Mary Renault - Greece 1 - The King Must Die

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Mary Renault's THE KING MUST DIE

Oh, Mother! I was born to die soon;

but Olympian Zeus the Thunderer

owes me some honor for it.

Achilles, in the ILIAD

BOOK I TROIZEN

The Citadel of Troizen, where the Palace stands, was built by giants before anyone remembers. But the

Palace was built by my great-grandfather. At sunrise, if you look at it from Kalauria across the strait, the

columns glow fire-red and the walls are golden. It shines bright against the dark woods on the

mountainside.

Our house is Hellene, sprung from the seed of Ever-Living Zeus. We worship the Sky Gods before

Mother Dia and the gods of earth. And we have never mixed our blood with the blood of the Shore

People, who had the land before us.

My grandfather had about fifteen children in his household, when I was born. But his queen and her sons

were dead, leaving only my mother born in wedlock. As for my father, it was said in the Palace that I had

been fathered by a god. By the time I was five, I had perceived that some people doubted this. But my

mother never spoke of it; and I cannot remember a time when I should have cared to ask her.

When I was seven, the Horse Sacrifice came due, a great day in Troizen.

It is held four-yearly, so I remembered nothing of the last one. I knew it concerned the King Horse, but

thought it was some act of homage to him. To my mind, nothing could have been more fitting. I knew him

well.

He lived in the great horse field, down on the plain. From the Palace roof I had often watched him,

snuffing the wind with his white mane flying, or leaping on his mares. And only last year I had seen him do

battle for his kingdom. One of the House Barons, seeing from afar the duel begin, rode down to the olive

slopes for a nearer sight, and took me on his crupper. I watched the great stallions rake the earth with

their forefeet, arch their necks, and shout their war cries; then charge in with streaming manes and teeth

laid bare. At last the loser foundered; the King Horse snorted over him, threw up his head neighing, and

trotted off toward his wives. He had never been haltered, and was as wild as the sea. Not the King

himself would ever throw a leg across him. He belonged to the god.

His valor alone would have made me love him. But I had another cause as well. I thought he was my

brother.

Poseidon, as I knew, can look like a man or like a horse, whichever he chooses. In his man shape, it was

said, he had begotten me. But there were songs in which he had horse sons too, swift as the north wind,

and immortal. The King Horse, who was his own, must surely be one of these. It seemed clear to me,

therefore, that we ought to meet. I had heard he was only five years old. "So," I thought, "though he is the

bigger, I am the elder. It is for me to speak first."

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Next time the Master of the Horse went down to choose colts for the chariots, I got him to take me.

While he did his work, he left me with a groom; who presently drew in the dust a gambling board, and

fell to play with a friend. Soon they forgot me. I climbed the palisade, and went seeking the King Horse.

The horses of Troizen are pure-bred Hellene. We have never crossed them with the little strain of the

Shore People, whom we took the land from. When I was in with them, they looked very tall. As I

reached up to-pat one, I heard the Horse Master shout behind me; but I closed my ears. "Everyone gives

me orders," I thought. "It comes of having no father. I wish I were the King Horse; no one gives them to

him." Then I saw him, standing by himself on a little knoll, watching the end of the pasture where they

were choosing colts. I went nearer, thinking, as every child thinks once for the first time, "Here is beauty."

He had heard me, and turned to look. I held out my hand, as I did in the stables, and called, "Son of

Poseidon!" On this he came trotting up to me, just as the stable horses did. I had brought a lump of salt,

and held it out to him.

There was some commotion behind me. The groom bawled out, and looking round I saw the Horse

Master beating him. My turn would be next, I thought; men were waving at me from the railings, and

cursing each other. I felt safer where I was. The King Horse was so near that I could see the lashes of his

dark eyes. His forelock fell between them like a white waterfall between shining stones. His teeth were as

big as the ivory plates upon a war helm; but his lip, when he licked the salt out of my palm, felt softer than

my mother's breast. When the salt was finished, he brushed my cheek with his, and snuffed at my hair.

