Mary Renault - Greece 2 - Bull From The Sea

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THE BULL FROM THE SEA by Mary Renault MARATHON I It was dolphin weather,

when I sailed into Piraeus with my comrades of the Cretan bull ring. Knossos

had fallen, which time out of mind had ruled the seas. The smoke of the

burning Labyrinth still clung to our clothes and hair. I sprung ashore and

grasped both hands full of Attic earth. It stuck to my palms as if it loved

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me. Then I saw the staring people, not greeting us, but calling each other to

see the Cretan strangers. I looked at my team, the boys and girls of Athens'

tribute, carried to Crete to learn the bull-vault and dance for Minotauros on

bloody sand. They showed me myself, as I must look to Attic eyes: a

bull-dancer of Crete, smooth-shaven, fined down to a whiplash by the training;

my waist in a gilded cinch-belt, my silk kilt stitched with peacock eyes, my

lids still smudged with kohl; nothing Hellene about me but my flaxen hair. My

necklace and arm-rings were not grave jewels of a kingly house, but the costly

gauds of the Bull Court, the gift of sport-loving lords and man-loving ladies

to a bull-boy who will go in with the music and fly up with the horns. Small

wonder no one knew me. The bull ring is a dye that seeps into one's soul. Even

till my feet touched Attic soil, the greater part of me had been Theseus the

Athenian, team-leader of the Cranes; the odds-on fancy, the back-somersault

boy, the first of the bull-leapers. They had painted me on the walls of the

Labyrinth, carved me in ivory; there had been little gold Theseuses on the

women's bracelets. The ballad-makers had promised themselves and me a thousand

years of singing. In these things my pride still lingered. Now it was time to

be my father's son. There were great shouts about us. The crowd had seen who

we were. They thronged around calling the news along towards Athens and the

Rock, and stretching their eyes at the King's son tricked out like a

mountebank. Women screamed out for pity at the scars on my breast and sides

from glancing bull-horns. All of us had them. They thought we had been

flogged. I saw the faces of my team looking dashed a little, even in the

rejoicing. In Crete, all the world had known these for our honors, the badges

of fine-cut skill. I thought of the solemn dirges when I sailed, the tears

and rent hair, the keening for me, self-offered scapegoat of the god. All that

could not be told broke from me in a laugh; and some old woman kissed me. In

the Bull Court, boys' and girls' voices had never ceased all day. I heard them

still. "Look, we are back! Yes, every one of us; look, there is your son. No,

the Cretans will not chase us, there is no Minos now. The House of the Ax has

fallen! We fought a great battle there, after the earthquake. Theseus killed

the heir, the Minotauros. We are free! And there is no Cretan tribute any

more!" People stared and murmured. It was too great for joy. A world without

Crete was a new thing under the sun. Then young men leaped and raised the

paean. I said smiling to the team, "Suppers at home." Yet my heart was

thinking, "Leave the tale so, dear comrades of our mystery. You have told them

all they will understand; don't cry against the wind." They chattered on; I

could hear it now with an Attic ear, foreign as bird-song. "We are the Cranes!

The Cranes, the Cranes, the first team in the Bull Court. A whole year in the

ring, and all alive; the first time in the annals and they go back six hundred

years. Theseus did it, he trained us. Theseus is the greatest bull-leaper who

ever was in Crete. Even here in Athens, you must have heard of the

Cranes!" The kinsfolk clasped their darlings, shook their heads and stared.

Fathers were grabbing my hands and kissing them for bringing their children

home. I made some answer. How we had prayed and plotted in the Bull Court to

get away! And now, how hard to shed it from us, the doomed and fiery life, the

trust stronger than love. It left a raw bleeding wound. A girl was saying to

her betrothed, who had hardly known her, "Rhion, I am a bull-leaper! I can

handstand on the horns. Once I did the back-spring. Look at this jewel; I won

a great bet for a prince, and he gave it to me." I saw his face of horror, and

their eyes meeting at a loss. In the Bull Court, life and honor came before

boy or girl. I felt it still; to me these slim athletes of my team were

beautiful. I saw with the eyes of this fuller's son how free-moving and firm

and brown she looked beside the milky maids of Athens. When I thought of all

the Cranes had shared, I could have struck the fool and taken her in my arms.

But the Bull Court was ashes and blackened stone; the Cranes were out of my

hand, my rule was over. "Find me a black bull-calf," I told the people. "I

must sacrifice to Poseidon Earth-Shaker, for our safe return. And send a

runner to the King my father." The calf came meekly, and bowed his head

consenting; a good omen which pleased the people. Even at the stroke he

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scarcely struggled. Yet when he sank down his eyes reproached me like a man's.

