The Corn King and the Spring Queen (23 page)

‘Oh,' said Erif, ‘that's a drop of blood,' and she stooped and wiped it on the under side of the hem of her dress.

‘Why?'

‘I had to make the thread alive so that it would come together; so it had to bleed where it was wounded.' And she began spinning properly. ‘I think you will find this is a strong thread now,' she said, ‘a very strong thread. I am doing my best with it.'

‘Yes,' said Philylla, ‘I see. But if it was me I'd like to be able to do it with people.'

Agiatis, though, was rather horrified. Later, when Philylla was taking Erif Der back to the door of the King's house, she picked up the thread which the Queen of Marob had spun and tried to break it. But it was certainly very strong. Then she thought of burning it, but she was not quite sure whether that would be a good thing to do. Later on it disappeared, and she thought it was wiser not to ask Philylla what she had done with it or whether she had woven it into some dress of her own.

Two days later the Scythians left Greece. Kleomenes, when reminded of it, went to say good-bye to the Chief of Marob who had fought for him, and made a real effort to be understanding and courteous and helpful, more because he knew Sphaeros wanted him to be than for any other reason. So Tarrik went away with the feeling that after all there was something in Hellas, and, though this time he had just missed it, perhaps one day it might be easier, and if there had only been, say, a week quite to spare with nothing important happening in it, he and Kleomenes might have made friends. But now he was very doubtful whether he had learnt enough even to try and be a philosopher king by himself. It would be easier to make the crops grow again in Marob and the women have plenty of boy children.

He was not bringing much away from Greece, except some rather fine weapons, a good many barrels of wine, partly for himself and partly as presents or bribes for when he got home, and several little linen bags of flower and vegetable seeds. He also had two or three seedling almonds in pots; even if they would not fruit in Marob, he wanted their blossoms for the Spring Queen. The others all had lots of things. Sparta, after the revolution, had been an admirable place to buy works of art in, pedigree dogs,
jewellery and dresses; it would have been silly not to take advantage of it. Kotka had a set of small vases with curly ears and coloured wax stoppers all full of the latest and most fashionable perfumes of the western world for his wife. Black Holly had a pair of over-lifesize bronze wrestlers. Tarrik told him that if the ship were in danger they'd be the first to go overboard, and Black Holly was less annoyed than he might have been because once he had bought them he found that he liked them much less than he had meant to; they seemed squashy. But all the same every one hoped that the Corn King's ship would be lucky. Philylla had seen how much Erif Der liked her magpie, and had sent out and got her one to take home. It talked very well and with a certain impropriety, but luckily none of the Marob people were sufficiently up in the subtleties of the underworld to appreciate it fully, and Erif began teaching it phrases which had to do with the Spring Plowing; she thought it might be useful.

Sphaeros rode with them all the way to the coast, trying to think of the absolutely right thing to say and feeling curiously guilty. He said, and meant, that he hoped he would see them all again. Berris said good-bye at Gytheum too, and rode back, half depressed and half immensely elated, for now he could see what sort of a man—and by this he meant what sort of an artist—he would be by himself with no influences except those of Hellas. The first thing he did was to accept an invitation to go out hawking with Panteus, who was quite friendly, and some of the older boys and young men of his brigade, who were being trained in the new-old discipline. Berris loved hawks: the feeling, even over a gloved wrist, of those tense, strong claws clutching and balancing. He had always had them in Marob and he was expert at dealing with them and drawing them.

They went off into the hills in the very early morning when the light was loveliest. By and bye Kleomenes joined them, with his wife and most of her maids of honour. Some of the birds that were brought down were sent back to the King's Mess; others went to the brigade. By the afternoon they had killed enough, and though it was still the full heat of the day, Panteus made his boys show off to the King, wrestling and running and throwing hunting-spears and high-jumping over thorn bushes. The girls ran off to get
leaves and any flowers there were to make crowns for the winners, and then ran back as fast as they could to see those boys and young men stripped and active. It was all happening in rather a pleasant rocky valley with a piece of flat field in the middle of it. This had once been plowed, but now it had been let go out of cultivation and the wild stuff was all over it again. At one side of the flat ground was a fairly deep ravine, quite dry now, but the beautiful plane trees that grew out of it showed that there would be water again in another month or two. On the other side were more trees, mostly the low, golden-green pines and between them dark prickly undergrowth with red berries. There were little goat-paths through it, and at their edges larkspur and crowds of violet-scented butterfly cyclamens. The girls picked lapfuls of them to mix in with their crowns, and made themselves necklaces of them and the pretty, strewn feathers of the game-birds. Most of them climbed up into the pine trees which grew slantwise with low boughs, and hung the wreaths as they finished them on to the warm, resin-smelling twigs. Up here in the branches they could see admirably and point and make their comments without being too much seen, and giggle and jump their swinging trees about when someone leapt short into a thorn bush or was thrown in the wrestling and came down on a stone.

