The King Must Die: A Novel

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WHEN THEY LED US up to the Palace in the fresh morning, and I saw from the upper terrace the glittering sun-path on the sea, I thought to myself, “Only four days out from home, and here I am a King.”

Nothing is good enough at Eleusis for a new-made King. They drown his days in honey. Gold necklaces, inlaid daggers, tunics of silk from Babylon, rose-oil from Rhodes; the dancers throwing flowers; the bard, lest you should miss the compliment, singing it again in Greek. Young girls sighing; the King is everyone’s beloved. Old women cooing; he is everybody’s son. And among the Companions, the guard of high-born youths who are in the running themselves for King, it seemed too that I was everybody’s brother. I did not notice at first that I was not the eldest brother, but the youngest spoiled by all the rest. I had other things to think of.

The great bedchamber faced southward. When one waked at morning, one saw in the wide window only the rose-flushed sky; then sitting up, the hills of Attica purpled with daybreak, and the gray landlocked bay. The walls were painted with white spirals and pink flowers, the floor had red and black checkers. The bed was of Egyptian ebony studded with gold barley-ears, and had a cover of civetskins bordered with dark purple. In a withy cage at the window lived a bird with smooth white feathers color-shot like pearl shell, which whistled at sunrise, and when one looked least for it sometimes spoke. It made me start, and she used to laugh. The earliest sunlight glowed deeply in her hair; strong hair, and springing; when one gathered it up, it filled both hands full.

I lived all day for the night. Sometimes I fell asleep at noon, and did not wake till evening; then I would not sleep again till dawn. I hardly noticed at the marriage sacrifice how, though I killed the victims, it was the Queen who offered them, as if she were the King. At the Games I won the spear-throwing and the jumping, and a silly horse race with little Minyan ponies. Also I won the archery, though I had thought my eye would be out from going short of sleep.

There was no wrestling; it seemed that had been settled already. But if you are supposing these were the funeral games of the dead King, you will be wrong; they were held in my honor. He was gone from sight and mind; I have grieved longer for a dog than they did for him. What is more, I was Kerkyon now. It is the style of Kings of Eleusis, like Pharaoh in Egypt and Minos in Crete. So the man had not even left a name behind him.

Days passed, and the Palace business began again. Down on the plain the army turned out to exercise, throwing spears at the stuffed hog, or shooting at the mark. But this, I found, was not supposed to concern me. It would not answer, for war leaders to come and go, one every year. The troops were led by Xanthos, the Queen’s brother. He was a big man as Minyans go, on whom his sister’s red hair was not beautiful. He had the russet eyes of a fox. There are hot red men and cold red men, and he was one of the cold. He used to speak to me man to boy, which made me angry. Though he could give me a dozen years, I was the King; and I was still new enough in Eleusis to suppose this meant something.

Every day the Queen held audience. Seeing the Hall filled with women, I did not understand at first that she was doing all the kingdom’s business without me. But the women were heads of families; they came about land disputes, or taxes, or marriage portions. Fathers were nobody in Eleusis, and could not choose wives for their own sons, or leave them a name, let alone property. The men stood at the back till the women had been heard; and if she wanted a man’s advice, she sent for Xanthos.

One night at bedtime, I asked her if there was nothing in Eleusis for the King to do. She smiled and said, “Oh, yes. Undo this necklace; it is caught in my hair.” I did not move at once, but looked at her. She said, “Why should the King sit at clerk’s business with ugly old men?” Then she let fall her belt and petticoat and said, coming nearer, “See, it is pulling here. It hurts me.” And there was no more talk that night.

Just afterwards, I learned by chance that she had seen an embassy from Rhodes, and never even told me. I overheard it on the Lower Terrace; the stewards had heard it first. I stood there in my tracks. No one had so insulted me since my childhood. “What does she take me for?” I thought. “Because I have less beard than her fox-eyed brother, does she think I need a nurse? Thunder of Zeus! I killed her husband.” Anger blurred my eyes.

There were voices about me. The young Companions were escorting me, as they did everywhere. I hardly knew one yet from another; there had been no time. “What is it, Kerkyon? Does something trouble you?” “You look sick.” “No, he looks angry.” “Kerkyon, is there something I can do?”

I said it was nothing. I had too much pride to say I had been made light of. But when her women had gone that night, I asked her what she meant by it.

She looked at me amazed. It seemed she really could not see why I was angry. She said she had done nothing against custom; and I saw it was true. As for making light of me … she shook out her hair, and laughed at me through it sidelong.