A strange thing, after his mildness. I dedicated him and poured the blood upon

the earth. When I quenched the flames with wine, I prayed, "Father Poseidon,

Lord of Bulls, we have danced for you in your holy place and laid our lives in

your hand. You brought us safe home; be good to us still, and hold fast our

roof-posts. And for myself, now I am come again to Erechtheus' stronghold, let

my arm not fail her. Prosper my father's house; and be it so according to our

prayer." They cried amen; but the sound wandered. There was a buzz of news

behind. My runner was back, long before he could have reached the Citadel. He

came to me slowly; and the people made way for him, drawing aside. I knew then

he brought death-tidings. He stood silent before me, but not for long. No news

so bad but an Athenian wants to be first with it. They brought me a horse.

Some of my father's barons came down to meet me. As we rode from Piraeus to

the Rock, the sounds of joy fell back and I heard the wailing. On the ramp of

the gates where it is too steep to ride, the Palace people stumbled to kiss my

hands and the fringe of my Cretan kilt. They had thought me dead, themselves

masterless: beggars at best, slaves if they could not get away before the

Pallantids swarmed back to take the kingdom. I said, "Show me my father." The

eldest baron said, "I will see, my lord, if the women have done washing him.

He was bloody from the fall." He lay in his upper room, on his great bed of

cedar, with the red cover lined with wolfskin; he had always felt the cold.

They had wrapped him in blue with a gold border; very quiet he lay between the

wailing women as they shook their hair and clawed their bosoms. One side of

his face was white, the other blue from the rock's bruising. The skull-vault

was stove in like a bowl; but they had wrapped a clean cloth round and

straightened his broken limbs. I stood dry-eyed. I had known him less than

half a year, before I went off to Crete. Before he knew who I was, he had

tried to poison me in this very room. I bore no malice for it. A battered dead

old man; a stranger. The old granddad who reared me, Pittheus of Troizen, was

the father of my childhood and my heart. Him I could have wept for. But blood

is blood; and you cannot wash out what is written in it. The blue side of his

face looked stern; the white had a little secret smile. At the bed's foot his

white boar-hound lay chin on paws, and stared at nothing. I said, "Who saw

him die?" The dog's ears pricked, and its tail struck the ground softly. The

women peeped through their hair; then they screeched louder, and the youngest

bared their breasts to pummel them. But old Mykale knelt by the bedpost

silent. My father's grandfather had taken her in some ancient war; she was

more than fourscore years old. Her monkey-creased black eyes met mine

unblinking. I held them; but it was hard to do. The baron said, "He was seen

by the guard of the northern wall, and by the watchman on the roof. Their

witness agrees that he was alone. They saw him come out on the balcony that

stands above the cliff, and step straight upon the balustrade, and lift his

arms. Then he sprang outward." I looked at the right side of his face, then

at the left. But their witness did not agree. I asked, "When was it?" He

looked away. "A runner had come from Sounion, with news of a ship passing the

headland. 'What sail?' he asked. The man answered, 'Cretan, my lord.

Blue-black, with a bull upon it.' He ordered the man to be fed, and then went

in. That was our last sight of him living." I could tell he knew what he was

saying. So I raised my voice for all to hear. "This will be my grief forever.

Now I remember how he bade me whiten my sail, if I came safe home. I have been

a year with the bulls since then, and through the great earthquake, and the

burning of the Labyrinth, and war. My sorrow that I forgot." An old

chamberlain, polished and white as silver, slid out from the press. Some

pillars of kings' houses are earthquake-proof; it is their calling. "My lord,

never reproach yourself. He died the Erechthid death. So went King Pandion at

his time, from that very place; and King Kekrops from the castle crag at

Euboia. The sign of the god was sent him, you may be sure, and your memory

slept by the will of heaven." He gave me a grave silvery smile. "The Immortals

know the scent of the new vintage. They will not let a great wine wait past

its best." At this there was a buzzing, decent and low, but keen as the shouts

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of warriors at a breach that someone else has made. I saw my father's smile in