‘It's the one thing we didn't get in old days,' said Deinicha, expertly weaving a long supple heron's feather in and out of her fluffy hair to make a crown nearly as shining as silver. ‘Oh my dear, they're going to have boxing now! I do hope nobody's going to get hurt!'

‘I hope they are,' said one of the other girls, more truthfully. ‘I do love it when they really get angry and go for one another and the blood comes. I feel as if it was all for me!'

‘Well, it's not,' said Deinicha, ‘so there! Look how they're sweating! There's Philocharidas, he's my cousin. It's doing him all the good in the world, anyhow; you never saw such a stupid as he used to be in old times. Never looked one's way once. Always reading and playing the flute, of all silly things, when it was perfectly easy to hire a really good professional. But now! Holy Mother, he doesn't let me alone a minute if he gets half a chance.'

The King and Queen walked together under Philylla's
tree; she dropped a loose chain of cyclamens, strung head to tail, over the Queen's head, then, as they both stopped and looked up, greatly daring she dropped one over the King too. He frowned, and she was rather frightened, but then she saw it was really a play-frown, and in a second he had jumped and caught her dangling hand, so that she was pulled right round under her branch, squealing and holding on for all she was worth with her knees and feet and other hand. Agiatis ran at the King and shoved at his throat and shoulders, laughing breathlessly in defence of her girl, and he let go Philylla to catch and hug his wife and then to put her wreath straight. She looked very young in the dappled light under the tree, just as those September cyclamens looked like spring. Philylla settled herself again in the crook of her branch, rubbing one bare knee where the bark had grazed it. ‘Do you like them?' said the King, pointing out to the runners.

‘Oh yes!' said Philylla, ‘they're lovely. I do like the colour they are now.'

‘You like them best with their clothes off?' said Kleomenes grinning.

‘Of course,' she said, and then blushed and tried to pull down her short tunic.

‘So do I,' said Agiatis. ‘You're quite right, lamb. I believe my girls could do as well as some of Panteus' boys, though. I'm sure I've seen you jump better than that, Philylla.'

‘I believe I could,' she said, measuring the distance. ‘Now they're going to wrestle again. Oh the beauties!' And then suddenly she leant down out of her perch and touched Kleomenes lightly on the neck. ‘Oh, sir, do go and wrestle yourself!'

‘Shall I?' said the King to Agiatis. She nodded. For another moment Kleomenes stood still, frowning and pulling himself together. The cyclamen flowers looked lovelier and more delicate still on his dark head, but the thin little wreath had snapped already; the petals only clung on by their own twisty lightness. Suddenly he shouted and ran straight out into the middle of the field and threw down his clothes and picked up a handful of dust to rub himself with.

Agiatis said: ‘Oh, you are clever, Philylla! It was what I wanted. He's been working too hard making out the plans
against Megalopolis. I could never get him away from it.' She sat down on a big stone beside the tree and watched him from under her hand. ‘He looks well, though, don't you think?' she said a little anxiously. ‘There's so much depending on him!'

He challenged the best of the boys, who came up, rather nervous, and was fairly easily thrown. The King's long sinewy arms got unexpected and unlikely grips on him. Then Panteus came. Naked, he was quite a different shape from the tall, thin-flanked King, much squarer and more centred and better balanced on his feet, but not so quick and perhaps not so violently in earnest. His body looked less hard, still with a certain quite young roundness about the thick muscles. Philylla gasped with pleasure, watching them. They circled and closed and strained at one another; for long periods of time they stood so still that she really got her fill of the sight. But she knew that all the while they were heaving, shifting stresses and balances, imperceptibly altering their grips. The clear air put no barrier between them and her. She saw Berris Der sitting on a rock a little way off, watching just as she was; she felt very friendly towards him, sharing the same beauty. The boys and young men watched too, in lovely pale-brown groups, half conscious of their own bodies and the girls in the trees behind them, setting one another off with long legs and straight backs and heads up in the golden sunshine against the very deep blue sky.

