The Corn King and the Spring Queen (27 page)

The next day he filled several pots and sacks with food-stuff, went to the bee-hives and took a couple of early combs, as Essro had bidden him, and made two journeys to the boat. Erif rode her new horse and helped to drive the beasts; the horse carried some of the sacks too. They cut fodder for the goats and sheep and tied them tight by the horns to the thwarts of the boat. Then she sat the horse and waited till Murr had punted well out into the marshes. She was not really suspicious, but it was as well to make as sure as possible about everything.

After this she turned the horse north and rode slowly over the plain among grass and butterflies. She wondered what had happened to her own pony mare and hoped Tarrik had not caught her when he was angry and hurt her instead of his own wife. Late that night she saw lights and rode into a farm and was welcomed with awe and without questioning, only the next morning they asked her if she would walk a little through their springing crops. So she went on from farm to farm and by and bye came to Marob town and her own place, the Spring-field. News of her had come, signalled from one stead to another in this fine weather. Her rooms were ready for her at the Chief's house, and a steam bath fragrant with crushed leaves, and the food she liked best.
It was being a good spring. Every one was grateful to the Spring Queen.

K
OTKA WAS STILL DOWN
in the south hunting for Essro and Yan. But he knew he would never find them. Disdallis had sent him a message saying in so many words that she had put a spell on him not to be able to see Essro or any track she might make. He had been very angry and puzzled about it. He dared not come back and admit to the Chief that he had been unsuccessful; and he could not tell him the reason for this failure, because that would mean letting his anger loose on Disdallis. And what was the good of promising himself that he would beat Disdallis when he got home? None at all. Besides, it was quite true that he really did not at all want to catch Essro or have the nasty job of killing her baby.

In the meantime the Corn King and the Spring Queen went on with all the things they had to do for Marob. Tarrik said nothing about where she had been, once he saw that she was well, nor anything about Essro. Until he did, Erif would say nothing herself, but stay calm and confident. They had come to a kind of peace and understanding, based on not saying or being aware of a great deal about one another, a pattern of exclusions which made for great courteousness, tenderness even, and which went easily with the life which they must both lead at this time of year when there was so much to do. Yet it was essentially temporary, a breathing space in which they could just continue to live without facing one another, until the child was born. As Erif got nearer and nearer to her time, so she ceased to think and be herself; the self that was Spring Queen took over all her doings, and unless they were something to do with that self, she did not see or hear or feel things very distinctly.

In April Tarrik went to his own Place to undo a very important knot. He put on the clothes and chewed the berries and did what was needed. When it was satisfactorily settled and he was taking the dress off again, turning back from god to man, he suddenly began remembering that earlier night when he had done the same thing after making certain that Yellow Bull should die. Before he could root out the image, he got full into his mind another one that
had happened before, Yellow Bull thanking him, thinking about his secret road. He did not mind killing Yellow Bull, but he had also killed the first life of the secret road. He had killed the wanting it which had started it, which had put it into the wish of Marob. Had he? No, because he had taken up the wish himself and gone on with it. What was it, then, that he had done, which was hurting him still? Suddenly and horrifyingly it all came plain. He had killed his brother-in-law, Yellow Bull, and it was black, it was wrong, it was sin! And he could not anyhow undo it.

He dropped the coat out of his hand and cried out sharply and angrily into the dark of his Place. Why could not the Corn King do as he chose! Then he began to reason about it, to follow this queer process which Sphaeros had taught him, the thing the Greeks used instead of magic. He discovered that it was Sphaeros who had put this thing into him, who had even given him the words for good and evil: this sort of good and evil which were to do with him, Tarrik-Charmantides, and nothing to do with the Corn King of Marob, whose only good was the good of the Corn. But why had he got to be split into two? He was a god, he must not be stopped from doing things as they came to him! He stamped, he shouted at Sphaeros who was not there, saying he hated him; saying he was jabbing his eyes out, pulling his fingers off, smashing, killing him! All that answered him was the old guardian woman moaning and rustling her leaves. He hit her, he kicked her face and belly as she sprawled on the ground. It was no good, she was not Sphaeros. When he was gone she crawled back to her stool, aware that a god had manifested himself on her and passed.

He went home, scowling and fretting. On the way he pushed open a house-door and went in and found a man sitting at dinner with his wife and children. He threw the food into the fire and made the man stand up, and hit him, cleverly, in the parts that would hurt most. The woman and children cowered behind the table. After a time the man fainted and Tarrik went away, more satisfied. It was as if he had been hitting this stupid, hateful reasonableness of the Greeks. It was as if he had been killing Yan, the dung which had come for a moment between him and his godhead.