Then he trotted back to his hillock, whisking his long tail. His feet, with which as I learned later he had

killed a mountain lion, sounded neat on the meadow, like a dancer's.

Now I found myself snatched from all sides, and hustled from the pasture. It surprised me to see the

Horse Master as pale as a sick man. He heaved me on his mount in silence, and hardly spoke all the way

home. After so much to-do, I feared my grandfather himself would beat me. He gave me a long look as I

came near; but all he said was, "Theseus, you went to the horse field as Peiros' guest. It was unmannerly

to give him trouble. A nursing mare might have bitten your arm off. I forbid you to go again."

This happened when I was six years old; and the Horse Feast fell next year.

It was the chief of all feasts at Troizen. The Palace was a week getting ready. First my mother took the

women down to the river Hyllikos, to wash the clothes. They were loaded on mules and brought down to

the clearest water, the basin under the fall. Even in drought the Hyllikos never fails or muddies; but now in

summer it was low. The old women rubbed light things at the water's edge, and beat them on the stones;

the girls picked up their petticoats and trod the heavy mantles and blankets in mid-stream. One played a

pipe, which they kept time to, splashing and laughing. When the wash was drying on the sunny boulders,

they stripped and bathed, taking me in with them. That was the last time I was allowed there; my mother

saw that I understood the jokes.

On the feast day I woke at dawn. My old nurse dressed me in my best: my new doeskin drawers with

braided borders, my red belt rolled upon rope and clasped with crystal, and my necklace of gold beads.

When she had combed my hair, I went to see my mother dressing. She was just out of her bath, and they

were dropping her petticoat over her head. The seven-tiered flounces, sewn with gold drops and

pendants, clinked and glittered as she shook them out. When they clipped together her gold-worked

girdle and her bodice waist, she held her breath in hard and let it out laughing. Her breasts were as

smooth as milk, and the tips so rosy that she never painted them, though she was still wearing them bare,

not being, at that time, much above three and twenty.

They took her hair out of the crimping-plaits (it was darker than mine, about the color of polished

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bronze) and began to comb it. I ran outside on the terrace, which runs all round the royal rooms, for they

stand on the roof of the Great Hall. Morning was red, and the crimson-painted columns burned in it. I

could hear, down in the courtyard, the House Barons assembling in their war dress. This was what I had

waited for.

They came in by twos and threes, the bearded warriors talking, the young men laughing and scuffling,

shouting to friends, or feinting at each other with the butts of their spears. They had on their tall-plumed

leather helmets, circled with bronze or strengthened with rolls of hide. Their broad breasts and shoulders,

sleekly oiled, shone russet in the rosy light; their wide leather drawers stood stiffly out from the thigh,

making their lean waists, pulled in with the thick rolled sword-belts, look slenderer still. They waited,

exchanging news and chaff, and striking poses for the women, the young men lounging with the tops of

their tall shields propping their left armpits, their right arms stretched out grasping their spears. Their

upper lips were all fresh shaved, to make their new beards show clearer. I scanned the shield devices,

birds or fish or serpents worked upon the hide, picking out friends to hail, who raised their spears in

greeting. Seven or eight of them were uncles of mine. My grandfather had got them in the Palace on

various women of good blood, prizes of his old wars, or gifts of compliment from neighbor kings.

The land barons were coming in from their horses or their chariots; they too bare to the waist, for the day

was warm, but wearing all their jewels; even their boot tops had golden tassels. The sound of men's

voices grew louder and deeper and filled the air above the courtyard. I squared back my shoulders, and

nipped my belt in; gazed at a youth whose beard was starting, and counted years on my fingers.

Talaos came in, the War Leader; a son of my grandfather's youth, got upon a chief's wife taken in battle.

