The Corn King and the Spring Queen (21 page)

She led them down a quite empty street and turned into another, across a small square with a dripping fountain and a party of men laughing behind light-chinked shutters as they stepped past. She turned again into a yard full of the rustle of roosting hens and pigeons, took a ladder and climbed a wall. The moon rose above the town; they could see fairly well. At the other side of the wall was a deepish jump into bushes, but they all did it. Then down a zigzag path to a shed and five horses, one better than the others which she mounted herself. They rode some way without speaking. Gradually Tarrik came abreast of her till their knees touched. After a time she said they could stop now. They were among hills in coldish air and seemed to be miles away from anywhere.

She sat down on a bank in the moonshine and Tarrik sat beside her; they could see one another's faces very well. Berris came closer. Kotka and Black Holly tied up the horses, whispering, and then came and sat down too. There was bread and cheese in a bag by one of the saddles.-Berris was watching how her hands and Tarrik's began groping towards each other, touched, started away, and then came together again. All speech was between the two of them, as though they had been in bed together. Berris listened and a certain jealousy of Tarrik kept coming into his mind. The other two would have found it queerer to have been overhearing if the whole nightful of events had not been so improbable and touched with the woman's magic of Marob that made them feel as if they were in two places at once, there and here. Kotka was married himself and his wife was a witch.

She told first how she had got to Sparta and come straight from there, and what they were to do now. She looked for quite a long time at the scar of an arrow graze on Tarrik's wrist. She asked him about the fight at Orchomenos and the other battles. She asked what he and the King of Sparta had
said to one another. She asked what he had thought when he was told she was dead. She asked what women he had made love to in Greece. She did not seem to want to answer anything herself. At last it seemed as if she had to, for Tarrik was holding both her hands and asking insistently what had happened at Marob.

She said: ‘Yellow Bull is dead.' Looking aside, she saw Berris horribly startled, as she had known he would be. But the Chief said nothing, only stiffened a little. ‘You killed him, Tarrik,' she said, rather stating a fact than asking a question.

‘Yes,' he said gravely, after a moment, ‘I killed him.' The others breathed and stared and stayed very still on that Greek hillside.

‘Well,' she said, pausing as though she were going to make some judgment, some statement of her own feelings perhaps, but then went on, ‘he died at the beginning of summer. Then there was rain and rain and blight on the corn. The flax was all beaten down too. I do not think there will be much fruit and the bees could not get out to make honey. It was a bad season for fishing. And in June I had a child.'

They both cried out at that, her husband and her brother, and Tarrik jumped to his feet, head up and eyes shining at this beautiful, startling thing. He had never known how splendid it was to be a father! ‘Erif!' he said, ‘a child—a son?'

She looked away from him, away from this unbearable glow of his happiness. ‘Yes, a son. And they killed him.' She looked up again through the moonshine, in time to see Tarrik shiver and half shut his eyes and grow cold, and Berris drop his face into his hands. Now they had taken some part of her own pain on to themselves. But Tarrik—she went on more quickly—‘my father did it thinking to finish with you and yours that way. He said he thought I wouldn't mind. He said he thought I was on his side.'

‘But you did mind?' said Berris softly.

‘Yes,' she said, dry-eyed, ‘I minded. I was not on his side by then. I was on your side, Tarrik. I am now.'

He took her hand in his, looking down at her, then knelt close to her with the other hand on her neck. ‘But weren't you before, sweetheart?'

‘No. I magicked you. I said I would and I did. I tried to kill you, just as Yersha told you I did. But that's all past. And was, long before he was born.'

‘What was he like?' said Tarrik.

‘I don't know. I only just saw him. He seemed to me … lovely. Then they took him away. Oh, Tarrik.' She suddenly grabbed hold of him and her lip trembled horribly. He took her in his arms, extraordinarily gentle. It was not quite real to him, and all that just awakened paternity turned back to comfort Erif. It was as if she were his little daughter who had been hurt.

‘Was it so bad?' he asked, kissing her hair.

She nodded. ‘When I knew—when they told me—I think I nearly died. I would have, but for Essro; she helped me with her magic. She had a child just before I had.'

