North Sea
paused in the grillwork shadow of columns, his head
lowered,
peering intently, furtively, out toward distant hills where shafts of sunlight burst, serene, mysterious, through deep blue glodes; the shafts lit up the far-off
trees,
the rims of the hills, like silver threads in a tapestry. He stood unmoving except for one hand reaching out, as if for support, to a great white marble chair afire with figures — goddesses, nymphs, dryads, unicorns, heroes of ancient tales whose names were clouded in
mists
long before the sculptor carved the stone. The figures burgeoned from one another — arms, legs, wings, limp
horns—
as if the stone were diseased, as if some evil force inside it meant to consume the high-beamed room with
shapes,
fat-bellied, simpering, mindless — shapes to satisfy a Civilization hip-deep in the flattery of wealth and influence, power to the edges of the
world. The slave
moved his hand, as if in pain, infinite disgust, on fat breasts sweetly nippled, polished buttockses, the dwarf-pear little penises of smiling boys.
The distant shafts of sunlight dimmed, died out; the
hills
went dark. In the gray garden, rain drummed steadily on the rude, unadorned coffin carved from gray-black
rock
to house a dead king’s bones, forgotten founder of a city, ancient pessimist locked away safe in the earth’s stiff
heart.
No rune revealed the monarch’s name; no gravid wordshape hinted which god he trusted in.
The old slave dressed in black, Ipnolebes, dear to
the king—
his eyes were mortal now — appeared at the columned
door.
“Amekhenos,” the old man called. The fair-haired slave looked down, drew back his hand. Whatever smoldered
in his mind
was cooled, for the time. He turned, waiting, to the
old man.
Take more wine to the king’s guests, Amekhenos.” The young man bowed, withdrew. The old man watched
him go,
then turned to his business, supervision of the kitchen
slaves
at work on the evening meal. Wherever the old man
walked,
slave girls scrubbed or swept more busily, their
whispering ceased,
laments and curses — silenced not by fear, it seemed, but as if all the household were quickened by something
in the old man’s face,
as if his character carried some wordless meaning in it To a boy he said, “Go help Amekhenos with the wine.”
Without
a word, quiet as an owl in the hall, the boy ran off.
Travellers were gathered in the dark-beamed central
room of the palace,
men from farther away than the realm of Avalon, men who brought gold from Mesopotamia, silks from
Troy,
jewels from India, iron from the foot of the Caucasus. They sat in their fine apparel, kings and the minions
of kings,
drinking from golden bowls and exchanging noble tales of storms, strange creatures, islands enveloped in
eternal night;
they told of beasts half bird, half horse, of talking trees, ships that could fly, and ladies whose arms turned men
to fish.
They told of the spirits and men and gods in the war
now raging
on the plains of Ilium. The kings and Corinthian nobles
laughed,
admired the tales and treasures, awaiting their host’s
return.
The time for exchange was near. The strangers itched
for canvas,
sea-salt spray in their beards, the song of the halcyon, sweeter to sea-kings’ ears than all but the shoals of
home.
Kreon would hardly have slighted such men in the old
days,
they said. They’d burned men’s towns for less.
The lords of Corinth
smiled. The king was old, and the wealthiest Akhaian
alive.
It gave him a certain latitude, as one of the strangers saw more clearly than the rest. He spoke to his
neighbors — a fat man,
womanish-voiced, sow-slack monster of abdomens and
chins—
a prominent lord out of Asia known as Koprophoros. His slanted eyes were large and strangely luminous, eyes like a Buddha’s, an Egyptian king’s. His turban was gold, and a blood-red ruby was set on
his forehead.
I heard from one who claimed to know, that if he
stamped his foot
the ground would open like a magic door and carry him
at once
to his palace of coal-black marble. He wore a scimitar so sharp, men said, that if he laid the edge on a tabletop of solid oak, the blade would part it by its own weight. I laughed in my hand when I heard these things, yet
this was sure:
he was vast — so fat he was frightening — and painted
like a harlot,
and his eyes were chilling, like a ghost’s.
He said:
“Be patient, friends, with a good man’s eccentricity. We all, poor humble traders, have got our pressing
affairs—
accounts to settle, business mounting while we sit here cross-legged, stuffing our bellies like Egypt’s pet baboons, or fat old queens with no use left but ceremony. And yet we remain.” He smiled. “I ask myself, “Why?’
And with
a sly wink I respond: ‘His majesty’s daughter, you’ve
noticed,
is of marrying age. He’s not so addled in his wits, I hope, as not to have seen it himself.’” The young man
chuckled, squinted.
“I’ll speak what I think. He’s displayed her to us twice
at meals,
leading her in on his arm with only a mump or two by way of introduction. Her robe was bridal white impleached with gold, and resting in her golden hair, a
crown
of gold, garnets, and fine-wrought milleflori work. Perhaps he deems it enough to merely — venditate’— not plink out his thought in words. These things are delicate, friends. They require some measure of
dignity!”
They laughed. The creature expressed what had come
into all their minds
at the first glimpse of Pyripta. What he hinted might
be so:
some man whose treasures outweighed other men’s,
whose thought
sparkled more keen, or whose gentility stood out white as the moon in a kingdom of feebly blinking stars, might land him a lovelier fish than he’d come here
baited for—
the throne of Corinth. Even to the poorest of the foreign
kings,
even to the humblest second son of a Corinthian lord, the wait seemed worth it. For what man knows what his
fate may bring?
But the winner would not be Koprophoros, I could pretty
well see,
whatever his cunning or wealth. Not a man in the hall
could be sure
if the monster was female or male — smooth-faced as a
mushroom, an alto;
by all indications (despite his pretense) transvestite, or
gelded.
And yet he had come to contend for the princess’ hand—
came filled
with sinister confidence. I shuddered, looked down at my
shoes, waiting.
And so the strangers continued to eat, drank Kreon’s
wine,
and talked, observing in the backs of their minds the
muffled boom
of thunder, the whisper of rain. Below the city wall, the thistle-whiskered guardians watching the sea-kings’
ships
cursed the delay, huddled in tents of sail, and cursed their fellow seamen, hours late in arriving to stand their stint — slack whoresmen swilling down wine like