The Corn King and the Spring Queen (66 page)

‘Who have you seen?' asked Berris.

‘I saw Lady Arsinoë's head nurse, a sensible woman, though she had little to tell now. You know perhaps that the princess has asked me to come to her as her tutor? But of course that is impossible, as I have told her, so long as I have charge of Nikomedes and the others.'

‘Is Nikomedes very unhappy?' Erif asked.

‘Yes. He appears not to be trying to face it reasonably. Even at his age I had hoped for better results, considering his training.'

‘He's facing danger that may be real enough to his father.'

‘So they keep on telling me,' said Sphaeros, with a queer little petulance. ‘As though his whole life had not been one of danger!'

At first it did seem possible that there was some misunderstanding, but as day after day went by and nothing was altered, that possibility had to be dropped. It was very hard for the others to know what to do. Any action might endanger the King. The twelve were constantly together, discussing what was to be done. They were allowed to see Kleomenes, and could talk to him privately. They supposed the Egyptian servants were all spies or possible spies, but he was not guarded at all obtrusively. The house was comfortable, and his ordinary wishes were regarded. The head slave took the greatest trouble over his food and drink, saw that his bed linen was fresh, and even suggested the possibility of a nice little companion for it. Kleomenes' own two helot body servants were well treated too, and allowed to go in and out of the house, and bring him books or clothes, though they always had to report to the guard at the door. One of them, an intelligent youngish man, called Monimos, said he thought they were being followed. He had a mistress down by the docks, a brown dancer, and on his way there he often had suspicions. The King warned him fiercely never to say anything to the woman of what was going on, though Monimos assured him that she was absolutely trustworthy.

They decided that the best thing to do was to let the Peloponnesian mercenaries know what had been done to Kleomenes of Sparta and consult with their captains. But when Panteus and Phoebis came to the Sun Gate of Alexandria, the sentries who usually sat in the dust playing
dice and eating sweets and joking with the market-women, shambled up and said politely but very firmly that this gate was blocked to them; the Spartans had been forbidden to take the Eastern road. That was the main gate out of Alexandria, but the others were forbidden too. They tried to hire a boat, but even at the most unlikely time of day there seemed always to be an official waiting to stop the boatman from taking them. The same thing seemed always to happen if they found a messenger whom they could trust with a letter. It was all extremely disconcerting.

Kleomenes began to think it very likely that he was going to be killed. He did not sleep very well, and most nights provided him with time to think it all out. Sometimes he was acutely conscious of wanting a woman, but he did not choose to be provided with Ptolemy's spies. It was, on the whole, merely a matter of the flesh and could be dealt with on Stoic principles. Odd, though, if—as seemed likely—he was never to have a woman again! Odd, to think of the ending of the body, its queer wants and habits. It was possible to think of dying, but impossible to think of never chewing a piece of bread or going to ease oneself again, those automatic actions which were more essential than thought or love, though utterly forgotten in memory and neglected in hope. He thought of Sparta. Over there Spartans were going on doing these things, though their lives—what he had always thought of as their lives—had been utterly altered by the rule of the Macedonians and the ephors. What had been altered really? What was there in man that could be changed by liberty or hope or friendship or a great idea? Where was it in the body? Sphaeros had never shown him. He had taken it for granted that he knew. Could one man alone have this part? He thought probably not, that it was only possible in a community. Then, could it go on in a community, apart from the individuals? Again, he thought not. If it could, it would mean—what? Gods, perhaps. Apollo of Sparta. Apollo real after all. Well, he had made the vows and sacrifices that a King must make. He had not neglected the Gods.

He had never considered the thing so deeply before. Always he had been interested in some immediate object, some future he was going to make and see himself. Now that had dropped away. And suddenly, out of calm thought, he
would be seized with bitter resentment that he had thought and acted so violently and with such ambition. If he had been sensible and far slower, and placated more people, and compromised wherever it had seemed necessary, he might have another twenty or thirty good years to live—to live in Sparta with his children growing up round him—and their children—and Archiroë or some other soft and lovely she-thing to play with, and Panteus and his children, and all his friends, and the air and earth he loved! Then his eyes filled with tears and he twisted about and bit his pillow and, going from one evil rapidly to another, remembered that Agiatis was dead and he would never see her again or be comforted by her. Even though he died, too, he would not see her again even in a land of shadows, for all that was lies and unworthy of a free man's belief. The only thing that would happen would be that the memory of her which was still alive and real in his mind, would vanish too.

