The Corn King and the Spring Queen (52 page)

T
HEMISTEAS LAY
quite still for fear of hurting himself. They fed him with milk and soup and something else that tasted foul and smelt worse. This time he felt strong enough to talk. He raised himself a little cautiously, and after all it did not hurt unbearably. ‘It's you, Philylla,' he said, ‘my little girl.' His mind fumbled back. ‘Are you at home now? For always? Was your man killed too?'

She shook her head. ‘No, he lived, with the King. I'm here for the time. Don't think about it yet, father.' She turned her back to him and began pounding up the herbs to put on his wounds.

He thought about what she had said. After a time his unquiet whispering reached her again: ‘Where is the King?'

‘King Eukleidas is dead. King Kleomenes is at Alexandria.'

‘And Sparta?'

‘Wait till you're stronger, father. In the meantime, our house is safe. Mother has taken care of that.'

‘Why do you speak of her looking that way? Philylla –'

‘Never mind how I speak, father. Stay still now, for I am going to undo the bandage on your shoulder. Hold the bowl, Ianthemis. Don't look, silly, if it's going to make you sick!'

More days passed. The slaves carried him out into the court. A few yellow plane leaves blew in and there was a
smell in the air that is so lovely after months and months of dry dust and hard, cloudless, glowing blue: the smell of rotting fibres at last; the sweet, sad smell of damp mornings and cooler air. ‘How long is it since the battle?' Themisteas asked.

Ianthemis, who sat beside him on the step with her embroidery, answered: ‘Twelve weeks, father.'

Themisteas reached over suddenly with his sound hand and gripped her. ‘You—tell me! Your mother and Philylla won't. What happened?'

Nervously Ianthemis said: ‘But are you strong enough, father? They didn't want you to hear—'

‘Hear what? Am I a baby? The truth now, if one of you she-things can get it out! What, is it so bad? Are we all slaves to the Macedonians?'

‘No, no, but—Mother and Philylla think differently, I'll try and say. After the battle there was no more fighting. They came for three days. I didn't see them myself. King Antigonos sacrificed and then he went away. They say he had heard suddenly of a war in his own country. He didn't burn anything or steal anything except just enough gold to make things for Apollo at Delos. A lot of people went to him at the King's house, where he lived.' She stopped a minute to breathe, then as she felt her father's fingers tighten on her, scurried on. ‘I—I think mother went. At least, I mean, I know she did! And a lot of people were pleased. Mother says he has given us back our Constitution. I know we've got the ephors again. Do you mind, father?'

‘The ephors? No! I never felt really right without them. I'd like to know who they are, though. But go on: what about the land?'

‘We've got our own land just like it used to be when I was a little girl, only not the house in the city: that's gone. But they've taken away the land that Panteus had, so Philylla has had to come back and live at home. It's horrid for her, father!'

‘Stop,' said Themisteas. ‘Let me think. Ours… as it was. So Eupolia went Macedonian behind my back, and saved us all! What do I do? Don't look so frightened, you little rat! The answer's just nothing. Nothing. The King's gone and might better have been killed as far as I can see. And
Eupolia's saved my estate! Who's seen to all this chopping and changing?'

‘There's a Macedonian governor. Mother likes him. He is very kind and polite. He came in once when you were too ill to understand and went out on tiptoe. Philylla ran away that day; she went to the farm and she didn't come back till after supper. Oh yes, and we're part of the Achaean League now.'

Themisteas said grimly: ‘I don't see Sparta contributing much army. Tell me again, for I think I have forgotten, the names of all my friends who have been killed.'

She looked round anxiously, but no one was coming to rescue her. She began on the long list of names, repeating them sometimes, beginning to cry herself. Some were as old as her father, but most were young lovers and husbands that should have been! Whatever had happened to Philylla since, she was safely and solidly married and her husband was alive, but where was Ianthemis to find a man now? She said: ‘Every one I know is mourning for someone, and Dontas is simply silly because the captain of his class was killed!'

