The King Must Die: A Novel

4

IN THE DARK BEFORE daybreak, the girl woke me going away. I had been dreaming; and, being wakened, remembered my dream. I had seen the Hyperborean sanctuary, great hoists and engines standing against a gray sky, great stones rising, and kings leaning on the levers. And a thought came to me, sent straight from the god.

I got up, and went out to the yard of the Palace woodman. Dawn scarcely glimmered; not even the slaves were astir, it was only in the fields that men were waking. It was almost too dark to find what I needed; but I should have to take it with me, for no man puts a tool to the oaks of Zeus. I found a short thick log and two longer ones, whose ends I trimmed to wedges. I bound them up, and getting them unhandily on my shoulders—for I was not used to carrying burdens—set out for the oak wood.

Sunrise glowed red as I climbed along the gorge; when I reached the grove, I saw the altar-slab all scattered with brightness, like the harper’s robe. I put down my load, and prayed to Apollo.

“Paian Apollo,” I said to him, “Apollo Longsight! If I am offending any god by this, send me an omen.”

I looked up. Blue had come into the sky; and wheeling high above I saw an eagle. He tilted his wing and swept away to the left, and the boughs hid him. “Well,” I thought, “no god could say better than that,” and then, “I should have come before to him.” For I had felt too much and reasoned too little, hearing what I was ready to hear, not what had been said. There had been nothing at all about raising the stone with my bare hands; only that I must do it alone.

I worked the lever well under, and stretched my back; the end of the stone rose up, and I kicked the fulcrum under. Then, when I was going to bear down, I remembered there was something to get out from below; when I let go of the lever, the stone would fall again. I sat down to think, on the root of the oak tree; and, seeing it stand above the ground, I saw my way. It was lucky I had brought a longer lever. It would just reach to wedge under the oak root.

Bearing it down so far would have been easy for a heavy man, but was a hard fight for me. But this time I meant to do it if it killed me, because I knew it could be done. Twice I got it nearly there, and twice the weight bore it up again; but when I flung myself on it the third time, I heard in my ears the sea-sound of Poseidon. Then I knew this time I would do it; and so I did.

I stood away, getting my breath. The stone was tilted on its thick end, the thin end propped by the lever; its bed gaped like a mouth of darkness. And for a moment I wanted no more of it. I was like a grave-robber, when he pauses for fear of the angry dead. Perhaps I had hoped that what was there would come to meet me; a foal with wings, or a spring of salt water. But nothing came. So I lay down, and slid my hand under, and felt about.

I touched earth, and stones, and a slimy worm that made me start. Then I came upon moldy cloth, and a hard shape within. I pulled back my hand; it had a feel of bones. None of this was like my picture. The slither of the worm had sickened me. I talked sense to myself, and felt again. It was too straight for a bone. I grasped it, and pulled it out. The sunshine showed a long bundle, a few gold threads shining among the mold. Grubs had made houses there, and a yellow centipede wriggled out. I thought, “A mortal token. Surely I always knew it. Must I know more?” The bundle distasted me; I wished my work undone, and the hidden fate left sleeping in the earth. Then I shook myself like a dog, and snatched at the cloth and jerked it. Gold tumbled and flashed in the light. Some knowledge came to me, that I must not let the thing fall to the ground, that it would be a bad omen. I am a man who can move quickly on a thought, and I caught it in mid-air. Then I knew why it must not fall. It was a sword.

The cloth had kept clean the hilt from earth. I saw it was richer than my grandfather’s. The grip was a cunning knot of twisted serpents; their outthrust heads made the guard, and their tails overlapped the blade, which, though green with time, was perfect still, the work of a master swordsmith. I thought, “A Hellene longsword. He was a gentleman, at least.”

So my worst fears were done with. But so were my best hopes. I suppose all this while, in some deep cave of my heart, I had waited for Poseidon to relent and own me. And then I thought, “That old man in the Palace has known since I was in the womb. If he had let me alone, instead of cramming me with children’s tales, today would have come well to me. It is he who has put this taste of ashes into my mouth.”

