The Bull From the Sea: A Novel

VIII

I DID NOT TELL her, thinking there would be time enough for trouble. I made out, to her like all the rest, that Kaunos had called in friendship as he travelled by. But as soon as we were in bed that night, she said, “Come, what is it?” and had it out of me. She could feel my thoughts through my breast.

When she heard she was long silent, lying in my arms. Then she said, “Perhaps the long-haired star has come again.”

“What?” I asked her. “Have the Moon Maids left their shrines before?”

“They say so. They say that as long ago as an oak takes to grow and die, the people of Pontos lived beyond the mountains, by the shores of another sea. Then this star came, with fiery hair that streamed all across heaven; and it drew the peoples like a tide. The priestesses of that time read the omens, and saw the land could not be held against the hordes of the Kimmerians; so they went with the people, fighting in the vanguard. When they reached Pontos, part of the star fell down upon the earth. So they took that land, and held it.”

I remembered the thunderstone. But she did not like to talk with a man of these sacred things.

“It is no joke,” I said, “for a whole people to cross Hellespont. Then there is Thrace, a wide country full of fierce warriors. Somewhere north of Olympos they will be stayed; we shall never see them here.”

She lay quiet, but too lightly to be sleeping. I felt the thought of her heart, as she felt mine.

“What is it, little leopard? What do you fear? I love your honor like my own. Never would I ask you to fight sworn comrades, not even if they stormed the Rock. If it does come, it is your time to be a woman; sick, or with child. Or you shall have omens not to fight on either side. Leave everything to me.”

She clung to me, saying, “Do you think I could watch you from the walls, and not leap down to you? You know we are what we are.” In the light from the starry sky I saw her eyes as bright as fever. I stroked her and told her to be at peace, it would never come to pass. At last we slept; but she woke me tossing and sighing, and half-choked with sleep she gave the Moon Maids’ war-cry, as I had heard it at Maiden Crag. I woke her, and made love till she slept again. But next day I sent without telling her to Delphi, to ask the god what to do.

Meantime the Palace people were still at odds, and the boy grew stronger. He would ride into the hills and lose his groom, and be found on a hilltop or by a stream, talking to himself, or with his eyes fixed on nothing. Yet there was no sign of madness in him; he was quick-minded and, to tell the truth, could write and figure better than I. Nor did he do anything outrageous, after the theft of the kid, but was gentle to those about him. But one day a baron came to me and, pretending to let it fall by chance, told me the boy had made himself a shrine of the Goddess, in a cave among the rocks.

I answered lightly; but at fall of dusk I climbed down myself to see. The path was steep and dangerous, fit for wild goats. At last I came to a little ledge that looked towards the sea, and a cave-mouth blocked with boulders. There was carving at its mouth; it was very ancient and flaked away, but I saw it was an eye. The shrine had been long abandoned; but on the rocky slab before it there were flowers and shells and colored stones.

I said nothing to the boy, but asked his mother if she knew. She shook her head. Later, when she had coaxed him to speak, she said to me, “Theseus, he had not even seen the sign; you say that it is worn. And I find he does not know its meaning. How should he? It is women’s business. And yet, he says that the Lady comes there.”

My backbone shivered. But I smiled, and said, “He sees the gods in your likeness, that is all; and who am I to blame him?” With the barons’ envy and the peasants’ ignorance, she had troubles enough.

Presently came news from the north that beyond Hellespont there were great wars, and the folk were fighting from their citadels. It was said they had burned their harvests, choosing to live like the birds all winter, if it drove the horde from their fathers’ lands. It needed no divination, to see where this would lead.

It was soon after this that my envoy came back from Delphi, crowned with die garland of good news. The god had said that the Rock would not fall before the coming generations equalled those that were gone; a storm would break on it, but would ebb after the appointed sacrifice. The envoy had asked what must be offered; and the oracle had replied that the deity who required it would choose it also.

I thought about this. Next day I had brought up to the Citadel some of all beasts the gods are pleased with, and had lots cast among them. The lot fell on a she-goat, which I sacrificed to Artemis. Thus the oracle had been fulfilled. The beast backed from the altar, and fought against her death. It is never good, when the sacrifice does not go consenting. But I had done what was decreed.

Autumn came cold that year, and early. I sent to Argos for three ships of grain, and stored it in the vaults under the Rock, and warned all the people to make no great feasts at harvest time, but save their food. Rumor was everywhere; it was too late for silence, which would only make fear grow. And in the month after the longest night, word came that the horde had crossed the Hellespont. They had done it without ships; winter itself had made a bridge for them. In the great cold, huge blocks of ice had drifted down from the Euxine and jammed the narrows, and the strait had frozen round them. They had crossed over dry-shod, in a night and a day. Now they were overrunning Thrace like starving wolves.

I knew now in my heart that they would come to Attica. I called the chiefs in council, and ordered all the strongholds stored with food and weapons. By luck the harvests had been good. Over in Euboia, where the straits would protect them, I had a camp built for the women and children and old men, with a great stockade for the cattle. The frosts were over; the first hard buds were on the fig trees; there would be no ice this time. Those who had gold I gave leave to store it in the Rock, and saw just tallies given. Then I sacrificed to Poseidon and Athene, the City’s gods, and gave offerings to the dead kings at their tombs. Remembering Oedipus and his blessing, I went out to Kolonos and made gifts to him also.