He had on his finest things: his prize helmet from the High King of Mycenae's funeral games, all plated,

head and cheeks, with the carved teeth of boars, and both his swords, the long one with the crystal

pommel which he sometimes let me draw, the short one with a leopard hunt inlaid in gold. The men

touched their spear shafts to their brows; he numbered them off with his eye, and went in to tell my

grandfather they were ready. Soon he came out, and standing on the great steps before the king-column

that carried the lintel, his beard jutting like a warship's prow, shouted, "The god goes forth!"

They all trooped out of the courtyard. As I craned to see, my grandfather's body servant came and

asked my mother's maid if the Lord Theseus was ready to go with the King.

I had supposed I should be going with my mother. So I think had she. But she sent word that I was

ready whenever her father wished.

She was Chief Priestess of Mother Dia in Troizen. In the time of the Shore People before us, that would

have made her sovereign queen; and if we ourselves had been sacrificing at the Navel Stone, no one

would have walked before her. But Poseidon is husband and lord of the Mother, and on his feast day the

men go first. So, when I heard I was going with my grandfather, I saw myself a man already.

I ran to the battlements, and looked out between their teeth. Now I saw what god it was the men were

following. They had let loose the King Horse, and he was running free across the plain.

The village too, it seemed, had turned out to welcome him. He went through standing corn in the common

fields, and no one raised a hand to stop him. He crossed the beans and the barley, and would have gone

up to the olive slopes; but some of the men were there and he turned away. While I was watching, down

in the empty court a chariot rattled. It was my grandfather's; and I remembered I was to ride in it. By

myself on the terrace I danced for joy.

They fetched me down. Eurytos the charioteer was up already, standing still as an image in his short white

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tunic and leather greaves, his long hair bound in a club; only his arm muscles moved, from holding in the

horses. He lifted me in, to await my grandfather. I was eager to see him in his war things, for in those

days he was tall. Last time I was in Troizen, when he was turned eighty, he had grown light and dry as an

old grasshopper, piping by the hearth. I could have lifted him in my hands. He died a month after my son,

having I suppose nothing to hold him longer. But he was a big man then.

He came out, after all, in his priestly robe and fillet, with a scepter instead of a spear. He heaved himself

in by the chariot rail, set his feet in the bracers, and gave the word to go. As we clattered down the

cobbled road, you could not have taken him for anything but a warrior, fillet or no. He rode with the

broad rolling war straddle a man learns driving cross-country with weapons in his hands. Whenever I

rode with him, I had to stand on his left; it would have set his teeth on edge to have anything in front of his

spear arm. Always I seemed to feel thrown over me the shelter of his absent shield.

Seeing the road deserted, I was surprised, and asked him where the people were. "At Sphairia," he said,

grasping my shoulder to steady me over a pothole. "I am taking you to see the rite, because soon you will

be waiting on the god there, as one of his servants."

This news startled me. I wondered what service a horse god wanted, and pictured myself combing his

forelock, or putting ambrosia before him in golden bowls. But he was also Poseidon Bluehair, who raises

storms; and the great black Earth Bull whom, as I had heard, the Cretans fed with youths and girls. After

some time I asked my grandfather, "How long shall I stay?"

He looked at my face and laughed, and ruffled my hair with his big hand. "A month at a time," he said.

"You will only serve the shrine, and the holy spring. It is time you did your duties to Poseidon, who is

your birth-god. So today I shall dedicate you, after the sacrifice. Behave respectfully, and stand still till

you are told; remember, you are with me."

We had reached the shore of the strait, where the ford was. I had looked forward to splashing through it

in the chariot; but a boat was waiting, to save our best clothes. On the other side we mounted again, and

skirted for a while the Kalaurian shore, looking across at Troizen. Then we turned inward, through pines.

The horses' feet drummed on a wooden bridge and stopped. We had come to the little holy island at the

big one's toe; and kings must walk in the presence of the gods.

