eurydice was looking at herself in the mirror; she wore the crown of Marob, and she thought she looked like a man. She felt like a man, at any rate, full of power. This was her time. And then she thought of Charmantides, and how pleasant it would be if he were to come back from Hellas this summer with a wife, some charming, modest, well-born girl, so that there should be more Greek blood in the line of the chiefs of Marob. A girl who would be a little frightened of the north, the cold and the snow and the savagery, and who would come to her aunt for protection and kindness and love. … If a messenger were sent out to assure him that Erif Der was dead. If she was really dead. It would be for every one's good. Erif Der and her magic dead and done with.

On the ship, out of sight of land, Tarrik had supper early among his friends, with Sphaeros on one side and Berris on the other. He loved them both—and all this company of men, free and singing and his own to command! He was happy and very tired. Not long after it was full dark, he stood up and bade good night to them all, and to Berris. ‘I'm glad you came,' he said, ‘it was you I wanted all the time. God, I am sleepy—I was doing things all last night. Take anything you want from my stores, Berris—anything. If I'm still asleep, come and wake me at sunrise. We shall be that nearer Hellas. Good night, Sphaeros, and good dreams, sleeping or waking!'

Erif Der was alone in the Chief's house. She had all the lamps alight in her room, and the shutters open too; it was still enough for that. She sat on the edge of her bed, undressed, with a fur rug pulled round her, clutched under her chin. There was no one in the room, nothing to hurt her. But still she sat there, quite quiet, watching and listening, very white.

I
N A FIELD NEAR
Sparta there were three children with bows and arrows shooting at a stone mark, roughly painted as a man with a shield. It was winter—you could scarcely call it the beginning of spring yet—and the grass had been cropped close by the beasts. At the high end of the field were twenty old olive trees, lifting grey, beautiful heads to any sun there was; through them a goat-path, trodden hard, led down from upland pastures to the city. All round the field there was a stone wall, and beyond, on three sides, the still jagged mountains of Sparta.

The two younger children, a little girl and a still smaller boy, were looking crossly at their big sister; they wanted to play, and she was making it into work. They were chilly as well; she had made them leave off their warm cloaks, and the cold crept up their bare arms and legs, and under the thin wool of their indoor tunics. ‘A real bowman,' she had said, ‘mustn't let anything interfere with his shooting.' And when they protested that they weren't real bowmen, she said then they mustn't shoot with her bows and arrows: so they had to be. But she'd always been like that, and it was worse than ever now she was maid of honour to the Queen.

They had to shoot in turns, standing a long way from the mark, so that they hardly ever hit it, which was dull, and they had to watch their arrows and find them, and between times they had to stand quite still and not drop their bows. It was unbearable; by and bye the little boy, Dontas, rebelled. ‘You said it was going to be a game!'

His big sister looked at him scornfully. ‘That was only to get you to come,' she said, and her nose tilted at him. ‘This is much better than a game.'

‘It's not!' said the others, both together, and the small girl suddenly began to cry: ‘You've cheated us, Philylla! You said we were going to like it and we don't!'

‘It's better than any game,' said Philylla in an excitement which somehow disregarded them. ‘It's real! We're all real Spartans now. I'm teaching you.'

‘We don't want you to teach us, do we, Dontas?' She appealed to the boy, who nodded, frowning as hard as he could. ‘You aren't grown up any more than me, and besides we're Spartans already!'

The big one tossed her head and made a comprehensive face at them. ‘That sort of Spartan—very likely! That pay other people to do their fighting for them!'

‘Well, you can't fight anyway,' said the boy rashly, ‘you're only a girl, Philylla. I'm tired of playing with girls.'

Then he bolted, but not in time. Philylla suddenly losing the temper she had so admirably kept till then, jumped at him, and caught him almost at once, and shook him and hit him with her fists. ‘I'm not a girl!' she said; ‘you shan't call me that! I'm a soldier! I'm a Spartan! I shan't ever let you touch my bows and arrows again!'

The boy squealed and kicked, ineffectively, because his feet were bare; the little girl encouraged him shrilly from behind, but was too cautious to let her hair come within grab of Philylla's long arm. This went on for a minute or two, till Philylla suddenly felt she was being a bully, and let go.

Dontas broke away a yard or two, then stood, with his face red. ‘Keep your silly bow!' he said. ‘When I'm a man you'll be married and you won't be allowed to do anything!'

‘Baby!' said Philylla bitterly; ‘cry-baby, go home and play!'

