The Corn King and the Spring Queen (6 page)

The children had always loved this summer life, riding out, or driving in the big carts, singing and shouting, all in clean, light clothes to match the flowering plain. They had left winter behind; the house that had been getting dirtier and stuffier day after day for eight months, would stand open and be smoked out and scrubbed and painted with bright colours to welcome them again in autumn. They could eat the last of the old stored fruit and honey, be done with salt meat and the hard winter cheeses. Soon the sweet grass would be waving wide ahead of them, there would be fresh things to do and smell and eat and look at; suddenly they felt twice as alive.

For the first week or two they were always just mad, running about and rolling and playing, riding the colts and splashing in and out of the stream. Then they would settle down to summer. The women would find the best pool for their half-year's washing, and a smooth slope for drying and bleaching; the men would be hunting, rounding up the young cattle and horses and branding them; Harn Der would ride gravely all about his fields and have long talks with his farm-people; and the two little ones, Gold-fish and Wheat-ear, made themselves a house of branches and took all their food there, and got more and more difficult to chase back to the tents at night.

Berris Der found that he was apt not to think about making anything for weeks at a time; he flew his hawks and hunted, and raced with the others on half-broken horses, for miles across the plain. Then suddenly, something would come into his head and he would begin drawing frantically, convinced that this was the best he had ever done. He had
been like that the day before; now he was still asleep, among a litter of charcoal sticks and odd bits of linen with drawings all over them. He had seen two grass-cocks in their spring plumage, sparring with one another out on the plain; now he was making them into a pattern, with the sweep of their raised neck-feathers to balance the flare-up of their tails and spurs. Bronze, he thought of it; but that must be cast. He had been wondering what Epigethes would make of it—never mind, it was good! When he was back in Marob, he would go on with his lessons; he could, for that matter, ride back easily any time, stay a few days, and work with the Greek. It seemed less attractive now, but still, he could not drop it all till autumn. Epigethes might not be able to stay. Mentally, he cursed Tarrik for that. Here, at least, things would be better when his father's plan came off: art would come into its own in Marob, and he would be the one to see to it. So he went to sleep, and dreamed of his cocks fighting, and the odd noise their bronze beaks made, clicking together.

By and bye, when the sun was up and only the shadows very dewy still, Erif Der, who had been half asleep, threw off her blanket and ran out, barefoot, in her linen shift. The servants were all busy, making the fires up again, cooking, bringing in the milk-pails. She sat down in the sun, outside the women's tent, and began combing her hair; she liked doing this, for it was a comb she had magicked so carefully that it never pulled. When her hair was quite smooth she began plaiting it again, flicking it in and out of her clever fingers, admiring herself. She thought she ought to go on with the weaving of her wedding dress, but decided not to, there was no hurry on a day like this. She stretched herself, dropping the plait, breathing in huge mouthfuls of the sunny air, half thinking of getting Berris to come hunting with her; she loved hunting, much better than making wedding dresses. She began to wish the Red Riders would come again, just a few, so that she could shoot them.

Then she heard two or three sharp voices, and looking up to find what was the matter, what they were all pointing at, she saw Tarrik riding through the camp on a very beautiful, very nervous horse, that shied, terrified, at the fires and great tents. Tarrik himself was looking very big. She got
to her feet, and found that for some reason her heart was thumping violently and painfully; she put both hands over her breast to quiet it. There was a little buzzing in her head and finger-tips. Tarrik came up close to her; she was fascinated by the twitching, jumping body of the horse, the pawing of its hoofs on the dry turf. Quite still herself, she watched intently Tarrik's hands on the reins, with an acuteness, an accuracy of vision that might have been her brother's. The grip shifted to the right hand only; Tarrik leant over and picked her up like a rabbit; she felt the linen of her shift tear all along the seam, and screamed. But by that time she was on the horse and Tarrik had loosed the reins; she held on to the mane with both hands, half across its neck, her balance all wrong, with nothing in her mind but the flying ground, the danger. Then Tarrik pulled her up, shifting back in the saddle himself, so that she had a little room, and holding her tight against him.

