The King Must Die: A Novel

3

THE KNOSSOS ROAD CLIMBS from the port between orchards and silver olives. It is a rich land, within its deathly cliffs. The black troops still escorted us; but Lukos avoided me, which I did not find strange, for I had angered a powerful lord, and that is a catching sickness. The houses of the rich merchants lining the road were like small palaces; I was always expecting one to be the house of the King, but ceased to ask when I saw the black men grinning.

We passed the houses, and Lukos came nearer, like a man pondering a doubtful horse. I said to him, “Who was that man in the ox-car?” He looked about him, hiding it, in the way of the Palace people; then he said. “You were foolish. That was the King’s son, Asterion.” I laughed and said, “A starry name for an earthy thing.” He answered, “It is not for you to use it. The style of the heir is Minotauros.”

Something came back to me. A feather seemed to brush the short hairs on my neck. But I said nothing to the others; it concerned my own moira only.

The road was coming out on a fertile plain, with a range of mountains beyond. The shape of the ridge was for all the world like a great long bearded man, lying flat on a bier. I pointed it out and Iros said, “I’ve heard of that. They call it the Dead Zeus.” “Dead!” cried the Cranes all together, shocked at the impiety. “Yes,” he said. “These Earthlings think he dies each year.” I was still staring at the mountain when Melantho called, “Look! Look!” And then, on a spur of the foothills that thrust into the plain, I saw for the first time the House of the Ax.

Picture to yourself all the kings’ palaces you ever saw, set side by side and piled on one another. That will be a little house, beside the House of the Ax. It was a palace within whose bounds you could have set a town. It crowned the ridge and clung to its downward slopes, terrace after terrace, tier after tier of painted columns, deep glowing red, tapering in toward the base, and ringed at head and foot with that dark brilliant blue the Cretans love. Behind them in the noonday shadow were porticoes and balconies gay with pictured walls, which glowed in the shade like beds of flowers. The tops of tall cypresses hardly showed above the roofs of the courts they grew in. Over the highest roof-edge, sharp-cut against the deep-blue Cretan sky, a mighty pair of horns reared toward heaven.

The sight winded me like a blow in the belly. I had heard travellers’ tales third-hand, but pictured them in the likeness of what I knew. I felt like a goatherd who comes in from the back hills and sees his first city. My mouth fell open in just such a peasant’s gape, and I shut it quickly before Lukos could look. Now when no one was hurting me, I could have wept indeed. All about me the Cranes were chattering and gasping. Presently Amyntor said to me, “Where are the walls?”

I looked. The Palace stood on an easy slope; yet it had no more walls than a common dwelling-house might have, to keep thieves out and slaves in. The roofs were even without battlements, crowned only by their insolent horns, a pair facing each way. Such was the power of Minos. His walls were on the waters, which his ships commanded. I stared in silence, shutting my face on my despair. I felt like a child come among warriors with a wooden spear. Also I felt up-country, rude and ignorant, which hurts a young man more. “All very fine,” I said. “But if war came to Crete, they could not hold it a day.”

Lukos had heard me. But here on his home ground he was too easy for anger. He said with his careless smile, “The House of the Ax has stood here a thousand years, and never fell yet except when the Earth Bull shook it. It was old when you Hellenes were herdsmen still on the northern grasslands. I see you doubt me, but that is natural. We have learned from the Egyptians to reckon years and ages. You, I think, have a saying, ‘Time out of mind.’” He strolled on, before I had an answer.

We entered the Palace precinct by the great West Gate. On either side there were staring people. Before us was the great red lintel-column, the painted shadows beyond. I walked ahead, looking straight before me. If someone spoke, or anything new confused me, I would pause, and turn slowly as if I had just deigned to notice it. When I look back, all this seems laughable, a boyish vanity, not to be caught like a bumpkin at a loss. And yet, the mark of those days has never left me. I have heard people say in Athens that my bearing is more kingly than my father’s was. But I was quick-moving as a youth, pricking like a dog at everything around me. It was in the House of the Ax that I learned stillness, and to keep my speed till I had call for it.

