The King Must Die: A Novel

6

THUS I SET OUT by land for Athens. My grandfather, though he thought I had acted like a fool and was concerned for me, could not ask me to go back on my word before the people, and disgrace the house. My mother went to the House Snake, to get me an oracle. Though she saw dangers in my way, she did not see death. But she said weeping that the dangers were very great, and she had no surety for me. She made me vow to her that I would not tell my father’s name till I had reached him; she was afraid of my falling into the hands of his enemies, and to comfort her I promised this. I asked her if she had any message for him; but she shook her head, saying I was her message, and for the rest, it was long ago.

So two days later my pair was harnessed, and I mounted beside my charioteer. I had meant to drive myself, but Dexios had begged to come. He had been suckled by a mare, as the saying is; for a driver or a friend, one could not do better.

We drove echoing under the great gate of Troizen, which giants built, and where my great-grandfather set up the device of our house, a thunderstone on a pillar, with an eagle either side. My grandfather, and my uncles, and the young men set me on my way as far as the shore, where the road turns northward. Then they rode back, and our journey had begun. The first night we slept at Epidauros, at the sanctuary of Healing Apollo; the second at Kenchreai. When we saw at evening the round mount of Corinth stand above the plain, we knew that next day we should cross the Isthmus.

The crossing took a day. That is the truth, behind all the harpers’ nonsense. Nowadays I am content to deny such fables as no grown man in his senses would believe, and let go the rest. They are dear to the people, and hurt neither them nor me.

I met no monsters, nor did I kill a giant with a cudgel; a fool’s weapon for a man with spear and sword. I kept my arms, though more than one tried to have them off me; I had no need of monsters, with the men I met. It is rocky country, where the road tacks about, and you can never see far ahead. Among the rocks by the road, the robbers lie up.

Dexios saw to the chariot, while I took on whatever came. He had to be ready to get us sharply away. That was his work, and he did it well. Having no change of horses, we could not risk them. Now, after the years, these scrimmages get confused together in my mind, except for the last.

Deep blue, and black, the Isthmus is in my memory; blue sky above, with seldom a cloud to break it; and always on the right, black plunging rocks with their feet in a blue sea. The pink dusty road before us, the scrub and the dark pines, lay always between these depths of blue. The sea was calm; as one looked down, it drowned the eye like a second zenith, but bluer still; bluer than lapis, or sapphire, or whatever flower is bluest; and then again, in the dark clear shadows round the deep roots of the rocks, green and grape-purple, like the ring-dove’s sheen. It must have been seldom I stood in quiet to gaze at it. My eye was sharpened for other matters. Yet it is the blue that I remember.

I remember that, and the feel of a land without law. On the Isthmus Road, a wounded man by the wayside, his blood black with flies and his mouth cracking for water, is the sign for wayfarers to flog on their donkeys and get out of sight. There was not much to be done, by the time one found him. I remember one I could only dispatch like a dog gored by the boar. I did it quickly, while he was drinking; he got the taste of the water first.

We found noonday shelter in a river-bed, with a summer trickle for the horses. It hid but did not trap us. When we had unyoked and eaten, Dexios went off among the rocks; and presently it seemed to me that he had been rather long gone. I called, but got no answer, and went to look. The rocks were steep, and to climb faster I left my spear at the bottom. It is hard to believe one was once so green.

From the top of the gully I saw him soon enough. He was lying at the feet of a thick-shouldered fellow who was stripping off his arm-rings. He must have been stunned from behind, never to have cried; I saw the club the robber had put down while he worked. Dexios moved a little; he was still alive. I remembered how I had saved him from the bull. Now again it was I who had endangered him. I was going to climb back for my spear when I saw the man, who had now got all he had, start rolling him toward the cliff. Just there the road skirts it near.

I shouted over the rock-edge, “Stop! Let him alone!” The man looked up. He was broad and red, with a thick neck and forked beard. When he saw me he laughed, and shoved Dexios with his foot.

I scrambled over the rocks; but they were rough, hard going. “Let him alone!” I called again, and heard my voice crack, as it had when it was breaking. The fellow put his hands on his hips and bawled, “What are you, Goldilocks? His girl, or his fancy-boy?” This he followed with some dirt he liked well enough to laugh at; and in the midst of his laughter, kicked Dexios over the cliff. I heard his cry, broken off in the middle.