They were out of the camp; for a minute or two Erif Der was too dazed to tell which way. All down one side she was sore and bruised; she was being treated as a thing, not a person! Tarrik was saying something; she squared her shoulders and butted her head back sharp against his chin; he squeezed her so hard that she almost cried, not quite, though. She began to work her free hand in under the other that he held so tight against her, under her shift, finger-tips groping for the star. She felt its chain, the pin that fastened it, one point. She was all screwed up to get it, the words she must say were on her tongue; she was as clear headed as possible.

It pulled up, into her fingers. And then Tarrik caught her hand in his and jerked savagely; the chain bit into her neck, then broke, but she still had the star. His hard, terrible fingers were digging it out of her palm. She bit his other arm, got hers free, and reached back for his face, his eyes, something to go for. He got her tight again, wrist and face, bruising her lips with his arm-bones, and his other hand tore out the star and threw it away. Her teeth closed on saltish linen and skin and muscle, and she threw herself sideways with a kick against the side of the saddle. They hit the ground both together, rolled over half a dozen times. After that, she was almost too done to struggle or fight him any more.

By and bye Tarrik, beginning to realise how black and blue he was himself, asked her if she was hurt. She shook her head sullenly and sat up. Tarrik, not having, on the whole, had much to do with virgins, did not really know how much hurt she was likely to be, quite apart from falling off a galloping horse. Still, he was not very happy; he did not like her looking grey at the lips. She got to her knees, and began slowly to look at all the tears in her linen shift; it was torn right down the front at one side and she pulled the three-cornered piece up quickly over herself and held the top edges together in her fist. But there was nothing to fasten it with; she let it go to rub her fist across her eyes; after all, it was silly to mind if Tarrik did see her breast now. She didn't think she could ever mind anything after this—he seemed to have broken all the clean, sharp edges of her feeling for ever. He rolled back his own sleeves to see her teeth marks and a little blood; she had bitten his neck worse, though. The horse had come back, and whinnied to them questioningly from the top of a ridge. She tried to stand, but failed altogether; he caught her and stopped her falling; together they looked at her ankle. ‘You must have come down on it,' he said. She nodded; it was beginning to send shoots of pain up her leg, the under side of her knee, drowning everything else. ‘I'll get some water,' said Tarrik. ‘What else?'

She looked at him. ‘If I had my star,' she said, and watched him run off down their track, and presently stoop and pick it up.

He brought it back. ‘You'll magic me, too?' he asked, still keeping it tight.

She held out her hand. ‘Oh, give it me!—Tarrik.'

‘But will you?' She began to cry hard, partly at the check to what she wanted, partly at the softness of his voice—getting at her, trying to stop her hating him and all the violence and pain that was part of him. ‘Will you, Erif dear?' he said again. ‘I don't want to be turned into a bear.'

‘I can't,' she said, sniffing, ‘it's too difficult. I haven't learnt.'

‘Well, anything. I don't want to be magicked. Will you not, Erif?'

She said nothing for a moment, then; ‘Not just now.'

He gave it to her. She fastened on to it, leant forward, and touched her foot all over with it. The pain went further and further back, till she scarcely felt it, only, behind it and coming into consciousness now, the deep bruising of her thighs. He bandaged her ankle as she told him, with a bit of his own shirt. ‘Now I want the star back,' he said, and opened her hand and took it.

‘I can do magic without that,' said Erif Der.

‘You can't ever magic the Greek bit of me.' She said nothing. ‘Not even when we're married. Can you?'

‘I haven't tried,' said Erif Der, ‘but I will. And I do hate you, Tarrik.'

He put on his crown again, caught the horse and lifted her on, then went to its head and led it back towards the camp; neither of them said anything more. When they were in sight, he took off his felt coat and gave it to her; she found it hid a good deal, but smelt of him. Harn Der came out to meet them, with Berris; both were armed, but she was afraid they were not going to do anything. Tarrik left her and went forward by himself to speak to her father; she could not hear what they were saying. Berris stared at her, questioning with his eyebrows; she put out her tongue at him. By and bye Harn Der came up and stood beside her. ‘So you're a woman now, my daughter.' ‘And you don't care,' she said, ‘how I'm hurt, how I'm dishonoured.' ‘Well,' he said, smiling at her, ‘you were betrothed. It's nothing to make a song about. Go to your mother, Erif.' He went back to the Chief, and Berris said: ‘It serves you right for magicking people.' ‘Well, who told me to?' said she furiously. ‘Oh, of course,' said Berris, ‘but you know you like doing it. You think you're clever.'