Next morning dawned green and gold. A tress of red hair lay tickling on my breast. I lifted it off and slid away, and went to the window. The Attic hills swam in gold mist, across a shimmering sea, looking near enough to hit with an arrow. I thought how strange are the ways of Earthlings, and hard for a Hellene to understand. For she had chosen me, and set me to the wrestling, and hallowed me King. Yet neither she nor anyone else had asked if I consented to my moira.

The white bird woke and whistled. Her voice from the bed said wide awake, “You are thinking. What are you thinking of?” I made her the answer she liked best. I was the first Hellene she had ever married.

From this day on, I awoke from dreaming. I had spent the long days of Eleusis in sleep, in dancing or wrestling with the young men, playing the lyre, or looking out to sea. Now I began to seek for occupation. It is not in my nature to do nothing.

The Companions were nearest to my hand. If there was war, at least I should have command of my own Guard, though Xanthos led the rest. It was time I paid them some attention.

These youths, as I was saying, never left me, except when I was with the Queen in bed. They were all well set up, well bred and personable, or they would not have been where they were; they were chosen for such things, rather than for feats of arms. I had no need of their protection, for in Eleusis nothing was so dreadful as to kill the King out of his time. After suffering many pains, the killer would be sealed in a tomb alive, for Night’s Daughters to do their will on him. It was long since it had happened, and then by misadventure. But the Companions were an adornment for the King, which the people liked to see about him.

They all had more or less Greek, which was the mark there of a gentleman. When I began to talk with them, they seemed to me very vain, full of petty jealousies and rivalries, feeling slights as a cat does water, and always trying to put each other down. They were curious about me, because I was a Hellene, and, as I learned after a while, because of some oracle concerning me which had been kept secret from the people. I remembered the dead King’s laughter; but it told one nothing.

From all I could see, they had done little till now but play at war training. They did not lack spirit, so I suppose most of the kings had not looked beyond their own term. But wherever I am, I must put my hand to what I find there.

Men soon get stale with courtyard exercise; so I got them into the hills. At first they went unwillingly; Eleusinians are plainsmen, and despise the mountains as poor barren land, fit for wolves and robbers. I asked them whatever they did when raiders came for their cattle, if they did not know the borderland. They took this quite well, and owned the Megarians often made away with stock, trying to make good their losses by the Isthmus bandits the other side. “Well,” I said, “there’s only one answer to that. They must be made to fear us more.” So I took them scrambling; we got a buck, and roasted our kill by a mountain stream, and they were pleased with the day. But on the way home one of them said to me, “Don’t tell anyone, Kerkyon. You would be stopped next time for sure.”

“Oh?” I said, raising my brows. “Who would stop me, do you think?” There was some whispering; I heard, “Well, you fool, he’s a Hellene.” Then someone said civilly, “You see, it is very unlucky if the King dies out of season.”

This is quite true. There is a Minyan song about some young King long ago, who got himself killed by a boar after the Queen had forbidden him to go hunting. Anemones are said to be dyed with his blood. The olives failed that year, and no one has ever heard the last of it.

All the same, we were in the hills again next day, and the day after. Eleusis lies between two Hellene kingdoms; when the youths found their mothers’ rule bear heavy, they would cast an eye sidelong at the lands of men. So they came, and kept the secret, and were pleased with themselves. My trophies of the chase, which I could not show in the Palace, I gave away as prizes; but I had to be careful, or they would quarrel over them, being much given to rivalry. Time passed like this; as we got used to each other’s speech, we had a language of our own, Greek-Minyan laced with our own jokes and catchwords. No one else could understand it.

One day, when we were straggled out on the mountain, I heard them calling to each other, “We have lost Boy!” “Where is Boy, have you seen him?” I climbed into view and someone said, “There he is.”

I had put up with a good deal in Eleusis; but I did not mean to swallow insolence. I came forward, reminding myself that I passed for nineteen, and the eldest of them was not one and twenty. “The next one who calls me Boy,” I said, “I am going to kill.”

They all stood gaping. “Well?” I said. “Here we are on the border. Anyone who kills me can run away; or you can throw my body off a rock, if you like, and say I fell. I shan’t hide behind the Goddess’ skirts; but let’s see first who can kill me. Who thinks I am a boy? Come out and say it.”

There was a pause; then the eldest, a young man called Bias who had a proper beard, said, “But, Kerkyon, no one here would insult you. It is the other way.” More of them joined in, calling, “It is our name for you.” “Kerkyon is nothing; it is cold.” “All the good kings have nicknames.” And one who was always bold and reckless said, laughing, “It’s all in love, Kerkyon. You know you could have any one of us for a wink.” At this two or three shouted out agreeing, between joke and earnest, letting me see it was an offer; and next moment two had started a fight.