The two wrestlers moved suddenly, got new grips, stood and shoved, felt about with their feet in the dust. Then, after a new movement Panteus got under the King's arm and threw him, and every one shouted. Kleomenes got up, rubbing his hip, where he was going to have a big bruise, and said something to Panteus which made them both laugh. Then they dressed and came back, hand in hand. The winners came crowding for the King to give them their crowns. They shook the trees as they passed under them, but the Queen's girls held on and threw pine cones at them. Berris Der came too, looking very odd and different from the others in his coat and trousers, apart too in his observing eyes; it seemed to Philylla that she was the only one who noticed him at all. The hawks perched heavily, fed and still, with their heads sunk down into their shoulders.

The boys went back to their brigade. There was no one left but the King and Queen, Panteus, and four or five of the maids of honour, who were playing cat's-cradle with a scarlet thread; the others were playing hide-and-seek among the trees. Berris Der stayed too, for there was no special reason why he should go anywhere else. He was cutting things in the wood of the pine trees, his own name three times over in beautiful Greek characters, and then just designs, letting his knife slice and cut in shapes that seemed to fit with the peeling bark and the light wood. Transparent resin oozed out of the cuts like very slow, very deep grief. The ship sailed back to Marob. It was too late to change his mind.

Philylla suddenly got up from among the cat's-cradle players and walked over to the Queen, who was sitting on the ground where the King had spread his cloak for her. She laid both hands on the Queen's shoulders and swung her lightly about. Strength flowed up through her wrists and arms; she was so strong, she could have picked Agiatis up in her two hands and run with her, carried them all like babies, plucked and bent the tough pine trees. Now it was almost evening; the level light swam between the King and the Queen and Panteus. None of them spoke, but they were feeling very near to one another. Philylla stood over them and said: ‘I am very happy. I've got everything I want. I'm living at the right time and in the right place. I love you all.'

There was a queer silence for a moment while Kleomenes and Agiatis stared at one another in horror, as though some god were approaching whom they could not ward off. Panteus got to his feet and stood and looked across them at her. ‘Take care, Philylla', he said. ‘Oh, take care or it will be turned against you!' And he held out both his hands towards her.

W
ITH THE END OF
autumn the north wind that blows softly or strongly all summer through in the Ægean Sea shifts round to the south. They ran in front of it past island after island, first dim and misty blue-purple ahead of them, then as they got nearer an unfolding of barren brown cliffs, and here and there a valley with patches of green along its bottom, a harbour, a little town. So, hour after hour, they coasted along till the island drew behind again, became less actual, faded and faded till, when next they remembered to look back, there was nothing there. This way they passed Seriphos, Paros, Naxos—constellations of small islands, named and obscure, or almost nameless, just rising out of a smoothly silvered sea—Chios, Poieëssa, Lesbos, the mountains of Asia on their right with the sun rising behind them. The air grew cooler; sometimes there were clouds; twice a short storm kept them in harbour. At Byzantium again they changed ships.

During their few days in the town Tarrik sought out the best known of the merchants who traded with Marob and got the latest news and rumours from him. It seemed that Harn Der was well thought of as Chief. There had been another raid by the Red Riders towards the end of summer, but Harn Der had ambushed them, killed more than half of them—they were never kept as slaves—and driven back the rest, scattering and terrified, into the lost wild forest and marshes behind the hills. But there was no Corn King, and, as far as that went, things had gone badly with Marob. Having found that trade was so poor, the merchant had not bothered to discover exactly what was happening in Marob, but after much questioning Tarrik and Erif Der found out more or less. Yellow Bull had died without giving his powers to any successor, but Essro was Spring Queen, and, as Tarrik had done nothing to hurt her things, she had
done her share well enough. Part, at least, of the flax crop of the year had not been quite as bad as people had thought it was going to be. Her son, Yan, was a very young baby still, but the merchant remembered he had heard that the Council of Marob had seen the child and thought well of him, discovered certain marks on his body—not that the merchant knew or cared anything about it!—and it was at least likely that there were some in Marob who thought of him as the possible new Corn King. At that Tarrik frowned a good deal and looked at Erif, but she did not meet his eyes. She glanced at herself in a silver mirror which the merchant had hanging up beside his door, and it seemed to her that she was recovering her looks.

For a time it had been all she wanted—or so she felt—to be with Tarrik again. She made no plans and asked herself no questions about magic; she was forgetting Greece, forgetting all the time when he had not been there. Even, in a queer way, it was good to be sad, for then he was so kind to her, gentler than she had ever hoped anyone could be. Sometimes she thought that, for herself, the pain had been almost worth while. Yet, if she began thinking that, she would lose faith with the dead child, the son who had been violently alive all winter and spring inside her body, almost talking to her, with little feet and fists and head pounding against her heart. All that was left of him now was some part of her; that part must be, still and always, angry and unsoothed. But, for the rest, she had good nights with Tarrik.

