The Corn King and the Spring Queen (35 page)

‘Every one tells Sphaeros! Or he sees somehow. I suppose he just doesn't think about himself and he doesn't love anybody, so he can spend all his time watching the rest of the world.'

‘And he has no children. Oh, did you see Gorgo and Nikolaos?'

‘Yes. Oh, Agiatis—'

The Queen laid a hand over her mouth. ‘Ssh! You are not to think of that or make me think of it either! If it did happen they'd have you, and Kratesikleia and one another. They're fonder of you than of anyone. Oh, Philylla, isn't it lovely that you're back in time for Deinicha's wedding!
I've seen so much of her since you've been away. I never liked her so well before.'

‘But you don't like her as much as me, do you?'

‘You—silly—little—cabbage!' Agiatis took her by the shoulders and shook her, between laughter and a little real anger, till Philylla, breathless and helpless, admitted she wasn't really jealous. One of the other girls, Chrysa, came in with a letter for the Queen. ‘Oh,' she said, ‘the King will be back for a night tomorrow! Now we shall know what's really happening and how long the League's going to keep us waiting!' She went out with Chrysa to see that the King's things were all ready for him. He always brought back tunics and cloaks full of holes and filthy and left them at home to be washed and mended.

Now Philylla knew why Deinicha had said she would wait in the same place. She went back there. Deinicha said: ‘So you've seen for yourself. What do you make of it, Philylla?'

‘I wish I'd never gone away!'

‘Much good you could have done. Some of the rest of us love her too, Philylla! Sometimes I've hoped it was just my worrying about her—and knowing I was going away—but it's not. Well, anyway, I can leave her with you now. She'll like that.'

The next day about noon, Deinicha bathed in river water and put on the short white archaic tunic, only belted with a red cord and sewn with red half down the open side. She stepped out into the steeping sunlight of the main court of the King's house. Philylla held her hair close to the roots and Chrysa held the ends. Agiatis cut it across as near as she could to the head with the very sharp edge of a bronze spear point, as Lycurgos himself had said that a Spartan maiden's hair should be cut at marriage. It took a little time to do with that clumsy shearing; Agiatis was intent, and the two girls kept their hands very still. And suddenly it seemed to Philylla that perhaps it would not be the Queen who would cut her own hair at her wedding, and at the possibility of that terrible dark blank in her bright picture she shook a little and gripped the hair harder, so that Deinicha cried to her to keep steady. It was an uneven, odd cutting; the hair showed in curious layers, light and darker, cocked up at the nape of her neck; Deinicha patted it curiously and
shakenly and cried rather. Agiatis tied up her shorn plaits with coloured ribbon and a few corn ears, and together the two of them laid it and Deinicha's distaff on the altar in the King's house.

They all stayed in the courtyard, playing games and waiting. They played violent, running games, touch-wood and a kind of nuts-in-May, where they pulled one another across a line, and a ball game where they threw a rag-wrapped wooden ball so that it ran along the tiled roof that sloped inwards at all four sides, and fell off into the other party's goal. Nikolaos came and played too, and Agiatis played sometimes, and Deinicha played hardest of all, bounding about and shouting, and her short wild hair tossed without the accustomed weight of its coils to pull it smooth.

Then came the hammering at the door that they were waiting for. They checked and looked at one another over their shoulders, but, ‘One more game!' cried Deinicha, wildly jumping at a friend for touch-last. Again they started off, shouting each other's names, darting and dodging, trying not to hear the door clang open. Philylla, scudding across, saw Panteus in armour, for a moment veered his way, then hesitated and meant to run back. But he leapt in front of her and caught her. ‘Look!' he said, ‘it's pretty.' She turned and stood beside him and saw young Philocharidas go at a run straight at his bride, sweeping away the other girls. She stood straight, facing him. Only when he picked her up she flung out an arm over his shoulder, gripping at his neck, hid her face against him, and seemed to let go to what was coming. He carried her off out of the King's house, and that was another Spartan marriage.

Most of his friends followed him, shouting, only one or two of the older ones stayed, and Panteus. Philylla felt his arm round her and looked sideways and up at him. He was not looking down at her though; it was a careless, friendly arm. With a very, very little laughter bubbling in her throat, she dared to lean back the tiniest bit against it. Suddenly and alarmingly she smelt the sweat in his armpit, a clean, savage, startling smell. She jumped away from it before she knew what she was doing. Panteus looked at her now. ‘Was Deinicha a great friend of yours?' he said.