All winter the horde worked down southward, picking clean the hamlets and the farms. Some small strongholds fell, but the great ones held, where the people had fled with their stock and stores. So the horde lived leanly on the gleanings of the fields, on roots, and wild game; on old horses and sick cattle not worth saving, and the sack of lonely farmsteads, which they burned behind them. Pirithoos sent me word when they reached Thessaly, before the gates of the forts were closed. I knew then that it would not be long.

So the herds of Attica were rafted over to Euboia, and after them all the people who could not fight. It was a day of weeping; I held a sacrifice to Hera of the Hearth, to give them hope. But Hippolytos I did not send there. I did not trust him out of my keeping where his mother’s enemies could seize their chance. I sent him oversea the other way, to Troizen and to Pittheus my grandfather. He and my mother would understand him, if anyone could; and he would be safe there as I had been in childhood when my father was fighting for his kingdom. When he had taken leave of his mother, I said good-by to him. He looked white and still; but he did not ask to stay; I guessed he had begged that of her already. At the last he roused himself to smile, remembering one must do so to warriors before battle. I saw there the makings of a king. He was too young yet to say to him, “If I die, I leave you this realm, but you will have to fight for it.” The old man at Troizen knew my mind, but he must be growing frail, and could not be much longer above the earth. To the gods I commended him, and saw his pale bright hair in pale bright sunlight grow faint as he sailed away.

Now fresh news came to us every day, as fugitives came over Parnes through the passes, half dead from the mountain cold, with babes on their backs and blackened toes that died from off their feet. I shipped them to Euboia or sent them down to Sounion. And I set watch-posts above the passes, with great beacons piled up to light for warning. In my mind was the thought that Attica is Land’s End. Till now they had only had to fight for the day’s food; down here they must fight for being.

The fugitives told their tales, and the people listened with fear-sharp ears. And each tale had some word of the warrior women, the Sarmatians who must each bring as her bride-dower the head of an enemy killed by her hand in battle; and the bright-clad Moon Maids charmed against fear and weapons, who led the vanguard. All this I learned from the suppliants when I questioned them. My own folk never spoke of it in my hearing. We both knew what that meant.

One morning Hippolyta got up from my side, and went over to the arms upon the wall, and put on the dress she wore when she drilled her Guard.

I jumped up and put my hand on hers to stay her. She shook her head, saying, “Indeed it is time.”

“Steady, little leopard,” I said to her. She looked thinner, and too clear, as if burning with an inward flame. I told you to let me deal. I am taking those lads back into the Palace Guard; you need answer for them no longer.”

She searched my face. They have not told you. I must then, since they are all afraid. The barons have been putting it about that the Maidens are coming for my sake, to avenge the slight to me, because you married the Cretan. They are saying I sent them word.”

Without thinking what I did, I took one of the javelins from her; then I found I had broken it in my hands.

She said to me, “Dear love, you have made there your own omen. With such broken arms you will go to battle, if in anger you divide your chiefs and warriors. You can do nothing, Theseus. The Athenians will believe what they can see. I must answer for myself; no one else can do it.”

“When we first met,” I said to her, “you called me pirate. And what better have I been to you, if it comes to this?”

“Hush,” she said, “these are words,” and kissed me. “Fate and Necessity are here; and like us, they are what they are.”

Then she went out and called her Guard, and spoke to them of the trial to come, urging them on to honor, before she put them to throwing at the mark. The youths sang out her paean; the barons’ faction looked downcast. It was true enough that she had done what I could not. Afterwards she went about laughing and gay. It deceived everyone but me.

That night our love burned up as bright as it had beside the Euxine. But in the quiet after, when the heart tells all it knows, she said, “Is it certain they have wronged me? What if I have really brought this on the land?”

I tried to hush her. There are some things best not spoken of, lest you give them power. But she whispered, “What I gave you, Theseus, I had vowed before to the Maiden. Did you guess?”

I answered, “Yes. But there was some god within us. What could we do?”

“Nothing, perhaps. If two gods do battle for us, it is our fate. But the loser will be angry, and is still a god.”

“So is the winner. Let us trust the strongest.”

“Let us keep faith. One does not change sides upon the field… We said that Maiden Crag was far away, but now it has come to find us.”

“Sleep, little leopard. There is work tomorrow.”

In that I was right. Before the stars had paled, the light of the beacons leaped on Parnes; and at daybreak there was war-smoke on the hills.

It took them two days to come down through the passes. The watch I had set there harried them by rolling boulders down, and shooting from the heights. I could not spare men for more. Soon we saw from the walls the dark tide creeping on the plain, like waters that have cracked the dam. I did not go out to meet them. We were too few. The men of Eleusis had to hold their own strongholds, and the men of Megara to close the Isthmus. And if all of us had come out into the plain together, we would still have been swept away.

I trusted in the Rock, as my fathers had for longer than men remember. It would be a siege; but one done backwards; it was we who must sit down and starve them out. In these early months, the fields were bare of everything; they could not close us round and wait in quiet. To get a living at all, they would have to straggle. The farms were stripped bare, the strongholds well stocked and manned. I reckoned to let them waste themselves little by little, with want and vain assaults; then when they were most dispersed and weakened, to choose my time.