‘Was your magic no use then?'

‘No. You see, it goes with me. And I was so weak. I haven't told you, Yersha tried to poison me before she went.'

Tarrik let go of her suddenly. ‘Yersha—Eurydice! No! Erif, are you sure?'

‘Oh yes!' She even laughed a little. ‘She'd been trying for a long time, months, I think. I didn't understand at first; I thought it was your baby that made me feel so ill. But after she'd gone somebody told me. Just before she had to go out of the house I very nearly died; she thought I would quite. She hasn't meant to tell you lies, Tarrik!' And again she laughed and shivered. ‘So you see, between that and your baby—Oh, my love, I did want to give you a child!' The laughter broke and passed into deep, bitter crying, partly the pain of all she remembered; the tiny things that no one could ever know, that she could never tell, not even to Tarrik; the silly dreams and wishes of any very young mother over her unborn first child, all unfulfilled; and partly anger at the life and effort and agony wasted; and partly pure, cold hate of those who had done it, for herself, for Tarrik, and for her son who was dead and could not even hate.

She leapt on to her feet, clutching, gasping for air and freedom from pain, the pain which had smouldered in her for weeks, waiting till she could tell, and now was out and smothering her. She stood with her back bent over, her face
to the moon, stiff and quivering. Tarrik stood away, afraid to take her in his arms, she looked as though she would break so easily. Berris was stroking her foot; she was not likely to feel it through her leather boot, but it was a certain comfort to him. He was dreadfully sorry for her and he, too, felt old and protective. He could not understand about Yellow Bull. He wanted to ask more, and about what their father had said and done. He wished she would stop and let him ask. The others understood that there had been a bad magic about. The Corn King and the Spring Queen were together again, but this was how it was. They shifted down towards the horses and wondered what other evil things had happened in Marob. They wanted to ask questions, too, and they did not like being so long under the white glare of the moon. The horses snuffed among the bushes but could find little to eat; Erif Der's horse had gold on its bridle. At last Kotka and Black Holly, watching from below, heard no sounds, and after a time they saw the two dark shapes of the Corn King and the Spring Queen blot together as Erif got nearer and nearer, and at last ceased from consciousness of either pain or gladness or anything but rest and Tarrik's arms round her again.

Two days later a shepherd sighted them riding down into the valley and cried the news to his mate further south; so it got to Sparta, and all the rest of the Marob people rushed out in their best clothes to welcome the Chief. They had heard all that had happened in Marob from Erif's men, and they were very anxious to get home as soon as possible and make their Corn King put things right immediately, at least make next year's crops begin well. Tarrik said he would start in a week, but first Erif must say good-bye to his aunt.

Berris alone was very doubtful about going back. He could not tell what was going to happen to his own immediate family. All his father's plans would have been upset by Yellow Bull's death—in whatever queer way it was that Tarrik had brought it about. Harn Der himself could not be Corn King; he was too old or would be in a few years; it was not worth while. And Gold-fish was too young. He, Berris, would not take it if it was offered to him by all Marob! He had his own cunning, the magic of his own craft, he would not take anything from outside. Besides, would it be like that? It seemed more likely that Tarrik
would come back to his country as saviour and welcome to every one and have it all his own way from now on. Erif had gone over to his side. That was very likely a good thing, and anyway his father's fault. But what would happen to Harn Der after Tarrik's triumph? Erif would see that no harm came to the children, her small brother and sister, but she might not choose to stand between Tarrik and her father. Whichever way it was, Berris Der found he would not be able to meet his father with either love or hate entire. He thought he would not go back till the thing was settled one way or the other, but he put off saying so to his sister until she had come back from her errand.

For Tarrik had given her the life of his Aunt Eurydice, his aunt who had brought him up from childhood and been in many ways a mother to him, with even a mother's jealousies. It was just. He told his men all that had happened and they agreed. Erif and Kotka, with twenty others, rode over the pass into Messenia. Tarrik stayed in Sparta, getting ready to go, intent on thinking only forwards.