The people were waiting. Their clothes and garlands, the warriors' plumes, looked bright in the clearing

beyond the trees. My grandfather took my hand and led me up the rocky path. On either side a row of

youths was standing, the tallest lads of Troizen and Kalauria, their long hair tied up to crest their heads

like manes. They were singing, stamping the beat with their right feet all together, a hymn to Poseidon

Hippios. It said how the Horse Father is like the fruitful earth; like the seaway whose broad back bears

the ships safe home; his plumed head and bright eye are like daybreak over the mountains, his back and

loins like the ripple in the barley field; his mane is like the surf when it blows streaming off the wave

crests; and when he stamps the ground, men and cities tremble, and kings' houses fall.

I knew this was true, for the roof of the sanctuary had been rebuilt in my own lifetime; Poseidon had

overthrown its wooden columns, and several houses, and made a crack in the Palace walls. I had not felt

myself that morning; they had asked me if I was sick, at which I only cried. But after the shock I was

better. I had been four years old then, and had almost forgotten.

Our part of the world had always been sacred to Earth-Shaker; the youths had many of his deeds to sing

about. Even the ford, their hymn said, was of his making; he had stamped in the strait, and the sea had

sunk to a trickle, then risen to flood the plain. Up till that time, ships had passed through it; there was a

prophecy that one day he would strike it with his fish-spear, and it would sink again.

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As we walked between the boys, my grandfather ran his eye along them, for likely warriors. But I had

seen ahead, in the midst of the sacred clearing, the King Horse himself, browsing quietly from a tripod.

He had been hand-broken this last year, not for work but for this occasion, and today he had had the

drugged feed at dawn. But without knowing this, I was not surprised he should put up with the people

round him; I had been taught it was the mark of a king to receive homage with grace.

The shrine was garlanded with pine boughs. The summer air bore scents of resin and flowers and

incense, of sweat from the horse and the young men's bodies, of salt from the sea. The priests came

forward, crowned with pine, to salute my grandfather as chief priest of the god. Old Kannadis, whose

beard was as white as the King Horse's forelock, laid his hand on my head nodding and smiling. My

grandfather beckoned to Diokles, my favorite uncle; a big young man eighteen years old, with the skin of

a leopard, which he had killed himself, hanging on his shoulder. "Look after the boy," said my

grandfather, "till we are ready for him."

Diokles said, "Yes, sir," and led me to the steps before the shrine, away from where he had been

standing with his friends. He had on his gold snake arm-ring with crystal eyes, and his hair was bound

with a purple ribbon. My grandfather had won his mother at Pylos, second prize in the chariot race, and

had always valued her highly; she was the best embroidress in the Palace. He was a bold gay youth, who

used to let me ride on his wolfhound. But today he looked at me solemnly, and I feared I was a burden

to him.

Old Kannadis brought my grandfather a pine wreath bound with wool, which should have been ready,

but had been found after some delay. There is always some small hitch at Troizen; we do not do these

things with the smoothness of Athens. The King Horse munched from the tripod, and flicked off flies with

his tail.

There were two more tripods; one bowl held water, the other water and wine. In the first my grandfather

washed his hands, and a young server dried them. The King Horse lifted his head from the feed, and it

seemed they looked at one another. My grandfather set his hand on the white muzzle, and stroked down

hard; the head dipped, and rose with a gentle toss. Diokles leaned down to me and said, "Look, he

consents."

I looked up at him. This year his beard showed clearly against the light. He said, "It means a good omen.

A lucky year." I nodded, thinking the purpose of the rite accomplished; now we would go home. But my

grandfather sprinkled meal on the horse's back from a golden dish; then took up a little knife bright with

grinding, and cut a lock from his mane. He gave a small piece to Talaos, who was standing near, and

some to the first of the barons. Then he turned my way, and beckoned. Diokles' hand on my shoulder

pushed me forward. "Go up," he whispered. "Go and take it."

I stepped out, hearing men whisper, and women coo like mating pigeons. I knew already that the son of

the Queen's own daughter ranked before the sons of the Palace women; but I had never had it noticed

publicly. I thought I was being honored like this because the King Horse was my brother.