As they came near I saw they had cattle with them. But they were lean with winter grazing, and when they were gone there would be no more. As for us, men can live long and keep their strength up on barley and cheese and raisins, olive oil and wine.

The Eleusinians had sent their cattle and the useless mouths across to Salamis; and there also I sent my ships. We had signals agreed on, smoke by day and fire by night. They knew my plan for them, when the time came.

The moving mass came over the level plain; the cattle slowly, the warriors at the front and flanks, with horses and in chariots, going about the horde. I remembered old tales of how our own fathers had come down like this from the north; just so they must have looked to the Shore Folk, gazing from this rock that they could not hold. I wondered how it had fallen, by treachery or assault. Then I called the herald, and said, “Sound for the fire.”

He blew; and from the houses down below, outside the walls, came the first thin smoke. Soon flames leaped through it, for brushwood was stacked inside. I had left this till the enemy was in sight, to daunt them. Before long there was a heat like summer on the Rock; we coughed in the smoke, and the warriors whose homes were burning smiled grimly. The men who had set the torches came clambering back; then the gates were closed, and great millstones rolled behind them. The Rock was sealed.

Now after so much haste and toil there was a pause. The fire had devoured the smoke; the distant hills seemed to dance and ripple in the rising air; one heard no sound but the roar of flames and the loud crack of timber. All night it spurted and crumbled and flared again, so bright that the watchmen could not see beyond it. But at dawn the horde was on the move, and by noon the vanguard was before the Citadel.

Soon all the plain between us and the harbor seemed filled as if by swarming ants. It was well to be seen that they were led by warriors; they took the low hills that faced the Rock, and began to throw up walls.

On the Palace roof Hippolyta watched beside me. Her eyes were good, as mine are. The clothes of the Scythians seem dark from far away, when you do not see their ornaments. Even from here, you could not mistake the bright spots of color moving about in front, the scarlet and saffron and purple of the Moon Maids. I remembered how she had told me the chief of them had their own colors, which they were known by. I turned to her, and found her looking at my face. So she stood awhile, then said, “I have seen nothing there but your enemies. Come, let us go in.”

Thus the siege began. They took all the hills: the Pnyx where I called the people to Assembly, the Hill of Apollo and the Muses, the Hill of Nymphs; all but the Hill of Ares, which faces the great gate. That is in bowshot, and my Cretan archers covered it. One night when the moon was dark the enemy crept up there and built a bulwark; from that time on, stray arrows fell within the walls, but we shooting down did better, and they never came there in strength.

The nights were worst. There seemed as many watch-fires on the plain as the sky had stars. But, as I would tell the men on the walls when I did my night-round, many were cook-fires at which they were eating up their stores, and they had all their folk there, while we were warriors only. In rain or snow, rested or weary, I always went round the walls in the dead hour of night. It was partly to see good watch kept, but partly lest the married men grow envious; for, except the priestesses, mine was the only woman on the Rock. Often she would divide the round with me. She knew each man’s name as well as I did. Now the old men who hated her the most were gone with the women to Euboia, factions grew faint, and the danger that pressed us round drew us together. Valor and steadfastness and high-hearted laughter were the riches of our state; no one could show them forth as she did, and not be loved.

And then one morning, at the light of day an arrow was found shot from the Hill of Ares. It had a sickle head, which is for witchcraft, and a letter wrapped round the shaft. No one could read the language, and they brought it me to see. Hippolyta, who was by me, took it from my hand, saying, “I can read it.”

She read with a steady countenance; but I saw her face grow drawn, as if it had drunk her blood. At the end she paused, but not for long. Then she said aloud, in hearing of the warriors round us, “This was for me. They ask me, because I was once a Moon Maid, to let them in by the postern.” Only I, who was near enough to touch her, could tell that she was trembling. “If more of these come,” she said, “I will not see them. Give them to the King.”

They murmured together, but I could hear they were praising her. Then Menestheus said, as eagerly as if he feared someone would be before him, “Did they fix a signal? Or name a night?”

It was then I wished for the first time I had put him to death with the rest of his clan. He had no feeling, but for himself, and saw that everywhere. Such men turn even the good they seek to evil.

I took the letter from her hand and shredded it, and scattered it on the wind. “Her honor is mine,” I said. “Do you think it fit for a warrior, to play decoy and lure old comrades into ambush? If any man here would do it, I would not trust my back to him in battle.” Then I looked at him straight. He turned red and went away.

When we were alone, she said, “They would have guessed. To tell them outright was better.”

“Yes, little leopard,” I said, “but now tell all. What threat did they put on you if you said no?”

“Oh, they reproached me for living on when I had lost my maidenhood. Then they said the Goddess would forgive me if I betrayed the Citadel, because you took me against my will.” She smiled. But when I had her in my arms I felt on my cheek her tears, trickling like blood in silence. I knew then that they had cursed her. And the curse had not far to fly.

