The Corn King and the Spring Queen (42 page)

Erif sucked her hand. ‘You are a beast, Berris. Why couldn't you choose a soft bush?'

‘There aren't any.'

‘Well, Panteus is a good soldier. And that's his job.'

‘Yes but—'

‘Ssh! And he's intelligent and brave and kind, really, though it's inside out now for her, and they both care very much for the same things in the same way, and he's beautiful. But he's not good enough for her.'

‘Of course not!'

She jumped straight up into the air off both feet. ‘Caught, Berris! Oh, you can't ever possibly see one another true. And she'd so like you to, poor sweeting. Berris, I've seen her through the worst of her time—well, you and I—and now I must go. I'm getting no nearer Tarrik here. His letters
make me anxious, even the last one when he sent me the ruby. I think he's beginning to doubt if I shall ever get right, and he hasn't told me yet about Harvest. I'm going to Delphi to ask the God there. Philylla herself thinks that would be wise. It will be difficult for me to go alone. Will you come too?'

‘I'll think about it,' said Berris.

I
N LATE AUTUMN, BUT
before the weather broke, Erif Der and Berris Der went to Delphi to consult the God. Antigonos and his army were wintering in Argos and Corinth. Sparta was watching. A little time after they left, another rather terrible thing happened to Kleomenes. Ptolemy wrote promising help, but he insisted on hostages: the King's mother and his children. That was the Egyptian price.

For a good many days Kleomenes could not make up his mind to it. What a trick of the gods, to take them away, most of all Nikomedes, when they were just making friends, when this winter was going to make an island of joy among the troubles for them both! He could not bear to think of his boys in Egypt, taking away their class, their Spartiate companionship, changing over from that to palace life with Ptolemy and his courtiers and mistresses. He wrote again. But these were the only terms Ptolemy would take, and Ptolemy's was the only help he could get. He tried to speak to Kratesikleia, but somehow could not. It was bad enough in his own mind—in speech it would be terrible.

Kratesikleia saw that something was the matter with her son and asked Therykion, who told her with an ironic smile. She went to the King and made him tell her too. She laughed and said: ‘So you were afraid to get it out! Kleomenes, you must leave your children in the Gods' hands and trust to their innocence that they may escape. After all, Egypt is not so far. Ptolemy is a Greek, and so are all the people we are likely to be brought into contact with. The children shall read and write, and not of course go about with the common folk, and you shall send someone with us who can practise the boys in spear-throwing and wrestling. Yes, yes! there is nothing so difficult about it. As for me, my two husbands are dead and Agiatis is dead. I am not in
love with life. Make haste and put me on shipboard and use my old carcass where it will serve Sparta, or I may die unprofitably at home.' So she started getting everything ready, and chose what women she would take with her, and Kleomenes sent for his sons.

He told them himself. Nikolaos was furious and wept, but was then consoled by the idea of going in a ship to a country full of monkeys and crocodiles. Nikomedes was much more deeply hurt. He did not say much. Only: ‘It's a pity. There are all sorts of things here. Father, do you remember saying you'd hunt with me this winter?'

‘I do remember,' said Kleomenes. ‘Oh, my dear son, we'll do that yet! In a year or two you'll be that much bigger and stronger. We'll have days and days of it, up in the hills together.'

‘I would have liked it this year,' said Nikomedes. He had a horrid, blind hopelessness in his voice, the hopelessness of a child who has not seen enough years to believe much in the future.

It sounded to Kleomenes terribly like Agiatis. He was sending her Nikomedes away, uncomforted.

‘It's for Sparta,' he said. ‘You're a soldier now, going into battle for Sparta.'

‘I would rather do it that way,' Nikomedes said, ‘but I see you've got to, father.' He rubbed his fists over his eyes and said with a valiant but rather unfortunate attempt at gaiety: ‘I expect Gorgo will learn to talk Egyptian just as well as she talks Greek. That will be funny, won't it!' Then he said: ‘Can I see Philylla before I go?'

Kleomenes sent for her at once. She begged to go with Kratesikleia to Egypt, but her father and mother would not hear of it, and the King, too, said she should stay at home. She and Nikomedes talked together for a long time, partly about his mother and partly about Sparta, and how Nikomedes was going to go on being a Spartan in this foreign place and to help his brother and sister. They talked a lot about games they'd played in old days. When they went down to Gytheum she came too. Part of the army marched with them; that pleased the children anyhow.