He talked of all this to Sphaeros, who agreed that it was so, and said that it must be faced and accepted, for who would choose to struggle foolishly and blindly when he might stand and look the Fates in the eyes? But Sphaeros was old; he could say these things calmly, meaning them, he was getting those extra twenty years which the King wanted so bitterly! It was time he did accept. But Sphaeros still did not consider the danger at all so certain. He had consulted with friends, yes, friends at the Library who went often to Court, and they were certain it would all be cleared up and explained away. All the same; it was as well for Kleomenes to have faced at last one of the realities, one which he had given to others, the only certain one.

Kleomenes spoke of it less to Panteus and the others, because they were still part of such hope and life as there still was. They had plans to make, conversations to report, the problem of whom in all Alexandria they could trust to help them if King Ptolemy decided finally to act—against them. He never spoke of it to his mother, and not to Nikomedes after the first time, because the boy had been desperately upset, Sphaeros said, for days. He would not speak, but went about looking as if he were not yet awake from some terrible dream.

One day Kleomenes sent a letter to his friend, Ptolemy, the son of Chrysermas, asking him to come and pay him a
visit. The next morning the young man came, bringing with him a white kitten as a present; it managed to distract and dissipate the conversation a good deal. Kleomenes knew his visitor to be a great favourite at Court, good at playing any kind of game and admirably discreet at being defeated by his Divine Majesty; if the truth could be got at, he was likely to have it. He soothed Kleomenes a lot, producing all kinds of excuses and promises. The air of the place seemed to clear. Kleomenes began to take real pleasure in the pouncing grace of the kitten. The visit came to an end. They said good-bye very cordially, Kleomenes with the kitten on his arm; he was going to call it Lucky.

The visitor crossed to the door—the door which the King was not allowed to pass—and as he did so the kitten sprang and darted. Kleomenes grabbed at it, but it struck out with one claw, evaded him, and ran for the door with its tail in the air and Kleomenes in chase. The next moment it was sitting up in a corner, washing its face, and did not mind at all being picked up. But as the King began to fondle it again, he realised that his visitor was not yet gone, and with a curious feeling of impossibility, heard him say to the sergeant of the guards at the door, in a tone of extreme anger, that he would report him to Sosibios for their carelessness in guarding this wild beast, this danger to the State!

Kleomenes stayed quite quiet until he heard the door bolted again after Ptolemy the son of Chrysermas, and then walked back to his room, absently stroking the kitten. But for this accident he would still have thought the visit had been a most friendly and successful one, still have believed what Sosibios meant him to believe! He would have reported it happily to his friends. Now that was all finished. Yes, there was probably only one course open to them now. The Divine Ptolemy and his Court were moving to Canopus the next week; it was cooler and pleasanter there. Yes, that would be the time for them to do it.

W
HEN KING PTOLEMY
released a prisoner, especially a political prisoner found to be innocent, the custom was that he should send presents and garlands and the fortunate man would then hold a feast in honour of the King,
his friend. That was well known. So when a quantity of fine things were sent to Kleomenes, robes woven with fine colours, jars of scent and honey, and ivory boxes of spice, there was no reason for the guards to disbelieve the message that all this came from King Ptolemy. They did not know that the last of the old Queen's money was gone, and Philylla had given Panteus all the savings she had put together in case—and Leandris had sold her silver combs and Neareta the necklace which Phoebis had brought her from the sack of Megalopolis. So Kleomenes and his twelve friends made a solemn feast in honour of King Ptolemy, who had set him free, and gave handsomely to the guards—wine mostly, heavy wine of Cyprus, spiced with a free hand, and meat from the sacrifice he made before the feast. The only at all surprising thing about it was that actually King Ptolemy and most of his Court were away at Canopus. But perhaps he had heard something new there about the conspiracy, and had sent back word that the wild beast, Kleomenes the Spartan, was to be freed.