his new-combed beard. He had ruled a troubled kingdom fifty years; he knew

something of men. He looked smaller than when I went away, or perhaps I had

grown a little. I said, "Gentlemen, you have leave." They went. The women's

eyes moved to me sidelong; I signed them away. But they forgot old Mykale,

clutching at the bedpost to ease up from her stiff knees. I went and lifted

her, and we looked at one another. She bobbed, and made to go. I caught her

arm, soft loose skin upon brittle bone, and said, "Did you see it,

Mykale?" Her wrinkles puckered, and she wriggled like a child in trouble. The

bone twisted while the slack flesh stayed in my hand. Her skull was pink as

chicken-skin through the thin hair. "Answer me," I said. "Did he speak to

you?" "Me?" she said, blinking. "Folks tell me nothing. In King Kekrops' day

I was paid more heed to. He told me, when he was called. Whom else, when I was

in his bed? 'Listen again, Mykale, listen again. Lean down, girl; put your ear

to my head. You will hear it like a sounding shell.' So I leaned down to

please him. But he put me by with the back of his arm, and walked out like a

man in thought, straight from his naked bed to the northern rampart, and down

without a cry." She had been telling this tale for sixty years. But I heard

it out. "So much for Kekrops. But here lies Aigeus dead. Come. What did he

say?" She peered at me: a wise-woman near her end; a withered baby with the

ancient House Snake looking from its eyes. Then she blinked, and said she was

only a poor old slave-girl whose memory would not hold. "Mykale!" I said. "Do

you know who I am? Don't fool with me." She jumped a little. Then, like an

old nurse to a child that stamps his foot at her, "Oh, aye, I know you,

outlandish as you've grown, like some rich lord's minion or a dancing mime.

Young Theseus, that he got at Troizen on King Pittheus' girl; the quick lad

with the meddling hand. You sent word from Crete by a mountebank, that he

should put out his ships against King Minos, and bring you home. A fine taking

it put him in. Not many knew what ailed him. But news comes to me." I said,

"He had better have sailed than grieved. Crete was falling-ripe and I knew it.

I proved it, too; so I am here." "Trust comes hard, when a man's own brothers

have fought him for his birthright. Better he'd trusted Apollo's oracle,

before he loosed your mother's girdle. Aye, he woke a fate too strong for his

hands, poor man." I let her go. She stood rubbing her arm, and grumbling to

herself. My eyes turned to my father. Under the cloth that wrapped his skull,

a thread of blood was trickling. I took a step back. I could have cried to

her like a child to its nurse, "Make this not to be!" But she had drawn away

like the House Snake who at a footstep creeps towards his hole. Her eyes were

like cores of onyx. She was of the ancient Shore Folk, and knew earth magic,

and the speech of the dead in the house of darkness. I knew whose servant she

was, and she was not mine. Where the dead are, the Mother is not far away. No

man will lie when the Daughters of Night are listening. I said, "He feared me

always. When I first came to him as victor from the Isthmus, he tried to kill

me out of fear." She nodded. It was true that all news came her way. "But

when he knew I was his son, we both did what was proper. I fought his wars; he

gave me honor. It seemed we loved as we ought. He would ask me here-you have

seen us at evening, talking by the fire." I turned towards his bed. The blood

had stopped flowing; but it lay wet still on his cheek. "If I had meant him

harm, would I have saved him on the battlefield? He would have been speared at

Sounion, without my shield. Yet he feared me still. Would I have gone to

Crete? Yet I felt his fear still waiting. Well, he might see cause now. He had

failed me with the ships. That was to face between us. In his place I would

have died of shame." When the words were out they shocked me. It was

unfitting, before his face; and Night's Daughters hear such things. Something

cold touched my hand. My flesh leaped on my bones; but it was the nose of the

white boarhound, dropping into my palm. It leaned hard against my thigh; the

warmth had comfort in it. "When it came time to show the sail, I prayed

Poseidon for a sign. I wanted to reach him before he knew of my coming: to

prove I came in peace, that I bore him no ill will for failing me, that I

could wait in patience for the kingdom. I prayed; and the god sent me the sign

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I prayed for." The Guardians of the Dead received my words into their

silence. Words do not wash out blood. There would be a reckoning. Yet I would

like to have spoken with him, a man to a man. What I had been afraid he would

do in fear, he had done in sorrow. There had been this kindness in him,

beneath all his contrivance. And yet, was it so? He was the King. Sorrow or

not, he should have named an heir, disposed the kingdom, not left chaos

behind. That he knew. Perhaps it was true that the god had called him. I

looked at Mykale, and saw only an old slave-woman of the Shore Folk, and was

sorry to have said so much. She hobbled to the bier, and took a cloth left by

the women and wiped the face. Then she turned up the palm, which came

stiffly-for the corpse was setting-and looked into it, and laid it down again

and took up mine. Her hand seemed still cold from the touch of the dead. The

dog pushed between, fussing and whining. She scolded it off, and brushed her

robe. "Yes, yes, a fate too strong for him." A fading flame guttered in her

watery eyes. "Go with your fate, but not beyond. Beyond leads to dark places.