Themisteas stayed silent for a time, considering the list of names, and during this silence Tiasa came into the courtyard with a basket of washing on her head and stopped beside her master. He said: ‘It'll take thirty years for Sparta to make this up. Even if you women are willing. Aye, we must find you a man, my little girl, and you must set to work to make boys. Fourteen, aren't you? Well, you can't start too soon with things as they are. If it's all as you say and I have my land back, I'll give you a good dowry. I wonder if your mother has any plans for you yet.'

Ianthemis glanced up at Tiasa, and on her nod of encouragement, ventured to speak. ‘I do know mother thinks of someone. He's Chaerondas, the son of one of the new ephors. He's been in Crete, but now he's at home again. I saw him once. He had such a lovely wolfhound!'

‘What did he do in the battle?' She said nothing, and Tiasa could not think of anything to say which would help. Themisteas, after a long and uncomfortable silence, went on: ‘I see. He's the other side. Well, I suppose I should be grateful to your mother and glad to have my daughter married off to someone who had the sense to see which way the cat would jump. Provisionally, I agree. Now, tell me
about Philylla. Aren't I going to have a grandson out of her soon?'

Ianthemis shook her head, embarrassed, and Tiasa answered for her: ‘These things can't be done to order, master, not by any of us, and least of all ladies and gentlemen. They don't breed as well as that.'

Themisteas sighed; his wounds were beginning to pain him. He was tired again. He did not want to think of it. ‘Poor Philylla,' he said gently, ‘she'd have liked a child.'

He shut his eyes. Ianthemis and Tiasa shifted the pillows so as to ease his thigh and shoulder. He was almost asleep. Half under her breath Tiasa said: ‘Yes, poor Philylla with that man of hers gone after the King and not so much as a line from him the whole time!'

All the same, a letter did come at last. He said he had not known how they stood, so could not write before. There was deep depression in every line; he did not tell her what to do, only asked her what she thought of doing. He had got the news that his land had been taken away, and added on to the estate of one of the ephors, so he supposed she must be back at home. He wondered if her father was alive. For themselves, they did not know how long they would have to stay in Alexandria; it was difficult to see King Ptolemy. He was old and ill and the minister Sosibios was a difficult and toughish person to deal with. The heir, young Ptolemy, was soaked in women and religion and the writing of verse. The Greeks in Alexandria were a rotten lot all through; not one of them could understand what had happened to the Spartiates and how they felt; people laughed and said it was all right because they were alive, and asked them to parties.

He went on to say that the children were well, but very jumpy. Nikomedes was watching his father all the time like a lover. Krateskleia tried to keep them in too much; she thought very badly of all the boys they were likely to meet, and no doubt she was right, but they were too old for that kind of grandmothering; they obeyed her, but it was hard on them, and they never played games with other children. When the dozen or so who were the King's best friends met to hold a kind of council together—usually after another rebuff from Ptolemy or his ministers—Nikomedes was mostly there too; it was a heavy thing to put on to a boy not yet fourteen. Little Gorgo was sometimes most painfully like
her mother now. He saw the children often, for he went to the house most days: a high house in a street in Alexandria, very hot, with balconies. Kleomenes was getting headaches a good deal. Then again, what did Philylla think she should do?

Philylla took the letter over to the home farm; she wanted to brood over it, to see what more could be got out of it, and when she was at home now she felt too angry and unhappy to take in anyone's thought, least of all her husband's. But the farm was safe. Mikon sat on the bench at the door, his leg out stiffly in front of him, slowly plucking a hen; one of the small children, naked and very dirty, was picking up the feathers and putting them into a basket. The other helots had taken on the children and the wife of Leumas; when the boys were older it would get whispered to them that their father had been given freedom and honour by King Kleomenes, and in the end had been killed for him; in the meantime they were slaves again, but they did not understand that yet. Behind the corner of the house two other children were squabbling shrilly. ‘Don't move!' said Philylla quickly, for she knew it was all Mikon could do to stand yet. And there were plenty now to order him about and make him stand up for them, obediently and dutifully, on his hurt leg, until they chose to give him his orders and laugh at him hobbling off. For his new citizenship had, of course, been taken away, and the few fields he had been so proud of, and had meant to make his children proud of, too. He was no longer part of the army of the revolution. ‘Poor lamb,' said Philylla, ‘how is it?'