It was hot in the courtyard; the air smelt of over-baked dust and dust-dry dung, as the air does in a city. The King's two helots brought bowls of tripe and ox-tail to the guards, seasoned with pepper and garlic, a good food smell to drown the other. They loosened their armour: no need to keep watch now. They had garlands of jasmine, cool over running sweat. In the shade of the trellis they stretched and belched and drank again languidly, and one by one went to sleep. The helots went back and reported, satisfied; their work was done; they could go. Monimos went off to his mistress at the docks, wanting to pass the hot hours there on cool pillows, watching her dance and shine and drip and wag her breasts at him.

But in the room the twelve and Kleomenes had eaten and drunk little. They had talked out their plan till it was clear. They were going to make one more attempt to rouse the Greeks in Alexandria against the palace—there might be a chance with Ptolemy away, the Alexandrians might be less in awe of the thing, they might remember they were men! Oh yes, it was possible. They would free the prisoners in the gaol. They would rush through the streets, storming, shouting people out of their houses; the Alexandrians might be fired by it, and if once they could get a foothold in Alexandria and
send to the mercenaries—yes, it might happen! This might be the dark hour just before dawn—they would be able to look back on it and laugh—from Sparta. They had trusted their star, risked all, gained all. That was what they would say—in Sparta.

At first they were keeping themselves firmly into a group of planning and hoping, looking forward to material and solid things, the New Times again, the kingdom—in Sparta. Hippitas was best at this because he was the eldest and had seen many very unlikely things happen, and anyhow took the future lightly, as a good campaigner should. Idaios was hopeful because he was bound to have a very strong and sharp vision of the time when he and Leandris and his baby son were at last going to be home. Agesipolis said it was going to come right because he was the youngest, young enough to believe in the almost impossible. And Phoebis sometimes said the same thing, but there was a bitter taste of country irony perceptible behind the words, the mocking of the harvest people at the Spartiates, the mocking at death. The others were not hoping so well.

The King had seen Nikomedes the day before, but he had not told him or Sphaeros what was going to happen. He knew Sphaeros would discourage it, would say it was not only folly and violence and an animal struggle against Fate, but also impossible! And he did not tell Nikomedes because—if it was impossible, if all he was doing was going to his death a few weeks sooner than Ptolemy had meant—the less the boy knew about it the better. If he was not involved in the plot there was no reason why he should be involved in his father's death either. So young a boy. A child almost. A child he had looked that day, puzzled and kept out and terribly attentive to every word his father had said. No, no, think on across to the time when Nikomedes should be full grown, a young man, a kouros, running over the hills with a spear, the next King of Sparta.

As they ate and drank, helping themselves from the small tables set close to the couches, there were odd, sudden silences and then bursts of speech. There were curtains drawn across the windows, a half light. Their garlands smelt strongly, and so did the flowers strewn across the room; they were all still in the many-coloured garments
of rejoicing that they had put on to show the guards. It was curious, but as the time went on, the same idea would seem to come into the minds of two or three of them at once, almost in the same words. They were being drawn closer and closer together. There were few enough of them for that to be possible, twelve and the King. They were all ages of strong manhood; they had known all kinds of different experience. Half of them were married or had been. Whatever happened, this meal, this meat and bread and wine, was the last of some series; either the last of shame and imprisonment and waiting—or the last of life.

Most likely the latter, Hippitas said to himself, passing a handful of olives to his neighbour, a scarred, grizzled man nearly his own age, and calculating their chances to himself. Well, so long as there was one chance in a hundred, it was better than leaving the King in prison to be butchered at leisure by Ptolemy and Sosibios. And, suddenly, that was just what his neighbour was saying to him, in a low voice, his mouth half full of olives. If one liked olives, one might as well eat them now, get the full flavour of them while the tongue could taste still. ‘I've seen life,' said Hippitas, ‘a good share of it, more than most. The thing's got to end some time. Whatever happens, we cheat Ptolemy out of getting the King.'