Truth and death come from the north, in a falling star...." She crossed her

arms and rocked, and her voice keened as if for the dead. Then she

straightened, and cried out strongly, "Loose not the Bull from the Sea!" I

waited, but no more came. Her eyes had turned foolish again. I stepped towards

her, but thought, "What use? I shall get no sense." I turned away. Then I

heard a sound of growling. It was the dog, his teeth bare, his tail wrapping

his belly, the dark roots of his hackles showing. There was a shuffling of

feet like old dry leaves, and she was gone. The barons were waiting. I went

out, with the dog's nose pressed against me. He was on my side; and I did not

send him back again. II I buried my father richly, on the slope of the Hill

of Ares with the other kings. His tomb was lined with dressed stone, the

nailheads wrought with flowers and gilded. His offerings of food and drink

stood in fine painted ware on stands inlaid with ivory. I had a high and

splendid death-cart made, and wrapped him in a great hanging worked with

lions. He had enamelled coffers, his richest dagger and sword, two great gold

rings and his state necklace. When the mound was heaped above the dome, I

offered eight bulls upon it, and a war-stallion for him to ride in the lands

below. As the blood sank into the earth, the women keened his dirge and

praised him. The boar-hound Aktis followed me down; but when he whimpered at

the blood, I had him led away, and two of the palace deerhounds killed

instead. If he had mourned till the end, I would have sent him down to my

father; but the beast had chosen me of his own will. The people began to

tread the grave-mound firm. Only the open door was left within its causeway,

for the dead to witness his Funeral Games. The chanting rose and fell, the

people swayed and tramped to it, moving to the sound like blood to the

heartbeat. I stood there spattered from the sacrifice, thinking about him, and

what kind of man he was. He had got my message, that if he sailed against

Crete the serfs would rise and we bull-dancers would seize the Labyrinth. Fame

and victory I had offered him, and the treasure of a thousand years for spoil;

but he would not throw for it. That is a thing I cannot understand, nor shall

I ever: a man who wishes and will not do. Howsoever, he was dead. The chiefs

of Attica had been coming in all day, for the feast and for the Games

tomorrow. From the Palace roof you could see the troops of spearheads,

threading the hills. On the plain the helmet-plumes towered behind the

charioteers, and the dust went up from the footmen. But I had seen from the

Labyrinth the great paved Cretan highways running coast to coast, with never a

weapon but at the guardhouses. To me these bands were not the seemly sight

they thought themselves to be. They came armed to the teeth, and they had

good cause. These Attic lords had never known a common law. Some were

conquering Hellene stock like ours, chariot-folk from the north; you could

tell those far off, because the other drivers gave them the road. But there

were Shore Folk too, who had held some strong valley or mountain roost and

patched a peace with the victors; pirates from headland holds with a few

fields inland, who still kept up their trade; and men of my and my father's

making, who had helped us in the Pallantid War and been given a carving from

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its spoils. All these, if put to it, would own me as High King, so far at