During the first days of the voyage they had lain on deck, on the high stern of the boat. When they woke, they woke sweetly to stars that looked down and were sorry for the world, as Sphaeros had told them, stars moving in the great circles that were proof of God. Erif liked stars now; though neither she herself nor any magic could reach them, she did not mind; though she could not reach them they did not hurt her, they were beautiful without pain. She lay with her head on Tarrik's chest and looked up at them, aware of the calm sea and the tapering, trembling masts. Tarrik was big and quiet. He had his arm round her, holding her down to his body. She had got the peace she had always known she could get by giving herself up altogether to him. She had fought against it before, but now she did not feel like
fighting any more. So she could be quite quiet for a time and watch the stars from her place over Tarrik's heart.

For all she knew that might go on for ever and ever.

At Byzantium they had a big room with a bed raised on steps. Kotka used to bring them supper in there, all the oddest kinds of cakes and sweets and sausages that he could find. He wanted to do all he could to ensure their luck. He would be seeing his own wife soon. Erif got in half a dozen women to put her dresses to rights and make her more from the stuffs which she bought; men used to come from the warehouses with lovely things from all parts of the world and spread them out over the bed and on the steps, and Erif sat in the middle and laid folds of them over her wrist, tried them against her eyes and hair, and bargained for loom lengths to pack into her painted chests. For almost a whole morning these were being shifted and tipped and quarrelled over and carried down the gang plank into the ship which Tarrik had hired to take them back to Marob.

On the ship, Tarrik talked rather little about his plans. The others saw that he had them and left it at that. Some of them remembered, as they got nearer home, the queer things that had happened last year at midsummer and Harvest and at the bull-fighting, but when they discussed them in whispers together they came to the conclusion that whatever bad luck had been on the Corn King then would probably
be off by now—had perhaps ended with the death of the child begotten in ill-fortune—and that at any rate if there was any hovering about still they were not going to help it to settle by allowing it in their words and thoughts. Kotka had asked him once what he was intending to do, but had not dared to go into much detail. Erif seemed content not to ask anything.

They were three days south of Marob when a rather annoying and persistent north-west wind began to blow dryly off the land. They rowed against it, but made very little headway. Tarrik was patient for quite a number of hours, but at last, when he got too tired of seeing the same mud-banks with the same low, greenish cape behind them, not altering position when he glared at them over the side, he began challenging the others to fight with him. They were none of them very anxious to take him on, but he threw things at them and called them names and hammered on the irritation that the wind had thrown every one into till they were all angry or sulky. At last Black Holly, who was one of the biggest and strongest, said he would fight. He had the advantage of knowing just where Tarrik had been wounded at Orchomenos and how to hurt him. Kotka searched them both for weapons. A space was cleared in the waist of the ship. Erif sat in the middle of a pile of fur rugs, heaped up between her and the wind, and laughed at them.

They ran at one another like two dogs, and clawed and kicked and grunted and rolled over and over one another and hit themselves against the deck and the spare oars and any corners of things there were. Black Holly ran his nails into the scar on Tarrik's wrist. Tarrik bit off a small piece of Black Holly's ear. Then the godhead came clear; Tarrik became filled with the strength of bulls and rams and growing wheat; Black Holly saw it and whimpered and lost his own strength. In a minute he was down, with his arms pinned to his sides and Tarrik kneeling on him and banging his head against the deck. The others pulled their Chief off. Erif jumped up and went to Black Holly, who was still half lying against someone's knees and feeling his bones to see if anything was broken. She began stroking him and telling him he was quite well, saying it was all play. She put the hilt of her dagger into his hands. He stopped glaring at the Chief and smiled at her instead. In a few minutes every
one was quite cheerful, including Tarrik, who swung her off her feet and kissed her; his teeth were all red with Black Holly's blood still, but that would wash. Someone began singing; they all joined in. And at last they seemed to have got beyond that flat cape!

Now Erif had been reminded again of magic. She curled down among her furs and propped her chin in her hands and began remembering. She saw something grey fluttering over the waves, blown towards them. When it was nearer she saw it was a pigeon. The wind tossed it on deck close to her; as she picked it up its wings spread and quivered. She saw that one of its quill feathers was ringed with yellow paint and knew it must belong to Essro, her sister-in-law. She took it below and gave it bread soaked in wine. It recovered, slept, and was then quite tame, as if it were used to being handled by humans.

