The Corn King and the Spring Queen (47 page)

H
YPERIDES TO TIMOKRATES
, Live well ! I am sending this letter by a ship which is sailing tomorrow. You will see that it is written on odd scraps of paper at different times. At any rate, I am alive!

I
AM A PRISONER
in the King's house. I think he is going
to have me killed, probably by torture. That will not last for ever, and in the end I shall have the whole of time to myself, with no pain and no fear.

I have found paper and a pen here. I am writing in case—oh, I should like to explain! After all, it is my only immortality, and my play is not finished. I think, by what they said, that it will be some time yet before they come for me.

On midsummer eve the people in our inn made garlands, which they hung up in the morning early. I stayed indoors and listened to what was being said, which they thought I could not understand. It is incredible how full the world is of ignorance still! The sun is a dead and fiery body made up of the whirling together of atoms. It is far out of reach of earth and earth's air. The moon shines by the reflected light of the sun. The universe turns for ever in a spiral; earth and sun and moon and stars turn harmoniously within it; no man nor god nor force of any idea or passion can change the movement of the universe. I repeat that. Here and now in the King's house. The sun is a dead and fiery body, far out of reach of earth or any doings of man. It cannot be touched by the King of Marob, nor by any other mortal.

The procession began to go by. The inn people joined in, all except the slaves. As it seemed unlikely that there would be any dinner for some time, I joined in too, and so did the rest of the Greeks and half-Greeks. But they were just as full of it as every one else, and utterly refused to listen to me, saying that it would bring bad luck on the midsummer market. They sang all the songs, which were, as a matter of fact, quite gay, though rather tuneless and interrupted by rattles and children banging sticks together; and they made what appeared to be the suitable gestures, not always very polite. There were a certain amount of savages too, the inland fur-traders who had come down to Marob with bundles of skins and amber and resin for the midsummer market. They sang loudly, without, I think, understanding the words. Finally, we all got to the flax market, and every one stood round and the King began his dance. There was a most lovely clear blue sky with a few very tiny clouds on it. I suppose I shall never see that again. Nor my own sky between Hymettos and the sea. Athens. Athens. Athens. All that I mean by Athens.

Well, they said the King was the sun. And I began to talk about astronomy. I told everybody what really happens. I became angry and talked louder. I was mad because they would not listen to me. I spoke in Greek to the traders who tried hard to stop me, and then suddenly I began to speak to the Marob people themselves in their own language. I was surprised myself that I could speak it so well, with such fluency and command of idiom. They were surprised too for a few minutes. The King was running round the thing in the middle of the market. He ran straight at me and knocked me over with his hot arms. I think he was looking for a sacrifice. I think I am the sacrifice. When they come back for me I shall still speak to them about astronomy and the nature of the sun and the laws of the universe.

Erif and Berris, my friends, what a place you have landed me in. You don't know. Perhaps you never will. It does not alter the fact of our friendship. Timokrates, have I done well? Have I followed Epicuros, our master, who first understood that science, showing the laws of nature, also showed a unity and harmony beyond all superstition and all the horrors and follies which men have made for themselves? Timokrates. It helps me to write your name. It makes our friendship come stoutly into my mind. Timokrates. The garden at Athens. The light there. The leaves of the plane trees. Timonoë. Remember me, Timonoë. Timokrates, Menexenos, Nikoteles. There is no way of getting out of this room.

I
AM GOING TO
write this when I can. The sight of the words makes me feel not too utterly lost. When I heard them coming for me I took up the whole roll of paper and the pen and hid it in my tunic, buckling my belt hard over it. Black Holly said: ‘You fool, to speak against the Chief's power! You are to say it is all lies and madness!' I shook my head and said: ‘It was all true.' Kotka said, urgently and more gently: ‘The Chief bears you no ill-will, but he cannot have these things said in Marob. It will break up our life. Even if it is true in Greece it is not true here.' I said: ‘Truth is not a matter of place.' I saw Black Holly draw his dagger. But Kotka said: ‘You can tell us other truths, only not this. That's hard for a Greek, but you must. Sphaeros did
not hurt Tarrik's kingship; you are not to either.' I said: ‘I will not deny science and my master.' Black Holly said: ‘There's only one cure for pride!' He was going to cut my throat. I was thankful that it was to be a rational death like that with no secular or religious torture. But Kotka said: ‘No, the Chief must decide.' So they tied my hands behind my back and shoved me into a still smaller room.