I looked at the cloth again. There was something more in it. I found a pair of sandals, spoiled with mildew. The studs were set with amethyst, and the buckles were little serpents of wrought gold. I took off one of my own, and measured the soles together. There was very little in it. “So!” I thought. “All Troizen to a moldy fig, I got this the way he hid it.” At that I laughed. But it was angry laughter.

I drew out my lever, and let the stone fall back. Before I went, I remembered Apollo, and vowed him a buck for answering my prayer. He is a gentleman, and one cannot be churlish with him, angry or not.

Down in the Palace, they were still at the tasks of early morning. I was hungry, and ate a whole bannock with half a honeycomb. Then with the sword at my belt I went to my mother’s room, and scratched the door.

She was just dressed, and her maid was doing her hair. She looked first at my face and then at my belt, and sent the maid away. Beside her chair was a little table with the combs and mirror. She smiled and said, “Well, Theseus. Did the god send you a dream?”

I looked at her startled. But one does not ask a priestess how she knows things. “Yes, Mother,” I said. “I have the sandals too. Who was he?”

She raised her brows, which were like a kestrel’s feathers, fine and clear, but downy at the inner ends. “Was? What makes you think he is dead?”

It gave me pause; I had hoped so, rather than thought. My anger twisted, like a caught beast in a cage. “Well,” I said, “I have his gift, then. The first in seventeen years; but he made me work for it.”

“There was a reason,” she said. She picked up the comb, and pulled her hair forward. “He said to me, ‘If he has not brawn, he will need wit. If he has neither, he may still be a good son to you in Troizen. So keep him there. Why send him to die in Athens?’”

“In Athens?” I said staring. It was only a name to me.

She said a little impatiently, as if I ought to know, “His grandfather had too many sons, and he had none. He has never held his throne a year in quiet, nor his father before him.” She looked at my face, and then down at the hair she was combing. “Come, Theseus. Do you think chiefs or barons carry swords like that?”

There was a roughness in her voice, like a young girl’s, as if she were shy, and trying to hide it. Then I thought, “Why not? She is three and thirty, and it is near eighteen years since a man was with her.” And I was angrier for her than I had been for myself before. “What is his name?” I said. “I must have heard it, but I don’t remember.”

“Aigeus,” she said, as if she were listening to herself. “Aigeus, son of Pandion, son of Kekrops. They are of the seed of Hephaistos, Lord of the Earth Fire, who married the Mother.”

I said, “Since when was Hephaistos’ seed better than the seed of Zeus?” I was thinking of all the toil I had put myself to for this man’s pleasure, thinking it was for a god. “It should have been enough for him, and more, that I was your son. Why did he leave you here?”

“There was a reason,” she said again. “We must find a ship, to send you to Athens.”

I said, “To Athens? Oh, no, Mother, that’s too far to go. Eighteen years since his night’s pastime, and he never looked back to see what came of it.”

“That is enough!” she cried, princess and priestess all through; yet there was that shy roughness still. I was ashamed of myself; coming up to her chair, I kissed her head. “Forgive me, Mother. Don’t be angry; I know how it is. I’ve laid a girl or two myself who never meant to do it; and if anyone thought the worse of them, it wasn’t I. But if King Aigeus wants a spearman more for his house, let him get one at home. Though he didn’t stand by you, he did the next best thing; he gave you a son who will.”

She drew a sharp breath; then she let it out on half a laugh. “Poor boy, it’s not your fault you know nothing. Talk to your grandfather. It is better from him than me.”

I picked up a lock of her fresh-combed hair, and turned the end round my finger. I wanted to say I could have forgiven a man she had taken for her pleasure, but not one who had taken her for his, and gone away. But I only said, “Yes, I will see him. It is late enough.”

I stayed, however, to change my clothes. I was angry enough to prize my dignity. My best suit was of dark red buckskin, the jerkin trimmed with gold studs and the drawers with kid-skin tassels, to match the boots. I was buckling the sword on, when I remembered no one brings arms into the presence of the King.

At the top of the narrow stairs, his voice bade me enter. He had had a chill lately, and still kept his room. There was a shawl round his shoulders, and on the stand by his chair a posset cup with the dregs still in it. His face looked sallow, and one began to see age there. But I would not be cheated of my anger, and stood before him silent. He met my eyes with his old pale ones; I could see he knew. Then he nodded to me briskly, and pointed to the footstool. “You can sit down, my boy.”