least that they would follow me to war, and not harbor my enemies. A few paid

a rent of cattle or wine or slaves to the Royal House or its gods. But they

ruled their own lands by the custom of their forefathers, and looked to get no

meddling. Since their neighbors' customs differed, and the stock, as like as

not, had been at blood-feud for generations, these shields on the road were

not for show. I looked down at the great scarps of the Rock, the never-fallen

stronghold. It was this, this only, had made a High King of my grandfather, of

my father, and of me. But for the Rock, I should be like any one of those down

there, leading a little band of spears, master of a few vines and olives, and

of some cattle if I could keep my neighbors off at night. That and no more. I

went into the house, and looked at the Goddess of the Citadel in her new

shrine. She had belonged upon the Rock time out of mind; but in my grandfather

Pandion's day, when the brothers divided up the kingdom, Pallas had seized her

and taken her to his hold at Sounion. When I stormed the castle in my father's

war, I had brought her back again. I had shown her respect; during the sack I

had looked after her priestesses as if they were my sisters, and kept her

treasure sacred; but she had been at Sounion a good while, and to make sure of

her we still had her lashed to her column with ropes of bull-hide, in case it

came into her head to fly back there and leave us. She was very old. The wood

of her face and of her round bare breasts was black as pitch with age and

oiling. Her arms stretched stiffly forward; a gold snake was twisted round her

spear-arm, and the shield in her left hand was real. She had always been

armed; when I brought her back I had given her a new helmet, to make her love

me. Under her shrine is the cavern of the House Snake, forbidden to men; but

she herself is their friend. She likes shrewd war-leaders and princes good in

battle, and strong houses that have stood in honor from ancient days. The

priestess said that the House Snake gave good omens still; so it seemed her

lodging pleased her. Lest we should omit any title she set store by, we called

her in the votive hymns Pallas Athene. Night came. The guests of the house

were fed and bedded. But I owed my father some duty before the earth was

closed on him for good. Most of the night I watched with the guard about his

barrow, and saw the wake-fire tended, and poured drink-offerings to the gods

below. The fire leaped high; it shone down the long stone-lined cutting into

the mound, showing the painted doorposts of the burial vault, the new bronze

hasps of the open doors, and the Erechthid snake upon the lintel. But it did

not pierce the dark beyond; sometimes when my back was turned I could feel him

standing in the shadows beyond the doorway to watch his rites, as they show

dead men in the funeral pictures. A half-moon rose late, to shine about the

grove of tombs, the poplars and the cypresses like guardian spears, the

ancient grave-mounds with their steles of lions and boars and chariot-fights,

the poles of their moldering trophies leaning earthward. The fire's core

crumbled; a drift of gold sparks flew up, and thin blue flames. The night grew

cold; it was the ebb tide of living men. Faint through the dew the ghosts came

creeping, to warm themselves at the flames and sip the offerings. At such

times, when the fresh blood gives them strength, they can speak to men. I

turned to the doorway in the deep of the mound; the firelight caught the great

bronze door-ring, but all within was still. "What would he say?" I thought.

"What is it like there, in the fields of Hades where sun does not rise or set,

nor seasons alter? Nor do men change; for where change is life is, and these,

who are only shadows of lives past, must keep forever the shape of their

earthly selves, whatever they made of them when they walked in daylight. Need

the gods judge us further? Surely that is sentence enough, to live with

ourselves, and to remember. Oh, Zeus, Apollo, not without glory let me go down

into the land of twilight! And when I am there, let me hear my name spoken in

the world of men. Death does not master us, while the bard sings and the child

remembers." I took a turn round the mound, and rebuked two guards who were

drinking behind a tree. My father should not say I had scrambled his rites,

once I had got the kingdom. I had the fire built up again, and poured oil upon

it, thinking, "Someday I shall lie here, while my son does all this for

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me." At last the dawn-star rose. I called for a torch and climbed the long

ramps to the Citadel, then up again through the dark echoing house, and flung

myself down in my clothes to sleep. I must be up at sunrise, to start the

Games in the early cool. They passed off well. There were one or two

disputes, as there were bound to be in Attica; but my judgments got the voices

of the lookers-on, and the losers for shame accepted them. The prizes were

handsome enough to satisfy everyone. I gave the best of all for the

chariot-race, to honor Poseidon of the Horses. First prize was a Hellene

war-stallion, trained to the chariot. The second was a woman. She was the

youngest of my father's handmaids, a blue-eyed bitch who had done her best to

climb in my bed while he was still alive. Knowing what I knew of her, she was

glad to get away to some man she could fool more easily, and be stared at by a

hundred warriors on the way. She got herself up like a queen, and I won much

praise for my liberality. The third prize was a sheep and a tripod. My father

had had his dues; now they closed the great bronze-bound doors and filled in

the trench that led to them. His shade would have crossed the River now, to

join the troops of the dead. Soon grass would clothe the barrow and goats

would graze there. The young men trooped back from the river-meadow to bathe

and dress, their voices lifted freely; the elders, who had not warmed their

blood with contests and still felt the chill of death, clustered together. But

soon there came from them too a cheerful buzz like that of grasshoppers in a

fine autumn, when the frost seems far away. I went to dress for the feast. It

was a warm evening; the royal robes felt thick and smelled stale. I thought of

Crete, where only old men and low ones cover up their bodies, and a prince

goes nearly as naked as a god. Not to seem too foreign, I put on Hellene

short-drawers of scarlet leather, and a thick belt studded with lapis; above

it, only the royal necklace, and rings for the upper arm. So I was half king

and half bull-leaper, and the outside matched the man within. It made me surer

of myself. The young men were all eyes. Since I was first a wrestler, I had

clipped short the hair across my brows, so as not to be grabbed by the

forelock; they had taken that up (the cut is still called a Theseus) and I saw

this would be next. But my mind was on the guests, to see who was missing. It

was time to count my enemies. I found that all the great lords were there but

one; and he the strongest. He was a man I had heard much of. It was a heavy

matter. Next morning I called them all to the council chamber. For the first

time I sat upon Erechtheus' throne. Along the painted walls, on benches draped

with fine patterned rugs, sat the lords of Attica. I tried to forget that many

of them had sons older than I, and came to business quickly. Minos was dead;