I was there that evening and the whole of the night, in great discomfort and not, of course, able to write. I was not hungry, but very thirsty. I slept a little, and the morning came. I wished Black Holly had killed me, because I thought I was likely to get a worse death from the Chief. Then there was violent shouting and screaming and other noise. I began to smell smoke. First smoke and then flame went past the small window of the room. The walls were stone but the roof was wooden, so it would catch and then fall in on me. Sparks blew in. I rolled to the far side of the room, choking and slightly burnt. The smoke got thicker. I felt the edges of the paper against my skin. I thought that would be burnt too. Then someone cut the rope. It was Kotka. He said: ‘The Red Riders are on us. Up and fight, you Greek!' The roof had caught by then. If Kotka had not remembered me I should have been burnt to death in a few minutes.

I scrambled up and got out somehow into the street at the back of the Chief's house. I picked up a spike of some sort for a weapon and stopped a minute to breathe and stretch my arms. Then I ran towards the loudest noise.

I will say at once that the Red Riders had ridden up during the festival when every one was in the town and attacked the market, hoping to plunder both Marob and the southern traders. They managed to set fire to some houses and in the confusion took away goods and money, but they were being beaten out of the town even when I joined in. I was in a doorway most of the time, banging the legs of the horses and the riders when I could get at them. I had a piece of board for a shield. Then I think I was knocked over and perhaps stunned. The next thing that I knew was gradually becoming aware that I was slung over a saddle and that my head and arm were hurting abominably. Upside down like this I vomited several times against the horse's legs. It was like the end of the world.

I am not very certain of the next several days. At night the jolting and the worst of the pain stopped, and I suppose one ate and drank. There were horrible noises and smells all the time. Then one day I found myself in a skin tent and the Chief of Marob was sitting beside me. There was a loud drumming and that was a thunderstorm on the tent; the rain-cooled air filled it. I sat up. The Chief said: ‘Are you well enough to listen?' Then he explained. We are prisoners of the Red Riders, and so are a certain number of others. But the Red Riders are killing them a few at a time in honour of their gods. They are tied on to an altar and certain parts of their bodies, including finally the heart, are cut out by the priests. We have not seen this, but we have heard it. He and I are separate from the others. He thinks they mean to use us for some great occasion. We are well treated, but each of us has an iron fetter on one ankle fastened to a longish raw-hide rope, and that to the tent-pole. We have no knife and our tent seems to be in the middle of the camp. There is apparently nothing to be done, for the moment at least, but I have smoothed out the paper and made a kind of ink with fruit juice. I asked the Chief if he would like a piece to write on, but he said no. I do not think he can settle down to write. He knows his house was set on fire and he is horribly anxious about the child. He has not told me yet how he came to be taken prisoner. I am not at all sure how much he wants to talk to me, but he has been kind. My arm is a mass of bruises still, but the bone does not seem to be broken. He had several arrow wounds, which are healing well. I have dressed those he cannot reach for himself. He is sitting on the other side of the tent now. Both of us are, of necessity, growing very disgusting stubbly beards. Still, there's no one to kiss! I should be glad enough to tell him now about Erif and how her mind is towards him all the time and how she sent me really to try and help him. But I do not know whether to speak. I think, though, that he will be a goodish companion in any misfortune.

The two chiefs of the Red Riders are called Tigru and Diorf. Tigru at least is even more revolting than the rest of the savages. He is short and rather fat, with light eyes and his front teeth filed to points and great ear-rings. Such women as we have seen are very fat too. A Marob woman
would always kill herself sooner than be carried off by these savages. Diorf is taller and squints.