They were nowhere near a town, but in the evening the wind dropped a little and they got into shoal water, sheltered by mud-banks, and anchored. After midnight, when Tarrik was asleep and the whole ship very still, Erif woke. She pulled up the wick of the lamp to make a bigger flame and went over softly to the bar where the pigeon perched, asleep too. She looked at it hard; she listened; she put out her hand and felt it; she was almost sure it must have come on purpose. She cut herself off from every one on the ship, even Tarrik, and laid herself open to anything that might have come with the bird. She heard its heart beat, tiny and distinct and very, very quick; she knew that in its sleep it thought it was stretching its wings and curling its little claws in flight. For a moment she got its sleep vision of an air world, all a-flutter with possible dangers. But she could not get beyond it to Essro or anyone else.

After an hour she was very cold and her eyes ached with the unsatisfied strain. She pushed down the lamp-wick again and felt her way back under the blankets to Tarrik. She half meant not to wake him, but in the end, holding her cold hands and feet against his warm body, she got impatient at being left alone and woke him to take her back out of magic. The next morning she asked a question which she had managed not to want to ask yet. She said: ‘What are you going to do about Yellow Bull's son?' He said: ‘There cannot be two Corn Kings in Marob, but I'll see
when we get there.' And he began talking of other things. Erif, though, was almost sure he had made up his mind. Then it appeared to her that the bird's coming on board was after all an accident of the wind; the poor creature no doubt saw the ship while it was being blown over the water and struggled to get to safety. There was no purpose of Essro's. The purpose would be her own.

All that day the wind dropped. Erif wrote on a thin piece of linen: ‘Hide with your baby. Danger from us.' She tied it round the bird's leg, fed it well and let it go. For a few minutes it circled uncertainly, then seemed to get its bearings and made for the land. She turned from watching it and found Tarrik watching her. ‘Were you doing magic?' he said. Then: ‘For me this time?'

‘I never know what it is going to be in the end,' she said, ‘and what I was doing then wasn't quite magic. It was more real, I think, not an appearance.'

Tarrik said: ‘Your magic is not an appearance, Erif. You are not to say it is.'

The bird was almost out of sight. ‘Why not?'

‘Because I tell you not to, little witch! Because I don't want to hear any more about appearance and reality. Because I've left Greece and I am going to be King of my own country.'

‘I liked Sphaeros,' said Erif, ‘by the end.'

‘I never said I didn't like him. Or any of it. But that's over. When you say your magic is only an appearance, Erif, you mean that mine is too—my power over the seasons! And you are not to say that.' He shook her.

‘Very well,' said Erif, enjoying being scolded as she would have enjoyed being out in a storm. But she couldn't all the same help saying: ‘It's not very safe to say about anything that it's over. Is it, Tarrik?'

A few days later they rowed into Marob harbour, a little after dawn, and made fast to the rings. They had seen, when they were close to the harbour mouth, a great crowd all along the breakwater sand walls, but as they rowed in the crowd dispersed, and by the time they had thrown out mats between their sides and the stone quay and then tied up, there was no one left except three or four of the inland traders who were nothing to the Chief of Marob, and some slave girls who would never be noticed either
way. All the same it was probable that they were being watched from the houses. Tarrik came up into the bows by himself in full dress as the Chief, white felt embroidered with metals and colours; but he was bare-headed because the Corn-crown was still in Marob. He stood quite still at the prow, looking towards the town, quiet and bright and just the same between grey sea and a sky so very pale blue, only lighted by the strengthless, November sun. When he had looked he turned his back on the town and sat down on a coil of rope.

After a little, Kotka beckoned to one of the inlanders, a squat, hairy savage who traded in furs and resin and sometimes amber. ‘Where is Harn Der?' said Kotka.

The man grinned; he did not like Harn Der, who had killed a great many of his cousins, the Red Riders. He said: ‘Harn Der is gone.'

Kotka gasped a little and looked up at Tarrik for a sign, but the Chief stared out to sea beyond the harbour mouth, and his face was hard. ‘Where?' said Kotka.

‘Away, in his winter waggons, with all his household, and food for six months.'

‘Much good that will do him,' said Kotka. ‘We shall track him and catch him like a beast.'

‘Perhaps,' said the inlander, but he looked north into the whitish and chilly sky, and Kotka too, following his look, thought it very likely indeed that the snow would come within three days and there would be no tracking anyone.