I got them parted, and let it go as foolery. Everyone knows there is a good deal of this among the Minyans; and one cannot wonder. It comes of being tied to their mothers’ petticoats after they are men. Their mothers even choose their wives for them. Then they go to the wife’s house, and change one petticoat for another. When a man lives like this, a youth he can choose for himself, who looks up to him and copies him and boasts of his friendship, will give him more pride in himself than the womenfolk at home. I see no sense in looking down on this; most customs have a reason; even among Hellenes, in a long war where girls are scarce and the leaders are first served, the young men’s friendships grow tenderer than they were.

One can be, as I am, a man for women, yet not dislike having friends in a strange land, or a loyal Guard. If they had been tiresome or importunate I might have wondered, being young, how I was going to deal with it; but this time, for once, there was something in being King. “Well,” I said to them, “even kings have names where I come from. Mine is Theseus.” So they took to using it, though it was clean against the custom.

If I had fancied one of them, there would have been no end to bloodshed and intrigue; one heard stories of former years. As it was, it was only a matter of taking care. A few meant what they said; with others it was a fashion; they had friends of their own or were in love with girls, usually with girls their mothers would not let them marry. Troubles like this they brought to me, and when I could I urged their causes with the Queen. But it hurts a man’s pride, to coax a woman when he has no power to do more. Just as when I was a boy, I began to find wild ways of proving myself to myself. I would have wished for war; but westward were the Megarians, my father’s hearth-friends and kindred; and eastward was my father.

I heard a good deal about the cattle wars with Megara; some of my young men were old enough to have been in the last themselves. King Nisos, they said, was too old to fight, but his son Pylas could fight for two. I learned, from hints here and there, that the Queen’s brother was not much loved by his men. No one questioned his courage; but he was thought overbearing, and greedy with the spoil. There was a proverb among them, “Xanthos’ share.”

My grandfather had said to me, “Take care as you pass through Megara not to give offense, or get into a brawl. King Nisos is the only sure ally your father has, your grandmother’s brother. King Pandion fled there from Athens once during the wars for the kingdom; your father himself was born there.” As autumn drew on, these words stuck in my mind. It is a time for raids, before winter closes the ways. Once in the field, I thought, it would be a poor thing if I did not single this Pylas out for combat; people might well, then, call me Boy. Yet whether I killed him or he killed me, my father stood to lose by it. I began to dread this war as much as a man might who was scared of fighting.

Lying at dawn in the painted bedchamber, thinking my own thoughts before the white bird whistled at the sun, I saw it was time I slipped off to Athens. But how to do it? It would have been easier for a slave than for the King. I was always among people: dancing at festivals, parading at the sacrifice (though I never offered it); everywhere I went the Guard went with me; and at night I had only to move as far as the edge of the bed, for the Queen to wake. There were the hunting trips in the hills; but I knew the Companions, thinking I was lying hurt somewhere, would set the dogs to find me. Besides, they would be punished for losing me; killed, for all I knew; and I had begun to feel answerable for them. Being with them so much, I could not help it.

Then, supposing I did get away, I should still get to my father’s court a beggarly fugitive, perhaps with the Queen threatening war. A fine fool I should look, in flight from a woman. I had wanted to go to him a man who has been heard of. I had wanted him to say, before he knew me, “I wish I had such a son.”

“No!” I thought. “By Ever-Living Zeus! I have time before me: autumn, winter, and spring. If I can’t get openly to Athens with my name running before me, I deserve to stay in Eleusis, and accept the moira of her kings.”

I looked about me, and listened, and thought. I considered the Megarians, and Pylas, Nisos’ son, who had the name of a warrior. There was only one way to avoid fighting him and keep my standing: somehow, and soon, we must make friends. I thought of this and that; but still I could not see my way to it.

Meantime, the night still had its sweetness; the harper’s song at supper-time seemed always a verse too long. But I no longer asked myself how I could ever leave her.

I never spoke to her of business when anyone was listening, lest she should shame me with slight answers; but if I tried it at night, she would pet me like a child. At home, when I was only ten, my grandfather used to make me sit quiet while he gave judgment, and question me after to see what I had taken in. Here, I had even litigants coming to me with bribes to get them her ear, as if I were some concubine. Of course they were women, so I could not hit them in the teeth.

I often saw her children about the Palace. There were only five, though she had married ten kings. By the last she had had none; and I hoped, as any man will, that she would take by me. But sometimes I heard the nurses talking, as if these children were some favor she had shown their fathers; as if she chose which kings she would bear to. So I never asked her. I knew, if I ever learned that she thought me not worth breeding from, I should be too angry to answer for myself.