His neighbour nodded, bit on an olive stone and spat it out. ‘It was the only thing to do.'

And at the same time, at the far side of the room, Neolaidas' neighbour was saying: ‘It's the only thing we can do.' He looked down at his hands, spreading and clenching them. ‘In a way,' he said, ‘a pity to have to get killed yet. But we obviously must.'

Neolaidas nodded. ‘Probably less painful than when I was wounded at Sellasia and lost my eye.'

‘Yes, but—Here one is. A bore to be killed.'

‘Perhaps. It will all be over before tonight.'

‘Yes. And then—?'

‘No more decisions to make. No more waiting. Responsibilities. Pain. This anxiousness all day and all night, what was it about? Life or death mostly. Odd and quiet it will be when that's settled for good.'

‘Yet perhaps it won't be settled. Perhaps we shall succeed.'

‘And have to face death thirty years on instead. Perhaps. Yet, of course, if we could get one of the gates or even part of the harbour and send to the mercenaries—'

‘Yes,' said Phoebis, his neighbour on the other side, ‘I was just thinking of the mercenaries. If only we'd got to them before. The bad business is that Ptolemy at Canopus will get the news before the camp does. Well, if so, we're done, even if we last out tonight. Unless, by some amazing piece of good luck we get Sosibios.'

‘I'd sooner die now than in a week,' said Neolaidas.

‘Die like a Spartan!' said Phoebis, with a queer little laugh. And then: ‘My boy's down in the country getting well. He won't hear for a day or two that his dad's—dead like a Spartan!'

‘You told Neareta?'

‘Oh yes, she knows. She knows! Twenty years we've been man and wife. My eldest boy, who was killed at Sellasia—he'd have been almost nineteen now.'

‘Mnasippos was a good chap,' said one of the others, thinking of the friends who had been killed at Sellasia.

‘So was Hierax.'

‘Odd, Xenares getting killed in the charge.'

‘When we're cleared off, there won't be so many Spartans left.'

Phoebis was frowning. He said slowly: ‘This is the Spartan thing, the Phiditia, this last thing, this last eating together. And I am only half Spartan.'

The King heard that; he said across the room, which was not after all, so big, and all held together by the smell of flowers and wine: ‘You, my foster-brother, Phoebis?'

Phoebis looked at the King, who leaned on the edge of his couch with both elbows, Panteus behind him smiling at Phoebis too. It was Kleomenes, who had been a littler boy when Phoebis was a little boy, fantastically, incredibly grown up. For a moment Phoebis was busy with the flashing-by of thirty-five years. That image of childhood had persisted in his mind, in its old colours and proportions, and in the meantime this thing had happened! Then the room swung back, closed on him with the present. Panteus had walked across and taken him by the hands and held his eyes steady and restored the community. With a queer little grunt of relaxation Phoebis admitted it. Whatever he had been, he
was a Spartan now. Panteus went back across the room to the King. He still walked with that peculiar springiness of his as though there were turf under his feet, and his hair was still thick and curly, but some of the colour was gone from it, as though promising that some day, in a few years, someone would look at him and suddenly see that it was all grey. He settled himself down beside Kleomenes and put one arm round his neck, and the King shifted his head imperceptibly into the strong crook of his love's elbow.

Three beyond Phoebis was Idaios. He said: ‘This is the eating together, Phoebis, I know what you mean; this is the love feast. It is like something in a temple.'

And the man next him said: ‘Yes, it is like something in one of the Mysteries. I was thinking of that.'

‘It
is
one of the Mysteries.'

‘Is it going to carry us on then? On across any threshold?' That was Agesipolis, three away from Idaios, ‘for I had been wondering when I had felt like this before, and now I know.' He was one of the Spartiates who had been most deeply caught by the Gods of Egypt. He said: ‘There is a feast before the rising of Osiris. I am not sure whether I should speak of it. No. I am sure. The God becomes corn, becomes bread. He is taken and eaten by the Initiates. They become one, through him. It was like this.'

