The King Must Die: A Novel

9

I WOKE HEAVY-HEADED, with all the teams astir before me. As I fetched my breakfast yawning, I saw Amyntor eying me. Presently he asked how I had slept. I was not used to rebukes from Amyntor. But I remembered how I had gone off last night, and that he was an Eleusinian. “You fool,” I said, “do you think I went courting? I was sent for. Minos is dying. By now he must be dead.” It was best for his own sake he should know no more.

“Dead?” said Amyntor. He looked about him. “Not yet; hark, no one is wailing.”

It was true. After the mystery performed in silence and dark night, I had forgotten to wait for clamor. There was no doubt I had dealt a death-blow. Labrys had split his skull. I said, “Well, he is sinking fast; I had it for certain.” Surely, I thought, by now someone has found him.

“Good,” said Amyntor. “This must bring things to a head. Meanwhile there is the bull-dance; you had best get some more sleep.”

“I am not tired,” I said, to keep him from fretting; he was always trying to nurse me. “Besides, they’ll never hold the dance with the King lying unburied.”

“Don’t sell the calf before the cow gives birth,” Amyntor said. He had been the rashest of the Companions, before he came to Crete; it was being a catcher that had steadied him.

I went back to my pallet to keep him quiet, telling him to say nothing to the others. It would only put them on edge; and it might be noticed. I shut my eyes; but I was wide awake behind them, listening for the outcry that proclaims the death of a king. Now and again I saw under my eyelids some Crane tiptoeing up to look at me. They were afraid of my coming to grief in the ring, so near our time. Hours seemed to pass. I grew too restless to keep still, and got up again. Noon came and our food; and the Cranes ate slenderly, as one must before the dance. For an hour we rested, playing at knucklebones; then we heard the pipes and tabors, and it was time to go.

The sun shone. There were scents of warm dust and sharp spring leaves. We touched for luck the altar to All the Gods, which stands by the dancers’ gate. Round it in the dust sat the sacred cripples, bull-dancers who had walked out of the ring on their feet after a goring, but would never dance again. Some of them were old bald men and crones, who had sat here fifty years. They scratched and chattered in the sun, threatening to ill-wish us unless we gave them alms; we put our gifts into their bowls, hearing the music, and getting our bodies ready to dance in.

The sand was hot from the sun; the women’s stands tittered and buzzed, the gamblers called the odds. We came before the shrine, and I looked up, trying to read in her face if she knew her loss. But through her ritual paint one could tell nothing.

We spread and made our circle in the ring, and I took up my place facing the bull gate. Before it was lifted, we heard a bellow behind it. I could feel, all round, the Cranes pricking like dogs. It was the same with me. You could tell by the sound that something was wrong.

The gate chains rattled. I got ready to watch him when he paused to look about him. On his bad days he would come in with his head held low, and stand fidgeting his forefeet. The gate rose clattering; and I raised my arm to him in the team leader’s salute. It seemed to me that I was still waving when he was on me. Without looking to right or left, or pausing to draw breath, he had shot straight out of the bull gate and across the ring, like a boar from covert, like a thrown javelin aimed at my heart.

My mind was slow for lack of sleep; but my body thought for me. I flung myself sideways; his horn struck my thigh glancing, and knocked me down. I rolled away and scrambled upright, spitting out dust and blinking it from my eyes. Hot blood ran down my leg. There was a screeching as if all the women in the stands were being ravished at once.

I flung my hair from my eyes. Hippon was riding the bull’s brow, clinging like a monkey in a hurricane, while Amyntor and Menesthes wrestled him by the horns. That could not last long, the way he was going. His eye was bloodshot, and on his mouth I saw a yellow foam; he moved as if he were mad. I looked at the mill about his head, not liking it much; but there was only one thing for it. When he was straight a moment, I grasped the horn-tips and vaulted over all three of them, to land upon his neck. I twisted round and straddled him, holding the horns low by the head and drumming my heels into his dewlap. It took his mind from the others, and they got away. He charged on with me, as fast as a war chariot. There was a noise too like the roar of battle, and I heard ten thousand open throats bawl “Theseus! Theseus!”

I looked through my hair and saw Amyntor tearing along beside the bull, waiting to catch me when I let go. All the Cranes were wheeling round, too near. He was not ready for them; though I felt shaken half to pieces, I could not leave him yet. “Open out!” I shouted. “Let me ride him!” I locked my feet under his throat, trying to squeeze his windpipe and slow him for want of breath.

He charged onward, tossing and bucketing till my very teeth seemed loosened in my jaws. And the Cranes for the first time had disobeyed me. They were scrambling everywhere. When Herakles dragged a moment, I saw Melantho and Chryse trailing on the horns, then they were gone, I could not see where. Flecks of foam flew backward on my face and arms; and in my nostrils was a strange acrid smell.

