BOOK THREE
ATHENS
1
SO I RODE A SECOND time down the Isthmus Road to Eleusis, and the people stood on the roofs to see; but this time, not in silence.
I put the Companions to lead the march, and rode myself at the head of the men’s army. The King of Megara had given me a riding horse, as a gift of honor. The Guard showed their trophies, and stepped out to the flutes, and sang. Behind us came the wagons of the spoil, the women and the herded cattle. Our tread was muffled in green boughs and flowers, flung down to us from the rooftops. At the hour when a man’s shadow is twice as long as a man, we came to the ramp of the Citadel; and the Guard divided, to let me ride in first.
As I rode under the gate-tower black with people, the gates groaned open, and the watchman blew his horn. The flags of the Great Court stretched before me, and between the high walls my horse-hoofs echoed. Upon the roof, the Palace people were thick as winter bees; but they were quiet; no bright cloths hung from the windows. There was only a deep slanting sunlight; the toothed shadow of the roof-edge, clogged with shadows of heads; and on the broad steps between the painted columns, a woman in a wide stiff skirt and purple diadem, tall and un-moving, throwing like a column a long stiff shadow in the sun.
I dismounted at the stair foot, and they led my horse away. She stood waiting, putting no foot down the steps toward me. I went up till I stood before her, and saw her face like painted ivory, set with eyes of dark carnelian. On her shoulders, combed and plaited with threads of silver and gold, hung the red hair I had seen mixed with blood and dust upon the earth of the Isthmus.
I took her cold hand, and leaned toward her with the kiss of greeting, for the people to see. But I did not touch her with my lips; I would not add affront to the blood between us. My mouth brushed the hair of her forehead, and she uttered a set phrase of welcome, and we walked into the Palace side by side.
When we were in the Hall, I said, “We must speak together alone. Let us go up; we can be quiet there.” She looked at me and I said, “Don’t be afraid. I know what is fitting.”
The bedchamber was in shadow, except for a sunset shaft against one wall. Some embroidery in white and purple was laced upon a stand, and a lyre with gold bands lay in the window. Against the wall stood the great bed, with its spread of civet and purple.
“Madam,” I said, “you know I have killed your brother. Do you know why?”
She answered in a voice as empty as the shore, “Who can give the lie to you, now he is dead?”
“What is the punishment,” I said, “for killing the King out of season?” I saw her lip whiten under her teeth. “Yet I killed him in battle, and have brought him back for burial, because I would not dishonor your kin. His men do not think I wronged him. As you see, they let me lead them home.”
She said, “What am I, then? The captive of your spear?” Now anger warmed the paint upon her cheeks; I saw her gilt-tipped breasts rise and fall. Yet at her words, my mind turned from her to the girl Philona, the leavings of a pirate and a thief, who had never lain with a man much better than a beast, and was ignorant of all gentleness but what I taught her. She had waked me from my first sleep with weeping, begging me not to sell her or pass her on.
“As always, Madam,” I said, “you are the Queen.”
“But now you are King, Hellene? Is that it?” I thought that for a woman in mourning, more gravity and less sharpness would have been seemly; but it was not for me to say it. The last sunlight on the wall had turned rose-red; and in the wicker cage the white bird was making its feathers warm for sleep.
“There will be time later,” I said, “to speak of that. Now I have blood on my hands you cannot cleanse me of, nor would it become me to ask it of you. When I am free of it, I will come back, and give the blood-price to his children.”
In the falling dark she stared at me and said, “Back? From where?”
“From Athens,” I said, hardly believing I could name it at last. “People say there is a temple of the Mother on the Citadel, and a shrine of Apollo with a holy spring. So I can be blood-cleansed both by the Sky Gods and the gods below. I shall ask the King to cleanse me.”
There was a bracelet on her wrist, of a coiled gold snake. She tugged at it and said, “Athens now! Have you not done enough at Megara? Now you want to be hearth-friend of an Erechthid. A fine house to wash you clean! You had best take your water with you.”
I had expected a different kind of anger from her. You would have thought I had put some slight on her, rather than killed her kinsman. “Don’t you know,” she said, “that his grandfather sacked Eleusis, killed the King untimely, and forced the Queen? Ever since then the Erechthids have lain under the Mother’s curse. Why do you think Aigeus had to build her a shrine on his Acropolis, and send here for a priestess? And it will be a long while yet before he washes the curse away. That is the man you want to cleanse you! Wait till your young men, who think so much of you, hear where you are taking them!”
“A suppliant does not come with warriors. I shall go to Athens alone.” She tugged again at the bracelet. She looked like a woman pulled two ways at once. “She is angry,” I thought, “that I am going. Yet she wants to have me gone.” She said, “I know nothing of this Apollo. When do you go?”
“When my courier brings his answer. Perhaps in two days, perhaps tomorrow.” “Tomorrow!” she cried. “You came here at sunset, and the sun is not yet down.” I answered, “The sooner away, the sooner returning.”
She paced to the window, then back to me. I smelt the scent of her hair, and remembered how it had been to desire her. Then she turned to me like the cat who shows her sharp teeth and curled tongue. “You are a bold boy, Hellene. Aren’t you afraid to put yourself into the hand of Aigeus, now he has seen what kind of neighbor you mean to be? He has fought for his slab of rock and his few fields between the mountains, like a wolf for its den; he has grown lean in war with his own kindred. Will you trust such a man, whom you never saw?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why not? The suppliant is sacred.”
The last dull stain of light was quenched upon the wall; the hills were gray, only the highest peak was flushed like the breast of a maiden. The bird’s feathers were as soft as wool, and its head was all hidden. As I looked to where already over Athens the night was falling, one of the Palace women came in softly, and turned back the great bed.
I was shocked at such unseemly folly; but it was not my place to rebuke it. I turned to the Queen. She looked at me with eyes I could not read, and said to the woman, “You may go.” As she left, I said to her, “Make me a bed in the east room. I shall sleep there till I am blood-cleansed.” The girl’s eyes opened, as if I had said something unheard-of; then she covered her mouth with her hand, and ran out of the room. I said, “That is a fool, and impudent too. You would do better to sell her.”
I shall never understand the Shore Folk. I had meant no slight to her household; I spoke quite civilly. I was amazed to see what offense she had taken at my words. She clenched her hands, and her teeth showed between her lips. “Go, then! Go to Aigeus the Accursed! Like to like.” She laughed; but my mind was in Athens already. “Yes, go to him, you who want to be greater than your fate. And when the reckoning comes, remember that you chose it.”
“Let Zeus judge me,” I said, “who can see everything.” Then I went out.
First thing next day I called for a pen and Egyptian paper. It was a year or two since I had written anything; so I practiced first on wax, in case I had lost the skill, or forgotten some of the characters. Not that there were secrets in my letter; but I wanted my first words to my father to be my own and not a scribe’s. I found the knack came back, and I could still write the fair hand my tutor had beaten into me. I signed it Kerkyon, and sealed it with the King’s ring; and sat listening to the courier’s hoofbeats fading on the Athens road.