The Palace people had swarmed to look; yet I thought these seemed of less consequence than those who had come all the way down to the port to see us. It puzzled me, but I could make nothing of it. We passed the guardhouse, and entered a great Throne Boom of audience. It was full of guards and priestesses and priests and Palace people; and against the far wall was a tall white throne, but it was empty.

Once more we waited, but this time in deep decorum. The people peeped discreetly, and murmured together. To pass the time, I raised my eyes to the walls; and then I forgot my resolve to stare at nothing new. For pictured there was the bull-dance, from the taking of the bull to the very end: beauty and pain, skill and glory, fleetness and fear and grace and blood, all that fierce music. My eyes were glued to it, till I heard a woman whisper, “Look at that one. Already he wants to learn.” But just then voices said, “Hush.”

The guards’ spears rattled. King Minos entered, and went up the side of the dais, and sat upon his carved white throne, resting hands on knees like the gods of Egypt. He wore a long red belted robe, and he looked tall; but that might have been his horns. The light from the portico gleamed dimly back from his gold face and crystal eyes.

In the quiet, I heard from the Cranes soft indrawn breaths. But that was all. Old Cretans say we were the first band of victims, seeing Minos in his bull-mask, of whom not one cried aloud for fear.

The mask was the work of some great artificer, solemn and noble. But before I had looked enough, the show was over. Lukos stepped out and spoke some words in Cretan; all the rite of the bull-dance is in the ancient tongue. For a moment we felt ourselves watched from behind the crystal; then a gold glove gestured; the spears rattled again; the King went out; and we were led onward from the presence chamber, through painted corridors, and colonnades barred with shadow, and up a great stair open to heaven, and through more passages and halls, till we knew north from south no longer, deeper and deeper into the House of the Ax, which Cretans call the Labyrinth.

At last we came out into a great chamber. Within the door stood either side on a pillar mount the Cretan double ax, the sacred Labrys. So I knew this huge place was a shrine. And at the far end, picked out in light that slanted from the roof, I saw the Goddess. She stood ten feet tall, crowned with a golden diadem; round her waist a gold apron lay over a skirt of many flounces, worked cunningly in enamel and precious gems. Her face was ivory; ivory were her round bare breasts, and her outstretched arms entwined with golden serpents. Her hands were held out low over the earth, as if they said, “Be still.”

We went forward, between walls pictured with her worship. I saw before her feet a long offering table inlaid with gold, and round it faces I knew again. Here were the nobles who had come down to the harbor; and among them, as broad as any two, swarthy Asterion whose title was Minos’ Bull.

Lukos halted us ten paces off. We waited. The people at the table whispered together. Then, from behind the painted goddess, came out a goddess of flesh.

Beside the great image she seemed little, and even for a woman she was not tall, in spite of her high diadem. She wore the whole costume of the Goddess, all but the snakes. Even her skin, pale golden, polished and clear, had a look of ivory. Her high round breasts had golden tips, like those above her. Their faces were painted just alike, the eyes drawn round with black, the brows arched and thickened, the small mouth red. It seemed the face below must be itself the same.

Since childhood I had seen my mother dressed for her priestly office; yet I was awed. She had never claimed to be more than a servant of the deity. This small stiff figure had a bearing that might claim anything.

She came forward to the offering table and set on it her outstretched hands. It was the very posture of the Goddess. Then she spoke, a few words only in the ancient tongue; a cool clear voice, like cold water on cold stones. Between the heavy painted eyelids, dark eyes moved, regarding us; for a moment they met mine. A shock went through me, such as Minos’ bull-mask had not struck into my flesh. A woman-goddess; and young.