Then came a day when she heard I had been climbing after leopard. You might have thought, from the way she rated me, I had been caught up an apple tree in my first pair of breeches. I was shocked dumb. My own mother, who remembered me a babe as naked as a worm, would not have said such things. Afterwards I thought of answers, but too late. That night in bed I turned away from her, thinking that here was something she was not master of. But here too, in the end, she had the better of me, for she understood these matters. Next morning my eyes opened before cocklight, and I lay awake ashamed. I saw I should have to do something to get my standing back. I did not mean to be a man all night and a child all day, for any woman’s pleasure.

I would hunt again, I thought; and this time it should be something big. Among the mountain herdboys I made it known that news of game would find me grateful. Before long, one came asking for me, all on tiptoe. “Kerkyon,” he said, “the great she-boar, Phaia, is in the border hills. She has come over from Megara, and has a den on Broken Mountain. They say she has a litter there.”

He went on to tell me of her; I had heard something already. She was said by the Megarians to have a javelin-head lodged in her side, which made her hate men; she would rush out from covert when no one hunted her, and kill the peasants for sport. There were five men to her count already.

This was just the kind of quarry I had been looking for. I gave the lad a reward that made him jump for joy. “The Good Goddess do as much for you, Kerkyon. King Nisos has put a price upon the beast; a tripod and an ox.”

This gave me a new thought. I called him back as he was going. “Does Pylas, King Nisos’ son, hunt about the border?” The boy said, “He will, sir, for sure, now she is there; he is always after her.” “Tell me,” I said, “if he is seen.”

He brought word a few days later. I beckoned the Guard about me, and said to them, “I have news of a brave beast in the hills.”

At this the wildest of them, a dark youth called Amyntor, gave a whoop and swallowed it. I heard someone’s voice claiming a bet. Of course they knew I had had my orders. There is nowhere for gossip like a palace of women, where it is common knowledge by noonday how many times you embraced your wife last night. They had all been waiting to see what I would do. All Eleusinians love strong happenings more than wine.

“Pylas of Megara and his friends,” I said, “think they can bay the she-boar of Krommyon. I don’t think we should let that pass, when she’s on our border.”

Their eyes grew wide. I saw them nudging and whispering, and was rather surprised; I had not found them easily frightened. Then one said aloud, “A she-pig!”

At this I remembered; these beasts are sacred in Eleusis. It did not please me; from the moment I had heard of Phaia, my heart had been set on her. But when I thought again, I saw it might work out for the best. “Be easy,” I said. “She will not die in Eleusis. Those hills are No Man’s Land. Nor will her blood be on you; boar are lawful killing for Hellenes, and I shall kill her.”

They stared at me. I could see they thought I was mad; and indeed I hardly knew myself why I was so resolved.

“Come,” I said, “we must be off before the sun is high. Pylas has the start of us.” I was afraid one of them might get fainthearted and tell. If I kept them together, they would egg each other on. It had become a fashion with them to be Hellene.

We started out when the Queen was giving audience. No one noticed. I knew better by now than to keep our spears and tackle in Eleusis. They were in a cave on a mountain farm. Up there we rested from our long climb, and the herdboy’s brother, who had been watching the quarry, gave us his news. Pylas’ party had bayed Phaia already; but she had broken through them, after killing two dogs and laying a man’s leg open. Rain had laid the scent; and the boy, to keep her for us, had sent the Megarians on a fool’s chase round the hill. She was still where she had gone to ground.

Rain hung about the hills; under dark-blue clouds the mountainside looked black and lowering. Down beyond it, far below and away, lay the plain and shore of Eleusis washed with pale sun. It was as if the dark came with us. One of the Guard, who was small and swarthy and Minyan all through, said, “Perhaps the Goddess is angry.”

I looked at the dark scrub and tumbled rocks, under the brooding clouds, and shivered. The Mother at Eleusis is not like the Mother at Troizen. But I was a Hellene; I had pledged myself before all my men; if I turned back now I would be better dead. “The Lady shall have her share,” I said, “along with Apollo.” As I named the god, a patch of sun swept across the hillside.

In a tumble of great rocks from an old slide, leaning together with young trees growing in them, was the she-boar’s lair.

We put up the nets as best we could. They were not very well staked, because there was rock under the earth. When they were in place, we slipped the dogs; they were mad to go, but not so eager to stay. They began to tumble out from the rocks, baying and belling. More came; and in their midst what seemed a great black boulder spewed out of the mountain. Then I saw it was alive.