From habit I pulled it out and sat. He had been a long time at his trade, and his fingers had command in them as a harper’s have music. It was only when I found myself back in my childhood seat, my feet on the old worn bearskin, my arms round my knees, that I saw how he had made a fool of me. Near my face was the posset cup, with its smell of barley and honey, eggs and wine; a smell of old age, and of childhood. I felt my man’s anger dashed down into a boy’s. From above me, now, his watery eyes blinked down, with the touch of malice in them that old men feel to young men when their own strength is done.

“Well, Theseus. Has your mother told you who you are?” Crouched at his feet like a fettered captive, my heart full of bitterness, I answered “Yes.”

“And you have things to ask me?” I was silent. “Or ask your father, if you prefer.” I did not trust myself to speak; he was the King. “He will acknowledge you as his heir now, if you show him the sword.”

I was startled into speech. “Why should he, sir? He has sons of his own house, I suppose.”

“None in marriage. As for the rest, bear in mind that though he is an Erechthid, which is well enough, we are the house of Pelops, and Olympian Zeus begot us.”

It was in my mouth to say, “As Poseidon did me, sir?” I did not say it; not, if you want the truth, because he was my grandfather, but because I did not dare.

He looked at my face; then drew the shawl about him and said testily, “Do you never shut a door behind you? This room is like a barn.” I got up and saw to it. “Before you speak of your father with disrespect, let me tell you that but for him you might be a fisherman’s or a peasant’s son; or a slave’s, for that matter.”

I was glad to be standing. Presently I said, “Her father can tell me that, and go safe away.”

“Your mouth is robbing your ears,” he said. “Be quiet, boy, and attend to what I am saying.” He looked at me, and waited. I held out for a little; then I came back, and sat at his feet.

“In the year before your birth, Theseus, when your mother was fifteen, we had a summer without rain. The grain was small in the ear, and the grapes were like hedgerow berries; the dust lay deep, so that men’s feet sank in it, and nothing prospered but the flies. And with the drought came a sickness, which, sparing the old, took children and maidens and young men. First a hand would fail them, or they would limp; then later they fell down, and the strength went out of their very ribs, so that they could not draw in the breath of life. Those who lived are cripples to this day, like Thyestes the stillman, with his short leg. But mostly they died.

“I inquired what deity we had offended, going first to Apollo, Lord of the Bow. He said through the entrails of the victim that he had not shot at us; but he said no more. Zeus too was silent, and Poseidon sent no omens. It was about the time of year when the people drive out the scapegoat. They chose a squinting man they said had the evil eye, and beat him with such rage that by the time they came to burn him, there was no life left in him. But still no rain fell, and the children died.

“I lost three sons here in the Palace: my wife’s two boys, and one who I must own was even dearer. He lay dying like one already dead, only for his living eyes that begged me to give him breath. When he was in his grave, I said to myself, ‘Surely the time of my moira is coming. Soon the god will send me the sign.’ I put my affairs in order, and at supper would look at my sons about the table, weighing them to choose my heir. Yet no sign came to me.

“On the next day after, your father came to Troizen, journeying from Delphi to take ship for Athens. He was taking the two sea trips which avoid the Isthmus Road. I was in no mood for company; but the guest of the land is sacred, so I made what show I could. Soon I was glad of it. He was younger than I, but adversity had seasoned him; he had understanding of men. Over supper we began to share our troubles; what I had just lost, he had never known. His first wife had been barren; the second died in childbed with a stillborn girl. He had gone to the oracle; but its answer was dark and riddling, and even the priestess could not interpret it. Now he was going back to a harassed kingdom, with no heir to stand beside him. So there we were, two men in sorrow who understood each other. I sent away the harper, and had a chair brought up here for him; by this hearthstone, where you and I are now, we sat quietly and talked of grief.

“When we were alone, he told me how his brothers, in their greed to get the kingdom, had sunk to scandalling their own mother, a most honorable lady, and proclaiming him a bastard. Here, it seemed to me, were troubles equal to mine. Then, as we talked, there was a great commotion in the Hall below, wailing and outcry. I went out to see.