She stood at the table waiting, and the nobles came forward, each with a clay tablet in the hand. Each would point to one of us or the other and put the tablet down. I saw these must be offering-tokens, such as my mother received at home in the Goddess’ name, so many jars of oil or honey, so many tripods; she would read them out, and the worshipper paid later. This seemed the same, though all in Cretan; only here they were buying their beasts of sacrifice. I saw the man with the blue monkey point to Iros, the man with the cat to Chryse, the old woman to me. Last stepped up Asterion, and tossed his token down so that it rattled. She read it out; the rest all stared and muttered, and fell back sullenly. She spoke a phrase, in which I heard his name, and he nodded, satisfied, looking scornfully at the rest. For a moment she stood still at the table with her hands upon it, in the ritual posture. Then, meeting his eyes, she lifted up his tablet in her palms, and showed him it was broken.

There was silence, and the air prickled. I saw him stare at her, his jowl settling in his neck, his color thickening. She met his gaze, but her face was still, keeping the likeness of the image. Then she turned and went out the way she had come, and everyone raised fist to brow in homage. I too saluted her. It is never wise to neglect the gods of the place, wherever one may be.

The courtiers left the shrine; as they passed the door one saw their heads coming together. Asterion came up to Lukos, jerking his head at us, and giving some order. Lukos bowed deeply; he seemed struck with new awe. As for me, I stood up straight, waiting to hear what was in store for me. But our new master turned on his heel, and did not even look at me.

Nor did the Cranes. Their eyes were downcast.

“How can I face them?” I thought. “They will all pay for my pride. Yet how could I have denied Poseidon? The god would leave me.”

It was clear to me now why only the richest nobles had come down to the port. They were the ones who could afford to dedicate a bull-dancer; they wanted one who would do them credit. This rite at the shrine was a solemn business, going back, I suppose, to a time when they had more reverence for their gods. Down there they could look well, and appraise us.

“I must have been mad,” I thought, “to fancy insolence would keep him from buying me. Of course he has bought me for revenge. But what about the others?”

Just as I was wondering whether if we ran for it any would get away, a young man came and said lightly to Lukos, “Am I late? I will take them off your hands.” I saw he was doing some common office; so I went with him, and the Cranes followed.

Once more we threaded corridors and stairs and terraces, and crossed a great open court. Then there was a low entry, and another passage, which sloped downward. And I began to hear a sound. As I listened, I felt cold fingers touching my hand. They were Chryse’s; but she kept silent, while the others caught their breath. A bull was bellowing in some hollow place, roaring and bawling between walls that flung back the sound; and we were walking toward it.

I looked at the man who led us. He walked carelessly, and seemed neither sorry nor glad, but to be thinking of his own concerns. I squeezed Chryse’s hand, and said to the others, “Listen. That is not anger.” For now we were nearer, I could judge the sound, and knew it.

We came out into a low crypt, lit with windows close to the roof, which were at ground level; the rest was all below. In the midst, sunk lower yet into the earth, was a big square pit of sacrifice. The bellowing of the bull filled it with a noise that nearly split one’s head in two. He lay on the great stone altar, trussed up and hamstrung, waiting for the knife.

He roared, and heaved, and beat his head up and down upon the stone; but in the pit all else was quiet and orderly: the strong young priest, bare but for his apron, holding the double ax; the table with the jugs and the libation bowls; the three priestesses, and the lady of the sanctuary.

The young man who had brought us led us to the edge of the pit, which was about as deep as a man is high, with steps going down. He made the sign of homage, and stepped back. I raised my brows at him, and he said impatiently through the din, “You have to be purified.” He would have gone then, but I caught his arm. “Who is that girl?” I asked, and pointed, to be clear, because of the noise.

He looked shocked past speech. Then he hissed in my ear, “Be quiet, barbarian. That is Ariadne the Holy One, the Goddess-on-Earth.”

I looked. She had seen me pointing, and her back was stiff. I saw she was not one to be lightly affronted. I touched my brow and was silent.