also his heir, the Minotauros; Crete was in turmoil with a score of masters,

which is to say with none. "This news will run like fire through the Achaean

kingdoms. If we want to be lords of the Isles, and not some new Minos'

vassals, we must put to sea." Crete is a land of gold; it was not hard to get

a hearing. One man stood up and said it was a great land to conquer, we should

need allies in such a war. This was sense and I had an answer. But there was a

stir at the outer door; a ripple ran along the guests, half fear, half

expectation. A few changed secret smiles, like men who wait for a show. There

was a sound outside of a troop piling its arms. A man came in. It was he who

had failed the feast; he had come, late, to the council. His excuse was cool,

mere insolence; I heard it in silence, while I studied him. I had never seen

him till now. He came down seldom from his castle on Kithairon, where he

preyed on the travellers of the Theban road. I had pictured him black-browed;

but he was round, smooth and smiling. I said, "You were missed, Prokrustes.

But you come from rough country, and I daresay the ways were foul." He

smiled. I told him the business shortly. My father had let him be for twenty

years, sooner than risk a war with him. Every man here knew it. Since he came

in not an eye was on me, and, I guessed, hardly an ear. It was plain they

feared him more than me, and it chilled my heart. While I was still talking,

I heard a yelp from near his seat; my dog Aktis limped out, holding up a

fore-paw, and lay down by me trembling. I had seen nothing done. As I stroked

the beast's ears, the man smiled sleekly. And I thought of a sudden, "By Zeus!

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He is trying to frighten me." All these fawning faces had cast a damp upon

me. Now I was as warm as a man can need. I have seldom been so angry and sat

still in a chair. But I kept it within, and waited. This man and that had

spoken, when he rose and took the speaker's staff. You could tell he had been

reared in a princely house. "I vote for war," he said. "Men who will risk no

battles will never leave to their sons a household rich in gold and home-born

slaves." He bowed about him as if this time-worn speech had been his own. No

one dared smile. For myself, I was past joking. "And so," he said, "before we

talk of ships and men, we ought to follow custom and choose a war-leader,

seeing the King is under age." There was a hush full of hidden whispers. Not

a man spoke up for me. A little while before, it would have weighed upon my

soul. But that had lightened, as the spark does in the updraft of the

fire. "We have heard you, Prokrustes," I said. "And now hear me. I am leading

the ships to Crete, and these lords who sail with me will not be losers. For I

know the Labyrinth, as well as you do the passes of Kithairon, you carrion

jackal with your den of stinking bones." His smile had stiffened. He had

really thought I would not defy him, in my own hall. He had come to smile at

my shame. I wondered what my father could have swallowed from him, to bring

things to this. "You missed our feast," I said. "A man who is host to many

travellers should have hearth-friends everywhere. I hear your guest-room bed

is such a masterpiece that no man will leave it, unless he is carried away. I

must come and see it. Don't put yourself out for me. You have given it up too

long to strangers. When I visit you, by the head of Poseidon you shall lie on

it yourself." He stood a moment staring, from face to face. But the Attic

lords sat eased, as if their itch had been scratched for them. Suddenly

someone gave a shrill laugh; then all joined in loudly, as men do who have

been at stretch. The sound rose to the rafters. He swelled like a snake full

of poison, waiting to spit. His mouth opened; but I had had enough of him.

"You came under my roof," I said. "Get out and you can go alive. If you are

here when I have told my ten fingers over, I will throw you off the Rock." He

gave me one last hangman's smile, and went. And none too soon. There were old

javelins on the wall behind me, and I had feared I would forget myself. So I

had that war on my hands, before the great one. But it paid me well. The

chiefs had long hated themselves for putting up with him; if I had given

ground, they would have shifted off their hate to me. As it was, most of them

followed me. He knew I would be coming, but not so soon; he had not even

burned the cover about his cliffside hold, when we stormed the walls. What we

found in his guest-room would do no one good to hear, nor me to remember. We

saw his famous bed, and in the prison guests who had lain on it, waiting their

next turn. Some clasped our feet and prayed for a quick sword-thrust. Indeed

it was the best thing left for them, so we bound their eyes if they still had

any, and set them free. The rest, who could get about, begged another gift

from us. They wanted their host, to return his kindness. We had got him bound,

and by then I was feeling sick; so I left them together and closed the doors.

After some hours he died, and they asked me if I would like to see the body;

but I had heard enough as it was, and told them to drop it down the gorge. His

sons had been thrown off the walls already. It was a stock to be rooted

out. So died Prokrustes, the last of the mountain bandits, the greatest and

the worst. I had known, before he opened his mouth in council, that he would

be a bad man to have with me in Crete, and a worse to leave behind in Attica.

