“Why, greeting, Rizon,” I said. “I thought you were dead when I saw you fallen. Where are you hurt?”
Pallans thrust his flat hand into his back, so that he fell forward. “Hurt! Look him over, Theseus. I will give him a sheep for any hurt he has. I’ve looked for this man since the battle ended; I watched what happened when your wheel came off. You fell headlong; it took you by surprise. But this fellow knew which side to hold. I swear his head never touched the ground; he was shamming stunned till the fight passed by him.”
I looked at him as he grovelled, and saw his face. In the glow of victory, and the pride of my men’s courage, I had been in love with all the world; now my heart felt a chill of darkness. I thought, “This is a coward. Yet he chose to drive a battle chariot leading the vanguard. Why?” Presently I said, “Let us go and see.
My men went back with me to the field. Already the carrion birds were settling, tearing the dried-up wounds, and there was a buzzing of flies, mixed with the murmur and groaning of men half gone. Here and there our men were stripping the bodies of anything they had left. In the midst, like a wrecked ship driven aground, lay the chariot with a dead horse beside it. The bronze wheel was lying a few yards off. I said to the men beside me, “Lift up the axletree.”
They raised the end from the ground, and I looked at the hole for the linchpin. It was clogged with earth; but when I picked down with my dagger, I found what I sought. I rolled it between my fingers, and showed it to the others. It was wax. The linchpin had been made of it.
They exclaimed, and felt at it, and asked me how I had guessed. “There’s an old song about it at home,” I said. “They shouldn’t have tried it on a man from Pelops’ country. Well, Rizon?” But he stared at the ground trembling, and said no word.
“Tell me,” I said, “why you did this. You have nothing now to lose.” But he looked sick and said nothing. “Come, Rizon. Have I ever raised my hand to you, or hurt your standing? Did you go short when the booty was shared? Have I killed any kin of yours, lain with your wife or your handmaid? What harm have I done you, to make you wish me dead?”
When he did not answer, Pallans said, “Why lose time, Theseus? We have seen enough.” Then when they began to lay hands on him, he fell down crying, “Have mercy, Kerkyon! I did not choose to do it. I never hated you. It was Xanthos threatened me. I did it for my life’s sake. He put me in fear.”
At this they all sucked in their breath through their teeth. They felt more awe than anger, because I belonged to the Goddess, and had not reigned a fourth part of my time.
“But,” I said, “why not have brought this to me, if you did not hate me? Have I got such a name for forgetting my friends?” But he only said, “He put me in fear.” Then he fell down again, and begged for his life.
My men were watching me. I had been well content beside the spring, in our proved fellowship, thinking I had found the only secret of kingship. But one cannot be a boy for ever.
“You are asking too much,” I said. “Just now you tried to kill me, because you feared Xanthos more than me. You have been my teacher. If anyone here has used his spear through the battle, and kept his sword-edge sharp, bring me the sword.” When they brought one, I said, “Put his neck across the yoke-pole, and hold him by the knees and by the hair.” They did so, and I no longer had to see his face. I swung the sword high, and it struck through his neckbone and half his neck; so he died more easily than most men do, but for his fear.
After this we sacrificed to the gods, to give thanks for victory. The Eleusinians offered to their war god Enyalios, and I too gave him victims; it is never wise to neglect the gods of the place, wherever one may be. But I made my own altar to Poseidon; and that is where I built his precinct later.
We burned the dead. Pallans had put the corpse of Rizon under the feet of his dead friend; I saw why he had hunted the man down instead of mourning. Across the smoke of the pyre, I met the russet eyes of Xanthos watching me. But this was not the time.
They told me Pylas had been wounded in the battle, and I went to see him. He had his arm in a sling—the wound was in his shoulder—but was still giving orders. After we had talked, I took my leave of him, saying I was glad it was no worse. He looked at me with his bright gray eyes, and said, “I feel the touch of fate. You have a strong life-thread, Theseus. Where it crosses other men’s it frays them. But that’s as the Spinners spin it.”
I was surprised at the time; but he must have had foreknowledge, for his wound turned mortal, and he died of it in Megara. I was sad when I heard, to lose a sworn friend so soon. Yet if he had lived, the boundary-stone of Attica could not have stood where it does today, between the Isle of Pelops and the Isthmus.
Now dusk was falling. The smoldering altars were quenched with wine, and we gathered for the victory feasts. We had taken many fat cattle, and sheep, and goats. Already the carcasses were turning on great spits above the pine-wood fires, and the air was rich with the smell. But men’s eyes turned first to the open space in the middle, where the booty was stacked up, ready to be shared. The cook-fires lit it: cups and bowls and helmets and daggers, ingots of copper and of tin, caldrons and tripods and good hide shields. Beside them sat the women, muttering together, or weeping, or hiding their faces in their hands, or looking boldly about them to guess which man would be their lot this time. A clear green dusk was falling, and Helios plumed with rose-red and burning gold rode down into the wine-dark sea. The evening star appeared, white as a maiden, trembling in the air that danced above the fires. A red glow shone on the heaped treasure, on the eyes and teeth of the warriors, their worked sword-belts and polished arms.
I came down the slope, with my Companions behind me. We were all cleaned and combed, with our weapons burnished. They had not asked me what I was going to do. They followed me silent; only their footfalls told me when they turned to look at one another.
Pylas was there already; he was too sick for the feast, but would sit to watch the share-out, as anyone would who still had breath in him, if he had Xanthos to deal with. I greeted him, and looked about for my man. He was where I expected, standing over the spoil. He saw me coming, and our eyes met.
“Greeting, Xanthos,” I said. “You did me a good turn in Eleusis; you found me a charioteer.”
He said, “The man came to me. I did not know him.” Then I knew Rizon had not lied.
“Well,” I said, “everyone knows you are a judge of men. You found me a skilled fellow. Now he is dead, I don’t know where I shall find such another. He could turn his hand to anything. He could make linchpins without bronze.”
With the tail of my eye I could see a thousand faces leaning nearer. The voices hushed, till you could hear the hiss of the roasting meat. “It is folly,” he said, “to listen when a babbling coward is begging his life.”
I said, “Yet if you did not listen, Xanthos, how did you know him so well?” He looked angry, and glancing at the lads behind me, said, “Young men are all talk.”
If he had had any faith in his own good name, he would not have given them up so easily to a foreign man. But he knew he had lost their love; it was not hard for them to think him guilty. At his words they were angry, and shouted aloud.
I put up my hand for quiet. Then Bias, the eldest, came forward, and called out to the warriors, bearing witness to the waxen pin. “And,” he said to them, “who loosened the rocks above the road, to scare the King’s horses over the cliff? One of you knows.” There was muttering, as if some rumor had got about. I saw Xanthos’ face go bright crimson with anger, in the way of red-haired men. He was cold, as a rule. Now he strode forward shouting.