Another man said: ‘Some Gods become the beast that is sacrificed, the Bull. It is the same thing.'

Idaios said: ‘But why is it like that now? Where is the God?' And nobody answered for a moment, but then, in that part of the room, they found that they were all looking rather intently at Kleomenes. He was the King. He was the focus of the feast. Idaios said sharply: ‘But that's stupid. How can one think that? These things are not so.' And he began quickly to remember, first Sphaeros and the good, solid Stoicism which he had learnt, and then Leandris and his marriage, and the fact which he insisted on in his mind, that this was not the last eating together, because he and his bride were going to go home.

But Agesipolis only said: ‘I wish Nikomedes were here.'

The King said quickly to Agesipolis: ‘You did not tell Nikomedes anything?'

‘No,' said Agesipolis, ‘though I wanted to. I wanted him
to wish me luck. I wanted something—something special to be said.'

‘So did I,' said the King slowly. ‘But we couldn't take that. If we fail, we will not drag him after us. Or the others.'

Idaios got up and came over to the King and knelt on the floor beside him. ‘You are sure of that, Kleomenes? The women will come to no harm, whatever happens?'

‘As far as one can tell, no,' said the King. ‘Unless perhaps my mother, because she is Queen and because she is sure to say things to anger the Egyptians. I think she knew that when she saw me last. She is old, you see, and there is not much difference between an old man and an old woman; she would want the things that happen to a man.'

‘But the others—but Leandris—'

The King said: ‘If we fail the women and children will be able to live on as ordinary people, to live ordinary life for its own sweet immediacy, and not be harassed as we have been by greatness. Our deaths will at least take off them the intolerable burden of kingliness.'

‘But you will not die!' said Panteus, suddenly gripping and shaking him.

‘No!' said Idaios. ‘No, we shall do it; none of us will die.' And then he looked strangely round the room. ‘How can we—after this?' And he leant back for a breath or two against the edge of the King's couch.

Kleomenes picked up a fold of the beautiful Egyptian mantle from his shoulder and fingered it and then let it fall, sliding from his bare shoulder and chest. He asked: ‘What did Leandris say to you, Idaios?'

‘She was making vows for me,' said Idaios softly. ‘For me and for you, Kleomenes. To Isis and Serapis and Any who are powerful. The baby is—is very nice now. He always wants me to pick him up and play with him. He'll grow up. There'll be the classes again for him. Leandris—oh, it wasn't good-bye we said!' He got up quickly and went back to his place and drank a cupful of wine.

Phoebis said: ‘Neareta and I said good-bye. We've done that before. We did it before Sellasia. She thinks it is—lucky. We shall need all the luck we can get.'

One or two others spoke of their wives, to whom they had told much or little, and then Agesipolis suddenly thought of
his own wife, that rather stupid girl whom he had not seen for nearly six years, and the baby he had been so bored with, but who must now be quite a nice little boy. Kleomenes thought of Agiatis, how he would have told her everything, and how she would have made him see all the good or luck there was in it. Someone said to Panteus: ‘And you?'

But Panteus shook his head. There had been something queer and shadowy about his good-byes to Philylla. She had known everything, the plans and the chances. She said she would stay with the old Queen and especially the children, especially Nikomedes, till it was over—either way. They might need her. And he had talked to her about the King and how it had been driving him mad not to be able to help, but now at last he and Kleomenes would be doing something together again. She had understood and kissed him wisely and calmly, standing in front of him, a wise, strong woman, not a girl any more, but a comforter and helper of men. But neither of them had spoken of their own marriage, their own happiness or unhappiness, their own hopes and fears. It was as though that had been put aside to some later time when there would be infinite leisure, after all these serious things were past. But suppose that time never came. They had passed by some fundamental reality without looking at it. Because for now, he had to see all his realities in the King. And she? But he could trust Philylla. Even if he died with something unspoken, she would understand.