“It was the Priestess of the Goddess, my father’s sister. Round her were the women, crying, beating their breasts, and making their cheeks bleed with their nails. I stood on the steps, and asked what it was. She answered, ‘Grief upon grief, King Pittheus, you have laid on the people, setting gifts before the Sky Gods who were full-fed already, and starving the altar nearest your hearth. Now the second night I have brought meat and milk to the Navel Stone, and the second time the House Snake has refused it. Will you wait till every womb in Troizen has lost the fruit of its labor? Sacrifice, sacrifice. It is the Mother who is angry.’

“At once I had a holocaust of swine brought in, reproaching myself for having left all this to the women. I should have guessed from Apollo’s silence that our troubles were not from the sky. Next morning we killed the pigs about the Navel Stone. The house echoed with their squealing, and the smell of entrails hung in the air all day. When the blood had sunk into the earth, we saw clouds coming from the westward. They hung gray above us, but the rain in them did not fall.

“The Priestess came, and led me to the Navel Court, and showed me the House Snake’s wriggling track, by which she read the omens. ‘He has told me now,’ she said, ‘what has angered the Mother. It is twenty years, not less, since a girl of this house hung up her girdle for the Goddess. Aithra, your daughter, has been two years a woman; but has she dedicated her maidenhead? Send her to the Myrtle House, and let her not refuse the first comer, whoever he may be, sailor or slave, or wet-handed from his own father’s blood. Or Mother Dia will not relent till this is a childless land.’”

My grandfather looked down at me. “Well, young thickhead? Do you begin to understand?” I nodded, too full to speak.

“I went off thankful, like any man in such a case, that it was no worse. Yet I was sorry for the child. Not that she would lose any honor with the people; the peasants who have mixed their blood with the Shore People’s have sucked in such customs with their mothers’ milk. Well, I had never forbidden it; but nor had I enforced it; and certainly your mother had not been brought up to expect such a thing. It made me angry to see the Priestess glad of it. She had been widowed young, and no one else had offered for her; she did not like well-favored girls. The child was shy and proud; I feared her falling to some low fellow, who from brutishness, or malice to those above him, would take her as roughly as a whore. But most of all I misliked the base blood it might bring into our house. If a child was born, it could not be let live. But that I would keep from her now; the day’s concern was enough.

“I sought her in the women’s rooms. She listened silently, and did not complain; it was a little thing, she said, to do for the children; but when I took her hands, I felt them cold. I went back to my guest too long neglected. He said, ‘My friend, here is some new trouble.’

“‘Less than the last,’ I said, and told him. I did not make much of it, not wishing to seem soft; but, as I say, your father understood men. He said, ‘I have seen the maiden. She should bear kings. And she is modest. This is hard for you and her.’ That table there was standing between us. Suddenly he struck it with his fist. ‘Surely, Pittheus, some god had my good in mind when he led me here. Tell me, what time of day do the girls go to the grove?’ I said, ‘About sundown, or a little before.’ ‘By custom only? Or is there any sacred law?’ ‘None that I know of,’ I answered, beginning to see his drift. ‘Tell the Priestess, then, that the maid will go tomorrow; and if she is there before daybreak, who will know but you and I? So we shall all three gain: I an heir, if heaven relents to me; you a grandson of decent blood both sides; and your daughter—well, two brides have come to me virgins, and I know a little of women. What do you say, my friend?’”

“‘In the gods’ name,’ I said. They have remembered my house today.’”

“‘Then,’ he said, ‘nothing remains but to tell the maiden; and if it is a man she has seen already and knows no harm of, she will be less afraid.’

“I nodded; but a thought stayed me. ‘No,’ I said. ‘She is of the Kindred; she must go consenting to the sacrifice, or it will lose its virtue. Let it rest between you and me.’

“When the first quarter of the night was gone, I went to wake your mother. But she was watching in her bed, with her lamp beside her. ‘My child,’ I said, ‘I have had a dream, sent I don’t doubt by some god or other, that you went to the grove before cocklight, to do your duty to the Goddess with the first of the day. So get up and make ready.’ She looked at me in the lamplight with wide still eyes and answered, ‘Why, then, Father, it will be sooner done.’ Then she said, ‘It is a good omen for the children.’