I had thought, “Well, a boar-sow can only be so big.” I was well paid for being cocksure. The males we had hunted at home were piglings to her. She was like something left from the world of Titans and earthborn giants, living on in a lonely cleft of the hills. Only she was not old. The great curved tusks in her long black mask looked white and fresh, where they were not bloody. I had thought too slightly of the Megarians; they had not been afraid for nothing.

“What have I got myself into?” I thought. “Death in front of me, and shame behind. Death that way too, if my own men despise me.” I heard their voices as they saw her better. They were scared; they took her size for a portent.

She was in the nets now, wallowing and heaving. I started forward to take my one good chance. Next instant the stakes pulled out of the ground, and she came on dragging the whole tangle, full of dogs, behind her. If I did not stop her now, she would be in among the Companions. But I could never stop her. I had not got the weight.

There was a tall rock near by, with a flat side facing toward her. It showed me my last hope. She was at pause, confused by the nets about her. They would slow her charge, with luck. I vaulted over on my spear, and set my back against the rock, and levelled the spear point. The movement drew her eye; she came straight at me.

She stumbled once on the way. Even so, it took all my strength to check her rush just enough, and keep my spear from breaking.

It entered her breast just below the shoulder. I had set its butt to the stone behind me. It was her own might, not mine, that drove it into her. But it was I who had to hold on.

She hated men. As she thrust and jerked and squealed, I knew it was not her own life she fought for; it was mine. Fixed by my slender shaft to this huge force of earth, I felt as light as grass; I was beaten and bruised upon the rock behind me, as if the very mountain were trying to kill me on her breast like a pricking gnat. All the time I was waiting for the spear to crack. Then when I was braced to the thrust she pulled instead, so that my arm nearly sprang from its socket. I knew I was nearly done; and then she thrust again. It must have changed the line of the spear head. One more great writhe and wallow she gave, that ground the spear butt upon the rock; but it was her death-throe.

I stood and panted, too spent at first to feel or know anything. When I leaned on the rock, my blood stuck to it like birdlime. Then, it seemed from far away, I heard the cheers of the Companions; and, though my feet would hardly hold me up, my life quickened within me. I felt like a man who has done what a god willed for him; free and shining; and full of luck.

The Companions rushed forward. Forgetting themselves, they shouted, “Boy! Boy!” and tossed me in the air. “Boy” I minded no longer; but my grazes hurt. Soon seeing the blood, they put me down, and shouted to each other for oil, which no one had brought, and blamed each other and bickered. I said, “Sow’s fat will do,” but a man on the hillside just above said, “I have some oil. You are welcome.”

I saw a Hellene warrior, about twenty-eight years old. His yellow hair was plaited and clubbed for hunting; his beard was trimmed and his upper lip shaved clean, and he had light-gray eyes, bright and quick. Behind him followed a youth with boar-spears, and a troop of hunters. I thanked him, and asked him for form’s sake if he was Pylas son of Nisos, though I knew he was. It was all over him.

“Yes,” he said. “You have robbed me of my quarry, lad, but the sight was cheap at the price. I think you are this year’s Kerkyon, who came by way of the Isthmus.”

I told him yes, and he looked half sorry to hear it, which already seemed strange after Eleusis. As for his calling me lad, one cannot in reason expect the heir of a Hellene kingdom to treat a year-king like royalty.

“Yes,” I said. “I am Kerkyon, but my name is Theseus. I am a Hellene.”

“So it seems,” he said, looking at the she-boar; and called his spear-bearer to oil my back. I was glad to find him a gentleman, seeing he was my cousin.

Meantime there was a crowd round the quarry, and I could hear some of my boys taunting the Megarians. This could make trouble in no time, between men lately at war. I signed to them to stop, but they were too pleased with themselves. Just as I was going over, Pylas said, “You have a prize to claim from my father; a tripod and an ox.”

In all the to-do I had even forgotten this, though it was what I had been after. Nothing could have been better. “Listen!” I called. “Here’s a man who doesn’t know what meanness is. Though he missed the kill, he is reminding us to claim the prize.” They sobered down then, ashamed to keep it up. I said, “The ox shall be our victory feast, for the quarry belongs to the Lady and to Apollo. We will roast it here, and ask these warriors to eat it with us.” Pylas looked like a man who could take a joke, so I said to him apart, “Pig-meat is forbidden them; but an ox from Megara always eats sweet.” He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. Somewhere in the rocks there were piglings squeaking. “By Zeus!” I said, “I forgot her litter. If your father cares for sucking pig, take him these with my greetings.” He sent a man in among the rocks. The litter was four sows and seven boars; so we had saved the people of those parts some trouble.