Once or twice again he did that, and once or twice he killed slaves. But every time the satisfaction was less. He grew quiet. He found that, after all, he would have to face the Greeks and their ideas. He would have to face Sphaeros. Fleetingly, he began to get the notion that he would have to tell Sphaeros what he had done and ask if it could be changed by an action of his own, and Sphaeros would say no, it could not be changed, and Sphaeros would look at him—It might be easier to surrender to the ideas of good and evil and be good himself. That possibility crept through him, but it made him cold. If he was to surrender to anything he could not be a god! In his heart, and saying nothing to Erif or Kotka or any of his friends, he wrestled with old Sphaeros the Stoic.

By the end of April there were merchant ships putting in again; of course there was not much to be had before harvest and the big trading markets, except furs and timber and smoked spring salmon. But they wanted to see how things were likely to go this year and whether it was worth while coming back later. Tarrik and the Council received and entertained the merchants, but he was nervous of them and seemed afraid of hearing news from Greece—not that there was likely to be any so soon after winter. The Council thought he was far more sensible and reasonable now than he had been two years ago. He did not go out of his way to offend the merchants or to amuse himself by doing violent and silly things at their expense. They thought, for that matter, that the fit for blood which had come on him after Plowing Eve had probably worked itself out. It had most likely been a necessary thing after all that had happened the year before. The Corn God had to have his sacrifices; who could tell whether it must be men or bulls?

Only, they thought, he was still hungry for Yan, who had, though innocently, tried to supplant him in the godhead. Once he had met Disdallis in the flax market. He began to talk at her, his face near hers and distorted. He asked why Kotka had not yet caught and killed Yan. He began to ask questions. He held her by the arm in a pinching grip. People stopped and looked at them and whispered. When he let her go she screamed and ran blunderingly away. Tarrik looked round at his people, and hastily they moved about and began to talk of other things. Disdallis did not tell anyone what
he had said to her. He did not tell anyone either. Nobody knew what sort of thing Tarrik wanted or did not want, that year. When they saw how well their crops were coming up they brought him presents. If they were jewels he would sometimes pass them on to Sardu. The Spring Queen got her own presents and kept them.

Erif did not know what he wanted. Every week she knew less and less what she wanted herself. Vaguely she was afraid even of the baby being born. She remembered what pain it would be—she woke out of quiet sleep and remembered in the dark. Yet in their present separateness Tarrik could not comfort her. In some way she had become aware now that why he wanted most to kill Yan was because his own son had been killed. He wanted to wipe that out for himself and he thought he wanted it for his wife. She had tried to explain to him how foolish this was, but she could not make him understand; her words went past him. For the time, at least, she gave up trying.

One day she was walking along the shore; the crabs looked up at her out of the pools, but she did not play with them. She picked up pebbles here and there, but did not throw them, only ground them together in her hand. She was like a wave passing along the beach, transparent to everything; she saw and heard and smelt, and it all went through her. Nothing was left in her mind. She walked in the shadow of the low cliffs. She stepped over large stones and in and out of salt pools. In front of her the gulls waddled and flopped away. She came round the corner of a rock and she saw Sardu and Murr together on the sand, whispering to one another, too intent to see her or anyone. She came awake, drew back a pace softly, and stayed still. The crabs came out from under tufts of seaweed and little caves of pebbles; they clustered round her heels.

The first thing she thought was that it would be pleasant to tell Tarrik about Sardu and her new man; though perhaps he wouldn't mind, queer creature that he was. Then she looked and thought again. Those two. Why just those two? What was Murr doing in Marob at all? She peered round; it was queer how she remembered the shape of Murr's face and hands—his dripping hands. The two sat inches apart, suspiciously unlike lovers alone on a summer day. She could not hear what they said, but it
became suddenly and convincingly clear to her that Murr must be betraying Essro and her child to Sardu, and she, the bitch, would take it all to Tarrik, and get them killed. Erif bent down and began arranging her crabs. They sidled along, under cover of stones and driftwood, till the circle was full.