My own body seemed to chill and sink, as if I felt it with her. But I forced a cheerful face, for curses feed on fear, as I have often seen. “Apollo will take it off,” I said. “He can cleanse a man even from his mother’s blood; this will be nothing to him. He is Artemis’ own brother, and she must obey him. Once he himself took a huntress from her, and got her with child, and their son founded a city; You will see, he will be your friend. Get ready, we will go to the shrine together.”

She said she would; but some of the captains had to speak with me, and while I was busy she slipped off there alone. When she came back she looked clear and calm, and said the god had given omens of consent to turn the curse aside. So I was glad and put it from me.

For two nights all was quiet. I guessed they had waited till then for a sign from her. The third night, they tried to scale the walls.

Some time before, I had picked out the men who saw best in the dark, and had one or two on every night-watch, walking round and round. But for that, the attack might have succeeded; it was led by skillful climbers, who had blackened their faces and their limbs. At the alarm, we threw down torches and fired the brush below; by that light we aimed our spears and arrows, and the slingers shot. Hippolyta with her strong short Cretan bow stood at my side, aiming steadily as if at the mark. She had changed since the letter came; I felt her no longer pulled two ways. When the dead were carried off below she stood quiet and calm. She sang with our men the paean of victory, and came away with me and was gentle, saying little. Her still face in the torchlight put me in mind of her son’s.

As the days passed, we saw the cattle dwindling upon the plain; and bands of Scythians would go off into the country round. They seldom brought cattle back with them, mostly poor herds of goats; and often the men looked fewer. Then a smoke would go up from some castle that its lord still held, on Hymettos or towards Eleusis, signalling that they had beaten off a raid, or, with an extra puff, that they had made a good killing. But one day over on Kithairon, instead of the signal-smoke came a great cloud, and we saw no more from them. It was the hold that had been Prokrustes’; with so many angry ghosts in it, one could not expect much luck. That time the band returned well laden, and we heard the rejoicings from our walls. Still the fort had been stocked for a garrison, not a tribe. Soon they were ranging further and further off.

Twice more they tried a night assault upon the Rock. On the seventh dawn after, we saw the horde thickening and working, like dough with leaven in it, and knew they meant to try by day.

They swarmed upon us from south and west at once, clambering on over the bodies of the fallen, with ladders and notched pine-trunks to scale the walls. As they came on, I shouted to the warriors, “Hold on through this and we shall win! This is high tide! They are desperate now; they will not have heart to try again. Blue-Haired Poseidon; Pallas Athene Mistress of the Citadel; save your own altars! Help us in our hour!”

Against this time, I had had stones piled thick along all the ramparts: pebbles for slings, hand-sized stones for hurling, and great boulders with crowbars and levers under them, all ready to roll down. We held our hands till the slopes were thick with men, and then began. Our weapons we saved for close quarters.

In this battle for the first time we could see the warriors clearly: the Scythians in their sheepskin coats, and loose trousers tied at the ankle, with leather helmets long behind; the Sarmatians who fought in pairs, a man with a youth one would have said, if we had not known the beardless ones for women by their screeching war-calls. They looked savage, and dirty, and unkempt; yet when I saw one sink, and the other bend over the fallen, I was glad to look another way. But wherever one looked, out in the vanguard with bow and javelin, slender and swift and bright as fighting-cocks, were the girls of the Goddess, light on their feet in the trance of battle, feeling neither fear nor prick of weapon until they died.

Beyond the scrimmage, the folk stood watching from the hills. Now one could tell out the fighting strength from the useless mouths; from where I stood, I reckoned them half and half. Most of the weak, and the old, and the babes in arms, must have perished in that winter wandering, over the mountains and on the march. The watchers were mostly women—the Amazons and Sarmatians were the only ones in battle—but I saw herdsmen among the cattle, and wondered it had not been left that day to the young boys. But Hippolyta said, “Oh, those will be slaves who have lost their eyes. The Scythians do it to captives they take in war. They can milk the cows and make cheese as well without them, and they cannot run away.”

“Then we had better win,” I said. “Let Zeus the Merciful bear witness, I have given the people better laws than that.” And I told the news to the men upon the walls, to make them stubborn. The second wave of attack was coming; if we broke it, I knew we were past the worst.

The Rock had weathered many sieges. Down in the caves I had found the great bronze-shod pikes from my father’s wars, to fling down ladders and climbing men. All round the walls I saw them bristling, then dipping to their work. War-yells and death-yells rose again, stones crashed and rumbled, cutting swathes through screaming men; arrows pattered on earth or sank in flesh; the battle rose up the Rock like a stormy sea. Hippolyta stood beside me on the western wall, where the ramps slope to the gates and the Citadel is weakest. Here I had posted the little dark Cretan archers, in their quilted jerkins, and the Hellene spear-throwers, the tall young men who had won prizes at the Games. I threw well myself that day. The press down there was seething below the ramp. They were going to charge.

We heard a wolflike paean. A thick swarm thrust out from the mass upon the zigzag causeway, like an angry snake writhing upwards; and, like a snake, marked brightly at the head. For in the van were the Amazons; and out before them strode a Moon Maid dressed in purple, tossing in her hand the sickle ax of the King.

