After a while I scratched on the door, and opened it. She had left the lamp burning; I saw her bare arm slide from the bed to the floor and grasp the sword. She had a linen shift on; her outer things hung on the bedpost. She had trusted me. But she could not have understood I was coming back. Her limbs had grown taut and still, her eyes had narrowed. If she had got to die, she was going down to the River with her enemy, as a warrior ought. The more honor to her, I thought.
“It’s only I,” I said. “Why don’t you sleep; you have had work enough. I shall lie here at the door, to keep it; that is best, among roving warriors.” I looked at the shadows round her bright open eyes; her fate had moved too fast for her. Torn from her kind and all she knew, she had no one but me to look to. “Take care of the sword till morning,” I said. “I have got my spear.”
I took off my leather corselet. As I bent to put out the lamp, I heard her speak; a low half-muffled growl, not like her clear voice before the fight. I came towards her, but her eyes were like a wild-cat’s holed up in a rock, so I stopped again. “What is it, then?” I said. “I cannot hear you.” She slid her arm out of bed, and pointed to the wound on my leg, which I had had no time to see to. “Wash!” she said, and jerked her thumb towards the ground, growling, “Bad, bad.”
I told her it had dried, and would do in the sea tomorrow; but she pointed at the wine-flask, saying, “Good!” She was forgetting the language, with all that she had been through. Poor girl, I thought; everyone knows what a captive’s lot is like, when the man who took her dies. So to give her some peace I washed it, though it smarted from the wine, and fresh blood came.
“Look,” I said. “All clean.” She raised her head from the homespun pillow, and muttered something. “Goodnight, Hippolyta. You are my honored guest-friend, sacred to the gods. A blessing on your sleep.”
I stood a moment, wishing only to put my hand upon her head; it would feel like a child’s, I thought, through the fine hair. But it might scare her; so I smiled, and went to the lamp again. I heard her voice, under the blanket, growl out, “Good night” as I drew away.
Between my heart’s happiness, and the fleas in the pallet, I could not sleep. I dreamed, of course, of love to come; but even this time as it was seemed precious. Some god must have warned me that there was none to waste.
Outside was the village square of beaten earth; the sentries had got a watch-fire going there, which they fed all night. Its light came through the door-chinks and the little window, nearly as bright as the lamp had been. She turned on her side, and saw me looking at her; then she turned again, and faced away. But presently she dozed, and at last slept deeply. She was weary, and young. Little by little her even breathing lulled me, till I grew drowsy myself. It had been a long climb, round through the woods and up the mountain.
I woke to a scratching on the wall. It was only thin daub-and-wattle. Rats I loathe; they come on battlefields for what the kites and dogs have left. The first sound of their gnawing always wakes me. The watch-fire had burned down dull and red; it must be halfway to morning. I was sleepy still, and thought, “Let it go, since my dog’s in Athens.” Then a flake of plaster fell from the wall beside her bed. There was a hole; and a hand came through it.
I thought at first that one of my men had had the impudence to make a peephole, and reached softly for my spear. But as the hand came in, I saw it was finer than a man’s, and had a sleeve of embroidered leather. It reached down, and touched her shoulder. Then I lay quiet, and looked under my eyelids.
She woke with a start and gasp, having forgotten where she was. Then she saw, and turned to look if I did. But I had foxed in time. She took the hand in both hers, and laid it against her cheek. She looked young, wild and lost, crouched by the wall in the faint firelight with the dip of shadow under her throat. And yet, it seemed she was offering comfort more than taking it.
The hand clenched hard on hers, then slipped back into the wall. When it came again, there was a dagger in it.
She gazed, unmoving; and so did I. It was like the daggers of the Mystery; short, thin and needle-pointed. There was a moment’s waiting, then a scratch upon the wall; I guessed there was a guard not far off, and there could be no whispers. At the sound she took the knife, and stroked the hand and kissed it. Then it went away.
She kneeled on the bed and put her eye to the hole; but too late it seemed, for she soon left it, and sat with her feet curled under her, the weapon in her hands. The light flickered on it, as she shivered in the cold before the dawn. Her little shift left bare her arms and her long slim legs, with a fine silk upon their brown like the silk of beechnuts. Presently she tried the point upon her fingertip, and laid it down on the blanket, and sat some time with her arms wrapped round her breast. She was looking down at the floor beside the bed; I remembered, though I could not move to see, that it was where she had put the sword.
At last she lifted her hands in prayer, and turned up her face to where no moon was, but only the dusty rafters. She took the dagger in her hand, and slid to her feet, and came towards me softly.
She would see now if I looked, so I closed my eyes. I could hear her light breathing, smell her warm shift and her hair. With any other woman in the world, I would have jumped up laughing and closed with her. But like a man bound by a god, I could not do it. Even though I could not tell what bidding had been put on her, stronger than her vow to me—for she was King no longer, and under who knew what laws—yet I could not do it. I lay hearing my heartbeats and her breath; remembering how her javelin had pierced my shield, I thought, “If it comes, it will be quickly done.” The wait seemed endless; my heart drummed over and over, “I must know, I must know.”
She drew a short sharp breath, leaning close above me. Her breathing paused. I thought, “Is she getting ready?” Then something touched me; but it was neither hand nor bronze. It was a drop of warm water falling on my face.
She was gone. I heard her soft flying footfalls. With the grunt of a man half wakened, I turned over and lay still again, where I could see from the side of my eye.
The fire outside had been raked together, and put up a spurt of flame. It glittered on her tears, as she stood fighting for silence. The back of her hand with the knife still clenched in it was pressed against her teeth, and her breasts moved shudderingly under the thin white shift. When she lifted the hem to wipe her eyes, it hardly roused me, I felt such pity for her. I longed then to speak; but I feared to shame her, remembering her pride.
She grew quiet after a while. Her arms fell to her sides; she stood spear-straight, looking before her. Then slowly she lifted the dagger up, as if offering it to heaven. Her lips moved, and her arms passed to and fro, weaving a subtle pattern. I watched her, wondering; then I remembered. It was the ritual of the Dance. Again she raised up the knife; her knuckles were white upon the hilt, and the point hung over her breast.
In the Cretan bull ring I had lived by swiftness; but in all my life I have never moved so fast. I was there before the sight of my eyes caught up with me, one arm about her, the other grasping her wrist.
I took the knife and tossed it into a corner, and held her away with her shoulders between my hands, in case I should forget myself. She stood shaking like a plucked harp-string, and choking back her tears as if they were something against nature. “Come, child,” I said. “It is over. Be at peace.”
All the Shore Folk speech had been driven out of her. Her eyes searched my face, asking the questions she would have been too proud to put her tongue to, if she had known the words. “Come,” I said, “you are catching cold.” I sat her on the side of the bed and wrapped the blanket round her, and called through the window to the man on guard, “Bring me a crock of fire.”