Kleomenes felt miserably that he had sold them just as Aratos had sold the League. He and Nikomedes could now hardly look at each other, it made them both begin to cry.
At Poseidon's temple, Kratesikleia pulled him in with her; people thought she had a vow to make. It was the old helot sanctuary; there were rows of names there of men and women who had been freed. The King looked at them blindly. Kratesikleia's face was wet now with tears in the wrinkles, but she pulled herself up sharply and spoke to him as if he'd been a child still, scolding him.

‘When we come out,' she said, ‘nobody is going to see so much as a red eye on either of us! We ought to be ashamed of ourselves, doing this in front of the children and every one. There's little enough we can do nowadays, in all conscience, but at any rate we're going to be an example of how Spartans can behave! As for what's going to happen, that's not in our hands and nothing we can do will change it. Don't think too much about it, Kleomenes. Keep your own soul free and I'll try to keep mine.' Then they came out, and she and the children went on board, and the King watched them away. He managed not to cry, but Philylla was crying bitterly. Panteus came away from Tegea for a couple of days and stayed with the King in his very empty house and comforted him and talked about the boys and their future. But Philylla went home again and there was not even Berris Der to comfort her.

Those two from Marob landed at dawn at Cirrha and hired mules after much bargaining and quarrelling with the drivers, who took them for more complete barbarians than they were. Erif had insisted on wearing Marob clothes, white linen with stripes of coloured linen laid on to it in criss-crosses about the skirt, and a short coat. She had it in her head that she must show herself to the God as nearly as possible as she really was. It certainly looked as though she were the kind of person who ought to be over-charged for her mule up to Delphi.

They went gently across a rising plain of deep and ancient olive groves. Erif Der did not like olives, but Berris did; they were ripe now. There were a good many wild birds, but they could not see far on either hand because of the thick trees. Then they took a turning to the right, momentarily getting a glimpse of near and enormous mountains, and as they went the plain narrowed down into a glen still full of the terraced olive groves. Their road began to slope, zigzagging steeply past ancient and knotted roots and built walls and
landmark stones. At the end of a zigzag they came out at last between two great plane trees into an open place.

Ahead of them Parnassos went up in flight after flight of great red, clefted cliffs; small trees rooted themselves in the cracks, clinging between earth and sky. Behind them their glen of olives dropped steeply, far deeper than they'd thought it, and rose again at the far side towards other mountains; at its head the range closed in, peak behind peak, distant and blue and very high. And between them and the red cliffs was the shining town of Delphi. On their own level there were low houses spreading to right and left a long way, houses for priests and pilgrims, and shops and stables. From among them one lovely street went winding up, steeply enough for most of the buildings on either side to show clear, the treasuries of the cities of Hellas, each one gay and square and solid and quite small—a god's or goddess's cottage—with leaping ridge tiles and a carved and painted frieze, most of these from quite early times, stiff and smiling battles and rapes and Councils of Olympos. On their walls of white blocks there were lines of names of men who had brought gifts to Apollo. There were statues in bronze and gilt and marble, from the earliest beginnings until now, tripods of inlaid bronze and pure gold, and shields, and pictures under small porticoes; and a very lovely little stream came down with the street, sometimes beside it and sometimes under it, from basin to clear basin, and men and women stooped and drank from it. There were green trees between the curves of the street and a great many young leaves of iris, coming up fresh again after summer, and at the head of the winding road was Apollo's temple, cool and quiet and very much larger than anything else. There were people moving about on its steps, all in white; at the foot of the steps the stream flowed out into its first basin.

The mule boy stopped to let them look, himself turning his back on it proudly, as though it all belonged to him. They found a suitable guest-house and made terms for themselves. Delphi was very full of pilgrims just now; they would probably have to wait for some time. There was nothing to be done that day, but they were up before dawn the next, and in time to see a very pretty sight—one
of the sights of Delphi, in fact—the young priests who had been sweeping the temple, feeding the birds afterwards. The sun crept down the cliffs of Parnassos and the birds began to sing and flutter as the new warmth reached to their nests in the crevices and rooting bushes. The priests threw out handfuls of corn, and they came flitting down to the steps and chirped their thanks to the Dawn God.