The arrows whistled, the javelins flew, bodies fell from the ramp’s edge to the rocks below. But the girl ran onward, as lightly as at a hunt, and sprang on an outcrop beside the path, and gave a loud high call. The tongue was not so strange to me as it once had been. “Hippolyta! Hippolyta! Where is your faith?”

She stepped out from beside me, while I called to her to take care and held my shield before her. She hollowed her hand to her mouth and cried, “It is here! With my man and my king! These are my people.” She added more, which I could not follow word for word. But her voice was saying, “Do not hate me. I can do no other.”

The girl stood fixed for a moment. Hippolyta was still too, waiting; I felt it was only to hear her say, “What must be, must; it was our fate,” and that would have brought her peace. But the Amazon below screamed out, as shrill as a wheeling eagle, “Treacherous whore! Your man shall feed the dogs and your people the ravens, and when you have seen it we will throw you off the rock!”

Hippolyta gasped and shuddered. Then her mouth set; she pushed my shield aside from her, and fitted an arrow to her string. But I could see her anguish, and her hand moved slowly; the Maiden King leaped down unhurt into the press. I did not see where she went, there was too much to do.

Almost to the gates they pressed their charge; but in the end we turned them. Little by little they lost their thrust, and wavered, and sank like turbid water back on to the plain, leaving a silt of corpses and stones. Our joy was too deep to cheer. Old warriors hugged the comrade next them; men stood singing alone a hymn to their guardian gods, and vowing offerings. Hippolyta and I walked round the ramparts hand in hand, like children at a festival, praising and greeting those we passed. We were too tired to talk that night, but sank to sleep in each other’s arms as we fell to bed. But I had myself called at midnight, just as usual, lest victory make us careless. It was they, not we, whom I meant should be taken off guard.

I reckoned three days. The first they would lick their wounds, and look out for us to follow up our victory; if we did, it would cost us dear. The second they would settle to think what next, and count their stores. The third, unless I was far out, half of them would go foraging. They would have no choice. And since they had stripped the land for miles, I doubted they would be back by nightfall.

Just so it proved. On the third night I gave orders to light the signal fires, having done already what else was needful. To hide our purpose, we sang loud hymns about the Deacons, as if at some god’s festival. They did not know our customs; and indeed we had need to pray. The wine and oil we poured—for drink-offerings were all we had to give—made the flames leap higher. I asked the priest of Apollo which god to choose as patron of the battle; and looking into the smoke he said I should pray to Terror, son of Ares. As I lifted my hands, I saw a point of light on the peak of Salamis; a single beacon, signalling “Yes.”

Athene gave us a dark sky. That was her second favor; the first I had asked already. For, since even in darkness an army coming down the ramps would have been spied, we must go another way. It was sacred, secret, and forbidden to men; I had heard of it from my father, but never seen it, till the night before when I went alone with the priestess, to ask for leave.

It was always night there. It went down through the cavern of the House Snake, in the very core of the Rock. Its mouth, my father had told me, was in the western scarp below the sheer of the walls; but it was closed with raw stone, so that even I who knew of it had never found the place. It could only be opened from within.

The priestess was old. She had served the shrine before we brought Athene back from Sounion. But beside the House Snake, she was a little child. Some said he was Erechtheus himself, the ancient Snake-King, the founder of our line. Neither my father nor my grandfather had ever been into his presence; and as the old woman with her lamp went down before me, my palms were cold with awe. The way was steep, the steps little and shallow; often I, who am not tall, had to bow my head. But when we reached the cave, the roof over the narrow walls was lost in shadow. It was a split in the living rock, going up into the stones the Palace stood on. Though only the naked feet of each single priestess had trodden the floor-flags, they were worn in a channel a hand-span deep.

On the steep rough wall, going far up into the dimness, were pictures like the work of children; little men with bows and spears, hunting beasts no one has seen. In the flickering light they seemed to leap and run. At last she stayed me with her hand, and pointed: there was a narrow hole by the wall, a cleft within a cleft. She lifted the lamp, and stood finger on lip. Deep down I saw thick folded coils, as big as a man’s calf, heaving and squirming. I covered my mouth, and the hair rose on my nape.

She took from a ledge a painted crock of milk, and set it beside the hole. The coils worked and furled among themselves; I saw the gleam of an eye. The head rose up, as pale as bone, marked with strange faded signs; the eyes were blue and milky, and did not see me; they looked only at fate. The mouth was shut; but a forked tongue flickered from it, dipped in the milk, and drank. The priestess stretched out her withered hands. For all the clammy sweat upon me, I saw thanksgiving in her eyes.

Since he had given consent, she led me to the closed end of the passage, and showed me the old signs carved there, where to put crowbars in. So, when she had concealed the sacred things, I had led my masons there, and now the way was open. It would be our path to battle.

In the dark before cocklight, we went to arm. As I reached for my gear, Hippolyta stayed my hand. “This once,” she said, “I will do like other women.” She belted my sword on, and when I had slung my shield upon my shoulder, gave me my helm. I said smiling that no other woman would be half so neat, and swung back the shield to take her in my arms. We stood together in the great curved shell of bull-hide; as she pressed her face to mine and stroked it with her fingers, some sorrow reached me from her silence, and I whispered, “What is it, little leopard?” But she answered lightly, and drew away and put her helmet on.