“Presently she came down wrapped in a foxskin cloak, for the night was chilly. Her old nurse, whom I had told nothing to, walked down with us as far as the shore, holding her hand, and chirping out like a cricket old wives’ tales of girls in this case whom gods had visited. We put your mother in the boat, and I myself rowed her over.

“I beached where the glade runs down grassy to the shore. Great clouds were banking in the sky; the moon shone blinking on the shining myrtle leaves, and the house of cedar-wood on the rocks by the water. As we reached it the moon went in. She said, ‘A storm is coming. But no matter; I have my lamp with me, and the tinder.’ She had brought them all the way, hidden in her cloak. ‘That must not be,’ I said, taking them from her. ‘I remember my dream forbade it.’ It went to my heart; but I feared some night-walking thief would see the light. I kissed her and said, ‘To such things as this people of our kin are born; it is our moira. But if we are faithful, the gods are not far away.’ So I left her, and she neither wept nor clung to keep me. And as she went from me, thus consenting, into the dark house, Zeus thundered in heaven, and the first of the rain began to fall.

“The storm came on quickly. I had not handled an oar since boyhood, and had ado to make the landing place. When I got there, wet through, I looked about for your father, to give the boat to him. Then I heard from the boathouse an old woman’s cackling laughter, and saw by the lightning the nurse sheltering from the rain. ‘Don’t seek for the bridegroom, King Pittheus; he grew impatient. Te-hee, young blood. I have got his clothes here, keeping dry; he won’t need them for this night’s work.’ ‘What do you mean, you old fool?’ I said; the crossing had not sweetened me. ‘Where is he?’ ‘Why, almost there by now, the Good Goddess give him joy of it. He said sea water was warmer than rain, and the maiden would need company, alone on such a night. A lovely man he is too; strips like a god; haven’t I waited on his bath since first he came here? Ah, folk don’t he when they call you Pittheus the Wise.’

“Well, Theseus, that is how your father came to your mother. As she told me later, she stood at first in the doorway of the Myrtle House, for fear of the dark within. When the levin-light lit heaven, she saw Troizen over the water, and the boat already far away; when it ceased her eyes were dulled with it and she saw nothing. Presently came a great clap close at hand, the sound and the flash together; and there before her, on the rocky slab outside the porch, all gleaming and glittering in a clear blue light, stood a kingly naked man, with dripping hair and beard and a ribbon of seaweed on his shoulder. What with her awe of the place, and her being overwrought, and the old woman’s tales upon the way, she did not doubt the Lord Poseidon himself had come to claim her. The next flash showed her to your father sunk on her knees, her arms crossed on her bosom, waiting the pleasure of the god. So he lifted her up, and kissed her, and told her who he was. Presently in the house she covered him with her foxskin cloak; and that was your beginning.”

He ceased. I said at last, “She has the cloak still. It is all worn and the fur is falling. Once I asked her why she kept it.” Then I said, “How was this hidden from me?”

“I bound the nurse with an oath that scared even her to silence. After the storm, your father went back the way he came; and I brought the Priestess to witness the proofs of what had been accomplished. But neither she nor anyone knew who was the man. Your father asked that of me; he said your life would be in danger even in Troizen, if the claimants in Attica knew what seed you came of. Your mother’s fancy prompted me. I gave it out for the truth. When my wish was made known, folk who had other notions kept it to themselves.”

He paused; a fly lighted on the gold rim of the posset cup, crawled down to sip the dregs, and drowned. He muttered something about bone-idle servants, and pushed the cup away. Then he sank into thought, gazing through the window at the summer sea. Presently he said, “But I have thought to myself since then, What put it into your father’s head, a sensible man past thirty, to swim the strait like a wild boy? Why was he so sure he had made a son, he who had married twice and never got one? Who can follow the way of the Immortal Ones, when their feet tread earth? And I have asked myself if after all it was I or your mother whose eyes saw clear. It is when we stretch out our hands to our moira that we receive the sign of the god.”