Five or six strong white hairs were put in my hand. I had meant to thank my grandfather; but now I felt

come out of him the presence of the King, solemn as a sacred oak wood. So, like the others, I touched

the lock to my brow in silence. Then I went back, and Diokles said, "Well done."

My grandfather raised his hands and invoked the god. He hailed him as Earth-Shaker, Wave-Gatherer,

brother of King Zeus and husband of the Mother; Shepherd of Ships, Horse-Lover. I heard a whinny

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from beyond the pine woods, where the chariot teams were tethered, ready to race in honor of the god.

The King Horse raised his noble head, and softly answered.

The prayer was long, and my mind wandered, till I heard by the note that the end was coming. "Be it so,

Lord Poseidon, according to our prayer; and do you accept the offering." He held out his hand, and

someone put in it a great cleaver with a bright-ground edge. There were tall men standing with ropes of

oxhide in their hands. My grandfather felt the cleaver's edge and, as in his chariot, braced his feet apart.

It was a good clean killing. I myself, with all Athens watching, am content to do no worse. Yet, even

now, I still remember. How he reared up like a tower, feeling his death, dragging the men like children;

the scarlet cleft in the white throat, the rank hot smell; the ruin of beauty, the fall of strength, the ebb of

valor; and the grief, the burning pity as he sank upon his knees and laid his bright head in the dust. That

blood seemed to tear the soul out of my breast, as if my own heart had shed it.

As the newborn babe, who has been rocked day and night in his soft cave knowing no other, is thrust

forth where the harsh air pierces him and the fierce light stabs his eyes, so it was with me. But between

me and my mother, where she stood among the women, was the felled carcass twitching in blood, and

my grandfather with the crimson cleaver. I looked up; but Diokles was watching the death-throe, leaning

easily on his spear. I met only the empty eye-slits of the leopardskin, and the arm-snake's jewelled stare.

My grandfather dipped a cup into the offering bowl, and poured the wine upon the ground. I seemed to

see blood stream from his hand. The smell of dressed hide from Diokles' shield, and the man's smell of

his body, came to me mixed with the smell of death. My grandfather gave the server the cup, and

beckoned. Diokles shifted his spear to his shield arm, and took my hand. "Come," he said. "Father wants

you. You have to be dedicated now."

I thought, "So was the King Horse." The bright day rippled before my eyes, which tears of grief and

terror blinded. Diokles swung round his shield on its shoulder sling to cover me like a house of hide, and

wiped his hard young hand across my eyelids. "Behave," he said. "The people are watching. Come,

where's the warrior? It's only blood."

He took the shield away; and I saw the people staring.

At the sight of all their eyes, memories came back to me. "Gods' sons fear nothing," I thought. "Now they

will know, one way or the other." And though within me was all dark and crying, yet my foot stepped

forward.

Then it was that I heard a sea-sound in my ears; a pulse and a surging, going with me, bearing me on. I

heard it then for the first time.

I moved with the wave, as if it broke down a wall before me; and Diokles led me forward. At least, I

know that I was led; by him, or one who took his shape as the Immortals may. And I know that having

been alone, I was alone no longer.

My grandfather dipped his finger in the blood of the sacrifice, and made the sign of the trident on my

brow. Then he and old Kannadis took me under the cool thatch that roofed the holy spring, and dropped

in a votive for me, a bronze bull with gilded horns. When we came out, the priests had cut off the god's

portion from the carcass, and the smell of burned fat filled the air. But it was not till I got home, and my

mother asked, "What is it?" that at last I wept.

Between her breasts, entangled in her shining hair, I wept as if to purge away my soul in water. She put

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me to bed, and sang to me, and said when I was quiet, "Don't grieve for the King Horse; he has gone to

the Earth Mother, who made us all. She has a thousand thousand children, and knows each one of them.

He was too good for anyone here to ride; but she will find him some great hero, a child of the sun or the

north wind, to be his friend and master; they will gallop all day, and never be tired. Tomorrow you shall

take her a present for him, and I will tell her it comes from you."