I looked at the crest of glittering sheet-gold ribbons, that danced and caught the lamplight. “It will soon be day,” I said, “and out there you have enemies. Wear something less showy.” She laughed, and tossed it to make it flash. “Will you do so?” she said; for I was plumed with scarlet, so that my men could see me. “Or shall I stay back from your side, in case they know where to find me? We are what we are, love. Let us keep our pride.”

So we went out together, and joined the warriors.

Every man before he entered the holy precinct had cleansed himself and prayed. They crept down soft-footed, hand on mouth; not even the enemy near could have hushed them like the dread of the cave. A torch smoked in an ancient socket; if a man coughed, or clinked his bronze, echoes went back and forth, and died like the chitter of watching shades.

I went through first, lest any man feared ill-luck from it. No light must show from the mouth; so after the last black grope, the cloudy night seemed clear. Waiting while the spies marked out the path before us, I felt that I knew this place. As I looked about, I saw marks on the rock, and peering closely found a carved eye, rubbed with time. My foot crunched on a shell; on the threshold-slab there were withered flowers. Secretly in the dark I made the sign against evil. Time out of mind, the place had not been opened. How had the boy known?

Once marked, the path was easy. The men filed out, catching at each other, stumbling and saying, “Hush.” It seemed to take half a night, and I wondered if we had left time enough. But all were through before the first fading of the stars. Last came Hippolyta, who had stayed to see good order, and reverence in the shrine. When her hand touched me, I gave the word to go. Man passed it on to man, with a sound like rustling reeds.

We crept over the level ground, towards the Hill of Apollo. It is the highest of the ridge, and commands the rest. Already the cocks were crowing; skylines looked black against less than blackness. We reached the foot-slopes and slipped upward among the trees.

We did not give them time to see us first. As we reached the open with day’s first gray, we gave a great war-yell, and charged the camp. The omens were faithful; Terror was our friend. Watching the ramp and the northern postern, their sentries had not looked where the walls were sheer. The first sound of their outcry told us we had them. Before dawn had kindled the tops of Parnes, we were masters of the hill.

It had been manned with fighters only; the horde was in the plain beyond. Among the dead we found some Sarmatian women; but no Moon Maids were there. If any had been, they had got away to ready the other strongholds. I did not mean to give them leisure for it. My heralds blew their horns; and the horns of Amyntor answered from the Rock. He had been at work behind me; the great gates were unbarred. Now with the force that I had left for him, he came charging down upon the Hill of Ares, covered by the Cretan bowmen, to take the enemy from the flank.

Day came, clear and cold. It shone upon the Rock, and on the strong house of Erechtheus with its crimson columns, its checker-work of white and blue; the house of my fathers, which I had staked on a single throw. Across the dip it looked near enough to toss a stone at; but if we lost, I should never come within its gates again. I turned to the plain of Piraeus and the sea; for my men were pointing, and breaking into cheers.

The bands of plunderers were returning, streaming from the south. No good news there. But out beyond them, the beaches of Phaleron Bay were bright with ships. They were the ships from Salamis, the fleets of Athens and of Eleusis, the fleet of the Salaminians, coming to join the battle.

Before us on the ridge of hills, seething and swarming, were the Scythian warriors. They covered the top of Pnyx, the next hill north beyond the saddle. We were above them now; but we must storm them from below, with no surprise to help us. I heard the shouts of the horde beyond. Yet further off, Amyntor blew the call of victory; he had taken the Hill of Ares. Now was the time. I raised my hands to Zeus. Somewhere above the sky he sat with his great scales in his hand, weighing our fate. I threw up my prayers into his balance. But it would need more than prayers, to tip the pan.

Hippolyta touched my arm. “Listen,” she said. “A lark is singing.”

He hung above us bubbling music, soaring and lapsing in blue air. She said, “He brings us victory,” and smiled at me, her gray eyes clear as the song. The fresh breeze fluttered her glittering plume, and the flag of fair hair that beat her cheek still flushed with battle. She was all gold and fire.

I gave back her smile, and spoke. I do not know what I said to her. A strange lightness was in my head, and everything echoed there, as if in a hollow shell. The hills, the battle, the sea with its colored sails, the Palace and the warriors, glowed bright and flat and far, like pictures painted by a skillful Cretan on the walls of some great room where I stood alone. Only my fate was with me, sent from the god. My soul waited for the word.

The sea was far, the ships like toys on it. Yet it seemed to me that I heard it roar. Distant at first, then nearer, the surge grew in my ears. I knew it was the voice of no mortal waves.

I had heard this sound before; when I lifted the stone at Troizen and got my father’s sword; when I offered myself to the god, to go to Crete. It is the token of the Erechthids, time out of mind. At the great turns of fate it comes so, and, when the deed has answered it, it dies away. But now it grew, as if the flood that made it surged around my soul, to wash it from its moorings and drift it out on a shoreless ocean. And I knew its meaning. A great solemnity closed me round, a great grief of loneliness, a great exaltation. It was the voice of Moira, the voice that calls the King.