Erif Der stepped round the corner of the rock. The two saw her and, after one checked movement, a heave up and crouch down, stayed still, regarding her and her circle. The crabs did not move either, except that the stalks of their eyes twisted about a little and the tufts round their mouths were continuously and eagerly astir. Erif looked down at Sardu, the whimpering, flattened creature, her neck exposed. If Berris never came back to look after his own property, what could he expect? A flimsy, replaceable thing like Sardu was not going to be allowed to kill Essro and Yan, whom she had said she would protect. Erif drew her knife, leant forward over the circle, one hand on the rock to steady herself, and stabbed Sardu in the vein at the side of the neck. She said loudly: ‘Yan will not be hurt by you!'

Two brown hands jerked up at the wound, fumbled with it, slipped in blood; the back heaved and hollowed, the head dropped sharply and then tossed wildly back away from the centre of pain, tossed back so that its eyes met Erif's, the black eyes deepened with astonishment and something unexplained. The mouth opened in the head and muttered: ‘Not—not hurt—no.' Erif Der began to know she had made a mistake; the knowledge dropped swiftly and coldly all through her. She stumbled forward, through her own ring, breaking it, her blind feet just avoiding Murr's hands flat out in the sand. She said: ‘You were betraying Yan to my husband!' throwing the words down on to the dying slave. Sardu's eyelids fluttered; she moved her head in a faint negative. ‘You were,' said Erif, ‘you bitch!' But her voice faltered. Sardu's thirsty lips opened again. ‘No,' she whispered. ‘Tarrik lets Yan live. Murr was to tell.' She sighed and sighed in her blood and once more she said the name ‘Tarrik' and then she died, with Erif's hands groping about, trying to pull together the edges of the wound and undo what she had done.

Erif Der stood up and realised, first that Tarrik had told this to Sardu and not to her, and that Sardu was dead and
the message not perhaps given. Then she saw that Murr had crept away through the broken ring. He was afraid of her again! She yelled at him, she had to stop him! He began to run, zigzagging. Furious, she stamped and yelled again, and, when he went on running, threw her dagger after him. It went cling on a stone a little way behind him. He dodged in under the cliff among the boulders and in a few minutes he was out of sight.

She turned and walked back. The child leapt about in her, punishing her, hammering on her; her back ached. She dragged herself along. She wanted to get home the quickest way, lest she should lie down on the pebbles like Sardu and never be able to get up again. She could not even go down to the sea to wash her hands. Everything rocked about. When she got to the Chief's house the women had to carry her in; they took off her clothes and bathed her, hushed and horrified. She longed for complete darkness and quiet; she gasped and lay very still, contracted and faintly shivering. Pains of one sort and another went flitting about her, but these her women could not see. They only saw that the Spring Queen too had, like the Corn King, perhaps had to give herself a sacrifice. One of them, a cousin of Erif's, a girl she was fond of and liked to play ball with in the garden, plucked up courage to ask her what had happened. But Erif only stared and said nothing. They laid her in bed and drew the curtains half across, because the light bothered her eyes.

By and bye Tarrik came in. She sat up straight with her hair wild and much matted where she had been rubbing it about on the pillow. She flung out her bare arms, her wrists; she cried at him: ‘Tarrik, I have killed your girl, I have killed Sardu!'

The thing rebounded round the room, from one mind to another. The women knew now what sort of a sacrificial beast their mistress had killed. They clung sickly on to the hangings, fell on to hands and knees at the bottom of the wall of the room, crept and covered their ears. Erif's cousin wondered wildly whether she must run between them, let the Chief kill her if need be—But Tarrik went over to Erif and sat beside her and began kissing her. His eyes were trying to reach hers. After a time she seemed to understand what he was doing.

Murr went back to the house where he had lived since he had been in Marob. Now Sardu was dead, who was the only one that could conceivably have helped him. The Spring Queen had thrown her knife at him; she would hunt him down like a beast. He supposed she was hunting him down now. He did not know if it would be the guards or her own crabs who would be doing the hunting. Either way he would be caught. He got a rope, climbed, made fast, and jumped. Nobody found his body until evening, and then it would just have been buried in the yard, least said soonest mended, only someone told a man who told Black Holly, and he happened to remember that this had been one of Yellow Bull's men. So after a time the news got round to Tarrik and at last to Erif Der. She went across the town to Disdallis, heavy with the news. Disdallis had heard already both about that and about Sardu; remembering what Erif had told her one warm evening of the boat in the marshes, she put two and two together, and when she saw Erif coming to her house guessed them quickly into four. She sent the woman who had been weaving with her out of the room, and had her arms open ready for Erif. After a time Erif looked up from her sobbing and said: ‘But why did he kill himself! Why, why?'