T
HERE IS STILL NOTHING
to do, or if there is anything it is Tarrik who is doing it, not I. But I am going to write down some of this that is happening between Tarrik and me, because, whatever darkness comes, it is good that friendship has been. For some days we did not talk. I was still suspicious of him because he is violent and I believed him cruel, because he does not think like me, and I believed he did not think at all, because—I suppose most of all—he is Erif's husband and I did not want him to be loved by her. And he of me because I was a Greek, an Athenian, a fellow-citizen of Epigethes (he has told me about that and I pride myself that, having worked with Berris Der, I understand), a fellow-philosopher of Sphaeros, and—again most of all!—a friend of his Erif. Then, through sheer force of loneliness and anxiety, we began to talk, roughly at first, each trying to defend himself against the other, but gradually leaving that behind.

He said one day: ‘Plenty of people will think this was your doing, bringing bad luck on the midsummer market. Quick work! But I'm certain your friend Menoitas will say so.' I said: ‘Menoitas is sufficiently stupid and uneducated to think anything. He is not my friend. I gather you don't think so yourself?' He said: ‘I'm afraid you're not an important enough philosopher for the seasons to pay you much attention!' And he showed his teeth at me a little. I said: ‘Of course I am quite utterly unimportant, but you admit I was right?' ‘Right?' said Tarrik. ‘Right to talk like that! If you had been I wouldn't have jumped on you.' I: ‘But you at least don't believe this pack of nonsense about your being the sun!' Tarrik: ‘It's not my business rat-hunting after little scraps of truth. I know that what I do works.' I: ‘By coincidence, sometimes.' Tarrik: ‘No. Because—But why should I tell you, Greek!' I shrugged my shoulders; I was a little angry. I did not think I wanted to know at all. They brought us in our supper of roots and milk and boiled horse-flesh.

It was the next day that Tarrik spoke again. I am ashamed that it was he and not I who spoke first. He said suddenly: ‘I work the Year in Marob, because as the Corn King I am
wholly a part of the life of the place. It is not only that the people believe in me, but I am not separate from the grain and the cattle and the sap creeping up the green veins of the plants. Whatever I do goes out like a wave to the rest of my place. It is all one. It is all the way of Nature.' I knew that last for a Stoic phrase; it was queer at the end of the other thing. It set me suddenly loose to ask the question which I suppose Erif would have wanted me to ask: ‘That is you as Corn King. But I believe there is another part of you which is separate—which cannot look at things in that mystic way?' He said: ‘Yes. Worse luck for me! But the thing that matters is being Corn King. When the alarm came this time I was in the flax market. They were on the western side of the town, where my Place is. I went straight there to guard my things. I had not enough men, and two arrows went through the soft part of my arm, nailing me to the door. That was how they got me. But I am inclined to think that I saved the sacred things, the Corn-cap, the Basket, the Wheel, the Plowshare of Marob. I went there, you see, not to my son.' He threw back his head and gasped, and I said again I was sure no harm had come to the child. ‘If anything has,' he said, ‘I would sooner be dead than alive and needing to tell Erif that—But half of them would have died for him, Kotka or Link.' I think I feel almost the same about that little Tisamenos. Erif has talked of him so much. Besides, he was a nice little boy. One doesn't care to have small children hurt.

I think, by the way, that I understand also about Link, the Spring Queen. She is, as I supposed, pregnant, which means to these people that their seasons will be fruitful, but she keeps herself reserved from Tarrik apart from his existence as Corn King and regards herself as the formal substitute for Erif Der. When she comes back, Linit will marry and have much honour. Yet this Corn King and Spring Queen are kind and tender towards one another, as the relationship demands. It seems to me rather complicated, but I am allowing Tarrik to convince me. After all, if he can, why not?

I do not know if I am helping Tarrik at all. I can see how he has been hurting himself just as Erif said, and how it has led him to cruelty. I started by trying to get him back out of this, out of magic and Stoicism to the first principles of
science. But now I find that the magic part of him does not admit my reasoning. He says, in effect, that this kind of truth does not apply to his world. It is only a pattern of half-life. Have I been halving life up to now? It is very difficult to believe that of oneself, but it is perhaps good practice to try to! If only I knew if we would ever—Ah, no use writing that.