The tide would sweep to the Rock, Apollo had said at Delphi, and would be turned by the appointed sacrifice, which the god would choose. Why had I not seen then that in such great peril there could be only one? I should have married sooner, I thought; I leave children for heirs and a realm divided; Crete will break away. But that too was fated. The god of my birth, Blue-Haired Poseidon, has it in his hand as he has me. He has told me my part, to make the offering for the people; that is enough for a god to tell a man. I shall die on this field; to this all my life has led me; but I have saved my kingdom and made it great, and the bards will not leave my name to perish. So be it, then; I prayed always for glory before length of days. Father Poseidon, I consent; accept the offering.

So I said, praying within in silence; for warriors going into battle must hear of victory, not of death. And the surge of the sea grew steady and strong all around me, a great voice of triumph, bearing me up and making my body light. I turned to Hippolyta, standing by me in her valor and her beauty. She, even she, the nearest to my heart of all things mortal, seemed out beyond this wall of crystal in which I stood alone with the singing god. If I had felt the coming of a common death, I should have said farewell to her, and given her counsel what to do for herself and our son. But I walked with fate, who says that what will be, will be.

This is our last deed, I said in my heart; our last fight together. Let us go with the gods, in pride and battle-joy. She will have time to weep.

She was looking steadfastly at me with her clear eyes. I did not know what time had passed since I heard the voice of Poseidon. No one seemed impatient; it could not have been long. She said to me, “I see you clothed with victory, as if a light shone through you.” “You too,” I answered; for some solemn presence seemed to have touched her also. “In the gods’ name, then. Come, it is time.”

We ran down into the dip between the hills; then threw our shields before us against arrows, and climbed towards the Pnyx. Up there was the man who would send my life to the god; or the woman maybe, for the Moon Maids were there shouting their high war-calls, bright as cock-pheasants in the morning sun. The hill was steep, but my feet were light on it, as the tide of fate bore me along. Yet something hindered me: it was my heavy shield of dappled bull-hide. It made me laugh, that being given to death I should lug along, from habit, this burden which had no use but to keep me safe. I loosed the buckle of the sling, and tossed it from me and ran onward. It was not my business to choose when I should fall.

I was glad when the shield was gone. It made me freer, given altogether into the hand of the god. This is a mystery, which I tell only to kings, since it concerns them: consent and fear nothing, for the god will enter you and take away your grief. I give you this counsel, which no other man has lived to give. Surely it must be good for something, to some leader of the people in time to come. Or why did I live?

The warriors came with me, singing the paean and cheering, till the hill’s steepness caught their breath. No one cried out on me for going shieldless; they saw that the god inspired me, and thought I had omens that I could not fall. It gave them a feel of luck. Even Hippolyta did not reproach me. She kept close at my side, except when she paused to shoot. The Moon Maids above had seen her; they screamed their war-yells at her, and shook clenched fists. But her face was rapt and tranquil. Even when we saw upon the ramparts the Maiden King, Molpadia, lifting the sacred ax and calling on the Goddess, it did not change.

The crest was near. Arrows and stones and javelins flew round me, and passed me by as if the god enclosed me in his hollowed hands. When I fall, I thought, this strength I feel will flow into my people; they will not lose heart at my death. I felt love for them, not hatred of the enemy, who were doing as they must, as our own folk had done before them. Their fate was between them and the gods, and so was ours.

The King of the Maidens put down her ax, and reached her hand to her bow. As she took aim, I felt the music of the god rise like a thousand sweet-toned horns. It sang to me that I should not leave my people nor the Rock, that my shade would come back here on great days of joy and peril, called by their paeans and prayers. As the bent bow straightened, I thought, “It is now.” But no arrow pierced me. Only the music ceased, in a moment, cut off and quenched so that my head was giddy at the silence; and in its place I heard a cry.

The gold plume was falling, that had tossed so lightly, going down with a sinking flutter, like a shot bird’s. Closed in with the god, sure of my death, I had not seen her leap before me. She dropped to her knees, with outstretched hands; before I could reach her she pitched forward, and then heeled sideways, turned by the arrow fixed in her breast.

I kneeled on the sharp rocks, and took her in my arms. The voice of the god, the wind-borne lightness, had gone like the dream one wakes from to a cruel day. Her eyes were wandering, blind with death already; only her hand groped here and there. When I took it in mine her fingers tightened, and her lips moved in a smile.

They parted to speak; but only the death-gasp came from them. Her soul paused for a moment, hung on her flickering breath. She gave a great jerk and shudder, as if a strong cord had broken. Then she grew heavy, and I knew that she had gone.

I crouched above her, the battle all about me. If they had passed on and left me, I would not have known. So stoops the wolf whose mate has fallen to the hunters, dumb, without understanding, and as she stirs from his licking, looks to see her move with life again.

Yet the knowledge of a man was in me. I saw how she had slipped off in secret to trick me with Apollo, conjuring him who had loved a huntress to let her take my death.

I raised my eyes to the hilltop, drawn by noise. Molpadia had lifted up her ax to heaven; there was a shout of triumph from the Amazons, like a wild laugh.

I got then to my feet. Standing about me I saw the lads of her Guard. They were weeping, though my eyes were dry; it was many days before that comfort eased me. “Stay with her till I come,” I said to those who were nearest. Beyond them were the warriors; the whole host had its eyes on me. They were ready; they had known me before I knew myself. But I felt it now, as the dog-wolf feels it; that for the pain of loss there is no cure, but anger eats and is filled.