He was in my way, and had let me see it; it was foolish of him to make me

angry as well. But he was a slave to his pleasures, such as they were; he did

not know me, nor consider how much I had to gain by putting him down. As it

was, he came like the vulture who brings a lucky omen. My barons were all

behind me now, and ready to follow me overseas. III While my fleet was

getting ready news began to come in that Crete had a new Minos. I knew his

name, Deukalion, and, from what I had heard, guessed him for a man of straw,

put up by those lords whose strongholds had withstood the risings. But he came

of the royal kin, and his army, scrambled up from masterless spearmen of

fallen houses, had seized back the Labyrinth from the rebel serfs. Something

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like this had been sure to happen; but it meant there was no time to

lose. For all that, I did not go at it like a charging bull. I knew Cretans,

and made my plans remembering their subtlety. What I had forgotten was their

insolence. They sent me an envoy. He came into my hall, his lovelocks

sleeking his bare shoulders, his willow waist gold-belted. Before him black

pages carried gifts of courtesy: a gold necklace with crystal pendants,

painted vases of sweet oils, a rare rosebush in flower streaked with blood and

amber. Nothing was said, this time, about a tribute of boys and girls from

Attica. As we went through the courtesies, I thought, "Have I seen you

before, little peacock? Well, you will have seen me. You have smoothed your

mouth with oil since you yelled at me from the ringside." He met my eye

unblinking, proclaimed his master, and asked for my allegiance. I did not

laugh. To deal with Cretans like Hellene chiefs would be taking a boar-spear

after foxes. They had made me live a year among them, when I should have been

learning kingcraft. Instead I had learned the bull-dance, and their minds. I

asked where was Minos' body (which they would not find) and the royal seal,

which I had brought away myself though I did not say so. All I needed was a

little time. I said, "Your ship is at Piraeus?" knowing he would have seen

nothing there; to hide my plans I was mustering my ships at Troizen, across

the gulf. He answered smoothly, but with some eagerness below: "No, my lord,

at Marathon. I beached out of the city, because I have another gift from my

master still aboard, something more worthy of your fame. It would not do in

the streets; it might scare the people. King Theseus, since the bull-dancers

are scattered and the dance is over, my master has sent you as a gift of honor

Podargos, King Bull of the sacred herd sprung from the Sun. He is yours; do as

you think fit with him." "Podargos!" I could not keep my face from lighting.

Every bull-dancer in the Labyrinth had known Big Snowy, that great white

portent among the piebald herds of Crete. He had been the bull of the

Dolphins, and as tricky as he was beautiful; the Dolphins were a short-lived

team. He would give good sport, charge straight forward, was a fine bull for

the leap; but when he killed, all we trained watchers would argue how he did

it and not agree. If our team had had him, I doubt if I could have got them

all safe home. But I had always had an itch to tackle him myself; and even now

I quickened at his name. I came back from my dream, to find the Cretan

smiling. "A kingly gift," I said. "But for a god, not a man. Such bulls are

sacred; Apollo would be angry if I put him in my herd." "He would be

troublesome," said the Cretan, looking put out, "to carry again to Knossos." I

nearly laughed out loud. I could believe it. I would have liked to ask how

they had got him here; but I was not a bull-boy any more. "There is no need,"

I said. "The Sun Herd is Apollo's. We will give him back to the god." In any

case I could not take such a gift from a man I meant to make war on. This way

would save my honor, though it would go to my heart to do it. At least I would

mate him first with some of my cows. He was the last of the Bull Court; he

would hand on a spark of that strange year's life. The roar of the ring under

the Cretan sun; it lingers long in the ear. The Cretan bowed himself off. I

sat remembering, then shook myself and took up my daily business. Later, I saw

a runner come in from westward. I could see Amyntor, the captain of my Guard,

tearing, himself, up the ramps like a man possessed. He was the best of the

lads who had been with me in Crete; a little young for his place, but then so

was I. He scratched at my door; then fell inside, and panted out as if we were

still in the Bull Court, "Theseus! Theseus! Podargos has got loose!" "Get

your breath," I said. "He will have to be caught, then." "He is running wild.