They set about skinning the sow. Afterwards I had a good war helm made of her skin and teeth; the leather worked well, pliant and strong. Before the skinning was done, Pylas’ men came back with the prize. They brought wood too for the roasting, and to burn the sacrifice. I saw him stare when my Minyans offered to Apollo; but that was a custom of the Guard these days. They thought well of a god who protects men from the wrath of goddesses, and can hold off the Daughters of Night. I had never brought them to think much of Poseidon. In Eleusis the Mother’s husbands, like the Queen’s, are of small account.

All this had brought us on to the time when shadows lengthen. The clouds had cleared, and a sunlight like golden wine lay on the mountains. I said to Pylas, “One can’t travel these hills in darkness; yet what a pity to throw down such a feast as this like men upon the march. Why not find a hollow out of the wind, and some brush to sleep on? Then we can sing and tell tales till midnight.”

His bright gray eyes opened wide. Then he looked as if he was going to laugh. But he wiped it from his face, and said courteously that nothing could be better. I turned to my troop; and saw them all in a huddle. Bias came up and muttered in my ear. “Theseus. Isn’t that going too far?” “How so?” I said. He whispered, “Surely you know the King never sleeps out.”

I had not given it a thought, I had been so pleased to be living again like a man among men. For nothing on earth would I excuse myself now to Pylas, and be the mock of his Hellenes. “There is a first time,” I said, “for everything.” He took a deep breath. “Don’t you see? As it is you have put your life in hazard, after Madam said not. And you have killed a she-pig. And now, if you sleep out, she will think you’re with a woman.”

He meant well, but it had gone far enough. “Those are things for man and wife to settle between them. You have spoken, Bias, and I have listened. Now go and help the others.”

The spits were fixed, the tinder kindled. Evening fell, and the hollow was filled with firelight as an offering bowl with wine. Wine indeed was all we lacked; when lo, men came up from a village below, with a whole skin of it, to thank us for killing Phaia. They stared at the trophy, and I thought, “By dark the news will be in Eleusis. Well, in for a calf, in for a cow.”

The meat was done, and our teeth were sharp for it. Pylas shared with me his cup of horn rimmed with gold; the rest tipped the wineskin. Everyone sang, Hellenes and Minyans picking up each other’s refrains. My lads were first constrained, then wild; Hellenes for tonight, but in awe of the morrow. I had thoughts of it myself.

As the noise grew loud, Pylas and I moved up together. It was a time for talk. For this I had killed Phaia. Yet I felt my youth more now than when she was on my spear. Often at Troizen I had helped my grandfather entertain such men. I had made myself civil in Hall; told the harper what to compliment them on, or sung to them myself; taken them hunting, to see they got good sport without being killed; and seen them off with their guest gifts, after they came down from the upper room with their business over. I had been a lad on the fringe of men’s affairs. While I was thinking this, I heard a Megarian mutter, “As the Queen gets older, the kings get younger. Now here is one with no beard.”

This did me a good turn. For Pylas, being a gentleman and fearing I had heard, asked me to relate how I killed Skiron. It was half my work done for me.

After the songs had begun again, we were still speaking of the Isthmus. I said, “I fought my way through alive, and that’s one man’s work there. But by now someone else is working Skiron’s bit of road. So it will be, till the place is swept clean end to end. Not one man’s work, nor one kingdom’s either.” The singing was loud; the wine had just been round again. I said, “Two might do it.”

I saw his eyes shine. But he was shrewd, and had lived ten good years longer in the world than I. “That would be a war! But would it tempt the Eleusinians? What about their sea trade, if the road were open?” I shook my head; I had given this thought. “The road runs through Eleusis too. It would bring them trade when winter closes the seaways. Besides,” I said smiling, “their cattle might fatten in peace, if the Megarians kept theirs.”

He laughed. I saw he was listening man to man. But I would soon lose him, if I sounded too simple or too rash. I said, “Your father would need to treat with Xanthos, the Queen’s brother, not with me. But everyone knows in Eleusis that he fights for what he can carry away. Tell him the robbers’ holds are stuffed with booty. That will make him listen.”

Pylas passed me his drinking horn. Presently he said, “You have thought this out well, Theseus. Tell me, how old are you?” I said, “Nineteen.” I almost believed it myself by now. He looked at me, and began laughing into his beard. “What have they done in Eleusis? They set traps for deer and got a leopard. Don’t they know it yet? Tell me, lad, why are you doing this? What will it be to you, this time next year?”