I leaped up on a rock, where I could be seen, and gave my war-yell.

Three times I shouted; and at each the roar of the host rose higher, as if I called up the sea. On the hill I saw the hands of the archers and slingers sink, and faces turn to one another. Then I ran forward.

The climbing of the slope and of the earthwork, I remember that. I scrambled up the walls with my hands and feet and spear-butt. Then I was among them. But not much of that day comes back to me, after I began to kill.

I know I did not draw my sword, for it came back bright in its scabbard. Soon after I scaled the heights, there was an ax in my hands. The ax was good; as it bit and smashed about me, I felt it matched to my desire. I did not look to see if my men were following; I felt them there, like red sparks streaming behind my rage. I might have outpaced them if I had gone straight onward; but I was thorough, and killed also on either side.

I could not quench the thirst that drove me. Men who could die I struck; their blood ran down the lifted ax and made my knuckles sticky. But I could not kill the pain within; I could not kill fate, nor the gods, nor the knowledge that tore my heart, that I was angry also with her. Why had she meddled, when all was well? She had taken too much upon her. We were equal war-comrades, but only one was king. I had joined hands with my fate, and seen my finished days as a harper’s song. There need have been no parting, since she held her life so light. Hand in hand we could have crossed the River to the house of Hades. But she had left me alone, with my people about my neck and no god to guide me, to be king, and live.

My soul cried vengeance, and I took it where I could. Soon no one was left to kill on the Hill of Pnyx; I led on over the saddle, towards the Hill of the Nymphs. They were there on the top, and I shouted out to them. A few arrows came down. But they broke quickly before us, and I knew by their squealing they were on the run. Men were shouting behind me that we had saved the City. But I only felt too many would get away. In the pursuit I fell; a man of my Guard helped me to my feet again; I gazed round blinking, to find the Scythians streaming down the slopes towards the plain, and the men from the ships awaiting them. But beyond, on the hill ahead, I saw armed warriors; and shouting that these should not escape us, I charged towards them. Their leader ran before; I gave my war-call; but he cried to me, “Sir, it is I! Will someone look to the King; he cannot see. It is Amyntor, Theseus! The field is ours. How is it with you, sir; what is it?”

I lowered the ax, and the men who had held me stood away. My eyes cleared slowly, and I saw the army from the Citadel, meeting mine and cheering, with men weeping for joy. I stood there, dreading to awaken, while they talked across me softly, as men do about the dying. One said, “He must have taken a head-blow.” But another answered, “No. Where is the Amazon?”

That I understood; and I answered, “On the Hill of Pnyx. I will bring her home.”

I started to walk back there, then stopped, and said, “First bring me Molpadia, King of the Maidens. She has a debt to pay.”

A captain of Athens who had fought along with me said she was dead. It did not please me, and I asked who killed her. “Why, sir,” he answered, “you yourself with her own ax, as soon as you scaled the heights. There it is in your hand; you used it all through the battle.”

I wiped it on the grass, and looked. It had a slender shaft, and a blade like a crescent moon, with signs of silver laid into the bronze. When first she rode to me on the heights of Maiden Crag, this had been in her hands. All along, it had gone with me as if it felt my thought.

Since that day I have gone into battle with no other weapon. Even years after, it seemed still to have the feel of her. But all things fade. It has forgotten her hand, and knows only mine.

She lay on the hillside, with the young men round her. They had straightened her, and laid her upon a shield. Not daring to touch the arrow, they had sent the youngest to the Citadel, to fetch the priest of Apollo. He had pronounced her dead, and drawn it out, and covered her with a pall of scarlet lined with blue; and the lads had laid her hands upon her sword. The priest said to me, The Lord Paian sent her the omen. But she asked if it was his command to keep it secret; and he answered according to her wish.”

“Sir,” said the youths, “a bier is coming for her. Shall we carry her down the hill?”

I answered, “You have done well, but it is enough now. Leave her to me.”

I took off the pall, and picked her up in my arms. Her body was cold, the limbs beginning to stiffen. I had been gone too long; her shade was far off already. I held a corpse with her face. She had felt like sleep, when I went away.

At the foot of the hill they met us with the bier, and I laid her on it; the battle had been long, and I was tired. As we came nearer to the Rock, I heard the paeans of victory. It stirred my anger; yet it was what she would have wished to hear.

Soon I too must give thanks, standing before the gods for the Athenians; that was my work. The City had been saved for a thousand years. This day, I thought, will be sung of; and I seemed to hear the song. Thus, fell King Theseus, giving his life for the people; in the flower of his age, with his love beside him, honored by gods and men.”

The sweat of battle had cooled upon me; I felt a sharp wind from the sea. The Palace stood on its rock and waited. It was not long past noon. I could not tell what I should fill even this one day with; and there were years ahead. She had taken my death, lover for lover; she had been a woman at the last. She who was once a king should have known that only a king can offer for the people. The gods are just; but one cannot mock them.

She had saved her man alive to weep for her. But the King had been called; and the King had died.