After that Berris and Erif made their first offerings at the temple and were told when they could come back with another offering and their question. There were a good many priests, intelligent and sometimes fierce-looking men who walked proudly, staring back at the timid crowd of worshippers. No one ever saw the prophetess, the girl-child who was inspired by the God. People said she was just a peasant girl who could not read nor write and knew nothing of the great world; some said that she could go on prophesying until she was old and bent, beyond the age of any priestess of any other god, but others said that the service of Apollo wore her out and she must be replaced every few years.

There was plenty to do during the weeks of waiting. There was a theatre where the sacred plays and dances were given, and between times secular ones, singing and recitations and sometimes even modern comedy, for after all the Muses had it all in their hands. There were all the monuments to be seen, and their inscriptions, some in fine verse to be read, and on certain days one or another of the treasuries would be open. They drank the waters of Castaly as it poured out through lion heads, and bought a handful of the tiny green snail shells that come out of the rock there; Erif thought they might be useful to her one day. And there were many thousands of offerings to the God. After a time it became apparent to Erif that the one thing her brother wanted to see—in fact, what he really came to Delphi thinking of—was his own cup, Kleomenes' last offering in the days of his power. On the other hand, he did not like to mention it directly to one of the priests who showed the gifts. He was so terribly afraid the priest might say he thought the cup was not so beautiful as some others—then Berris Der would cease entirely to believe in Apollo. He did ultimately see
it, and thought how much better it was than he remembered it! But it got no special mention from the priest. In the club-house above the temple there were two great pictures by Polygnotos, each with fifty or more figures in it, story-pictures which brought many sightseers. Berris did not think well of them at all, but somehow Erif found them rather interesting and went back to look when he was seeing something else. She also much liked the gilded statue of Aphrodite-Phryne, made by one of Phryne's own lovers. It was a story too, something to fill her mind, though she agreed with Berris that as sculpture it was soft and uninteresting.

In the meantime they made friends with other people who were waiting with questions and formed part of the excited circle when one of them had his question answered. Quite often the God had said something which might be taken in several ways. The priests themselves refused smilingly to interpret, but there were professional interpreters who came round to the inns, as well as all the pilgrims' new acquaintances. Most of them were Greeks, either come for themselves or, very often, for their city or family or club. Sometimes they came singly, but often a whole deputation together; if it was for a city perhaps most of the men who had paid for the offering. A good many of the Greeks were from the outer world, Asia or Egypt or Macedonia. And there were some real barbarians, a kinglet or two from north or east going about proudly, guarded and laughed at. There were Celts with heavy and uncomfortable-looking gold neck-rings that they even slept in, and great bronze pins and bosses on their belts. They were usually made to pay extra, as they were so quarrelsome. There was one Carthaginian, whom they made friends with, a great merchant and childless. None of his own gods could tell him what to do, but he had travelled much and he was most willing to deal with strangers. He showed them a picture of his wife which he took about with him, dark and grave, with big eyes and long black curls, blue birds' wings coming down from behind them and meeting at the base of her neck. She was a priestess herself, he said. One was apt to believe in the Gods at Delphi.

A letter for Erif was sent on from Sparta. It was Tarrik's
answer to her question as to what had happened at Harvest. No one in all Marob, not even Kotka, or any of the Chief's best friends, would be
IT
, the actor in the Corn Play, so he had to be
IT
himself; and when he put on the Corn-cap every one thought he was Harn Der and called him that. It was a short, grim letter for Erif after all this time. But Klint was well.

The weather broke. It suddenly turned bitterly cold in Delphi. Parnassos hid his shoulders in mist, and cold winds blew along the glen of olives. Brown sudden rivers poured off the cliffs and down the roads and waterlogged the black earth round the bases of the olive trees. The time came for Erif to make her final offering and ask her question.

She was desperately nervous. She could not have done it at all without Berris. But the priests were used to that, from women most of all. They were both taken through to the room, where one waited and most likely regretted that one's gift had not been more impressive. Erif had simply asked when and how she could be clean again and able to go home. It was better, people said, to make one's questions as short and explicit as possible. The thing had, after all, to go through the mind, and ultimately the mouth, of such a simple vessel. It had been the way of prophecy always. The priests, of course, made sense of what the girl said—they had been trained to it for years. One could never do that for oneself if one were only given the immediate words she spoke.