Next day we went down together to the Navel Stone. It had fallen from heaven long- ago, before anyone

remembers. The walls of its sunken court were mossy, and the Palace noises fell quiet around. The

sacred House Snake had his hole between the stones; but he only showed himself to my mother, when

she brought him his milk. She laid my honey-cake on the altar, and told the Goddess whom it was for. As

we went, I looked back and saw it lying on the cold stone, and remembered the horse's living breath

upon my hand, his soft lip warm and moving.

I was sitting among the house dogs, at the doorway end of the Great Hall, when my grandfather passed

through, and spoke to me in greeting.

I got up, and answered; for one did not forget he was the King. But I stood looking down, and stroking

my toe along a crack in the flagstones. Because of the dogs, I had not heard him coming, or I would have

been gone. "If he could do this," I had been thinking, "how can one trust the gods?"

He spoke again, but I only said "Yes," and would not look at him. I could feel him high above me,

standing in thought. Presently he said, "Come with me."

I followed him up the corner stairs to his own room above. He had been born there, and got my mother

and his sons, and it was the room he died in. Then I had been there seldom; in his old age he lived all day

in it, for it faced south, and the chimney of the Great Hall went through to warm it. The royal bed at the

far end was seven feet long by six feet wide, made of polished cypress, inlaid and carved. The blue wool

cover with its border of flying cranes had taken my grandmother half a year on the great loom. There was

a bronze-bound chest by it, for his clothes; and for his jewels an ivory coffer on a painted stand. His arms

hung on the wall: shield, bow, longsword and dagger, his hunting knife, and his tall-plumed helmet of

quilted hide, lined with crimson leather the worse for wear. There was not much else, except the skins on

the floor and a chair. He sat, and motioned me to the footstool.

Muffled up the stairway came the noises of the Hall: women scrubbing the long trestles with sand, and

scolding men out of their way; a scuffle and a laugh. My grandfather's head cocked, like an old dog's at a

footstep. Then he rested his hands on the chair-arms carved with lions, and said, "Well, Theseus? Why

are you angry?"

I looked up as far as his hand. His fingers curved into a lion's open mouth; on his forefinger was the royal

ring of Troizen, with the Mother being worshipped on a pillar. I pulled at the bearskin on the floor, and

was silent.

"When you are a king," he said, "you will do better than we do here. Only the ugly and the base shall die;

what is brave and beautiful shall live for ever. That is how you will rule your kingdom?"

To see if he was mocking me, I looked at his face. Then it was as if I had only dreamed the priest with

the cleaver. He reached out and drew me in against his knees, and dug his fingers in my hair as he did

with his dogs when they came up to be noticed.

"You knew the King Horse; he was your friend. So you know if it was his own choice to be King, or

not." I sat silent, remembering the great horse-fight and the war calls. "You know he lived like a king,

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with first pick of the feed, and any mare he wanted; and no one asked him to work for it."

I opened my mouth, and said, "He had to fight for it."

"Yes, that is true. Later, when he was past his best, a younger stallion would have come, and won the

fight, and taken his kingdom. He would have died hard, or been driven from his people and his wives to

grow old without honor. You saw that he was proud."

I asked, "Was he so old?"

"No." His big wrinkled hand lay quietly on the lion mask. "No older for a horse than Talaos for a man.

He died for another cause. But if I tell you why, then you must listen, even if you do not understand.

When you are older, if I am here, I will tell it you again; if not you will have heard it once, and some of it

you will remember."

While he spoke, a bee flew in and buzzed among the painted rafters. To this day, that sound will bring it

back to me.

"When I was a boy," he said, "I knew an old man, as you know me. But he was older; the father of my

grandfather. His strength was gone, and he sat in the sun or by the hearthside. He told me this tale, which

I shall tell you now, and you, perhaps, will tell one day to your son." I remember I looked up then, to see

if he was smiling.