She paused long, to reprove me. Then she beckoned us down the steps. We stood in the pit before her, while the bull-cries beat on our ears. Then she spoke in Cretan, words of a ritual, and made a sign. The priest swung up the ax, and struck, and the blood spurted like a fountain into the libation bowl. The roaring choked and fell silent, and the head lolled down.

A priestess brought a long rod with a tuft upon the end, and held it for her hand. But she put it away, and said in Greek, “You are to be made clean for the gods below. Is there any one of you who has shed the blood of a kinsman? Speak truly. There is a death-curse on him who lies.”

While she spoke Cretan she had been all goddess; but on the Greek she stumbled once, and I heard a human voice. The priestesses had turned to look, as if the ritual were broken.

I stepped forward and said, “I have. Lately I killed some of my cousins, three with my own hand. My father’s brother died too, though I did not kill him myself.”

She nodded, and said something to the priestesses. Then she said to me, “Come out, then. You must be cleansed apart.” She motioned me toward the altar where the bull’s blood was draining down. Now I was quite near her, and saw within the painted brows a down of soft hair. The place was thick with the hot stink of blood; yet now I thought, “Goddess-on-Earth she may be; but she has the scent of a woman.” A little shudder stabbed me through, and my heart quickened.

She said, speaking precisely as if each word were a grain of gold she was counting out, “For what cause did you kill these men? In a brawl? Or to pay a blood-debt?” I shook my head and said, “No, in war, defending my father’s kingdom.” She asked, “And is he the lawful King?” Her hair was fine and dark, with a soft burnish on it; a curling lock had fallen down over her breast; I could see tiny creases in the gilded nipple. I remembered where we were, and took a step back from her, and said “Yes.” She nodded gravely; but I saw the lock rise and fall again, and my blood sang in my ears.

Presently she said coolly, word by word, “And you were born in his house, of one of his women?” I looked her in the face. She did not look down; but her eyelids quivered. “My mother is the Lady of Troizen,” I said, “daughter of King Pittheus by Klymene his queen. I am Theseus son of Aigeus son of Pandion, Shepherd of Athens.”

She stood as straight and stiff as the image in the sanctuary; but a little disk of gold in her diadem caught the light as it trembled. “Then,” she said, “why are you here?” I answered, “I made the offering for the people’s sake. I had the sign.”

For a little there was silence, and I waited. Then she said in a light quick voice, “You may be cleansed of this blood, because you saved your father’s.”

The priestess offered her the rod again, but she turned away and dipped her finger in the steaming blood-bowl, and made on my breast the signs of the trident and the dove. I felt the blood warm and sticky, and with it her finger-tip, smooth and cool. The touch went right through me. I resolved not to look at her; it is dangerous to strip a goddess, even in thought. Then I looked. But she was looking at the water-bowl they held her to rinse her fingers.

Presently she made a gesture, as if impatient, and the priestesses led me aside. Then she took the rod of aspersion, and dipped the tuft in the blood and sprinkled the Cranes with it, and uttered an invocation. Then she went straight to the steps. When she picked up her skirt to climb them, I saw her little feet, arched and slender, and softly rouged on the toes and heel. All the great ladies of the Labyrinth go barefoot. They never go outside, unless they are carried.

Once more we threaded the House of the Ax. Sometimes we saw a painting we had passed before, then turned aside and were lost again. But at last we came to a passage that ended in a great door, all studded with bronze nails. The young man tapped with his dagger hilt; a guard opened it, and let us in, and made us wait. The passage went on beyond; and at the far end was the sound of voices echoing in a lofty hall. The voices were many, and all young.

Presently there came a man about forty years old, by his looks half Cretan and half Hellene; a wiry man with a short dark beard, who had something of a horse-master or charioteer. The young man said, “Here is the new batch, Aktor. To train as a team. That is the order.”