The day before his wife was due to come back he told Sphaeros, who was horrified. He did not much like Eurydice, but equally he had a certain prejudice against Erif Der; she was the kind of person who disturbed life and made it run counter to its natural and divine order. She made stresses and violences, and as she grew older would make more. He was not now certain how much he believed that it was she who had bewitched Tarrik at the time of the bullfighting, though certainly when he had leapt into the flax-market he had believed it absolutely and acted in accordance with his belief. But it seemed to him that she made it impossible for Tarrik to act as a king, who was also his pupil and a Stoic, should act. He was doubtful how much the love of women was compatible with a good life. Agiatis was different, perhaps; her influence was for calm; she had learnt to master herself and change turbulent passion into kindness, and she was kind not only to one, but to all. Sphaeros, in his middle age, used to suffer most annoyingly from indigestion. He disregarded it, of course, and ate sour bread and black broth with the rest, but Agiatis used to make hot and comforting brews and get him to take them by saying that she knew she was a silly woman, but it would give her such pleasure, and smiling at him very nicely. Nobody else noticed at all.

Erif Der came back the next afternoon, tired and heavy-looking. She was less beautiful than she used to be, but Tarrik had not noticed that yet. He went out along the road to meet her and Sphaeros went too, for he was anxious to counteract, if he could, the passions that would almost inevitably be roused in his pupil, the thought of blood, the thing which should be hidden, brought up to the surface of the imagination. Erif dismounted at the side of the road and came over to them; Kotka followed her. It was a piece of stony waste ground beyond the houses, half covered with crawling dusty plants of the bitter cucumber. She began popping the little green gourds with the toe of her riding boot, watching the yellow juice squirt out. Tarrik found himself unable to speak, unable to ask how Eurydice had died. When the last of the cucumbers within reach of her boot was popped, she said, without looking up: ‘I didn't kill her after all.'

During those days she had been gone Tarrik had managed to steady himself against the horror of the idea of his aunt's death. Now the idea was taken away and he overbalanced into indignant anger and said: ‘Why not?' Then he saw Kotka looking at him with his mouth open, idiotically surprised. He flung up his hands and plunged away across the dusty land.

Erif Der looked after him. ‘I knew he'd do that,' she said, miserable and helpless, biting her lip.

Sphaeros had stayed. ‘Tell me what stopped you,' he said very kindly.

‘I told her everything that had happened,' said Erif. ‘I told her Tarrik knew I was going to kill her and had let me go to do it, and that hurt her through and through, yes, just like poison. And then Kotka brought in the man, her Rhodian.'

‘He went soft under my hands,' said Kotka.

‘So after that I thought,' said Erif, ‘that she had better marry him and go away and never come back to Marob. So I suppose she will. Then we went away.'

Sphaeros nodded. ‘But can you not tell me what it was—what principle, what idea—that told you to spare her?'

‘No,' said Erif, ‘I don't know. I just did. After all, she hadn't been able to kill me, though she took such a long
time about it, and it wasn't she who killed my child. That will be different. I tell you what I did do, Sphaeros, on my way back. I found Apphé and killed her. I've always wanted to do that. She was a nasty worm with legs. Kotka held her arms and I cut her throat. It was nice. Do you think Tarrik is angry with me for not killing Eurydice after he gave me leave?'

‘No, no,' said Sphaeros. ‘You poor, unhappy children! But how could any of you hope to get what you seek out of Hellas?'

‘I never thought we would,' said Erif. She looked round into the hot, cloudless sky that now, after all these rainless months, seemed to have dried all bright colours out of the earth, leaving it as brown as the world was before there was any grass or trees or friendly beasts. She rubbed her dusty hands on her coat and smeared the sweat out of her eyes.

‘It was my fault,' Sphaeros said again. ‘I should never have let your Tarrik think he could get any good of it. He persuaded me … against my judgment … that he and Kleomenes might be friends. It seemed possible in Marob, but I should not have allowed myself even to consider it.'

Kotka brought up the horses and told two of the men to dismount so that Tarrik and Sphaeros could ride. He was glad they had finished with Greece. Tarrik came back and mounted and rode on sharply, but Sphaeros said he would rather walk. He waited until the dust from the riders ahead had settled, and then followed them, more slowly.