“When you die, Pylas,” I said, “they will make a tomb for you, lined with dressed stone. They will put your ring on your finger and your sword in your hands; your best spear they will give you, and your offering cup, and the cup you drink from in Hall. After a hundred years, when the ring lies loose on bone, old men will say to their grandsons, ‘That is the tomb of Pylas son of Nisos, and these were his deeds.’ And the child will tell his grandson, who will tell his. But in Eleusis dead kings are dug into the fields like horse dung, and have no names. If I don’t write my epitaph, who will?”

He nodded, and said, “That is a good reason.” But still he looked at me, and I knew what he was going to say.

“Theseus, I have lived near thirty years hard by Eleusis. I know how a man looks who foreknows his end. It is in the blood of the Earthlings; they go to it like birds before whose eyes the snake is dancing. But if she dances for the leopard, the leopard jumps first.”

He was shrewd; I should have been a fool to lie to him. I said, “Where I come from, it is the consent that binds a man.” Then I said, “But I might meet it in battle. Who wants to live on without a name?”

“Not you, that is clear. But with leaven like you working in the lump, the custom might alter in Eleusis. There are tales of such things, in our fathers’ days.”

His words waked thoughts that had lain sleeping in my heart. Now after my victory new things seemed possible, and I was too young to hide it. As I looked into the core of the fire he said, “Yes, and we might find you a restless neighbor.”

I liked his frankness. We understood each other. “This is your father’s ox we are eating,” I said, “and my prize. I don’t know which is host or guest, but we are hearth-friends either way.” He scanned my face with one of his sharp bright looks; then he took my hand and gripped it.

The fire crumbled; the ashes grew red and gray with a few sparks of gold; the dogs mumbled their bones full-bellied. As it grew quiet, we leaned and fell to whispering; I could see more than one of my Minyans lying awake to watch if he would make love to me. We agreed together to press for war that autumn rather than wait for spring; like me, he was one to decide on a thing and do it. “Ask your father,” I said, “to say he has heard that Kerkyon knows his way across the Isthmus. My young men won’t like to be a rear guard.” He laughed and promised. Then we slept; I on my face, because my back was sore. Next morning when we all set off home, he gave me his gold-rimmed cup as a guest gift. The Companions stared, and wondered if they had stayed awake long enough.

It was a little after noon when we got back to Eleusis. I saw the people looking out for us; they cheered the boar-mask, which two men carried on spears. I had had enough of hiding my doings like a naughty boy.

The Palace day room was empty of her, but only just. The chief nurse was still there with the children, and the shuttle swung from the loom. When I went upstairs, the chamber door was bolted.

I walked off with my face on fire. I was too young to take it easily. I thought it would be all over the kingdom that my wife could put me out like a slave. When I had knocked the second time, I had heard a maid giggle within; and two servants passed as I turned away, wiping smiles off their faces. She did not treat me so lightly when we were in bed.

Before me were the stairs that went up to the roof. I ran up them, and looked down to the royal terrace. It was not very far; and there was no one about but a woman far off drying clothes. I slid between the teeth of the battlements, hung, and let go. From a boy I had known how to fall lightly.

I landed on my feet, and wrenched my ankle a little; not enough to lame me, but it hurt, and sharpened my anger. I ran to the window of the bedchamber, threw wide the curtains, and found her in her bath.

For a moment, it put me in mind of my mother’s room ten years back; the girl with hairpins and comb, the dress spread on the bed, the scented steam rising from the glazed red clay. My mother was whiter, and her scent more fresh and springlike; she had been younger, but I did not think of that. I heard the Queen’s breath hiss, and I saw her face.

Once in my boyhood, when my tutor had a beating stored for me, I came in by chance before he looked for it, and caught him getting his face slapped by a Palace girl. The beating was a hard one. Now too I came before my time; there was a diadem put out for her higher than the one she wore every day. She stared at me, knees up in the bath, her face unpainted and wet with steam, one foot stuck out while the nails were pared. I saw she would make me pay for it.

She snatched her foot back, making the maid drop the knife. “Go out,” she said, “and wait. We are not ready.” I might have been a servant. It was all I needed. “It is no matter, Madam,” I said, “that you were not there to welcome me. Something prevented you. We will say no more of it.” And I sat down on the bed. There was a stir and flutter among the women. But I saw from their quiet they were afraid of her. In my mother’s room, it would have been like a pigeon loft when the cat gets in.

She sat bolt upright in the bath. I picked up her purple bodice, and looked at the embroidery. “Fine work, Madam,” I said. “Is it your own?” She signed to one of the women, who wrapped her in white linen as she stood up. “What is this insolence? Have your senses left you? Get up, and go.” I glanced at the maids and answered, “We will talk, Madam, when we are alone. Let us remember who we are.”