Anger entered into me. It filled me body and limbs, so that I seemed without weight; as I sprang out from the rock, anger bore me like wings, and carried me where I could not have leaped before. My very hair seemed to rise, as the mane of the King Horse does in battle. I landed on my feet, straightened up, and began to run. I hardly felt the ground beneath me. There he stood waiting, his mouth open and the laugh half out of it. As I got nearer, the sound ceased.

Afterwards I found on me the marks of his teeth and nails. At the time I felt nothing, but noted he was no wrestler, having trusted in his club. So I got an arm-grip as he tried to throttle me, and let him throw himself over my back. He lay, as Dexios had before him, dazed, with his head over the edge, all ready. I don’t think he knew where he was going, till he was by himself in the air. Then I saw his mouth open again, but not for laughter. There was a great round-topped rock at the water’s edge, shaped like a tortoise; he struck it head-on. The cliffs are high, just about there.

I went to see where Dexios had fallen. He lay dead across a sharp rock lapped by the sea, which rippled his white tunic and brown hair. I climbed down as far as I could above him, and sprinkled the earth to free him for his journey, promising him the offerings later. At least I had given him the one murdered men need most.

Feeding the horses and yoking them up, I was reminded by my clumsiness of his long-learned skill, consumed like a thorn-twig in the fire. I mounted and gathered in the reins, and felt what it is to be alone.

A little way on, a fellow met me with obeisance, and told me people were looting the house of Skiron, whom I had killed, offering to lead me there that I might claim my due. I told him to help himself to it, if he could get it, and drove on leaving him downcast. The jackal does not like to do his own hunting.

That was my last fight in the Isthmus. Either I was lucky, or people were avoiding me. By evening I was clear of it, and driving through the Megarian foothills beside the sea. Dusk was falling, and ahead to the east the mountains of Attica looked thunder-black against the heavy sky. The road was desolate, the only sound wolves howling, or the scream of a rabbit nipped by the fox. Soon the track grew dangerous for horses in the bad light, and I had to lead them.

Other things go to make a grown man, besides proving himself with his hands. Now when no one threatened me, I was as lonely as a child. This dark rough road seemed forgotten by the Sky Gods, and given to earth-daimons not friendly to man. I ached from fighting, felt my wounds, and grieved for my friend. For comfort I called to mind that the King of Megara was Hellene, and my father’s kinsman. But round me was only the friendless night, and I remembered rather that my father had sent no word to me since my birth. I thought of Troizen, the round hearth in the Great Hall, the fire of sweet-burning wood in its great warm bed of ash, my mother sitting among her women, and the lyre going from hand to hand.

Suddenly there was a great clamor of dogs, and whistling; and from the next bend I saw a fire. There was a fold of rough stones and thorn bushes, and round the fire six or eight little goatherds, the eldest not past thirteen and the youngest eight or nine. They had been piping, to keep their courage up with music against the ghosts of night. At sight of me, they scampered off to hide among the goats; but when I called to them, presently they came out, and I sat among them to get warm.

They helped me unyoke the horses—one could see them in their mind’s eye charioteers already—and showed me where to find water and feed. I shared with them my figs and barley bread, and they with me their goat-milk cheese, while they called me “My lord,” and asked where I had come from. Not all the tale of my day was fit for lads so young in a place so lonely, who had enough to fear from leopards and wolves. But I showed them Skiron’s club, which I had brought away, and told them there had been an end of him, since he seemed a bugbear that haunted their dreams. They sat or lay around me, their rough hair falling over their bright eyes, their mouths opening in shrill sounds of wonder, asking what this or that place was like not ten miles off, as you or I might ask of Babylon.

It was full night. I could see no more the darkling sea nor the black mountains; only the rough walls of the fold, the dim shapes of goats within it, and the ring of faces flushed by the fire, which caught the polish of a reed pipe smooth with handling, a herd dog’s yellow eyes, a bone knife hilt, or a tangle of fair hair. They brought me brush for a bed, and we lay down beside the embers. When they had crept together under two threadbare blankets like puppies scuffling for a place near the dam, there was one small one left outside, the runt of the Utter. I saw him drawing his knees up to his chin, and offered him some of my cloak; he smelled of goats’ dung, and had more fleas than an old dog, but after all he was my host.

Presently he said to me, “I wish we always had a man to stay with us. Sometimes it thunders, or one hears the lion.” Soon he fell asleep, but I lay waking by the husk of the fire, watching the bright stars turn through the heaven. “To be a king,” I thought, “what is it? To do justice, go to war for one’s people, make their peace with the gods? Surely, it is this.”