"Long ago, so he said, our people lived in the north-land, beyond Olympos. He said, and he was angry

when I doubted it, that they never saw the sea. Instead of water they had a sea of grass, which stretched

as far as the swallow flies, from the rising to the setting sun. They lived by the increase of their herds, and

built no cities; when the grass was eaten, they moved where there was more. They did not grieve for the

sea, as we should, or for the good things earth brings forth with tilling; they had never known them; and

they had few skills, because they were wandering men. But they saw a wide sky, which draws men's

mind to the gods; and they gave their first-fruits to Ever-Living Zeus, who sends the rain.

"When they journeyed, the barons in their chariots rode round about, guarding the flocks and the women.

They bore the burden of danger, then as now; it is the price men pay for honor. And to this very day,

though we live in the Isle of Pelops and build walls, planting olives and barley, still for the theft of cattle

there is always blood. But the horse is more. With horses we took these lands from the Shore People

who were here before us. The horse will be the victor's sign, as long as our blood remembers.

"The folk came south by little and little, leaving their first lands. Perhaps Zeus sent no rain, or the people

grew too many, or they were pressed by enemies. But my great-grandfather said to me that they came by

the will of All-Knowing Zeus, because this was the place of their moira."

He paused in thought. I said to him, "What is that?"

"Moira?" he said. "The finished shape of our fate, the line drawn round it. It is the task the gods allot us,

and the share of glory they allow; the limits we must not pass; and our appointed end. Moira is all these."

I thought about this, but it was too big for me. I asked, "Who told them where to come?"

"The Lord Poseidon, who rules everything that stretches under the sky, the land and the sea. He told the

King Horse; and the King Horse led them."

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I sat up; this I could understand.

"When they needed new pastures, they let him loose; and he, taking care of his people as the god

advised him, would smell the air seeking food and water. Here in Troizen, when he goes out for the god,

they guide him round the fields and over the ford. We do it in memory. But in those days he ran free. The

barons followed him, to give battle if his passage was disputed; but only the god told him where to go.

"And so, before he was loosed, he was always dedicated. The god only inspires his own. Can you

understand this, Theseus? You know that when Diokles hunts, Argo will drive the game to him; but he

would not do it for you, and by himself he would only hunt small game. But because he is Diokles' dog,

he knows his mind.

"The King Horse showed the way; the barons cleared it; and the King led the people. When the work of

the King Horse was done, he was given to the god, as you saw yesterday. And in those days, said my

great-grandfather, as with the King Horse, so with the King."

I looked up in wonder; and yet, not in astonishment. Something within me did not find it strange. He

nodded at me, and ran down his fingers through my hair, so that my neck shivered.

"Horses go blindly to the sacrifice; but the gods give knowledge to men. When the King was dedicated,

he knew his moira. In three years, or seven, or nine, or whenever the custom was, his term would end

and the god would call him. And he went consenting, or else he was no king, and power would not fall

on him to lead the people. When they came to choose among the Royal Kin, this was his sign: that he

chose short life with glory, and to walk with the god, rather than live long, unknown like the stall-fed ox.

And the custom changes, Theseus, but this token never. Remember, even if you do not understand."

I wanted to say I understood him. But I was silent, as in the sacred oak wood.

"Later the custom altered. Perhaps they had a King they could not spare, when war or plague had

thinned the Kindred. Or perhaps Apollo showed them a hidden thing. But they ceased to offer the King

at a set time. They kept him for the extreme sacrifice, to appease the gods in their great angers, when

they had sent no rain, or the cattle died, or in a hard war. And it was no one's place to say to him, 'It is

time to make the offering.' He was the nearest to the god, because he consented to his moira; and he

himself received the god's commandment."

He paused; and I said, "How?"

"In different ways. By an oracle, or an omen, or some prophecy being fulfilled; or, if the god came close

to him, by some sign between them, something seen, or a sound. And so it is still, Theseus. We know our

time."