The man looked us over with a narrow black eye. Here was another who sized us up like horses. But this was no buyer. This man would do the work. He snorted and said, “It’s true, then? He took them all?” and looked again. “All one team?” he said. “What is he about? Am I not to give them a leader? And the Corinthian, what am I to do with him?” The young man shrugged (it is a gesture Cretans are fond of) and said, “That is my message. Ask the patron.” He went away.

The door clanged shut behind us. The man looked us over again, frowning to himself, and whistling through his teeth. He made no difference between girls and boys. When he got to me he said, “You’re old for this game. How did you get here? You’ve a beard coming.” And then, before I could answer, “Well, you’re built for it, we shall see, we shall see. We must make what we can of what we get, with patrons teaching us our business.” He muttered on to himself, like a groom currying a horse; then said suddenly, “There is the Bull Court. Practice is over; you will be eating soon.” He jerked his thumb and was gone.

I had thought we should get some account at last of what we were to do. But we were only raw colts being turned into the horse field. I walked down the passage, the Cranes behind me. At the doorway, the noise came to meet us.

We were in a great hall, whose roof stood on cedar pillars; it was lit from high windows under the eaves. The blank walls were plastered white, and covered all over with chalked scribbles and drawings. Boys and girls were everywhere; calling and quarrelling and laughing, chasing each other, playing leapfrog, throwing balls, gossiping in twos and threes, a few moping alone; youths and maidens of every color man was made in, white and black and brown and golden, all naked but for their little loin-guards of colored leather, and their beads or jewels. The high walls threw back a dozen tongues, and as many kinds of broken Greek, which seemed their common language. Right in the midst of the hall was a great piebald bull. It stood stock-still, though two boys sat on its back and a girl was swinging on one horn. I was astonished, and went nearer.

A girl saw us first. She had a Phoenician face, hook-nosed and olive-skinned; her mouth was painted, and her loin-guard embroidered in blue and gold. She was slender, but her muscles rippled like a young wrestler’s. She stared a moment; then put two fingers in her mouth and whistled shrilly, so that the hall echoed. The shouting stopped. Everyone turned to look, and I saw a scuffle round the bull. It bellowed, and its head swung round toward us. Nephele screamed.

“Be quiet,” I said. I had seen the expectant looks, and knew we were being somehow baited. The bull came no nearer, only bawled and swung its horns. Going toward it, I heard creaking within, and smothered laughter. A thin dark lad tumbled out grinning through a hole in its belly. It was carved in wood, with a bullhide stretched over, and horns of gilded bronze. Its feet were fixed to a low slab of oak-wood, with bronze wheels set in.

A crowd gathered round us, staring, and throwing questions, which we could not understand because they spoke bad Greek and all at once. Some fingered the blood-sign on my breast, and pointed and called to others. On the back of the wooden bull there was one rider left, sitting at ease. Now balanced on his fingertips, he vaulted down and landed before me. He went beautifully through the air, as if he were flying.

He was slight, and smaller than I; a Minyan, with some Hellene blood. He stood poised on the balls of his feet, like a dancer, then took a step back and looked us over. I had never seen such a youth as this. At first sight he could have been a mountebank. But his heavy gold necklaces, his arm-rings of jeweller’s work, the gems on his glittering belt and loin-guard, were not gilded shams; he was wearing a prince’s ransom. His light-brown hair hung down in long curled tresses, groomed as sleek as a girl’s, and his eyes were painted. But with all this frippery, he was like a young panther, lean and spare and hard. A thick red scar, like a long burn, curved round the ribs on his right side.

He cocked his head sideways, shaking his crystal earrings and showing his white teeth. “Well!” he said. “So here are the gay Athenians, who danced all the way to Crete. Come, dance for us now, we’re all impatience.”

There was malice in his laughter. Yet it did not anger me. To me he was as a priest, who would show me a mystery. I felt I had been in this place before, that my soul remembered it; that it had been woven into my moira before I was born.

I answered him simply, “None of us are dancers, except Helike here. But we danced to show we belonged together.”

