The King Must Die: A Novel

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WE REACHED DELOS WITH the light of morning; as we drew in, the sun was standing over the holy hill.

On a bright day in Delos, the very stones, which twinkle with sparks like silver, seem to flash and glitter under the kiss of the god. Water and air are clear as crystal. You can count every pebble as you wade ashore; and when you look toward the stairway that leads to the sacred cave, it seems you could count every flower upon the mountain. From the hilltop above the sanctuary, the plume of the morning sacrifice uncurled in a deep sapphire sky.

There was a joy here beyond laughter; and for us who were Hellenes, even though our feet trod Delian soil for the first time, a homecoming beyond tears. As I walked up to the lake and the sacred grove, along the warm sparkling causeway, the sharp white sunlight seemed to wash from me the earth-darkness of Dia, the rotten glow of Crete. All here was lucid, shining, and clear; even the awe of the god, the secret of his mystery, hidden not in shadows but in a light too dazzling for human eyes.

Before we sacrificed, those of us who had shed blood asked to be cleansed of it, so that no angry ghosts should follow us home. We bathed in the lake that looks up to heaven with its round blue eye; then we climbed Mount Kythnos, and up there with the blue sea laughing all round below us, Apollo cleansed us and the Avengers were sent back to their own place.

When the rite was done and we were walking down the long stair from the sanctuary, my mind went back to the harper who had sung in Troizen, and at Eleusis had reshaped the Mystery. I turned to the priest, who walked near by me, and asked if he had been back to Delos again.

The priest told me they had had word that the bard was dead. He had perished in his own native land of Thrace, where he served Apollo’s altar. The old religion is very strong there; as a youth he had sung for its rites himself, and the priestesses had been angry when he made Serpent-Slayer a shrine upon the mountain. But after he came back from Eleusis, whether that his great fame had led him into hubris, or he had had a true dream from the god, he went forth to meet the maenads at their winter feast, and tried to calm their madness with his song. Everyone knows the end of it.

Now he was dead, said the priest to me, the songs and the tales were growing round his name; how great stones had risen at his voice, to make walls and gateways, how his ears had been licked by Apollo’s serpent, and he knew the speech of birds. “They say the Dark Mother loved him, when he was young, and set a seal upon his lips and showed him her mysteries beneath the earth. He crossed the river of blood, and the river of weeping; but Lethe’s stream he would not drink of, and seven years passed over him like a single day. When the appointed time drew near, for her to let him back to the upper air, she tempted him to speak while he was still in bonds to her; but he would not break the seal of silence, nor taste her apples and her pomegranates that bind a man for ever, because he was vowed to Apollo and the gods of light. So she had to set him free. All the way up to the mouth of her dark cave she followed him, listening to his harp as he sang upon his way, and crying, ‘Look back! Look back!’ But he did not turn till he had stepped forth into the sunlight; and she sank into the earth, weeping for her stolen secrets and lost love. So people say.”

When this tale was done, I said, “He did not speak of it. Is it true?”

“There is truth and truth,” said the priest of Delos. “It is true after its kind.”

We came down from the hillside into the grove, and made our sacrifice on the altar of pleached horns. And seeing the Cranes stand all about me, I thought how soon we should be scattered to our homes, and our close bond loosened; nevermore should we be limbs of one body, as we had been in the ring. It was not proper that so dear a fellowship should be lightly tossed away into the drift of time; it should be dedicated in its passing. So I said to them, “Before we go, let us do our dance for the god.”

So we called for music, and did him the crane-dance, which had drawn us first together, and made us a team. The priests reproved us, when they saw the girls stand up to dance with men; but when I told them why, they said there could be nothing shameless in a thing so blessed by the gods. Once more as we danced, gulls flashed and cried above us, and round us was the sea’s unnumbered laughter. For a deck we had the greensward by the lake; and for a mast the sacred palm tree that Leto pulled on in her labor, when the god was born. We plaited and wove our line by the glancing water, making fast the memory of what we had done in the strength of trust. When it was over, most eyes were blinking. But Amyntor and Chryse outshone the Delian sunlight, like people who have no loss to grieve for, but are taking all their harvest home.

Next day, when we had rowed out of the strait, we met so good a wind that it lifted us as far as Kios. And in the clear evening light, we saw a low gray cloud upon the skyline. It was the tops of the Attic hills.

Then from impatience we would not coast round to the port, which would have put some ten miles on our next day’s journey; we found a sheltered beach south of the island, and made our camp there. We were fewer now; all through the Cyclades we had been dropping off bull-dancers as we passed near their homes. Now, Iros said, the Cranes were like the old friends at a feast, who stay to gossip when the rest have gone.