‘Still stiff,' said the man, and then, with a curious but unembarrassing gesture, rubbed his head against her arm. If there were masters and servants again, it would not be so bad to be her servant. She understood that, too. He went on: ‘Neareta is here; she's had a letter. Tiasa is quarrelling with her again. I came out.'

‘The silly bitches!' said Philylla, suddenly violently irritated, because now she was sure to get tangled up in that instead of being able to think about Panteus and her own plans in the middle of the peaceable farm smells.

‘Her boy's here too,' said Mikon softly.

When she gave the door a push from her hard wrist it clattered open. Although she was married she was not at her full strength yet, but getting stronger every month, more
pleased to carry weights and shove animals about and give her own orders. A Spartiate woman. How could she bear to live in another woman's house-hold, in her mother's! She must go, go. Set up her own house in Alexandria. It all went suddenly through her mind as she came into the room where Neareta and Tiasa were quarrelling with a close, concentrated fierceness, and the twelve-year-old boy, Gyridas, was sitting in a corner, watching them, and sometimes tossing his head about and shivering. He was very like his father, but a thinner and much sadder Phoebis; it looked to Philyila as though he would never be able to play quite happily any more. He saw her first and jumped up, crying: ‘We've a letter from father!'

Tiasa swung round on them with a flap of her big breasts under her tunic like heavy fish. ‘Yes, the sort of letter you'd run a mile for,' she said, ‘and be sick into the stewpot when you'd read it! And this crazy Neareta's as bad as you—yes, I will say it!—you and your runaway king, stealing off honest women's husbands into God-knows-where—'

Philylla lifted her hand quietly. ‘Now, Tiasa,' she said, ‘don't be silly. Alexandria is only a few days' journey.' On the spur of the moment she added: ‘I am probably going there myself.'

‘Ah,' said Neareta, ‘I knew you'd stand firm, Philylla!'

But Tiasa gasped and flounced. ‘I'd like to know what your mother says to that! As if you'd be let cut off your nose to spite your face. If you can't see reason for yourself, you'll be made to see it, my lady!'

Philylla was afraid of losing her temper and with it all the advantage of her position. She did not answer at once.

But Neareta did. ‘It's not your place, Tiasa, to speak that way to a real lady! You're just a slave-woman, aren't you, Tiasa!' And then Tiasa flew at her and there they were at it again, not even arguing, but abusing each other stupidly.

Philylla shrugged her shoulders. Neareta wasn't usually like that. It came of what had been happening to her. They hadn't even got the boy's body home for five days, and then Neareta had to see to it herself. She beckoned to young Gyridas: ‘Tell me what your letter said.'

The boy took her hand and they went out of the house together and sat down on Mikon's bench. ‘Father wants us
to come out to Alexandria,' he said, ‘and we're going. The ephors have taken almost all our land, but we've got enough money for the journey, so that's all right. Do you know, Philylla,' he went on, ‘they tried to have me turned out of my class—the class where my brother was!—because of father being one of the King's citizens, not the old ones; but the rest of the boys wouldn't have it, and my captain went to the ephors himself. But I'll have to leave it now. Do you think we shall need to stay long in Egypt?'

‘When the King comes back to his own again, it will all be made up to you. All that can be.' She thought for a moment of his elder brother, and then again of herself.

‘But is it sure he'll come back? Philylla, is it sure?'

She saw Mikon lift his head and look round from the almost plucked hen to her. For both of them her word was certainty. If only she was sure herself!—as she had been as a child, when Agiatis was still there to tell her that the good things were surely true. She said: ‘I believe he will come back to Sparta. Or, if he does not himself, I believe the things he worked for will.'

‘But he himself!' said Mikon. ‘Oh, it must be my King again! If not, we'll have been hurt in vain. I can't‘—he stopped and looked round him, then down in a sort of astonishment at his own maimed body—‘I can't bear this all the rest of my life. Not after having had the King's Times.' It was a plain statement; the one thing was not possible after the other. Therefore it must happen that the King should come back to his people.