The shouting faces were coming near. He was making for the barrier. Now I must leave him, or he would batter me off. I loosed the horns; Amyntor, through everything, was waiting. As he set me down, I knew I was done, a sitting bird when the bull came for me. Amyntor was all spent too; I could hear his sobbing breath. The Cranes were coming up, but they were breathless and slow, from doing more than they had been told to. I waited for Herakles to turn at the barrier and come back. But instead came a great crash, splintering, and shouting. He had charged it head-on.

It was made of cedar-wood as thick as your arm; but he shook it. It rained down nuts and sweets and fans, and even a lap dog. One horn was stuck in it; he wrestled it free, and then he turned. But for me, all the bull ring was slowly turning. Only one thing I knew: that I had been gored, and if you lie down then, your blood is for the Mother.

I stood, panting and swaying. Beside me Amyntor was exhorting me with curses and Minyan love-names, and calling on the gods. It is forbidden to hold up a victim. The bull came on. He seemed as slow as a dream. I thought I must be lightheaded. He seemed coming for ever. His big eyes, bulging and bloodshot, looked into mine. I gathered my last strength, watching which side he would gore. His head went down. It bowed, and sank, and touched the sand. His forelegs folded. He heeled over like a wrecked ship, and lay down in the dust.

There was a hush, and a wavelike sound of awe and wonder. Then the cheers began.

My eyes were clearing, though I felt weak and sick. I saw that my wound though bloody was not deep. The ring was like a garden, as people threw in like mad whatever they had with them, fans and scarves and beads and flowers. The Cranes gathered about me, filthy, grazed and bruised, dust in their hair, their grimy faces streaked with sweat. Phormion was limping; Chryse owed him her life, as she told me after. As she came up, hand in hand with Melantho, I saw her face was scored along the cheekbone so that blood ran down; she would never more be the perfect lily that had sailed from Athens. Helike was joking with Thebe; as happens also at war, she had been taken out of herself and lost her fear just when there would have been sense in it. Amyntor’s grin was silly with weakness; mine was as weak, and doubtless no less foolish. Telamon offered me his shoulder, but I waved him off. My girl in the shrine had been scared enough; at least I could salute her on my feet.

She stood bolt upright on her dais. Her paint stood out like a doll’s, but she performed the ritual unfaltering. I was proud she had commanded herself, so as not to betray us; though she had not the Sight nor the Hearing, I thought, she would make a queen.

Old Herakles lay where he had fallen. A bunch of wind-flowers, thrown from above, had spilled over his head. As I looked he gave a heave and twitch, and the flies settled on his eyes. And from above, where the upper stands were dark with the native Cretans, came a thick solemn buzz, as from men who have seen a portent.

We went out to the gate. I was tired, but not too tired to think. I remembered the guard about the sacred bulls; no common man could enter even the compound. I looked up at the empty box of Minos, and then at the box beside it. There sat our patron, receiving compliments upon his team. But I saw his eyes, when he did not see mine.

Once out of sight, I was not too proud to be carried. In the Bull Court the wise woman washed me and dressed my leg, and gave me a hot spiced cordial, while Aktor looked on whistling through his teeth. Our eyes met. He looked at the herb-woman, shook his head for silence, and walked away.

Thalestris stood by my pallet, one hand on her hip, the other scratching her black hair. I beckoned her nearer. She bent and looked at me, not like a woman at a hurt man but like a warrior watchful in an ambush, waiting the word. I said to her softly, “The bull had medicine.” She nodded. I said, “Are the arms well hidden? Asterion must know something.” I was wondering, as I spoke, how soon he would send for me, and what death he would make me die.

She said, “He can’t know much. Or the arms would be gone already. Yes, they are safe. Don’t trouble yourself; you will be good for nothing till you are rested.” I saw her shoving off the dancers who were coming up to speak to me. She was no fool; she knew if I did not rest now there might be no time later. I lay thinking of her words, my mind slow with weariness and with the herb-woman’s drugs. “He can’t know I killed Minos, or he could put me openly to death. He can’t know of the arms, or they would be gone. But does he know about the Mistress? Or whom she meant by her oracles? Has he put Perimos to the question, or his sons? What does he know?”

So I thought; but I was growing drowsy in spite of myself. I heard again the buzzing of the Cretans, who thought the god had killed the bull at my feet. “Well,” I thought, “sure enough he has been with us.” And it seemed I felt his presence still about, solemn and brooding, so that the sounds of the Bull Court seemed too loud, and made me uneasy. But even as I thought it I fell asleep. I dreamed of my childhood, of serving the island shrine in the hush of noonday, and listening to the spring.

When I awoke, the lamps were being lighted, and the dancers were sitting down to eat. Amyntor, who must have been waiting for my eyes to open, came over and asked what he should bring me. I sat up, though I was almost too stiff to do it, and asked if there had been any news of Minos’ death.