‘I think so,' she answered.

‘Don't you know?'

‘She's not like Agiatis. She's just—oh well, yes, a friend. I've liked her much more lately than I did. Philocharidas looked splendid! Is he a good soldier?'

‘Not so bad.' He was looking towards the door, frowning a little with his light, level eyebrows. The girls were going out of the courtyard and the hot sun, back to their own part of the house. Agiatis sat on the edge of the step and Nikolaos was sitting on her knee, fingering her ear-rings and whispering something very secret to her. ‘I'm going to wait for the King,' Panteus said. ‘He won't be long now.'

‘Yes, of course—the King.' She was annoyed with herself for having leant against his arm, even if he hadn't noticed it, the stupid! ‘Well, I'm going in.'

‘Don't go, Philylla!' He looked at her now as if he too were a little hurt. ‘Come and sit down and talk to me; tell me what your father says about us all. Don't go till Agiatis does. Did you knock against my armour just now?'

‘Yes, I bumped my nose.' But she came and sat beside him.

‘I thought you did.' He took off his breastplate, ducking out of it expertly. He had a tunic of red linen that had washed very soft and was loose between the threads where the shoulder brooches went. Good linen. She somehow thought he must like the feeling of stuffs, their special qualities, wool or linen or leather or whatever it might be. He laid the breastplate down quietly on the step beside him and turned round to her. ‘Silly to bump your nose, wasn't it,' he said, and kissed it, taking her face between his hands and tilting it up.

‘Panteus,' she said, ‘what
are
you doing!' And she put up her hands quickly to pull his away from her hot cheeks. And then, as she gripped his wrists, thought, well, why not? Let him be. She would have dropped her own hands as a sign of consent, only they liked feeling his wrists against their palms, bones at the sides and narrow strong sinews underneath her thumbs, and little hairs on the skin, light, rather curly hairs, she knew they were. How had she looked at them so well before? So they stayed still like
that and she said nothing more but looked at him and he at her. They both began smiling and it seemed to her that she had never seen anything so friendly as his face looked then. He dropped his hands on to her knee, and she laid hers in them, trusting him. For some time they sat like this. She wanted desperately to ask him what he had meant—
exactly
—and what was going to happen next; she felt it was unfair that he should know and not she. Yet she managed not to speak, not to ask any questions, it was so sweet as it was. She looked at him all the time, sometimes at his face and the place on his temple, above his ear, where his hair was so curly, and she thought that some day she would kiss him just there; and sometimes at his hands, at his fingers that had closed softly about hers, as though she were a flower.

Panteus looked at her too, mostly at those hands and sometimes at her feet, her straight little toes, and a place where the sandal strap had shifted a tiny bit to one side and showed a small strip of whiter, less sunburnt skin. He did not know she was full of questions. He had no answers for her. He was content with the present, a little dazed with it. He did not know what was to happen next any more than she did, less than she did perhaps. He knew himself towards Kleomenes, but he did not know himself towards Philylla, or for that matter towards any woman except his own mother, who had been dead for some years, and Agiatis, who was a part of Kleomenes, mother of the children, a help and comfort in trouble, the best of counsellors, the kindest part of life. This was apparently something different, and in its own way delightful. He thought of her still very much as though she were a boy, although he had known now for a year that the King and Queen meant them to marry one another and have children for the New Times. So they sat side by side for quite a long while, and then he suddenly stretched out his arms and laughed and thought to himself that he was in love with a girl and this was what Kleomenes wanted him to be, and then he stooped and began taking off his greaves.

‘Let me!' said Philylla and tugged at the strap behind his ankle and got it undone. The greaves were gilt on the outside, which marked the wearer as one of the King's Mess, and they were edged with a leaf pattern in low
relief. Suddenly she said: ‘You ought to let Berris Der make you some with a better design on them. I'm sure he would. Shall I ask him?'

‘If you like,' said Panteus, ‘and if you think he will.' He put them down beside his breastplate.

‘Do you like his things?'

‘Oh yes, quite fairly. He's a good metal-worker, but he thinks too much about details. Life's not long enough for that—nowadays. Philylla, I think the King will have news!'