She leant forward and hit the horse on the neck, and sent it clattering off towards the tents, nearly throwing her. She called for her mother; the foot was hurting again, it wanted magic. The women helped her into her mother's tent, saying nothing, because they saw she was angry, and knew what she could do to them if she chose to use her power. The old nurse brought her clean clothes, her best, and warm water, and olive oil, and soft woollen towels to wash with. Then at last came her mother, Nerrish, so small and quiet and shadowy in her grey dress, that she was hardly there.
She sat beside Erif, holding her hand, crumbling something over her hair, while the girl cried solidly for ten minutes. Nerrish knew a great deal about people and a great deal about magic, but it had worn her out. She felt very old, she could scarcely deal with her children, hardly ever thought of the younger ones. But she would give what she had to this elder one who was most like her, whose life she could best see into. After a time Erif fell asleep, and while the sleep was at its heaviest, her mother and nurse undressed her and washed her, and saw to the bruises and the twisted ankle, and dressed her again, and plaited ribbons into her hair, and discussed between themselves, in very low voices, the doings of that curious, savage creature man, and how one should deal with him and overcome him. Then they moved a little brazier of burning charcoal close to the girl's head, and Nerrish laid some large, flat leaves on it. The smoke rose and hung and spread itself upwards along the walls of the tent; Erif Der lay and slept, breathing easily, the colour coming back into her cheeks.

Meanwhile the horse had found its way back to Tarrik, and stood, with twitching ears, blowing into the palm of his hand. He had just said to Harn Der: ‘Three days ago I killed Epigethes,' and was watching to see what would happen next. Harn Der said nothing at all for the moment, but breathed heavily. Berris, though, had heard. ‘You haven't done that,' he said, ‘Tarrik!' And then, seeing it was true, covered eyes with hands in sheer horror.

Said Harn Der: ‘This was—unwise.'

‘Yes,' said Tarrik, and began laughing as he had that day at the Council.

‘Why did you do it, Chief?' said the older man.

But Tarrik went on laughing and then suddenly kicked backwards like a vicious horse at a clod of earth which exploded under his heel.

And Berris groaned: ‘Are you mad?'

‘He was bad,' said Tarrik, and stopped laughing and walked from one bit of scattered turf to another, tramping on them. ‘He was bad. His things were bad. Rotten. Rotten roots. I like sound things. Sweet apples. Hard apples—like yours, Berris.'

‘My things!' said Berris Der. ‘Oh God, you should have killed me—I don't matter. But he …' And his
voice trailed off into silence, overwhelmed with the loss of Hellas.

‘The Council will think you mad, if they think no worse,' said Harn Der again.

But Tarrik bent down and was lacing his shoes. ‘I shall want clean clothes,' he said. ‘Burn these, with hers, and give them to your fields, Harn Der.' He spoke now in the voice of the Corn King. They would be very careful to obey him; next year the crops would know.

He took the clean linen and went off by himself to the stream. All this time her star had been round his neck; when he lifted it, he found it had blistered his skin underneath in a star pattern. So while he washed, he put it under water to get cool, downstream from where he was. He also found that where her teeth had gone through the skin on his arm, there was still bleeding; it would not stop for cold water, or burnet leaves, or dock. After some hesitation he touched it with the star. Then it stopped at once. Tarrik knew no more about how magic worked than any other of the men, but it interested him immensely; that was perhaps the Greek part of him, not taking everything for granted. He dressed and walked slowly back to the camp; the star was on his neck again, but well wrapped in leaves, so that it should burn them first. It was the middle of the afternoon by now, very hot; he thought he could smell the lime grove, breathing its sweetness towards him from the other slope, a mile away now.