He looked about him. But there was no one near; the dancers were all eating. “No, Theseus. Who told you of it? Can he be trusted? There is quite another rumor going about today. It is said that when the fleet set sail for Sicily, before the gales, Minos went with it, but it was kept secret. They say he went to take the island by surprise, and that was why it was kept dark. It has been denied from the Little Palace, which makes one think it may be true.”

He brought me soup, and a barley-cake, and a piece of honeycomb. I ate, lying on my elbow, and wondering how long it would be before we got the news that Minos was dead in Sicily. Truly, I thought, it is a beast that thinks; and quickly too. It had been clever to deny it; I had to own I should not have thought of that myself.

And then I thought, “But he must still need time. This proves it.”

The wise woman came, and felt me over. She oiled and worked my limbs, kneading and knuckling and slapping; looked at my wound, muttering charms, and said it would heal clean. At the table the dancers were sitting over their twice-watered wine, in the last hour of talk before the girls were fetched away. I stretched out under the old woman’s hands, feeling my sinews loosened and my blood run sweetly. Nothing was left but the smart of wine on my graze, and a heavy drowsiness. I turned, when she had gone, to sleep again. Then I saw Aktor the trainer standing by my pallet.

“Well,” he said, “so you have come to life again. I will write it on the door of the Bull Court, and save my legs. You have slept sound enough. When you lay there through the earthquake, with all the outlanders who never felt one bawling to their gods, I looked if you were dead; but you were sleek as a baby.”

“Earthquake?” I said staring, and then, “Why yes.” I remembered the feel of the brooding god; I had been too tired even to know a warning when I had it.

“It was nothing much,” he said. “A shelf of pots gone in the kitchen. Well, the Cranes will have to catch another bull.” He looked at me. This time no one was in hearing.

I said, “What did they give him? I smelt it in his steam.”

“How should I know?” He looked round again. “I should think what the dog fanciers give their beasts before a fight. The dogs mostly live, but it would be guesswork, the dose for a bull.” He had been stooping, but now he got down on the floor beside me, to speak lower. “One we won’t name must have a hole in his pocket now. If he still needs a talent of gold, he must wait till summer when his ships come in.”

“Gold?” I said, thinking my cordial must have had poppy in it. I still felt slow.

He said, “A ghost is talking”; a Cretan saying for what one will not stand to before witnesses. “He has got something on hand that is emptying the strong room. All day his agents have been scrambling about Knossos calling in revenues, chasing rents, selling up debtors, borrowing from the Phoenicians. Well, you know your odds. Even money three months ago, now it’s six for eight, and still the bookmaker’s headache. Go to any one of them and try if you can back Theseus to live; they won’t touch it; if you bet on the Cranes you must bet on points. But this morning, so I hear, all over Knossos there were bets laid on a kill, at a hundred to one or longer; quietly, here and there. And all about the same time, to keep the odds from shortening. What do you make of that?”

“Make of it?” I said. “What should I make? I’m only a mainland bull-boy. In my village we’re simple folk.” My brain was spinning. Aktor looked down at me scratching his head, then said, “Sleep out your medicine, lad, you’re fuddled still,” and went away.

My eyelids felt like lead; sleep lay upon me closer than a lover. But I thought that if I closed my eyes, I would believe after that I had dreamed all this. I saw Amyntor hanging about near by, and beckoned. “I have something to tell you. Bring Thalestris too.”

They came and hung over my pallet, eying me like something that may fall apart. “Be easy,” I said to them. “The Minotaur knows nothing. He did this for gold.”

If I had spoken in Babylonian they could not have looked blanker. I did not blame them.

“Minos is dead. You can take that for certain. He is hidden somewhere in the Labyrinth, bundled away without rites like a dead robber, to give Asterion time. He needs to buy troops, and friends; but he can’t claim the treasury till the death is known. Stuck between the horns, as you might say. So he backed the bull for a kill, to raise the wind.”

They stood drop-jawed, like village idiots. It almost made me laugh.

At last Amyntor said slowly, “He did it for gold? But we are the Cranes. We have danced a year for him.”

Thalestris flung back her head. “Mother of Mares!” she cried. And indeed she looked a true daughter of Poseidon Hippios, her strong dark mane tossed out behind her and her nostrils flaring. She planted her fists upon her hips, and showed sidelong like a wicked colt the blue whites of her black eyes. “What are these Cretans? They and their baths, and their talk about barbarians. Hollow as sucked gourds! If you shook them they would rattle! Theseus, why do we wait?”

In the old days at Eleusis, it would have been Amyntor who spoke first. But nowadays he would take his time. He had been standing with his black brows joined above his hawk-nose, fingering the place where his dagger should have been.

“Theseus,” he said, “how this man has despised us!”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said. “He has always held us light.”

“Vengeance is the right of any man who is not a woman. If he had done this knowing there were arms hidden in the Bull Court, I would have liked him no better, and thought of him no worse. But all he knows of us is our honor; and he has sold us off like the spare goats in a lean year. By Black-Horned Poseidon, Theseus, it is enough! For this we will have his heart.”