Agiatis came over to them, and of course Nikolaos wanted to try on Panteus' armour. All three children much loved him, and thought he was the funniest man in the world, because he played with them seriously and inventively. Nikomedes was old enough to admire him as a soldier and want to grow up like that himself. Agiatis said nothing about the kiss, but herself kissed Philylla very hard, while the other two played and fought with one another. She looked so well and gay again that Philylla felt quite reassured. They went through to the room with the swing where there was a tall jar of martagons, and Philylla fetched Gorgo so that she could play too. Gorgo didn't like swinging by herself, she always tumbled off sooner or later, so Philylla got into the swing herself with Gorgo on her lap, and Panteus swung them both. She felt the give and push of his hands against her every time she swung back. Gorgo wanted to go on for ever.

Then, in about an hour, Kleomenes came. Panteus left them, went straight and simply to the King, and stayed beside him. Philylla took the children out and ran back herself for the news. She saw at once that Kleomenes was angry; when Panteus touched him he jumped and cursed him. He took a letter out of his belt and handed it to Agiatis. ‘That's from Aratos, or just as good' he said.

‘It's not signed by him,' she said, smoothing it and looking.

But the King scowled and grunted and sat down on a bench and began reading the first book roll he laid his hands on.

The other two looked at the letter over Agiatis' shoulders. ‘It seems to be mostly about me,' she said; then, as she read on, ‘and you, Panteus.'

Philylla stamped and choked. ‘Oh!' she said, ‘oh!'
and almost felt her hands on the man's throat, killing him herself. Panteus rubbed his forearm over his mouth, as though to get rid of some nasty taste, then took her hand and squeezed it.

Agiatis rolled up the letter again before she said anything; she was rather pink, but quite smiling and calm. ‘Well, my dear, we Spartan women are used by now to the joke about our leading our men by the noses. That's nothing new. And as to the other things about you and me, just forget them. They get said about women always. And this about Panteus is the old story too. We make a different pattern of life here. Don't be angry.'

Kleomenes looked up, suddenly dropping his book roll as if it had been a spider. ‘Sphaeros seems to be writing more and more stupidly. He's getting old. Like the rest of us! What, the letter? Of course I don't care! Besides, I've written back as good.'

‘Oh!' she said, and looked away from him. ‘I'm sorry.' And Philylla, half-way to clapping her hands, checked herself, puzzled, trying to understand. Then the Queen looked up again and smiled and went over to Kleomenes and kissed him. ‘Well, I'm not a man! Now, what's the real news?'

He laughed and stood up. His anger was quite gone, his face had stopped twitching, his eyebrows were still. He stretched himself and said: ‘The real news is that the Achaeans are meeting in Argos. They've written to me asking me to come over in four days and meet them. Is that good enough for you?'

The three looked at one another. Panteus said very gladly: ‘That means we've won.'

Agiatis said: ‘This will put right the time before! The Gods have given you a second chance, my husband.'

He said: ‘Yes, I think I shall get the command of the League this time. Oh, I shall be very happy to break Aratos.'

‘And then,' said Philylla, ‘you'll conquer the whole world!'

Kleomenes said quickly, going up to her and touching her as though she were something lucky: ‘I take it from you, Philylla! I will.' Then he said: ‘I couldn't rest up in Tegea those four days, so I rode down here, but I must
be off again tomorrow early, and you too, Panteus. Some of the Mess are down here. They'll want supper.'

After this he seemed suddenly tired, and his eyes were a little bloodshot. He let Agiatis bring him over to the couch and arrange the cushions, though he tossed them about afterwards, burrowing into them with his forehead. He said: ‘I've got a headache. Sing, Panteus.'

Panteus stood and sang, and the King listened with his eyes shut. He sang whole stories of the lives and loves of heroes, to old tunes or tunes he made up himself. Sometimes he walked about the room and sometimes he stood by the King and stroked his head, drawing the pain up out of Kleomenes into his own fingers. At least Philylla thought so. She stayed and watched him and thought she had never heard anything so lovely and envied him for that singing voice as much as she envied him for being a soldier, and loved it and caressed it in her mind with praise. Then she turned round and saw Agiatis was not there, and tiptoed out guiltily, hoping Panteus had not noticed her—hoping he had.