The small girl, afraid it would start again, pulled Dontas back, whispering to him; elaborately not saying good-bye, they took their cloaks and went trotting off towards the town.

Philylla picked up her bow, talking to herself out loud. ‘I won't marry,' she said; ‘the Queen won't want me to. I'll be a soldier.' And she began to shoot again, from still further off. She stood solidly with her white tunic pulled up through the belt to clear her knees; she had grey eyes and a small, obstinate mouth and chin, and her hair was tied up tight on the top of her head in a knot that overflowed into jumping, yellow curls. When she hit the mark, which was
not always, she would suddenly boil over with a terrific, secret excitement; she sprang straight up into the air and yelled: she had killed an enemy! The headless arrows made a little click against the stone; she wanted a louder noise and thought she would ask the Queen to tell her father she could have a spear. A spear and a horse … and never get married, never want men making love to her like all the other sillies of maids of honour! She was nearly the youngest, but she knew the Queen liked her better than almost any of them; and she—she wished that stone was one of the Queen's enemies, one of the people who said horrid things about her. There!—she'd hit him full in the heart.

After a time the King and Panteus came down the goat-path out of the hills; it was a safe place to talk secrets in, and Kleomenes had plans in his head enough to set all Sparta by the ears. Even now, Panteus was only just understanding; but he was excited, so wildly excited that he kept on stumbling over stones and olive roots and talking in jerks, not finishing his sentences. The King was excited too, but he showed it less, hardly at all unless to a person who knew him very well, who could see that queer, blind, blazing look behind his eyes, and the corners of his mouth twitching a very little with the force of the images that were tearing through his mind. They both stopped at the edge of the olives, suddenly aware of the child below them, shooting and shouting all by herself in the field.

Each smiled at the other, secretly, a moment's check to the unbearable torrent of their excitement. The King put his hand up to his mouth and gave a hunter's call down to the child. She jumped round to face it, still and startled, the bow held tight to her breast. Then with her free hand she swept up the loose arrows from the grass beside her and ran towards the olives, her eyes on the King, wondering what was happening now. He looked tired, she thought, leaning one way on his long spear, with the other arm round his friend's neck. Both had tunics of fine wool, deep red, wine-coloured almost. She remembered the stuff being dipped by the Queen's women, the first day she came to the house; the bitter smell of the dye, the maids of honour making faces at it behind the Queen's back, and Agiatis herself with the red dripping
off her arms, down from the elbows, a tiny smear on her neck. …

‘Well,' said the King, smiling at her, ‘what are you doing that for?'

She looked down, fingering the bow, not wanting to answer.

Panteus helped her out, asking gravely: ‘Are you a soldier?'

She nodded. ‘The Queen lets me. And—I do really try!'

‘I saw that,' said Kleomenes, ‘but don't your friends come with you?'

‘My brother and sister were with me to begin with; but they wouldn't go on. They're babies.'

‘But the maids of honour?'

‘Oh no! They won't start, they're grown-up!'

‘And you're just half-way between, so it's all right?'

Philylla suddenly got shy and couldn't answer him; she thought that was it, but didn't want to say so. He was a grown-up too!

Again Panteus came to the rescue: ‘May I look at your arrows?' he said. She handed them over silently. ‘You don't always hit the mark, do you?' She shook her head and he picked out three or four of the arrows. ‘These aren't straight,' he said. ‘Look. Where did you get them?'

She was almost crying but could not bear them to see; she took the arrows and broke them across her bare knee, ducking her head over them so as to hide her eyes.

‘Who made them?' said Panteus again.

‘I did,' she said at last, scraping her finger hard along the bowstring.

Panteus was really unhappy; she was so like a boy, standing there among her broken things. ‘One always makes a few crooked ones at first,' he said. ‘I did. There's nothing to cry about.'

‘I'm not crying,' said Philylla indignantly, and turned round to the King. ‘Sir,' she said, ‘I want to tell you—if I can ever help you, do say! The Queen—she said I might speak if I saw you—and—she told me what you're doing, how everything's going to be splendid again! Some of them don't like it, but I do, and—I do wish I could help.'

‘You may yet, Philylla,' said the King gravely, ‘and thank you. We shall want every true heart. Now, run on and tell the Queen we are coming.'