Suddenly she rushed toward me, the linen clutched about her, her red hair streaming. I can’t remember all she called me: barbarian horsebreaker, son of cattle thieves, northern lout, a savage not fit to live indoors. The women shrank together like scared sheep, near to the door. I jumped up, shouted “Out!” and while their mouths were still gaping pushed them through it. Then I shot the bolt.

I went quickly back to her and grasped her elbows, holding her hands well back from my eyes. “Lady,” I said, “I never yet beat a woman; but I never saw one so forget herself. It is not for my honor to let my wife abuse me like a thief. Be quiet, and don’t force me to correct you. That would be no pleasure to either of us.”

For a moment she stood all stiff between my hands. Then her mouth opened. I had known there must be guards in call. But it was that or let her be my master.

When her eyes looked past me, I set my hand across her mouth. She tried to bite me, but I kept it there. She was strong for a woman. As we swayed struggling, we tripped on the bath, and overturned it as we fell. There we lay in a wet welter on the checkered floor, among scents of spilled oils and unguents and broken jars from the bath stool. The linen sheet, which had not been girdled onto her, grew heavy with warm water and dragged away. “For once in this room,” I thought, “it shall be a man who says when.” In that same moment, I felt a pain in my shoulder like a bee-sting. She had caught up the dropped paring knife. It was not very long, but long enough, I think, to have touched the heart, only I moved and spoilt her aim.

Blood spread on the wet linen in great blots of scarlet. But I kept my hand over her mouth. “Think before you call,” I said. “Your guards are beyond the door; my dagger is here. If you send me below before my time, by Zeus you shall come with me.”

I gave her a moment more to think, and then let go. She drew a great breath—I suppose I had nearly choked her—then she turned her face against the bloody linen, and shook all over with weeping.

I was too young to have expected it. For a while I lay beside her staring like a fool, and could think of nothing better to do than pull out a broken crock from under her back, lest it should cut her, while my blood splashed down upon her breast. I wiped it off with the linen, and managed to stop the flow a little. Then I picked her up out of the mess and water, and carried her to bed.

After a while, one of the women scratched on the door, and asked if the Queen wanted anything. “Yes,” I said, “bring us some wine.” When it came I took it in; and after that we did not get up till lamp-lighting. It might have been longer, but she said the place must be cleared up before night. I must own it looked as if conquering troops had sacked it.

After this there was a time of quiet in Eleusis. I set myself to please her; once I had shown I was no one’s dog, I had no wish for strife. I slept no more away, and indeed had no call to wander. There were one or two of her girls who looked aslant in corners, now they thought they knew I had a roving eye; but I looked away. Sometimes I saw the woman who had wept for Kerkyon. She was a bath-pourer; but when she came to wait on me I used to call someone else. A look of hate strikes cold when one is naked.

We had had the first touch of morning frost, when heralds came from the King of Megara, calling for the Eleusinians to help him purge the Isthmus. The terms were those I had agreed on with Pylas: no more cattle raids, a fair share of the spoils, and free passage through either kingdom for the other’s traffic, when the road was open.

Xanthos called a war council, on the plain by the shore. This was the only men’s assembly the law of the land allowed. I came with my Guard, and led them to the accustomed place. I had told them to make a good entry, bold without swagger, which, as I see it, is the mark of a man who conceives his courage could be doubted. The warriors seemed to approve their style.

The Megarian herald spoke, putting in those arguments which are not graceful for kings to write in letters. The council was quite orderly. They had picked up from the Hellenes the use of the scepter, and I saw no one speak without it. Before long they had agreed on war; but the older men were for waiting until spring.

This was all very well, for people with the rest of their lives before them. I stood up, and held out my hand for the gold-bossed staff. “In winter,” I said, “men eat up the summer’s wealth. Why should these misbegotten thieves feast through a season on fat livestock that might be ours? With captive girls warming their beds who would be glad enough to change masters?” The young men liked this, and cheered. “Besides,” I said, “over so long, they will get wind of our coming. It will give them time to make their towers strong, and dig their gold into the ground. We should lose the richest of the booty, that at the best.” They all saw sense in this; Xanthos too had listened. He reminded the men we should be in two days’ march from home with no sea crossing, and gave his casting vote for war in autumn.

The Megarian herald then proposed that Kerkyon, who had done things in the Isthmus, should lead the vanguard. I kept my eye on Xanthos, from whom I looked for some hindrance or other; I thought he might not like the noise. But when he could be heard, he said very civilly that there could be nothing against it.

I felt well pleased with myself. I had thought I should have my work cut out with him. Once or twice, since the tussle in the marriage chamber, I had caught his eye on me. I thought my eloquence had won him over. A boy is youngest when he thinks himself a man.