“So?” he said, arching his brows at me. “And whose was that notion; yours?” I answered, “We planned it together, when we were in council.” He raised his brows again, and then walked round us, staring at each in turn. Many had stared at us that day; but this one saw us. I felt as if a fine sharp blade pricked me over, searching for flaws. When he got to Nephele, he peered at her with a quirking smile, then chucked her under the chin saying, “Think nothing of it, darling; you will do when you have to.” Chryse he found staring wide-eyed at a tall girl with a turquoise necklace, who held her hands and whispered in her ear. “Calf stealer!” he said, slapping the girl’s buttock, “give her time to look about.” Melantho snatched Chryse away, and stood with an arm around her. The youth laughed, and strolled back to me.

“Well,” he said, “sure enough you are all together. Do you know you’re the first team to be given a green leader?”

I said surprised, “How did you know? The trainer himself has only just heard it.” He gave a light scornful laugh. “He! He never knows anything unless we tell him. All Palace news comes to us first; bull-dancers go everywhere.” A boy near by said slyly, “You do, we know,” but he took no notice. “When I heard you were to lead instead of me, I made sure the Minotaur wanted you dead. But now I wonder.”

I said, “I daresay he does. There is a quarrel between us.”

“A—!” He took a standing jump straight up in the air, flinging back his head in a great laugh, and slapping his thigh so that all his jewels tinkled. “Oh, I shall like you, Athenian; yes, I must after all. Is it true you threw his signet in the sea? What odds are they laying on you, do you know?”

I was beginning to get the air of this place. It stirred me like strong wine.

“Don’t know your odds yet?” he said. “You must keep your wits about you here. What is your name?” I told him all our names, and asked his own. He said, “In the Bull Court, they call me the Corinthian.”

“Why?” I asked. “Are you the only one from Corinth?” He answered lightly, “I am now.”

I understood then his flourish and his load of jewels, and why when he talked no one broke in. Once, far away, I had wanted to be a warrior; to be a king. Now it was forgotten; only one ambition burned me. No one I have told this to at home has understood it, not even Pirithoos, my nearest friend. As the saying is, only those the snake has bitten can tell each other how it feels.

“The trainer thought,” I said, “that you were going to lead us.” It seemed to me my ignorant meddling had done the Cranes nothing but harm.

He looked in my face, cocking one eyebrow. He had an eye that stripped one’s courage to the bone. Then he shrugged his shoulders in the Cretan way, making his earrings dance and catch the light. “Oh, he knows nothing. I told you so. He wants me laid off to train with a new team, because he’s bet on me for three months more. The man’s a fool. Your bull knows your name before he is calved; that’s what we say in the Bull Court.”

“It is moira,” I answered, understanding him. “Does everyone here belong to Asterion?” He clicked his tongue. “Belong! One might take you for a peasant. He is a patron like any other. Only he is rich enough now, it seems, to dedicate a team, instead of this dancer or that. It has made talk. Only the King has done it before. My lord holds his head very high these days. But you did not get in here, you Athenians, without being purified? I suppose you are Sky God folk; still, you should have learned by that whom we all belong to.”

I said, “To the Earth-Shaker?” Then I paused, and said as carelessly as I could, “Or to the Goddess-on-Earth?”

He said, “Oh, I suppose to both, by the custom here. But you’ll not see her again, except at the bull-dance. She is Ariadne the Most Holy, the Mistress of the Labyrinth. You’ll only see her in her shrine. Otherwise no one sees her, any more than they do the King.”

Just then someone shouted in Greek that the food was ready. The trestle was set at the end of the hall, and the dancers were racing over. I saw our talk must end; it would be presumption in me to sit beside him. Whatever he was at home in Corinth, a shepherd or a sailor-boy for all I knew, here he was a great prince and I was nothing. Already I did not find this strange.

The food was simple, but plenty and very good. Indeed, after the house of Minos had been served, the pick of everything went to the Bull Court. Bull-dancers lived well in Knossos; as well as the King Horse in the year he goes to the god.