We found noonday shelter in a river-bed, with a summer trickle for the horses. It hid but did not trap us. When we had unyoked and eaten, Dexios went off among the rocks; and presently it seemed to me that he had been rather long gone. I called, but got no answer, and went to look. The rocks were steep, and to climb faster I left my spear at the bottom. It is hard to believe one was once so green.
From the top of the gully I saw him soon enough. He was lying at the feet of a thick-shouldered fellow who was stripping off his arm-rings. He must have been stunned from behind, never to have cried; I saw the club the robber had put down while he worked. Dexios moved a little; he was still alive. I remembered how I had saved him from the bull. Now again it was I who had endangered him. I was going to climb back for my spear when I saw the man, who had now got all he had, start rolling him toward the cliff. Just there the road skirts it near.
I shouted over the rock-edge, “Stop! Let him alone!” The man looked up. He was broad and red, with a thick neck and forked beard. When he saw me he laughed, and shoved Dexios with his foot.
I scrambled over the rocks; but they were rough, hard going. “Let him alone!” I called again, and heard my voice crack, as it had when it was breaking. The fellow put his hands on his hips and bawled, “What are you, Goldilocks? His girl, or his fancy-boy?” This he followed with some dirt he liked well enough to laugh at; and in the midst of his laughter, kicked Dexios over the cliff. I heard his cry, broken off in the middle.
Anger entered into me. It filled me body and limbs, so that I seemed without weight; as I sprang out from the rock, anger bore me like wings, and carried me where I could not have leaped before. My very hair seemed to rise, as the mane of the King Horse does in battle. I landed on my feet, straightened up, and began to run. I hardly felt the ground beneath me. There he stood waiting, his mouth open and the laugh half out of it. As I got nearer, the sound ceased.
Afterwards I found on me the marks of his teeth and nails. At the time I felt nothing, but noted he was no wrestler, having trusted in his club. So I got an arm-grip as he tried to throttle me, and let him throw himself over my back. He lay, as Dexios had before him, dazed, with his head over the edge, all ready. I don’t think he knew where he was going, till he was by himself in the air. Then I saw his mouth open again, but not for laughter. There was a great round-topped rock at the water’s edge, shaped like a tortoise; he struck it head-on. The cliffs are high, just about there.
I went to see where Dexios had fallen. He lay dead across a sharp rock lapped by the sea, which rippled his white tunic and brown hair. I climbed down as far as I could above him, and sprinkled the earth to free him for his journey, promising him the offerings later. At least I had given him the one murdered men need most.
Feeding the horses and yoking them up, I was reminded by my clumsiness of his long-learned skill, consumed like a thorn-twig in the fire. I mounted and gathered in the reins, and felt what it is to be alone.
A little way on, a fellow met me with obeisance, and told me people were looting the house of Skiron, whom I had killed, offering to lead me there that I might claim my due. I told him to help himself to it, if he could get it, and drove on leaving him downcast. The jackal does not like to do his own hunting.
That was my last fight in the Isthmus. Either I was lucky, or people were avoiding me. By evening I was clear of it, and driving through the Megarian foothills beside the sea. Dusk was falling, and ahead to the east the mountains of Attica looked thunder-black against the heavy sky. The road was desolate, the only sound wolves howling, or the scream of a rabbit nipped by the fox. Soon the track grew dangerous for horses in the bad light, and I had to lead them.
Other things go to make a grown man, besides proving himself with his hands. Now when no one threatened me, I was as lonely as a child. This dark rough road seemed forgotten by the Sky Gods, and given to earth-daimons not friendly to man. I ached from fighting, felt my wounds, and grieved for my friend. For comfort I called to mind that the King of Megara was Hellene, and my father’s kinsman. But round me was only the friendless night, and I remembered rather that my father had sent no word to me since my birth. I thought of Troizen, the round hearth in the Great Hall, the fire of sweet-burning wood in its great warm bed of ash, my mother sitting among her women, and the lyre going from hand to hand.
Suddenly there was a great clamor of dogs, and whistling; and from the next bend I saw a fire. There was a fold of rough stones and thorn bushes, and round the fire six or eight little goatherds, the eldest not past thirteen and the youngest eight or nine. They had been piping, to keep their courage up with music against the ghosts of night. At sight of me, they scampered off to hide among the goats; but when I called to them, presently they came out, and I sat among them to get warm.
They helped me unyoke the horses—one could see them in their mind’s eye charioteers already—and showed me where to find water and feed. I shared with them my figs and barley bread, and they with me their goat-milk cheese, while they called me “My lord,” and asked where I had come from. Not all the tale of my day was fit for lads so young in a place so lonely, who had enough to fear from leopards and wolves. But I showed them Skiron’s club, which I had brought away, and told them there had been an end of him, since he seemed a bugbear that haunted their dreams. They sat or lay around me, their rough hair falling over their bright eyes, their mouths opening in shrill sounds of wonder, asking what this or that place was like not ten miles off, as you or I might ask of Babylon.
It was full night. I could see no more the darkling sea nor the black mountains; only the rough walls of the fold, the dim shapes of goats within it, and the ring of faces flushed by the fire, which caught the polish of a reed pipe smooth with handling, a herd dog’s yellow eyes, a bone knife hilt, or a tangle of fair hair. They brought me brush for a bed, and we lay down beside the embers. When they had crept together under two threadbare blankets like puppies scuffling for a place near the dam, there was one small one left outside, the runt of the Utter. I saw him drawing his knees up to his chin, and offered him some of my cloak; he smelled of goats’ dung, and had more fleas than an old dog, but after all he was my host.
Presently he said to me, “I wish we always had a man to stay with us. Sometimes it thunders, or one hears the lion.” Soon he fell asleep, but I lay waking by the husk of the fire, watching the bright stars turn through the heaven. “To be a king,” I thought, “what is it? To do justice, go to war for one’s people, make their peace with the gods? Surely, it is this.”
BOOK TWO
ELEUSIS
1
I ROSE AT DAYBREAK, waked by the herd’s bleating, and washed in the stream; a thing my hosts beheld with wonder, having had their last bath at the midwife’s hands. From there on, the road grew easier, and dropped seaward. Soon across a narrow water I saw the island of Salamis, and all about me a fertile plain, with fruit and cornlands. The road led down to a city on the shore, a seaport full of shipping. Some merchants I met on the road told me it was Eleusis.
It was good to see a town again, and be in a land of law; and better still that this was the last stop before Athens. I would have my horses fed and groomed, I thought, while I ate and saw the sights. Then, as I came to the edge of the town, I saw the road all lined with staring people, and the rooftops thick with them.
Young men like to think themselves somebody; but even to me this seemed surprising. Besides, I found it strange that out of so many come to see me, no one called out or asked for news.
Before me was the market place. I pulled my pair to a walk, to save the traders’ pitches. Then I drew rein; before me the people stood in a solid wall. No one spoke; and mothers hushed the babes they carried, to make them still.