I neither spoke nor wept, but laid my head against his knee. He saw that I understood him.

"Listen, and do not forget, and I will show you a mystery. It is not the sacrifice, whether it comes in youth

or age, or the god remits it; it is not the bloodletting that calls down power. It is the consenting, Theseus.

The readiness is all. It washes heart and mind from things of no account, and leaves them open to the

god. But one washing does not last a lifetime; we must renew it, or the dust returns to cover us. And so

with this. Twenty years I have ruled in Troizen, and four times sent the King Horse to Poseidon. When I

lay my hand on his head to make him nod, it is not only to bless the people with the omen. I greet him as

my brother before the god, and renew my moira."

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He ceased. Looking up, I saw him staring out between the red pillars of the window, at the dark-blue line

of the sea. We sat some while, he playing with my hair as a man will scratch his dog to quiet it, lest its

importunities disturb his thoughts. But I had no word to say to him. The seed is still, when first it falls into

the furrow.

At last he sat up with a start, and looked at me. "Well, well, child, the omens said I should reign long. But

sometimes they talk double; and too early's better than too late. All this is heavy for you. But the man in

you challenged it, and the man will bear it." He got up rather stiffly from his chair, and stretched, and

strode to the doorway; his shout echoed down the twisted stair. Presently Diokles running up from below

said, "Here I am, sir."

"Look at this great lad here," my grandfather said, "growing out of his clothes, and nothing to do but sit

with the house dogs, scratching. Take him away, and teach him to ride."

Next year, I began my service to Poseidon. For three years I went to Sphairia one month out of four,

living with Kannadis and his fat old wife in their little house at the edge of the grove. My mother used to

complain that I came back spoiled past bearing.

It was true I came home rough and noisy. But I was only breaking out after the quiet. When you serve a

holy place, you can never forget, even in sleep, that the god is there. You cannot keep from listening.

Even on a bright morning, with birds in song, there are hushing whispers. Except at the festival, no one

cares to be too loud in a precinct of Poseidon. It is like whistling at sea. You might start more than you

bargained for.

I remember many days like one: the hush of noonday; the shadow of the thatch falling straight and sharp;

no sound but a cicada out in the hot grass, the restless pine-tops, and a far-off sea-hum like the echo in a

shell. I swept the floor round the sacred spring, and scattered clean sand; then took the offerings laid on

the rock beside it, and put them in a dish for the priests and servers to eat. I wheeled out the great bronze

tripod, and filled its bowl from the spring, dipping the water out in a jug shaped like a horse's head. When

I had washed the sacred vessels, and dried them in clean linen, and set them out for the evening offerings,

I poured off the water into an earthen jar that stood under the eaves. It is healing, especially for tainted

wounds, and people come a long way to get it.

There was a wooden image of Poseidon on the rock, blue-bearded, holding a fish-spear and a horse's

head. But I soon came not to notice it. Like the old Shore Folk who worshipped the Sea Mother under

the open sky there, killing their victims on the bare rock, I knew where the deity lived. I used to listen in

the deep noon shadow, quiet as the lizards on the pine trunks; sometimes there would be nothing but a

wood-dove's coo; but on another day, when the hush was deepest, there would sound far down in the

spring a great throat swallowing, or a great mouth smacking its lips together; or sometimes only a long

thick breath.

The first time I heard, I dropped the cup back in the bowl, and ran out between the painted columns into

the hot sun, and stood panting. Then came old Kannadis, and put his hand on my shoulder. "What is it,

child? Did you hear the spring?" I nodded. He ruffled my hair and smiled. "What's this? You don't fear

your grandfather, when he stirs in his sleep? Why fear Father Poseidon, who is nearer yet?" Soon I grew

to know the sounds, and listened with my courage on tiptoe, in the way of boys; till the days of silence

came to seem flat. And when a year had passed, bringing me trouble I could tell no one, I used to lean

over the hollow rock and whisper it to the god; if he answered I would be comforted.

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