Those Cretan ninnies let him go, and he is running amok in Marathon. Three men

killed outright; four more and a woman dying. And a young child." "Old

Snowy?" I said. "But he never was a rogue. He never charged before the

Dolphins had played him." "He has had the sea-trip. And been played too for

that matter, by the men of Marathon trying to catch him. Three horses he has

had besides the people; and the mules and dogs, no one has counted." I cried

out, "Dogs! The ignorant fools! Don't they know what he is?" "I doubt they

do. We got used to these great beasts in Crete, but the home breed must look

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like calves beside them. They take him for a monster." "Why did they meddle,

the stupid oafs, before they sent for me?" "They have done meddling now and

started praying. They say he's been sent by Poseidon to destroy them; they

call him the Bull from the Sea." The words rang like a gong. I stood there

silent. Then I began to strip my clothes. When I was naked, I went to the

chest where my bull-leaper's things were laid away. The ornaments I did not

trouble with, but strapped on the loin-piece of tooled and gilded hide. One

gets used in the ring to playing about with death; but no one wants to be

gelded. Amyntor was talking. But the words in my ears were the words of old

Mykale. I had known at my father's bier-side that she spoke with the Power. It

had hung in my mind, a secret shadow; a waiting fate, moving to me slowly with

its meeting stars. Now so soon it was here, while I had my strength and

swiftness: still, the fire of youth and my bull-boy's strength of arm. Within

the day I would be free of it or dead. Amyntor grabbed my arm, then

remembered and let go again. "Sir! Theseus! What are you doing? You can't

tackle him now, a bull that has been baited!" "We shall see," I said. I was

rummaging the chest for my lucky piece, a crystal bull on a neck-chain; I had

never been in the ring without it. I spat on it for luck, put it on, and

shouted for my chamber-groom. "Send a herald posthaste to Marathon. He must

cry the people to let the bull be, to go indoors and stay there till I send

them word. Have Thunderbolt saddled for me. I want a bull-net tied to the

pommel, and the strongest bull-tether they use at the sacrifices. Make haste.

And no guard, Amyntor. I shall go alone." The groom opened and shut his

mouth, and went, Amyntor struck his hand upon his thigh, and cried out, "Holy

Mother! Where is the sense? After a whole year in the ring, to throw your life

away? I'll swear the Cretans played for this! I swear they had orders to loose

the bull! This is what they hoped for. They knew your pride." "I should be

sorry," I said, "to disappoint the Cretans, after a year in the ring. However,

Amyntor, this is not the Bull Court. Do not shout in my ear." Nonetheless he

followed me down all the stairs, begging to call out the Eleusinian Guard and

kill the bull with spears. Maybe he could be killed that way, by those who

were left at the end. But the god had not sent this fate to me, for me to meet

it with the lives of other men. In Athens word had got about. People stood on

housetops to see me pass, and some tried to follow. I had my riders turn them

back and stop at the gates themselves. So presently the road grew quiet; and

when I came down into Marathon between the olive groves all blooming with

green barley, there was no one; only a hoopoe calling in the silent noonday,

and the gulls upon the shore. There was a road between tall black cypresses,

leading to the sea, and by it a little wineshop, such as peasants seek at

evening when they unyoke their teams, a mulberry tree above the benches, hens

scratching, a couple of goats and one young heifer; and a little house of

daub-and-wattle, old and tottering, all drowsy in the quiet sun. Beyond was

the flat sour sea-meadow, the long harsh plain between bay and mountains. The

blue sea lapped on a beach piled high with wrack and driftwood; slow shadows

of clouds, grape purple, swept the sunny mountains. A thin poor grass, with

yellow coltsfoot, stretched from the shore to the olive trees. Among the

flowers, like a great white block of quarried marble, stood the Cretan

bull. I hitched my horse to a cypress and went softly forward. It was Old

Snowy, sure enough. I could even see the paint of the bull ring still upon his

horns. The gilt stripes caught the sun, but the tips were dirty. It was turned

noon, the hour of the bull-dance. You could see he was on edge, if you knew

bulls, by the way he looked about him as he grazed. Far off as I was, he saw

me, and his forefoot raked the ground. I went off to think. There was no sense

in stirring him up before I was ready. I mounted again; my horse slowed

before the little wineshop. There was the heifer, honey-colored, with a soft

brown eye. I thought how bulls are caught in Crete, and laughed at my own

slowness. So I tied my horse to the mulberry tree and went and knocked at the

door. A slow step shuffled, the door opened a crack, and an old eye peeped

out. "Let me in, Mother," I said. "I want a word with your husband." "You'll

be a stranger here," she said, and opened. Inside it was like a wren's nest,

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THEBULLFROMTHESEAbyMaryRenaultMARATHONIItwasdolphinweather,whenIsailedintoPiraeuswithmycomradesoftheCretanbullring.Knossoshadfallen,whichtimeoutofmindhadruledtheseas.ThesmokeoftheburningLabyrinthstillclungtoourclothesandhair.IsprungashoreandgraspedbothhandsfullofAtticearth.Itstucktomypalmsasifitlove...

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Mary Renault - Greece 2 - Bull From The Sea

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