‘I will,' she said, and ran, her thick cloak in one hand, dragging out behind her, strongly, like a flag. Her heart was full of mixed pleasure at her own daring in speaking to the King and getting that answer from him, and shame at having made bad arrows, and the man thinking she was crying. Yet he was a good man, he hadn't laughed; and the King had looked tired. She had noticed that; she was beginning to know about grown-ups. Only, did he think she was crying …? Hot and cold, hot and cold, Philylla ran down the goat-path, back to the Queen, whom she loved.

But those last words of hers had sent the King and Panteus racing back to the overwhelming thrill of their plans. Only first Panteus had asked who the child was, ‘because she seems like part of the new things.'

‘Philylla, daughter of Themisteas,' the King answered. ‘My wife chose her. In three years she will be breaking hearts all round her.'

‘She doesn't think of that yet,' said Panteus, and then again they looked at each other secretly, flashingly, because in three years Sparta was to be all different!

The King sighed a little, saying to his friend: ‘I wish Sphaeros was here. He should have got my letter.'

Philylla found them all out in the courtyard, and stopped a moment, feeling it all so poised that she must not break into it, however gently. The King's mother, Kratesikleia, was sitting on the step, telling stories to her grandchildren; she had been very tall as a young woman, but now she was much bent, though it was somehow softly, as though less with age than with much stooping over cradles. Her hair was done high in a shining silver knot; below it the skin was finely wrinkled over the strong bones of her face. Her eyes were black and bright like a bird's, and her hands very small; she used them a great deal in talking, and they always impressed her hearers. Even now the children were looking at them rather than at her face, as though the story came from them. There was a great red cushion behind her, and she leant forward from it as if she were going to leap out of the picture, or so it seemed to Philylla, into that
tremendous, obsessing future that they all kept at the back of their minds.

The two youngest children sat crouched beside her, listening hard. The baby girl was quite still except for her cheeks and lips sucking at her finger, and a rhythmical curving and straightening of her toes, as if some current of thick air were passing over them. The five-year-old boy had a hovering smile and his dark eyes looked far out, as though he were meditating some mischief—again for the future! Those two were like their father and grandmother, but the eldest, who was almost more than a child, who was nearly eight and would go to his class—if—if the classes were started again!—he was like his mother, with thick, silky-soft hair, lighter than his sunbrowned skin, and clear grey eyes, and lips that shut firmly over any secret. He saw Philylla coming in and smiled at her silently; they were great friends.

But it was his mother that Philylla turned to. There was almost twenty years between them, but yet the girl felt there was no separation for them, none of the natural aloofness between two generations. It had all flowered in this last six months; the Queen was more to her now than her own mother could ever be again, or her own sister for that matter. The thing had happened completely.

Agiatis was standing sideways to the others, with a piece of embroidery in her hands, the edge of a purple soldier's cloak for her husband. She was still one of the most beautiful women in Sparta; perhaps it was partly this that made the twenty years seem such a small thing. Her hair, that Philylla loved to comb and plait when it was her turn, was almost covered by a close net of blue and silver cords. She wore the Dorian dress of plain wool, summer-bleached white, her own weaving. There were no ornaments at all; even the shoulder brooches were only silver, worked in a dullish pattern, and her ear-rings the same. Philylla admitted to herself dispassionately that Agiatis had very little eye for clothes, but then they didn't interest her nowadays—why should they?—and it didn't matter, for she was the right height and figure to look splendid in these simple things. Only: the child wondered for the hundredth time why they had ever called her Agiatis the Merry-minded. If one knew her well, of course—but just to see her and speak
with her, it was the last thing one would say. Fifteen years ago she might have seemed very different, but surely not so different as all that! She stood there now, in her own house, looking at her own beautiful children; and yet she looked sad. Sad, but not minding it, Philylla thought again, and then suddenly jumped and shook herself, and ran into the court with her message.

The picture broke at once into movement and noise and the present, but Agiatis was smiling now, the special, very soft smile she had for Philylla, that deepened again into something even more essential when the child spoke of her husband and Panteus. ‘And I told him!' she said, her eyes bright and cheeks pink with running, ‘about wanting to help. I think he was pleased.'

‘I'm sure he was,' said the Queen; ‘there aren't so many to say it. Not among the women, at least.'

‘No,' said Philylla slowly, thinking of the other maids of honour, ‘they are silly, aren't they. I don't know why.'

The Queen smiled at her. ‘You will though, Philylla. When things turn simple, women have to give up much more than men. Because they live in shadow, by mystery.'

‘I see,' said Philylla doubtfully, not seeing, ‘but they won't be when I'm grown up, will they? I don't like it!' And unconsciously she moved further out towards the middle of the court, full into the winter sunlight.