We had eaten, and in the falling night our fire was sinking to embers, when Amyntor pointed and said, “Theseus! Look.”

Far off to northward, at the dark meeting place of sky and sea, there was a faint changing flicker, too low and red for any star. Telamon said, “The first light of home,” and Menesthes, “It is a watch-fire. It must be on Sounion Head.”

We all showed it to each other, and lifted our hands to thank the gods. Then in a while we lay down to sleep. The night was calm; nothing sounded but the slap of ripples on the rocks, and the crickets thinly shrilling. Now for the first time I felt Crete fall quite away from me. I lived again in Athens, riding her plains and hills, talking with her people, fighting among her warriors, walking her rock. I lay looking up into the thick-starred sky, thinking of time to come.

I thought of the fleet I must raise, and soon, to bring order into Crete, or it would become another Isthmus. I wondered how many ships my father would have built, if Helike’s brother had got his message through. If other Hellene kings had not been ready to venture against Crete while Minos ruled the islands, one could not blame them; I wondered what I should have done in his place myself. “Built my own ships,” I thought, “and waited on the gods for a lucky day. And sent to Troizen, where I would be sure of help. But I am young; my father is weary with his long wars and troubles. They have made him a careful man.” Then I thought of Attica, with its warring tribes and villages, and wondered whether I should ever bring him to try my plan for the three estates.

I got up from where I lay, and stood at the sea-edge looking northward. The fire still burned, and was brighter than before; a watchman must be feeding it. And then I knew it was my father’s beacon. Perhaps it had burned there each night since I sailed away; or perhaps there had been rumors from Crete already. I pictured him standing on the Citadel, watching these same flames; and my heart hurt me, as it had when he gave me the chariot on my feast day.

I thought of our leave-taking when I was led away to Crete; I seemed to feel his hand on my shoulder, and his parting words were in my ears. “When that day comes, mark your ship’s sail with white. The god will have a message for me.”

“What did he mean?” I thought. “He is a man grown old too soon. He meant more than he would say before the people. A message, he said; a message from the god. It was for his sign that he meant to take it. For sure, if I paint the sail, I shall never look again on his living face.”

My heart beat thickly. I was afraid. There was no surety for his purpose, nor, if one knew it, for his holding to it still. He was a man grown weary. How could one guess his mind?

From the grass inshore I could hear my comrades snoring, or sighing in sleep; and two lovers whispering. I wished I had only their cause to wake. It was a heavy choice to bear alone.

I stood on the beach, pressing my palms into my eyes till flowers of red and green burst out behind my eyelids. Then I looked out again, and saw the watch-fire shine. And a thought came to me. I stripped off my clothes, and waded into the cold spring sea, and struck out from the shore. “Father Poseidon!” I said. “I have been in your hand, and you have never told me wrong. Send me your sign now, if I am to go on with our dark sail. If you keep silence, I will do as he bade me, and make it white.”

The sky was clear; but a little breeze ruffled the water. As I swam out from the shelter of the shore, the wavelets lifted me up and down, and sometimes a small crest splashed upon me. As I turned on my back, to lie upon the water, a wave came bigger than the rest, and tipped down my head. I floundered before I could right myself, and began to sink. The sea closed over me. And then I heard plainly in my ears the sign of the god.

I ceased to struggle, and the water floated me upward. I swam back to land, my heart at peace now; for I had laid the choice upon the god, and he had answered plainly, putting me out of doubt. The thing was lifted from me.

So I said then, and still say in my heart, when on great days of sacrifice I stand before the gods, offering for the people on the High Citadel, Erechtheus’ sacred stronghold. The great Horse Father who came to my begetting, Earth-Shaker who held me up and spared my people even when he was angry, would never have led me into evil. I saw for my father a little sorrow, and then joy unlooked-for. How could I guess that he would so reproach himself; that he would not even wait till the ship reached harbor, to see if the sail told true?

Or perhaps it was not that. In a private grief, would he not have gone like a common man, by falling on his sword, or by strong poppy which steals the soul in sleep? But he leaped from that same balcony above the rock, where once I had been afraid for him, and pulled him back from the edge. Surely it was the god who sent the sign to him, as loud and clear as it came to me? We were both in Poseidon’s hand; it was for him to choose.

Man born of woman cannot outrun his fate. Better then not to question the Immortals, nor when they have spoken to grieve one’s heart in vain. A bound is set to our knowing, and wisdom is not to search beyond it. Men are only men.